Suicide in SoHo

A friend of mine on Facebook posted an old flyer that caught my eye ealier today. Here it is.

I’ve spoken about Suicide a few time here (most recently here), but if ever the overused descriptor “seminal’ could be applied to any single band, it would be them. They were pushing envelopes well before anyone else, and they still don’t get nearly enough credit for it.

In any case, I was curious about the venue cited on the flyer, that being an establishment rather bizarrely called Blow Your Nose. But on Greene Street? I routinely walk through SoHo on my treks to and from work and -– while this club or happening is obviously long, long, long gone -- I couldn't visualize what the address was.  So, I Googled it.

Here’s what in that spot today… A Dior outlet. Talk about suicide. 

For a bit of context, here’s a hypnotic video for Suicide’s “Frankie Teardrop.” Not for the timid. 

Comments

[Riff Chorusriff]

You can never unseen that bird picking Frankie's bones! Always a terrifying scene.

[NoOriginalArt]

The space at 133 Greene Street used to be a performance art space run by Project of Living Artists, a kind of hippie arts commune/studio led by a guy named Joe Catuccio. The "Blow Your Nose!" moniker was kind of an inside joke, not that I was ever part of that scene. I never saw Suicide there, but a lot of alternative/experimental music was performed at the venue back in the 70s. It was the kind of place where one night, you'd see a relatively polished string quartet tear up the floor with covers of The Doors, and the next night see a guy pound on an oil drum and scream while backed by another guy playing ear-splitting feedback on a beat up electric guitar. Rumor had it that Andy Warhol would occasionally wander in, but again I wasn't part of that crowd, which always seemed too weird for shy punk-wannabe me.

In the 90s Joe moved to Williamsburg when SoHo got too upscale for him: I never understood how these guys made enough to rent space in the city. But now he doesn't even live in the state, which perhaps attests to the sad state of NYC as a place where artists can fly their freak flag without being represented at a Midtown gallery.

http://www.newyorkartworld.com/gallery/projectlivingartists.html

[Taliah]

The Space was in the basement at 133.

[SS]

Joe Cartuccioi didn’t move because SoHo became too upscale for him.

He moved because the coop wanted him out of the basement in which he resided because it was illegal living.

[tom byrne]

Museum:Project of Living Artists, was the name chosen by Alan Suicide Vega and others, when they founded it, as an open- to -all venue, for performers, musicians and artists, on Broadway, in the late '60's. How and when Joe Catuccio, gained control and turned the thing into his private fiefdom, while steadfastly maintaining the fiction that it was a public space, I can't say. But most agree that he was a persuasive and fascinating character. He didn't leave SoHo because it was becoming too upscale. He left when the building's owners gave him a whole lot of money to go elsewhere. Enough to buy a building in Brooklyn, he said.

7 artists, on Broadway, in the late "60's.