Flaming Pablum

Get Back, Honky Cat: On Open Letter

Mr. Trump:

On behalf of Messrs. Elton John, Bernie Taupin and people with taste and dignity everywhere, I must demand that you immediately refrain from further using "Rocket Man" as a pejorative epithet for Kim Jong Un.

This is not a defense of the North Korean dictator so much as an assertion that while you probably think it's a witty zinger, the song title itself is ostensibly about the existential travails one encounters during space travel (see also "Space Oddity") and has precious fuck-all to do with the tactical use of nuclear missiles.

Along with being reckless and irresponsible, your usage of same just makes you seem stupider than usual ... which is quite a feat.

Also, please resign immediately!

Very sincerely,

-Alex

Bleecker & Mulberry

I was out grabbing a bit of lunch at the fabled NoHo Star on Bleecker and Lafayette with the family on Sunday, and was shocked and saddened to notice that the building on the northwestern corner at Mulberry & Bleecker is being razed.

304 Mulberry isn’t exceptionally noteworthy in any great historical sense, as far as I’m aware, but, to me, it’s notable for two things.

Firstly, the building played host to a woman my good friend Rob D. fleetingly dated in the early 90’s. We’d met her, I think, at Lollapalooza in New Jersey, but she tended bar at an establishment called Mr. Fuji’s Tropicana (mentioned in greater detail here). In short order, Rob and this young lady “hit it off” and started seeing each other. She was living, at the time in a basement level apartment at 304 Mulberry. I remember going over once or twice to her place with Rob, and I was somewhat shocked to learn that her sizable studio apartment completely lacked any windows. I found it somewhat hard to fathom how someone could live in such a place. Is it even legal to rent out living space that doesn’t feature windows?

The other noteworthy thing – for me, anyway -- is that the westerly-facing façade of the building made a cameo in Glenn O’Brien’s “Downtown 81,” acting as yet another de factor canvas for the roaming Jean-Michel Basquiat (see below).

Those memories and associations are almost certain to be erased by yet another mega-condo.

Pour one out.

Rest in Peace, Grant Hart

In recent years, he wasn't looking quite so healthy, so maybe it's not entirely surprising news to many, but hearing that Grant Hart of Husker Du succumbed to cancer this week at age 56 definitely took the wind out of my sails. 

I met him, once, at a Steve Wynn show at the Mercury Lounge around 1990 or so. Hart's post-Husker Du band, Nova Mob, had just released their first single. I remember introducing myself and he was completely cool and chatty.

I remember seeing Husker Du on the tour for Flip Your Wig at a couple of stops in both NYC (at the Ritz) and in Columbus, OH (near where I went to college). I can't remember which gig it was, but I remember someone from the crowd chucking a half-full pitcher of beer at the stage. I watched it spiral in a splattery fractal in slow motion until it landed with disturbing accuracy on Hart's drum kit, prompting the significantly-sized --- at the time -- drummer to promptly get up and dive into the crowd with pronounced sense of purpose.

He will be missed. Pour one out.

Surfers in the City

As mentioned back on this post from the dark days of 2008, I first had the opportunity to see Texas’ notorious Butthole Surfers during my freshman year of college out in the verdant expanse of Ohio in 1986. As opportunities went, however, it didn’t prove to be fruitful, being that earlier in the day, their bass player had either leapt or been forcibly thrown from the back of their van whilst said van was in motion. I’m sure there’s more of an actual story to that anecdote, but I’m happy not knowing more beyond that. In any case, bereft of a bass player (this being prior to the arrival of longtime bassist Jeff Pinkus), the band opted out of playing in Columbus that night, so I was denied that particular spectacle.

They came back to Columbus a year later, though, this time in support of arguably their finest recorded effort, that being Locust Abortion Technician. That show, as described in that earlier post, was one I’m practically still recovering from –- rife with nudity, fire, stentorian volume, police action and some very obvious drug use (this allegation includes band and audience members alike). Like some similarly inclined ensembles of their generation -– notably Sonic Youth, Redd Kross, Pussy Galore and a few others -- the Butthole Surfers gradually softened with age to become more accessible, comparatively populist and downright cuddly. But circa 1987, there was still something genuinely disturbing about them. Sure, a large load of that was pure shtick, but one still got the impression, at the time, that these folks were legitimately depraved individuals. And that’s how I preferred it, at least.

But back in 1986, just prior to that bass player being figuratively -- and possibly literally -- ejected from the fold, the Butthole Surfers were a leaner affair, albeit no less bizarre. The `86 tour -– ostensibly in support of the Rembrandt Pussyhorse album (which featured an endearingly surreal bash through “American Woman” by the Guess Who) -– featured a more paired down production than the tour I saw a year later (the one with a nude dancer and some disquietingly casual, ad-hoc pyrotechnics). During the course of that particular jaunt, the fearsome Butthole Surfers van made a stop on Manhattan’s Bowery in February of `86 for a gig at CBGB. That performance was captured on video below for posterity.

Possibly a day or two before or after the CB’s gig, the Buttholes also darkened the doors of Danceteria. That performance was also captured on video, which you can see on this post from 2013. The photo of the band up top, from an `86 issue of SPIN, looks to have been taken just down the street from Danceteria on 21st Street, although I might be mistaken on that front. That was also only a few streets up from the SPIN offices, which were on 18th Street, at the time.

The below CBGB gig captured below, however, is notable for its crazed performance footage (a highlight for me being a harrowing stomp through “Moving to Florida,” finding guitarist Paul Leary playing … for lack of a better term… convulsively). It’s also a pretty great depiction of what shows in that fabled room were like -- not that there’s exactly a short supply of that kind of footage.

Anyway, enjoy.

St. Vincent's 'New York'

If I was half as hip as I’m routinely informed I should be, I gather I should be hugely enthused about the music of St. Vincent, but I must say that I am not. I don’t have anything against the celebrated singer/songwriter, per se, but I haven’t heard anything yet from her that is up my proverbial street, so to speak. She gets a lot of critical kudos, and has worked with folks I genuinely admire. Hell, she even contributed vocals on the last SWANS album, To Be Kind. I mean, that’s cool and all, but I’m still having a hard time getting excited by her music.

I do like the fact that she took her stage name, according to Wikipedia, at least, from a line in a Nick Cave song about the hospital where Dylan Thomas died. Coincidentally, that was also the hospital where I was born, where my grandfather practiced and where both of my children were born. It’s since been razed, of course, and now it’s a prohibitively priced condo community. Yeah, `cos we needed that.

Just recently, St. Vincent joined the august ranks of countless other luminaries -– from Frank Sinatra to The Cult, and well beyond -- and penned a tune about New York. You can hear it and see the video for same below.

Honestly, the song does absolutely nothing to shake the opinion I expressed in the first paragraph here. I don’t hate it, but it isn’t something I’d voluntarily listen to twice. Also, I’ve probably expressed as much here elsewhere, but I’m really bored by the blithely gratuitous use of the word “motherfucker” in the chorus. Swearing isn’t edgy, it’s unimaginative.

This all said, I did enjoy some of the subtleties of the video. Where people like Cat Power went for the literal route by featuring footage of the singer/songwriter walking around Manhattan for her song -– WAIT FOR IT -– “Manhattan” and countless folks lazily include shots of Times Square in their homages, St. Vincent includes just a couple of geographic identifiers in her clip, namely the Alama (a.k.a. the “Cube” at Astor Place) and Forrest Myers’ massive installation at the southwest corner of Broadway at Houston Street, “The Wall.” If you didn’t live here, that one might be harder to recognize.

Maybe I’m warming to her?

Sixteen Years Later

Taken on LaGuardia Place circa 1998. 

Nashville Calling

Greetings from Nashville, TN, y'all!

I’m fleetingly here in “Music City” for a large-scale Town Hall event being held at the corporate headquarters of my job. I helped put together some video content for the presentation and have been helping orchestrate the livstreaming (like I know *anything* about such things) of the event to my organization’s adjunct offices around the rest of the country and parts of Europe. I flew in yesterday. The event is later this morning (in a little over an hour), and then I jet back to NYC later this afternoon, which means the fabled BBQ, the Grand Ol’ Opry and such will have to wait for another visit.

My contributions to this event have been eating my life whole for the past month, so I’m very excited to be finally seeing the project through to fruition, and will be immeasurably relieved when it’s all wrapped up. It’s a big deal. There are other tasks waiting after it (there always are), but I’ll be glad to see the back of this one.

By the same token, I feel remiss getting all self-congratulatory about this while the rest of the eastern seaboard is either bracing for (or already experiencing) the wrath of Hurricane Irma. I’m further appalled by talking sphincters like Rush Limbaugh suggesting that Irma is an exaggeration by the media or a conspiracy. Fly your fat ass down to Puerto Rico and tell them that, Rush, you bag of shit.

I seem to have strayed from my original point, but no matter. Please look forward to hopefully more substantial content here soon. 

Since I’m in Nashville, here’s a bit of Cop Shoot Cop — what? You were expecting Conway Twitty? Here are my boys covering Johnny Cash.

Stay safe, everyone.

Summer in the City, 2017

A look back...

Bahaha

Goodnight, Walter

I used to routinely cite Steely Dan as the antithesis of everything that rocked. This was when I was younger and pointedly stupider than I arguably am now.

Rest In Peace, Walter Becker. You were restrained, tasteful, erudite and wry ... and you did indeed verily rock.

Even when I was trying to convince folks that bands like Venom, Alien Sex Fiend and the Circle Jerks were implausibly superior to Steely Dan, I alway really liked this song.

67 is way too young to go.