Flaming Pablum

"Our Pedigreed Dogs Don't Like The Smell of Your Children...": Exhuming "Asbestos Lead Asbestos"

Right on the heels of news of the passing of Mark Hollis of Talk Talk came a report that Steve Jameson, erstwhile bass player for the post-punk trio World Domination Enterprises had passed away. Apart from both late gentlemen being British and musically active in 80s, their similarities pretty much end there.

W.D.E weren’t an especially prolific band, nor were they around for very long (from 1984 to 1989, if I’m not mistaken). One could suggest that they were a “one-hit wonder,” although characterizing their signature single as a “hit” is a strenuous argument to wage. I first heard it in 1989 and it practically left me with a cranial contusion. That single was “Asbestos Lead Asbestos.”

Distilled from the same aesthetic that informed many of my favorite bands, “Asbestos Lead Asbestos” amplifies the abjectly ugly to unwieldy degrees in a lurching, sluggish wobble that seems in perpetual peril of falling completely apart at any given moment. Simultaneously, the song somehow manages to hold together and actually be, well ... catchy … despite seemingly all endeavors to the contrary.

The lyrics paint a bitterly grim image of squalor, suffering and corporate oppression in a decaying, post-industrial British cityscape, presumably informed by the same mid-80’s malaise that inspired much of the era’s more caustic music. Scoring those couplets about degradation, duplicity and hopelessness comes an avalanche of din, played by a trio of frowning “musicians” seemingly drunk with cynicism. Jameson’s ponderous bass underpins vocalist/guitarist Keith Dobson, who doesn’t “play” his instrument so much as coax staccato shards of dissonance from it. If you put this song on at the volume it deserves at your next cocktail soiree, you should expect acrimony and pugilism.

Musically kindred spirits to bands like Killing Joke, Gang of Four, SWANS, The Birthday Party, Missing Foundation and Cop Shoot Cop, World Domination Enterprises may not have made as large an impression as those peers, but they did leave us with –- to my mind -– one absolutely perfect statement. “Asbestos Lead Asbestos” was later re-imagined by industrial combo Meat Beat Manifesto. While way more accessible and even, dare I suggest, danceable in MBM’s hands, the corrosive core of the song still packs a punch.

If possible, please enjoy the definite article, and pour one out for Steve Jameson.

"I Got Your Number On the Wall..."

The following anecdote was prompted by an invocation by my friend John Darnielle (of Mountain Goats fame) on Facebook. How’s that for name-dropping?

While my high-school listening habits were largely dominated by stentorian thrash metal, pugnacious punk, splenetic hardcore and histrionic goth rock, I was by no means immune to the charms of the pop music of the day. My favorite, go-to bands may well have been the Circle Jerks, Venom and the Lords of the New Church, but I was as versed in the sonic outpourings of populist favorites like Tears for Fears, Duran Duran, Thomas Dolby and Run-DMC as anyone, largely thanks to our collective fascination with the then-still-nascent MTV. I can safely say that the first few years of MTV’s video rotation burned themselves firmly into my cerebellum. I doubt I am alone in this assertion. I can’t remember whole volumes of bullshit I allegedly studied in high school, but I can pinpoint a fleeting, trivial bit of a Thompson Twins video without so much as blinking.

This is a true story. About fifteen years ago, I was sniffing around the Apple Store in SoHo (on Prince Street, above) trying to figure out how to buy a digital camera. My daughter had just been born, and for the purposes of sharing photographs of my newborn little cherub, I figured it was time to make the jump to digital. But, by the same token, I had no fucking clue what I was doing. So, I was perusing around the tables, and looking at different models and being clueless, but there was this guy next to me basically doing the same thing, with an endearingly equal amount of cluelessness. The weird thing, however, was that he looked CRAZY familiar. I found myself staring at him, trying to divine the reason why.

It finally dawned on me.

I tapped him on the arm. "Excuse me, man," I said. "This is going to sound SUPER weird, but are you the lead guitar player for Tommy Tutone? Like, not the curly-haired lead singer I always assumed was Tommy Tutone, but the guitar-player dude in the skinny tie & blazer in the video for '867-5309'"?

There was a long pause.

He looked me dead in the eye.

"Whoa .... you're good."

It was indeed Jim Keller, erstwhile guitarist for Tommy Tutone, who I recognized from a music video from 23 years earlier.

Meanwhile, I can barely remember my own social security number. 

Tuesday

Goodbye, Mark Hollis

It was with genuine sadness that I learned of the passing of Mark Hollis of Talk Talk, today. I've spoken at greater length about the impact of their 1988 album The Spirit of Eden, but I cannot underscore how seismically meaningful that record was for me, leant further poignance by the fact that so few seem to know of its singular beauty. To enjoy and acknowledge the sumptuous splendor of latter-era Talk Talk records is strangely like being in on some big secret, and it is unfair that it should be that way.

I was already a fan, prior to that record. I was unapologetically onboard for Talk Talk’s arguably less salubrious skinny-tied synth-pop era, which gradually gave way to the more “organic” sound of their third album, The Colour of Spring, before the full-blown point of departure that was The Spirit of Eden. Many hail the band's final album, Laughing Stock, as their crowning achievement, but nothing tops The Spirit of Eden, for me. For me, it’s a crucial “dessert island disc.” I want to be buried with a copy.

Following Laughing Stock, Hollis released a solo album in 1998, before vanishing from music to take care of his family, becoming something of a mysterious recluse in the Syd Barrett vein. I’d always hoped he’d re-emerge to both be justifiably recognized for his genius and to hopefully unleash new music on the world. While I am selfishly saddened we’ll probably hear no further music from the man, here’s hoping his passing brings greater attention to the gifts he left behind.

Rest in peace, Mark.

Bud Club

So, yeah, I watched the Oscars last night. I have precious little to say about it beyond that I truly appreciate that "Bohemian Rhapsody" did NOT win the Best Picture award. It was like a decent VH1 movie at BEST. I didn't see most of the other stuff.

In any case, during the course of proceedings, they showed this Budweiser ad featuring Charlize Theron demonstrating her billiards prowess in a bar. Yeah, yeah, ho hum, right? Oooh, she's sexy, etc. etc.

The thing that got my attention was during a fleeting glimpse of the jukebox ... the cover of Miami by The Gun Club...

It is probably the highest-profile exposure the band and the late, great Jeffrey Lee Pierce will ever receive, however brief.

Watch the full ad...

This, incidentally, should you not be familiar, was The Gun Club....

Goodbye, Hell's Angels

Once again, I get all my news from EV Grieve.

I read with some surprise that evidently the Hell’s Angels are leaving their long-held perch on East 3rd Street. When the Hell’s Angels are vacating the East Village, that’s got to be a sign of impending apocalypse, no?

My interactions with the `Angels were very, very few. I did, once, happen upon their fabled Halloween street party several years back. That was fun, if memory serves. I remember frequently going the bar at the eastern end of their street, The Edge. I don’t remember much about the place beyond needing to examine any change the bartenders gave me, as they were supposedly notorious for brazenly skimming. They shut up shop in 2016, or so. Don’t know what’s there now.

I enjoyed the lore of the Hell’s Angels’ tenure on that street – how nothing happened without their knowledge and/or say-so. That seemed like a throwback to a bygone age. But I never had any altercations or bad occurrences or run-ins or anything with the fellas, …. not that I ever went out of my way to instigate any. Obviously, you were well served to leave them to their business (whatever that might have been).

That all said, there’s definitely one aspect of their alleged plan to depart the neighborhood that makes me sad --- their front door. That's it up top from the 90's. In more recent years, they had the painting touched up, making the skull-faced demon guy slightly more buff. See below.

Since I don’t know when, I’ve taken photo after photo after photo of their endearingly over-the-top entrance, usually appended with a comrade or two posing incongruously in front of same. In more recent years, it’s been a favorite spot for the kids. See below...

Like so many other things I took for granted, I will miss it when it’s gone.

Goodbye to the Sidewalk Bar

And the carnage continues.

Courtesy of EV Grieve’s ever-excellent blog, I read with some weary melancholy that the Sidewalk Bar on Avenue A and 6th Street is closing -- or, at least, “changing hands” with a new owner who’ll doubtlessly disembowel it -- both figuratively and literally. I was somewhat sad to read this. I say “somewhat” as I cannot say I was anything of a regular. I certainly liked that it was there, but it wasn’t as much of a fixture for me as some other spots.

While it’s sad, I also cannot say it’s especially surprising. Once the vast and pointedly character-free condo, 100 Avenue A went up (the one with the Blink Fitness in its ground floor), the signs did not bode well. I’m very glad Jesse Malin’s main foothold, Niagara, is still holding firm, but the number definitely seemed to be up for Sidewalk.

There is assuredly nothing duller to read than unspooled anecdotal yarns that ultimately don’t amount to more than “gosh, I was drunk,” but here are two such recollections of evenings spent questionably at the Sidewalk. Continue at your own peril, and my own embarrassment. 

When it comes to opinions about music and the reasonable expressions thereof, it has been noted that I have something of a problem. On one dark evening about twenty-five years --- blimey! –- back, I was sequestered in the more northerly chamber of the Sidewalk with my frequent compatriot in alcohol imbibement, Rob D., who was illegally subletting a space a block over on Avenue B (in the same building as Manitoba’s). I’m not entirely sure why we ended up at Sidewalk and not, say, any number of other suitable locales, but there we were. In any case, in walked a pair of pointedly uptight looking gents who took seats to our right. I’d noticed upon their entry that one of them was sporting a Slayer badge on their lapel, which -– for some ridiculous reason -– immediately gave me license to start up a conversation, or so I very wrongly presumed. When my doubtlessly awkward attempts to engage in a chat –- much to Rob’s arched-eyebrowed chagrin -– failed to instigate the intended result, I believe I blithely tossed over the comment “fuck do you know about Slayer?!”

Suffice to say, that ill-considered remark prompted the badge-wearer to stand up with a pronounced sense of purpose, sending his bar stool toppling to the floor with great, dramatic aplomb. There would be no witty rejoinder but, instead, a swift delivery of knuckles to my arguably smart mouth. That was his intention, anyway, before both his drinking pal and mine intervened with the requisite, “fellas, fellas….c’mon, settle down”-styled arbitration. Rob and I wisely adjourned to another neighborhood institution and I was understandably scolded for my unthinking solicitations.

My other great memory of an evening at the Sidewalk dates back to specifically February 28, 1995. I know the exact date because that was the evening that punky Britpopsters Elastica (left) were slated to play nearby at the comparatively tiny Mercury Lounge on East Houston Street. Since first hearing the “Stutter” single a year earlier, my friend Eric F. and I were both wholly onboard and quite excited to see them perform. We made a plan to meet up that evening and go check it out.

Again, for some inexplicable reason, we ended up back at Sidewalk. I feel obligated to point out, at this stage of the narrative, that at the time –- 1995 -– I was still rather ravenously single, and would not go on to meet the lovely lady who became my wife for another three years. This will become relevant to the story in due course.

In anticipation of a great night out seeing our favorite new band, Eric and I availed ourselves to the fare at Sidewalk, laying the foundation for a longer evening’s worth of drinking. In the course of same, I managed to fall head over heels in love with our waitress. These things happened, back then. When the time came for Eric and I to split and go catch our show, it was somehow deduced that it was my turn to pay. I paid with plastic, but decided to leave a cash tip, as that was the nicer thing to do. That’s fine, but what I did next was questionable.

Upon the bill I was leaving as a tip -– I cannot recall the amount -– I took the supplied pen and scrawled something to the effect of: “Sheila, I think you’re exquisite….” and punctuated it with my phone number. I know, I know….

With that, Eric and I hit the streets and headed south, whereupon a strenuously crucial flaw in our evening plan was stealthily revealed. Neither of us had procured tickets for this show in advance and  -- very unsurprisingly, in retrospect -- it was sold the fuck out.

Bummer.

After a few minutes of gawking incredulously at the horde outside the Mercury Lounge, Eric and I glumly repaired to bars of the East Village to curse our idiocy. Along the way, I continued to be justly chided for my half-baked romantic gesture back at Sidewalk.

A few hours later, Eric and I ended up back at my apartment. Being that he lived out on Long Island, Eric was going to crash on my couch. We were greeted by the blinking red light of my answering machine (remember those?). I had one message:…

:::BEEP:::

“Hi, Alex? This is Shelia calling from the Sidewalk Bar on Avenue A….”

Eric excitedly hit stop on the tape. “HOLY SHIT, ALEX!” he gasped. “I thought you were a first-class douchebag for leaving your name and number with her, but not only did she call, …. she’s calling you THE VERY SAME NIGHT!!!”

Eric hit play again…

“…Yeah, I’m calling because you left your credit card here.”

"A Place to Dream?" Redux: The High Line ... Ten Years Later

Eleven years ago, my friend Sean penned an audacious op-ed for the New York Times — he was able to do those things — in advance of the opening of the much-feted High Line. In his article, he took the planners to task for their comparatively banal designs to transform the long-derelict strip of elevated railway into a public park. Sean had more lofty ideas, although few of them seemed especially likely — let alone practical — but such was Sean’s perspective on the world. Personally speaking, my biggest grievance with the High Line was that I’d never been bold enough to venture onto in during its less accessible iteration as a forbidding artifact of urban abandonment, tangled with wild overgrowth and street art. I’d had friends who’d done it, but I’d always wimped out.

Regardless, the High Line opened amid much fanfare and congratulatory backslapping in 2009. Touted as some kind of blow against the empire, the opening of the public park was seemingly perceived as a bold defense of art, beauty and history — a lovingly cultivated green space born of the obsolescence of a vanished industrial age. Enabling its visitors to reclaim the vestiges of an outdated era, one of the primary purposes of the ambitious re-imagined space — or so I was led to believe — was to provide new vantage points with which to view the surrounding city. Much Like Robin Williams’ rapturous lecture on the value of different perspective in “Dead Poets Society,” the core of the High Line’s original mission was to allow its visitors to experience the surrounding environs in a whole new way.

My children were still relatively tiny tots when the High Line opened, so — as detailed in this ancient post — I dutifully took them to the High Line for a look around. Indeed, it was a fun new spot for them to explore.

It’s funny how fast things change.

Ten years later, the High Line is essentially a complete atrocity. As Justin Davidson rightly pointed out in a recent article for New York Magazine, all the initial attractions of the High Line — that rarified new perspective on the surrounding sprawl, that placid green space of tranquility amid the hoopla, that reverent intermingling of the city’s past with the city’s present — have been basically reduced to a pack of fanciful lies.

In very short order, real estate developers seized upon the long-fallow opportunities the High Line enabled and almost set about ruining everything that was promising about the project from the get-go. Arguably ringing in a prurient new era of architectural voyeurism, buildings started sprouting up around the High Line with an accent on avaricious exhibitionism. High Line visitors were essentially invited to openly gawk into the vast windows of plush hotel rooms and sweeping, extravagantly appointed private apartments. This aesthetic was conceivably kickstarted by the Standard Hotel at the southern end that — it has been suggested — encouraged its guests to engage in panstless sexytime in full view of the park beneath, a trend that was swiftly adopted by the veritable emerald city of structures that sprang up like a gaggle of erections — sorry — in very short order. One or two buildings has since turned into a lustily impersonal gang-bang of wanton development, brazenly altering the cityscape the High Line was ostensibly supposed to complement.

To walk the High Ling now is simply to gaze at countless, prohibitively expensive living spaces that are either still in the throes of tireless construction or are finished but strikingly, noticeably vacant of any signs of life. Try to find a spot to stand there for a few minutes undisturbed (no easy feat), and you’re doubtless to hear someone exclaim something to the effect of “Who would want to live in an apartment on full display all the time?” It’s an entirely fair question, and one that sort of answers itself when you search for its willing participants.

Taking that a step back, however, “to walk the High Line” itself in any capacity has become a joyless chore. Like the wait for an overhyped ride at an amusement park, traversing the length of the High Line — in either direction — is all anticipation and zero fruition. There is no payoff. One is herded through it in a glum exodus of corpulent human cattle, waddling though vulgar monuments to the affluent. I cannot imagine why anyone — be they native Manhattanites or born-&-bred Pataskala, Ohio buckeyes — would derive any pleasure from the experience. But dutifully, they still come in hordes.

But beyond the High Line itself being ruined, the public park has played a greater role as ruiner.

The surrounding neighborhoods the High Line weaves through have all been affected, and rarely for the better. Longtime residents have been driven out by the escalating rents, and age-old businesses, landmarks, institutions and neighborhood favorites have been swiftly and mercilessly extinguished. Like a delicate eco-system grappling with the introduction of a virulent new species, large swathes of the Meatpacking District and Chelsea are wholly unrecognizable today, “re-booted” as uber exclusive enclaves.

My son and I found ourselves on the High Line on Saturday, naively thinking it was early enough to beat the crowds and that we’d be able to make our way downtown in a more direct manner. Suffice to say, we were laughably mistaken in that assumption. Much like finding oneself in the middle of Times Square, the experience was such a deeply irritating headache that I doubt I’ll ever voluntarily return.

Fuck the High Line.

Degradation, Lubrication & Gentrification at 315 Bowery

You’d think that a whopping 13 years after the club closed its doors for good, I’d have run out of things to say or share about CBGB. Be that as it may, pictures, videos and/or simple ruminations about infamous gigs, specific scenes and/or happenings at 315 Bowery still keep rolling down the proverbial pike. In much the same way I cannot stop posting about places like The Cedar Tavern and Bleecker Bob’s, content pertaining to the lore, legacy, demise and degradation of CBGB still comes to me.

Today was just such an occasion. I came across a video shot by one Lisa Barnstone of a gig by Lubricated Goat -– who I posted about here -– back in mid-2006. Beyond simply being another glimpse of the fabled interior (bathroom included) of CBGB –- not unlike the video Harley Flanagan made of the interior that I posted about back in 2016 –- this video was notable to me in that it features Jack Natz -- above --  formerly of Cop Shoot Cop, on bass detail.

Personally speaking, when this video was shot, I was about one third into my somewhat chaotic tenure as a managing editor of MTV News Online, and had just become a father for the second time. My status as a busy dad to two tiny people had sharply curtailed my ability to regularly attend gigs as I’d previously done on a regular basis, thus I was not at this show. In fact, I regret to say that I cannot honestly recall the last show at CBGB I went to, although it might have been a Kraut reunion show in 2002.

Today, of course, the strip of the Bowery is a very different scene. The occupant of 315 Bowery is still John Varvatos, who I somewhat venomously took to task on this post. My take on same has not changed, and I still think he sucks and everything about his shop is bullshit. The surrounding neighborhood continues to gentrify, of course. Apart from the encouraging opening of Codex Books across the street (specializing in cool, used and rare volumes), there is precious little in that cluster of streets to hold my attention … beyond nostalgia.

`Twas not always thus. Take another look back. Miss Barnstone’s video also captures a lot of the post-show action out on the street.

CBGBs...last call..Lubricated Goat inside tour of the place and it's surroundings from lisa barnstone on Vimeo.

Check out more footage of the same gig, courtesy of the inimitable SkeletonBoy…

Lunch with The Ramones

In one Facebook group or another I’m a member of, someone posted the above photo of the late brothers Ramone that I’d never spied before, prefaced with the question: “Where was Jone’s Diner?”

The diner in question is, of course, the former Jones Diner (curious apostrophe placement, though) that was formerly on the southeast corner of Great Jones and Lafayette Streets. I spoke about the place a couple of times here (notably here, here and here), but it was just one of a great network of endearing greasy-spoon joints that has since been all but wiped off the map.

Some might remember the Great Jones Diner from its cameo in the video for “Two Princes” by the Spin Doctors. In later years, its metallic, railway-car-like exterior was removed, revealing a brick-faced edifice beneath. If I remember correctly, it was closed and then razed around the dawn of Y2K (remember that?). These days, there’s a giant new building erected over its former footprint that has yet to define itself as anything other than just another vulgar display of exclusivity and affluence.

Back to the photo, though, I find it striking how the Ramones have now fully crossed over into the realm of the practically mythological. I honestly used to see Joey Ramone walk around my neighborhood (he was hard to miss). I spied Johnny Ramone on Sullivan Street in Greenwich Village, once (I left him alone), and surreally sat across from Dee Dee on a Downtown 6 train (I left him alone, as well). For decades, you just took the Ramones for granted. My friend Rob B. and I had a long-running gag. “Should we go see the Ramones next Thursday?” “Meh, they’ll be back.” And they always were, until one day, they weren’t. And then they started dying.

With great respect to Marky -- and, I guess, C.J., Richie and “Elvis" --  the original Ramones are now all gone. We’re all so used to seeing their familiar stances on album covers, videos and in any number of celebrated photographs by shutterbugs like Bob Gruen, Roberta Bayley, Godlis, and Mick Rock (among many others), that to see a “new,” heretofore unpublished, lost or just plain ol’ less-well-circulated snap of them always stops me in my tracks. Yeah, we’re all used to seeing them pose like ….well, like The Motherfucking Ramones!… that to see them just hanging out or goofing around is just this great reminder that beyond being this iconoclastic, culture-informing unit, they were ultimately just a group of four guys, however dysfunctional.