Flaming Pablum

Today's Greatest Thing Ever

If your day cannot be brightened by the sight of Fozzie Bear dancing gleefully to "From Her to Eternity" by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, you very well may be beyond help. You're welcome...

Never Say Never Again: The Return of The New York Never List

Inexplicably loyal readers might remember a certain entry here from the teeth-gnashing days of 2015 (I was unemployed for most of that year, y’see, which might explain the preponderance of lengthy posts) wherein I windily cited with typically laborious aplomb both all the notable, “quintessentially” New York City things I’ve done/tried/seen/visited and a tidy list of ten such things that — despite being an oft-cited native of these Manhattan streets — I had never done, for whatever reason.

There wasn’t necessarily an overarching point to the whole endeavor. I think it spoke to both the perception of what constitutes the quintessence of something and also the lazy inclination to take certain things for granted. I mean, if you literally live just down the street from something, you might not feel the same sense of urgency to go check it out as someone who is only visiting. Convenient proximity is the enemy of exotica.

Anyway, I don’t know that it’s necessarily worth noting, as they say, but since I first posted that entry back in 2015, I have actually stepped inside One Fifth Avenue (albeit, only its dark, stately lobby), and I did finally make it to The Top of the Rock only a month after I’d claimed I’d never been, and proceeded to replicate a fabled Bob Gruen portrait of Joe Strummer with my son Oliver.

In any case, for no readily apparent reason, I thought I’d throw another few “nevers” into the mix and see what happens. Herewith a few more arguably “quintessential” New York City activities I’ve never bothered doing.

1. I’ve never ridden a CitiBike
No accident, this. I grew up riding my bike all over the city, and even then -- as I was blithely courting all sorts of stupid peril -- I knew my place in the great food chain of the Manhattan street. In the same way you don’t provoke Great White sharks while snorkeling in the Florida Keys, you did your best to remember that buses, delivery trucks, cars and taxis basically don’t give a rolling rat fuck about your wellbeing. After seeing a few too many frankly harrowing bike accidents, I forsook further bicycle-riding in New York City once my children were born. Then the bike lanes and the CitiBikes appeared, and suddenly the streets were filled with entitled bicycle dilettantes who selectively disregard certain traffic rules while ferociously adhering to the ones that best serve their own interests. I can tolerate that sort of brazen hypocrisy from seasoned cyclists and/or bike messengers (i.e. people whose lives and/or occupations are pronouncedly interwoven with that particular mode of transport), but not from the CitiBikers. If you’re pedaling one of those clunky warhorses around, you’re obviously not very serious about it. New York City is never going to become Amsterdam. That’s not a preference, that’s just a fact.

2. I have never been to the 9/11 Museum
While I have indeed passed through the site, and searched around the perimeter of the fountains for the name of my fallen friend from high school who died in the north tower that morning, I am routinely driven out by the hordes of selfie-stick-wielding tourists who feel comfortable posing and smiling in what is ostensibly designed as a place for reflective solemnity. I have never waited on line for – much less set foot in – the adjacent museum. While it may sound melodramatic and hyperbolic, the events of that day still seem too fresh to require a museum.

3. I have never been to the top of WTC 1
… which I will never refer to as the “Freedom Tower.” I harbor absolutely zero desire to ever visit the top of that.

4. I have never attended an event at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn
This one is somewhat surprising, as the venue in question has played host to numerous concerts that would have otherwise engaged my interests. My beloved Killing Joke are even slated to play there next month, although they’re opening for Tool. I’m not about to spend upwards of three figures to watch my favorite band of all time deliver an opening-band set (forty minutes at most?) to an arena full of disinterested Tool fans.

5. I have never visited the Hudson Yards’ Vessel
…and never will, if I have any say in the matter.

6. I have never taken an open-door helicopter tour over Manhattan
This trend was becoming kind of a big thing, for a little while, until one plunged into the East River, a year or so ago, killing three of its passengers in a horrible manner. I love a good photo-op of New York City, but I’ll pass on this option, thanks.

7. I have never been to the new Whitney Museum at the base of the High Line
I grew up roaming around the old Whitney on the Upper East Side (now the Met Breur). In the same way I never went to the new Hog Pig or the new Max Fish, I am sort of inclined leave the old Whitney in my head as I remember it. I mean, I’m not averse to checking out the new one, but it’s not my first priority.

8. I have never attended a show at the Apollo Theater in Harlem
Nine times out of ten, the bands I'm clamoring to see aren't likely to be playing at this storied venue, although Metallica did play there a little while back, if memory serves. I would love to go check it out, but -- as yet -- have not. 

The rest of these, meanwhile, are all food related...

9. I have never shopped at Zabar's on the Upper West Side
Yes, I know ... shock, horror, outrage. Sorry, I assume it must be some kind of fabulous, but being that I've never lived on the Upper West Side, it's just never struck me as a priority. I've been to Sahadi's in Brooklyn and Kalustyan's in Little India, if that makes you feel any better, but never Zabar's. 

10. I've never eaten at a Momofuku
I believe there are Momofukus in other cities as well, but no ... I've never partaken of their pork buns.

10. I've never sampled the soul food at Sylvia's in Harlem
In my defense, I'd cite that I did go to The Pink Tea Cup in the West Village for soul food on a few occasions, but have never, as yet, made it to Sylvia's. 

11. I've never bought anything at Russ & Daughters on the Lower East Side
If I'm being honest, I'm not really a whitefish/pickled herring/chopped liver/baked salmon kinda guy. I like that it's still there and that it's always crowded, but I just don't think I'm cut out to be a member of its culinary demographic. Given this information, it shouldn't be surprising that I've never shopped at Barney Greengrass on the Upper West Side either. That just means more sturgeon for you! 

12. I've never stood on line for a cronut at the Dominique Ansel Bakery
....and friggin' neither should you. 

 

Hardcore Under Glass

I had a reader named Michael write in, quite recently, in response to an entry I posted back in June about the Circle Jerks. I’m always heartened to connect with folks who are just as invested in the minutia of these things as I still am, as it makes me feel like I’m not wasting my time documenting all this stuff.

In any case, while I was writing back to Michael to address a point about the changing membership of the band throughout the middle part of the `80s -– specifically when the rhythm section of, first, drummer Lucky Lehrer and then bassist Roger Rogerson left the ranks to be fleetingly replaced by Earl Liberty and the mighty Chuck Biscuits -- I was trying to illuminate the point that, at the time, news about hardcore bands was pretty threadbare. Detailed reports about the hardcore scene weren’t exactly that readily available. Maybe there’d be the odd mention of a certain band or two in SPIN, but Rolling Stone wouldn’t really touch the stuff with any meaningful credibility. You either heard about developments via word of mouth (living uptown, as I did, I got reulgar tips from my contact Brian, an older punk rocker who worked at a nearby Crazy Eddie, who I mentioned here and here) or through zines like MaximumRocknRoll, Forced Exposure and/or Flipside (to name three), and those weren’t always that easy to find either, unless you want to specifc downtown shops like See/Hear, etc. You had to genuinely stay invested to know what was going on.

The first time I ever saw the Circle Jerks at the Ritz in 1985, I remember being surprised to see that Roger was gone. Lucky had split in, I think, 1983, but don’t quote me on that. Regardless, again, if your only reference for information was what you found on the back of pertinent album covers, you were doubtlessly going to be behind the times, so to speak.

Anyway, in trying to piece the specifics back together, I did a Google search – something you obviously couldn’t do in 1985 – to try to find out who might have been on drums at that specific Ritz gig. I want to say it was the great Chuck Biscuits, but it very well might still have been this guy John Ingram, who stepped in after Lucky left. Incidentally, for a much more authoritative breakdown, I highly recommend David Markey’s excellent documentary, “My Life As a Jerk,” which I wrote in greater detail about here.

While I didn’t find out that particular bit of info, I did unearth something pretty striking, specifically something that speaks to the same sentiment I expressed in my post about The Museum of Arts & Design punk graphics exhibit last April. Back on that post, you might remember I expressed the strange sensation of seeing things that formerly hung on my own walls throughout high school and college suddenly being displayed under glass like priceless, ancient Egyptian antiquities. I’m reminded of that scene in “Raiders of the Lost Ark” wherein Indy and Belloq have an exchange in a Cario café, and the duplicitous French archaelogist mentions burying a worthless watch in the sand, only to have it become something future achaelogists will kill each other for thousands of years later. Technically speaking, 1984 was only 34 years ago, but that might as well be a thousand lifetimes ago, to some minds.

Sure enough, with that single Google search, up came the signature flyer for the gig in question (above), presented as part of Chris Williamson’s Rock Hotel series (which I spoke in detail about way back here). What was striking about this, however, was that the lovingly presented image of the flyer was not being hosted by some equally pedantic shrine to all thinks punk, but rather by a much loftier outlet entirely. Now evidently part of the Architecture & Design collection of no less than The Musuem of Modern Goddamn Art (that’s MoMa, to you and me), Chris Williamson’s flyer for this very show is considered a bona fide work of art.

That kinda blows my mind.

Check out the specifics of this piece – Object 310.2012 – by clicking right here.

Just as a side note, I did not bring a camera with me that night, and have never spotted any photographs of the Cirlce Jerks, D.O.A. or Toxic Reasons from that evening, but I did prize photos of the mighty Redd Kross (captured between their Teen Babes from Monsanto and Neurotica iterations, specifically) from that very night at the Ritz.

 

St. Marks Place & Third Avenue ... Now

..in 2019

Six New York City Diners in 1974

St. Marks Place & Third Avenue

...in 2014

Oasis in Manhattan

If I’m being honest, I was never especially blown away by Oasis. I mean, they were certainly quite capable of cranking out a series of perfectly respectable-albeit-derivative singles that were loaded with catchy hooks and reminiscent of various well-established rock motifs, but I couldn’t quite understand why they enjoyed such a robust amount of popularity when – to my mind – some of their more musically adventurous fellow countrymen in bands like Suede, Blur, Pulp, Elastica and several others were stalled on lower rungs of the ladder. I mean, despite what short-lived NYC indie band Thin Lizard Dawn suggested, I never believed Oasis sucked, but I just didn’t think there was anything especially exceptional about them. I also never really warmed to Liam Gallagher’s voice, a sort of whiney amalgamation of Lennon and Lydon. I also never understood his penchant for basically standing stock-still when performing.

But, y’know, what the Hell do I know? Oasis went onto become one of Britain’s biggest musical exports, for a while, until the wheels fell off and the Gallagher brother could no longer stand each other. I’ve frequently suggested that if their music was as entertaining as their endearingly contentious interviews, I’d have been way more into Oasis. At the very least, Liam and Noel were quite handy with their pithy quips.

I’m only invoking their name here for a couple of reasons. I was recently discussing them with some work colleagues, and I came across the shot above. Somewhat famously, Oasis’ New York City debut performance was at Wetlands Preserve down on Laight Street in TriBeCa, a storied venue most renowned for spawning the neo-hippy jam-band scene comprised of bands like The Spin Doctors, Phish, Blues Traveler, et al. To be fair, while that was indeed Wetlands’ whole shtick, most of the bands I went to go see there had nothing to do with that vibe. From ska to funk to hardcore punk, Wetlands’ booking policy was refreshingly open-ended with regards to genre, so Oasis playing there wasn’t all that out of left field. More to the point, one could argue that Oasis’ music was no less retro-philic than the club’s more celebrated acts who were continually invoking the spirit of Woodstock, et al.

Regardless, while it was a decent-sized, bi-level club, the actual performance space was fairly intimate. I seem to always remember it being oppressively loud, as the sound bouncing off the back room’s concrete walls (floridly painted with pastoral scenes of flower-children dancing in leafy glades) had nowhere to go. That said, it was always a fun space to see a band. I never had a bad time there.

In doing research for this post, though, I discovered that the band actually graced the Wetlands stage twice on their debut American tour – first in July of 1994, and a second time three months later in October. You can see their full performance from the October date here.

I’m including the photo above from the July gig not just because it seems like a typical shot of the band, finding Liam in his signature stance, but also because it’s so telling of its era. Not only does no one have their fucking phone out, but I just love the guy pictured in the background just under Liam (the bespectacled gent in the Failure t-shirt). Dutiful rock journalist that he must have been (and given my own involvement in that vocation, I believe I might know the dude in question – Jon Wiederhorn, is that you??), he’s staring intently at Liam and actually taking notes with a pen and pad. That’s some goddamn dedication, right there. Here's another take...

The July gig was actually part of an annual music industry convention called the New Music Seminar, a string of dates every summer devoted to music showcases in various venues around town and schmooze-opportunities and panel discussions at a hotel in Times Square. I attended a few New Music Seminars, but I think I sat 1994’s out. I didn’t go to this Oasis gig, in any case. My former colleague Neil Strauss did, though, and wrote this little bit about it for the New York Times.

Just to bring things up to date as a side note, in the ensuing 28 years since this event, Wetlands Preserve is long, long gone. It closed in 2001, following the death of its founder-owner Larry Bloch. The building that housed the club, 161 Hudson Street, was converted into a luxury condo (of course) in 2004. The ground-floor space formerly occupied by Wetlands became an expensive bedding emporium of some kind for a while. Last time I walked by it, that concern had closed and it was awaiting a new tenant.

Both Jon Wiederhorn (if that's indeed him above) and Neil Strauss went further with their careers. I would later work alongside Jon during my tenure at MTV News Online circa 2006, and he’d go on to pen several books, including an authoritative guide on heavy metal called “Louder Than Hell.” Neil Strauss, meanwhile, who I’d worked with in 1990 at The New York Review of Records, later went on to write – as cited above – for The New York Times and other prestigious outlets. After writing some memorable profile pieces for Rolling Stone (including one where I believe he got into bed with Jewel), Neil was drafted to orchestrate (and presumably ghost-write) the fabled Motley Crue oral history, “The Dirt.” From there, Neil’s career took an interesting turn and he became an accomplished pickup artist, ostensibly for the purposes of writing a book on same. That book, “The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists,” took Neil to a whole new level, so to speak. The last time I saw him was at a Cocteau Twins concert at the (since demolished) Roseland Ballroom. He was wearing leather pants.

Lastly, I stumbled upon this ancient video of Oasis and swiftly determined that it was shot here in New York City, possibly during the same stay as the first Wetlands gig. Herein we see the brothers Gallagher and cohorts playing in the Central Park bandshell, just steps to the south of Bethesda Fountain. There are also several shots of the band glumly burying their drummer in a makeshift public garden of the sort one used to encounter around certain portions of the Upper West Side and Lower East side. Can anyone identify the spot?

Facebreak

It wasn't triggered by anything specific, just the nagging, seemingly obvious fact that I spend way more time on Facebook than I probably should. I think it’s less about the social-media phenomenon and more about my own anaemic will power. I seem to have a very hard time giving things up and/or slowing things down. As such, in much the same way I frequently endeavor to taper off my beer intake or cut down on my coffee consumption, I thought I’d try stepping away from Facebook for a while, and see how that goes. If this exercise is anything like my attempts to curtail my affinity those afore-cited vices, I’ll probably be back on Facebook by next week, but … we’ll see. I want to give it a shot.

I should point out, however, that I don’t feel guilty about my usage of the platform. At its best, Facebook is indeed a great way to stay in touch with further flung friends, keep apprised of certain social events, learn about breaking news, evangelize favorite music, gather insight from one’s peers on a host of different topics, etc. By the same token, it’s also a tremendously powerful and frequently pointless time-suck. At its most banal, it can be distraction. At its worst, it can be a needless irritant or even a day-ruiner, if you find yourself embroiled in one stupid spat or another over any number of idiotic subjects. For me, it’s invariably about some ridiculously pedantic fine point about a former member of some long-forgotten punk band or something equally trivial. I used to regularly cross swords with people about our boundlessly stupid and irresponsible president, but I believe I scared off any remaining Trump-supporters from my friends list long ago. Suffice to say, I feel absolutely zero regres about that.

I don’t know exactly what I plan on accomplishing by doing this, and fully plan to return to the platform at some presently indefinable point, but I feel it’s an exercise worth exploring.

Have you ever stepped away from Facebook or other comparable, life-engulfing social media platform? How’d that work for you?

The Couch

Peggy and I got married in the summer of 2001. We returned to New York City from our honeymoon in Spain on Friday, September 7. The following Tuesday was …. well, you can figure it out.

Freshly married, eager to move forward with our plans and newly reminded of the fragility of human life, we promptly started looking to move out of my studio apartment. However cool and spacious it was, it just wasn’t an apartment necessarily conducive to having any babies, which was our priority, at the time.

In relatively short order, after looking at scores of uninspiring spaces, we somehow struck oil. Peggy happened to spot a promising listing in the very same neighborhood. By the tail end of 2002, we moved from a studio on East 12th to a “Junior Four” (read: a one-bedroom apartment with a dining room/study that could be re-purposed as a second bedroom) on East 9th. This was where we were going to start our family. As it’s turned out, we’ve been there ever since.

Once settled, we decided to get a sectional sofa. In retrospect, I cannot remember why. I think I was romanced by the one my cousins used to have at their old house up in the Berkshires. It just seemed comfier and homey. So, we went to shitty Crate & Barrell on Broadway and picked one up.

Details elude me as to why we chose a brown one, but that’s the color we got. I suppose it meshed with the other colors in the living room, but I’ll be damned if we were that thorough about it. The important thing was that it could accommodate several people quite comfortably. If necessity called for it, two people could sleep on it simultaneously.

In time, our plans to have children were realized, and our big brown couch was soon being climbed all over by Charlotte and, shortly afterwards, her little brother Oliver.

Guests came and went. Myriad meals were consumed on the couch. Parties were thrown on it. Countless drinks were spilled on it. A fortune in coins slid between its cracks. A graveyard of lost LEGO bricks vanished beneath its skirts. Various remotes went frequently astray beneath its cushions. But it served us well.

In time, its robust brown luster faded. In due course, the springs beneath the two most frequently sat-upon spots gave way. The “command center”/”driver’s seat” spot on the far end was soon re-dubbed “the Pit,” as whomever sat in it would sink, butt-first, towards the floor beneath.

When we could no longer tolerate it, Peggy started suggesting we bite the bullet and spring for a new couch. Because I ultimately loathe change, I was slow to get onboard, but even I was getting fed up.

The particulars of getting a new sectional sofa were far more complicated than we’d imagined, but living in a building without a service elevator meant that we had to choose a sectional of very specific measurements. I don’t remember that quandary when we bought the first one, but maybe we’d just gotten lucky.

It took us forever to find a suitable one. I honestly recused myself, after a while, about feeling the need to weigh in on its preferred design. As long as it fit and was comfortable, that would be fine by me. Colors really don’t matter to me.

We settled on one, paid for it and made arrangements for delivery. That will happen tomorrow. Today, our building’s super and handyman removed the old brown one.

On Oliver’s way home from school, he passed by the couch on the sidewalk and snapped the following shot, and I’m not gonna lie. I got kind of a lump in my throat about it.

Yes, it was an ugly, beat-up and suitably pooh-colored piece of shit, but this couch was really the epicenter of our home. There are videos of my kids as tiny tots crawling all over it. To see it dumped on the pavement really breaks my heart.

I was reminded of this song by the Lemonheads about feeling anguish over seemingly banal, inanimate objects.

The new couch arrives tomorrow. We’ll see how that goes. But I’ll always love the old couch.

No One Turns Off The Cars

One could crassly suggest that The Cars figured out the formula. Somehow, their quintessential brand of undeniably catchy New Wave slotted in perfectly alongside both the warhorses of rock radio like Foreigner, The Eagles and Fleetwood Mac as it did alongside fellow members of the new class like Joe Jackson, The Go-Go’s and The Clash. They boasted both a quirky, robotic sheen and enough burly rock chops (largely thanks to undersung guitarist Elliott Easton) to comfortably bridge the gap between the otherwise mutually antagonistic camps. Outfitted with the afore-cited Easton’s fleet-fingered guitar solos, the propulsive drive of drummer Dave Robinson – ex of proto-punk stalwarts, The Modern Lovers, the signature synthesizers of picture-perfect keyboard nerd Greg Hawkes, the sonorous voice of silver-blonde bassist/heartthrob Benjamin Orr and the distinctive vocals of founder/guitarist Ric Ocasek -- himself a storky sort of New Wave hybrid of Mr. Spock and Don Knotts -– the Cars were quite a package. But it wasn’t image or clever marketing that earned the band its place in the rock firmament --- it was their songs, pure and simple.

I’m sure one contrarian or another will beg to differ, but I’m hard pressed to remember anyone ever saying “man, I fuckin’ hate the Cars.” An inescapable staple of both radio and video, the music of The Cars was almost definitively the soundtrack of your youth, if you are now of a certain age. You don’t need to own all -- or any -- of The Cars’ seven studio albums to immediately recognize and be able to sing along with virtually all of their singles. Seamlessly produced with the same slickness their comparatively stodgy and hirsute (yet equally brilliant) fellow Massholes in Boston were chided for, Cars songs popped, thumped, buzzed, whirred, chimed and rocked in all the right places, alternately led by either Orr’s comely croon or Ocasek’s hiccupy yelp and anchored by choruses sung by what sounded like whole battalions of dudes in skinny ties and checkerboard trousers. You never heard a Cars song –- from the jittery “Don’tcha Stop” through to the expansive “Drive” --- that sounded unfinished. They were expertly crafted, road-tested (stupid pun alert) and guaranteed to deliver. No one scrambled to turn off the Cars. Leo Sayer? Kim Carnes? DeBarge? Hell yes, but never The Cars.

While I’d immediately dug “Just What I Needed” upon first hearing it on WPLJ (sandwiched between tracks by Jethro Tull and Styx) and was rendered a bug-eyed mute by their turn scoring a very particular scene in “Fast Times At Ridgemont High” with their iconic “Moving in Stereo” (you KNOW the scene I’m talking about), I bought my first Cars album on the strength of the jarring transition from the suitably nervous, twitchy “Shoo Be Doo” into the cinematic futurescape of the title track to their second LP, Candy-O. I still play it today, and still get the chills.

Maybe they didn’t write anthems. Perhaps they didn’t question authority. They assuredly didn’t shake the foundations of the establishment. That just wasn’t their scene.

But make no mistake -– The Cars were absolutely fucking brilliant.

Rest in peace, Benjamin Orr & Ric Ocasek.