I’m not sure I know a credibly viable way into this post, so I’m just going to write it and worry about that later. But, suffice to say, it’s probably the least consequential/most trivial thing I’ve ever posted here … which is saying something.
I’ve long been obsessed with Martin Scorsese’s “After Hours,” a film he released in September of 1985 in the immediate wake of Paramount scrapping his longtime dream project, “The Last Temptation of Christ” (an ambitious undertaking he’d later go on to release in 1988). “After Hours” was the furthest thing imaginable from a sweeping Biblical epic — a black comedy documenting the tragicomic travails of a mild-mannered yuppie (played by Griffin Dunne) lured into the bohemian wilderness of the downtown Manhattan of the mid-80’s. Comparatively speaking, it’s a small movie with a relatively niche audience.
If you’ve spent any time on this blog, you know what I mean when I say I’ve obsessed over this film. I’d devoted posts to its locations, its score and even minor members of its cast. As a result, I used to think I knew everything there is to know about the film, but as yesterday’s post demonstrated, this is clearly not the case.
I originally started this post back in mid-May. I started writing it with the working title, “Unanswerable Questions About a Certain Scene.” Well, I regret to say that in the ensuing weeks, I’ve all but forgotten what most of those allegedly “unanswerable” questions were, but I do remember one major observation, and it concerns the scene below. Bear in mind that this has more to do with my original perceptions and preconceptions.
In this scene, we see the beleaguered Paul Hackett (Griffin Dunne’s protagonist) entering the Terminal Bar on the far western end of Spring Street in SoHo during a midsummer downpour. In actuality, the Terminal Bar did not exist. At the time — and for several years after “After Hours” was filmed -- this location was a bar called The Emerald Pub, although don’t go looking to have a pint there these days. The Emerald Pub closed in 2015 and the space has been dormant ever since. In any event, Paul repairs to the Terminal Bar to get out of the rain and to try to make sense of the chaos of the evening. Upon entering, he encounters cocktail waitress Julie (one of four pivotal blonde sirens through the film) and bartender Tom. While the scene plays out, a young, hip couple dances in the background to “You’re Mine,” a classic number by doo-wop duo Robert & Johnny.
Again, the rest of this is just about my silly projections, and has precious little to do with the film’s actual content.
In any case, for the longest time, I was ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that the male half of that young, hip dancing couple was wearing a black, sleeveless t-shirt emblazoned with the back-cover design of Avalon by Roxy Music. Being that Avalon came out in 1982, three years before “After Hours” was released, it fit the chronology. Moreover, a cool, black sleeveless Roxy Music t-shirt seemed like just the thing a hip SoHo scenester might’ve worn while dancing in a downtown bar in the small hours of a summer night. In the event that you’re unfamiliar, the back cover of Avalon — designed by Peter Saville, who also did the iconic sleeves for both Unknown Pleasures and Closer by Joy Division— features some sort of crimson stone embedded in a gold, medieval amulet. Here it is now…
Cool, right? It’s also worth mentioning that Avalon is an amazing record. While not as adventurous as Roxy Music’s first few albums, it marked the high point of the band’s more sophisticated pop era and sadly served as their swan song. During my college years, it was an album that could be found in virtually every dorm room on campus and, like Diamond Life by Sade, its airing within same was sonic shorthand for “don’t come knocking.” Chances are, if you came home to hear your roommate playing Avalon, there was a good chance he or she was doing some very intimate entertaining sans pants.
Anyway, ever since spotting it in “After Hours,” I’d started keeping my eyes out for it, as it seemed like it would be a cool artifact to own, given both its association with my favorite film and my affinity for the album in question.
But I was never able to find it, which always frustrated me.
Fast forward to stumbling on the scene above in YouTube, I was suddenly able to get a much closer look at the garment in question, equipped with the pause button. In doing so, I managed to capture the screen grab below.
Suffice to say, that is very much not the back cover of Avalon. I’d been mistaken all these years. Under closer scrutiny, I figured it out and Googled on a hunch what the actual t-shirt was and immediately struck oil. The dancing hipster in the Terminal Bar is wearing this….
In case you’re unfamiliar, it’s a Sha Na Na shirt. Sha Na Na was (and still is?) a doo-wop revival group who had their own television show back in the late `70s. They even played at friggin' Woodstock.
While not nearly as cool as a Roxy Music shirt, it actually makes way more sense as something a guy voluntarily dancing to a door-wop tune by Robert & Johnny would wear.
So, yeah, end of story. I was wrong about that.
This, incidentally, is Roxy Music...
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