In the grand tradition of this post, I was originally going to launch a new quest to divine the cover location of the Plasmatics’ first album, New Hope for the Wretched (above), but the answer came quickly and was nothing I was ever going to have been able to solve on my own, so I’m just going to share it all here now. Oh, you're welcome.
Despite being technically the band's first album, New Hope for the Wretched was the last Plasmatics studio album I was to attain, not including a few compilation discs they put out posthumously in the last two decades. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere on this blog, I came to own this particular album in a fairly dishonorable way. Here’s a very brief explainer about how that happened, as unspooled on this ancient post.
I'm really not proud to admit this but I once shafted a local used record store over a Plasmatics record. They were selling a copy of the band's debut LP, New Hope For The Wretched as a deluxe picture disc (the vinyl platter looked like someone had vomited radioactive slime all over it), but the shop was asking a king's ransom for it. Like a dick, I slipped that record out of its sleeve and swapped it with another record. I brought the picture disk -- now sheathed in a different album's cover -- to the counter and paid pennies for it. I was never a bad kid -- I didn't make a habit of ripping stuff off, but for some reason, I had to have this picture disc. Decades later, I still feel guilty every time I walk by the shop in question.
That last line is true. To this day, I still feel compelled to go into the shop in question (still there, amazingly) and confess my wretchedness, pardon the pun. It’s forever tainted my ability to fully enjoy the record in question, given its inexorable ties to my bottomless wellspring of guilt.
Regardless of how you come to New Hope for The Wretched, you should know, going in, that it’s really not for everyone. Still finding their way, at the time, the band was obviously having a problem in trying to make their album match the sensationalized impact of their live show. Let’s face it, songwriting was never their primary strength.
Playing a loose approximation of what had become known, by that point, as “punk rock” (although, by the time of the release of this record, the Clash had already stylistically branched out with London Calling and Sandinista, Sid Vicious was already dead, John Lydon was making way more experimental music with Public Image Ltd. and The Ramones were recording with Phil Spector), the songs are energetic, if not especially inspired. Standout selections like “Monkey Suit” (see below) and “Butcher Babies” are entertaining enough, but one could credibly suggest that their efforts on later records were a bit more successful, in this capacity.
The most inspired moment probably comes during their cover of “Dream Lover,” originally by Bobby Darin. Their version boasts a noisy gimmick that unwittingly borrows a page from the burgeoning No Wave scene that would have been going on, at the time, in that during an extended passage of the recording, the musicians were isolated from each other and could not see or hear what each other were playing — the ends results being as discordantly cacophonous as you’d expect. You can’t say the Plasmatics didn't try.
This all said, much like their kindred spirits in KISS, the Plasmatics' early records were still overshadowed by their penchant for violent and prurient spectacle, and New Hope was no exception, which might handily explain the knowing ludicrousness of the album’s cover, featuring the band posing in and around a suburban backyard pool, appearing as if they’ve just driven a car into it and also destroyed a nearby television set for good measure … as you do.
After I’d posted my findings about the band’s Tribeca headquarters last week, my comrade Bob Egan of Popspots NYC fame challenged me to tackle finding this location. As it happened, I did find the below bird’s eye view of the location shoot, but it didn’t really give that many clues.
From there, I went directly to the source. Many years back, I used to work side-by-side with a woman at a certain media outlet who, for the purposes of this narrative, I’ll call Gwen. Gwen was a whip-smart colleague who was a remarkably versatile journalist and also the quintessence of a no-nonsense, common-sense-espousing mom. Despite this, not only did the younger iteration of Gwen spend a formidable amount of time in the nascent New York hardcore scene, but she also dated — for a spell, I gather — Richie Stotts, the guitarist of the Plasmatics. I initially found this hard to reconcile, given the impeccably professional manner in which Gwen comported herself, but when pressed on the subject, she could (and still can) rattle of period-specific minutia like a genuine insider. Gwen is no poser.
As such, I asked Gwen if she might know the location, and without missing a beat, she cited Sunshine Park, a former nudist colony Plasmatics manager/svengali Rod Swenson had evidently been a member of in the mid-70’s. Don’t go looking for Sunshine Park today, though, as it closed in 1983 after neighbors complained and health violations were cited. Some folks just have no sense of fun.
I then did some further snooping around came across a tweet from the … ahem…. American Association of Nude Recreation that linked to this creepy photo below. By 2009, evidently the campground had fallen into a state of neglect and was being reclaimed by nature. Is THIS the very same pool, I wonder? See more pictures of the abandoned Sunshine Park campground here. I have no idea what goes on there — if anything — today.
Here they all were in more hopeful days….
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