I was very sorry to hear that Bauhaus have cancelled yet another New York date (this on the back of nixing a Radio City Music Hall show in in 2020 over COVID, and then another in November of 2021, which I believe was over visa issues). This time, it seems storied lead vocalist Peter Murphy has checked himself into rehab, thus scuttling all of the remaining North American dates -- including Thursday, September 8th's in Brooklyn. Needs must, of course, and I wish the great man the best, but having procured tickets to all three of these shows, I am understandably a bit bummed out.
Ironically, I wasn’t even planning on going to this now-cancelled show at the magisterial King’s Theater (where I saw Spoon, a million years ago). Over the past year or so, my son Oliver has developed a voracious interest in music (much to my pronounced delight) and latched onto goth’s hoary godfathers in the process as one of his new favorites.
I’d originally planned on taking him, but in the wake of him asking, back in April, if he could “lend” a vintage Bauhaus shirt of mine to a young lady he’s been ….well, we think he’s dating her, but we’re not entirely sure …. I figured, "Hell, I saw Bauhaus when it mattered," and decided to let him take her instead and make a proper date of it.
I don’t know why I let this stuff bother me, but hey … c’est la guerre.
Just a little under a year ago, I posted an entry examining a then-pervasive brand of YouTube clip wherein some dude walks around the streets asking people with ear pods in or headphones on what they are listening to. I prefaced that with one example of a guy walking around in my own neighborhood of Washington Square Park. My (probably predictable) takeaways were that – holy crap, what a monotonous endeavor (he’d ask passers-by what they were listening to, but there was no meaningful follow-through) and holy crap, kids in my neighborhood have the worst taste in the world.
So, ten months later, I happened upon a slight variation today, that being the moderately more in-depth question, “What’s Your Favorite Album?”
As you’d rightly imagine, this video finds our young bro-dude accosting folks and quizzing them about their favorite albums, once again in and around my little patch of Greenwich Village. Honestly, I only thought to make a post of this clip as the very first lady he accosts at 00:04 is my next-door neighbor, Ellen –- as unlikely an individual you’d encounter on YouTube as can be imagined. True to form, Ellen cites an album of her favorite showtunes and extrapolates accordingly. The rest of the answers are still a long way from deep and engaging, but this is at least a step in a better direction. The kid still needs to work on his follow-through, as you’ll witness….
The one part that really burns my fuckin’ toast, though, is people getting their titles wrong. I mean, granted, I’m a slavishly pedantic and needlessly argumentative knowitall, but if someone is asking you the title of your favorite album of all time, at least demonstrate the courtesy and insight to get the fuckin’ title right. It’s not The 36 Chambers of Death by the Wu-Tang Clan, it’s Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), and it’s not Animal Sounds by the Beach Boys, IT’S FUCKING PET SOUNDS! I don’t even remotely like the Beach Boys, and that pisses me off. Idiots.
Incidentally, were I ever pressed on the issue, while there are many contenders for the title, I’d have to say that my favorite album of all time is Funhouse by The Stooges. Why is that? Because it’s the quintessential example of rock n’ roll played fucking properly, goddammit. If you can’t appreciate the feral rock majesty of Funhouse, you should probably start listening to Perry Como records and collecting ornamental doilies, because you clearly don’t enjoy or understand real rock n’ roll, full fucking stop.
There’s been a lot of chitter-chatter, of late, about certain characters in Jordan Peele’s new horror film, “Nope,” wearing period-specific band t-shirts by less-householdy names like the Wipers, Mr. Bungle and the Jesus Lizard. Now, if you’ve spent any significant amount of time reading my silly blog, you probably know I have more than a little to say about the sporting of band t-shirts and the protocols and etiquette thereof. This all said, I haven’t seen “Nope,” nor do I have any immediate plans to, so I cannot credibly weigh in much further. Suffice to say, however, that I am strenuously skeptical that I would approve of the usage.
Never a band for the fair-weather fan or the faint of heart, here’s the mighty Jesus Lizard doing their thing on the fabled stage of CBGB during the dying embers of August 1992. At the time (and, honestly, still) I was more enamored of their pals and frequent touring companions in Cop Shoot Cop, local boys I’ve devoted far too much bandwidth to here. My friend Joanne and I would regularly debate the merits of each ensemble with a degree of fervor which suggested that fisticuffs were an entirely viable recourse to resolve the conflict. In retrospect, I’m not sure why we needed to establish which outfit was dominant — they were both equally fucking brilliant.
Regrettably, at the time this performance was captured on video, I was not in attendance (although I’m reasonably certain Cop Shoot Cop were also on the bill). In late August of 1992, I was very busily nursing a wounded, histrionic heart from being on the losing end of an office-romance breakup and invariably waging a doomed campaign, that evening, to restore what was never going to be meaningful repaired. Ah, … youth.
Flaming Pablumfavorite RB Korbet exhumed this footage and put it up on Facebook this morning, and I felt compelled to share it here. With all due respect to my beloved Cop Shoot Cop, there were truly precious few bands as visceral and unpredictable as the Jesus Lizard at full throttle, and this is ample proof of that.
I gave them a fleeting little mention a few posts ago, but they’ve been so kind in routinely shouting-out this blog and evangelizing my silly content, that I feel duty-bound to show them some equal love.
I think they started back in March of this year, but these two ladies –- actress Meg MacCary and writer Jessica Jones -– started a podcast called “Desperately Seeking the `80s,” and they devote their programming -- essentially lively discussions between two lifelong friends -- to endearingly grisly true crime sagas and rapturous rumination on pop-cultural ephemera from the era in question, all couched in personal experience and recollection, not at all unlike most of the stuff on this here blog.
They somehow came across Flaming Pablum, as previously discussed, when researching the 84th Street Bombers, exhuming some old posts of mine about getting mugged in the process. After saying some very nice things about my tireless penchant for florid overwriting, they started tagging me on social media. Ever since then, we’ve been exchanging missives. I find myself lobbing fistfulls of antiquated links of mine at them after hearing each new episode of theirs (they’re very prolific), hoping to augment the greater discussion. We keep talking about getting together for drinks and breaking through the fourth wall, so to speak.
It’s obviously focussed on fairly niche concerns (if you didn’t grow up in the `80s on the Upper East Side, let alone New York City, a lot of the references might be lost on you), but it’s done with such infectious zeal that I believe the word is getting out. If you enjoy reminiscing about scandalous tabloid-fodder of murder, mayhem and malfeasance and/or invocations about various bars, clubs, teenage hang-outs and the notorious, complementary caraffes of cheap-ass wine at Chinese restaurants, DO wrap your ears around “Desperately Seeking the `80s” with the quickness.
I’ve been very lucky, over the years, to have found people for whom my weird little posts resonate. I’m always skeptical that some trivial factoid that I’m all hot and bothered about will actually connect with a reader that shares that particular enthusiasm, but every now and then, it happens. I’m also continually amazed that some items that I just blithely mention in passing get latched onto and widely circulated. Which stories find their audience and why are not an exact science, by any stretch.
In any case, this entry is something of a minuscule follow-up to one of those stories I was somewhat inexplicably all fired up about upon first posting it. Technically, all it’s really about is a room in a long-vanished restaurant where a photograph was taken, but something about the story has always continued to haunt me. Let’s see if I can capably encapsulate it.
Back in 2013, I put up a post titled “Searching for the Blue Willow.” The Blue Willow, by way of explanation, was an eatery on the northeast corner of Broadway and Bleecker Street that was allegedly open between October of 1983 and some point in 1990. I never dined in that establishment, I’m sad to say, but it was notable to me in that I’d gleaned that one of its rear chambers had served as the location for the photograph that graced the cover of one of my favorite albums of all time, that being Each Man Kills The Thing He Loves by Gavin Friday and The Man Seezer. Here’s that cover now.
Cool, right?
Exuding a beguiling air of what I called “elegant decrepitude” in that first post, the sleeve of Each Man Kills… features Gavin Friday, former singer in Dublin’s macabre post-punk combo, the Virgin Prunes, leaning with louche aplomb against the piano of musical co-conspirator Maurice Seezer, depicted with his back to the viewer as he presumably plays. Beneath a stylishly distressed wall of stripped wallpaper, a nude couple embraces next to a glowing jukebox. Snapped by renowned Dutch rock photographer Anton Corbijn, the image says absolutely nothing about the era in which it was captured. It’s a mysterious picture that perfectly matches the sound, sentiment and sensibility of the album it sheathes. You’d never know that, at the time this photo was taken, the pop charts were caked with idiotic offal like “I’m Too Sexy” by Right Said Fred and “Gonna Make You Sweat” by C+C Music Factory, but I digress.
I have no idea whose idea it was to shoot the cover and accompanying promo images and single sleeves in the Blue Willow, but I can only imagine Gavin had happened upon it and been enchanted by its noirish, old-world atmosphere. Or maybe it was just a lucky fluke. Regardless, when I learned the name and the location of the restaurant (regrettably over a decade and a half after it closed its doors), I was immediately compelled, as detailed in that first post, to check out what was in that space in 2013.
At the time, of course, it was a douchey menswear emporium called Atrium who leant out its rear space — the very chamber where the the sleeve of Each Man Kills… was taken — to a pricey sneaker concern called, inexplicably, KITH. As you’ll see back on that first post, only traces of the original details of Corbijn’s cover could still be seen, notably the flooring and some of the marble trim that was depicted in some of the other photos from the shoot.
A couple of years after that, I posted a quick follow up to report that even those remaining elements were, by that point, covered up.
That was pretty much that. I remember posting the original piece on a discussion board about Gavin Friday and the Virgin Prunes. Already converted to the cause, so to speak, that community was duly intrigued and appreciative, but the layperson probably doesn’t care too much. But I remained so intrigued by the Blue Willow and always wanted to see more.
The only problem was…. there wasn’t much out there about it. I forget where I’d found it, but I did have an image of a matchbook from the place, as well as a fleeting mention of the eatery taken from a 1984 article in the Times about its then-slow-gentrifying neighborhood. Here’s the crucial mention from that piece.
'Back then, Lower Broadway was a bankrupt neighborhood with bums lying around in doorways,'' said Martin Fine. Mr Fine, a lawyer, owns the four-month-old Blue Willow restaurant at 644 Broadway at the corner of Bleecker Street. All the food in his restaurant is cooked without salt. Mr. Fine also owns the building it occupies, a former bank with handsome moldings and chandeliers. ''A few of us bought buildings here because we knew that someday the area would be hot,'' Mr. Fine said.
Where is Martin Fine today, one wonders.
In any case, beyond the images on and associated with Each Man Kills The Thing He Loves and that matchbook, I had no other visual ephemera to pair with the place.
Until today.
For no readily apparent reason, I was doing some random Googling, as I’m wont to do, and thoughtlessly entered the words “Blue Willow” and “Bleecker.” While the same images I’d posted on my blog about the Gavin Friday album came right up, a link to the Poster Museum also came up with a “vintage poster” of the place that practically blew a new part in my hair. Here’s the prefacing text.
"644 Broadway Corner Bleecker Street. New York, New York. Open Late."
Original vintage poster for a Chinese restaurant, the Blue Willow. The poster illustration features a bustling dining room, a waitress incoming with a majestic peacock on a platter—not to be eaten, I hope!
Artist: Kristen Johnson
Year: c. 1975
Condition: Fair, please note some small tears along the poster's perimeter. The appearance of tears can be significantly improved by having the poster linen-backed.
Here’s the image now….
Anyone notice the discrepancy?
Clearly, this is the very same Blue Willow, given the correlating address, but the Poster Museum believes this artifact dates back “circa 1975,” when, by the fleeting accounts I’ve tracked down, including the afore-cited New York Times piece, the restaurant didn’t open until 1983.
Like I said, this probably means so much less to most folks than it means to me, but the fact that since 2013, I’ve been able to discern that the Blue Willow boasted a kind of Belle Epoque vibe, served Chinese food and prepared its fare without any salt helps complete the picture.
Here in 2022, I can report that Atrium has since closed and vacated the premises at 644 Broadway. Noxious footwear concern KITH, meanwhile, decamped and moved a block to the east, taking over the old “Peace Pentagon” building that used to house Paper Tiger TV and Marty’s Cool Stuff.
Gavin Friday went onto release on a few more truly excellent albums before focussing predominantly on soundtrack work. His last proper solo album was 2011’s Catholic.
That ground-floor space at 644 has now been vacant, dormant and covered up since well prior to the pandemic. I am unrealistically hoping that whatever venture next occupies that space sees fit to restore some of the hidden trappings first captured on the sleeve of Each Man Kills…, but with my luck, its next iteration will be a AT&T cell phone outlet.
With heavy but hopeful hearts, we said goodbye to this beautiful little girl last night to let her start her next, ambitious chapter at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Not only a revered and prestigious institution, St. Andrews is also breathtakingly picturesque (see below for a small sample of same).
While I am quite indescribably melancholy at the moment, I could not possibly be prouder or more excited about all that she’s achieved and what lies ahead for her. Onward, Charlotte.
Today, as recently mentioned, we fly back across the Atlantic to deposit my lovely daughter Charlotte in the care of a mighty university in the highlands of bonnie Scotland. We’re all packed up (we think) and ready to go. I spent Monday morning at my office, getting ducks put in rows for my colleagues who’ll be managing affairs in my absence. I have a couple of sundry errands to run and then we’re airport-bound.
As I’m frequently and laboriously keen to point out, I don’t like Spotify and I hate streaming, but was tasked by the Missus with making a travel playlist for this bittersweet jaunt. I felt that compiling a list of all Scottish artists was fitting, so that’s what I did. I’ll be frankly shocked if my daughter listens to it, but we’ll see. The wife will give it a fair shake, at least.
For those pedants who are clicking their tongues at the inclusion of “Kayleigh” by Marillion, I’ll say this in its defense. While, no, Marillion are not technically a Scottish band, then-lead singer Fish was (and presumably still is). More to the point, Kayleigh is the name of my daughter’s impending roommate.
I didn’t include any Teenage Fanclub, as I’ve never liked them. Who else did I omit?
My truly excellent friend Drew sent me the below video with only the cryptic preamble of “truly worth your time.”
The title of the video is “1980s New York Loft Party,” and the description is as follows….
Party guests, people chatting. New York art scene. Party GVs. Party, people greeting each other, shaking hands. Pan across party scenes, nice WS of crowds, 1980s fashion. party and party guests, bartenders serving drinks. Pan across crowds, people chatting in groups. GVs of party. WS of road outside window, ZI to road. West Side highway, city skyline visible in distance. GVs of party and guests.
What music do you think was playing while this was transpiring?
WEIRD ADDENDUM: In this follow-up video from presumably the same party, former Sex Pistols svengali Malcolm McLaren is in attendance....
The photo above is, I believe, the first photograph I shared here of my daughter Charlotte, appended with the following caption…
Here's a fleeting glimpse of my daughter, engaging in one of her very favorite activities, turning the stereo on.....and off. And on. And off. And on and off and on and off and on and off and on and off and on and off. If the thing survives another month, it'll be a miracle.
This was probably snapped in the summer of 2005, when she was all of a year old.
It’s now the summer of 2022, and she is 18 years old, and in a scant four days, we board a plane to the bonnie highlands of Scotland to drop her off at her chosen university.
As I discussed this past January, we’d been looking at a host of great, liberal arts colleges scattered around the northeast and Midwest (you might remember my account of taking her to look at my alma mater, which prompted this surreal stroll down memory lane). As much as I was covertly pushing for Charlotte to select that school, her heart lay elsewhere. She wanted to challenge herself and carve her own path (as opposed to ensconcing herself in her father’s nostalgia trip). She ended up choosing a further-flung school over in the UK, albeit realistically no further than had she selected a school on the West Coast. It just feels further because it’s in another nation on the other side of an ocean.
In earlier, somewhat panicky attempts to stem the direction the tide seemed to be flowing, I kept repeating the mantra that “you can’t fly home from Scotland for a weekend.” While, no, you technically can’t really fly home from Scotland to New York City for a weekend, I kept thinking about all the times I’d flown home from college, and could really only remember one occurrence during the early part of my senior year when I jetted home to catch The Mission UK performing at The Ritz. Adjusting to college as a freshman was tough and all that, but I just got on with it. I have all faith that my daughter Charlotte will be just fine and do the same.
But even once she made her decision, it still seemed like this abstract concept that I was more or less in denial about. I was and remain incredibly proud of her. She’s gained entry into this prestigious institution and it’s going to be a remarkable, broadening experience for her, but I’m still finding it so hard to reconcile that we’re here already. Where did those 18 years go? How is she this old already?
After months of planning and preparation and packing and logistical red-tape-unspooling (setting up bank accounts and phone plans, etc.) it’s all happening next week.
Every now and again, someone will latch onto an old post of mine and share it on social media. It’s rare that I’m able to track down how the post is being framed or re-purposed, but I’m also curious as to which posts garner such second winds. I noticed one such post get a re-discovery boost today, and felt compelled to bring proceedings up to speed.
Regular readers might remember an entry I posted here back in 2015 about an arguably obscure British band from the early `70s called Dr. Feelgood (not to be confused with the Motley Crue album of the same name). In a nutshell, Dr. Feelgood was a “pub rock” band who played a taut, hardscrabble brand of R&B (and by that I mean guitar-based rhythm and blues, not schmaltzy loverman ballads) in an era when the pervading tastes were more inclined towards mellow, Laurel Canyon-styled singer/songwriters and the more indulgent aspects of shaggy prog rock. They were loud, bawdy and aggressive and played songs that were comparatively short, sharp and shocking. Basically, Dr. Feelgood were out-of-step punks before punk was punk.
In any case, this particular post of mine concentrated on a tiny aspect of a documentary made about them by filmmaker Julien Temple called “Oil City Confidential.” In one fleeting seqeunce therein, Temple divulges that former lead singer Lee Brilleaux (above) had passed away in 1994 from cancer. While recounting same, Temple showed strangely incongruous footage of a tiny memorial plaque in Brilleaux’s honor on a park bench in my own Manhattan’s West Village. Acting on a hunch, I tracked down the actual bench and plaque, as documented in that post, in Jackson Square. On the surface, it made absolutely zero sense to have a memorial plaque to Lee Brilleaux in the West Village of Manhattan, given that the fabled frontman never lived on these shores, nor had any tangible connection to New York City.
Towards the end of that post, meanwhile, I disclosed that a compatriot of mine had solved the riddle, sharing that a nearby art gallery, White Columns, had done a whole installation about Dr. Feelgood, one aspect of which was affixng Lee’s small plaque to a bench in Jackson Square. The link I posted in that orignal entry no longer goes to the explainer page, but I found another page with the full story (and pictures) still available here. Apparently, the plaque was put up at some point in 2005, a decade before I discovered it through Julien Temple’s film.
Noting that my post was being re-circulated, however, I thought it was prudent, once again, to bring things up to date. If you go looking for Lee Brilleaux’s memorial plaque here in 2022, I am sad to relay that you will not find it. For whatever reason, what started off as the only memorial park-bench plaque in Jackson Square has been replaced by a slew of new ones commemorating since-deceased figures who, more than likely, actually have some genuine connection to the park, unlike dear, departed Lee. That makes sense, of course, but I miss the strange little anomaly of that furtive tribute.
Meanwhile, for those curious, here’s some great footage of Dr. Feelgood in action, taken from a French television program from 1976 called “Beau Fixe Sur Pithiviers.” The band shows up in a vintage blue convertible in the beginning, then plug in and rock your face off starting at around 01:59.
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