The latest episode of Iñaki Rojas’ ongoing unspooling of the Modern Clix confluence (most recently discussed here) is out.
In a still-very-complicated nutshell, in 1983, Argentine rocker Charly Garcia had decamped to New York City was recording his upcoming album at Electric Lady Studios on West 8th Street and living in a loft on Waverly Place. He’d already decided on a title for the record, but when he and a photographer spotted a bit of compelling street art just off Cortlandt Alley on Walker Street in TriBeCa, all that changed. The ensuing photo found Garcia unwittingly sitting under one of the late Richard Hambleton’s “shadow men,” along with a tag by local punk rock scenester Fran Powers’ band, Modern Clix. Garcia named this album Clicks Modernos, unaware of these connections. The album in question went onto become, as I understand it, one of the preeminent albums of Argentine rock.
Sadly, Richard Hambleton passed away before ever learning that his artwork ended up on the sleeve of a massive-selling album. But writer/videographer Iñaki Rojas connected the dots (with some fleeting support of some old posts of mine) and reached out to Fran Powers and hipped him to this somewhat bizarre bit of artistic synergy. I’d only gotten to know Fran from recognizing him at a party thrown by Yukie Ohta of the SoHo Memory Project from Brooke Smith's photographs of the early New York Hardcore scene (happening just across town on the Bowery and Avenue A from the neighborhoods where Charly Garcia was hanging around, at the time). Funnily enough, Brooke Smith just released a sprawling coffee table book of these photographs (which I interviewed her about quite recently) and held a book signing at Generation Records on Thompson Street JUST LAST NIGHT, which I, of course, went to, where she was interviewed by Drew Stone, who I spoke about yesterday. The whole thing is quite bizarre.
Sadly, Fran Powers passed away last year. Charly Garcia, meanwhile, is still with us. He’s 71 and living in Buenos Aires. In the wake of all this, I decided to hunt down his album, and have spent the last couple of days checking it out. Not sure what I was expecting, but it’s actually pretty great — despite me not being able to decipher what he’s singing about.
In any case, here’s Iñaki’s latest installment of the series. You'll want to turn on the English subtitles (just click on the CC on the bottom bar of the YouTube screen). I make a tiny cameo.
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