As a revelation that should surprise absolutely no one, I run the Cop Shoot Cop Facebook page. The former members of the band didn’t particularly want to do it, so just they let me get on with it. And so I do, although that involves little more than doing periodic internet searches for pertinent mentions, pictures and videos and then posting them for the C$C faithful, who also send in assets to post. Back in 2013, I stumbled upon the shot below….
I had no idea of who shot it, where it was taken, what year it was snapped nor where it was first published, but dutifully shared it on the C$C Facebook page.
Ten years later, I’m happy to say that I can report that the photograph was taken by one Stephen Street to accompany a 1993 story in the British music-news weekly, Melody Maker written by legendary rock scribe Everett True. This was sent in by a C$C fan named Bill Farrar, who’s spotted it on Twitter.
The part that caught my eye, meanwhile, was the inclusion of the entire photograph (see below).
What I’d never realized about that first iteration of the photo is the location. The Cop Shoot Cop lads are pictured loitering menacingly around the Lower East Side Amphitheatre (or Bandshell, as some of us called it) in 1993, a full 30 (!!!) years before Mr. Farrar spotted it on Twitter.
I’ve written about the East River Bandshell several times here before (most recently here), but it was a significant Lower East Side landmark, for several years, especially as it started to gradually erode, slowly devolving into a hunk of urban decay like a set-piece from “Planet of the Apes.” In varying states of disrepair, it appeared in several music videos, notably “Annie, I’m Not Your Daddy” by Kid Creole & the Coconuts, “Cold Turkey” by Cheap Trick (yes, a Lennon cover … also starring late skateboarder/scenester Harold Hunter), “Unsung” by Helmet and “Invisible People” by False Prophets, although I’m probably forgetting some others. It also made a prominent appearance in the classic hip-hop flick, “Wild Style.”
Of course, in later years, the East River Amphitheatre got a complete makeover, reducing the structure to its core shell, with some artful piping around it.
But then, in the wake of the damage wrought by Hurricane Sandy in 2012, some contentious plans to radically re-structure East River Park writ large were put into motion, and the East River Amphitheatre was razed in 2021. I haven’t been down that way in a little while, so I have no idea what’s there at the moment, but I’m relatively certain it’s dispiriting.
Here, meanwhile is Cop Shoot Cop circa 1993.
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