Flaming Pablum

Into 2024

I snapped this shot, earlier this week, during a somewhat freakish bout of fog that enshrouded Quogue on Boxing Day. I love how the road just sort of dissolves into the mist, belying any indication of what lies beyond. 

In actuality, this is a walk I regularly take when we're out there, and it's basically just a meandering loop around a portion of Quogue's upper reaches, north of Montauk Highway. While it looks opaque, there was really never a point wherein I didn't indeed know what was waiting behind that fog. 

Not quite so with 2024, though. While certain trajectories are in place, with courses informed by realistic expectations, there are still lots of unknowables on the work front, the home front and beyond. Lots of changes seem poised to take effect, leading proceedings in new, uncharted directions. What sort of year will it be? 

I don't expect to glean any answer to this question in the next few days. Currently, the household is consumed by a tenacious, communal cold (not COVID, mercifully), and even our remaining holiday plans seems poised to change, lending even further speculation as to what the future holds, both immediate and long term. 

In the short term, please enjoy the rest of your holiday season. Flaming Pablum will be back in action in the New Year. 

Goodbye to 2023

Alright, it’s only December 19, but the next several days promise to be busy, so I guess it’s time to dust this one off, once again.

WHAT DID YOU DO IN 2023 THAT YOU’D NEVER DONE BEFORE?

Hmmm, well, I had to wear a low cam boot for four weeks, that was certainly a new one, for me. As an ancillary bonus, it did absolutely nothing to solve the problem it was ostensibly designed to remedy, so yeah … how fun.

DID YOU KEEP YOUR NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS, AND WILL YOU MAKE MORE FOR 2024?

I have found that resolutions are made to be brazenly broken, so no and no.

DID ANYONE CLOSE TO YOU GIVE BIRTH?

The wife of a new colleague of mine at the office just gave birth to their second son, which means my colleague will be missing from the office for several weeks in the new year.

DID ANYONE CLOSE TO YOU DIE?

Thankfully, no.

WHAT COUNTRIES DID YOU VISIT?

In June, we went to Italy for a couple of weeks, which I highly recommend. 

WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO HAVE IN 2024 THAT YOU LACKED IN 2023?

I don’t like to dwell on the things I don’t have. That said, I’d love to have an actionable, proven remedy for my stupid foot problem, but I don’t know that it exists.

WHAT DATE FROM 2023 WILL REMAIN ETCHED UPON YOUR MEMORY?

It may sound histrionic, but waking up to the news that Geordie Walker of Killing Joke had died the Saturday morning after Thanksgiving is a moment that will definitely stay with me.

WHAT WAS YOUR BIGGEST ACHIEVEMENT OF THE YEAR?

Oh, who knows? Staying marginally healthy, sane and employed, keeping my children fed, housed and educated and managing to endear myself enough to my wife for her not to want to routinely murder me.

WHAT WAS YOUR BIGGEST FAILURE?

Oh, I’m sure there’s a whole grab bag from which to choose, but, in my opinion, it was an instance wherein I was unable to effectively hide my frustration from an individual who insisted on making last-minute changes to a big, time-sensitive project at the office. While the project was completed on time and received praise from various parties, I was still reprimanded for it, which was kind of humiliating. That still stings.

DID YOU SUFFER ILLNESS OR INJURY?

Back in February, I was struck with a mystery virus that wasn’t COVID, which manifested as a recurring, low-grade fever that went on for two weeks. And, yes, I somehow broke a bone in my left foot, resulting in the avascular necrosis I continue to grapple with.

WHAT WAS THE BEST THING YOU BOUGHT?

Maybe this lovely pair of low-top Chuck Taylor All-Stars I’m currently wearing (brown with gold eyelets). Oh, and I picked up a nice, floor-model front hall mirror..

WHOSE BEHAVIOR MERITED CELEBRATION?

Both of my children continue to amaze me on a daily basis.

WHOSE BEHAVIOR MADE YOU APPALLED AND DEPRESSED?

Regardless of which poll you prefer to pay attention to, Donald Trump still has an astonishingly high degree of favorability among my fellow Americans, which fills me with withering disdain and blistering contempt.

WHAT DID YOU GET REALLY, REALLY EXCITED ABOUT?

My son Oliver has already been accepted at four colleges. We still have miles to go, but that validation (and relief) is really rewarding.

WHERE DID MOST OF YOUR MONEY GO?

If you go back and read my answer from last year about my building being assessed, it still holds true. I’m paying roughly $900 more in maintenance than I would otherwise normally, and will continue to until February.

WHAT SONG WILL ALWAYS REMIND YOU OF 2023?

Probably Depeche Mode’s “A Pain That I’m Used To,” specifically the live version of the Jacques Lu Cont remix that they played at the Madison Square Garden show Oliver and I caught back in the Spring.

COMPARED TO THIS TIME LAST YEAR, ARE YOU HAPPIER OR SADDER?

The past few months have been pretty rough on several people my family cares deeply about, and that’s sadly informed the mood of this season, a bit. Personally speaking, I’m a little bit down in the mouth, these days, and always waiting for the next shoe to drop, so to speak.

THINNER OR FATTER?

Oh, definitely fatter, which I think is symptomatic of my age. If I don’t curtail certain things, that’s only going to worsen, I fear.

RICHER OR POORER?

Until we reach the end of that assessment, I won’t fully sleep through the night.

WHAT DO YOU WISH YOU’D DONE MORE OF?

I wish I’d gotten a jump on certain things sooner. I am becoming more of a procrastinator, unfortunately.

WHAT DO YOU WISH YOU’D DONE LESS OF?

I can be strikingly undisciplined, at times. I wish that wasn’t the case.

HOW DID YOU SPEND CHRISTMAS?

It hasn’t happened yet, but we’re doing Christmas Eve here in NYC, then heading to my mom’s in Quogue on Christmas Day, then back to NYC and then off to my sister-in-law Katie’s in Pennsylvania for a few days, after that.

WHO DID YOU SPEND THE MOST TIME ON THE PHONE WITH?

Absolutely no idea.

DID YOU FALL IN LOVE IN 2023?

I’ve been very happily married since 2001.

HOW MANY ONE-NIGHT STANDS IN THE LAST YEAR?

See answer above. Also, who would answer this question?

WHAT WAS YOUR FAVORITE TV PROGRAM?

They come and go, and I forget (not a good sign), but I sincerely enjoyed the last season of “C.B. Strike” and I’m currently loving “Slow Horses.” Gary Oldman is so goddamn great.

DO YOU HATE ANYONE NOW THAT YOU DIDN’T HATE AT THIS TIME LAST YEAR?

What a question. Well, Donald Trump, obviously, although I’ve always hated him, so that’s not really new. Vivek Ramaswany seems entirely worthy of intense hatred. Seriously, fuck THAT guy. Ron DeSantis is a complete dick, but he just seems more stupid than anything else.

WHAT WAS THE BEST BOOK YOU READ?

I really enjoyed "I Die Each Time I Hear The Sound" by Mike Doughty, but especially loved “This Must Be the Place” by Jesse Rifkin. That kid is going places.

WHAT WAS YOUR GREATEST MUSICAL DISCOVERY?

I hate to say it, but 2023 just wasn’t a good year for me with new music, although my favorite new album from a new band was easily Negative Stars by Skull Practitioners.

New music aside, 2023 was a great year for live shows. My son and I caught Life in a Blender at the Rockwood Music Hall, Jerry Harrison and Adrian Belew at Sony Hall, Depeche Mode at Madison Square Garden, Sisters of Mercy at King's Theater in Brooklyn, Calexico at Le Poisson Rouge, Squeeze and the Psychedelic Furs at Radio City, Duran Duran at the Forest Hills Stadium, The Mission, Theatre of Hate and The Chameleons at Le Poisson Rouge and The Damned at Warsaw in Brooklyn. 

WHAT DID YOU WANT AND GET?

I really wanted my son to be accepted at Trinity Dublin, and he got in. That doesn’t mean he’s going there, but it was tremendously great news that he was accepted.

WHAT DID YOU WANT AND NOT GET?

How come Trump is still not yet in fucking prison?

WHAT WERE YOUR FAVORITE FILMS OF THIS YEAR?

The fact that I cannot remember seems pretty telling, doesn’t it? I didn’t see “Barbie.” I didn’t see “Oppenheimer.” I was profoundly disappointed by “May December.” I’m sure once I post this, I’ll remember one.

WHAT DID YOU DO ON YOUR BIRTHDAY AND HOW OLD WERE YOU?

I turned 56, which is no fun at all, but I had a lovely dinner at home with my wife and son (Charlotte was at school).

WHAT’S ONE THING THAT WOULD HAVE MADE YOUR YEAR IMMEASURABLY MORE SATISFYING?

Trump’s incarceration. I’d have loved it if Oliver and I were able to make it to the Killing Joke show at the Royal Albert Hall in London, back in March, but work demands and school schedules forbade.

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONAL FASHION CONCEPT IN 2023?

Lost without hope of retrieval.

WHAT KEPT YOU SANE?

The need to be there for my family.

WHAT CELEBRITY/PUBLIC FIGURE DID YOU FANCY MOST?

This question always seems roundly inappropriate.

WHAT POLITIAL ISSUE STIRRED YOU THE MOST?

Trump trial(s).

WHO DID YOU MISS?

Each year, more and more of my most admired individuals pass away, and we lost some great ones in 2023, like Sinead O'Connor, Mark Stewart of the Pop Group, Andy Rourke of The Smiths....but this year, absolutely nothing holds a candle to the loss of Geordie Walker of my beloved Killing Joke.

WHO WAS THE BEST NEW PERSON YOU MET?

Probably Mariano Cabrera, who spearheaded the Charly Garcia Corner movement.

TELL US A VALUABLE LIFE LESSON YOU LEARNED IN 2023?

You don’t have to be screaming for it to be broken. Don’t be fooled.

SONG LYRIC THAT SUMS UP 2023.

Absent Friends Shall Live By Love
- Killing Joke

Honour The Fire: The Geordie Sticker D.I.Y. Guide

A couple of years back, I started printing up promotional stickers for my stupid blog with the ill-mannered and inconsiderate intention of furtively affixing them to walls, hard surfaces and municipal accoutrements all around lower Manhattan, much to the pronounced chagrin of the local constabulary and the easily offended. Ever since then, I’ve had stickers “on the brain,” as they say.

So, in the wake of the passing of Geordie Walker of Killing Joke (which I’ve written at great length about here, here and here), when fellow guitarist Mark Gemini Thwaite (he of The Mission, The Wonder Stuff and frequent collaborator of Big Paul Ferguson, Peter Murphy and droves of others) posted on Facebook an iconic image from the “Eighties” video of Geordie playing his signature Gibson-ES295, I was instantly struck with an idea.

I brazenly swiped Mark’s image and, comparable to my blog’s stickers, had a bunch of them printed up. A few days later, they arrived in the mail and I put into action the second half of my frankly very silly plan.

While, to my knowledge, Geordie never lived in New York City (beyond his native England, I know he spent large amounts of time in Detroit and finally Prague), Killing Joke certainly played New York innumerable times. I count myself fortunate to have been privy to experience many of those shows. In any case, my plan was to affix my Geordie stickers in strategic locations around the map wherever Killing Joke had performed.

As such, that found me slapping up my miniature tribute to our heroically bequiffed string-bender brandishing his Golden Harp near the former sites of likely haunts like CBGB, The Cat Club, Irving Plaza,The Ritz (both 11th Street and 54th locations), the Limelight and several others. I also affixed one to the gate of the former address of Subterranean Records on Cornelia Street, the basement-level record cave (long gone) wherein I bought the 12” single for “Eighties” just mere minutes after first hearing it across the street at my friend Spike’s apartment. Like I said, a silly mission, but executed from the heart.

In any case, when I started sharing images of this endeavor on Facebook, I was immediately inundated with requests for the stickers. As I repeatedly pointed out, I was not selling them, but merely doing this as my own small tribute. I offered to share some, but that resulted in a flood of emails from fellow acolytes literally around the world. Suffice to say, my supply is already dwindling, and that would be a fuck-ton of postage. So, I thought I’d compose a do-it-yourself missive, which is what you’re currently reading.

1. Select your image:
   
   
   
   
   
2. Click on over to Sticker Mule (you don't have to use them, but they're who I went with).
   
   
3. Should you be low on funds (especially for a not-at-all crucial purpose such as this), maybe check their “deal” section, which routinely offers pronouncedly cheaper prices, if you’re patient.
   
   
4. Place your order (they’re very prompt and provide a proof of the finished product to you before you sign off on your purchase).
   
   
5. A few days later, you’ll get them in the mail, and you’ll be off to the races.

The Holiday Spike

I have grave doubts as to the veracity of this number, but evidently, this blog is very popular today.

Requiem for the Blue Willow: Sealed with a KITH

By this stage of the proceedings, I’ve written about the long-lost Blue Willow, a relatively short-lived restaurant on the northeast corner of Broadway at Bleecker Street, more times than is probably warranted (see below), especially for someone who never actually set in the establishment when it was named as such.

As first unspooled in this old post, my fascination with the Blue Willow – which went out of business in 1990 – had more to do with it being the atmospheric location of the 1989 album cover for Gavin Friday & the Man Seezer’s Each Man Kills The Thing He Loves, the primary image having been captured in the rear chamber, with ancilary shots from the same shoot around the stately, marbel-laden interior of the eatery used to adorn promotional materials and the sleeves of various singles from the record, tidily wrapping the entire project with a consistent theme of noirishly elegant decrepitude. Here are a few of those images – all snapped by acclaimed Dutch photographer Anton Corbijn, once again.

Nice, right?

Even though I was a huge fan of the album (which you should run out and fetch for yourselves), I regret to concede that I didn’t connect the dots that the cover shot had been captured here in my native New York City until well after the fact. By the time I tracked it down at 644 Broadway, back in 2013, the space had been commandeered by a menswear emporium of no great distinction, with the rear chambers being occupied by a sneaker/streetwear concern called, inexplicably, KITH.

Over the ensuing years, I documented doings on that corner as the menswear venture changed hands and then vacated the premesis entirely. KITH went onto move one block to the east, taking over the corner building on the east side of Lafayette Street. From that point, I speculated as to what was going to happen next in the compelling, high-ceilinged atriums of 644 Broadway, taking solace that many of the architecutral trappings from its tenure as the Blue Willow (and prior to that era) were still visible.

After a long period of complete dormancy, activity started anew in that space, slowly revealing itself to be an adjunct concern of KITH, that being the flagship outlet of KITH Women, which has a formal opening tomorrow, actually.

I am sad to say, however, that, as evidenced in the video on the top of this page, virtually every aspect of the former interiors of that space are now covered up, from the marble trim that framed the rear portals to the high ceiling that allegedly still sported bullet holes from a botched robbery during the era of the building’s original incarnatio as a bank.

You’d never know it was the sepulchral setting for Each Man Kills the Thing He Loves, let alone recognize any semblance of its long history prior to that fleeting era.

Now, it’s just another douchey retail outlet.

`Twas not always thus. Here’s that corner back in 1913, beneath that, what it looks like today.

The story so far....

Searching for the Blue Willow (2013)

The Blue Willow is Dead (2015)

Ghosts of the Blue Willow (2017)

Back to the Blue Willow (2022)

Back Again to the Blue Willow ... Just Down from CB's (2022)

Angler's Angst

As a lifelong, native New Yorker, I’ve never been a fisherman.

Oh, sure, I was taken fishing, during the summers, as a kid, but that was something different. My dear friend Charlie’s father used to insist we join him on some early-morning blue-fish missions out on Long Island. We’d all pile into some wobbly, amenity-challenged boat, and Charlie’s dad would start reeling something in and then frantically hand one of us the rod so we could complete the job. This inevitably resulted in the fish getting away with a mortal wound and/or yanking the rod right out of our inexperienced hands and into the water, which made for rousing mornings of damp, frequently repulsive disappointment.

Charlie’s father also dependably supplied our family with unsolicited amounts of the ocean life he did manage to catch --- meaning that my first brushes with seafood were marred by this particularly oily, unappetizing variant of fish. But in terms of catching fish, I just never got the hang of it, never improved, and never particularly cared to.

Then, around 1980, or so, one of my best friends – Shawn – moved from our shared Upper East Side neighborhood to the unlikely environs of Bozeman, Montana. For a couple of summers after, I would fly out to visit him for a week or two. While he and I had originally bonded over our mutual loves of Marvel comics, “Star Wars” and KISS, since moving to “Big Sky country,” Shawn had embraced his evidently long-repressed “outdoorsy” streak and gotten into stuff like horseback-riding and ATVs (all-terrain vehicles). I was more-or-less good with those hearty activities, but he’d also become absolutely preoccupied with fly-fishing. Here was where we diverged.

I should probably point out, at this stage of the narrative, that fishing was probably always in Shawn’s blood. His grandfather was a world-renowned novelist whose name I shan’t share, but you can probably figure it out (let’s put it this way – the character of Captain Quint in “Jaws” was basically a thinly-veiled homage to the writer in question). As such, Shawn had embraced the discipline of fly-fishing with the same, devoted zeal he had formerly applied to his meticulously fastidious comic-collecting (an endeavor I’d been much more onboard with), going as far as “tying" his own "flies” (i.e. making his own, specialized, bug-emulating lures). It's kind of a big thing, evidently. 

Anyway, I was out at Shawn’s lovely ranch house in Montana, at one point, in the summer of 1981, and, not wanting to be a party-pooper, I mustered up as much good sportsmanship as I could to gamely agree to go properly fly-fishing, an activity for which I harbored no aptitude -- much less enthusiasm -- but hey … I was the City Mouse guest and Shawn was the Country Mouse host. What else could I do?

I was shortly outfitted with a rod, reel, a fly personally tied by my friend Shawn and a ridiculous pair of “waders,” which are basically giant-size, rubber overalls intended to keep the wearer dry while messing about in waist-to-chest-deep water. Now fully equipped and ready for aquatic blood sport, we dispatched to a nearby river – the name of which I’ve long-since blocked – to go cruelly deceive and summarily murder some unsuspecting fish.

I was pretty much immediately uncomfortable and out of my depth (figuratively and literally), standing without a great deal of conviction in cold, murky water up to my waist. Again, though, not wanting to let everybody down, I was determined to follow instruction and give this soggy endeavor a proper try. Having listened to the directives and watched more capable individuals demonstrate, I dutifully raised my rod and reel and prepared to cast my hook-laden fly over the water in a manner that replicated the frenetic, flighty mannerisms of an insect. As I brought my right arm back, I did so without a great deal of thought or finesse, and immediately heard a strange whirring sound.

Time suddenly slowed down to a glacial crawl.

I’d brought my rod back far too quickly and the fly on my lengthy line was now speedily whipping around my head in a sharply tightening orbit, as if hungrily zeroing in on a surface soft enough to puncture.

In these fleeting nanoseconds, I was somehow entirely aware of what was happening, but frozen in fear of making an already dangerous situation incalculably worse.

The hook finally found its target – my cheek, just about a half-an-inch south of my left eye. The sharpest point of the hook plunged deep into my face, and I suddenly felt both a rush of adrenalin, a palpable sting and a pronounced surge of empathy for the average, unassuming fish.

I emerged out of the weeds and onto the banks where Shawn’s mother and younger brother were sitting. “I caught something,” I laughed. I wasn’t giggling out of bravado, but out of the sheer, panicky realization of how lucky I’d been that the hook sank where it did and not slightly higher. Forty-two years after this incident, I still shudder at the thought.

I was quickly brought to a nearby hospital to extract the hook from my face, with Shawn’s parents informing the hospital staff that I was their son – an absolutely heroic lie, given that Shawn and his family all boasted a pronounced family resemblance to each other that my comparatively dirty-blonde hair and summer-burnt skin bore absolutely no kinship to. Mercifully, they bought it, and the offending bit of metal was excised without much incident.

I haven’t been fly-fishing since.

"Why Won't It Snow?"

There used to be a great, little record/disc shop in Greenwich Village, in the late `90s, called Route 66. Originally on Bleecker, it moved over to MacDougal Street into the small space above what had formerly been 99 Records about a decade earlier. For a while, there was this kid named Daniel behind the register who I was friendly with, but my closest contact was the store’s main buyer and manager, a guy named Andy. After several visits, I’d become something of a regular, and Andy – knowing my tastes and sensibilities, by this point – used to set stuff aside and snagged limited editions of stuff for me, which was kind of amazing. The world has become so used to immediate gratification here in the age of ubiquitous streaming, but back during the era of physical media, if you wanted to own or even simply hear something, you had to put your pants on and go out and find it. So, if you had an ally out there reserving copies of such items for you, that was a nice set-up.

So, while Andy dutifully kept his eye out for any product that was in-line with my tastes, he also recognized me as a fellow music fan and, frankly, an easy mark. As such, he would regularly evangelize new stuff to me (Andy, for example, was the first guy to hip me to Queens of the Stone Age). But, thanks to Andy’s frothy-mouthed powers of persuasion, I found myself frequently springing for first singles and albums from indie bands I’d previously never heard of like The Futureheads, Ash, Strangelove, My Vitriol, The Hot Hot Heat, Kula Shaker, Mansun, Muse and dozens more. Some of them “stuck” and I became an ardent follower of their output. Others… well, not so much. Suffice to say, I never purchased another record by the Hot Hot Heat … if they even made one.

In any case, one such album was the eponymous debut by a Dublin trio called JJ72 … their name, if memory serves, being some sort of oblique allusion to fellow countryman James Joyce, although they weren’t forthcoming about it. JJ72 played a sort of youthfully angst-ridden variant of ponderously histrionic indie rock with obvious nods to more celebrated forebears like Joy Division, albeit without the grim gravitas. I regularly listened to it and included songs from the record in question on mixtapes I made for friends of mine (remember when people did that?). After a while, though, I moved onto other things.

If I’m not mistaken, Route 66 closed-up shop in about 2001. Daniel had jumped ship a year or so earlier, first decamping to JetSet Records, the then-label of my friends in Firewater, before quitting there to concentrate on his own band, that being a little concern named Interpol. Sadly, I have no idea whatever became of Andy. I’d love to track him down and speak with him again.

While much of the music from that particular era now feels dated and nostalgic to me, there is a song by JJ72 that almost smacks me in the face every year, that being the one below. Apropos of their signature, “Snow” strains to establish some inner vein of deep, emotional turmoil, but the somewhat clumsy latticework of the song’s lyrics don’t entirely carry the weight of that ambition. The chorus, however, does ring true for me….

“WHY WON’T IT SNOW? LIKE THEY SAID IT WOULD?”

It hasn’t substantially snowed in New York City in over 650 days, which …. is quite something to consider.

The lovely shot of MacDougal Street in the snow at the top of this post was snapped by one Brian Eden. You can find more of his stunning images by clicking right here.

The KISS Goodbye: Bonus Bullshit

For those of you fortunate enough to have never seen it, the “plot” of KISS’s justifiably maligned, made-for-television movie from 1978, “KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park” involved a convoluted yarn about a rock-hating mad scientist at an amusement park who strives to seize power via an army of androids. Unwittingly part of the evil doctor's sinister plot, KISS is scheduled to perform at the park, but are summarily kidnapped and replaced by four of the scientist's doppelgangers. Evil robotic KISS assumes the stage, inciting the audience to riot. Courtesy of some exceptionally unconvincing telekinesis (oops, I forgot to mention that, in the film, each, each member of KISS has a superpower), KISS manage to -- surprise -- escape and engage in a ridiculously disjointed onstage melee with their evil twins (see below).

Well, life imitated ... ummm … art, this week, when, at the climax of their allegedly final show at Madison Square Garden last Saturday night (which I lamented here), KISS announced that while they were retiring from touring, a “new era” of KISS was being born with “digital avatars” taking their place from this point forward.

Everything about this is awful, stupid and I want no part of it. To my mind, it’s entirely antithetical to everything that made KISS distinctive in the first place, and I’ll tell ya why.

What made KISS special was that this bizarre spectacle — this otherworldly amalgam of ridiculous super-heroics, pyromaniacal bombast and high-decibel rock catharsis — was all the work of four more-or-less regular dudes. Sure, they looked like interplanetary shock troopers from another dimension, but you knew that it was still a human endeavor. Somehow, a schmuck from Inwood, an Israeli expat from Long Island, a stoner nogoodnick from da Bronx and a tough ex-gangbanger from Brooklyn all somehow coalesced into this whole different thing. Obviously cribbing from forebears like Alice Cooper and the New York Dolls, they upped the ante across the board, laying waste to all semblance of nuance and subtlety in the process to go whole goddamn hog. Whether you were onboard or not, you can’t take that from them. The end result was always “What the Hell is THIS, and how are they actually doing that?"

It’s a comparison that would entirely repulse members of both ensembles to their respective cores, but I remember reacting the same way when I first saw Devo on "Saturday Night Live" in 1978. I was only 12, but was allowed to stay up late, as we were visiting my cousins at their place in the Berkshires. “Saturday Night Live” — unlike today — was still a new, novel and wholly unpredictable entity — all bets were off as to what you were going to see. When host Fred Willard first introduced Devo, everyone in the room fell silent as this entirely bizarre gaggle of weirdos started playing this lopsided cover of “Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones — no one could tell whether it was an actual band performance or just another surreal sketch.

But, again, with Devo — as entirely strange as they were, you ultimately knew that these were just …well, maybe not “regular guys,” but still highly imaginative human beings with a specific concept — a polar concept from KISS, of course, but curiously aligned by their comparatively shocking approach and out-there aesthetic.

Back to the KISS virtual avatar thing, though — all it does is separate the artifice from the individuals. So, all you're left with is the trappings of the *brand*. By subtracting the human element, all it is just another high-gloss video game. I suppose kudos will be due to whatever digital animators are behind the scenes, but there’s absolutely nothing exciting about watching a hologram Gene Simmons breathe fire. There’s no risk, no spontaneity, and no human element. It mean, KISS haven’t really been an organic entity for decades, but this will just be the nail in that coffin.

But, y’know, what do I know?

The KISS Goodbye: Coda

As discussed in needless detail back on this post, the first vinyl LP I ever bought with my own money (well, my allowance) was a KISS record, specifically Dressed to Kill. I believe my original intention was to buy a copy of KISS Alive!, but my meager funds were not up to that particular task, so I settled with Dressed to Kill, took it home, and played the Hell out of it, much to the pronounced dismay and encroaching chagrin of my family. To this day, I still have that same well-loved (i.e. battered) copy of Dressed to Kill.

It didn’t end there, of course. I was a fervent and dutiful KISS fan until about 1981’s Music From The Elder, but even by the time of that much-maligned album’s heroically ill-considered foray into concept-album buffoonery, my enthusiasm had significantly waned. While I never renounced them, I no longer snapped up each and every bit of music they saw fit to release. As I was keen to say, at the time, I became a conscientious objector in the KISS Army.

Upon the advent of the compact disc, however, I did go back and snap up all those discs again. Once a KISS fan, always a KISS fan, it seemed

The band’s own fortunes suffered a perilous period of hills and valleys over the course of the next several years until the inevitable reunion of the original members in full-make-up, a resumption of duty I was entirely onboard for. I paid handsomely for tickets to that show at Madison Square Garden in 1996, and then again two years later at the same venue for their tour in support of the entirely forgettable Psycho Circus. That, as they say, was that.

In the wake of that tour, acrimony crept back into the ranks of KISS, and Ace Frehley and Peter Criss were again quietly respectively replaced by guitarist Tommy Thayer and drummer Eric Singer, each assuming the signature guises of their more storied forebears. As mentioned in this post from earlier this year, this affront was the dealbreaker for me.

This evening, KISS are slated to play their (allegedly) final concert at, once again, Madison Square Garden. Front-row seats for this show are priced at a level that would require wholesale asset-liquidation and maybe a bit of heathy-organ harvesting in order to financially accommodate, which means it’s going to be one solid row of headbanging hedge-funders. Even the “cheap seats” are ludicrous, starting, I gather, in the 600’s. Pardon my French, but fuck that shit.

Once again, as mentioned in this post, there was never a chance that I was planning on attending (outside of someone giving me tickets, which was and remains pretty unlikely). As far as I’m concerned, I saw KISS properly. Don’t need to again. I’ve fully made my peace with that.

That said, a decision I made this morning had a sort of sad, ironic sting to it. For the past year and change, the co-op apartment building my little family is fortunate enough to live in has been under an assessment to finance an extensive elevator upgrade and other sundry refurbishments. Without going too deeply into it, for more than a year, our monthly maintenance bill has been $900 more than it usually is, a strain which has all but decimated any concept of “disposable income.” Here on the precipice of the holidays, we are looking for ways to generate a bit of revenue, which involves everything from cashing-in the contents of our change jar to cancelling various subscriptions. In looking for items to possibly pawn, I unearthed a particular prize that might collect a meager sum.

From the bottom of my front-hall closet, I pulled out 2001’s The Box Set, the purportedly “definitive” collection of KISS rarities. It includes 5 CDs and a handsomely bound book, and comes festooned in a miniature guitar case. In all honesty, I don’t know how I came to possess it, but I believe it may have been a gift. In any case, I think I ripped what I needed from its sonic contents to my iTunes some eons ago, and this artifact has basically lived in my closet ever since, pretty much falling on my feet every time I open the door to fetch a coat.

The timing is strange, yes, but today is the day I bring this item to Academy Records on West 18th Street — much as I did with the Stooges boxset some years ago (unsuccessfully, as you may recall) — to see what sum it might fetch.

Last night, my son fielded his first college acceptance letter, and we want to treat him to a nice dinner to congratulate him for all his hard work. I’m hoping The Box Set will enable that.

I’m sure Gene and Paul would understand.

Rum, Sodomy & "The WAAAAAAAIIIIT": Shane MacGowan Checks Out Killing Joke in London, `79

A slightly surreal, bittersweet image to end an awful week on ….

While widely perceived as Irish to the core, Shane MacGowan was actually born in England to Irish immigrant parents and spent most of his life there (which is why such a wide swathe of Pogues’ songs invoke life in London). A fervent and volatile member of early British Punk, MacGowan was as much a face on the scene as folks like Siouxsie Sioux, Billy Idol et al. A testament to how small and incestuous (terrible word, I know) the British Punk scene was, here he is (above) in the attending crowd at an early Killing Joke show in 1979, spotted by my friend Neil Perry from my other friend Frank Jenkinson’s magisterial photo collection, "Killing Joke Picture Book." According to Mike Coles, this venue was called The Moonlight, located in the West Hampstead section of London. Prior to that, it was a venue called Klooks Kleek, which was "a haven for all the early British blues and jazz bands in the 60s."

The late Geordie Walker is the shock of white hair behind the cymbal. Surely, these two have been in rooms together since this photo, right? Michael Coles is in there, as well, just four faces to the left of Shane.

I normally hate all that “rock n’ roll heaven” bullshit (i.e. paintings of Last Supper-style congregations of dead rockers like Freddie Mercury, Hendrix and Jim Morrisson, etc.), but I would be not at all surprised if Shane and Geordie were knocking back a few pints together in the afterworld somewhere as I type this.

Pogue Mahone & Killing Joke Forever!

Here are other shots from that gig, also by the great Frank Jenkinson. Buy his books here. 

Today, that place is called The Rail Way, and looks like this...