I actually shared this on Facebook on New Year’s Eve, but it makes sense to put it here, as well.
Continuing on from the mission invoked on this recent post …
This past New Year’s Eve marked the 43rd anniversary of Killing Joke’s debut performance in the United States. On New Year’s Eve of 1980, Killing Joke played Manhattan’s own Rock Lounge at 285 West Broadway, just a couple of steps south of Canal Street. Sort of a more accessible club than the considerably hipper nearby venues of the era like the Mudd Club and Tier 3, the Rock Lounge doesn’t have a lot of information out there, although you can get a taste of what the interiors were like via the performance scenes of Kid Creole & the Coconuts in Glenn O’Brien’s “Downtown `81.” My friends over at the Tribeca Citizen posted a lengthy entry about the building’s history that completely omits any allusion at all to the Rock Lounge, which is most curious.
In terms of the gig itself, I don’t know that it was a particularly momentous event for the band, although Malicious Damage operative and principal Killing Joke design-meister Mike Coles was there and snapped the iconic image above of the late Geordie Walker. As can be gleaned from the ad above, admission to the event was a whopping $25.00, which seems like a very tidy sum for 1980, but I’m assuming this was because it was New Year’s Eve (bar open `til 8 am!!!) and not just another Wednesday night gig.
I’m not entirely sure when the Rock Lounge ceased operating. I do remember seeing a few bands in that space in the early `90s, although no one of any great renown. Until about 2014, the space in question was called the Canal Room. The storefront on the building's Canal Street corner was fleetingly a seafood joint just prior to the pandemic (which swiftly put an end to that venture) and now it seems to be a rentable event space called The Palace, although I’m not at all sure anything happens in the room that used to be the actual Rock Lounge.
But on the afternoon of New Year's Eve, I strolled down West Broadway to 285 to continue my tribute to Geordie.
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