Hey again. The Dublin excursion, should you be curious, was a tremendous success. My son was super-enthused about Trinity Dublin, so we’ll see, but it was great to check the place out, walk around the campus and meet some of the student body and faculty, etc. We didn’t make it to the Book of Kells, alas, but oh well … maybe next time.
If you’ve not been, Dublin is a warm and inviting city. The food was superb, the people were terrific, and we drank at multiple pubs on both side of the Liffey. It rained a fair bit, of course, but that wasn't unexpected. As threatened, we also hit Dublin’s network of record stores like a well-wielded shillelagh, rifling through the bins at likely spots as The Rage, Freebird Records, The Sound Cellar, Spindizzy Records and both locations of Dublin’s still thriving Tower Records. I was hoping to find a far-flung rarity or two by favorites like Stump, the Stiff Little Fingers and the Virgin Prunes, but no such luck. I did pick up some discs by comparatively newer Irish bands like Sprints, the Fontaines D.C. and a band called the Mary Wallopers that I’m greatly looking forward to listening to.
Anyway, I’m now trying to reacclimate after our whirlwind jaunt, so please do bear with me.
Hey again, all. I know I said I was leaving, but I’m not departing until later this afternoon, and a regular reader named Crawford just shared this me, and I thought it was cool enough to evangelize here. Here’s hoping you agree.
The clip below is by a photographer named Josh Charow about a compelling project. Here’s his official description.
I spent the past two years creating my first photography book titled 'Loft Law. The Last of New York City's Original Artist Lofts' about artists living under the protection of the Loft Law. The law, enacted in 1982 (Article 7-C of the Multiple Dwelling Law), granted protection and rent stabilization to thousands of artists who were living illegally in commercial and manufacturing zoned lofts in neighborhoods like Soho, Tribeca, and the Bowery after the manufacturing industry predominantly left Manhattan.
Two years ago, I found a map of the remaining protected buildings, rang hundreds of doorbells, and photographed and interviewed over 75 artists who are still living in these incredible lofts to this day. The photographs explore some of the most unique beautiful, and hidden artist studios across New York City. The book includes writing and personal stories from the incredible group of artists featured in the book.
Buy the book: https://www.joshuacharow.com/shop/lof...
To inquire about purchasing a print, please contact: [email protected]
Hey there, all. Just a quick heads-up. M’self and the fam are jetting off to Dublin, for a few days, to look at some college opportunities for my son, Oliver. I’ll be back in the New York in a flash, but don’t expect any updates here between now and next week, as I’ll either be busy downing pints of Guinness, combing through dusty Irish record shops and/or speaking with school admissions folks. Or possibly downing pints of Guinness while in dusty Irish records with school admissions folks. We’ll see.
To psyche up my lad, here’s a playlist I made for him of exclusively Irish bands. Enjoy & cheers. See you next week.
I believe the first time I ever heard the expression, “Kick Out The Jams” was via a copy of Creem Magazine that I’d picked up at a comic book shop in midtown very early on. Inside there was a fummetti, basically a sequence of photographs organized like a comic book (National Lampoon used to do them all the time) featuring my then-beloved heroes in KISS. I didn’t understand any of the references, double-entendres or jokes (I would have been about 9, at the time), but there was one concert shot of the band in signature mid-song formation, and above Gene Simmons’ head, there was a speech bubble with the emphatic legend, “KICK OUT THE JAMS.” I had no idea what it meant, but immediately thought it sounded cool.
In due time, my musical tastes started to broaden, a little bit, and I found myself besotted with all sorts of hard rock and heavy metal records, slowly building my collection beyond KISS, the Beatles, Queen, and Pink Floyd and introducing telling slabs of vinyl by bands like AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Cheap Trick, Van Halen and Blue Öyster Cult. It was by way of that latter band that I learned that “Kick Out the Jams” wasn’t just an incendiary catch phrase, but rather a proper song.
On side two of Some Enchanted Evening, a live album from 1978, the BÖC boys launched proceedings with a high-energy number of the same name, prefacing it with the declarative statement, “KICK OUT THE JAMS, BROTHERS & SISTERS!” It became an immediate favorite of mine. I feel exceptionally remiss to confess that it was some time before I realized that the song was a cover, and not a BÖC original.
By the time I got to college, however, while I’d figured it out, I still hadn’t heard the original, until a preternaturally savvy friend (in regards to music, at least) named Jay duly enlightened me. As recounted elsewhere on this blog, Jay and I found ourselves at Denison University in the mid-80’s as two scowling, vaguely anti-social music geeks in a roiling sea of prepped-out, tobacco-chewin’, BMW-drivin’, lacrosse-playin’ Grateful Dead fans. But beyond the bands Jay and I initially bonded over, like the Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, The Clash, Public Image Ltd. and a few others, Jay encouraged me to dig deeper, turning me onto to crucial albums by seminal bands like the King Crimson, Berlin-era Bowie, the Velvet Underground, The Modern Lovers, The Stooges and — wait for it — The MC5.
Jay dropped the needle on the title track of the storied first album — a live album, no less — by the MC5, one late, beery evening in the perpetually dank, squalid ground floor of Crawford Hall, and practically blew out the windows of his room. I want to say I suddenly remember the piranhas in Jay’s psycho roommate Ralph’s fish tank suddenly swimming around with newfound urgency as the guitars of Fred “Sonic” Smith and the mighty Brother Wayne Kramer followed vocalist Rob Tyner’s adrenalized entreaty to ”KICK OUT THE JAMS, MOTHERFUCKER!!” in a manner that made Blue Öyster Cult’s rendition sound about as ferocious as Joni Mitchell. I was immediately schooled and shortly bought my own copy of that LP at nearby Threshold Audio in Newark, Ohio.
In short order, I discovered that the MC5 were practically the foundational root of everything I’d come to revere in music, and couldn’t quite glean how this seismically influential band (much like their period-specific peers in the Stooges, the Modern Lovers and the Velvet Underground) were so relatively unknown. Spot-welding the atonal skronk of free jazz with the high-octane showmanship of James Brown and a full-throttled, no-nonsense guitar battery that hugely informed both heavy metal and punk rock, the MC5 were both a spectacle for the stage and a riot of sound. Paired with the righteously pugnacious political rhetoric of their ersatz manager, John Sinclair (whose notorious manifesto being “Dope, Guns & Fucking in the Streets!”), the MC5 went out of their way to be radical across the board.
The MC5 were there first. They’re the band that made Detroit “Rock City.” Without them, most of your favorite bands — if you have any taste, that is — probably wouldn’t exist. Respect is due, and they rarely, if ever, got it, least of all from the completely bullshit organization that is the Rock N' Roll Hall of Fame. Fuck all that.
At some point in 2000, I was invited, via the late Paul Raven of Killing Joke, to this weird party at Chelsea Piers. I can't remember what the actual event was "about," but lots of hip/cool folks were there (in the crowd, whilst walking around, I encountered the lead singer of Third Eye Blind, actress Gina Gershon and ...er...Lenny Kravitz). I felt like the proverbial fish out of water. I walked by this one table, though, and there was legendary photographer Bob Gruen (who, incidentally, is the man who photographed that aforementioned fummetti for Creem Magazine), fabled Blondie roadie Mike Sticca, Brian James of The Damned, and Brother Wayne Kramer of the MC5. I approached and sheepishly asked if I could take their picture, and Wayne breaks into a wide smile and says "sure, but only if you get in the picture with us," which I thought was damn cool of them. See resultant photo below.
I normally hate the expression in question, but in this instance, it fits the bill: REST IN POWER, BROTHER WAYNE KRAMER!
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