Over the weekend, I took a stroll down to Fulton and Water Streets, i.e. the Seaport, to check out an outdoor retrospective entitled “Punk’s Not Dead,” featuring several iconic (and some not-so-iconic) photographs of all things punk by fabled shutterbugs like Roberta Bayley, Godlis, Bob Gruen, Ebet Roberts and a few others. Honestly speaking, most of the images in question are widely celebrated and circulated, so I wasn’t really expecting to see anything I’d never seen before, but several of them were blown up to maximum size, so I wanted to check that out. Also, it was a lovely, early summer day wherein I had nothing to do, so, it was a fun excursion.
In any case, after snapping a few pics of my own (and asking a Polish tourist to capture a shot of me standing in front of Godlis’ famous portrait of Joey Ramone on St. Marks Place), I ambled around the seaport and then eventually walked back home to Greenwich Village.
When I was going over my pictures back at home, however, I started to examine a legendary photograph that I’d never really studied that closely before, and I suddenly noticed a detail I’d never spied. But now, I have a suspicion, and I can’t seem to be able to solve it.
Despite being named after the arguably preeminent flash point of all things Punk Rock, the 1976 compilation album, Max’s Kansas City, was rife with significant omission. That same year, that storied club’s biggest rival, CBGB, also put out its own compilation record that also largely dropped the ball, in that very same respect. While both LP’s remain great, period-specific documents of the gestating New York City punk scene of the mid-70’s, both records are almost more notable for who they failed to include (like, say, the Ramones and Blondie) than for the class of largely lesser celebrated acts (like, say, the Tuff Darts and The Fast) who made the cut.
On the strength of Wayne (now Jayne) County’s homage to the premier punk club of New York City, I picked up a used copy of the vinyl LP of Max’s Kansas City in, somewhat ironically, Columbus, Ohio, at a shop on High Street called, inexplicably, Magnolia Thunderpussy, during my sophomore year of college. Truthfully, while I liked that song, Suicide’s “Rocket USA" and Pere Ubu’s original recording of “Final Solution” (before owning this LP, the only version I’d ever heard was Peter Murphy’s cover), the rest of the Max’s album kinda failed to excite my imagination. A passing glance at Bob Gruen’s class photo on the cover depicted a gaggle of individuals who didn’t so much resemble punky iconoclasts as shaggy haired, denim-bedecked refugees from the staid, beige decade they were supposedly renouncing. But, y’know, I was young and stupid. I filed the LP away and spun the tracks I liked, from time to time, but rarely gave it further thought … until this past Saturday.
Blown up to about seven feet tall (see pic at the top of this post), the details of Gruen’s portrait really popped, and I captured a few shots accordingly. Strangely enough, while it’s easy to pick out Jayne County because of her massive red hair, the Suicide guys are harder to spot, tucked discreetly in the back, in front of Max’s ground-floor storefront window. Paul Zone of the Fast also cuts a distinctive profile by the hydrant, with his long black locks and garish sunglasses (atop his head), not to mention his self-promoting t-shirt. But the rest of the gathered scenesters seem to blend together in a manner that’s hard to identify.
But as I scanned the picture, for the first time looked at the couple depicted sitting on the curb. Again, I’d never scrutinized this photo this closely, prior to this, but now maximized in sharper detail, the angles and contours of the face the gent on the left suddenly struck me.
Is that Jim Carroll?
Certainly, looks like him, right?
A certifiable regular at Max’s Kansas City, as well documented in both his writings and on his amazing spoken-word album, Praying Mantis, it would not at all be surprising or uncommon to expect Jim Carroll to be hanging out with the Max’s crew. While Carroll wouldn’t release his debut LP with the Jim Carroll Band, Catholic Boy until four years after the release of the Max’s Kansas City album, he would have already made a name for himself as a budding writer, poet and perennial cool cat.
Unable to find any credible who’s-who guide to Gruen’s photograph (neither on Gruen’s own website nor the Morrison Hotel Gallery site, who currently offer prints of the work), I did some inventive Googling, but came up empty. I then remembered a book I’d prized off the TIME Magazine discard pile back during my days at the news desk, that being Yvonne Sewalll-Ruskin's (Max’s proprietor Mickey’s widow) beefy coffee-table book, “High on Rebellion,” which documented the club with over 200 photos. Unable to put my hand to it, I suddenly remembered that I’d parted with the book in a bag bound for Goodwill about two months ago, and cussed in exasperation.
I even found another shot from the same session, but it doesn't really shed more light...
My copy of the old LP currently resides in a flight case in my mother’s all-too-flood-friendly basement out on Quogue, but I don’t remember a breakdown of who’s who on the cover included in the LP anyway. In 2017, meanwhile, a concern called Jungle Records re-released Max’s Kansas City as a deluxe, two CD/LP set, re-titling it Max’s Kansas City: 1976 & Beyond, now including recordings from the folks they should have had the first time around like Iggy Pop, the New York Dolls, Johnny Thunders and Sid Vicious. If they included more information about the cover photo on that release, however, I’m still shit out of luck, as it’s already out of print.
As a going concern, Max's Kansas City itself on 213 Park Avenue South closed for good in 1981. In more recent years, it was a deli called Bread & Butter (as I captured in 2013, with my kids standing in for the punks), and later as a concern called Fraiche Maxx, but that, too, has closed.
Jim Carroll tragically left us in 2009. Photographer Bob Gruen is still around. Next time I spot him on the street (which does happen), I'm going to ask him, unless, of course, YOU know?
Is that Jim Carroll sitting on the curb? ADDENDUM: FIND OUT THE ANSWER HERE.
Weigh in.
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