Flaming Pablum

Back to Wiseman's "Central Park"

As far as I’m aware, the only work of director Frederick Wiseman I’d ever seen was his black-&-white documentary, “Titicut Follies,” which I watched in a cinema class in college. A bluntly harrowing depiction of the decrepit interiors of a Massachusetts hospital for the criminally insane in the last `60s, it made for deeply unpleasant and unsettling viewing.

“Central Park,” meanwhile, Wiseman’s 1989 documentary feature about – wait for it – Central Park is a different beast entirely. Captured 36 long years ago, the Central Park on display looks more or less the same, although it’s quite assuredly a different city now. The fashions alone are worth noting.

When this film was shot, I would have been freshly sprung from my four years in college in Ohio and interning at SPIN Magazine on West 18th Street. It seems like a lifetime ago, and pretty much is.

It’s not on YouTube and usually can only be viewed via academia, but some enterprising soul recently uploaded it onto a platform called OK. I can’t embed it, as I’m not a member of OK, but you can watch it – for the moment, at least – by clicking right here.

Totally RE-Wired: The Fall in NYC, 1981

Footage of the performance captured below -- namely the Fall performing "Totally Wired" on a stage in New York, possibly the Mudd Club, in 1981 -- has been around for eons (I even wrote about it back in 2016). The photograph by the great Laura Levine above -- taken presumably at the same gig, given vocalist Mark E. Smith's distinctive, stripy sweater -- might give a clue or two. Does anyone remember that pressed-tin ceiling at the Mudd Club? 

This past June, meanwhile, a cryptic little YouTube channel called, aptly enough, Lost Concert Films, uploaded this cleaner, crisper and clearer cut of the footage. It is fucking marvelous. Sadly, this video is the only video on that channel.

Regardless, ... enjoy!

Tied Up in Knots: Back ... Again.. to the Knitting Factory on East Houston Street

I’ve spoken about the old Knitting Factory – the original one on East Houston Street – a few times here, before (notably here, here and here). Like many of the live-music venues of its era, the club had its own vibe and character, even while hosting a truly wide array of different musical fare. I remember catching a diverse selection of bands there, including everyone from noise-rock royalty Sonic Youth to the post-hardcore oddballs in the Meat Puppets to quirky indie stalwarts King Missile through freaky jazz mutant James “Blood” Ulmer and the rock-disemboweling Casper Brotzman Massacre within its comparatively intimate confines. If you were looking to catch a bluesy bar band covering sleepy Clapton classics, you’d be shit-out-of-luck, but if you wanted to have you mind-blown and eardrums ravaged by members of the avant-garde giving the envelope a proper shove, the Knitting Factory was your go-to destination.

Suffice to say, that original iteration of the Knitting Factory is long gone. It moved to Leonard Street in TriBeCa, for a few years, and I saw some great shows in that spot, before it moved again to Brooklyn. I never went to that last version of it, but it closed in 2022. As I understand it, the venue that briefly took over the old Pyramid Club space on Avenue A, Baker Falls, had some affiliation with the Knitting Factory folks, but that, too, has moved and now conducts its biz out of the old Rockwood Music Hall space on Allen Street. I have no idea if the Knitting Factory is still a part of that venture.

But a reader named Jeremy found one of my old posts about the East Houston Street days of the Knitting Factory and reminded me of something. I can’t entirely remember where it used to hang in the interior (in the fabled “Knot Room,” maybe?), but there used to be this entirely cool, analogue collage of about a hundred 4x6 snapshots of the exterior that someone had painstaking assembled into a surreal depiction of the club, its fixed vantage point giving the subject and its surrounding an environs a sort of distorted, wide-angled bulbous quality you might otherwise capture with a fish-eye lens. I remember it also graced the cover of one of the CD compilations the Knitting Factory used to periodically issue. In fact, here’s that arresting image now…

Cool, right?

In any case, it turns out Jeremy, the guy that wrote in, is the artist who made that cool collage. Here’s a bit of what he had to say about it.

Came upon your blog looking for old knit stuff. I dated bartender/manager, knew Doughty well as a kid just out of college, made the famous photo collage at the Knit that was used as album cover and allowed me to see shows and drink free for years. That collage was in Houston Street, then Leonard Street, then in the Knit Brooklyn when it sold, and full circle is now in the dressing room of the former Pyramid Club on Ave. A. A second version of is in City Winery.

You can check out the full array of Jeremy’s work on his website by clicking right here. Tell him I sent ya. 

Bizarrely, I think Jeremy’s Knitting Factory collage was the inspiration for my friend Joanne to capture a similarly surreal depiction of some friends of mine and I at their wedding some short years later. That, too, hangs in a frame in Brooklyn. Today, the sophisticated digital technology readily available in one’s smart phone can conjure equally nifty visual projects out of thin air, but back in the mid-`90s, that shit took a whole lot more work, ingenuity and imagination.

Here's a far-less arresting image of that very same doorway today. The downstairs space is (still) a bar named Botanica, while the upstairs space -- while very briefly a compact disc outlet -- is now a restaurant called Estela.

If you’re curious about the backstory of the original Knitting Factory, check out this cool collection of antiquated clips…

Running Amuck in Tower Records on 4th & Broadway

I’ve written about Tower Records, here, loads of times (notably here, here, here and here, to name but four instances). At the risk of belaboring the point, Tower Records – while still technically a big chain – was just an incredible trove of music discovery for a nascent music fan such as myself, in the 1980’s. It had several spots around Manhattan (notably on West 66th and Broadway and, for a spell, on Third Avenue at East 85th Street), but its primary foothold was its legendary flagship location on the corner of East 4th Street and Broadway.

That fabled iteration tragically (yeah, I said it) closed in 2006, only to be replaced by the short-lived MLB Mancave (which some were more upset about than others) and then a few other vague concerns before reverting to the dormant, derelict space it was before Tower-founder Russell Solomon happened upon it in 1982.

But, back in 1985, the BBC dispatched one of its plucky journos named Andy Kershaw to go capture the full Tower Records experience, finding the young Brit running around the entirety of the location’s vast interior. If you’ve ever harbored the opportunity to return to any of Tower Records’ more remote chambers, here’s your chance.

Enjoy.

The Jesus Lizard at CBGB, New Year's Eve `97

Back in 2018, some might remember a post discussing a New Year’s Eve show from 1997 at CBGB featuring Skeleton Key opening for the Jesus Lizard. It was a remarkable video for a number of reasons – not least being that, as mentioned in that post, there is a true paucity of video evidence out there of that particular iteration of Skeleton Key. In fact, former guitarist Chris Maxwell even wrote in to my blog to find out more about the video’s true provenance.

The clip was also compelling as it was yet another taste of what it was like to experience a show at CBGB, in all its cramped, overcrowded, smelly, firetrap-y glory. Lastly, it was just an intriguing slice of a New York City music scene that simply does not exist in any shape, way or form, anymore.

Unsurprisingly, the video was taken down for whatever reason, and never re-materialized. It happens.

About a year ago, however, someone evidently posted the other half of that video, that being the performance by the headliners, the mighty Jesus Lizard. I’ve posted footage of this band playing at CBGB before (notably back in 2022), but it’s never a bad idea to evangelize the Jesus Lizard.

Enjoy it while it lasts….

Nerve Quake: An Update on the Foot Issue

While I said I was going to stop complaining about this issue, I did say I’d relay any new developments, so here goes.

First up, I’d like to thank all the folks who’ve written in, both here and offline, expressing support and sharing their own comparable experiences. I never thought this quandary was unique to me, but it’s been heartening to hear what other people have done to combat this sort of thing, although one or two of the missives I fielded did kinda scare the crap out of me.

In any case, since my last post on this subject, I’d been following my new rules, for the most part, and trying to do the right thing. I started drinking more water, and I added a host of different supplements to my daily intake, specifically vitamins B, D and magnesium. In observance of things I’d read online (not always the best plan, admittedly), I started to steer clear of stuff like soft drinks, trans fats and carbs. I also paired down my consumption of both coffee and beer, basically cutting in half my ritualistic intake of the former and almost completely swearing off the latter, apart from a couple of pops on the weekends (which, of course, I immediately felt guilty about). Additionally, I tried wearing some compression socks (Bombas) and started doing certain exercises I’d spotted on some YouTube clips. At the same time, I still didn’t really have much to go on.

The last time I’d seen my podiatrist, Dr. Doolittle (again, not his actual name), he’d given me some mild injections and put me on an anti-inflammatory pill for two weeks. As I’d previously mentioned, I wasn’t sure if either of them — combined with all the other stuff I was doing — had any measurable benefit. In the interim, I’d started amassing a long list of questions to run by him to ideally get some clarity on the big question, that being whether I was dealing with a neuroma (ostensibly an isolated tumor on a nerve) or neuropathy (an irreversible, body-wide condition). I was obviously hoping for the former and dreading a formal diagnosis of the latter.

Earlier this week, I walked back over to his office for a follow-up. I relayed all the bullshit I just mentioned, and he listened patiently. In terms of my questions, he assured me that there are a couple of tests — notably a “nerve conduction velocity” test and a electromyography test, the latter of which is allegedly “quite painful” — to make the sort of determinations I’m after, but he didn’t see the need for either, just yet. At this stage, Doolittle is, in his own words, “confident” that my problem is a neuroma and not, in fact, the dread neuropathy. In a nutshell, he assured me that while these symptoms — specifically the numbness — I’m experiencing are giving me pause, he doesn’t see a need to worry about it — and nor should I. He recommended a new supplement — a combo of Lipoid Acid and the difficult-to-pronounce benfortiamine. We skipped any more injections, for now, and he said I could drop that anti-inflammatory and come back in six weeks.

As far as my other questions, he told me to stop wearing compression socks, as they can actually exacerbate a neuroma. Likewise, I should knock off those exercises I’d started doing, as they, too, can worsen a neuroma. He completely ruled out gout and diabetes, as those would have turned up on the blood tests. He said acupuncture is fine, as is continuing to consume water, bananas and, were I up to it, “mushroom coffee.” I asked him bluntly if dietary habits and/or intake of caffeine or alcohol had any effect on a neuroma, … and he said “not at all.” That evening, I celebrated unreservedly with a couple of pints of Guinness.

So, that’s where I’m at. I ordered up a bottle of the Lipoid Acid/Benfortiamine pills and am curious if they’ll make any noticeable difference. While I’m still without a concrete diagnosis, Doolittle’s convincing assurance that I “shouldn’t be worried” did indeed ease my mind. That all said, I’m going to try to continue to adhere to my not-as-many drinks during the course of the week regime, as cutting back is still a good idea.

Watch this space.

Elvis Has Left The Building

Like many others, I adored the Great Jones Cafe, a funky little hole in the wall on Great Jones Street that served up amazing Cajun cuisine in a cool, relaxed, bohemian atmosphere. It wasn't at all out of question to be enjoying a meal or several beverages within its intimate walls and have, say, Willem Dafoe or Laurie Anderson or Matt Dillon walk in, or to be seated next to the full membership of The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black or The Unband. The place just oozed character.

I snapped the picture above of same circa 1999. It closed in 2018, to much hue and cry, only to be replaced by ventures named Jolene and, well, Elvis. I'd never heard this story, as hipped to me by E.V. Grieve, but The New Yorker just posted an amazing article about the Great Jones Cafe's legendary Elvis bust. Read it here.

From the Burning Sands of "Kokomo"

My friend Meg from Desperately Seeking the `80s posited a question on social media, this morning, and I mentioned that I had a hard time committing to a firm response. She asked me for a more nuanced appraisal, so here I go. You’re welcome.

I should say this, from the get-go: I never really gave one single crap about the Beach Boys. Sure, “Good Vibrations” and “I Get Around” were perfectly fine (the theremin on the former was a nice touch), but they never captured my imagination in the same manner their alleged peers did. I remember reading that the Beatles considered them (or Brian Wilson, more specifically) their biggest competition, and thinking “surely, you can’t be serious.” I just didn’t hear it. Like, at all.

After years of reading that Pet Sounds, their supposed landmark achievement from 1966, was this mammoth influence on so many bands, I picked up a copy and dutifully spun it. It did nothing to change my mind. I mean, it wasn’t BAD music, but in absolutely no way, shape or form did it rival anything recorded by the Beatles, much less the Stones, The Who, The Doors, Pink Floyd, _____ (your favorite classic rock band here), etc. Not even slightly. Maybe it’s because I’m a New Yorker?

I think I kept my copy of Pet Sounds for a while (I believe I may have used it as a coaster, at one point), but parted with it in a bag bound for Goodwill years ago. I don’t miss it.

There were other factors. Vocalist Mike Love seems like a roundly disagreeable and noxious character. Even their unwitting associations with the nefarious Manson Family (another thing they shared with the Beatles) did nothing to stoke intrigue for me (and I generally love that sorta stuff). The Beach Boys were always too cute, too clean cut, too choreographed — they were devoid of any semblance of edge. That was probably by design, but no edge, for me, usually means no interest. Even ABBA has fucking edge. The Beach Boys? Not at all.

So, when my friend Meg, in last week’s episode of Desperately Seeking the `80s, invoked “Kokomo,” the mid-`80s track the Beach Boys supplied to the soundtrack of “Cocktail,” I did not have the same immediate, visceral reaction that so many others describe. I mean, to my ears — with the aid of soap star heartthrob John Stamos on bongos or not — the song wasn’t a tremendous departure from the hallowed Beach Boys canon, if possibly a bit self-plagiaristic. I mean, is it trite, saccharine, cloying and dippy? Sure, but any more so than “God Only Knows” or “Don’t Worry Baby” or “Wouldn’t it Be Nice”? I don’t think so.

I actually heard it again quite recently, fittingly while an oral surgeon was doing unimaginable things to a collapsed root canal in the back of my mouth. The song’s mellifluously insidious harmonies matching the overall discomfort of that scenario to a tee.

That all said, were I ever lounging poolside, sipping on a pina colada at some hackneyed tropical getaway (not likely to happen any time soon), “Kokomo” probably would seem like the apt song to score that experience (as opposed to, say, “Logic Ravaged by Brute Force” by Napalm Death, or something). It’s a complete cheese-monkey anthem, but what exactly were you really expecting from the Beach Boys?

CODA:

I was also struck by the amorphous nature of the concept of Kokomo — an overall amalgam of all the actual destinations cited in the song, as if to suggest that the realm of Kokomo is not so much a place on a map as possibly an inter-dimensional state of being. It reminded me a bit of the lost city of Carcosa, first invoked in the shadowy texts of Ambrose Bierce in the late 1800’s and later alluded in the equally ominous works of H.P. Lovecraft and Robert W. Chambers’ “The King in Yellow.” Witness, if you will, how seamlessly Chambers’ first introduction to Carcosa fuses with the Beach Boys’ depiction of Kokomo…

Along the shore the cloud waves break,
The twin suns sink behind the lake, 
The shadows lengthen
In Kokomo

Strange is the night where black stars rise,
And strange moons circle through the skies, 
But stranger still is
Lost Kokomo.

Songs that the Hyades shall sing,
Where flap the tatters of the King,
Must die unheard in
Dim Kokomo.

Song of my soul, my voice is dead,
Die thou, unsung, as tears unshed Shall dry and die in
Lost Kokomo.

Painting the Town Red

I should preface this by saying that The Red House Painters were never one of “my bands.” What little I knew about them, at the time, didn’t suggest that they were something I was ever going to give a damn about. I mean, I do love my share of earnest indie rock, but there was nothing about this particular band that captured my attention. I gather, in more recent years, that lead singer Mark Kozelek went on to field a number of unsavory allegations of sexual misconduct in the same unfortunate vein as folks like Louis CK, but I don’t know enough about that to credibly opine. Should you care, there’s always Google, I suppose.

So, while this music sounds perfectly fine, I’m not citing the clip below for its musical merit, nor I am endorsing Kozelek as an artist you should go check out. I mean, if you want to, go for it.

No, the reason I’m featuring the video below is because some might remember, a few years back, a somewhat exhaustive entry I posted called Spinning Out: 102 More of the Best New York City Videos, which aggregated, well, exactly that – 102 music videos that were filmed or shot within the five boroughs of New York City. While it was, as I said, exhaustive, it was by no means comprehensive, and periodically, I come across another that warrants inclusion. As such, check out “All Mixed Up” by The Red House Painters. Shot in 1996, and like similarly-inclined videos like “Bad Reputation” by Freedy Johnston and, oddly, “Star” by The Cult, it features evocative footage of the mid-90’s iterations of midtown (sort of the Sixth Avenue side of Rockefeller Center), SoHo (specifically Greene and Crosby Streets), Central Park, the “Two Bridges” area of the Lower East Side and a tiny patch of Brooklyn.

Enjoy.

Disco Dueling on 43rd & Third

I hate to call her out on it (although she caught the error herself before the episode was over), but my friend Jessica, on this morning’s episode of the Desperately Seeking the `80 podcast, made a fleeting allusion to Ace Frehley’s rendition of “New York Groove,” mistakenly ascribing one line in the song as an allusion to the former gay-cruising strip of East 53rd Street & Third Avenue. I was quick to pedantically pounce – as I’m wont to do, much to everyone’s chagrin – and point out that the actual line refers to East 43rd. Moreover, while Ace didn’t write the song, I can’t imagine he’d have been fully onboard with making that sort of reference.

That does still beg the question, however, of why East 43rd Street and Third was the specified destination wherein, as an “exit to the night,” things were poised to dive headlong into “ecstasy.” Then as now, I don’t believe that patch of what some now call “Midtown East” has ever been a hotbed of any stripe of libidinous carnality, one way or the other. For his part, Ace Frehley once told Rolling Stone that while he initially scoffed at the notion of recording “New York Groove,” after producer Eddie Kramer suggested it, he put his own spin on it as inspired his experience with Times Square prostitutes in the `70s. That’s … uhhh.. quite an admission, Ace, but East 43rd and Third Avenue is still nowhere near Times Square which, as we all know, is to the west of Sixth Avenue.

Unlike Ace Frehley, the track’s songwriter, Russ Ballard, was not a native New Yorker, but rather a Brit, who penned the track originally for a second-tier British glam band called Hello. I cannot say if Ballard spent any time on East 43rd Street and Third Avenue, much less the whole of New York City, prior to writing the song, so he may have just arbitrarily picked that particular corner. Stop at Third Avenue and East 43rd Street today, meanwhile, and the most exciting amenities you’re likely to encounter are a couple of banks, a Staples and a pita joint. But, one imagines, `twas not always thus.

Back to Jessica’s allusion, however, there is another rock song that very specifically pertains to the hustling scene she was projecting, that being “53rd & Third” by da brudders Ramone, which I’ve discussed here and here.

All this rumination, however, reminded me of a post I logged on the long-dormant and sadly-since-dismantled site, The New York Nobody Sings. Courtesy of the Wayback Machine, I was able to re-exhume it, so here it is now…

The Disco Duel

I used to be a frequent contributor to the ILM (short for "I Love Music") discussion boards and posted a thread there in the summer of 2005 that pitted two relatively obvious New York City anthems against each other. Here's a slightly updated version of the original question: "Taking Sides: 'New York Groove' by Ace Frehley vs. 'Native New Yorker' by Odyssey.

Yeah yeah, pedants, I know Ace didn't write "New York Groove" (it was written by Russ Ballard....oddly, a Brit...for a band called Hello). I've never heard Hello's version, but I'd bet it lacks to thwomping disco stomp of Ace's rendition....the same disco thwomp that makes it the perfect opponent for Odyssey's lush disco classic.

I heard the Odyssey track the other day probably for the first time in seven or eight years, and it really took me back. It's a wonder that the producers of "Sex & the City" never cribbed it for usage in the series. Ace's track is pumpingly celebratory. Odyssey's depiction is vibrant yet simultaneously world-weary. Ace's Manhattan is one of endless opportunity for naughty hedonism, whereas Odyssey's Manhattan is a place where chilly one night stands are de rigeur, manners are non-existent and heartbreak is a given, but you'd still never want to live anywhere else. Oddly enough, Odyssey's one destination-specific allusion is East 83rd Street. 

Despite being a lifelong, dyed-in-the-wool Kiss fan, I personally might have to still go with the Odyssey track here. Yes, I know -- HERESY! While I applaud Ace's track and adore it to pieces, it's inarguably lumpen and clumsy next to the stylishly swooning "Native New Yorker." Both of these tracks positively stink of a New York City that hasn't existed for years (though I've never understood why Ace cites the corner of 3rd Avenue and 43rd street --- "it's gonna be ecstacy". That's quite possibly the dullest street corner in all of Manhattan). At this point in the proceedings, I asked participants in the discussion to pick one and cite their reasons.

To refresh your memory, ...enjoy, and get out your dancing pants!