Flaming Pablum

Julian & The C-Word

I love Julian Cope. He’s a singular talent who admirably does not do what is expected of him. Despite possessing a dazzling knack for crafting perfectly realized pop (evident on singles like “World Shut Your Mouth,” “Trampoline,” “Charlotte Anne,” “ Beautiful Love,” “Try Try Try” and countless others), he’s often way more prone to indulging his adoration for the pointedly inaccessible and wildly esoteric.

After about twenty years of writing, recording and performing more conventional post-punky pop with both his original band The Teardrop Explodes and via his solo career, Julian pulled out all the stops and started releasing music that owed precious little to those earlier records, opting instead to dabble in a wide amalgam of styles including drone-laden experimental post-rock, ironic ersatz heavy metal, metronomic Krautrock homages and the like. It was like he was going out of his way to distance himself from that which had won him his initial success and renown.

I tried to keep up, but after a few unwieldy and — sorry, Jules — frankly unlistenable projects, I kinda fell off. I’d pick up a new single or album of his every now and then (I’ve been meaning to check out his 2017 album, Drunken Songs, which he composed after discovering the joys of alcohol years and years after the fact), but his signature magic was often sorely missing — although I did quite enjoy the pugnacious title track to 2007’s You’ve Got a Problem With Me.

Regardless of wherever his musical muse might be leading him, I will always remain a fan. He’s also a tirelessly entertaining author.

I was fortunate enough to see Julian perform twice — once on the tour for the watershed opus Peggy Suicide and then again, some years later, at a solo-acoustic show circa 1995’s 20 Mothers. In both instances, not only did he fucking rock — as that’s what he does — but he was a hilarious raconteur. Which leads me to the clip below.

While I don’t believe he’s ever officially released it, Julian Cope has been performing a song called “Cunts Can Fuck Off” for some years now. I managed to track down this live video — filmed at London’s legendary Roundhouse in 2017 — that finds him explaining the backstory of the song.

Enjoy. 

"Through The Night"

Brooklyn at night during the peak of New York City's coronavirus outbreak, captured on bike rides throughout the borough. Set to Pat Irwin's haunting recording of the U.S. national anthem performed at the Never Records installation at The Rudin Family Gallery at BAM Strong on January 23, 2020.

Companion photo book Keep This Far Apart: Nighttime in Brooklyn, Spring 2020 available for purchase, with all proceeds going to Brooklyn Rescue Mission: https://sampolcer.com/store/keep-this...

Filmmaker statement: "On April 6th, New York City reached what turned out to be its highest number of daily COVID-19 hospitalizations (1,719) and cases (6,376), and third-highest number of daily deaths (565); the city had firmly established itself as the world’s coronavirus epicenter, gripped by fear, uncertainty and loneliness. That night, I began going on bike rides throughout the borough after dark for exercise and a taste of freedom sorely lacking in locked-down isolation. Out on the streets, I was struck by an overwhelming quiet overlaid with the constant wail of distant ambulance sirens, and decided immediately to document what I saw, from shuttered theaters and garbage-strewn sidewalks to the occasional cyclist or couple out for an evening stroll. For seven weeks, when the city that never sleeps tucked itself in, I’d embark from my home in the Kensington neighborhood with camera and tripod in tow. I felt compelled to document this moment, and to capture the feeling of isolation experienced by millions in close proximity to each other.

Over Memorial Day weekend, the city reclaimed some of its vitality, with more New Yorkers leaving their homes to socialize, and I stopped shooting. The next day, George Floyd was murdered by former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin—a second bookend to the project as horrifying as the first.

When it came time to assemble the footage, I remembered a somber rendition of the national anthem performed by the composer and musician Pat Irwin in January as a part of Never Records, a recording studio/record store art installation that took place at the new Rudin Gallery at BAM Strong. (I'm a content strategist at BAM.) I just had this sense that the country was about as low as it could go, spiritually, and in nearly all other ways—thousands of people were dying, and our leaders were asleep at the wheel—and Irwin’s deeply affecting ‘Anthem’ resonated with that sentiment. It's probably the somberest, least patriotic version of the tune you've ever heard. And as an instrumental that leaves out the lyrics, it's appropriate considering current conversations around racial inequality: the song's lyricist, Francis Scott Key, was a slaveowner.

As NYC reopens and much of the country grapples with virus surges, the film is a meditative portrait of the city at its most locked-down. Is this what it means to be patriotic during a pandemic?"

Bios: Sam Polcer is a writer and photographer whose work has appeared in National Geographic, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Time Out New York, Hemispheres, Brooklyn Magazine, Spin.com, Esquire.com, Travel+Leisure.com, and many other websites and publications, as well as at the Museum of the City of New York. He is also a content strategist at BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music). His first book, New York Bike Style, was published by Prestel in 2014. Previously, he was the communications director at Bike New York and an editor (of both text and photography) at Hemispheres. https://www.sampolcer.com

Patrick Irwin is a composer and musician who was a founding member of two bands that grew out of New York City's No Wave scene in the late 1970s, the Raybeats and 8-Eyed Spy. He joined The B-52s from 1989 through 2008. He has composed scores for numerous independent films including My New Gun, But I'm A Cheerleader, and Bam Bam and Celeste as well as hundreds of cartoons including Rocko's Modern Life, Pepper Ann, A Little Curious, and Class of 3000. He composed the scores for HBO's Bored to Death and Showtime's Nurse Jackie and most recently for the Netflix show, The Good Cop. https://www.patirwinmusic.com

Whole Lotta Lunch

I think the first time I ever encountered Lydia Lunch was via her contribution to Sonic Youth’s Bad Moon Rising album in 1985, wherein she duetted with Thurston Moore on “Death Valley `69,” a little off-kilter ditty about the Manson Family that, when played, used to make my freshman-year roommate in college leave the room with a look of concerned agitation on his face … always a sign of quality. In fact, fuck it, here it is now….duck & cover….

Incidentally, the angry brunette lady gnashing her teeth throughout that clip is not Lydia Lunch. Lydia make a blink-&-you’ll-miss-her cameo, but the “star” of this clip is one Lung Leg, a fellow alumnus of the cinema of transgression (which I spoke about back here).

In any case, a little while after I latched onto “Death Valley `69," I picked up an issue of Byron Coley’s underground `zine, Forced Exposure, based on its inclusion of articles about Die Kreuzen — who I’d only witnessed play live for the first time some short months earlier — and those old idiotic favorites in The Meatmen. The cover-girl, for want of a better term, of that issue was none other than Lydia Lunch, enabling me to match a comely, slightly intimidating face to the pouty purr on “Death Valley `69.”

Duly intrigued by the fittingly pugnacious interview therein, imagine my glee upon finding out that my college radio station, WDUB 91.1,— where I’d only just started DJ’ing — actually had a long-neglected copy of No New York in a dusty archive otherwise overrun with The Allman Brothers, Little Feat and the soggy flaccidity of Pure Prairie League. For those unfamiliar, No New York was Brian Eno’s seminal No Wave compilation that culled together select bands from that scene, foremost among them being Lydia Lunch’s first band, Teenage Jesus & the Jerks. I vividly remember cueing up “The Closet” from same — on the air, having never heard it before — and letting her rip for WDUB’s audience. The phone summarily lit up at the sound of the discordant guitar, lurching staccato “rhythm” and Lydia’s fraught mewling. I believe we might have fielded some death threats. Pure Prairie League this was not.

I’ve spoken numerous times here about my fandom for Lydia Lunch. Not only do I love all manifestations of her unsettling music, I just find her whole aesthetic — willfully confrontational, whip-smart and unapologetic — so refreshing. It’s no pose. It’s no act. She will fuck you up.

It was for this very reason that, while left to our own devices in quarantine, I decided to, at long last, order Lydia’s cook book.

You read that right.

Indeed, along with being a tireless voice of confrontational provocation and — as she’s put it — irritainment, Ms. Lunch is also an accomplished epicurean.

The thing is, though, I don’t cook. Like, at all. Sure, I can make spaghetti or a burger. I can scramble an egg — although don’t ask me to fry one with any semblance of prowess. I can grill a steak on an outdoor grill, but any moron can do that. When it comes to the nuances of cooking, however, I am a total moron. I took a cooking class in 2001, but didn’t retain any of it. I’m also slavishly spoiled, as I married a resourceful and innovative chef. Peg is roundly capable of turning a haphazard array of leftovers into a strikingly flavorful meal.

Anyway, about three months back, when the realities of the overarching life-hiatus brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic were unfurling, I thought it would be a swell time to get ahold of Lydia’s cook book and give a few of her recipes a try. While my wife had absolutely no idea about Lydia Lunch or her music or deliberately thorny spoken-word stuff — this is probably for the best — she was indeed intrigued by the book and snatched it out of my hands upon arrival, seizing upon Lydia’s recommendations about the myriad nutritional benefits of bee pollen. In case you’ve never sampled same, bee pollen is a frankly pungent amalgam of flower pollen, nectar, enzymes honey, wax and — wait for it — “bee secretions” that tastes exactly like something described with the word “secretions” probably should. When we tried it, suffice to say, it chilled our enthusiasm for venturing further into the gaping maw of Lydia’s pantry, but there are indeed several dishes we’ve earmarked to attempt. Watch this space

Until then, however, if you’re intrigued about Ms. Lunch, you should definitely check out the latest episode of Damian Abraham’s podcast “Turned Out a Punk,” which finds the tirelessly enthusiastic lead singer of Fucked Up chatting with Lydia, who gamely expounds on her musical exploits. Given Lydia’s pronounced disdain for the very word “punk,” it’s no small feat that Damian charmed her into discussing so much stuff here. If you’re a fan, it’s well worth your time.

Also, do stick around for Lydia's rant (taken from her own podcast, which I spoke about a couple of times here not too long back) about the myriad failings of the Trump Administration. Typically, she pulls no punches and takes no prisoners. 

Check it out...

Radioheadcase: The Endurance of Klosterman's Theory

Back in 2005 — fifteen goddamn years ago — I was working an overnight shift at the TIME Magazine News Desk during an extraordinarily quiet evening, and decided to fill the downtime by composing a lark of a post on my still newly minted blog about an amusing-if-ridicuous theory postulated by pop-culture writer Chuck Klosterman. In a very silly nutshell, in an article from SPIN Magazine that was later appended to an anthology of his writings, Klosterman posited the not-entirely-serious notion that Kid A, Radiohead’s much ballyhooed fourth studio album from 2000, predicted the events of September 11, 2001. Should you care, you can read that post here.

That post ended up getting picked up and re-purposed by a couple of outlets, notably Cracked and Noisey, and then became fodder for a few Radiohead fan-sites and message boards. 

Ever since that first post in 2005, no other entry I’ve put up here in the entirety of this blog’s lifespan has garnered as many clicks. It also accrued a wide swathe of comments, attracting both bug-eyed conspiracy theories and abusive spleen-venting from the Radiohead faithful. Just this morning, in fact, said post earned another quip, that being: "LMAOOO WHO LET THIS GUY HAVE INTERNET CONNECTION.”

Ah, mirth. 

As I mentioned in 2016, I long stopped caring about this particular post. Like I said, it was never anything other than an amusing lark. Upon the album’s arrival in 2000, I believe I submitted a lukewarm review of it for a “teen-oriented” website called iStash that never launched (and never paid me), decrying the opus as a departure for nowhere. When I read Klosterman’s piece in SPIN some years later, this ludicrous-but-compelling re-interpretataion of the record gave me a new filter through which to listen, and it certainly did make me enjoy it more, trying to synch up the events in much the same manner in which people claim “The Wizard of Oz” meshes seamlessly with Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. I can’t imagine anyone still getting any mileage out of this idiocy, but then, I’m not an avid-enough Radiohead fan nor bona fide conspiracy theorist.

Here in 2020, I gave Kid A another full listen, this morning, during a 6AM walk. While certain tracks do retain a certain vibe for me — still tenuously tethered, in my mind, to Klosterman’s re-purposing — most of the record has lost the eerie mystique  it used to retain. The first several tracks still intrigue, but I found my attention slipping during the latter half of the record. By the start of the final song, “Motion Picture Soundtrack,” I found myself opting out in favor of the band’s sophomore effort, The Bends, which has aged significantly better, to my mind.

In any case, in looking for a kicker for this post, I did some random googling, and up popped the video below, which was first posted on YouTube in 2011. I have no idea if it was inspired by Chuck Klosterman’s writing or my post on same. 

"When Midnight Comes Around"

Back in 2015, I interacted with a photographer named Gary Green during the course of trying to track down the location of a photograph of Joe Jackson Green snapped for the sleeve of Jackson’s “Real Men” single. Now a professor at Colby College, Green then shared with me more photos he took from back in the day, which he’d put on a website, documenting nights out at joints like Max’s Kansas City, CBGB and other likely haunts.

Today, I’m happy to evangelize that Green’s photos can now be yours in the form of a book called “When Midnight Comes Around” (yes, a Velvet Underground lyric). Rife with images of period-specific luminaries like Richard Hell, Johnny Thunders, Anya Philips, Joey Ramone, David Johanson, Debbie Harry, Patti Smith, Victor Bockris, Tom Waits, Robert Gordon, Alex Chilton, Andy Warhol, Lou Reed and more.

Click here to get your copy. Tell’em Flaming Pablum sent ya.

Back Again … Briefly … to The Cooler

Back in 2012 — itself a damn long time ago — I posted a eulogy of sorts to The Cooler, an old live-music venue in the Meatpacking District, spooling an anecdote about attending one of its final shows, that being my friend Paul Wallfisch's band Botanica opening for Suicide, who I sadly did not stay for — coerced, instead, by my friend Tod [A] of Firewater to jump ship and come with him to check out this weird Ukrainian disco over on Canal Street.

As it happened, that weird Ukranian disco was actually a weird Bulgarian disco called Mehanata. You can see snippets of the interior of that place in the video for “Start Wearing Purple” by Gogol Bordello. Gogol Bordello, incidentally, then counted guitarist Eugene Kaplan in its ranks, although Eugene also played for both Firewater and Botanica. Mehanata, meanwhile, was located directly over the former location of Dave’s Luncheonette, a fabled diner for the Mudd Club set which briefly made a cameo in the video for “Jukebox Baby" by Alan Vega of Suicide. See? It’s all related!

In any case, in that anecdote on that old post, I fleeting alluded to trying to snag a poster for that gig off the very wall of The Cooler, but was prevented from doing so by the joint’s notoriously irritable proprietor, that being a gent inexplicably named Jedi (this testy exchange was immortalized in New York Press). As lovely as I remember the poster being, I had to leave without it. Ever since then, I’ve kept one eye out for it, in case it appeared in a random Google search or eBay auction.

Well, that actually happened this week. Via Google, I found it on an auction site, but sadly said auction ended in 2009 — itself, once again, a long damn time ago. From that site, however, I was able to glean that the poster was designed by an artist named Kayrock, and only 100 were made. Adding insult to injury, the auction was only asking twenty bucks for the poster. Alas, I am 11 years too late.

Today in 2020, the building at 416 West 14th Street that formerly housed The Cooler plays host to pricey retail shops. The last time I walked by it, I think it was a Levi’s outlet. I’m not sure what happens in the lower chamber that used to be The Cooler, but I doubt it’s anything particularly exciting.

Back over on Canal Street, Mehanata closed up that location in 2006 and moved to a new spot on Ludlow Street, where I gather it still operates today, although its website suggests it’s a far, far glitzier affair than it was in 2001. Its former place off Canal & Broadway is now the SoHo Garden Hotel.

Alan Vega of Suicide died in 2016, and his songs are now unwittingly used to sell perfume by Marc Jacobs.

Tod [A] now lives in Turkey, writes books and still writes music. Hopefully, Firewater will ride again, one day.

Paul Wallfisch joined SWANS in 2016, but remains musically active elsewhere.

Guitarist Oren Kaplan sued Gogol Bordello frontman Eugene Hutz, in 2013, over fiscal mismanagement of the band. The last thing I heard him being involved with was a collaboration between fabled post-punk bassists Youth (of Killing Joke) and Jah Wobble (of Public Image Ltd.).

Kayrock is still active, and has a very nice website.

I, meanwhile, still do not have that poster, but it looks like this...

"Waiting for Another War"

LABORIOUS PREAMBLE:

Despite the provocative title of this post, it’s probably not what you think.

Let’s face it, the world genuinely is deep in the shitter, right now. Our cities have been ablaze with riots over systemic racism and police brutality in the wake of the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, but the legitimate protests have been marred by violence and looting, frequently by forces without any meaningful tether to the cause (read here, incidentally, for a deeper dive on the looting phenomenon). Meanwhile, the pandemic is still raging -- despite what the current administration might try to tell you --  and one wonders what spikes in infection will result from the large-scale gatherings of the past several days. There is great uncertainty as to when things might calm down and/or return to a semblance of a normal routine. 2020 is proving to be one for the history books.

While it was never my specific intention to turn this blog into an outlet for political discussion, I have found myself using it more, specifically in the last four years, to vent my spleen in this capacity. I cannot help thinking, however, that posts about my misgivings with the direction this country has been taking and the accompanying fallout are NOT what keep readers coming back here, nor are they topics that have typically defined this stupid blog.

But, as has been the case in the wake of national calamities, mass shootings and moments of divisive political upheaval, posting entries about old punk rock records, under-celebrated bands, forgotten record shops and brazenly nostalgic New York City ephemera seems like a laughably petty waste of time and pointedly inappropriate. It’s for this reason that I’ve abandoned countless posts in progress in the past several weeks, losing my enthusiasm to wax rhapsodic about, say, discovering the myriad culinary intricacies of Lydia Lunch’s cook book or a deeply silly post dedicated to a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it detail in the background of a pivotal scene in Martin Scorsese’s “After Hours.” Those are just two examples, and I may come back to both, but they just feel indefensibly trivial right now, in the grand scheme of things.

I guess my very windy point, here, is that while I may continue to post entries that fit the milieu of this blog, so to speak, it is not to suggest that I’m not keenly aware of the shit show that is otherwise engulfing the goddamn planet. Carry on. 

ACTUAL POST:

So, yeah, when not working remotely, furrowing my brow at the news of the day or getting disconsolately irritable on social media, I have actually been doing a fair amount of reading as a means of broadening my horizons, keeping my mind occupied and retaining my sanity. I’ve already paged through books by musicians like Sam McPheeters, Bob Bert and Amy Rigby. The most recent one I’ve read, however, was written by a friend who I came to know via this blog, if I’m not entirely mistaken.

About almost a year back, some readers might remember a post I devoted to the first part of a projected two-volume memoir by one Wayne Hussey, lead singer/songwriter for The Mission and erstwhile guitarist/songwriter for the First And Last And Always iteration of the Sisters of Mercy. In that first volume, entitled “Salad Daze,” Wayne delved into the notoriously chilly gestation of the Sisters of Mercy’s first full length LP, giving his account of the frosty dysfunction within the band and their seemingly inevitable dissolution. I mentioned in the tail end of that post that such an account demanded a retort, however unlikely the notion of Andrew Eldritch — the Sisters’ perennial Mother Superior -- ever deigning to that acknowledgment might be. To that end, I pointed to the long-in-the-works tome by Mark Andrews titled “Paint My Name in Black and Gold,” which — one year later — has still not materialized.

Imagine to my surprise and glee, then, the sudden appearance of “Waiting for Another War,” an exhaustively detailed account of the early Sisters’ trajectory up through and including the same period Wayne addressed in “Salad Days,” not least penned by my new friend and fellow Cop Shoot Cop acolyte, Trevor Ristow. I ordered a copy on the spot and devoured it whole in two days’ time upon its arrival.

Ristow’s relationship to the subject is devotional, acknowledging up front a fervent appreciation for the band that stretches back to his teens. While not even slightly impartial, his approach to the telling of the Sisters’ tale applies a scholarly adherence to chronology and differing perspectives, factoring in a host of pertinent accounts from concerned parties. And while deeply reverent of Eldritch’s long-held reluctance to lift the veil on the meanings behind his songs, Ristow’s analysis of the lyrics and associated imagery connected with the band is studiously fortified with more than simply a fanboy’s grasp of the art, literature and pop-cultural ephemera that informed the gestalt of the Sisters’ carefully cultivated work and mystique. In short, “Waiting for Another War” is written with a refreshing sophistication largely absent from most books of its ilk.

This all said, I think it’s worth pointing out that as much as I slavishly enjoyed the book, I did have my polite quibbles with it. While I still have no clue how Mark Andrews’ “Paint My Name…” will read, I could not have asked for a more succinctly Eldritch-sympathetic response to Wayne Hussey’s take in “Salad Daze” than “Waiting for Another War." Ristow fully acknowledges Hussey’s capable contributions to the cause of expanding the Sisters’ sonic palette, but clearly considers the guitarist’s introduction into the Sisters as something of a dilution of what made the original ensemble so special. I was also somewhat surprised by Ristow’s blunt dismissal of certain material, taking unflinchingly dead aim at “Walk Away,” the first track that caught my attention. I don’t agree with him on that point, but I get it — I similarly blanche when I hear comparatively upstart Killing Joke fans exclaim their adoration of tracks from latter-era albums. As Ristow got onboard earlier than myself, I certainly will not fault him for his own firmly held perceptions.

Conceivably by coincidence, Ristow’s book culminates at more or less the exact same point as Hussey’s “Salad Daze,” and both authors promise follow-ups. But where Hussey plans to concentrate on his own doings with the Mission — a more conventionally “rocking” and arguably populist quartet who never swatted away the “gothic” mantle Eldritch has attempted to (unsuccessfully) dodge for his entire career — Ristow will presumably continue to track the Sisters’ ambitious-but-idiosyncratic path into their current status — a tantalizing, 27-year limbo that’s been keeping their devoted fans baying for new, studio-recorded material. Until that fully realized music materializes, there’s still the Sisters’ magisterial back catalog, one you will only appreciate more after reading “Waiting for Another War."

As a testament to this book's comprehensive brilliance, the first print run has already sold out, but click here to find out more about the second printing. Tell'em Flaming Pablum sent ya. 

Fox in Sox

Trust me when I affirm that nothing I could write here today would be as brilliant as the clip below.

Enjoy. You're welcome.

Amy & Eric

As part of the same series for work I started with Jesse Malin, I had the great pleasure & privilege of chatting with the lovely Amy Rigby about how she's staying active, creative & inspired during this pandemic, a crisis that she and her huzbo Wreckless Eric have been having very scary, first-hand experience with.

Her answers were thoughtful, touching & unsurprisingly eloquent.

Read it here. 

Cruisin' for Some Kreuzen

In the fall of 1985, myself and a newly-minted, equally scowly friend John — a flat-topped skater and fellow fan of disconsolately frowny hardcore trapped within a bug-eyed nation of Little Feat and Allman Brothers fans — drove from the verdantly plush campus of Central Ohio’s Denison University to the comparatively ungenteel High Street of Columbus, Ohio. Our destination was a dank, low-ceilinged “club” with wood-paneled walls called Stache’s. The venue and the event we were attending have already been discussed here, but I was reminded of the evening in question again by yet another chapter in Sam McPheeters’ “Mutations,” which also spawned yesterday’s post about the Crucifucks. 

John and I went to Stache’s for the purposes of witnessing a live performance by the willfully disconcerting Texas combo, The Butthole Surfers. I’d been to a gig in Columbus a few weeks earlier, that being X at the Newport Music Hall on the tour to promote their frankly lackluster major label debut, Ain’t Love Grand, but that was at a proper live music hall, not a dingy, makeshift den-turned-dive bar like Stache’s. 

John and I and possibly another couple of friends of ours muscled our way to the back of the room where the “stage” ostensibly was (although I really don’t remember there being a bi-level effect of any kind), to ready ourselves for the opening band. The opening act was a Wisconsin ensemble called Die Kreuzen, which -- in clipped, guttural German -- means “The Crosses.” That said, everyone seemed to mispronounce their moniker not as a plural noun, but as a grim command, Die Cruisin’.  The foursome gathered around their amps and drum kit and got ready to play.

This still being the mid-eighties, I remember being somewhat surprised by the look of these Midwesterners. While I was dutifully boasting a sadly de rigeur “hardcore” outfit (white, freshly laundered Circle Jerks t-shirt over jeans, plaid flannel shirt tied around waist -- just so -- like a kilt), Die Kreuzen looked more like hairy hobos who took turns swigging from a communal jug of moonshine in the damp, dark woods behind the Price Chopper. Adhering to any code of punky fashion was clearly -- and quite refreshingly, in retrospect -- not on their agenda. 

I remember being struck by the bass player, whose instrument seemed wholly oversized for him. The lead singer was a long-haired, lanky guy who looked like he only just got off his  shift pumping gas. Once fully plugged in, the band started, and lanky long-hair raised the mic and opened his mouth, letting loose a sound that caused those of us standing, arms-folded in the front to strongly consider taking several steps back. 

To be honest, while I hadn’t heard their records yet (which I’d later come to really appreciate), the live Die Kreuzen experience circa 1985 was a headachey fog of shambolic shrillness. John described it best by suggesting that each of their songs sounded, basically, like an over-amplified “WAAAAAAARRGGHHHH”, … which was fairly accurate.

I told the rest of this story back on this post — the Butthole Surfers ended up not showing up as, earlier in the day, their bass player had either jumped out — or been forcibly ejected — from their van whilst motoring down the highway. They wouldn’t return to Columbus until the following year, wherein they played the Newport Music Hall, a show I’m still recovering from.

Back at Stache’s, we all miraculously ended up getting our money back, which essentially meant that we got to see Die Kreuzen for free.

The only reason I’m revisiting all of this, is because in McPheeters’ book, he describes Die Kreuzen thusly:

Vocals like a scarecrow screaming at you from across the cornfield at night …WHY DID YOU ANGER THE SCARECROW?

Absolutely on point....

The photo up top is by the truly amazing JFotoman, who I wrote about back on this post. There is possibly no greater documentation of not just the Stache's scene, but of American underground music of the 1980's writ large than his work.