Flaming Pablum

Back to Yorkville: 84th Street Bomber Travis Speaks

I’ve written a lot, here, about my time growing up in and around Yorkville on the eastern end of Manhattan’s Upper East Side, over the years, notably here and most recently here. But when I dedicated a couple of posts – especially this one – about my fleeting run-ins with a group of some specific neighborhood youths – technically the 84th Street Bombers, but more colloquially referred to, in certain circles, as the 84th Street Gang – I started to get a pointed uptick in reader engagment. I had quite a few folks write in to say that they, too, had encountered these guys, and shared their own experiences with them. At the risk of sugar-coating this, these stories frequently recounted instances of petty crime and -- wait for it -- violence.

Now, this many decades later, details get hazy, and legend frequently looms larger than actual fact. Were the guys that, say, mugged and summarily roughed-up my friend Spike and I in Carl Schurz Park in the Spring of 1984 the same thugs who put my friend Danny in Lenox Hill Hospital with a broken nose following a confrontaion at Mimi’s Pizza on 84th and Third? Were the guys who hung out, antogonizing passers-by, on the stoop between the Mansion Diner and the Polymorphos candy store on East 86th, just east of York Avenue (worrying steps from my front door) from this same tribe? Was the horde of amped-up, bedenimed nogoodnicks that roamed around East 86th Street on weekend evenings looking for trouble part of this same bunch of fellas? Were the infamous “Red Twins” affiliated with this group? Were any of them bona fide members of the 84th Street Bombers or just a gaggle of ancilary wannabes (like, say, what the Webelows are to the Boy Scouts)? Was there actually a formal structure to this infamous aggregation of disgruntled tough guys?

Around the time I was finishing my junior year in high school, I’m not sure that level of pedantic minutia really mattered to me. All I knew – or thought I knew – was that the neighborhood my mother and I had just moved into, following my mother and step-father’s freshly minted divorce, came with a bonus side-dish of potential trouble. I’d always considered this area of Yorkville, where my grandparents had lived, prior to their inevitable decamping to Florida, as a quaint, sleepy neighborhood. But, as the gormless high-school twerp that I was, in my Catholic school blazer and tie, I was essentially very easily identifiable prey to this gaggle of old-school Yorkvillians, and they, I guess, acted accordingly.

In a nutshell, I suppose myself and certain friends of mine handily embodied the very factors that were argaubly disenfranchising their neighborhood, to their minds. Marked by the mandatory sartorial trappings of our comparatively privileged schools, maybe we personified the gentrification that was squeezing out the working-class families that had otherwise called Yorkville home for generations. Or maybe we just came across as sniveling, hapless nerds ripe for victimizing. It may not be this simple.

I do vividly remember, as recounted here before, petitioning my more street-savvy classmate Bill (immortalized on earlier posts as “Willy”), who allegedly knew and/or actually hung-out with possibly these very same dudes, to help get them off my back. In retrospect, that seems like the stupidest possible course of action. I mean, think about it – if you were a self-styled street hooligan and someone asked you to “lay off” a certain kid, odds are that, if anything, you’d double-down on hassling him, right? Well, mercifully, that didn’t come to pass.

For whatever reason, I stopped worrying about these guys, and they, in turn, seemed to stop bothering to mess with me, although I have no idea why. I graduated from high school and that was pretty much that. Even when I moved back into Yorkville after college (when I started to pursue a career in the not-at-all lucrative field of journalism, I moved back home, for a while, to save money), my sightings of any of these likely gentlemen from just a few years earlier became fewer and further between. They moved on, and I moved on.

Cut to 2008, when, three years after launching this stupid blog, I first invoked that Yorkville “gang” – even then, wrongly branding them initially as the “86th Street Gang,” before my friend Danny corrected me in the comments. I brought them up a few more times after that. And that’s when folks from various circles started to weigh in. Around 2019, a gentleman named Travis wrote to me directly, claiming to have been a former member of the group which he duly informed me was officially named the 84th Street Bombers. We exchanged a few emails, and I’d always meant to post something larger and pester mysterious Travis (who later became a cop and then a novellist) for further information, but I didn’t necessarily want to put him on the spot. Since our initial exchanges had been solely over email and not via the comments section of the blog, I wasn’t quite sure how game he would have been to delve into it all in a more public forum.

My sisters-from-another-mister over at Desperately Seeking the `80s, however, had no such qualms when Travis similarly reached out to them, and they just snagged a robust interview with Travis for their latest “Field Trip” episode (find it here).

As you’ll hear, Travis is a very forthcoming subject, and has great amounts to share about his days with the `Bombers, although – I have to say – Travis’ effusive, good-natured demeanor is somewhat completely at odds with how I’d have characterized the boys in the `hood whose reign of (relative) terror made large swathes of the Upper East Side quietly ill at ease through much of the early-to-mid 1980’s. I mean, put bluntly, the kids who smacked my friend Spike around in Carl Schurz Park were decidely not nice guys. The kids who jumped my friend Danny in front of Mimi’s and broke his nose for – in his own words, “just being there” – weren’t either. I mean, yeah, people change and grow up and settle down, but there’s definitely something of a discrepancy I’m trying to wrap my head around, here. 

Travis promises to be back for a Part Two of his chat with Meg and Jessica, and it’s going to be required listening.

Do YOU remember the 84th Street Bombers? 

Back to El Internacional/El Teddy's

I can’t remember when I first encountered it, but it was obviously at some point in the Eighties. While the original restaurant – Teddy’s – was kind of an old school/old New York Italian joint (see commercial below), it didn’t really become the iconic, visual phenom it was until the space was re-occupied and re-imagined by a concern called El Internacional. In this iteration, the new owners garishly decked the place out, outfitted the exterior with a dalmatian-esque paintjob and dropped a giant replica of the Statue of Liberty’s crown on the roof, an artsy, architectural flourish rivaled only by the Lone Star Café’s tremendous rooftop lizard up and over on Fifth Avenue.

Inside the original Teddy’s….

Regrettably, I never made it into El Internacional – which evidently held onto the place between 1984 and 1986, but when it became it morphed into the hybridized (I suppose) El Teddy’s, I did stop in for a drink, although I remember not being as wowed by the interior as I was hoping to be.

In any case, after spotting this story about its peculiar trajectory, I found myself wondering about the answer to a question I’ve been pondering for eons.

After El Teddy’s closed and the building was razed in 2004 to accommodate yet another yawnsome condo …

…what happened to the crown?

Anyone?

Suicide in SoHo: Redux

I posted about Suicide not too long back, but a gentleman on the Facebook No Wave page named Dan H. just posted the ad below and that sparked my curiosity.

Dating back to 1970 (how’s THAT for proto?), Suicide were already calling themselves Punk. Apparently, they played a gig at an art gallery named OK Harris on West Broadway.

The book “The Downtown Pop Underground” had this to say about it:

One of Suicide’s earliest shows was in 1970 at OK Harris, one of the first galleries to open in SoHo. It was owned by Ivan Karp, an art dealer who played an early role in promoting Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and Robert Rauschenberg. “I told him Suicide should play at his gallery,” Vega said, “and to our surprise he said yes, and they printed up postcards and everything saying Punk Music by Suicide. It was a pretty intense show, but we got invited back, even though we freaked everyone out.” The OK Harris show flyer contained the first use of the word “punk” by a band, one of the many ways in which Suicide was truly cutting edge. “I remember seeing Alan Vega around the scene very early on,” said Chris Stein. “Suicide was so groundbreaking, it’s hard to convey how far ahead they were in relation to what was going on at the time.” Debbie Harry added, “As a performer, Alan was sometimes a baffling struggle of danger, drama, pathos, and comedy. He held nothing back from us, and the interaction with audience hecklers was fundamental.” Not only was their music radically different from the New York Dolls, so was their look. “We were street guys, we took what we could get, sometimes from the garbage,” Vega said. “I remember Marty [Rev] went through the trash and other thrift store or Salvation Army type stuff, mainly out of necessity. We didn’t have any money, so what became the punk look was born out of necessity. I cut holes in socks so that my fingers went through and I stretched the socks up to my elbows and had a cutoff pink jacket. That was really something, man! Basically, I just wore what I could afford. I’m not sure really what the fuck I was thinking.” From Chapter 27 of "The Downtown Pop Underground." 

OK Harris was there well into the new millennium, only closing in 2014. Today, the space that had been OK Harris is now a Japanese high-end bakery called Harbs. 

Around the same era, Suicide also played at a venue quite nearby called Blow Your Nose over on Greene Street, which I talked about here. They also evidently played OK Harris again, two years later.

Today, it's very hard to imagine this strip of West Broadway -- just south of Houston Street -- to have played host to anything so radical or even interesting, but these were obviously very different times. 

Here's another taste ... of Suicide. 

On The Last Day: The 2023 Summer Survey

I wasn’t originally going to do another one of these, because … honestly … why would anyone care? But, then again, that same argument could be applied to pretty much every entry I post here, so, fuck it…here goes.

Defining Moment of Summer 2023
At the risk of drudging it all back up, I’d suggest the defining element of my summer involved my stupid, broken foot and having to wear that goddamn boot (see above) for four weeks. The worst of it is that here on the precipice of Autumn, it still doesn’t feel much better. I’m going back to see my quacky podiatrist in two weeks to discuss other courses of action, but it may be high time to find another doctor. Watch this space, if you care.

Best Purchase of Summer 2023
Back in June, we were invited to my nephew’s wedding, which was to be held in late August in Northern California. It was a “black-tie optional” event, so I used that as an excuse to go buy myself a proper black suit, hoping it would help me feel like more of a functioning adult. In it, I kid myself that I look like a reservoir dog, when the truth of the matter is probably closer to a middle-aged head waiter.

Best Meal of Summer 2023
Never mind just the summer, the best meal of my entire life took place in late June at a tiny eatery in Rome called Collene Emiliane. My main course was a dish simply called "Roast-Beef con purea,” which is basically just roast beef with mashed potatoes. I realize how banal that sounds, but it genuinely was the most lovingly prepared, succulent and immeasurably tasty meal I’ve ever consumed.

Best Concert of Summer 2023
Oliver and I saw some great shows, in the late Spring and earlier Summer, notably Depeche Mode back in April and then the Sisters of Mercy in Brooklyn in June. Both of those were great fun, but I’d have to say the best evening of live music I experienced this summer was only a few weeks back, seeing Calexico perform the entirety of their 2003 album, Feast of Wire at (le) Poisson Rouge over on Bleecker Street. They’re an amazing band, and I cannot recommend them highly enough.

Best Book You Read During Summer 2023
I read some fun stuff this summer, including “Heady Daze,” the second installment in the sprawling autobiographical series by Wayne Hussey of The Mission. I also enjoyed "World Travel," a collection of essays from the late Anthony Bourdain, “I Die Every Time I Hear the Sound” by Mike Doughty, “Nothin’ But a Good Time” by Tom Beaujour & Richard Bienstock,” as well as “Sweet Dreams: The Story of the New Romantics” by Dylan Jones. But, far and away, the best book I paged through this summer was “This Must Be the Place: Music, Community and Vanished Spaces in New York City” by Jesse Rifkin. I honestly cannot recommend it highly enough. Rifkin’s attention to chronological detail, musical minutia and geographical accuracy across multiple genres and local music scenes - from bongo-bangin’ folkies through Brooklynite hipster kids and the myriad musical tribes between them — is genuinely astonishing, and handled with a reverence that is inherently readable and illuminating. Even if you’re not familiar with the particulars in question, it’s an endlessly engaging journey. A MUST-READ book, full stop.

Best Movie of Summer 2023
I saw neither “Barbie” nor “Oppenheimer,” and feel not a jot of regret. I can’t actually think of a film I went to (as in, in a movie theatre) this summer, but I did quite enjoy “Squaring the Circle,” the new documentary about the album-cover design team of Hipgnosis. I also quite enjoyed “Living” with Bill Nighy, which was lovely.

Best Gift You Received of Summer 2023
For father’s day, my son gave me a fetching Love & Rockets t-shirt (his latest favorite band).

Biggest Loss of Summer 2023
On a personal level, I actually went to three funerals, this summer, which seemed a bit out of the ordinary. Mercifully, no one in my immediate circle passed away, but these were extended family members (the siblings, fathers and godparents of in-laws, etc.), and I attended to show my support for those loved ones who suffered those losses. Beyond that, I have to say that the losses of both Pee Wee Herman and Sinead O’Connor were both painfully palpable.

Song That Sums Up the Summer of Summer 2023
I don’t know if there’s truly a single song that wraps it all up, for me, but if pressed, I’d say my favorite album of Summer 2023 would be Negative Stars by local noise-rock trio, Skull Practitioners. Their vocals need a bit of work, but they mine a compelling terrain that is reminiscent of several so-called “pigfuck” bands while also somehow calling to mind the noodley prog nuttsness of early King Crimson. On a song-level, though, being that our fleeting time out in Quogue, this summer, was largely scored by the strikingly limited playlist of Sirius XM’s “Yacht Rock Radio,” I’d probably have to cite “Diamond Girl” by Seals & Crofts as the tune that might continue to remind me of this summer. I also listened to the title track of Robyn Hitchcock's Shufflemania quite a bit. 

Happiest Memory of Summer 2023
While we bicker inanely like every other family, the fact that my wife and I had the pleasure of spending so much time with both of our kids, this summer, brought me much joy. We only packed our daughter back off to Scotland this past Friday. Summer is thus officially done and dusted, as far as I’m concerned.

Saddest Memory of Summer 2023
Learning of the sudden and awful fate of Jesse Malin after suffering a spinal stroke really took the wind out of my sails. During the early weeks of the COVID 19 pandemic, when uncertainty held sway, my department at work — all sequestered in our respective homes and duly “sheltering in place” — was tasked with conceiving new content to produce to keep our audience (our creative community of affiliated songwriters, composers and publishers) informed. I pitched a series of short Q&A’s with certain songwriters to see how they were handling the challenges of this new strange era. I got the green light, and started firing off emails to various names. To my very great joy, the very first guy that got back to me was Jesse Malin, who was entirely game. I lobbed a handful of questions over and within a day, he hit me back with some great, thoughtful and inspiring responses. At this risk of lapsing into fanboy hyperbole, Jesse has always been the mover, the shaker and the tip of the spear. A true believer in the music of New York City, he makes things happen, and has kept the spirit of Punk Rock alive in a downtown Manhattan riddled by gentrification. He’s also a tireless advocate for giving BACK, and has been involved in more charitable initiatives than I can count. He’s truly one of the good guys. May he swiftly recover from this latest setback.

Scariest Moment of Summer 2023
Apart from some testy moments when looking at my dwindling bank account, I’m relieved to say that Summer 2023 didn’t come with a great deal of sudden scares.

Word That Best Describes of Summer 2023
Over.

Remembering The Rickster

Regular readers may recognize the name Ricky Powell, who I’ve invoked several times here, over the years (notary here, here, here, here, here and this post, wherein the man himself chimed in on the comments). In Downtown NYC circles, he was a known quantity as a photographer, graffiti tagger, personality, and erstwhile comrade of the fledgling Beastie Boys. That latter association probably provided him with the most renown, but he was very much an established figure in his own right.

In any case, Ricky sadly passed away in 2021. Shortly after his death, Showtime released a documentary on the man titled “The Individualist.” Being that I don’t subscribe to that service, I was unable to ever see it.

Until now….

A regular reader named Crawford kindly wrote in …. with a link.

Enjoy it while it’s up. Thanks, Crawford! 

This Must Indeed Be The Place

While I’m currently committed to finishing “Sweet Dreams: The Story of the New Romantics,” a sprawling oral history by Dylan Jones all about London's fertile synth-pop scene in the late `70/early 80s spawned from fabled clubs like The Blitz (I’m about a third of the way through … it’s kind of slow-going), I popped into the Barnes & Noble near my office for a quick browse, yesterday, only to have the book pictured above practically leap out and grab me by the jugular.

Penned by one Jesse Rifkin, a historian who also conducts a varies series of music-themed tour of New York, “This Must Be The Place: Music, Community and Vanished Spaces in New York City” seems verily tailor-made to my particular predilections. And given that, after a swift perusal of the index, I spotted invocations of names like Agnostic Front, SWANS, Missing Foundation and – OH DO PLEASE WAIT FOR IT – Cop Shoot Cop, I snapped it up and bought it on the spot. Expect a full, florid book report in relatively short order.

I want to say that I’ve encountered Mr. Rifkin in one instance or another, but cannot seem to find any record thereof. In any case, while I’m quite fired up to read his book, his Instagram account is entirely worth your time, touching on many of the same topics as my blog. Witness just two examples below.

Back in 2015, I posted an entry wondering aloud about a short-lived venue called Chase Park Lounge that fleetingly played host to the ferocious likes of The Birthday Party. From a post of Jesse’s on his instagram, here’s an antiquated show schedule from the venue that discloses its location at 599 Broadway, on the south side of Houston Street. Today, that space is the American Eagle Outfitters wherein I spotted that beach-ready, day-glo bastardization of the Unknown Pleasures sleeve.

Back in May of 2022, meanwhile, I posted a piece about Michael Gira’s fabled “bunker” at 93 Avenue B, a SWANS rehearsal space which doubled as his windowless crash pad. Via his Instagram page, Rifkin hosted a glimpse of that fearasome stronghold’s interior…

Anyway, find more amazing images like these here and tell’em Flaming Pablum sent ya. Enjoy.

Stuff Ya Might Have Missed

Being that you’re probably as bored reading about it as I am talking about (let alone living with it), I’m going to forego yet another update about my stupid broken foot. Instead, here’s some stuff ya might have missed.

I’m dead certain I devoted at least five or six posts to it when it was happening in real time, but when CBGB was finally being disassembled and gutted upon its hotly contested shuttering circa the latter months of 2006, I probably hadn’t set foot in the actual building in several years (I might be mistaken, but I think the final show I ever witnessed at 315 Bowery was either a Kraut reunion show or a secret Firewater gig around 2001). Put simply, while inarguably a New York City institution, CBGB, in its declining years, ceased being a nurturing ground for exciting, new music.

Then, of course, it closed for irritating reasons and suddenly, this revered cultural flashpoint was gone, shortly to have its footprint co-opted by a fatuously bespoke haberdashery, which I’ve covered here ad nauseum.

While I’ve posted countless weepy paeans, pics and video of CBGB when it was still a going concern, my friend Emily posted something on Facebook that provided a refreshingly more granular view. While there are countless photographs of CBGB’s endearingly grotty exterior, its disarmingly intimate stage and its notoriously un-private bathroom, a gent named DJ Jason posted his snaps of the interior of CBGB taken, presumably, at points in either the late `90s or early `00s, and they are refreshingly thorough. That’s one of his above but you can see the rest here. You can almost smell the stale beer.

I was dispatched, quite recently, by the Mrs. with another load of old clothes we’d decided (or, really, she’d decided) that we should part wit. Per usual, I walked over to the Goodwill outlet on the west side of West 8th Street between MacDougal and Sixth Avenue with the intention of dropping it off, only to find the place permanently shuttered.

This particular strip of West 8th has been in pretty rough shape, for a little bit. The squat buildings on the norther end were razed some time ago to accommodate some new development, but that has yet to come to any fruition. South of that, the storefront that formerly played host to concerns like the ill-fated Mainline Records and comparatively storied Disc-O-Rama before that later morphed into some sort of pet-centric business before becoming yet another cannabis dispensary called City Vibes, but that, too, has now closed. The curio/head-shop joint called 8th Street Gifts seems to be hanging by a thread. Goodwill is now gone. Covert restaurant Frevo (it looks like a gallery on the outside, but there’s a secret door) and posh stationery outlet Goods For The Study are holding their own, but the derelict storefronts to their east are attracting a much less salubrious crowd than their businesses would probably prefer.

Just south of there, of course, is an urgent-care facility run by Mount Sinai. Seemingly a million years ago, this space was TLA, a comparatively sprawling and esoteric video store (remember those?). Of course, before all that, it was the site of the fabled 8th Street Playhouse, which stood there from about 1929 until its somewhat seedy demise in 1992. I remember seeing films like “Liquid Sky,” Penelope Spheeris’ “Suburbia” and “Repo Man” for the first time in that theater. Below is a little “before and after” of the Playhouse’s heyday. It’s striking how “distressed” the theatre and the surrounding environs look in the bottom shot.

Next up, I picked up a copy of “Nöthin' But a Good Time: The Uncensored History of the `80s Hard Rock Explosion,” a great oral history by Tom Beujour and Richard Beinstock. While it’s no “Please Kill Me,” I devoured it whole (it isn’t exactly Tolstoy) over the course of the holiday weekend and have to say that I enjoyed it thoroughly. Sure, the era of so-called hair metal was inarguably a very stupid time, but I can’t say I was immune to the charms of early records by bands like Mötley Crüe, Twisted Sister and a select few others. If you ever spent any time banging your head to truly idiotic anthems like “Fuck Like a Beast,” “Burn In Hell" or “Looks That Kill,” you will eat it right up.

In any case, towards the latter pages of the book – documenting the hotly contested “death by Grunge” days when bands like Warrant, Dokken and Winger were getting the short shrift in the wake of the rise of all things Cobain – a New York City band called Spread Eagle gets invoked as one of the hair metal scene’s late-comers. Now, even as an avowed rockhead and self-appointed knowitall regarding New York City bands of certain stripes, I have absolutely ZERO recollection about Spread Eagle. I mean, while New York City did have a small-but-stubborn hard rock/hair metal scene formed around bands like Circus of Power and the like, I cannot say I ever encountered Spread Eagle, who apparently were based in the East Village. Who knew? 

Here they are runnin' from the cops, man!!

I looked'em up and sure enough ... here they were stomping around Avenue C and Tompkins Square Park etc. It's not really my cup o' tea, but see what ya think...

Ginsberg's Lens

The following item comes courtesy of loyal, longtime Flaming Pablum reader Dr. Bop, who regularly sends me curious minutia whether I’m soliciting it or not (let alone responding). Hopefully he’s reading this and knows that I do indeed appreciate it.

Either notorious or beloved, depending on your sensibilities, Alan Ginsberg was one of New York City’s more celebrated beat poets and political activists, a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and a figurehead of downtown bohemia (despite actually coming from New Jersey). I remember reading his signature manifesto, “Howl,” in college and being duly captivated. Ginsberg was also renowned for his pronounced appetite for sex, which he explicitly delved into in his writing (specifically pertaining to his own homosexuality), much to the pointed chagrin of the self-appointed guardians of social mores of the time. I seem to remember fellow poet, proto-punk rocker and Flaming Pablum favorite Jim Carroll writing about Ginsberg’s voracious libido, at one point.

In any case, what many might not know (or, at least, I certainly didn’t) was that Alan Ginsberg was also a sort of amateur photographer. Dr Bop forward me a piece published earlier this week in Document Journal that culls together many of Ginsberg’s photos, including portraits of luminaries like Ai Weiwei, Hunter S. Thompson, fellow Beat icon William S. Burroughs, Gus Van Sant and Iggy Goddamn Pop.

Check it out here.

Back to Charlotte Street & Robert Christgau is a Scumbag

It’s been a couple of minutes since I last invoked the Plasmatics, so here goes…

Appropos of nothing at all, I remembered an old story that, for the sleeve of what would be their third album, 1982’s largely-ignored Coup D’Etat, the band (or someone…maybe manager and conceptual svengali Rob Swensen) wanted the cover picture taken on a particular New York City street. That street, again, if legend has it, was Charlotte Street in the South Bronx. 

The alleged decision to shoot on this particular street stemmed originally from a visit to same five years earlier by then-president Jimmy Carter, which resulted in an infamous photograph of the man standing amidst the proverbial rubble. Three years later, as something of a cheap shot, Carter’s GOP rival Ronald Reagan traveled to the very same spot on Charlotte Street as a means of demonstrating how anemic Carter’s efforts had been, suggesting that only he could make the required difference to turn things around, reducing the plight of the South Bronx to little more than a political football and photo-op.

In response to this, the Plasmatics allegedly showed up on Charlotte Street with a big fuckoff tank, and called their record Coup D’Etat.

Great story, right? Well, here’s the thing -– I could find precious little documentation to back up the original story that the Plasmatics specifically went to Charlotte Street. Sure, study the cover of the album and it certainly looks like it could have been Charlotte Street. I mean, those are burned out buildings appearing behind them, after all, but it’s not like the South Bronx was the only place to find distressed urban decay. Flip the album over….

…and the only tangible information about the photography is that it was handled by a gent named Butch Star. Certain folks have suggested the Butch Star is actually the aforementioned Mr. Swenson, but, y’know, who knows? As a result, the trail to verify the location has gone cold.

Oh, as something of a surreal and depressing coda, the following September after Coup D’Etat was released on a disinterested public, the Plasmatics’ erstwhile touring mates in KISS also traveled to Charlotte Street, selecting it as the location for the laughably ludicrous (naturally) video for “Lick It Up.” One can only imagine the already-beleagured residents of the Charlotte Street neighborhood being somewhat bemused by all this attention.

KISS probably chose Charlotte Street because it looked suitably apocalyptic, not for any political reasons (that was never their scene). The Plasmatics chose Charlotte Street very much on purpose as a vague political statement, but then buried and/or abandoned that statement, inexplicably.

Regardless, while the full story may yet be told in some band biography, I could find zero evidence to verify that Charlotte Street was the location for the cover image Coup D’Etat or the video for “Lick It Up.” Ho hum. 

But in my travels around the `net trying to unearth info about the Plasmatics’ shoot, I did come across Robert Christgau’s review of Coup D’Etat for The Village Voice. For those who may not know the name, Robert Christgau is the self-titled “Dean of American Rock Critics.” Some years back, I started reading his book and got suitably turned off by his slavishly masturbatory prose (and this is coming from me). You can read that screed here.

In any case, here’s what Christgau had to say, as documented here:

Plasmatics: Coup D'Etat [Capitol, 1982] Now that they've copped to heavy metal tempos, they could last as long as Judas Priest, although since the HM hordes do demand chops, Wendy O. might be well advised to try singing with her nether lips. Not only can't she carry a tune (ha), she can't even yell. Inspirational Thing She Says Backward on Outgroove: "The brainwashed do not know they are brainwashed." Inspirational Message Scratched on Outgroove: "You were not made for this." D-

Did you catch that?

“She might be well advised trying to try singing with her nether lips”

I mean, seriously, Village Voice, I realize this was still 1982 … but what the actual fuck?

Meanwhile, back on Charlotte Street in the South Bronx, if you go looking to recreate the sleeve of Coup D'Etat with your own big fuckoff tank or try re-enact the priapic preening of Paul Stanley in front of a row of crumbling housing projects, the end results are not going to synch up very well. As documented in this first-person account from 2016, Charlotte Street is now a sleepy bedroom community that now plays host to an unrecognizable plot of suburban-style ranch houses. 

ADDENDUM: For better or worse, I’ve always been a strident Plasmatics fan and apologist, defending them at their silliest moments, which were myriad. I first snapped up a copy of the “official” Plasmatics book, “Your Heart in Your Mouth” circa 1983 from a posh bookstore on Fifth Avenue. In later years, I bought a second copy of it (why I did so now escapes me) at a WFUV Record Fair in Chelsea about twenty years ago. As such, I now own two copies of this  book which, in certain very silly circles, can fetch an admirable sum. I’d wrongly assumed the book was first published prior to the release of Coup D’Etat, but dug out one copy this morning to verify — and lo and behold, I came across this fleeting invocation of the band’s cover shoot for that album, quasi-confirming the notion that it was indeed the same Charlotte Street address, if the book — a band-sanctioned bit of self-mythologizing promotion — is to be believed. 

 

A Sound of Thunder

I thought this was pretty cool.

As I understand it, "Thunder" is an experimental film from 1982 made by a Japanese director named Takashi Ito. I shan't do it any semblance of justice, so here's Wikipedia's description.

Thunder features a series of photographic slides of a woman repeatedly covering and uncovering her face with her hands, projected onto the interiors of an empty office building. The images bend and distort against the interior surfaces. Additionally, a long ribbon of light is seen curling and oscillating. The effect of the ribbon of light was produced using long-exposure photography, created frame-by-frame by a person with a flashlight moving throughout the building's rooms during long single-frame exposures.

Well, an intrepid YouTuber named Artomo Sardanapale got a little experimental on his own, and decided to score those cryptic visuals with one of my favorite b-sides by my beloved Cop Shoot Cop, that being "Transmission," which appeared on the 1995 CD single for "Any Day Now." A slow-burning, dystopian narrative of paranoia with a suitably encroaching sense of dread imbued deep within its buzzing, dissonant core, "Transmission" builds to a head when drummer Phil Puleo punctuates the refrain ..."WHAT IS YOUR POSITION? REPEAT TRANSMISSION!"... with jarring strikes of a snare drum, as the ominous intonation fades into the noise. It's not exactly a peppy dance number.

Anyway, here is the spot-welding of those two disparate elements. The title of this post, meanwhile, comes poached from a great Ray Bradbury short story from 1953 about a man who travels back in time to shoot a Tyrannosaurus Rex, only to unwittingly alter the trajectory of time in the process.