Flaming Pablum

Crumb is a Prophet

At some point in the early `90s, someone gave me a set of postcards by underground comic legend, R. Crumb.

For those unfamiliar, Crumb is most renowned for his distinctive characters like Mr. Natural, Fritz the Cat, the “Keep On’ Truckin’” guy and a host of others. His notoriety was pointedly furthered, some years ago, by a great documentary about the man, his pronounced peculiarities and his penchant for the subversive. 

In any case, in the wake of Trump’s inarguably racists tweets and pugnacious double-downs about certain congresswomen, I was reminded of one of those postcards and did a Google search to see if I could find it. Sure enough, up it came.

Is it just me, or doesn’t this look astonishingly familiar?

Exhuming 'The Egg Walk'

This experimental film below is described thusly:

Created by Anna Coates in the mid 1980s as a performance piece, it was turned into a film a few years later by Alan Steinfeld. It has been seen as an eerie prelude to 911.

See what you think.

What Is Killing Joke?

I know the answer ... do you?

Chronicling The Core Redux: 10 Questions

For a few years now, filmmaker Drew Stone has been continually adding to his excellent video series regarding all things NYHC, The New York Hardcore Chronicles. In between shooting amazing projects like the full-length film of the same name and 2017’s epic “Who The Fuck IS That Guy? The Fabulous Journey of Michael Alago,” Stone has sought out alumni of the NYHC scene and the surrounding punk rock community to paricipate in his great, ongoing 10 Questions series.

You might remember me highlighting the one he did with Flaming Pablum favorite RB Korbet of Even Worse back in 2016, but he’s also put luminaries like Davey Gunner of Kraut, Jessie Malin of Heart Attack/DGeneration, John Joseph of the Cro-Mags, Jimmy G of Murphy’s Law, Bobby Hambel of Biohazard, Vinnie Stigma and Roger Miret from Agnostic Front, Yana Chupenko of P.M.S./Wench, the late Todd Youth of Warzone/Murphy’s Law/Agnostic Front/etc., Harley Flanagan of the Cro-Mags and literally SO MANY OTHERS from practically every conceivable era of the genre (however one cares to personally define it) in front of the mic to weigh in. If you’re a fan/student/acolyte of this scene, this music and its accompanying culture, this series is absolultely required viewing. Find them all here. 

More often than not, despite the gruff exteriors and burly reputations of some of these characters, most of the ensuing anecdotes and reminicences are nothing but warm, good natured and practically familial. I was really happy to see Drew run his 10 Questions by none other than beloved NY1 reporter and longtime Punk rocker Roger Clark this week. I’m sure he’s already trying to rope in a bunch more participants, but I’d love Drew to corner Jack Natz (Cop Shoot Cop/Undead/Virus), Bobby Steele (Misfits/Undead), Doug Holland (Kraut/Cro-Mags), Stephan Ielpi (False Prophets), Tim Chunks (Token Entry), George Tabb (Letch Patrol/Iron Prostate/Furious George), Fran Power (Ultra Violence/Clix) and more, but I realize some of these are more likely than others.

As someone who skirted the periphery of NYHC (I went to several shows and was a devout fan of certain bands, but I would feel deeply remiss calling myself a bona fide member of the scence), I cannot claim to be as versed or as deeply ensconced as any of the participants of the 10 Questions series, but because I simply cannot resist a good survey, I decided to answer Drew Stone’s usual 10 Questions (and cheat by adding an eleventh).

First Hardcore Show You Ever Saw
The first hardcore show I was lucky enough to witness would have been in either `84 or `85 at the Ritz on East 11th Street, and it was an amazing line-up of my then-favorites, The Circle Jerks sharing a bill with the incomparable D.O.A., Redd Kross and Toxic Reasons. It was absolute fucking mayhem, and I loved every nanosecond of it.

Club You Miss Most From Back in The Day
There’s a lot to choose from, here, obviously. Most of the series participants cite A7, but that was slightly before my time. CBGB was, of course, the epicenter of so much (and not just hardcore), and its loss continues to sting, but if I’m being entirely honest, I have to say the run of shows I caught at the old Ritz on East 11th Street (i.e. before it moved to 54th Street, before Webster Hall) fires my imagination the most. This all said, I also dearly miss The Marquee on West 21st, Wetlands Preserve in TriBeca, and Tramps in Chelsea, just to name three more.

Funniest Guy in the Hardcore Scene
The usual response here is Vinnie Stigma or Jimmy G. And, yes, while both of those guys are indeed hilarious, I cannot say I actually know either of them. With that in mind, I’m going to say Dean Rispler (Murphy’s Law/Dictators/Brought-Low/Hot Corn Girls/Swilson). I didn’t meet Dean until about 1990 or so (he was dating a friend of mine), but he’s a tirelessly big-hearted, inclusive, knowledgable gent who is always hilarious.

Favorite Slamdancer in the Pit (Past or Present)
Again, the usual responses here are characters like Minus, Rat Bones and various other almost mythilogical luminaries from NYHC’s storied past. While I cannot claim to have any meaningful encounters with those cats, I would cite two separate friends of mine to single out for this category – namely my former classmate Matt Harrington, who managed to start up a cheekily emphatic circle pit at an Urban Blight show, of all things, via the sheer force of his enthusiasm. My second choice would be my longtime comrade Rob D., who’d perfected a sort of gangly, loose-limbed skank with flailing limbs akimbo that was so distincive, he was once written-up for it in a review of a Claw Hammer/Laughing Hyenas double-bill at Los Angeles’ Troubadour. The piece spent more time talking about Rob’s moves than the actual bands’ performances.

Show You Wish You Saw Back in The Day
There are too many to cite, here, but off the top of my head, there was an amazing line-up at the club that was usually referred to as The Roxy on way West 18th Street that featured a lethal line-up of the Cirlce Jerks, Bad Brains, Leeway and an early iteration of Vernon Reid’s Living Colour that would have been amazing. I also quite wish I’d caught the original line-up of Kraut back in their heyday. I saw them reunite and open for GBH in the early 90’s, but never caught them at their prime.

Greatest Show You Saw in Your “Golden Age” of Hardcore
This is also a toughie. Beyond that first Circle Jerks/D.O.A. gig, a few chaotic Butthole Surfers shows – if they count as hardcore --- and a high-octane double-bill of FEAR and The Dwarves, I’d have to say the greatest was seeing the Bad Brains on the Quickness tour at the New Ritz on 54th Street. It’s a cliché, but I’d just never seen anything like it. H.R. hadn’t lost his mind, yet, so was still firing on all cylinders. Also, and this seems to get overlooked a lot, despite the hysteria their music inspired (literally the whole entire floor of the venue was one giant pit), the look of sheer, unfettered joy on Dr. Know’s face while he played was remarkable. I’ve never seen anyone come close to that.

Brooklyn or Queens
I’m a born’n’bred, dyed-in-the-wool Manhattan snob, but more of my favorite bands of that era came from Queens, if I’m being honest.

Best Pizza in New York
Funny, I’m actually working on another sprawling food-related post at the moment. Look for that soon, but, in the interim, while most of my old favorite pizzarias are long gone (much like my favorite record stores), I’m still a big fan of Lombardi’s on Spring Street, although it’s gotten way too touristy for my taste. John’s Pizza on Bleecker Street is also very nice. In terms of just grabbing a quick slice, though, my favorite spots for that are all gone. Also, friends don’t let friends buy $1 pizza. It’s an unforgivable affront to New York’s culinary heritage.

Top 3 Hardcore Drummers
I’m going to upset convention and say Johnny Feedback from Kraut, Lucky Lehrer of the Circle Jerks and John Wright of NoMeansNo.

Message to the Youth
Stop listening to bullshit, mush-mouthed pop/R&B/ersatz hip-hop and invest in the real deal.

Is Hardcore Dead?
In terms of “my” era, hardcore isn’t dead, hardcore is dad, now that we’ve all grown up, gotten married and procreated. In all honesty, I once wrote a profile of Redd Kross for CREEM magazine back in 1992, citing that first show I’d seen wherein they opened for D.O.A. and the Circle Jerks in `84/`85. At the time, I described how they’d renounced their punkier origins in favor of a more pseudo-metallic power-pop style that confused and upset most of the hardcore kids in attendance, concluding the passage by suggesting Redd Kross had the last laugh when “hardcore died” soon afterwards.

That was just myopic on my part, of course. While many of the bands I’d cared about had either flamed out or changed direction (I remember CH3, as one example, turning into a sort of “cowpunk” band in 1984 with the Airborne ep), there were entire generations of bands inspired by those original bands who sprang up in their wake, many of which I wouldn’t discover until years after the fact.

So, no ... Hardcore is nowhere near dead. 

Jeff's Records

Evidently, it’s been a whole 22 years since Jeff Buckley -- that's him above, performing at Tower Records on Broadway -- vanished beneath the water of the Wolf River Harbor in Memphis, TN and drowned (although, his body wasn’t recovered until six days later). I still remember learning about his death and being entirely incredulous about it.

I have a stupid anecdote about getting into an online spat with poor Jeff’s mother sometime after that. In those early days of online file-sharing, she was a vigilant gatekeeper of her late son’s music, and was renowned for going after his fans online. I’d dimly invoked a cover Jeff had recorded of “I Against I” by the Bad Brains on a now-long-defunct music discussion board, and she reached out and kinda went to town on me. In retrospect, it’s more sad than anything. Should you care, you can read the full stupid story here.

As a side note, according to WikiPedia –- and take from that what you will -– Jeff Buckley was once roommates with actress Brooke Smith, and it was Smith who introduced him to the music of the Bad Brains. Smith, who played Catherine Martin in “The Silence of the Lambs” (y’know – it’s her that gets the hose again if she doesn’t rub the lotion on her skin and put it back in the basket) is also the source of those amazing photos of punks and hardcore kids from the NYHC matinee scene that I wrote about way back when. Small world, eh?

Anyway, a little over two decades later, there’s been a mountain of posthumously released material from the Buckley vault, possibly even a proper release of that divisive Bad Brains cover, which was allegedly originally recorded for a radio show. But a friend of mine posted something today that I’d never seen, that being the presumably authoritative website of Jeff Buckley’s record collection.

Herein, you’ll find a lot of what I’d consider predictable stuff like Cocteau Twins, Zeppelin, Van Morrison, but there are some surprises as well. It’s not shocking to see the Bad Brains in there, but he also had a Circle Jerks album (Golden Shower Of Hits, though, not the vital Group Sex), a couple of albums by the Birthday Party, lots of Iggy Pop, a surprising amount by Skinny Puppy and even Master of Puppets by Metallica and Destroyer by KISS. Didn’t expect those last two.

Woefully, if this site is to believed, Jeff owned nothing by Killing Joke, Motorhead, the Stranglers, SWANS, XTC nor his ersatz labelmates Cop Shoot Cop (Buckley and C$C were both fleetingly signed to the UK’s Big Cat label). Moreover, he owned what I would consider an unhealthy amount of Joni Mitchell albums, but y’know … to each their own.

May he rest in peace.

What An Excellent Day for an Exorcism

Tompkins Square `67

A far cry from today...

Video Over SoHo

As it happens, I walk through SoHo every weekday on my treks to and from my office. During same, I cannot stop myself from taking pictures. Even though the neighborhood and its surrounding environs have dramatically changed over the last few decades, I am still moved by its singular architectural character, its vibe and the sense of history – both personal and civic --- it continues to exude. That above image of Broome Street I shot just this morning.

I haven’t mentioned her excellent blog in a little while (or not since 2017, I guess), but Yuki Ohta revamped her SoHo Memory Project not too long back, and it’s a wonderful trove of pictures and anecdotes for those who pine for the SoHo that was prior to it being a hotbed of prohibitively expensive real estate and luxury retail outlets.

I also noticed she has her own Vimeo account. Click here to check out some of the clips she’s amassed, lovingly capturing glimpses of that bygone SoHo. Enjoy.

After Hours AOC

Despite appearances to the contrary, this post is not really about AOC (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez), but — since I just invoked her — I might as well concede that I think she’s pretty great. Sure, she’s young and probably still has a lot to learn about the office she now holds, but anyone who is capable of speaking truth to power with her level of conviction — to say nothing about causing so much angst and indigestion among key figures on the Right — is a-okay with me. You, of course, may beg to differ. That’s all.

In any case, a friend of mine recently posted the above photo on Facebook of AOC, posing with her signature, unblinking intensity on a weathered New York City stoop, her impeccably sharp, green ensemble creating a striking dichotomy with her otherwise rough-hewn surroundings. At first glance, I found it strangely familiar, but then I realized … there are doubtlessly thousands of stoops just like the one she’s depicted sitting on.

Then I thought back to an evening several weeks back. I was going to meet some out-of-towner friends who now live on the other side of the globe. They were briefly back in the city for a wedding, so we decided to meet up an at age-old favorite haunt, the Ear Inn on the westerly edges of Spring Street.

I’ve mentioned the Ear a few times here. It passively vies for the title “Oldest Bar in New York City” in meaningless competition with joints like Pete’s Tavern and McSorley’s, although — to my mind — it’s way better than either of those over-hyped establishments. Whether it’s genuinely the oldest bar in New York means nothing to me. It’s just a great place to meet friends and have a few beers. Long may it stay that way.

In any case, because I’m deeply neurotic and punctual to a fault, I arrived in the neighborhood ahead of schedule, which left me plenty of time to roam around the surrounding environs before assuming my place at the bar.

Time was when part of the Ear’s charm was that it was in such a remote, desolate backwater of a neighborhood. Apart from a deli or two, a couple of fellow bars (notably McGovern’s and the Emerald Inn) and, later, rock club Don Hill’s, there was practically nothing. The streets were empty and quiet. It’s for this reason that Martin Scorsese chose this patch of SoHo for many of the locations in “After Hours,” because it exuded such an eerily quiet, empty ambiance.

Suffice to say, this is no longer the case in 2019. These days, the westerly edges of Spring Street are a densely populated Emerald City of exclusive condos and monied luxury. Somehow, the Ear Inn has managed to hold on, but the days of it being a remote outpost are decidedly over.

This all said, there are still whispery elements of the neighborhood’s old vibe, if you look hard enough for them. As I circumnavigated the area on foot, I snapped a few pictures, trying to capture that rarified essence of place.

Circling the block on Renwick Street, just a street to the east of the Ear Inn, I came upon a certain stoop at the tail end of the building that formerly housed the Emerald Inn, the bar Scorsese re-cast as the Terminal Bar for “After Hours” (which I wrote about back here). I was struck by how grim and forbidding the stoop in question looked, so, I took a picture.

Sure enough, it’s the same stoop AOC was photographed on. Now, what was she doing there?

Hell if I know.

Gettin' 'Fanky' in The Streets

Yesterday afternoon, apropos of nothing in particular, I posted a video on Facebook by this great New Zealand band called The Clean, that being “Dunes” from 1989. Beyond it just being a great tune, I harbor an affinity for this video -– as richly detailed in this post from 2013 -– because it is rife with Super 8 footage of the band exploring the New York City of the summer of 1989, and visiting various favorite locales like the old Knitting Factory on East Houston Street, CBGB on Bowery, Maxwell’s in Hoboken, etc. To my mind, it just captures a time and a place perfectly.

Presumably inspired by same, my friend Frank R. then sent me a curious clip from the very same era by a performer named Charly Garcia. In all honesty, I initially had no concept who this strangely mustachioed Argentine dude was -- although that would change --  but much like the Clean video, this clip for a tune called “Fanky,” --  whatever that means -– finds Mr. Garcia and cohorts hamming it up in the streets of SoHo, Chelsea, Greenwich Village, Washington Square Park, East River Park and around the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, all circa that same turn of the decade, when downtown still felt cool, airy and arty -– and not staid, overcrowded and avaricious like it does today.

The music is sort of slickly overproduced, but still legitimately funky. Some of the video effects are distracting, but the clip still mercifully allows for some nostalgic viewing. Check it out here…

In doing a bit of further research, however, it suddenly struck me that I HAD indeed heard of Charly Garcia before. In about 1983, or so, he put out a record called Clics Moderno or…. wait for it … Modern Clix. The sleeve for same found Mr. Garcia posing in front of some very specific street art. See below…

Keen-eyed NYC street-art fans will probably recognize the shadowy figure behind Garcia as the work of Richard Hambleton (who I discussed back here). That part, while certainly cool, wasn’t what caught my eye, though. No, what struck me is that the “Modern Clix” tag refers -– presumably -– to my friend Fran Powers’ old band. As close as I can figure it, evidently Charly Garcia must have been photographed somewhere on the streets of downtown NYC and liked the picture so much, he decided to slap it on his album and name the record after it --- wittingly or unwittingly, I do not know.

As detailed in this old post, Fran Powers’ Modern Clix played an amalgam of ska/punk/funk/reggae that is worth checking out. You also might recognize Fran from his cameos is films like "After Hours" and "Hannah and Her Sisters," which he and I discussed here. 

Is he aware that Charly Garcia appropriated his tag for the title and image of his earlier record?

I will have to ask.