Flaming Pablum

The Coffee Shop/Diner Dichotomy

The following post is actually an “open letter,” initially composed in response to the latest episode of the Desperately Seeking the `80s podcast, which I’ve discussed here several times before, most notably here. I started writing it and then it got to a length wherein I figured it would make a nice post on its own, so here we are. You’re welcome.

Incidentally, the lovely ladies of the`80s have graciously invited me to actually appear on their podcast. We’re recording that very soon, I believe, so watch this space for that. Hopefully I won’t come off sounding like a rambling, abject idiot, but I promise nothing.

So, without further ado, in response to Jessica’s portion of this latest episode (Episode #60), herewith my response….

M’kay… first of all, I totally recognize the elusive difference Jessica was driving at between the classic coffee shop and the diner, the latter being a sort of less salubrious affair, given its accent on burgers & fries over more delicate fare and the ability to order alcohol, an important distinction, in my latter years of high school and into college.

That discussion immediately conjured up places where I used to be taken as a child. There were at least two or three proper “coffee shops,” as I remember, on Madison Avenue, foremost among them being the one beautifully captured in the photograph above (I have no idea who took it or when, but I'd originally poached it for this old post), which was on the southwest corner of 84th Street, right next to the long-vanished Trans-Lux movie house (the only movie theatre on Madison Avenue, I want to say). For whatever reason, I remember coming to this place with my Dad, who always ordered “cinnamon toast” … which, should that need illustration, was just that: buttered white toast with cinnamon on top. I don’t remember us ever having anything else, but who needed anything else? Inside, it was a lunch place, but it wasn’t tawdry or beaten up, unlike more conventional diners, which were open later. I want to say there was another more haute coffee shop about a block up between 85th and 86th (and this is going way, way back) called The Puffing Billy (named, presumably, after a train), but I can find no evidence of that online.

In terms of all things DINER, meanwhile, beyond what I blathered about in this recent epic-length post, me and my own little gaggle of morons had our specific favorites, those being as follows: The Mansion on East 86th & York Avenue (this was my home corner from about 1984 until 1996), Gracie’s Corner on the – wait for it – corner of East 86th & First Avenue (r.i.p.), The Viand Restaurant on East 86th Street & Second Avenue and then, a little further afield, The New Amity on Madison and east 84th (r.i.p.) and one on Lexington between 77th and 78th that, in more recent years, was called the Lenox Hill Grill, but went by another name back in the 80s. There was also one on Madison Avenue and, like, East 63rd we occasionally went to which was called The New Wave Diner (or Restaurant) – an establishment we appreciated solely for its name.

The Mansion is still there today, but had something of an interior-décor reboot, some years back, that decimated everything I held dear about the place. It used to be comparatively dark inside. You could sit at the counter and enjoy your burger in a sort of atmospheric gloom, as opposed to the gleaming white walls that now frame one’s dining experience. I remember they had stills from “Casablanca” above the counter area, for whatever reason.

When my mother and my step-father split, my sister was already away at college, so Mom and I moved to East 86th Street between York & East End, just up the road a piece from where my grandparents had lived at Henderson House before decamping to Florida. It was the summer between my junior and senior years of high school, so I was already fairly autonomous, and my mom was jump-starting a career as a real estate agent for the Corcoran Group, so I was frequently left to my own devices, which meant lots and lots and lots of visits to the Mansion for any number of meals. It was also a meeting place, a hangout spot and a safe haven, of a sort. For a hot second (and I do mean hot), I actually dated a young lady who worked behind the counter in the early `90s, but it was destined to crash and crumble like a slice of over-toasted cinnamon toast. More about that another time.

One of the cool things about living on East 86th Street, at the time, was the aforementioned abundance of diners and coffee shops. I seem to remember Gracie’s Corner on First Avenue being if not a 24-hr. venture, at least being a very late-night operation, and frequently repairing to its comfy confines for late-night fries with gravy (an homage to “Diner”? Who remembers?) and other inevitably drunken shenanigans (frequently after many an ill-advised hour spent in nearby public houses like Ryan’s Daughter and The (original) Gaf (formerly Pedro’s). I have a somewhat bleary-but-still-cringey memory of my college pal Edgar (not his real name … who, after spending weeks living on my couch, finally rented his own place nearby on East 84th off Second Avenue) basically abandoning a girl he’d been out on a date with (leaving her in my care, so to speak). She wasn’t so much crestfallen as confused. I walked her home, though – something Edgar invariably should have done. But, I digress..

The Viand (and we pronounced it with an inexplicable French accent, ala “vee-OND,” although who knows if this is correct?) was another staple. I remember very many meals at the Viand, either with my college friend Shafe (then-fresh from rural Florida) or my childhood comrade Rob D. Rob was famous for his last-minute veer-offs from convention when ordering, making roundly ill-advised detours into adventurous culinary territory ala “actually….scratch that, I’ll have the Cauliflower Au Gratin!” and other dishes one should ABSOLUTELY NEVER order at a diner.

My late friend Danny (initially immortalized as Rocky, on this post) and I used to frequent that Lenox Hill spot (right next to Lenox Hill hospital, a storied institution Danny was once ensconced in for a broken nose after a fateful run-in with the 84th Street Bombers in front of Mimi’s Pizza on Lexington and 84th). It lacked the homey comfort of the Mansion or the late-night debauchery-friendly vibe of Gracie’s Corner, but it was his local. The New Amity on Madison was a big favorite for some classmates of mine, but trying to have a meal there during the school day was always a nervy affair, as our free periods were only forty minutes long, so you were invariably going to be asking feverishly for a check before you’d finished your burger (or whatever).

Today, once again, the Mansion is still there, and recently made a cameo in “Only Murders in The Building” (although not cited by its actual name). The original Gracie’s Corner is gone, as is most of the block it occupied, but I think its building is still standing. The concern actually moved up the block and what had been The Viand is now called Gracie’s Corner, if I’m not mistaken.

I’m pretty sure the Lenox Hill Grill on Lexington at 77th is gone. The New Amity closed for good last summer. I think what had been the New Wave is still there, but called something else, by this point.

In terms of the cast of characters, my date-abandoning pal Edgar decamped back to his Midwestern hometown in the mid 2000’s. I fell more or less out of touch with Florida Shafe some years back after he got a bit more churchy, so to speak. My great comrade Rob D. got married to my friend J, had a child, moved to City Island, then moved to New London, CT. , got divorced and became an acclaimed writer and an esteemed man of letters, penning the preeminent academic tome on Eugene O’Neil and currently working on another sprawling book about a different celebrated writer. He still orders food ill-advisedly. My cinnamon toast-touting Dad passed away in 2011 and my great friend Danny died in 2018 in his adopted state of Colorado following a few cruel years paralyzed from a tragic bicycle accident.

The girl I fleetingly dated from The Mansion vanished into thin air circa 1993.

Back to the East River Amphitheater ... with Cop Shoot Cop

As a revelation that should surprise absolutely no one, I run the Cop Shoot Cop Facebook page. The former members of the band didn’t particularly want to do it, so just they let me get on with it. And so I do, although that involves little more than doing periodic internet searches for pertinent mentions, pictures and videos and then posting them for the C$C faithful, who also send in assets to post. Back in 2013, I stumbled upon the shot below….

I had no idea of who shot it, where it was taken, what year it was snapped nor where it was first published, but dutifully shared it on the C$C Facebook page.

Ten years later, I’m happy to say that I can report that the photograph was taken by one Stephen Street to accompany a 1993 story in the British music-news weekly, Melody Maker written by legendary rock scribe Everett True. This was sent in by a C$C fan named Bill Farrar, who’s spotted it on Twitter.

The part that caught my eye, meanwhile, was the inclusion of the entire photograph (see below).

What I’d never realized about that first iteration of the photo is the location. The Cop Shoot Cop lads are pictured loitering menacingly around the Lower East Side Amphitheatre (or Bandshell, as some of us called it) in 1993, a full 30 (!!!) years before Mr. Farrar spotted it on Twitter.

I’ve written about the East River Bandshell several times here before (most recently here), but it was a significant Lower East Side landmark, for several years, especially as it started to gradually erode, slowly devolving into a hunk of urban decay like a set-piece from “Planet of the Apes.” In varying states of disrepair, it appeared in several music videos, notably “Annie, I’m Not Your Daddy” by Kid Creole & the Coconuts, “Cold Turkey” by Cheap Trick (yes, a Lennon cover … also starring late skateboarder/scenester Harold Hunter), “Unsung” by Helmet and “Invisible People” by False Prophets, although I’m probably forgetting some others. It also made a prominent appearance in the classic hip-hop flick, “Wild Style.”

Of course, in later years, the East River Amphitheatre got a complete makeover, reducing the structure to its core shell, with some artful piping around it.

But then, in the wake of the damage wrought by Hurricane Sandy in 2012, some contentious plans to radically re-structure East River Park writ large were put into motion, and the East River Amphitheatre was razed in 2021. I haven’t been down that way in a little while, so I have no idea what’s there at the moment, but I’m relatively certain it’s dispiriting.

Here, meanwhile is Cop Shoot Cop circa 1993.

The Ones Still Standing

Spend a reasonable amount of time reading this stupid blog, and sooner or later (usually sooner), I’m going to start waxing rhapsodic about a long-since-vanished Manhattan record store. Hell, I did it as recently as six posts ago. Not to laboriously beat that very dead horse, but the single greatest element of the New York City of my youth that I sorely miss is invariably the once-thriving network of little independent, mom’n’pop record and disc shops that covered virtually all points of the map (not just downtown). To take that a step further, I also miss the big chain music outlets like HMV, Virgin, J+R Music World and — oh do please wait for it — Tower Records. Time was when if you were looking for a specific record or disc or cassette and it couldn’t be found in Manhattan, there was a very good chance that said record/disc/cassette simply did not exist. Suffice to say, this is no longer the case.

I’ve been writing weepy paragraphs like the one above for as long as this blog’s been in existence. A week or so back, however, a good friend of mine who lives in Canada said he was coming to New York in May and was looking for recommendations for some good record stores. In response, I sighed wearily and prefaced with the usual tragedy-sodden preamble about how the greatest of these concerns — notably shops like Rocks in Your Head, Mondo Kim’s, Second Coming Records, Venus Records, Other Music, Rebel Rebel, NYCD, Subterranean Records, FreeBeing, Bleecker Bob’s, Route 66, Lunch For Your Ears and It’s Only Rock N’ Roll, to name a small few — were all but a memory.

Compounding that, earlier this week, there was Record Store Day -– an event that many longtime readers (if they, once again, actually exist) might remember me initially championing, back in the day. I can’t put a date on when I soured on the idea, but after a while, the concept of RSD seemed to get co-opted by frantic record labels who used it as an excuse to rush-release limited-edition product out to participating record stores. These artifacts would shortly re-appear on eBay for way loftier sums that the initial asking price. It basically turned into a crooked crock and a brazen cash-in. Moreover, a record store cannot survive strictly on the revenue of a single day, even if, on that one single day, there’s a line to get in the door.

As I’ve since been laboriously keen to assert, if you’re serious about your music, it’s not “Record Store Day,” it’s fuckin’ RECORD STORE LIFE, goddammit!

…but I digress.

With my Cannuck pal in mind, I dutifully started whipping up a list of shops, emporia and other similarly inclined ventures that are still in business. I decided to take advantage of the situation and turn the composition of that list into a post for this here stupid blog, and endeavor which found me, over the course of a couple of days, darkening the doors and perusing the aisles of many of the shops cited below.

Broken down by neighborhood, here are my citations and candid takes about each concern – and be warned, in some instances, I don’t pull my punches. I’m citing them to give my friend the widest possible array of options, but if I’m being honest, some of these shops don’t necessarily get me where I need to be, so to speak. If possibly, enjoy…

By the way, this list is in absolutely no way comprehensive, so if I leave something out, don't have a hissy fit. 

GREENWICH VILLAGE

Generation Records
210 Thompson Street
Arguably one of the last, true strongholds for pretty much precisely the variant of music I’d ever be looking for, Generation Records has held its perch on Thompson Street for at least a few decades, by this point. It’s gone through a few changes, over the years, and absorbed a lot of the stock from since-shuttered Bleecker Street Records a few blocks over, some years back, but it remains true to its original incarnation, that being the place to go if you’re looking for punk, hardcore, metal and each camp’s ancillary subgenres. They currently boast a wide selection of new and used vinyl (with more downstairs, including an enviable selection of 7” singles, many of them relatively rare), but the compact disc selection – should, like myself, you still carry a torch for that arguably dying medium – is getting weaker by the day. They also sell a lot of cool ephemera downstairs, like posters, DVDs, pins, and t-shirts, should you be in the market for that stuff. If I was looking for albums by bands like Venom, DOA, Agnostic Front or The Clash, I would definitely put Generation at the top of my list. If you’re searching for more left-field or exotic fare, they might not have you covered, but they’re certainly worth a visit.

Village Music World
197 Bleecker Street
I’m not going to lie – I fucking hate this place and have never bought a thing here. It’s a cluttered mess. They have no idea what they have. It’s messy, shoddily organized and a chore to try to find anything therein. I don’t frankly know how they’ve survived.

Record Runner
5 Jones Street
I have a real soft spot for Record Runner, despite a few factors. For a start, they don’t seem to be open very often. Secondly, their stock skews fairly exclusively towards `80s/early `90s pop. Back in the day, they were a must if you were searching for, say, CD singles from British Indie bands like the Senseless Things or Blur, or if you were in need of rare Duran Duran, U2 or Madonna singles. Here in 2023, the shop almost seems like it’s preserved in amber. I popped in recently and things hadn’t changed in the slightest, on the inside. But I’m glad it’s still there.

CHINATOWN

Downtown Music Gallery
13 Monroe Street
I’ve written about the strange journey of Downtown Music Gallery here several times before. It hopscotched around the Lower East Side for a little while before settling in a basement-level bunker on a relatively remote byway in Chinatown. But even if you successfully locate Downtown Music Gallery, it seems to be often closed, these days. If you do manage to get there and find them open, DMG is indeed a roiling hotbed of music options, but don’t go there looking for the latest bullshit pop drivel currently seeping out of your local radio station like sewage from a broken pipe. DMG trades almost exclusively is super-esoteric, far-lung, way-out and unwieldly variants of sound. If you’re looking for avant-garde free-jazz freakouts, crazy experimental music, listener-hostile contemporary classical noise and/or rarified, out-of-print deconstructionalist skronk, Downtown Music Gallery will excite you to the brink of pants-soiling ecstasy. If you’re looking for, like, the first Motley Crue album or a Destiny’s Child CD, you’ll be, as they say, shit out of luck. I make it a point to buy something there every time I visit as a show of support, which has led to me purchasing dusty King Crimson bootlegs, out-of-print ROIR compilations and a pricey Japanese import version of DNA (Last Live at CBGB).

Love Not Money
42 Eldridge Street
I wish I had more to say about Love Not Money, but they’re a relative newcomer that stocks only vinyl and, as something of a lark, used cassettes. As a show of support comparable to my efforts at Downtown Music Gallery, the last time I was at Love Not Money, I sprang for the cassette version of Songs from the Victorious City by Jaz Coleman and Ann Dudley. In any case, they have a mixed-bag sort of selection, but they’re staffed by knowledgeable music nerds who are all too happy to chat. I wish them all success.

UNION SQUARE/CHELSEA

Academy Records & CDs
12 West 18th Street
Another old standby, Academy has been holding court on West 18th Street for some time, now, specializing in used CD’s and wide selection of jazz, classical and soundtracks. They’re super-informed and the stock is well presented, if unpredictable. I’ve found some great stuff here, over the years, but the odds of them having something you’re specifically searching for are slim… unless you just get lucky. Still, always worth looking around in.

MIDTOWN WEST

Rough Trade
NYC 30 Rockefeller Plaza (facing 6th Avenue)
This one’s a genuine heartbreaker. When Rough Trade first came to New York City, they occupied an airplane-hangar-sized space in Williamsburg that featured both extensive vinyl and CD sections, a robust book selection, a performance space and, I believe, a coffee bar. It was a fucking destination, and they had GREAT STUFF. Then, they moved to Manhattan. Hopes were high that they were going to take over the iconic Tower Records space on lower Broadway, but they moved to … a boutique-sized space in 30 Rock (y’know, the NBC building), a teeny, little shop that doesn’t even begin to touch the majesty of their former incarnation. I can’t even.

ADDENDUM: And, of course, I put my foot in it. A good friend of mine with a vested interest got in touch to rightly take me to task for my swift dressing-down of the midtown Rough Trade, pointing out that I spend the entirety of my summation lamenting its former iteration and not giving a single sentence to the admittedly great, wide selection and meticulous curation of the stock in the current shop. While I stand by my sniffy dismissal of the new shop’s diminutive size and flagrant disregard for the demographic that still buys compact discs (hurrumph!), I am entirely remiss in not pointing out the gold hidden within those ailes, specifically in the vinyl LP section (which is most of the shop). I was there just prior to my son’s birthday and picked up several choice titles that he hungrily started spinning immediately. It should also be noted that Rough Trade has a great book section and a fine selection of t-shirts. The staff is also super-friendly and refreshingly informed about the music they have on offer. I just wish it wasn’t nestled in the belly of the fucking beast (i.e. 30 Rock, literally right under where I used to nervously toil at TODAY dot com before I got the chop), sharing a wall with a fucking Magnolia Bakery. It also bums me out that a shop which stocks amazing records by a wide spectrum of far-flung artists is predominantly patronized by hordes of confused tourists looking for Taylor Swift records. But, I retract my snide put-downs of Rough Trade. I stil go there and spend my money … a lot, so I’m a fuckin’ hypocrite.  

NEW JERSEY

Tunes
225 Washington Street in Hoboken
It seems crazy unlikely that my Cannuck friend Leigh is going to hump it over the Hudson River via the Path Train to Hoboken strictly to check this place out, but I feel duty-bound to cite it. Tunes isn’t really anything crazy special, but they do have a respectable array of CD’s, vinyl – both new and used of each. It’s basically an old-school record store than doesn’t skew towards any single demographic.

EAST VILLAGE

Stranded Records
218 East 5th Street
Another vinyl-only shop: Crisply appointed. Prices can be formidable, but it’s hard to argue with their great, wide selection and finely presented stock. At the very least, it’s fun to browse in. Last time I was there, I got sucked into a detailed discussion about David Sylvian’s post-Japan releases.

Ergot Records
32 East 2nd Street
Another vinyl-only spot and relative newcomer. Geared towards “crate diggers.” Cool selections, from obscure New Orleans Creole music through Black Metal by Venom. Got in a strange discussion, last time I was there, about how sample/beat-friendly an album by the Alan Parsons Project might be, to which I did not have a credible answer.

Limited to One
221 East 10th Street
Tiny, vinyl-only (well, they do have cassettes, too) space, but lovingly curated with some cool, esoteric fare. A bit precious, but it’s nice.

A-1 Records
439 East 6th Street
Strictly vintage (i.e. used) vinyl, with a big emphasis on funk, R&B and hip-hop. It’s cool, but I don’t believe I’ve ever spent a thin red dime in this spot.

Kiss on "The Midnight Special" in `75

Like so many other ponderously pretentious posts I put up here, I originally started this entry prefacing the video below with a needlessly laborious, multi-paragraph re-telling of the first time I’d ever seen a picture of Kiss and how that completely transfixed me and blah blah blah. Who cares? You shouldn’t.

The bottom line is this: Just like their make-up, it was black & white: either you immediately dug Kiss when you first encountered them, or you didn’t. Those who didn’t fucking hated them then and hate them still. Those who did, like myself, loved them and have invariably forgiven the band’s myriad lapses in taste, judgement and decorum, over the years, as… well … as the saying goes, you never forget your first kiss.

In any case, the clip below was posted on YouTube just a couple of days ago, and if you ever were a fan, it’s required viewing. Prior to the bigger-budgeted bloat and Ringling Brothers-worthy ridiculousness of later eras, this finds the band in leaner, sleazier mode than their more family-friendly incarnations.

Playing “She,” a somewhat lumpenly lusty exercise from their third album, Dressed to Kill, Kiss dutifully gives “The Midnight Special” their whole shtick, here, complete with some tragic choreography and needless preening. That all said, when this was taped, the band was still a loose, hungry outfit, and they were indeed all committed to the cause – from the three-part harmonies in the verses (who knew?) to Peter Criss’ beefy drums fills. As a commenter on Facebook noted, it’s all a cartoon until Ace Frehley steps up and takes over … then it gets real.

When this first aired in November of 1975, it would have been way past my bedtime, being that I would only have been about eight years old, at the time. But I was already onboard. That all said, I’m still not going to their final show.

Old Wave Goes No Navy

I routinely spend an inordinate amount of time bitching and moaning about places like The Gap, Urban Outfitter and, more recently, American Eagle hawking t-shirts with band insignias on them. Longtime readers might remember me foaming at the mouth about Flipper t-shirts being sold at Forever 21 and/or an obscure bit of Ramones artwork being inexplicably appropriated for a shirt sold by Brandy Melville. It’s getting as commonplace as canonical rock tunes like Iggy Pop’s “Lust for Life” being used in Carnival Cruise ads – it shouldn’t be shocking any more, but it still riles me.

This all said, someone posted something comparable on a Facebook group I belong to, today, that left me more puzzled than pissed-off. I cannot verify if this is actually true, but someone was selling an Old Navy t-shirt on eBay appended with the legend “NO WAVE NEW YORK – 1982 LOWER EAST SIDE,” augmented with an image of what looks like a derelict building (see below). Now, I have zero idea of the true provenance of the image, but the fact that it ended up on an Old Navy graphic t-shirt is truly bizarre.

Unlike, say, Nirvana, The Ramones, Rush, AC/DC, Guns N’ Roses or even Joy Division, the No Wave movement was a fairly niche concern, in the grand scheme of things, largely relegated to a more select demographic, to put it mildly. You’ll never find a bona fide No Wave record on a sports bar’s jukebox, nor is it likely to feature heavily in the offerings at your local karaoke establishment. Names like Teenage Jesus & The Jerks, DNA, Mars, The Contortions and the like may still be sacrosanct to your average egg-headed music nerd but aren’t liable to get any nods of recognition outside of the dusty record-shop contingent. Still quite capable of separating the die-hards from the dilletantes, the music of the very short-lived No Wave period is very pointedly of a “not for everyone” variety.

Moreover, if you really want to get pedantic, the juxtaposition of the term “No Wave” and the year 1982 also doesn’t really jibe, as by most credible accounts, No Wave was basically over by 1980. This garment begs so many questions. Click to enlarge. 

This all said, while I haven’t voluntarily stepped inside an Old Navy since my kids were still in their zealous nose-picking years, were I to come across it whilst perusing their wares, I’d probably buy it based solely on the sheer what-the-fuck? Incongruity of it all.

Actually.... it looks like you can get it on Etsy ... so treat yourself. 

For the curious, uninitiated and/or for the Old Navy shoppers……THIS is what No Wave sounds like….

Running with "The Warriors"

Apropos of nothing, Oliver and I re-watched “The Warriors,” last night. The first time I showed him this movie, about two or three years ago, he was incredulous about how a group of so-called tough guys like the titular characters had such a difficult time navigating the mass transit system of their own city, and spent most of the film detailing quicker, alternate routes they might have considered to get from Dyre Avenue in the Bronx to Stilwell Avenue in Coney Island, Brooklyn. I told him to relax and enjoy the film.

I was amused to learn, recently, that back in 2020, a runners club organized an event called “The Warriors UltraRun,” wherein over thirty runners — dressed as gang members from the film — did an overnight race from the Bronx to Coney Island. I love that idea, but — alas — authenticity-fixated pedants would be super-quick to point out that while that run is an admirably ambitious athletic undertaking, they would only be recreating the concept of the narrative, being that the actual depiction jumps all over the city map in geographical incongruity.

While viewing “The Warriors" a second time, Oliver came up with other vexing quandaries and brazen plot holes, largely concerned with the physical limitations and logistical hazards of wearing roller skates on a subway platform, the inconsistencies of oft-repeated Warrior lingo (is Swan’s inherited title —following the presumed elbow-inflicted demise of Cleon — “War Chief” or, per Ajax, “War Lord”?), and some sartorial inquiries. Why, for example, does the taskmaster of the Gramercy Riffs —and, really, Gramercy??? — dress in a sequined robe that wouldn't look out of place on Liza Minelli? 

These are all valid concerns, but the only perceived discrepancy in “The Warriors” that’s ever really bugged me is the notion that the ominous disc-jockey who relays directive from the Riffs in-between late-`70s funk and soul selections would actually drop the needle on a Joe Walsh record.

In any case, we were discussing the many locations featured throughout the film (and how, more often than not, they don’t really sync up with the narrative), and I exhumed this from YouTube.

Let's get down to it, Boppers....

Back to Cornelia Street

I think the first time I ever set foot on Cornelia Street (above, as stylishly captured by one Jean-Phillipe Rebuffet) was probably in about 1983, when my geeky grade-school chum and fellow Upper East Sider Spike (not his real name, but immortalized on this post) decided he could no longer tolerate living with his well-intentioned-but-somewhat-smothering mother on East 96th & Park Avenue (an apartment we used to refer to as “Checkpoint Charlie” given its placement on the then-seemingly-perilous border of East Harlem) and moved in to his newly-divorced dad’s swinging neo-bachelor pad at 2 Cornelia Street, a stately tower that loomed over the surrounding byways like a comparatively diminutive Flatiron building.

I can’t exactly say how chuffed Spike’s dad was to suddenly have his petulant 16-year-old son suddenly running amok in his swanky Greenwich Village apartment, but Spike made the most of it, fully availing himself to all the new experiences of the surrounding environs. While I’d dipped my toes in the water, so to speak, it was really Spike who coaxed me downtown to explore all the benefits of the then-still-seemingly bohemian Village. Had it not been for Spike, I’d have probably never discovered record-shopping at Bleecker Bob’s or live music at Folk City or cult movies at the 8th Street Playhouse. And we did all this with 2 Cornelia Street as our base of operations.

I don’t think that arrangement lasted more than two or three years, but that Cornelia Street address still comes with a lot of memories. It was there, for example, during some early Spring afternoon, we were lazing around his dad’s well-appointed living room watching some cable access channel and I first saw the video for Killing Joke’s “Eighties,” which shocked me right out of my lethargy to the point wherein I sprinted out of Spike’s place and sped across Cornelia Street to Subterranean Records (long gone and pictured below, but discussed at some length here, here, here, here, here, here and here) to frantically purchase the 12” single of same. It sounds silly, but this was a HUGE moment for me. It effectively changed my life, actually. 

I remember an evening hanging out in Spike’s room (his bedroom window was on the second floor, over what, for the last several years, has been a sexual paraphernalia/"party" store called Crazy Fantasy). We were enjoying a late-night pie from nearby Joe's Pizza -- and listening, as I recall, to a radio broadcast of a live Twisted Sister concert, as one would -- while gazing out the window across Sixth Avenue, directly opposite the little park that abuts the Washington Square Diner (which, I believe, is officially called The Golden Swan Garden) and the basketball court to its south, formally known, ominously, as "The Cage." It's no longer there, but there used to be one of those free-standing newsstands on the sidewalk in front of both those landmarks. Despite the late hour, the newsstand in question was still open, but was getting ready to close up shop for the night. As we sat there working on our slices, we watched as a group of three or four dubious-looking dudes approached the newsstand with obviously less-than-convivial intentions. Without missing a beat (I'm guessing he'd gone through this before), the newsagent sprang out of his little stand swinging a fucking baseball bat, clipping at least one of the would-be thieves across the gums with an impact we could hear across the avenue and over the shrill din of Dee Snider's voice. It was like watching an elaborately choreographed (and very violent) stage play. In short order the flashing red and blue lights of a police car were splashed across the windows and walls of Spike's place and the street-side show, as such, was over. We finished our pizza. 

But Cornelia Street is still so much more to me than simply Spike's place and punk rock records from Subterranean Records. There was also Le Gigot, a tiny French bistro (that I think is actually still there) wherein I watched my beloved step-father John nearly give himself a cerebral hemorrhage trying to order "just an AMERICAN cup of coffee, goddammit!!" It's also the home to Palma, a great little Italian restaurant and, across the way, the former site of the Cornelia Street Cafe, a very-sorely-missed neighborhood landmark that featured great food and live music in its basement. 

At its southern end, Cornelia Street (which my high-school classmate and native Greenwich Villager Jason C. would continually insist was pronounced like "KORN-ELLA" and not like the female form of Cornelius) t-bones into Bleecker Street at its busiest juncture, where concerns like Golden Disc Records (... later re-christened Bleecker Street Records...gone), Route 66 Records (gone), Murray's Cheese Shop (still there, but different location) and John's Pizza (amazingly still there) could be found. 

So, yeah, much like songwriter Louie Fleck in the last post, I have my own private associations with this particular strip of Greenwich Village. But here in 2023, it seems Cornelia Street has taken on an almost global significance -- one that finds hordes of zealous, crestfallen Taylor Swift fans flocking to an address in the middle of Cornelia Street (23, if you care) that the pop star fleetingly rented in 2016 and evidently immortalized in song. The reasons for this, as detailed in this piece in Vulture, involve Swift's recent breakup with some gent named Joe Alwyn, with whom the over-rhapsodized songwriter previously canoodled, presumably, at the Cornelia Street address. As a result, Cornelia now endures regular pilgrimages from distraught "Swifties" leaving flowers and sometimes loudly imploring their idol to "come out," entirely oblivious to the fact that Swift now lives several blocks downtown in TriBeCa. If her current address is a secret, it's the worst-kept secret imaginable. 

People are stupid. 

In any case, on my walk to work today, I took a momentary detour off Sixth Avenue to stroll down Cornelia Street. Spike's father left 2 Cornelia Street at some sad point in 1986, I believe, and decamped to Shelter Island. Spike joined him for a little while before going to Duke University and then moving into a grim apartment in midtown. He and I had a stupid falling-out in the early `90s, but ran into each other again on the street about ten years ago, but neither of us have called each other since. Subterranean Records, as mentioned above, closed for good in 2008 or so. Le Gigot is amazingly still there, although the Pearl Oyster Bar to its south has closed. Palma also remains, but the space that had been the Cornelia Street Cafe is dormant, gutted and tragic. 

Speaking of tragic, upon walking past the infamous 23 Cornelia, I did spot a sad, solitary flower, presumably left in tribute to Taylor Swift's star-crossed personal life. Ho hum.... One imagines this, too, shall pass. 

"Back Then"

I stumbled upom the video below, over the weekend, and it kind of struck a chord, pardon the pun.

Put together by a songwriter named Louie Fleck, “Back Then” is a music video of Fleck’s memories of the Greenwich Village he used to know, circa 1978-1984, when Manhattan was still, in his own words, “a folky-punky music town.” Set to a slightly incongruous reggae beat, Fleck’s song is a straightforward breakdown of the things he held dear that, by and large, are mostly no longer there.

While I recognize several of the images he utlilizes (I believe he may have even poached a scan I made of an old SPIN photograph of Freebing Records on St. Marks Place, but whatevs … I’m certainly no stranger to liberally appropriating images), I’m sure Fleck’s recollections are just as heartfelt and vital (to him) as the ones I continually cite here are to me, even if the touchstones and landmarks he highlights aren’t immediately familiar to me.

Everyone has their own New York City, here’s Louie Fleck’s….

Easter at The Movies

It’s Easter, for those who celebrate. Enjoy your chocolate.

Personally speaking, despite being raised a Catholic and having attended fourteen years of Catholic school (including four years with the Jesuits), I cannot say I’m exactly the “best” Catholic out there. I mean, I’m pretty much what you could call “lapsed.” I would suggest I’m probably agnostic, more than anything else, but the combination of fourteen years of schooling and my first exposure to the music of Black Sabbath* really drove home the point that the church wasn’t really my bag. When it came time to go to college, I felt I was more than done with the whole religious bent. I developed a pronounced disdain for rigid dogma and a naughty affinity for brazen blasphemy that continues to rile certain members of my family. But while I may frequently think that the faith is too deeply couched in intolerance, guilt and fear (what? Am I wrong?), I don’t genuinely begrudge anyone else’s adherence to it, although my absolute favorite combination of words in the English language continues to be “Mass is cancelled.”

But last night, when my wife, son and I were wondering what we should watch after dinner, the notion of the seasonably appropriate “The Ten Commandments” was invoked (not by me, mind you). I actually don’t mind the film, but felt it was a bit too … lengthy for our purposes. My alternative was to suggest “Life of Brian,” a slavishly more enjoyable take on comparable subject matter, albeit filtered through Monty Python’s refreshing disregard for the sacrosanct.

After that was shot down (by the wife), I raised the notion of a film that might otherwise seem like an unlikely stretch for a church-dodger like myself, that being 1973’s “Godspell.” I have my reasons.


For a start, while it was never a hotbed of holy rollers, my childhood home did, oddly enough, come equipped with the original cast recording of the off-Broadway production of “Godspell,” which I remember being in somewhat regular rotation (again, mind you, not by me). The folksy-acoustic pop-friendly songs from same (a little lighter than the ponderously serious fare from the similarly inclined “Jesus Christ Superstar,” which was also quite a mainstay, at the time) fit perfectly when played alongside my mother’s Judy Collins, James Taylor, Carole King and Cat Stevens records. I remember my older sister playing the crap out of “Day By Day,” which is only cloyingly churchy if you pay too close attention to the lyrics. While I may bristle at the revelation, if you play those songs today, I can still practically sing along with them to the letter.

The film from two years after that LP’s release, however, has what I’d consider a special bonus that has absolutely nothing to do with absolution, salvation, forgiveness, evangelism or any of that incense-sodden claptrap. Filmed entirely in the New York City of 1972 (and starring the ridiculously afro’d Victor Garber as Jesus), “Godspell” is an unwitting time capsule of the same, gritty Manhattan captured in films like “Serpico” and “Mean Streets,” albeit with significantly less gunplay and swearing.

Not unlike the film adaptation of “The Wiz” or Milos Forman’s “Hair” from a few years later, the Manhattan depicted in “Godspell” is actually more of a painterly, fanciful portrayal than any presented by Martin Scorsese or Sidney Lumet. But given my particular predilections, I cannot help but be fascinated by it, even if it means enduring the Gospel of Matthew being sung at me.

Enjoy this taster, and Happy Easter.

*Actually, somewhat ironically, despite the band's ominous moniker, Black Sabbath’s stance on all things occult and/or Satanic was more a wary aversion than an espousal. Led Zeppelin was far more sympathetic of that sensibility, albeit in a nuanced way — unlike, say, Venom, although Venom’s endorsement of all things Satanic was more vaudevillian than in earnest. 

Tunes for Teens

About a year and a half ago, my teenaged son started getting way more into music.

I mean, I’d unsolicitedly bombarded both of my kids with music for the entirety of their childhood – not so much to indoctrinate them, so much as to demonstrate that there are verily whole worlds of music out there that they should avail themselves to. They didn’t just have to make do with whatever crap was on the radio or whatever insipid bullshit their classmates might be listening to*.

Unfortunately, they also probably both heard me lip off about any number of widely revered artists (as I’m wont to do), which did no one any favors, ultimately.

But I tried to play them a bit of everythig. I was also always curious about how their little ears and minds processed certain bits of music. I loved how Charlotte, as a tiny tot, warmed to the metronomic pulse of Kraftwerk or how Oliver was immediately put off by the voice of Elvis Costello. There was a disc of calypso songs by Bahamanian Blind Blake (not the blues guy) that used to make them both giggle maniacally. Long-time readers might remember a post I put together wherein, as an experiment, I had the then-12-year-old Charlotte listen to the entirety of The Pink Opaque by the Cocteau Twins and share her toughts about it. I was always subjecting them to this sorta stuff.

As a result of these shenanigans, both of my children were able to identify songs by bands like, say, SWANS, Devo and Killing Joke at very early ages. They may not have been familiar with whatever cheez-whiz Taylor Swift was pushing, at the time, but a single spin of “New Life” by Depeche Mode or “Start Wearing Purple” by Gogol Bordello would have them giddily chirping along.

On the not-so-positive side, both became initially very guarded about the music they were privately warming to, lest it fall afoul of their father’s needlessly outspoken scrutiny. Now, while they may not have believed me, there would never have been an instance wherein I spoke ill of whatever music they were digging. Even if I tried, there would be no way I could possibly steer the trajectory of my children’s musical tastes. I remember my own parents trying to talk me out of liking bands like KISS, The Ramones and the Sex Pistols, and boy-oh-boy did that ever backfire on them. My kids will like what they like, and that will be that.

Years later, I don’t know that music plays the role in my teenage daughter’s young life that it did in mine, at her age. Quite like her mother, while Charlotte genuinely loves music, she’s really not interested in getting into any ponderous discussions or heated arguments about it. And unlike her feelings about it during her littler years, I sincerely doubt she gives one single rat’s ass about what I might happen think about her favorite music, which is precisely as it should be.

Oliver, on the other hand, took the baton and ran with it and has since become as zealously preoccupied with albums and bands and the whole surrounding subculture as I was, when I was his age.

The odd thing is that Oliver is drawn to a very specific era of music, immersing himself in bands like The Stranglers, The Sisters of Mercy, Bauhaus, Theatre of Hate, The Clash, The Ramones, The Sex Pistols, The Damned, The Cult, Joy Division, New Order, The Cure, Depeche Mode, Love & Rockets and – wait for it – Killing Joke. Any of this sound familiar?

Now, while all those bands are also some of my own favorites, I keep encouraging him to widen the net, so to speak. About a year ago, I started making him (again, mostly unsolicited) playlists on Spotify, as -- until I recently bequeathed him a portable turntable that I bought at a school auction, some years ago -- that’s his go-to format. He’s now enthused about amassing his own collection of vinyl LPs, but I can’t compete with -- nor necessarily get him to share my pronounced antipathy for -- the sickly allure of the hands-free convenience that Spotify provides.

Anyway, while it’s not a problem, per se, Oliver seems to listen exclusively to bands from the `80s. There’s certainly nothing wrong with that – Hell, it’s verily my favorite era, as we’ve established – but there is still much more music out there that, if he digs the `80s stuff, he should also appreciate. Also, while I’m way more in favor of him listening to bands from the `80s than, say, Drake or Post Malone or Lil Yachty or Machine Gun Kelly or Ice Spice or whatever vacuous piffle is currently clogging up the pop charts like an immovable cluster of calcified dung in a rotting sewer pipe, he should, at least, be cognizant of other areas of music out there. It’s not that I’m the best person to expose him to that stuff, but if no one else will, I’ll certainly try.

I don’t quite know why, but `80s nostalgia seems to have a much greater stranglehold on popular culture than, say, `90s nostalgia does. This isn’t to say that nobody cares about the music of the `90s (witness the dispiriting preponderance of Nirvana and Sublime t-shirts out there, these days), but dead rockstars notwithstanding, the `90s still seem to lack the romantic exotica of the `80s.

But, as I’m quick to point out, the `90s weren’t just about Grunge, Gangsta Rap and bullshit boy-band crap. There were scenes and sounds and sensibilities from that era that had zero to do with flannel or wallet-chains. With this in mind, I made a few sprawling playlists devoted to `90s phenoms like Shoegazing and Britpop. I also made a list of more contemporary bands, just to further illustrate that there is musical life outside of the Reagan/Thatcher era. He’s been receptive, but his favorites remain his favorites.

While bored beyond belief, the other day, I started putting together a playlist of a lot of the music that I was steeped in for much of the `90’s, that being the fertile wellspring of constantly new sound that was the – for lack of a better term – British Indie scene, which along with spawning the aforementioned Shoegaze and Britpop bands, also gave us the so-called “grebo” outfits like Pop Will Eat Itself (who’d really kinda shed the Grebo thing by the tail end of the `80s), The Wonder Stuff, Ned’s Atomic Dustbin, Eat and less-easy-to-accurately-categorize bands like Daisy Chainsaw, Cud, The Wedding Present, Birdland, the Kitchens of Distinction, Laika, Fatima Mansions (who, yes, are technically Irish, I know), The Wildhearts and several others. As a sidebar, the frustrating thing about this was discovering how much music from that era is, once again, NOT available on Spotify. I put together the graphic below to pick at that wound on social media.

Anyway, it ended up being a very long playlist indeed, despite what I’d consider some crucially unthinkable omissions. Here it is…

Oliver might even listen to it, out of courtesy to his ol’ man.

*I should concede, here, that I would not be half the insufferably obsessive music dork I am today were it not for the prescience, insight, patience and taste of crucial friends of mine – notably Brad O, John C, Rich K, Zach T, Rob B, Liz R, Jay F, Warwick C, Walter W, Judd T, Tim R, Steve H, Joanne H, Dean R, among several others – who went out of their way to tirelessly evangelize certain music to me when we were all kids. These folks opened up whole new worlds to me, and I am eternally grateful.