Flaming Pablum

It's Band T-Shirt Day

According to some colleagues of mine, today is Band T-Shirt Day. The official (?) website attests that "Band Shirt Day is a global fundraising initiative, where artists come together for a single day to sell merchandise on their official sales channels and donate proceeds to charitable organizations of their choice.”

Regardless, at my office, the folks that program content for the company’s intranet portal were soliciting pics of team members sporting their favorites. Being that I have pretty much a full-blown addiction to accruing band t-shirts, I was game to participate. Here’s what I submitted...

“I have what any normal person would consider a stupid amount of band t-shirts, but I can’t seem to bring myself to part with any of them. This one is among my very favorites. It’s Dread Zeppelin. Ostensibly, Dread Zeppelin was a reggae band that played Led Zeppelin covers with an Elvis impersonator as a lead singer. If that sounds ridiculous, that’s because it was. Suffice to say, they were a tremendously entertaining live band. I got this shirt at a tour stop in 1990 at long-since-vanished Wetlands Preserve, not too far away from our office. To this day, this shirt continues to confuse and upset Zeppelin purists … which makes it priceless, to my mind.”

I partially went with Dread Zeppelin not just because I genuinely love the shirt, but because I can only bang the gong so much about my allegieance to certain specific bands like Killing Joke before I lapse into self-parody. Funnily enough, my company’s recently-hired new Chief Financial Officer submitted a pic of himself sporting a Killing Joke shirt, which pretty much knocked me right off the porch. I’ll be discussing that with him soon, although I have to meet him first.

I also love the irony of our CFO rocking a t-shirt emblazoned with the cover of the album that spawned the single “Money Is Not Our God.”

Anyway, Happy Band T-Shirt Day to all that celebrate. To see more of my stupid pile of t-shirts, click here. 

“Suburbia” Coda: An Unlikely Stage Diver's Journey

And now, a very silly companion piece to the last post. 

It’s been a really long time since I thought of this, but since exhuming “Suburbia” in that last post, I was reminded about a tiny detail that really used to bug the Hell out of me.

Not too long into the film, the T.R. gang attends a show by T.S.O.L., and the viewer is treated to two songs from the Long Beach band, namely “Wash Away” from 1983’s Beneath the Shadows and an otherwise unreleased song called “Darker My Love.”

Here’s their big cameo...

Now, for a start, one could make the very credible argument that T.S.O.L. (True Sounds of Liberty) was a band that liked to deliberately flaunt the narrowly encroaching parameters of hardcore punk. Unlike many of their peers, at the time, the band’s music zig-zagged between relatively straightforward, guitar-based punk to histrionic goth rock, especially with the provocative addition of synthesizers. This didn’t necessarily go over well with a lot of their original audience.

As a result, you could assume that their evolving music might be attracting a different sort of crowd. That's all well and good, but it doesn’t really explain the stage invader at exactly 01:06. While vocalist Jack Grisham – resplendent in his black leather jacket and ruffled tuxedo shirt – croons away, stalking the stage like a Death Rock hearthrob, a young man bearing something of a resemblance to not-especially-punky Anthony Michael Hall, assumes the stage for a little disjointed skanking before leaping off into the pit. Here he is now….

It should be noted that, then as now, many – if not most -- of the people who go to hardcore shows don’t necessarily “dress up” for the occasion. Not everyone’s going to look like an extra from “The Road Warrior.” As I mentioned, this kid looks like your average teenager (although I woudn’t suggest wearing sunglasses while stage-diving). But there is one particular sartorial flourish that has literally bothered me for decades.

Take a look at his t-shirt.

For those that might not recognize it, that’s the cover of Captured, the 1981 album by those combat-booted, mohican roughnecks in …. Journey, the biggest single from same being the lilting, soft-rock ode to San Francisco that is “Lights.”

Can you imagine the sheer BALLS to wear a fucking JOURNEY t-shirt to a hardcore show in 1983?

Somebody buy that kid a beer!!!

Here's a frankly disquieting AI-generated video for "Darker My Love," referencing the original "Suburbia" footage...

Flaming Pablum is 19

Today marks the 19th year of Flaming Pablum. If you told me back in the comparatively carefree summer of 2005 that I’d still be doing this 19 years later, I invariably would have laughed in your face. But, here we are.

Here's a shot of me taken the same week I started this blog...

Today, the little girl in the stroller is a 20-year-old college student. I no longer have that Richard Hell t-shirt (and I miss it), and I really can't wear Chuck Taylors with any regularity anymore (avascular necrosis never goes away, evidently), but that same expression of incredulous cluelessness persists. 

Anyway, ... thanks for continuing to read this stuff. 

 

Surf’s Up at Max Fish on Ludlow

As lazily invoked in this old post, I used to have an embarrassingly robust collection of arguably offensive t-shirts, most of which devoted to extolling the merits of any number of objectionably monikered ensembles like the Circle Jerks, Butthole Surfers, Pussy Galore, Cop Shoot Cop, Nashville Pussy, MDC (aka Millions of Dead Cops) and a few others. As a disagreeable teen, I was evidently far less concerned with ruffling the feathers of the easily riled or possibly just plain oblivious as to why certain juvenile slogans, images and/or invocations might be perceived as problematic or insensitive.

In more recent years, said collection has largely been whittled down not so much by a newfound influx of maturity so much as by the rigors of age (i.e. the garments in question quite often no longer fit my fifty-something frame or just look ridiculously unflattering when I do squeeze into them). Then, of course, there have been a few that I’ve just come to terms with as being indefensibly provocative. One such example of this was a pair of t-shirts my friend Howard made and sent me in exchange for a large-sized print of a photograph of mine. The shirts in question featured a familiar portrait of an unblinking Charles Manson, surrounded by choice quotes from the man as if they were pithy bon mots one might parrot at a cocktail party. While I was profoundly tickled by Howard’s signature blend of macabre humor, I rightly deduced that I could never wear either iteration (one white, one black). I handed one off to a videographer-turned-dubious-importer/exporter friend of mine and the other lived in the bottom of a drawer for a while before it found its way into a bag destined for my local Goodwill outlet. I wonder if they’ve managed to sell it.

But there’s one t-shirt I’ve since parted with that I thought of the other day, and I can’t for the life of me think of why I no longer possess it, not least in that I remember it being oversized (which means it would have fit well today). I wrongly identified its legend in that earlier post, but it was a shirt designed by Don of Terror Worldwide – who did a series of shirts “back in the day,” so to speak, and possibly one or two for my beloved Cop Shoot Cop – for the original Ludlow Street iteration of Max Fish. The design looked like a bit of art appropriated from communist Chinese propaganda, but manipulated to fit the irreverent sensibility of the Lower East side bar it was advertising. Featuring a smiling, kerchiefed proletariat woman – albeit with a third eye in the middle of her forehead – brandishing a can emblazoned with the name of the bar over the commanding legend “SURF SATAN!”

I don’t remember the circumstances of buying the shirt – probably a decision I emphatically realized while markedly inebriated on my way out of the bar, one evening – but for a spell in the mid-`90s, I remember wearing the Hell out of it, usually prompting a wide variety of reactions in others, from consternation to outrage and all points in between. It was never immediately clear that it was a shirt espousing a bar, but that probably wouldn’t have mattered anyway.

Personally speaking, after fourteen years of Catholic education, there are few things I find more amusing than needless invocations of Satan. The fact that otherwise seemingly enlightened individuals can be so effortlessly disturbed by the mention of the name or accompanying blasphemous iconography continues to fascinate me. Longtime readers might remember a similar post wherein I unspooled a yarn about breaking up with a girl I’d been briefly dating because she was shocked into speechlessness by the cover of a record she’d found on my shelves, that being To Mega Therion by Celtic Frost. We broke up on the spot. Sorry, but I’ll take Satan over the fear of divine retribution every time.

Anyway, either it was lost in a move between apartments, poached by friend or surreptitiously thrown down the garbage shoot by the woman who’d become my wife, the “SURF SATAN!” shirt hasn’t seen the inside of any drawer or closet of mine in decades. The pics of it above are not mine, but rather lifted from the internet, where the shirt in question is now something of a collector’s item. Go figure.

As for Max Fish, as I discussed back on this post, I gradually aged out of it, so to speak, and then it closed and moved to Orchard Street in 2010, but I never went to that iteration, and it closed shortly afterwards, anyway.

If you never went to the original one, here’s a brief taste of its interior…

I Call Bullshirt!

About 11 years ago, I wrote a little rant here about an online concern called Do You Remember Tees, an outlet that sold t-shirts emblazoned with the names and iconography of many long-vanished nightclubs, from the widely celebrated to the comparatively obscure. I had a bit of an issue with that, as I expressed here:

Personally speaking, I'm not sure how I feel about this venture. I mean, I love the notion of preserving and celebrating these places, but it kind of gets back to the whole notion of whether you should be wearing the t-shirt of a place you never actually went to. I mean, here in 2013, as much as I cherish my own memories of, for example, seeing bands at The Ritz, sporting a crisp, brand-new t-shirt with the Ritz's old logo on it seems a bit disingenuous. Beyond that, I don't think many of the places ever sold t-shirts to begin with, but that's a pedantic quibble at the end of the day.

Suffice to say, I never bought any of their stuff. I doubt my sniffily disparaging post had anything to do with it, but the link to Do You Remember Tees went offline a while back and, as far as I can tell, that business is no more.

Cut to 2024 and along comes DEFUNCT, a similarly inclined venture as Do You Remember Tees, hawking t-shirts and coffee mugs with the names and logos of more since-vanished New York City clubs, bars and record stores, and I have many of the same nagging reservations. I mean, in this instance, not only are they offering t-shirts splashed with club names like The Ritz, Danceteria and The Palladium, but also several shops I held quite dear like Rocks in Your Head and Rebel Rebel and some dear-departed bars like Chumley’s and Lucky Strike. While, yes, I was a huge fan and regular patron of all those businesses cited above (devoting a laborious number of posts to each one of those spots here on this stupid blog), the whole thing just feels like a shallow rip-off. I have no recollection of Rocks in Your Head ever selling t-shirts, but I’d sincerely wager that, if they did, they sure didn’t look like the ones on offer here. I can guarantee you that Danceteria never sold friggin’ coffee mugs.

Maybe I’m being the gatekeeping “Name Three Songs” guy that I’m entirely capable of being, and maybe I’m making much ado about absolutely nothing (I mean, at the end of the day, ….t-shirts, coffee mugs …. It’s all just stuff), but the whole thing just reeks of (obvious) inauthenticity.

Drinkin’, Lechin’ & Lyin’ at the Pyramid

During a presumably recent performance in the hotbed of class, distinction and good taste that is Las Vegas, pronouncedly melismatic warbler and erstwhile Voice “coach” Christina Aguilera was photographed sporting an oversized vintage t-shirt adorned with the cover art of Drinkin’, Lechin’ & Lyin’, the 1989 debut e.p. by blues/punk/noise-rockers, Boss Hog, notable for their inclusion of Jon Spencer of Pussy Galore and his lovely wife Cristina Martinez. Stereogum posted this pictured on its Facebook feed, and the inevitable debate of whether or not “Xtina” was genuinely a fan of the band ensued.

I can’t honestly say whether or not the singer is a legitimate fan of Boss Hog that can name more than three songs, although she very well might be. I mean, she was about nine years old when that record came out, but that means nothing. I was only three years old when Fun House by the Stooges came out, and I consider that the greatest album of all time. I’d love to hear Christina abandon her usual poppy piffle and bust into a gruff, throaty cover of “Winn Coma” or “Pull Out” sometime. That would be refreshing.

In any case, prompted by some other commenters who were evidently confused as to who and what exactly was on Aguilera’s shirt, I quickly pointed out that it was a band and not (directly) a reference to Sorrel Brooke’s infamous character on “The Dukes of Hazzard.” To underscore same, I posted this video, a performance by Boss Hog from around the same era as the e.p. in question, captured within the intimate confines of what was then The Pyramid Club on Avenue A. Check it out….

Okay, so not only is it prime early Boss Hog with Cristin Martinez in fine, feral form, but it also totally takes one back to what it was like seeing live shows in that great room. As mentioned back on this post from 2015, my first show at the Pyramid was around the same era, when I caught my friend’s band Fractured Cylinder opening for Rats of Unusual Size and The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black (fun side note about that: I made a slightly disparaging comment about the Rats of Unusual Size in that post, and the lead singer wrote in about it as recently as this past February).

Another amazing thing about the old Pyramid (not to be confused with the more banal iteration in its latter years) was that it was this strangely harmonious plateau where otherwise incongruous tribes all gathered. It was practically Ground Zero for the East Village’s Drag community (for a more authoritative account of that era, check this page out).

There’s also a big deluxe book about that whole scene coming out shortly, which you can find out about here. At the same time as all that fabulousness, the doors were manned by dudes from A7 across the way ..

Recognize those cats? That’s RayBeez and Jimmy G (from Warzone and Murphy’s Law, respectively), who handled security. When not hosting disco balls for the drag community, the Pyramid hosted hardcore matinees, with Jimmy and Ray booking bands like Sick of It All, Warzone, Youth of Today, Token Entry, Judge, Gorilla Biscuits and many more.

Beyond the drag queens and the hardcore kids, however, you also had the neighborhood’s contingent of noise-rock bands like SWANS, Sonic Youth, White Zombie, The Unsane, Pussy Galore and my pals in Cop Shoot Cop…

Fun easter egg for the Cop Shoot Cop fanboys, back in that Boss Hog clip, as the band is plugging and getting ready to do their thang, the sound system plays “Disconnected 666” from Consumer Revolt.

Of course, the Pyramid closed for good in 2021, and I wrote a suitably weepy eulogy here. The space that had been the Pyramid re-opened last summer, and it’s now a venture called Baker Falls, which described itself thusly:

An oasis in the heart of New York City’s East Village where you can attend live performances, crash a late-night dance party, grab coffee, have a meal, sip cocktails, buy and sell goods…pretty much anything you can think of in a brick and mortar establishment. We’re bringing people together in the real world.

Sound nice, right? I’ve yet to darken its doors. Incidentally, the striking photo of the interior of the old Pyramid at the top of this post was captured by the great Ken Schles. The shot of Baker Falls below was poached brazenly from my good pal EV Grieve. 

Revisiting Ravishing Rio

I was perusing through my feed, this AM, and was stopped in my tracks by an advertisement. Being the insufferable rock t-shirt dweeb that I am (and oh yes, … I have rules!), my Facebook page is often peppered with invocations of same, usually from illegitimate knock-off oufits like Redbubble and the like. In any event, up popped the image below.

This is, of course, a design based on the cover art from Duran Duran’s big breakthrough sophomore album, Rio, from 1982, presumably so-chosen, by the band, to evoke the sleek, glossy aspirations and aesthetic of that era’s high-flyin’, hard-partyin’ jet set. The image was designed by artist Patrick Nagel, who’d previously found renown via his suitably sexy illustrations for Playboy Magazine.

Before we go any further, let’s just clear some shit up: Duran Duran were brilliant. While I was otherwise besotted with all things punk and metal, at the time, there was, to my mind, absolutely no arguing with their brand of hook-laden pop. I remember first hearing “Hungry Like the Wolf” at a high school dance, and the rapturous reaction from the girls of my class upon the sound of that first thwomping slide down the guitar neck (not that different, in retrospect, from the opening drop into the sinewy groove of “Down on the Street” by the Stooges) was indelible. And, they rocked. We saw them last summer in Forrest Hills, and they brought the fuckin’ house down. They’re great. Still don’t like’em? Too bad for you.

In any case, what struck me about this particular t-shirt design – not that I’d necessarily want to wear it – was that I’d certainly never seen it before. Yes, of course, that’s the comely, smiling visage of Duran’s titular heroine, but unlike on the album sleeve, she’s depicted as saucily topless (on the sleeve, she seems to be draped in something like a flamenco dancer’s dress with an exaggerated ruffle over her left shoulder.) Much like that abandoned original Ramones design for Road to Ruin (that would eventually come to be sold, incongruously, as a t-shirt at Brandy Melville), I started wondering if this was maybe the original Nagel design before he adjusted it for the Duran sleeve.

I started doing a bit of pointless Googling, but nothing substational really came up. Evidently, Mr. Nagel was specifically commissioned for this job, so it’s doubtful that it was modelled or modified from a previous illustration of his. But who knows? In all probability, this more risqué design is just a modified replication of Nagel’s original illustration that jettisons all semblance of nuance in favor of a blunter blend of prurience. Who needs subtlety?

Anyhoo, whilst coming to that conclusion, I was struck by a surprisingly tragic coda on one artist’s bio of the man.

From Duran Duran Fandom Dot Com…

In 1984, at the age of 38, the artist participated in a 15-minute celebrity "Aerobathon" to raise funds for the American Heart Association. Afterwards, he was found dead in his car, and doctors determined by autopsy that he had suffered a fatal heart attack.

Pour one out for Patrick….

Bootleggin’ & Beat Diggin’ at Second Coming Records

I’ve invoked Second Coming Records on Sullivan Street, here, several times. Simply put, alongside similarly inclined concerns like Bleecker Bob’s, It’s Only Rock N’ Roll, Venus Records, Record Runner, Subterranean Records, Rebel Rebel and Rocks In Your Head, it was just a completely crucial destination for music nerds of a certain stripe, and that stripe was mine. As such, I come back to it often, here, pretty much any time I spot a fleeting invocation of it. Evidence of its comparatively brief existence is scant and infrequent, so when I do see a bit of it, I leap on it. This is one of those times.

Apropos of absolutely nothing at all, on this rainy Sunday morning, I opened up Google and typed “Second Coming Records” into the search field. Amid the entries that first came up — most of them from this blog — I spotted a couple of new items. The first was yet another account, this time from a self-proclaimed “anti-piracy services” blog, about the infamous 1996 raid on Second Coming, prompted by their admittedly brazen sideline in selling bootleg recordings (something that gradually superseded all their other business), that ultimately spelled the demise of their business. As if anyone needed another reason to hate this band's fucking guts, it was evidently Hootie & the Blowfish (or, more accurately, their manager and their attorney) that were instrumental in the pursuit of Second Coming Records. Dicks.

Let’s just get something out the way — while it’s true Second Coming were technically selling copyright-controlled material, no one was buying these recordings instead of sanctioned commercial releases. I bought fucking dozens of bootleg cassettes from Second Coming — usually by The Clash, The Cure, The Cult, The Sisters of Mercy, The Mission, The Stranglers, Devo, XTC, U2 and — wait for it — Killing Joke, and they were almost exclusively shoddy live recordings marketed directly to bug-eyed, completist fanboys (like myself) who wanted to hear rare live versions of canonical songs, however dubiously wobbly of quality they invariably were. They were practically novelty items designed to satiate the feverish curiosity of only the most die-hard acolytes, and you’d have to be an irretrievably stupid individual to mistake these items for legitimate releases. No one was buying these tapes who wasn’t already committed to dutifully lapping up every bit of official product from the artists in question, fuckin’ Hootie or otherwise.

There’s a bit of irony in that, only a few short years later, the advent of file-sharing on the internet and the dawn of Napster would make the music industry’s campaign to stamp out the sale of bootleg live recordings seem like incalculably small potatoes.

Anyway, Second Coming closed up shop towards the end of the `90s, largely as the result of this episode.

The other new item about Second Coming I saw, however, was — crazily enough — a t-shirt (albeit already sold out) with the image from the top of this post on it.

I clicked on through and found it in the shop section of a Danish concern, appended with this explainer….

Street view of the legendary record store Second Coming, New York - captured by DJ JSPR in 1996. Second Coming was one of the most frequented record stores in New York for cratediggers during the 90s. Several scenes from the Beat Diggin' documentary by JSPR were shot in the shop

The plot thickened….

As it turns out, DJ JSPR is … beyond being a DJ … a film director named Jasper Jensen who, in 1997, made a documentary about the practice of “beat digging,” in other words, intrepid Hip-Hop producers scouring through dusty record shops in search of the perfect instrumental breaks to sample, scratch and repurpose for Hip-Hop records. It’s striking to think of those guys mining Second Coming for that sort of stuff, being that, by and large, Second Coming stocked predominantly punk, post-punk, metal, goth, hardcore and just basic, straight-ahead rock, but I guess that’s a testament to the resourceful innovation of Hip-Hop. 

In any case, JSPR was so enamored of the place (albeit for entirely different reasons than I) that he not only featured it in his film (which I’d now love to see in its entirety) but slapped the image on a now out-of-print shirt. 

Here’s the trailer...

Today, the original space of Second Coming Records — after spells as both a Mexican food joint and a tattoo parlor — is a Thai restaurant called Top Thai.

I’ve never eaten there.

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.

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….