Flaming Pablum

Bye Bye to the `Boogie

I was really saddened to learn — via NY1, no less — that my friend Elie from Bowery Boogie is discontinuing the long-running blog after 14 years. I first met Elie way back when we both members of the so-called “NYC blog mafia” alongside folks like EV Grieve, Jeremiah Moss, Hunter-Gatherer, Ephemeral New York and a few others. Elie and I both even took part in a NYU discussion panel back 2009, talking about our different approaches in covering our respective turfs.

Where my blog spiraled further into richly overwritten, myopic navel-gazing, Elie’s became a bona fide resource for neighborhood news, expanded its reach with other staffers and actually got in the habit of breaking stories before the “legitimate” media sources were even aware. I was and remain in awe of Elie’s resourcefulness and tenacity.

The internet (and the Lower East Side) will be much less interesting without his efforts. Here’s hoping he’s moving onto more interesting pastures.

Here’s Elie and me at Motor City (long, long gone) on Ludlow Street in 2011.

At War with The Fitness Freaks: The Battle for Bond Street

Regular readers — again, if they exist — might remember a short series of entries I posted here back in 2016 wherein I attempted to divine the exact location of a short lived basement-level live-music venue called Downtown circa 1989. I remembered it as a place on Bond Street in NoHo that my beloved Killing Joke had been slated to play (going so far as having their name cited on a notice board outside its entrance). The venture actually closed before that show could take place. Other folks remembered it as place they’d seen local bands like White Zombie, the Lunachicks and the Cycle Sluts from Hell along with bigger names like Celtic Frost, Clan of Xymox, Cronos from Venom and Gang Green.

Honestly, I don’t think I ever found out much more about the place beyond pinpointing its location as the spot I’d remembered from that aborted Killing Joke gig. It was mere steps to the east of Broadway at Bond Street. here I am in front of it circa 2016.

It seems in the years since its tenure as Downtown — however fleeting that was — the space at 1 Bond Street has undergone a series of transformations, its days hosting loud rock n’ roll now but a romantic, sepia-toned notion for silver-scalped rock dads like myself. These days, it caters to a very different demographic.

As lamented here, in recent years, pretty much the entirety of the surrounding so-called “NoHo” neighborhood has become a de-facto “fitness corridor,” peppered with places like boxing-gym Rumble, David Barton, Soul Cycle, Equinox, Barry’s Boot Camp and a wide host of other workout-centric endeavors. I don’t necessarily decry the concept of physical fitness, I just don’t quite understand the necessity of such a high-volume concentration of said businesses in one single neighborhood.

True to this trend, the space at 1 Bond Street that had, once upon a time, been the rock club Downtown is now an adjunct space of a venture called Crossfit Union Square (who are technically located at the ominous location of 666 Broadway). From that lower-staircase, the clientele of same now regularly meet by the corner of Bond and Broadway, … and wait for their signal.

And when they get that signal — maybe it’s a starter’s pistol or a pertly chirped whistle or a gruff bark from a drill sergeant with a meaty neck — they run. And they run with a gravely humorless sense of determination around the circumference of the block.

The sprint sweatily and shirtlessly with rippling musculature towards Lafayette Street, at which point they turn like harried stags in flight of a hunter’s shotgun to the south and bound with breathy bravado down that stately avenue to the corner of Bleecker Street, where they turn west to lope like charging stallions back towards Broadway. Upon reaching that main artery, they course-correct like hoary steeds of glory to race north with steely focus. At Bond Street, they turn with great, dewy aplomb and complete their lap, glowing with an almost viscous radiance.

All to which I say, … “HEY, WE HAVE PARKS FOR THAT!”

I’m not sure if my handful of readers are at all familiar with the streets in question, but suffice it to say that the byways of Bond, Lafayette, Bleecker and Broadway can be handily described as “busy." Around that single block, highly trafficked businesses like Blick Art Materials, Bond No. 9, Showfields Department Store, Los Tacos No. 1, LeVain Bakery, Aape New York, Le Pain Quoditen, Wendy’s and a City MD (to name a few) all steadily operate. As such, the surrounding sidewalks are regularly teeming with foot traffic. In front of Los Tacos and LeVain alone, aspiring patrons literally line-up in anticipation of their turns. Navigating these stretches of crowded pavement even at a casual stroll can be demanding, lest you collide with an impatient muffin-consumer or taco enthusiast. Now, inject into this equation regular herds of fast-moving, self-absorbed, endorphin-addled fitness freaks and you have a roiling, organic obstacle course ready to detonate at any second.

Once again, I’m not saying anyone should necessarily refrain from working out or seeking to actualize their idealized visions of their healthiest, sexiest selves, but there’s a time and place for that shit, and the already pointedly crowded byways of lower Manhattan assuredly ain’t it.

Take it to the parks, people.

Loud Laundry Rides Again

According some sources I would charitably describe as “dubious,” today is evidently "Band T-shirt Day,” a “global fundraising initiative where artists come together for a single day to sell merch on their official sales channels and donate proceeds to charitable organizations of their choice.” I would say to this, here in 2022, given the paltry avenues of revenue the average band have access to, said proceeds should pretty much go right to the band, but I’m not knocking the philanthropic bent of this endeavor in the slightest. If you’re interested, click here for more information.

But, as the lamentable cliché that I am, I feel compelled to point out that if you’re a serious about your music fandom, fucking EVERY day is band t-shirt day. As I’ve mentioned before, when I launched this silly blog back when the earth was young, I mentioned that I had every intention of wearing music t-shirts “well into my forties.” Well, suffice to say, that august decade has already come and gone. I’m not worryingly into the midpoint of my fifties, and still sport a wide and colorful array of band t-shirts on the regular. Is this unseemly and simply “not done”? Ask me if I give a single fuck.

Of course, these days, I’m finding more and more of my old t-shirts regularly on the back of my teenaged son Oliver who, a as budding music head in his own right, has come to appreciate the images and iconography of certain artists as much as he enjoys the music. To me, seeing my boy sport them is kinda the next best thing to me wearing them — especially as they fit his wiry frame more flattering than they do upon my steadily enriching girth, but that’s another matter.

In any case, with all this silliness in mind, I figured it was time to exhume and revive Loud Laundry, the Tumblr page I started back in — good lord — 2015 which sought to document my ever-widening collection. It is by no means comprehensive — or important or notable in any meaningful way — but it’s fun, if that’s your thing. It’s certainly my thing.

Find that here.

Back to 113 Jane

I’ve written about 113 Jane Street in the West Village here a few times, usually in relation to its former incarnation as the site of so-called Rock Hotel, which hosted a series of notable hardcore punk shows in the early-to-mid `80s, featuring bands like Samhain, Bad Brains, Kraut, the Cro-Mags, Murphy’s Law, Discharge, The Exploited and many more. But while that might be incredibly significant for rockheads like myself, it should be noted that the building has a far richer history beyond once playing host to a bunch of unruly cretins with mohawks.

Originally built in the early 1900’s, 113 Jane Street was initially designed as a residence for sailors, which makes sense, given its placement on the Hudson River. It gained greater notoriety, however, as the hotel that hosted the survivors of the Titanic who soggily arrived at the pier just across what is now the West Side Highway.

By the 1940’s, the hotel basically became a string of hospitality ventures, gradually devolving into essentially a flophouse for drunks, drug addicts and drifters. At some point in the 70’s, the downstairs ballroom was turned into a theatre space. Some years after that, a promoter named Chris Williamson started putting on punk rock shows there, morphing the space into the Rock Hotel, although by 1985, Williamson moved the Rock Hotel series over to the roomier Ritz.

Around the time the Rock Hotel was vacating the premises, a certain aspiring drag superstar was moving in, that being RuPaul. A friend and kindred spirit of maverick videographer Nelson Sullivan (whom I’ve also mentioned several times here), RuPaul gave the budding proto-vlogger a tour of his space in the top tower of the still fairly rough-&-tumble Jane Hotel. See that below…

Circa 1992, the downstairs space turned into a venue called Sweet Jane, a rather lamely obvious nod to the Velvet Underground tune of the same name. Under this guise, it hosted at least a handful of live shows, notably the New York City debut of once-promising Atlanta hip-hop collective, Arrested Development and a typically cacophonous and volatile show by the notorious Missing Foundation. Here’s a noisy little taste of the latter.

This might be purely conjecture, but given Missing Foundation’s formerly pronounced penchant for riot-incitement and wanton property damage, they very well might have been the reason Sweet Jane stopped operating. By 1998, six years later, the downstairs theatre space became the off-Broadway home of “Hedwig & the Angry Inch.”

By the dawn of the 2000’s, however, things took another turn. The hotel was refurbished in 2008 with an eye towards luxurious douchebaggery. The downstairs space was re-imagined once again and turned into “The Jane,” a club that swiftly attracted a new variant of high-volume revelers who eschewed combat boots and drag finery for Manolo Blahnicks and monogrammed billfolds. As The Jane, the venue invited a lot of scorn from affluent, post-gentrification residents who now occupied the newly-tony neighborhood. The club was later taken to task for allegedly allowing in under-age drinkers (gosh, where have I heard that before?) and not having an “assembly permit.”

To be honest, here in 2022, I wasn’t quite sure what was transpiring in that space today, but when I fielded an invite from my sister, this weekend, to come attend a celebratory get-together in honor of my nephew’s engagement to his girlfriend of three or four years, I leapt at the offer. To be clear, I would have happily gone regardless to help ring-in this very happy development, but the fact this it was transpiring in a space that sparked my curiosity made it a no-brainer. 

Imagining that the event was going to be held in the downstairs space that once played host to afore-cited names like The Exploited, Missing Foundation, Arrested Development and “Hedwig,” imagine my bemusement when were informed upon arrival that the soiree was happening “upstairs.” The wife and I boarded the elevator and ended up walking into the very same sixth-floor space that had been RuPaul’s pad as detailed in that video above.

Oh how times have changed. See pics below.

21 Years Later

The End of Summer Survey 2022

Cripes, how is it Labor Day Weekend, already? Alright, then, well I guess it’s high time to dust off this meaningless exercise. Let’s dive in, shall we?

Defining Moment of Summer 2022:
This was actually a pretty busy, goddamn summer for us. After two comparatively quiet summers wherein we largely sequestered ourselves at the Lamb Cottage out in Quogue to wait for the vengeful wraith of COVID-19 to pass over us, 2022 promised to be different. With my wife positively gagging to travel, we made plans to break the summer up with our first big, fuckoff vacation since 2019, albeit one that would have to wait until our son Oliver finished his stint as a counselor’s aide up at his camp in Vermont. We decided to go to Greece. Compounding all that, halfway through the summer, my daughter Charlotte made her decision to attend the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, so suddenly we had multiple trips on the books. As a result of that, we decided to forego the Lamb Cottage (we simply couldn’t afford it, with everything else going on) and squatted at my mother’s place in Quogue, in between working and our trips. We were never in one spot for very long, which was actually kind of liberating.

With all this in mind, it’s exceptionally difficult to pinpoint a solitary moment, but I’ll have a stab at it.

I might suggest that my defining moment of Summer 2022 was realizing that the tomatoes on offer from the breakfast bar at our hotel on the island of Paros in the azure splendor of the Aegean Sea were quite possibly the most amazing things I’ve ever put in my mouth. Never mind what you think you know about tomatoes. These were these brilliantly lush, astonishingly flavorful and perfectly formed orbs of fresh deliciousness that pretty much knocked me right off my goddamn chair, every morning. Augmented with some sliced cucumber, a dusting of oregano and lashings of olive oil (I prefer “Sparta,” if you’re doing the grocery shopping, …. and you have to pronounce it like Gerard Butler in a foul mood), and you’ve got yourself a bowl of food that is photogenic, healthy and satisfyingly tasty in a manner that rivals even the most ribald of unmentionable pleasures. Like the sublimest of heroin hits (or so I’ve read), I will invariably spend the rest of my life trying to replicate the experience, always fail and die heartbroken.

Best Purchase of Summer 2022:
I tell ya what WOULD have been the best purchase! That would have been if I’d had the friggin’ foresight to buy myself a huge, fuckoff bottle of the afore-cited Sparta Olive Oil, … but I didn’t. I believe I can find some if I go to Queens, though.

With most of our money fueling our multiple trips to Vermont, Greece and Scotland, this year, I can’t say I did a lot of libidinous spending, although I’ll cop to splurging on some deluxe, surround-sound re-releases of albums by XTC, Dukes of Stratosphear, KISS and Yes, all remixed by studio wizard Steven Wilson. Several years back (2014, maybe?), I’d picked up Wilson’s re-mixing of XTC’s crucial Drums & Wires but, and I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit this, never really got around to giving said re-release a proper, attentive listen until a long bus trip this summer. Unlike a standard-issue remastering — wherein the end result simply sounds like a louder version of the album as you remember it, Wilson’s lushly detailed remixes genuinely offer whole new, multi-dimensional listening experiences. Hearing Wilson’s re-rending of Drums & Wires was like that moment in “The Wizard of Oz” wherein the film shifts from black and white into maddening technicolor. There was space and depth and expanse like I’d never gotten from the record before, revealing all sorts of sonic filigree that had previously been buried in the comparatively claustrophobic original. Drums came rumbling from overhead, guitars chopped, clanged and careened off walls, Andy Partidge’s hiccupy yelp darted around, dueling with Colin Moulding’s sinuous bass lines, all kinetically flowing around like slippery fish in an aquarium. Put simply, I was entirely blown away. When I was back in the WiFi, I immediately sought out more, discovering Steven Wilson’s Instagram page, and immediately ordering similar remixed editions of XTC’s Black Sea and Skylarking, the collected discography of the Dukes of The Stratosphear (XTC’s psychedelic alter egos), Fragile by Yes and the super-mega-whatever anniversary edition box set of Destroyer by KISS. This last one was, somewhat typically, a bit of a let-down, as Wilson’s version is contained only on a BluRay disc, and I lack the hardware to play that particular format. Leave it to KISS to rip you off, am I right?

Best Movie You Saw During Summer 2022:
The only movie we went to was Baz Lurman’s Elvis movie, … which felt like one, long trailer. I mean, it was enjoyable, I suppose, but not really a massive cinematic achievement or anything.

Best Gift You Received of Summer 2022:
I’m not complaining, but I can’t say anyone gave me any gifts over the course of the summer.

Biggest Loss of Summer 2022:
My organization underwent a surprise “course correction,” and 10% or our workforce was laid off. I was away when it went down, and thus didn’t get the opportunity to say goodbye to some of my now newly former colleagues.

Song That Best Sums Up Summer 2022:
Well, in terms of new stuff, I really liked “Cracker Island” by Gorillaz, “Chaise Longue” by Wet Leg and, yet another great song by a stupidly-named band, “Scratchcard Lanyard” by Dry Cleaning, but if there was one song that summed up the summer for me, it might be “Rip It Up” by Orange Juice, which I listened to a lot in advance of our trip to Scotland. Julian Cope finally released a studio version of “Cunts Can Fuck Off,” but it doesn’t measure up, to me, to his widely circulated live renditions of the track.

Happiest Memory of Summer 2022:
Y’know, they’re still both teenagers, which means that whatever it was that we were up to, at the time, there was still the requisite amount of eye-rolling, pushback and petulance, but having both of our kids with us on the trip to Greece was genuinely blissful, for the wife and I.

Saddest Memory of Summer 2022:
I’ll say most bittersweet, rather than sad, but having to say goodbye to our daughter Charlotte in Scotland for her international student induction was exceptionally hard, not least in that the temporary housing we left her at (albeit only for two weeks before she moved into her official dorm) wasn’t quite as picturesque as the rest of the campus (more brutalist internment camp than old world gothic masonry). My wife had been a rock for the whole time we were there, but fell apart at the final moment, which meant I had to be the composed one. I fell apart, meanwhile, on the plane ride home.

Scariest Memory of Summer 2022:
I’d been advised to bring my work phone and laptop on both of my trips. I grumbled about it, but ultimately complied. A day after landing in Edinburgh, I dutifully checked my email, in the morning, to see what had been transpiring in my short absence from the office. In my inbox was a letter from the president and CEO of the organization, informing us that they were laying off 10% of the staff (as mentioned above). For several minutes, I genuinely feared that I wouldn’t have a job to come home to (and this while delivering my daughter to a university and all that that entails). I was shortly reassured by my manager that I was still employed and started breathing normally, again, but …. yeah, that was a shock to the system.

That said, I did have another moment that's worth adding here. On our third day on the island of Paros, my wife had booked us a boat-tour on a catamaran around the island and surrounding waters. It was an incomparably lovely day, and we dropped anchor three or four times to swim off the boat. Now, both of my children are lithe, fit, robustly healthy teenagers. They wasted no time in diving right into the disarmingly cerulean waters of the Aegean, followed in immediate course by my wife.

Then it came my turn. 

Not wanting to be a party pooper (and this is tragically on video, I hate to say), I followed suit and plunged into the water. Instantly submerged in the cool water, I felt an immediate sense of impossible insignificance. We were anchored in a beautiful lagoon, but the winds had picked up during the morning, and the water was summarily a little choppy. I surfaced and found myself about a yard from the boat. After orienting myself, I was suddenly another couple of yards from the boat. While my children happily swam about, I started privately wondering if, as a 54-year-old in frankly not as great shape as I could be in, I might have a problem sustaining the stamina to make my way back to the boat. I was having flashbacks to "Open Water 2," a genuinely disquieting 2006 thriller wherein a group of pleasure boaters find themselves unable to make it back onto their yacht after jumping in for a swim without putting a ladder down. I also didn't want to be the guy that had to be helped back up. I paddled about a bit and discreetly re-boarded the boat with my heart pounding. 

When we dropped anchor a second time in a more open channel, I couldn't do it. I sat on the edge of the boat and watched my wife and children frolic in the waves, but could not bring myself to jump back into those crystal waters. It wasn't a fear of any sea life or anything (you could see clearly to the bottom -- there was none). It was that paralyzing fear of my own smallness in the vastness of the sea and my insecurity that I'd have the strength to save myself. It was a strangely chilling experience. When we dropped anchor a third time in a placid little cove (see below), I knew I had to overcome this problem before it consumed me. With the waters calmer than before, I again jumped in. My kids immediately swam off to explore some nearby caves (that was never on the menu for me), but I stayed near the boat, doing a few laps around the vessel and trying to regain my composure. 

Word That Best Describes Summer 2022:
Transitional

Bauhaus Bum Out

I was very sorry to hear that Bauhaus have cancelled yet another New York date (this on the back of nixing a Radio City Music Hall show in in 2020 over COVID, and then another in November of 2021, which I believe was over visa issues). This time, it seems storied lead vocalist Peter Murphy has checked himself into rehab, thus scuttling all of the remaining North American dates -- including Thursday, September 8th's in Brooklyn. Needs must, of course, and I wish the great man the best, but having procured tickets to all three of these shows, I am understandably a bit bummed out.

Ironically, I wasn’t even planning on going to this now-cancelled show at the magisterial King’s Theater (where I saw Spoon, a million years ago). Over the past year or so, my son Oliver has developed a voracious interest in music (much to my pronounced delight) and latched onto goth’s hoary godfathers in the process as one of his new favorites.

I’d originally planned on taking him, but in the wake of him asking, back in April, if he could “lend” a vintage Bauhaus shirt of mine to a young lady he’s been ….well, we think he’s dating her, but we’re not entirely sure …. I figured, "Hell, I saw Bauhaus when it mattered," and decided to let him take her instead and make a proper date of it.

That had been the plan … until this morning.

Oh well.

Mission Accomplished

With heavy but hopeful hearts, we said goodbye to this beautiful little girl last night to let her start her next, ambitious chapter at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Not only a revered and prestigious institution, St. Andrews is also breathtakingly picturesque (see below for a small sample of same).

While I am quite indescribably melancholy at the moment, I could not possibly be prouder or more excited about all that she’s achieved and what lies ahead for her. Onward, Charlotte.

 

Off to Scotland: A Playlist for Ambitious Students & Melancholy Parents

Today, as recently mentioned, we fly back across the Atlantic to deposit my lovely daughter Charlotte in the care of a mighty university in the highlands of bonnie Scotland. We’re all packed up (we think) and ready to go. I spent Monday morning at my office, getting ducks put in rows for my colleagues who’ll be managing affairs in my absence. I have a couple of sundry errands to run and then we’re airport-bound.

As I’m frequently and laboriously keen to point out, I don’t like Spotify and I hate streaming, but was tasked by the Missus with making a travel playlist for this bittersweet jaunt. I felt that compiling a list of all Scottish artists was fitting, so that’s what I did. I’ll be frankly shocked if my daughter listens to it, but we’ll see. The wife will give it a fair shake, at least.

For those pedants who are clicking their tongues at the inclusion of “Kayleigh” by Marillion, I’ll say this in its defense. While, no, Marillion are not technically a Scottish band, then-lead singer Fish was (and presumably still is). More to the point, Kayleigh is the name of my daughter’s impending roommate.

I didn’t include any Teenage Fanclub, as I’ve never liked them. Who else did I omit?

Weigh in, nerds….

Off To College

The photo above is, I believe, the first photograph I shared here of my daughter Charlotte, appended with the following caption…

Here's a fleeting glimpse of my daughter, engaging in one of her very favorite activities, turning the stereo on.....and off. And on. And off. And on and off and on and off and on and off and on and off and on and off. If the thing survives another month, it'll be a miracle.

This was probably snapped in the summer of 2005, when she was all of a year old.

It’s now the summer of 2022, and she is 18 years old, and in a scant four days, we board a plane to the bonnie highlands of Scotland to drop her off at her chosen university.

As I discussed this past January, we’d been looking at a host of great, liberal arts colleges scattered around the northeast and Midwest (you might remember my account of taking her to look at my alma mater, which prompted this surreal stroll down memory lane). As much as I was covertly pushing for Charlotte to select that school, her heart lay elsewhere. She wanted to challenge herself and carve her own path (as opposed to ensconcing herself in her father’s nostalgia trip). She ended up choosing a further-flung school over in the UK, albeit realistically no further than had she selected a school on the West Coast. It just feels further because it’s in another nation on the other side of an ocean.

In earlier, somewhat panicky attempts to stem the direction the tide seemed to be flowing, I kept repeating the mantra that “you can’t fly home from Scotland for a weekend.” While, no, you technically can’t really fly home from Scotland to New York City for a weekend, I kept thinking about all the times I’d flown home from college, and could really only remember one occurrence during the early part of my senior year when I jetted home to catch The Mission UK performing at The Ritz. Adjusting to college as a freshman was tough and all that, but I just got on with it. I have all faith that my daughter Charlotte will be just fine and do the same.

But even once she made her decision, it still seemed like this abstract concept that I was more or less in denial about. I was and remain incredibly proud of her. She’s gained entry into this prestigious institution and it’s going to be a remarkable, broadening experience for her, but I’m still finding it so hard to reconcile that we’re here already. Where did those 18 years go? How is she this old already?

After months of planning and preparation and packing and logistical red-tape-unspooling (setting up bank accounts and phone plans, etc.) it’s all happening next week.

I expect to be a complete basket case.

Wish me luck.