Flaming Pablum

Liberty or Desk

News came down, this week, that Paramount Media Networks were essentially scrapping what was left of MTV News, an outlet some here might remember that I worked at for a hot minute (well, almost two years) in the mid-2000’s. As I’ve suggested before, while getting laid off from said gig was certainly no goddamn fun, I genuinely learned a lot at that place and met scores of brilliant, funny and inspiring individuals, most of whom I’m proud to still call friends this many years later. While most of the people I’d worked alongside had also left the auspices of the company, by this point, the news still made me sad.

In tribute, like many of my former colleageus, I posted some pictures online, notably a shot of me and Mr. T (above), who strangely dropped by the office one day. This happened quite often, actually. At various points, I had Sacha Baron-Cohen (in “Borat” mode), Busta Rhymes, Bono, Amy Winehouse, Fat Mike from NOFX (never liked them) and Ghostface Killah from the Wu-Tang Clan loitering around my cubicle while I was trying to work. It was just that sort of place. In addition to the portrait of myself and my BFF, Mr. T, I posted a picture of that old desk there (see below), as did many other folks. My former manager chimed in saying that he’d wished he’d taken a picture of his desk, as these images served as a sort of time capsule.

In any case, prompted by same, while waiting for some crucial assets to arrive at my current office, this morning, I put this silly composite together. Enjoy.

My desk at Denison University during my sophomore year (1986-1987). You’ll notice the surface of the desk uncluttered with any semblance of actual work.

My first gig outside of college was as an intern at SPIN Magazine, where – tellingly – I didn’t really have my own desk. Similarly, my first paying gig at LIFE Magazine … as a copy clerk … didn’t come with its own desk either (as, most of the time, I was busy running around the office delivering copy churned out from a printer – this was all prior to the ubiquity of the internet). I did eventually land a desk as an editorial assistant at LIFE, in a cubicle in the hall outside the News Editor’s office, but I don’t believe I ever captured that on film. After getting laid off from LIFE in 1993, I decamped to TIME, where after faffing about in various administrative positions, I landed a job at the TIME Magazine News Desk, which did come, at last, with a desk. I was basically there from 1993 until the end of 2005.

There came a point, for me, at the News Desk wherein I felt I was long overdue for a change. I’d been there, basically, far too long, and was still working two grueling overnight shifts a week. While I’d branched out, by this point, and actually written a few items for the magazine (notably several contributions to a special music issue, some small news items in the front of the book and Bono’s eulogy to Joey Ramone, which I orchestrated), I was really ready to make a break, albeit with a heavy heart. I loved working at TIME, but when an amazing opportunity opened up for me at the online wing of MTV News over in Times Square, I jumped.

Once again, my tenure at MTV News was comparatively brief. The writing was on the wall, really, when the excellent gent who’d hired me was laid off. It was really only a matter of time before they shook the tree further and I lost my own grip. That said, I will continue to believe that a lot of that was my own doing. I had a great opportunity, at that place, to really distinguish myself and assert my own voice, but too often, I failed to do so. I didn’t make myself essential, and thus paid the inevitable price. Once again, while that was no fun, it was still a hugely rewarding experience to work there, and the friends I made I still cherish.

After getting the keys to the street from MTV News at 1515 Broadway, I waffled about until landing a part-time spot as a homepage editor at MSN.com, the Microsoft portal. This found me working in a bullpen in a building directly across Sixth Avenue from my old stomping grounds at the TIME-LIFE Building. This was a fun-but-nervy position in that, being that I wasn’t technically on staff, so I had to take three months off after every six (or something … I honestly don’t remember), and then hope to God they hired me back after those lean three months. But, I did have my own desk….

From MSN, I somehow cajoled one of our lovely content providers from TODAY.com to consider the heroically unlikely prospect of hiring me on at that morning show’s web concern as an editor. I surprisingly managed to land that position with very little fuss, finding me orchestrating content on the site’s homepage, and writing strenuously incongruous copy for its parenting blog (TODAY Moms), its fashion blog (The Look) and its royal-wedding-countdown blog (The Windsor Knot). I started in 2010 and was essentially catapulted out of my chair in 2014. While I was able to do a lot of fun stuff, there, I was not really of the ideal sensibility for that particular position and never really a good fit, despite, once again, meeting hundreds of great people, there. I was also excised from proceedings in a kind of dehumanzing way, but I gather that was the company’s M.O. Leaving TODAY.com was ultimately a good thing, for me, but that chapter was particularly humbling, at the time. But, y’know, I did have a desk. It was like working in windowless, orange submarine.

After landing with a brittle thud on the cold, hard but worryingly familiar tundra of unemployment once again, I busied myself with lots of temp positions and freelance writing (something I’d done throughout), but being without a stable job with benefits when you’ve got a wife and two still small children was no friggin’ picnic. I entertained some unthinkable options. I came very close, at one point, to lobotomizing myself in order to take a job at FOX News, but ultimately (and rightly) demurred. I was engaged in some very lengthy talks with some outlets that didn’t make me want to spit up, but too often, the numbers were not right, so to speak.

Eventually, I got the right offer from the concern that I’ve now been at for about seven years, and am very happy. Not only did I get a desk, but for the first time, I got my own office (as opposed to another bullpen or a shared space). Huzzah!

I’ve sort of over-decorated it.

Carnegie Hill Kids & Yorkville Youths

It’s weird to hear yourself speak, if you’re not prepared for it.

I remember, back in college, I was a disc jockey on our radio station (WDUB, 91.1 FM in Granville, OH – now a digital platform in 2023 and no longer a functioning radio station). There was this kid who lived down the hall from me named Preston, and at the end of the year, he suddenly gave me a handful of cassette tapes that he’d recorded of all my shows. It was kind of an odd gift (why did he record them?), but once I had them, I was really thankful, although listening back was always strange, “Do I really sound like that?” being the recurring reaction.

I had that very same reaction again this morning, as I was listening to Episode #61 of Desperately Seeking the `80s, the podcast that graciously hosted me last week for a (very) rambling discussion about growing up on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City in the – wait for it – 1980’s.

As feared/predicted, while I even admit, at one point during proceedings, that I was concerned about coming across like “a babbling brook of idiocy,” I, of course, did just exactly that, unspooling several tendrils of discussion that frequently eschewed the topic of the questions that prefaced them. I go off on unfinished tangents, blithely raise points that are only tenuously related to the main thrust of the conversation, brazenly offer inane observations that do little further the narrative and continually seem to interrupt my two lovely hosts. But, I guess, such is the nature of an organic conversation, which this very much was. While I’m concerned that we probably had way more fun recording it than you’ll probably have listening to it, it was indeed a great, hugely fun experience, now preserved for posterity.

Just as a wee bit of background, I happened to grow up during the same era and, very oddly, in both the respective neighborhoods of the podcast’s two hosts, Meg and Jessica. Much like Meg, I was entirely privileged to spend my formative, grammar-school years in Carnegie Hill on the Upper East Side, and then decamped with my Mom to an apartment in nearby Yorkville – where Jessica lived -- circa 1983 or so, when my parents got divorced. As such, the three of us share a bizarre amount of common experience, which is how/why we first discovered each other (as discussed here).

Anyway, without further ado, if the last few paragraphs haven’t scared you off the notion of actually listening, please avail yourselves to Episode #61 of Desperately Seeking the `80s, wherein I dispense with all semblance of my carefully cultivated mystique and reveal myself to be a haplessly blabby Chatty Cathy. Enjoy!

Find it here, or however you enjoy your podcasts. 

...or just press "play" below...

City Stories

Okay, I’m invariably overthinking this, but I recently appeared on the aforementioned podcast Desperately Seeking the `80s (that episode will air this coming Tuesday, I believe). I was asked to be a guest on same for the countless entries I’ve posted here on this silly blog about growing up in New York City. That said, as I mention during the interview, this blog was never supposed to specifically be about one single thing. I intentionally kept it topically open-ended so I could feel free to write about anything, which I do, although more often than not, it’s about my preoccupation with music.

My concern is that, on the back of that podcast episode airing next week, that fans of that podcast might come looking here and be confused by all the music stuff that I’ve been posting of late. As such, here’s a round-up of some posts of the very sort that first brought myself and the Desperately Seeking the `80s ladies together.

Also, please note that I’m well aware of the multiple broken images on the site. It’s not my doing, it’s some glitch plaguing Typepad, my blogging service — and it’s driving me slowly insane.

The Mugging Years: Menace & Petty Larceny on The Upper East Side

Back to Fiorucci

Central Park ... After Dark

A Hot, August Night at Dorrian's Red Hand

The New York Never List

Never Say Never Again: The Return of the New York Never List

Locals Only? Putting Native New Yorkers in Perspective

The Coffee Shop/Diner Dichotomy

Running with "The Warriors" 

Back to Cornelia Street

The Distant Sound of Drums: Finding the Lost Club by The Bridge

Back to Wollman Rink

The Lost Greasy Spoon of Metropolitan Hill

Yorkville Calling: Back to Private's and The 80s

Back to Ungano's

Back to The Met

A Package From Abroad

Two Records, Two Summers

The Sounds of "After Hours": Redux

The Dueling Delis

The Candid Cashier

The K&D Sweepstakes

Pour On the Schmaltz: Midnight Blue at Sammy's Roumanian Steakhouse

 

Whither Thine Cabload of Idiots?

In about 1990, I was writing for a freebie local paper called NY Perspectives (long gone) and was tasked with writing up blurbs for one of their “BEST OF UPTOWN” issues. As such, I typed one up for my favorite local bar, at the time, that being Ryan’s Daughter on East 85th just off First Ave.

Despite it being an overwritten word salad that unwittingly besmirched the street in question, the blurb struck the right chord with Ryan’s Daughter. They were quite pleased and slapped it in a frame that hung in the window for many years. I moved out of Yorkville in about 1996 and probably haven’t set foot in Ryan’s Daughter since then. But, I was there last night with the Desperately Seeking the `80s duo , and spied my ancient blurb now hanging on an interior wall.

It’s still the best bar in the neighborhood.

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.

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. 

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.

The Distant Sound of Drums: Finding the Lost Club by the Bridge

So,in somewhat typical fashion, after posting that piece about Pussy Galore and The Gun Club playing at a mysterious club called Drums near the 59th Street Bridge, I became preoccupied with finding out more. This kinda happens to me a lot.

This was challenging on a number of fronts. For a start, the very name of the club – Drums – isn’t one that readily lends itself to easy research. I mean, the term is going to come up in virtually every entry about live music in one form or another.

Secondly, there’s the neighborhood it was allegedly situated in. Personally speaking, I consider that midtown, but – technically – East 59th Street is broadly seen as the southern border of the Upper East Side. It may not feel like the Upper East Side to some folks like yours truly, but be that as it may, it has been thus established.

Thirdly, while really not that long ago, Drums seems to have only existed for a hot second. It would have been in operation when I was old enough to drink, mix and mingle within its interior, so why I myself had never heard of it is a mystery, especially since it was hosting arguably scary bands I cared about like Pussy Galore and the Gun Club, but I spent much of 1988 still in college, so I can only assume that’s why I missed it.

Anyway, fixated with finding out more, I went up there, on rainy Saturday, to check the neighborhood out. I don’t know what I expected to find, but I felt compelled to go look.

Back in the day, so to speak, I spent a little bit of time around the 59th Street Bridge. My late friend Danny and I used to frequent a video arcade on First Avenue not too far from the comedy club, Dangerfield’s. Similarly, my fellow avid comic-collecting friend Jeremy’s divorced father had a sad studio apartment at 300 East 59th Street that we sometimes hung out at. Lastly, my own dad had a relationship with an airline hostess (yeah, I know) who lived in a cramped little apartment under the bridge’s overpass on super-depressing East 61st street. Lest that sound worse that it was, Dad actually married her, rescuing her from said flat. She was his third wife of ... several, but was a genuinely nice lady. They divorced, too (spoiler alert), but that’s a whole other story. Her former street looks a little bit better today, but it’s still a long way from salubrious.

Anyway, on Saturday, I circumnavigated the area, speculating where a live-music venue and/or rock club might’ve once held court. I’d hope to come across a neighborhood Irish bar wherein I might have found an old mainstay who’d have recalled such a venture, but no such luck. There was one spot I had a hunch about, but more about that later.

Overall, however, that little cluster of sloping streets – now outfitted with a Trader Joe’s under the bridge – exuded very little to suggest that a band like the antagonistically slovenly Pussy Galore had ever plugged in and rocked out nearby, especially but a stone’s throw from the posh environs of Sutton Place. That all said, while snapping some pics, I did see one little trace of “downtown.” Spraypainted high on a wall adjacent to the bridge was the telltale Missing Foundation logo, normally never seen north of Union Square. To tie it back to this story, prior to joining Pussy Galore, drummer Bob Bert did play in Drunk Driving, the band fronted by Peter Missing that would later turn into Missing Foundation. I took that as a sign.

Over the next few days, meanwhile, I continued my largely fruitless Googling, but made very little progress. More recently, however, a regular reader named G (that’s it … just G) wrote in to say he, too, had been to Drums, but was not largely impressed. He did, however, suggest that it was on East 60th, and not East 59th. That one little tip made all the difference.

I started Googling “Drums” and “East 60th Street” and BOOM, up came a “Sounds Around Town” piece by John Pareles from a 1987 issue of New York Times that cited the address of Drums as 333 East 60th Street.

My hunch was correct. The space that used to be Drums in the late `80s later became an outlet of the strip-tease franchise Score’s (I was actually taken to this very address for my bachelor party in 2001), only to later morph into the venture it is today, which is another strip club called Sapphire, which caters to hip-hoppin’ high rollers.

While that doesn’t shed very much light on what Drums was all about, that does kind of close the case.

Pussy Galore, meanwhile, sounded like this, at the time....

Friday's Paper

One for the history books...

From TriBeCa to Argentina & Back Again: The Clics Modernos Timeline ... and Finale?

For those following the arguably very convoluted tale of the backstory of Clics Mordernos, the final installment of Iñaki Rojas’s web series, “Modern Clix Super Powers” is now online (see way below), this episode largely concentrating on the late Fran Powers, the New York City punk rocker responsible for tagging the corner of Walker Street at Cortlandt Alley (above, as captured by one Vera Isler in 1982) with his band’s graffiti.

Even typing that paragraph was complicated, but here’s a very simplified-but-still-complexly-lenghty timeline:

• At some point in the early-to-mid `80s, punk rocker Fran Powers (below) spray-paints his band’s name, Modern Clix, on the corner of Walker & Cortlandt Alley. Hey, it's the `80s….lower Manhattan is a lawless badlands. Rampant graffiti is the least of its problems.

• As some point after that, fabled street-artist Richard Hambleton, renowned for painting cryptic “shadow men” – somewhat ominous black silhouettes of human forms -- augments Fran’s tag, making it look like the shadow man is leaning against it. During this era, these figures are all over downtown.

• At some point in 1982, preeminent Argentine rocker Charly Garcia is sequestered over on Waverly Place while recording an album at nearby Electric Lady Studios on West 8th Street. He’s already got a title in mind for his forthcoming album, but during a walk around Lower Manhattan with a photographer named Uberto Sagramoso, he happens upon the corner of Walker & Cortland and spies both the Hambleton figure and the mysterious legend “Modern Clix” and has his picture taken sitting beneath.

• So taken is Charly by the resultant image of him sitting beneath this striking tableaux of New York City street art, that he scraps his original plans, and makes Sagramoso’s photograph the cover image of his new record, which he is now re-titling Clics Modernos.

• Time passes.
  
  
• Clics Modernos, Garcia’s second solo album, gradually becomes one of the most celebrated Argentine rock albums of all time.
  
  
• More time passes.
  
  
• Rabid Argentine rock fans of a certain stripe start speculating about the whereabouts of the now-iconic corner pictured on the sleeve of Clics Modernos.
  
  
• More time passes.

• In 2011, actress/photographer Brooke Smith (most renowned for her work in “The Silence of the Lambs” and several television series) posts a clutch of period-specific photographs of her time as a member of the then-burgeoning hardcore punk scene on the Lower East Side.
  
  
• Captivated by same, I post an entry about Brooke’s photos and notice a recurring face therein, that being one Fran Powers of many different bands with names, at the time, like Ultra Violence, Whole Wide World, East of Eden and – wait for it – Modern Clix, an amorphous ensemble that plays an amalgam of styles like rock, ska, reggae, funk and punk.

• From those pictures, I rightly deduce that Fran was responsible for his own brand of cryptic graffiti, that being the Modern Clix insignia of the spear-throwing figure (above) which I’d remembered seeing around Astor Place several years earlier. You can see that same figure tattooed on Fran’s bicep below.

• At some point in the mid-2010’s, I meet one Yukie Ohta, a blogger who starts The SoHo Memory Project, a loving tribute to the neighborhood of her youth. She and I frequently compare notes and share assets for our respective web-projects (even though hers is a much classier and more professional endeavor than mine) and we become friends.

• Yukie Ohta’s SoHo Memory Project really takes off, and she hosts a party at a loft space in – wait for it – SoHo, which I attend.
  
  
• On my way out of that party, I literally run right into Fran Powers (he was boarding the elevator I was exiting), but I stop him in his tracks with the excited exclamation, “Hey, YOU’RE FRAN POWERS OF MODERN CLIX!!” We start chatting about punk rock stuff and become friends.
  
  
• One night not too long after that – circa 2015 – I’m sitting down to watch “After Hours,” my favorite movie of all time, for the bajillionth time. This time, however, I notice that none other than Fran Powers himself makes an amazing cameo. I reach out to him to see if he’d be game to discuss it for a post, which he does. You can read that here.

• Richard Hambleton dies from cancer at age 65 in 2017, oblivious to the fact that his artwork graces the cover of one of the most beloved albums of Argentine rock ever (ask Wikipedia!)

• In 2019, a friend of mine sends me the link to a video by Charly Garcia of a song called “Fanky,” which was shot around Lower Manhattan. I connect the dots and realize that I have heard of Garcia and post the sleeve photo of Clics Modernos, speculating if Fran Powers was aware that Garcia had appropriated his tag for his album --which, at the time, I am unaware is of such seismic significance to the Argentine rock community.
  
  
• In 2021, a photographer named Bo G. Eriksson posts pictures he snapped in 1984 of Cortlandt Alley. I spot these on a Facebook page called Manhattan Before 1990 and immediately spy the location of Clics Modernos from the tell-tale street art. I brazenly poach Eriksson’s images (sorry, Bo) and I post these findings here on my blog.

• Back in Argentine, writer/producer Iñaki Rojas somehow sees my post and falls out of his chair with excitement. He writes a very long and detailed missive to me about it, explaining how he’d been on a quest to divine the origins of the Clics Modernos cover and how my post had solved a few riddles for him, and enabled him to reach directly out to Fran.
  
  
• In June of 2021, Fran Powers passes away after succumbing to an illness he’d been long battling.
  
  
• As you’ll see in the video below, the corner of Walker and Cortlandt Alley will be named, this coming November, as a landmark of Argentine rock history in a small ceremony. Iñaki Rojas and Fran’s window Shoei are planning to be there. I’d imagine so will Yukie Ohta, and I’m going to try to coerce some of Fran’s friends like Brooke Smith and fellow NYHC scenster and sometime bandmate RB Korbet to attend. And, yes, I’ll be there, too.

And here, once again, is the final installment (we think) of "Modern Clicks Super Powers." You'll want to turn the CC on for English subtitles....