Flaming Pablum

My Favorite Albums of 2021

I honestly don’t know why I keep doing these year in and year out. I mean, yes, obviously music plays a massive role in my life and, summarily, this blog, but at my relatively advanced stage of life, I’m not actively pursuing bona fide “new music” so much as “new-to-me” music. As such, most of the stuff I spent my year tracking down and enjoying wasn’t necessarily freshly produced, cutting-edge music just released in 2021. I could cite at least six or seven albums I acquired in the last twelve months that I slavishly enjoyed from top to bottom, but aren’t in any way recent. But, y’know, there were indeed a few new albums I got quite fired up about, so let’s concentrate on those, then, I guess.

But even much of the genuinely “new music” I seek out is often somehow couched in the past. This isn’t to say that there aren’t wholly new artists doing entirely different things that capture my attention and fire my imagination, but I find that stuff harder to discover and hear above the tinny buzz of mediocrity that — to my mind — dominates the rest of the music marketplace. I suppose it’s always been that way, but time was when I had more time and energy to pursue the credibly good stuff. I mean, if one Googles the "most-streamed" acts of 2021, up comes names like Taylor Swift, BTS, Drake, Justin Bieber and some ridiculous clown who calls himself Bad Bunny. I mean, seriously, FUCK all that awful shit.

But, again, that’s pretty much always been the case. Mainstream pop has pretty much always been shit (although it seems especially shitty, these days). And there’s great music made every year. It just takes more work to find it, sometimes.

It should also be noted that I also don’t always get to the new albums the second they’re released, rendering their citations ineligible for credible placement. I mean, I played the crap out of the new Secret Machine album this year, Awake in The Brain Chamber, but that was still from 2020. Other records I found myself spinning quite a bit in 2021 included, inexplicably, Our Love to Admire by Interpol (released in 2007), Retrovirus by Lydia Lunch (a super-crucial live recording from 2012, released in 2013, featuring Lydia backed by Weasel Walter of the Flying Lutenbachers on explosive guitar, Algis Kyzis from SWANS on bass and Bob Bert of Sonic Youth/Pussy Galore on drums), Big Heart/Live in Tokyo by the Lounge Lizards (released in 1986) and a compilation of the Sensational Alex Harvey Band, released in 2018, but rife with selections from the early `70s. Technically, none of this stuff is new.

So, after unduly agonizing over it, here are my three favorite albums of 2021. I’m not going to put them in any ranking, nor should you read any hierarchy into this. I love each of these. Here they are….

Live - Friday March 15, 2020
The Art Gray Noizz Quintet
Yes, I realize I just wrote about them. Released in September of this year, this bristling live document — issued on fucking cassette in a limited edition of only 200 — was recorded in Brooklyn just as the apocalyptic shroud of COVID-19 was being draped over New York City. A suitably slovenly cocktail of clangy guitars, bludgeoning bass and roiling grooves over which Art Gray (formerly Stu Spasm of Lubricated Goat) exhorts like a possessed town-crier, it’s all gold from start to finish, honestly. For me the standout tracks are the ominous march of “A Call to You,” the constabulary-besmirching “Calling All Cars” and a noise-rock re-wiring of David Shire's theme to quintessential grimy New York City movie, “The Taking of Pelham 123.” As brilliantly summed up as “one last night of noise in a city on the brink of silence,” it is seriously worth your time. Go fucking get it and improve your miserable life.

Yeah, I know — cassette? A true testament to the band’s ballsy audacity to release music on a format most folks don’t possess the hardware to actually play, Live - Friday March 15, 2020 can be obtained via Bandcamp, who thoughtfully provide the option of downloading the music into more electronically manageable files for all you forward-thinking gadget-heads. As a fun coda, when I ordered the cassette from Bandcamp, I literally received the tactile artifact the very same day. Sometime around 11pm, someone — possibly bassist Ryan Skeleton Boy or Art Gray himself?? — showed up downstairs and dropped off a bag containing the cassette, a poster of the album art I also sprang for … and three tallboys of Modelo Especial Cerveza emblazoned with the band’s stickers. TRY GETTING BAD BUNNY TO PROVIDE THAT KINDA SERVICE!!!

Dark Matters
The Stranglers
I already spoke about the backstory here, but I genuinely think Dark Matters was the most astonishing album for me this year. It’s not necessarily that it was a huge departure from The band's established trajectory, but rather that it’s just such a brilliantly executed collection of songs. I mean, if you weren’t already predisposed to liking the music of The Stranglers, there’s no real reason you should necessarily care about this record, but given the band’s long history and their recent losses (most notably the tragic death of keyboardist Dave Greenfield), there was absolutely zero reason to believe this 18th studio album was going to deliver in any meaningful way. I almost picked it up just out of sheer loyalty. Put simply, though, Dark Matters is way better than it should have any right to be, showcasing the band’s signature assets, but with depth, nuance and a songwriting exuberance that is far from tired. I love all the singles (cited on that earlier post), but album cuts like “No Man’s Land,” “Payday” and “White Stallion” continually get my blood flowing. For a legacy band many were writing off as a fading self-tribute act, Dark Matters is a bracing reminder that the Stranglers will be the ones who’ll decide when they’re actually done, not the critics.

Crawler
IDLES
Upon hearing news of a new, impending album from IDLES, my first thought was “TOO SOON!” I felt like their third album, Ultra Mono had only just landed, and I was still kind of experiencing it. While not as immediate as their second disc (the one that hooked me in), that being the excellent Joy as an Act of Resistance, Ultra Mono provided several tracks I was still loving tracks like “Mr. Motivator” and “Model Village.” But, I’m not gonna lie – as much as I was digging that album, there was indeed a bit of a feeling that they’d sort of thematically and stylistically run aground, somewhat succumbing, in spots, to almost self-parody. Along comes Crawler, then, and I was slightly trepidatious. My first encounters with this band had left such a massively positive impression on me that I was reluctant to immediately rush out for this one, worried it might further dim that initial rush I felt upon first hearing their musc.

As it happens, Crawler is a refreshing deviation from the previous trajectory. While, no, IDLES have not completely shifted gears and embraced a whole new sound, there is a nuance and …. dare I suggest … a degree of restraint to these new songs. The bendy, staccato riffs from the previous few records are more judiciously employed here. Songs arrive and slowly reveal themselves rather than simply detonate on command. This all said, … don’t get me wrong. Crawler is still a pounding, clangy ride, and vocalist Joe Talbot still exhorts like an apoplectic drill sergeant. The dichotomy between the band’s violent sound and vulnerable sensibility remains a bit of a tightrope that they continue to manage (although heavy-handed tracks on Ultra Mono like “Kill Them with Kindness” and “Ne Touch Pas Moi” really put that formula to the test), but this album has reigned in the preachiness. I’m still exploring it, but it has thus far rendered my concerns moot.

HONORABLE MENTION:
Human Impact – “Recognition”
Antidote – “Think For Yourself”
Saint Agnes – “REPENT”
The Horrors “Twisted Skin”
Low – “Days Like These”
The Armed – “All Futures”
Morly – “Dance to You”

Hardcore for the Holidays

Hey again, all....

Just a quick one. Now that the holidays are upon us, I thought I'd evangelize some pertinent links, should you be on the hunt for Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/whatever presents for the little n'erdowells in your own family.

If you're curious about the book, “The New York Hardcore Chronicles Vol. 1 (1989 - 1989): A Flyer Oral History,” which I spoke about here, you can now order your own copy of the second printing by clicking right here. 

And, on a similar tip, if you're interested in that Bad Brains print by Glen E. Friedman (or other bits of his work), click here. 

Merry Merry. 

Lit From The Pit: Drew Stone's Oral History of NYHC

Just a quick plug. I was tremendously blown away, yesterday, to receive my copy of filmmaker/archivist/musician Drew Stone's excellent new book, “The New York Hardcore Chronicles Vol. 1 (1989 - 1989): A Flyer Oral History.” I've invoked Drew several times here before (notably here, here, here and here, among others) but he gamely asked me, some time back, to pen a piece for this project, and I am truly honored to see my contribution so prominently placed as the forward to the book. While probably a niche concern to most, this book is a genuine labor of love and a crucial document for any fan of New York City's rich and vibrant history of underground music and culture. I was thrilled to be a small part of it.

My Favorite Posts of 2021

Yes, I know we’re still only halfway through November, but let’s face it --- by and large, 2021 is over. I mean, sure, maybe I’ll post something in the next month and a half that I really like, but who knows? One can’t count on these things.

The following is a list of posts from the last eleven months that I really liked putting together. It’s not that they’re necessarily the best-written or the most viewed or the most-commented on (not really that informative a metric here, alas). They’re just the ones that I enjoyed researching and was pleased with how they turned out. Results may vary and you may beg to differ, but this is my list. Feel free to make your own.

JANUARY

    Goodbye to Sammy’s

    Christadora House Through The Trees

    A Prize from The Priestess

    “No Comment”: Reacquainting with Squid

    Goodbye, Mr. Puspurica

FEBRUARY

    Beyond The Valley of 84 Thomas Street: The Search for Plasmatics World Headquarters

    Central Park … After Dark

    Be Cruel to Your Pool: The Search for The Cover Location of New Hope For The Wretched

    The New York Nobody Sang

MARCH

    “Everyone is Going to Be Severely Burned & Naked”: Don Rauf of Life in a Blender Looks Forward

    Goodbye to Brooks Brothers

    In the City: Urban Navigation in “The Warriors”

    Sole Asylum: My Incrementally Futile Quest for Nike SB Black and Tan Dunk Lows

    Charly Clicks with Fran in the Alley

APRIL

    For the Love of The Dictators

    SOLVED: The Whereabouts of Wendy’s Wall

MAY

    A Way Back to Wendy’s Wall

    Oliver Takes On Time Travel

JUNE

    Back to The Basement

    Punks in The Peppermint Lounge

    What’s In the Box?

    Catching Up with Squeaky

JULY

    Back … Reluctantly … To the Korova Milk Bar

    Searching for George

    Sounds in the Summertime

AUGUST

    Suck It Up: Re-Exhuming Sucking In The Seventies

SEPTEMBER

    Ecstatic Pizza: Thurston Moore’s Favorite Slice

    For Those Not About to Rock: Redux

    Notes from The Ghost Walk

OCTOBER

    Back Again to Club Berlin

    Goodnight & Godspeed, Eileen

    Back to The New York Comic Arts Gallery

    SPINning Out: 102 More of The Best New York City Music Videos

    Welcome Back to The Pleasuredome

    Ten Compact Discs I’ve Bought During The Last Quarter of 2021

PataGONE ... ia

Just a quick one. My friend EV Grieve just recently reported that the Patagonia outlet at 315 Bowery has decamped and shuttered. Prior to being a Patagonia, of course, that space was fleetingly a spot for the Morrison Hotel Gallery (they sell pricey rock photos) and, of course, before that it was CBGB’s 313 Gallery and, further back, it was CBGB’s Record Canteen. 

It’s all, of course, ancient history, now, but I remember seeing a number of acts at 313, over the years. The space arguably lacked the atmosphere of its more storied namesake to the north, but it was still a cool spot. If memory serves, the very last band I saw perform in the 313 space was Paul Wallfisch’s Botanica.

Here’s a very early incarnation of The Unsane raising an unholy ruckus within the confines of 313 circa 1989.

Boosted

Hey all. Sorry for the slowdown, but it's been a busy few days. Also just got my booster shot on Friday. Saturday was summarily foggy and with a sorer arm than before, but today I'm as right as rain.

Go get yours.

More here soon. 

21 Questions from Curbed

I have a long history of waffling on New York Magazine, especially more recently, when their online presence -– and especially their pop-culture site, Vulture -- zig-zags wildly from great, in-depth interviews with various movers and shakers to vacuous, rinky-dink pop piffle written by sniveling youngsters who, in the grand scheme of things, really don’t know shit from shinola. Results may vary, but that’s how I feel about it.

In any case, I noticed that their Curbed section (which New York subsumed in 2020) just revived its "21 Questions" column, their most recent edition featuring architect Billie Tsien. I thought the questions themselves were compelling, so despite not being a “creative New Yorker” on par with Ms. Tsien, I thought I’d take a stab at them myself. Here’s how that goes….

Name: Alex

Age: 54

Neighborhood: Greenwich Village

Occupation: Director of Content and Editorial Services in the Corporate Communications department of a performing rights organization.

What’s hanging above your couch? A framed poster of Jamie Reid’s graphic design for “God Save the Queen” by the Sex Pistols. I bought it in the summer of 1986 off the ceiling of Second Coming Records on Sullivan Street (long, long gone). It hung on the walls of my college dorm rooms for my sophomore, junior and senior years, after which it was rolled up and put in a cardboard tube for three decades, only to be exhumed, framed and hung on our living room wall last year.

What’s the first job you had in New York? I had a gig as a runner/gopher (or as I described it on my resume, “apprentice”) for a graphic designer. Basically, it was my job to run painstakingly crafted mock-ups of ads and other promotional materials to various cosmetic agencies around midtown. I’d wait there while executives scrutinized the work (I had to bite my tongue frequently from saying “DO YOU KNOW HOW FUCKING HARD SHE WORKED ON THIS?”) and then run back to the graphic designer’s studio apartment on the Upper East Side.

What color are you always drawn to? Purple.

What work of art or artifact are you most surprised you own? We own a little figure called “The Little Wanderer” by artist Yoshimoto Nara, thus called as she has little wheels and rolls around as if sleepwalking. We bought her as a lark when our little Charlotte was born in 2004 from a long-since-vanished baby shop on Broadway called Little Wang. She has lived in our kids’ room ever since. Upon hearing that Nara’s work has become only more celebrated in recent years, I did a little research. Today, “The Little Wanderer” can fetch up to $4,500 on eBay. Who knew??

Which New Yorker would you want to hang out with? So many of my favorite New Yorkers – Jim Carroll, Anthony Bourdain, Joey Ramone, Pete Hammill, Spalding Grey, etc. – are already dead. I think Laurie Anderson would be kind of interesting to have dinner with.

What’s the last thing you made with your hands? Well, I didn’t make the pumpkin itself, but I carved one last weekend, and was pretty pleased with the results.

Is there one thing you own multiple versions of? There are certain albums like It’s Alive by The Ramones, Funhouse by The Stooges, Spirit of Eden by Talk Talk, Nothing’s Shocking by Jane’s Addiction and several albums by Killing Joke and Cop Shoot Cop that I own on every available format. I also have all of the published editions of “Please Kill Me” by Legs McNeil & Gillian McCain.

What New York City museum do you always go back to? This is a toughie, as I genuinely love so many of them. While I frequently cite The Museum of the City of New York as my favorite, I think the one I routinely return to the most is probably the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as it remains just a magnificent place to stroll around and get lost in.

What do you always have next to your computer? At this stage, probably an external disc drive.

Where is the best view of the city? The one from my office.

What building or object do you want to redesign every time you see it? I genuinely loathe all the so-called “supertalls” (fuck you, yimby!), but there’s something particularly noxious about 432 Park Avenue. It was probably the first one of them to go up in Manhattan, and it’s just an artless rod that blocks out the sun and ruins the symetry of the cityscape. I have nothing but ill will for everyone who owns an apartment therein. Knock it the fuck down.

What’s one thing you would change about your field? I would make the calculation and quantification of royalties for artists from streaming platforms significantly fairer.

If you could live anywhere in New York City, where would it be? I genuinely love the neighborhood we live in, so I wouldn’t change that, but a couple more bedrooms would make life significantly simpler.

What would you hoard if it stopped being produced? I don’t know if the paltry amount I’ve already collected could be construed as “hoarding,” but I have three or four 160gb iPod Classics (one still pristinely wrapped) and would not be averse to picking up another, should the right opportunity present itself.

What do you do to get out of a creative rut? Go outside and walk around.

Where was your first NYC apartment and how much was the rent? Well, when I was born, we lived on East 89th Street between Lexington and Park Avenue. I have zero clue how much the rent was.

Where in the city do you go to be alone? If I “vant to be alone” Greta-Garbo-style, I go out for long walks. There are myriad places wherein to find solace and solitude in this teeming metropolis. You just have to know where the quiet streets are.

Worst piece of career advice you’ve ever gotten? “Let them call you,” or words to that effect. Anyone that tells you that playing hard-to-get is the way to land the job you want is fucking wrong. Be assertive. Let them KNOW your level of interest.

What have you given away to someone that you wish you could get back? When I got married and my wife “officially” moved into my apartment on East 12th Street, I put a lot of my stupid shit in storage and farmed off a few items to friends. My friend Rob now has my lovingly framed poster for the Ramones’ Road to Ruin album (featuring art by the great John Holmstrom), as well as a super-rare Cop Shoot Cop/Cows gig at CBGB (albeit NOT my Holy Grail poster). I honestly don’t have the wall space for either of them, anymore, but I do miss that Ramones poster something awful.

What’s your favorite NYC restaurant and regular order? I don’t honestly know that I could single out one, solitary restaurant as my very favorite. It depends on my mood, the company, the day of the week, etc. But for the sake of this post, I’ll pick Elephant & Castle on Greenwich Ave just steps to the south of West 11th Street, and my favorite dish there – although it was worryingly absent the last time I was there was the brunch favorite of poached eggs with pureed spinach on potato pancakes. Sheer joy on a plate.

What do you want your obit headline to be? “He’d have agreed with you, if you were right.”

54

I turn 54 years old, today. I have nothing really to say about it, but felt I should acknowledge it. 

 

Goodnight & Godspeed, Eileen

I am crestfallen to learn that a dear friend and longtime colleague from my days at the TIME Magazine News Desk, Eileen (the redhead on the far right), has suddenly passed away.

Eileen was quite literally the very first person I met at the magazine, and her warmth, professional dedication, propensity for kindness and impossibly convivial nature were brilliant enough to power an entire city. I am shocked and heartbroken.

I, of course, remember the big-event news cycles — the slow O.J. car chase to the Oklahoma City bombing to the death of Princess Diana to September 11th to the Iraq War to the tsunami and countless other stressful, busy nights. Eileen was a rock-solid part of each and every one of those experiences when we were all working shoulder-to-shoulder to support and facilitate the crucial exchange or reporting between the editors and the correspondents and reporters in the field around the world. But more than anything, I remember the quiet days and nights when broken news didn’t need to be attended to, when we’d sit around going well out of our may to make each other laugh, and no one was more rewarding to make laugh than Eileen. The long hours were meaningless when you were spending them with such good friends. 

The picture above was taken on the eve of TIME's 75th Anniversary party in 1998, snapped in the hallway outside the News Desk at 1271 Sixth Avenue, just across the street from the party's location, Radio City Music Hall. Our department was sort of half-heartedly invited at the eleventh hour (practically with a "now don't feel you have to come...") and we jumped on it with gusto. In attendance that evening was every living individual that had ever appeared on the cover of the magazine. During the course of the evening, I saw F. Lee Bailey and Lee Iacocca embrace, I clinked glasses with George Plimpton (unsolicitedly), saw David Copperfield and then-girlfriend Claudia Schiffer have a heated argument in the downstairs lounge and squeezed behind Dr. Jack Kevorkian on the stairs (a "brush with death," as it were). I remember relaying this to Eileen and seeing her beaming from having a chatty exchange with Tom Hanks. It was that kind of evening. 

Goodnight & god bless, Eileen Harkin. You were the soul of the TIME Magzine News Desk and your big, familial heart was beloved by friends & colleagues both near and scattered across the globe, from Kansas to Kandahar.

Godspeed & Erin go Bragh! 

xo

Notes From The Ghost Walk

So, as recently mentioned, we flew to Ohio, this past weekend, to look at Denison University, my alma mater, for my daughter Charlotte. The specifics of the visit are of a very niche and ultimately private concern, but suffice to say, it was a great trip. Charlotte seemed to be engaged by what she saw, had a couple of great interviews and came away with a better understanding of the school as a possible target destination for her impending college years. Mission accomplished.

For me, that was the ultimate goal, but I also had a side interest in experiencing the place again for the first time in 32 years.

As is strenuously evident from even a casual perusal of this weblog, I am a laboriously sentimental nostalgist of the highest order. I assign massive emotional significance to certain periods of my past that, for whatever reason, I consider to have been crucially informative. For better or worse, I have always been this way.

While I had a great experience at Denison back in the distant `80s, I wasn’t exactly indicative of the typical Denison student, at the time. I did not join a fraternity. I didn’t give a single crap about the football team. I was not an econ major. I largely abhorred the ubiquitous reverence for the Grateful Dead. But, I found my tribe, so to speak. I immersed myself in the English and Art programs. I became a disc jockey on the college radio station and staffer on the school newspaper. But I was still a somewhat sneery kid from New York City, at heart. The otherwise preternaturally beautiful ranks of the student body didn’t really know what to make of me, nor I of them. At the same time, I managed to forge several meaningful friendships that carry on to this day. I had my heart broken by various girls along the way, but those dalliances usually fell apart more because of my myopic idiocy than any cruelty or indifference on their part. I don’t know that I was always that easy to hang around with, at the time.

In any case, my four years there were still a seismic experience for me. Having not been back on the campus apart from a brief, four-day visit in 1990, I was genuinely moved by the notion of going back.

We spent Saturday morning doing an information session, walking tour and interviews, and then broke for lunch, after which I was let off my leash so to speak, to go back and wander around the campus by myself.

I don’t know exactly what I was expecting to find. I was reminded of several entries on this blog I’ve posted over the year about searching for that elusive “sense of place.” I’ve combed through the streets of New York City and stood in front of key addresses trying to feel some faint, fleeting semblance of various former concerns. Often times, I’ve come away with nothing, trying to evoke some intangible character from a chunk of real estate that bears no resemblance to some former iteration.

But back there at Denison, it was different. Sure, there was lots of new development, but a lot of the stuff was relatively unchanged. Here were the exact rooms and buildings more or less just as I’d left them. Once again, I’ve assigned so much significance to certain places in my memory, but often times the places themselves simply refuse to reciprocate. Sometimes a room just feels like a room – yeah, it’s a room you might have been in before, but not necessarily the same room you had all these indelible experiences in. It felt a bit like running into someone you used to date, but having them not recognize or remember you at all.

So, yeah, I wandered around to various spots (finding many of them locked), but ultimately felt like a bit of a ghost. The people I knew were no longer in any of them, nor was there any indication that they – or I – had ever been there.

At one instance, I snuck into my freshman year dormitory -- I realize this is invariably frowned upon, but I couldn’t resist. I climbed to the second floor and searched out my old room, amazingly finding the door open. Inside were two disgruntled juniors. I blabbed out a quick explanation of being an alumnus and asked if they would mind terribly if I just took a quick picture. They blearily looked at me, shrugged and acquiesced. I quickly stepped in and tried to replicate a shot I’d taken of the room back in the winter of 1985. I thanked them and ducked back out of the building.

The top shot below is my room in 1985. The shot beneath it is the same room from the same vantage point in 2021. Evidently, these guys aren’t big on decorating. One odd detail: If you look hard at the back of my door in the 1985 picture, you can see a THRASHER sticker (over a photograph of Agnostic Front I cut out of SPIN Magazine). Beneath it, in the 2021 shot, the kid with his back to the camera is wearing a THRASHER sweatshirt in almost the exact same spot.

I thought that was weird. Click on each to enlarge.