Flaming Pablum

Overthrow Gets Knocked Out

My comrade EV Grieve first reported it back in late October, but I only just noticed that the Overthrow Gym over on Bleecker just west of Bowery — in the former headquarters Abbie Hoffman’s Yippies — has closed its doors for good. Check out EV Grieve’s story for the specifics (took incurred a lot of debt during COVID).

If I’m being honest, I can’t say I’m particularly broken up about it, as I was never really a big fan of the place, given their cloying attempts at establishing some sort of connection between the neighborhood’s punk history and … boxing, first by way of that Joey Ramone mural and later via the auspices of Punk Magazine’s John Holmstrom, although as I said in that post, who am I to begrudge John for making some bucks from his storied art at this late stage of proceedings?

I’m also not exactly heartbroken about the neighborhood losing yet another fitness facility, given the preponderance of them currently occupying multiple spots all over Broadway and Lafayette Streets. Sorry, but good riddance to that stupid bullshit, although who knows what sort of venture will take its place?

If you look in the upper left hand corner of the now-empty storefront, you can even see an invocation of Abbie Hoffman’s era, that being the Yipster Times (just above and to the right of the octopus). Below are some shots of how that space looked in the `90s.

My Favorite Posts of 2024

When it comes to what sort of content resonates with readers, here, I’m afraid I’m probably the last person you should ask. All too often, I’ll agonize over a certain entry and post it, only to be greeted with a chorus of crickets. Other times, I’ll slap something up as a lark, and get engulfed in feverish clicks (well, maybe not feverish clicks, but clicks all the same). Why some posts hit their mark more than others completely eludes me. I’m just thankful when it happens.

In any case, as we begin the perilous slide into the gaping jaws of 2025, I thought I’d take a quick moment to look back at some of my personal favorites from the past twelve months. Some got a lot of attention, and some of them simply died on the vine, so to speak. Here are the one I’m most proud of, for whatever that’s worth. 

Enjoy...

Carried Away at Katz's

This is The Hand ... The Hand That Takes

Damaged Hours: Back to Mohawk Night at Club Berlin

Pie vs. Pie: Parsing The Great Manhattan Pizza Schism

Day of the Dad Shoes

Spank Generation: Unpacking "A Year on Earth with Mr. Hell"

Mood Music for Urban Chaos: The Myth & Mission of Missing Foundation

Desperately Seeking the `80s Turns Two: Unanswered New York Questions

Tuff Love: The Arc of New York City's Tuff Darts

Exhuming the Moondance

A Great Day in Alphabet City

Theoretically, It Happened on Grand Street

Lights, Camera, Abjection: My Big Screen Debut in B-Sides

Holiday in Hell's Kitchen

Auf Wiedersehen, Club Berlin

New York is Always Busy: Forty Minutes in 1970's NYC

Vandals in the Tar Pits: Back to Suburbia

Exhuming St. Marks Sounds

The Face of Echo

Lunachicks Through the Lense

Hangin' with The Hurdy Gurdy Man

I mentioned it sort of obliquely here, at the time, but in the spring of 2021, I had the rare and somewhat bizarre honor of putting together a project for my office with Scottish songwriting legend Donovan. In a nutshell, he wanted to present a songwriting masterclass for the affiliates of the performing rights organization I work for, and it was my job to bring that goal to fruition while simultaneously goading the storied Gaelic bard into adhering to some of our guidelines. Suffice to say, while an exceptionally charming, pleasant and tirelessly ebullient gentlemen to deal with, Donovan was never going to do anything other than exactly what Donovan wanted to do.

Throughout the process, I ended up exchanging countless emails and having multiple, lengthy conversations over the phone with the great man. This was still all happening during the middle stages of COVID, so I was remotely sequestered with my family at the Lamb Cottage — which i spoke about here — out in Quogue, while Donovan was holding court in his castle in County Cork in the southwesterly portion of Ireland. It was a truly odd experience sitting with my laptop on the back porch of the endearingly tiny cottage we were subletting, chatting with the guy who penned classics like “Sunshine Superman,” “Mellow Yellow,” "Atlantis," “Season of the Witch,” and so many more.

While Donovan might not strike some as an artist I’d normally ever give a damn about — he being one of the preeminent proponents of Flower Power and the like — I was actually already a fan of the man’s music well prior to this unexpected assignment. I’d certainly heard some of his canonical standards via classic rock radio growing up, but it was one of my housemates during my senior year of college, Ben K., that decided to circumvent our off-campus house’s steady diet of Jane’s Addiction, Ministry, fIREHOSE and Fishbone with regular lashings from a well-loved copy of 1969’s Donovan’s Greatest Hits. Despite some cries of “what’s this silly hippie shit?”, that LP went into very heavy rotation, with tracks like “Hurdy Gurdy Man” becoming a high-decibel house favorite.

Some years after that, I remember my great friend Sean W. going through a somewhat cloying Dylan phase (sorry, I’ve absolutely NEVER been a fan) and making me watch D.H. Pennebaker’s “Don’t Look Back,” wherein Dylan allegedly shows up rival folkie songwriter Donovan with a spontaneous performance of “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue,” after the junior songwriter dared perform a tune in Bob's presence. I never liked Dylan prior to that, but that scene only cemented my disdain for the man. I’ll continue to take Donovan over Dylan every time.

Anyway, after much spirited back-&-forthing, we finally managed to complete the masterclass video by the summer, and I posed a series of questions to Donovan for an interview piece to accompany it, all of which he scrupulously copyedited, somewhat unsolicitedly. When he was finally finished jovially re-constructing my written piece, we launched the project. Should you care, you can see that all here, including the video.

Once the project went live, the surprise phone calls from Donovan stopped, although he did very graciously implore me to come visit his castle in Ireland, an invitation I thanked him profusely for, but never took him up on.

Cut to 2024, and after spending three lovely days outside of Edinburgh visiting my daughter at her college, we all flew over to Dublin to spend Thanksgiving in Dublin with my son. While my wife was checking into our hotel, I was loitering around the lobby when suddenly, in walked Donovan. Not imagining I’d ever again have the opportunity, I sheepishly introduced myself, referencing the masterclass video and our many exchanges during that spring, three years earlier. He stared at me blankly for a hot second, then his eyes lit up with recognition, and then next thing I knew, he had me sitting across from him while he regaled me with one of his signature, detail-heavy anecdotes about the origins of music publishing, royalties and how the folk-tradition informs all facets of contemporary music. While he still lives down in Cork, he was fleetingly in Dublin to discuss a new project he was working on.

Even at age 78, the man remains tirelessly committed to his art and evangelizing his music.

Wind in the Rigging

Since 2019, the partially completed skyscraper at 45 Park Place in TriBeCa, between West Broadway and Church Street, has been in a dormant state following a Stop Work Order from the DOB issued in December of that year. The unfinished and unsightly tower looms over its surrounding portion of Lower Manhattan like a giant, silent sentinel, with a spindly crane perched atop a thin metal exoskeleton affixed to the building’s westerly wall. On windier days – like today – the crane actively swings worryingly around like a gargantuan weathervane. According to my friends at TriBeCa Citizen, the DOB allegedly makes routine inspections to the site and the crane, although further construction seems indefinitely stalled. TriBeCa residents are understandably displeased.

Adding arguable insult to injury, at some point, in recent months, an intrepid graffiti artist named RAMS somehow got inside 45 Park Place, ascended to its unfinished rooftop, and daringly rappelled down each of the four sides of the tower to leave huge, colorful tags. While an impressive-if-astonishingly-foolhardy feat, the end results lend proceedings at 45 Park Place a further veneer of neglect and decrepitude.

Personally speaking, the graffiti part doesn’t really bother me. If anything, RAMS did the community a backhanded favor by generating a new stir around a problem that continues to be seemingly ignored. By calling attention to it, perhaps there’ll be some movement.

But I’ll say this. To stand on the street and see that massive metal crane swing around in the wind is pretty chilling.

Reheated Pablum: Updates on Some Past Posts

I thought I’d take a moment to aggregate some updates regarding stuff I’ve written about here before. Here we go…

Some of you might remember this post from 2023, which documented the quiet closing of Miyabi, the frankly not-that-amazing Japanese restaurant that moved into Bleecker Bob’s former space at 118 West Third Street following the slow demise of that storied record shop in 2013. Well, after another period of dormancy – during which time the neighboring business to the west morphed from a dubious foot-rub/happy-ending joint into a frozen yogurt purveyor – it seems 118 is getting ready for a new tenant … one that involves, evidently, a “hibachi lab.” See the interior above.

Back in 2013, meanwhile, I wrote an entry about See/Hear, the furtive hive of zine culture, music-geek literature and underground comics that formerly held count in a basement-level space on East 7th Street. As you can see from the comments on that post, the mere invocation of the shop touched a nerve, for a lot of people. Well, for those folks, I’d like to highlight a new, comparatively exhaustive oral history that was just posted on Animal about the place that really goes into its back-history. Check that out here.

Lastly, some of you might remember a series of posts from 2017 wherein I became preoccupied with identifying a certain Manhattan corner upon which the fabled Misfits had once posed for a series of photos that had become relatively iconic (well, for Misfits fans, at least).

As detailed in those posts, I stalked the streets of Lower Manhattan trying to pinpoint the exact spot. At the same time, I reached out to the photographer, one Roxanne Lowit, to see if she could provide the answer, or at least some clues. Her assistant got back to me with some vague intel about where the location might be, and – in turn – I asked if I might reproduce some her photos for my posts. Unfortunately, the response was an emphatic NO, I could not. I got around that by linking to other sites who’d posted them, including photos of Lowit’s images on various bootleg singles and via some illustrations by my daughter, who was about 12 years old at the time. Here’s one of those illustrations now. This is Charlotte's interpretation of the print-out I'm holding in the shot above. 

Initially, I was surprised that Lowit – who’d gone on to do many, many other higher profile projects and is now a celebrated fashion photographer -- should have given that much of a damn that some rinkydink little blog like mine wanted to host her pics, but hey, I do understand. That’s her goddamn work. Those images are no one else’s. Respect is due.

Cut to 2024, and someone has evidently convinced Lowit to revisit her evening in the company of Jerry Only, Glen Danzig, Bobby Steele and Joey Image by way of a new photo book called, “We Walk the Streets at Night.” Documenting the full shoot wherein Lowit led the Lodi, New Jersey quartet around the then desolate streets of the West Village (the corner in question, incidentally, was West 11th at Washington Street), the book is frustratingly spare on details (not even a preamble from the photographer). Moreover, the images themselves are presented in their original form as blown-up slides. It’s a nice effect, I suppose, but I would have liked to see some of the pictures in a larger format – and with a bit of anecdotal augmentation, although if you’re curious as to the doings of the Misfits during that era, I would recommend the excellent book,“This Music Leaves Stains” by James Green Jr.

If you’re curious about “We Walk the Streets at Night,” meanwhile, you can pick a copy up at Generation Records on Thompson Street. Tell’em Flaming Pablum sent ya.

Word on the Street

Halloween may be tomorrow night, but it looks like the scary stuff is slated for next week.

I spotted the ominous declaration below on my way to work this morning (this on West Third Street). Several blocks later -- on Greenwich Street in TriBeCa -- I spotted an equally sinister sticker that endorsed a certain candidate being forcibly asphyxiated (I won't post that picture here – I don’t need that heat).

My hopes for next Tuesday passing quietly and in a civil manner are slimming.

Back from La Belle France

Two entirely unrelated posts later, yes, I am indeed back from France.

Ostensibly, my wife and I were there as a surprise for my sister-in-law’s 25th wedding anniversary. Her husband – my brother-in-law – invited us along, which was sincerely nice of him. We did one night in Paris, then took a train to Provence to stay in a ridiculously picturesque town in the Luberon valley outside of Avignon called Gordes (pronounced, I believe, like “gourds”). We stayed there for a few days, then zipped back to Paris for one more night and then flew back to NYC.

Unlike my otherwise usual rituals when visiting foreign places, I didn’t really get to go to any record shops or music venues. It was pretty much my brother-in-law’s party, so largely just went along with the program.

At the very least, I ate and drank like a marauding Visigoth (my brother-in-law is something of a “wine guy,” so I periodically strayed from my beloved beer). I’m now paying for it.

Allons en France

Hey all. As a quasi-birthday prezzie, the wife and I are bound for la belle France for a few days, so please pardon the slowdown in posting here, while I’m briefly overseas.

I first went to France on a bicycle trip in 1987 and somehow stumbled upon the amazing Parisian record shop advertised above. I went back in 2004, and that shop was long gone, replaced by a delicatessen. But, on that trip, I found another great music shop called – inexplicably – Bimbo Tower. When I went back in 2019, however, Bimbo Tower was also gone, but on that trip, I discovered a third great, cool, punky record shop in Paris called Born Bad. Last I heard, Born Bad was still there. We’ll see.

It's funny. For country with great record shops, I’m hard pressed to name that many notable French bands, but here’s a rude industrial metal band from same called Treponem Pal, which – if I recall currently – is an untranslatable variant of some venereal disease. I interviewed the lead singer, Marco, back in the early `90s, and he was a bit of a whack-job, but very nice. Here they are butchering “Planet Claire” by the B-52’s.

Speak with you all when I get back.

Birthday No. 57

Today I turn 57 years old.

I’m quite certain I say more or less the same thing, every year, but I never seem to know what to do with the number in question. More so than ever, though, that number is one I’m pointedly not excited about. What’s that line from Pink Floyd? “Shorter of breath … and one day closer to death!” Yeah, cheers, fellas.

In any case, being that it was only 364 days ago since I filled out this stupid survey, I thought I’d mix it up, this time. There’s a singer/songwriter I quite admire named Amy Rigby (who I had the pleasure of interviewing here) who recently filled out a questionnaire from a magazine called .. ahem … The Oldster. Not that I’m in any way comparable with lovely Ms. Rigby (whose music, by the way, you need to go check out), but I figured I’d poach those questions for my own use. I went out of my way not to read Amy’s answers, lest they influence my own. I’m now curious to read hers to see how aligned with my own they might be.

So, here we go. Seatbelts on, kids … it’ll probably get bumpy.

How old are you?
I am now 57.

Is there another age you associate with yourself in your mind? If so, what is it? And why, do you think?
Someone asked me this the other day. In much the same way I regularly forget that the 1990s were three decades ago, I seem to still assume that I’m in my 40’s, when that’s clearly not the case.

Do you feel old for your age? Young for your age? Just right? Are you in step with your peers?
I don’t think I know how being 57 is supposed to feel. It certainly sounds old. I would say I certainly feel older than I did, say, two years ago. The onset of certain physical limitations and the increase in various pills and vitamins I’ve been instructed to pop every morning has certainly served to remind me that I’m older. When I speak with my peers about it, everyone seems to tell a comparable story, so I suppose I’m indeed in step and “coming right along” with everyone else.

What do you like about being your age?
Ummmmm … not very much. I seem to live in a young person’s world, which renders many of my interests, observations, enthusiasms, reminiscences, and contributions to proceedings somewhat moot. Yeah, I can assert that I got to see all the good bands, and all that, but fewer and fewer people seem to care about that stuff

What is difficult about being your age?
I think the primary difficulty, as alluded above, is the physical cost of activities I used to take for granted. I mean, I’ve had tinnitus in my right ear for 25 years, now, so I’ve more or less adapted to that compromise, but the foot problems that appeared in the last two years, for me, have been a real bummer. I haven’t really slowed down – I logged over 30K steps the other weekend – but the seeming impunity I used to feel in that capacity is sorely missed. Simply put, not being able to do things I used to do with ease is a drag, and I don’t expect that to improve, alas.

What is surprising about being your age, or different from what you expected, based on what you were told?
I remember just before our first child was born; I had this sort of vague notion that the birth of my daughter would come with this giant hypodermic needle full of weapons-grade maturity that would jolt me into being a responsible adult. Suffice to say, that didn’t happen, and I spent much of my kids’ infancies wondering when the real grown-ups were going to show up and handle proceedings. Similarly, I think I expected to be a bit wiser, more measured and relaxed about things as a man of 57, when I’m basically just as stupid, erratic, and perpetually worried as I’ve always been.



What has aging given you? Taken away from you? 
If you’ve spent any time at all on this blog, you know the dreaded N-word – no, not that one, I’m talking about “Nostalgia” – plays a huge role, and that’s only been further fueled by my advancing age. Many of my friends and peers have absolutely zero tolerance for nostalgia, equating it with stasis and rigid conformity, and while I can understand that perspective (if you’re spending all your time looking backwards, you’ll miss what’s up ahead), I made my peace with that conflict a long time ago. By the same token, the cruel irony is that the older I get, the less stuff I’m likely to remember (especially if there’s any genuine correlation between tinnitus and advanced onset dementia, as has been recently postulated). Regardless, one would hope that with age comes wisdom, but there’s more than enough evidence to suggest that that’s simply not a given. If I want to sound defeatist, I’d say aging has made me more cynical and taken away some of my verve and mobility … and hearing, but I really did that last one to myself.

How has getting older affected your sense of yourself, or your identity?
Probably not in good way. Getting older tends to codify and cement certain opinions, notions, and stances that one might otherwise be less strident about. I worry that getting older makes me less open to new things. In terms of my sense of self and identity, the central plank in that campaign, for the last twenty years, has been my role as a father. Now that both of my kids are out of the nest and attending college overseas, that’s taken something of a strange turn. Similarly, as so much of my “identity” seemed to be informed (if not defined) by predilections that are now, at the very least, anachronistic, that’s left me in a transitional phase of sorts, as well. I suppose I’m just in the process of navigating my way as an almost-sexagenarian (look it up – not as exciting as it sounds).

What are some age-related milestones you are looking forward to? Or ones you “missed,” and might try to reach later, off-schedule, according to our culture and its expectations?
I don’t know that I think of impending events like that (i.e. as “milestones”). I’m continuing to watch my children’s progress with all zeal and enthusiasm. Their individual accomplishments are all their own, but I can’t help but feel very proud of both. I look forward to the next chapter with my lovely wife as “empty nesters.” I hope to be around for as much of all the above as I can.

What has been your favorite age so far, and why? Would you go back to this age if you could?
I’m of the opinion that I wasted vast swathes of my life feeling inadequate and agonizing over things that, in hindsight, were not at all founded or worth all that emotional expenditure. As such, it would be tempting to go back and do a “do-over,” were that feasible, but that would invariably alter the trajectory of my life, and I wouldn’t want to change my current course. If I had a favorite age, I’d say my early 30’s. By that point, I’d finally put certain issues behind me and was feeling pretty good about how things were going and where things seemed headed.

Is there someone who is older than you, who makes growing older inspiring to you? Who is your aging idol and why?
Not really. I know plenty of folks who are older than myself who seem to go out of their way to demonstrate how young-at-heart they are, but I don’t expect to go that route. I’m already something of a curmudgeon, so I don’t imagine that will change a great deal. By no means would I call him an “idol” in absolutely any capacity, but my late father was fortunate enough to still be quite active in his final years and had no inkling of his swiftly impending demise. As it’s been explained to me, he died behind the wheel of a car on his way to a tennis lesson. There was no one else in the car and, mercifully, no one else on the road. He had some sort of heart episode and was dead before the car made any impact. I know that seems grim, but that sounds a helluva lot better than losing your memory and/or gradually eroding in a hospital bed. I mean, I have no plans of ever playing tennis in later life or any of that bullshit, but it shows he clearly was still enjoying himself and looking forward to stuff.

What aging-related adjustments have you recently made, style-wise, beauty-wise, health-wise?
Well, I now take a battery of six (6) goddamn pills, every morning. Two are for my blood pressure. One is for my cholesterol. One is for my rosacea, which doesn’t seem to work. One is a vitamin B complex and the last is a vitamin C thing with zinc. I’m not in a rush to add to this list. “Beauty”-wise, I cannot say that I’ve ever been less pleased with my own presentation but am uncertain how one rectifies that. This is what I look like. This is the way my hair comes out of my head. This is how my physiognomy is arranged. I am locked inside this particular vehicle, for better or worse. I periodically endeavor to lose weight via cutting down on certain vices, but I am readily a slave to bad habits. At the very least, I make it a point to walk as far and as often as I can, which now comes with a price.

What’s an aging-related adjustment you refuse to make, and why?
There’s a British expression, “Needs Must,” which I tend to adhere to. For example, I didn’t want to forsake all my other shoes for Bondi 8 Hokas (the “most cushioned” shoe of that brand’s formidable line-up), but the difference they have made on simply my everyday existence has been pronounced. I still think they look like dreadful clown shoes, but when I wear them, my feet don’t hurt nearly as much. Would I love to go back to Nike Dunk-Lows, Converse Chuck Taylor high-tops and clunky Doc Martens? Certainly, but I’d probably be in agony, all the time. Can’t have that.

In terms of adjustments that I am reluctant to make, I am reminded of something I wrote on this stupid blog, two decades ago, about planning to continue to wear silly band t-shirts “well into my forties!” I’m now in my LATE FUCKING FIFTIES and am still doing so. Not sure where that’s going to take me, but I cannot seem to give it up.

What turn of events had the biggest impact on your life? What took your life in a different direction, for better or worse?
Without a doubt, getting married and having children had the biggest impact, and that impact happily continues. That’s been the defining element of my life, but, of course, there have been others.

There was a short-but-arduous stretch of years in the mid-2010’s when, for my wife and I, the hits just kept coming, starting with the death of my father and then the death of my father-in-law. That was followed by me losing my job, and then a member of my family being diagnosed with a serious medical condition, only to be followed by the death of my mother-in-law, my wife losing her job and then my stepfather dying, all within a very short span of months. The emotional, physical, and psychological toll taken by this chapter of our lives remains indelible to this day.

What is your number one regret in life? If you could do it all over again, what is the biggest thing you’d do differently?
There are multiple things I regret, but not one, big, single thing that haunts me. There are countless problems I could have handled with a bit more grace, finesse, and courage, but I was young, stupid, and suffered from a pronounced lack of confidence. Looking back, if I could do anything differently, I would try to convince the younger iteration of myself to grow a thicker skin and worry less about stupid shit that ultimately did not matter, in the grand scheme of things. But that can’t be done.

What is high up on your “bucket list?” What do you hope to achieve, attain, or plain enjoy before you die?
I’m just not a “bucket list” guy. I don’t live that way. I mean, sure, it would be super-fun to visit certain points on the globe I’ve never been to like Iceland or Prague, but it’s not like I’m not going to sleep at night until I’ve checked those off some list. I’m more or less resigned to the fact that I’ll probably never get to places like Egypt or Australia or Japan, but who knows? I never expected to go to Beirut, but I did that a few years ago (luckily before the blast and … everything that’s happening now).

In terms of what I hope to achieve/attain/enjoy before I die, I – again – don’t really live my life with those sorts of expectations. I hope to sustain a safe, comfortable, and happy home for my wife and my two children. I look forward to both of their lives taking further shape. I hope to watch them both graduate from their respective schools and pursue fulfilling careers for themselves. It seems entirely bizarre, at this point, to consider, but I am hopeful of the idea of them starting families of their own and maybe, one day, having a grandchild. I think I would greatly enjoy that.

Is there a piece of advice you were given, that you live by? If so, what was it, and who offered it to you?
My grandfather on my mother’s side was unfailingly punctual. He advised me to always be on time. It’s efficient, professional, saves you extra stress and demonstrates respect. I took that to heart and still swear by it.

What are your plans for your body when you’re done using it? Burial? Cremation? Body Farm? Other? And what do you expect to happen to your “soul” or “spirit” after you die?
Jeezus, what on earth is a “body farm”? Sounds like a horror film.

At this stage of proceedings, I have absolutely no preference. I used to joke about wanting a Viking funeral, wherein my corpse is put in a canoe and set out on the water, after which comrades on shore shoot flaming arrows into it and drink heartily as my remains sail/immolate on my way to Valhalla. That sounds pretty good.

What’s your philosophy on celebrating birthdays as an adult? How do you celebrate yours?
Birthday celebrations, this late in the day, so to speak, make me sort of uncomfortable. Despite the long-winded laboriousness of all the paragraphs you just suffered through, I don’t really relish being the center of that particular variant of attention. I don’t need any presents or purple-prosed praise. I’d much rather have a friend stand up and tell some embarrassing anecdote about me behaving like an irresponsible jackass than someone extolling my arguable merits upon the occasion of my birthday. I get stressed out by perceived expectations in that scenario. A surprise party is my complete idea of absolute Hell. By the same token, there is absolutely nothing on this earth worse, for me, that unthinkingly hurting my beautiful wife’s feelings, and when she’s trying to do something nice for me, I too often dismiss her idea with a brusque shudder, which …among many other things … makes me a complete friggin’ jerk. So, whether I’m totally on board or not, I am regularly treated to birthday celebrations – of which I am and remain entirely undeserving.

Exhuming St. Marks Sounds

Back in 2015, after having weepily documented the long, slow demise of storied record shop, Bleecker Bob’s at 118 West 3rd Street, I posted an entry about myself and my friend Steve having lunch at Miyabi, the Japanese restaurant that had assumed the long-contested address on West 3rd. Late last year, however, Miyabi quietly closed without a great deal of fanfare. I’m not suggesting there’s any sort of cause-&-effect correlation there, but it happened anyway. As I type this, 118 West 3rd Street is back to being a dormant, vacant space.

I’m not saying the same thing’s going to happen this time, but … we’ll see.

I’ve written here about St. Marks Sounds -- or, to some, simply Sounds -- a bunch of times (see list below), but it was a longtime mainstay of St. Marks Place – well, actually, that’s a rather myopic declaration. St. Marks Place has gone through a wide series of iterations over its evolution (and devolution) in the course of its many decades (and I recommend Ada Calhoun’s excellent “St Marks is Dead,” if you’re curious about that history), so to assert that one single shop was a “mainstay” is a bit over-the-top. Certainly for folks of my era, it was a long-standing destination in the middle of the block between Third and Second Avenues wherein a veritable nation of New Yorkers procured their vinyl and, later, compact discs, but to suggest that it was anything more than that is probably just fancifully subjective projection.

Regardless, to myself and my similarly inclined gaggle of friends, it was a fairly crucial establishment. Up a sweeping stoop and behind a tall, heavy door was a high-ceilinged chamber filled with records, tapes and discs of all description. The walls were covered with posters (which they never parted with, much to my pronounced chagrin) and music was always blasting (although still not as loudly as at Freebeing Records down the block and around the corner on Second Avenue, where the volume was always excruciating).

Anyway, as time went by and things started to sharply change on St. Marks Place, Sounds stayed put … invariably because the guys who ran the place also owned the building [ADDENDUM - not true, it turns out...check out the comments]. In fairly short order, Sounds became the only the place to buy music on St. Marks (following the inevitable demise of ventures like Venus Records, Rocket Scientist and the magisterial Mondo Kim’s). Sounds held out the longest.

But, in 2015, St. Marks Sounds joined the ranks of those other shops — and other neighborhood hold-outs like the re-located-to-First-Avenue Mondo Kim’s, Birdman’s Rainbow Music on First Avenue, Norman’s Sound + Vision on Third Avenue, Other Music on East 4th, which shut up a shop a year after Sounds — and closed its doors. For a list of shops that *are* still there, click here … before another one vanishes.

Rumors swirled about what was to become of both the St. Marks Sounds space and the also-shuttered Grassroots Tavern beneath (which I wrote about here). There was chatter that the endearingly ramshackle Grassroots was going to turn into an exclusively bespoke bistro, but that evidently fell through, and it’s now a ridiculous doggie daycare endeavor called Manhattan Pawffice.

The space that had been St. Marks Sounds for so many years eventually turned into a hairstylists’ operation called MG Hair Artistic Salon, who evidently specialize in Asian-centric hairstyles. I stopped in today to check it out. They were very friendly, but very confused about my explanation of why I’d stopped in, but they let me snap a few pics anyway.

THE BIG ROOM THEN..

THE BIG ROOM NOW...



THE REGISTER THEN...



THE REGISTER NOW ...

"WENDY'S CORNER" THEN ...

"WENDY'S CORNER" NOW ... :(

Earlier posts about Sounds....

Fishing in a Warm Place (2/2009)
Sounds of St. Marks Place (5/2013)
Where Wendy Still Waits (6/2013)
Faked-Out at Sounds (12/2013)
The Silence of Sounds (2/2014)
Plugged into the Matrix (2/2014)
No More Sounds on St. Marks (9/2015)
Punked Out: Goodbye to the Old St. Marks (9/2015)
Unsound on St. Marks (4/2016)