Flaming Pablum

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 Walrus was Paul

Dates kinda fail me, on this one, but it must have been back in the summer of 1979 when my grammar-school pal Brad roped me into his preoccupation, at the time, with this astonishing (to us) conspiracy theory that had made the rounds in our classroom that previous spring. Apparently, some unfathomable amount of years earlier (really only about ten, but when you’ve only been alive for twelve or thirteen years, that seems like a crazy amount of time), Beatle Paul McCartney was rumored to have been killed in a car crash and covertly replaced by a lookalike, and the Beatles had peppered (pardon the pun) clues all over their albums about it. To underscore this remarkable (again, to us … it was already ancient history to the rest of the cognizant world) assertion, Brad dropped the needle on the already kinda spooky “I Am the Walrus” from Magical Mystery Tour, pumping up the volume towards the end to amplify entirely discernable utterances of “BURY ME!”

Suffice to say, this creepy revelation immediately put the hook in me, and Brad and I were off to the races, spending the rest of our summer scrupulously cataloging perceived clues, ruining the styluses on our respective families’ sound systems from spinning records backwards and basically freaking ourselves right the fuck out. Sure, it all sounds (and, frankly, is) patently ridiculous, but parts of what we “uncovered” were genuinely disquieting. Regardless of your stance on the whole “Paul is Dead” story, you cannot tell me you haven’t found parts of The White Album just a little quietly sinister.

There were, of course, several “clues” that were simply bananas. My favorite was the theory that if you held the cover of Magical Mystery Tour in one hand and a mirror in another, and then stood in front of another mirror just so, the starry letters that spell out “Beatles” would re-arrange, in the mirror you were holding, into a phone number (albeit, of course, without enough digits), and if you called that enigmatic number at -- FUCKING WAIT FOR IT -- Wednesday Morning at 5 o’clock (…as the day begins), you’d get, y’know,….. the whole story! I also enjoyed the theory that the cover of The White Album could be “scrubbed” to reveal some kind of ominous image underneath. Like I said, …. bananas.

But there were several instances when something was being intentionally expressed. Then as now, I never genuinely believed that Paul was ever actually dead so much as that the Beatles had been just fuckin’ with people, but that didn’t make the whole thing any less intriguing, for Brad and I, at least. Maybe it was all just a goof, but we still wanted to get to the bottom of it.

Here’s the thing: When you indeed spin “Revolution #9” backwards, it actually does seem to repeat “Turn Me On, Dead Man!” And when you play the mumbling bit right after “I’m So Tired” backwards, it actually does sound like “Paul is dead, man, miss him, Miss Him, MISS HIM!” I’m still on the fence about whether it’s “John Buried Paul” or “Cranberry Sauce” in the odd, flutey coda of “Strawberry Fields,” but either way, it’s fuckin’ creepy.

The only reason I’m mentioning any of this now, however, is that in the latest episode of The Dana Gould Hour podcast, the comedian devotes his “True Tales from Weirdsville” segment to the “Paul is Dead” story. Gould, who is fucking hilarious, delves into the surrounding circumstances and ephemera, but stops quite short of conceding that parts of the theory are legitimately weird.

Actually, there is one completely bonkers element that Dana fails to cite in his rumination. He mentions the anecdote about some journalists from LIFE Magazine (an alma mater of mine) confronting McCartney on his Scottish farm in the wake of the hysteria and how an exclusive cover story resulted from the incident. You can see that cover to the right.

The crazy thing about it, however, was that while the cover story was specifically designed to dispel the persistent rumor Paul had been killed in a car crash, it actually added further fuel to the fire (pardon another pun). How so? Well, on the flip side of the actual cover of that issue of the magazine was a full-page advertisement .... for a car. The image, if memory serves, is the front end of a car pointing towards the viewer. And, if you didn't see this coming, the smoking gun to this was that if you held the cover up to a light, the image of the front of the car appeared to bisect the image of Paul, which some perceived as irrefutable evidence that, y'know, it was all true. 

The image of same below was taken from this magisterial website. 

Regardless, Dana ain’t buyin’ it, but it makes for an interesting listen, and brought me right back to that very silly summer. Check it out here.

To this day, I still can’t listen to the end of “Long, Long, Long” on The White Album without being creeped out.

Crock Hall of Shame

Here’s your annual reminder that induction into the so-called Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame, an institution run by a cabal of wealthy men in suits, means absolutely nothing. Nothing at all. Not one thing.

Oh sure, induction may very well serve as a form of overdue validation to artists that, over the course of their respective careers, might never have received their well-deserved credit, let alone financial reward, for their contributions to art and culture. I made that case when Devo were fleetingly being teased with a nomination. And, of course, they didn’t make the cut.

More often than not, it’s just another tentacle of music industry that reveres the market over the merit. No surprises there.

The latest list of confirmed inductees reinforces all of this. Apparently, Sheryl Crow, for example, is more rock’n’roll than Iron Maiden, but there’s that type of upset every time the list is revealed. I’m still smarting over the notion that The MC5 (above, in furious mid-rock frenzy) have been repeatedly snubbed. This year, Rage Against the Machine (who, I should point out, I genuinely like) are being inducted. But the notion of letting RATM in before The MC5 – a band who basically created the template for everything Rage does – continues to burn my fuckin’ toast. It’s essentially the same affront as when Green Day were inducted prior to the legions upon legions of vastly superior punk bands who provided the very foundation upon which Green Day has lucratively plied their wares.

Green Day are in the Rock N’ Roll Hall of Fame.

The Buzzcocks, The Damned, The Stranglers, Generation X, Black Flag, The Dickies, The Saints, X-Ray Spex, The Slits, Siouxsie & The Banshees, X, The Weirdos, The Voidoids, etc. etc. etc.?

They’re not.

Explain that to me.

Simply put, it’s fucking disgraceful to the point of laughably utter meaninglessness.

The Coffee Shop/Diner Dichotomy

The following post is actually an “open letter,” initially composed in response to the latest episode of the Desperately Seeking the `80s podcast, which I’ve discussed here several times before, most notably here. I started writing it and then it got to a length wherein I figured it would make a nice post on its own, so here we are. You’re welcome.

Incidentally, the lovely ladies of the`80s have graciously invited me to actually appear on their podcast. We’re recording that very soon, I believe, so watch this space for that. Hopefully I won’t come off sounding like a rambling, abject idiot, but I promise nothing.

So, without further ado, in response to Jessica’s portion of this latest episode (Episode #60), herewith my response….

M’kay… first of all, I totally recognize the elusive difference Jessica was driving at between the classic coffee shop and the diner, the latter being a sort of less salubrious affair, given its accent on burgers & fries over more delicate fare and the ability to order alcohol, an important distinction, in my latter years of high school and into college.

That discussion immediately conjured up places where I used to be taken as a child. There were at least two or three proper “coffee shops,” as I remember, on Madison Avenue, foremost among them being the one beautifully captured in the photograph above (I have no idea who took it or when, but I'd originally poached it for this old post), which was on the southwest corner of 84th Street, right next to the long-vanished Trans-Lux movie house (the only movie theatre on Madison Avenue, I want to say). For whatever reason, I remember coming to this place with my Dad, who always ordered “cinnamon toast” … which, should that need illustration, was just that: buttered white toast with cinnamon on top. I don’t remember us ever having anything else, but who needed anything else? Inside, it was a lunch place, but it wasn’t tawdry or beaten up, unlike more conventional diners, which were open later. I want to say there was another more haute coffee shop about a block up between 85th and 86th (and this is going way, way back) called The Puffing Billy (named, presumably, after a train), but I can find no evidence of that online.

In terms of all things DINER, meanwhile, beyond what I blathered about in this recent epic-length post, me and my own little gaggle of morons had our specific favorites, those being as follows: The Mansion on East 86th & York Avenue (this was my home corner from about 1984 until 1996), Gracie’s Corner on the – wait for it – corner of East 86th & First Avenue (r.i.p.), The Viand Restaurant on East 86th Street & Second Avenue and then, a little further afield, The New Amity on Madison and east 84th (r.i.p.) and one on Lexington between 77th and 78th that, in more recent years, was called the Lenox Hill Grill, but went by another name back in the 80s. There was also one on Madison Avenue and, like, East 63rd we occasionally went to which was called The New Wave Diner (or Restaurant) – an establishment we appreciated solely for its name.

The Mansion is still there today, but had something of an interior-décor reboot, some years back, that decimated everything I held dear about the place. It used to be comparatively dark inside. You could sit at the counter and enjoy your burger in a sort of atmospheric gloom, as opposed to the gleaming white walls that now frame one’s dining experience. I remember they had stills from “Casablanca” above the counter area, for whatever reason.

When my mother and my step-father split, my sister was already away at college, so Mom and I moved to East 86th Street between York & East End, just up the road a piece from where my grandparents had lived at Henderson House before decamping to Florida. It was the summer between my junior and senior years of high school, so I was already fairly autonomous, and my mom was jump-starting a career as a real estate agent for the Corcoran Group, so I was frequently left to my own devices, which meant lots and lots and lots of visits to the Mansion for any number of meals. It was also a meeting place, a hangout spot and a safe haven, of a sort. For a hot second (and I do mean hot), I actually dated a young lady who worked behind the counter in the early `90s, but it was destined to crash and crumble like a slice of over-toasted cinnamon toast. More about that another time.

One of the cool things about living on East 86th Street, at the time, was the aforementioned abundance of diners and coffee shops. I seem to remember Gracie’s Corner on First Avenue being if not a 24-hr. venture, at least being a very late-night operation, and frequently repairing to its comfy confines for late-night fries with gravy (an homage to “Diner”? Who remembers?) and other inevitably drunken shenanigans (frequently after many an ill-advised hour spent in nearby public houses like Ryan’s Daughter and The (original) Gaf (formerly Pedro’s). I have a somewhat bleary-but-still-cringey memory of my college pal Edgar (not his real name … who, after spending weeks living on my couch, finally rented his own place nearby on East 84th off Second Avenue) basically abandoning a girl he’d been out on a date with (leaving her in my care, so to speak). She wasn’t so much crestfallen as confused. I walked her home, though – something Edgar invariably should have done. But, I digress..

The Viand (and we pronounced it with an inexplicable French accent, ala “vee-OND,” although who knows if this is correct?) was another staple. I remember very many meals at the Viand, either with my college friend Shafe (then-fresh from rural Florida) or my childhood comrade Rob D. Rob was famous for his last-minute veer-offs from convention when ordering, making roundly ill-advised detours into adventurous culinary territory ala “actually….scratch that, I’ll have the Cauliflower Au Gratin!” and other dishes one should ABSOLUTELY NEVER order at a diner.

My late friend Danny (initially immortalized as Rocky, on this post) and I used to frequent that Lenox Hill spot (right next to Lenox Hill hospital, a storied institution Danny was once ensconced in for a broken nose after a fateful run-in with the 84th Street Bombers in front of Mimi’s Pizza on Lexington and 84th). It lacked the homey comfort of the Mansion or the late-night debauchery-friendly vibe of Gracie’s Corner, but it was his local. The New Amity on Madison was a big favorite for some classmates of mine, but trying to have a meal there during the school day was always a nervy affair, as our free periods were only forty minutes long, so you were invariably going to be asking feverishly for a check before you’d finished your burger (or whatever).

Today, once again, the Mansion is still there, and recently made a cameo in “Only Murders in The Building” (although not cited by its actual name). The original Gracie’s Corner is gone, as is most of the block it occupied, but I think its building is still standing. The concern actually moved up the block and what had been The Viand is now called Gracie’s Corner, if I’m not mistaken.

I’m pretty sure the Lenox Hill Grill on Lexington at 77th is gone. The New Amity closed for good last summer. I think what had been the New Wave is still there, but called something else, by this point.

In terms of the cast of characters, my date-abandoning pal Edgar decamped back to his Midwestern hometown in the mid 2000’s. I fell more or less out of touch with Florida Shafe some years back after he got a bit more churchy, so to speak. My great comrade Rob D. got married to my friend J, had a child, moved to City Island, then moved to New London, CT. , got divorced and became an acclaimed writer and an esteemed man of letters, penning the preeminent academic tome on Eugene O’Neil and currently working on another sprawling book about a different celebrated writer. He still orders food ill-advisedly. My cinnamon toast-touting Dad passed away in 2011 and my great friend Danny died in 2018 in his adopted state of Colorado following a few cruel years paralyzed from a tragic bicycle accident.

The girl I fleetingly dated from The Mansion vanished into thin air circa 1993.

Back to the East River Amphitheater ... with Cop Shoot Cop

As a revelation that should surprise absolutely no one, I run the Cop Shoot Cop Facebook page. The former members of the band didn’t particularly want to do it, so just they let me get on with it. And so I do, although that involves little more than doing periodic internet searches for pertinent mentions, pictures and videos and then posting them for the C$C faithful, who also send in assets to post. Back in 2013, I stumbled upon the shot below….

I had no idea of who shot it, where it was taken, what year it was snapped nor where it was first published, but dutifully shared it on the C$C Facebook page.

Ten years later, I’m happy to say that I can report that the photograph was taken by one Stephen Street to accompany a 1993 story in the British music-news weekly, Melody Maker written by legendary rock scribe Everett True. This was sent in by a C$C fan named Bill Farrar, who’s spotted it on Twitter.

The part that caught my eye, meanwhile, was the inclusion of the entire photograph (see below).

What I’d never realized about that first iteration of the photo is the location. The Cop Shoot Cop lads are pictured loitering menacingly around the Lower East Side Amphitheatre (or Bandshell, as some of us called it) in 1993, a full 30 (!!!) years before Mr. Farrar spotted it on Twitter.

I’ve written about the East River Bandshell several times here before (most recently here), but it was a significant Lower East Side landmark, for several years, especially as it started to gradually erode, slowly devolving into a hunk of urban decay like a set-piece from “Planet of the Apes.” In varying states of disrepair, it appeared in several music videos, notably “Annie, I’m Not Your Daddy” by Kid Creole & the Coconuts, “Cold Turkey” by Cheap Trick (yes, a Lennon cover … also starring late skateboarder/scenester Harold Hunter), “Unsung” by Helmet and “Invisible People” by False Prophets, although I’m probably forgetting some others. It also made a prominent appearance in the classic hip-hop flick, “Wild Style.”

Of course, in later years, the East River Amphitheatre got a complete makeover, reducing the structure to its core shell, with some artful piping around it.

But then, in the wake of the damage wrought by Hurricane Sandy in 2012, some contentious plans to radically re-structure East River Park writ large were put into motion, and the East River Amphitheatre was razed in 2021. I haven’t been down that way in a little while, so I have no idea what’s there at the moment, but I’m relatively certain it’s dispiriting.

Here, meanwhile is Cop Shoot Cop circa 1993.

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.

Kiss on "The Midnight Special" in `75

Like so many other ponderously pretentious posts I put up here, I originally started this entry prefacing the video below with a needlessly laborious, multi-paragraph re-telling of the first time I’d ever seen a picture of Kiss and how that completely transfixed me and blah blah blah. Who cares? You shouldn’t.

The bottom line is this: Just like their make-up, it was black & white: either you immediately dug Kiss when you first encountered them, or you didn’t. Those who didn’t fucking hated them then and hate them still. Those who did, like myself, loved them and have invariably forgiven the band’s myriad lapses in taste, judgement and decorum, over the years, as… well … as the saying goes, you never forget your first kiss.

In any case, the clip below was posted on YouTube just a couple of days ago, and if you ever were a fan, it’s required viewing. Prior to the bigger-budgeted bloat and Ringling Brothers-worthy ridiculousness of later eras, this finds the band in leaner, sleazier mode than their more family-friendly incarnations.

Playing “She,” a somewhat lumpenly lusty exercise from their third album, Dressed to Kill, Kiss dutifully gives “The Midnight Special” their whole shtick, here, complete with some tragic choreography and needless preening. That all said, when this was taped, the band was still a loose, hungry outfit, and they were indeed all committed to the cause – from the three-part harmonies in the verses (who knew?) to Peter Criss’ beefy drums fills. As a commenter on Facebook noted, it’s all a cartoon until Ace Frehley steps up and takes over … then it gets real.

When this first aired in November of 1975, it would have been way past my bedtime, being that I would only have been about eight years old, at the time. But I was already onboard. That all said, I’m still not going to their final show.

Old Wave Goes No Navy

I routinely spend an inordinate amount of time bitching and moaning about places like The Gap, Urban Outfitter and, more recently, American Eagle hawking t-shirts with band insignias on them. Longtime readers might remember me foaming at the mouth about Flipper t-shirts being sold at Forever 21 and/or an obscure bit of Ramones artwork being inexplicably appropriated for a shirt sold by Brandy Melville. It’s getting as commonplace as canonical rock tunes like Iggy Pop’s “Lust for Life” being used in Carnival Cruise ads – it shouldn’t be shocking any more, but it still riles me.

This all said, someone posted something comparable on a Facebook group I belong to, today, that left me more puzzled than pissed-off. I cannot verify if this is actually true, but someone was selling an Old Navy t-shirt on eBay appended with the legend “NO WAVE NEW YORK – 1982 LOWER EAST SIDE,” augmented with an image of what looks like a derelict building (see below). Now, I have zero idea of the true provenance of the image, but the fact that it ended up on an Old Navy graphic t-shirt is truly bizarre.

Unlike, say, Nirvana, The Ramones, Rush, AC/DC, Guns N’ Roses or even Joy Division, the No Wave movement was a fairly niche concern, in the grand scheme of things, largely relegated to a more select demographic, to put it mildly. You’ll never find a bona fide No Wave record on a sports bar’s jukebox, nor is it likely to feature heavily in the offerings at your local karaoke establishment. Names like Teenage Jesus & The Jerks, DNA, Mars, The Contortions and the like may still be sacrosanct to your average egg-headed music nerd but aren’t liable to get any nods of recognition outside of the dusty record-shop contingent. Still quite capable of separating the die-hards from the dilletantes, the music of the very short-lived No Wave period is very pointedly of a “not for everyone” variety.

Moreover, if you really want to get pedantic, the juxtaposition of the term “No Wave” and the year 1982 also doesn’t really jibe, as by most credible accounts, No Wave was basically over by 1980. This garment begs so many questions. Click to enlarge. 

This all said, while I haven’t voluntarily stepped inside an Old Navy since my kids were still in their zealous nose-picking years, were I to come across it whilst perusing their wares, I’d probably buy it based solely on the sheer what-the-fuck? Incongruity of it all.

Actually.... it looks like you can get it on Etsy ... so treat yourself. 

For the curious, uninitiated and/or for the Old Navy shoppers……THIS is what No Wave sounds like….

Goodnight, Mark Stewart

Sometimes, the most impactful music you encounter is the stuff that – at first listen – you simply don’t know what to do with. At some point in the late `80s, an upperclassman friend of mine at college first played me The Pop Group, knowing I was a big fan of post-punk bands like Gang of Four, XTC, Public Image Ltd. and Killing Joke. Regrettably, I must concede that in as much I’d love to boast that I was onboard from the get-go, I just did not get it.

Disjointed, seemingly frantic, frequently completely discordant and seriously fucking weird, the rhythmic-but-raucous music by this ironically named combo seemed to barely hold together, ricocheting from echoey atmospherics to shrill cacophony, all anchored by the anguished hectoring and howling of a vocalist named Mark Stewart. Much like the sounds on the copy of No New York I’d unearthed at our college radio station, this Pop Group record – titled, cryptically, just Y and sheathed in a sleeve festooned with masked African tribesman (the photo taken by one Don McCullin, who also snapped the image of rioting Northern Ireland youth appropriated by Killing Joke for their first album) -- all just seemed too, well, WRONG. It made records I’d formerly considered daring and radical seem quite conventionally tame, by comparison.

Speaking of radical, The Pop Group were also pointedly political, slathering their album covers with slogans and deliberately provocative imagery, not unlike their uncompromising fellow countrymen in Crass. But unlike the purposefully blunt, brute-force sonic assault of Crass, The Pop Group’s singular blend of chaotic agitprop was deceptively nuanced, incorporating elements of deep dub, funk and so-called free jazz. While both bands plied their lyrical messages with fierce conviction, Crass sort of merely used music as a crude delivery method, whereas there was art all over the songs of The Pop Group.

I was eventually drawn in by tracks like “We Are Time” and their single “She Is Beyond Good & Evil” (a scathing-if-surreal rebuke of Margaret Thatcher), as they both employed recurring guitar parts that could almost be mistaken for proper riffs. But it was still Mark Stewart’s tireless bellowing that ruled the sonic landscape of these songs, sometimes screaming in the distant background and sometimes crying caustically right in your face, but absolutely NEVER NOT SEVERELY AND GENUINELY UPSET about something. That effect was always jarring.

Completely intrigued by the band’s willfully difficult and uncompromising sound and aesthetic, I eventually snapped up my own copy of Y, and, later, even more unwieldy records of theirs like the We Are All Prostitutes EP and For How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder?, both of which are as bereft of happy-go-lucky light and joy as one might expect from such titles. But once familiar with their harrowing (but funky) style, it was that very unnerving, furious skronk that became the best part.

Like so many great bands, The Pop Group imploded after only five years together. And like so many other great bands, they reformed in the 2010’s and released two more albums that, if I’m being honest, I’ve never heard, although I remain slavishly devoted to those earlier records that initially scared the bejesus out of me.

Sadly, Mark Stewart’s death was announced today, silencing that disturbing, clarion voice for all time.

Beyond wanting to pay tribute to and evangelize their amazing music, I also wanted to share the interview below. Here, Stewart and Pop Group guitarist/collaborator speak with John Robb. I first saw it a year or two ago and I was totally struck by how jolly and jovial Mark Stewart comes across, completely at odds with his agonized stage presence.

Rest in peace, Mark Stewart.

Time Out

Once again, it probably bothers me waaaay more than it bothers you, but I cannot bear continuing to start off every day only to find five or six images on my blog broken.This has been happening since January. 

I’ve been liaising with Typepad about the ongoing problem, and they continue to assert that progress is being made, but the constant barrage of broken images is dispiriting and discouraging. It looks sloppy and slapdash, and I just can’t abide by it.

I may be taking a break from continuing until the problem is fully resolved.

Stay tuned.