Flaming Pablum

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Siouxsie in The City

I’ve mentioned it here a couple of times, but I’ve been continuing to enjoy listening to “Curious Creatures,” the podcast hosted by former Slits/Banshees/Creatures drummer Budgie and Lol Tolhurst, ex of The Cure. Not only are their insights and recollections of “Life After Punk” compelling and often hilarious (“You May Think You Know The Territory … But We Drew The Map!”), but they’ve had a slew of really great guests like Miki Berenyi of Lush, Kevin Haskins of Bauhaus/Love & Rockets, James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem (who never shuts up), Juliane Regan of All About Eve, Rachel Goswell of Slowdive, Martin Atkins of Pil/Killing Joke/Ministry/Pigface and loads more. Find out more about it here. It’s well worth your time, if you’re a fan of this sorta stuff.

In any case, it regularly puts Siouxsie & The Banshees back into my brain, despite said band having largely called it quiet eons ago (although I did go see them on the bare-bones Seven Year Itch reunion tour, some centuries back, and then a solo show at the BB King Blues Bar on Times Square on the Mantaray tour in 2004, of which I honeslty remember absolutely nothing … although you can see pics of that gig here). Now divorced, Sioxsie and Budgie now live separate lives (he’s in Berlin, now, and started a family). Sioux is about to embark on her first tour (only over in Europe and the UK, so far) in decades, although she is slated to appear Stateside in May at the Goodbye Cruel World festival in California, alongside a host of her former peers like the Bunnymen, Love & Rockets, Billy Idol and several others. I am curious as to how that’ll go.

But in terms of their legacy, the music of Siouxsie & the Banshees still completely holds up, and I’ve been revisiting their catalog in depth, of late, notably singles like “Song from The Edge of the World” (which oddly never made it onto any of their LPs), their strange covers album Through the Looking Glass (which contained great treks through Sparks’ “This Town Ain’t Big Enough..” and Iggy’s “The Passenger,” but also an ill-considered rendition of Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit”) and other favorites. I’m also a big supporter of their album that came after that, Peepshow, which featured a host of great songs beyond the “big single” that was “Peek-a-Boo.”

” In any case, in the course of all this, I stumbled upon this old shot of Sioux and bass player/co-conspirator Steve Severin, and it immediately struck a familiar chord with me. While an otherwise perfectly banal photo of these two British Punk veterans, some eagle-eyed downtown New Yorkers might recognize the mural they’re standing in front of.

The pair are pictured in front of the south-facing façade of what used to be a Sloan’s supermarket on West 3rd Street between Mercer Street and Broadway in Manhattan, which featured a whimsical depiction of fake window filled with fresh produce and delectable comestibles. In later years, it looked like this

Today, that Sloan’s is long gone, and the space it occupied has been dormant and shuttered for years. After being repeatedly tagged up with graffiti, the mural was also painted over. Today, it looks like this.

Goodnight, Wayne Shorter

I wasn’t going to post anything about the passing of Wayne Shorter, as I pretty much covered everything I have to say about jazz on this relatively recent post, but then I came across the amazing photograph above — taken by one Frances Wolff in 1965 — and figured that was my “way in."

As expressed in that aforementioned post in greater detail, what I credibly know about jazz couldn't fill up one side of a hastily-scribbled sheet of loose leaf, but I know what I've heard that I liked. Jazz titan Wayne Shorter died Thursday, and he was one of the primary instigators of "fusion" juggernaut Weather Report. A copy of that band's Heavy Weather arrived in a crate of promo LPs from my father in London in the summer of 1977 (via a friend he'd made at Columbia/CBS/Epic records), and it became an unlikely favorite in our house. This song in particular we would blast on the regular. Rest in peace, Mr. Shorter. I know you did far more than this (as I had to research and encapsulate it for your obituary), but for bit of music alone, I salute you...

Back to Frances Wolff’s photograph, this would have been taken on the pedestrian island in the middle of Broadway at West 66th Street, looking south. Below is more or less the view from where Mr. Shorter was depicted standing today. To his left is the former site of Tower Records, although that wouldn’t have been there in 1965. Today it’s a Raymour & Flanagan, quite lamentably. 

Behind him in the Wolff photo, you can see the neon top of the Empire Hotel, obscured by trees in the screen-grab below. The jazz club Iridium used to have a space on the ground floor of that hotel before decamping further down Broadway to West 51st Street.

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

Here’s a companion piece to my last post about Ungano’s on the Upper West Side. It's a bit more meandering, so strap in. 

In much the same way I didn’t consider the Upper West Side a haven for wanton rock’n’roll shenanigans, I would similarly have been reticent to cite the far reaches of the Upper East Side as one either, it having long since morphed into a comparatively staid, residential and affluent patch of the island. Of course, as pointed out in this post, not all of this portion of Manhattan is the posh enclave of monied exclusivity that is Carnegie Hill. East of Third Avenue, you had Yorkville, which had historically been a more ethnically diverse, middle-class neighborhood, although gentrification has largely diminished those identities, much to the detriment of the neighborhood’s character and much to the ire of those pockets of descendants who still live there.

Growing up, I lived in a few spots around the Upper East Side, first on East 90th Street just off Lexington, before moving up to East 93rd Street for a long spell, and then over to East 86th between York and East End, in the heart of Yorkville, during my latter high school years, after my mother and step-father divorced. As mentioned in this ancient post, my grandparents had lived just down the block, originally, from what became our 86th Street apartment, although they’d decamped to Florida years before we moved there. But, as such, I’d known that neighborhood from my childhood as Germantown, with the broad expanse of 86th being peppered with festive beerhalls, German bars and restaurants, specialized delis catering to all stripes of Eastern europeans and Teutonic types. By my high school years, many of those ventures were already gone, but some hung on, and one or two are even still there today, but what once was commonplace gradually evolved into nostalgic novelty. By and large, the German flavor of East 86th Street is long gone.

Again, in my experience, East 86th Street — as recounted way back here — was the Upper East Side’s epicenter of fun, it being home to several fast food chains like Kentucky Fried Chicken, Arthur Treacher’s Fish & Chips (who remembers?), and the inevitable titans that were McDonald’s and Burger King. It also was home to several record shops (I’ve talked about the pictured-above King Karol, notably here) and at least four or five multiplex movie houses. There was also the neighborhood favorite, Papaya King (soon to be razed), the iconic Woolworth’s (I bought so many crucial, cut-out bin LP’s there) and this restaurant on the corner of 86th and Lexington called Leo’s who sold a variant of cheesecake-to-go that my step-father regularly consumed as if his life depended on it.

Not for nothing, however, it was also a great strip on which to encounter belligerent members and/or satellite acolytes of the 84th Street Bombers, as mentioned here and here, who were always willing to scare, intimidate and/or brutalize you, should you not be fast enough to get away. There’s a lot of legend and lore about them, but they were no joke — they put my late friend Danny (also referred to as Rocky on this old post) in Lenox Hill hospital with a broken nose, at one memorable point.

By the time I was in my senior year of high school and into my college years, however, I considered my home turf on the easternmost edge of Yorkville to basically be cripplingly devoid of hipness. As a budding music fiend, I’d discovered the myriad charms of downtown, and headed there at every opportunity, whether to avail myself to the then rich network of independent record shops (largely all gone, here in 2023), drink in witheringly cool, seedy bars like Downtown Beirut, the Scrap Bar, King Tut’s Wah-Wah Hut and Alcatraz, or to see bands at any number of suitable downtown clubs like Danceteria, CBGB, The Ritz, The Cat Club (later The Grand), The Marquee, The Limelight, Wetlands Preserve, Coney Island High and several others. As far as I was concerned, our home in the hinterlands of Yorkville was an exile to yawnsville.

Little did I know, of course, that just like over on the other side of town in the early `70s, there’d actually been a thriving, punky club scene right in my own neighborhood.

I certainly didn’t realize it at the time, but as mentioned on this post, over on Lexington Avenue on the northeast corner at 150 East 85th Street, there was a little joint called Private’s. I’d first heard about it in 2016, when trying to track down the location of Joan Jett & the Blackhearts’ video for “I Love Rock N’ Roll,” and was hipped to the answer by longtime comrade Bob Egan. Amazingly enough, just two short blocks away from my high school, Private’s played host an array of bands I’d have killed to see, at the time (although I’d have been too young to get in — this being 1981, I’d have been a fresh-faced, acne-speckled, 14-year-old high school freshman) like the Lounge Lizards, Lene Lovich, David Johansson, Madness, Cheetah Chrome of the Dead Boys, The Rockats, The Cramps, OMD, Joe “King” Carrasco & the Crowns and even my beloved XTC, Bauhaus and The Stranglers. I mean, who fucking knew?

Regrettably, outside of what is depicted in the aforementioned video for Joan Jett’s “I Love Rock N’ Roll,” there is no pictorial evidence for Private’s, my biggest source of info about it being this website, although I did find a few mentions of it in the New York Times, like this article, also from 1981, that says it hosted the American premiere of the second-wave Ska documentary, “Dance Craze.”

I have no idea when Private’s officially opened, much less any concept of when it closed, but as my high school years soldiered on, I imagine I’d have noticed it being there. In later years, the building it occupied was razed to accommodate a towering new condo.

But as I mentioned in those posts about Joan Jett’s video, there was evidently this other Upper East Side club, around the same neighborhood and era, I kept reading fleeting allusions to. As with Private’s, dates of operation are very fuzzy, at best, but it was evidently called The 80’s, and it was right there in the veritable crotch of Yorkville on East 86th Street, the strip I called home from 1983 to 1996.

Since first hearing about it about a decade ago, I have long kept my eyes and ears open to learn more, but invocations of the venue and the bands who may (or may not) have played there have been few, far between and maddeningly low on details. From what I could both glean from approximated accounts and my recollection of the north side of 86th Street between Second and Third Avenues (before numerous cosmetic changes to that strip between the mid-1980’s and today), I would want to guess that the clunkily named club — The 80’s — would have been situated somewhere between a somewhat seedy little bar called Little Finland and a larger bar called Barney Google’s. Little Finland had been there for seemingly a century, but Barney Google’s had been a former beer hall from the neighborhood’s Germantown heyday that had turned into some kind of performance space. I found the ad at the right for it which advertises an appearance by no less that Ike and friggin’ Tina Turner, two names I’d have never expected to have set foot on East 86th Street. As far as The 80’s — the club — was concerned, I’d only read of four crucial bands having played there — The Soft Boys (who I wrote about here quite recently), Bad Brains opening for the Dead Boys, and another all-time Flaming Pablum favorite, The Plasmatics. I forget where I learned about those alleged gigs, but they stuck in my memory, as just like the notion of XTC, The Stranglers and Bauhaus playing over at Private’s on 85th Street was weird, the concept of Robyn Hitchcock’s punk-era band, the splenetic hardcore fury of Bad Brains, the slovenly caterwaul-punk of the Dead Boys and the chainsaw-wielding havoc of The Plasmatics (who I’d have been completely obsessed with, at that time) playing in the sleepily genteel environs of the Upper East Side was almost too bizarre to conceive of.

But, it did happen, …. and I’m happy to say, there is ample evidence.

First up, my friend Jeremy, who’s a little older and, frankly, was way hipper, cooler and less uptight than I was in 1980, actually attended the seminal Bad Brains/Dead Boys gig and wrote about it in some detail for Rock N’ Roll Globe (you can read that here), thoughtfully appending his ticket stub below.

Similarly, I recently came across some photographs by a gentleman named Donald Salvatoriello. Like myself, Donald is an avid Plasmatics fan, and contributes to several Plasmatics discussions on Facebook. Unlike myself, however, Donald actually got to see the band perform no fewer than 29 times. On a few of those doubtlessly high-decibel occasions, he had the wherewithal to bring his camera. I’m happy to report that one of those gigs was the Friday, March 14, 1980 performance at The 80’s at 231 East 86th Street. He, too, kept his ticket stub.

Jibing with Jeremy’s account of the Dead Boys show from a month earlier (February 22, 1980), you can see the ceiling over the stage remains in disrepair after Stiv Bators had his way with it.

When the Soft Boys played there six months later, I doubt there was any wanton property damage, although who knows? Evidently there is a bootleg of their show out there, somewhere. Of the Soft Boys gig, the excellent Doom & Gloom from the Tomb Tumblr posted the following about this picture shared on Robyn Hitchcock’s Instagram:

Onwards with the Summer of Robyn! In September 1980, The Soft Boys traveled across the pond for their first U.S. shows. Curiously, every one of those shows took place in the NYC area. One of them was at a spot called Club Eighties — a name that must’ve sounded forward thinking and futuristic at the time, but now sounds quite retro. The Soft Boys, on this tape, sound timeless naturally.

The recording itself is a bit boomy and bass heavy, but very listenable (turning it up helps), and the Underwater Moonlight-era band is in extremely fine form across two sparkling sets. More melodic and less manic than the early days, but still revved up and ready to go. The late/great Matthew Seligman grooves mightily with Morris Windsor, while Hitchcock and Kimberley Rew soar high above — truly one of the great twin-guitar teams of all time, a perfect match. Since this New York City, the Boys treat the crowd to not one but two Velvet Underground covers — an appropriately chooglin’ “Train Round The Bend” and a scuzz-tastic “Run Run Run.” We also get a nice double-shot of Syd-era Pink Floyd. Otherwise, the Moonlight stuff is absolutely majestic — 40+ years later, those songs hold up, and then some. Give it to the Soft Boys!

Robyn Says: It was hot. We were English. The world was younger, but not young. Dread hung in the air, and we channeled it, with harmonies and a few choice riffs.

Curious as to the origins of the club beyond these four performances, and armed with an exact location (handily placing the venue, as predicted, right between the aforementioned Barney Google’s and Little Finland), prior to its presumably brief tenure as The 80’s, 231 East 86th Street had a longer history as a German beer-&-music hall called The Lorelei. As I’ve been able to track it down, the main ballroom (which would later play host to all those snotty, violent punks above) looked like this….

I cannot help wondering if, during their tenure on East 86th during the heyday of the Germantown era, my own grandparents ever dined and/or danced at The Lorelei. It seems entirely plausible.

Regardless, by the time I landed in Yorkville in `83/`84, The 80’s club was gone, as was Private’s over on East 85th. Today, both of the buildings that housed these two concerns are long gone, razed to accommodate newer, more modern structures. The footprint that had been Private’s, today, is a Starbuck’s. Back over on East 86th, there no longer is a 231, just brickface between a dormant storefront at 225 and a photography studio at 233.

For whatever reason, my projection is that the main ballroom of what had been Lorelei/The 80’s was downstairs, which raises the question if that space is still accessible today, although I kind of doubt it. In both a literal and figurative sense, The 80’s are very much over.

Back to Ungano's

PREAMBLE: I actually started this post quite a while back, but it required a bit of legwork, and then I got sick, so I’m trying to re-visit it now, but it may not be as robust as I was once planning it to be.

POST: Options for witnessing live music of a certain stripe, in Manhattan, are in pretty paltry shape, here in 2023. I mean, sure, there are still a handful of decent clubs and a few comparatively antiseptic live-music venues, but the glory days of legendary hotspots like Brownie’s, Wetland’s Preserve, the Limelight, The Ritz, Roseland Ballroom, Danceteria, the Mudd Club, Hurrah’s, Tier 3, Great Gildersleeve’s, Max’s Kansas City and – oh yes, do please wait for it – CBGB are all but sepia-toned memories of a vanished age in practically a different city.

But there is one more significant place that seems rarely invoked when folks rattle off names of celebrated rock clubs and live-music venues as I just did above. It was only open for business for about seven years and was perched on the otherwise unassuming byway of West 70th Street between Amsterdam and West End Avenues.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I rarely consider this patch of the Upper West Side when I think of carnal rock n’ roll bacchanalia. My knee-jerk associations with this area conjure more of kind of Jerry Seinfeld/Woody Allen/Steve Martin/Tina Fey vibe more than anything else, but as I ventured up there, a few weekends back, several of the neighborhood’s pop-cultural hotspots did reveal themselves to me.

For a start, to the south, there was the Tower Records on the northwest corner at West 66th Street & Broadway. While arguably not as iconic as the flagship store down on East 4th & Broadway, the UWS Tower played a major role for me when I was ravenous music-consuming high schooler. It’s long gone, of course … replaced by a Raymour & Flanagan, of all things. For those who scoff, at the invocation, Woody Allen shot a scene from “Hannah & Her Sisters” in the UWS Tower, so put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Just a few blocks up, of course, there was the similarly inclined HMV megastore, another great music outlet that shut up shop around 1999. I’ve not as many rose-tinted memories of that place, but I was glad it was there, at the time. There’s also that statue in Verdi Square that Blue Oyster Cult posed under (worrying close to “Needle Park,” a block or two to the south in Sherman Square, immortalized in “Panic in Needle Park”). There’s also the iconic Beacon Theatre and the former site of the P&G Bar, where Joe Jackson was once photographed drinking and that fleetingly appeared in the video for “Policy of Truth” by Depeche Mode. Of course, there’s also the subway station and surrounding corners that acted as the location of the first sighting of The Baseball Furies in Walter Hill’s 1970 classic, “The Warriors.” Then, of course, a few blocks up, there’s the Ansonia, which played host to `70’s swinger club Plato’s Retreat and, a few blocks to the East, there’s the Dakota, where “Rosemary’s Baby” was filmed and where John Lennon was shot. Not too far away was also the club, Hurrah, as well. Again, there is absolutely no shortage of pop cultural reference points in this neck of town.

But if you stroll down that stretch of West 70th today, you shouldn’t expect to get a whiff of any of that sorta vibe. Right now, at 210 West 70th, which shares a wall with stately Café Luxembourg to its east (where my mom met my wife’s parents, for the first time, about twenty years ago), you’ll find a dormant space which, until recently, was an Italian restaurant called Tavolla Della Nona. Back in 2015, meanwhile, the space was a steakhouse that called itself Lincoln Square Steak. Prior to that, in 2014, it was a venture called Marka. In 2012, it was an Asian eatery called Loi. In 2009, it was a bar called the Compass Lounge. Earlier than that year, things get a little harder to research, although I did discover that in 1976, the space was a cabaret named Grand Finale, where flamboyantly jazzy piano-botherer Bobby Short once played.

But from 1966 until about 1971, it was Ungano’s. One website I came across described it like this:

Brothers Nick and Arnie Ungano opened their club in 1966—or perhaps earlier, since singer/producer Genya Ravan recalls gigging there in 1964. Rock critic Mike Jahn described the 250-capacity basement venue as "an average-size club with a big back room checked off by four mirrored pillars. The stage is along one wall. Opposite it is a small, raised gallery for the press." Ungano's closed in 1971.

According to the period-specific print ads, Ungano’s played host to a wide array of bands including no less than Captain Beefheart’s Magic Band, Fleetwood Mac, Bob Seger, The Kinks, The James Gang, The Grateful Dead, The Nice, Van Morrison, Mountain, NRBQ, Joe Cocker, The Amboy Dukes, John Lee Hooker, Dr. John, Badfinger and The Nazz. What really caught my attention was that it also hosted Parliament/Funkadelic, The MC5, Alice Cooper, Black Sabbath and The Stooges.

I first got wind of it via the widely circulated recording, Have Some Fun: Live at Ungano’s by the Stooges, which was captured shortly after the band had issued the greatest rock record of all goddamn time, that being their sophomore effort, Fun House. Three weeks later, meanwhile, Black Sabbath … fresh from releasing their own iconic album, Paranoid, graced the stage of Ungano’s, only to – legend has it – plug in their equipment and blow all the fuses in the building out … which, y’know, is fittingly METAL!

Anyway, romanced by the ideas of bands like the Stooges, Sabbath and the freaks in Parliament running amok in a 250-capacity club, I felt the need to go check the place out. Amazingly, even though it’s currently dormant (and, as mentioned, has been about nine-dozen concerns since its Ungano’s days), you can still get a basic feel for what the room was like. Check out my pics below.

Back to the Los Angeles of "Repo Man"

Prior to about 1994 or so, all I ever knew about Los Angeles and its surrounding environs came from the movies – specifically era-appropriatre films like “Grease,” “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” “Valley Girl,” “Tuff Turf,” “Body Double,” Penelope Spheeris’ “Suburbia,” “Into the Night,” “Mulholland Drive” and several other choice selections. As viewed through the prism of those films, L.A. was this strange sprawl of freeway clovers, dusty back streets peppered with incongruous palm trees, shopping malls, suburban ranch homes and high schools.

But there was one film in particular that really seemed to sum up everything I thought I knew already about Los Angeles and Southern California writ large, and that was Alex Cox’s inimitably oddball sci-fi opus, “Repo Man” from 1984. In much the same way many folks latch onto the elusive exotica of New York City based on atmospheric flicks like “Taxi Driver,” “The French Connection” or even “The Warriors,” I was smitten with the idea of that chunk of the West Coast being the sort of run down, washed out, quasi-derelict urban badlands wherein Emilio Estevez’s Otto, Dick Rude’s Duke and Harry Dean Stanton’s eminently quotable Bud ran completely amok.

As mentioned in this ancient post, one of my best friends – Rob D – moved out there in the mid-90’s, essentially squatting in a well-appointed corner bungalow/cottage owned by his step-mother in Costa Mesa in nearby Orange County (or, as we laboriously referred to it, “Behind the Orange Curtain”). During his tenure there, I made a few lengthy visits to the Costa Mesa compound, entirely romanced by the notion of exploring the same endless byways, boulevards, buildings and barrooms depicted in the films I cited earlier. Once again, as mentioned in that ancient post, I was particularly smitten with locating the former site of fabled hardcore punk venue, The Cuckoo’s Nest, but never managed to pinpoint the right spot.

But about a beer-can’s reckless throw from the front lawn of Rob’s step-mother’s cottage was this deli-cum-liquor store that I would have absolutely SWORN was the one depicted in several key scenes in “Repo Man,” so much so that we came to regularly refer to the place as the Repo Market. Of course, this presumption was based on very little in the way of evidence.

Well, imagine my sad surprise to learn, this morning, by way of the exhaustively minutia-laden video below (clearly this man is my brother) wherein severl key locations from the beloved film in question are revealed. Suffice to say, that liquor store/deli was not in Costa Mesa.

Silly side bar: On some discussion board or another I frequent, someone invited people to list “movies about Punk Rock.” One participant put “Repo Man” at the very top of the list, which triggered my not-so-inner insuffferably pedantic streak. While, yes, Otto, Duke, Archie, Debbie and Kevin are all characters one would conventionally identify as “punk rockers” (to say nothing of the cameo by the Circle Jerks and a soundtrack rife with bands like Suicidal Tendencies, Fear, Iggy Pop and the Plugz), the film is really in no discenable manner about Punk Rock. It’s about a rogue scientist who kidnaps an alien’s cadaver and puts it in the trunk of an iconic 1964 Chevy Malibu and his surreal travails in dodging both federal agents and a plucky gaggle of repo men, whom protagonist Otto has taken up with, hungry to collect the bounty. If you’re looking to learn about Punk Rock, you won’t get far with “Repo Man.” Just saying.

Broadway Boys

I hate to keep mining the Facebook group Manhattan Before 1990, but there’s so much gold to be found there. In any case, this morning a participant named Ino Yoon posted the photograph below by O Yoon (a parent, maybe?) from 1982, and it instantly rang a bell.

This immediately recalled a photo search I’d done back in 2011, looking for the location of a photo of the Beastie Boys that first appeared in SPIN, snapped by Josh Cheuse. Here’s that photo now.

The band later used a shot from that same session as the cover of this hits compilation...

In any case, this is the southwest corner of West 26th and Broadway, which is right around the corner from the St. James Building, wherein the Beasties had one sort of business arrangement or another.

Here's my then-still-very-little Oliver in that same spot in 2011. Today, this corner is occupied by a restaurant called La Picora Bianca Nomad.

Jeremiah Exhumes a Mystery Band

Longtime blogging compatriot and celebrated author Jeremiah Moss made what I consider an amazing discovery today and posted it on his Instagram account. As many will recall, the iconic Gem Spa on the corner of Second Avenue and St. Marks Place closed back in 2020, and has been basically a dormant shell ever since. Well, there’s been an uptick in activity in its footprint, of late, and in removing the plywood facades and scaffolding, a remarkable artifact from a vanished age was uncovered.

Among a selection of weathered, age-old flyers, this one below was newly revealed on a pole, advertising what looks to be a glam band from 1974. Oddly enough, the gig in question was for a venue way uptown on East 84th and York Avenue called Brandy’s II. This same year, notorious proto-punk electronic duo Suicide also played Brandy’s II a couple of times. 

The original Brandy’s, of course, is a fabled piano bar which was a big favorite of the Upper East Side’s gay community (and still there, happily, in 2022). Brandy’s II, meanwhile, was situated at 1584 York Ave. I actually lived in this very neighborhood from about 1983 until about 1996, although I believe Brandy’s II was already long-gone before I moved in. The notion of a rock club being right in the neighborhood was already nigh on unthinkable. Until recently, that spot that had been Brandy's II was simply a watering hole called ... Saloon, but I believe that, too, is now gone. 

Here’s a closer shot of the band in question — does anyone recognize these happenin’ hepcats?

Incidentally, if you haven’t already, you really need to pick up a copy of Jeremiah Moss’ second book, “Feral City.” Ostensibly an account of Moss’ time voluntarily sequestered in Manhattan during the extent of the pandemic (not that it’s over, mind you), “Feral City” is also a remarkably personal memoir of one individual’s perceptions of the acute changes New York City has undergone during this particularly fraught period of history. It’s a raw and bracing read that pulls very few punches. But Moss’ eloquence, unflinching candor and human compassion shine throughout, even when he’s at his most curmudgeonly. “Feral City” provides a compelling voice to demographics, issues and concerns that otherwise have to fight for equal time and representation in our current cultural and sociopolitical climate. It can be uncomfortable in spots, but it is well worth your time.

The Evolution of Bleecker & Bowery

For those of you who are invested in such things, you’ve probably already seen that the next iteration of the mural on the southwest corner of Bleecker Street at the Bowery, which I recently invoked here, is complete. That’s it up above and, yes, it’s another Shepard Fairey piece, this one paying tribute to Bad Brains by way of a rendered composite of images from the photography of my former next-door neighbor, Glen E. Friedman. That’s it above.

Now that this work is complete, I thought I’d turn back the clock to look at what this particular patch of real estate borne witness to, over the years….

In 1982, as I recounted here and here, photographer Drew Carolan set up an ersatz, outdoor film studio on this same corner to capture images of the burgeoning NYHC community, which he’d later compile into a handsome coffee table book, “Matinee.” In writing about this project, I had my kids pose in the exact spot Carolan had used. See that below.

In 1983, Jim Jarmusch filmed an iconic scene of Eszter Balint crossing this particular byway as part of the opening montage of his 1984 film, “Stranger Than Paradise,” which I tried to replicate with my kids as some point in 2012.

Skipping way ahead to 2015, a mysterious mural of Joey Ramone sporting a pair of boxing gloves came up. I speculated as to why, but then it occurred to me, as recounted on this post, that it was ultimately a wafer-thin and frankly misleading promotion for the then-just-opened UpperCut boxing gym, which I continue to think was stinky and lame of them. I was glad when it vanished.

Joey was replaced, of course, in 2017 by Shepard Fairey’s tribute to Blondie, which was completely cool. Despite this, it got defaced, a few times, but shitty taggers because people basically suck.

And now, five years later, Debbie Harry has been replaced by Bad Brains. I managed to capture a quick shot of Fairey himself, in the process.

 

Back Again to The Blue Willow, Just Down from CB's

Here’s a quick follow-up to my last post on the subject in August.

Much as with love, it seems the things you really want only reveal themselves to you when you’re not actually searching for them. In this romantic fashion, another tantalizing morsel about the long-lost Blue Willow on Broadway at Bleecker Street recently dropped out of the sky, and I thought I’d share it here.

It’s usually at this point in the narrative that I point out how strenuously niche this particular concern is, and how I normally doubt anyone is as beguiled as I am by the subject. But upon posting that last entry about it, longtime friend/reader of the blog, Was Proxy, nicely wrote in to share that the Blue Willow had been the location of the first date he had with the woman who later became his wife. I’m taking that as a sign.

In any case, prompted by the recent release of the the 40th anniversary edition of If I Die, I Die by the Virgin Prunes (which I wrote about recently here … and yes, I bought it, making it the fucking fifth iteration I’ve actually bought of this album), I’d been trawling around on the internet looking for pics of the first time I ever saw Gavin Friday perform live, that being from within the iconic confines of CBGB in November of 1989. As long as we’re talking anniversaries, I should note that this past week was evidently the 49th anniversary of the opening of that fabled club. Don’t bother telling Gavin Friday that, though. My biggest takeaway from that evening, beyond it being a brilliant performance — his solo debut, was his remark from the stage about how underwhelmed he was by the stark reality that CBGB genuinely was just a grotty hole in the wall. What exactly had he been expecting?

Anyway, I didn’t take any pictures that night, mostly because I didn’t bring my big, bulky camera (which, as some of you’ll remember, in 1989, was still the only means of capturing photographs). I have very specific images in my head about the show, but have always hoped to find some photographic documentation of the gig. But I’ve always come up empty in that search….

…until today … kinda.

Simply by typing in “Gavin Friday” and “CBGB,” this morning, up popped a link on Google for a website called Concert Archives. While the entry for the gig in question is pretty threadbare, it did contain two images, ironically uploaded by a friend of mine — Greg Fasolino. More about him in a second.

Greg uploaded two sides of a postcard from Island Records that was mailed out in November of 1989 as a special invitation to the gig. Now, during this time, I was still a luckless intern at SPIN (as recently discussed here), and had not yet wormed my way into the good graces of various record-company publicists around town who’d put me on promotional lists like the one Greg was on. That would all come later, but at the time, I’d simply heard about the gig by word of mouth and paid at the door (with my friend Rob B.) for entry.

But the postcard is a puzzle, and I’ll explain why. Here’s the front…

…and here’s the back.

Two things struck me about this. First up, you’ll see that following that November 14th performance at CB’s, there was actually an afterparty just down the fucking street at, appropriately enough, the Blue Willow (which, if you’ve not caught up in your reading, thus far, was the location of the cover shot of Gavin’s debut solo album, Each Man Kills the Thing He Loves, Here that is again.

I didn’t know that, at the time, as I hadn’t gotten a special invitation postcard like Greg had. Moreover, I wouldn’t make the connection between the Blue Willow and Each Man Kills… (as first recounted in my debut post on the subject) until friggin’ 2013. Had I known, I’d have gone down to meet the great man and the significance of the venue would have dawned on me, but `twas not to be. If memory serves, after the show, Rob B. and I repaired to CB’s 313 Gallery next door for beers and I sprang for my first black CBGB shirt, which amazingly still fits today, although it’s currently buried in a drawer in my mom’s house out in Quogue.

But the puzzle is as follows: This postcard is advertising Gavin Friday’s first-ever performance at CBGB in November of 1989. Figuratively turn the card over to the picture side, and you see a shot of Gavin performing next to a cellist, appended with the legend: “Gavin Friday Onstage at CBGB. Photo by Paraic Finnegan.” Has anyone figured out the discrepancy, yet?

How can there be a picture of Gavin allegedly performing at CBGB on an invitation to what would have then been his first-ever performance at CBGB?

Before you recommend it, yes, I’ve started searching for more info on photographer Paraic Finnegan, although my hopes for success are not high.

There is, of course, the possibility that the two images Greg uploaded are NOT from the same postcard. * ADDENDUM: SCROLL DOWN

In later years, I would go onto interview Gavin Friday at the the home of his publicist, then on White Street in TriBeCa, and would go onto see him perform live at Sin-E on St. Marks Place, The Bottom Line on 4th Street and the Westbeth Theatre on Bank Street. As of late 2022, along with CBGB and CB’s 313 Gallery, all of those live-music venues are gone.

Gavin Friday went onto release a string of great solo albums and soundtracks and spent many years being creative consultant to his pals in U2. His most recent project involves writing music for a forthcoming documentary on volatile figurative painter, Francis Bacon. I’m looking forward to that.

As for Greg Fasolino, Greg and I walked very parallel paths. I think he might be a couple of years older than myself, but he was a regular face at many of the same gigs and same anglophilic record shops around town. He also worked for a while at a music magazine called Reflex, which was kind of the rival indie periodical to the one I latched onto while at SPIN, that being the New York Review of Records. Don’t bother looking for either mag today, but that’s a long saga in itself. In any case, Greg and I found each other again on social media, probably a decade ago or so, and have been friends ever since.

In terms of the Blue Willow, meanwhile, as mentioned on that previous post, the douchey menswear concern that previously occupied that lofty space vacated some time ago. The ground-floor space previously occupied by Atrium, KITH and probably several other ventures after The Blue Willow today remains dormant and papered up. But, in walking by that corner the other day, I noticed some rips in the paper and got out my phone, heartened to see that the stately marble trimming that Gavin Friday posed near all those years ago can still be seen…

I also found this. Should have a spare several million dollars lying around, why not treat yourself to a luxury apartment in the building in question (644 Broadway)... they're ....uhhh... quite nice, as you'll see. 

 

More on Gavin Friday & the Blue Willow on Flaming Pablum:

Searching For The Blue Willow

The Blue Willow is Dead

Ghosts of The Blue Willow

Back to The Blue Willow

*ADDENDUM: Shortly after publishing this post, I shared it on Facebook, where Greg Fasolino swiftly replied:

I can clarify all, my friend. The live image is not connected to the postcard at all. It’s a clip from a local NYC Irish-culture newspaper “The Irish Echo.” You can see me in the bottom right of image, watching Gavin perform while sitting at the front table at CBGB.

P.S. I also interned at Spin in 1986-87 and wrote for New (York) Review of Records as well circa 1993-95.

Here's the picture from The Irish Echo, and that is indeed Greg sitting in the very front. The question, then, remains -- what was on the front of the postcard?  Funny you should ask. Greg shared that, too. It's the naked couple from the album cover: 

 

Lastly, here is Greg's own interview with Gavin Friday for the aforementioned Reflex, recorded just two months prior to the gig at CBGB: