Flaming Pablum

Back to Charlotte Street & Robert Christgau is a Scumbag

It’s been a couple of minutes since I last invoked the Plasmatics, so here goes…

Appropos of nothing at all, I remembered an old story that, for the sleeve of what would be their third album, 1982’s largely-ignored Coup D’Etat, the band (or someone…maybe manager and conceptual svengali Rob Swensen) wanted the cover picture taken on a particular New York City street. That street, again, if legend has it, was Charlotte Street in the South Bronx. 

The alleged decision to shoot on this particular street stemmed originally from a visit to same five years earlier by then-president Jimmy Carter, which resulted in an infamous photograph of the man standing amidst the proverbial rubble. Three years later, as something of a cheap shot, Carter’s GOP rival Ronald Reagan traveled to the very same spot on Charlotte Street as a means of demonstrating how anemic Carter’s efforts had been, suggesting that only he could make the required difference to turn things around, reducing the plight of the South Bronx to little more than a political football and photo-op.

In response to this, the Plasmatics allegedly showed up on Charlotte Street with a big fuckoff tank, and called their record Coup D’Etat.

Great story, right? Well, here’s the thing -– I could find precious little documentation to back up the original story that the Plasmatics specifically went to Charlotte Street. Sure, study the cover of the album and it certainly looks like it could have been Charlotte Street. I mean, those are burned out buildings appearing behind them, after all, but it’s not like the South Bronx was the only place to find distressed urban decay. Flip the album over….

…and the only tangible information about the photography is that it was handled by a gent named Butch Star. Certain folks have suggested the Butch Star is actually the aforementioned Mr. Swenson, but, y’know, who knows? As a result, the trail to verify the location has gone cold.

Oh, as something of a surreal and depressing coda, the following September after Coup D’Etat was released on a disinterested public, the Plasmatics’ erstwhile touring mates in KISS also traveled to Charlotte Street, selecting it as the location for the laughably ludicrous (naturally) video for “Lick It Up.” One can only imagine the already-beleagured residents of the Charlotte Street neighborhood being somewhat bemused by all this attention.

KISS probably chose Charlotte Street because it looked suitably apocalyptic, not for any political reasons (that was never their scene). The Plasmatics chose Charlotte Street very much on purpose as a vague political statement, but then buried and/or abandoned that statement, inexplicably.

Regardless, while the full story may yet be told in some band biography, I could find zero evidence to verify that Charlotte Street was the location for the cover image Coup D’Etat or the video for “Lick It Up.” Ho hum. 

But in my travels around the `net trying to unearth info about the Plasmatics’ shoot, I did come across Robert Christgau’s review of Coup D’Etat for The Village Voice. For those who may not know the name, Robert Christgau is the self-titled “Dean of American Rock Critics.” Some years back, I started reading his book and got suitably turned off by his slavishly masturbatory prose (and this is coming from me). You can read that screed here.

In any case, here’s what Christgau had to say, as documented here:

Plasmatics: Coup D'Etat [Capitol, 1982] Now that they've copped to heavy metal tempos, they could last as long as Judas Priest, although since the HM hordes do demand chops, Wendy O. might be well advised to try singing with her nether lips. Not only can't she carry a tune (ha), she can't even yell. Inspirational Thing She Says Backward on Outgroove: "The brainwashed do not know they are brainwashed." Inspirational Message Scratched on Outgroove: "You were not made for this." D-

Did you catch that?

“She might be well advised trying to try singing with her nether lips”

I mean, seriously, Village Voice, I realize this was still 1982 … but what the actual fuck?

Meanwhile, back on Charlotte Street in the South Bronx, if you go looking to recreate the sleeve of Coup D'Etat with your own big fuckoff tank or try re-enact the priapic preening of Paul Stanley in front of a row of crumbling housing projects, the end results are not going to synch up very well. As documented in this first-person account from 2016, Charlotte Street is now a sleepy bedroom community that now plays host to an unrecognizable plot of suburban-style ranch houses. 

ADDENDUM: For better or worse, I’ve always been a strident Plasmatics fan and apologist, defending them at their silliest moments, which were myriad. I first snapped up a copy of the “official” Plasmatics book, “Your Heart in Your Mouth” circa 1983 from a posh bookstore on Fifth Avenue. In later years, I bought a second copy of it (why I did so now escapes me) at a WFUV Record Fair in Chelsea about twenty years ago. As such, I now own two copies of this  book which, in certain very silly circles, can fetch an admirable sum. I’d wrongly assumed the book was first published prior to the release of Coup D’Etat, but dug out one copy this morning to verify — and lo and behold, I came across this fleeting invocation of the band’s cover shoot for that album, quasi-confirming the notion that it was indeed the same Charlotte Street address, if the book — a band-sanctioned bit of self-mythologizing promotion — is to be believed. 

 

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.

"Back Then"

I stumbled upom the video below, over the weekend, and it kind of struck a chord, pardon the pun.

Put together by a songwriter named Louie Fleck, “Back Then” is a music video of Fleck’s memories of the Greenwich Village he used to know, circa 1978-1984, when Manhattan was still, in his own words, “a folky-punky music town.” Set to a slightly incongruous reggae beat, Fleck’s song is a straightforward breakdown of the things he held dear that, by and large, are mostly no longer there.

While I recognize several of the images he utlilizes (I believe he may have even poached a scan I made of an old SPIN photograph of Freebing Records on St. Marks Place, but whatevs … I’m certainly no stranger to liberally appropriating images), I’m sure Fleck’s recollections are just as heartfelt and vital (to him) as the ones I continually cite here are to me, even if the touchstones and landmarks he highlights aren’t immediately familiar to me.

Everyone has their own New York City, here’s Louie Fleck’s….

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Back to Zoo York

In a not-at-all-surprising development, I have now become obsessed with divining the exact address and location of Drums, the club mentioned in that last post, allegedly somewhere in the shadow of 59th Street Bridge circa 1988.

Thing is, though, this is an incredibly difficult one. I mean, for a start, try Googling “Drums,” and “rock club” and see what comes up. It’s not the most distinctive name. It might take me a while, ... a long while. 

In any case, in my vain searching, I stumbled (or re-stumbled, more likely) on the photographs in Flickr of one DMAX3270, and, more specifically, their album, “A Zoo York State of Mind: 1985-1993.” It’s a captivating look at a city that is now virtually unrecognizable.

FIXED: Check it out here. 

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.

Bad Brains Mural Sullied by Awful ‘Screamo’ Band

It’s been less than a month since Shepard Fairey completed his Bad Brains mural over on Bleecker & Bowery, and it’s already been (slightly) defaced. I guess it was inevitable (Debbie Harry’s portrait suffered similar indignities), but really… so soon?

I noticed it this afternoon while out for a brisk walk in the January chill. Pasted just above H.R.’s fist was a flyer which has since been diligently removed, but the blemish on the paint remains.

As it turns out, the befouling flyer is the work of a so-called “screamo” band called … inexplicably … Olth. How do I know this? Well, they put an identical flyer up just a block or two up the Bowery. You can see that below.

Notice how bits of the yellow U and O in the “FUCK YOU” at the bottom remain? It’s the same flyer.

In any case, a bit of Googling reveals that Olth is indeed a band, albeit not an especially good one. But, again, as a fiercely opinionated 55-year-old curmudgeon, I’m the last person who should be opining about the merits of “screamo.” Maybe they’re the bee’s knees? Who knows ? If you're curious, you can see some footage of Olth performing live at Otto's Shrunken Head from back this past November. Also, their guitarist's Instagram page can be found here. 

Regardless of their strenuously arguable prowess as a band -- screamo or otherwise -- and irrespective of their feelings for Shepard Fairey, FUCK YE NOT WITH BAD BRAINS!

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.

Back ... Again... to Charly's Corner at Cortlandt & Walker

For those of you valiantly trying to follow the tangled thread that is the saga of the origins of the Clics Modernos wall on the corner of Walker Street and Cortlandt Alley (just to the right of where my little son Oliver was pictured heading towards in the above photo from 2014), I am happy to report that friend-o’-the-blog Iñaki Rojas has just released the fourth installment of his video series on the subject.

Let’s see if I can quickly condense, for those not interested in reading the last update: Preeminent Argentine rock star Charly Garcia, around 1982, was in New York City, renting a loft on Waverly Place and recording at nearby Electric Lady Studios of West 8th Street, when he went out for a walk with a photographer. While he’d already had an idea for the title and cover image of the album he was working on, when he spied some compelling street art in TriBeCa on the aforementioned corner of Walker and Cortlandt Alley (just down the way from the Mudd Club), he posed for a shot with it — and then decided to use that shot for the album cover, taking the title, meanwhile, from a tag scrawled on the wall — Modern Clix (translated into Spanish as Clics Modernos).

Unbeknownst to Garcia, the art in question was the handiwork of two individuals — street artist Richard Hambleton (renowned for his “shadow men” all around downtown Manhattan — ghostly black silhouettes) and local punk rocker Fran Powers, the then-lead singer of the band, Modern Clix.

Released in 1983, the resultant album went onto become a huge milestone for both Garcia and Argentine rock in general. From Wikipedia: "It was a decisive work to consolidate the modern trends that would mark the profile of Argentine rock during the 1980s,” and to this day is widely revered.

Back here in New York City, meanwhile — Richard Hambleton passed away in 2017 purportedly without ever knowing his work graced the sleeve of such a sacrosanct piece of music history.

Fran Powers, meanwhile, another comrade of the blog’s (after befriending him at party in for Yukie Ohta’s SoHo Memory Project some years ago, I interviewed Fran about his involvement in the local hardcore scene as documented by Brooke Smith, his music and his fleeting cameos in movies like “Hannah & Her Sisters” and my all-time favorite film, Martin Scorsese’s “After Hours” — you can read that here) — had been aware of his graffiti being lifted for Garcia’s landmark album, but didn’t really know much about it. Sadly, Fran passed away in 2021.

Here’s where it gets (even more) complicated.

I honestly cannot say if I was the first person to unwittingly figure this out, but after spotting some photographs on a Facebook group taken by a tourist named Bo G. Eriksson in 1984 of my beloved Cortlandt Alley, I typed up a post, in 2021, about it (somewhat brazenly lifting Eriksson’s photos without his express consent — sorry about that, Mr. E) and asserted that the location of Charly Garcia’s album cover — which, at the time, I had no idea was such a big deal — is the corner of Walker and Cortlandt in TriBeCa.

I probably didn’t give the matter another thought, but word somehow quickly spread. in short order, I was fielding missives from an Argentine writer named Iñaki Rojas alerting me of the significance of all this.

As I now understand this, this tiny little patch of downtown real estate had been a hotly speculated location. Now that the secret was out, there were people making actual goddamn pilgrimages to it. More about that in a second.

This whole saga is not at all unlike my series of posts wherein I tried — with the help of my Irish pal Dub — to pinpoint the exact location of the wall featured on the cover of Killing Joke’s first iconic record, or when I tried to divine the location of that one photo of the Lunachicks, or when I tried to determine the address of Plasmatics World Headquarters. Equally obsessed with this quest, Iñaki Rojas was clearly my brother, and started writing both a novel about it all, and a compelling video series.

The fourth installment of that series is now up, and I am sort of hilariously all over it. See that here….

I viewed this latest episode on the train back from Pennsylvania with my family, earlier this week, and immediately felt I needed to stroll back down to that fateful corner to get Iñaki some updated pics. I ran into my neighbor and fellow music freak Mac and after a quick stop at the Bad Brains mural on Bleecker, I started unspooling the whole Clics Modernos tale (which is exceptionally difficult to encapsulate). From what he understood of what I was babbling about, he was intrigued, so down we both bounded to Cortlandt Alley, once again.

Right as we were approaching the corner in question, I spotted a cryptic little scrawl on the wall. Sure enough, it was related.

It reads, I believe, ...Clics Modernos Started Here...

As relayed in the fourth episode of Iñaki’s series, people now come to this spot as if it was the Argentine equivalent of Abbey Road or, to use my analogy, the Killing Joke wall in Derry, Northern Ireland.

I had Mac try to replicate Charly’s sleeve with me. I apologize profusely for being a fat bastard. Time for those New Year’s resolutions to be fiercely observed, eh?

Iñaki promises a final installment of the series soon. Watch this space.