Flaming Pablum

54

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

 

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

This post was started several times over the past four months but was regularly abandoned over the maintenance required to plug in all the links. It was almost aborted entirely in the wake of the week of September 11th, when nostalgia for the way New York used to be reached fever pitch. But since I started it, I figured I might as well finish it. So, here goes. We’ll see if I bring it to fruition this time.

If you’e anything of a regular reader, you might pick up on my frequent allusions to having interned at SPIN Magazine back in the balmy, comparatively carefree days of 1989 (that all started on this post). While entirely true, it should be noted that in the grand scheme of things, I was only at the magazine in its then-grotty office on West 18th Street from about July 1989 until January of 1990, when the managing editor who’d implied that he was going to hire me on full-time was fired. Overall, my tenure at SPIN — while certainly informative for me — didn’t really make too much of an impression on the magazine itself. While formerly toiling paylessly under its auspices, I contributed one small news item about Public Enemy. Big whoop.

But prior to my short-lived, star-crossed few months at SPIN, the magazine had been hugely influential on me. I remember picking up its third issue (with Sting on the cover) in July of 1985 under the misapprehension that there was a feature on one of my then-favorite bands, 7 Seconds (there wasn’t), but becoming totally hooked anyway. Unlike shitty Rolling Stone, here was a magazine that dared to discuss and review bands like Scratch Acid, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, the Sisters of Mercy, Squirrel Bait, the nascent Beastie Boys and the Butthole Surfers. The writing was assertive and irreverent. Their approach was fresh and different — they had Pia Zadora interview Joey Ramone and Lydia Lunch interview Pat Benatar. They periodically gave Henry Rollins the back page to talk about his impressions of Madonna or wax rhapsodic about his then-two favorite records (White Light, White Heat by the Velvet Underground and Funhouse by The Stooges). It was amazing stuff, and for many years afterwards, I was a dutifully loyal reader, even after my brief internship.

In time, SPIN started …er…spiraling, shedding long-time staffers left and right and eventually even jettisoning its longtime editor-in-chief and founder, Bob “The Gooch” Guccione Jr. The magazine lost whatever voice and edge it once had and started following the curve as opposed to staying ahead of it. While everyone I’d originally known from my intern days were long gone, certain other people I’d worked alongside from various other outlets came and went through the outlet’s perpetually revolving door. The last physical issue came out on 2012 before it became a strictly online affair.

Here in 2021, the online iteration of SPIN admirably strives to compete in a vastly different landscape from the one it first launched in, but I don’t know anyone who writes for or edits it anymore, as far as I know. I cannot say that I read it often enough to have a credible opinion about whether or not it’s worth checking out, these days, but I somehow doubt that it pushes any envelopes in the way it used to do.

In any case, blah blah blah …. enough of about me and my experience at SPIN. This post ostensibly had nothing to do with all that, but I’m so damn narcissistic that I couldn’t help dredging all that bullshit back up. No, this post was about how friggin’ anaemic much of SPIN’s more recent ….. or, Hell, not even that recent ... content has been.

What triggered it was a listicle they first posted in 2013 called “The 40 Best New York City Music Videos.” Longtime readers know I used to spend an inordinate amount of time and bandwidth documenting same, so I was of course curious to learn which ones made their list. Somewhat predictably, said list was both rife with cliché and pandered strenuously to certain demographics, although still somehow managed to omit some truly obvious choices like, say, “Waiting on a Friend” by ye olde Rolling Stones. I was, of course, appalled, and planned to compose my own, authoritative list to combat SPIN's blinkered myopia at once.

The trouble was, as mentioned earlier, while I had a fever for the subject matter (however ridiculous), it was going to be a labor-intensive post … all that cutting and pasting of links and whatnot. I kept a running list of clips I thought were worthy of citing, and that seemed to stretch on for days. I’d be out running an errand and something I’d see would remind me of, say, the video of “We Want the Airwaves” by the Ramones (shot on Joey’s rooftop on East 9th Street) or the slow trek through Chinatown in “Coming Down” by the Dum Dum Girls. After a while, the list got pretty long, if not unwieldy, completely dwarfing SPIN’s pathetic list of 40.

But when the task seemed too laborious, I set it to one side and then got back to my life, only to fleetingly invoke it a little while back in this post. It seems laughably unlikely, but perhaps SPIN spotted my invocation of it, because now when you go to their link, all that remains is their one-paragraph preamble. Their list is strangely gone.

So, when you go through my list and wonder where, say, “Love is Strong” by the Rolling Stones, "New York, New York" by Ryan Adams, “Steppin’ Out” by Joe Jackson and/or, good lord, “Empire State of Mind” by Jay-Z and Alicia Keys are, know that I left them out because they were on SPIN’s list, and I didn’t want to be duplicative. Also, “Empire State of Mind” completely fucking sucks and makes me want to destroy the earth.

Here’s my list. Enjoy it or not. I did it alphabetically by song title. There is no hierarchy, although, personally speaking, I like some of these way, way more than others.

ADDENDUM: Some new clips were added on Tuesday, October 12 and Wednesday, October 13. 

“All or Nothin” by Madball - Tompkins Square Park, East Village, Lower East Side

“All That I Wanted” by Belfegore - Pier 25 in TriBeca, West Side Highway

"Ana Ng" by They Might Be Giants - Randall's Island 

“Annie, I’m Not Your Daddy” by Kid Creole & The Coconuts - East River Bandshell

“Bad Reputation” by Freedy Johnston - SoHo, Fulton Fish Market, 

"Bang the Drum" by Railroad Jerk - Riverside Park

“Ballad of the Lower East Side” by Michael Monroe - East Village, Lower East Side 

“Big Apple” by Kajagoogoo - SoHo, Delancey Street, West 4th Street subway platform, Midtown, West Side Highway

 

 

“Brainwashed” by Nuclear Assault - Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn Bridge, Greenwich Village

“Burn Trees” by Missing Foundation - East Village, Tompkins Square Park, Lower East Side

“Carnival” by Natalie Merchant - Midtown, 8th Avenue, Tompkins Square Park, Coney Island

“Chicken Dance” by Life in a Blender - Chinatown

"Close to the Edit" by Art of Noise - The High Line

“Coming Down” by Dum Dum Girls - Chinatown

“Confusion” by New Order - Fun House disco in Chelsea

“Cool Kids” by Kix - SoHo

“Cosmic Slop” by Funkadelic - Central Park, Times Square

“Could Just Die” by L.E.S. Stitches - East Village

“Cousins” by Vampire Weekend - Cortlandt Alley, TriBeca

 

 

“Crazy” by Au Revoir, SImone - An homage to "After Hours," SoHo

“Disconnect” by The Rollins Band - Ah homage to "Taxi Driver," Hell's Kitchen

“Do The Get Down” by The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - All over

"Don't Let's Start" by They Might Be Giants - World's Fair in Flushing, Queens

“Down the Drain” by L.E.S. Stitches - Lower East Side (duh!)

“Down By Law” by Madball - Jersey Street in SoHo

“Dunes” by The Clean - Midtown, NoHo, Greenwich Village, The Bowery, Hoboken 

“Edie (Ciao Baby)” by The Cult - Wall Street, Chelsea, CBGB, Hell's Kitchen, Time's Square, Central Park, Brookyn

 

 

“Electric Relaxation” by A Tribe Called Quest - Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn Bridge, Midtown, Square Diner in TriBeCa

“Enjoy The Silence” (WTC version) by Depeche Mode - World Trade Center

“Forever” by Little Steven & The Disciples of Soul - Times Square, Greenwich Village, St. Marks Place, Midtown

“Fanky” by Charly Garcia - SoHo, Washington Square Park, Greenwich Village, East River Park 

“Funky Man” by Dee Dee King -  East Village, Washington Square Park, the Gas Station on Avenue B

“Green Light” by Firewater - TriBeCa

“Half Asleep” by School of Seven Bells - Union Square, Greenwich Village, Gramercy Park 

“Hell in Paradise” by Yoko Ono - Financial District 

“Hold It Now (Hit It)” by the Beastie Boys - Silver Towers, Greenwich Village, NYU

“Holy Snappers” by The Beastie Boys - SoHo

 

 

"Hot, Hot, Hot" by Buster Poindexter - FDR Drive, Lower East Side, Chinatown, Times Square

“HTP-Brid” by Savages - Subways, High Line, East Village

“I Love You, Suzanne” by Lou Reed - Staple Street in TriBeCa, Midtown

“I Miss The Old New York” by Agnostic Front - Lower East Side

"I Saw The Light" by The The - Various Manhattan rooftops

 

 

“I’m Afraid of Americans” by David Bowie - Greenwich Village, Lower East Side, Canal Street

“Invisible People” by False Prophets - East River Bandshell

“Judas Kiss” by The Del Lords - East Village, Lower East Side

“Jukebox (Don’t Put Another Dime)” by The Flirts - Carmine Street, Greenwich Village

“Jump Around” by House of Pain - Mott Street in SoHo, Old Town Bar & Grill near Union Square, Midtown, Upper East Side

“Just Friends” by Beat Rodeo - Lower East Side

“Just Got Paid” by Johnny Kemp - Greenwich Village, NoHo

“Killing Time” by Clowns for Progress - East Village

“Magnificent Seven” by The Clash - Midtown, Times Square, JFK Airport

“Manhattan” by Cat Power - All over Manhattan (duh!)

 

 

"Mind Games" by John Lennon - Central Park, Midtown

"Minus Zero" by Lady Pank - WTC, The Battery

“My Baby Glows in the Dark” by The Senders - East Village, Lower East Side

“My Night Ain’t Dark as My Day” by The Vipers - SoHo

“My Kinda Town” by The Undead - World Trade Center, Times Square, Medical Corridor, East Village

"New York City" by Joey Ramone - Lower East Side, East Village, The Bowery, Chinatown, Cortlandt Alley, TriBeCa, Times Square, Midtown, Central Park, West Village, Flushing, Queens, Brooklyn Bridge, Civic Center

“NYC 1/25-26/13” by Iceage - All over

“NYC Man” by Lou Reed - All over 

“Off the A-List” by Surgery - East Village, Gramercy Park, Midtown, Lower East Side 

“On the Sunny Side of the Street” by Pizzicato Five - SoHo, Central Park, Brooklyn Bridge

“One on One” by Hall & Oates - Times Square 

“Original Wrapper” by Lou Reed - TriBeCa

 

 

“Policy of Truth” by Depeche Mode - The reservoir in Central Park, East River Park, Meat Packing District, Upper West Side

”Potential for a Fall” by Sick of It All - East Village, Tompkins Square Park, Meat Packing District, West Side Highway, Chelsea

“Punishment” by Biohazard - Brooklyn Bridge

“Que Pasa/Me No Pop I” by Coati Mundi - Washington Square Park

“Rocks Off” by The Rolling Stones - The Bowery

“Rollercoaster” by Everything But The Girl - Greenwich Village, Union Square, NoHo

"Rollerkoaster" by Railroad Jerk - Times Square, 

“Run and Run” by The Psychedelic Furs - Greenwich Village, Gramercy Park, East Village, SoHo, Battery Park

“Sixth Avenue Heartache” by The Wallflowers - Midtown, Upper East Side, Chelsea Hotel, Times Square

“Slash Your Tires” by Luna - East Village, Lower East Side

"Spider-Man" by The Ramones - Roof of 108 Leonard Street, TriBeCa

“Star” by The Cult - Midtown, Lower East Side

"Step" by Vampire Weekend - All over Manhattan

 

 

“Stiff Upper Lip” by AC/DC - Midtown, Cortlandt Alley, TriBeCa

“Sweet Jane” by The Jim Carroll Band - The Bowery

"Summer in the City" by Joe Cocker - SoHo

“Sun City” by Artists Against Apartheid - Washington Square Park, Greenwich Village, Lower East Side

“Swimming in 99” by Golden Suits - Brooklyn, TriBeCa, SoHo, Greenwich Village, Upper West Side, Upper East Side, Central Park

“Tall N’ Lonely Buildings” by Urban Blight - Not entirely sure, actually. 

“The Metromen Take the Ritz” by The Metromen - All over

"These Are The Days" by 10,000 Maniacs - Chrysler Building, Midtown

"These Foolish Things" by James Chance - a Lower Manhattan rooftop

"Time Bomb" by Rancid - Lower East Side

"Titanium Expose" by Sonic Youth - Chinatown 

"Todd Youth" by Jesse Malin - East Village, Tompkins Square Park

“Too Many Creeps” by the Bush Tetras - The Bowery, East Village, Lower East Side

"Trapped" by the Crumbsuckers - CBGB, The Bowery

“Two Princes” by The Spin Doctors - Central Park, NoHo

“Union City Blue” by Blondie - Manhattan from the Jersey side of the Hudson River

 

 

"Vices" by Circus of Power - Pier 25, West Side Highway

“We Take Mystery to Bed” by Gary Numan - Upper East Side, Central Park, Midtown

“We Want The Airwaves” by The Ramones - East Village, Queens

“What Happened?” by H20 - East Village, Greenwich Village

“Waiting on a Friend” by The Rolling Stones - St Marks Place, East Village

“What Will The Neighbors Think?” by Murphy’s Law - East Village

“Where I’m From” by Digable Planets - East Village, TriBeCa

"Why I Drink" by The Candy Snatchers - East Village

"World Order in New York" by World Order - Central Park, Midtown, Grand Central Station, Rockefeller Center, Wall Street, Williamsburg, The Dakota, Times Square, Brooklyn Bridge, Washington Square Park, Flushing Corona Park, Queens,  

“You Remain Anonymous” by Lubricated Goat - Lower East Side

 

 

What am I missing? 

Back Again to Club Berlin

Now, as I understand it, there really was a Club Berlin somewhere in Manhattan in the `80s, although it was invariably before the era wherein I was nocturnally out and about, roaming these New York City streets. The first time I’d ever heard about a nightclub called Berlin was, of course, via my laboriously over-cited favorite film of all time, that being “After Hours.” I’ve devoted more space on this stupid blog to the minutia of that film, so if you genuinely care, please just do a Google search.

In any case, in the film, insouciant, topless sculptress Kiki Bridges asserts that Berlin is on the corner of West Broadway and Grand Street. Today, that particular corner is a douchey restaurant called the Sola Pasta Bar, but back in the `80s, I honestly don’t remember it being anything other than a wall whereupon fabled SoHo artist Renee extolled the merits of his own work (see below as captured by photographer Leo London). That doesn’t mean it wasn’t there, though. More to the point, I’m lazily assuming for no discernible reason that we’re talking about the southwest corner of that particular intersection, and who knows if that’s even accurate?

 

In 2011, meanwhile, I found an odd, cable-access-era video hosted by the late Details editor and nightlife scenester par excellence Stephen Saban called “Dead Clubs,” wherein he rattled off a laundry list of since-shuttered establishments, and I REALLY WANT TO SAY that Berlin … or Club Berlin … was one of them. Unfortunately, that clip is no longer on YouTube. That said, if you want to see it, it’s part of the ongoing “New York, New Music 1980-1986” exhibit. Go check that out for me and see if he does indeed cite it.

In 2015, meanwhile, I interviewed my friend Fran Power, who had a memorable cameo in “After Hours” during the scene in which protagonist Paul Hackett gains brusque entry to Club Berlin and almost gets his head shaved. Here’s what Fran had to say about that.

Where was it filmed?

It was filmed in an empty space that they had made into a club in what is now Tribeca. It was a really dead neighborhood at the time …not a real club.

Wasn't there an actual Club Berlin?

Yes there was a real Berlin club…a girl from one of my bands worked there but it wasn't where we filmed at.

So, yeah, … there’s that.

In terms of the film, though, the location Martin Scorsese used for the exterior shots of Club Berlin was 296 Spring Street on the corner of Hudson Street, just up a block or so from the Emerald Pub, which Scorsese used as the location for The Terminal Bar.

Here it in the film, as spotted from looking south from Spring Street, just a few steps to the west of Hudson.

From at least the early `90s on, that space had become a deli. I took a shot of my kids in front of this same strip pictured above in 2013.

And, as resourced from the great new cinema blog NYC in Film (which I discussed here), here’s a shot of the exterior from 1984, taken from across Hudson Street, looking southwest. Note the checkerboard paintjob. Was that simply during Scorsese’s filming?

Today, my friend Chung Wong posted a great photo on Facebook from 1976 by a photographer named Bevan Davis. This is that same space that would later play host to Scorsese’s location of Club Berlin and that deli, then a bar called JJ’s West, as looked at from Hudson Street looking West.

Today, that particular space is all boarded up with a sidewalk shed. Something in in the works, but not sure what.

The space that had been Emerald Pub down the street remains dormant and derelict. Fran Powers, meanwhile, sadly left us earlier this year.

For a really great, recent breakdown of the "After Hours" locations, check out NYC in FILM. 

ADDENDUM: I did a little further searching around, and came up with some information from this site. For a start, it seems JJ's West was a topless bar (back when New York had such establishments), but prior to that, it was a storied jazz club called The Half Note Club. Says the archives site....

The Half Note Club was one of the premier places to hear jazz in the 1960s, and at least a half-dozen records were “live from the Half Note.” John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, Cannonball Adderly, Billie Holiday, and Judy Garland all performed here before it became a topless bar in 1974.  It’s now a deli.

Here it was again as JJ's West...

Wherewuzzat? Back Once More to SoHoZat

I’ve twice written here about SoHoZat, an odd sort of magazine/comic eporium on West Broadway just above Canal Street in SoHo. Back in the `80s, it was a joint I’d regularly pop into for copies of various curious periodicals. They had a wide-if-frenetic selection of reading material, and you were always bound to stumble across something new and different. It was also a great hangout. No one was chasing you out the door for not buying something. It was a safe haven for freaks, geeks, artists, weirdos, artists and the like.

As mentioned in those older posts, SoHoZat’s rent took a steep climb and they were forced to close their doors in about 1992 (now amost 30 years ago, …. jeezus). Following SoHoZat’s departure, the space it formerly occupied became a deli for a while. The surrounding strip also became significantly gentirified and built up to the extent that it’s incredibly hard to fathom that a cool, relaxed, bohemian concern like SoHoZat ever existed on that block, considering it’s now populated by pricey bistros, lavish hotels, exclusive haberdasheries and their ilk. The only real remnant of SoHoZat is their sister concern across the street, that being the graffitti emporium Scrap Yard (formerlly called Bomb The System, in less sensitive years).

There’s much more hustle and bustle on this patch of West Broadway than there ever was, although the pandemic has taken a bit of the shine off. The space that had been the deli following the depature of SoHoZat is now an animal shelter/hospital, oddly enough.

In any event, whilst trawling around the internet today, I came across this image of the old SoHoZat, taken by one Susan Kleckner in 1987. Click on it to enlarge. 

 

Word on The Street

Truth bomb on St. Marks Place...

Vega's Vista: Downtown Pics from the Eighties

There’s a group on Facebook I’m a member of that I’ve mentioned several times here before called Manhattan Before 1990 which is largely dedicated to,….well, … photos of just that. Obviously, in recent days, it’s been filled with shots of the World Trade Center, but in the days prior to that, I came across several photos by a gentleman named David Vega, who apparently was loitering on the same downtown streets as me back in the 80’s. I asked Mr. Vega if I could re-purpose some of his photos here, and he gamely obliged. Here are just a few of them….

French Kisses was this little spot on St. Marks Place that largely traded in vintage movie posters, the true provenance of which, I believe, being France (hence the name of the shop), so they might have all been in French, but don’t quote me on that. I remember they also sold a robust array of postcards modeled after promotional gig posters. I remember buying fistfuls of them of bands like The Clash, The Cult, The Jesus & Mary Chain and the like, and taping them up all over my walls during high school and college. French Kisses had an ancillary operation over on Bleecker just west of LaGuardia. According to Mr. Vega, this shot was taken in 1985.

Also taken in 85, here’s a shot of the other side of the street. This is, of course, Trash & Vaudeville. By this point, you can see a gate has been put up in front of 4 St. Marks Place (which I wrote about here). Trash was forced to leave this storied space some years back. They decamped to a spot over on East 6th Street. Owner and mastermind Jimmy Webb passed away last year, but the shop soldiers on.

This is, of course, the old Lone Star Cafe. I devoted many posts to this over the years. Suffice to say, the place is long gone. In a nutshell, after the Lone Star closed, it briefly became a bar called Mr. Fuji’s Tropicana (albeit without the lizard on the roof — he went to Texas). After Mr. Fuji’s closed, it became a sort of middling deli. They the space was derelict for quite a while until it was razed and a noxious condo was built in its footprint with a Brandy Melville in its ground floor, a shop I took exception with for their incongruous selling of comparatively rare Ramones ephemera.

It’s been about nine dozen ventures since then, but back in the early-to-mid 80’s, this corner was home to, as the sign says, The St. Marks Bar & Grill. Personally speaking, I was too young to visit the establishment in this incarnation, but it was made famous as a location for both the climax of the video for the Rolling Stones “Waiting on a Friend” and as the bar Wren and Richard Hell hang out at in the film “Smithereens.”

This is the formerly iconic corner of St. Marks Place at Third Avenue. There’s a lot to love about this photo for me, notably the sneery Gringo mural and St. Marks Pizza. Today, this corner is basically a yard of rubble behind plywood walls awaiting construction of yet another new development. Boo hiss.

Further east down St. Marks, this is the exterior of Venus Records. Mr. Vega says he took this in 1984, but I politely beg to differ, as Venus Records was still perched over on West 8th Street until at least 1986. The shop that later became Venus Records on St. Marks circa `88 or so was a bookstore before that. If I’m not mistaken the space in question is a pho joint (Asian broth) today.

This is, of course, CBGB in 1986. I love this shot in that it features the CB's Record Canteen (although I'm still on the hunt for shots of the CB's pizza place on the other side....anyone remember that?).

Big huge thanks to David Vega for his generosity. Check out his Instagram account here.

Word On The Street

For more information, visit: SAVESOHONOHO.COM

Back to Downtown Music Gallery on East 5th

I’ve written about Downtown Music Gallery a few times here. In the wake of one of those posts, one Stephen Popkin, the founder of the place, got in touch and we started an email exchange that has lasted years.

This morning, he sent me a clutch of photos from the iteration of the shop when it was on East 5th Street, just steps from Cooper Square, right next to my beloved Scratcher, and also the street on which Dead Boys drummer Johnny Blitz was stabbed, back in the day, as mentioned on this ancient post. 

Here’s what he had to say about them…

Hi i just found these . Thought you might want to take a look . Photographer is Scott Hiller 1992 For this we got DGC to pay the stores rent for a month plus boxes of product.

And Thurston was one of our best customers! Those were the days!

I want to say this was the first iteration of the shop I ever went into. Today, this space is a veterinarian’s clinic.

More about DMG on Flaming Pablum....

Downtown Music Gallery in the Line of Fire (2008)

Back to Downtown Music Gallery (2012)

Downtown Music Gallery Needs Your Help (2018)

Desktop Detritus: Things That Are No Longer There

As previously mentioned here multiple times, I am forever on the hunt for things to post about, and when I see something that sparks my imagination, I usually grab it and set it to one side, so to speak. Quite often, those images (or videos or links or whatever) result in a windy rumination in the form of a blog post. Other times, however, whatever context I had in mind gets lost, and the item in question just becomes one more heavy file eating up space on my beleaguered MacBook Air.

I recently discovered that my laptop is sorely in need of a OS upgrade, but that I lack the space and memory to install the most up-to-date version. As such, I’ve been purging large piles of stuff and relegating other crap to the iCloud, Dropbox, external drives, etc., although I’m still dubious I’m going to be able to create enough space.

In any case, along the way, I came across the three photos below, which I’d obviously set aside to write about at one point or another. I’m relatively sure I had whole posts mapped out for each of them, but those are now lost in the mist of time. In re-discovering them now, I’m going to take a stab at whatever I might have had in mind for them.

I regrettably have no idea who took this photograph. The only information I have about it is that it was saved under the title “1982,” which sounds, at the very least, accurate. This is, of course, the Astor Place cube or, more precisely, Tony Rosenthal’s sculpture “Alamo.” Honestly, I’m more inclined to believe that I zeroed in on this photo not because of the sculpture, but more in that it showcased the lot behind it with the sort of lightning-bolt mural on the north-facing wall in the background. Beyond being a parking lot, this open space also served as an ersatz flea market. Today, of course, while the cube is still very much an Astor Place fixture, the space that was that lot is now occupied by a big condo tower that I used to say looked like a shampoo bottle, which a Chase back on its ground floor.

Similar to the photo of the cube, I seemed to save this photo with the title “1983,” although this image handily comes with the photographer’s watermark. Taken by one Tom Langton, this is, of course, the exterior of Sounds on St. Marks Place and the Grassroots Tavern on the garden level. Zoom in closely and you’ll see the album covers of Singles Going Steady by the Buzzcocks, Dare by the Human League and Dance by Gary Numan in the window, all of which predate 1983, so who knows? In any case, it’s an iconic shot. Today, both the Grassroots and Sounds are long gone, with nothing having taken their place.

Snapped by one Joe Clementi allegedly circa 1985, this is a shot of the exterior of an old St. Marks Place bar on the corner of Avenue A called Alcatraz, although I honestly cannot remember if Alcatraz dated back that early. I vividly remember going to Alcatraz in the late 80s, so it very well may have been there in 1985, but I cannot swear to it. I wrote about it briefly here, but Alcatraz had sort of a biker/rocker vibe. I seem to remember hearing lots of Guns N’ Roses and Jane’s Addiction there, back in the day. In later eras, the space became a sushi bar. Not quite sure what’s there today, actually.

Back Into The Bowels of Wetlands Preserve

All things considered, it’s somewhat surprising that in 16 plus years, I’ve only devoted one or two posts to Wetlands Preserve, the fabled TriBeCa rock club on Laight Street that’s now been gone for twenty years. While, yes, its primary focus was ostensibly on hippy-dippy jam bands and Grateful Dead cover ensembles, the booking policy at Wetlands was refreshingly catholic. Most of the shows I saw at Wetlands had nothing to do with anything even remotely hippieish, from ska bands like The Scofflaws, Mephiskapheles and Fishbone through to hardcore stalwarts like Murphy’s Law and Agnostic Front to British indie outfits like Mansun and Echobelly. More in keeping with the ethos of the club, I remember seeing The Machine (a studiously faithful Pink Floyd cover band) and Dread Zeppelin (an all-white reggae band that played Zeppelin covers with an Elvis impersonator as lead singer). Every night was something different.

Back on this post, I mentioned that documentary that pretty much fully encapsulates everything you’d probably need to know about Wetlands. It’s worth your time, should you be curious. As mentioned, the club closed in 2001, shortly afterward to become a pricey bedding emporium for a few years. That corner space on Laight Street has now been devoid of an occupant for quite some time.

If I’m not mistaken, the very final show I ever saw at Wetlands would have been post-punk supergroup The Damage Manual with Ari Up of the Slits opening. The very first show I ever saw at Wetlands, meanwhile, might have been a funky-punky band called The Royal Crescent Mob. During the course of that show, my friend Tim kept feeding me shots called “Prairie Fires” — lethal combinations of tequila and tobacco sauce. After two or three of those, I slapped an offered fourth out of Tim’s hand (which landed messily on the dance floor) and repaired to Wetlands’ downstairs men’s room with all speed, where I proceeded to make Wetlands a bit …er…wetter.

So, why am I mentioning any of this now? Well, because a NYHC-reverent gent named Uptown Al recently posted a video shot within the dank confines of that downstairs bathroom. It’s a side of the club you’re not likely to see anywhere else, at the very least.

Turn back the clock to 1999 for a quick visit to the men’s room of Wetlands Preserve.