Prompted by a regularly re-circulated photograph of Pussy Galore and its invocation on the most recent episode of the podcast I recently discussed, Desperately Seeking the `80s, I did some blithe YouTube-searching this AM and came across this relatively new documentary about the Rivington School. I posted about same back in 2015, and like the videos on that post, this one was put together by Rik Little, the figure behind The Church of Shooting Yourself (more about him here).
These days, nothing so interesting really transpires on Rivington Street, but suffice to say …. `twas not always thus. Photo above courtesy of Toyo Tsuchiya/Gallery 98.
I can’t remember when I first launched my Flickr page, but it certainly predated the era of Instagram.
I uploaded boxes and boxes of photographs, mostly from the `90s through the early 2000’s onto the site, nominally captioned them with threadbare detail and …that’s it. I never really did another upload. To peruse through them here in 2022, those pictures do seem to collectively capture a completely different city than the one that exists around us today. Or that’s how I feel about it, anyway.
Page through them and see ancient pics of since-razed landmarks, punk flyers, street art, snow storms, drinks in shitty bars, old friends, decrepit rock clubs, fleeting road trips, long-vanished record stores, former apartments and some very early shots of my kids when that chapter kicked in.
This will matter to an exceptionally small few of you, but it’s been bugging me, so perhaps it’ll intrigue you as well.
Regular readers might remember an entry I posted back in the fall of 2020 about By Any Means Green, which was a benefit show held at CBGB in the summer of, I think, 1991. I’d stumbled across a poster of it on instagram, and later found a better scan of it on a Jon Spencer fan site. Here it is now…
This artwork, as mentioned in that first post, is the handiwork of “Dirty” Danny Hellman, an illustrator who used to do amazing work for outlets like New York Press and Al Goldstein’s Screw, back in the day. Like I said, Hellman had also drawn an amazing illustration of Cop Shoot Cop and Iggy Pop in 1993 that I bought off of him several years back. To see Hellman reunited with Cop Shoot Cop again warmed my heart, and I asserted that if anyone still had a copy of this poster, I’d pay handsomely for it.
I actually reached out to Danny himself about it, but he conceded that even he didn’t have a copy of it, remarking instead about how he hates having to draw horses. Oh well.
I pretty much figured that was that until spotting a variation of the poster above last week. Beyond being seemingly divorced from Hellman’s illlustration, the details of the gig are different on this bill, finding the mighty Lunachicks occupying the top billing instead of Cop Shoot Cop.
Check it out below, and click on it to enlarge…
Now being that the benefit gig in question -- organized by Marguerite Van Cook and held on behalf of the Park Rights Council to “save Tompkins Square Park” -- transpired a whopping three decades ago this July, information on who played and how it all went down is all a bit hard to track down. But in doing some further creative Googling, I happened on this page, featuring a third flyer advertising the same gig. Once again, click on it to enlarge...
Heightening the mystery further, this fetching flyer –- drawn by John Terhorst, based on an original illustration by James Romweber, husband of event-organizer Marguerite Van Cook, and father of Crosby Romweber, the plucky tyke pictured on the sleeve of Cop Shoot Cop’s 1992 album, Ask Questions Later -- puts the colorfully named Reverb Motherfuckers in the top spot, despite citing C$C at the bottom. The Lunachicks get nary a mention.
So, I’m putting it out there – who went to this gig? Did you? What’s the story? Who officially ended up headlining By Any Means Green?
Today, meanwhile, whether effectively saved or not, Tompkins Square Park is still there, thirty years later. Cop Shoot Cop broke up circa 1995, although the resultant acrimony is largely water under the bridge, at this stage. The Lunachicks reformed quite recently, albeit without guitarist Sindi Benezra (pictured above). CBGB closed for good in 2006.
This is not a consequential one, but what the Hell?
Longtime readers – again, if they exist – might remember a few posts last year wherein a serendipitously unearthed a photograph of something I’d long been searching for, that being a depiction and exact location of a graffiti mural of The Plasmatics that I’d seen back in the early `80s from behind the window of a school bus traveling south in Spanish Harlem.
As first invoked here, then brought to fruition here. the wall in question ended up being the eastern-facing façade of a plot of real estate on East 106th & Park Avenue dubbed “The Graffiti Hall of Fame.” After some diligent Googling, I’d managed to pretty much divine the latitude and longitude of the spot and even found a representation of the (presumably) long-one bit of artwork.
Shortly after that, as documented on this follow-up post, I picked up a fetching coffee-table book about the Graffiti Hall of Fame and came across a better photograph of the wall and artwork in question. I reached out to the photographer in question – that being one Martha Cooper – and inquired about possibly purchasing a print of the photograph. Alas, the figure her handler quoted for same was a bit steep, so I didn’t pursue it. Oh well.
In any case, in the wake of that, I did indeed go up to re-check out the spot. As expected, the rendering of the Plasmatics logo (alongside a cartoony depiction of Wendy O. Williams brandishing a signature chainsaw next to Richie Stotts’ signature Flying V guitar, bisected and spurting blood) had long-since been painted over. I snapped some pics, but never got around to posting them here.
Over this past weekend, however, my son, Oliver, and I went back up to that neck of the woods, specifically for the purposes of checking out the Museum of the City of New York’s excellent “New York, New Music” exhibit (which is still there through September, incidentally). On the way, we got off the 6 train at 96th and Lex and walked up to Park Avenue and down the hill of that very tributary up to East 106th.
Here’s that same wall here in 2022. That's me in front, looking like I just spotted something unspeakable happening just off-camera.
I’ve evidently gotten to the age wherein I’m forgetting about stuff I’ve already written about here. I got about one third into a strenuously long-winded post about carving things in wet cement in Manhattan that was eventually going to meander around, after a few tenuous anecdotes, to the main point of the post, that being the cryptic concrete carving outside of 93 Avenue B, the former “bunker” of Michael Gira and Jarboe and SWANS headquarters (pictured above, courtesy of the Living Jarboe), only to remember that I’d already devoted a big ol’ post to it in 2013. Whoops.
In any event, that little strip of East Village has been on my mind, in the last few weeks, for another reason, that being the somewhat half-baked series, “Russian Doll” on Netflix. I enjoyed Season One as sort of a cloying hipster version of “Groundhog Day,” but I’m really struggling with Season Two. In any case, a lot of the action happens in and around Tompkins Square Park and its surrounding environs. I took a stroll over there this morning, now a destination for mimosa-swigging brunches, to see if the SWANS tag was still etched into the concrete.
Once again, this is the spiraling vortex motif that adorned their releases circa 1987’s Children of God, which found the band slowly evolving their sound out of slave-ship stern-und-drang and into more accessibly melodic terrain, largely via the addition of Jarboe, whose soaring vocals and introspective songwriting leant the band a more versatile palette.
The album in question, however, was sort of mired by the unwitting albatross of an ill-considered (to my mind) Joy Division cover (“Love Will Tear Us Apart”) which really did no one any favors apart from possibly the coffers of Ian Curtis’ estate. While it also featured SWANS favorites like “New Mind” (which prompted the band’s first ever “proper” music video, finding Gira lip-synching into a flashlight, drooling and brandishing an axe) and the strikingly delicate “In My Garden” (a full-on Jarboe contribution), my favorite moment of the album has always been the title track. Though still anchored by SWANS’ signature, pummeling rhythm section, the studio version features a haunting performance by Jarboe, harmonizing with herself a recurring, ominous mantra about the hollow promises of religious dogma.
It’s the live version, however, from 1988’s Feel Good Now that really defines it, for me. While his voice is absent from the comparatively ethereal studio version, Gira’s terrifying vocals duet with Jarboe’s in the live setting, providing the tyrannical counterpoint of a vengeful Pentecostal preacher. To my ears, this track is the perfect balance of the band’s brutal beginnings and its embrace of a broader aesthetic.
Today, SWANS are recording a new album with yet another new line-up. While she contributed to their 2012 album, The Seer, Jarboe is no longer a member of SWANS. The space that had been the SWANS Bunker is still a hookah bar/restaurant called The Horus Cafe, and the surrounding neighborhood is no longer quite as fearsomely dicey as it had been.
The carving in the cement in front of their old front door, however? That’s still there.
A photographer named Peter Bennett captured the shot below in 1983, presumably from within (or on top?) of 770 Broadway (formerly Wannamaker's and later K-Mart, and allegedly soon-to-be Wegman's). I spotted it on Facebook, and it stopped me dead in my tracks, as they say.
Here we're looking east over Astor Place and its surrounding, East Village environs. This was obviously taken well before the Cooper Union dormitory was erected in 1992, before the comparatively squat NYU building on the left was razed to accommodate the giant Death Star/Rubik's Cube building went up, before the shampoo bottle condo tower was built in the southernly parking lot, before the corner of St. Marks & Third was razed and before the Gringo mural was painted over.
This is the Astor Place I fell in love with. Click on it to enlarge. For more of Bennett's work, but sure to check out his website.
Regular readers -– if they exist -– might remember a post I penned here back in 2018 that was basically a curmudgeonly dressing-down of a young “vlogger” named Brett Conti. At the time, Conti was this prolific YouTube personality with his own “channel” who produced an unwieldy amount of videos showcasing his idealized life in New York City and other parts of the globe, offering cloying tips and annoying millennial lingo while not-so-subtly pushing his shamelessly aspirational streetwear brand. That all left a bad taste in my mouth, so I talked a bunch of shit about it, albeit prefaced with the acknowledgment that, as an arguably equally insufferable blogger, I ultimately was not really all that different from him. He just had a wider reach, I guess.
Four years later, I can only assume that Brett Conti is still at it, but I haven’t bothered to check. In any case, this post targets a similarly inclined character, although I doubt I’ll be as charitable and forgiving as I was to Conti. Like anyone cares.
Cash Jordan (above) is another young, presumably transplanted New Yorker (not that that means anything, as I mentioned here) who has made a name for himself, since 2019, posting videos on YouTube and TikTok. A self-described “rental expert,” Jordan devotes most of his content to real estate, highlighting what he considers quirky finds and amazing luxury opportunities amidst New York City’s roiling sea of rentable residences. I have no problem with that, necessarily. Real estate is indeed a hustle – my own mother was a real estate agent for many years – and it really does require a sharp savvy and a spine of steel. I don’t know if Jordan has either, but he does seem to be reaching a good amount of folks – like, in the millions -- with his clips.
No, my problem is with the persistent bent of his content. Viewing New York City exclusively through a prism of amenities-&-conveniences and seemingly without any real reverence or curiosity about the back histories or cultural significances of the neighborhoods, places and locales he’s focusing on, Jordan seems to perceive New York City simply as one, amorphous pile of potential revenue opportunity.
Again, he’s a real estate agent, so I understand that that’s his gig. But he couches his videos with such an alarmist, defeatist tone. Typical titles include “NYC May Never Recover,” “New York City is Getting Worse,” “The Worst Part of NYC is…,” “I’m Leaving NYC…,” “NYC is Running Out of Apartments Like This,” “We Had to Leave NYC,” “The Sad Truth About New York City,” etc. etc. etc.
Pardon me, Cash, but if you’re so down on it, why don’t you go on back to whatever rinkydink divot on the map you crawled out of and fuck right off? Here’s a typical example of one of Cash’s video. Let’s watch, shall we?
Now, for a start, this building on the corner or Lafayette & Bleecker is very decidedly not “NYC’s Weirdest Building.” While it may slightly deviate from the norm given the contours of the block it occupies, that doesn’t really make it bizarre or even slightly weird in any meaningful capacity. The narrowest part he alludes to at the northerly end of the block isn’t even technically part of the overall structure, but a separate, enclosed portion unto itself. Formerly housing retail ventures of one sort or another, this chunk has been dormant for over a decade or so, by this point. A million years ago, it was actually a gas station. It’s also made cameos, in the past, in music videos like “Just Got Paid” by Johnny Kemp (which was shot before they put in that narrow, pointed part at the end). Those bits of history aren’t especially difficult to discover, but I guess Cash wasn’t up for any Googling the day he put this together. He’s more interested in its utilization as a placement for ads.
While it’s ostensibly the subject of this video, the allegedly mysterious building is really only window dressing, here. Cash doesn’t really delve into, reveal anything or reward his viewers with any sort of fruition. He just uses it as hollow springboard to remind viewers how difficult it is to make it all work in this city and show you a different apartment that has nothing to do with this corner.
Now, look, he seems like a perfectly nice guy, and he should be congratulated for this lucrative niche he's carved out for himself, but friggin' DO BETTER, Cash. Treat New York City with the respect it deserves.
I haven’t written about them here in a little while (the last time was probably 2019), but as well-documented on this blog over the years, I continue to harbor a longtime fandom and fascination for the music and surrounding mythos of Missing Foundation. Back in the `80s and `90s, of course, Missing Foundation accrued something of an ominous reputation via their uncompromising music and anarchic live performances, but also for their equally uncompromising stance on several political and municipal issues. You can enjoy a taste of same here via this footage from 1991.
Their cryptic insignia (the upended cocktail glass over three slashed tines) becoming synonymous with squatters’ rights, Missing Foundation’s ubiquitous graffiti campaign became a sort of street-art shorthand for real estate developers to basically stay the fuck away from certain areas of town. Despite their best efforts, of course, the portions of the Lower East Side they strove to declare off-limits eventually fell prey to sweeping gentrification. In the wake of some frankly hilarious media sensationalism about the band, something had to give. As the man behind the band, the art, the insignia, the music and the message, Peter Missing decamped for Europe, leaving his notorious tenure in NYC behind him for a long while.
Anyway, in more recent years, Peter Missing has both literally and figuratively changed his tune. He continues to make art and music, but the actively confrontational aspects of that distant era of Missing Foundation are no longer the order of the day. As his message has evolved, so too has his music. Where the Missing Foundation of the late `80s and early `90s practiced a bludgeoning blend of pounding, primal rock punctuated by rumbling percussion and slabs distorted noise under Missing’s bullhorn exhortations, he more recently plays a more nuanced blend of mesmerizing electronic music.
As I’ve mentioned on other posts, Missing took full advantage of the Bandcamp platform, and now offers much his band’s sizable discography there. You can find that all here, but I recently stumbled upon this brief interview with the man from last summer wherein he gives a bit more information on his current doings, his art, his new music and his interesting journey.
As I understand it, “Zip’s” was a Japanese travelogue/pop-culture television program. In this particular episode, they focused on various spots around downtown Manhattan, notably The Gas Station on Avenue B. It’s all very disjointed and odd, but an enjoyable look back.
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