The Damned first played New York City’s CBGB in 1977, the first British Punk band to do so (along with having been the first British Punk band to issue any vinyl). During that maiden voyage, the band were famously captured by erstwhile CBGB door-minder/photographer Roberta Bayley in the photo above, posing with great, snotty aplomb in front of the twin towers of the World Trade Center.
The band ended up playing four April nights at CBGB, sharing the bill with their Buckeye counterparts in the Dead Boys. Here’s a shot of them during one of those doubtlessly volatile evenings, this one taken by Ebet Roberts.
Today, meanwhile, in trawling around the `net, looking for nothing in particular, I came across this uncredited photo from the same era. I’m making some assumptions here but based on the line-up (with guitarist Brian James still in the ranks), I’m guessing this was snapped during that same span of April days. I have no idea who took it, but my question is – where in Manhattan was this photograph snapped?
I’d say the awning behind Dave Vanian on the left is a big clue, as are the terraced apartments behind Captain Sensible’s head. I have a hunch which I’m going to investigate, but where do YOU think it was taken?
The Damned are coming back to New York City (with original drummer Rat Scabies with them, this time) this May, but the next day is my son’s graduation, so I don’t think we’ll be going. We did just see them in October, anyway.
Well, I am indeed back from our travels in Türkiye. In the past, after I’ve come back from trips to, say, Ireland, Beirut, France and other places, I’ve shared a bunch of pics. Unfortunately, the service provider that hosts this blog has been suffering from an ongoing image-hosting issue, presumably the same issue that routinely causes images here to break for no reason. It now takes forever and a day to successfully upload a single picture, and now – after multiple attempts – I’m throwing in the towel. You’ll have to make do with the pic above of the majestic interior of the sprawling Blue Mosque, and the one of me below, standing outside it like a smug American tourist.
If you happen to be friends with me on Instagram and Facebook, you can see my pics there, if you’re truly curious, but there simply isn’t enough time in the world, bandwidth on the web or patience within myself for me to keep fighting with the failings of my aforementioned so-called service provider.
In a nutshell, however, Türkiye is just an amazing place to visit, and I cannot recommend it zealously enough. We basically spent a week in a boat (or, gulet) off the Southern coast, and then a week in the massive metropolis of Istanbul, a teeming city of 13 million that makes my native New York City seem quaint, orderly and entirely manageable.
On Saturday evening, I'll be departing with my wife and kids for the faraway land of Turkey -- excuse me, Türkiye -- for a 12 day jaunt around the place, culminating in five or six days in Istanbul, where I'm hoping to catch up with my old friend Tod [A] of Firewater/Cop Shoot Cop fame.
In any case, if things seem pretty quiet here within the next two weeks, that's why.
Altogether now...
ADDENDUM:As has become a family tradition, I unsolicitedly made a vacation playlist for us all, which ultimately no one but myself will actually listen to. Should you care, here it is...
So, today was the day I was scheduled to have my Nerve Conduction Velocity test on my feet. As you may remember from this recentseries of weepy posts, I’ve been having escalating problems, punctuated by stiffness and numbness. Should you care, you can go back and read those posts, but in a nutshell, my podiatrist – Dr. Doolittle (not his actual name) – was having a hard time determining whether my problem was Morton’s Neuroma (basically an inflamed tumor on a nerve) or whether it was peripheral neuropathy (an irreversible condition that basically can only get worse and spread). Obviously, I’m hoping for the former and not the latter. I was told that an NCV test should clear up that mystery, so he went ahead and gave me an order for one.
The new problem, however, is that NCV tests come conjoined with EMG tests, which are electromyography examinations that measure electrical activity in a muscle’s response to a nerve’s stimulation. This is achieved via sticking big, fuckoff needles directly into those muscles which, Doolittle informed me, is usually “quite painful.” With that in mind, he wrote directly on the order to “only perform the NCV test,” sparing me the big, fuckoff needle portion. I appreciated that.
So, after Doolittle gave me that order, I wasn’t able to schedule an appointment for my NCV/EMG (without the EMG) for about three weeks. Over the course of those three weeks, meanwhile, my feet continued to be stiff, sore and numb. It’s usually worse in the mornings, for some reason, but the problem does not seem to follow a discernible pattern. The worrying numbness persists, in any case, so I was greatly looking forward to making some progress and determining what, exactly the problem was.
Today, after carving out some time from my workday (already not ideal), I limped across town to the podiatry building (same spot as Doolittle’s office) to have the velocity of my nerves conducted. I walked in, however, and the specialist assigned with handling the task brusquely said it couldn’t be done. Having only the NCV part of it wasn’t an option. It's a package deal. Special orders do upset us. If he were to even try doing only half, there was somehow a chance my insurance wouldn’t cover it and, if I understood him right, he might not get paid for it. That sounded a little farfetched, but I just reiterated that I was simply following the directive from Dr. Doolittle who – oh so conveniently – was not in the office. The specialist was getting all attitudinal about it, so I just said, “Look, I have another appointment with Doolittle in two weeks, so let’s just hold off until then, and we’ll take it from there.”
I made sure I wasn’t charged for these shenanigans, and then went back to my office, where I was sadly able to attend a meeting that I’d been looking forward to missing.
As just mentioned, my son Oliver and I went to go see DEVO on Tuesday night at the lovely Brooklyn Paramount, and standing amidst the sold-out throng of devotees, my view of proceedings onstage was again repeatedly impeded by multiple idiots insisting on trying to video large swathes of the performance. It keeps happening.
Even at my arguably lofty height of 6'1", my line of vision was regularly interrupted by the dopey attempts of fellow patrons to capture seemingly as much as they could, even if the end results were going to be unwatchably unsteady and plagued with patchy sound. Hell, there was even a woman a few feet in front of me who -- presumably because of her short physical stature -- was holding her phone up with the video function on, but not actually recording – she was basically using it as an ersatz periscope to see the stage. This sort of shit drives me absolutely crazy (as I’vementionedbefore).
At the very real risk of laboriously repeating myself (too late), the fruits of their inconsiderate labor are invariably going to look and sound like absolute shite, but maybe they don’t even care about that. Perhaps it’s simply more about asserting, over social media, that “HEY, WORLD, I WAS HERE AT THIS PLACE DOING THIS THING!” and presenting the visual evidence, regardless of its demonstrably low quality. Look, I’m absolutely no fucking stranger to oversharing my stupid shit all over Facebook and Instagram, let alone this blog. I am entirely guilty of presumptuously showcasing far too much of my comparatively insignificant activity to a (so far) patient and forgiving world. I understand the impetus to do that, however silly, but whipping your phone out at concerts still fails to take account for the ripple effects.
Put simply, by constantly holding up your shitty smartphone to capture video of a performance (let alone tweaking the screen to zoom in and sharpen, etc.), you are inevitably going to be either literally obstructing your fellow concert-goers’ view, or you’re going to be replicating the television-in-a-dive-bar effect. Ever notice when you’re sitting in a dark bar with a television on that your eyes repeatedly fixate on the screen (whether the sound is on or not)? Ever been trying to sleep on a plane and be distracted by the jackass across the aisle and two rows up from you who insists on watching “Fast & Furious XIX” in an otherwise slumbering cabin? It’s the same thing with a smartphone. However small that little, lit-up rectangle might seem, it’s going to be unwittingly attracting all nearby eyeballs. It’s just the way we’re hard-wired, now.
Some will charitably lambast this sort of behavior as a lack of situational awareness – i.e. they are simply too conditioned to be busily satisfying their desires to consider how their activities might be impacting those around them. I’m not quite so forgiving. I’d sooner characterize it as brazen situational indifference. However dim they might be, I still give them enough credit to be able to discern how their shenanigans might be annoying. It’s not that they’re not cognizant of it, it’s that they are simply and selfishly do not give a fuck. I find that unacceptable.
This is when I usually tap someone on the shoulder and – with all the courtesy, restraint and thoughtful diplomacy that I can muster – ask them to put their phone down and simply “enjoy being in the moment.” And lemme tell ya, I’ve been to plenty of goddamn concerts. I have an overstuffed, three-ring binder full of old tickets stubs. I’ve been to more shows – from big-budget productions in enormodomes and arenas to clandestine, guerilla-style gigs in makeshift, underground basements – than my audiologist would ever recommend as advisable, but I captured video at precious few of them. I’ll take a few pictures, every now and again, but that’s usually it. I’d rather simply soak in and savor the experience in real time. Everyone should try that, sometime.
Obviously, asking someone to put their phone away doesn’t always go down so well. More often than not, I’m unsurprisingly instructed to go fuck myself, although, on one occasion, I had two German dudes at a Depeche Mode gig apologize to me profusely for the remainder of the show, which was almost just as annoying as them waving their phones around.
While this all may paint me as a curmudgeonly luddite of the variety that yells at clouds and invites you off his lawn, rest assured that I am not the only one. Bob Dylan and Glen Danzig – and how’s THAT for a duo? – are in lock-step on the issue, and take measures to prevent phones at their shows (although if you’ve seen our Glen wheeze through some of the more recent festival appearances with the Misfits, you might well understand why he doesn’t want that captured on video). There was also this great moment of Nick Cave – ironically captured on someone’s smartphone:
Bless him.
The other bad thing about cell phone videos of concerts it that, quite often, the end results can showcase shortcomings you may not have noticed while enjoying it in the moment. What one might recall about a celestial guitar solo can be coldly eviscerated by a telling bit of video evidence to the contrary. Not every show is going to be pitch-perfect and smooth. Once again, ask Danzig about that. Not everything requires that level of documenting.
The DEVO show Oliver and I witnessed on Tuesday night in Brooklyn was, of course, captured on video and posted, I believe, later the same evening by an enterprising YouTuber who calls himself Tito Santana. You can watch it here, should you care to.
Beyond this blog, I’ve raised this issue with friends and colleagues, and no one seems to be as bent out of shape about it as I am, which I guess isn’t too surprising, given my penchant for complaining. While I was putting this post together, however, I came across THIS ANCIENT POST from 2008, wherein I get all hot and bothered about having to even own a cellphone.
I remain out of step, but at least I’m somewhat consistent.
For that last show at Pier 17, I brought my then-16-year-old son, Oliver, making DEVO his very first concert, too. The boy returns this very day from his first year at Trinity Dublin in Ireland, and tonight, we are going to see DEVO at the Brooklyn Paramount.
The picture in the frame was taken by the great Allan Tannenbaum, who captured it at the 1981 show that was my first concert. He lives in TriBeCa, and I bought a print of it from him several years back. He’s also got a great retrospective show happening at the Morrison Hotel Gallery that is well worth everyone’s time.
Okay, this one's a bit odd, ... and I thought I'd already evangelized this new aspect of it (see below), but evidently not. Or, if I did, I just can't find it.
In any case, back in 2015 ... which is astonishingly a decade ago .... I wrote up a little reminiscence of a long-lost attraction in midtown called, or so I thought at the time, Burlington Mills. The trouble was, despite the vividness of my recollections about the exhibit, I couldn't seem to find any evidence of its existence, despite all my inventive Googling. Eventually, I did track down the correct appellation, and up came everything I needed (I had this same quandary when trying to trace back to the old and endearingly grotty Comic Arts Gallery on East 58th Street). It wasn't Burlington Mills, it was The Mill at Burlington House.
If you're curious, you can read all about it here. But, a short time after I posted that entry, I stumbled upon actual video evidence of the exhibit, which blew me right off the porch. For whatever reason, however, I apparently never got around to sharing it here, so I'm rectifying that now.
I found it quite surprising to learn that the full ride took upwards of eight minutes. That seems like kind of a lot, but I'm sure my mother was happy to keep us occupied, if only for those feeling eight minutes.
If you're a Manhattan kid of a certain age that wants to re-experience The Mill at Burlington House, I'm afraid the exhibit in question closed circa 1980. But now, thanks to the magic of archival video, you can turn back the clock...
The daughter of some dear friends of ours just got back from spending a semester in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Back over Labor Day weekend, we’d all gotten together and Ella — the daughter in question — heard me laboriously bloviating about the whole Clics Modernos saga. It’s a long, convoluted story, but if you’ve not been following this blog for very long, I played a small role in determining the exact location of the cover of the landmark 1983 album by preeminent Argentine rock star, Charly Garcia — via an old photograph by a Swedish tourist of Cortandt Alley at Walker Street in TriBeCa. It’s actually way more complicated than that, but you can read more here, if you’re curious.
In any case, I posted that all that here on my silly blog, back before the days COVID, and intrepid Argentines Inaki Rojas and Mariano Cabrera went a bit berserk, suggesting it was like determining the precise location of Abbey Road.
First up, I’d like to thank all the folks who’ve written in, both here and offline, expressing support and sharing their own comparable experiences. I never thought this quandary was unique to me, but it’s been heartening to hear what other people have done to combat this sort of thing, although one or two of the missives I fielded did kinda scare the crap out of me.
In any case, since my last post on this subject, I’d been following my new rules, for the most part, and trying to do the right thing. I started drinking more water, and I added a host of different supplements to my daily intake, specifically vitamins B, D and magnesium. In observance of things I’d read online (not always the best plan, admittedly), I started to steer clear of stuff like soft drinks, trans fats and carbs. I also paired down my consumption of both coffee and beer, basically cutting in half my ritualistic intake of the former and almost completely swearing off the latter, apart from a couple of pops on the weekends (which, of course, I immediately felt guilty about). Additionally, I tried wearing some compression socks (Bombas) and started doing certain exercises I’d spotted on some YouTube clips. At the same time, I still didn’t really have much to go on.
The last time I’d seen my podiatrist, Dr. Doolittle (again, not his actual name), he’d given me some mild injections and put me on an anti-inflammatory pill for two weeks. As I’d previously mentioned, I wasn’t sure if either of them — combined with all the other stuff I was doing — had any measurable benefit. In the interim, I’d started amassing a long list of questions to run by him to ideally get some clarity on the big question, that being whether I was dealing with a neuroma (ostensibly an isolated tumor on a nerve) or neuropathy (an irreversible, body-wide condition). I was obviously hoping for the former and dreading a formal diagnosis of the latter.
Earlier this week, I walked back over to his office for a follow-up. I relayed all the bullshit I just mentioned, and he listened patiently. In terms of my questions, he assured me that there are a couple of tests — notably a “nerve conduction velocity” test and a electromyography test, the latter of which is allegedly “quite painful” — to make the sort of determinations I’m after, but he didn’t see the need for either, just yet. At this stage, Doolittle is, in his own words, “confident” that my problem is a neuroma and not, in fact, the dread neuropathy. In a nutshell, he assured me that while these symptoms — specifically the numbness — I’m experiencing are giving me pause, he doesn’t see a need to worry about it — and nor should I. He recommended a new supplement — a combo of Lipoid Acid and the difficult-to-pronounce benfortiamine. We skipped any more injections, for now, and he said I could drop that anti-inflammatory and come back in six weeks.
As far as my other questions, he told me to stop wearing compression socks, as they can actually exacerbate a neuroma. Likewise, I should knock off those exercises I’d started doing, as they, too, can worsen a neuroma. He completely ruled out gout and diabetes, as those would have turned up on the blood tests. He said acupuncture is fine, as is continuing to consume water, bananas and, were I up to it, “mushroom coffee.” I asked him bluntly if dietary habits and/or intake of caffeine or alcohol had any effect on a neuroma, … and he said “not at all.” That evening, I celebrated unreservedly with a couple of pints of Guinness.
So, that’s where I’m at. I ordered up a bottle of the Lipoid Acid/Benfortiamine pills and am curious if they’ll make any noticeable difference. While I’m still without a concrete diagnosis, Doolittle’s convincing assurance that I “shouldn’t be worried” did indeed ease my mind. That all said, I’m going to try to continue to adhere to my not-as-many drinks during the course of the week regime, as cutting back is still a good idea.
I came to the realization, recently, that until I have something decisive to relay regarding my health issues (see these twoposts for details), it’s probably best that I don’t discuss them further here, lest I lapse into a whingy spiral of complaint and self-pity. As mentioned on those previous two posts, I’m more than a little concerned, at the moment, but I’ve pretty much said all I can say, based on what little I know. I’m sincerely hoping that impending visits with my podiatrist and my primary care physician will shed a bit more light and provide a definitive, actionable diagnosis, but we’re not there yet.
I was also struck by the fact that while I am indeed grappling with this issue, it remains a significantly less serious grievance, thus far, than what some other folks are forced to contend with, so I should really shut the fuck up about it. I’ll share whatever results I learn, but there’s no point on blathering on about it here. At the same time, I can’t say that I have too much else to express, otherwise, as I remain pretty preoccupied with all this.
But just in case you think I’m now just resigned to sitting at home in a hair shirt, chastising myself, do rest assured that I’m continuing to do the stupid shit I'm normally found doing (although now without nearly as much beer). Last week, as invoked here, I trekked out to Bushwick to see The Art Gray Noizz Quintet with Lydia Lunch, Knife Thrower and the Skull Practitioners and the surprisingly lovely Sultan Room. It was an amazing show. A gent named Mitch from a Virginia Record store called Mitch’s Music Grapevine snapped my pic (below), flying the colors, so to speak. Life is continuing.
Hi again, all. You might all be asking yourselves, “where’s Alex’s spittle-flecked rant about the latest DOGE misdeeds?” or “why nothing in commemoration of Jaz Coleman’s birthday?” or “How come we haven’t seen in any new posts about forgotten record shops?” Well, the simple answer is that I’ve basically been preoccupied grappling with the situation detailed in that last post.
I’m basically in limbo, I guess. I’m waiting to go back to my podiatrist (which happens two weeks from tomorrow) to get more of a handle on proceedings. I have a long list of questions to run by him – this being the guy I referred to as Doolittle -- regarding the do’s and don’ts of my current status. Now a couple of weeks in, the potential combination of the last pair of “mild steroid” injections, the anti-inflammatory pills and now a twice-daily pill of magnesium (400mg – allegedly effective against tingling, numbness, cramping in the feet) has conceivably relaxed my feet a little bit, but the numbness is still very persistent, especially in the mornings. I can’t say if there’s really been any progress or movement in the right direction or not.
Meanwhile, I’m basically overthinking everything and doing myself no favors by researching shit on the internet. In some instances, it seems I’m doomed to live the rest of my life with a limited menu of water, fish and bananas. The list of problematic things for a (possible) case of neuropathy strangely mirrors the things that allegedly make tinnitus (which I also suffer from) worse. These are the predictable biggies like, once again, alcohol, sugar, caffeine, salt, etc. The neuropathy no-no’s also include gluten, carbs, refined grains, and saturated fats. So, basically, I should swear off all beer, wine, coffee, red meat, desserts of all kinds, anything salty, all chips, white bread, wheat bread, rye bread, pasta, pizza, white rice, brown rice, cold cuts, popcorn, candy, donuts, baked goods, cheese, ice cream and all fast food. I figure, why not add oxygen, music and sex to that list and really seal the deal, eh?
As you might imagine, given that list, I’m currently caught perpetually bouncing between being scared, being angry and being very, very depressed.
Now, obviously, I can go without a lot of that stuff. Even the beer, which I truly love dearly, can be drastically reduced (I’ve already started doing this,… albeit begrudgingly). I’m not at all excited about making these …well … subtractions from my regular intake, but needs must, once again.
No, the stuff I’m most upset about is the looming possibility that my future mobility might be significantly hampered by this … and the pervasive realization that, much like with my tinnitus, this is a condition that, though my own blithe disregard, I brought upon myself. Now, while that might sound like the Catholic guilt talking (when in doubt … it’s YOUR OWN FAULT), it’s truly hard not to assign blame to my own irresponsible habits as the flashpoint of this problem.
Of course, there remains the (unlikely?) possibility that what I’m experiencing is a neuroma and not peripheral neuropathy, but I’m not the guy who can make that determination.
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