Flaming Pablum

Who Made the Scene at By Any Means Green?

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.

Back … Again … to Magickal Childe

At the risk of alienating vast, huge swathes of what remains of my readership, here’s yet another update on that silly Magickal Childe photo, which was last invoked here.

By request of my friend Howard, I blew up a few prints of the thing and mailed one off to him. I also figured that the new proprietors of the space at 35 West 19th Street – now Vinyl Steakhouse -- should have some sort of documentation of their restaurant’s former incarnation, so I slipped one in an envelope and dropped one off for them. Evidently, they’re currently offering a signature cocktail in honor of the occult emporium’s namesake, so be sure to ask for that.

Tell’em I sent ya, … see where that gets ya.

Back to McCarren Pool: Devo in 2008

Tonight will be either the eighth or ninth time I’ve seen my beloved Devo perform, having previously caught them at shows at Radio City Music Hall, the Palladium, the Newport Music Hall in Columbus, the Central Park Summerstage, the Hammerstein Ballroom, the McCarren Park Pool in Brooklyn, Irving Plaza and at least one or two others I’m forgetting. I had tix to see them return to Radio City Music Hall in 2021, but that got nixed. As Devo was my first-ever concert in 1981, I’m bringing Oliver, and they will be HIS first-ever concert. We are very much looking forward to it.

Someone recently uploaded the whole show at McCarren Pool from 2008, which was an amazing gig indeed. I ranted about it in real time here. This video omits the very end, however, when Devo tried to come out for an encore (with Booji Boy) and some McCarren Pool goon literally snatched the mic out of Mark’s hand. So much for Brooklyn being laid back.

Here was Jerry’s take on the incident (from this oral history):

Casale: At the end of every Devo show, the band comes out with Mark wearing the Booji Boy mask and we do “Beautiful World.” The sound always comes down and Booji Boy does a faux-Springsteen satire telling long drawn-out stories, but not at McCarren. The pool had a ridiculously early curfew of 10 p.m., but we didn’t think it was a hard and fast rule. Before we started, the mics and the amplification went dead thanks to the long arm of the law. I’m screaming at the sound guys on the side of the stage, the audience is booing and hissing, it’s getting ugly. Two security guards walk out on the stage and tell Booji Boy he’s got to go. In his high-pitched voice he’s saying, “I just want to talk to them,” and the guards grab him by the arms and walk him off the stage. We thought, “We’re the headliners, they have to let us finish our set.” We couldn’t believe it. All those radiation suits and energy domes became sad clown outfits.

A then-derelict giant swimming pool. I remember dutifully rockin’ out at this show in a pair of battered ol’ Chuck Taylors. After two hours of boucin’ up and down on the pool’s unrelenting, cracked concrete floor, I could barely walk.

A few years later, McCarren Pool stopped hosting live music and was converted back into a public pool in 2012, something of a death knell for that era of Williamsburg's character. 

Six years after this performance, original Devo member Bob "Bob 2" Casale passed away, the second original member to die after drummer Alan "Human Metronome" Myers in 2013. Today, the surviving members -- Mark Mothersbaugh, Jerry Casale and Bob "Bob 1" Mothersbaugh -- are flanked by longtime drummer Josh Freese -- who has played with everyone from A Perfect Circle and Guns N' Roses through Weezer, The Vandals and Nine Inch Nails -- and guitarist Josh Hager, formerly of The Rentals and ShadowParty.  

Crank it.

Back Again to Wendy's Wall

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. 

And this, once again, was the Plasmatics…

Back to The Bunker

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.

That Was Spinal Tap

If I recall correctly, I remember first seeing “This is Spinal Tap” with my mother shortly after its 1984 release at a lavish movie theatre on West 57th, just down the road a piece from Carnegie Hall. As an avowed heavy metal acolyte, then as now, I was particularly impressed that Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer and Michael McKean had gone the extra mile in their satire by actually writing, recording and performing all original music for the film and its accompanying soundtrack album (which, I believe, I went out and bought the same day). They cut no corners.

Clumsily marketed as some sort of slapstick endeavor (the original poster actually featured a guitar twisted into a pretzel mimicking the poster for Zucker-Abrams-Zucker’s “Airplane”), “This is Spinal Tap” was a thousand times more nuanced and clever than just a string of cheap gags. Written with a genuine reverence for the music it was parodying, the film hit a little too close to home for several musicians (I believe Gene Simmons says he can’t watch it to this day). It was also a watershed moment not only for Christopher Guest (who’d go onto write and release similarly studied parodies like “Best in Show” and “Waiting for Guffman”) but in popular culture writ large — whether tongue-in-cheek or not, it birthed the concept of (and officially coined the term)… “rockumentary.”

I remember unapologetically putting tracks from the `Tap album — notably “Hell Hole,” “Big Bottom” (an all-bass composition that predated my beloved Cop Shoot Cop by five or so years), “Tonight We’re Gonna Rock You Tonight,” “Stonehenge" and “Sex Farm,” to name my favorites — on several mix tapes, sandwiched between songs by bona fide metal bands singing no-less-ridiculous songs like “Looks That Kill,” “Number of the Beast, “All Men Play on Ten,” “Balls to the Wall" and “Animal (Fuck Like a Beast).” I was entirely onboard team Spinal Tap, and even snapped up their Christmas single, “Christmas with The Devil.”

Thirty-eight (!!!) years later, the film, for the most part, still holds up, its iconic lines like “Hello, Cleveland,” “Mime is money,” “These go to Eleven” and “Have a Good Time, All the Time!” having been fully baked into the pop cultural vernacular. Comedy, culture and music have all changed so much in the ensuing decades that it can’t help, in parts, seeming like a dated period piece, but I don’t believe its creators ever expected it to have the longevity it attained.

This all said … while I am a “Spinal Tap” fan for life, … it very assuredly does NOT need a sequel.

Buried Beneath the Bollocks

I feel like there’s more and more Sex Pistols content in my social media feeds, these days. Today makes sense, as it would have been Sid Vicious’ unthinkable 65th birthday, but beyond that, the band has been catapulted back into the headlines over (yet another) bitter feud, that being the one over an entirely needless biopic on the FX channel. Despite being directed by Danny Boyle (he of “Trainspotting” fame) and allegedly based on “Lonely Boy” the memoir of Pistols’ guitarist Steve Jones, “Pistol” is pretty much already dead on arrival due to a number of factors. First and foremost, legendary Pistols frontman John “Rotten” Lydon, patently refused to participate in/abet/endorse the film, and has since gotten venomously litigious about it, to which I say, fair enough. I may still have pointed misgivings about the man’s confusing politics (as addressed here, here and here), but he has my full support on this matter.

Secondly, I think there’s also a bit of fatigue about this particular period of popular culture, and I don’t think the masses otherwise preoccupied with Kanye West, Pete Davidson and BTS really harbor any real fascination for the heyday of British Punk. What once seemed barbarous and shocking has essentially become a tired old, over-rhapsodized chapter of “Dad Rock.”

Beyond that, in the specific case of the Sex Pistols, there’s already been a wealth of documentation about their sneery ascendance and their messy implosion. I mean, just off the top of my head, there was the band’s own abortive film, the Julien Temple-directed “ Great Rock n’ Roll Swindle,” there was “The Punk Rock Movie,” there was Alex Cox’s flawed “Sid & Nancy,” and Julien Temple’s documentary, “The Filth & the Fury.” Not to be outdone, Temple even did a third Pistols move, “There’ll Always Be an England,” which documented an anniversary performance. There have also been numerous books and biographies. Lydon’s written at least three memoirs. The story of the Sex Pistols has been told and re-told too many times already. There was never a need for a biopic.

For my money, however, I’ve always been of the opinion that if you’re genuinely curious about the Sex Pistols, the ONLY thing you ever needed was a copy of Never Mind the Bollocks. Go get that. Listen to it … and get on with your lives.

Astor Place 1983

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. 

The Photograph (Slight Return to Magickal Childe)

Just a quick follow-up to this post. Being that this photo keeps getting strangely invoked every couple of years, I figured I’d dig out the negative to make some better prints of it. My friend Howard (invoked here, a million years ago) actually expressed interest in getting a blown-up print of it, so that’s what I did. Honestly, it’s a wee bit darker than I’d prefer, but it’s still pretty nice. I made a few, so if you’re interested, as well, do let me know.

Once again, here in 2022, the space that once was Magickal Childe at 35 West 19th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues is now slated to open up in May as Vinyl Steakhouse. Find out more about that venture right here.

Meanwhile, here's a glimpse of Magickal Childe in it's hellfire-flecked heyday...

ADDENDUM: In searching around, I also happened upon this video ... an homage to Magickal Childe by an ensemble called Cruz Machine. My photo again appears here about three minutes in, wherein they try to conjure its return...(and still I get no credit). Anyway, enjoy...

Back to The Village

I’ve spoken about the late Nelson Sullivan here many times before, but in a nutshell, he was this sort of visionary character who took tremendous pains to document his life and his experiences on video, which, circa the `80s when he was doing so, involved some comparatively unwieldly equipment.

This particular strip below was actually shot be Nelson on Super8 film, which is not quite as clunky an affair as video. In any case, there isn’t a date on this, but here Nelson captures some revealing footage of Greenwich Village and what is now frequently referred to as “the West Village” (usually incorrectly) from the 1970's. It’s striking how some aspects of it don’t look that different, even this many decades later. Here’s the official description.

Super 8 films shot by Nelson Sullivan on and around Christopher Street in the 1970s. These five reels feature shots of everyday life, focusing on pedestrians, traffic, and the buildings in the area, beginning with a long shot of the vacant Stonewall Inn. Other scenes feature Paws and Claws pet shop, the intersection of Christopher and Gay Street, Tor Restaurant, Rastro Importers (383 Bleecker Street), Frankel Pharmacy, Village Cigars, Riker's, the Christopher Street-Sheridan Square 1 Train station, St. Veronica's Church, and the inside of the former post office at 152 Christopher Street. The final reel begins on the uptown platform of the 1 station, where Nelson boards the train and rides for several stops before the film runs out.

Check it out....