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.
I’ve written about Tower Records, here, loads of times (notably here, here, here and here, to name but four instances). At the risk of belaboring the point, Tower Records – while still technically a big chain – was just an incredible trove of music discovery for a nascent music fan such as myself, in the 1980’s. It had several spots around Manhattan (notably on West 66th and Broadway and, for a spell, on Third Avenue at East 85th Street), but its primary foothold was its legendary flagship location on the corner of East 4th Street and Broadway.
That fabled iteration tragically (yeah, I said it) closed in 2006, only to be replaced by the short-lived MLB Mancave (which some were more upset about than others) and then a few other vague concerns before reverting to the dormant, derelict space it was before Tower-founder Russell Solomon happened upon it in 1982.
But, back in 1985, the BBC dispatched one of its plucky journos named Andy Kershaw to go capture the full Tower Records experience, finding the young Brit running around the entirety of the location’s vast interior. If you’ve ever harbored the opportunity to return to any of Tower Records’ more remote chambers, here’s your chance.
Back in 2018, some might remember a post discussing a New Year’s Eve show from 1997 at CBGB featuring Skeleton Key opening for the Jesus Lizard. It was a remarkable video for a number of reasons – not least being that, as mentioned in that post, there is a true paucity of video evidence out there of that particular iteration of Skeleton Key. In fact, former guitarist Chris Maxwell even wrote in to my blog to find out more about the video’s true provenance.
The clip was also compelling as it was yet another taste of what it was like to experience a show at CBGB, in all its cramped, overcrowded, smelly, firetrap-y glory. Lastly, it was just an intriguing slice of a New York City music scene that simply does not exist in any shape, way or form, anymore.
Unsurprisingly, the video was taken down for whatever reason, and never re-materialized. It happens.
About a year ago, however, someone evidently posted the other half of that video, that being the performance by the headliners, the mighty Jesus Lizard. I’ve posted footage of this band playing at CBGB before (notably back in 2022), but it’s never a bad idea to evangelize the Jesus Lizard.
Like many others, I adored the Great Jones Cafe, a funky little hole in the wall on Great Jones Street that served up amazing Cajun cuisine in a cool, relaxed, bohemian atmosphere. It wasn't at all out of question to be enjoying a meal or several beverages within its intimate walls and have, say, Willem Dafoe or Laurie Anderson or Matt Dillon walk in, or to be seated next to the full membership of The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black or The Unband. The place just oozed character.
I snapped the picture above of same circa 1999. It closed in 2018, to much hue and cry, only to be replaced by ventures named Jolene and, well, Elvis. I'd never heard this story, as hipped to me by E.V. Grieve, but The New Yorker just posted an amazing article about the Great Jones Cafe's legendary Elvis bust. Read it here.
My friend Meg from Desperately Seeking the `80s posited a question on social media, this morning, and I mentioned that I had a hard time committing to a firm response. She asked me for a more nuanced appraisal, so here I go. You’re welcome.
I should say this, from the get-go: I never really gave one single crap about the Beach Boys. Sure, “Good Vibrations” and “I Get Around” were perfectly fine (the theremin on the former was a nice touch), but they never captured my imagination in the same manner their alleged peers did. I remember reading that the Beatles considered them (or Brian Wilson, more specifically) their biggest competition, and thinking “surely, you can’t be serious.” I just didn’t hear it. Like, at all.
After years of reading that Pet Sounds, their supposed landmark achievement from 1966, was this mammoth influence on so many bands, I picked up a copy and dutifully spun it. It did nothing to change my mind. I mean, it wasn’t BAD music, but in absolutely no way, shape or form did it rival anything recorded by the Beatles, much less the Stones, The Who, The Doors, Pink Floyd, _____ (your favorite classic rock band here), etc. Not even slightly. Maybe it’s because I’m a New Yorker?
I think I kept my copy of Pet Sounds for a while (I believe I may have used it as a coaster, at one point), but parted with it in a bag bound for Goodwill years ago. I don’t miss it.
There were other factors. Vocalist Mike Love seems like a roundly disagreeable and noxious character. Even their unwitting associations with the nefarious Manson Family (another thing they shared with the Beatles) did nothing to stoke intrigue for me (and I generally love that sorta stuff). The Beach Boys were always too cute, too clean cut, too choreographed — they were devoid of any semblance of edge. That was probably by design, but no edge, for me, usually means no interest. Even ABBA has fucking edge. The Beach Boys? Not at all.
So, when my friend Meg, in last week’s episode of Desperately Seeking the `80s, invoked “Kokomo,” the mid-`80s track the Beach Boys supplied to the soundtrack of “Cocktail,” I did not have the same immediate, visceral reaction that so many others describe. I mean, to my ears — with the aid of soap star heartthrob John Stamos on bongos or not — the song wasn’t a tremendous departure from the hallowed Beach Boys canon, if possibly a bit self-plagiaristic. I mean, is it trite, saccharine, cloying and dippy? Sure, but any more so than “God Only Knows” or “Don’t Worry Baby” or “Wouldn’t it Be Nice”? I don’t think so.
I actually heard it again quite recently, fittingly while an oral surgeon was doing unimaginable things to a collapsed root canal in the back of my mouth. The song’s mellifluously insidious harmonies matching the overall discomfort of that scenario to a tee.
That all said, were I ever lounging poolside, sipping on a pina colada at some hackneyed tropical getaway (not likely to happen any time soon), “Kokomo” probably would seem like the apt song to score that experience (as opposed to, say, “Logic Ravaged by Brute Force” by Napalm Death, or something). It’s a complete cheese-monkey anthem, but what exactly were you really expecting from the Beach Boys?
CODA:
I was also struck by the amorphous nature of the concept of Kokomo — an overall amalgam of all the actual destinations cited in the song, as if to suggest that the realm of Kokomo is not so much a place on a map as possibly an inter-dimensional state of being. It reminded me a bit of the lost city of Carcosa, first invoked in the shadowy texts of Ambrose Bierce in the late 1800’s and later alluded in the equally ominous works of H.P. Lovecraft and Robert W. Chambers’ “The King in Yellow.” Witness, if you will, how seamlessly Chambers’ first introduction to Carcosa fuses with the Beach Boys’ depiction of Kokomo…
Along the shore the cloud waves break, The twin suns sink behind the lake, The shadows lengthen In Kokomo
Strange is the night where black stars rise, And strange moons circle through the skies, But stranger still is Lost Kokomo.
Songs that the Hyades shall sing, Where flap the tatters of the King, Must die unheard in Dim Kokomo.
Song of my soul, my voice is dead, Die thou, unsung, as tears unshed Shall dry and die in Lost Kokomo.
I should preface this by saying that The Red House Painters were never one of “my bands.” What little I knew about them, at the time, didn’t suggest that they were something I was ever going to give a damn about. I mean, I do love my share of earnest indie rock, but there was nothing about this particular band that captured my attention. I gather, in more recent years, that lead singer Mark Kozelek went on to field a number of unsavory allegations of sexual misconduct in the same unfortunate vein as folks like Louis CK, but I don’t know enough about that to credibly opine. Should you care, there’s always Google, I suppose.
So, while this music sounds perfectly fine, I’m not citing the clip below for its musical merit, nor I am endorsing Kozelek as an artist you should go check out. I mean, if you want to, go for it.
No, the reason I’m featuring the video below is because some might remember, a few years back, a somewhat exhaustive entry I posted called Spinning Out: 102 More of the Best New York City Videos, which aggregated, well, exactly that – 102 music videos that were filmed or shot within the five boroughs of New York City. While it was, as I said, exhaustive, it was by no means comprehensive, and periodically, I come across another that warrants inclusion. As such, check out “All Mixed Up” by The Red House Painters. Shot in 1996, and like similarly-inclined videos like “Bad Reputation” by Freedy Johnston and, oddly, “Star” by The Cult, it features evocative footage of the mid-90’s iterations of midtown (sort of the Sixth Avenue side of Rockefeller Center), SoHo (specifically Greene and Crosby Streets), Central Park, the “Two Bridges” area of the Lower East Side and a tiny patch of Brooklyn.
I hate to call her out on it (although she caught the error herself before the episode was over), but my friend Jessica, on this morning’s episode of the Desperately Seeking the `80 podcast, made a fleeting allusion to Ace Frehley’s rendition of “New York Groove,” mistakenly ascribing one line in the song as an allusion to the former gay-cruising strip of East 53rd Street & Third Avenue. I was quick to pedantically pounce – as I’m wont to do, much to everyone’s chagrin – and point out that the actual line refers to East 43rd. Moreover, while Ace didn’t write the song, I can’t imagine he’d have been fully onboard with making that sort of reference.
That does still beg the question, however, of why East 43rd Street and Third was the specified destination wherein, as an “exit to the night,” things were poised to dive headlong into “ecstasy.” Then as now, I don’t believe that patch of what some now call “Midtown East” has ever been a hotbed of any stripe of libidinous carnality, one way or the other. For his part, Ace Frehley once told Rolling Stone that while he initially scoffed at the notion of recording “New York Groove,” after producer Eddie Kramer suggested it, he put his own spin on it as inspired his experience with Times Square prostitutes in the `70s. That’s … uhhh.. quite an admission, Ace, but East 43rd and Third Avenue is still nowhere near Times Square which, as we all know, is to the west of Sixth Avenue.
Unlike Ace Frehley, the track’s songwriter, Russ Ballard, was not a native New Yorker, but rather a Brit, who penned the track originally for a second-tier British glam band called Hello. I cannot say if Ballard spent any time on East 43rd Street and Third Avenue, much less the whole of New York City, prior to writing the song, so he may have just arbitrarily picked that particular corner. Stop at Third Avenue and East 43rd Street today, meanwhile, and the most exciting amenities you’re likely to encounter are a couple of banks, a Staples and a pita joint. But, one imagines, `twas not always thus.
Back to Jessica’s allusion, however, there is another rock song that very specifically pertains to the hustling scene she was projecting, that being “53rd & Third” by da brudders Ramone, which I’ve discussed here and here.
All this rumination, however, reminded me of a post I logged on the long-dormant and sadly-since-dismantled site, The New York Nobody Sings. Courtesy of the Wayback Machine, I was able to re-exhume it, so here it is now…
The Disco Duel
I used to be a frequent contributor to the ILM (short for "I Love Music") discussion boards and posted a thread there in the summer of 2005 that pitted two relatively obvious New York City anthems against each other. Here's a slightly updated version of the original question: "Taking Sides: 'New York Groove' by Ace Frehley vs. 'Native New Yorker' by Odyssey.
Yeah yeah, pedants, I know Ace didn't write "New York Groove" (it was written by Russ Ballard....oddly, a Brit...for a band called Hello). I've never heard Hello's version, but I'd bet it lacks to thwomping disco stomp of Ace's rendition....the same disco thwomp that makes it the perfect opponent for Odyssey's lush disco classic.
I heard the Odyssey track the other day probably for the first time in seven or eight years, and it really took me back. It's a wonder that the producers of "Sex & the City" never cribbed it for usage in the series. Ace's track is pumpingly celebratory. Odyssey's depiction is vibrant yet simultaneously world-weary. Ace's Manhattan is one of endless opportunity for naughty hedonism, whereas Odyssey's Manhattan is a place where chilly one night stands are de rigeur, manners are non-existent and heartbreak is a given, but you'd still never want to live anywhere else. Oddly enough, Odyssey's one destination-specific allusion is East 83rd Street.
Despite being a lifelong, dyed-in-the-wool Kiss fan, I personally might have to still go with the Odyssey track here. Yes, I know -- HERESY!While I applaud Ace's track and adore it to pieces, it's inarguably lumpen and clumsy next to the stylishly swooning "Native New Yorker." Both of these tracks positively stink of a New York City that hasn't existed for years (though I've never understood why Ace cites the corner of 3rd Avenue and 43rd street --- "it's gonna be ecstacy". That's quite possibly the dullest street corner in all of Manhattan). At this point in the proceedings, I asked participants in the discussion to pick one and cite their reasons.
To refresh your memory, ...enjoy, and get out your dancing pants!
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.
This one goes all the way back to 2016, but some of you might remember a shortseries of posts, back then, when I was trying to verify the existence of a short-lived club under Bond Street in NoHo called ‘Downtown.’ Rumors abounded Joey Ramone had a hand in it and that bands like The Lunachicks, White Zombie, Cycle Sluts from Hell, Cronos and Celtic Frost had played there. I remember Killing Joke being slated to play there, but the club closed shop before the gig in question could ever occur.
In any case, here we are in 2025 and – presuming it’s legit – our friend Michael W (whom you might remember from this post) posted the gig poster below, affirming that both the Lunachicks did indeed play there, and that it was indeed at 666 Broadway.
In later years, the space Downtown occupied turned into part of the whole “fitness corridor” plague which I lamented here, although I believe it is currently back to being empty and dormant.
Given that the band in question acrimoniously parted ways at the midpoint of the `90s, it’s exceptionally rare that I’m ever able to relay that there’s “new shit from Cop Shoot Cop” in the offing. The last time was probably circa the release of 2016’s live DVD, New York Post-Punk/Noise Series: Volume 1, which captured the band circa 1993, playing in the storied basement of producer Martin Bisi’s BC Studios in Gowanus, Brooklyn. In 2018 and 2019, Martin Bisi himself released two LPs of former protegee bands celebrating his studio’s anniversary, featuring a couple of tracks by EXCOP, a quasi-reunion of Cop Shoot Cop, albeit with former SWANS bassist Algis Kizys filling in for Tod [A], who had expatriated to Turkey. That band even played live at late, lamented St. Vitus to celebrate those record releases, although their set was all-improvisational, kind of like the fabled “jazz odyssey” episode in This is Spinal Tap. Beyond those fleeting instances, new Cop Shoot Cop news, merch or activity of any kind is sadly as strenuously unlikely as the notion of Donald Trump ever credibly paying for any of his myriad crimes (sorry, just trying to keep things timely).
Rare and unlikely, maybe… but still possible.
Some weeks back, a gentleman from a label called Jungle Records reached out to me, looking to locate contact information for the elusive former commanding officer of Cop Shoot Cop, that being the aforementioned Tod [A]. Having noticed I’d posted what is probably the most recent interview with the man back in 2023, Jungle Records thought I might know how to get ahold of him. Evidently, Jungle has acquired what remained of Big Cat Records, the British indie label who first signed Cop Shoot Cop at the dawn of the `90s. I relayed that missive to Tod in Istanbul and things proceeded from there. For my part, I was rewarded with a review copy of the limited “Record Store Day” re-release of Cop Shoot Cop’s proper debut LP, Consumer Revolt, lovingly remastered and newly pressed on blue vinyl, which you can all expect to see hit discerning, RSD-participating shops this coming April.
As a brief aside, regular readers might remember my misgivings about Record Store Day, having previously renounced it as a shallow gimmick on some occasions. I changed my tune last year, you might remember, upon spying a lovely re-release of some Sisters of Mercy material, making me something of a filthy hypocrite. And while the notion of “limited editions” sometimes reeks of a quick cash-in, I firmly support the re-mastering, re-mixing, and re-releasing of any and all music by Cop Shoot Cop, regardless of any associations to Record Store Day or Arbor Day or whatever.
Anyway, I’m happy to relay that the re-release is slavishly faithful to the 1992 Big Cat edition of the album. Of course, the original album from 1990, on Circuit Records, boasted different cover art (featuring a different band logo superimposed over the visage of a deformed baby) and, if I recall correctly, a small poster with the LP. This new edition replicates the 1992 sleeve (“Now 15% More HATE!”), as well as the inner “bag,” replete with lyrics, a designation that “Tracks 4 & 12 were recorded at some piece-of-shit studio and doctored-up later somewhere else. (I mean, who really reads this crap , anyway?)” and that those in violation of copyright reservations “will be hunted down, imprisoned, and suffer a lingering death by torture at the hands of trained mercenaries.”
The vinyl itself is now a striking shade of blue. Why blue? I honestly don’t know beyond a hunch that, well, cops frequently wear blue, but that’s just me projecting.
Sadly, I am unable to report as to how this new vinyl actually sounds, just yet, as my teenaged son Oliver absconded with my turntable, not too long back. Once I’ve remedied that quandary, I’ll let ya know.
I will say this, though. This first full long-player by Cop Shoot Cop, which was prefaced by both the visceral Headkick Facsimile and the literally-blood-splattered Piece, Man (both technically “EP’s”), captured a still-nascent iteration of the band that was refreshingly unbothered by the notion of seeming inaccessible to the layperson. As such, their utilization of untethered noise comes unrestrained by any concerns for appeasing radio-programmers or offending the bean-counting sensibilities of any easily riled middle-management monkeys from the major labels. This is reflected in both the sound and the sentiment of this record. Speaking to my alma mater SPIN in April of 1991, Tod [A] said…
We’re vomiting back all the garbage – the stuff that passes for culture – that the media shove down our throats. It’s a revolt like in-your-stomach revolting. Everything now is preprocessed and predigested.
As such, standout tracks like “Lo.Com.Denom,” “Burn Your Bridges,” “Fire in the Hole” and “Eggs For Rib” (featuring a bassline allegedly swiped from Gilberto Gill’s “Girl from Ipanema”) pull absolutely no punches, but still manage to stay stubbornly musical at their core, despite the whirring, buzzing and clanky caterwaul they come couched in.
It should’ve been the sound of the future. Maybe it still is. Rediscover it now.
As he’d probably be the first to admit here in 2025, storied Cro-Mags’ founder Harley Flanagan accrued the type of reputation, over the course of his colorfully tumultuous life, that could understandably prevent even the most charitable person from giving him the full benefit of the doubt. A "Zelig"-like figure on the Punk Scene writ large (not just New York), the youthful Harley mixed and mingled with Punk Rock royalty at a significantly tender age (see above, sitting next to Mick Jones of the Clash at The Palladium, as captured by Pennie Smith, possibly the same night she shot the cover of London Calling), cutting his very sharp teeth as the pre-teen drummer of The Stimulators before later going on to practically personify (alongside his brethren in Agnostic Front) all things New York Hardcore with his stint in Murphy’s Law and then by forming the Cro-Mags, a band whose shadow looms large as a pivotal proponent of the genre.
Along the way, Harley credibly cultivated an aura of menace around himself, establishing the notoriety of being prone to violence and volatility. I’m not making all this up, as it’s well documented by the man himself in his 2016 autobiography, “Hard-Core: Life of My Own,” and in a forthcoming documentary, “Wired for Chaos.”
But, y’know, people grow. In the same way I’d like to think I’ve fully evolved out of being the sneery, socially challenged dweeb I was in my high school years (you, of course, may beg to differ), Harley has – by all accounts – recanted many of his former ways and grown into a thoughtful and affable elder statesman, of a sort (although I doubt he’d like to be described that way). But the specter of his earlier infamy is a tough one to shake. I haven’t taken them down, but I deeply regret some posts here wherein I jumped to some conclusions about a certain incident in 2012 between him and former band mate John Joseph (an equally complicated and polarizing figure) based solely and speculatively on Harley’s by-then-cemented rep as a human wrecking-ball. The minutia of that full story was, of course, never fully disclosed, but Harley was absolved of the allegations and the charges were dropped.
Years later, I fleetingly corresponded with Harley about possibly contributing to a book project I was working on, at the time, and he couldn’t have been more accommodating about it (although said book project was shortly put on the rear burner of a stove that wasn’t even plugged in, but that’s a separate, weepy tale).
So, why am I talking about any of this stuff now? Well, Damian Abraham of Fucked-Up just launched the latest episode of his “Turned Out a Punk” podcast – which I’ve discussed here a few time – and it features a sprawling, two-hour chat with Harley Flanagan about pretty much everything under the sun. Whether you’re just a passive fan or a bug-eyed NYHC zealot who considers Age of Quarrel their gospel, it’s well worth your time.
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