Flaming Pablum

Chronicling The Core Redux: 10 Questions

For a few years now, filmmaker Drew Stone has been continually adding to his excellent video series regarding all things NYHC, The New York Hardcore Chronicles. In between shooting amazing projects like the full-length film of the same name and 2017’s epic “Who The Fuck IS That Guy? The Fabulous Journey of Michael Alago,” Stone has sought out alumni of the NYHC scene and the surrounding punk rock community to paricipate in his great, ongoing 10 Questions series.

You might remember me highlighting the one he did with Flaming Pablum favorite RB Korbet of Even Worse back in 2016, but he’s also put luminaries like Davey Gunner of Kraut, Jessie Malin of Heart Attack/DGeneration, John Joseph of the Cro-Mags, Jimmy G of Murphy’s Law, Bobby Hambel of Biohazard, Vinnie Stigma and Roger Miret from Agnostic Front, Yana Chupenko of P.M.S./Wench, the late Todd Youth of Warzone/Murphy’s Law/Agnostic Front/etc., Harley Flanagan of the Cro-Mags and literally SO MANY OTHERS from practically every conceivable era of the genre (however one cares to personally define it) in front of the mic to weigh in. If you’re a fan/student/acolyte of this scene, this music and its accompanying culture, this series is absolultely required viewing. Find them all here. 

More often than not, despite the gruff exteriors and burly reputations of some of these characters, most of the ensuing anecdotes and reminicences are nothing but warm, good natured and practically familial. I was really happy to see Drew run his 10 Questions by none other than beloved NY1 reporter and longtime Punk rocker Roger Clark this week. I’m sure he’s already trying to rope in a bunch more participants, but I’d love Drew to corner Jack Natz (Cop Shoot Cop/Undead/Virus), Bobby Steele (Misfits/Undead), Doug Holland (Kraut/Cro-Mags), Stephan Ielpi (False Prophets), Tim Chunks (Token Entry), George Tabb (Letch Patrol/Iron Prostate/Furious George), Fran Power (Ultra Violence/Clix) and more, but I realize some of these are more likely than others.

As someone who skirted the periphery of NYHC (I went to several shows and was a devout fan of certain bands, but I would feel deeply remiss calling myself a bona fide member of the scence), I cannot claim to be as versed or as deeply ensconced as any of the participants of the 10 Questions series, but because I simply cannot resist a good survey, I decided to answer Drew Stone’s usual 10 Questions (and cheat by adding an eleventh).

First Hardcore Show You Ever Saw
The first hardcore show I was lucky enough to witness would have been in either `84 or `85 at the Ritz on East 11th Street, and it was an amazing line-up of my then-favorites, The Circle Jerks sharing a bill with the incomparable D.O.A., Redd Kross and Toxic Reasons. It was absolute fucking mayhem, and I loved every nanosecond of it.

Club You Miss Most From Back in The Day
There’s a lot to choose from, here, obviously. Most of the series participants cite A7, but that was slightly before my time. CBGB was, of course, the epicenter of so much (and not just hardcore), and its loss continues to sting, but if I’m being entirely honest, I have to say the run of shows I caught at the old Ritz on East 11th Street (i.e. before it moved to 54th Street, before Webster Hall) fires my imagination the most. This all said, I also dearly miss The Marquee on West 21st, Wetlands Preserve in TriBeca, and Tramps in Chelsea, just to name three more.

Funniest Guy in the Hardcore Scene
The usual response here is Vinnie Stigma or Jimmy G. And, yes, while both of those guys are indeed hilarious, I cannot say I actually know either of them. With that in mind, I’m going to say Dean Rispler (Murphy’s Law/Dictators/Brought-Low/Hot Corn Girls/Swilson). I didn’t meet Dean until about 1990 or so (he was dating a friend of mine), but he’s a tirelessly big-hearted, inclusive, knowledgable gent who is always hilarious.

Favorite Slamdancer in the Pit (Past or Present)
Again, the usual responses here are characters like Minus, Rat Bones and various other almost mythilogical luminaries from NYHC’s storied past. While I cannot claim to have any meaningful encounters with those cats, I would cite two separate friends of mine to single out for this category – namely my former classmate Matt Harrington, who managed to start up a cheekily emphatic circle pit at an Urban Blight show, of all things, via the sheer force of his enthusiasm. My second choice would be my longtime comrade Rob D., who’d perfected a sort of gangly, loose-limbed skank with flailing limbs akimbo that was so distincive, he was once written-up for it in a review of a Claw Hammer/Laughing Hyenas double-bill at Los Angeles’ Troubadour. The piece spent more time talking about Rob’s moves than the actual bands’ performances.

Show You Wish You Saw Back in The Day
There are too many to cite, here, but off the top of my head, there was an amazing line-up at the club that was usually referred to as The Roxy on way West 18th Street that featured a lethal line-up of the Cirlce Jerks, Bad Brains, Leeway and an early iteration of Vernon Reid’s Living Colour that would have been amazing. I also quite wish I’d caught the original line-up of Kraut back in their heyday. I saw them reunite and open for GBH in the early 90’s, but never caught them at their prime.

Greatest Show You Saw in Your “Golden Age” of Hardcore
This is also a toughie. Beyond that first Circle Jerks/D.O.A. gig, a few chaotic Butthole Surfers shows – if they count as hardcore --- and a high-octane double-bill of FEAR and The Dwarves, I’d have to say the greatest was seeing the Bad Brains on the Quickness tour at the New Ritz on 54th Street. It’s a cliché, but I’d just never seen anything like it. H.R. hadn’t lost his mind, yet, so was still firing on all cylinders. Also, and this seems to get overlooked a lot, despite the hysteria their music inspired (literally the whole entire floor of the venue was one giant pit), the look of sheer, unfettered joy on Dr. Know’s face while he played was remarkable. I’ve never seen anyone come close to that.

Brooklyn or Queens
I’m a born’n’bred, dyed-in-the-wool Manhattan snob, but more of my favorite bands of that era came from Queens, if I’m being honest.

Best Pizza in New York
Funny, I’m actually working on another sprawling food-related post at the moment. Look for that soon, but, in the interim, while most of my old favorite pizzarias are long gone (much like my favorite record stores), I’m still a big fan of Lombardi’s on Spring Street, although it’s gotten way too touristy for my taste. John’s Pizza on Bleecker Street is also very nice. In terms of just grabbing a quick slice, though, my favorite spots for that are all gone. Also, friends don’t let friends buy $1 pizza. It’s an unforgivable affront to New York’s culinary heritage.

Top 3 Hardcore Drummers
I’m going to upset convention and say Johnny Feedback from Kraut, Lucky Lehrer of the Circle Jerks and John Wright of NoMeansNo.

Message to the Youth
Stop listening to bullshit, mush-mouthed pop/R&B/ersatz hip-hop and invest in the real deal.

Is Hardcore Dead?
In terms of “my” era, hardcore isn’t dead, hardcore is dad, now that we’ve all grown up, gotten married and procreated. In all honesty, I once wrote a profile of Redd Kross for CREEM magazine back in 1992, citing that first show I’d seen wherein they opened for D.O.A. and the Circle Jerks in `84/`85. At the time, I described how they’d renounced their punkier origins in favor of a more pseudo-metallic power-pop style that confused and upset most of the hardcore kids in attendance, concluding the passage by suggesting Redd Kross had the last laugh when “hardcore died” soon afterwards.

That was just myopic on my part, of course. While many of the bands I’d cared about had either flamed out or changed direction (I remember CH3, as one example, turning into a sort of “cowpunk” band in 1984 with the Airborne ep), there were entire generations of bands inspired by those original bands who sprang up in their wake, many of which I wouldn’t discover until years after the fact.

So, no ... Hardcore is nowhere near dead. 

Jeff's Records

Evidently, it’s been a whole 22 years since Jeff Buckley -- that's him above, performing at Tower Records on Broadway -- vanished beneath the water of the Wolf River Harbor in Memphis, TN and drowned (although, his body wasn’t recovered until six days later). I still remember learning about his death and being entirely incredulous about it.

I have a stupid anecdote about getting into an online spat with poor Jeff’s mother sometime after that. In those early days of online file-sharing, she was a vigilant gatekeeper of her late son’s music, and was renowned for going after his fans online. I’d dimly invoked a cover Jeff had recorded of “I Against I” by the Bad Brains on a now-long-defunct music discussion board, and she reached out and kinda went to town on me. In retrospect, it’s more sad than anything. Should you care, you can read the full stupid story here.

As a side note, according to WikiPedia –- and take from that what you will -– Jeff Buckley was once roommates with actress Brooke Smith, and it was Smith who introduced her to the music of the Bad Brains. Smith, who played Catherine Martin in “The Silence of the Lambs” (y’know – it’s her that gets the hose again if she doesn’t rub the lotion on her skin and put it back in the basket) is also the source of those amazing photos of punks and hardcore kids from the NYHC matinee scene that I wrote about way back when. Small world, eh?

Anyway, a little over two decades later, there’s been a mountain of posthumously released material from the Buckley vault, possibly even a proper release of that divisive Bad Brains cover, which was allegedly originally recorded for a radio show. But a friend of mine posted something today that I’d never seen, that being the presumably authoritative website of Jeff Buckley’s record collection.

Herein, you’ll find a lot of what I’d consider predictable stuff like Cocteau Twins, Zeppelin, Van Morrison, but there are some surprises as well. It’s not shocking to see the Bad Brains in there, but he also had a Circle Jerks album (Golden Shower Of Hits, though, not the vital Group Sex), a couple of albums by the Birthday Party, lots of Iggy Pop, a surprising amount by Skinny Puppy and even Master of Puppets by Metallica and Destroyer by KISS. Didn’t expect those last two.

Woefully, if this site is to believed, Jeff owned nothing by Killing Joke, Motorhead, the Stranglers, SWANS, XTC nor his ersatz labelmates Cop Shoot Cop (Buckley and C$C were both fleetingly signed to the UK’s Big Cat label). Moreover, he owned what I would consider an unhealthy amount of Joni Mitchell albums, but y’know … to each their own.

May he rest in peace.

Raging Against the (Tin) Machine

I wrote a few pieces, here, over the years about David Bowie’s oft-maligned tenure in Tin Machine, and – more specifically – the videos they shot within the confines of the old Ritz on East 11th Street. That came part and parcel with the allegation, some time back, that Bowie was fond of hardcore, buffered by the appearances of folks like Harley Flanagan of the Cro-Mags and Stephan Ielpi of the False Prophets in the video for Tin Machine’s “Under the God.”

Personally speaking, I always dug the first Tin Machine record. I never got around to the second one.

In any case, the videos for same have been floating around YouTube for years, in various shoddy capacities. Visual proceedings were usually grainy and pixilated. Today, my friend Jeremy pointed out that Bowie’s official YouTube channel just posted “Nine Track Compilation,” which more or less aggregates all of Tin Machine’s first videos, seemingly all filmed in that storied East 11th Street venue, and all featuring a cast of ancillary punk rockers doing their best to slam, crowd-surf and stage dive enthusiastically to the incongruous strains of Bowie’s ill-fated, late-80’s ersatz hard rock combo.

Here it is now. Enjoy it while it lasts:

Very shortly after these clips were filmed, the Ritz closed up shop on East 11th Street and moved to the space that had formerly housed Studio 54. The East 11th Street space then turned into a more dance-oriented (as opposed to live music-centric) club and reverted back to its original name, Webster Hall. Webster Hall had a long run, and then it, too, closed its doors and gradually started to erode. This year, it has re-opened as Webster Hall.

Harley Flanagan remains active himself, fronting a new iteration of the Cro-Mags, in the wake of a protracted dispute with some of his former bandmates. Stephan Ielpsi’s current doings are unknown to me, although I want to say I read about a False Prophets reunion, at some point.

Tin Machine broke up after their second album failed to make much of a dent, arguably to the relief of many Bowie acolytes. I’m not sure what its fraternal rhythm section of Tony and Hunt Sales (sons of Soupy) are up to, these days. Guitarist Reeves Gabrels was a session guitarist for a while before re-joining Bowie’s band full-time. These days, he plays in The Cure, and has grown out his hair to rival Robert Smith’s.

David Bowie, meanwhile, has since yet to return to us.

The Bug on the Bowery: Redux

I wrote at greater length about Motherhead Bug on this post from 2016, but recently uncovered this amazing footage of the band playing CBGB in 1994.

Once again, Motherhead Bug was the amorphous collective spearheaded by erstwhile Cop Shoot Cop/Foetus/Firewater (yep, them again!) member/collaborator/pal Dave Ouimet.

As previously noted, these days, Mr. Ouimet is an accomplished illustrator and author whose work you should really check out. His latest work is a children’s book called “I Go Quiet,” which is published later this year. Find out more here. He's also a delightfully funny and very nice guy. 

Here he was conjuring all sorts of mayhem with Motherhead Bug.

Too Fast To Live, Too Young to Die, Too Old to Let Go

“Daddy, everybody there looked just like you. It was just old guys in blazers for miles.” So sayeth my 15-year-old daughter, yesterday, upon sending me the picture at right of Flea’s bass guitar, as housed in the Metropolitan Museum’s latest rock’n’roll-themed exhibit, “Play It Loud.” While I was pointedly underwhelmed by the Met’s last venture toward anything rock-related -– as you might remember from this ancient post -– I am indeed curious to go check out “Play It Loud,” as it’s more about actual instrumentation than fashion.

But of the myriad rock/punk-related exhibits going on right now -– you might remember my recent, pedantic takedown of the Museum of Sex’s somewhat one-dimensional “Punk Provocation” show -– I was quite enthralled by the Museum of Art & Design’s “Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die” retrospective of so-called “punk graphics” (as first mentioned here yesterday). I qualify that with “so-called” as many bits of the ephemera on display had precious little do to with bona fide punk by any definition. I mean, I’m sorry, but while lead singer Holly Johnson may have been a veteran of fabled Liverpool punk club, Eric’s, Frankie Goes to Hollywood were not a punk band, nor were trailblazing all-female British band Girlschool, who were heavy metal to the bone. That said, I get it --- had punk not happened, neither of those two outfits would have existed, or certainly not as we would come to know them.

Insufferably arrogant, music-knowitall quibbles like that aside, the two-floored exhibit checked way more of the right boxes than wrong ones, showcasing a host of period-specific artwork from across the pertinent spectrum of bands/scenes/labels, etc. I audibly gasped several times at some of the posters displayed -– both out of genuine awe and affinity, but also out of recognition.

To be sure, it’s a very strange sensation to see things that formerly hung on your own walls now displayed in an official museum as rarified artifacts to be studied with reverence. Now sequestered at my friend Rob D’s place out in New London, for many years I had a lovingly framed poster from Road to Ruin by the Ramones on my wall, also framed at the M.A.D. show in a display case sturdy enough to hold The Shroud of Turin.

During the course of my prolonged meandering around the galleries, I was strenuously tempted to fact-check a curator who was leading a gaggle of patrons, but thought better of it. As much as she was getting some of the minutia wrong, no one likes that guy.

Anyway, if you’re as enamored of this stuff as I am, you’d do well to check it out. Below are some more of my favorite pieces from it.

Szkodzinski’s Bands of the Night

In doing a little research for that last piece about Irving Plaza, I stumbled upon this genuinely amazing website by photographer Joseph Szkodzinkski (that’s a tough one to spell, lemme tell ya).

Drawn to his site because of the truly amazing portrait of Doyle, Glen and Jerry from the Misfits at Irving Plaza (above) that came up in a Google Image search, I ended up spending vast amounts of time perusing Mr. Szkod’s archive of pictures from a host of old NYC venues of bands like the Stimulators, 999, Bauhaus, the Shirts, The Clash, the Heartbreakers, Dead Kennedys, Tuxedomoon, DNA and droves more.

If you’re as besotted with this era of NYC music and nightlife as I, you’ll love it. Check it out HERE!

The Plight of the `Plaza

Arguably more than any other venue in NYC, Irving Plaza has played host to more of my favorite bands than I can count. Back in 2007, when news broke that they were changing the name of the venue to “The Filmore New York at Irving Plaza” (which, of course, they wisely demurred from a year or so later), I tallied a list of bands I’d seen there.

They included: The Ramones, Suicidal Tendencies, Devo, Buzzcocks, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Gang of Four, Echo & The Bunnymen, Foetus, Cop Shoot Cop, Firewater, Skeleton Key, Man or Astroman, The Cult, Robyn Hitchcock, Love & Rockets, The Dandy Warhols, The Circle Jerks, James, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, B.B. King, Mission of Burma, The Wedding Present, The Wonder Stuff, Ned’s Atomic Dustbin, The Mission, Fishbone, Curve, The Fixx, Kula Shaker, The Lo-Fidelity All-Stars, Mansun, Nashville Pussy, Lush, Gus Gus, Cornershop, The Candy Snatchers, Emergency Broadcast Network, DJ Spooky, the Lunachicks and – YES, DO INDEED PLEASE WAIT FOR IT – Killing Joke.

In all candor, despite this august line-up of bands and its convenient proximity to my home, I still wouldn’t count Irving Plaza as my favorite New York venue. That title probably goes to the late, lamented Ritz, the Bowery Ballroom or the long-defunct and since-razed Marquee on West 21st Street.

BE THAT AS IT MAY ….

When word came down today, via Brooklyn Vegan, that Irving Plaza is slated to close for eight months for “renovations,” I shuddered.

Such things have closed for similar reasons before …. to never re-open.

Doesn’t Manhattan suck enough now already?

Gettin' 'Fanky' in The Streets

Yesterday afternoon, apropos of nothing in particular, I posted a video on Facebook by this great New Zealand band called The Clean, that being “Dunes” from 1989. Beyond it just being a great tune, I harbor an affinity for this video -– as richly detailed in this post from 2013 -– because it is rife with Super 8 footage of the band exploring the New York City of the summer of 1989, and visiting various favorite locales like the old Knitting Factory on East Houston Street, CBGB on Bowery, Maxwell’s in Hoboken, etc. To my mind, it just captures a time and a place perfectly.

Presumably inspired by same, my friend Frank R. then sent me a curious clip from the very same era by a performer named Charly Garcia. In all honesty, I initially had no concept who this strangely mustachioed Argentine dude was -- although that would change --  but much like the Clean video, this clip for a tune called “Fanky,” --  whatever that means -– finds Mr. Garcia and cohorts hamming it up in the streets of SoHo, Chelsea, Greenwich Village, Washington Square Park, East River Park and around the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, all circa that same turn of the decade, when downtown still felt cool, airy and arty -– and not staid, overcrowded and avaricious like it does today.

The music is sort of slickly overproduced, but still legitimately funky. Some of the video effects are distracting, but the clip still mercifully allows for some nostalgic viewing. Check it out here…

In doing a bit of further research, however, it suddenly struck me that I HAD indeed heard of Charly Garcia before. In about 1983, or so, he put out a record called Clics Moderno or…. wait for it … Modern Clix. The sleeve for same found Mr. Garcia posing in front of some very specific street art. See below…

Keen-eyed NYC street-art fans will probably recognize the shadowy figure behind Garcia as the work of Richard Hambleton (who I discussed back here). That part, while certainly cool, wasn’t what caught my eye, though. No, what struck me is that the “Modern Clix” tag refers -– presumably -– to my friend Fran Powers’ old band. As close as I can figure it, evidently Charly Garcia must have been photographed somewhere on the streets of downtown NYC and liked the picture so much, he decided to slap it on his album and name the record after it --- wittingly or unwittingly, I do not know.

As detailed in this old post, Fran Powers’ Modern Clix played an amalgam of ska/punk/funk/reggae that is worth checking out. You also might recognize Fran from his cameos is films like "After Hours" and "Hannah and Her Sisters," which he and I discussed here. 

Is he aware that Charly Garcia appropriated his tag for the title and image of his earlier record?

I will have to ask. 

Bittersweet Days

I was stuck at home today with a sore throat. I was ostensibly working from home, but still spent an inordinate amount of time watching stupid bullshit on YouTube. As it happened, both Facebook and Instagram were somewhat inaccessible today, which definitely led to me being more productive. 

In any case, during the course of same, I stumbled upon the below clip of the mighty Hoodoo Gurus playing the Ritz in May of 1987 on what would have been the tour for their sorely under appreciated Blow Your Cool album. The Hoodoo Gurus were one of those bands I discovered upon entering college, wherein several crucially informed friends of mine tried to shake me out of some rigid listening habits (i.e. punk, hardcore and histrionic gothic rock), by turning me onto bands like The Feelies, the Modern Lovers, the Velvet Underground, the Smithereens, Guadalcanal Diary, Let's Active, The Dream Syndicate, The Plimsouls and --- yea verily -- the Hoodoo Gurus. 

In any case, I loved the Mars Needs Guitars album that spawned this single, as well as the afore-cited Blow Your Cool. This clip is also fun as it gives you a great feel for what shows at the Ritz were like. I was thinking how crisp and fresh this looked, ... and then I did the math.

When this was filmed ... I was all 19 years old. Talk about bittersweet!

Thirty-two years later, I am 51. The Hoodoo Gurus, I think, are still going, if their very cool official website is to be believed. The Ritz, as laboriously over-documented here, closed, reverted to its original name -- Webster Hall -- and became less of a live music venue and more of just a giant dance club, only to close and fall into dispiriting disrepair.

But as reported earlier this year, it's now back! 

Down Cortlandt Alley ... By Horse

As laboriously extolled in this post from 2016, I’ve always been a huge fan of Cortlandt Alley, that dark, thin canyon stemming south into TriBeCa off Canal Street. I love its slightly forbidding aura, its back history as the narrow strand of pavement that once led to the Mudd Club, a storied venue I was never old enough to attend. I love its periodic bursts of street art, its weathered exteriors and rough-hewn, industrial trappings leftover from bygone eras. In every season, Cortlandt Alley takes on a new vibe. I never find it boring or unpleasant to walk down, even if I’m hopscotching over random dollops of (human?) excrement, dead rats and pigeons flattened the night before by delivery trucks, or evading the suspicious eyes of furtive weed-smokers in its darker recesses.

And I walk down it a lot. After I drop my son off at school in the Gramercy neighborhood, I hop on a downtown 6 train and get off at Canal to walk the rest of the way to my office at the bottom of Manhattan, taking a hard left down Cortlandt Alley on each and every one of those commutes. I’m now so familiar with that particular strip that I practically notice each and every change to its topography on a daily basis.

As was seemingly inevitable, however, there’s been a recent uptick in renovation and refurbishment in the Alley (as I mentioned just last summer). Scaffolding appears and disappears with some regularity, as certain addresses endeavor to spruce themselves up. While a wholesale facelift of the stretch seems unlikely, certain patches of it are very definitely changing. At its southernmost segment between White & Franklin Streets, a pricey-but-seemingly-dormant condo vainly tries to keep up appearances. But the real big activity is happening on the portion between White and Walker Streets. A few months back, a series of light fixtures were installed along its easterly wall, decimating a bit of this byway’s signature gloom. Beyond that, there was clearly something brewing in that building. Sure enough, just last week, some signage went up. Evidently, Cortlandt Alley is now home to a new venture called the Au Cheval Diner.

Here’s how the official website describes it…

An eclectic diner hidden down Cortlandt Alley with a passion for eggs, Au Cheval elevates traditional diner fare. Guests can indulge in dishes ranging from chopped chicken liver and roasted bone marrow, to traditional sandwiches, egg-focused entrees, and griddled cheeseburgers. The bar program showcases strong, classic cocktails including the Negroni, Vieux Bonal, and Hemingway Punch. A robust draught beer list offers a wide range of neighborhood, domestic, and international selections. The dimly lit restaurant, pulsating with an eclectic and resonant soundtrack, features leather booths, reclaimed wood paneling and a zinc bar that wraps around the open kitchen.

If my high school French still serves me well, Au Cheval means “by horse” …. a particular species of mammal that very rarely graces Cortlandt Alley, these days. While I am wary of Cortlandt Alley becoming further gentrified, it’s a bit late to lament the damage of that particular tsunami in 2019. I do, at least, appreciate Au Cheval’s relative discretion. Yeah, they’ve brought a bit of polish to the pathway, but we’ll see where it goes. I’d be curious to hear what constitutes their “eclectic and resonant soundtrack.” I want to believe they’d play geographically-appropriate stuff like DNA, The Lounge Lizards, Teenage Jesus, The Cramps and the like, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Still, I might try to check it out. Watch this space.

Here's a bit of DNA playing just down the way from Au Cheval's front door. Today, this space is someone's doubtlessly well-appointed, private and expensive apartment.