Flaming Pablum

Drinks on Ms. Adu: Settling the Great Sade Debate

A reader named Gabriella (I believe) just weighed in to assert her piece on the Sade question (which I’ve already devoted two posts to), but I unwittingly deleted her comment by accident -- so please weigh back in, Gabriella! Apologies.

The gist of her comment, however, was to emphatically confirm that Sade never lived in New York, thus never poured drinks at Danceteria and that her former boyfriend, the afore-cited Robert Elms, never worked as a New York club DJ. I picked up that last bit of info from Wikipedia, so go know, as they say. I don’t pretend to be an authority about any of this – I’m just trying to get to the bottom of the rumor.

With all this in mind, I reached out to my old comrade Willie (not his real name). You might remember me invoking him on a few posts here (notably here, here and here). In a nutshell, Willie was a precocious high-school classmate of mine, who somehow gained carte blanche at several Manhattan nightclubs while the rest of us snivelling teens were still squeezing blackheads, listening to Motley Crue and playing our Atari 2600s. Willie attracted quite a bit of stick from the rest of our class, at the time, as we were somewhat roundly incredulous at his presumably tall tales of late-night debauchery alongside the hip glitterati. In a nutshell, many thought he was simply full of shit. In later life, as I became immeresed in a frankly dubious “career” as an ersatz “music journalist,” I found myself regularly chatting with veterans of the New York City club community. When I did so, I could never resist the urge to ask if any of them knew my pal Willie (that sounds like a euphemism for something, but I assure you it’s not). More often that not, they answered in the affirmative. As it turned out, Willie was not quite as full of shit as many might have assumed.

Anyway, in the wake of this great Sade debate, I figured I’d reach out to Willie, Jack of All Clubs, as he would at least have some degree of an informed opinion on the notion. I put the question to him: Did Sade ever bartend at Danceteria?

Willie, in turn, reached out to Danceteria’s owner (who he is indeed Facebook friends with). Here is that answer:

“She probably went behind the bar and served a few drinks as a promo stunt when she played with her band Pride, but best to ask _______ [name redacted by me], as she put the whole thing together. Sade was not on the payroll or scehdule, though.”

Again, at this stage of the proceedings, I have zero reason to doubt my friend Willie’s contacts and information. I don’t know the individual who allegedly “put the whole thing together,” so I’m not going to pursue that, but as far as I’m concerned, this legend has been debunked.

….unless you have evidence to the contrary?

Here's what the most celebrated former iteration of Danceteria at 30 West 21st Street looks like today. Not as much fun is had within.

And here's how it used to look ...

Sade Behind The Bar?

Ironically, I prefaced the last post with a preamble asserting that I didn’t like getting things wrong, but….

Shortly after posting the last entry about Sade’s alleged stint bartending at Danceteria, my scrupulous pal Miles (you may remember him from this post and that post) weighed in…

Not wanting to knock your latest post but... I’m highly skeptical that Sade bartended at Danceteria. Nothing in any of the books / posts I’ve ever read mention her living in NYC pre-record deal. Certainly the first US show was there, but I just googled the shit out of it and only the Vice post you linked to (which seems to be written by a teenager whose just discovered the downtown scene), a further post from a year later that makes the briefest mention and your post come up. Wikipedia says nothing about her living in NY. Everything I’ve read before is that she was part of the London post-Blitz club scene like Le Bear Route, the Kilt, etc while she was at fashion school then which is where she joined Pride who morphed into Sade... was the Vice article where you originally heard she bartended in NY?

As it happens, the Vice piece was not the first source of this legend/rumor/myth for me, although I’m hard-pressed to define what was, at this late stage of proceedings. With my own Google search, I can point out that in a piece in BoweryBoysHistory from five years prior to the Vice piece, Sade’s Danceteria-barkeep tenure is also fleetingly mentioned.

While exhaustive, Wikipedia posts aren’t always that reliable. I did find further fodder for Miles’ argument, however, in this excerpt from Paul Simper’s book, “Pop Stars in My Pantry” which – while not ruling out a later possible stint as a bartender – does seem to suggest Sade never called NYC home for any sizable period.

By the same token, the Wikipedia page does mention her early relationship with English writer/broadcaster Robert Elms who, in the `80s, was a club DJ in New York. Conceivably (and without any evidence), one could maybe suggest that during one of those periods, Sade went with him and took a gig at Danceteria, but this is strictly wafer-thing projection.

Compounding all this, the stately Miss Adu is not especially versed to giving interviews, nor has she – as yet – written an exhaustive memoir.

So, … is it simply an urban myth?

Weigh in.

This, meanwhile, is my favorite track of hers.

Downtown with Sade

This is kind of a dumb one, but I feel it’s worth addressing, as I don’t really like to get shit wrong. I mean, it certainly happens – probably more so than I’d prefer – but when I can, I like to correct my mistakes.

In any case, I have a friend named Peter, who I actually met when he reached out to me about some entry or another I posted here on this stupid blog about some subject simillarly near’n’dear to his heart. Turns out that we had a lot of stuff in common, and became fast friends thereafter.

These days, Peter works at a spot in SoHo that I find myself walking by on my communtes home from the office, and we’re getting into the habit of stopping and chatting.

During the course of same last night, Peter started some anecdote that -– for a reason that now elludes me -– involved an invocation of sultry pop chanteuse Sade Adu. Knowing our mutually shared allegiance to all things Punk Rock, Peter felt obligated to preface his invocation with a sheepish confession that he’d always loved Sade. Not that he was worried, but I told him that I – too – stand with Team Sade (technically and pedantically, it’s worth pointing out that Sade -– like Blondie before them -- is a band, and not just its titular singer). In college, alongside apparently mandatory copies of the first Violent Femmes record and the Legend compilation by Bob Marley (everyone I knew seemed to own both of these), you were always bound to find a copy of Sade’s Diamond Life. Didn’t matter if you otherwise listened exclusively to Black Sabbath, Oingo Boingo or fuckin’ Hank Williams – everyone owned Diamond Life, if only in that it was simple, sonic shorthand for “don’t come knockin’.” If I heard “Smooth Operator” or “Hang On To Your Love” or “Frankie’s First Affair” emanating from behind my front door during those four years, that usually meant that one or more of my roommates were … y’know …. goin’ at it. It was either that or Avalon by Roxy Music.

Yeah, so anyway, I love Sade. You’d be a fool not to. Beyond their music being sublimely crafted sophisto-pop ripe for the classiest of sexytime, there’s just no arguing with the enigmatic Ms. Adu’s voice. Feel fee to disgaree, but you’re just wrong.

Back to Peter’s story: For some reason he felt the need to invoke Sade with regards to a torrid teenage tryst he’d been attempting to conduct at the time with a young lady who went to my high school (this was a year or two after I’d graduated -– we didn’t cross paths). It was at this inconvneient point in Peter’s narrative that I interjected with a bit of unsolicited trivia.

“Dude, you know Sade used to bartend in the East Village, right?”

This kinda de-railed Peter’s monologue, so I never found out how his story came to fruition.

The problem was, I couldn’t remember the specifics. Was it King Tut’s Wah-Wah Hut (now Niagara) on Avenue A? or the Lismar Lounge (now d.b.a.) on First Avenue? Those didn’t sound right. Can you imagine Sade at the Lismar Lounge? Maybe it was Downtown Beirut???

In any case, I swore to him that it was true.

Turns out, of course, I was off on a couple of points. Sade Adu was indeed a bartender, and did indeed spend some time on the Lower East Side (see photo below of “Sade & Co in Alphabet City in 1982,” purloined from NYC Nostalgia), but the venue wherein she poured drinks … was actually Danceteria, which actually makes a bit more sense, when ya think about it.

So, yeah, my bad. You can read what I have to say about Danceteria, meanwhile, here, here, and here, …. should you care, of course.

ADDENDUM: there have been ... developments. 

The Continental is Dead

I already said my formal goodbye to The Continental in February of 2006, when they removed the stage at the rear of the room and stopped hosting live music. I literally never set foot in the place again, after that. Once it reverted into just another shitty East Village bar – the type of venture the neighborhood already had in unwieldy abundance – there really was no reason for my further patronage.

This all said, in the last couple of weeks, the easterly strip of Third Avenue between the corner of St. Marks Place and the Cooper Union dormitory has been effectively razed. The buildings that once housed that McDonald’s, the Continental, St. Marks Pizza (and its many abortive, follow-up concerns) and the vape shop on the corner that used to be an Optimo newspaper shop are all gone for good, soon to be replaced by a massive development that will block out the sun and decmiate any remaining semblance of neighborhood character.

You may remember I posted a pair of “then and now” pics of that strip in recent weeks, which prompted one specific regular reader to typically take me to task for lionizing and lamenting a patch of the East Village the viability of which as a genuine hub of subculture (or whatever) has been long extinguished. I don’t argue with that point, necessarily. It’s been a long, damn while since this strip held fascination for anyone beyond SantaCon participants. This all said, despite its final thirteen years as just another antagonistic douchebag bar, once upon a time, The Continental counted me as a regular.

As laboriously cited elsewhere on this blog, during the 90’s, I was routinely found in attendance at the venue in question for any number of shows by bands like Nashville Pusssy, The Unband (above), The Figs, The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black, The Upper Crust, The Pleasure Fuckers, The Candy Snatchers, Furious George, Falafel Mafia, Iron Prostate, The Niagaras, Mephiskapheles, The Bullys, the criminally short-lived Lee Harvey Keitel Band, and countless others. No, it wasn’t the nicest joint, and the stories of owner Trigger’s thorny eccentricities are myriad and colorful, but as a place to catch bands of a certain variety, it checked all the right boxes and then some.

One of my favorite pictures of my dear friend Rob D. and myself was captured there. We’re depicted downstairs, loitering outside the restrooms while – if memory serves – the Candy Snatchers were dodging projectiles above us. Here’s the photo now. Decorum was not necessarily the order of the moment.

And here’s all that remains of The Continental now.

Never Say Never Again: The Return of The New York Never List

Inexplicably loyal readers might remember a certain entry here from the teeth-gnashing days of 2015 (I was unemployed for most of that year, y’see, which might explain the preponderance of lengthy posts) wherein I windily cited with typically laborious aplomb both all the notable, “quintessentially” New York City things I’ve done/tried/seen/visited and a tidy list of ten such things that — despite being an oft-cited native of these Manhattan streets — I had never done, for whatever reason.

There wasn’t necessarily an overarching point to the whole endeavor. I think it spoke to both the perception of what constitutes the quintessence of something and also the lazy inclination to take certain things for granted. I mean, if you literally live just down the street from something, you might not feel the same sense of urgency to go check it out as someone who is only visiting. Convenient proximity is the enemy of exotica.

Anyway, I don’t know that it’s necessarily worth noting, as they say, but since I first posted that entry back in 2015, I have actually stepped inside One Fifth Avenue (albeit, only its dark, stately lobby), and I did finally make it to The Top of the Rock only a month after I’d claimed I’d never been, and proceeded to replicate a fabled Bob Gruen portrait of Joe Strummer with my son Oliver.

In any case, for no readily apparent reason, I thought I’d throw another few “nevers” into the mix and see what happens. Herewith a few more arguably “quintessential” New York City activities I’ve never bothered doing.

1. I’ve never ridden a CitiBike
No accident, this. I grew up riding my bike all over the city, and even then -- as I was blithely courting all sorts of stupid peril -- I knew my place in the great food chain of the Manhattan street. In the same way you don’t provoke Great White sharks while snorkeling in the Florida Keys, you did your best to remember that buses, delivery trucks, cars and taxis basically don’t give a rolling rat fuck about your wellbeing. After seeing a few too many frankly harrowing bike accidents, I forsook further bicycle-riding in New York City once my children were born. Then the bike lanes and the CitiBikes appeared, and suddenly the streets were filled with entitled bicycle dilettantes who selectively disregard certain traffic rules while ferociously adhering to the ones that best serve their own interests. I can tolerate that sort of brazen hypocrisy from seasoned cyclists and/or bike messengers (i.e. people whose lives and/or occupations are pronouncedly interwoven with that particular mode of transport), but not from the CitiBikers. If you’re pedaling one of those clunky warhorses around, you’re obviously not very serious about it. New York City is never going to become Amsterdam. That’s not a preference, that’s just a fact.

2. I have never been to the 9/11 Museum
While I have indeed passed through the site, and searched around the perimeter of the fountains for the name of my fallen friend from high school who died in the north tower that morning, I am routinely driven out by the hordes of selfie-stick-wielding tourists who feel comfortable posing and smiling in what is ostensibly designed as a place for reflective solemnity. I have never waited on line for – much less set foot in – the adjacent museum. While it may sound melodramatic and hyperbolic, the events of that day still seem too fresh to require a museum.

3. I have never been to the top of WTC 1
… which I will never refer to as the “Freedom Tower.” I harbor absolutely zero desire to ever visit the top of that.

4. I have never attended an event at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn
This one is somewhat surprising, as the venue in question has played host to numerous concerts that would have otherwise engaged my interests. My beloved Killing Joke are even slated to play there next month, although they’re opening for Tool. I’m not about to spend upwards of three figures to watch my favorite band of all time deliver an opening-band set (forty minutes at most?) to an arena full of disinterested Tool fans.

5. I have never visited the Hudson Yards’ Vessel
…and never will, if I have any say in the matter.

6. I have never taken an open-door helicopter tour over Manhattan
This trend was becoming kind of a big thing, for a little while, until one plunged into the East River, a year or so ago, killing three of its passengers in a horrible manner. I love a good photo-op of New York City, but I’ll pass on this option, thanks.

7. I have never been to the new Whitney Museum at the base of the High Line
I grew up roaming around the old Whitney on the Upper East Side (now the Met Breur). In the same way I never went to the new Hog Pig or the new Max Fish, I am sort of inclined leave the old Whitney in my head as I remember it. I mean, I’m not averse to checking out the new one, but it’s not my first priority.

8. I have never attended a show at the Apollo Theater in Harlem
Nine times out of ten, the bands I'm clamoring to see aren't likely to be playing at this storied venue, although Metallica did play there a little while back, if memory serves. I would love to go check it out, but -- as yet -- have not. 

The rest of these, meanwhile, are all food related...

9. I have never shopped at Zabar's on the Upper West Side
Yes, I know ... shock, horror, outrage. Sorry, I assume it must be some kind of fabulous, but being that I've never lived on the Upper West Side, it's just never struck me as a priority. I've been to Sahadi's in Brooklyn and Kalustyan's in Little India, if that makes you feel any better, but never Zabar's. 

10. I've never eaten at a Momofuku
I believe there are Momofukus in other cities as well, but no ... I've never partaken of their pork buns.

10. I've never sampled the soul food at Sylvia's in Harlem
In my defense, I'd cite that I did go to The Pink Tea Cup in the West Village for soul food on a few occasions, but have never, as yet, made it to Sylvia's. 

11. I've never bought anything at Russ & Daughters on the Lower East Side
If I'm being honest, I'm not really a whitefish/pickled herring/chopped liver/baked salmon kinda guy. I like that it's still there and that it's always crowded, but I just don't think I'm cut out to be a member of its culinary demographic. Given this information, it shouldn't be surprising that I've never shopped at Barney Greengrass on the Upper West Side either. That just means more sturgeon for you! 

12. I've never stood on line for a cronut at the Dominique Ansel Bakery
....and friggin' neither should you. 

 

Hardcore Under Glass

I had a reader named Michael write in, quite recently, in response to an entry I posted back in June about the Circle Jerks. I’m always heartened to connect with folks who are just as invested in the minutia of these things as I still am, as it makes me feel like I’m not wasting my time documenting all this stuff.

In any case, while I was writing back to Michael to address a point about the changing membership of the band throughout the middle part of the `80s -– specifically when the rhythm section of, first, drummer Lucky Lehrer and then bassist Roger Rogerson left the ranks to be fleetingly replaced by Earl Liberty and the mighty Chuck Biscuits -- I was trying to illuminate the point that, at the time, news about hardcore bands was pretty threadbare. Detailed reports about the hardcore scene weren’t exactly that readily available. Maybe there’d be the odd mention of a certain band or two in SPIN, but Rolling Stone wouldn’t really touch the stuff with any meaningful credibility. You either heard about developments via word of mouth (living uptown, as I did, I got reulgar tips from my contact Brian, an older punk rocker who worked at a nearby Crazy Eddie, who I mentioned here and here) or through zines like MaximumRocknRoll, Forced Exposure and/or Flipside (to name three), and those weren’t always that easy to find either, unless you want to specifc downtown shops like See/Hear, etc. You had to genuinely stay invested to know what was going on.

The first time I ever saw the Circle Jerks at the Ritz in 1985, I remember being surprised to see that Roger was gone. Lucky had split in, I think, 1983, but don’t quote me on that. Regardless, again, if your only reference for information was what you found on the back of pertinent album covers, you were doubtlessly going to be behind the times, so to speak.

Anyway, in trying to piece the specifics back together, I did a Google search – something you obviously couldn’t do in 1985 – to try to find out who might have been on drums at that specific Ritz gig. I want to say it was the great Chuck Biscuits, but it very well might still have been this guy John Ingram, who stepped in after Lucky left. Incidentally, for a much more authoritative breakdown, I highly recommend David Markey’s excellent documentary, “My Life As a Jerk,” which I wrote in greater detail about here.

While I didn’t find out that particular bit of info, I did unearth something pretty striking, specifically something that speaks to the same sentiment I expressed in my post about The Museum of Arts & Design punk graphics exhibit last April. Back on that post, you might remember I expressed the strange sensation of seeing things that formerly hung on my own walls throughout high school and college suddenly being displayed under glass like priceless, ancient Egyptian antiquities. I’m reminded of that scene in “Raiders of the Lost Ark” wherein Indy and Belloq have an exchange in a Cario café, and the duplicitous French archaelogist mentions burying a worthless watch in the sand, only to have it become something future achaelogists will kill each other for thousands of years later. Technically speaking, 1984 was only 34 years ago, but that might as well be a thousand lifetimes ago, to some minds.

Sure enough, with that single Google search, up came the signature flyer for the gig in question (above), presented as part of Chris Williamson’s Rock Hotel series (which I spoke in detail about way back here). What was striking about this, however, was that the lovingly presented image of the flyer was not being hosted by some equally pedantic shrine to all thinks punk, but rather by a much loftier outlet entirely. Now evidently part of the Architecture & Design collection of no less than The Musuem of Modern Goddamn Art (that’s MoMa, to you and me), Chris Williamson’s flyer for this very show is considered a bona fide work of art.

That kinda blows my mind.

Check out the specifics of this piece – Object 310.2012 – by clicking right here.

Just as a side note, I did not bring a camera with me that night, and have never spotted any photographs of the Cirlce Jerks, D.O.A. or Toxic Reasons from that evening, but I did prize photos of the mighty Redd Kross (captured between their Teen Babes from Monsanto and Neurotica iterations, specifically) from that very night at the Ritz.

 

St. Marks Place & Third Avenue ... Now

..in 2019

St. Marks Place & Third Avenue

...in 2014

Oasis in Manhattan

If I’m being honest, I was never especially blown away by Oasis. I mean, they were certainly quite capable of cranking out a series of perfectly respectable-albeit-derivative singles that were loaded with catchy hooks and reminiscent of various well-established rock motifs, but I couldn’t quite understand why they enjoyed such a robust amount of popularity when – to my mind – some of their more musically adventurous fellow countrymen in bands like Suede, Blur, Pulp, Elastica and several others were stalled on lower rungs of the ladder. I mean, despite what short-lived NYC indie band Thin Lizard Dawn suggested, I never believed Oasis sucked, but I just didn’t think there was anything especially exceptional about them. I also never really warmed to Liam Gallagher’s voice, a sort of whiney amalgamation of Lennon and Lydon. I also never understood his penchant for basically standing stock-still when performing.

But, y’know, what the Hell do I know? Oasis went onto become one of Britain’s biggest musical exports, for a while, until the wheels fell off and the Gallagher brother could no longer stand each other. I’ve frequently suggested that if their music was as entertaining as their endearingly contentious interviews, I’d have been way more into Oasis. At the very least, Liam and Noel were quite handy with their pithy quips.

I’m only invoking their name here for a couple of reasons. I was recently discussing them with some work colleagues, and I came across the shot above. Somewhat famously, Oasis’ New York City debut performance was at Wetlands Preserve down on Laight Street in TriBeCa, a storied venue most renowned for spawning the neo-hippy jam-band scene comprised of bands like The Spin Doctors, Phish, Blues Traveler, et al. To be fair, while that was indeed Wetlands’ whole shtick, most of the bands I went to go see there had nothing to do with that vibe. From ska to funk to hardcore punk, Wetlands’ booking policy was refreshingly open-ended with regards to genre, so Oasis playing there wasn’t all that out of left field. More to the point, one could argue that Oasis’ music was no less retro-philic than the club’s more celebrated acts who were continually invoking the spirit of Woodstock, et al.

Regardless, while it was a decent-sized, bi-level club, the actual performance space was fairly intimate. I seem to always remember it being oppressively loud, as the sound bouncing off the back room’s concrete walls (floridly painted with pastoral scenes of flower-children dancing in leafy glades) had nowhere to go. That said, it was always a fun space to see a band. I never had a bad time there.

In doing research for this post, though, I discovered that the band actually graced the Wetlands stage twice on their debut American tour – first in July of 1994, and a second time three months later in October. You can see their full performance from the October date here.

I’m including the photo above from the July gig not just because it seems like a typical shot of the band, finding Liam in his signature stance, but also because it’s so telling of its era. Not only does no one have their fucking phone out, but I just love the guy pictured in the background just under Liam (the bespectacled gent in the Failure t-shirt). Dutiful rock journalist that he must have been (and given my own involvement in that vocation, I believe I might know the dude in question – Jon Wiederhorn, is that you??), he’s staring intently at Liam and actually taking notes with a pen and pad. That’s some goddamn dedication, right there. Here's another take...

The July gig was actually part of an annual music industry convention called the New Music Seminar, a string of dates every summer devoted to music showcases in various venues around town and schmooze-opportunities and panel discussions at a hotel in Times Square. I attended a few New Music Seminars, but I think I sat 1994’s out. I didn’t go to this Oasis gig, in any case. My former colleague Neil Strauss did, though, and wrote this little bit about it for the New York Times.

Just to bring things up to date as a side note, in the ensuing 28 years since this event, Wetlands Preserve is long, long gone. It closed in 2001, following the death of its founder-owner Larry Bloch. The building that housed the club, 161 Hudson Street, was converted into a luxury condo (of course) in 2004. The ground-floor space formerly occupied by Wetlands became an expensive bedding emporium of some kind for a while. Last time I walked by it, that concern had closed and it was awaiting a new tenant.

Both Jon Wiederhorn (if that's indeed him above) and Neil Strauss went further with their careers. I would later work alongside Jon during my tenure at MTV News Online circa 2006, and he’d go on to pen several books, including an authoritative guide on heavy metal called “Louder Than Hell.” Neil Strauss, meanwhile, who I’d worked with in 1990 at The New York Review of Records, later went on to write – as cited above – for The New York Times and other prestigious outlets. After writing some memorable profile pieces for Rolling Stone (including one where I believe he got into bed with Jewel), Neil was drafted to orchestrate (and presumably ghost-write) the fabled Motley Crue oral history, “The Dirt.” From there, Neil’s career took an interesting turn and he became an accomplished pickup artist, ostensibly for the purposes of writing a book on same. That book, “The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists,” took Neil to a whole new level, so to speak. The last time I saw him was at a Cocteau Twins concert at the (since demolished) Roseland Ballroom. He was wearing leather pants.

Lastly, I stumbled upon this ancient video of Oasis and swiftly determined that it was shot here in New York City, possibly during the same stay as the first Wetlands gig. Herein we see the brothers Gallagher and cohorts playing in the Central Park bandshell, just steps to the south of Bethesda Fountain. There are also several shots of the band glumly burying their drummer in a makeshift public garden of the sort one used to encounter around certain portions of the Upper West Side and Lower East side. Can anyone identify the spot?

Goodnight, Daniel Johnston

I’m a little late to the table with this, but gimme a break …. it’s been a busy week.

I remember reading about Daniel Johnston way before ever hearing his music, but got my first taste via a compilation video called Mouthful of Sweat, which I bought for its inclusion of angry noise-rock bands like Missing Foundation, Prong and Cop Shoot Cop. Daniel's contributions ("Funeral Home," "I Did Acid with Caroline" and "Don't Play Cards with Satan") were *nothing* like the feral, aggressive music I bought the video for, but the songs were just as powerful, albeit in an entirely different way.

At once childlike, surreal and intimately heartfelt, Daniel's music hinted at a much more complicated story than the descriptor "Lo-fi indie songwriter" could ever begin to encapsulate. I had to write an obit for the man for work this week, which you can find here. Given the nature of my organization’s relationship with its affiliated songwriters, composers and music publishers, it wasn’t really prudent to get into the specifics of Johnston’s otherwise largely acknowledged mental travails, although those aspects of his personal and creative life are essentially an inexorable part of his story. The man himself was entirely open about his struggles in that capacity.

That particular aspect of Daniel Johnston — his role as a pivotal figure in so-called “outsider” music (i.e. naive, self-taught) has always made me somewhat uncomfortable. There seems to be a sort of voyeuristic quality and not-so-vague exploitative element to celebrating the more eccentric parts of his art and music, which seems sort of brazenly inappropriate considering that the issues he was grappling with were very real. By the same token, much of the greatest art, music and literature throughout the ages has been produced by similarly troubled individuals. To not celebrate Johnston’s entirely distinctive and prolific work is to deny his life’s greatest endeavor.

When I think of Daniel Johston’s music, meanwhile, I am instantly transported back to a specific era of popular culture. I am reminded of discovering bands like Galaxie 500, King Missile, The Clean and Bongwater, hanging out in long-since vanished live-music venues like Maxwell’s in Hoboken, the Knitting Factory in on East Houston Street and the Thread Waxing Space on Broadway. His music played regularly in similarly long-shuttered esoteric record stores like Pier Platters in Hoboken, Rocks In Your Head in SoHo and Downtown Music Gallery. His songs evoked a specific, intangible sensibility that really did influence and inform a whole legion of artists more inclined to more purely expressing themselves rather than simply catering to trends or shifting units.

May he finally find peace.