In the fall of 1985, myself and a newly-minted, equally scowly friend John — a flat-topped skater and fellow fan of disconsolately frowny hardcore trapped within a bug-eyed nation of Little Feat and Allman Brothers fans — drove from the verdantly plush campus of Central Ohio’s Denison University to the comparatively ungenteel High Street of Columbus, Ohio. Our destination was a dank, low-ceilinged “club” with wood-paneled walls called Stache’s. The venue and the event we were attending have already been discussed here, but I was reminded of the evening in question again by yet another chapter in Sam McPheeters’ “Mutations,” which also spawned yesterday’s post about the Crucifucks.
John and I went to Stache’s for the purposes of witnessing a live performance by the willfully disconcerting Texas combo, The Butthole Surfers. I’d been to a gig in Columbus a few weeks earlier, that being X at the Newport Music Hall on the tour to promote their frankly lackluster major label debut, Ain’t Love Grand, but that was at a proper live music hall, not a dingy, makeshift den-turned-dive bar like Stache’s.
John and I and possibly another couple of friends of ours muscled our way to the back of the room where the “stage” ostensibly was (although I really don’t remember there being a bi-level effect of any kind), to ready ourselves for the opening band. The opening act was a Wisconsin ensemble called Die Kreuzen, which -- in clipped, guttural German -- means “The Crosses.” That said, everyone seemed to mispronounce their moniker not as a plural noun, but as a grim command, Die Cruisin’. The foursome gathered around their amps and drum kit and got ready to play.
This still being the mid-eighties, I remember being somewhat surprised by the look of these Midwesterners. While I was dutifully boasting a sadly de rigeur “hardcore” outfit (white, freshly laundered Circle Jerks t-shirt over jeans, plaid flannel shirt tied around waist -- just so -- like a kilt), Die Kreuzen looked more like hairy hobos who took turns swigging from a communal jug of moonshine in the damp, dark woods behind the Price Chopper. Adhering to any code of punky fashion was clearly -- and quite refreshingly, in retrospect -- not on their agenda.
I remember being struck by the bass player, whose instrument seemed wholly oversized for him. The lead singer was a long-haired, lanky guy who looked like he only just got off his shift pumping gas. Once fully plugged in, the band started, and lanky long-hair raised the mic and opened his mouth, letting loose a sound that caused those of us standing, arms-folded in the front to strongly consider taking several steps back.
To be honest, while I hadn’t heard their records yet (which I’d later come to really appreciate), the live Die Kreuzen experience circa 1985 was a headachey fog of shambolic shrillness. John described it best by suggesting that each of their songs sounded, basically, like an over-amplified “WAAAAAAARRGGHHHH”, … which was fairly accurate.
I told the rest of this story back on this post — the Butthole Surfers ended up not showing up as, earlier in the day, their bass player had either jumped out — or been forcibly ejected — from their van whilst motoring down the highway. They wouldn’t return to Columbus until the following year, wherein they played the Newport Music Hall, a show I’m still recovering from.
Back at Stache’s, we all miraculously ended up getting our money back, which essentially meant that we got to see Die Kreuzen for free.
The only reason I’m revisiting all of this, is because in McPheeters’ book, he describes Die Kreuzen thusly:
Vocals like a scarecrow screaming at you from across the cornfield at night …WHY DID YOU ANGER THE SCARECROW?
Absolutely on point....
The photo up top is by the truly amazing JFotoman, who I wrote about back on this post. There is possibly no greater documentation of not just the Stache's scene, but of American underground music of the 1980's writ large than his work.
As I was walking home from work on Monday night in something of a news-addled stupor, lulled into mental atrophy by pervasive waves of coronavirus hysteria, I spotted something both hugely familiar and entirely incongruous – a old flyer from a long-ago gig by Prong and Live Skull wheat-pasted to a painted plywood wall at the bottom end of Sixth Avenue between Canal and Grand Streets. What the fuck?
Shocked back into the moment by this comparatively ancient artifact, I essentially zoomed out to view it in context. Across the northern end of this plywood wall --- one used to fence in the outdoor shenanigans of Gitano Tulum, a sort of tropical-themed adult playground, complete with palm trees – was a wide array of gig flyers, movie posters and bills, all advertising concerts, events and movies from several decades back. It was like this tiny patch of real estate was stuck in a hole in the time/space continuum.
I took a few photographs (see below), figuring it was for a movie shoot or a television show. The new “High Fidelity” series, maybe?
This morning, as I was walking back by it in the other direction, I saw two people spraying the façade to make it look appropriately “weathered,” and I asked what the story was. Evidently, I was correct – it’s for a forthcoming show or film called “`89.” That’s about as much as I could glean.
I complemented them on their faithful job and kept walking.
Trivial facts: Circa the late 80’s, the building that this particular plot of real estate once hosted (since-razed) formerly played host to Triplets, an ill-fated steakhouse owned and operated by three identical twin brothers whose truly bizarre story was recently the subject of an amazing documentary entitled “Three Identical Strangers.” It also served as the location, earlier than that, for Lou Reed’s video for “My Big Red Joystick,” which I discussed here and here. Across the way was the Moondance Diner, which is now somewhere out west. In its footprint is the looming James hotel.
Here are some of the details. Click on them to enlarge. That's also not how you spell psychedelic.
I remember the first time I ever heard Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" -- or, rather, saw the video for it -- I was in a long-defunct bar on Second Avenue and 12th Street called The Dragon Bar*. I was with a quartet of similarly inclined friends, and we all were stopped pretty much dead in our tracks by it. The clip was immediately followed by the video for "There's No Other Way" by Blur. The latter song was not as widely celebrated as the former song -- then or since -- but I remember being quite struck by it, as well, and immediately put it to my drinking comrades: "Which was better?" You can probably imagine how that went.
This debate -- such as it was -- was immediately derailed when my friend Joanne walked over to the jukebox to put on the song below, handily drowning out the sound of the television. "This is better than fucking both!"
She was, of course, correct.
To all my Seattle people living in our new weird ground zero, please be safe.
*The Dragon bar closed by the mid-90's and became a gay bar called Dick's. Dick's had a long run before it, too, closed and became the comparatively drab 12th Street Ale House. A million years prior to the Dragon Bar, it was a storied watering hole called Slugger Ann.
I’ve long been of the opinion – often unjustifiably – that if you can’t bother to think of a decent name for your band, I’m under no obligation to listen to your music.
It’s for this arguably silly reason that I initially turned a blithely deaf, disinterred ear towards bands like Chairlift and Car Seat Headrest. I mean, seriously – you couldn’t’t think of something better? I mean, there were bands like Shit Robot, Diarrhea Planet and Mannequin Pussy that I was turned off by, but at least they were sort of crassly amusing in a juvenile and/or scatological way. I similarly blanched at Pissed Jeans as …. ewww… but when I was emphatically informed of their considerable merits by my comrade Drew (recently invoked here), I was schooled in the error of my ways. Pissed Jeans is indeed a gross name, but it fits their aesthetic perfectly. When you hear their music, the name makes perfect sense.
One band I’ve absolutely never given the time of day to is an outfit called Real Estate. Why? Because fuck that name, that’s why. It’s beyond boring. As a result, I cannot tell you one, single thing about them. Not one.
Well, my prejudice towards them may be slavishly unjustified, as according to my comrade EV Grieve, their heart's in a comparable place to mine. The Brooklyn band are promoting their new album by “touring their favorite NYC record stores – even though three of them are now closed.”
A silly stunt that would only mean something to a smattering of people, but I’m one of those people. At some point today, they’ll be performing outside of the former sites of Other Music, Kim’s and my beloved Rocks In Your Head. They'll also be at Rough Trade.
I spoke about “We Like To Drink, We Like to Play Rock’n’Roll,” the "official" rockumentary about The Unband – a trio I’ve typed about numerous times here -- specifically back on this post wherein I posted the trailer.
Well, as these things sometimes happen, some generous soul has seen fit to upload the whole goddamn film onto YouTube. How long will it remain there? Who knows? So, grab it while it’s hot.
Above is yet another shot I took of them at the late, lamented Continental during its 90’s-era heyday as a live-music venue, and not its current iteration as a pile of rubble.
It’s too easy to by cynical. It’s too easy to sigh wearily and suggest that all the good stuff is over, and you missed it. I should know, as I could be credibly accused of spinning a yarn to that effect here for the past fifteen years. There’s a pronounced downside to nostalgia in that it can cloud your appreciation of the things that are still around. There’s also the cruel cliché about being “the old guy in the club.” Nobody wants to see that guy, let alone be that guy.
But I attended an event on Sunday that kicked both of those concepts squarely in the groin with a steel-toed Doc Marten.
On Sunday, filmmaker Drew Stone – whose work I’ve tried to evangelize here on numerous occasions – brought "Maximum Penalty," an installment of his “Back to the NYHC Roots” series, right back to its origin, specifically the old A7 space, which is now the rear chamber of Jesse Malin’s Niagara at 112 Avenue A. Drew has been making events like this happen for a while now, but this was one I especially felt I had to attend, as it featured a set by End of Hope, the latest endeavor fronted by Davey Gunner, former lead singer of one of my favorite-since-high-school outfits, KRAUT. Clearly, sitting this one out was not an option.
Much like with Stone’s 10 Questions series (which I waxed rhapsodic about here not too long back), despite the arguably pugnacious reputations of various NYHC luminaries, the atmosphere at Sunday’s sprawling showcase – also featuring sets by The Last Stand, South Class Veterans, Gorilla Glue and a Beastie Boys tribute called – of course – Posse In Effect (which I very regrettably missed) – was nothing short of entirely positive and convivial, even when things got very spirited on the dance floor.
I can’t honestly place a timestamp on the last time I saw Davey Gunner perform, but it might have been at a Kraut reunion show opening for GBH at the New Ritz on 54th Street. The most recent band he’d been performing with, prior to End of Hope, was an ensemble called Bowhead, who were practicing a burly, heftily metallic blend of heavy rock. Within the ranks of End of Hope, however – also featuring guitarist Ken Wohlrob, bassist David Schlechter and hot-shit drummer Dave Richman – Gunner & Co. wasted precious little time in whipping proceedings into a frenetic fury, hearkening back to the generation of bands who made that room hardcore’s ground zero, decades ago -- which had the capacity-crowd (lots of big dudes in a tight space) suitably roiling in approval.
Beyond the formidable skills of the band – a blistering by-their-own description amalgam of Motorhead and Black Flag – and Davey Gunner’s ageless exhorting (what’s the secret, Davey?), one of the most remarkable elements of Sunday’s show was the spectrum of attendees.
On the one hand, the walls of the joint were lined with dutifully black-t-shirt-bedecked oldsters (like, er, myself), emphatically nodding, headbanging, air-guitaring and grinning approvingly, but what really brought the event to that proverbial next level were …. the kids! For all my moaning about today’s youth, here was this battalion of freshly minted punk kids who were legitimately tearing it up in the pit like we were back in the mid-80’s. And this was no Sum 41 shit, either. These young folk seemed as genuinely invested in this music, this ethos, this scene as anyone else in attendance. When the imposing profile of John Watson – longtime NYHC legend, original Agnostic Front vocalist and bona fide circle-pit pioneer (if you’ve ever “moshed” at a show, you should probably send John a royalty check) waded into the fray (prompting even a bemused quip from Gunner), it was clear that this was no fluke.
Once again, hats off to Drew Stone for not only making this event and others in the series happen and keeping the spirit alive, but for handily demonstrating that it’s not simply about nostalgia. This is happening now. Get involved!
The New York Times published a nice little piece by one of my favorite writers, this past Friday. “The Lower East Side in 8 Songs” by John Strausbaugh (whose most recent opus, “Victory City,” all about New York City during WWII, is currently my mom’s favorite book) culled together a selection of tracks that harken back to key points throughout the decades, addressing jazzbos, proto-punks, rockers and beyond from within the cultural diaspora of the East Side of Lower Manhattan. Being the insufferable pedant that I am, I quibbled with his selection of “Waiting for the Man” by the Velvet Underground. Yes, the Velvets were L.E.S. to the very bone, but that particular track has more to do with Harlem (East 125th Street and Lexington Avenue, where Lou Reed’s protagonist cops his dope) than the Ludlow Street roots of the band.
In any case, in perusing his list, I felt the need to add my own suggestions to the mix, most of which allude to my own eras. What else are we missing??
"Life During Wartime," Talking Heads, 1979
Admittedly, by the time Talking Heads released their third album, Fear of Music, in 1979, the band's days of hanging out at CBGB on the Bowery were over, replaced by world tours, growing global renown and quality time with cats like Brian Eno and Robert Fripp. This all said, "Life During Wartime" alludes to that period-specific locale with a degree of prescience. While New York City writ large was slowly recovering from the near-bankruptcy of the mid-70s, much of downtown Manhattan still seemed akin to a veritably lawless war zone. "This ain't no party, This ain't no disco, This ain't no foolin' around," famously sings David Byrne, his protagonist lamenting the passing of the salad days into the stark realities of desperate survival in a region under siege, strangely presaging Missing Foundation's own defiant slogan, "The Party's Over" by a few years. "Life During Wartime" was lazily held up by many a witless classic-rock acolyte as being some sort of anti-disco screed, but those oafs failed to take Byrne's lyrics in context. The scenario Byrne depicts was never a renunciation of disco. It was more a rumination on life in an environment so plagued with hardship and conflict that frivolous activities like dancing and having fun are no longer on the menu.
Today, the space once occupied by CBGB at 315 Bowery is a laughably expensive clothiers. The space once occupied by the Mudd Club at 77 White Street in TriBeCa is an exclusive condo ... although there is a plaque on the exterior, commemorating its tenure as the Mudd Club. Here they are playing in it...
“East Side Beat,” The Toasters, 1987
It might sound vaguely ridiculous that downtown Manhattan once had its own thriving ska scene, but that was indeed the case, for a little while. At the arguable center of that scene were The Toasters, a high-stepping, horn-honking gaggle of Big Apple rudeboys fronted by British ex-pat Robert “Bucket” Hingley, who brought a degree of Two-Tone-styled authenticity to proceedings. By day the manager of geek mecca Forbidden Planet (near and very dear to this blog’s heart), Hingley emulated his homeland’s premiere ska band, The Specials, by recruiting fellow Brit ex-pat Joe “Look Sharp” Jackson to produce their sophomore long player just as the Specials had drafted Joe’s peer and fellow “angry young man of the New Wave,” Elvis Costello to handle their debut. The resulting album, Skaboom, arrived in 1987. This standout track from same paints almost a “West Side Story” depiction of life in the East Village of the late 80’s, complete with references to police brutality, riots, junkies, skinheads and shout-outs to fellow NYC Ska bands like Second-Step and Urban Blight. For a while, Hingley operated his own ska record label and shop on East 10th Street, Moon Ska Records.
Today, the space Hingley's shop occupied is a derelict former ramen restaurant. Forbidden Planet, however, is still on Broadway.
“Burn Trees,” Missing Foundation, 1988
Espousing a literally scorched earth approach to the encroaching gentrification of the Lower East Side in the late 80's and early 90's, enigmatic noise-rock collective, Missing Foundation accrued a formidable mystique for their uncompromising aesthetic. Banned from countless live music venues for their penchant for riot-incitement and wanton property damage, Peter Missing and his cohorts burrowed further underground, pointedly distancing themselves from any conventional music-scene shenanigans and aligning themselves with the defiant squatters movement. Were you ever able to find them, Missing Foundation's records were violently expulsive and incendiary, dispensing all finesse in favor of industrial clamor and high-decibel agitprop. "Burn Trees" from their second album, 1933 Your House is Mine, is a perfectly realized taste of their mission -- a harrowing, repetitive call for destructive insurgence. The video for same (see below) bludgeons the point with footage of the Tompkins Square Park riots from August of 1988. Peter Missing de-camped from New York City in 1992, but still continues making art and music, although his current approach seems slightly less nihilistic.
You can still spot invocations of Missing Foundation (the cryptic upside-down cocktail-glass insignia) all over the Lower East Side.
"Invisible People," False Prophets, 1990
With hearts similarly aligned to the ethos of Missing Foundation, if not quite as militantly chaotic, False Prophets started off as more or less another early hardcore punk band like Kraut, Heart Attack, The Undead and Even Worse, earning them a spot on ROIR's seminal cassette compilation, New York Thrash, despite their brazenly artier inclinations. The band was led by one Stephan Ielpi, captured at the top of this post by photographer Q Sakamaki. Evolving beyond three-chord blitzes and into more refined fare towards the end of their decade-long run, False Prophets released Invisible People in 1990, its title track being a lilting, heartfelt ode to the plight of the homeless that sounded planets away from their earlier rants like "Mental Ghetto." The message of "Invisible People" was further augmented by the album cover art and video animation of illustrator Erik Drooker, whose stirring portraits of social inequity have gone on to grace magazine covers around the world.
The video also finds False Prophets performing in the eroding, graffiti-slathered East River Park bandshell, a space that has since been re-imagined and cleaned up, although it's still a chillingly lonely spot at certain times of the day.
"There's a Riot in Tompkins Square," The Undead, 1993
Taking a more pragmatic-if-cynical approach to the continued unrest in the neighborhood, at the time, Bobby Steele penned "There's a Riot in Tompkins Square" with precious little empathy for any of the parties concerned. A former guitarist for The Misfits and a Johnny-Ramone-styled conservative (albeit one with a big, fuckoff mohawk, on occasion), Steele had little time for the hue & cry of the East Village squatters, equating them with lazy hippies. I have no idea how he feels about the Trump Administration's co-opting of the GOP, but he remains an affable, approachable guy, and is still making music with The Undead years later.
Today, Tompkins Square Park is largely squeaky clean, compared to its late 80's iteration.
“It Only Hurts When I Breathe,” Cop Shoot Cop, 1994
Never ones to shy away from the ugly truths of life in a city in decline, Cop Shoot Cop frequently spun narratives rife with bleak urban imagery, flinging off caustic couplets like a particularly world-weary Micky Spillane. "It Only Hurts When I Breathe" from the album that would become their swan song, 1994's Release, is no exception, coughing up grim verse after grim verse about a life-engulfing cynicism, underpinned by the band's signature dual-bass battery, which jovially swings, despite its otherwise dour demeanor. Possibly only Lower East Side locals will catch their telling invocation of an infamous Alphabet City street corner -- B & Third -- which unmistakably alludes to the shadowy purveyance of smack.
Today, Avenue B & East Third Street is essentially a well-traveled nightlife destination that's about as comparatively threatening as a summer spent in Nantucket.
“Ditch,” The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, 1994
Though largely spawned from the same gene pool as their pals in Cop Shoot Cop, the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion -- formed by the inimitable Jon Spencer in the wake of the fittingly acrimonious dissolution of Pussy Galore -- dispensed with all semblance of po-faced misanthropy in favor of a rollicking celebration of non-stop diaphoretic coitus. "Ditch," from 1994's suitably detonative Orange, is precisely that, finding Spencer giving emphatic voice to his roiling libido whilst also name-checking Ludlow Street, the former epicenter of a L.E.S. variant of bohemian bacchanalia anchored around since-shuttered bars like the original Max Fish. While only a few, short years prior to era of The Strokes, The Rapture, Interpol, LCD Soundsystem and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, this iteration of the Ludlow scene seems like ancient history.
Today, the original Max Fish on Ludlow Street is long gone, replaced by chic and tony hotel with an insufferable bar. Similar ventures to Max Fish on Ludlow like Motor City, Barramundi, the Pink Pony, the Ludlow Street Cafe, Cake Shop and the Luna Lounge, which was a flashpoint for the afore-cited scene the Strokes kicked off, are also all gone.
“Alphabet Town,” Elliott Smith, 1995
Given the tragic circumstances of his untimely demise and some of his more notorious predilections, it's not much of a leap to make certain assumptions about what Elliott Smith's "Alphabet Town" is really about. Taken from his eponymous second album in 1995, the song is poetically vague but seemingly coded. Though not yet living in New York, at that time in the mid-90's, Smith sings about the infamous proclivities of Alphabet City denizens with a knowing lilt to his fragile, whisper-quiet voice, spinning a melancholy yarn about a tenuous relationship built on a grim codependence that the mood of the music mirrors.
“Summer on Avenue A,” Cause For Alarm, 1997
Originally from New Jersey, Cause For Alarm (or simply CFA) don't seem to inspire the same immediate name-recognition as some their NYHC peers like Agnostic Front, Cro-Mags, Warzone, Murphy's Law, etc., but they were indeed early participants within that scene. Personally speaking, the fact that Agnostic Front named their second album Cause for Alarm only served to confuse matters, but I'm sure they all had their reasons. This particular track, extolling the arguable merits of eschewing the leafy byways of New Jersey for a life on the then much meaner streets of, once again, Alphabet City, wasn't released until the late 90's, seemingly jumpstarting a variant of "nostalgia-core" later zealously picked up by their pals in Agnostic Front with recent tracks like "I Miss the Old New York" and, wait for it, "I Remember."
“Forsyth Street,” Muckafurgason, 1998
A band not at all concerned with telegraphing any bleak message or pugnacious badassery, Muckafurgason was a light-hearted trio of indie-rock dudes who probably had more in common with the "alt.comedy" boom nurtured at Ludlow Street's Luna Lounge than with the new crop of indie-garage rock revivalists who were gestating at the time. They didn't take themselves especially seriously, as evidenced on tracks from their debut album, Tossing a Friend, like "Lunch," an ersatz-rap homage to their favorite meal of the day. "Forsyth Street," meanwhile, is a comparatively somber ode to their home address, glumly describing a vista of homeless junkies and naked masturbators in Sara D. Roosevelt Park just out their window.
Today, Forsyth Street is just a bit more salubrious.
“93 Avenue B Blues,” SWANS, 2012
Walk by 93 Avenue B today and it's a fairly innocuous-looking doorway adjacent to a hookah bar called Horus. But back in the early-to-mid 80's, it was the heatless, windowless, concrete-bunker headquarters of Michael Gira and SWANS. True to their Spartan, disciplinary aesthetic, the address served as both an inhospitable rehearsal space and Gira's equally unwelcoming living quarters. When he speaks of what the surrounding neighborhood was like at the time, he does so without any fondness or nostalgia, painting a grim picture of lawlessness, depravity and violence. Tales he's told about life within 93 Avenue B don't suggest that things were much better behind the "safety" of that front door. This instrumental track from 2012's The Seer seemingly seeks to capture the experience of that space, at the time. Easy listening it is not.
Today, once again, you'd never necessarily know anything of the sort went down at said address, although there is still a SWANS insignia (a cryptic spiral) carved into the pavement in front of the front door.
I’ve spoken about photographer Rich Allen a couple of times here (notably here and here). In any case, he’s been sharing his remarkable images of the East Village and Lower East Side from previous decades for a while now. Just recently (i.e. yesterday), he uploaded a great video. It’s an amazing step back in time.
As I mentioned in my last post, so much of the topography of downtown Manhattan has changed in the past couple of decades that many of these locations might seem tough to recognize.
I stumbled upon the below illustration while doing some research about Tier 3, a fleeting live music venue that operated on West Broadway south of Canal Street. The space in question is now a posh Italian restaurant called Attraversa, but circa 1979, it played host to kind of a mind-blowing roster of bands including Bauhaus, Madness, Tuxedomoon, Defunct, the Bush Tetras and skronky No Wave acts like Lydia Lunch's 8 Eyed Spy and Glen Branca. In fact, you can see some incendiary live shots of Bauhaus' fabled set there via this amazing Flickr page, which also features compelling, period-specific performance shots form other bands at comparable venues.
In any case, the illustration below was penned by a gent named Rick Froberg, who -- along with being a visual artist -- has played in notable bands like Drive Like Jehu and the Hot Snakes.
I have no idea when he drew this map, but of all the spots Froberg cites here, only Stromboli's Pizza on St. Marks Place (made arguably famous by a certain Beastie Boys photo) remains.
I’ve mentioned the Bowery rock club, Great Gildersleeves, here a few times, notably here, here and here. For those familiar with the area, it was nestled about a block south of the bar Phebe’s, just a block or so north of the 315 Bowery (i.e. CBGB). I want to say there was also a short-lived venture called The Reggae Lounge on the corner between those points (where the restaurant Primi is today, next to Bowery Electric), but don’t quote me on that.
Of course, don’t go looking for any of those spots now. Well, Phebe’s is still there, but it looks/feels/smells way different from the way it used to. It’s basically now just another generic sport bar where corporate softball teams go to eat wings.
In any case, I should point out that I never made it to Great Gildersleeves. I was aware of it, but didn’t attend any shows there, alas. It was evidently a hotbed for early hardcore bands like DOA, The Misfits, Minor Threat, Suicidal Tendencies, Even Worse, Husker Du, SSD, Reagan Youth, the Circle Jerks and the pre-Hip-Hop Beastie Boys. Public Image Ltd., as discussed in this post, also played a gig there. Outside of hardcore bands, it also played host to the Replacements, Elvis Costello and Anthrax. Still, for whatever reason, I never made it.
Anyway, the club closed for whatever reason. To walk by the spot now, you’d never know it played host to all this stuff. But I happened upon this pic, and thought I’d share it.
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