Flaming Pablum

Degradation, Lubrication & Gentrification at 315 Bowery

You’d think that a whopping 13 years after the club closed its doors for good, I’d have run out of things to say or share about CBGB. Be that as it may, pictures, videos and/or simple ruminations about infamous gigs, specific scenes and/or happenings at 315 Bowery still keep rolling down the proverbial pike. In much the same way I cannot stop posting about places like The Cedar Tavern and Bleecker Bob’s, content pertaining to the lore, legacy, demise and degradation of CBGB still comes to me.

Today was just such an occasion. I came across a video shot by one Lisa Barnstone of a gig by Lubricated Goat -– who I posted about here -– back in mid-2006. Beyond simply being another glimpse of the fabled interior (bathroom included) of CBGB –- not unlike the video Harley Flanagan made of the interior that I posted about back in 2016 –- this video was notable to me in that it features Jack Natz -- above --  formerly of Cop Shoot Cop, on bass detail.

Personally speaking, when this video was shot, I was about one third into my somewhat chaotic tenure as a managing editor of MTV News Online, and had just become a father for the second time. My status as a busy dad to two tiny people had sharply curtailed my ability to regularly attend gigs as I’d previously done on a regular basis, thus I was not at this show. In fact, I regret to say that I cannot honestly recall the last show at CBGB I went to, although it might have been a Kraut reunion show in 2002.

Today, of course, the strip of the Bowery is a very different scene. The occupant of 315 Bowery is still John Varvatos, who I somewhat venomously took to task on this post. My take on same has not changed, and I still think he sucks and everything about his shop is bullshit. The surrounding neighborhood continues to gentrify, of course. Apart from the encouraging opening of Codex Books across the street (specializing in cool, used and rare volumes), there is precious little in that cluster of streets to hold my attention … beyond nostalgia.

`Twas not always thus. Take another look back. Miss Barnstone’s video also captures a lot of the post-show action out on the street.

CBGBs...last call..Lubricated Goat inside tour of the place and it's surroundings from lisa barnstone on Vimeo.

Check out more footage of the same gig, courtesy of the inimitable SkeletonBoy…

Chelsea Mourning: Coda

While many were prepping for "the Big Game" (insert pungent, damp fart sound here) yesterday, the wife and I spent most of our Super Bowl Sunday attending to various errands of varying significance. Since our age-old oven range started literally belching smoke and flame last week, we had to bite the bullet and repair to the antiseptic confines of Home Depot on 23rd Street to begrudgingly procure a new one. Following that strenuously expensive undertaking, Peg headed east to take our 12-year-old to an arguably long-overdue haircut (Oliver's forelock was starting to look a bit Danziggian), while I was dispatched to the Apple Store in the Meatpacking District to replace an Apple TV remote rendered inoperable by my own zealous impatience. 

Along the way, I passed by the Chelsea Hotel (very recently invoked here), and appearances look unforgivably tragic. 

Farewell to The Half King

As I understand it, we officially lose The Half King tomorrow, vanishing from its place of almost two decades on West 23rd street, which is strange, `cos I feel like only yesterday, I read about its impending opening.

Arguably most famous for one of its founders, author Sebastian Junger, The Half King became a regular haunt of New York City’s robust legions of hardened journalists. I was unwittingly about halfway through my long tenure at the TIME Magazine news desk when the bar opened in 2000, so it indeed became a regular stop for many members of the team, and a particular favorite whenever a normally far-flung correspondent was in town. I have many fond memories of supping multiple pints in the company of those estimable colleagues there, and often feeling well out of my depth, but always welcomed. As I’ve mentioned many times, the TIME team was a tight, familial unit, and I continue to regard my friends and co-workers from those days with profound respect and admiration.

But in terms of The Half King, I have two specific memories of the place that rise to the top, and neither of them involve my career in journalism.

The first occasion was a reception thrown by the publishing company my wife was working for, at the time. One of her authors had just given a reading nearby at the Barnes & Noble over on Sixth Avenue that is now a Trader Joe’s, I believe. This was this young author’s debut, of a sort, reading from his first novel, which was semi-autobiographical, if I recall correctly. In any case, this young writer’s big Italian family turned out in force to proudly show their support and hear their guy do his thing. The drama began, however, when the author ended up outing himself by way of a passage in his book to the gathered attendees, much to the pronounced surprise of several members of his very large family. By the time the whole congregation had moved over to The Half King, what had ostensibly been conceived as a festive gathering had turned into a very different event indeed.

Initially, I’d just been along for the ride, so to speak, and was always happy to be included in any excursion to The Half King that would invariably involve a few pints. As it happens, I ended befriending the husband of one of my wife’s colleagues when it was somehow gleaned that we both harbored a fondness for early 80’s hardcore bands like the Circle Jerks, Kraut, Bad Brains etc.

This all culminated in a surreal scene wherein a large percentage of the room we’d all been herded into was occupied by a gaggle of excitable Italians wrapped up in the throes of very emotional discussions (all in Italian … with lots of raised voices and frenzied gesticulations), with my wife and her team trying to comfort the newly distressed author, while myself and this other dude sat in the corner pounding beers and talking animatedly about our favorite punk bands.

My other long-lasting memory of The Half King is more recent. It was the tail end of 2016, just after the election and tensions and apprehensions were, suffice to say, rather high, as you probably recall yourselves. Here in New York City, for the most part, the pervading mood was one of gloomy consternation and incredulousness. In any event, I’d been drafted to go pick up my daughter after some social event in Chelsea, and the wife suggested I arrange to meet up with a few of my fellow dads beforehand. Since it was in the same `hood, I suggested that the four of us meet up at The Half King and have a couple of pints before picking up our respective kids.

I remember walking in and meeting these guys – most of whom I knew pretty well, by that point, or so I thought – at the bar. A sporting event of one variety or another was on the television above the far end of the bar, and that commanded most of the attention. Talking sports with any degree of enthusiasm, let alone credibility, is not something I’m especially versed at, so I just drank my beer and only chimed in when I had something to say. As if on cue, the program cut away to a news break, and Donald J. Trump’s mug appeared on the screen, prompting a not-so-subtle hiss throughout the bar. I can’t remember what comment I made, but it was one that doubtlessly telegraphed my own misgivings for the results of the election. Suddenly, all three of my fellow dads looked at me quizzically. “Well, he’s gonna get this country back on track,” one remarked. I snorted and practically spat out my beer, assuming he was being facetious. He wasn’t. The other two were nodding in agreement. There I was, in the super-liberal capital city of a super blue state … surrounded by three unblinking Trumpublicans. Had I slipped through a portal into The Twilight Zone?

Now as much as I’m generally very happily game to burn a few bridges every now and again, the notion of starting heated political beefs with the fathers of my daughter’s best friends seemed ill-advised. I demurred from futher commentary, and we all went back to our beers, my big takeaway being that it is NEVER a good idea to assume everyone you’re with is on the same page politically.

Sadly, that bizarre instance was the last time I ever darkened the doors of The Half King. For a more authoritative and broader portrait of the place, check out this great tribute from The New York Times.

Pour one out. 

One More Chelsea Mourning

I’ve mentioned it before, but I’d love to say I was initially familiar with the signifiance of the Chelsea Hotel because of some of the more celebrated creatives, thesbians and bohemians who periodically resided within its hallowed walls, but much like probabaly most of my generation, I first came to know about the Chelsea because of one individual, and one individual only -- that being Sid Vicious. The now-very-late Mr. V notwithstanding, however, the Chelsea Hotel’s associations run an impressive gamut from literary icons like Arthur C. Clarke, Dylan Thomas, Arthurs Miller and Allen Ginsburg to musical luminaries like Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Patti Smith, Jim Miorrison, Edith Piaf, Janis Joplin to visual artists like Robert Crumb, Jasper Johns, Willem de Kooning, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Mapplethorpe and countless others from virtually every artistic discipline. This list of its more celebrated guests is a veritable “who’s who,” full stop.

As detailed in a few older posts, I was fortunate enough to attend a few parties at the Chelsea Hotel back in the `90s, enabling me to travel beyond its lobby to meander through its storied halls. The last time I was able to do so was in 2010, as detailed here. It was on that occasion that I had the fleeting foresight to have my photo captured within. That’s it below, with me posing portentuously on the stairs, trying to look like a sinister, leather-clad punk, but simply looking like an inebriated, portly dad (guilty as charged, your honor).

Only a couple of years prior to that evening, the Chelsea’s beloved manager Stanley Bard had been abruptly deposed and many of its longtime tenants evicted. Turnovers in ownership started to take their toll. A year or two after my final visit, the Chelsea became entirely impenetrable – its fabled lobby closed and its edifice encased in scaffolding. A new management company promised/threatened that the Chelsea was to be re-imagined as a newly luxurious, bespoke hotel. Whatever remained of the hotel’s old interiors were stripped and gutted as it entered a new chrysalis phase. Patti Smith, some might remember, played an invitation-only event, which managed to rub a lot of people the wrong way, somewhat understandaby.

I actually did return to the building in more recent years. In 2014, there was a Blondie exhibition in a space just to the west of the hotel’s entrance, followed by Dee Dee Ramone exhibit (himself another former Chelsea tenant) a year or so later. But the hotel’s new iteration was still a work in progress, at the time.

But fruition never came. Walk by the Chelsea Hotel today in 2019, and it is still cloaked in a seemingly perpetual state of painful transition. This week, Gothamist posted a lengthy update on the hotel’s long saga and current, sorry state, complete with a frankly heartbreaking slideshow. Click here to see that.

What happens next is anyone’s guess, but I’m very glad I got to spend those few evenings there when I did. It’s a damn tragedy that they couldn’t just let it be.

Got A Light?

It being a whopping seven degrees outside today, the wife decided it was a great opportunity to do some arguably premature spring cleaning around the apartment. Suffice to say, not every member of the household was as enthused about this plan as she was, but there we are. 

Whilst Peggy was on a ruthless search-&-destroy mission in our overly-stuffed linen closet, we came across an old jar of matchbooks I used to keep in our previous apartment's bathroom. For a while back in the 90's, we'd both gotten in the habit of absconding with loads of matchbooks from any bar or restaurant that was foolhardy enough to offer them. I cracked open said jar to reveal a host of establishments that simply no longer exist. 

Today, the space that was the old Hi-Life Bar & Grill on the Upper West Side (which had great neon signage) is now a relatively banal clothiers.

Merchants was a chain of kinda douchey, ersatz-posh bars scattered around town that are all gone, I believe.

Around The Clock was a standby 24-hour East Village mainstay on Stuyvesant street just north of St. Marks. Today, it's a Japanese bakery called Pan Ya. 

The Stanhope Hotel was a stately concern across the street from the Metropolitan Museum of Art on the Upper East Side at 995 Fifth Avenue. The wife and I spent our wedding night there in 2001. It closed in 2005, and is now a luxury co-op. 

Grange Hall was a great restaurant on Commerce Street in the West Village with bright, airy space and a traditional American menu with inspired, Depression-era decor. It closed in 2004, and the space hosted a few other concerns in its wake. Today, it's newly vacant again.

Lakeside Lounge was a particular favorite Alphabet City bar I posted here about a few times. It closed in 2012, although it sort of lives on via its website. Today, the space it once occupied is part of Maiden Lane, the restaurant that took over the old Life Cafe space on the corner of 9th and Avenue B. 

The Cedar Tavern was my dearly beloved local on University Place between 11th and 12th. I wrote about it here extensively, most recently here. It closed suddenly in 2006 with news that the air rights above it had been sold. The plan was that they'd build above it, but that the bar would re-open. They lied. It closed and was gutted. The bar itself was removed and shipped to Austin, TX. In its footprint was built a strenuously ugly condo. The ground floor sat vacant for years until a "European" waxing space opened. Yeah, like we needed that. The circumstances of the Cedar's abrupt departure still make me palpably hostile. 

Cafe Noir was corner bar in SoHo with a kitschy Moroccan theme on the corner of Thompson and Grand Streets. It was a great spot for beers and tapas, but closed around 2012. I believed they re-located to TriBeCa. This particular space is now a somewhat ridiculous lingerie shop.

Technically, Chumley's on Bedford Street in the West Village and ACME on Great Jones Street are both still going, but both are newly "bespoke" versions of their former incarnations. I frothed at the mouth about the shitty new version of Chumley's most recently here. ACME, meanwhile, used to be a great BBQ joint with a disarming selection of hot sauces. It also came appended by a live music venue in its lower quarters called -- wait for it -- Under Acme. My friends' band The Hot Corn Girls played a gig or two there. More recently, however, ACME underwent a "culinary transformation" and now serves "French-meets-Italian" fare. The space beneath that was Under Acme is now reserved for private functions. Read: It went all upscale and prohibitively pricey and now, basically, sucks. 

Lastly, The Knickerbocker Bar & Grill at 33 University Place is still there, mercifully, and retains its rarefied character of old Manhattan. If it ever closes, I will be devastated beyond words. 

Hats Off to the Highline

Relatively hot on the heels of news that the space that was formerly known as alternately Webster Hall and The Ritz is reopening later this year (although it’s reopening now directly across the street from a new mega-hotel …. the guests of which, I’m assuming, might not be thrilled to be staying across the street from an active live music venue), comes news that the Highline Ballroom over in Chelsea is shuttering.

While by no means good news, I can’t say I’m especially heartbroken, as the truth of the matter is that I only darkened the doors of the place once, and that was to see The Stranglers in 2013. For whatever reason, I’ve never gone to another show there.

That being said, it seems more often than not that the shows I do want to go to are now happening at venues in Brooklyn. Both of my new favorites – IDLES and Daughters – are both playing in Brooklyn in the next few months (at Brooklyn Steel and Warsaw, respectively). That’s cool, and I’m planning on going to both, but … I am missing the days when Manhattan was more of the destination for these things.

In any case, farewell, Highline – I should have known you better. For what it’s worth, that Stranglers show was absolutely astounding for both crowd and band alike.

Return to Dirty Old Fun City

Astonishingly persistent readers here might remember a post from -– Jesus -– five years ago already wherein I documented the doings of an intrepidly obsessed cinephile named Jonathan Hertzberg. Hertzberg took it upon himself to compose something of a master-reel of footage from New York City-centric cinema from arguably the most adventurous era, that being the 1970’s (and into the very early 80’s). This was all culled into a frankly overwhelming video series called “Dirty Old New York a.k.a. Fun City.” The end results were a location-spotting NYC blogger’s dream, …. kind of the cinematic equivalent to the Beastie Boys’ sample-heavy watershed opus, Paul’s Boutique.

When I’d penned that original post in 2013, Hertzberg had only completed, I believe, two installments of the series, and I somewhat churlishly whined that he hadn’t included any footage from Tony Scott’s “The Hunger,” Milos Foreman’s adaption of the Broadway musical “Hair” and a host of films from later in the 80’s. At the time, Hertzberg himself wrote in. Here’s what he had to say.

Thank you for words and space you've devoted to my "Dirty Old New York" project! These are fluid pieces and have been updated already a few times with more planned, i.e. "missing" footage could and likely will appear in the updates, like firmware. It's hard to have every wanted film on hand at any moment. I was a bound a bit by availability, quality of footage (rules I broke a few times), and time frame (which I also stretched a bit). In general, I was going for DVD-quality, 16x9 footage from approximately '66 to '84. But, this has stretched a bit into '85. I had to stop somewhere or it would keep going, and I was looking for the gritty '70s-like years for the most part and not the period when the '80s started to look like the '80s as we remember it.

DOWNTOWN '81 appears for a bit in Part I and returns in Part III. SUSAN will likely appear in III. HAIR and KING KONG and some of the others you mention should be in there as well.

Tellingly, it’s taken me five goddamn years to get back on board. In the ensuing half-decade, Hertzberg not only completed his series, concluding with a fifth chapter, but did some specialized cuts as well, concentrating on stuff like recurring character actors, a Super 8 reel of New York footage his father shot in 1969 and other fun stuff, all very much worth checking out.

For the sake of this post, I’m going to embed Part IV of “Dirty Old New York aka Fun City” being that a passage of it enjoyably concentrates on “punk vs. disco,” cannily juxtaposing the strangely parallel exploits of John Travolta’s Tony Manero from “Saturday Night Fever” with Richard Hell from “Blank Generation.”

 

Cool, right, well, click here to go to Hertzberg’s Vimeo page to watch the whole series and then some. Tell’em Flaming Pablum sent ya.

Bowie's Day

Today is the birthday, of course, of the late David Bowie, who died three years ago this Thursday, … an event the world is still coming to grips with.

A lot has been said since his passing (I memorialized his impact thusly), and his absence continues to be felt. While we still have his enjoyably vast body of work to explore and/or re-discover, there will sadly be no more from the great man.

Every Bowie fan has their own favorite iteration. While I first warmed to his apocalyptic, proto-goth phase circa Diamond Dogs (the first record of his I acquired after appropriating my older sister’s copy of the ubiquitous ChangesBowie LP), thrilled to the post-punk-imbued Scary Monsters and got swept up in the unabashedly populist reign of the Let’s Dance days (hey, it may have been pure pop for the masses who couldn’t get their heads around his earlier work, but it was still fucking marvelous music), I prefer to remember Bowie preserved in the video below, an augmented outtake from the 1981 film, “Christiane F.”

If you’ve not seen it, don’t get too excited about the film, unless you genuinely enjoy gloomy scenes of squalor, drug abuse and sexual degradation in early 80’s Berlin. That all said, the title character (played by the doe-eyed Natja Brunckhorst, who appears in the latter-half of this clip) is obsessed with Bowie. As such, this is a snippet of “the concert scene,” fleshed out and subtly augmented by a savvy YouTuber named Mister Sussex. Sussex excised most of the narrative elements of this clip (i.e. heroin-addled Euro-teens in varying states of despair) and beefed up the Bowie content. I think he did a pretty great job of it, actually.

Some curious factoids: Bowie & Co. are lip-synching here, but doing it masterfully. Then again, footage of Bowie reading aloud from a phone book would be damn compelling, too, as far as I’m concerned. Secondly, evidently the wide crowd shots meant to imply the expanse of a concert stadium were allegedly lifted from footage of an AC/DC show -– and in the final, released version of “Christiane F.,” there’s even a wide shot wherein AC/DC fleetingly appear –- were the editors on heroin, too?

Thirdly, the Bowie footage was purportedly shot not in Europe but in New York City, somewhere. Based on the grey curtain backdrop, I’m speculating if it wasn’t shot in the confines of the Upper West Side club, Hurrah, where the video for “Fashion” was later shot. Anyone?

While other mitigating factors arguably mire its excellence -– like the fact that this version excises most of the slowly building intro and/or that arguably lamentable guitarist G.E. Smith appears (he later of “SNL” notoriety and also an inexplicably right-leaning wingnut who played this song at the RNC in 2016, seemingly oblivious to its frothy references to the occult and cocaine), it captures a certain period of Bowie’s elegant majesty perfectly. From his signature profile to his popped-collar James Dean jacket, he is the quintessence of cool, here.

It's too late to be hateful.

Your Friday Flyer

No reason, other than boredom. I was actually at this show in 1988. It was delightful. Rest in peace, Stiv.

Whigged Awesome: Whither the Upper Crust?

Upon hearing the disheartening news that The Upper Crust had decided to put their royal selves on “indefinite hiatus” recently, I dialed up some of the fabled Boston band’s finer recorded moments over the holidays, which led me to finally view the 2004 documentary about them (see below).

I’ve mentioned the Upper Crust here a few times, usually in relation to since-shuttered venues like Brownie’s. They were among a coterie of bands like The Unband, Nashville Pussy, The Candy Snatchers, The Pleasure Fuckers and The Lee Harvey Keitel Band, to name a small few, that my friends and I would regularly go see live back in the mid-to-late 90’s, usually at venues like The Continental, Tramp’s and the afore-cited Brownie’s, although I want to say I remember a gig The Upper Crust played on The Frying Pan, a disused barge-turned-live-music-venue, wherein the vessel actually caught fire during the performance. If memory serves, the Upper Crust manfully kept playing as the ship fleetingly burned.

If you’re regrettably unfamiliar, The Upper Crust were originally a quintet who played a high-decibel variant of heavy garage boogie ala AC/DC, whilst dressed like aristocratic fops from the 18th century. While that sounds slavishly gimmicky, the single element that set The Upper Crust well apart from similarly high-concept novelty bands like Dread Zeppelin or Clowns for Progress was the undeniable fact that they wrote great, hilarious, hook-laden songs and they actually fucking rocked. Resplendently bedecked in their signature powdered wigs, pancake makeup, ruffled shirts and platform shoes, The Upper Crust looked endearingly ridiculous, but completely delivered in the rock --- or roque department.

Don’t believe me? Enjoy….

I was undeservingly privileged to see the band perform a number of times, but it always remained to be seen if they were ever going to take off beyond the confines of the then-still-burgeoning punky East Coast rock circuit. I would routinely insert tracks of theirs on mixtapes (remember when we all still made those?) for friends, extolling the band’s myriad merits. In time, however, our little show-going gang started to splinter off and get married (myself included), and then the venues started to close and Manhattan itself started to seem less and less like a place that the Upper Crust and similarly inclined bands would ever find a place to play. Jesse Malin's been doing his damnedest to stem that tide, via endeavors like Bowery Electric and Coney Island Baby, but Manhattan just isn't the same place it used to be ... which fucking sucks. 

As such, I was sad to learn that the band was finally hanging it up. I walked by the old shop in SoHo that lead singer/guitarist Nate Freedberg (stage name: Lord Bendover) was running, but it no longer looked to be a going concern. Then I learned of the documentary. Already fourteen year old by this point, the film tells a decidedly less cheery tale. While amusing that one of the original members went onto become a speech-writer for President Clinton, the stories of intra-band acrimony and conflicting aspirations seem all too familiar. To my mind, the Upper Crust SHOULD have been a bigger deal. The added oddity that drummer Jim Janota (stage name: Jackie Kickassis) is an avowed gun-nut only makes the story stranger.

As I understand it, the band members are all pursuing other musical ventures these days (check out Nat's doings here), but one hopes they might yet again reconvene. I would go see them again in a heartbeat.

Herewith “Let Them East Rock”….