It should come as absolutely zero surprise to anyone that, given the things that I happen to preoccupy myself with, I think the new Beastie Boys book -- the imaginatively titled Beastie Boys Book -- is absolutely essential. I'm barely a third of the way in, and I'm practically ecstatic about it.
Go get it.
I’ve written about Missing Foundation here entirely too many times, even as recently as this past September. In any event… here’s another installment to that saga.
Way back when, while Missing Foundation’s cryptic insignia may have been sprayed, scrawled, scratched and/or angrily carved onto virtually every decaying edifice southeast of 14th Street, actual, tactile documents of the band’s music weren’t quite as plentiful. Given their arguable infamy and notoriety for chaotic performances that frequently culminated in wanton property damage and the occasional riot, many may have suggested, at the time, that any records Missing Foundation produced might have almost been incidental; sonically ugly side-dishes to the malignantly deafening entrée that was their incendiary live incarnation. But whether those records were simply a means-to-an-end or more likely just the victims of shoddy distribution didn’t matter to me. Having had my curiosity piqued by the band’s eerily pugnacious flyer campaign circa 1989, I was determined to find those Missing Foundation records.
Suffice to say, that task was significantly more tricky than just walking into Crazy Eddie’s.
As luck would have it, however, in the summer of 1990, or so, a fittingly-albeit-unwittingly doomed record label called Restless Records saw fit to unleash MF’s third album, the cheerily titled Ignore the White Culture, along with re-releasing the band’s earlier works, Demise, 1933: Your House is Mine (that was my favorite) and their eponymous debut from 1987. In one fell swoop, I’d gone from famine to feast in the MF department.
Pressing play on the first track of 1989’s Demise, that being “A Hunting We Will Go,” was something of a startling revelation. Some months earlier, I remember dropping the needle on Scumdogs of the Universe, the second album by GWAR and being so let down by how comparatively polished the band sounded in contrast to their cartoonishly ultra-violent image. That first airing of Demise was the complete opposite experience. While Missing Foundation didn’t have an image like GWAR’s – or, really, any discernible “image” at all -- they had accrued that afore-cited nefarious mystique of being uber-agitpropagandizers. Opening with the strains of what sounds like actual police action at a riot (punctuated by sirens and a woman’s emphatic scream of “DON’T YOU FUCKING HIT HIM, YOU PIG!”), the music -– such as it is -- kicks in with a sluggish, lurching rumble atop primary instigator Peter Missing’s anguished moaning and semi-garbled invective as barked through a megaphone. While somewhat reminiscent of the similarly user-hostile, equally No-Wave-inspired outpourings of early SWANS, MF lacked that band’s disciplined, slave-ship gait, in favor of ….well….writhing cacophony. Easy listening this was not.
Anyway, long story short, Missing Foundation’s albums fleetingly came back into print for a bit. They released one further uncompromising album, 1992’s Go Into Exile before Restless Records collapsed and Missing Foundation, or that iteration of it, disbanded.
Fast forward almost 27 years later, and the physical manifestation of music isn’t quite as much of a priority as it once was, a development that has both revolutionized and disemboweled the music industry – an apparatus Missing Foundation were never totally on board with to begin with. While there are still folks – like myself – who collect such things with furtive reverence, most people, it seems, stream their music, these days. As such, given the advent of various digital platforms, actually hearing certain music is easier than ever before. Personally speaking, I continue to prefer CD’s and LPs. Whatever.
That all brings us to the point of this long-winded post. While their albums may have been difficult to prize back in the day, through the magic of Bandcamp, you can now pretty much avail yourself to the entirety of Missing Foundation’s discography, including the newly released Hamburg 1984, their comparatively slick (for MF) and entirely listenable collaboration with KMFDM.
Via this handy aggregation, you can hear some of my favorite selections like “Pistol Archive,” the afore-mentioned “A Hunting We Will Go,” the riff-blitzkrieg of “Jameel’s Turmoil” (including a more recent live airing of same), “Kill the Hypnotic Bastards” and, of course, “Burn Trees.”
Find all this by clicking right here. Tell’em Flaming Pablum sent ya.
More on Missing Foundation ...
Missing to Be Clever
Missing in Action
Cocktails for Two: In Conversation with Missing Foundation's Chris Egan
Back in 2016, I described my love for the band Skeleton Key thusly…
As I mentioned above, I’d first heard of Erik by way of his band Skeleton Key, who were easily one of my favorite discoveries of the `90s. Like a hiccupy cross between, say, early Devo and Pussy Galore — or maybe a less scowly Cop Shoot Cop — Skeleton Key made a gloriously skewed-but-tuneful cacophony. Like both C$C and Pussy Galore, the band featured a distinctive percussionist — initially a spiky haired gent named Rick Lee — who smacked the shit out of a variety of found metal implements, among them pots, pans, a fire extinguisher, a child’s red wagon and various other sundry items. In addition to Lee’s clamorous arsenal, the first iteration of the band also featured powerhouse drummer Steve Calhoon. In front of those two were guitarist/vocalist Chris Maxwell and bassist, vocalist, bandleader and former Lounge Lizard Erik Sanko.
That particular line-up of the band recorded an e.p. and one full album — the truly amazing Fantastic Spikes Through Balloon — before attrition started to take its toll, leaving Erik as the only mainstay from the original four. He kept the band going, though, recording two more consistently distinctive albums that retained the band’s signature brand of propulsive rock racket.
Indeed, the original line-up for Skeleton Key dissolved around 1999, although Erik kept the band going through 2012. In the interim, Erik also toured with Firewater and released a solo record, but his primary focus has been his work with the creative collective, Phantom Limb. Following their days in Skeleton Key, Lee and Calhoon formed Enon with John Schmersal from Braniac for a bit, but not sure what they’ve gone onto since. Guitarist Chris Maxwell currently pursues a solo career and, I believe, does music for the animated show “Bob’s Burgers.”
But back in 1997, the original line-up of Skeleton Key was just an insane live band that was not to be missed. Bizarrely, very little video evidence of that first line-up exists, beyond a weird appearance on MTV (see that old post). But a YouTuber called Mike’s Music Archive uploaded a live show quite recently taped at CBGB, and it is amazing to behold. See that below.
This was recorded on the New Year’s Eve of December 31, 1997. The Jesus Lizard was the headliner. I first posted this video on Facebook, and Erik mentioned that at the very end, Danny Elfman of Oingo Boingo emrges from the dressing room.
Anyway, … enjoy!
Back in August of 2008, I posted an entry dubbed “Recent Things.” This was essentially just a series of photographs I’d snapped with my still-quasi-new digital camera (not iPhone) to offset a series of photo posts I’d portentuously titled “Things That Are No Longer There,” and variations thereof. I stumbled upon that latter post this morning, and was struck by how many of those things – a decade later – are themselves no longer there … or at least not how I’d left them, so to speak. Let’s review, shall we?
This, as the sign says, was Bleecker Bob's. I devoted almost as many posts to the slow demise of this storied stronghold of punk vinyl as I did to the untimely vanishing of the Cedar Tavern. In any event, it closed in 2013 and, contrary to original plans, did not turn into a rock'n'roll-themed frozen yogurt emporium, but rather a fair-to-middling Japanese restaurant I dined in in 2015. Read that account here, should you honestly care.
This is a shot of my then-four-year-old daughter Charlotte standing cherubically in front of what had been the fabled Moondance Diner at the bottom of Sixth Avenue, just north of Canal Street. About year after this photo was taken, the Moondance closed (its physical manifestation moving out west to Wyoming, if memory serves) and a giant, fuckoff hotel was erected in its footprint. I sneer every time I walk by it ... which is daily.
This is the former exterior of Marty's Cool Stuff on LaFayette Street just north of Bleecker. The shop was a complete, unmanageable mess, but Marty did indeed have the odd bit of genuinely ...er... "cool stuff." The only lasting bit of ephemera I have that I'd prized there is this orange metal sign that says "Smiths Overalls." It hangs just above the interior transom of our front door. Today, this is part of the noxious streetwear flagship, KITH.
This is the former entrance to 9 Second Avenue, just steps to the south of the Mars Bar (also gone, of course) on East First Street. Largely derelict and abandoned by the time of this photo, the building's significant back history was lovingly told in an amazing documentary called "The Tao of 9 Second Avenue." I wrote about it here, but it's well worth seeking out. Today, the spot in this photo is part of a TD Bank branch.
Fittingly just around the corner from the shot immediately above, this is the north-facing exterior of the old Mars Bar on East First Street between Second Avenue and the Bowery. A constantly shifting and captivating canvas for murals and spontaneous expressions of colorful street art, this strip of East First Street was always one of my favorite spots in Manhattan. It's all gone now. What's in this space now is that TD Bank, a chic condo's chilly lobby and -- last time I checked -- a business called The Alchemist's Kitchen.
Believe it or not, this is Extra Place on the northern end of East First Street, just steps to the east of the Bowery. Yes, down at the end of that arguably forbidding dead end was the rear of CBGB. Many an atmospheric photo of punk luminaries was snapped in this forgotten byway. Today, it's a comparatively straight-laced and squeaky-clean strip of neatly appointed -- but frequently empty -- storefronts.
This last one probably doesn't need a lot of explanation. That's Charlotte, again.
...with apologies to Abbot & Costello.
Yesterday, our good friend and longtime fellow anachronistic bloggity-blogger EV Grieve posted an update on the status of the northeast corner of St. Marks Place at Third Avenue. Many might remember the news from about a year back that a large segment of that block -– including spaces fomerly or currently occupied by concerns like McDonald’s, the Continental, Korilla (formerly about nine other things since its storied iteration as St. Marks Pizza, above, as caught by Matt Weber in 1985), that corner news-agents/smoke shop, the since-shuttered Papaya King, among others -– would be razed to accommodate a new, seven-story tower of office space, because -- yeah, wait for it -– we needed that.
Well, plans for same, at the moment, seem squishy (see Grieve’s post for details), although most of the businesses on that plot have already closed up shop. The McDonald’s has been gone for a while, pushed out not just by this plan, but also the advent of the ever-aromatic/pungent (depending on your opinion) Shake Shack across the avenue. The Continental seems to have received a stay of execution, for the moment, although, if I’m being honest, I haven’t set foot in that particular joint since they dismantled the rear stage and stopped hosting live music.
As laboriously lamented in this old post, I was lucky enough to regularly witness a slew of suitably slovenly bands grace the stage at The Continental back throughout the 90’s, some notable high-decibel culprits being the legitimately incendiary Nashville Pussy (above), The Unband (below), The Upper Crust, The Lee Harvey Keitel Band, The Bullys, The Pleasure Fuckers, Furious George and the Candy Snatchers.
The loss of St. Marks Pizza was also worthy of its own post, which I thought I’d done, but evidently not. Or, if I did, I can’t find it anymore. In any case, it closed in 2003, and the neighborhood was pointedly the lesser for it. I also remember their slices being way better than those prized at more rhapsodized pizzerias like Stromboli's two blocks to the east.
I also strangley spent a week living in that eyesore of a dormintory right next to the old McDonald’s back in 1993, which I spoke about in this ancient post. The building hasn’t aged well, but it’s still standing … despite what many of the architecture students who lived inside it, at the time, were predicting.
In any event, regardless of what’s to transpire for ths busy plot of the East Village, it already seems somewhat undead. That said, I’m sure I’ll pine for this decrepit iteration of it once the new buildings start going up.
When I think of that particular strip, I invariably think of going to those live shows at the Continental. Herewith a smattering of that era, replete with live footage captured in that venue.
I posted a rapturous review of Celine Dahnier's excellent documentary, "Blank City" back in 2013, summing it up by suggesting that "even if you're not a smelly music dork or an esoteric cinema head, "Blank City" is entirely fascinating." I continue to stand by that review.
In any case, I recently stumbled upon this alternate trailer for the film on Vimeo, and it hits all the right notes, so to speak. Hard to believe, sometimes, that this is the same city.
Stories fron New York: No Wave Cinema from Monica Delgado on Vimeo.
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