Flaming Pablum

Ill Reconciliation

If you care even slightly about the Beastie Boys, you’ve probably already heard about this, but the Broken Record podcast reunited Adam Horovitz and Michael Diamond with Rick Rubin.

Again, if you care, it’s mandatory listening.

"When Midnight Comes Around"

Back in 2015, I interacted with a photographer named Gary Green during the course of trying to track down the location of a photograph of Joe Jackson Green snapped for the sleeve of Jackson’s “Real Men” single. Now a professor at Colby College, Green then shared with me more photos he took from back in the day, which he’d put on a website, documenting nights out at joints like Max’s Kansas City, CBGB and other likely haunts.

Today, I’m happy to evangelize that Green’s photos can now be yours in the form of a book called “When Midnight Comes Around” (yes, a Velvet Underground lyric). Rife with images of period-specific luminaries like Richard Hell, Johnny Thunders, Anya Philips, Joey Ramone, David Johanson, Debbie Harry, Patti Smith, Victor Bockris, Tom Waits, Robert Gordon, Alex Chilton, Andy Warhol, Lou Reed and more.

Click here to get your copy. Tell’em Flaming Pablum sent ya.

Back Again … Briefly … to The Cooler

Back in 2012 — itself a damn long time ago — I posted a eulogy of sorts to The Cooler, an old live-music venue in the Meatpacking District, spooling an anecdote about attending one of its final shows, that being my friend Paul Wallfisch's band Botanica opening for Suicide, who I sadly did not stay for — coerced, instead, by my friend Tod [A] of Firewater to jump ship and come with him to check out this weird Ukrainian disco over on Canal Street.

As it happened, that weird Ukranian disco was actually a weird Bulgarian disco called Mehanata. You can see snippets of the interior of that place in the video for “Start Wearing Purple” by Gogol Bordello. Gogol Bordello, incidentally, then counted guitarist Eugene Kaplan in its ranks, although Eugene also played for both Firewater and Botanica. Mehanata, meanwhile, was located directly over the former location of Dave’s Luncheonette, a fabled diner for the Mudd Club set which briefly made a cameo in the video for “Jukebox Baby" by Alan Vega of Suicide. See? It’s all related!

In any case, in that anecdote on that old post, I fleeting alluded to trying to snag a poster for that gig off the very wall of The Cooler, but was prevented from doing so by the joint’s notoriously irritable proprietor, that being a gent inexplicably named Jedi (this testy exchange was immortalized in New York Press). As lovely as I remember the poster being, I had to leave without it. Ever since then, I’ve kept one eye out for it, in case it appeared in a random Google search or eBay auction.

Well, that actually happened this week. Via Google, I found it on an auction site, but sadly said auction ended in 2009 — itself, once again, a long damn time ago. From that site, however, I was able to glean that the poster was designed by an artist named Kayrock, and only 100 were made. Adding insult to injury, the auction was only asking twenty bucks for the poster. Alas, I am 11 years too late.

Today in 2020, the building at 416 West 14th Street that formerly housed The Cooler plays host to pricey retail shops. The last time I walked by it, I think it was a Levi’s outlet. I’m not sure what happens in the lower chamber that used to be The Cooler, but I doubt it’s anything particularly exciting.

Back over on Canal Street, Mehanata closed up that location in 2006 and moved to a new spot on Ludlow Street, where I gather it still operates today, although its website suggests it’s a far, far glitzier affair than it was in 2001. Its former place off Canal & Broadway is now the SoHo Garden Hotel.

Alan Vega of Suicide died in 2016, and his songs are now unwittingly used to sell perfume by Marc Jacobs.

Tod [A] now lives in Turkey, writes books and still writes music. Hopefully, Firewater will ride again, one day.

Paul Wallfisch joined SWANS in 2016, but remains musically active elsewhere.

Guitarist Oren Kaplan sued Gogol Bordello frontman Eugene Hutz, in 2013, over fiscal mismanagement of the band. The last thing I heard him being involved with was a collaboration between fabled post-punk bassists Youth (of Killing Joke) and Jah Wobble (of Public Image Ltd.).

Kayrock is still active, and has a very nice website.

I, meanwhile, still do not have that poster, but it looks like this...

Random Pics Taking Up Space on My Desktop

You're welcome...

 

Bankrupt on the Bowery

I have a history of speaking disparagingly about the business endeavors of John Varvatos on this blog (most floridly here, but elsewhere as well). My objections with him and his efforts, though, are basically about fundamental differences in perception. He’s not an evil man, nor has he -- to my knowledge, at least -- broken any laws.

When news came down, last week, that his brand was in serious financial troubles brought on by the pandemic-imposed closures of his clothing outlets (his flagship spot at 315 Bowery, the former site of CBGB, among them), I blithely mentioned on Facebook that I wouldn’t shed a tear seeing that venture close up shop. 

In hindsight, though, that was a callous thing to say, as John Varvatos files for bankruptcy.

Do I like what he’d done with the place? Hell, no, but he didn’t force CBGB out of existence (blame Muzzy Rosenblatt and/or Hilly Kristal for that). And, at the very least, while it’s not the way I would have done it, Varvatos did take pains to recognize the historical significance of the space he came to occupy. It very well might've turned into a bank or a frozen yogurt place.

It’s a tragedy for every business caught behind the eight-ball because of this pandemic. No one deserved this.

More to the point, though, while I may not like John Varvatos’ stuff or “deem appropriate” his handling of certain aspects of rock’n’roll lore, these are ultimately just my silly tastes and opinions. 

He may wear leather pants and sell slavishly overpriced crap in the former space of CBGB, but he’s also a philanthropist with a robust history of giving back. For that, he should be rightfully lauded.

So, yeah, what I’m trying to say is that my arguments against John Varvatos are ultimately just petty bullshit, especially this long after the fact, and I'm sorry his business is taking such a hit. I'm still not about to shop there, but good luck to him.

They Filmed Bands

Some of you might remember a post or two from 2017 wherein I discussed stumbling upon the video archives of one director Charles Libin, a trailblazer in the field of music video, being one of the first bona fide veejays. For a while, there were several of his clips on YouTube, showcasing a trove of period-specific footage of live music and conceptual video. Check out this post for more details, although the videos themselves are no longer embedded therein.

Well, recently, the daughter of Mr. Libin reached out to me with something really cool. Here’s what she had to say…

I’d love to share with you Charles Libin (my dad) and Paul Cameron’s series WE FILM BANDS. Libin+Cameron made conceptual music videos and shot live punk, post-punk, and no wave performances by iconic bands in the 1980s, many of which have never been seen. Fortuitously, I also began directing in my early twenties, the same age my dad and Paul were when they made these videos. In my music video for Princess Nokia’s Green Line, I included their footage of the Bronx breakdancing crew Floor Masters, from their Melon video After the Death.

We felt that, in celebration of the 40 year anniversary, their collection would be a cool discovery for people stuck in their homes.

And here’s a bit more info from the press release:

On March 3, 1979, Charles Libin and Paul Cameron gathered fellow film students from SUNY Purchase and shot the B-52s’ now legendary performance of Rock Lobster at the Hurrah nightclub in NYC. Libin+Cameron’s filming of the B-52s kicked off a series of live performances they captured, including The Cure's first NYC appearance, Gang of Four, Suicide, Polyrock, James White (aka James Chance) & The Blacks), Debbie Harry, Defunkt, Lizzy Mercier Descloux, Kid Creole & The Coconuts, The Plastics, and other ground-breaking bands. Libin+Cameron designed and programmed an immersive video experience with monitors throughout Hurrah. “A fair-haired, soft spoken 22-year old named Charles Libin is credited as the first veejay.” – Daily News, Sept 4, 1981

Friggin’ cool, right?

Anyway, you can check out all this stuff on WE FILMED BANDS.

It's Iggy Pop's Birthday

I actually own the original illustration of this, which first appeared in New York Press in 1993.

All Hail.

 

Big City Survey: Part II

As I mentioned in the first part, I started answering the individual questions of this survey well over a month ago — back before life as we all knew it came to a grinding halt. As such, the tone of the answers below may be a bit different from the first batch.

Once again, I am not in the city in question, at the moment. About three weeks back, the wife, kids and I took up my family’s kind offer to decamp to my mother’s empty house out on Long Island. Given the limited space of our Manhattan apartment — which was already feeling tiny well before this crisis hit, even after some “creative" renovations — the spiraling uncertainties and the growing predictions of a looming, unstoppable uptick in COVID-19 cases — I felt it was prudent to get my family out of what has since become, by all reports, an unspeakable tragedy — one that we could have collectively been better prepared for had Trump and the rest of his clown car of an administration not dismantled the Nation Security Council’s pandemic response team in May of 2018. But, what’s done is done. There are now coronavirus-treatment tents on Sheep’s Meadow in Central Park and makeshift morgues in the streets. There is continued talk of temporarily burying COVID-19 victims in trenches in city parks.

Out here in Quogue, I would take solace in the notion that we’ve now been out of the city long enough for the incubation period — had we been infected before we left and unwittingly brought the virus with us — to have flowered into sickness by now, and that hasn’t happened. We are all still, to our knowledge, fully healthy. But, that, too, is speculative. We could very well have been infected and continue to be asymptomatic. As such, we are staying inside, washing our hands frequently and furiously after supply missions and, now, covering our noses and mouths when we have to do those runs. Most of all, we’re staying indoors and maintaining physical distance with others in accordance with that elusive goal of flattening the curve. But I cannot — and will not — complain.

I am profoundly privileged to have gotten out, but I miss my city, and I sorely fear for my friends, family and countless independent local concerns still there. I worry constantly about what happens next. As do we all.

As such, here’s the second half of the survey that celebrates my home town.

Favorite Book Shop:
Much as with my favorite record & CD shops, New York’s once great network of small, independent bookstores has also been largely vanquished by the advent of technological convenience. Time was when I would have answered this question with Shakespeare & Company at 716 Broadway, but that closed a few years back and is now a Foot Locker (`cos, y’know … we needed another place to buy expensive sneakers). That was an amazing bookshop, as I discussed here, but it’s gone now. As such, my fallback position is the mighty Strand on Broadway at East 12th Street. A huge, cavernous, multi-tiered hive of all sorts of literature, it is absolutely essential and unfuckwithable.

Favorite Music Shop:
I have already devoted entirely too many posts to lost record & CD shops. It’s a subject that largely defines this stupid weblog. As such, I’ll devote this answer solely to what remans … which regrettably isn’t very much. If I’m hard-pressed to find a specific disc, my first inclination, these days, is to head to Rough Trade in Williamsburg, which has a sprawling and enviable supply of great music of all stripes and is staffed by knowledgable folks (like my good friend Miles). Failing that, in Manhattan, there is always Generation Records on Thompson Street, but their selection is growing somewhat thin, of late. I’m also still quite fond of Downtown Music Gallery down on Monroe Street, in a sleepy patch of Chinatown, but that’s exclusively for deeply esoteric stuff. With regards to all three of these businesses, I have grave concerns about their well-being in the wake of this pandemic.

Favorite Dive Bar:
There remains a great deal of debate about what genuinely constitutes a proper “dive bar,” but I’ll say this — if the bar you’re in has a flatscreen television, it’s not a dive bar. Dive bars are generally dark, decrepit, a little scary and filled with drinkers for whom the clock has little or no importance. And make no mistake — dive bars aren't “punk bars.” Sure, there are plenty of so-called punk bars, but they’re usually fairly stylized, arty and endeavor to create a specific atmosphere (and many try way too hard, in this capacity). Proper dive bars don’t cater to that. There are loads of seedy, neighborhood bars, but that doesn’t make them dives. Proper dive bars don’t cater to being neighborhoody or kitschy or themey. They’re there to profit from despair, not cultivate character. Proper dive bars may indeed serve food, but chances are you don’t want to eat it. Dive bars are purely function over form — places wherein to get blotto drunk on the cheap to help you forget the shittiest of life’s circumstances. There are no proper dive bars in my neighborhood, anymore. None. Being that less and less is genuinely cheap in Manhattan, there are fewer and fewer of these joints. Dive bars don’t exist in nice neighborhoods. They perch on the fringes of civilization. I used to know a couple of bona fide dives on 8th and 9th avenues, where desperately depressed mailmen would drink themselves blind, but I don’t know if they’re still there. The Savoy, tucked behind Port Authority, was certainly one of them, but that’s changed hands a few times since I was last there in the mid-90s. Billymark’s West on West 28th & 9th Avenue was similarly grim, but the last time I looked, it was a good deal more inviting.

Favorite Irish Bar:
My favorite is probably The Scratcher on East 5th Street. Genuinely Irish, but without any cartoonishly cloying blarney aesthetic. Being half-Irish, I’m allowed to say shit like that.

Favorite Date Bar:
Well, I’ve been married for about twenty years, now, so haven’t really been on any dates, recently. When we were dating, the wife and I were quite fond of Johnny’s Bar on Greenwich Avenue, especially if we could sit in the front window. If you’re feeling flush, I might also suggest taking your date to the King Cole Bar at the St. Regis, which has astounding atmosphere (but very pricey drinks). Angel’s Share on Stuyvesant Street (amazingly still there) was also a great spot for dates, especially in that it was hard to find, which made it that much cooler.

Favorite Sports Bar:
Being that I generally don’t give one single crap about sports, I really don’t have one. If I’m at a sports bar, you’re bound to find me at the jukebox, about to piss off several patrons who are otherwise trying to pay attention to their precious ball games.

Favorite Park:
As much as I love Washington Square Park and Tompkins Square Park and Riverside Park, there is only one — 1 — answer for this. Any answer other than Central Park is moot.

Favorite Street:
I have a few, but they’re favorites for different reasons. I love Courtlandt Alley for its atmosphere, vibe and history. I love 13th Street between 6th & 7th Avenues for its overall look and feel. I love my own street, because I live on it.

Favorite Live Music Venue:
I feel like I’m repeating myself, but most of my favorite live music venues are gone. If you’re curious what they might have been, just peruse back under the “Vanished Venues” category. In terms of live music venues that — as of, say, February — that were still in operation, I’d say I’m still quite fond of the Bowery Ballroom. Irving Plaza is reportedly coming back, or at least was before all this bullshit went down. I have not been the re-opened Webster Hall, as yet, so jury’s still out on that, but the building certainly still carries a ton of resonance.

Favorite Movie Theatre:
I love the Quad Cinemas on West 13th Street. Kind of the very last of its kind.

Favorite New York Movie:
Without a moment’s hesitation, “After Hours.” Second place would be “The Taking of Pelham One Two Three,” the original version from 1974.

Favorite Song About New York:
I could make whole playlists of favorite songs about New York, so picking one is not easy feat. Today, I’m going to say “Manhattan” by Cat Power, but that could change in a half an hour.

Favorite Quiet Place in New York:
Maybe the Conservatory Gardens on Upper Fifth Avenue.

Favorite New York Secret:
If I disclosed that here, it wouldn’t be a secret anymore.

 

Cruisin' for Some Kreuzen

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.

Back in Time to `89

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.