Flaming Pablum

Soundgarden on 54th

It’s always odd when you stumble across videos of events you attended. I find them hard to objectively watch, as I get too distracted trying to maybe spot myself in the background. It’s silly, really.

In any case, someone posted the video below on Facebook, yesterday, and I felt compelled to share it here -– not so you can help me spot myself in the crowd footage, but that given this blog’s usual themes, it checks all the right boxes.

This is a snippet of Soundgarden playing at the New Ritz in 1990. Actually, by then, it had dropped the “New” and was just going by Ritz, but everybody still made that distinction (the original Ritz being, of course, on East 11th Street). Also on this bill came Faith No More and Voivod. Shortly before this gig, my friend Brent and I had seen their other NYC stop on this tour at L’Amour in Brooklyn (as recounted on this old post). When the tour rolled into the New Ritz -– then newly housed in the comparatively expansive former Studio 54 space, we -– of course -– showed up again. This is a slice of that evening.

The Ritz at 54th Street closed at some point in the mid-90’s. I sadly cannot recall the final show I attended there, although it might have been GBH with a reunited Kraut opening.

Anyway, since this video, this iteration of the Ritz became a host of different things and is now a Broadway theatre. Chris Cornell of Soundgarden tragically took his own life in 2017.

Here they were, though, alive and well in 1990.

Banshee on Bleecker Street

I spotted this particular bit of fetching street art above from about a half-a-block away. I do not know the name of the artist, but his stuff is all over certain bits of SoHo and the Lower East Side.

This is, of course, a portrait of the inimitable Siouxsie Sioux, affixed to an edifice on Bleecker Street between Lafayette and Bowery at about Elizabeth Street, ... obviously, just a stone's throw from the former site of CBGB, where I don't *believe* Siouxsie & the Banshees ever played, although I could be mistaken.

This image can be spotted on a narrow strip of brickface adjacent to that lamentable -- to my mind -- boxing joint, Overthrow. You might remember them from that incongruous mural of Joey Ramone from some years back. Not sure if they have anything to do with the Siouxsie image or not. I kinda hope not.

To be fair, I have nothing against boxing, really. I just hate that this particular chunk of downtown has been redefined as an epicenter of physical fitness, what with there being numerous other gyms and fitness franchises like Barry’s Bootcamp, Soul Cycle, Rumble and several others all over the map between Astor Place and East Houston. I’m tired of seeing all that friggin' activewear every damn morning.

Anyway, just in case you live in a cave and are woefully unfamiliar with Siouxsie & the Banshees, here’s a taste…

Yorkville Is Dead

As much as I slavishly devote most of my Manhattan-centric posts to largely downtown doings, as I have pointed out repeatedly, over the years, I actually spent a sizable amount of my life living uptown on the Upper East Side. It’s not a fact that wins me any cool points, for whatever that’s worth, but facts remain facts, even in this perilous era wherein the truth is essentially endangered.

Anyway, from about 1984 to about 1996, I lived in the far-flung, easterly region of the U.E.S. known as Yorkville, perched in a building on the northerly side of East 86th Street between York Avenue and East End Avenue. My roots in this neighborhood, however, actually date back much further, as my grandparents had lived in a building on the same strip in the early 1970s. As such, I spent a large swathe of my toddlerdom in the quiet, leafy confines of Carl Schurz Park (above) on the eastern edge of that part of the island.

A comparatively sleepy enclave, in those days, Yorkville initially seemed like a neighborhood well apart from the hustle of the avenues to its west. I still vividly remember regularly taking the crosstown bus across 86th Street, as a very small child, with my family to go visit my grandparents. I recall a long-since-vanished restaurant on the south side of the street, between Second and Third Avenues called the Bavarian Inn (Yorkville having been a thriving epicenter of New York City's German community for decades, at the time). As the bus would pass by it, I would peer out the window and try to spot the curious signage above its entrance, which featured a strange little man in lederhosen posing -- as one does, I suppose -- with a giant beer and what looked like a goat (see above ... thanks, internet!) I always loved that.

After my grandparents finally forsook the elderly-hostile environs of New York City for Florida, I wouldn’t set foot that deep into Yorkville again until my mother and step-father got divorced in 1984. My mom and I moved out of our then-spot in Carnegie Hill -– also on the Upper East Side -- to the afore-cited new apartment between York and East End Avenues.

I still remember leaving the former for the last time, going to high school -- I would have been starting my junior year, I believe –- and then walking to the new apartment, for the first time, after my last class. For some reason, I recall listening to “Mean Street” by Van Halen on my Walkman as I approached what was to become my new local street corner. Yeah, as if. At its worst, this idyllic little patch of Yorkville was hardly what anyone would consider an urban badlands.

That all said, as laboriously described in this post (one of my favorites), I did manage to encounter an actual bit of trouble, finding myself at odds with members -– or at least satellite supporters of -– an infamous gaggle of neighborhood toughs then mistakenly referred to as The 84th Street Gang. Recently, a former member of that actual organization thoughtfully wrote in to discuss that post, taking the opportunity to inform me that they were actually the 84th Street Bombers. As many kids from that neighborhood –- and surrounding Upper East Side -- can still attest, they were assuredly no joke.

In any case, as mentioned in that earlier post, I somehow managed to elude said gang and got on with my life in Yorkville. At the time, I invariably decried the neighborhood as being too sleepy and “characterless” (not at all true) and routinely lamented having to cross multiple avenue blocks just to make it to the 6 Train to take me to more interesting parts of town. Youthful indignation aside, however, life could have been significantly much worse.

I finally left Yorkville and its surrounding Upper East Side in 1996, repairing to a great studio apartment in Greenwich Village. I’m relatively certain that when I left, I waved goodbye to that idyllic urban backwater with two emphatic middle fingers, and proceeded on with life. In reality, though, I’d grown accustomed, attached and downright fond of Yorkville, quietly assuming it would always remain as I left it, virtually preserved in amber. Untouchable.

As it turned out, however, this was not to be the case.

I was largely spared the upheaval it unleashed on my former turf, but the finishing construction of the long-promised Second Avenue subway line ushered in a new era for Yorkville. While it rendered Second Avenue itself unrecognizable for a long period of years and made life exceptionally difficult for many longstanding small businesses on same, most greeted the arrival of the Second Avenue line as an overdue relief, easing the crowds on the 6 Line two avenues to its west and allowing for comparatively swifter transit between the upper and lower halves of Manhattan’s east side. I cannot authoritatively speak to either of these outcomes, but my daughter, Charlotte -– who regularly heads up to the Upper East Side during the school year -– attests that the 6 train is still jam-packed at certain points of the morning.

Since the arrival of that line, however, much has changed.

A couple of months back, I had a fleeting day off and accompanied my daughter to school, helping her carry some unwieldy fencing gear (she joined a team on a lark, unaware that it would require a sizable amount of heavy lifting). After dropping Charlotte off, I found myself back on the Upper East Side with nothing to do and nowhere to be. As such, I thought I’d take a stroll over to Yorkville and check in on my former home ground.

I started walking east on East 85th Street. My shoulders sore from hauling all that fencing gear (I don’t know how Charlotte does it on her days without assistance), I popped into a backrub/foot-rub joint just across the way from a favorite old, tiny bar of mine (formerly The Gaf, Pedro’s before that and probably six-dozen other concerns, now the backroom of a place called The Daisy). When I lived in this neighborhood in the early 90’s, this plot of East 85th offered some significantly less salubrious services as a strip for some frankly disarming variants of prostitute. Reasonably certain I wasn’t going to be offered a “full service” backrub, I got myself a ten-minute massage, then continued heading east.

Reaching York Avenue, I was pleased to see Arturo’s still in business on the northeast corner of 85th. A perennially unfussy pizzeria, Arturo’s makes perfectly respectable pizza -– nothing to write home about, but way better than the one-dollar variety that’s now too-readily available around town. I stopped in for a nostalgic slice.

It wasn’t until I walked north to check out my old block that I noticed something was seriously afoot.

I’d been aware that a selection of humble rowhouses that formerly stood between my building and the newspaper store that abutted The Mansion Diner on the corner had been razed some time ago, but I hadn’t seen what was coming next, nor had I heard about the demolition and construction slated for the southeast corner of 86th (its former appearance is the row of low buildings at the top of this post).

In the footprint of the rowhouses that formerly stood to my old building’s west, there is now a giant glass and steel tower that completely dwarfs everything around it, shattering the symmetry of that end of the block. Meanwhile, the four-story building pictured above have all been razed for the purposes of erecting something new on the southeast corner.

Obviously, there is rampant (over)development literally all over Manhattan, but to see this comparatively out-of-the-way portion of Yorkville fall prey to same really took the wind out of my sails.

In my old room on 86th, I had a corner window in the back that looked out over a shaft-way adjacent to a courtyard behind those low row-houses. I used to get plenty of light, even in that back room. With that new colossal structure next to it, now, I cannot imagine that is still the case. Meanwhile, the corner window in my mom’s room in the front (which used to give me visual access to the stoop adjacent to the newspaper stand, where the afore-cited 84th Street Bomber-types frequently hung out) must now be completely obstructed by the new building’s assertive façade.

This whole, weepy post is essentially just preamble to a New York Times article that posted on Monday, that pretty much echoed and confirmed all of my worst fears about the fate of Yorkville. Check it out here.

Surfin' U.S.A.

I’ve written here a couple of times about the mighty Butthole Surfers – notably here and here – and how witnessing their live show at the Newport Music Hall in Columbus, Ohio on a stop on their 1987 tour for Locust Abortion Technician was something of an indelible experience. I’d posted videos of their 1986 iteration at CBGB and Danceteria here in NYC, but someone recently uploaded a full show from the `87 tour -– recorded in Atlanta, GA –- that really captures the bug-eyed insanity and sensory-engulfing mayhem of that 1987 tour.

To say that it is not for the faint of heart or easily offended is a heroic understatement.

Don’t say you weren’t warned.

Goodbye to Manitoba's

While rumors of its impending demise have been circulating since as far back as 2007, I’m sad to relay, in case you hadn’t heard, that Manitoba’s at 99 Avenue B has closed for good. That's me, above, in the rear of same circa 2011. 

I’ve written about both the celebrated bar and the man behind it -– erstwhile Dictators frontman and NYC Punk Rock luminary Richard Blum, more commonly known as Handsome Dick Manitoba -– several times here. Having established himself as a polarizing figure, of sorts, since his early days with the nascent Dictators, it was sort of expected that Richard could be a gruff and/or argumentative presence not unlike, say, the late Bleecker Bob. In my very limited personal experience with the man, however, I have to say that Richard was always an approachable and affable guy -– so long as you didn’t veer too deeply into any political discussions.

In terms of the bar, while it’s always courted a bit of conflict (first from upstairs neighbors who’d moved in unaware that they’d be residing over a boisterous local hang-out), it has more recently had a much harder time of it in the wake of some of Richard’s legal troubles stemming from truly unfortunate allegations of spousal assault, a crime he was arrested for in 2018. From that point on, things became difficult for both the man and the establishment that bore his moniker.

Over the years, bars like Manitoba’s have become scarcer in the East Village. As the neighborhood’s overall sensibility has been somewhat forcibly shifted from a historic bohemian enclave to, well, a comparatively soulless hotbed of avaricious real estate opportunity and exclusive nightlife destination, the particular aesthetic bars like Manitoba’s catered to isn’t quite enough to compete in the 2019 iteration of the environs (despite the best, heroic efforts of Jesse Malin). Put simply, the punkers are being largely displaced by the brunchers.

I’d been hearing the recent rumors of Manitoba’s troubles for a few days, but my comrade EV Grieve finally confirmed it yesterday. Read the official details here.

While my nights out in the East Village took a fairly sharp downturn once I started having kids, I was always thankful that places like Manitoba’s were still going, especially as similarly inclined establishments had been vanishing left, right and center (personally, I think I miss the Lakeside Lounge the most). Now, hot on the heels of the recently shuttered Sidewalk Café, Manitoba’s joins the ranks of former places with history, identity and inimitable character to have a beer, hang out, meet with friends, hear great music and share stories.

I will miss it greatly.

Pour one out. This, meanwhile, was the Dictators...

Chronicling The Core Redux: 10 Questions

For a few years now, filmmaker Drew Stone has been continually adding to his excellent video series regarding all things NYHC, The New York Hardcore Chronicles. In between shooting amazing projects like the full-length film of the same name and 2017’s epic “Who The Fuck IS That Guy? The Fabulous Journey of Michael Alago,” Stone has sought out alumni of the NYHC scene and the surrounding punk rock community to paricipate in his great, ongoing 10 Questions series.

You might remember me highlighting the one he did with Flaming Pablum favorite RB Korbet of Even Worse back in 2016, but he’s also put luminaries like Davey Gunner of Kraut, Jessie Malin of Heart Attack/DGeneration, John Joseph of the Cro-Mags, Jimmy G of Murphy’s Law, Bobby Hambel of Biohazard, Vinnie Stigma and Roger Miret from Agnostic Front, Yana Chupenko of P.M.S./Wench, the late Todd Youth of Warzone/Murphy’s Law/Agnostic Front/etc., Harley Flanagan of the Cro-Mags and literally SO MANY OTHERS from practically every conceivable era of the genre (however one cares to personally define it) in front of the mic to weigh in. If you’re a fan/student/acolyte of this scene, this music and its accompanying culture, this series is absolultely required viewing. Find them all here. 

More often than not, despite the gruff exteriors and burly reputations of some of these characters, most of the ensuing anecdotes and reminicences are nothing but warm, good natured and practically familial. I was really happy to see Drew run his 10 Questions by none other than beloved NY1 reporter and longtime Punk rocker Roger Clark this week. I’m sure he’s already trying to rope in a bunch more participants, but I’d love Drew to corner Jack Natz (Cop Shoot Cop/Undead/Virus), Bobby Steele (Misfits/Undead), Doug Holland (Kraut/Cro-Mags), Stephan Ielpi (False Prophets), Tim Chunks (Token Entry), George Tabb (Letch Patrol/Iron Prostate/Furious George), Fran Power (Ultra Violence/Clix) and more, but I realize some of these are more likely than others.

As someone who skirted the periphery of NYHC (I went to several shows and was a devout fan of certain bands, but I would feel deeply remiss calling myself a bona fide member of the scence), I cannot claim to be as versed or as deeply ensconced as any of the participants of the 10 Questions series, but because I simply cannot resist a good survey, I decided to answer Drew Stone’s usual 10 Questions (and cheat by adding an eleventh).

First Hardcore Show You Ever Saw
The first hardcore show I was lucky enough to witness would have been in either `84 or `85 at the Ritz on East 11th Street, and it was an amazing line-up of my then-favorites, The Circle Jerks sharing a bill with the incomparable D.O.A., Redd Kross and Toxic Reasons. It was absolute fucking mayhem, and I loved every nanosecond of it.

Club You Miss Most From Back in The Day
There’s a lot to choose from, here, obviously. Most of the series participants cite A7, but that was slightly before my time. CBGB was, of course, the epicenter of so much (and not just hardcore), and its loss continues to sting, but if I’m being entirely honest, I have to say the run of shows I caught at the old Ritz on East 11th Street (i.e. before it moved to 54th Street, before Webster Hall) fires my imagination the most. This all said, I also dearly miss The Marquee on West 21st, Wetlands Preserve in TriBeca, and Tramps in Chelsea, just to name three more.

Funniest Guy in the Hardcore Scene
The usual response here is Vinnie Stigma or Jimmy G. And, yes, while both of those guys are indeed hilarious, I cannot say I actually know either of them. With that in mind, I’m going to say Dean Rispler (Murphy’s Law/Dictators/Brought-Low/Hot Corn Girls/Swilson). I didn’t meet Dean until about 1990 or so (he was dating a friend of mine), but he’s a tirelessly big-hearted, inclusive, knowledgable gent who is always hilarious.

Favorite Slamdancer in the Pit (Past or Present)
Again, the usual responses here are characters like Minus, Rat Bones and various other almost mythilogical luminaries from NYHC’s storied past. While I cannot claim to have any meaningful encounters with those cats, I would cite two separate friends of mine to single out for this category – namely my former classmate Matt Harrington, who managed to start up a cheekily emphatic circle pit at an Urban Blight show, of all things, via the sheer force of his enthusiasm. My second choice would be my longtime comrade Rob D., who’d perfected a sort of gangly, loose-limbed skank with flailing limbs akimbo that was so distincive, he was once written-up for it in a review of a Claw Hammer/Laughing Hyenas double-bill at Los Angeles’ Troubadour. The piece spent more time talking about Rob’s moves than the actual bands’ performances.

Show You Wish You Saw Back in The Day
There are too many to cite, here, but off the top of my head, there was an amazing line-up at the club that was usually referred to as The Roxy on way West 18th Street that featured a lethal line-up of the Cirlce Jerks, Bad Brains, Leeway and an early iteration of Vernon Reid’s Living Colour that would have been amazing. I also quite wish I’d caught the original line-up of Kraut back in their heyday. I saw them reunite and open for GBH in the early 90’s, but never caught them at their prime.

Greatest Show You Saw in Your “Golden Age” of Hardcore
This is also a toughie. Beyond that first Circle Jerks/D.O.A. gig, a few chaotic Butthole Surfers shows – if they count as hardcore --- and a high-octane double-bill of FEAR and The Dwarves, I’d have to say the greatest was seeing the Bad Brains on the Quickness tour at the New Ritz on 54th Street. It’s a cliché, but I’d just never seen anything like it. H.R. hadn’t lost his mind, yet, so was still firing on all cylinders. Also, and this seems to get overlooked a lot, despite the hysteria their music inspired (literally the whole entire floor of the venue was one giant pit), the look of sheer, unfettered joy on Dr. Know’s face while he played was remarkable. I’ve never seen anyone come close to that.

Brooklyn or Queens
I’m a born’n’bred, dyed-in-the-wool Manhattan snob, but more of my favorite bands of that era came from Queens, if I’m being honest.

Best Pizza in New York
Funny, I’m actually working on another sprawling food-related post at the moment. Look for that soon, but, in the interim, while most of my old favorite pizzarias are long gone (much like my favorite record stores), I’m still a big fan of Lombardi’s on Spring Street, although it’s gotten way too touristy for my taste. John’s Pizza on Bleecker Street is also very nice. In terms of just grabbing a quick slice, though, my favorite spots for that are all gone. Also, friends don’t let friends buy $1 pizza. It’s an unforgivable affront to New York’s culinary heritage.

Top 3 Hardcore Drummers
I’m going to upset convention and say Johnny Feedback from Kraut, Lucky Lehrer of the Circle Jerks and John Wright of NoMeansNo.

Message to the Youth
Stop listening to bullshit, mush-mouthed pop/R&B/ersatz hip-hop and invest in the real deal.

Is Hardcore Dead?
In terms of “my” era, hardcore isn’t dead, hardcore is dad, now that we’ve all grown up, gotten married and procreated. In all honesty, I once wrote a profile of Redd Kross for CREEM magazine back in 1992, citing that first show I’d seen wherein they opened for D.O.A. and the Circle Jerks in `84/`85. At the time, I described how they’d renounced their punkier origins in favor of a more pseudo-metallic power-pop style that confused and upset most of the hardcore kids in attendance, concluding the passage by suggesting Redd Kross had the last laugh when “hardcore died” soon afterwards.

That was just myopic on my part, of course. While many of the bands I’d cared about had either flamed out or changed direction (I remember CH3, as one example, turning into a sort of “cowpunk” band in 1984 with the Airborne ep), there were entire generations of bands inspired by those original bands who sprang up in their wake, many of which I wouldn’t discover until years after the fact.

So, no ... Hardcore is nowhere near dead. 

Jeff's Records

Evidently, it’s been a whole 22 years since Jeff Buckley -- that's him above, performing at Tower Records on Broadway -- vanished beneath the water of the Wolf River Harbor in Memphis, TN and drowned (although, his body wasn’t recovered until six days later). I still remember learning about his death and being entirely incredulous about it.

I have a stupid anecdote about getting into an online spat with poor Jeff’s mother sometime after that. In those early days of online file-sharing, she was a vigilant gatekeeper of her late son’s music, and was renowned for going after his fans online. I’d dimly invoked a cover Jeff had recorded of “I Against I” by the Bad Brains on a now-long-defunct music discussion board, and she reached out and kinda went to town on me. In retrospect, it’s more sad than anything. Should you care, you can read the full stupid story here.

As a side note, according to WikiPedia –- and take from that what you will -– Jeff Buckley was once roommates with actress Brooke Smith, and it was Smith who introduced him to the music of the Bad Brains. Smith, who played Catherine Martin in “The Silence of the Lambs” (y’know – it’s her that gets the hose again if she doesn’t rub the lotion on her skin and put it back in the basket) is also the source of those amazing photos of punks and hardcore kids from the NYHC matinee scene that I wrote about way back when. Small world, eh?

Anyway, a little over two decades later, there’s been a mountain of posthumously released material from the Buckley vault, possibly even a proper release of that divisive Bad Brains cover, which was allegedly originally recorded for a radio show. But a friend of mine posted something today that I’d never seen, that being the presumably authoritative website of Jeff Buckley’s record collection.

Herein, you’ll find a lot of what I’d consider predictable stuff like Cocteau Twins, Zeppelin, Van Morrison, but there are some surprises as well. It’s not shocking to see the Bad Brains in there, but he also had a Circle Jerks album (Golden Shower Of Hits, though, not the vital Group Sex), a couple of albums by the Birthday Party, lots of Iggy Pop, a surprising amount by Skinny Puppy and even Master of Puppets by Metallica and Destroyer by KISS. Didn’t expect those last two.

Woefully, if this site is to believed, Jeff owned nothing by Killing Joke, Motorhead, the Stranglers, SWANS, XTC nor his ersatz labelmates Cop Shoot Cop (Buckley and C$C were both fleetingly signed to the UK’s Big Cat label). Moreover, he owned what I would consider an unhealthy amount of Joni Mitchell albums, but y’know … to each their own.

May he rest in peace.

Raging Against the (Tin) Machine

I wrote a few pieces, here, over the years about David Bowie’s oft-maligned tenure in Tin Machine, and – more specifically – the videos they shot within the confines of the old Ritz on East 11th Street. That came part and parcel with the allegation, some time back, that Bowie was fond of hardcore, buffered by the appearances of folks like Harley Flanagan of the Cro-Mags and Stephan Ielpi of the False Prophets in the video for Tin Machine’s “Under the God.”

Personally speaking, I always dug the first Tin Machine record. I never got around to the second one.

In any case, the videos for same have been floating around YouTube for years, in various shoddy capacities. Visual proceedings were usually grainy and pixilated. Today, my friend Jeremy pointed out that Bowie’s official YouTube channel just posted “Nine Track Compilation,” which more or less aggregates all of Tin Machine’s first videos, seemingly all filmed in that storied East 11th Street venue, and all featuring a cast of ancillary punk rockers doing their best to slam, crowd-surf and stage dive enthusiastically to the incongruous strains of Bowie’s ill-fated, late-80’s ersatz hard rock combo.

Here it is now. Enjoy it while it lasts:

Very shortly after these clips were filmed, the Ritz closed up shop on East 11th Street and moved to the space that had formerly housed Studio 54. The East 11th Street space then turned into a more dance-oriented (as opposed to live music-centric) club and reverted back to its original name, Webster Hall. Webster Hall had a long run, and then it, too, closed its doors and gradually started to erode. This year, it has re-opened as Webster Hall.

Harley Flanagan remains active himself, fronting a new iteration of the Cro-Mags, in the wake of a protracted dispute with some of his former bandmates. Stephan Ielpsi’s current doings are unknown to me, although I want to say I read about a False Prophets reunion, at some point.

Tin Machine broke up after their second album failed to make much of a dent, arguably to the relief of many Bowie acolytes. I’m not sure what its fraternal rhythm section of Tony and Hunt Sales (sons of Soupy) are up to, these days. Guitarist Reeves Gabrels was a session guitarist for a while before re-joining Bowie’s band full-time. These days, he plays in The Cure, and has grown out his hair to rival Robert Smith’s.

David Bowie, meanwhile, has since yet to return to us.

The Bug on the Bowery: Redux

I wrote at greater length about Motherhead Bug on this post from 2016, but recently uncovered this amazing footage of the band playing CBGB in 1994.

Once again, Motherhead Bug was the amorphous collective spearheaded by erstwhile Cop Shoot Cop/Foetus/Firewater (yep, them again!) member/collaborator/pal Dave Ouimet.

As previously noted, these days, Mr. Ouimet is an accomplished illustrator and author whose work you should really check out. His latest work is a children’s book called “I Go Quiet,” which is published later this year. Find out more here. He's also a delightfully funny and very nice guy. 

Here he was conjuring all sorts of mayhem with Motherhead Bug.

Too Fast To Live, Too Young to Die, Too Old to Let Go

“Daddy, everybody there looked just like you. It was just old guys in blazers for miles.” So sayeth my 15-year-old daughter, yesterday, upon sending me the picture at right of Flea’s bass guitar, as housed in the Metropolitan Museum’s latest rock’n’roll-themed exhibit, “Play It Loud.” While I was pointedly underwhelmed by the Met’s last venture toward anything rock-related -– as you might remember from this ancient post -– I am indeed curious to go check out “Play It Loud,” as it’s more about actual instrumentation than fashion.

But of the myriad rock/punk-related exhibits going on right now -– you might remember my recent, pedantic takedown of the Museum of Sex’s somewhat one-dimensional “Punk Provocation” show -– I was quite enthralled by the Museum of Art & Design’s “Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die” retrospective of so-called “punk graphics” (as first mentioned here yesterday). I qualify that with “so-called” as many bits of the ephemera on display had precious little do to with bona fide punk by any definition. I mean, I’m sorry, but while lead singer Holly Johnson may have been a veteran of fabled Liverpool punk club, Eric’s, Frankie Goes to Hollywood were not a punk band, nor were trailblazing all-female British band Girlschool, who were heavy metal to the bone. That said, I get it --- had punk not happened, neither of those two outfits would have existed, or certainly not as we would come to know them.

Insufferably arrogant, music-knowitall quibbles like that aside, the two-floored exhibit checked way more of the right boxes than wrong ones, showcasing a host of period-specific artwork from across the pertinent spectrum of bands/scenes/labels, etc. I audibly gasped several times at some of the posters displayed -– both out of genuine awe and affinity, but also out of recognition.

To be sure, it’s a very strange sensation to see things that formerly hung on your own walls now displayed in an official museum as rarified artifacts to be studied with reverence. Now sequestered at my friend Rob D’s place out in New London, for many years I had a lovingly framed poster from Road to Ruin by the Ramones on my wall, also framed at the M.A.D. show in a display case sturdy enough to hold The Shroud of Turin.

During the course of my prolonged meandering around the galleries, I was strenuously tempted to fact-check a curator who was leading a gaggle of patrons, but thought better of it. As much as she was getting some of the minutia wrong, no one likes that guy.

Anyway, if you’re as enamored of this stuff as I am, you’d do well to check it out. Below are some more of my favorite pieces from it.