Flaming Pablum

Back to NYC `94 with "NY SCENE"

For whatever stupid reason, 1994 still doesn’t seem *THAT* long ago, to me. I still regularly listen to some fairly crucial albums that were released that year – Portishead’s Dummy, Jeff Buckley’s Grace, Nick Cave’s Let Love In, Massive Attack’s Protection, Release by Cop Shoot Cop, Pandemonium by Killing Joke, Orange by the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and many, many others. It was a great, great year for music. I was still technically living on the Upper East Side, at the time, but spending most of my time downtown. I would have just been starting my gig at the TIME Magazine News Desk and freelance writing for various music periodicals.

But, obviously, once I take off my rose-tinted shades, I realize that 1994 was freakin’ 27 years ago. Pre-O.J. trial. Pre-Oklahoma City bombing. Pre-Princess Di death. Pre-9/11. Pre-Afghanistan. Pre-Iraq War. Pre-Indian Ocean tsunami. Etc. Etc. Etc. On a personal level, it was before I met the woman who’d become my wife, before our wedding, before we moved to our current apartment and, very obviously, before we had kids. It was verily several lifetimes ago.

Never is this more apparent than in the video below. Shot in 1994, “NY SCENE” was an “alternative” New York City tourism documentary. Here’s the official description:

NY SCENE is an alternative New York City travel documentary from 1994. As the tape says, "How to do New York... without looking like a tourist." Ripped from a VHS tape that I found while rummaging through The Thing thrift store in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Featuring many defunct and some still-functioning New York City establishments, local alternative music from the time and a superfluous use of the word "funky," NY SCENE is an incredible snapshot of NYC culture in 1994.

From the back of the VHS tape: NY SCENE is the ultimate insider's guide to New York City. This 52-minute travel documentary is a sonic blast of New York sights and sounds. Price down peddlers at the 25th St. flea market, feast at an Indian row restaurant, breeze past the ropes of Manhattan's hottest clubs. It's much more than the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building. NY SCENE will show you where to find the New Yorker's New York. A few more NY SCENEs: Day Activities: Street art, funky museums and Central Park like you've never seen it. Cheap Eats & Dining Out: Bagels, falafels, coffee shops, Indian, Mexican, Sushi... and more! Night Out: From performance poetry to Showtime at the Apollo... and everything in between. Tips Around Town: How to get around and get by- without getting taken.

Travel expert Julie Karlin walks you from St. Marks to Soho and real-life cabbie Clinton Herrington gives you the tips for a change. Fueled by a soundtrack from some of NYC's hottest bands, NY SCENE is for those who want to be part of the scene... even before they get there.

So, yeah.

For all its bluster, the recommendations herein are nothing too especially radical, but it’s fun to see several since-vanished concerns again, like Howdy-Do, the Sixth Avenue flea markets, the Yaffa Café, Magical Childe, the Ludlow Street Cafe and the old Japonica and invocations of since-closed ventures like Wetlands, Downtown Beirut, Club USA and even my old neighbors at the 24-hour pool hall, Le Q (which is now a sedate antiques emporium). It's a very different city. 

Enjoy the trip back in time…

Back to The Bowery: Minor Threat at CBGB, 1982

I’ve spun this yarn a bajillion times here, but I used to be next-door neighbors with noted photographer Glen E. Friedman. In case you’re unfamiliar with him, I last described him on this post as "the incredibly prescient and endearingly outspoken photographer that documented the crucial gestation period of skateboarding culture (seek out "Dogtown & Z-Boys" if you're unfamiliar with same) and some of the most iconic photographs of the then-still-percolating eras of hardcore punk and Hip-Hop. You've doubtlessly seen his handiwork on album covers by Public Enemy, the Beastie Boys, Slayer, Minor Threat, LL Cool J, Ice-T, Suicidal Tendencies and countless others.” He’s also just a super cool, funny and thoughtful guy and a fellow New York City dad.

These days, while we don’t live down the hall from each other any more, we are still both in the same neighborhood, and do periodically run into each other and catch-up. Given our similar interests, Glen’s usually got something compelling to report. I ran into him today on my way back from running a couple of stupid errands, and true to form, he had coolness to share.

Glen recently stumbled on some video of a Minor Threat show at CBGB in 1982. He took some amazing photographs at that show — some of them now legitimately iconic images of the band. But the video acts as a striking testament to Glen’s skills as a photographer, as it demonstrates the complete chaos of an early `80s hardcore show. It's frankly astonishing that he was able to frame such distinct, singular, isolated moments during the complete mayhem that was doubtlessly swirling around his lens. Here’s what Glen had to say…

I made photos of Minor Threat during this show. It’s total bedlam… can’t believe I did.

The quality of the video is pretty horrible, but still worth checking out. I never saw it before today. It’s incredible how it brings my mind and body feeling right back to the intensity of the moment.

Check out the video below, and Glen was nice enough to allow me to share a couple of his pictures from that day underneath.

As the saying goes, THIS is hardcore!

Some of Glen's work...

Rite at The Ritz: Julian Cope on East 11th Street in 1987

Earlier this week was Julian Cope’s 64th birthday, a sort of unbelievable number for such an ageless figure. I mean, sure, in more recent years, Julian has seemingly gone well out of his way to hide his fabled physiognomy behind a beard worth of Odin, but his mind and his muse seem as hyper-youthful as ever.

I last invoked him here and here, but he’s always been a big favorite of mine, even given his more indulgent forays into music that seems light years away from the stuff that first drew me to him (check out his sprawling discography, if you don’t believe me). While I’m personally partial to his Peggy Suicide phase from the early `90s, which found him balancing his growingly adventurous penchant for far-out experimentation with his preternatural gift for absolutely perfect pop, I was indeed a big fan of his early solo records like Fried and Saint Julian, which were indeed a bit more comparatively polished.

The excellent blog Dangerous Minds already did a magisterial post about this video — an MTV-recording of Julian’s show at the Ritz on East 11th Street in 1987 -- I figured it was worth re-surfacing with my own spin on it. Here’s the great man running through a set of his then strongest material, not to mention flailing about on his signature bendy mic stand. It’s great stuff, especially his cover of "Non-Alignment Pact" by Pere Ubu. 

I only got to see Julian Cope perform twice — once at the Marquee on way West 21st street (gone) on the tour for Peggy Suicide and then again, a few years later, at the tiny Westbesh Theatre in the West Village (since bricked up, I believe) as a one-man show when he was promoting his album 20 Mothers. He’s still maniacally active, but I wouldn’t hold my breath for another Stateside live appearance.

Even if you’re not versed in the man’s stately oeuvre, it’s a nice taste of what a show at the Ritz was like. Enjoy….

The Holy Grail of "Dumb Rock Shit": That Cop Shoot Cop at CBGB Gig Poster

Just re-surfacing this for no real reason other than a colleague just asked me what I got for my birthday. I told her and she was surprised that there were no items of, as she called it, “dumb rock shit” (as she knows that’s the type of stuff I like). I told her, though, that buying “dumb rock shit” presents for me is a perilous endeavor, being that, by and large, nobody really knows what I’m looking for. I mean, yeah, certain key friends of mine might know, but my wife and kids aren’t going to know some weird bit of arcane ephemera from one band or long-lost bootleg recording of another. They wouldn’t even begin to know where to track that kind of thing down. Nor should they, really.

More to the point, at this late stage of the proceedings, if anything, I should be getting rid of my stupid stuff and not accumulating more of it. I did make certain efforts towards that end, recently. I parted with a lovely-albeit-long-neglected Iron Maiden box set, giving it to a friend of mine who’ll doubtlessly appreciate it more than me. I mean, yeah, I still love Iron Maiden, but I hadn’t touched the thing in about twenty years. It’s been largely locked up in my front hall closet, untouched and unplayed. The friend I gave it to just got a fresh Iron Maiden tattoo on his friggin’ back, so he is clearly more deserving of it than I. I’d do well to continue parting with such items.

In any case, though, I conceded to my workmate that there is still one item I’m obsessed with finding. Here’s that backstory (last invoked on this post)…

As first mentioned in this ancient entry, I first became aware of New York City’s own Cop Shoot Cop back at the dawn of the 90’s. I’d initially been assigned to interview the then-notorious ensemble by a free weekly called New York Perspectives (long dead). Contrary to their fearsome reputation, I found the guys in the band to be thoughtful, grounded and funny individuals, and I became a swift and ardent fan of theirs, catching their shows at a variety of since-closed divey music venues. This being back during a more fertile age for music, the East Village and the Lower East Side in general were awash in gig flyers (much like the ones I collected from the Rock Hotel).

Anyway, around the release of their second album, White Noise, Cop Shoot Cop played a gig at CBGB. The band was renowned for their eye-catching, provocative gig posters — often utilizing bits of striking, inflammatory imagery, and the poster for this particular show was no different. I remember a tattered copy of it being pasted up on a disused notice board outside the forbidding edifice of that since-condemned public school on East 4th between First Avenue and Avenue A. The art utilized a bit of an Anime/Manga cartoon of a screaming, angry face behind bars, with COP SHOOT COP and CBGB displayed in a bold, angular font. It was quite a striking bit of art, and I coveted it.

The trouble was, they were gone almost overnight, either ripped down or covered up by other posters. That shredded one on East 4th Street was impossible to prize (and actually stayed up for several years before the notice board itself was dismantled for whatever reason).

I became friends with the guys in Cop Shoot Cop, and former vocalist/bassist Tod [A] even gave me an armful of old posters and flyers of theirs at one point, but this one was not among them, frustratingly.

In the ensuing years, that single Cop Shoot Cop poster became something of a holy grail for me, but I simply never saw it again. Tod [A] didn’t even remember it (and he did most if not all of the poster designs).

Maybe I’d dreamt it??

But then, as I’m watching “Sound and Chaos: The Story of BC Studio,” there comes a discussion of a particular happening at the studio wherein Cop Shoot Cop and the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion partook in some sort of jam session. In a bit of archival footage from the event, they show a snippet of an interview with Spencer, and what’s on the wall behind the couch they’re sitting on?? THAT GODDAMN POSTER!!

The jam session in question (filmed in Martin Bisi's Brooklyn studio on the Gowanus) was later released as its own DVD entitled The New York Post-Punk/Noise Series Volume 1. Regular readers might remember me alluding to same in last summer's piece about annoying one's neighbors with loud music. In any case, that DVD even features the members of the band being interviewed underneath same. The shot above is actually members of the Blues Explosion and the program's host, not any of the C$C boys. 

Anyway, that really blew a new part in my hair. If you have a copy of this poster — get in touch, `COS I WANT IT AND WILL PAY HANDSOMELY FOR IT! 

Shots in the Dark

Renowned photographer Godlis, who I've mentioned here a few times before, is part of a this great new, inventive documentary. Here's the official description:

A 37TH DEGREE ORIGINAL FILM
Between 1976 and 1980, young Manhattan photographer David Godlis documented the nightly goings-on at the Bowery’s legendary CBGB, “the undisputed birthplace of punk rock,” with a vividly distinctive style of night photography. Lewie and Noah Kloster bring his photos to life with electrifying immediacy, bolstered by black-and-white watercolor animation, a rollicking soundtrack, and voiceover narration by Godlis himself.

“Shots In The Dark with David Godlis” is this week's Staff Pick Premiere. Read more about it here: vimeo.com/blog/post/shots-in-the-dark-with-david-godlis/

Check it out here:

Shots in the Dark with David Godlis from Tall Glass with Ice Productions on Vimeo.

Give Smutty Smiff His Bass Back

Formed well prior to the Stay Cats, The Rockats were British progenitors of a neo-rockabilly sound that was a little more accessible than the deliciously libidinous horror show of their forebears in The Cramps. The Rockats’ deft amalgam of rockabilly twang with punky panache was inarguably a huge influence on the similarly ambitious Brian Setzer, who later took an admittedly more reverent and arguably more authentic version of the Rockats’ formula right to the friggin’ bank. But as The Stray Cats took off, the Rockats were being persuaded to ditch their initial sound and style in favor of a more polished pop approach as Secret Hearts (this by label boss Tommy Motolla, the same horrible shithead who foisted Mariah Carey on the world). It failed. They broke up. People suck.

While never a big rockabilly guy one way or the other, I first heard the Rockats on the dancefloor at Danceteria one heady night in 1985, specifically “Make That Move,” as played in a set that also featured “How Soon Is Now” by the Smiths, “Master & Servant” by Depeche Mode,” “Kings & Queens” by Killing Joke, “World Destruction” by Time Zone, the Lords of the New Church’s priapic cover of “Like a Virgin” and “Ball of Confusion” by Love & Rockets -- British indie rock, synth-pop, post-punk, hip-hop, flagrant gothic rock and neo-rockabilly all rubbing elbows and sounding fucking great together.

Underpinned by an urgent pulse and heroically bequiffed Smutty Smiff’s insistent bassline, “Make That Move” came iced with reverberating guitars and a rousing, repeating refrain that wouldn’t have sounded out of place in “West Side Story.” It was a great, fun single that would unfortunately be the Rockats’ first and only brush with chart success.

The only reason I’m bringing The Rockats up now is because of this genuinely extraordinary story in yesterday’s New York Times. As my fried Mac asserted, it’s really a screenpay waiting to be written about New York City, rock’n’roll, theft, mystery and recompense that spans decades and the globe. I won’t give it away, but my feelings are best expressed by the title of this post. 

Meanwhile, here’s the suitably bawdy video for “Make That Move,” which – now that I’m watching it again for the first time in eons – is also suitable for inclusion in that last post, although I can’t name any specific NYC landmarks, can you?

Crank it and give it up for the Rockats! 

SPINning Out: 102 MORE of The Best New York City Music Videos

This post was started several times over the past four months but was regularly abandoned over the maintenance required to plug in all the links. It was almost aborted entirely in the wake of the week of September 11th, when nostalgia for the way New York used to be reached fever pitch. But since I started it, I figured I might as well finish it. So, here goes. We’ll see if I bring it to fruition this time.

If you’e anything of a regular reader, you might pick up on my frequent allusions to having interned at SPIN Magazine back in the balmy, comparatively carefree days of 1989 (that all started on this post). While entirely true, it should be noted that in the grand scheme of things, I was only at the magazine in its then-grotty office on West 18th Street from about July 1989 until January of 1990, when the managing editor who’d implied that he was going to hire me on full-time was fired. Overall, my tenure at SPIN — while certainly informative for me — didn’t really make too much of an impression on the magazine itself. While formerly toiling paylessly under its auspices, I contributed one small news item about Public Enemy. Big whoop.

But prior to my short-lived, star-crossed few months at SPIN, the magazine had been hugely influential on me. I remember picking up its third issue (with Sting on the cover) in July of 1985 under the misapprehension that there was a feature on one of my then-favorite bands, 7 Seconds (there wasn’t), but becoming totally hooked anyway. Unlike shitty Rolling Stone, here was a magazine that dared to discuss and review bands like Scratch Acid, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, the Sisters of Mercy, Squirrel Bait, the nascent Beastie Boys and the Butthole Surfers. The writing was assertive and irreverent. Their approach was fresh and different — they had Pia Zadora interview Joey Ramone and Lydia Lunch interview Pat Benatar. They periodically gave Henry Rollins the back page to talk about his impressions of Madonna or wax rhapsodic about his then-two favorite records (White Light, White Heat by the Velvet Underground and Funhouse by The Stooges). It was amazing stuff, and for many years afterwards, I was a dutifully loyal reader, even after my brief internship.

In time, SPIN started …er…spiraling, shedding long-time staffers left and right and eventually even jettisoning its longtime editor-in-chief and founder, Bob “The Gooch” Guccione Jr. The magazine lost whatever voice and edge it once had and started following the curve as opposed to staying ahead of it. While everyone I’d originally known from my intern days were long gone, certain other people I’d worked alongside from various other outlets came and went through the outlet’s perpetually revolving door. The last physical issue came out on 2012 before it became a strictly online affair.

Here in 2021, the online iteration of SPIN admirably strives to compete in a vastly different landscape from the one it first launched in, but I don’t know anyone who writes for or edits it anymore, as far as I know. I cannot say that I read it often enough to have a credible opinion about whether or not it’s worth checking out, these days, but I somehow doubt that it pushes any envelopes in the way it used to do.

In any case, blah blah blah …. enough of about me and my experience at SPIN. This post ostensibly had nothing to do with all that, but I’m so damn narcissistic that I couldn’t help dredging all that bullshit back up. No, this post was about how friggin’ anaemic much of SPIN’s more recent ….. or, Hell, not even that recent ... content has been.

What triggered it was a listicle they first posted in 2013 called “The 40 Best New York City Music Videos.” Longtime readers know I used to spend an inordinate amount of time and bandwidth documenting same, so I was of course curious to learn which ones made their list. Somewhat predictably, said list was both rife with cliché and pandered strenuously to certain demographics, although still somehow managed to omit some truly obvious choices like, say, “Waiting on a Friend” by ye olde Rolling Stones. I was, of course, appalled, and planned to compose my own, authoritative list to combat SPIN's blinkered myopia at once.

The trouble was, as mentioned earlier, while I had a fever for the subject matter (however ridiculous), it was going to be a labor-intensive post … all that cutting and pasting of links and whatnot. I kept a running list of clips I thought were worthy of citing, and that seemed to stretch on for days. I’d be out running an errand and something I’d see would remind me of, say, the video of “We Want the Airwaves” by the Ramones (shot on Joey’s rooftop on East 9th Street) or the slow trek through Chinatown in “Coming Down” by the Dum Dum Girls. After a while, the list got pretty long, if not unwieldy, completely dwarfing SPIN’s pathetic list of 40.

But when the task seemed too laborious, I set it to one side and then got back to my life, only to fleetingly invoke it a little while back in this post. It seems laughably unlikely, but perhaps SPIN spotted my invocation of it, because now when you go to their link, all that remains is their one-paragraph preamble. Their list is strangely gone.

So, when you go through my list and wonder where, say, “Love is Strong” by the Rolling Stones, "New York, New York" by Ryan Adams, “Steppin’ Out” by Joe Jackson and/or, good lord, “Empire State of Mind” by Jay-Z and Alicia Keys are, know that I left them out because they were on SPIN’s list, and I didn’t want to be duplicative. Also, “Empire State of Mind” completely fucking sucks and makes me want to destroy the earth.

Here’s my list. Enjoy it or not. I did it alphabetically by song title. There is no hierarchy, although, personally speaking, I like some of these way, way more than others.

ADDENDUM: Some new clips were added on Tuesday, October 12 and Wednesday, October 13. 

“All or Nothin” by Madball - Tompkins Square Park, East Village, Lower East Side

“All That I Wanted” by Belfegore - Pier 25 in TriBeca, West Side Highway

"Ana Ng" by They Might Be Giants - Randall's Island 

“Annie, I’m Not Your Daddy” by Kid Creole & The Coconuts - East River Bandshell

“Bad Reputation” by Freedy Johnston - SoHo, Fulton Fish Market, 

"Bang the Drum" by Railroad Jerk - Riverside Park

“Ballad of the Lower East Side” by Michael Monroe - East Village, Lower East Side 

“Big Apple” by Kajagoogoo - SoHo, Delancey Street, West 4th Street subway platform, Midtown, West Side Highway

 

 

“Brainwashed” by Nuclear Assault - Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn Bridge, Greenwich Village

“Burn Trees” by Missing Foundation - East Village, Tompkins Square Park, Lower East Side

“Carnival” by Natalie Merchant - Midtown, 8th Avenue, Tompkins Square Park, Coney Island

“Chicken Dance” by Life in a Blender - Chinatown

"Close to the Edit" by Art of Noise - The High Line

“Coming Down” by Dum Dum Girls - Chinatown

“Confusion” by New Order - Fun House disco in Chelsea

“Cool Kids” by Kix - SoHo

“Cosmic Slop” by Funkadelic - Central Park, Times Square

“Could Just Die” by L.E.S. Stitches - East Village

“Cousins” by Vampire Weekend - Cortlandt Alley, TriBeca

 

 

“Crazy” by Au Revoir, SImone - An homage to "After Hours," SoHo

“Disconnect” by The Rollins Band - Ah homage to "Taxi Driver," Hell's Kitchen

“Do The Get Down” by The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - All over

"Don't Let's Start" by They Might Be Giants - World's Fair in Flushing, Queens

“Down the Drain” by L.E.S. Stitches - Lower East Side (duh!)

“Down By Law” by Madball - Jersey Street in SoHo

“Dunes” by The Clean - Midtown, NoHo, Greenwich Village, The Bowery, Hoboken 

“Edie (Ciao Baby)” by The Cult - Wall Street, Chelsea, CBGB, Hell's Kitchen, Time's Square, Central Park, Brookyn

 

 

“Electric Relaxation” by A Tribe Called Quest - Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn Bridge, Midtown, Square Diner in TriBeCa

“Enjoy The Silence” (WTC version) by Depeche Mode - World Trade Center

“Forever” by Little Steven & The Disciples of Soul - Times Square, Greenwich Village, St. Marks Place, Midtown

“Fanky” by Charly Garcia - SoHo, Washington Square Park, Greenwich Village, East River Park 

“Funky Man” by Dee Dee King -  East Village, Washington Square Park, the Gas Station on Avenue B

“Green Light” by Firewater - TriBeCa

“Half Asleep” by School of Seven Bells - Union Square, Greenwich Village, Gramercy Park 

“Hell in Paradise” by Yoko Ono - Financial District 

“Hold It Now (Hit It)” by the Beastie Boys - Silver Towers, Greenwich Village, NYU

“Holy Snappers” by The Beastie Boys - SoHo

 

 

"Hot, Hot, Hot" by Buster Poindexter - FDR Drive, Lower East Side, Chinatown, Times Square

“HTP-Brid” by Savages - Subways, High Line, East Village

“I Love You, Suzanne” by Lou Reed - Staple Street in TriBeCa, Midtown

“I Miss The Old New York” by Agnostic Front - Lower East Side

"I Saw The Light" by The The - Various Manhattan rooftops

 

 

“I’m Afraid of Americans” by David Bowie - Greenwich Village, Lower East Side, Canal Street

“Invisible People” by False Prophets - East River Bandshell

“Judas Kiss” by The Del Lords - East Village, Lower East Side

“Jukebox (Don’t Put Another Dime)” by The Flirts - Carmine Street, Greenwich Village

“Jump Around” by House of Pain - Mott Street in SoHo, Old Town Bar & Grill near Union Square, Midtown, Upper East Side

“Just Friends” by Beat Rodeo - Lower East Side

“Just Got Paid” by Johnny Kemp - Greenwich Village, NoHo

“Killing Time” by Clowns for Progress - East Village

“Magnificent Seven” by The Clash - Midtown, Times Square, JFK Airport

“Manhattan” by Cat Power - All over Manhattan (duh!)

 

 

"Mind Games" by John Lennon - Central Park, Midtown

"Minus Zero" by Lady Pank - WTC, The Battery

“My Baby Glows in the Dark” by The Senders - East Village, Lower East Side

“My Night Ain’t Dark as My Day” by The Vipers - SoHo

“My Kinda Town” by The Undead - World Trade Center, Times Square, Medical Corridor, East Village

"New York City" by Joey Ramone - Lower East Side, East Village, The Bowery, Chinatown, Cortlandt Alley, TriBeCa, Times Square, Midtown, Central Park, West Village, Flushing, Queens, Brooklyn Bridge, Civic Center

“NYC 1/25-26/13” by Iceage - All over

“NYC Man” by Lou Reed - All over 

“Off the A-List” by Surgery - East Village, Gramercy Park, Midtown, Lower East Side 

“On the Sunny Side of the Street” by Pizzicato Five - SoHo, Central Park, Brooklyn Bridge

“One on One” by Hall & Oates - Times Square 

“Original Wrapper” by Lou Reed - TriBeCa

 

 

“Policy of Truth” by Depeche Mode - The reservoir in Central Park, East River Park, Meat Packing District, Upper West Side

”Potential for a Fall” by Sick of It All - East Village, Tompkins Square Park, Meat Packing District, West Side Highway, Chelsea

“Punishment” by Biohazard - Brooklyn Bridge

“Que Pasa/Me No Pop I” by Coati Mundi - Washington Square Park

“Rocks Off” by The Rolling Stones - The Bowery

“Rollercoaster” by Everything But The Girl - Greenwich Village, Union Square, NoHo

"Rollerkoaster" by Railroad Jerk - Times Square, 

“Run and Run” by The Psychedelic Furs - Greenwich Village, Gramercy Park, East Village, SoHo, Battery Park

“Sixth Avenue Heartache” by The Wallflowers - Midtown, Upper East Side, Chelsea Hotel, Times Square

“Slash Your Tires” by Luna - East Village, Lower East Side

"Spider-Man" by The Ramones - Roof of 108 Leonard Street, TriBeCa

“Star” by The Cult - Midtown, Lower East Side

"Step" by Vampire Weekend - All over Manhattan

 

 

“Stiff Upper Lip” by AC/DC - Midtown, Cortlandt Alley, TriBeCa

“Sweet Jane” by The Jim Carroll Band - The Bowery

"Summer in the City" by Joe Cocker - SoHo

“Sun City” by Artists Against Apartheid - Washington Square Park, Greenwich Village, Lower East Side

“Swimming in 99” by Golden Suits - Brooklyn, TriBeCa, SoHo, Greenwich Village, Upper West Side, Upper East Side, Central Park

“Tall N’ Lonely Buildings” by Urban Blight - Not entirely sure, actually. 

“The Metromen Take the Ritz” by The Metromen - All over

"These Are The Days" by 10,000 Maniacs - Chrysler Building, Midtown

"These Foolish Things" by James Chance - a Lower Manhattan rooftop

"Time Bomb" by Rancid - Lower East Side

"Titanium Expose" by Sonic Youth - Chinatown 

"Todd Youth" by Jesse Malin - East Village, Tompkins Square Park

“Too Many Creeps” by the Bush Tetras - The Bowery, East Village, Lower East Side

"Trapped" by the Crumbsuckers - CBGB, The Bowery

“Two Princes” by The Spin Doctors - Central Park, NoHo

“Union City Blue” by Blondie - Manhattan from the Jersey side of the Hudson River

 

 

"Vices" by Circus of Power - Pier 25, West Side Highway

“We Take Mystery to Bed” by Gary Numan - Upper East Side, Central Park, Midtown

“We Want The Airwaves” by The Ramones - East Village, Queens

“What Happened?” by H20 - East Village, Greenwich Village

“Waiting on a Friend” by The Rolling Stones - St Marks Place, East Village

“What Will The Neighbors Think?” by Murphy’s Law - East Village

“Where I’m From” by Digable Planets - East Village, TriBeCa

"Why I Drink" by The Candy Snatchers - East Village

"World Order in New York" by World Order - Central Park, Midtown, Grand Central Station, Rockefeller Center, Wall Street, Williamsburg, The Dakota, Times Square, Brooklyn Bridge, Washington Square Park, Flushing Corona Park, Queens,  

“You Remain Anonymous” by Lubricated Goat - Lower East Side

 

 

What am I missing? 

Back Again to Club Berlin

Now, as I understand it, there really was a Club Berlin somewhere in Manhattan in the `80s, although it was invariably before the era wherein I was nocturnally out and about, roaming these New York City streets. The first time I’d ever heard about a nightclub called Berlin was, of course, via my laboriously over-cited favorite film of all time, that being “After Hours.” I’ve devoted more space on this stupid blog to the minutia of that film, so if you genuinely care, please just do a Google search.

In any case, in the film, insouciant, topless sculptress Kiki Bridges asserts that Berlin is on the corner of West Broadway and Grand Street. Today, that particular corner is a douchey restaurant called the Sola Pasta Bar, but back in the `80s, I honestly don’t remember it being anything other than a wall whereupon fabled SoHo artist Renee extolled the merits of his own work (see below as captured by photographer Leo London). That doesn’t mean it wasn’t there, though. More to the point, I’m lazily assuming for no discernible reason that we’re talking about the southwest corner of that particular intersection, and who knows if that’s even accurate?

 

In 2011, meanwhile, I found an odd, cable-access-era video hosted by the late Details editor and nightlife scenester par excellence Stephen Saban called “Dead Clubs,” wherein he rattled off a laundry list of since-shuttered establishments, and I REALLY WANT TO SAY that Berlin … or Club Berlin … was one of them. Unfortunately, that clip is no longer on YouTube. That said, if you want to see it, it’s part of the ongoing “New York, New Music 1980-1986” exhibit. Go check that out for me and see if he does indeed cite it.

In 2015, meanwhile, I interviewed my friend Fran Power, who had a memorable cameo in “After Hours” during the scene in which protagonist Paul Hackett gains brusque entry to Club Berlin and almost gets his head shaved. Here’s what Fran had to say about that.

Where was it filmed?

It was filmed in an empty space that they had made into a club in what is now Tribeca. It was a really dead neighborhood at the time …not a real club.

Wasn't there an actual Club Berlin?

Yes there was a real Berlin club…a girl from one of my bands worked there but it wasn't where we filmed at.

So, yeah, … there’s that.

In terms of the film, though, the location Martin Scorsese used for the exterior shots of Club Berlin was 296 Spring Street on the corner of Hudson Street, just up a block or so from the Emerald Pub, which Scorsese used as the location for The Terminal Bar.

Here it in the film, as spotted from looking south from Spring Street, just a few steps to the west of Hudson.

From at least the early `90s on, that space had become a deli. I took a shot of my kids in front of this same strip pictured above in 2013.

And, as resourced from the great new cinema blog NYC in Film (which I discussed here), here’s a shot of the exterior from 1984, taken from across Hudson Street, looking southwest. Note the checkerboard paintjob. Was that simply during Scorsese’s filming?

Today, my friend Chung Wong posted a great photo on Facebook from 1976 by a photographer named Bevan Davis. This is that same space that would later play host to Scorsese’s location of Club Berlin and that deli, then a bar called JJ’s West, as looked at from Hudson Street looking West.

Today, that particular space is all boarded up with a sidewalk shed. Something in in the works, but not sure what.

The space that had been Emerald Pub down the street remains dormant and derelict. Fran Powers, meanwhile, sadly left us earlier this year.

For a really great, recent breakdown of the "After Hours" locations, check out NYC in FILM. 

ADDENDUM: I did a little further searching around, and came up with some information from this site. For a start, it seems JJ's West was a topless bar (back when New York had such establishments), but prior to that, it was a storied jazz club called The Half Note Club. Says the archives site....

The Half Note Club was one of the premier places to hear jazz in the 1960s, and at least a half-dozen records were “live from the Half Note.” John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, Cannonball Adderly, Billie Holiday, and Judy Garland all performed here before it became a topless bar in 1974.  It’s now a deli.

Here it was again as JJ's West...

Vega's Vista: Downtown Pics from the Eighties

There’s a group on Facebook I’m a member of that I’ve mentioned several times here before called Manhattan Before 1990 which is largely dedicated to,….well, … photos of just that. Obviously, in recent days, it’s been filled with shots of the World Trade Center, but in the days prior to that, I came across several photos by a gentleman named David Vega, who apparently was loitering on the same downtown streets as me back in the 80’s. I asked Mr. Vega if I could re-purpose some of his photos here, and he gamely obliged. Here are just a few of them….

French Kisses was this little spot on St. Marks Place that largely traded in vintage movie posters, the true provenance of which, I believe, being France (hence the name of the shop), so they might have all been in French, but don’t quote me on that. I remember they also sold a robust array of postcards modeled after promotional gig posters. I remember buying fistfuls of them of bands like The Clash, The Cult, The Jesus & Mary Chain and the like, and taping them up all over my walls during high school and college. French Kisses had an ancillary operation over on Bleecker just west of LaGuardia. According to Mr. Vega, this shot was taken in 1985.

Also taken in 85, here’s a shot of the other side of the street. This is, of course, Trash & Vaudeville. By this point, you can see a gate has been put up in front of 4 St. Marks Place (which I wrote about here). Trash was forced to leave this storied space some years back. They decamped to a spot over on East 6th Street. Owner and mastermind Jimmy Webb passed away last year, but the shop soldiers on.

This is, of course, the old Lone Star Cafe. I devoted many posts to this over the years. Suffice to say, the place is long gone. In a nutshell, after the Lone Star closed, it briefly became a bar called Mr. Fuji’s Tropicana (albeit without the lizard on the roof — he went to Texas). After Mr. Fuji’s closed, it became a sort of middling deli. They the space was derelict for quite a while until it was razed and a noxious condo was built in its footprint with a Brandy Melville in its ground floor, a shop I took exception with for their incongruous selling of comparatively rare Ramones ephemera.

It’s been about nine dozen ventures since then, but back in the early-to-mid 80’s, this corner was home to, as the sign says, The St. Marks Bar & Grill. Personally speaking, I was too young to visit the establishment in this incarnation, but it was made famous as a location for both the climax of the video for the Rolling Stones “Waiting on a Friend” and as the bar Wren and Richard Hell hang out at in the film “Smithereens.”

This is the formerly iconic corner of St. Marks Place at Third Avenue. There’s a lot to love about this photo for me, notably the sneery Gringo mural and St. Marks Pizza. Today, this corner is basically a yard of rubble behind plywood walls awaiting construction of yet another new development. Boo hiss.

Further east down St. Marks, this is the exterior of Venus Records. Mr. Vega says he took this in 1984, but I politely beg to differ, as Venus Records was still perched over on West 8th Street until at least 1986. The shop that later became Venus Records on St. Marks circa `88 or so was a bookstore before that. If I’m not mistaken the space in question is a pho joint (Asian broth) today.

This is, of course, CBGB in 1986. I love this shot in that it features the CB's Record Canteen (although I'm still on the hunt for shots of the CB's pizza place on the other side....anyone remember that?).

Big huge thanks to David Vega for his generosity. Check out his Instagram account here.

Back to Downtown Music Gallery on East 5th

I’ve written about Downtown Music Gallery a few times here. In the wake of one of those posts, one Stephen Popkin, the founder of the place, got in touch and we started an email exchange that has lasted years.

This morning, he sent me a clutch of photos from the iteration of the shop when it was on East 5th Street, just steps from Cooper Square, right next to my beloved Scratcher, and also the street on which Dead Boys drummer Johnny Blitz was stabbed, back in the day, as mentioned on this ancient post. 

Here’s what he had to say about them…

Hi i just found these . Thought you might want to take a look . Photographer is Scott Hiller 1992 For this we got DGC to pay the stores rent for a month plus boxes of product.

And Thurston was one of our best customers! Those were the days!

I want to say this was the first iteration of the shop I ever went into. Today, this space is a veterinarian’s clinic.

More about DMG on Flaming Pablum....

Downtown Music Gallery in the Line of Fire (2008)

Back to Downtown Music Gallery (2012)

Downtown Music Gallery Needs Your Help (2018)