Flaming Pablum

Whigged Awesome: Whither the Upper Crust?

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

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

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

Don’t believe me? Enjoy….

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

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

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

Herewith “Let Them East Rock”….

Reincarnating the Ritz?

You may remember my series of weepy, tear-stained posts about the closing, gutting and gradual decay of what had been Webster Hall, a.k.a The Ritz, right? Well, despite claims that it had been purchased by an agency called AEG and that it was going to be re-booted into some new venture in 2020, today came news that it is allegedly going to re-open sometime this year.

As reported here by ….er…..something called Dancing Astronaut, while the plan was for the iconic space to become a new “sports and entertainment venue called Spectrum Hall,” it’s now evidently uncertain how the new space will manifest itself.

While I harbor zero hope of the storied venue returning to its former glories in any semblance to its former capacity as The Ritz, I am heartened by news of its impending return.

We shall see.

I went, yet again, into great chapter and verse about my love for the old venue in this post. Like some sort of omen, someone on eBay is hawking a t-shirt from those very Fishhone Christmas shows I wrote about ...for a paltry $219.00. Go fetch. 

Oh Nevermind: Cop Shoot Cop at the Pyramid on Avenue A

It should come as very little surprise to anyone that knows me, but I “run” and/or “manage” Facebook’s seemingly only Cop Shoot Cop page. Actually, to be fair, that’s not true — there’s also a group page called We Demand a Cop Shoot Cop Reunion, but it’s dormant on the best of days. If you’re looking for all things Cop Shoot Cop on Facebook, I am evidently your authority. At the very least, I’ve manage to amass arguably the greatest collection of C$C and C$C-related visual ephemera to be found on the `net. See that here, should you care. So, yeah, yay me.

Why don’t any of the original Cop Shoot Copy guys get involved? Dunno. I assume they either just don’t care, have way better things to do and/or are just fine with me handling it. I was drafted, let’s remember, at one point, with the task of putting together that star-crossed and ill-fated Cop Shoot Cop coffee-table book that regrettably never came to pass. One could argue that said aborted assignment gives me the right. Or not. Whatever. Regardless, I've kept it going for at least five years now, and I’m always heartened that people still contribute to it. It doesn’t happen with roaring fervor, but every now and then, someone posts something rare — which, in the grand scheme of things, is really the only pertinent descriptor for Cop Shoot Cop and their ilk — a scene, a sound and a sensibility that is swiftly becoming anachronistic. This week, that happened.

A user named Erin posted a super-rare flyer of the band’s yesterday. This was from the early days, when commanding officer Tod [A] -- that's him at the top of this post in an image respectfully purloined from Recalcitrant Monthly --  was toiling, by day, at a copy shop on West Broadway, a tenuous state of disgruntled employment that, at the very least, gave him access to vast amounts of paper and copying equipment with which to illicitly print up the band’s signature brand of provocative propaganda. For one particular gig at The Pyramid on Avenue A, Tod paired his own typically eye-catching graphic skills with an appropriated image from the illustrious oeuvre of one Tom of Finland. For those unfamiliar (although there was recently a bona fide biopic on the man), Tom of Finland was an artist from — WAIT FOR IT — Finland renowned for his beatific depictions of homosexual erotica, usually concerning workaday scenarios involving impossibly burly sailors, firemen, cops, etc. Imagine the artwork of children’s illustrator Richard Scarry, only instead of anthropomorphic cats, dogs and piglets, it was blissful, hulking men with titanic erections.

To wit, Tod came up with this poster below …. a bit of promotional material that doubtlessly furthered the notoriety of the band, probably to the pronounced chagrin of the local constabulary. People of delicate constitutions and easily-offended sensibilities should avert their eyes...

I’d actually seen this poster before, hanging on the wall of the original incarnation of Max Fish on Ludlow Street during a late-80’s/early-90’s flyer retrospective. I wish I’d brought my camera to that one.

Also this week, I happened to spy a flyer on the official Instagram page of the mighty Lunachicks for a series of gigs also at the Pyramid. Mind you, as discussed here before, the Pyramid on Avenue A used to be this amazing, ground-breaking, scene-sharing venue that hosted all stripes of subculture — from punks, hardcore kids, metal heads and noise-rock freaks through drag-queens, club kids and disco-zealots, all more-or-less happily co-mingling in this grotty little bar. I haven’t been back in decades, but if the video in this post is to be believed, that iteration has since been replaced by just another douchey disco.

Anyway, boo hoo. The thing that, of course, struck me about this flyer was the line-up. On the otherwise sleepy night of Thursday, April 26, 1990, Cop Shoot Cop shared a bill with the similarly inclined local band Rat At Rat R (who I discussed here) and a hip and happening little beat-combo from Seattle called …. Nirvana.

While that Nirvana show has since become the stuff of legend (for some), sadly, there is precious little documentation of the Cop gig, although — to be fair — it was only one of many nights they played this particular venue over the years. Two short years later, Nirvana and Cop Shoot Cop would both play the fabled Reading Festival in England, although Nirvana were headliners and Cop Shoot Cop were relegated to something called The Session Tent (flanked by their compatriots in the Lunachicks, among others). Cop Shoot Cop did eventually make it to the big stage at Reading Festival in 1994, although still at the bottom of the bill, under friends like Helmet and the Jesus Lizard, with …. er … the Red Hot Chili Peppers headlining.

Does any of this matter now? Maybe only to a few. But for those it does matter to, I’m happy to share.

Meanwhile, as discussed in great detail here,  I’m still searching for the rest of THIS poster….

2018: The Year in Photographs

If you spend any meaningful amount of time on this blog, or are foolish enough to follow me on Instagram, you already know that I take what some might consider an irresponsibly laborious amount of pictures. I can't help myself. Were I unable to share those photographs on social media or here on this blog, I don't think I would behave any differently. And in an era when one can capture striking images without a huge, hulking camera but with simply one's iPhone, I find myself routinely pausing throughout my travels to do just that. 

As such, here are some of my own favorite images I was lucky enough to capture this year. You may have seen some of these before, but I tried to eschew repeating shots from the Beirut trip, the  England trip and the summer, as I feel I've covered those already. Click on each to enlarge, should you feel so inclined. 

Anyway, please enjoy, and why not share your own? 

Rest in Peace, Bleecker Bob Plotnik

I wrote about the significance of Bleecker Bob’s here seemingly more times than can be humanly quantified, the last meaningful post, I believe, being the one documenting my visit to the frankly mediocre Japanese restaurant that now operates in its former space. Above is how it looked in about 2010 or so (that’s m’self and Oliver).

The final chapter, alas, came this week with the news that “Bleecker Bob” Plotnik himself passed away. Plotnik suffered a stroke in 2001, and had been in declining health ever since.

Reactions to this news were candid and mixed. By most accounts, Bob was a frequently disagreeable and polarizing figure, prone to treating people fairly brusquely. Speaking as one of his frequent customers, I certainly weathered my share of his scorn on occasion.

That said, I do fondly remember one afternoon when my friend Rob B. and I were in there and Bob was involved in a surreal exchange with a trio of Scandiweigian metalheads. They’d evidently asked Bob to look at some rareified hair-metal artefact behind the counter, but their clipped, broken English was making the exchange somewhat painful for all parties concerned. Never known for his wellspring of patience, Bob was swiftly losing his easily-abandoned cool with these dudes, and even glanced at us for moral support at one point. My takeaway from that was that we may have been irritating shitheads to him, but we were HIS irritating shitheads. That’s as close to a warm’n’fuzzy moment about the man as I can recount.

Prior to working together at the New York Review of Records, estimable Brit rock-crit legend Kris Needs manned the cash-register at Bleecker Bob’s (indeed it was hirsute Kris who sold me my first vinyl copy of Acid Bath by Alien Sex Fiend). On Kris’ Facebook feed this morning, he posted this nice tribute to Bob…

Sad news; I worked at Bleecker Bob's for nearly three years (86-89). He could be a narcissistic oaf who treated his customers like shit and staff even worse, shouting, spitting when he spoke, getting me to run and get his McDonald's in icy blizzards, take his great dane Max out in all weathers with pooh sack ready, insulting to my friends and often treating me like a slave. But he also encouraged a weird fierce loyalty, looked after me when I was in hospital (catching pneumonia from those food runs!) and did much to bring great records to NYC (and export old LPs to the UK which I boxed in the basement). I didn't like it when old black guys came in to the store with their precious jazz collections, he gave them a dollar apiece like he was doing them a favour then marked them up to $40 a pop after they'd left and many other cruel traits but, underneath the scary broadsides lurked a heart of gold and he certainly didn't deserve to spend his last years crippled from a stroke. I fell victim to the city and had to leave his minimum wage employment, under something of a cloud I'm not proud of, but the man was an iron girder of the old NYC that has now vanished into the history books. RIP Bob.

Bleecker Bob Plotnik may have been a cantankerous, misanthropic curmudgeon, but my early days of music fandom would have been markedly dimmer without his shop.

Rest in peace, sir. 

Hold It Now, Hit It...

It should come as absolutely zero surprise to anyone that, given the things that I happen to preoccupy myself with, I think the new Beastie Boys book -- the imaginatively titled Beastie Boys Book -- is absolutely essential. I'm barely a third of the way in, and I'm practically ecstatic about it. 

Go get it.

Missing No More: Finding Missing Foundation’s Music

I’ve written about Missing Foundation here entirely too many times, even as recently as this past September. In any event… here’s another installment to that saga.

Way back when, while Missing Foundation’s cryptic insignia may have been sprayed, scrawled, scratched and/or angrily carved onto virtually every decaying edifice southeast of 14th Street, actual, tactile documents of the band’s music weren’t quite as plentiful. Given their arguable infamy and notoriety for chaotic performances that frequently culminated in wanton property damage and the occasional riot, many may have suggested, at the time, that any records Missing Foundation produced might have almost been incidental; sonically ugly side-dishes to the malignantly deafening entrée that was their incendiary live incarnation. But whether those records were simply a means-to-an-end or more likely just the victims of shoddy distribution didn’t matter to me. Having had my curiosity piqued by the band’s eerily pugnacious flyer campaign circa 1989, I was determined to find those Missing Foundation records.

Suffice to say, that task was significantly more tricky than just walking into Crazy Eddie’s.

As luck would have it, however, in the summer of 1990, or so, a fittingly-albeit-unwittingly doomed record label called Restless Records saw fit to unleash MF’s third album, the cheerily titled Ignore the White Culture, along with re-releasing the band’s earlier works, Demise, 1933: Your House is Mine (that was my favorite) and their eponymous debut from 1987. In one fell swoop, I’d gone from famine to feast in the MF department.

Pressing play on the first track of 1989’s Demise, that being “A Hunting We Will Go,” was something of a startling revelation. Some months earlier, I remember dropping the needle on Scumdogs of the Universe, the second album by GWAR and being so let down by how comparatively polished the band sounded in contrast to their cartoonishly ultra-violent image. That first airing of Demise was the complete opposite experience. While Missing Foundation didn’t have an image like GWAR’s – or, really, any discernible “image” at all -- they had accrued that afore-cited nefarious mystique of being uber-agitpropagandizers. Opening with the strains of what sounds like actual police action at a riot (punctuated by sirens and a woman’s emphatic scream of “DON’T YOU FUCKING HIT HIM, YOU PIG!”), the music -– such as it is -- kicks in with a sluggish, lurching rumble atop primary instigator Peter Missing’s anguished moaning and semi-garbled invective as barked through a megaphone. While somewhat reminiscent of the similarly user-hostile, equally No-Wave-inspired outpourings of early SWANS, MF lacked that band’s disciplined, slave-ship gait, in favor of ….well….writhing cacophony. Easy listening this was not.

Anyway, long story short, Missing Foundation’s albums fleetingly came back into print for a bit. They released one further uncompromising album, 1992’s Go Into Exile before Restless Records collapsed and Missing Foundation, or that iteration of it, disbanded.

Fast forward almost 27 years later, and the physical manifestation of music isn’t quite as much of a priority as it once was, a development that has both revolutionized and disemboweled the music industry – an apparatus Missing Foundation were never totally on board with to begin with. While there are still folks – like myself – who collect such things with furtive reverence, most people, it seems, stream their music, these days. As such, given the advent of various digital platforms, actually hearing certain music is easier than ever before. Personally speaking, I continue to prefer CD’s and LPs. Whatever.

That all brings us to the point of this long-winded post. While their albums may have been difficult to prize back in the day, through the magic of Bandcamp, you can now pretty much avail yourself to the entirety of Missing Foundation’s discography, including the newly released Hamburg 1984, their comparatively slick (for MF) and entirely listenable collaboration with KMFDM.

Via this handy aggregation, you can hear some of my favorite selections like “Pistol Archive,” the afore-mentioned “A Hunting We Will Go,” the riff-blitzkrieg of “Jameel’s Turmoil” (including a more recent live airing of same), “Kill the Hypnotic Bastards” and, of course, “Burn Trees.”

Find all this by clicking right here. Tell’em Flaming Pablum sent ya.

More on Missing Foundation ...

Missing to Be Clever

Missing in Action

Cocktails for Two: In Conversation with Missing Foundation's Chris Egan

Maron Misses Missing Foundation 

The Life & Times of RB Korbet

'I Will Destroy You'

A Missing Link

Is the Party Back On? 

Missing Foundation Live at the Marquee 1990

Skeleton Key at CBGB, New Year's Even `97

Back in 2016, I described my love for the band Skeleton Key thusly…

As I mentioned above, I’d first heard of Erik by way of his band Skeleton Key, who were easily one of my favorite discoveries of the `90s. Like a hiccupy cross between, say, early Devo and Pussy Galore — or maybe a less scowly Cop Shoot Cop — Skeleton Key made a gloriously skewed-but-tuneful cacophony. Like both C$C and Pussy Galore, the band featured a distinctive percussionist — initially a spiky haired gent named Rick Lee — who smacked the shit out of a variety of found metal implements, among them pots, pans, a fire extinguisher, a child’s red wagon and various other sundry items. In addition to Lee’s clamorous arsenal, the first iteration of the band also featured powerhouse drummer Steve Calhoon. In front of those two were guitarist/vocalist Chris Maxwell and bassist, vocalist, bandleader and former Lounge Lizard Erik Sanko.

That particular line-up of the band recorded an e.p. and one full album — the truly amazing Fantastic Spikes Through Balloon — before attrition started to take its toll, leaving Erik as the only mainstay from the original four. He kept the band going, though, recording two more consistently distinctive albums that retained the band’s signature brand of propulsive rock racket.

Indeed, the original line-up for Skeleton Key dissolved around 1999, although Erik kept the band going through 2012. In the interim, Erik also toured with Firewater and released a solo record, but his primary focus has been his work with the creative collective, Phantom Limb. Following their days in Skeleton Key, Lee and Calhoon formed Enon with John Schmersal from Braniac for a bit, but not sure what they’ve gone onto since. Guitarist Chris Maxwell currently pursues a solo career and, I believe, does music for the animated show “Bob’s Burgers.”

But back in 1997, the original line-up of Skeleton Key was just an insane live band that was not to be missed. Bizarrely, very little video evidence of that first line-up exists, beyond a weird appearance on MTV (see that old post). But a YouTuber called Mike’s Music Archive uploaded a live show quite recently taped at CBGB, and it is amazing to behold. See that below.

This was recorded on the New Year’s Eve of December 31, 1997. The Jesus Lizard was the headliner. I first posted this video on Facebook, and Erik mentioned that at the very end, Danny Elfman of Oingo Boingo emrges from the dressing room.

Anyway, … enjoy!

Exhuming 'Recent Things'

Back in August of 2008, I posted an entry dubbed “Recent Things.” This was essentially just a series of photographs I’d snapped with my still-quasi-new digital camera (not iPhone) to offset a series of photo posts I’d portentuously titled “Things That Are No Longer There,” and variations thereof. I stumbled upon that latter post this morning, and was struck by how many of those things – a decade later – are themselves no longer there … or at least not how I’d left them, so to speak. Let’s review, shall we?

This, as the sign says, was Bleecker Bob's. I devoted almost as many posts to the slow demise of this storied stronghold of punk vinyl as I did to the untimely vanishing of the Cedar Tavern. In any event, it closed in 2013 and, contrary to original plans, did not turn into a rock'n'roll-themed frozen yogurt emporium, but rather a fair-to-middling Japanese restaurant I dined in in 2015. Read that account here, should you honestly care. 

This is a shot of my then-four-year-old daughter Charlotte standing cherubically in front of what had been the fabled Moondance Diner at the bottom of Sixth Avenue, just north of Canal Street. About year after this photo was taken, the Moondance closed (its physical manifestation moving out west to Wyoming, if memory serves) and a giant, fuckoff hotel was erected in its footprint. I sneer every time I walk by it ... which is daily. 

This is the former exterior of Marty's Cool Stuff on LaFayette Street just north of Bleecker. The shop was a complete, unmanageable mess, but Marty did indeed have the odd bit of genuinely ...er... "cool stuff." The only lasting bit of ephemera I have that I'd prized there is this orange metal sign that says "Smiths Overalls." It hangs just above the interior transom of our front door. Today, this is part of the noxious streetwear flagship, KITH. 

This is the former entrance to 9 Second Avenue, just steps to the south of the Mars Bar (also gone, of course) on East First Street. Largely derelict and abandoned by the time of this photo, the building's significant back history was lovingly told in an amazing documentary called "The Tao of 9 Second Avenue." I wrote about it here, but it's well worth seeking out. Today, the spot in this photo is part of a TD Bank branch.  

 

Fittingly just around the corner from the shot immediately above, this is the north-facing exterior of the old Mars Bar on East First Street between Second Avenue and the Bowery. A constantly shifting and captivating canvas for murals and spontaneous expressions of colorful street art, this strip of East First Street was always one of my favorite spots in Manhattan. It's all gone now. What's in this space now is that TD Bank, a chic condo's chilly lobby and -- last time I checked -- a business called The Alchemist's Kitchen. 

Believe it or not, this is Extra Place on the northern end of East First Street, just steps to the east of the Bowery. Yes, down at the end of that arguably forbidding dead end was the rear of CBGB. Many an atmospheric photo of punk luminaries was snapped in this forgotten byway. Today, it's a comparatively straight-laced and squeaky-clean strip of neatly appointed -- but frequently empty -- storefronts.

This last one probably doesn't need a lot of explanation. That's Charlotte, again.

What's On Third?

...with apologies to Abbot & Costello.

Yesterday, our good friend and longtime fellow anachronistic bloggity-blogger EV Grieve posted an update on the status of the northeast corner of St. Marks Place at Third Avenue. Many might remember the news from about a year back that a large segment of that block -– including spaces fomerly or currently occupied by concerns like McDonald’s, the Continental, Korilla (formerly about nine other things since its storied iteration as St. Marks Pizza, above, as caught by Matt Weber in 1985), that corner news-agents/smoke shop, the since-shuttered Papaya King, among others -– would be razed to accommodate a new, seven-story tower of office space, because -- yeah, wait for it -– we needed that.

Well, plans for same, at the moment, seem squishy (see Grieve’s post for details), although most of the businesses on that plot have already closed up shop. The McDonald’s has been gone for a while, pushed out not just by this plan, but also the advent of the ever-aromatic/pungent (depending on your opinion) Shake Shack across the avenue. The Continental seems to have received a stay of execution, for the moment, although, if I’m being honest, I haven’t set foot in that particular joint since they dismantled the rear stage and stopped hosting live music.

As laboriously lamented in this old post, I was lucky enough to regularly witness a slew of suitably slovenly bands grace the stage at The Continental back throughout the 90’s, some notable high-decibel culprits being the legitimately incendiary Nashville Pussy (above), The Unband (below), The Upper Crust, The Lee Harvey Keitel Band, The Bullys, The Pleasure Fuckers, Furious George and the Candy Snatchers.

The loss of St. Marks Pizza was also worthy of its own post, which I thought I’d done, but evidently not. Or, if I did, I can’t find it anymore. In any case, it closed in 2003, and the neighborhood was pointedly the lesser for it. I also remember their slices being way better than those prized at more rhapsodized pizzerias like Stromboli's two blocks to the east.

I also strangley spent a week living in that eyesore of a dormintory right next to the old McDonald’s back in 1993, which I spoke about in this ancient post. The building hasn’t aged well, but it’s still standing … despite what many of the architecture students who lived inside it, at the time, were predicting.

In any event, regardless of what’s to transpire for ths busy plot of the East Village, it already seems somewhat undead. That said, I’m sure I’ll pine for this decrepit iteration of it once the new buildings start going up.

When I think of that particular strip, I invariably think of going to those live shows at the Continental. Herewith a smattering of that era, replete with live footage captured in that venue.