Daily Travels - Pumpkins, Woodstock NY

Mick Rock exhibit opening party video

From Tuesday evening's Mick Rock soiree at Morrison Hotel Gallery, 313 Bowery:

Mudd Club - Club 57 - New Wave Vaudeville reunion party video

Here's some excellent footage, just under 20 minutes worth in two parts, from the party on Thursday.

Before and After: I Put A Spell On You

Before - Screamin' Jay Hawkins:


After - Nina Simone:

Happy halloween

Via



the transformation is invested
with the mysterious and the shameful
while the thing i am becomes something else
part character part sensation

Party week: Mick Rock, Bob Gruen, Mudd Club/Club 57

Storefront window display for the Mick Rock exhibit, 313 Bowery by me.

This past week saw several events I wanted to note here.

Tuesday evening, Morrison Hotel Gallery's Bowery location hosted a blowout opening for photographer Mick Rock. As is usual for MHG, the photography is peerless, and the party was a huge success. It was so crowded, I'd go back during normal business hours to have another look, the main problem being that the show closes today. Boo to that! See most, if not all, of the images included in the show here.


My favorite shot from Mick Rock's show: The Stooges, 1972 by Mick Rock


Mick Rock and Jimmy Fallon by John Espinosa


John Espinosa and Godlis outside 313 Bowery by me

The Mick Rock party being so crowded, it was really a matter of taking a deep breath, diving in, making the rounds, and seeing what you could see between hello's to the many familiar folks in the room. This took about 20 minutes. Following this, a bunch of us made our way south a few blocks to Bob Gruen's traditional birthday party at the R-Bar. In a very loose, and relaxed atmosphere we spent the rest of night. Seen on the scene: Debbie Harry, Jim Jarmusch, Stephanie Chernikowski, Godlis, Marcia Resnick, John Espinosa, Richard Lloyd, Vivien Goldman, and Amos Poe.

Marcia Resnick & Bob Gruen by John Espinosa


Jim Jarmusch, Stephanie Chernikowski, Sara Driver by John Espinosa


Amos Poe, Debbie Harry, Unidentified by Daisy


Mudd Club/Club 57 crowd at the Delancey Lounge by Randy H.

Thursday night saw a hotly anticipated event at the Delancey Lounge - the Mudd Club-Club 57-New Wave Vaudeville reunion party. FOB© Randy Haecker was kind enough to file a report:

Since I was a teenager living in South Texas in ’78-’82, I never went to the Mudd Club. But I was certainly aware of its existence because I was the odd duck who had subscriptions to Trouser Press, The East Village Eye and The Village Voice. The Mudd Club was also burned into my mind through lyrics by Talking Heads (“This ain’t the Mudd Club, or CBGB, I ain’t got time for that now”) and Nina Hagen (“Roxy! Mudd Club! Danceteria! The newest club is opening up”).

Six months ago, when my friend Tim Broun told me he was booking a Mudd Club reunion gig*, I knew I had to attend. I might not have been there during its original run, but I certainly own every vinyl record affiliated with that scene, along with hundreds ofCDs, magazines, posters, buttons and music DVDs.

Since the original venue at 77 White Street in downtown Manhattan wasn’t available, the Mudd Club reunion was booked for the Delancey Lounge, a roomy 3-floor club on the Lower East Side, near the Williamsburg Bridge . In addition to celebrating the Mudd Club, this party also paid tribute to the closely-related Club 57 and New Wave Vaudeville clubs/events from the same time period. For the history of the original Mudd Club click here.

Largely publicized via Facebook, this event had sold out weeks in advance. I arrived at 7:30 in anticipation of the doors opening at 8:00, and was surprised to find only five people in line. While outside I made the acquaintance of Linda Lou, a woman who had lived right around the corner from the original Mudd Club, and she showed off her laminated original membership card for the club.


Sic F*cks by Randy H.

Once inside, the first person I noticed was Michael Musto, the longtime gossip columnist for the VV who had fueled my New Wave fire with his coverage of the NYC scene for US Weekly magazine in the late ‘70s. The deejays, including Anita Sarko, Mark Kamins and DJ Mojo, kept things hopping with music by Bowie, Bauhaus, The Cramps, The Slits (R.I.P. Ari Up), Mo-Dettes, Deutsche Amerikanische Freundschaft and the Delta 5, among others. Throughout the night I spotted Ann Magnuson, party planner Tessie Chua, Delphine Blue, Phoebe Legere, Robert Vickers (Go-Betweens, Colours), musician/restaurateur Kai Eric, photographer (and fellow South Texan) John Espinosa, and party planner Bonnie Datt, among others. Since I wasn’t part of that original scene, I’m a fairly poor source for reporting on who did and who didn’t show up. I suggest checking out the Mudd Club page on Facebook here.

As mentioned previously, the Delancey is a 3-story club (rooftop deck upstairs, ground floor bar/dancefloor, performance space in the basement), so it was interesting to see the split in the Mudd Club tribes. The vast majority of the folks who obviously dressed up for the event (wearing Betsey Johnson, Anna Sui, Fiorucci) were on the rooftop patio, imbibing with gusto and being interviewed for a documentary that was filmed to mark the occasion. It was obvious we were still very much in Mike Bloomberg’s New York because I didn’t detect a single cigarette, and I heard many people griping about the “No Smoking” signs on the open air, rooftop patio. Few of the fashionable patrons on the rooftop deigned to descend the two levels to the live music performances in the basement. The basement was filled with aging rockers, mostly dressed in black and wearing heavy eye makeup. So it was on the ground-level floor where the two tribes passed one another, occasionally mingling for short conversation.


Bush Tetras by Randy H.

The biggest draw for me were the live performances, and I’m glad I got there early to catch the opening set from SIC F*CKS. A staple on the early NYC punk scene, SIC F*CKS is famously known as the band which features Tish & Snooky, a loveable pair of gals who opened the punk cosmetics store Manic Panic in 1977 (it’s still around!, http://www.manicpanic.com/). Next up was WALTER STEDDING, an avant-garde violinist who hosted the cable access tv show, “TV Party,” with Glenn O’Brien in the early ‘80s. Everybody was giving Walter hugs, and he obviously remains a much-loved figure on the scene. BUSH TETRAS (named for a woman’s love triangle) blew the doors off next with sharp-edged punk classics “Too Many Creeps,” “Can’t Be Funky (If You Haven’t Got a Soul),” “Things That Go Boom In The Night,” “Cowboys In Africa,” and John Lennon’s “Cold Turkey,” among others. COMATEENS stripped things down to an even more skeletal sound of guitar/bass/keyboards/drum machine as original members Lyn Byrd and Nick West played a short set which included “The Munsters Theme,” “Ghosts,” “Cool Chick” and David Bowie’s “TVC 15.” As the midnight hour came and went, I cut out halfway through 3 TEENS KILL 4, a combo featuring artist David Wojnarowicz.

According to the advance flyer, RICHARD LLOYD, ANIMAL X, TINA PEEL, MARILYN and others were scheduled to keep the party going ‘til the wee hours of the morn. See more of Randy's photos from the night here.

Besides all of the great live music Randy mentioned, there were DJ sets by Walter Durkacz, Anita Sarko, Mark Kamens, Ivan Ivan, and others. And there was eye candy provided in the way of photos of video by the likes of Allan Tannenbaum, Kate Simon, Robert Carrithers, Merrill Aldighieri, and many others. The buzz following this event has been pretty loud to my ears. Apparently, the hit musical act of the night was the Bush Tetras with one friend telling me "if they were as good back then as they were last night, they would have been huge!"

Watch a nice 15 minute video of some of the proceedings at the Mudd party here. Special thanks to Randy Haecker, Daisy, John Espinosa for their contributions.


Comateens by Randy H.

*I was personally involved with this event until late August. Creative differences unfortunately led to my split from working on it.

Before and After: Green Fuzz

Before - Randy Alvey:


After - the Cramps:

Friday Ephemera - the Specials' Ghost Town

Before and After: Domino

Before - Roy Orbison:


After - the Cramps:

Technics turntables RIP

Technics turntables - RIP. I seem to remember stories coming out about a year ago of Technics (Panasonic) ending production of the 1200...looks like it's the end of the line for all of their turntables now?

Chicks dig vinyl

The Punk Rock Movie by Don Letts

Here's one of those something-specials that pops up every once in a while on YouTube or Google Video: the full version of The Punk Rock Movie by Don Letts. Shot, for the most part, in and around the Roxy in London in 1977, the film features live footage of The Clash, the Sex Pistols, Wayne County & the Electric Chairs, Generation X, Slaughter and the Dogs, The Slits, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Eater, Subway Sect, X-Ray Spex, Alternative TV and Johnny Thunders and The Heartbreakers, as well as some backstage footage of Generation X, The Slits and Siouxsie and the Banshees. Of course it's not the greatest movie in the world, but it's priceless for one main reason - this is the way it was, and Letts was smart enough to make a record of what was happening. Thank god.

On a personal note, this film is notable for one thing - my friend Daisy was 16 at the time, and her boyfriend was Mark Perry, lead singer of Alternative Television. You can see her in the scene with ATV recording.

Daily Travels - Central Park

Before and After: Riffs, Pt. 13

Before - Them "Gloria":


After - Ray Sharpe & the King Curtis Orchestra (w/Jimi Hendrix) "Help Me Get the Feeling":

Before and After: Riffs, Pt. 12

Before - Warren Zevon "Werewolves of London":


After - Dexy's Midnight Runners "One of Those Things":

Chicks dig vinyl

The Raincoats to play MOMA

The Raincoats will be playing a special show at MoMA here in the city next month with Kathleen Hanna DJ'ing, along with a couple of female themed art exhibitions:

An Evening with The Raincoats
Saturday, November 20, 2010
8:30-11:00 P.M.

Museum of Modern Art (MOMA)
11 W 53rd St.
New York NY 10019

PopRally invites you to a special performance by the legendary post-punk group The Raincoats, presented in conjunction with a pair of MoMA exhibitions featuring influential women artists. Kathleen Hanna will kick the event off with a DJ session.

Pictures by Women: A History of Modern Photography presents a selection of outstanding photographs by women artists, charting the medium?s 170-year history.

Counter Space: Design and the Modern Kitchen recognizes the prominence of women who have critically addressed kitchen culture and myths. Both exhibitions are associated with MoMA's publication Modern Women: Women Artists at The Museum of Modern Art.

The Raincoats, formed by Ana da Silva and Gina Birch in the late 1970s, created a sound, inspired by punk and rock music, that became a significant source of inspiration for future of generations of feminist musicians. Kathleen Hanna was a founding member of Bikini Kill, co-creator of the zine Riot Grrrl, and lead singer of the dance-punk band Le Tigre.

From 8:30 to 10:00 p.m., enjoy an exclusive exhibition viewing and open bar during Kathleen Hanna's DJ set; The Raincoats performance follows at 10:00 p.m.

Tickets: $23 available from Friday 29 October and you need to register
first for an invitation: http://moma.org/poprally/mailinglist

Before and After: For the Love of Money

Before - the O'Jays:


After - Disco Dub Band:

KEVIN CUMMINS' JOY DIVISION - Book Launch and Exhibition at White Columns

WHITE COLUMNS + RIZZOLI ARE PROUD TO PRESENT:

A BOOK LAUNCH + A ONE NIGHT EXHIBITION OF KEVIN CUMMINS' SEMINAL PHOTOGRAPHS OF JOY DIVISION

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2010 AT 6PM
KEVIN CUMMINS WILL BE PRESENT TO SIGN COPIES OF HIS EXTRAORDINARY NEW BOOK 'Joy Division' feat. AN INTRODUCTION BY JAY MCINERNEY AND A CONVERSATION WITH BERNARD SUMNER
AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE ON THE NIGHT, PRICE $45.00

FACTORY RECORDS SOUNDTRACK BY MATTHEW HIGGS
DRINKS + REFRESHMENTS
ALL WELCOME
ONE NIGHT ONLY

WHITE COLUMNS
320 WEST 13TH STREET
(ENTER ON HORATIO STREET BETWEEN 8TH AVENUE + HUDSON)
NEW YORK 10014
WWW.WHITECOLUMNS.ORG

Harvest Ministers - Strange Love Letter - new album + download

Formed in Dublin in at the dawn of the 90's by Will Merriman, I was lucky enough to work with the Harvest Ministers in the middle of that decade when I was with Setanta Records. A friend who was living in Dublin had turned me onto them following the the release of their debut album on Sarah Records, Little Dark Mansion, sometime in 1993. Just as I joined Setanta in 1995, they were releasing their second, A Feeling Mission. Despite working with amazing artists like Edwyn Collins, and the Divine Comedy, the Harvest Ministers (or "Harveys" for short) became one of my favorites...Will's music was, as it still is today, sort of a folky version of Ray Davies. His lyrics can be as detailed as Davies' only more personal and a bit more cryptic.

Here is "Railroaded" from that first album on Sarah. Rod Stewart, if you're out there, record this song. It'll be a fucking smash.



In 1996, we brought the band over to record their third album (second for Setanta) in Hoboken, NJ. Orbit was the result. A bit uneven perhaps, but it contained a few gems nonetheless - the title cut being one, as well as "A Feeling Mission" which had not been included on the album of the same name. I loved it so much I made them include it.

Over the years since then, Will has been fairly quiet...an EP (Embezzling Kisses) in 2000, and an album (My Star Is Shining, 2003) was pretty much it following that rush of productivity in the mid 90's. Until now...Strange Love Letter is their new, self-released album, and dare I say it's Will's best & most consistent since A Feeling Mission way back in '95. Here is a track for you to check out with the kind permission of Mr. Merriman himself. You have to love this title:

The Harvest Ministers "Punks, Maidens, and Genitalia":


Places to check them out:
- iTunes - Four albums by the Harveys (Little Dark Mansions, Feeling Mission, Orbit, and Strange Love Letter) can be purchased on iTunes by clicking here.
- Myspace - Visit their Myspace page for more music samples.
- CD Baby - Visit their page on CD Baby if you'd like to order Strange Love Letter on compact disc.
- And for good measure, Facebook here.

Club 57 art show at Niagara on Wednesday

The Stooges at Ungano's 1970

Rhino Handmade is now accepting pre-orders for the release of Have Some Fun: Live at Ungano's by the Stooges, recorded bootleg-style during the band's appearances there during the summer of 1970. The physical-only release will include eight tracks including two previously unreleased cuts, “Have Some Fun” and “My Dream Is Dead.” Details here.

Ungano's Village Voice ad image courtesy of It's All the Streets You Crossed.



And for those of you who missed it the first time around, they're also reissuing the infamous/exhaustive (and exhausting) Stooges Fun House Sessions boxset. Details on that can be found here.

Before and After: Get Ready

Before - The Temptations:


After - Ella Fitzgerald:

Gregory Isaacs RIP

Gregory Isaacs - RIP

Before and After: Song To the Siren

The perfect song for an autumnal New York Sunday. Also, tomorrow happens to see the release of the new album from Bryan Ferry entitled Olympia. Never one to shy away from covering songs he likes, one of the tracks featured on this album is "Song To the Siren" by Tim Buckley. Which version do you prefer? Personally I'd go with This Mortal Coil although the acoustic version by Buckley (below) is much better than the album version released a couple of years after this television appearance.

Before - Tim Buckley:


During - This Mortal Coil:


After - Bryan Ferry:

Just Because - Yello

Before and After: This Ain't The Summer of Love

Here's a nice change of pace for the Before & After series inspired by a somewhat recent post over at - where else? - This Ain't The Summer of Love.

Before - The Imperial Dogs:


During - Blue Oyster Cult:


After - L7:


Lizzy Borden:

Judy Nylon remembers Ari Up

Judy Nylon remembers her friend, Ari Up:


Ari in Malibu, CA, by Judy Nylon

I’m flipping memories, like wild cards spinning over 37 years of Ari. She often seemed barely contained by her body. Because she and I were so different, yet always totally comfortable with each other, I think I should speak up about all that we had in common and celebrate the vast wingspan of British punk that sheltered and formed us both. In those days Chrissie Hynde always said I reminded her of a cross between Lily Tomlin’s character ‘Edith Ann’ and ‘Howdy Doody” because my clothes were always too tight under the arms and I walked around like an angry ‘Snow White’ but was over-smiling in private. If I was all that, Ari reminded us all of a cross between Kay Thompson’s ‘Eloise at the Plaza’ and ‘Big Bird’ on Sesame Street. From the first day I met her she has been my favorite tattered fairy. In the prevailing style of the times, both of us were neither fish nor fowl…..and we weren’t British. We were what I have come to call ‘Fourth World”.

I remember how much fun it was watching the Slits that night on stage at the Holland Park Comprehensive School and helping Palmolive load out her drums because friends and the band were the roadies and Nora drove. Everybody was there. Chrissie and I had walked from Chelsea.

I think Ari was enrolled at HPCS in those days, it had probably been suggested to Nora by Chris Spedding who was then reading about the ideas of Maria Montessori and Rudolf Steiner. And then I remember trying to jam with the Slits when I got my first bass on Denmark St. I had no idea how to do anything with a guitar, but just to be among typical girls and feel comfortable enough to flail at it made me so happy. I could be loud and awful and laugh about it. I ate my first ‘chip butty’ that afternoon.

Much will be made about Ari being Jamaican identified. Ari, Little Annie and I all worked under the On-u umbrella. All of us were interested in empathizing with the whole rainbow of cultures. We still are. To be different is to have something new to offer. There was no special ghetto in punk to be separated into by race, age, looks, nationality, sexual choices, or whatever. But there was also a reality. Even recently it came up again, talking with Carolyn “Honeychild" Coleman”, that when it comes to handicaps “gender” trumps race, or anything else every time. In the struggle for gay rights, it is most often the perceived “feminization” of men that calls out the worst hatred. It’s not a level playing field and Ari, by example, helps me come to terms with female history being a special and an almost secret lineage to be proud of. To reorder things historically is to particularly fly in the face of the male history of the entertainment business and it’s not about blaming individual men; there is an ancient structure in place that just needs the spotlight thrown on it regardless of how tiring that gets. Ari was all for honoring and telling the story through time from the girl point of view. We were determined to be strong. We all loved Nico. Tessa and Nico were quite close at one point and Nico and I go back even earlier. I remember Ari saying that ‘if only Nico had been born a little later she would have been with us and not been so alone.’ None of us felt alone; Ari was the queen of inclusive. She was ‘of the people’ and faced more heartbreak and disappointments than you’ve heard about.

We did a guest night in LA on She Rocks at KXLA together last year. Ari had reached out to the younger generation of girlfriends and dragged me in. She was a ‘steamroller’. Man, you could hardly get a word in. On another occasion I ran into Ari on the street in NYC and she twisted my arm to come along and speak to a group of twenty something year old women who get together as Ladies Lotto. I didn’t want to go because I didn’t have any makeup on and was in my funky old clothes after getting something out of my storage bin. Ari stood up there and encouraged self-creation, a revolution starting with oneself. She espoused her truth that having children shouldn’t hold you back and talked about how much she loved her kids, music, and believed in change from the heart. I talked too; we had to show that it was possible to stay true to the beliefs of youth and build on them. I met quite a few of her Brooklyn girlfriends that summer night and walked back from Chelsea with Kyana Gordon. There was another time when Ari spent everyone’s last cent on a tiny red wooden piano in Chinatown that she wanted to use on stage. When we got to the restaurant to meet, Jane Friedman, June Hony and Claire O’Conner, we had a piano but it was not a place where you could sing for supper. She was loud and clear on the punk panel for HOWL in NY one year too. There are so many stories. I’m glad she got her artist’s quote out in her own voice, “I’m not here to be loved; I’m here to be heard.”

The day that keeps coming back to mind though, is a special day we spend in LA. Nora, Ari, Wilton and I took John’s boat out off Santa Monica. It’s a beat up huge powerboat that Nora had to stand on a cushion to drive. She put the petal to the deck. That boat flew. I had to use the safety pins off my key ring to keep the boat roof tarp from flapping. It was a punk pirate ship and we were surrounded by maybe two dozen tiny dolphins’ playing in our wake. The light was perfect late afternoon in LA pinkish amber. It was shared magic followed by excellent fried clams in Malibu. I roll that day, even with the cranky bits, across my brain over and over when I think of her gone. There will be a lot written about the Slits and the punky reggae she lived. You know Ari would not leave the writing to the professional pundits so all of us who knew her can coax out a few words, like shards, offerings, to build the larger than life memory of her that’s hand made and mad true.

Thanks to Judy for the permission to share.

Graham Parker and the Rumor - Lakeside Lounge

Around twelve noon yesterday I received a text from my man, Godlis, telling me that Graham Parker & the Rumor (or some approximation thereof) were going to play the Lakeside Lounge on Avenue B. Despite some bumps & tricky negotiating, I managed to meet up with him, and we made the show. Needless to say, the joint was packed, but we managed to get there early enough to get a decent spot from which Godlis snapped these shots. I'm not exactly sure why all of these guys were in town, but I'd guess that it had something to do with Nick Lowe's three night stint further down & across town at the City Winery. On hand were Martin Belmont (guitar), Bob Andrews keyboards), Steve Goulding (drums), and Jeremy Chatsky (bass).



A very loose & casual affair, the set lasted about an hour. It included a bunch of R&B standards, a couple of Johnny Cash tunes, as well as some Parkerilla nuggets like "White Honey," "Lady Doctor," and "Fool's Gold." They also did a nice take on Nick Lowe's "I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass" (co-written by Steve Goulding). It definitely wasn't a return to the barn burning days of yore, but a chance to see these guys do this sort of thing in such an intimate setting was certainly worth the time & trouble of getting there. Parker has such a great voice...he's one of those guys who just opens his mouth, and out comes this distinctive & cutting soulful sound that, when singing the words he's known for, cuts right to the heart of things.





Special thanks to Godlis for the photos - all are by him & used with his permission. Seen on the scene: Roberta Bayley, Dave Robinson (Stiff Records), Andy Schwartz, Doug Wygal, Jahn Xavier, Scott Schinder, and probably some others I'm forgetting.

Before and After: Be Thankful For What You've Got

Before - William DeVaughn:


After - Massive Attack:

Friday Ephemera - Buzzcocks

Buzzcocks sheet music & badges courtesy of Gold Mine Trash and Songs From Under the Floorboards.