Club 57 at Irving Plaza

Via Nostalgia Mold, a postcard for upcoming shows at Club 57 at Irving Plaza...and oh, what shows they were:

You should get to know your pizza just like I know mine

Now this is good marketing (and yes, the pizza is pretty darn good):

On Wednesday, June 25th at 7pm, please join Jesse Malin, Johnny T, Kevin Cole and Magnum PR for the first in a series of special events at the brand new rock and roll Pizza Shop, 110 Avenue A (at 7th street ) in New York City .... Come down and meet renowned photographer Bob Gruen, who has personally approved limited edition Clash pizza boxes bearing one of his unique images of the legendary band...



The Pizza Shop is owned by Jesse Malin (Coney Island High, Niagara, The Bowery Electric), Johnny T ( Niagara , Black & White, Motherf*cker, The Bowery Electric) and Chef Kevin Cole (Two Boots, Three of Cups). All three are musicians who met several years ago playing in different bands in the East Village .

110 Avenue A has been a pizza shop since the 1960's. The owners wanted to keep the old school vibe, but not the old school grime. The space has been completely gutted but the feel of a vintage pizza parlor still remains. The decor is classic black and white tile, hard wood floors, black formica countertops, and unique art (including a Ginsberg print of Jack Kerouac standing on the corner of 7th street and Avenue A). As you listen to a mix of Reggae, Soul and Rock & Roll you can take a seat in the back booths and watch a classic Kung-Fu or surf movie if the game isn't on.

The pizza boxes are all limited edition prints. Around 1500 of each box style is made and then never reproduced. The first one being a photo of the Clash from 1979 taken by world famous rock photographer Bob Gruen. Each box will have a different image created by well known and local artists featuring their particular style and medium and these boxes are free with a purchase of any pizza.

Amazing food, killer music and collectible art!

Dying Is Hard. Comedy Is Harder.

George Carlin's death has obviously been reported far & wide, but you may have missed this nice little piece by Jerry Seinfeld in the NY Times this week.

THE honest truth is, for a comedian, even death is just a premise to make jokes about. I know this because I was on the phone with George Carlin nine days ago and we were making some death jokes. We were talking about Tim Russert and Bo Diddley and George said: “I feel safe for a while. There will probably be a break before they come after the next one. I always like to fly on an airline right after they’ve had a crash. It improves your odds.” Continued here.

George Carlin RIP.

Daily travels - Virginia edition

Courtesy of my mom...who else?

Have a fag...

I couldn't resist:

From Vintage Ads:


And from Dusty Sevens, in either the "What the Hell?" or the "Seemed Like A Good Idea At the Time" department:

Vintage stores

Via Vintage Ads, both of them still alive online:

Midnight Records:


Psychedelic Solution:


Its funny that Psychedelic Solution popped up on Vintage Ads. Just two days ago, the store was mentioned by Alex over at Flaming Pablum.

Every Picture Tells A Story

Here's a very cool event taking place next Tuesday, June 24, at the Morrison Hotel Gallery on the Bowery. All proceeds benefit VH1's Save the Music:

FROM JOHN LENNON TO JOHN LYDON - A GALLERY WALK THROUGH THE ROCK OF AGES
WITH LEGENDARY ROCK PHOTOGRAPHER BOB GRUEN
Tuesday, June 24th, 6:00-9:00pm

Photographer Bob Gruen will be giving a personal tour of his acclaimed photography show "ROCKERS," 280+ photographs currently on exhibit at Morrison Hotel Gallery Bowery. Bob will take guests on a personal journey through the photo archive, telling the stories behind many of these famous photographs which make up one of the most extraordinary collections in music history. The show spans from 1965-2007 and includes the world's most famous musicians from Elvis to Madonna, John Lennon to John Lydon, Bob Marley to Bob Dylan and everyone in between. One hundred percent of the proceeds from the admission price and twenty percent of any print sales at the event will go to VH1 Save The Music Foundation.

Admission is $25 (all proceeds go to VH1 Save The Music Foundation). For reservations please call 212-677-2253 between 12-7 (Sunday-Wednesday) and 12-9 (Thursday-Saturday). Closed on Monday.

Morrison Hotel Gallery Bowery
313 Bowery Street
212-677-2253
Morrisonhotelgallery.com

I don't think I can be there, but I wish I could be. If you've ever seen Bob's NY Dolls DVD, New York Dolls - All Dolled Up, you may know that one of the extras is Bob talking about specific photographs and giving the back story for each one...who was late or sick at the session, what was happening that particular day. Its probably my favorite part of that DVD. And to get to hear Gruen give the same treatment to this incredible array of photos is really a huge opportunity to learn something beyond the surface.

Keep on digging...

No Wave book & Teenage Jesus night pix continued

More from last Fridays event on Leonard Street here in NYC. The following photos courtesy of our friend, John Espinosa, from the Retna Photo agency.

Thurston Moore & Stephanie Chernikowski (photographer):


Lee Renaldo & Thurston Moore:


Pat Place (Contortions, Bush Tetras):


James Chance:


Glenn Branca:


Michael Zilkha (Ze Records co-founder) & Martin Rev:


Jessie Malin & Howie Pyro:

Teenage Jesus & the Jerks Reunion 6-13-08

Went to the early set, and enjoyed it a lot more than expected. The band, or Lydia Lunch & Jim Sclavunos with Thurston Moore, were probably tighter and more together than they had been originally - although thats just speculation. The set was 20 minutes which was perfect. Every band I see from now on should just play 20 minutes. Who needs more?

Anyway, it was the scene, the event, that really made the night worthwhile. I haven't been to a show like this in years. The Knitting Factory was crawling with scenesters, the real music heads. I met Martin Rev, Glenn O'Brien, Andy Schwartz, all of Sonic Youth, and I'm sure a lot of other people there would have been recognizable if it were 30 years ago. I Had a great time hanging out with Gary from Domino & my old buddy Mark Ibold who I hadn't seen in years. It was also nice seeing Josh from Other Music - they were there selling copies of the book, and related CD's. Byron Coley was DJ'ing. Ran into Jason Gross from PerfectSoundForever.com. Even James Chance was there.

Check out my friend Randy's pictures here on Flickr.

Add to your no wave collection:

A Brief, Noisy Moment That Still Reverberates

Tonight, prior to the Teenage Jesus & the Jerks sets at the Knitting Factory (click image to enlarge):



And just in case you missed the story in the Times:



Of all the strange and short-lived periods in the history of experimental music in New York, no wave is perhaps the strangest and shortest-lived.

Centered on a handful of late-1970s downtown groups like Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, DNA and James Chance’s Contortions, it was a cacophonous, confrontational subgenre of punk rock, Dadaist in style and nihilistic in attitude. It began around 1976, and within four years most of the original bands had broken up.

But every weird rock scene — and every era of New York bohemia — eventually gets its coffee-table book moment. This month Abrams Image is publishing “No Wave: Post-Punk. Underground. New York 1976-1980,” a visual history by Thurston Moore and Byron Coley.

On Friday the book will be celebrated with an exhibition opening at KS Art, at 73 Leonard Street in TriBeCa, and, across the street at the Knitting Factory, the reunion of Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, whose blunt, aggressive songs had instrumentation so minimal that on its records the percussionist was sometimes credited as playing simply “drum.” Lydia Lunch, the former lead singer, is flying from Barcelona to play the show.

In the last year two other books have been published on no wave and overlapping periods of downtowniana: Marc Masters’s “No Wave” (Black Dog) and “New York Noise: Art and Music from the New York Underground 1978-88: Photographs by Paula Court” (Soul Jazz), a collection of photographs by Paula Court.

“It was a little, blippy scene,” said Mr. Moore, the Sonic Youth guitarist and historian of underground rock. “It came out of the gate finished.”

With crisp black-and-white photographs and interviews with musicians and visual artists, the book is a loving reminiscence of a largely unheard period, as well as a look at a seedy, pre-gentrified Lower East Side. Most groups in the no wave scene — which also included Mars, the www.epitonic.com/artists/theoreticalgirls.html and the Gynecologists — left behind few recordings, and the compilation album that defined the genre, “No New York,” produced by Brian Eno in 1978, has never been legitimately issued on CD in the United States.

Despite its brief, blippy existence, no wave has had a broad and continued influence on noisy New York bands, from Sonic Youth and Pussy Galore in the 1980s to current groups like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and the Liars. But the original no wavers saw themselves not as part of any rock continuum but a deliberate reaction against such an idea.

“A guitar player like Lydia Lunch was somebody who clearly was not coming out of any kind of tradition,” said Mr. Coley, a veteran rock critic. “She didn’t have a Chuck Berry riff in her.”

The rebelliousness came out in many ways, from song composition — nasty, brutish and short — to the movement’s name, a cynical retort to “new wave,” then emerging as a more palatable variation on punk. The looks were nerdy and androgynous (or, in Ms. Lunch’s case, menacingly oversexed).

The sound reflected the squalor and decay of downtown New York in the late ’70s.

“New York at that moment was bankrupt, poor, dirty, violent, drug-infested, sex-obsessed — delightful,” Ms. Lunch said by phone. “In spite of that we were all laughing, because you laugh or you die. I’ve always been funny. My dark comedy just happens to scare most people.”

Mr. Moore and Mr. Coley’s book emphasizes the major role that women had in the scene. Besides Ms. Lunch, they included Pat Place of the Contortions, Ikue Mori of DNA and Nancy Arlen of Mars, as well as impresario-scenesters like Anya Phillips. Many photographs were taken by women, among them Julia Gorton and Stephanie Chernikowski.

Ms. Gorton, who was a student at the Parsons School of Design in the late ’70s and now teaches there, said that everyone in the no wave circle knew one another. “There were a lot of late nights, a lot of pitchers, a lot of Polaroids,” she said.

The book’s genesis was two years ago when Mr. Moore heard that Abrams, which published “CBGB and OMFUG: Thirty Years from the Home of Underground Rock” in 2005, was considering a book on no wave, with a broad and multidisciplinary approach.

Mr. Moore and Mr. Coley, who said they had been considering a no wave book for years, rushed to the Abrams office to pitch their idea, which would instead have a narrow focus, excluding everything that did not meet their strict definition of no wave.

A restrictive approach to one of the most obscure periods of rock music would seem to limit a book’s audience. But Tamar Brazis, who edited both books, said there was enough interest in the period to justify the “No Wave” book, and that the depth of Mr. Moore and Mr. Coley’s knowledge bowled her over. The CBGB book, she said, has sold nearly 40,000 copies, an impressive figure for an art book, and she added that Abrams has similar expectations for “No Wave.”

Mr. Moore said that only a narrow definition would fit the genre, which was so contrary in its sound and attitude that too much outside context would dilute its impact.

“We liked the absurdity of how small it was,” he said. “We kept our parameters really tight. We needed a cut-off point, and we cut it off as soon as anybody played any semblance of rock ’n’ roll. Any kind of traditional aspect of rock, it’s over.”

No Wave slideshow at NYTimes.com - click here.

No More Virgins continued...

Photo courtesy of me.

From the Urbanite:

The looming demise of record goliath Virgin Megastore in Times Square has some of the city’s gritty, independent music stores gloating a little.

Ask Nino at Bleecker Street Records how he feels about the announced closing of Virgin: Good riddance or sorry to see you go?

“Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,” he bellows.

You can take that as you like. It’s clear there is no love lost between the city’s small record shops and Virgin, a company that helped the renaissance in Times Square and now appears to be a victim of the success there.

It will be forced out by higher rents, Reuters reported last week after talking with an executive vice president at Vornado, the company that owns the Time Square location.

Virgin’s downfall would signal the end of super record stores in the city, as Tower and FYE have already vanished. That means small stores might see a boost from fans who don’t want to buy at big-box stores that don’t specialize in music.

“I don’t think it will dramatically change things, but people will notice a big hole on 14th Street (where Virgin is also said to be closing). It’s sort of a looming figur,” said Matt Pullman, manager at Generation Records on Thompson Street.

But now, out from Virgin’s shadow, Generation might see a little more foot traffic.

“It will be interesting to see where kids turn to,” he said. “I hope they do what I did, and they start walking and shopping and finding awesome stores like this one.”

-- Garett Sloane

No More Virgins in New York

From Roger Friedman at FoxNews.com (don't ask):

"Soon there will be one less virgin in New York City. And it could be worse than that.

Next February, the Virgin Megastore in Times Square will definitely be shutting its doors. This means no more record store in a neighborhood that used to boast at least two Sam Goody stores, Colony (when it featured its beloved, now lamented back wall of 45 rpm singles) and numerous other chains.

But this isn’t all: the Virgin Megastore in Union Square, which was considered the anchor attraction when it opened more than decade ago, is being marketed by real estate agents. That means it will likely hit the chopping block as soon as enough shoes and ice cream can be found to fill it up. (What we really need is another bank or drugstore — not!) No decision has been made about the remaining stores, but the writing is on the wall.

This is all a result of Virgin’s billionaire balloon traveler Richard Branson quietly leasing the existing 12 megastores to Vornado Realty and Related Properties last year. Branson, who made his billions in the music business, obviously wanted someone else to do his dirty work as the business died. Now the two real estate concerns control the fate of what’s left of the "record" biz.

In Manhattan, the end of the Virgin stores is particularly bitter. Tower Records is gone, so is Sam Goody, Coconuts, FYE and HMV. There are few record stores left and they are specialty-driven: Bleecker Bob’s, House of Oldies, the Golden Disc, Disco Rama, etc. Only J&R Music World down on Park Row still sells CDs and even vinyl, but who knows how long that will last.

According to the New York Times, 80 record stores in Manhattan and Brooklyn have closed since 2003. Soho’s beloved Rocks in Your Head closed in 2006, two years shy of its 30th birthday.

Of course, I sound like an old curmudgeon when I lament the passing of the record store. Idling away hours at such a place must seem like a big waste of time to today’s 20-year-olds. But it was one of the most pleasurable experiences I knew as a youth — a community experience of discovery. And there was nothing like being there to get a new recording as it was released. You’d rush home to play it, and nothing else mattered.

How life has become so much less rich in a short time! Waiting in front of a computer screen for a download is not quite the same thing. It’s just another soulless experience. And maybe that’s why "kids today" don’t care much about music, the artists or paying them for their work. The passion is gone. So are valued New York haunts like CBGB’s, the Lion’s Head, the Cedar Tavern, Chumley’s and so on. At least we still have Starbucks!

On a more serious note: the remaining record labels should be concerned about this occurrence. So should the big-name recording acts. Frank DiLeo, Michael Jackson’s former manager, recently suggested that the labels get together and open a "state" store, one in each big city, to carry their catalogs and new releases. It’s not a bad idea. Otherwise, the record industry will soon have no public face at all."

The major's should have gotten together a long time ago & started supporting retail. Also in the news today are stories about new releases from AC/DC (a new album) and Journey (a boxset) being Wal-Mart only! Very disheartening stuff for folks who enjoy the record store experience.

Promo badges - Ze Records, Danceteria

Via Nostalgia Mold:

Ze Records promotional badges


Danceteria promotional badges

The Lower East Side: There goes the neighborhood

From EV Grieve, via Vanishing NY: Here's a vintage 1984 article from NY Magazine about the changes taking place in downtown Manhattan, of which I was unknowingly a part of having moved to Eldridge & East Houston a week after graduating high school about a month after this article was published:

That's the headline for the May 28, 1984, New York magazine cover story that I recently came across. The piece begins in the early 1980s with the rotting hulk of the Christodora and the young man eager to own it, Harry Skydell.

"Skydell's enthusiasm was indeed mysterious. The sixteen-story building he wanted to buy, on Avenue B facing Tompkins Square Park, was surrounded by burned-out buildings that crawled with pushers and junkies. It was boarded up, ripped out, and flooded...Early in the seventies, the city had put up the Christodora up for auction and nobody bid..." Continued here.

Beatles birdseye view

Via Vintage Photographs, here's a great birdseye view of the Beatles. What a beautifully simple stage set up:

Can't kill the vinyl

Interesting item from digitalmusicnews.com today:

Newbury Comics: Vinyl Selling $100,000 Monthly

A mild resurgence in vinyl has become an odd sidebar for a music industry turned upside down. But the format continues to attract interest from both nostalgic buyers and curious teens and twenty-somethings.

At present, the format remains a growing niche, and an interesting trend. According to shipment figures supplied by the RIAA, sales of vinyl LPs and EPs moved to 1.3 million units in 2007, up 36.6 percent from 2006 figures. That represents a dip from 1997, which featured a total of 2.7 million units.

The totals are hardly a saving grace, though specialized distributors, bands, and even larger retailers are taking notice. "Right now, we're selling about $100,000 a month worth of vinyl," Newbury Comics cofounder and chief executive Mike Dreese recently told the Boston Globe. Dreese pointed to annual gains of 20 percent over the past five years, and an 80 percent surge this year.

RIAA data can be sourced at http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/stories/060308vinyl

Way of the West on iTunes!

After posting this about a year ago, it's finally come to pass. Way of the West's music is now available on iTunes, and I'm happy to say that I played a part in it. Congrats to Pete and the band finally having their music available after over 20 years!

Lest we forgot - Harvey Korman RIP

He played a huge role in my childhood entertainment as a member of the Carol Burnett cast, and in Mel Brooks movies.

Harvey Korman RIP.

Bo Diddley RIP

A sad day indeed.

Rock pioneer Bo Diddley dies at age 79

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Bo Diddley, a founding father of rock 'n' roll whose distinctive "shave and a haircut, two bits" rhythm and innovative guitar effects inspired legions of other musicians, died Monday after months of ill health. He was 79.

Diddley died of heart failure at his home in Archer, Fla., spokeswoman Susan Clary said. He had suffered a heart attack in August, three months after suffering a stroke while touring in Iowa. Doctors said the stroke affected his ability to speak, and he had returned to Florida to continue rehabilitation.

The legendary singer and performer, known for his homemade square guitar, dark glasses and black hat, was an inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, had a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame, and received a lifetime achievement award in 1999 at the Grammy Awards. In recent years he also played for the elder President Bush and President Clinton.

Diddley appreciated the honors he received, "but it didn't put no figures in my checkbook." Continued here.