Still Feeling Blue

I'VE BEEN LISTENING TO a lot more radio lately, ever since I moved my bed across the room last month on a whim. Somehow after I had rearranged all the furniture I ended up with a small transistor radio on my nightstand, and now before turning in for the night, I like to spin up and down the AM and FM dial searching for signs of intelligence in this universe.

Last night I was rewarded big time, stumbling on the tail end of Delphine Blue's two-hour weekly show on WBAI-FM. Man, I go way back with Delphine, who turned me on to a metric ton of good music over the years. She hosted a weekday morning show on BAI called Shocking Blue in the late '80s / early '90s that me and Laine would always listen to at work, but then I lost touch with her for a long time.

It was great to hear her voice and even better to know she's still doing what she's doing lo these many years later. I don't love every single disc she spins, but it's always interesting and eclectic without being pretentious. Like me she's not above an unabashed stroll down New Wave Ave. every now and again -- especially her faves like The Cure and The Pretenders. And she doesn't foster some Hipper-Than-Thou attitude but instead can admit to digging classic rock bands like the Allman Bros. and Led Zep.

I always wondered what she looked like, and now with The Interwebs of course it's possible to find out. She has a terrific timbre to her voice as they say in the voice-over biz, but I pictured her with long, straight, raven-black hair, wearing 1960s-style cat glasses. Well, I couldn't have been more off, but she's still very easy on the eyes as they say in country music. Keep on rocking, Delphine, you've got a new old listener all over again.

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Stop Your Messing Around

WELL, IT'S JOLLY DOWN to the big Specials show tonight at Terminal 5. That's right, 6 of the original 7 members are back and touring, playing some festivals, some New York dates, and they'll be back for a free show this summer at Central Park (August 22). Try to make the scene before the scene makes you.

In all honesty, somehow I wasn't all that pumped for the show until I read a piece this morning in amNewYork, one of the local free papers. Then it hit me: It's the FUCKING SPECIALS, Man -- the Ska originators of classics like Message To You Rudy, Concrete Jungle, Too Much Too Young, Monkey Man, Do the Dog and my personal favorite Gangsters -- and that's just from their first album, the damn-near-perfect 1979 masterpiece produced by Elvis Costello. They've released records since then with the "new" lineup -- everyone except for Jerry Dammers, admittedly a huge part of the band as chief songwriter and keyboard player, as well as the driving force behind 1984's In the Studio, basically the last release by the first incarnation of the band. But even without Dammers, 6 out of 7 ain't bad.

I never got to see them live the first time around, in their prime. Remember showing up to Hurrah's hoping to get in one night around 1980-81, but no dice. Hurrah's was a small club to begin with, holding maybe 300 souls, so it was futile on my part to show up that night sans tickets expecting to get in. I did see The Specials in 1994, though, at Irving Plaza, and as I've written it was one of the most enjoyable shows in my long musical existence -- audience and band alike feeding off each other like few concerts I've been a part of. That was over 15 years ago now, which itself was about 15 years after their first record. Funny how it all worked out.

So I expect nothing less than a brilliant performance from the band, playing the first of their two nights at Terminal 5, a venue I've never been to. My friend Steve has been giving me a hard time for choosing The Specials over The Thermals, a good new band which are also playing tonight -- calling it Arena Rock and an exercise in nostalgia. But I disagree with him on this one. Legends are legends for a reason, and you shouldn't pass up an opportunity to see one before they go the way of all flesh. As guitarist Lynval Golding put it, "Six people wanted to celebrate 30 years of The Specials, while Jerry wanted to do his own band. Now we're all doing what we want to do. Democracy worked." Amen to that. Meanwhile, Enjoy Yourself, It's Later Than You Think!



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COUNT ME AMONG yesterday's teeming multitudes flocking to the last Summerstage show of the year. The price was right (free) to see two pretty good indie/alternative acts -- the Walkmen and Dinosaur Jr. -- as was the locale (Central Park). And if nobody is around to remember it or mythologize it in 40 years like a certain anniversary that just passed, then so be it; that's okay too.

The plan was to get to the Park at around 2:00, so that by 2:30 we were already inside with a decent spot for when the first band, the Walkmen, came on at 3:00. But nooooooo! For whatever reason, the promoters snuck a third band in the lineup, a heavily tattooed, shaggy-haired, leather-clad heavy mental band calling themselves the Saviours. They hit the stage at 3, and I can't say anyone was especially thrilled to see them remain there for the worse part of an hour.

The Walkmen were about what I expected, maybe a little better, especially when they used a 6- or 7-piece horn section on a few songs. One minor criticism is that too many of the songs were the same tempo. Toward the end of their set, they finally unleashed their best song -- The Rat -- a blistering new wave raver, and you wonder where that energy was the whole afternoon. Granted, the sun was beating down on everyone by then anyway, but still...

The headliners made it onstage a little after 5:00. By my highly unofficial account, they mixed in six classics from their first time around-- In a Jar, Freak Show, The Wagon, Out There, Feel the Pain and their scorching cover of the Cure's Just Like Heaven -- with stuff from the two newer albums. Farm (2009) and Beyond (2007).

Out There might be my single favorite Dinosaur Jr. song, with one of those patented J Mascis solos that sends chills up your spine like very few other living guitar players not named Neil Young. On the 1993 album (Where You Been), Out There leads right into the terrific Start Choppin, which unfortunately was nowhere to be heard yesterday. But I'm not gonna complain about getting my money's worth at a free show. What kind of example would that set for the kids?

When The Kids Had Killed The Man I Had To Break Up The Band

YOUR FEARLESS NARRATOR was actually almost in this band -- or more accurately I was the singer in an earlier incarnation of Kraut -- back in the very early '80s. Now that I have your attention, allow me to 'splain how I came to be the NYC Hardcore scene's version of Pete Best...

Two weeks ago, Big Mike, the Urb, the Admiral (aka Jimi the Greek) and me were having a smoke outside Stini Yiamis on Ditmars Blvd. when the subject somehow turned to the rock bands we tried to start back in our wayward youth. Putting the cart way before the dead horse, I'll reveal the absolute highlight for me came when I joined Urb's group, Peer Pressure, for an encore set at a small club in Sunnyside. Literally jumping onstage, I took my leather jacket off in dramatic fashion and grabbed the mike for stirring renditions of the Ramones' Rockaway Beach and the Clash's White Riot. Sadly, and to punk history's great detriment, no known footage exists of this seminal event.

Documentation, however, conceivably could still exist of the recording session our nameless band made at a Long Island City studio. I know Dave last had the cassette, which captured about an hour's worth of our covers-laden material. These were mostly punk standards like Blitzkrieg Bop, Garageland and Pretty Vacant. I was always fucking up the last song, jumping in either too soon or too late with the first line "THERE'S NO POINT IN ASKING YOU'LL GET NO REPLY" while waiting through the fairly long intro:





But we also had a few original compositions, such as my very own Stiff Little Fingers ripoff/homage STATE OF THE UNION:

THE PEOPLE I KNOW ARE ALL PATRIOTS
CONTENT TO LIVE THEIR LIVES IN FRONT OF TV SETS
THEY DON'T MAKE WAVES FOR FEAR OF A STORM
THEY PAY THEIR TAXES AND FOLLOW THE NORM

WELL I DON'T WANNA BE JUST ANOTHER JOE
I WANNA KNOW WHERE THE TAX DOLLARS GO
THE PENTAGON YELLS COMMIE, GIMME MORE MORE MORE
WHILE THE GHETTOS IN NEW YORK CRUMBLE ON THE POOR

YET THE POOR ARE THE ONES WHO GO OFF TO WAR
TO PROTECT BIG BUSINESS ON A FOREIGN SHORE
AS AMERICAN DEMOCRACY AND ALL IT STANDS FOR
MURDERS ITS CHILDREN FOR OBEYING THE LAW

THIS IS THE STATE OF THE UNION!
THIS IS THE STATE OF THIS UNION!!

Soon after we made a recording of this song, I parted ways with the lads. There was a fairly big age gap, with me going to college and just about to turn 21 while the rest of the band was 5 or 6 years younger than that. I wanted to do more original material and, even more important to me at the time, much more political stuff, like the lost classic above. I never imagined this band going in that direction, despite my constant history lectures (El Salvador = the next Vietnam), and so I just stopped showing up to Dave's basement on Saturdays after my film appreciation class at Hunter College in the the morning, and soon I lost touch altogether.

Amazingly, just a few short months later, Davey had a new band called Kraut made up of some of the guys I played with and some I didn't. Davey Gunner, who I knew as a drummer, was now the lead singer, and Johnny Feedback -- who used to hang around while we practiced -- was now on drums. By May of '81 they had secured an opening slot for the Clash at Bond's based on a demo tape of 3 songs! The Clash had originally signed on for a week's worth of shows at the legendary Times Square venue, but they sold too many tickets and had to play additional shows. Thus they needed opening acts on short notice, and Kraut enterprisingly got the tape in Mick Jones' hands, who evidently liked what he heard. According to the band's MySpace page, the Bond's slot opening for the punk icons was their first-ever live gig. Talk about your baptism under fire.



Their first single, Kill for Cash b/w Just Cabbage, was a self-made DIY affair that nevertheless sold out fast. I bought a copy at Bleecker Bob's in Greenwich Village, but alas sold it along with the rest of my punk singles and albums for a mere song about 10 years ago on the advice of a long-gone ex. I can still hear her saying, You never play them, they're just taking up space; you might as well get some money for them. It's my fault for listening to her, of course, but just like that about 100 vintage punk albums and 50 singles were history. Shortly after, I went on eBay and looked up what some of the 45's were going for. A copy of Kill for Kash was going for close to 100 bucks -- and that was before bidding closed. I ended up with about 150 dollars for my whole fucking collection.

Kraut contributed two songs to the essential hardcore compilation New York Thrash. Their first album, 1982's An Adjustment to Society, featured the Sex Pistols' Steve Jones on guitar for a new version of Kill for Cash. The video for All Twisted was in rotation on MTV. Later on, Kraut would become more of a speed metal band, but they had a nice little thing going on there for a while, and they're much more than a footnote in the history of New York Punk. Me, on the other hand...

My own crew in Astoria tried to get a few more bands together over the years, including one where I tried to learn an instrument. Big Mike had a huge, fretless jazz bass with an amp that he lent me, and I could play a few progressions, but soon found out I could not play an instrument and sing at the same time. No kidding. Anyway, we spent way more time trying to come up with catchy names for the band than actually practicing. I still remember trying to convince everyone that my idea to call us "Stavros and the Two-by-Fours" was a winner, to little or no avail. And so folk-punk songs of mine like the haunting, elegaic Momentless Times would go unrecorded.

Soon we finally gave up our musical dreams, Real Life being what it is. My friends would kid me about how right after I left, Kraut took off and made it big; how I coulda been a contender, etc., in the way your closest buds like to bust your balls just because they know they can. In reality, I never begrudge anyone's success or even harbor regrets in that way. In other ways, sure, but that's for another time, another place, another girl, another planet.














Portrait of The Warden as a young poseur

Back, In Full Attack

Jonathan Swift: "When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him."

Bauhaus Bop

"Writing about music is like dancing about architecture - it's a really stupid thing to want to do." -- Elvis Costello

AS YOU PROBABLY KNOW by now, this is not a music blog per se. I'm not exactly sure what it is and most of the time that's not necessarily a bad thing. But of course I do write about music now and then, and someone at JAXART Records evidently stumbled on a mention of their label's Henry Clay People in my review of the Airborne Toxic Event show at Bowery Ballroom a few months ago. Today she sent me a few songs from a Long Beach, California band called The Valley Arena, and I'm passing them on because after all why keep things like this to myself?

Actually, the two tracks from the forthcoming album "We Died" aren't bad, otherwise trust me I wouldn't waste your time. For what it's worth, Grayscale [mp3] sounds a lot like Interpol to these ears, and I've liked almost everything I've ever heard by Interpol if that's any help. The Dig [mp3] reminds me of the excellent Australian band Youth Group, as well as the Strokes, although sometimes it seems almost every other indie band gets compared to either the Strokes or Joy Division, so by all means take my forced analogies with a large grain of your favorite condiment. Anyway, listen and make up your own beautiful minds. Here's the press release if you want to follow up:

"We Died" The Valley Arena's third full length album will be released on Thursday May 21st, 2009 as a 7 Inch Vinyl EP + Digital LP Download and includes an exclusive B. Side remix of "SOS4XOX" by Ikey Owens of The Mars Volta and Free Moral Agents.

The Valley Arena was formed by Mike Nielsen, Chris Stevens and Warren Woodward in late 2003. Early on, the band took influence from both the DC Dischord scene (Fugazi, Q and Not U) and San Diego (Hot Snakes, No Knife).

As of 2009, The Valley Arena has played with: Mike Watt, Joe Lally (Fugazi), Hella, Don Caballero, Polysics, Thrice, Denali, The Meat Puppets, Monotonix, XBXRX, Planes Mistaken for Stars and The Appleseed Cast.
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One of the most versatile critics of the last 30 years, James Wolcott again shows how it's done in Alley of the Dolls -- deftly capturing the atmosphere at a recent New York Dolls show held at the shiny boutique where CBGB's once darkened the Bowery. The Vanity Fair piece is so masterful, it's almost disheartening. If writing is like dancing, then Wolcott does a mean old pogo with his elegiac evocation of bygone CB's:

The club that wan afternoon was still its old grotto self inside, encrusted with layers of graffiti and shredded flyers for bands long defunct. The toilet downstairs in the men’s bathroom was still a defiant naked throne with no stall, looking as if it had survived a bomb blast and been left standing as a site-specific sculpture representing a rougher, rawer bohemia of yesteryear, when personal hygiene ranked low on the totem pole of priorities. In the hushed dark, CBGB’s felt less like a birth canal, more like a catacomb for the departed.

Not many people can nail pop culture better than Wolcott. Here's the link to his blog.

Villain For A Day

MY POSTGRAD PUNK REUNION piece is up today. As I mentioned last week, music blog The Vinyl Villain is smack dab in the midst of 40 days of guest posts sent in from the ranks of its many knowledgeable followers. My own contribution spotlights some of the more recent music made by members of vintage British punk bands -- what JC has cleverly dubbed the Class of '79.

The Buzzcocks and Stiff Little Fingers disbanded in the early '80s. By the early '90s, though, both groups were back at it with slightly different personnel -- releasing records and touring all over the world again, to the delight of older fans as well as those unfortunate souls who never had the opportunity to see them live the first time around. Punk icons Joe Strummer and Paul Weller seemingly never looked back after the demise of The Clash and The Jam -- each instead embarking on prolific solo careers that would take them in interesting and unexpected directions over the following decades.

And on that note, if you're curious about the rest of the story, as well as the 4 songs I've featured, head to Vinyl Villain now, and be sure to bookmark it for future enjoyment and edification. You'll have plenty of time to thank me later.

Rebirth Of Death

SO DID YOU HEAR THE ONE about Death -- the band who back in 1974 made a punk rock album before they even had a name for it? The N.Y. Times has a terrific chronicle of how that record finally came to be released in 2009, called "This Band Was Punk Before Punk Was Punk." And as of right now the Times Website still has the MP3 up for Politicians in my Eyes, the reissue single from 1976 that is creating a buzz in the music biz more than 30 years later.

Discovering the album all these years later is the rock & roll equivalent of the Dead Letter Office turning up The Great American Novel. Or something like that. (Would you believe a long lost David Hockney canvas found in a New York City dumpster?) You get the idea. Feel free to create your own analogy, I won't be offended, even though it's my blog post. Honest, go ahead...

Unfortunately, David Hackney, the driving force behind Death -- the band, not the state of unbeing -- is not around to revel in his music's much-belated success, having succumbed to cancer in 2000. The band cut a demo tape in 1974, and it's that recording session which makes up "...For the World to See," the album released last month by the Drag City label.
The single Politicians is more melodic metal than punk rock, almost verging on power pop -- as if Green Day grew up two decades earlier, only as three black brothers in a Detroit ghetto listening over and over to their dad's Black Sabbath record collection. That's my lame attempt at a lame Chuck Klosterman-ism, and we all know how useless that can be.

Anyone who saw the Ramones biodoc End of the Century can appreciate the bland, overproduced music climate a hard rock band like Death were up against in the early '70s. Simply put, good rock bands were struggling to be heard in the R&B/disco era, and unless they made AM-friendly product and played the whole happy-face marketing game, they simply were not going to be signed to major labels. And let's face it: an all-black rock trio calling itself Death and featuring songs with politically charged lyrics was probably going to be fighting an uphill battle against the music industry no matter what era they were in. Until punk came along around 1975 and bands started releasing their own singles, there was literally no alternative outlet for oddball outfits like Death and the Ramones:

Death began playing at cabarets and garage parties on Detroit’s predominantly African-American east side, but were met with reactions ranging from confusion to derision. “We were ridiculed because at the time everybody in our community was listening to the Philadelphia sound, Earth, Wind & Fire, the Isley Brothers,” Bobby said. “People thought we were doing some weird stuff. We were pretty aggressive about playing rock ’n’ roll because there were so many voices around us trying to get us to abandon it.”

Too bad they weren't from New York, because I think Death would have fit right in at CBGBs circa '76 alongside bands like the Ramones, Talking Heads and the Dead Boys. Detroit actually has great rock and roll roots, with the Stooges and MC5 and Alice Cooper, the band that inspired Death to play the kind of music they did in the first place. But rock and roll, and punk specifically, is full of just such stories: not quite one-hit wonders but music that still screams to be heard. I remember back in my singles-buying days just picking up 45's based on the band name or the look of the record sleeve. I'm thinking of a tremendous single I used to have by an obscure band from Scotland called The Wardens, another blazing 45 by a band from Texas called Not For Sale, lost songs by forgotten bands that cut a single or two if they were lucky and then faded back into what is commonly known as Real Life. So here's to you, undiscovered groups of bygone ages, here's to you all...And oh how I wish I never sold all my punk 45's for a mere song, pun intended, back in 1997!

P.S. While looking for a shot of the Death album cover, I stumbled on another free MP3: Stark Online (2/20/09) has a track posted called Keep On Knocking. It absolutely blows me out of the water, and I'm on dry land as I write this. If the rest of the album is anything like these two songs, then it really is monumental: as if Jimi Hendrix had cut one last album, backed by The Stooges! Yeah, something like that...

Band On The Rise

SO IT'S 7:00 SUNDAY NIGHT, an hour before doors open at Bowery Ballroom for the Airborne Toxic Event show, and the 2 Johns, Steve and me are walking down a side street off Delancey, heading to a Spring Street bar working on a spliff when who should we run into but Mikel, lead singer of the a-4-mentioned, and in true New York rapid-fire fashion the 4 of us start peppering the poor guy with questions and comments -- asking him which other Don DeLillo books has he read (Airborne Toxic Event being named for his novel "White Noise"), offering him a hit (for the record, he just said no), and telling him how his band blew the Fratelli's off the stage at Roseland Ballroom when they opened for them back in September. It wouldn't be that great an exaggeration to say that there's been a nightly Toxic Event sighting since then, with a relentless, almost show-a-night pace the rule more than the exception; according to their MySpace page, they're in the midst of a busy 25-shows-in-29-days stretch that takes them to Europe at the end of March. Add in the fact that we knew ATE had to cancel a few recent shows because of Mikel's bout with laryngitis, and we decided to cut off the conversation after 5 lively minutes, not wanting to put a strain on his voice so close to the band taking the stage. Mikel came across as a regular guy who might've gone on talking with us indefinitely. But we took mercy on him, letting him go about his pre-show business while we in turn went on with ours.
After a quick beer and slice we hit the Ballroom, where the warmup act, the Henry Clay People, was just beginning its set. Pretty good blend of grunge and alt-country, Screaming Trees for a reference point, and we kept debating who Henry Clay was. I guessed Civil War figure, one of the Johns thought he might have been the Great Liberator, until we set him straight that Abe Lincoln kind of had that designation wrapped up. Turns out Clay was a U.S. Senator known as the "Great Compromiser" or "Great Pacifier" who had something to do with causing the War of 1812. The Henry Clay People, however, don't appear to rate a Wikipedia page, so for now I'm left wondering what the connection might be between band and statesman, or why they chose the curious name in the first place.

The next band to hit the stage, unfortunately, was not named Airborne Toxic Event but was instead what's known in the music business as the opening act. When we saw the name, Alberta Cross, we thought it might be a folk chick or all-girl band, but alas we were dismayed when they took the stage and, after tuning up for the better part of 15 minutes, launched into a set revealing a deep-seated Neil Young "jones" both musical (okay) and visual (not so much). The lead singer let loose an unbelievably high-pitched screech that made the a-4-mentioned Mr. Young sound like your local basso profundo. I'm talking only dogs might have heard some of the higher notes in the Alberta dude's register. They weren't terrible, but suffice to say, none of us are likely to be running out and buying Alberta Cross tickets any time soon. Once = enough.

Finally, at around 10, Airborne Toxic Event came onstage to thunderous applause. If anything, the band is even more confident than six months ago at Roseland, attacking the first song with gusto. Second song is Papillon, which opens with a ringing guitar riff that is answered like a clarion call by the rest of the instruments in a Strokes-like rush. The debut album is full of just such rousing, smart and literate stuff: either songs of love gone wrong, which is what all the songs are about really, or else an occasional paean to love which hasn't gone wrong yet, the stuff of thousands of stellar pop songs written through the decades, and with songs like Papillon this ATE are poised to join the legions of terrific rock bands who have composed them.

There's not a whole lot of banter or tuning up or other lulls between songs, just a cryptic line or two, such as "What happened is we wrote a bunch of songs and we're gonna play 'em here for you tonight, I think we're gonna have a good time." It's partly that no-frills, no-pretense approach that accounts for the steadily growing buzz this band is generating based on a handful of solid songs off their one album.

The one new song, introduced as never having been played live in New York, bodes well for the band if it's part of a new album, because to me it was the best thing they did all night. ATE on this Sunday night seemed to start out strong but then started to noticeably flag a little halfway through the set. Maybe the recent stretch of shows caught up with them or the jet lag kicked in, but the crew seemed to be in agreement that their energy level was a little off on the night. In my opinion, they played too many similarly paced, slower songs toward the end, where the violin player seemed to dominate the overly orchestral arrangements. I mean, one song where the bass player uses a bow on his guitar a la Jimmy Page is cool and novel, but 2 and 3 in a row where this happens and we're straying into Yanni territory here, folks. But that's about my only complaint, or would be if I didn't bring up the disturbing trend of 20-somethings who refuse to shut the hell up even when the band hits the stage, chattering away cluelessly song after song while the band we all paid good money to see is playing their fucking set. But I did bring it up, and now I guess we can move on.

Overall, for a mere $13 ticket price, it was a good rock & roll night in the Big City, with old friends and new music proving a good combo. And just like old times there was a McBurney alumni sighting, which, given the size of the school, the size of the crowd and the fact that McB hasn't existed at all in any form for over 20 years, is truly an event worth noting. Consider it done.

Doors Open @ 8

IN HONOR OF tonight's sold-out-for-weeks Airborne Toxic Event show at Bowery Ballroom, thought it might be fun -- with fun being a relative term -- to list the many shows I've been to, all the great live music I've witnessed, with almost four decades of concert-going under my belt.

Memory being what it is, or isn't, I've started with the saved ticket stubs, then polled the outer precincts of Remembrance for the rest.

Syd Straw
Mercury Lounge/June 11, 1996

Buzzcocks
Irving Plaza/July 2, 1996 (brilliant show)

Jayhawks
Warsaw/April 10, 2003 (think this was an acoustic show)

The Fratellis/Airborne Toxic Event
Roseland Ballroom/September 5, 2008

Buzzcocks
Bowery Ballroom/December 1, 2000

Jayhawks/The Thorns
Irving Plaza/June 27, 2003

X
The Grand/November 27, 1993

The Specials
Irving Plaza/September 20, 1994

Violent Femmes/Pogues/Mojo Nixon
Reebok Riverstage/July 18, 1989

Johnny Thunders Tribute (Benefit for Johnny's kids)
The Marquee/June 19, 1991

Cracker
Irving Plaza/August 26, 1998

Fleshtones
Woody's/March 9, 1990

Golden Smog
December 5, 1998

The Clash
Bond International/May 29, 1981 (also went to one other Bond's show)

The Pretenders/The Necessaries (Chris Spedding)
Detroit's/March 21, 1980 (may have been Pretenders first U.S. show; $5 ticket price)

Guinness Fleadh (Elvis Costello, Richard Thompson, Lucinda Williams, etc.)
Randall's Island/June 26, 1999

Wilco
Irving Plaza/April 21, 1999 (nice birthday present)

Bob Dylan/Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers
Madison Square Garden/July 17, 1986 (terrible Garden sound system detracted from Bob's show; Petty was outstanding)

Son Volt
Irving Plaza/May 9, 1996 (one of top 4 or 5 concerts of all time for me)

The Clash/Undertones/Sam & Dave
The Palladium/September 20, 1979 (the night Paul Simenon smashed his bass guitar)

Luna/Clem Snide
Knitting Factory/February 3, 2001

Stiff Little Fingers
Village Underground/September 8, 2001
(Caught this show with Steve and his friend Gavin, who was attending his 60th SLF concert! Unfortunately, 3 days later he would perish in the 9/11 attacks)

Lucinda Williams
Irving Plaza/January 29, 1999 (the night my dad died)

Stiff Little Fingers
Tramps/May 16, 1999
THAT'S ABOUT IT for the documentation; the following shows I don't have ticket stubs for, just a faulty, leaky memory bank. In some cases I can't remember the year or even venue. Ironically, for the bands I know I've seen the most over the years, like The Ramones and Johnny Thunders, I can only seem to recall one or two shows at most. Memory is a fickle mistress.

The Clash/Kurtis Blow
Pier 43/1982

Aerosmith/Black Sabbath
Madison Square Garden/1973 (Aerosmith opened and actually blew them off the stage, as much as I'm loath to admit it even this many years later)

Lou Reed
Felt Forum/1974 (with Jimi the Greek, and plenty of vintage Reed stage banter)

Stills-Young Band (Stephen Stills & Neil Young)
Nassau Coliseum/1976?

Grateful Dead
Nassau Coliseum/1979

Robert Gordon
My Father's Place/1979 (with Chris Spedding, an unbelievably entertaining show)
Queens Festival/1986

Wreckless Eric
Hurrah/1979 (Whole Wide World lp given away free, wish I can say I still had my copy)

Steel Pulse
Irving Plaza/2000?

David Bromberg Band
Carnegie Hall (w. Ralph McTell/November 1978
Bottom Line 12th Anniversary concert/1992?

Hot Tuna
Beacon Theater/1977
Central Park/1975
Palladium/1978

Buzzcocks
The Ritz/1981

The Waterboys
Beacon Theater/1989

Iggy Pop
The Ritz/1981

Gang of 4
Rock Hotel?/1981

The Selecter
Rock Hotel/1982

Madness
The Ritz?/1981

Plasmatics
Heat/1980

Dead Boys
Heat/1980?

Richard Hell & the Voidoids
Mudd Club/1981

Luna
South Street Seaport/2003
World Trade Center/ August 2001

Graham Parker
Bottom Line/1994 (solo acoustic)
Tramps (w. the Figgs, Amy Rigby)/October 15, 1996

Ramones
Great Adventure/Summer 1980 (won 6 tickets from WNEW)
Zappas/Lamour/somewhere on Staten Island/elsewhere/1979...?

Wire
South Street Seaport/May 30, 2008

Power Pop Festival: Speedies/Neighborhoods/Baby Shakes, etc.
Southpaw/March 30, 2007

Wedding Present
Tramps?/1997?

Johnny Winter
Felt Forum/1975?

Chuck Berry/Sy Sylvain
Heat/1980 (a night, and dawn, for the ages)

The Neighborhoods
Hurrah/March 1979 (first punk show)

New Pornographers (w. Neko Case)
Warsaw/2000?

Lords of the New Church
Rock Lounge/1982?

Johnny Thunders
Max's Kansas City, elsewhere/1979-85

Marshall Tucker Band
Central Park/1975

Leslie West/James Gang
Central Park/1976

Black 47
Paddy Reilly's/early 1990s

Black Oak Arkansas
Great Gildersleeves/1979?

The Slits
Mercury Lounge/March 2008

Joe Jackson
Central Park/1980
Richard Lloyd
Uptown?/1981

David Peel
Max's Tavern/1978-79

Everclear/Spacehog
Garden Arts Center/1995

New Riders Purple Sage/Poco
Central Park/1976

Psychedelic Furs
The Ritz, somewhere else/1980

The dB's
The Ritz?

James White & the Blacks/DeFunkt
Hurrah/1980

Rockpile
The Ritz/1981

Son Volt
South Street Seaport/2004

Philip Glass Ensemble (Dracula)
Brooklyn Academy of Music/March 26, 2000

Mink DeVille
Peppermint Lounge/New Year's Eve 1985

Slade
Wollman Rink/1975

The Wanderers (Stiv Bators)
Mudd Club/1981

Jefferson Starship
Central Park/1975

Simon & Garfunkel
Central Park/1980

Dead Kennedys
Bonds/1981

See also:

The Clash
Johnny Thunders
Neil Young
Son Volt
Luna
The Jayhawks
Lords of the New Church
Speedies
Iggy Pop

Unforeseen Musical Directions

If, as Kurt Vonnegut said, "Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God," then what can be said about unexpected concert tickets at the last minute? That's what happened to me on Friday night as I found myself taking in the Airborne Toxic Event at Roseland Ballroom, a group that I had never, ever heard before at a concert venue that I had never, ever been to.

Turns out my friend Steve had an extra ticket to the show. For the last few weeks he had been jacked up about seeing Airborne Toxic Event and since his taste in music is almost a mirror image of my own, I jumped at the chance to see some good live rock & roll in what some still call the Big City.

We had less than zero interest in the first band going on at 8, so instead we hit a midtown bar for a cold one, getting back to Roseland just in time, literally as the band took the stage for their first song. One thing the band had going in their favor was that the name Airborne Toxic Event was taken from one of my all-time favorite books:

"The band takes its name from the postmodern novel White Noise, by Don DeLillo, which won the National Book Award in 1985. In the book, a chemical spill from a railcar releases a poisonous cloud, dubbed by the military as an “airborne toxic event.” This serves as a metaphorical device for the novel’s themes of mortality and media consumption, as the protagonist Jack Gladney is forced to confront the prospect of his own death."

ATE was actually second on the bill, with Scottish band The Fratellis headlining. The Airborne lineup was your standard 2 guitars, bass and drums, but the 5th member happened to be an electric violin player, a modern day Scarlet Rivera if you like, who also played keyboards and tambourine. Something about the arrangements as well as the lead singer's raspy vocals immediately reminded me of Arcade Fire, judging by the 4 or 5 songs that I know of that band.

After about the 3rd song, the singer mentioned that the Roseland air conditioner had stopped working that very morning, and indeed the place was not only like a sauna, but served the exact same purpose as one, drenching band and audience alike in a sheen of sweat, yet unlike, say, a packed rush hour subway platform with no AC, somehow this felt just right. The lead singer/rhythm guitarist, whether intentionally or not, had that Joe Strummer chopping at the guitar strings while backing away from the mike stand move down pat, but I guess if you're gonna emulate someone as a rhythm guitarist, Strummer's not a bad monkey to ape.

Airborne Toxic Event only has one album out, so the set lasted for just short of an hour, then a long break of 40 minutes or so before the main act, the Fratellis, hit the stage. We took the opportunity to get some air in the lobby, where I saw something that may turn out to be an amazing coincidence.

I had passed by the place hundreds of times, but had never set either foot inside Roseland Ballroom, which was a famous ballroom dancing place from the 1920s until the '60s. It's a huge, cavernous place, pretty much kept intact from those old days.

Here's your irony alert. I had just spoken to my friend Anthony on my way to the concert about an hour before I met Steve, his brother Matty and their friend John in front of Roseland on 52nd Street. Tony mentioned that our old friend Urb had pulled up in front of his parents' house in Astoria and said hello to his dad last week: "Hey, Mr. Trentacosti, remember me?" Now, I've known Tony's parents for years and years, and I know his mom's name is Mary, but I couldn't remember his dad's name. That's what I was thinking as he told me the story.

Just a few short hours later, I'm drinking a beer and checking out the scenery in the lobby when something on the wall catches my attention. It's a neat little tribute with the names of all the couples who first met while dancing at Roseland and then got married. About halfway down the first column I see Mr. and Mrs. John Trentacosta, 1953. Yes, it's spelled slightly differently, but I know from experience that long Italian names like Trentacosti or long Greek ones like Eleftheriou and Vrakipedes from my own family are usually off by a few letters whenever someone else is writing them down for posterity. I know the year 1953 is about right, because that's around when my folks got married and they were about the same age as Tony's parents. I have a call into Tony right now and we'll get to the bottom of this.

Anway, I knew even less about The Fratellis going in than I did about Airborne Toxic Event, and came away less impressed by their shambolic brand of neo-glam. Oh yeah: their lead singer seemed to have his own Marc Bolan thing going on. Not that they were terrible or anything, just more 1970s derivative and somehow less memorable than Airborne Toxic Event. Yet the capacity crowd clearly felt otherwise, with most of the young'un's in fact there expressly to see the aforementioned headliners The Fratellis. As if to prove it, great numbers of them could be heard singing and even on occasion chanting along with the band in something very close to unison. Let's say by all indications they got their money's worth.

Monday Postscript: Heard from Anthony this morning and, yes, his parents did meet at Roseland in 1953. His dad must have been some ballroom dancer, because two years later they got married and they're still together more than a half century later. You have to admit me seeing their names still there on the Roseland lobby wall Friday has to be classified as one helluva New York coinky-dink. I do have a cell phone pic by way of documentation, just in case there are any skeptics out there.

Live Wire

Someone much wiser than me once made the case that the best thing about summer in New York City is all the free music, and none of the seemingly thousands of fans flocked around the small South Street Seaport stage to see punk legends Wire last night was likely to argue with that. Not after the reformed, reconfigured band played its first show in almost four years, before an adoring and mostly very young audience. I had seen a few other free shows at my old stomping ground the Seaport, including Luna and Son Volt, but none that even approached the size of this crowd.

"Thanks for not going to see the Eagles tonight," lead singer Colin Newman quipped a few songs into the show, to raucous applause and what used to be called guffawing in an earlier, simpler time. "When we started out in 1977, the Eagles were one thing: The Enemy!" More catcalls, general hilarity, and then from our 3rd row "seats" my friend Steve shouted out "Hotel California"! to near-universal peals of laughter, before Wire, 3 Men and a Girl now in the revamped lineup, launched into another brutally primal rhythm in remarkably tight fashion for a band that was returning after such a long layoff.

At one point the bass player mentioned that they had played CBGBs 30 years ago, and he understood it was no longer there. "It's a boutique now!" yelled Johnny Hags, obviously fueled by our short but productive pre-show stop at the Killarney Rose on Pearl Street. Oh yeah, we were on our game all night.

The band played mostly new stuff, with a few old chestnuts like a blistering-fast "1 2 x U" toward the end there. But no "Dot Dash" to our disappointment. It's always like this whenever I go see old punk bands in their new guises; I was pissed last year when the Speedies didn't play "No Substitute"; devastated when The Slits chose to ignore "Heard it Through the Grapevine" a few months ago at the Merc Lounge; and then last night, no "Dot Dash" -- an incredibly catchy raver that rightfully takes its rank among the best songs of that great 1977-79 period of British Punk. Of course the odds are against hearing all the old stuff, especially if you consider that when Wire releases its new album, appropriately titled Object 47, it will be the band's 47th record of its long career. Now, not all were full length or probably even new material, but still, it's a big back catalog from which to choose their nightly set list.

In Wire's case, me and Steve were hoping their set would be saturated with songs from their seminal first 3 albums (Pink Flag, Chairs Missing, 154) -- Dot Dash, Mr. Suit, Ex-Lion Tamer, Reuters, Lowdown, Outdoor Miner, I Am the Fly, It's So Obvious, Three Girl Rumba: incendiary bursts of offhand brilliance, punctuated throughout with great hooks, complete songs that lasted just 50 seconds, a minute, 1 minute and a half. As one of the band once famously said when asked why the early numbers were so short: The song ends when the lyrics run out.
"Dot Dash" comes with a bit of a back story. The DJs at the long-defunct punk club Hurrah's used to play the song, but we had no idea who it was; all we knew that when the song came on we would all hit the dance floor with a vengeance because it was just impossible not to, moshing about before they had a name for it, arms and limbs flailing in an orgiastic release of energy. But then later when we asked the DJ what song he had just played, all we got back was an indiscernible mumble barely audible above the din of the club. "It sounded like he said White Horse," someone would guess, while another thought he heard High Horse. This went on for a couple of months, until someone in our crowd stumbled on the great early punk compilation album The Rare Stuff, and we found out the song was called Dot Dash and it was by a group called Wire. And the rest is some kind of history.

"Who knew that Wire was a jam band!" -- Steve again -- and indeed for most of the night Wire seemed to be in some kind of trance while playing their uber-minimalist brand of industrial hardcore, like a mutant Phish crossed with Joy Division.

The opening act was called Die! Die! Die! and they too had a little Joy Division in them. The lead singer jumped into the crowd a few times--apparently that kind of stuff is big in their native New Zealand, but luckily their feedback-drenched set of punk-by-the-numbers cartunes was mercifully brief. There's a video of one of their songs from last night on YouTube (see post below) and I swear I can see myself out among the crowd, along with my buddies Steve and Johnny Hags and the rest of the assorted nouveau-hip right near the front of the stage, with their accouterments of hipsterism -- the fluffy sideburns, the tight trousers, the roll-your-own-cigarette crowd. But hey, everyone's gotta start out somewhere, and one could have done a lot worse than a free show off the river in the fresh night city air among one's fellow denizens of the demimonde.

See also:

Band On The Rise

Unforeseen Musical Directions

Frequent Mutilation

New Wave Nostalgia

Frequent Mutilation

YOU MISSED A rocking little punky-reggae party the other night at the Mercury Lounge. Punk legends The Slits, reformed and reconstituted, but featuring two count 'em two of the three original members from '79's Cut, gave about 200 fans jammed into the Lounge quite a show for the $10 ticket price. Only thing missing was their terrific take on Heard it Through the Grapevine. Typical Girls came out early, around the 4th song; I would've made that the encore, but then I'm not making out their set list, am I. Out of nowhere came their cover of Fade Away, that haunting song from the great Rockers soundtrack by Junior Byles. That last bit of info supplied by none other than lead Slit Ari Up after the show, when me and Steve asked her about not playing Grapevine and other pressing matters.

Oh did I mention the keyboard player in the Slits' new lineup that night? If I didn't, it's not for the lack of an impression she made on me and every member of at least the male portion of the audience that night. Turns out she's the 22-year-old daughter of ex-Sex Pistols' drummer Paul Cook!

The new songs stood up pretty well against the old ones we knew, and those old ones really hold up all these years later. I didn't think it would sell out even in such a small venue, but that was just stupid on our part, because we spent the better part of an hour outside in the cold trying to score tickets. Finally we did, and the band didn't come on until well after 11:00. But we stuck it out, caught the whole set, then lingered at the bar until we got the old Last Call! I paid for this bit of midweek revelry the next day courtesy of a sharply reduced sleep cycle: home at 3:00 am, back up at 7:00 for work, just like the old punk days, keeping up the spirit in some small way...

More MP3 Madness

Hello boys & girls, Uncle Warden here with some more free MP3 nuggets. I know, I know, I'm incredibly thoughtful, but that's what I do.

Let's start with a nice complete live show from the White Stripes. That's right, on the White Stripes Website, you can download a complete concert, 18 songs, from Jack White & Co. on their home turf in Michigan from 2002, before they were discovered by the unwashed masses. And from 2004, there's an MP3 for the song Ball and Biscuit performed live by White Stripes in Detroit accompanied by some guy named Bob Dylan. It's literally priceless, as in free!

Frank Black has made a string of terrific solo albums since the demise of indie supergroup the Pixies in the mid-1990s. For my money, his best stuff eclipses the Pixies' best stuff, although that is considered blasphemy in some circles. Anyway, Minnesota Public Radio has something called Live Performances from The Current, which regularly features musicians coming in to chat and play a few tunes live while they're in town for a show. Frank stayed for over a half hour, and while it's mostly talk, he plays My Life Is In Storage from his latest album and a few other songs. I guess you'd have to be familiar with his work beforehand to fully appreciate this interview, but if it whets your appetite and leads you to check him out, that would be considered a good thing, because Frank Black has never made a bad or uninteresting record, is the best way I can put it; just a regular, down to earth, unassuming fellow who happens to write brilliant songs that tap into his own personal brand of weirdness.

How about a recent in-studio appearance from Arctic Monkeys, a band that couldn't be any hotter right now, with the release of their second album garnering nothing but positive reviews. Here's the link, with an archive that contains a bunch of other artists who stopped by the MPR studio, including indie & alternative stalwarts like Bettie Serveert, Indigo Girls, Cracker, Golden Smog, Buzzcocks, World Party, Mates of State, Magic Numbers, Black Rebel Motorcyle Club, M.I.A., Futureheads, Wedding Present, Shins...

Just found something on Spoon's website: MP3 downloads for five songs, mostly demos. (The MP3's are under BONUS in case you don't get a direct link.)
That should hold you lot for a while...