Once Upon A Time In New York

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Gabba Flamenco Crossover

High Sierra Skullfuck
Anyone see this on BBC4 last night? What did y'all think?

I was really hoping for some stuff on no wave, so it was a bit of a let down to get yet another retelling of the CBGB story - Ramones blah, Television blah, Patti Smith blah. Smith in particular I just don't get - she seems to me to be the archetypal example of a very reductive branch of feminism, where women strive to be as mannish as possible (that's not going to cure the world - men need to get more feminine!).

The disco footage was cool though, and the shots of the Bronx in the 70s - bloody hell! It's really no exaggeration to say it looked like a war zone. Some of the footage was like London in the blitz.

Interesting that one of the primary engines behind the development of NY culture in the 70s was space - there were a lot of unused buildings around that no-one gave a toss about. Whereas what I keep hearing from all sorts of people in London now - from free party organisers, to theatre groups, to 'normal' people on low-incomes who just want some space to be creative - is that there's just no room: all the buildings are locked down by developers.

We had a good laugh at the raddled faces on some of the talking heads - some decadent histories in those creases and hollow eye sockets (not as much as in the LA singer songwriter doc they had on a few weeks ago though - that had some serious, serious casualties on board).

Did anyone on here live in New York in the 70s? I'd love to hear first hand what it was like. Looks like an amazing time/space cultural nexus.

Some quick things I found on youtube to address the no-wave balance:


 
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elgato

I just dont know
it was ok, a bit stale i felt tho, other than as you said some of the footage of the bronx. all the disco and hip-hop stuff has been done to death i reckon. still an enjoyable enough watch though, well made etc.

interesting what you say about available space

did anyone see the documentary about Arthus Kane of the New York Dolls on friday? that was a very very deep one, an incredible story
 
Leo

Leo

Well-known member
i first came to nyc for college in 1978, it was definitely the big bad city and i saw a lots of people get chewed up and spit out by drugs/crime, so don't kid yourself into thinking it was all fun and games...but it was also more exciting and inspirational than today because anything seemed possible.

it's an ooooooold story: more than pretty much anything else, real estate has been the primary factor in the evolution of nyc (and lots of other places). a friend at that time played in the coachmen (w/ thurston moore!) and a bunch of them lived in an industrial loft space near the south st. seaport that was practically the entire floor of the building, super cheap and perfect for living and rehearsals. that space would never be available today (and if it was, it would be for sale for $5 million or something), and neither would a bunch of un/under-employed art rockers have the ability to live and create a scene.

used to be that artsy misfit kids from around the country/world could leave their old identities behind to move to manhattan and reinvent themselves, but the only ones who can afford do that now are well-off kids who get mom and pop to pay their rent. i'm not sure how you'd even survive on a minimum wage job. there are definitely still enclaves of inspiration in parts of brooklyn and jersey city but not like it was before, say, the early/mid-1980s.

i literally don't know one person who lives in manhattan anymore...no one can afford it and even if you could, who wants to live in a building full of frat boy investment bankers!
 
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polystyle

Well-known member
Right Leo , as you said ...
Used to be a place for dreaming - into being , only some individuals have that within by now.
Old story - again right , NYC and London got too expensive.
One thing to be a fresh kid Jim Jarmusch or Spike Lee going to NYU ,
another to go there now in 2007 in hopes of being a filmmaker LIKE them.

Whole worlds have gone.
We got into the reasons how and why in liners for New York Noise 3 ,
Judy Nylon and Jacqui from UT put it well, NYC was a lab then.
As B Eno called it , a place for 'research bands'.
They came together for some while, tried something, did some gigs,
then gone or morphed into another unit.
Now, when Ike Yard is setting up our first shows in decades ,
we got booked into places in Williamsburg (Monkeytown , Issue Project Room).
Soul Jazz will be doing a photo book by one Paula Court , photographer who was on the scene(s) in the early Kitchen , downtown days that will have many of the usual suspects but also people who were just as important, but who just didn't register or show up on the various docu's , reissues , scene mags.

Leo, who was your friend in Coachmen ?
Prolly someone I either knew or knew a friend of , ha !
Got here spring of '78.
I remember meeting Thurston on the street bk in mid '80's I guess it was ,
asking me if I knew of 'a job'.

I do still live in Manhattan (our Apt. complex , Stuyvesant Town was recently sold in
'the biggest real estate deal in blah, blah' , Woebot's been over here),
the Blissblogger is here down the street .
The global traffic is what maintains our house.
 
Leo

Leo

Well-known member
polystyle desu said:
Leo, who was your friend in Coachmen ?
Prolly someone I either knew or knew a friend of , ha !
Click to expand...

jd king...more a "friend of a friend" but we still stay in touch occasionally via email. he's lived upstate for years now, doing illustration and recently released a coachmen cd "american mercury" on thuston's ecstatic peace label.
 
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polystyle

Well-known member
Hmm, JD King ... I know one 'JD' from seeing him on the streets -
Tall, thin, often wears a hat , carries acoustic g and rides his bike around E Village JD ?
 
MATT MAson

MATT MAson

BROADSIDE
There are still signs of life in the village - a lot of the old disco/punk pioneers are still living around there - David Mancuso and Richard Hell for example live within a few blocks of each other.

But neither London and New York feel like they are teeming with exciting new movements as much as they are with big glass towers full of i-bankers. But new cultural centers are taking their place, second cities like Austin or Bristol where rents are cheaper.

It will be interesting to see what happens as urban areas get even more re-populated as rising energy costs fuck with the suburban dream, especially in the US.
 
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polystyle

Well-known member
Right Matt
I see Hell like every other day , I'm going into Post office on 14th St. -he's coming out,
always smiling that smile.
Funny you mention him and Mancuso together,
as for myself the punk and the disco /club people were always apart from each other.
There was no 'disco punk' per see (in a strictly period and style sense of disco = '70's mirrorball Studio 54 , as opposed to a more gen usage as 'Club music' /'I'm going down the disco'), that took another generation/trend to conglom.
And thankfully that cojoin has about run it's course (get that *reaking cowbell out of here).
Can imagine Mancuso and Arthur Russell (same building as Hell) may have been quite a pair in the neighborhood , on the same streets , similar tracks ?

Cities and trends have their highs and lows.
More power to the Austin, Bristols and Bangkok's of the world (Bangkok being the low rent Tokyo for some now) ,
but from what I've seen it takes some kinds of critical mass of like -minded people who want to do 'this right now / 'that right now - tribes perhaps to
truly make a smash crash breakthrough.
London had enough people feeling a moment(s) and ready to come up with D&B, grime and dubstep , etc. as NYC had in late '70's - early '80's.

Not sure there was ever REALLY a No - wave in any organized way ,
but looking back by now it appears that way !
I doubt anyone inside that 'scene' called themselves 'no wave' at the time ,
it went by too quickly to hang much on.
Crazy time tho !
 
Leo

Leo

Well-known member
polystyle desu said:
Hmm, JD King ... I know one 'JD' from seeing him on the streets -
Tall, thin, often wears a hat , carries acoustic g and rides his bike around E Village JD ?
Click to expand...

while that fits his physical description, i doubt it's the same guy, mostly because my jd has lived in upstate ny for the past 10 or 15 years. don't think he's done much biking in the e. village!

can see some of his illustrations on his website, and this interesting/humorous interview: http://www.jdkingillustration.com/site/interview.html
 
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polystyle

Well-known member
Aha, I had just run into this other JD on Ave A the night of the eclipse ,
relieved Mr.King is prolly not the same cat .

The Coachmen. Didn't ever see them, do remember their name on posters around downtown, around same time as our first group in NYC, Futants.
That was alot of effort, making your posters then running around wheatpasting them up.
Some were great, someone should do a book of them ...

South St. lofts ? there's a bit on them in Noise 3 notes.
In one building, 85 South St. was K Bigelow (you remember Strange Days),
R Longo and Gretchen Bender, Ron Vawter from Wooster Group (w/ Willem Defoe).
But not an area you'd want to hang out in now, even the South St. fish market's gone.
Living lofts and boutiques in.

'Superstar cities' ? let me know when Charlotte has a Wednesday midnight crowd like the one at Heathers the other week; Twitch from Optimo crew, Morgan Geist from Metro Area
the Rotterdam DJ's Taco & his partner on the decks, Psychic Ills guitarist Treyce
everyone buzzing buzzing

Gabba , besides The Contortions & Teenage Jesus what other No wave are you into ?
or checking out ?
Contortions got bk together and have been playing around -
that's Don (IMPLOG) Christensen on drums ,
James C may still be hooked up with an old friend from Dominatrix Sleeps Tonight
Boris Policeband , where are you ?
 
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shudder

Well-known member
(forgive me for saying, but this thread seems kinda surreal to me. I mean, Richard fucking Hell still exists and goes to the post office????? I hadn't thought that he had died or anything, but, well, cool!)
 
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polystyle

Well-known member
The Voidoid

Shudder , i agree
He seems a happy sort , prolly tromping trough the light snow this AM.
He did make a deal with NYU re: his old stuff, notebooks, posters from the period a few years back.
Possibly in same Apt. he's always been in , there on E 12th.
Next time I see him, i'm going to say 'hello',
having passed him in that E Village hallway many, many times bk in early - mid '80's
(good friend & guitarist lived in same building , as did Arthur Russell, Allen Ginsburg, Harley from Cro Mags among others)
 
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polystyle

Well-known member
Fearless Four Plus One More

Once upon a time in New York alright ...
Yesterday the last strains of a Donna Summer tune played twice faded out
as The Roxy closed down to make way for developers.
In the past years it appears to have been the gay Chelsea crowd that mainly went there,
and bk in the day it was a real magnet for the early club music mixed tribes scene.

There was the Funhouse - mainly Latin crowd but also mixed at some point.
There was Paradise Garage of course

And there was The Roxy - great long sloping entrance way up into the club,
you'd hear the song of the moment and be pulling off your jacket or coat on the way up running to get to the dancefloor.
Inside, a big space ( formerly and sometimes still then a roller rink), high ceiling
great music every wkend - who did you see there ?

Yello - that was great , stark lighting blinding as we waited ... and waited ...
aah, someone's moving up there ... first notes of Bostich begin ...
Malcolm M's Buffalo Gals tour - well, it was kind of fun-ny for us
Madonna - whole package still somewhat fresh
and then many years later ,
Atari Teenage Riot in full angry bloom blowing away The John Spencer Blews Explosion

PIL had there HQ's one block up (chair possibly still embedded in wall)

The new translucent blob melty style Gehry building for Barry Diller's company
just about finished rearing up behind The Roxy.
Workers sandblasting the old High Line elevated train line tracks as that prepares for the Bowie curated High line Fest. supposedly in mid- May.
 
MATT MAson

MATT MAson

BROADSIDE
I went to one of Mancuso's Loft parties for the first time a few weeks back. I was half expecting it to be the last days of Disco over 40s crowd and no one else, but it was an incredible party. Best night out I've had in ages.

"Turn this motherfucker out!"
 
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petergunn

plywood violin
MATT MAson said:
I went to one of Mancuso's Loft parties for the first time a few weeks back. I was half expecting it to be the last days of Disco over 40s crowd and no one else, but it was an incredible party. Best night out I've had in ages.

"Turn this motherfucker out!"
Click to expand...

lucky bastard, i been trying to score an invite for ages...
 
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