CBGBs

[Sweder]

9pm Tonight (Monday 5th March) - BBC Four
Sounds Of The City: Once Upon A Time In New York

This looks like an interesting yet possibly un-fulfilling piece on one of New York's finest venues, recently closed due to area yuppiefication. CBGBs spawned many a classic punk act in the '70's; The Patti Smith Group, Blondie, The Ramones, all this way before the Sex Pistols disgraced themselves on ITV. Talking Heads used to play there regularly (they even referred to it in Life During Wartime - the one that goes 'This ain't no party, this ain't no Disco').

The synopsis I read suggests a TV crew on the fringes of what became a socialite's paradise, many of the glitteratti unaware of the importance of the venue they'd gathered to close. However, lurking on the fringe of the frocks and tiaras the producer finds a woman dressed like one of the vagrants, observing proceedings through a permanent scowl. It is of course Patti Smith, and for this reason alone I shall be watching.

[glaconman]

Sweder;

Just to let you know that I did watch this and enjoyed it very much. So thanks for the recommendation.

Cities try and stake a claim as being the birthplace of different music, but this was quite an impressive array of emerging styles. I've always been a big Talking Heads fan but didn't realise they had started at this club. I'd never heard Patti Smith but could hear alot of other women in her voice who must cite her as a big influence.

I didn't get to visit New York until the early 80's when I was a teenager. I was lucky enough to have a sister who worked in the music business there. She lived on 76th and 5th. Days spent strolling through Greewich Village and Central Park; buskers body-popping to break beats; great bars and clubs in the evenings; pizza slices to-go; Jazz, Ribs, Manhattan Ice-teas and Charlie. Halcion days.

You should get Andy to tell you about his teenage NYC/Dylan adventures. I've never managed to squeeze them out of him.

[Sweder]

You should get Andy to tell you about his teenage NYC/Dylan adventures. I've never managed to squeeze them out of him.

I suspect they're reserved for the second book, G-man
I was pleasantly surprised by the program; rather more original footage than I'd hoped for - some excellent shots of early Blondie knocking out R&R covers. Like you I'm a big Heads fan - Stop Making Sense dips in and out of my all-time top ten movies from time to time. How much would you give to have been at that gig?

Patti Smith had a hit (late '70's?) over here - Because The Night. She looked a little wiped out in the show; there again she looked a little wiped out back in the '70's

I enjoyed the segue into other genres - the whole bith of rap and hip-hop was fascinating. I remember Debbie Harry's rap song getting released and thinking at the time it was an odd direction for her. Now we know how that came about. I'll be keeping an eye out for more from BBC4.

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

I don't have a whole lot of anything intelligent or insightful to say about the subject, but I often wonder, as I wear out the digits of my Never Mind The Bollocks mp3, that the punk movement of the 70s - and as we all know, the only real punks were the Pistols, and everyone else is mere punk/rock - were genuinely saying something important. If you subscribe to the theory that cynicism is the latest and very probably last great philosophy of civilisation, then you'll find this strangely artistic & prophetic still from the movie Sid and Nancy interesting...

At the end of the movie, after Sid has been released on bail, there's this great shot of him walking through waste ground with the World Trade Centre towers behind him. And of course, neither of them survived very long.

But Sid is/was a damn sight more interesting I reckon... and arguably caused far less trouble.

[Seafront Plodder]

the only real punks were the Pistols, and everyone else is mere punk/rock -

i think Iggy Pop would have something to say about that.

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

i think Iggy Pop would have something to say about that.

OK, fair call. Even the Pistols would probably admit to being influenced by Iggy, as evidenced by their covering one or two Stooges songs.

[El Gordo]

You should get Andy to tell you about his teenage NYC/Dylan adventures. I've never managed to squeeze them out of him.

Not a lot of adventures to relate from there, to be honest.

I was first there in 1975 and like GM, spent a lot of time hanging out in Greenwich Village, trying to look up old Dylan hang-outs -- but almost all were gone. I had a great time just mooching round record shops and coffee bars but nothing truly remarkable happened. The weirdest thing was walking into an antique shop, and finding myself invited to a game of Dungeons and Dragons in the basement. I'd never heard of D and D before, so of course I thought these guys were totally nuts. It was like a scene from a Freak Bros cartoon down there. Fun though. I fell in love with the city, but doesn't everyone? Of course at the time I felt like an age had passed between my visit and the famous Dylan/Village years. It was only really about 11 or 12 years which now seems like a relatively short period. I got drunk a lot and made a fool of myself. Plus ca change, eh?

I didn't go back until about 1998, when I bent a business trip to allow me a few days off. I drove from Washington to Boston via a weekend in NYC. In some ways this was a better trip. I discovered that having a car is a fantastic way of seeing the place. I just drove round for an evening and most of the rest of the next day. Absolutely loved it. It was just a few days before Christmas, and was a totally different atmosphere from high summer. I was into photography then and took a lot of pictures of Manhattan from the bridges.

The only adventures were small ones, like colliding with a guy cycling with a Christmas tree laid across the bike at right angles to the crossbar. He'd had a few beers, and was OK. We managed to have a laugh about it.

After the Brighton 10K, Nigel raised the possibility of a collective trip to do the New York marathon. I think he meant this year, but that could be difficult work-wise. How about 2008? At least I'd have no trouble getting buy-in from M. It's her favourite city and would be delighted to go back.

Sorry, didn't mean to hijack the thread. To bring it back to the subject, I saw a prog on Friday night on BBC2 or 3 featuring Patti Smith and Blondie and Lou Reed. Was this related, or just a coincidence?

[Sweder]

I saw a prog on Friday night on BBC2 or 3 featuring Patti Smith and Blondie and Lou Reed. Was this related, or just a coincidence?

Was this a collection of Whistle Test/ Later performances?
I clocked that too, and yes it was related in as much as BBC4 are having/ just had a New York season. Although I have no great affinity with the city I found the programs fascinating. For one thing they exploded the myth that the punk movement was an entirely British invention.

The New York Dolls appear to have kicked things off in 1974 or so . . . some years before musical debrifulation hit these shores. There is a connection between the Dolls and the Pistols though. Malcolm McClaren managed both groups.

There was an interesting profile on Iggy pop recently in the Times. The guy is and was a complete basket case, and remains the emissary of all things punk in this modern age, even if the article concluded that his latest album is 'nothing short of a sell out', whatever that is. Doesn't everyone sell out to some degree?

Watch out for an IP Biopic due out later this year. My excitement on hearing this news was tempered somewhat when I learned of the actor scheduled for the leading role:
Elijah 'Frodo' Woods.

[El Gordo]

Was this a collection of Whistle Test/ Later performances?
I clocked that too, and yes it was related in as much as BBC4 are having/ just had a New York season. Although I have no great affinity with the city I found the programs fascinating. For one thing they exploded the myth that the punk movement was an entirely British invention.

Yes, that was the one. Interesting stuff, especially to someone like me who missed out on the punk thing. I was well into my blues and ragtime period in the late 70s....

I mentioned in an entry that I belatedly discovered The Clash. Mick Jones is a big QPR fan and used to sit along from me, but he lapsed the season before I did. Glen Matlock's another figure sometimes seen at Loftus Road. Much of it is a bit too hard-core for me. That's not disapproval, just an observation that you probably had to be there at the time. Trying to belatedly enjoy Siouxsie & the Banshees or The Damned from this 49 year old tower isn't that easy.

I did get quite excited by the stuff that came afterwards -- The Jam and The Stranglers (am thinking about catching the Wellerless Jam at a Reading gig coming up soon) but I wasn't quite in the right place at the right time for the heavy duty earlier stuff.

[Sweder]

To be fair I didn't much care for the gobbing and screaming that appeared de rigueur with bands like Sham 69 (local to me) or X-Ray Specs. I was lucky to get into the Stranglers early on . . . I won tickets (from Capital Radio, the DJ a certain Mr Nicky Horn, now in residence at Planet Rock - small world, eh?) in '78 to see them at the Front Row Festival, playing to 200 fortunate souls downstairs at the Hope & Anchor, Islington. It was a magical cavern of sweat and visceral R&B (in the long-accepted use of the term); I was hooked, though soon discovered ACDC, Iron Maiden et al. I figured if you like your music ear-splittingly loud you may as well pay to see people who could actually play their instruments with a modest degree of skill. Despite untold ribbing from my Metal mates I stayed 'loyal' to the Stranglers because, to me, they remained a unique creative force and, whilst never particularly claiming to be great musicians, produced a stream of truly great records. They were also rebellious in an altogether more mature way (remember Huge Cornball calling for the release of all prisoners? Perhaps not the best thought-out policy, but a little more articulate than coughing up phlegm or trashing the stage). And didn't we all at some stage want to be Jean-Jacques Burnel, wielding that bouncing bass as a blatant extension of brooding sexuality and physical danger? I certainly did.



I did see the Damned once . . . quite a treat at the Electric Ballroom. Lemmy popped up to jam on Ballroom Blitz, a version of which I recently discovered floating around the internet. Its rubbish, of course, and, as you quite rightly point out, almost without merit out of the context of time and/ or intoxication.

A time when responsibility was something you denied on a regular basis; halcyon days

[glaconman]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/...87,00.html

[Sweder]

Bloody hell - I'm in tears!
Fabulous.

I'm having a pint with Patti this lunchtime.