Johnny Thunders getting rough with Spaceley right before shredding on guitar at The Mudd Club in NYC. The club was located at 77 White Street in TriBeCa. This counterculture mecca was born in October of 1978 and housed many punk misfits of the underground scene until it's demise in 1983.
It's just another Tuesday night in the Tribeca area of New York City. As I enter The Roxy Hotel's toasty Django Bar, I see a room full of familiar faces. Littered across the intimate space were a gaggle of elite rockers known to swim in the same circles as the uninhibited downtown crowd. Rock photographer's Bob Gruen and Mick Rock, Andy Rourke of The Smiths, Bob Bert of Lydia Lunch's Retrovirus, David Johansen, Chris Franz of the Talking Heads, among other notables.
Legs McNeil will be reading Please Kill Me at Desert Island in Williamsburg, Brooklyn this Thursday, Oct.13th at 7pm. Come out and celebrate the 20th anniversary of Please Kill Me by getting your book signed!
Brooklyn trio Big Cheese may have only begun in 2013, but they have resurrected the powerful and darkly introspective sound of '90s-era rock bands. Drummer Justin Iwinski cites Nirvana as a major influence ("Big Cheese" being a track off Nirvana's 1989 album Bleach), while songs off their second album, Supersonic Nothing, reflect the Stooges and the Melvins.
Powerful footage of the Stooges taken by NYC musician Ryan Skeleton Boy in November of 2003. The live set was performed at Tower Records and is riddled with funny commentary by Iggy on the sad state of music and his drug influenced lyrics.
Bryan Ferry was working as a part-time furniture restorer and ceramics teacher when he met art school graduate Brian Eno in 1970. At the time, the fledgling musicians had no idea the success their partnership would create. Eno and Ferry, along with Roxy Music founding member Andy Mackay, would combine their art school backgrounds and interest in avant-garde music to create an irresistible sound and enduring style.
Jimmy was my first teacher, he had drummed for Blondie, gotten the musical approval of Lou Reed, and even had to stop Stiv Bators from hitting on his girlfriend.
Listening to One Prayer One Sin erupts symbiotic visual reels of 70's city's streets and Travis Bickle wearing a bloody smile. Watching singer Johnny Scuotto flail his arms around hysterically while taunting the audience with a devilish grin pronounced by bare brows as he shouts and jerks around- can only properly be described as a "psychopathic Ian Curtis" dance. OPOS is a dynamic combination of the Birthday Party, the Pop Group, Brian Eno, and a distinct influence from Iggy Pop's albums of 1977, The Idiot and Lust For Life.
Here's a tour of the East Village in 1993, courtesy of local Iggy Pop, who at that time was living in the Christodora House—he had been there three years by the time this was shot (before that, he was in Greenwich Village... vacuuming). As he gives the filmmaker a tour of the neighborhood he talks about some of the things he loves there (like the "nice little cafes," a Chico mural and the better quality graffiti than in the rest of New York, and "oh cool, a cop on horseback"). Watch the full thing below (it's worth it!)—some of the highlights:
On the Psychedelic Church of 9th Street: "I never got that interested in it. There's a guy here who took a Swiss girl, and made her in to soup... he used to go to that church." That would be Daniel Rakowitz, the Butcher of Tompkins Square.
On noise: "Nobody would dare shut you up for making noise, I make as much noise as I want all the time."
On living in a nice apartment: "It gets up a lot of people's tree. But fuck it. What the fuck? I'm not a martyr."
On Pedro's Bakery on 8th and Avenue C: "This is where I eat when my wife's not in town. I come here and get sandwiches and cake and strong coffee. That's what I live on."