I make the suckiest pancakes in the observable universe. I've tried Bisquick, from-scratch recipes, straight-up ordinary, with and without foreign ingredients (carrot-orange juice, anyone?), but the end result is always the same: dense and mealy bellybombs that inspire little more than an immediate return to bed.
Fortunately, there's a cheater's version which doesn't involve any advanced spatula or timing skills. The trick is to let your oven do the work instead of the stovetop. Truth be told, these are more like giant popovers than pancakes, but since they use all the same ingredients and taste good with maple syrup poured over them, I see no reason not to cast these beauties as pancakes... of a sort.
This recipe was poached from DJ Trouble and first appeared in WFMU's To Serve Man cookbook, from a couple of years ago. Her version called for pears, but they can easily be switched out for apples (as seen here.) To that end, here's what you need:
3 eggs 3/4 cups milk 3/4 cup flour 1 tsp. vanilla extract 1/4 tsp. salt 1 ripe pear or apple, thinly sliced, skin on or off as per your preference 2 tbsp. sugar 3/4 tsp. cinnamon 2 tbsp butter
Put a 12 inch cast iron skillet in a cold oven, and dial up 450 degrees. Let skillet and oven heat up for 15 minutes.
In a medium bowl, whisk up the eggs, milk, flour, extract, and salt. In another bowl, toss the fruit with the sugar and cinnamon until evenly coated.
Using a cloth pothandle (hot! hot!), remove the skillet from the oven. Add the butter and swirl it around until melted and the entire bottom is coated.
Add the fruit to the skillet and spread it out in an even layer. Admire the wondrous scent of apples and sugar landing on hot, buttered iron.
Pour the batter on top, and return skillet to the hot oven. Let cook for 25-30 minutes, or until top has puffed up and is golden brown. Cut into pizza-shaped slices, and serve with syrup. Mmmm!
(In case you're wondering, hotbutterediron.com is currently available as a domain name. Have at it.)
I'd forgotten all about this, but just came across the MP3 buried in the depths of WFMU's website. I should never have lost track of it, especially since I'm the one who put it there in 2004.
From my original WFMU post:
Throughout the mid and late 80s, the APRC (Alternative Press & Radio
Council) ran a 24 hour concert info hotline (212-OPEC-SID) that
would give bridge and tunnelers without easy access to resources like The
Village Voice a pre-recorded rundown of all the punky rock shows going on
for the week. Someone who is remembered only as "The Phantom Phone
Hacker" would sometimes dial into the system (really just a primitive
cassette-based answering machine) and change the outgoing message to
feature some pretty unlikely lineups...
These recordings were originally gathered on one of the old Jersey Beat cassette comps, but this MP3 was spliced together and edited for radio airplay. Yes, it's stupid, but it's also a funny relic from an era of primitive technology.
In celebration of the hopeful glimmers on the global solvency front, I did something last night which I haven't done in ages: met a friend for drinks down on Avenue C, and then continued on to dinner. That is to say, in a real restaurant—the kind I have not darkened the halls of with any frequency since the entire economy decided to set up shop at the bottom of the toilet.
We went to Awash—the downtown satellite location of the popular Ethiopian eatery up on Amsterdam and 106th Street. My lack of recent familiarity with restaurant food notwithstanding, I feel justified in referring to this place as the bomb. The people who run it are incredibly sweet, the food is ready in a jiffy, and the quality is outstanding. (And that's not just in comparison to the reviled Pakistani-Indian joints that crowd around either side of its 6th Street address.) Granted, my experience with Ethiopian food is limited, but Awash far surpasses any other I've dined on in recent memory. The injera (pancake-like bread) was outstandingly fluffy and moist, and the chicken, lamb, carrots, lentils, and collared greens we scooped up with portions of it were no less enthralling. It took considerable effort to roll ourselves back onto the street after such a gargantuan meal—one which should be noted set us back less than twenty bucks each, including a hefty tip.
The general giddiness of the evening derailed my intention of photographing the beautiful platter of food which was delivered to our table, so pictured here is a similar one, originally snapped by Flickr user Abbyladybug. (Licensed for re-use via Creative Commons.) If you happen to be passing through the East Village (I know, who does that anymore!?), Awash is a brilliant spot for a thoughtfully prepared feast. For your pre-dining pleasure, here's a track from Ethiopian sax god Getatchew Mekuria, as first heard on his amazing collaboration with the Ex. [Download MP3]
Apologies for the very late playlist/archive posting this week. Typepad decided to throw me a funky HTML curveball which wreaked havoc with the proper display of this post's images. For this coming Monday's show (the 28th), I will be live on the web and FM. (No JM in the AM because of the Jewish holiday.) Goys and naughty Jews should tune in if they're up early, 6-9 AM. 91.1 FM and wfmu.org
[Click here to listen with your preferred media player]
Khaled - "La Camel" - Rebel of Rai 2xCD Brian Glaze - "Leader of the Band" - Green Living Animal Collective - "Summertime Clothes" - Merriweather Post Pavilion Glen Iris - "Horseless" - 7" Gianmarco Liguori - "Beat Instrumental" - 7" Soulstice - "Never Stop" - OM_100 2xCD Sizohamba - "Learning (Kid Loco RMX)" - The Mothers: Township Sessions The Eddy Current Suppression Ring - "Yo-Yo Man" - Eddy Current Suppression Ring
Budd - "Cut" - 2x10"
La Nueva Banda de Santisteban - "Brincadeira" - Sabor a Fresa Reigns - "Everything Beyond These Walls Has Been Razed" - The House on the Causeway Clark-Hutchinson - "Free to be Stoned" - Legend of a Mind: The Underground Anthology 3xCD compilation Expo 70 - "Cold Forecasting" - Psychosis Junior Boys - "Parallel Lines" - Begone Dull Care The Clean - "Are You Really on Drugs?" - Mister Pop Nora Guthrie - "Home Before Dark" - 7" Husker Du - "Statues" - Everything Falls Apart and More Mos Def - "Supermagic + Twilite Speedball" - The Ecstatic
Willie 'Loco' Alexander - "Mass Ave." - DIY: Mass Ave -- The Boston Scene Mission of Burma - "...And Here it Comes" - 7" Christ Child - "Five Finger Exercise" - Christ Child The Original Sins - "(It's Really Not So) Groovy (Anymore)" - Acidbubblepunk Lights - "Hold On" - Rites Bus Crates - "Frozen Extremities" - 16-Bit Ensemble 7" Treiops Treyfid - "Enoch 6" - Feelings of Unreality Discharge - "Warning" - Never Again The Homosexuals - "Don't Touch my Hair" - Love Guns? 10" The Mumlers - "St. James St." - Don't Throw Me Away
Las Palabras - "Mariposas" - 7" The Nomads - "I Can't Use the Stuff I Used to Use" - Raw & Rare Styrenes - "Green Lamp" - We Care, So You Don't Have To Die Kreuzen - "Man in the Trees (Live)" - Gone Away EP Circus Devils - "Stars, Stripes, and Crack Pipes" - Ataxia Lunachicks - "Brickface and Stucco" - Jerk of All Trades Eric B. & Rakim - "My Melody" - Paid in Full Sallie and the Fantastic Davis Sisters - "Lord Have Mercy" - 7"
Read part one first, or else this won't make sense.
13. The Ex: A band that never disappoints, but the first time will always be remembered as the best time—at the Knitting Factory with Mecca Normal opening (1994, maybe?) My WPRB pals and I had all discovered the "Joggers & Smoggers" double album at around the same time, so a chance to check out the band who'd made this wild and freaky record was nothing to sneeze at. The Ex used to play two sets a night in those days (early and late) with different openers—we caught the late one, and were immediately pissed that we hadn't attended both. Instead, we'd chosen to dine at a local Vietnamese restaurant where I bitched and moaned loudly about how unexcited I was to see Mecca Normal because Mecca Normal sucks, and why would anyone book Mecca Normal to play with the Ex, and so on. 90 seconds into my diatribe, I was kicked (hard, in the shin, under the table) by a fellow DJ who quietly informed me that Mecca Normal were, in fact, sitting right next to us and had clearly heard everything I'd said. Whoops. [Ex photo by Nick Helderman, licensed via Creative Commons. Listen to the Ex perform "Frenzy"]
14. Ff: For an audience of 7 people at Under Acme. In celebration of their fantastic performance, the soundman was beaten up by someone in the band's entourage immediately following their set. I ate mediocre Tex-Mex with friends, band members, and local fanzine glitterati in the restaurant upstairs. Someone insisted we take a cab home, and then announced mid-trip that she had no money to contribute to the rather hefty fare. In hindsight, I feel as though we should have left her in the middle of the bridge.
15. Flipper: At Northsix, a couple of years ago. Flipper was one of the first bands I liked that I knew was really cool, and would more than likely alienate me from anyone who thought music should be catchy, have a tune, or be something one might try dancing to. "Sex Bomb" and "Way of the World" were anthems of my C-90 era, which is to say, they were perennial favorites on WPRB and WTSR when I was a kid who treated college radio like a daily religious service. I was too young to see them before bassist Will Shatter died, but against all odds, they put out a really good reunion record on Rick Rubin's label in the early 90s called "American Grafishy", so I figured another 15 years of mileage couldn't hurt. The show was poorly promoted, poorly attended, and that band the Pissed Jeans opened, whom I find rather pedestrian. Flipper played, and they sounded good, but the experience was rather like what I imagine watching a Flipper cover band would be like. I'd raised myself on the lore of Flipper being a defiant middle finger to the hardcore scene -- playing impossibly slow and dirgey songs to a generation of adrenalized idiots who'd elevated the phrase "play faster!" to battlecry status. But what happens when everyone's in on the scheme? In 2006, there were no skinheads to piss off, no punk rock establishment to rail against, and no countercultural art scene to define. Instead, it was a handful of Brooklyn hipsters, me, Chad, Liz, and Brian who watched politely but (I think) all left feeling pretty underwhelmed by the whole thing. After the show, I suddenly realized that it was 2 AM, a worknight, and I was at least an hour away from my bed by subway. In a spectacular act of frivolity, I took a cab all the way home, woke up my sleeping wife, and instructed her to talk me out of any future interest I might express in seeing reunited punk bands perform. [Listen to Flipper perform "Way of the World"]
16: Monsula: At ABC no RIO, heat of high summer, 1990 or 91. Me and my suburban pals hopped NJ Transit into the city especially for this show. In between bands, the crowd emptied into ABC's courtyard where the Food Not Bombs people were preparing some of the most sickening food ever to hit my tastebuds. I struck up a conversation with some art school ladies, one of whom I was crushin' hard on within 15 minutes. Suddenly, the heavily-pierced Monsula singer guy appeared like an artpunk Fonzie, and whisked this lovely lady away from me, summarily ending any potential for Skate Betty hookups. I spent the rest of the day brooding behind my hair.
17. Econochrist: With the dreaded Monsula (see above) at a Pittsburgh elementary school gymnasium at, like, 11 in the morning on a weekday. Maybe it wasn't Pittsburgh, but it was FAR. Much farther than Jon Solomon (who drove), myself, or our pal Liz imagined. There only seemed to be about 15 paying customers, but the bands played anyway and sounded reasonably good in spite of the horrible acoustics. Monsula's guitar player had been kicked out of the band the previous day, but they soldiered on as a drum-n-bass combo for the duration of their tour, which even I had to admit was pretty admirable. In between sets, basketballs, hula hoops, and other phys-ed paraphernalia were produced by the gym teacher for the funny-haired kids to amuse themselves with.
18. Blur: 1991, City Gardens, with the Senseless Things opening. I was driving to work in Trenton, listening to a pair of WTSR DJs trying to give away tickets to see these bands (whom I'd never heard of), only no one was calling in for them. In predictably arrogant college DJ style, they announced that "no more music would be played" until the tickets were gone. Troubled by the notion of more ceaseless yabbering on their part, I pulled over somewhere on Olden Avenue, found a payphone, dialed in, won the tickets, and continued on to my destination. I took my friend Amanda to the show, and was surprised to find an audience that had until then been non-existent at the club: Preppy kids. Hundreds of them. We stuck out like sore thumbs, as I was donned in my usual combat boots/army shorts getup, and Amanda wore some kind of pre-Courtney Love babydoll dress. We stood way in the back and heard, for the first time, the sound of BritPop. Neither of us were particularly impressed by it, but we were mildly intrigued by the Senseless Things' rousing cover of a Dag Nasty song. We left early and hit the Crystal Diner for bottomless coffees and discussion. [Listen to Blur perform "Sing"]
19. The Ohio Players: Mid 90s, Terrace front lawn, during sign-ins. You haven't really lived until you've seen a bunch of Princeton undergrads dancing outdoors to music being played by guys who all look like Rick James. [Listen to the Ohio Players perform "Trespassin'"]
20. The Trans Megetti: These guys held the curious distinction of being a bona fide punkity rock band based in the very un-punkity rock Jersey shore town of Beach Haven, NJ. (That's on LBI for you Bennys...) They played in some asshole fratboy hangout called The Ketch, but instantly brought the asshole fratboy audience to life with their manic surfcore. It is also worth pointing out that I was the ONLY person at the bar, for the entire night, yet it took herculean effort on my part to earn the bartender's attention every time I needed another Maker's Mark. Such are the pitfalls of being 35, but still harboring a fading interest in the music of 19-year-olds.
21. Nuisance: At WFMU, back when it was in East Orange, in the middle of the night on Pat Duncan's show. Fantastic band... now greatly revered by the guys in Comets on Fire, although you'd never know it from listening to their records. (Nuisance sounded like punk guys getting stoned and playing old Neil Young songs.) The tape of this set is the source of that "We were asked not to play because of our controversial subject matter" audio clip that I still play on FMU sometimes. It also pops up randomly on the station's homepage as a "soundbyte of the day". Pat used to record all of his live bands on a stationary, black & white camera, with the audio sourced through the mixing board. Somewhere in my closet is a VHS copy of this set filmed as such, and it very much creates the sensation of watching a rock show by means of a 7-11 security camera.
22. Libido Boyz: Also at WFMU's old studios, also in the middle of the night. This was on April 29th of 1992, and the only reason I know that is because it was the same night the L.A. riots erupted in the wake of the Rodney King police acquittals. As such, driving through a really nasty neighborhood at 3 AM with hundreds of angry people massing out on the street was not an experience which I'd recommend to many people today, even those who owe me money. I eventually just started blowing red lights in an effort to get out as quickly as possible. My departure from the East Orange city limits was accompanied by a shower of bottles and other debris, yet my car suffered only minimal scarring.
23. Cheap Trick: A couple of summers ago, in Liberty State Park. A poorly organized Outdoor Rock Fest in Jersey City. Patti Smith, Los Lobos, P-Funk, and a bunch of other bands also played. High ticket prices and a lack of promotion snarled the success of what could have been a packed event, but I blundered into free tix being given away by the promoters—a failed effort on their part to have some bodies on hand. (Some hippie guy who'd once accosted me in a local coffee shop demanding to know if I was a fan of The Gypsy Kings appeared at WFMU bearing complementary tickets "for the jocks". Later on that day, I saw him distributing more free tickets at a pizza parlor.) I missed Patti Smith and Los Lobos, P-Funk was shockingly uninteresting (really just George Clinton wandering around the stage in a tracksuit and saying "yeah!" or "that's right!" once in a while, while his pickup band and female backup singers did most of the work. Cheap Trick blew doors, however, even with only about 200 people watching by their set's conclusion. Several revelations were had by me by evening's end: 1) Robin Zander may be the singer, but Rick Neilsen is totally the frontman. 2) A lifetime of hard drinking leaves its mark most evidently in the neck/throat area. 3) "The Flame" is not as bad a song as I remembered it being. After the show, we followed a very intoxicated local resident through a muddy, wooded "trail" in almost complete darkness. I was seized by a brief and silent terror, but felt relief when the parking lot appeared through the mist, as per his prophecy. I went home and listened to In Color... on repeat for the next week. [Listen to Cheap Trick perform "Come On, Come On"]
24. The Wedding Present: Maxwell's, Sea Monsters tour, early 90s. They were loud as bombs and they didn't play "Dalliance". Not surprisingly, I have mixed feelings about this. [Listen to the Wedding Present perform "Dalliance"]
Here's a good/short read on the Future of Music Coalition's recent action in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals regarding the FCC's perplexing and wildly inconsistent indecency policy.
As someone who's been putting together weekly radio shows for getting on 20 years now, the constant wondering if some expletive's variant exceeds these cryptic "standards" is something I've grown quite weary of. (And is perhaps part of the reason I've packed up the broadcast version of my radio program for the wild west of the internet.) Here are two popular examples of the bewildering topics I've had to consider vis-à-vis so-called "indecency" in the broadcast environment:
1. The word "pissed". Used on air in one context, i.e. "pissed off", it's OK -- not indecent. Used on air in another context, i.e. "pissed on", NOT OK -- indecent, and a punishable offense. Yet strangely, the variable that makes the difference—the word "on"—isn't a cussword by anyone's standards. Except for the FCC. Come again, sailor?
2. The late night "safe harbor" period is alleged to grant some broadcast leeway in the airing of expletives, so long as they are not sexual or excretory in nature. If you've read this blog even semi-regularly, you know that I am not one for needlessly lewd discussion or extraneous profanity. I'd even go so far as to say that I keep things downright family-friendly most of the time. Yet thanks to the FCC, I have had to give professional consideration to matters of whether or not an instance of the word "shit" is excretory in nature. Similarly, I have labored exhaustively on numerous occasions regarding the sexual or non-sexual implications of various uses of the word "fuck". Believe it or not, working in mass media today frequently involves discussions of sexual/non-sexual fucks and excretory/non-excretory shits with one's colleagues.
At the lunch table.
Via email.
One time, I paged the entire building in a panic because I suddenly feared that something I was playing could be construed as having a sexual or excretory subtext. And why are we so paranoid? Because the FCC demands it. And before you tell me that if I just listened to nice music like the Jonas Brothers or Mariah Carey, such language issues would never come into play, let me remind you that these same standards apply in a news/talk radio environment. And as recent history has taught us, sometimes saucy language is newsworthy in and of itself.
Suffice to say, all this talk of f*cking and sh!tting is probably enough to make a truck driver blush. It makes me wonder who the perverts are that get paid to think about this stuff all day long and come up with these policies. Whoever they are, I certainly wouldn't want to introduce them (let alone Ernie Anastos) to my parents. If only there was some kind of agency I could complain to about them...
Why? Because it serves nobly in the creation of Irish Guinness Stew, which is delicious, if not the easiest dinner you can whip together once the weather starts turning crummy. Guinness Stew is a great example of what I like to call "garbage cooking". That's not a slur upon its content or nutritional value, but rather, a reference to the anything-goes style of ingredient gathering that precedes making it. Furthermore, the slow cooker really does most of the legwork—the human participant is much more the robot-monkey-arm in this case, since his/her primary duty is to simply dump everything into the cooker and flick the power on. After that's done with, the chef has a good 7 or 8 hours to wander away from the kitchen, take a nap, download pornography, or watch the Harry Potter movies in any desired order.
I always thought of slow-cookers as the province of 1970s housewives—those whose only method of culinary recourse was to boil an assortment of meats and vegetables into a lifeless paste, spoon the sad mixture into a serving bowl, and then string up the "Mission Accomplished" banner over the mantle. Well, maybe that was the case a long time ago, but ever since we inherited a brand new slow cooker from a friend who'd convinced herself that it would burn down her building, my tune has changed considerably. If you've got a slow cooker taking up space in your pantry which you have yet to fool around with, allow me to recommend this incredibly easy means by which to christen it. And seriously, this barely even counts as cooking. Irish Guinness Stew takes about as much effort to make as getting up at 4 AM to go take a leak does. How's that for an enticing visual to point you towards the kitchen?
Here's what you need:
1.5 - 2 pound package of cubed beef for stew. 1 bag of baby carrots 1 onion, quartered and separated 2-3 cloves minced garlic 1 or 2 potatoes. Maybe 1 potato and one yam, just for variety's sake and because Autumn started yesterday while you weren't paying attention. 1 package frozen peas 1 32 oz. container of good beef stock. I recommend the Trader Joe's brand, but College Inn works fine, too. 1 can of Guinness draught beer 1 small can of tomato paste brown sugar 2 bay leaves red wine flour butter olive oil salt & pepper Worcestershire Sauce fresh sprig rosemary fresh sprig thyme
In a big skillet, heat up some olive oil with a shnick of butter. When that's hot, cook up the onion and garlic with a little bit of brown sugar (1-2 tsp). Keep the flame low, and keep stirring everything around, so the sugar doesn't burn. Cook for 5 minutes, then scrape all contents into your slow cooker.
In a mixing bowl, douse your cubed beef with some salt, pepper, and flour. Coat well, and then brown it all up evenly (another five minutes) in the dirty skillet you just used. (Add more olive oil, obviously, so it doesn't stick.) Just as it's finishing up, throw a splash of red wine into the hot pan and scrape off all the deliciously crusty bits that have formed. Scrape everything into the slow cooker. (Note: From here on out, the robot-monkey-arm I mentioned above takes over. Feel free to take all your clothes off, tie one arm behind your back, or recite favorite movie dialogs while you tackle the remaining steps, which are ridiculously easy.)
To the slow cooker, add the following: 2/3 bag of baby carrots, several splashes of Worcestershire Sauce, the beef stock, the can of Guinness, tomato paste, bay leaves, and mix well. Top with the rosemary and thyme. Cover. Dial up "low" on your slow cooker. Wash dirty skillet.
Five hours later, wander back into the kitchen, which by now should be smelling pretty fantastic. Dice up your potato and/or yam into small cubes. Add them to the slow cooker, along with the frozen peas, some salt and pepper to taste, and let cook for another two hours. If you're feeling anxious, you can bump the heat up to "high", but patience will yield the greatest results.
Boil some egg noodles, rice, quinoa, couscous, or whatever starch/grain you're feeling the most attracted to, and serve it up with steamy helpings of stew. Crack open another Guinness and celebrate your Celtic heritage, even if you don't have any. If necessary, crank up the Irish hip-hop genius of Krisma and Sinisista to enhance the fantasy.
P.S. I realize one can achieve the same effect by using a big stock pot with a low flame underneath it. But a live flame requires more careful attention. Not to mention that instructing you thusly would've ruined the rare opportunity to scatter leaves on my slow cooker for a backyard photo shoot.
Everyone would probably agree that the action around here has been pretty limited for the last several weeks. While I'm thrilled to have returned to the working life, the degree to which it's stunted my blogging time has been more than a little bit alarming. Furthermore, since I'm going to become a father in early 2010 (!!!), I've spent many of my recent days clearing junk out of the house for the coming avalanche of ridiculous baby gear. My wife and I have made a big pile of stuff to unload at a stoop sale (date TBD), and another (smaller) pile for eBay.
In the spirit of over-reaching, I have ambitiously chosen to extend this extreme housecleaning to include my own mental storage locker. There's a ton of Daddy-centric knowledge I need to pack into my brain before January, so the time has never been better to move out old information that no longer demands regular upkeep. But as is the case with the tacky Christmas gifts, punk 45s, and piles of outdated cultural studies books soon to be making their departure, it's a little bit sad to think about ridding my brain of monuments from a past that once defined me.
Fortunately, there is the internet. Also known as: the External Hard Drive to the Stars.
Prior to any proper housecleaning endeavor, it's critical to examine all the available bounty in order to effectively free up the most real estate. It makes sense to begin unloading what one has the most of, especially if it takes up a lot of space in the attic, basement, or in this case, the cranium. So after unscrewing the plate in my head to survey the flotsam, the decision was easy: I've chosen to unload stories and anecdotes pertaining to many of the live music events I've witnessed since... 1987. Let's face it, thanks to the usual transmogrification that most of us endure at the end of our thirties, not too many new entries are being made in that department anyway. Like many of my peers, the idea of enduring an hour long subway ride to some bunghole squat in Bushwick for a six band bill with a gaggle of hipsters isn't something I enjoy as much as I used to. Quite happily, I've arrived at a point where I'm very comfortable calling regular rock show attendance a component of my past, and as such, I'll be unloading a number of posts like the one that follows in the coming weeks. If you were there with me—and a lot of you were—and feel that I've mismanaged the details, gotten names wrong, confused one sleazy promoter with another, or in any way screwed up the facts, you are welcome and encouraged to set me straight in the comments. Shows will be posted in whichever order I end up remembering them. Chronology, as I have recently learned, is a luxury for someone who already knows which brand and model of diaper pail to add to their baby registry.
1. The Ramones: City Gardens, 1987. Technically the first show I ever attended, unless you count the two high school thrash bands who played in my community's park for the local BMX/burnout population. City Gardens was different -- there were skinheads, dirtbags, and criminals everywhere, and also a guy who had painstakingly re-created
elaborate GBH album artwork on the back of his leather jacket with white and
silver paint pen. Part of me was expecting a bubblegummy event like the Ramones concert depicted in Rock & Roll High School, but what I got was a tribal slaughter punctuated by someone hurling a bar stool into the seething moshpit. (Several years before the infamous Geraldo TV brawl.) My buddies and I were too young to drive, so someone's older brother and his date dropped us off and picked us up sometime around 2 AM. His car was pulled over by the cops somewhere outside of Trenton on the way home. I sat in the back seat, and as cliched as it sounds, I definitely had the sense that I was onto something that would play a heavy hand in blazing my trail out of adolescence. [Listen to the Ramones perform "Don't Come Close"]
2. Rednecks in Pain: ABC no RIO, 1989. Not to get all O.G. on you, but the Lower East Side was still pretty sketchy at this time. Giuliani's New York was several years away, and the rotted and broken condition of the city was especially evident down on the L.E.S. An older friend who'd graduated high school ahead of me was now an art student in the city, and she and I navigated our way through the demilitarized zone to find this new venue, alleged to be home to one of the best and brightest art scenes the city had birthed in eons. I was penpals with Rednecks in Pain's bass player, who did
a great zine in Nashville, and I was happy to finally meet him following their set of spazzy, southern fried hardcore. I bought a
40 oz. bottle of malt liquor at a nearby bodega, which, in
an idiotic display of youthful ignorance, I drank while
walking back up Rivington St. to the Bowery. When I got to the
West Village and said a sozzled goodbye to my art school pal, I decided to rouse another friend whose
window could be banged upon by means of a standpipe outside his
apartment on Waverly Street. He wasn't home. A sharp corner of the standpipe penetrated
the sole of my combat boot and sliced a neat gash in the bottom of my
foot, which bled profusely on the train ride home from Penn Station.
When I disembarked the train, there was a small bloody spot on
the floor where I'd been sitting. To this day, I can't believe the wound didn't blossom into a wicked infection, let alone something much worse.
3. Stereolab: Terrace Club dining room, early 90s. Then as now, my
primary comment about Stereolab concerns their unparalleled ability to get an ungodly amount of
mileage from a single note. On the
sexual escapade front, a fellow WPRB DJ was rumored to have swapped fluids with one of the members of the band later on in the evening. This may or may not have been discussed in roundtable forum during somebody's graveyard show later on that week. [Listen to Stereolab perform "Wow & Flutter"]
4. The Cure: At the Philadelphia Spectrum. I think it was the Kiss Me x3 tour. Regardless, they totally sucked. I went with a guy from around town whom I barely knew, but who'd offered me a free ticket in exchange for a ride. (His '74 BMW was out of commission. Poor chap.) Anyway, he danced
like a ninny for the duration of their set and also scammed on girls who were perhaps five years his junior (we were in our late teens at the time). I slouched down
low in my seat and thought about killing myself. [Listen to the Cure perform "A Letter to Elise"]
5. The Melvins: Knitting Factory, late 90s, with the Cosmic Psychos. Like the Rednecks in Pain show, this one also concludes with me bleeding from my lower extremities. I was
apartment sitting for friends on 125th St, and decided to head downtown
to see the show. I stopped at Sonali (East Village) for dinner, and then made
an impulse purchase of expensive new shoes somewhere on 8th Street. My old shoes
were in tatters, so I threw them away and just wore the new ones out of
the store. I then made the mistake of walking from the E.V. all the way down to
club in Tribeca, and by the time I got there, the backs of my ankles were bleeding painfully
from the ill-fitting shoes. I limped my way into the
club, watched the bands from a safe distance (King Buzzo rules, ok?), and then
rode the subway back up to Harlem in only my socks. I got back to
the apartment at around 2 AM, and the weather turned incredibly cold
and blustery. I slept on a strange couch with the TV on while the wind made
terrifying sounds outside and the building swayed and shuddered in the gales. The next
morning, I awoke to frigid temperatures, made my way downtown with no
jacket, and ate the most satisfying oatmeal of my life at the Waverly
Diner. [Image courtesy of Antiparticle.] [Listen to the Melvins perform "The Kicking Machine"]
6. Youth Tsunami: Hardcore matinee at JC Dobbs, Philadelphia, 1991. I'm amazed that I remember such a short lived and forgettable band. Aside from the name, all I can recall is that they featured a guy who had previously been in some big NYHC act. Maybe Token Entry? I had wound up alone in Philly on a random Saturday afternoon,
and tagged along to the show with some friendly guy with a mohawk, his
2 foot tall girlfriend who sported the skinhead-girl fringe hairstyle,
and their punky poet pal who wore a tweed blazer with a Crass patch
stitched to the lapel. (I'd first noticed him standing on top of a trash bin on South Street reading his poetry out loud.) Keep in mind, I met these people only that day, but they
were incredibly nice, invited me to dinner at their communal
house/squat, and insisted on paying for the parking ticket I got. I
never saw or spoke with any of them again, but I think the girl's name
was Crystal.
7. A.P.P.L.E.: Tompkins Square Park, with a few other bands. Lots of
people who smell bad on purpose hanging around eating disgusting vegan
"pizza". Also, an astonishing array of malnourished dogs (maybe they were also vegan?) held on knotted leashes
made of dirty rope. A.P.P.L.E.'s music was folk-punk-anarchy. I was
never into them, yet somehow, I managed to acquire a bunch of their records in the years that followed.
8. The 3Ds: Terrace Club, Princeton, 1993. I sat outside for most of their set, tending to a drunk
girl who eventually vomited on my leg. The first couple of songs were really
good, but any further memories are clouded by my sudden need for a fresh pair of trousers.
9. Sister Carol: When going to shows was new and exciting, I'd go see
anything. That included the periodic reggae bills that City Gardens
would host, where I saw Toots & the Maytals, King Yellowman,
Eek-a-Mouse, and Sister Carol. I don't recall much beyond being one of
the youngest people there and that the show was MC'd by the host of
WTSR's weekly reggae show, who spoke on-air with a heavy patois accent,
yet disappointingly turned out to be a white dude from
suburban Trenton. In the crowd were lots of well dressed black people
in their 40s, rasta dudes with 50 pounds of dreadlocks spilling from
their woven crowns, some local skins doing their best to emulate the London Rude Boy style, and me, wondering if the money I'd just unloaded at the door was a wise investment in my future.
10. Gaunt: CBGB's, 1992—the now legendary "Ohio Invasion" show. Totally electrifying, though the circumstances were
fairly crap. I think this was during either CMJ or the New Music Seminar, and a special
"surprise" band had been added to the bill. No one knew who they were,
but they were billed as "Move Right In". They turned out to be The Rollins Band, the name a lyrical reference to one of
his songs. Anyway, what I had hoped would be a short (I was leaving for Europe early the next morning) and entertaining
night turned into a multi-hour hellfest and by the time we left the club
at 2:30 AM, there were still three bands to play before the New Bomb Turks. As such, this was the night
I vowed never to return to CBGB's—a sentiment I renewed by appreciation for when the club closed for good several years ago. If you were ever a Gaunt fan, do the universe a favor and read this. [Listen to Gaunt perform "Spine"]
11. Run DMC: Outside in New Jersey. By the time I finally got to see one of the first bands that helped me define myself as a kid and who were the catalyst for extreme parental anxiety, they totally sucked rocks. Not surprisingly, a little piece of my soul died that day.
12. Lunachicks: 1991, at Rutgers. A benefit for the local LGBT Chapter. This
was a great night, made better by the fact that it competed directly
with two other shows that kept the idiots away. Elsewhere on campus,
Mojo Nixon performed for douchebaggy college kids with
backwards baseball caps. Meanwhile, down in Trenton,
Murphy's Law performed for the troglodytes and violent skinhead crowd. Coincidentally, in 1991, if any slices of the population were going to start trouble at a show with a socio-political subtext like an LGBT benefit, it would be jocks and skinheads. But mercifully, they left the
weirdo artists, loners, and the entire LGBT campus community to rock out full throttle to the Lunachicks who were fabulous as always! One of the best and most unique NYC bands ever, no doubt about it. A lot of other local bands played, but now I
can't remember any besides Sticks and Stones. All told, this was a great night to
be a freak in Jersey. [Listen to the Lunachicks perform "Brickface & Stucco"]
[Click here to listen with your preferred media player]
Golden - "Summer" - Golden Summer Tin Hat Trio - "Bill" - The Rodeo Eroded Black Heart Procession - "That Old Kind of Summer" - Black Heart Procession Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers - "That Summer Feeling" - Jonathan Sings! Bobby Goldsboro - "Summer" Prisonshake - "We've Only Tasted the Wine" - Dirty Moons Husky Rescue - "Summertime Cowboy" - Country Falls Marianne Faithfull - "Summer Nights" - Go Away From My World Joan Jett - "You Don't Know What You've Got (Until it's Gone)" - Bad Reputation Vicki Sue Robinson - "Hot Summer Nights" - Prelude's Greatest Hits Vol. 3 Jawbreaker - "Indictment" - 24 Hour Revenge Therapy Personal & the Pizzas - "Brass Knuckles" - 7"
Jesse Hector and the Gatecrashers - "Summertime Blues" - Gorilla Garage Les Thugs - "Summer" - Strike The Van Pelt - "It's a Suffering" - Stealing from our Favorite Thieves Galaxie 500 - "Summertime" Jenny Mae - "Leprechaun" - There's A Bar Around The Corner... Assholes Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood - "Summer Wine" - Nancy & Lee Percy Faith & His Orchestra - "Theme From "A Summer Place"" - Donna Reed's Dinner Party Rolling Stones - "Imagination" - Some Girls
Calexico - "Crooked Road and the Briar" - Even My Sure Things Fall Through Ween - "Birthday Boy" - God * Ween * Satan: The Oneness 2xLP Brian Eno - "Everything Merges With The Night" - Another Green World Bee Gees - "Sweet Song of Summer" - To Whom It May Concern A Bullet for Fidel - "Scared of Summer" - Cold Before Morning Phil Ochs - "In the Heat of Summer" - Farewells & Fantasies Puff Tube - "Boys of Summer" - 7" Neil Young & Crazy Horse - "Slip Away" - Broken Arrow Terry Riley - "In the Summer" - Le Secret de la Vie
Husker Du - "Celebrated Summer" - New Day Rising Sparky - "Do You Remember that Summertime Woman?" - Bubble Pop: 20 UK Pop Oddities Brother JT - "Summer" - Spirituals Bruce Springsteen - "Girls in their Summer Clothes" - Magic Gem - "2 Me Now" - Hexed Frank Sinatra - "Summer Wind" - The Reprise Collection Mahalia Jackson - "Summertime (Mocean Worker remix)" [By request.] Manitoba - "Tits and Ass: The Great Canadian Weekend" - Giver 12"
About
Non-comm broadcasting is my currency. WPRB-->WFMU-->WNYC. All the related hooey is chronicled here.
Mantra
There is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. -Bill Hicks
