Which is on fire...on fire

'79 Clash Palladium Super-8 footage unearthed and soundtracked at TheClashBlog.  Thanks to the ever-vigilant Tim B. at Stupefaction for the alert.


Super-cool Ed Sanders interview at the NY Times East Village blog.  I hope Fug You arrives at T.O. bookstores in a more timely manner than Love Goes to Buildings on Fire did.


But yes, I did manage to score a copy of Love Goes over the weekend, and have devoured 2/5ths of it already...pretty good progress, considering that each of the book's five chapters corresponds to a year in the author's coverage period of '73-'77. Since I've spent much of the past year studying this time frame in depth, certain aspects of the narrative feel a bit like deja vu all over again.  Will Hermes' scope reaches far beyond that of this blog though--he devotes as much attention to the music scenes I'm less well-versed in, and I appreciate the edification.  Still, I feel that the rock and roll portions of the book suffer a bit from a lack of the intense deep examination I crave, as it seems like only the best-known stories on the major figures in NYC proto-punk and punk are told.  Great stuff of course, but by now that's well-trodden territory for all rock book aficionados worth their salt--it's the more obscure folks who need to be documented at this point.  I generally agree with Times reviewer David Gates' assesment that "he writes more evocatively about jazz, salsa and concert music than about rock 'n' roll" (add the early hip-hop scene to that list too). But where Gates dismisses Hermes' interwoven personal tales of burgeoning Queens teen music fandom as unnecessary, those have naturally been my fave aspects of the book so far.  I'm always a sucker for a protagonist I can identify with--and not only was Hermes a bit too young to experience the best stuff firsthand, he grew up right near my high school in Fresh Meadows.  No matter how this tome will turn out, he's already won me over on that basis alone.

Can't wait for my library reservation on James Wolcott's memoirs to come through, which seems like it'd be the perfect companion volume.  But it's not as if I've been lacking for NYC rock lit lately--I also recently finished The Last Sultan (on Ahmet Ertegun) and Ten Thousand Saints (a novel largely set among the '80s East Village straightedge hardcore scene), and enjoyed them both.  Next up will probably be Jerry Blavat's memoirs--yet believe me, these might seem like a ton of books, but none of my efforts will ever lessen the sheer height of my Sisyphean "to read" pile.    

1967 Ads Revisited: Other Venues and Miscellany, Part Three

9/7/67 issue:

"Scenes" column excerpt.

9/14/67 issue:

9/21/67 issue:

"Scenes" column excerpt.

9/28/67 issue:

10/5/67 issue:

"Scenes" column excerpt.

10/12/67 issue:

"Pop Eye" excerpt. Oh my--Goldstein, how could you?  If I had attended the Norton 25th Anniversary blowout earlier this month, I would have been faced with the agonizing Saturday night choice of the Randy Fuller Four at the fest, or the Left Banke at some East Village place called Drom. But since I was nowhere near NYC during that weekend, I must settle for youtube clips of both.

10/19/67 issue:

10/26/67 issue:

"Pop Eye" excerpt, I think.

11/2/67 issue:

"Scenes" column excerpt.

11/9/67 issue:

"Scenes" column excerpt.  Dig her "What's My Line?" appearance, which I uploaded to YT a while back.

"Pop Eye" excerpt.

11/16/67 issue:

11/23/67 issue:

I apologize for putting this up a bit too late for Thanksgiving.

11/30/67 issue:

"Scenes" column excerpt.

This plain Max's ad ran frequently in the restaurant section.

12/7/67 issue:

"Scenes" column excerpt.

12/14/67 issue:

"Scenes" column excerpt.

"Pop Eye" excerpt.

12/21/67 issue:

Speaking of "What's My Line?"...

12/28/67 issue:

"Scenes" column excerpt.

Closing down soon.

Reviews, articles, etc.:

9/7/67 issue: "Scenes"; "Pop Eye" includes mentions of the Electric Circus and Salvation.

9/14/67 issue: "Speak Out the Arts: Taking a Closer Look at Electric Rock"; hippie street theater; "Scenes."

9/21/67 issue: "Huncke the Junkie: Godfather to Naked Lunch"; "Pop Eye" on Toronto's Yorkville music scene; "Scenes."

9/28/67 issue: The Diggers Free Store; "Scenes"; Psychedelic Expo in Forest Hills.

10/5/67 issue: Avant-garde festival on the Staten Island Ferry; "Scenes"; The Avatar, Boston's underground newspaper; "Pop Eye" on Cream.

10/12/67 issue: The murders of Linda Rae Fitzpatrick and James Leroy "Groovy" Hutchinson; "Scenes"; a casting call for For the Love of Ivy at the Village Gate (links to nearby ad); "Pop Eye" on Aretha Franklin and other music news.

10/19/67 issue: Death of Che Guevara; more on the hippie murders; "Scenes."

10/26/67 issue: The alleged murderer of Linda and Groovy; "Scenes"; "The Hippies are Gone: Where Did They Go?" by Crawdaddy editor Paul Williams; "Pop Eye" on folk-pop.

11/2/67 issue: H. Rap Brown; more on Groovy's alleged murderer; the Mattachine Ball at the Hotel Diplomat; "Scenes."

11/9/67 issue: The Maharishi visits San Francisco; Conrad Rooks and Chappaqua; LeRoi Jones on weapons charges; "Scenes"; "Pop Eye" on the current state of local radio and other music news.

11/16/67 issue: Vandalism at the Free Store; debut of the "Outside Fashion" column; "Scenes"; "Pop Eye."

11/23/67 issue: "Scenes."

11/30/67 issue: Anti-war protest in Washinton Square Park; "Autumn in the Haight: Where Has Love Gone?"; "Scenes"; profile on Taylor Mead; Jefferson Market Courthouse to become a library.

12/7/67 issue: "Scenes."

12/14/67 issue: "Parents and Runaways: Writing a New Contract"; "Scenes"; "Pop Eye."

12/21/67 issue: Warhol book party; "Scenes"; "Some Last Thoughts on the Beatles."

12/28/67 issue: "Saga of the Free Store: Death of the Diggers?"; "Pop Eye" on Leonard Cohen; "Scenes."