Down at the Rock and Roll Club

Brendan Toller, director of the upcoming Danny Says, did a great interview on Dave the Spazz's show last week, and was featured in the Village Voice blog a few days ago.  Just now when I went to get the link for that, I noticed the V.V. blog also did a recent piece on John Joseph's Lower East Side walking tours.

Get dishpan hands at the Norton Records Wash-a-Thon tonight if you can --or if you're not local, drop a few Paypal'ed bucks into their Superstorm Sandy recovery fund.

Via the Bomp List Bookshelf Facebook group, I was hipped to this vintage piece on Lou Reed by Bruce Pollock, and learned that memoirs from Marty Thau and Richard Hell are due to be published soon.  And speaking of those fellas--while browsing at Sonic Boom the other day I chanced upon a DVD entitled Punk Revolution NYC, which I couldn't recall hearing about before.  (Indeed, even after I bought it on impulse, I could find only two reviews for it on the entire internet.)  I've only watched the first disc so far (it's a two-disc, three-hour-tour production), but it's quite a thorough documentary, covering the NYC punk scene from its proto- to prime eras. The film has a pretty straightforward format--i.e., interview segment/performance clip/interview segment/archival photo display/interview segment--but all the clips are well-chosen and they talk to many of the right people.  (I didn't see any Talking Heads among the talking heads though.  Have I made that dumbass joke before in regard to another vintage punk documentary?  Probably.)  Here's an excerpt from it, about the NYC scene's influence on the U.K.



I devoured the new Peppermint Twist book in a matter of hours.  It's more of a mob story than a music book (in fact, I think Chapters and Indigo are shelving it under True Crime), and it also seems to focus more on the Miami Peppermint Lounge than the New York original.  That was O.K. by me, as it put me in the right frame of mind to watch the episodes of Magic City that my great buddy Flipped Out loaned to us....but still, as much as I enjoyed the behind-the-scenes tough stuff, I would have preferred a bit more emphasis on the hip-swiveling happenings within both clubs.  (As is my wont, I've also gotta nitpick on a factual error I noticed very early on in the text--Vernon and Irene Castle were husband and wife, not "a popular brother-sister dance team"!)




Coincidentally, and further to that picture of the Action House included in my last post, here's a quote from Chris Dreja which I saw in Light and Shade: Conversations with Jimmy Page:  "The people who ran the promotions, especially in America, were mainly mafia.  I remember playing Vanilla Fudge's club in Long Island and being introduced to truly menacing people who were eight feet tall, with chewed up ears and smashed-in faces, and had names like Vinnie."

Action, Action, Action

Hallelujah--I've finally seen a picture of the Action House.  It was sold on ebay recently, but I caught it through a cross-posting on the Long Island and NYC Places That Are No More Facebook group.  Now all we need are some interior shots and performance pics.

A Great Gildersleeves reunion show will be held at the Delancey on Saturday, Nov. 3.

On November 11, Anthology Film Archives will be holding a screening and panel discussion on the movie Get Crazy, as a benefit for the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation.  This flick has truly eluded me--I barely heard of it prior to seeing an announcement for the event on the Fillmore East Archives FB page, other than the lousy review it got in the Hollywood Rock book.  Apparently it was a staple on '80s cable, but of course, I grew up in a cable-deprived household.  I rectified this by watching an upload of it on Youtube the other day. While it doesn't hold a candle to Arkush's masterpiece Rock and Roll High School, and I felt very little of the Fillmore East-inspired vibe I was expecting after the build-up of the GVSHP site's description, the flick definitely has its moments of trashy fun, not to mention a mind-bending anti-star-studded cast.

Of course you've heard that Kenny's Castaways closed down, as did Gimme Gimme Records.

For the past few days the NYC blog set has been creaming its jeans over Jeremiah's post on  Dead_Dolly's East Village flickr collection, with good reason.  One photo in her set inspired Alex at Flaming Pablum to ruminate on the Gas Station.  Also check out the pics Jeremiah posted of the now-empty Colony.

As per usual, I'm up to my ears in rock and roll books--but they seem to be coming out at an unusually rapid and prolific pace these days, no?  Only two of my more recent reads were of a New York-ish nature. I started Dick Porter's and Kris Needs' Parallel Lives, but had to set it aside for a while when more time-sensitive doorstop-sized titles (like the Neil Young and Pete Townshend memoirs) came in from the library. In the foreword, Porter and Needs write that they're working on a third book about a New York band, to complete the trifecta they began with their Dolls bio--care to hazard a guess on which band that could be?  The other book was Carol Miller's Up All Night, and I must thank Stupefaction's Tim B. for the tip. Although my musical tastes and radio habits eventually expanded far beyond AOR, I grew up with That Voice, and it was such a gas to learn more about her life and career. I especially loved her account of her Queens childhood and Long Island adolescence, and the conflict between her straitlaced/studious Jewish upbringing and the wicked lures of rock and roll--I ain't Jewish, but could still totally relate!  (Also learned a fun geographic fact--there is a 108th Street in Richmond Hill.  That road is the nearest main drag from my childhood home in Corona, but I always thought it ended at Queens Blvd. and 71st-Continental--who knew it had an extension south of Forest Park? Speaking of Corona, I had another fuzzed-out Facebook moment when I stumbled upon this photo album of a local '60s garage band called the Change-In-Tymes! Cool-ass stuff like that was long gone by the time I was a resident, I tell ya.)

And I'll close off with another thanks to Tim B. for locating a fine time-portal to the entrance of Hurrah.

1969 Ads Revisited: Action House

Selected 1969 Voice ads for the Action House.

5/22/69 issue.

5/29/69 issue.

5/29/69 issue.

6/12/69 issue.

6/19/69 issue.

6/26/69 issue.

7/3/69 issue.

7/10/69 issue.

7/17/69 issue.

7/24/69 issue.

7/31/69 issue.

8/7/69 issue.

8/21/69 issue.

10/23/69 issue.

11/27/69 issue.

12/11/69 issue.

My original post on the Action House.

My earlier post on '69 Action House ads.

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."