My dream is on the screen

Debbie, Chris, and Will Hermes at the NYPL, March 27, 2013. Starts at around the 13 minute mark.

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."

1967 Ads Revisited: Other Venues and Miscellany, Part 1

1/5/67 issue:

1/12/67 issue:

"Scenes" column excerpt.

1/19/67 issue:

1/26/67 issue:

2/2/67 issue:

2/9/67 issue:

2/16/67 issue:

2/23/67 issue:

3/2/67 issue:

3/9/67 issue:

3/16/67 issue:

3/23/67 issue:

"Pop Eye" excerpt.

3/30/67 issue:

4/6/67 issue:

4/13/67 issue:

4/20/67 issue:

4/27/67 issue:

"Scenes" column excerpt.  I guess he meant to say Corona Avenue, or Queens Boulevard.

Reviews, articles, etc.:

1/5/67 issue:  "Scenes" on Christmas '66 and Crawdaddy magazine; "Pop Eye" on Ravi Shankar.

1/12/67 issue:  "Pop Eye" on Jefferson Airplane at Webster Hall and the Flying Machine and the Ragamuffins at the Night Owl; "Scenes"; profile of a psychedelic social worker.

1/19/67 issue: Balloon happening at Grand Central Station; hippie-Latino relations on the Lower East Side; "Scenes."

1/26/67 issue: Jack Newfield on Bob Dylan; "Scenes"; "Pop Eye" on current hits.

2/2/67 issue: Amphetamines; "Scenes"; "Pop Eye" on current hits.

2/16/67 issue: Poetry at the Passionist Monastery in Jamaica (links to nearby ad); "Pop Eye" on the Sunset Strip riots and the L.A. studio scene; the S.F. Diggers; "Scenes."

2/23/67 issue: League for Spiritual Discovery Center, Hunter S. Thompson's Hell's Angels book; "Pop Eye" on current hits; "Scenes."

3/2/67 issue: Bowery alcoholics; "Pop Eye" on the San Francisco scene; "Scenes."

3/9/67 issue: "Scenes"; "Pop Eye" on current hits and the Paupers at the Cafe au Go Go.

3/16/67 issue: "Pop Eye" discusses more on the S.F. scene; Electrical Banana; "Scenes"; Paul Nelson on Bob Dylan.

3/23/67 issue: The Village is granted historic landmark status; "Scenes"; "Pop Eye" on Zal Yanovsky, Toronto, the Rock Flow at the Broadway Central Hotel, the Fugs, and the Doors at Ondine; Michael Zwerin on the Jefferson Airplane and Jeremy and the Satyrs;

3/30/67 issue: Coverage of the Be-In in Central Park; the London hippie scene; psychedelic art; "Scenes"; a night at Slugs' jazz club (links to nearby ad).

4/6/67 issue: Joe Cino obit; "Scenes"; a night at the Apartment; "Pop Eye" on Murray the K's Easter show at the RKO 58th Street, with a special emphasis on the Who.

4/13/67 issue: The Sweep-In (East Village street-cleaning happening); "Marching on MacDougal: Immovable vs. Irresistible; STP; "Pop Eye" reviews current albums, including the VU's first; a night at the Bon Soir; "Scenes."

4/20/67 issue: "Scenes"; "Pop Eye" on John Kramer; Caffe Cino crackdown; profile on Lenny Bruce's mother.

4/27/67 issue: Charlotte Moorman in court; "Scenes" (links to nearby ad); "Pop Eye" on the commercialization of hippiedom.