Paying respects to NYC punk and hardcore

While A7 and CBs were never going to last forever, I'm glad they still exist in some form because they could have been turned into banks or condos. 

(Newt and Sol, outside CBGBs)

At CBGBs - it was pretty horrendous to see $130 designer Slayer shirts being sold.  They said, many parts of the original interior walls are preserved including graf, stickers and posters. 

At A7 - the back room is still there a "stage" so you can really get a sense of the space.  The bathroom was also pleasantly demeaning and the bar up front had really good blues music on. 

For more background on these places I recommend watching New York Hardcore Chronicles. You can see the A7 stage in the trailer  

Near CBs is Joey Ramone square: 

Random pic of a cool biker

At Generation Records that night.  

Iron Maiden @ Prudential Center (NJ), Oct 21 2022

 

The is the first show with my long time college friend and fellow music maniac Sol.  He's in NY and Maiden was playing in NJ so I made the drive down.  

There were some opening bands but we spent the whole time in the Pru lobby checking out the rad T-shirts and gear that people were sporting.  

I wish I had a picture but the prize for most interesting couple went to two guys:  one with a Ted Nugent shirt, one with a Burzum shirt.  Sub-urban Trumpers or people with a fantastic sense of humor?  

Onto the main event. 

When we went upstairs to find out seats we were politely told that they "don't exist" and that we should talk to Martha in section blah blah.  🤔  Well that's never happened before!  In the end we got upgraded to some killer seats, as shown in the first pic.  I could actually see Nicko!  We were in an open accessibility area and joined by other non-existent seat holders.  There was a younger guy there with his girl.  This dude was PUMPED to see Maiden.  His girl, not so much.  She was a "trooper" (haha) and chilled out in a seat the whole time while he head banged to every song. 

Maiden played a killer set, good mix of tunes and fantastic stage settings which changed through out the night.  Bruce even had these bad ass flame thrower arm things, shown in the video below.

Sleaford Mods @ The Sinclair, May 20 2022

Opener was the band “Sorry”. Reverb, emo, good simple drums. Kinda 90s. From England with woman guitar/singer. Will listen to more

The mods went on sharp at 9:30. Thank god for old people. Andrew Fearn not drinking and giving Ben Carr a run for his money.

Williamson had tight moves and sharp outfit. He’s pretty much dropped the back of the head touching that was present in previous shows I’ve seen on YouTube, and greatly expanded his footwork and overall feminine persona, including a twirl. Also did a water bottle on top o the head which he would bash into the mic like he’s a dummy. He’s put the work in and it shows.

Voice also sounded great and held up for the whole show.

Crowd was totally into it. Different energy than IDLES, but still very enthusiastic.

Started show in balcony. One dude was reading a book during opener. Fuck him.

Got a compliment on and talked about my mike watt (and the second men) tshirt. Mike went to lunch in Boston Chinatown and had a holster with a bottle of hot sauce that he was really into. Ha.

Pinocchios pizza after.

Parking at dunks garage for 15$

Babysitter was 112$

Tshirts (thin but great design) were 30 each so 60 total.

Let’s call the tickets 50 each as well

Total bill: about 300

Oi.

GZA @ The Ocean Mist (RI), May 13 2022

Rob Proc and I got see GZA play the entire Liquid Swords album with a live band at a beach dive bar in Rhodey.  WILD!  

I'm writing this post over a year after the concert so I don't remember the opening act, but he was great.  Good flow, great beats.  Short, tight set.  Then came a DJ spinning old classics, getting the crowd pumped up.  There were two OG guys there, fat and old but styling and dancing and singing to all the tunes.  Made me feel a little bit better about myself.  The rest of the crowd had a very college vibe for some reason.  Back to the DJ - he's hyping and hyping but then just stops and starts packing up.  No GZA.  HUH.  Then an hour ticks by.  Then two.  People start talking.  Is he bailing on the show?  What's up?  The first opener hit at like 9 and now it's 12:30am.  We are front row up against the small stage, holding our breath.  Finally around 1am, peeps show up on stage and Booom.  We're off.  

(sorry for the vertical shiite quality) 

It was a killer set.  I fist bumped him.  And the dope drummer was ODB's cousin.  WORD. 

 

MSSV @ Middle East Up, April 4 2022

Mike Watt!

Rock, surf, psychedelic, tight, dynamic

Tongue out

Drums with no bottom heads and towels on top but he rocked it. Very 70s setup.

Guitar player from Mass. Who knew?

On at 9 sharp. Done by 10.

Came in with a bang. Drums started the first song.

Maybe did a Minuteman cover?

TOXIC NARCOTIC - WUNT DUNT DUNT!

Here's the second tape I owned, from Newton's own Toxic Narcotic. Luckily there is lots of material on this band as they played well into the 2000s.  I've never seen this tape on the net though so enjoy if you are a TN/punk rock nerd like myself.

One more bit of history - this was purchased from Needham Music, on display right next to the register, since they were a local band.  Sold to me by Bill who showed me a lot of great cassettes in my collection.  This was when the store was located at (roughly) 1029 Great Plain Ave. The store still exists today but at a new location and they focus on music instrument rental and lessons. 

Cassette cover

Cassette inside

Cassette fold out.  "R.P. Records" is Rodent Popsicle Records, the label started by Bill.

Track Listing

Number 8

The War Song

Watch me Bleed

Shut up and Die

Credits

Recorded at Fort Apache Studios Cambridge Mass

Engineered by: Tim O'Heir

Assistant Engineer: Scott Mullane

Produced by: Toxic Narcotic & Tim O'Heir

Guitar/Vocals - Will S.

Drums/Vocals - Kevin B.

Bass/Lead Vocals - Bill D.

THE LATERAL DRIFT - 2,000 watt death trumpet

To start the blog, here is the first band/music tape I owned. Released in 1992 by Needham band The Lateral Drift. Some of the members went on to form the band Cathode in 1998.

Cassette cover

Cassette inside

The cassette itself - both sides are "The Right Side"

Track Listing
Stinky's Grits and Chicken Stuff
143
Guava Man
Even the Sun
The Marsupial Song

Credits
guitar, vocals: Alex Howland
bass: Bruce MacFarlane
drums: Dan Cederhold
guitar: Keith Butters
vocals on "Even the Sun": Helen Burghardt

Recorded at Audio Works Watertown, MA

engineered by: Dave Hicks and Guy Compagnone

produced by Guy Compagnone and The Lateral Drift

Welcome

This is a personal music blog covering two topics:  

1) live concerts journal (aka show notes). sometimes terse, sometimes thoughtful with pictures.  I'm just trying to write shit down before I forgot about the shows I've seen. 

B) archives from my music collection - cassette tapes and (mostly) 7" records from the 1990s and sometimes early 2000s focused on bands in and around Boston, Mass.  

The blog originally started as an archive, so here's some more detail on that part: 

Each archive post contains either a band or a physical release that is not well documented (if at all) on the internet today.  That seems due to the band and/or the label going defunct before Youtube/Spotify/Bandcamp came on the scene, so the music never made it up initially and now no one is interested to upload it today.

I will start including my favorite audio track from each release just as soon as I source a tape deck for the capture process.

Each post follows this rough format: 

• My personal notes about the band/release
• Images of the physical release
• Reproduction of track listing, credits and other things I think are interesting for Google to index.  All of this is typed in by yours truely.

Each posts is labeled (tagged) using the following taxonomy:

• Band - the band name
• Genre - rough category of the music style - rock, punk, metal, etc.
• Label - record label that put out the release.
• Studio - marks interesting or well known recording studios
• Year - year of the release.

Send questions/comments to newt@hey.com

See also my blogger profile

Thanks for reading!