Where downtown Manhattan and north Brooklyn intersect.
In his rock and roll heart, Lou Reed was first, a storyteller. His songs were rockhard vignettes of New York street life. There were tales of choices made, good and bad, and remembrances of beauty found in the most unlikely of places. If you lived in the Village in the 70’s, you recognized some of … Continue reading ‘He Was a Survivor’: More Musicians and Writers Remember Lou Reed
“I don’t remember that song!” Chan Poling was startled to see the video we posted from 1980 of the Suburbs’ last performance in New York. Studying his fellow band members, he allowed that lead singer Beej Charney looked great — “And we don’t sound so bad either!”
Pat Ivers and Emily Armstrong are sifting through their voluminous archive of punk-era concert footage as it’s digitized for the Downtown Collection at NYU’s Fales Library. “We wore ’50s clothes, we loved ’50s music, we wanted ’50s amps — if it had been possible, we would have been in black and white.” That’s how Dig … Continue reading Nightclubbing | Buzz and the Flyers, 1980
Pat Ivers and Emily Armstrong are sifting through their voluminous archive of punk-era concert footage as it’s digitized for the Downtown Collection at NYU’s Fales Library. This week: a look back at DNA. “How dare you play your guitar like that! Don’t you know that’s the same instrument that Eric Clapton plays?” Audience members were … Continue reading Nightclubbing: DNA at Mudd Club, 1979
Pat Ivers and Emily Armstrong are sifting through their voluminous archive of punk-era concert footage as it’s digitized for the Downtown Collection at N.Y.U.’s Fales Library. Described by the Soho Weekly News as “New York’s best party band,” Strange Party was a witty, stylish group serving up a fizzy cocktail of performance art with a … Continue reading Nightclubbing | Strange Party, 1980
Pat Ivers and Emily Armstrong continue sorting through their archives of punk-era concert footage as it’s digitized for the Downtown Collection at N.Y.U.’s Fales Library. Five Favorite Facts about John Cale: He studied musicology at London’s Goldsmiths College in the early 1960s, where his teachers dubbed him “Most Hateful Student” before awarding him a prestigious … Continue reading Nightclubbing | John Cale Band, 1979
Pat Ivers and Emily Armstrong continue sorting through their archives of punk-era concert footage as it’s digitized for the Downtown Collection at N.Y.U.’s Fales Library. It’s that time of year again: Spring break! While college students are streaming like lemmings to the usual spots — Florida, Mexico, the Caribbean — there’s been an uptick of … Continue reading Nightclubbing | Student Teachers, 1979
Pat Ivers and Emily Armstrong continue sorting through their archives of punk-era concert footage as it’s digitized for the Downtown Collection at N.Y.U.’s Fales Library Well, it is officially Richard Hell month. His newly published book, “I Dreamed I Was A Very Clean Tramp,” has enjoyed a glowing review in The New York Times. There … Continue reading Nightclubbing | Richard Hell and The Voidoids, 1979
Pat Ivers and Emily Armstrong continue sorting through their archives of punk-era concert footage as it’s digitized for the Downtown Collection at N.Y.U.’s Fales Library. It is hard to overstate the giddy hedonism of the early ’80s. Riding the tide of the ’70s sexual revolution, when feminism and gay power met the “if it feels … Continue reading Nightclubbing | Human Sexual Response, 1980
Pat Ivers and Emily Armstrong continue sorting through their archives of punk-era concert footage as it’s digitized for the Downtown Collection at N.Y.U.’s Fales Library. We finally shot the Lounge Lizards at CBGBs in the spring of 1979, just a few months before we bought our first color camera. Good thing, too. They just looked … Continue reading Nightclubbing | Lounge Lizards, 1979