GlyphJockey, or, if you will, Glyph Jockey

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Rubbing up on punk fame in the last century

I was going through my old cassettes (the covers I made for which can be found HERE when I came across a store bought gem:
Put out by a company that only distributed via cassette. I think I dropped my band's demo off there once.

The interesting artifacts here are the Model Citizens doing Animal Instincts - a great example of early 80's art wave. I saw them at Carnegie Hall of all places in a "New Music for the 20th Century" presentation.

What I remember is Steve Reich playing selections from "Music for Mallet Instruments" that was so beautiful I wept. (I must've just finished my 2nd coffee - that always gets me weepy - just ask my family.)Either way, it was breathtaking. Phillip Glass also noodled for about 45 minutes on the Organ, presumably to pay for all the concepts he stole from Bernard Herrmann. It was sooooooo boring I went to the lobby to stretch my legs and as I went to go back to my seat coming down the stairs as I was going up was Klaus Nomi!! - he gave me his scariest look - and I almost crapped myself! No lie - terrifying. What a schtick.....

Model Citizens came out and blew everybody away - they were dressed in matching outfits in the colors of the 1964 World's Fair:
Orange, & Turquoise, and screamed their heads off. It just goes to show - even Carnegie Hall's no guarantee.

They had a girl singer (one of two) and boy guitarist (one of two - he rocked by the way) who went on to become The Dance (also defunct I assume). I thought the woman singer was stunning and when I went to see the Dance with a female friend she came back from the show questioning her heterosexuality after seeing this singer - last time I saw her she was still straight tho - chalk one up for our side...

Another piece on this tape is US Millie by Glenn Branca dba Theoretical Girls - an experimental artist who I saw play with a 12 guitar ensemble at Max's Kansas City shortly before it closed.

We went to that show to see the Contortions, Glenn Branca and Model citizens. Contortions didn't go on until 2AM and James Chance went into the audience smacking people in the face to get them to dance. It didn't work, and when he finally smacked this one girl, her boyfriend, who was like an 8 foot tall viking stood up, hesitated for a moment and smashed James in the face. Since James was holding a mike, it sounded like a baseball bat whacking a watermelon. He went down & we went home.

Another song of note from this collection was "Scream and Scream Again" by the Mumps, led by Lance Loud of American Family fame - the first reality TV show.

I saw them at CBGB. I was scabbing at ABC when all the film shooters didn't want to be video shooters and used my credentials to get into a record show where I was given free records from Stiff, and met Cosmo Ohms, the sound man at CBGB. We ate lunch at the Hare Krishna Temple where I saw Andrea Goldstein who had left being an uber-hippie in my high school to become a devotee - and not of DEVO. Cosmo said "Come by tonight & you'll get in free." so I did, after he assured me that it was NOT all about bottle fights. That night it was Talking Heads. People were standing on the tables. I was hooked. The next night I saw the Mumps -Debbie Harry was there & I got to talk to her - because she was a NICE person.

That song: "Scream and Scream again" is not to be confused with the version by the group Amen Corner who did it for the movie of the same name Amen corner does a cool different version of "bend Me, Shape Me" which I will post later. (By the way my Sis went on a date with Gary Loizo of the American Breed)

Feeling compressive? Write to me to zip it good.

Labels: 33 1/3rpm, nut, puke, punk, reality, record, rock n' roll

Written at 5:24 PM by Lex10.

4 comments links to this post

4 Comments:

O said...

Great Nomi story!

I recently heard The Dance's "In Lust" album from '81 - really disappointing after their excellent debut 12".

How come you didn't mention Student Teachers?

2/16/2006 07:35:00 AM

RYP said...

Klaus Nomi! I remember. He was born in my hometown Essen (Germany) - he had big problems with onetrackmindedpeople (most working class, miners, steelworkers / KRUPP9 living here and laughing at him. I remember one day he suddenly disappeared and went to N.Y.C. getting a little bit famous. He was born in the wrong country! Sad story!
Ich bin gerne dein Freund.
RYP

3/09/2006 06:56:00 PM

Anonymous said...

are you going to post that bend me shape me song? I think I used to work with a girl that was in student teachers. Were they from Larchmont?

3/13/2006 06:28:00 AM

Lex10 said...

Hey anonymous: DONE!

3/14/2006 02:20:00 PM