So, What’s It Going To Be? Finally
This is the third of three posts dealing with the question of should the Wild West stay or should it go. Keep in mind that we have taken a two plus year break. A hiatus. These three are a kind of a sorting out of why I do this. For those wanting to find the other two, here are the links:
Where Are We? (The first of the three)
So, Again, Where the Fuck Are We? (The second of the three)
Ok. So, if Radical Records “New York City Rock N’ Roll” inspired twenty years back but is now in the past. If with the passing of Ozzy there nothing is left, then what? If the NYC scene is just not what it was, what is left? Is instinct all that we got left? Reflex?
Perhaps, but I think there is more to it than that. Instinct and reflex are there. A need for something is there. A need for something. To just hear and see something new. Perhaps, something that is both old and new. Making the old and familiar new. Alive. Something that just grabs you.
In 1965, the Yardbirds released Heart Full of Stone. Nothing to do with NYC, but for me it so rock n’ roll. It is so much a sixties tune with Keith Relf’s voice and the band’s back up choruses and the ever so basic rhythm section. What makes that song stand out is Jeff Beck’s “wasp farts”, that one distorted guitar riff that he offers up throughout the song. The mixing of those basic ingredients, and that one distorted riff. One of the first times a guitar was run through an effect box, distorting its tone, with such effect.
This was before Beck, Page and Clapton and numerous others would watch mesmerized as Hendrix just did his thing on the various stages of London. That would happen a year later in September of 1966. Ancient history, but still very much with us. That new tone, that new sound, that Jeff Beck offered up got our attention. His mimicking of an Indian sitar just made ask what is that? What the hell is he doing?
Regardless of all its high rises and concrete, all of what makes NYC . . . NYC. People take notice of such. Some at least. Perhaps it is exactly because of such, but that would deny that others contribute. Some at least. It was in NYC at the Filmore East that the Jeff Beck Group properly debuted and promptly got a deal with Epic in 1968.
I digress. Jeff Beck’s guitar sounding like some type of bizarre sitar back then got our attention, and that is very much what drives music today. Something new. Something recognizable but recognized as different. It makes us stand up. Gets us up on our feet. Folks take notice and that is still the case, at least for me.
But what does all of that got to do with 2025. I am just saying it still holds, we still turn our heads when we hear something that just grabs us, blinds us. It is just part of who we are. I want to say it is hardwired in us, but then we have added to that with various traditions, effects and amplifiers. And all of that is still happening in 2025 and to ignore it today is your choice, your loss.
All of which brings me back to the Bowery Electric a few weeks back. Twice. I wandered over one Saturday night after catching up with my son for dinner over in the West Village. We wandered over to a pie shop on Delancey for dessert. And then I decided to see what was happening at the Bowery Electric. No idea who was playing. I caught two acts. Kids really. The first with a saxophone player. Started with a Misfits tune? It was enjoyable. I believe they were the Green City Trees. A moody hardcore vibe with a sax player? It was cool to just have the couch across from the bar to myself to enjoy my rum and coke as I took in their set.
They were followed by Sunshine Riot. A more up-tempo project. A dash of Nirvana on a good or happy day. Certainly, in the vocalist’s voice. They grabbed Green City Trees’ sax player for impromptu cover of a Nirvana tune. That is one of the pleasures of seeing something live. Just mixing things up. You do not know what is going to happen. That is part of the pleasure of it. You will have some expectations going in, but they will be routinely dashed, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. That is just life.
Two decent bands that I knew nothing about doing original music in a nice venue with friendly bartenders on a Saturday night. Just a cool way to wrap up a Saturday evening. At least for me. Sadly, I was in a very small minority. No one was there. I have put on shows in White Plains with better numbers. And that is my fear. I know how it ended for my ventures up in White Plains.
The project will continue. It will limp along for the time. We are as I said, hardwired, and supported by traditions, folk lore, effects, simple tricks, and electric amplification. Places and bands will come and go but some variation of all this will continue.
Is that it though? We will just limp along. Just something to check out lazily on a hot summer night when in the city looking for something to do? That is all part of it and for me I do get a good ROI on such a night. Joanna, my spouse, for the past 30 years? Not so much. She typically skips my trips to the city. So, it is complicated, but again is that it? Is that what we can expect?
I turn my attention to another night at the Bowery Electric. Having missed the 200th F*Bomb show, I decided I would make it for sure to the F*bomb Hole show that happened in late July. The plan was to grab a bunch of folks involved with the gig and just ask them for their F*Bomb moments. I did speak with a half dozen folks after the show, but the plot has thickened. Despite catching some folks, it was agreed that this might be done better at practice where folks might have a little bit of time, and maybe a moment to reflect too. So that project continues.
Regardless, I was there also just to hang out, take in some music. Enjoy. And yes, it as a night of Hole, which I know next to nothing. It did not matter. I did know a few tunes. And it was just a pleasure. The moment I will remember though happened before the Hole show began was Dave Wants Drugs. Apparently, a new act doing their first show if I heard them right. That is the cool thing with F*Bomb, their mix of the old and new. No doubt the emphasis is on the old but in the process, there is something new. Even in the performance of the old it becomes new, fresh.
Now, Dave Wants Drugs does a mix of covers and originals. The originals grabbed me as anthemic, there was from my memory a dash of drama to them. So, I look forward to seeing them again. I need to see a band a few times, before I know what I think. During the set, though they invited another player up, who would later be doing lead guitar duties for the Hole set.(1) And this is where it gets interesting.
They invite her up and they are doing the Rage Against the Machine tune, Killing in the Name with her. It was fun. The singer was doing his take on the chorus. It was challenge it seems to offer as many variations on that one line as possible. It was a decent cover, and I was pondering how she would fare with that Morello solo. Tom Morello is just a unique player and his sound; his solos just stand out. It goes back Jeff Beck and his wasp farts on Heart Full of Soul.
And that play of sound, just makes the difference. We all knew it was coming but it is for me so different I was not sure what we would hear. For my money Morello goes in the opposite direction from beck that adds layers of distortion to the riff that he repeats multiple times through “Heart Full of Soul”. In “Killing in the Name of” the solo is played once and there is no distortion. Not like the other. It is rather stripped down to what I would call bare electronic signal. It is no longer recognizable as guitar music. It is something to be associated with an oscilloscope. It is just removed from the music, except now it is part of the music.
So, between Morello’s rhythm playing, the whole band really, that redundant chorus sang by Zack de la Rocha, and that solo, that song will be listened to for a long time. And that night at the Bowery, being covered by Dave Wants Drugs was cool but for me it really came to life when she nailed that solo. They just brought it home with that. And it was not just me. I want to say folks came to life with that. That solo being done right was an affirmation. They. . . we had this.
And yes, at the F*Bomb Hole tribute, there was a crowd.
And it is because of such performances, because of both the unanticipated and anticipated, or to put it simply the pleasures of uncertain noises, that the Wild West will continue.
[1] The guitar player, Rose, who was one of the folks I had the pleasure of catching up with later that night for my original project. Good guitarist. I hope to see more of her around the city. Her minute long interview among others will be shared this fall. And it she that
