HUNTER-GATHERER

I got a chance to get a last peek at the Kurowycky & Son space on 1st Ave. The Kurowyckys closed up shop last year as a business decision (they own the building). Brooks of Sheffield had a nice obit to the place last summer over at Lost City. These pictures were taken the day before the space was being handed over to the new tenant.

One of the aspects of life in Gotham that I truly love is the notion that when one leaves his abode on a simple errand, few know what adventures await. This afternoon I had decided to try perfecting my chicken biryani recipe and swung by Dual Specialty Store, the 1st avenue Indian grocery emporium, for some supplies. As is the case when I attempt to cook anything close to the food of the Mughal, I consult Dual mainman, Delwar. Delwar has served as my guide through various recipes and has always given me the fast option through prepared pastes or the time honored proper mix of spices. He has also been quick to produce a printed recipe for additional illustration.


As we discussed the ins and outs of today’s chicken biryani, Delwar mentioned that he and his friend Mohammed were heading out for biryani in Jackson Heights. He then suggested that I experience the real article and very cordially invited me to join them. Uhhhh……..sure! I’ll go.
The three of us jump in the car a few minutes later and we are off. Delwar treats me to a 20 minute history lesson of 6th street and Bangladesh. Unbeknownst to me, the mostly Bengali owners of the restaurants 6th st. is known for settled there in the mid-70’s. He went on to discuss the similarities and differences between Indian, Pakistani and Bengali food and culture.
As we exit the BQE and glide into Jackson Heights another world awaits. The streets offer a bevy of south Asian fare and I wonder why I haven’t made the trip sooner as we pass the Roosevelt ave. subway station. Before we even park the car I know that I will be coming back soon. We drop anchor on 74th st., dominated by mostly Indian restaurants, but Delwar has other plans. He explains that 73rd street, the next block over, features Bengali restaurants and one of the best biryani places. The summer night air is thick and the streets are alive with women in saris, young south asian hipsters and a lot of food.

We arrive at Alauddin Sweetmeat, a cafeteria of sorts, with a long steam table full of delights.

Delwar and Mohammed ask me what I like, and I defer to their judgement. We opt for the goat biryani.


My Guides, Mohammed and Dalwar

Slow cooked and sweet, the goat is tender and delicious. Served with a hard boiled egg and sitting on a bed of pulao-like rice, it is a simple yet hearty feast. The medley of cumin, bay leaf, peppercorn, clove, cardamom and ghee (clarified butter) fried onions is magnificent. I opt for some poori bread as I spy a panful being carried out of the kitchen and the grilled chicken tikka looks too good to pass up. I tear through most of the chicken before I realize that I haven’t snapped a picture of it.
We depart for a local bakery to grab some hi-test chai cut with sweetened condensed milk for the trip back. Mohammed offers to return with me to explore one of the kebab houses that had me still salivating even after the feast. Can’t wait.

Thanks guys!

Dual Specialty Store
91 1st. Ave (5th & 6th)
NYC 10003
212.979.6045

Alauddin Sweetmeat
37-14 73rd ST.
Jackson Heights, NY 11372
718.651.5000

Jack Warden in the nabe, 1961.

As Jeremiah of Vanishing New York pointed out last week, we increasingly turn to old film to reference buildings and businesses as the craptastic steam roller of real estate development wreaks havoc on the soul of Gotham. Lovely piece on the St. Mark’s Cinema and 7th st. history with a number of locals chiming in. If you haven’t seen it you should really check it out.

As is the fashion for me when the thermometer heads north of 95 degrees, I hunker down in the AC, pray for no brownouts, and catch up on some overdue viewing.
The early 60’s series Naked City continues to offer up tasty time capsules. The last time it was this hot I did a story featuring Jack Klugman in a heap of trouble on 7th st between 1st & A.
The prologue on this episode features a young Jack Warden (who still looks rather old here even though he had just turned 41) down on his luck and still suffering post WWII PTSD. The original air date of the episode was January 3rd, 1962. By the looks of the shot near St. Marks Church on 10th and 2nd where leaves are blowing around, I assume this episode was filmed in the fall of 1961.
I gasped at the very opening when I realized that Warden was walking south on 2nd ave. between 4th and 5th st. and I just barely made out the Rappaport’s marquee, a block further north, for the first time.
Twenty years ago, when I was tending bar at the now long departed Sugar Reef (now the home of Lit), an elderly gentleman walked in just as I had opened on a Saturday afternoon. He looked a bit bewildered and when I offered him a menu he abruptly asked, “what is the address here?”
“93 second avenue”, I replied.
He then lit up and said, “do you know what used to be here? Rappaport’s! One of the finest dairy restaurants in the city!”
The old guy had been a waiter at the place back in the day. I offered him a coffee and he sat down at the bar and explained the layout of the former establishment and what it had been like working there. He finished his coffee, thanked me and I never saw him again. I never doubted him, but I have also never seen a picture of the old digs.
The second clip appears to be 2nd Ave, just below 4th st. Behind Warden and through the glass you can just make out the marquee of the Anderson theater’s entrance on 2nd Ave. I can’t make out the name of the restaurant he walks into.

The third and fourth clips are from the corner of 2nd Ave and 6th st. The fourth clip takes place right under the marquee of the old Loew’s/Fillmore East and next door you can see the Ratner’s sign (now home to Met Foods).

Absolute Magic!

The physical possession of music today as just an inhabitant of a hard drive alongside your bank statement pdf’s has perhaps sapped the romance out of collecting music. But there are times where I just marvel at the new utility. I had lost track of BabyBird (a.k.a Stephen Jones) a while back and had pretty much assumed that what material of his I had collected would only be complemented with a future “best of” collection featuring a few b-sides thrown in to sucker me into the purchase.
However, during a recent trip to Amazon, while randomly searching some of my former faves with all too predictable results, I came across a lovely surprise. Not one, but two releases of the mid-nineties lo-fi outfit Babybird (a.k.a Stephen Jones) that I totally missed over the last few years.
For the uninitiated, BabyBird is an artist whose biggest success was an unlikely pop ballad that exploded (in the UK at least) in 1996. Unlikely, because it really did not reflect the beautiful,dark melancholy of the rest of his work. You’re Gorgeous, was one of those ubiquitous pop hits that disappears before an artist’s name is even associated with it. The album which carried the single, Ugly Beautiful, was a regular in the $1.99 bin of your local used cd store circa late 90’s. If you are fan of the gastro-despot Gordon Ramsay, then you might also know the theme song to his show The F-Word which came off the album Bugged. But I suspect few might know it as BabyBird track stateside or even be familiar with the show for that matter.

My own introduction came back in 1996. I had plunked down the $75-$80 yearly subscription to Mojo magazine to track the state of the English music scene from my outpost in Nashville. BabyBird was getting mentioned in the same columns as the Spice girls were and I never gave him a thought. But near my abode was a used cd store with a sympathetic operative who would save any Anglo product worth listening to for my review.
My contact described it as reminiscent of Echo and the Bunnymen, but darker. $4.99?, sold! If that wasn’t enough he had also come across another collection of Babybird’s early 4-track recordings cheekily dubbed The Greatest Hits. I was immediately smitten by the brutally dark honesty and lo-fi ethos. Suffice to say, even with my rabid enthusiasm BabyBird never became a big hit in the states.

Subsequent releases, There’s Something Going On and Bugged came to me via amazon.co.uk, when the exchange rate made new releases in the UK a bargain even with trans-atlantic shipping. Saying nothing of the fact that no one knew if these records would ever see the light of an American release.
I got my hands on everything Mr. Jones released, including a novel he penned during the era. By 2002, the last release I purchased was a collection of brief aural landscapes he had composed for film that were released on mini cd’s.

So it was quite thrilling to unearth additional material from Mr. Jones this week, and the transaction could not have been easier. 2003’s Almost Cured Of Sadness’ 22 tracks, seemingly out of print, were offered as low as 49 cents used or in the form of a DRM-free, high bitrate download for $8.99. 2006’s Between My Ears There’s Nothing But Music was fetching anywhere from $16.35 to $33.99 or as a $7.99 download for 11 tracks. Yeah, the physical artwork and disc would have been great to have. But, having it in under 5 minutes on my hard drive and listening to it would be even better. 33 tracks for $17 after a thorough review of samples, marvelous! The Amazon DRM-free downloads mean that you can move the tracks as you wish and are essentially like tracks that you would have ripped from a cd. Personally, I rip everything at 192k for space and sound quality although purists and audiophiles might take me to task. The Amazon downloads ranged from 176k to 224k on variable bit rate, came with artwork built into the tracks and sound great.
I spent the next few days working through the now 12 hours of my newly enhanced Stephen Jones anthology and fell in love with the stuff all over again.
In lieu of lengthy descriptions and reviews, below are a few vids that provide a sampler. Enjoy.

The first single, Cornershop. TFI Friday TV appearance 1996.

You’re Gorgeous from 1996 TFI Friday TV appearance. Note the less-than-subliminal sunglass message.

AAhhh….the Babybird stuff that I love. The dark, haunting, semi-disturbing Bad Old Man.

I played Jane Wyman’s role, I guess.

The email was a bit of a surprise. An old friend whose last 20 years of existence was largely a mystery to me, Robert and I briefly saw each other last Christmas when I was home in Detroit. Our meeting wasn’t planned and we literally bumped into each other while shopping. With his wife and son in tow, the conversation was brisk but heartfelt. The fact that we hadn’t seen each other for so long provided more subject matter than time allowed. As we said goodbye, we exchanged email addresses and vowed to connect again soon. [Read more →]

Okay, admittedly my listening habits as of late have been stuck in the 70’s. Perhaps I should be listening to the new Coldplay itunes commercial, er….album, to remind me of how vapid a number one album can be….
As someone who has spent way too much money over the last decades on music I often wonder what would have happened if I had done the smart thing and invested the mid-five figure amount in a mutual fund……..
Richer perhaps, but very poor if I wouldn’t be able to appreciate the gorgeous absurdity of a clip like the one below:

Bowie and Marianne Faithful circa 1973

Quite possibly one of my favorite moments of all time in Rock N’ Roll history. Hunter and Bowie on stage with Mick Ronson from the Freddy Mercury tribute concert. Btw, in case you don’t know, Bowie wrote this anthem for Mott just as they were about to implode.

Long before they were soundtrack fodder for teenage pregnancy tales, Mott The Hoople was one hell of a band. There is just so much more than All The Young Dudes to explore for the uninitiated.

I found this dandy little documentary that brightened my very bleary eyes this morning.

Klassic British Rawk.

Btw, Ian Hunter wrote Once Bitten, Twice Shy. Not that worthless hair metal band that took it’s name from a fish.

In case you weren’t aware of it, summer is breeding season for rats. Nothing gets our subterranean neighbors moving around like construction. So when I saw this article in the Village Voice it got me thinking about what unique form of hell the folks on this block of Ludlow are and have been going through. I wonder how many of these type of stories might start creeping up as the credit crunch hits home and the city starts cutting services. Here is an excerpt:

Frustrated neighbors have watched as the almost-finished building at 179 Ludlow fell into disrepair, with an illegal sidewalk shed jutting so far out into the street that trucks traveling down Ludlow get wedged between it and another shed across the street. In the abandoned building itself, rats have taken over, and a 2,000-square-foot retail space that could have brought in $25,000 a month is now ankle-deep in rat shit.

Amazing tale of high end condomania gone terribly wrong. With the amount of restaurants in the vicinity it seems like an almost perfect storm for a major infestation.
A bit of advice for all the young hipsterettes of Ludlow clutching those teacup chihuahuas:

trade em in for one of these eastern european terrier mutts, you’re gonna need one.

Bravo Rexi! Bravo

Went into the vaults this weekend for a taste of New York based cinema. Hubert Selby’s Last Exit to Brooklyn doesn’t quite look as harsh as when first viewed almost 20 years ago, and some of the scenes come off a bit melodramatic in comparison to Requiem for a Dream, which Selby also penned. Still, a very ambitious project and worth another view if you haven’t seen it in a while or missed it. But LETB’s “making of” documentary yielded some vintage clips of Brooklyn and Red Hook that provide quite a time capsule:

The locals that inspired “the gang” of Selby’s story.

More clips of the nabe, complete with color commentary and interviews with director Uli Edel and producer Bernd Eichinger.

The shriek of Steve Marriott and Humble Pie just entered my shuffle mix and got me to reminiscing about listening to this LP when I was a wee one.
There was no heavier a rock track than “I Don’t Need No doctor” in our meager little record collection. At the time, I never considered that I would be living in the same neighborhood as where the Fillmore East stood. If you look at the inside cover’s lower right corner or the picture below you can see that the building next to the Filmore was completely gutted by fire, neglect or both.

photo by A.R.Rothschild

Back in the late eighties when The Saint (the space’s illustrious inhabitant of the decade) was on it’s last legs, I used to walk by the building on my way to work every morning and wonder what that Humble Pie show was like.
Older locals who grew up in the neighborhood told me stories of sneaking out of school at St. George’s as kids so that they could listen to soundchecks through the open doors on 6th st..
Bill Graham used to spring for breakfast at the B&H dairy for the Fillmore’s crew after shows.
I met and had a conversation with Peter Frampton back in 2001. Rockin’ The Fillmore was recorded shortly before he left the band to pursue his solo career. He told me that shortly before Marriott’s death in 1991, the two had begun recording material together for the first time since Frampton’s departure twenty years earlier.
June 27th, marks 37 years to the day of the last concert at the Fillmore East. The reported “invitation only” lineup featured:
The Allman Brothers
The J. Giels Band
Albert King and special guests Edgar Winter’s White Trash
Mountain
The Beach Boys
Country Joe McDonald

I searched around for any footage from the Humple Pie show of that year at the Fillmore and came up empty. But I did find a great clip of Mr. Marriott from an unknown location the same year in full “I Don’t Need No Doctor” fury, albeit without Frampton. Still worth a look. They just don’t make venues or rock stars like that anymore. R.I.P