New York Dolls at Bowery Ballroom in March (more by Dana (distortion) Yavin)

After releasing their fifth LP earlier this year, New York Dolls celebrated with two nights at Bowery Ballroom before kicking off an extensive amount of international dates including the tour with Motley Crue and Poison that brought them to Nassau Coliseum, and most recently a short UK run with Alice Cooper. The Dolls are back home for the holidays and will round out 2011 with a hometown show on December 30 at Irving Plaza before playing New Year's Eve in Boston the next night. Tickets for the NYC show are on sale now.

UPDATE: THE NYC SHOW IS CANCELLED.

Last week, Bob Gruen and his wife Nadya Beck, who released the New York Dolls Documentary All Dolled Up in 2005, released a DVD of live clips and interviews filmed of the band in the 70s titled Lookin' Fine On Television. You can purchase the DVD on Amazon and check out a clip of the band performing "Lookin For a Kiss" off the DVD below.

All dates and video below...

Continue reading "NY Dolls subject of new DVD, playing end of year shows"

words & photos by Benjamin Lozovsky

Like the store that one of the "hosts" of the evening owns, CBGBs it wasn't. A jerky stroll along downtown New York's dark and decrepit memory lane, it might have been. A show of stormy brilliance from a largely unsung legend still brimming with ability and art-punk attitude? Absolutely.

Try as it might, Richard Lloyd's show with Hey Battlefield last Thursday at the Studio at Webster Hall wasn't the-larger-than-life punk tribute it hoped to be. Rock photo legend Bob Gruen was in attendance, I'm sure 'co-writer of I Slept with Joey Ramone' (as he was introduced in publicity material) scenester Legs McNeil was there too. Neither served as hosts (as advertised) by any means however, more just like colorful wallflowers set amongst the spattering of younger fans and Mudd Club veterans that showed up for the under-attended performance. It was fortunate that it never felt like a prehistoric echo of remembrance though; instead it was just a high-caliber rock show with some gooey bits of nostalgia tucked inside for Television faithful.

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Continue reading "Richard Lloyd played Television & Hendrix @ the Studio - pics"

"When I saw Tom Verlaine play for the first time, I realized he had 'it,' and all my life I've looked to try and teach people 'it' and usually come away with great despair," Lloyd said. "You can teach harmony, but you can't teach melody. You can show someone the craftsmanship of songwriting, but they're the ones who have to put out the antenna and wait for the universe to send them a song.

"The actual creative process is not one over which human being have control. I always thought that; otherwise I wouldn't have picked Tom. I'm the one who made the decision and suggested to our first manager, Terry Ork, that he put Tom and I together as a guitar-playing team." [Richard Lloyd to the Daily Times]

Television's Richard Lloyd will be performing a "one-night-only" at the Studio at Webster Hall on Thursday, November 12th. Also appearing will be guests John Varvatos (of his-store-used-to-be-CBGB fame), Bob Gruen (featured in the Brooklyn Museum's current Who Shot Rock & Roll exhibit) and Legs McNeil, author of "I Slept with Joey Ramone." The opener will be Hey Battlefield. Tickets are on sale.

Speaking of CBGB and Richard Lloyd, his old friend Patti Smith (who played the final show at the club with Lloyd in 2006) has a trio of end-of-year shows around the corner from CBGB, at Bowery Ballroom. Tickets are still available for all of them.

Patti, along with Jerry Seinfeld, Jackie Gleason, Woody Allen, Allen Ginsberg and 395 others, was just named one of the New York City 400 by the Museum of the City of New York. It's the "first-ever list of New York City's 400 ultimate movers and shakers since the city's founding in 1609".

A flyer for the Studio show and a pair of videos from Lloyd's show with the Sufi-Monkey Trio at LPR in September are below...

Continue reading "Television's Richard Lloyd playing The Studio, Patti Smith part of the New York City 400"

photos by Eric Weiss

Blondie @ The Brooklyn Museum

The above and below pictures from the Who Shot Rock & Roll opening event at the Brooklyn Museum on Thursday, October 29th. Blondie performed for museum members and invited guests to celebrate the music photographs now on display.

This Saturday, 11/7, the fun continues as Who Shot Rock & Roll becomes the theme for six hours of free "First Saturday" events at the museum. From 5-8 is the previously-mentioned Crystal Stilts, Grass Window and the Beets show. That runs at the same time as a discussion with with photographers Bob Gruen and Justin Borucki which is just one of many events that night. It all ends with a "dance party" and a performance by Terrance Koh. More info at the museum's site. More pictures from the opening, and a flyer for the show designed by The Beets, below...

Continue reading "have a Who Shot Rock n Roll themed Saturday @ The Brooklyn Museum (where Blondie played) "

photos by Tim Griffin

"Tony Award-winning orchestrator and composer Tom Kitt, whose Next to Normal is playing Broadway, has joined the creative team of the new Green Day musical American Idiot, as music supervisor.

On July 28, Berkeley Repertory Theatre in California announced the creative team for the September-October world premiere of American Idiot, inspired by Green Day's Grammy Award-winning album of the same name and directed by Tony Award winner Michael Mayer, who collaborated with Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong on the project's story." [Playbill]

Green Day (headliner) and the Kaiser Chiefs (opener) completed their two-night run at Madison Square Garden in NYC last night (7/28). For Green Day it was their second multiple-night visit to the city this year. The first time was in much smaller venues. More pictures and Green Day's setlist from the show, below...

Continue reading "Green Day & Kaiser Chiefs @ MSG (night 2) - pics & setlist "

Sonic Youth - 1983 (Stephanie Chernikowski via MoMA)

As previously mentioned, MoMA's Looking at Music: Side 2 opens June 10th and will run to November 30th. The exhibit, which catalogs NYC's early '70s and '80s music scene, will include an installation of photos, videos, audio and more, as well as live events, and punk-film screenings from September-November".

The audio guide for the exhibition will include three conversations specifically recorded for MoMA: Richard Hell in conversation with Vito Acconci; James Nares in conversation with Coleen Fitzgibbon; and Diego Cortez in conversation with Fab 5 Freddy. Richard Hell will also do a poetry reading at the museum in July.

Other highlights of the exhibition include rock film screenings (The Blank Generation, New York Dolls - All Dolled Up, and others), Bob Gruen's 1976 video "New York Death Cult (Live at Max's Kansas City)" which features footage of the famed New York music venue from that era, early issues of Search & Destroy, Punk Magazine and Interview magazine, and lots of audio stations playing "iconic music from the era".

Not connected with Looking at Music, but also happening at MoMA: the next MoMA Monday Nights show (a PopRally event) will be Stars Like Fleas on June 8th (5:30pm-8:45pm). More info, and a coupon for half-off entry to the show can be found HERE.

More details on Looking at Music, with film schedule, below...

Continue reading "MoMA's Looking at Music: Side 2 - exhibition includes Richard Hell, Bob Gruen, Fab 5 Freddy & more... "

an actual pizza box

The East Village rocker boys behind Bowery Electric, Jesse Malin and Johnny T, along with Kevin Cole (of Two Boots fame), have teamed up, all in the name of pizza. The rock 'n' roll trio is the force behind The Pizza Shop, located on Avenue A and 7th Street, which officially has its grand opening tonight [June 25, 2008]. The spot has been serving pizza since the 1960s, but the new owners decided to gussy up the space a bit......All the pizza boxes are limited edition prints. According to a press release we received: "Around 1500 of each box style is made and then never reproduced. The first one being a photo of The Clash from 1979 taken by world famous rock photographer Bob Gruen. Each box will have a different image created by well known and local artists featuring their particular style and medium and these boxes are free with a purchase of any pizza." As we mentioned earlier, tonight's the opening, so if you're in the hood, stop by for your very own signed Bob Gruen pizza box!" [PAPER]

Pizza Shop (an actual pizza place, not a club or bar) is right next door to Niagara, a bar that Jesse Malin also owns, and where you'll find the famous mural of The Clash's Joe Strummer on the outside wall.

P.S. for amazing vegan pizza check out Vinnies on Bedford.