Club Flyers and Invites from 1970s and 1980s: Part 6

Text (c) Robert Barry Francos, 2012
Images are owned by the artists.
Also, images can be enlarged by clicking on them.

As stated in an earlier blog, throughout the years I have collected flyers, especially from the 1970s and '80s. Many were sent to me directly by the bands while I was publishing FFanzeen. Below are some scans I made from my personal collection, in no particular order. I did see many of them, but not all, and I will comment on them from time to time. Note that I do not financially profit off of publishing them, but only do so to honor the work that was involved, and for archival purposes.

1. Wayne County, Max’s Kansas City
Wayne didn’t receive enough props for helping to bring punk to the UK from New York, and vice versa. It was always a good night at Max’s when he (remember, this is pre-Jayne) was behind the DJ booth.

2. Get Hip Showcase
The garage label from the Pittsburgh area is still going strong after all these years, run by members of the Cynics.

3. Folk City Psychedelic Nights

For a while, Todd Abramson, who published the fanzine Young Fast and Scientific, booked a couple of nights at the folk stalwart that introduced such rockers as Bob Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel, and Peter, Paul and Mary. His shows are the ones in black. I saw the Nov 18 and 19^th shows. Todd is now a co-owner of Hoboken’s best nightclub, Maxwell’s.

4. The Brooklyn Zoo, March 1983

While the Brighton Beach-based club wasn’t open very long, as you can see they had quite a line-up going.  Unlike now, Brooklyn was not looked upon in favorable light in the downtown Manhattan scene, and one can say it’s arguably still true beyond Williamsburg (aka Greenwich Village East, as opposed to the East Village). I saw many a good show there (including the Iggy Pop / Helen Wheels one on the flyer, where I interviewed Helen – RIP), such as BowWowWow, Joe “King” Carrasco and the Crowns, and many others.

5. The Rat

I’m sure people in Boston hate it when their Ratskeller was referred to as “the Boston CBGBs.” “Actually, it works for me, because they were both holes in the wall. I saw quite a few good shows there, as I was up in the area for many Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends, hanging out with, in alphabetical order, photographer and Bang! fanzine publisher Rocco Cippilone, cult legend Kenne Highland, future legend Donna Lethal, and music impresario Joe Viglione. Though I’ve seen Willie Alexander a few times, I would have liked to have seen most of the others on this as well.

6. Peppermint Lounge

While some of the larger clubs were more an annoyance than anything else (e.g., Danceteria), with their hindering door policies where you were never sure if you were wasting a trip, the Pep Lounge was wide open and many wonderful shows were to be seen there. Some I caught were the Stiff Little Fingers show listed here, the Fuzztones, Chesterfield Kings, and Husker Du, to name a smidgen. Great venue to see bands.

7. When People Were Shorter and Lived Near the Water

Yes, WPWSaLNeW is a great name (or horrible, depending on your taste), but they were mostly a joke band. A side project for a bunch of local New York City musicians; they did bizarre covers (only) of songs that were classic rock, punk, or even Top 10. Usually, the sound was distorted and very guitar heavy. But they did play pretty often in CBGB’s Jr., aka the CBGBs Record Canteen (next door to Sr.).

8. New Music Awards, Beacon Theater, 1985

I had been to the awards the year before, at Studio 54 (hosted, in part, by Al Franken in wedding dress drag), but did not make it to this one. Perhaps it was the Cheech and Chong emceeing that scared me off, because I never found them funny (“Who is it, maaan?!”).

9. Art

Led by New York punker extremeo Mykel Board, Art was actually a very sharp, biting band that skewered some of the bigger releases from the scene in a very nasty (re: fun), Weird Al re-writing way. If you can ever find their Live at Carnegie Hall release, it is amazing.

10. Artless, The Pyramid, 1986

After the collapse of Art, it only makes sense that Mykel Board’s next group was called Artless. It continued in a more hardcore way, but just as biting.