History, Natural History & the Arts
Taking visitors back to a decade when the new music genres of punk, disco, and hip hop sprang up in New York City and then exploded across the world, The New York Historical presents its new exhibition, “You Should Be Dancing: New York, 1976 and Beyond.”
On view through April 4, 2027, the exhibition explores how, in a time of financial crisis, New York City cultivated a new generation of creativity and celebration. [Read more…] about You Should Be Dancing: New York, 1976 and Beyond
Peter Bennett is a photographer who grew up in Greenwich Village and lived in the East Village from 1979-1988, bartending by night and photographing the neighborhood around him by day.
In the latest addition to the Village Preservation historic image archive, he has shared some of his photographs of the East Village in the early 1980s. [Read more…] about 1980s East Village Photographs Go Online
Music has the power to bring people together in the name of solidarity. There have always been songs to aide in carrying the cries for social justice.
Modern protest music came into mainstream popularity during the Civil Rights Movement; today’s protest music has a different voice. [Read more…] about Eight Modern Songs of Black Solidarity & Resistance
This Saturday, August 16 at 2 pm, Bronx County Historical Society will host Drew Stone, and Tish and Snooky (of Manic Panic) at the Museum of Bronx History for a book talk “London ‘77: The Lost Archive,” look at a musical era that changed the face of modern music.
Buried and forgotten for more than 45 years, vivid photos by photographer Gregory Rudolph Smith have been rediscovered. For eighteen months in 1977 and 1978, Smith documented the golden age of the Punk era in London. [Read more…] about London ‘77: A Lost Punk Rock Archive
The Coventry (formerly Popcorn Club), a legendary Queens music venue that shaped the 1970s rock scene in New York City, has been honored with a historical Queensmark Award by the Queens Historical Society.
Known for helping to launch the careers of bands such as KISS, The Ramones, and the New York Dolls, the Coventry’s impact extended far beyond its walls, embodying Queens’ contribution to the cultural fabric of New York City and the global music scene. [Read more…] about Queens Musical Legacy Honored
Albany’s Fuze Box has a new owner, with Craig Earle, a local DJ known as DJ TGIF, taking the reigns from owner William “Tragedy” Yager.
Best known as QE2 in the 1980s and 90s, then owned by Charlene Shortsleeve, the venue was the home for punk, hardcore, alternative and grunge bands, welcoming rising bands, established artists and those lost from memory. [Read more…] about An Iconic Albany Club Changes Ownership
Cities are always changing. In architecture everything gives way and nothing is fixed. Impermanence is the only constant. Every new generation tinkers with the aesthetics of urban space (or lack of it) to create its own place. At the same time, the fabric of the city is resilient and able to harness its own transformative power which gives it a unique character. The history of Second Avenue is a vibrant example. [Read more…] about NYC History: The Stuyvesant Farm to East Village Punk
The American Irish Historical Society in New York City will hold a new exhibit “Teenage Kicks: Punk In Northern Ireland 1977-198” from Thursday, September 21st, through Friday, October 13, 2017. [Read more…] about Exhibit: Punk In Northern Ireland 1977-1982
“The street has provided generation after generation with a mystical flash of belonging… experiences of mortal peril, dissipation and adventure…” writes Ada Calhoun in her new book St. Marks’s Is Dead. Her wry and witty journey through history notes that each generation plunged in the excitement and grunge of the Lower East Side street proclaims its own moment “the golden age,” while bemoaning subsequent events as the death of the place’s “true essence.” That heart might be an immigrant’s dream, revolution, creativity, dissent, fashion experiment or altered consciousness.
Her bedlam of voices making these claims is entertaining and illuminating, the voluble chatter of participants, residents, business folks and dissidents who gave the street its gritty allure. Calhoun conducted over 200 interviews to assemble this history, and they range from obscure rantings of yesteryear to tales of the poor and famous. You will hear from Leon Trotsky, W.H. Auden, Debbie Harry, Klaus Nomi, street people, skate-boarders, drag queens and theater operators. Emma Goldman, famed anarchist, ran the Modern School for a while, where ardent revolutionaries could learn from the works of Mikhail Bakunin and Karl Marx. Pamela Moore, a pulp novelist of the 1960s described the creative invasion of the 1950s as “their own brand-new Beatnikville where the artists had moved in on the Slavic factory hands and all lived together in glorious, outrageous, dedicated poverty!” [Read more…] about Wild History Tales From St. Marks Place, NYC
Starting today, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s New York Annex will open its doors for a preview; the Annex will open officially December 2nd. Daily News Music Critic Jim Farber had an interesting piece this past weekend that included an online sneak preview of the exhibits and some details about the new museum.
Occupying 25,000 square feet at 76 Mercer St. in SoHo, the Annex takes up one-fourth as much space as the Ohio-based museum, though the new outlet charges four dollars more for entry: $26, to Cleveland’s $22… Upon arriving, visitors receive high-end headsets, designed by Sennheiser, which blast songs keyed to wherever you stand. Position yourself in front of a Bob Gruen photo of Freddie Mercury, and a Queen song pours forth. Stand by Bruce Springsteen’s 1957 Chevy, and you hear car songs by the Boss.
Six distinct galleries make up the $9 million structure. They’re divided into categories, like “Roots & Influences,” which traces sounds that connect — say, Billie Holiday to Amy Winehouse. Another more loosely defined gallery calls itself “Moments to Movements” and features things like Madonna’s Gaultier bustier. Naturally, there’s a significant “Guitar Hero” section, complete with Jimi Hendrix’s fading, handwritten lyrics to “Purple Haze” and Angus Young’s crushed- velvet schoolboy suit. A “Poets” section contains some of the Annex’s rarest artifacts, including a never-before-heard 1961 recording of Bob Dylan
playing a private show in the Village.To suit its setting, the Annex devotes major space to New York rock. Besides the CBGB installation, it boasts wigs sported by Debbie Harry and turntables used by Grandmaster Flash. A handbill from the Fillmore East advertises a show any classic-rock fan would kill to have seen: Traffic, Fairport Convention and Mott the Hoople playing the East Village venue in June 1970.
Highlighting the New York section is a 26-foot scale model of Manhattan. It’s lit up in 24 places that mark key locations in rock history, ranging from the site of the Mudd Club to the St. Marks Place building pictured on the cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Physical Graffiti.” Touchscreens tell the history of each site.
Special exhibits will rotate every six months. This first will be about the British Punk group The Clash.
If you sign up at rockannex.com you’ll have an opportunity to win tickets to a private preview night on December 1st.
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