Some Like It Punk
January 15, 2012 10:17 AM   Subscribe

Punk Rock Fashion Show at the popular Spit nightclub. Boston, 1982. PLYT; mildly NSFW due to subliminal nipple
posted by pxe2000 (28 comments total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
subliminal nipple are total sell outs
posted by nathancaswell at 10:21 AM on January 15, 2012 [8 favorites]


Neat stuff. If it matters to anyone, though, there are non-subliminal nipples also.
posted by Forktine at 10:34 AM on January 15, 2012


"Punk Rock Fashion Show" Talk about missing the point.

It was so over by then. 1982 was the year I pretty much went off contemporary music and consoled myself with the ever-comforting Fall. I didn't really recover until about 1989 when things became fresh and exciting again. I've been feeling that way since about 2002, too, but that's probably because I'm a boring old fart, now. Or it could be because of The Decemberists and Lady Gaga. I find it so hard to remember.

Hey, let's form a band.
posted by Decani at 10:35 AM on January 15, 2012 [2 favorites]


Wow, ANY OTHER music would have been a better choice for that video, even Conway Twitty.

Still cool to see.
posted by Ron Thanagar at 10:43 AM on January 15, 2012 [3 favorites]


Metafilter: Come for the punk rock fashion show, stay for the trance music.
posted by Blue_Villain at 10:58 AM on January 15, 2012 [1 favorite]


1982 was the year I pretty much went off contemporary music and consoled myself with the ever-comforting Fall.

Considering 1982 saw the release of Hex Enduction Hour, A Part of America Therein and Room to Live, you were well-swaddled in the music of the Fall. As it should be.
posted by grounded at 11:18 AM on January 15, 2012


I lived in the 'burbs of Boston from '84 to '86. One time a friend from rural upstate New York came to visit, and brought a friend of hers. We went to Spit one night, which by then was playing big-thump dance bands like (late-era) Gang of Four and Frankie Goes to Hollywood, along with lots of flashing lights.

My friend's friend had never been to a Big City, or even outside of rural upstate New York for that matter, and neglected to mention to anyone that he has epilepsy before we entered the club.

Well, you can probably guess what happened next. In a few minutes he was catatonic and stiff as a board, and we where wheeling him into an ambulance to rush him off to the nearest hospital, where we all spent the rest of the evening.

Good times.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 11:23 AM on January 15, 2012 [1 favorite]


That looks like, glam. And the soundtrack was weird.
posted by Brocktoon at 11:27 AM on January 15, 2012


Also:

Boston's hottest club is Spit.

This nightclub has eve. ry. thing.

Space alien cleaning ladies, disco inspired Tom Cruise impersonators wearing ass-less chaps, Tito Jackson handing out champagne in the bathrooms, even subliminal nipples.

Owners Patrick Lyons and Ed Sparks have turned this moldy latrine into a moldy latrine worthy of your golden discharge. Importing black Italian marble just so you can powder your nose without missing any thing, including two black Italian hunks named Piotr and Pauly. Sign me up.

Don't forget that Tuesday is Pansexual Leprechaun Pancake night. Don't forget the whipped cream and cherries. Yum.

Hurry now before they turn this place into a TGI Friday's inspired House of Blues. It's okay though, since you'll still need to show em your flair to get to the front of the line.

#pleasetellmeIusedtherightfontforthis
posted by Blue_Villain at 11:33 AM on January 15, 2012 [11 favorites]


I put in my time at the Lyons' empire (Spit, Metro, the Paradise) in the 80's. God, everyone tried so fricking hard to be cool and/or out there (except those of us who snickered at how obvious their efforts were). The clientele was exhausting.

But it's weird how many of us grew up and became teachers.
posted by kinetic at 12:42 PM on January 15, 2012 [1 favorite]


Kinetic, shouldn't that be that it's awesome how many of you grew up to be teachers? People without a (sordid) exciting youth shouldn't teach children.
posted by zinful at 1:54 PM on January 15, 2012 [1 favorite]


That looks like, glam.

I saw more Two-Tones than punks. And Two-Tones were pretty rare in the US.

General observation: if you have to set your hair in curlers before you are fit to go out, you're probably not a punk.
posted by charlie don't surf at 1:55 PM on January 15, 2012


General observation: if you have to set your hair in curlers before you are fit to go out, you're probably not a punk.

Really? Maybe curlers, yeah. But I cannot count the hours I spent drinking warm beer on a sprung couch waiting to go out while my friend with liberty spikes got his hair juuuuuuust right.

Punks spent LOTS of time trying to look punk. Purple hair doesn't just HAPPEN.

*carefully applies black nail polish*
posted by BitterOldPunk at 2:38 PM on January 15, 2012 [4 favorites]


Boston's hottest club is Spit.

Or as my friends and I used to call it back then: Snort
posted by kuujjuarapik at 3:14 PM on January 15, 2012 [1 favorite]


Spit was the first club I ever went to. My sister and brother-in-law "snuck" me in the summer of 1980. We saw The Neighborhoods and Zion Inatation. It was very loud.

I put snuck in quotes because ID checking was pretty lax back then and getting into a club when you were underage wasn't all that hard to do.
posted by octothorpe at 3:31 PM on January 15, 2012 [1 favorite]


Ah, Boston, 1982. God, I was sick of that place by then. The following year I moved to NYC. I knew some folks who went to Spit, but I was all into King Sunny Ade and Javanese gamelan and such: paid no attention to punk. But it seemed like "Boston" and "punk" were two things that just, I dunno, weren't right for each other. London? Of course. NYC? Sure. But Beantown? They all just seemed like posers to me, right from the start.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 3:45 PM on January 15, 2012


I have three words for you, flapjax, and those three words are:

Mission Of Burma.
posted by pxe2000 at 5:43 PM on January 15, 2012 [4 favorites]


The best thing about Mission of Burma is that they went, ok, we're done, no drama, Roger's losing his hearing, and then close to thirty years later they decided nah, let's do that again, and THEY'RE STILL JUST AS AWESOME.

/fanboy
posted by BitterOldPunk at 6:04 PM on January 15, 2012 [2 favorites]


Yeah, pxe2000, point taken. I'd forgotten about them.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:52 PM on January 15, 2012


punk fashion was pretty easy for us back then. cut the sleeves and collar off of a button down white shirt, get out your sharpie, and draw your best approximation of your present favorite bands' logos, add some vaguely anarchistic sayings, drug-induced doodles, get you Doc Martins and off you go. Not so easy for the girls, but we greatly appreciated their efforts
posted by Redhush at 9:25 PM on January 15, 2012


The book We're Desperate has some interesting punk fashion photos -- kind of like The Sartorialist, but with more piercings.
posted by pxe2000 at 6:15 AM on January 16, 2012


but I was all into King Sunny Ade and Javanese gamelan and such: paid no attention to punk.

Berklee student? Just guessing.
posted by kuujjuarapik at 7:33 PM on January 16, 2012


Berklee student?

Nope. Just a young musician, living in Boston. Never went to any college or university. Worked jobs, played music.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:57 PM on January 16, 2012


I asked because King Sunny Ade is some esoteric territory for a punk then. At Boston punk shows around that time we would yell 'BERKLEE!' at any punk band that attempted a guitar solo or any sort of non-garage musicianship. It was sort of dividing line between the local fuck-ups (Gang Green, Freeze, DYS, SSD, FU's, etc.) and the local poseurs (all forgotten to me).

For those of us that were in it, Boston was ripe for punk and the two were right for each other. There's a film coming out that collects some of those early Boston punk memories that you might want to skip, but for me, Boston and punk were totally inseparable from each other, and on some levels remain so to this day. There are few other cities in North America that have the same sense of invention, apostasy and creativity than that one.

Of course your perception might be different if you view punk as simply a destructive, drug-addictive NY and London scene.
posted by kuujjuarapik at 8:38 PM on January 16, 2012


I asked because King Sunny Ade is some esoteric territory for a punk then.

I guess it was indeed esoteric, for a punk rocker! Haha! But it was simply a natural progression for me, interested as i already was in traditional African music and its various diaspora manifestations (Brazilian, Cuban, Haitian, etc.).

Interestingly, your comment seems to imply that there were two and only two distinct and well-defined areas of musical interest/endeavor in Boston during that period, namely punk and Berklee, and that one was assumed to be in one camp or the other. But I was even less interested in what was going on at Berklee than I was in most punk. To me, Berklee was, well, a kind of awful place, full of some of the worst kinds of young hot shots and technicians who suffered from a heaping dose of jazz snobbery as well as a general lack of genuine soul and imagination. But your cries, at local punk shows, of "BERKLEE!!", and the punkers' out-of-hand dismissal and derision of anything that wasn't fast, loud and three-chordal strikes me as easy, boring and, yeah, unimaginative as well.

So, what was *I* doing during those Boston years ('77 to '83) if it wasn't practicing scales in a Berklee dorm room or thrashing about in a sweaty ripped t-shirt to the hammering sound of some local 4-piece? Well, I was hanging out at the Friends of Great Black Music Loft down near Chinatown and learning African drumming styles there with local musicians like Syd Smart and Dele Osumarea. Used to gig there, too. It was a great scene. Or playing in Brazilian bands in Central Square, Cambridge, or playing with my free jazz/improvising band, Ensemble Garuda (Frank London, now of Klezmatics fame, was the trumpet player) or with guitarist Joe Morris, who's gone on to make a good name for himself in the world of improvised music. I had a band for a while in those days with clarinetist Don Byron (Google him!), which was a kind of noisy improv-slash-funky beats kinda thing called Donzo and the Tonsils. I had a rhythm band with Brazilian percussionist Junno (in those days, "Junior") Homrich. And lots more. None of it had anything to do with punk or Berklee.

Well, that's probably all a lot more than you even wanted to know about my background! But I don't care for simplistic and ultimately inaccurate historical thinking, and I've gone into some detail with my comment as a way to indicate that there was a lot going on musically in Boston during those years that fell well outside of your Berklee/punk dichotomy.

By the same token, in closing, I'd like to disavow you of the notion that my perception of punk is "simply a destructive, drug-addictive NY and London scene." That's not the case at all. It has nothing to do with any sense that the music was destructive, or that most of the musicians were drug-addicted. I actually have no idea about (and little interest in) how many of the musicians were drug addicted. I was just never all that into the music, is all.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 9:22 PM on January 16, 2012


I guess I'd like to ask you to expand on your thought that Boston and punk were not "right for each other" and that we were all posers, given that you were not "all that into it" then.

I remember Don Byron. I remember a lot of shit from back then. Do you remember Gang Green? The FU's? Google them. The Boston hardcore scene gave me the courage to live my life in a different way, to start a business from nothing and to run it without treating people like shit. I'm not sure that I could have done it without learning some respectable methods of self-reliance from that scene, and mostly the support from the idea that I was doing the right thing. DIY was a powerful part of that punk scene, and it was a not half-bad business school for unconnected high school dropouts such as myself.

I'm very happy that your personal musical journey has led you to such great experiences. They are very different from mine. But seriously, "they all seemed like posers" is fighting words to me.
posted by kuujjuarapik at 9:57 PM on January 16, 2012


But seriously, "they all seemed like posers" is fighting words to me.

Yeah, I reckon that was unfair, and recklessly tossed off on my part. And I don't imagine for a second that you were a poser, based on what you've said. I've no doubt that punk, and the punk scene in Boston, were great for you. And that's fantastic.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 3:33 AM on January 17, 2012


I don't know anything about the Boston punk scene.

But I know that The Real Kids were fucking great.

(Caution: this song will get stuck in your head for weeks.)
posted by BitterOldPunk at 1:30 PM on January 17, 2012


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