This book is the product of six-plus years of research/reporting, and thirty-plus years of following music in New York City.
I had a lot of help. Thanks to Sunya Bhutta, Kate Brady, Jeff Canino, Abby Everdell, Michael Parayannilam, Phoebe Reilly, and Dana Sagona for assorted research and transcription assists. And thanks to my editors and producers over the years who have given me space to ruminate on the music: Nathan Brackett, Nick Catucci, Jason Fine, Ben French, Christian Hoard, Joe Levy, and Melissa Maerz at Rolling Stone ; Tom Kuntz, Sia Michel, Fletcher Roberts, and Scott Veale at The New York Times ; Brendan Banaszak, Bob Boilen, Robin Hilton, and Frannie Kelley at NPR; Charles Aaron, Doug Brod, Jon Dolan, Michael Hirschorn, Dave Itzkoff, Steve Kandell, Craig Marks, Tracey Pepper, Lee Smith, and Eric Weisbard at Spin ; Bob Christgau, Chuck Eddy, Rob Harvilla, Brian Parks, and Allison Benedikt at The Village Voice ; Jim Nelson and Mark Healy at GQ ; Helen Antrobus, Julie Caniglia, Rob Nelson, Steve Perry, Terri Sutton, Michael Tortorello, and Jim Walsh at City Pages ; Mark Schoofs at the Windy City Times ; Richie Unterberger at Option .
A big chunk of the book was completed during a summer residency at Yaddo, an inspiring, humbling, altogether amazing place, and it got off the ground at the beautiful, chill, equally inspiring Virginia Center for the Creative Arts; merci for the support, yall. The State University of New York at New Paltz also provided research support; Seattles Experience Music Project enabled me to share an early draft as part of its always-awesome annual Pop Conference. Marvin Taylor at NYU FalesLibrary, Michael Basinski at the SUNY Buffalo Library Poetry Collection, and Rus Springer at the SUNY New Paltz Sojourner Truth Library, along with their respective staffs, helped me access data, as did the fine people in Room 100 (the microfilm parlor) of the New York Public Library at Forty-second Street and their colleagues at the Library for the Performing Arts at the Lincoln Center. Props to all who preserve New York Citys cultural historyespecially the stuff that may never be digitized.
Online history, meanwhile, transformed the writing of this book over five years. Lost film and video clips appeared like time-warp portals on YouTube: Celia Cruz and the Fania All-Stars rehearsing Guantanamera in an empty stadium in Kinshasa, Zaire, in 74; a six-month-old Talking Heads playing Psycho Killer as a trio at CBGB in 75. We are near a mind-boggling moment when something approaching the entire history of recorded sound will be available with a few clicks. I am very grateful to the shadowy online community of music archivists, most of whom dont make a dime off their efforts and, in spite of what legal briefs may say, generally maintain high standards of (admittedly self-made) ethics; as Dylan sang, to live outside the law, you must be honest. Special thanks to Ish for out-of-print jazz and funk gems, Croz for the Television demos and the NYC Blood on the Tracks sessions, Wolfgangs Vault for other bootlegs. YouTube song posts saved me hours of crate-digging, as did Spotify, the Swedish stream-on-demand music service that kindly granted me access to their archives while they were still jumping U.S. licensing hurdles.
Shout-outs to Facebook and Twitter, which proved to be small journalistic miracles for story leads and source access, in spite of their time-sucking seductiveness. Special punk-rock huzzahs to Phyllis Stein, whose astonishing Facebook photo archive of the CBGB and Maxs scenesand the online conversation threads it has spurredwas a help and an inspiration.
The bibliography is contained elsewhere in this volume, but some books were beacons: Tim Lawrences disco history Love Saves the Day ; Jeff Changs hip-hop history Cant Stop Wont Stop ; Clinton Heylins U.S. punk history, From the Velvets to the Voidoids ; Legs McNeil and Gillian McCains U.S. punk gossip-fest-cum-history, Please Kill Me ; George Lewiss history of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, A Power Stronger Than Itself ; Alex Rosss history oftwentieth-century music, The Rest Is Noise ; Vince Alettis collected Record World columns in The Disco Files, 19731978 ; Jonathan Mahlers paean to 1977 New York City, The Bronx Is Burning . The 70s music coverage in The Village Voice and the Soho Weekly News , which I revisited on crumbling newsprint and faded microfilm, was invaluable.
Further credit where credit is due: The ever-growing archive of salsa-related interviews at Descarga.com. The mother of all Springsteen databases: Brucebase.wikispaces.org. The crate-digging bible Wax Poetics. Tom Johnsons The Voice of New Music , an anthology of the writer-composers Village Voice columns downloadable for free at www.editions75.com . And the great, long-running online music magazine Perfect Sound Forever , still produced by my Madison Square Park pal and former roomie Jason Gross in his spare timewhich I always accepted as the reason he rarely cleaned the apartment.
Thanks to the many who granted (sometimes multiple) interviews specifically for this project, or for articles that informed it, including Muhal Richard Abrams, Viv Albertine, Rashied Ali, Laurie Anderson, Marc Antony, Afrika Bambaataa, Karl Berger, Bjrk, Rubn Blades, Ernie Brooks, David Byrne, Rhys Chatham, Robert Christgau, Gilberto Pulpo Colon, Willie Coln, Adegoke Steve Colson, Michael Cuscuna, Carola Dibbell, Dennis Elsas, Chris Frantz, Gary Giddins, Philip Glass, Grandmaster Caz, Bob Gruen, Larry Harlow, Debbie Harry, Richard Hell, John Holmstrom, Leon Ichaso, JDL, David Johansen, Lenny Kaye, Kool DJ Herc, Jon Landau, Richard Lloyd, Dave Longstreth, Felipe Luciano, Handsome Dick Manitoba, Ilene Marder, Meredith Monk, Eddie Montalvo, Kurt Munkacsi, David Murray, Johnny Pacheco, Tommy Ramone, Steve Reich, Izzy Sanabria, Luc Sante, Andy Shernoff, Patti Smith, Bruce Springsteen, Chris Stein, Sufjan Stevens, Ned Sublette, Sylvain Sylvain, TV on the Radio, Alan Vega, and Tom Wynbrandt.
Gracias to the fine folks who connected me with music and musicians, including Nils Bernstein, Ruza Blue, Jenny Boddy, Bill Bragin, Joe Cohen, Melissa Cusick, Paul Dryden, Felice Ecker, Mary Fuss, Sonya Kolowrat, Jana La Sorte, Marilyn Laverty, Aleix Martinez, Judy Miller, Tina Pelikan, Tim Putnam, Michael Rucker, Carla Sacks, Claudia Sanchez, Mark Satloff, Benny Tarantini, Zooey Tidal, Ulla in Madrid, Lupita Valdes, Clint Weiler, Krista Williams, Christie Z-Pabon, and Blake Zidell.
Thanks for random data, leads, laughs, cocktails, encouragement:Jon Caramanica, Daphne Carr, Jeff Chang, Joe Conzo, Jr., Joe Conzo, Sr., Geeta Dayal, Jim DeRogatis, Jon Dolan, Brent Hayes Edwards, Tony Fletcher, Dan Forrer, Ezra Gale, Andy Gensler, Holly George-Warren, Ward Harkavy, Hua Hsu, Peter Keepnews, Chuck Klosterman, Ernesto Lechner, Sara Marcus, Michaelangelo Matos, Greg Milner, the Mishpucha massive, Jon Pareles, Ann Powers, Joy Press, Ben Ratliff, Simon Reynolds, Tricia Romano, Mike Rubin, Jules Schumacher, Rob Sheffield, Laura Sinagra, Alvin Singleton, Brandon Stosuy, Sarah Vowell, Mark Zip. To my sound dealers, past and present: Keith Ambrose of the Brats (aka Dominique) at the Music Box on Union Turnpike, the defunct Korvettes in Douglaston, the legendary Binky Phillips at Sounds on St. Marks Place, the Vinyl Mania dudes on Carmine Street, J&R Music World, the awesome Other Music on Fourth Street, Rhino and Jacks Rhythms in New Paltz. Special thanks to Bleecker Bobs for always making me feel uncool, but in an inspiring way.
The extended fam: Matt, Scott, Adam, Russell, and the Queens music freaks. Kirk McElhearn, who recalled Cunningham Park memories from the French Alps via Facebook. The Jukin editorial cabal: Jon Stahl, Howard Wolfe, and Dan Morse, who donated a well-preserved copy of the Daily News Ford to City: Drop Dead edition and helped in countless other ways. The WHRW-FM continuum. Ron Drumm, music guru. Barb, for crash space after countless late-night research sessions. Tim, Meredith, John, Reagan, Bill, Candice for drinks and child-care swaps. Jeff S. and the Tuesday night group. Rivka Tadjer. David Stern. Sara Delphine. Adam Weiss, the best photographer Ive ever worked with. My sister, Liz, hip to Patti Smith and the Ramones before anyone else in Jamaica High School.
