Shorty Morris's Rock Your Socks Tour

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NEW YORK CITY, New York

This Thanksgiving after feasting amongst friends and loved ones my brother came for a visit. My tattood, dread locked bass player in a band brother has spent his life going to ballets and broadway musicals to support his sisters. I wanted to make this a memorable trip for the rocker who has nothing, and since we were all too broke to attend a concert, or even to go to the Rock and Roll Hall of fame annex or take a New York walking tour I decided I would create my own New York City Rock and Roll Walking tour with the intention of rivaling the best. The addresses are posted, so with google maps you could create a map of locations. We had a great time and discovered a history of music and the city that has inspired so much of it. I’d say I succeeded in my attempt. I’ve attached the tour so feel free to take the tour yourself or contact me if you want to go together. Rock On!!!

Shorty Morris’s

Rock Your Socks

Tour

1 ~ ABC NO RIO 156 Rivington Street

The ABC can trace it’s roots to one show - The Real Estate Show, New Year’s Day 1980 when more than 30 artists in protest occupied an abandoned building and mounted an exhibition addressing New York City housing and land use policies. The show was quickly shut down by the police and the art confiscated. The city was forced to negotiate with the artists and offered them the store front and basement which became ABC NO RIO which since has become one of the best loved punk venues in the world, particularly wih artists focusing their work on social issues and activism.

2 ~ DARE DEVIL TATTOO 174 Ludlow

Michelle Myles (who is world renowned for her skin art and the only female tattoo parlor operator in NY) has been tattooing for over 2 decades. Some famous clientele who have been inked in this parlor include Boy George, Joan Jett, Vincent Gallo, and Whoppi Goldberg. She also operates Fun City Tattoo, which we will see later in our tour.

3 ~ BOWERY BALLROOM 6 Delancey Street

The building you see here was built just before the stock market crash of 1929. In 1997 it was converted into a music club. The club serves as the name sake of Joan Baez’ “Bowery Songs,” and appears in the film “Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist.”

4 ~ the former CBGB’s 315 Bowery (@ Bleeker)

CBGB OMFUG (Country Blue Grass and Blues - Other Music For Uplifting Gormandizers)

Club owner Hilly Kristal was outside hanging a sign one day when approached by 3 young men. They told him that they had a band and would like to play there. He was hesitant, but figuring that he was closed on Sundays he told them they could play then. He very much disliked their music, but when they asked if they could play again with another band he told them they could have another Sunday night set. So a few weeks later “Television” and “the Ramones” played a set that would change the course of CBGB’s history. Not that the set was that well attended or that Hilly made a lot of money (the cover charge was $1 and none of the kids had any money to drink) but stage was set for a punk scene that would become a breeding ground for music that was barrier breaking. The drinking age was 18 (attracting a younger crowd hungry to define and era and a music of their own) and at the time you could not book a big in a club unless you had a record contract. Hilly created a policy that at CBGB you could only play if you were playing original music.

5 ~ FUN CITY TATTOO 94 St. Marks Place

6 ~ former ANDY WARHOL’S ELECTRIC CIRCUS 19-25 St. Mark’s Pl.

The Electric Circus opened in 1967 and closed soon after in 1971. Their press release invited you to “play games, dress as you like, dance, sit, think, tune in and turn on,” and with its mix of light shows, music, circus performers and experimental theater, the Electric Circus embodied the wild and creative side of 1960s club culture.

Flame throwing jugglers and trapeze artists performed between musical sets, strobe lights flashed over a huge dance floor, and multiple projectors flashed images and footage from home movies. The Electric Circus became “New York’s ultimate mixed-media pleasure dome”, and its hallucinogenic light baths enthralled every sector of New York society.

7 ~ OTHER MUSIC 15 East 4th St.

1. A Manhattan-based record store specializing in amazing sounds, past, present, and future.
2. An unparalleled selection of underground and experimental CDs, LPs, imports and out-of-print rarities.
3. A venue hosting in-store performances from the likes of DJ Shadow, Yo La Tengo, Jim O’Rourke, Tindersticks, Mouse On Mars, etc. and others still to come.
A unifying aesthetic for a cornucopia of seemingly disparate musical genres; an attempt to classify the unclassifiable by delineating the common threads among these genres.
Your friendly, reliable 24-hour on-line liaison to all of the above.
8 ~ The BOTTOM LINE 15 West 4th St.

Was a music club opened in 1974. For 3 decades it was one of the most important music venues in New York and elsewhere. In 2003 the club was deeply in debt and not covering expenses. The landlord (NYU) upped the rent to market value and the club could no longer stay afloat. Both Bruce Springsteen and Serius Satellite Radio offered to pay the club’s back rent if NYU could settle a lease, but the club owners closed before they could be kicked out. The last concert was January 22, 2004 just short of their 30th anniversary. The building remains, but houses NYU classrooms.

9 ~ The BITTER END 147 Bleeker Street

In operation since 1961 this is New York’s oldest Rock and Roll Club. From the history of the Bitter End… “The Bitter End is not a museum. It is a virtual living, breathing part of the entertainment industry. The Bitter End is where it all began and where it keeps on beginning. It was not for nothing that the City of New York bestowed Landmark status to the famed night club on July 23, 1992. That is why today, the Bitter End is still a must stop for anyone visiting New YorkCity, for anyone who loves music and history and for anyone who loves to be entertained”

10 ~ BLEEKER BOB’S RECORD STORE 118 West 3rd St.

Bleeker Bob’s is one of the oldest independent record stores in town. If you look above the counter there hangs a pink invitation to a Joey Ramone tribute bash signed by the remaining members of the band.

11 ~ CAFÉ WHA? 115 Macdougal

“Since the 1950s the Café Wha? has been a favorite hot spot cornered in the heart of Greenwich Village. The 60s was an impressionable and revolutionary era. Artists of the time frequented the Café Wha? as it was known to be a sanctuary for talent; Allen Ginsberg regularly sipped his cocktails here. The Café Wha? was the original stomping ground for prodigies Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix. Bruce Springsteen, Peter, Paul & Mary, Kool and the Gang, as well as comedians, Richard Pryor and Bill Cosby also began their road to stardom on this historic stage. The Café Wha? encompassed the Beat Generation and continues to hold tight to its spirit, entertaining all walks of life.”

12 ~ WASHINGTON SQUARE PARK

“Since around the end of World War II folksingers had been congregating on warm Sunday afternoons at the fountain in the center of the park. Tension and conflicts began to develop between the bohemian element and the remaining working-class residents of the neighborhood. The city government began showing an increasing hostility to the use of public facilities by the public, and in 1947 began requiring permits before public performances could be given in any city park. In the spring of 1961 the new Parks Commissioner refused a permit to the folksingers for their Sunday afternoon gatherings, because “The folksingers have been bringing too many undesirable elements into the park.” (“Undesirable” in this context meant primarily blacks and “beatniks”.)

On Sunday, April 9, 1961 folk music pioneer Izzy Young, owner of the Folklore Center (who had been trying to get permits for the folksingers) and about 500 musicians and supporters gathered in the park and sang songs without a permit, then held a procession from the park through the arch at Fifth Avenue, and marched to the Judson Memorial Church on the other side of the park. At about the time the musicians and friends reached the church, the New York Police Department Riot Squad was sent into the park, attacked civilians with billy clubs, and arrested ten people. The incident made the front pages of newspapers as far away as Washington D. C. The New York Mirror initially reported it as a “Beatnik Riot” but retracted the headline in the next edition. These tensions did not die down for some time.”

13 ~ ELECTRIC LADY STUDIOS 52 West 8th St.

Some of the artists who have recorded here include….

Chuck Berry Carly Simon Peter Frampton David Bowie
Stevie Wonder AC/DC Led Zeppelin John Lennon
The Clash The Rolling Stones Guns N’Roses Patti Smith
Lou Reed Van Halen Kiss Talking Heads
Violent Femmes The Cars Foreigner Hall & Oates
Weezer Prince Al Green Erykah Badu D’Angelo Alice In Chains The Mars Volta Common Regina Spektor Muse Goldfrapp Metric Mew Glasvegas The White Stripes Bjork
Interpol Arctic Monkeys The Big Pink Alberta Cross
Foo Fighters Ryan Adams Radiohead. Black Crows
The Rumble Strips Elvis Presley Bob Dylan Beyonce
Bebel Gilberto James Taylor Mary J. Blige Maroon 5
N.E.R.D. Lily Allen Hole RonnieSpector
Gwen Stefani Wolfmother Jay Z Mark Ronson
Talib Kweli Beastie Boys Lena Horne Traffic
Whitney Houston Madonna Stevie Ray Vaughn The Roots
Aretha Franklin Frank Zappa Eric Clapton

14 ~ the FILLMORE AT IRVING PLAZA 17 Irving Plaza

Originally it was the Irving Hall, opened in 1860 as a home for balls, lectures, and concerts and for many years the base for one faction of the Democratic Party.

The present venue opened as Amberg’s German Theatre in 1888, under the management of Gustav Amberg as a home for German-language drama. It had been built on the site of the Irving Hall.

In 1918 it became the home of a Yiddish theatre company under the management of Morris Schwartz. By the 1920s burlesque shows were offered alongside Yiddish drama.

It was converted in the late 1970s from an old Polish dance hall to a rock venue by Andrew Rasiej. The Plasmatics repeatedly sold out the venue, helping to give Irving Plaza national recognition and to become an established rock venue in New York City. Over the years, the three-level auditorium had served as a Polish Army veterans’ headquarters, a Yiddish theatre, a burlesque house (ecdysiast Gypsy Rose Lee stripped here), and a boxing arena.

Heinrich Conried took on the management in 1993, and changed the name to the Irving Place Theatre.

Live Nation, a spinoff of Clear Channel Communications, renovated and reopened Irving Plaza under the name “Fillmore New York At Irving Plaza” on April 11, 2007, with English pop-music singer and songwriter Lily Allen as the opening act. The former Fillmore East in Manhattan’s East Village was a rock-music venue that was open from 1968 to 1971.

15 ~ MAX’S KANSAS CITY 213 Park Avenue South

Steve Lewis included Max’s in the “5 best night clubs in the history of New York City” along with Studio 54. Opened by Mickey Ruskin in 1965. “During the Mickey era at Max’s the phone booths were known as prime spots for oral hookups and other lascivious trysts.”

16 ~ CHELSEA HOTEL 222 West 23rd St.

The hotel has always been a center of artistic and bohemian activity and it houses artwork created by many of the artists who have visited. The hotel was the first building to be listed by New York City as a cultural preservation site and historic building of note. The twelve-story red-brick building that now houses the Hotel Chelsea was built in 1883 as a private apartment cooperative that opened in 1884; it was the tallest building in New York until 1899. At the time Chelsea, and particularly the street on which the hotel was located, was the center of New York’s Theater District. However, within a few years the combination of economic worries and the relocation of the theaters bankrupted the Chelsea cooperative. In 1905, the building was purchased and opened as a hotel.

Owing to its long list of famous guests and residents, the hotel has an ornate history, both as a birth place of creative modern art and home of bad behavior. Bob Dylan composed songs while staying at the Chelsea, and poets Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso chose it as a place for philosophical and intellectual exchange. It is also known as the place where the writer Dylan Thomas died of alcohol poisoning on in 1953, and where Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols may have stabbed his girlfriend, Nancy Spungen, to death on October 12, 1978.

Chelsea Hotel’s famous visitors and residents Visitors and residents of the Chelsea Hotel include Eugene O’Neil, Thomas Wolfe, and Arthur C. Clarke (who wrote 2001: A Space Oddyssey while in residence). Janis Joplin, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, and the Grateful Dead passed through the hotels doors in the 1960s.

Virgil Thompson, Larry Rivers, William Burroughs, Willem de Kooning, Jasper Johns, Patti Smith, Arthur Miller, Dylan Thomas, and many, many others stayed here too.

Who will be next?

17 ~ STRAWBERRY FIELDS CPW @ 72nd St.

December 8, 1980 John Lennon was shot as he entered the Dakota. The Imagine mosaic was donated by the city of Naples. 121 countries endorse Strawberry Fields as a garden of peace. Vigils are held annually on his birthday and on the anniversary of his death.

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