The sirens call a sailor to die

The backbone of America

"So, what's your favorite Cult album," the guy standing to my right asked. We were waiting for the concert to start at the Wellmont in Montclair, NJ Tuesday night. I told him it was between the album the band is playing in its entirety on this tour, 1985's Love¹, or Sonic Temple. "I like them all" he said. A hardcore fan. "Do you have the white boxed set?" I confessed I had never heard of it. "The black boxed set?" Ditto. And so on for a few minutes.

I introduced him to Cheryl who wasn't sure what her favorite Cult album was, and he said his name was Chris. He said he was a sales rep for Otis Spunkmeyer, up from Orlando on a business trip he scheduled around the concert (he said he was going to see the band again in Orlando this weekend with his wife). "I spread happiness and joy," he said. "I sell cookies and baked goods. The cookies in Subway restaurants? That's us. If you've ever had a muffin in a Hampton Inn, that was ours too." If you've ever stayed at a Hampton Inn, you've also seen guys like Chris there, men who make the American economy move.

The last fan

On the way to the show we had parked on some residential street and ended up having to walk a half mile or so detour² to the theater, so after the concert, we stood outside for a moment trying to orient ourselves. A small crowd had formed, waiting for the band to emerge. We figured we'd stay around for a few minutes and watch. The roadies or the theater staff fenced us in with bicycle racks on two sides so no one would get in the way of the equipment being loaded up. After a few minutes, the back up guitarist and the bassist walked out, signed a few autographs and posed for a few photos. Then the fierce and precise drummer John Tempesta came out. He looked a lot smaller in person than he did glazed in sweat, pounding away behind the drum kit. He posed for a few photos too with a couple of fans, and I shook his hand and complimented him on his performance. Then he walked off into the Montclair night with some young lady about half a head taller than him.

That left two tour buses for the core of the band, lead singer Ian Astbury and lead guitarist Billy Duffy. Cheryl quipped that one bus was for Astbury's ego. The little crowd started to thin out when Astbury and Duffy didn't appear after a few minutes. At that point I started to wonder who would be the last fan waiting around on a Tuesday night. The guy who broke out his leather pants and jacket for the show? The little gaggle of Eastern European guys, one of whom had a sheet with all the songs on the Love album taped to his shirt? I had to go to the bathroom by that point, so we didn't stick around to find out.

¹This one sounds much better live, incidentally. I suspect that the band will take the best versions of each of the songs on it from the concerts on this tour and release a 25th anniversary live version of it next year. That I would buy. The title of this post comes from the lyrics to the last song on the album, btw.

²We walked past some pottery cafe and Cheryl asked, "Why can't we have something like that in Hackensack?" "We have more diversity than Montclair," I said, by way of consolation. "I'd rather have a pottery cafe," she said.

Star

A comment on Fred Wilson's blog about Jim Carroll's recent passing reminded me of the Cult song that was featured on the film version of Carroll's The Basketball Diaries. I didn't know there was a video for the song, but here it is, via YouTube. The silver-clad model is supposed to evoke the Lady Liberty, I suppose, but she reminds me a little of the robot from Metropolis.

Hell's Kitchen isn't a DMZ

Last Friday, Cheryl and I went to see The Cult at Terminal 5, in Hell's Kitchen, and then went out for burgers afterwords at Five Napkin Burger, in the same neighborhood. Great show¹, great burger².

Twenty years ago The Cult mentioned this neighborhood in their song "New York City", describing it as "a DMZ", a "Disneyland trash can", and, "a crazy place". That was back in the pre-Giuliani days though. Hell's Kitchen is pretty gentrified these days.

¹Before the show, venture capitalist Fred Wilson mentioned in a comment thread that Terminal 5 was "too up and down", i.e., that it's got steep staircases. True, but not really an issue if you stay on one level, as we did. With a bar and bathrooms on that level, there wasn't any need to wander up and down.

²Coincidentally, when Binging for "Five Napkin Burger" while writing this, I found this post by Fred's wife, where she gave the place a thumbs up.

Sunday Night Excitement

We went to see the pre-hipster rock band The Cult play at Irving Plaza Sunday night with another couple, and, since this was a fairly older crowd¹, I figured it would be a mellow one as well. Not so. Maybe it was the unseasonably hot and humid weather for a mid-September evening in New York, or maybe it was because the place was packed to the gills (the show was originally scheduled for the larger Roseland Ballroom), but from the upper level we saw a couple of fights on the floor, and, separately, a couple of juiced-up fellows close to the stage get bodily ejected. When the lead singer of a rock band stops what he's doing to single you ought and tell you to tone it down, that's a good indication you've gone too far. That was the case with one of the fellows who was shown the door. In any case, a good show, even if Ian Astbury chopped off some of his lyrics. Worth catching if you are into pre-hipster rock.

¹To give a sense of how long this band has been around (and to date myself in the process), the first time I heard The Cult's music was on a barracks-mate's smuggled Sony Walkman during infantry training at Fort Benning, GA in 1989. The album I heard (on a cassette tape, no less) was The Cult's third album in their then-current incarnation. So it's likely that many of the folks at the show tonight first started listening to the band in the early 80s and were older than me.