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CRO-MAGS

Quicksand Rises: Post-Hardcore Influentials Play First NYC Show in 15 Years

quicksand3

Soon after 90s post-hardcore band Quicksand took the stage Friday night for its first hometown show in about 15 years, a half-dozen beers had flown into the air. Bowery Ballroom had never felt so full: virtually the entire audience consisted of men in their 30s and 40s, weighing over 200 pounds.

The mix of metalheads and current and former hardcore guys might have looked like a recipe for the sort of beef that erupted between current and former members of the Cro-Mags at the CBGB Festival last month. But the opening bass notes of “Omission” brought on 90 minutes of rapture. From the balcony to the mosh pit, the entire ballroom pulsed and popped as fans yelled and sang along, arms in the air. They were celebrating the return of a band that broke up in its prime in the late 90s, after touring with acts like Helmet and Rage Against the Machine but never achieving similar breakout success.

After a surprise reunion last month in California, Quicksand had announced two shows: one at Bowery Ballroom and another the next night at Music Hall of Williamsburg. Both sold out in minutes. Rumors of a full reunion came after an appearance on “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” this week. Read more…


Harley Speaks: Former Cro-Mag Says He Acted in Self-Defense at Webster Hall

photo(245)Ray Lemoine Mr. Flanagan shows off his wound outside of court today.

Speaking for the first time since his arrest at Webster Hall last Saturday, former Cro-Mags bassist Harley Flanagan insisted he was acting in self-defense during a brawl that landed two of the band’s current members in the hospital with knife wounds. A grand jury trial was scheduled for Sept. 27 during a hearing at Manhattan Criminal Court today.

“DMS jumped me, man,” Mr. Flanagan told The Local outside of the courtroom, upon recognizing this reporter as the roadie for an opening band who bunked with him on a Cro-Mags tour in 2000. Mr. Flanagan said he was attacked by members of the Doc Marten Skinheads, a gang with a history of violence that grew out of the 1980s hardcore scene and is still active today (graffiti around the Lower East Side reads “Demonstrating My Style” and “Drugs Money Sex.”)

“You know this scene – a bunch of loser bullies,” said Mr. Flanagan, who appeared in court along with three fellow Hare Krishna devotees and his attorney. “Seven or eight guys kicked me to a bloody mess.” Read more…


Give Harley a Hand: Online Fundraiser Set Up for Incarcerated Cro-Mag

Harley's Army Defense Fund screengrab A screengrab of the fundraiser.

If you can’t donate $5,000 for a brand-new 3-D portrait, then can you spare a dollar for a hardcore legend behind bars?

After allegedly biting and slashing members of the Cro-Mags at Webster Hall last weekend, Harley Flanagan, a founding member of the band, needs help.

Friends of Mr. Flanagan’s are soliciting money for a legal defense fund on IndieGoGo, and hope to raise $50,000 in the name of “Harley’s Army.” So far supporters have donated $579.

“All of the details aren’t out, though certain stories are being bandied about in the court of public opinion,” the post reads. (The Local corrected typos). “All of the details aren’t going to get out, or get presented properly in a court of law if Harley doesn’t get top notch legal representation.”
Read more…


The Cro-Mags, in Happier Times

Still steamed about that canceled Cro-Mags show? Bowery Boogie has a gallery of the band rocking out at CBGB in 2006 and Highland Ballroom in 2011. The photos, by Clayton Patterson, capture the raw energy that never made it to the stage on Friday due to an alleged knife attack by Harley Flanagan, a disgruntled founding member of the band.


Stabbing Forces Cancellation of CBGB Show at Webster Hall [Updated]

Webster HallRoey Ahram

Former Cro-Mags bassist Harley Flanagan was arrested after reportedly stabbing and biting current members of the band before their show at Webster Hall last night, law enforcement sources told The Post.

Bowery Boogie witnessed the incident and reported that “Harley Flannegan [sic], founding member of the Cro-Mags stumbled into the VIP lounge with a knife.” According to the site, security quickly mobilized and “it took no less than six beefy dudes to control the madness. Blood was everywhere, and bone protruded from his shin.” The site followed up its initial report with photos from the scene.

Sources told WABC that “a former member of the band” was taken into custody after “one of the victims had been slashed, and the other had been bitten. Sources say that the two injured men were members of the band that was performing on Friday night. Both victims are expected to be okay.”

Mr. Flanagan is a longtime East Villager who at one point lived in Allen Ginsberg’s building at 437 East 12th Street (the poet was a family friend and introduced a book that Mr. Flanagan wrote at the age of nine). He co-founded the Cro-Mags but is at odds with the current iteration of the band. He discussed his semi-professional dedication to mixed martial arts and his issues with former bandmates in Fight! magazine in 2009. “There were years during our beef where we said a lot of shit and I offered to fight it out and put it on video,” he said. In March of this year, he once again called out John “Bloodclot” Joseph McGowan, current Cro-Mags frontman and East Village tour guide.

“The dude is a fraud. He was back in the day and he still is,” Mr. Flanagan told Vista Fanzine, going on to say, “All I know is this, from here to eternity I will always be willing to EITHER one, gig together with all of those guys just strictly out of the love for the music & the Cro-Mags or if John EVER actually has the balls to back up all the shit he talks, to step up and I’ll beat his ass. Again…That is if he EVER has the balls to actually step up to the 100’s of times I’ve called him out, emailed him, called him, etc.”

It’s unknown whether Mr. McGowan was involved in the incident, and according to The Times, law enforcement officials have not yet identified the attacker in last night’s incident. The victims were taken to Bellevue Hospital and were in stable condition. “One was treated for a bite mark and a cut to the face and the other had cuts to his arm and stomach,” police sources told The Daily News.

Update | 9:03 a.m. The Post has now printed the names of the victims and reports that Mr. Flanagan was hit with two counts of second-degree assault and weapons charges. “William Berario, 45, was slashed above the eye and bitten on his cheek. Michael Couls, 33, — the band’s current bassist, who is known in the hardcore world as ‘The Gook’ — was cut on his arm and stomach.”


CBGB Returns as Summer Festival, May Reopen as Club

DESCRIPTIONGodlis A 1977 photo of CBGB, which operated on the Bowery from 1973 to 2006. Owners of the club’s assets are now planning a festival and seeking to revive it at a new site.

For the last six years the name CBGB has been little more than a logo on T-shirts for young people in the East Village. Now a group of investors has bought the assets of that famous punk-rock club, which closed in 2006, and plans to establish an ambitious music festival this summer, with an eye toward reopening the club at a new downtown location.

The new owners of the club’s assets — some with ties to the original Bowery establishment — say they hope that the festival will revive the wide-open artistic aesthetic associated with CBGB, which in its heyday served as an incubator for influential acts like Television, the Talking Heads, the Ramones, Blondie, Sonic Youth and Patti Smith. Read more…


The Day | Lakeside Remembered, and 20 Other Morning Reads

UntitledPhillip Kalantzis-Cope

Good morning, East Village.

The Times looks back on what made Lakeside Lounge so special (“once, while Joey and Dee Dee Ramone played, audience members watched the police raid a nearby crack house and line suspects up against the picture window beside the stage”) and gives a clue as to why it’s closing at the end of the month: “[Owner Eric] Ambel said rent and expenses had more than quadrupled since the mid-1990s, forcing him and Mr. Marshall to face the prospect of deviating from the formula that had served Lakeside, its musicians and its patrons so well.” According to WNYC, the rent was $9,000 a month.

Flaming Pablum uses the closing of Lakeside as an excuse to look back on five other bygone dive bars, including Alcatraz on St. Marks Place, an “endearingly seedy joint that catered to acolytes of all things loud, boozy and rude.”

With the average rent in Manhattan at $3,418 a month and the vacancy rent at just 1 percent despite the lagging economy, The Times lays down some real talk: “For those who find buying a home in New York City is not an option — whether because of bad credit, tougher lending standards or lack of a down payment — the choices are limited and often unappealing.” If you are buying, the Daily News points out that there are still deals to be found in the Lower East Side. Read more…


The Day | Recalling Punk Palaces and a Motorcycle Club Without Motorcycles

Do Your Best!Clint McMahon

Good morning, East Village.

EV Grieve reports that roast-beef joint Bowery Beef is likely leaving the Bowery Poetry Club, where owner Bob Holman has taken over booking.

Flaming Pablum shares a clip of Cro-Mags vocalist John “Bloodclot” Joseph leading his tour of the East Village. Mr. Joseph promises, “It’s the only place you can hear about murders, drugs, and vegan food all on the same tour.”

According to East Village Eats, Casimir’s new owner Mario Carta has started a brunch deal that gets you bottomless mimosas and Bloody Marys for $19.95.

An episode of “Let Them Talk” just posted to YouTube features playwright Juan Valenzuela recalling the glory days of the Nuyorican poetry movement. Along with Pedro Pietri, Mr. Valenzuela led the Latin Insomniacs Motorcycle Club.