October, New York: Village Revival Records / Highway 61 Revisited

In the summer of 1994, I went on a road trip to the west coast—a first for me, a kid from the Chicago suburbs who had previously only made it as far west as Iowa City. I was nineteen. The world was rediscovering the Beatniks. One song on Jawbreaker’s new album name-dropped Kerouac. Another song on that same album featured a recording of Kerouac in the background. More visibly, Ginsburg did an ad for Gap. More bizarrely, Burroughs did one for Nike.

Say what you want about the commercialism of counterculture…say even more about whether any of those 1950s white male hedonists would survive a contemporary, woke reassessment. All you might say is true. But here’s something: When you grow up in a world believing sports were everything—and you sucked at sports—it was more than a little bit liberating to learn about this other world where suddenly the writers were the cool guys.

All of which to say: a long road trip out west with barely any money, nowhere to stay, and no firm plans…this really did seem like the absolute best use of one’s time.

No firm plans, yes, but there was one thing: 924 Gilman. This was (and is) a punk club in Berkeley, California. This legendary venue, a warehouse collective, was famously at the center of the East Bay punk scene (which is to say: Operation Ivy, Crimpshrine, Samiam, The Mr. T Experience, Green Day, Jawbreaker, J Church, etc.). Granted, even as early as 1994, many of the aforementioned bands were already long gone.

I got to see two shows there, back-to-back nights. And even though I was there maybe just a year or two after its heyday, it already felt…well…not quite how I wanted it to feel. It was fun. The bands were great. But there was already the sense of this being a place where things used to happen. And once those things are over, exactly what do we expect the location to offer us?

I should mention that on this trip I also visited the corner of Haight and Ashbury. There was a Gap right there at the intersection.

I found myself thinking about this after a recent visit to New York City. I spent some time in Greenwich Village, a neighborhood that has retained a sense of cool—even if the era of starving artists in New York City is long gone.

I dropped in on Village Revival Records.

In the land of famously expensive real estate, Village Revival (also, apparently, called Village Music World), remains charmingly haphazard. 

Records everywhere. As I scanned the shelves, the owner came over, tapped my shoulder, and brought me over to some new arrivals, still in the boxes they were shipped in.

Lots of good stuff to choose from. I smiled to myself as I grabbed this.

Later, while waiting in line outside John's of Bleecker, I asked my wife what's the most Greenwich Village album I could have bought. She suggested Simon and Garfunkel. That would have been just as on the nose. When I pulled Highway 61 Revisited from my bag and showed her, she laughed.

As with most of the stuff I've written about on this thing, I don't really need to explain why this record is great.

I'm thinking more about what it means to associate an album with a location...whether or not that location even gets a mention in any of the songs. For me, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is Chicago through and through. Elliott Smith is pre-Portlandia Portland. And Dylan, for all of his Woodie Gutherie posturing...dustbowls and riding the rails...is Greenwich Village. 

It seems safe to say that Greenwich Village isn't what it once was. Hard to imagine why this would be the best place for any young artist to come into their own--at least not without a financial safety net. 

Maybe this is a little bit of a bummer, but I would also argue that there's possibly an upside to NYC pricing out the young, creative people. I mean, why not set up shop elsewhere? Moreover, now that COVID has nudged the world into accepting that one does not need to be in an office to work, the logical conclusion is that one does not need to be in the city where the now-empty office is. Greenwich Village, to my mind, remains pretty damned cool and will always be worth a visit. Meanwhile, it gives me some hope to think that, as I write this, artist enclaves are springing up in Toledo, Ohio...Ames, Iowa...Bend, Oregon...or any damned place. Have at it, kids. I'm looking forward to seeing and hearing what you come up with.