The Secret Public, The Stooges, Buzzcocks
Just returned from New York where the Johan Kugelberg’s pop-up/ parasite Boo-Hooray gallery hosted an exhibition of The Secret Public – the montage magazine that Linder Sterling and I produced in late 1977.
Here is a tour of the show, and there is an interview at GQ here.
The Secret Public was originally published by Richard Boon through New Hormones, catalogue number ORG 2. ORG 1 was of course Buzzcocks’ Spiral Scratch and by a strange and welcome synchronicity the band were in New York the same week, performing their first two albums – Another Music In A Different Kitchen and Love Bites. Playing at Irving Plaza – a beautiful old balconied hall – the group were fantastic: playing all the 22 tracks pretty much straight through at a rattling pace. Driven by drummer Darry Farrant – who was exemplary – they were exciting, intense and extremely good humoured: Steve and Pete were obviously having a ball, as were the several hundred strong audience. Check out Nothing Left:
Even the announcement of a bomb scare – someone had left propane canisters in the back of a nearby vehicle and the police had blocked off a whole section of 14th St and the surrounding area – couldn’t spoil the mood. As Pete Shelley noted, resuming ESP: ‘now where were we?’. They did several encores, finishing with Orgasm Addict, by which time we were damp puddles on the venue floor. The previous night I saw the Stooges play a private party – for Ray Ban indeed – at the Music Hall in Williamsburg (just down the street from the wonderful Academy Records Annex): doesn’t sound that promising but the Williamson era group nailed several tracks from Raw Power – see “Search and Destroy” here:
– as well as great versions of 5 Foot 1 and Shake Appeal. Iggy stage-dived, let his pants hang VERY low, and invited the audience up on stage. I shed a tear during I Need Somebody. So the corporate nature of the event was easily transcended.