Saturday, November 03, 2007

Let's go back in time. Before there was the internet. Before Youtube. Before DVD's. Cd's were justing coming in their own. Laser Disks were exotic. When the idea of owning a "personal computer" was still a novel idea. Before MTV was international, let alone the darling of Viacom. When "music videos" could only be seen in a few places. When the idea of actually owning a copy of music videos was the norm.

So there I was, one weekend afternoon over at Marc Cerasini and Charles Hoffman's Red Hook apartment, with CJ Henderson (look up these amazing writers if you want to know more why I find it important to mention them by name. In fact, buy their books dammit!) for the purpose to hang out and watch videos. Marc had something special to show us. He couldn't rent DEVOs VHS, (The Truth about De-Evolution) so the store clerk recommended something else.  This was what I saw. 

A full out sensory assault. With stream of conciseness lyrics that somehow move between the works of Herbert Selby Jr. and William S. Burroughs via Ring Lauder and a visual style that is between a waking nightmare and the best of the French New Wave and Sam Fuller. This was the 80's version of a New York that I remember. And then there was the star of it all. A thin dude with a profile that Lamont Cranston would be familiar with and an accent that is somehow between North Yonkers and South Brooklyn, Tony Powers and his conspirators take us on a little evening stroll around some old haunts in Manhattan.




And that was only the first of three. Tony himself has posted his own work for us to view on the above. Maybe soon, he will post the other two. 

Tony Powers. Go here to read his amazing story and buy his new album