I had lunch with James Chance last week to discuss the Contortions first album, Buy, which I am writing the liner notes and after discussing the recording of the album, we moved on to the live tracks which will be added to the 35th Anniversary reissue. Specifically ““Flip Your Face”, “Jaded” and “Can’t Stand Myself”played at a one off Paradise Garage Concert, Sunday, June 18th, 1978.
Before Jame’s remembrance of that night, here is Pat Ivers on the great website Stupefaction, recalling it:
“Maybe it was just an idea whose time had not yet come, but I remember thinking at the time, “Wow! Punk at the Paradise Garage, our music taken to the next level of visibility. Maybe it really is going to be a viable thing , not exactly mainstream, but playing to a larger audience…people actually making money.” …It didn’t exactly work out that way.
“The lineup was great: The Senders, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, the Contortions, and Richard Hell and the Voidoids. Great mix of styles, something for everyone. Emily Armstrong and I started negotiating with the guys who ran Paradise Garage to come in and videotape what we thought would be an historic night, which it was…for all the wrong reasons
“First, nobody came. There seemed to be maybe 100 or 150 people in attendance. In a space like the Paradise Garage, it looked like the worst prom ever. With the disco ball spinning in the darkened room, the space looked sinister and a little sleazy. And then as The Senders played, the electricity failed. This happened over and over again over the course of the evening.
“Still, everyone soldiered on. Lydia played a short show. The Contortions roared through a set. James Chance left after his performance with some girl for a date in the cemetery on 2nd Street. Richard Hell, I seem to remember, threw beach balls or something into the audience while he played. It was grim.
“At the end of the night, James returned to find Hell being told by management that no one was getting paid. Threats and counter threats ensued. James stopped them in their tracks, breaking a beer bottle and cutting himself with the words, “You can’t scare me”. The stunned management paid them.”
That is in some ways a better memory than Jame’s:
“It wasn’t the show itself that was so crazy. There was the Contortions, Teenage Jesus And The Jerks and Richard Hell headlining. All the bands played and the plan was all the bands would play again later. But there were not all that many people there. Anyway, after I did my set I left with this punkette girl from L.A. I knew. And she had some LSD which we did. And actually we snuck into this cemetery on 3rd and 4th and 2nd? And we had sex in the cemetary in the middle of a rainstorm.
“Then we went back to the club and thought we were gonna play but when we got back there it was all overand then it turned out they only had half the money because he was counting on making it from the door. So I got really pissed off and started like ranting and raving then out of the corner of my eye I saw these two black bouncers started sneaking up on me. Big, muscled men. So I grabbed a beer bottle and I broke it and I slashed my own face. I started slashing my own face with it and blood was coming down. They completely backed off. I didn’t get the rest of the money but I didn’t get the shit kicked out of me.
“And then there was this stairway in the back and me and this girl went up to the top of this stairway and there was a storeroom there and there was this coffin. Not a real coffin but a stage coffin. What was a coffin doing there? So we decided to take it…””
So that’s the story I couldn’t fit into the liner notes.
If you want to read Stupefaction try it here, they also have the poster.
