Hey New Yorkers - what the hell happened?

I'm a NY'er born and bred. Spent my formative years at Sounds on St Marks and seein' shows @ the Ritz and Max's. When I was a kid, NYC r&r was straight up badass. it was Johnny & The Heartbreakers, the Ramones, The Senders, Jayne County. And Brooklyn was *real* badass. that's where guys liked to fight. And where girls like to fight. And it's where the heavy metal clubs were. And it's where Bugs Bunny came from.

So now I'm gone 17 years and I cast an eye on my old home. I see the NYC "scene" apparently confined to a bunch of nerds in thift store nerdware and chunky glasses, forming indie-rock-art-collectives and pretending to be folk singers.

And they're doing it in Brooklyn!

So, as an NYC ex-pat, I ask those of you still there: What the Hell happened?

and more importantly: are there some acts bubbling under all of this that will restore NYC to its proper glory?



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RockandRollTribe.com, The Social Network for Veteran Rockers

I think they moved to the Poconos along with most of the other NYC residents.

I moved out in summer of 2001 and never looked back. I lived on Ludlow Street on the LES (the real one, not the East Villagers who claim that geographical region), and one of the street's bar bands, the Strokes, had just claimed a huge chunk of change, hand over fist, after a monstrous bidding war. I see that as the beginning. But I have to say, having gone to college at NYU in the early 1990s things weren't much better--that is unless you were really into Dee-Lite and Keith Haring paintings. Boston has been a much better music city since the 1980s.

Go Red Sox!

1. Does the Poconos have a lower east side?

2. Shame on you for besmirching an NYC thread with "Go Red Sox!" May the ghost of Bucky Dent haunt you in your sleep.



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RockandRollTribe.com, The Social Network for Veteran Rockers

The Poconos is like the Berkshires, but with 100% more litter, pawn shops, and Jerseyites.

But still with Heart Shaped tubs, I hope?



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RockandRollTribe.com, The Social Network for Veteran Rockers

The "bad-ass" era of New York is history. It's not coming back. The dang place is too expensive. Starving artists aren't moving to Manhattan any more, just oil sheiks who like the status of a New York address. But who knows, one day there may be more to Brooklyn then just indie-rock nerds. New York has too much history to discount it completely.

A crumbling doomed city like Detroit is more likely to keep the bad-ass coming.

Philadelphia's Main Line is the one to watch for badass. Yesterday, I was at a Starbuck's and a guy ordered a tall black coffee, no cream, no sugar, and he even plopped a LEMON in it. Then he ordered a soft pretzel and squirted KETCHUP on it.

So watch out.

Hoip, you're confusing "bad-ass" with bad taste.