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NEW YORK CITY is always in a perpetual season of change. Always in constant flux and motion, all tightly tied and twisted like umbilical cords. You move over the various downtown kids, the genres, trends, fashion pieces, bikes, accessories, drugs, you name it, still you have Paul Sev and co. S-T-I-L-L kicking around. Ah, the power of kicking around.
TIME has been generous to the cool. Especially when fancy upstate, college names and geography (a la states like Connecticut) are involved and yeah, keeping it in the family. The Sevs are like Waspsy Corleones and show no signs of going away.
Now…New York isn’t being so generous especially considering Paul Sev’s is the new posterchild of downtown chic with his closed Beatrice (RIP RIP, if it was a pet you might want to stuff it) and now the Jagger fly-by spot, Kemare. And the annoyingly black and white, travel picture site with soft porn and snaps of artistic children dot the screen over at Purple Diary doesn’t help sever the Sev.
In George Gurley’s fantastic New York Observer piece (2000), Chloe Sevigny’s Big Brother Paul Quits Commodities, Spins Platters its clear this dude is going to (one day!) be a nasty trainwreck to the scene. Yes, the profile is a decade old but tells the same story. It reeks of privilege, little to no talent and name drops about everyone including Moby. Yeah, dawg.
Embedded in the piece: What’s a guy to do?“I never really wanted to be a D.J.,” Mr. Sevigny said. “Eight months ago, I would never have thought it. It was really weird. I’m still adjusting to it. Imagine if you were a D.J. in two months-you’re as far away from it right now as I was.”He pushed away his half-eaten cheeseburger. “It’s the funniest thing,” he said. “I’m sitting here doing an interview. You know, six months ago I was behind a desk. A real, regular life. It’s a New York story, that’s for sure. Would not happen anywhere else. It’s so much tied into the whole Hollywood thing. Besides my sister, there was the whole Dana thing. You could think of it as a negative thing. Everything all at once produced more. My sister gets nominated for an Oscar, Dana gets busted and then all of a sudden I’m a D.J. It makes it all the more interesting.”
Look you should just read the article, but Moby grew up with the Sev sibs in Darien. Back to the article: “I love the way paul sevigny dj’s,” Moby said via e-mail. “It’s funny cos i’ve known paul and chloe since forever. i remember little chloe as a 12 year old ingenue.”
Mr. Sevigny said that Moby’s approval meant something to him. “That was exciting for me because here’s a guy with a No. 1 album,” he said. “It was one of the first things that legitimized me to myself. Because all the time people come up and tell you you suck.”
Um, well, I didn’t say it.
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Related KITTY BAWLER Articles: Smoking in the Boys Room, The New Max’s Kansas City…I Think NOT, Fallen Rockstars Wear Lacoste, Drum Roll, The Hipster of the Decade!, Vice Throws Itself a Lifeline to ‘05, More Vice Parties.) And, catch up on Kitty Bawler’s other anti-everything related pieces: SSUR vs Purple Diary. Brooklyn Hipsters vs. Purple Diary, Double L’s vs PD, and INTRO 101 The Purple Diary.
MAR tr.v. marred, mar·ring, mars
1. To inflict damage, especially disfiguring damage, on.
2. To impair the soundness, perfection, or integrity of; spoil.
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Per the New York Mag’s Grub Street it pains me to tell you Paul Sev and the boys are opening their venue SOON! Too SOON! (read the latest here.)
Direct quotes: Don’t let the Fashion Week folks fool you, though; this isn’t the second coming: “It’s not a new Beatrice,” Sevigny said.
“We’re working on that. But first, there’s never going to be a new Beatrice. We never planned for there to be a Beatrice. Beatrice is not a franchise. Kenmare is a small neighborhood restaurant that’s going to cater to people who are hungry. That’s obviously something different than the Beatrice, I think.”
Note to Paul Sev: Of COURSE you cannot replicate that little dungeon of chic. Never never, smarty pants. The Beatrice was it’s on den. Plus… now you’re serving food to all the skinny bi-atches; yo, keep a clean toilet or better yet hire an attendant to clean the up-chucking (which will find it’s home in the Hudson River). Ditto the smoking-room you’ll need to provide unless they’re reading poetry at which point everyone should light up. Note to Ollie @ the Purple D; get off the slopes STAT and get back to photograph the big unveiling.
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(related Kitty Bawler articles: The New Max’s Kansas City…I Think NOT, Fallen Rockstars Wear Lacoste)
(Getty Images)
More general house confusion sets in as I type this after reading EV Grieve’s site which highlights more mass apparel. This time (again) we find J. Crew in the mix. They certainly turned the wheels on the old Liquor Store (which you can refresh your mind of Pam Zimmerman’s homage here.) We have a movie type poster with a sleek Euro type guy walking on cobbled streets. Looks a bit like Italy? Yo J Crew …did anyone in the research department recevie the memo? Do the research? Walk the walk? The LES and Bowery are both on the edgier side of things. For $69.50 those pants are yours. Couple it with a Bowery Pima tee from John Varvatos. As previously mentioned, The Bowery is For Sale…everywhere!, you know these sacred New York neighborhoods now belong to big money and big ad money. I predict Urban Outfitters to follow suit (after seeing Supreme Sweatshirts on $19.99 clearance) I can only see a pencil thin rock star type working that J. Crew Ludlow Suit at Pianos.
(image: EV Grieve)
New York has always had its share of aspiring artists which certainly includes musicians. While I respect the Peter Pan-like struggles of artists and their refusal to let go of the dream–it should be mentioned–a fair amount of those who MUST let go.
My survey of fallen rockstars has recently fallen into some of these criteria:
1) those who have worn gold-rimmed aviators as they move through the scene and wear them at all times even in times of tragedy or grief, 2) own at least one or two velvet coats 3) have no musical talent whatsoever yet insist they do, this includes the Pixie like screamers on the tracks. 4) carry zero semblance of groundbreaking music i.e., still stuck in the CBGB genre (probably read: Please Kill Me a hundred times) 5) typical haters of fellow soundalikes who made it…”the Yeah Yeah who’s?” 6) press buttons on synthesizers and carry no vocal pitch, 7) open their own bars to worship themselves.
One of my favorite reviews of a band (via Pitchfork) is quoted below and yes, I wish I had written the piece.
“It can’t hurt that Sevigny’s sister’s been pushing the Christiane F. look in the UK trades– complete with open sores– but it’s not Chloe’s fault that it took her 30 year-old brother this long to figure out that it’s easier to make it in music than movies. Kicking around New York for fucking ever, Paul’s finally put together a scam that’s paying off: holding down three keys on an old Casio. His sister slipped then-boyfriend Jarvis Cocker a copy of their tape last year.”— Chris Ott, 2003 (continue the review here).
While the boys of old might still be kicking around, and trust me, they are…they’re still hanging on and it ain’t pretty especially since they now wear Lacoste coupled with pricey Nike Boxing Shoes and free PBR longnecks. Or Miller Lite; yes the “Champagne of beers!”
Danggggg…I hope (at least) the Lacoste is real.
Dear restauranteurs; please put down your antlers!
On my way out of New York (say 2005) was the pinnacle of the beginning of the taxidermy craze. In fact, I would thank mostly Freemans Alley for this hip hunter lodge/F Scott Fitzgerald tucked away Adirondacks cabin trend. Comfort food with candles and freshly picked meadow candles. Now; it’s gone too far. Certainly, it projects a wintery story with warm food and drink. At this point, unless you are a Mohican, please put down the feathered duck and get one with things…a new look perhaps. Right now; it’s too manufactured in a city overly manufactured. There I said it.
(image: taxidermy.co.uk)
okay; just when i thought the boutique hotel thing was winding down, im horrified to read about a place oddly entitled; the Nolitan. Roll out the red carpet kids. When I lived in Nolita; did that make me one of these Nolitans? What is a Nolitan? An Avatar-like-Alien who wears Three as Four wardrobe and dreams of a dinner with Bjork. Regardless, the little trendy pink website is up; you can check it here.
Makes my brian hurts just to think about it; more of the La Esquina crowd (some of whom I like very much) decked to the halls. And what about the Crosby Street Hotel? They’re all soon to be forgotten. Henny Penny the sky is falling; it’s raining boutiques. Pouring. Personally, I still like to shack up at 60 Thom; a mere dinosaur in a massive, overcrowded swamp of over thought (i.e., overly designed) hotels where you never leave to step out on the city streets because all your needs are under one roof. Someone should take a page from the Portland hotels because they get it done right.
It’s true you know.
There goes the neighborhood. Come to think of it; the neighborhood has been gone for a long time. Now it’s really gone.
(my two related articles on this subject; read here and here.)
You had your chance to vote and if you didn’t thanks much. Some Carles person stole the top prize cannot say I know much about their vitals. Gawker reports, “And now the question remains: Who is this Carles? Nobody really knows. He is anonymous! Although he does give IM interviews. He told the Village Voice, “I grew up in suburbia and recently graduated from business school,” and said “I think the whole concept of the site is ‘being able to justify your alternative existence’ by monitoring websites that are theoretically on the bleeding edge of culture.”
Uggh. How boring.
Jeez, add someone else to the vague, pretentious stupid portion of downtown culture. My own personal picks were in the low-wattage via votes. Dang, Paul Sev …What happened? Perhaps that move to hotel Atlantic City put you low on the totem. But, damn, you didn’t even make it to the final top five hipsters of the DECADE. Personally, my money was on Gavin McInnes, I mean it’s VICE kids….but I guess I’m getting too old or I lack complete edge.
Off the heels of New York Magazine’s Brooklyn bands…UNLEASHED by Hugo Lindgren (the article really worth the read…). While, its uncertain this is a reemergence of what we saw in the CBGB decade remains to be unseen. Still, it’s progress. ONWARD fellow bands. ONWARD.
Yes, I do dig on the following, some more than others, as my patience wanes with too much. It’s the lyrics. LCD inspired me to write this blog with New York, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down. It pushed me to think about the new, New York. Dig on (in no particular order): MGMT, LCD Soundsystem and Les Savy Fav (photo above). I struggle with many others listed in the article only because I just can’t listen. I have a threshold people.
MGMT’s song ”Time to Pretend” about the model wives, drugs and freedom vs boredom is biting and funny…
” There’s really nothing, nothing we can do
Love must be forgotten, life can always start up anew.
The models will have children, we’ll get a divorce
We’ll find some more models, everything must run its course.”
WANTED! An educated music man or woman to write me something; doesn’t have to be a disseratation, I’m interested in thoughts of critics who know the genre and of course, BKLYN.
Today, I was annoyed to read that Paul Sev; the DJ bike messenger startup was rocking out a space of what one “insider” explained would pick up the legendary Max’s Kansas City vibe with artists space, drinks, offices, poetry reading, you know the new renaissance of the fallen “vanilla” vibe which has become downtown Manhattan. Hey, you can’t go home AGAIN. The Beatrice Inn closed with its big names and chill stars who become faded memories. It made me wonder if I liked the Purple Diary in a more profound way until I recalled the aviator glass photographer man taking a photo of Paul Sev’s at Indochine’s anniversary. Dang; so not that lucky. Kitty Bawler is back on the prowl.
Look, I’m still for the rejuvenation of the white Wonder bread which currently walks the streets like zombies but to have another pretentious, disciple bar where long-haired high designed kids with black wrestling shoes in the Nike vein (read: they ” ALL look so DIFFERENT in the SAME WAY”) come to play and drug and spend money. We shall see…but so far, I’m not buying it.
In the meantime…DRUM ROLL BOYS ~
Best part of it all, VOTE YOURSELF. They say “Hipster” is a word of the past; I challenge myself to come up with something new. Check and vote on Gawker’s Who is the Hipster of the Decade?
and you to can own this shirt. photo: kbd
well, yes….it’s true. I lived on Spring Street + Bowery for many years. Perhaps the only legit place to wear a shirt rendering “the Bowery” was from across the street, next door to Sweet and V on Spring Street. That small storefront had LIMITED stock on hand. Were they even open much? NAH. Who are they? In grand new, New York fashion; I need their name (SUPRLUS?) spelled. IT DOES NOT MATTER, of course, they have since moved. Now, the beloved Bowery shirt is worn and produced by the masses these days (the attached photograph from john varvatos is yours for $125). Check out your local Target, Dillards, and Saks. Via this photo…you can roll by the shoppe, which since housed the former CBGB in a grand homage to punk (see NYT article This Ain’t No Nightclub (at Least Not Anymore). It’s safe for me to say, most who don the JV shirt will have never stood foot on the Bowery, lived to throw down at the punk garage. Those who wear it can safely walk to Whole Foods and blanket themselves at one of the $500 plus night hotels…a la the Bowery Hotel.
Sweet.
Yes, my Midwest mother walked the Bowery…not too happy at the time via dirty New York, but she walked it. Reluctantly but with determination.
We all did.
Yes, Sweet.
