Chapter 7: CITY GARDENS
1701 Calhoun Street Trenton,
New Jersey. The address alone gives me chills.
I admit that, in my own alternative
way, I am a semi-obnoxious music snob, and
as a writer I should be open to all facets
of readership. But if you are from the tri-state
area, over the age of, say, 28, and you
have never heard of City Gardens, then this
particular column is not for you.
And
perhaps good music is not for you; perhaps,
to you, Punk Rock is simply noise; perhaps
Jawbox is a decorative tin where Granddad
keeps his dentures; perhaps Jane’s
Addiction refers to your cousin Janie’s
infatuation with Justin Timberlake; perhaps
you’ve had a mullet since 1985 and
NASCAR is your aphrodisiac of choice; perhaps
squawking Madonna CDs inhabit your car stereo;
perhaps you voted for Clay Aiken on American
Idol and cried when he lost.
That’s fine, I’m
not judging. Ok, so maybe I am judging.
But, I believe a better than fair amount
of validity can be drawn from Rob Gordon’s
quote in the movie High Fidelity: “…what
really matters is what you like, not what
you are like… Books, records, films
– these things matter. Call me shallow,
it’s the fuckin truth…”
And a big part of what I like, the reason
I’m typing this in a 20-year-old Verbal
Assault t-shirt, the reason a six-string
Yamaha is lying on the bed at my side, the
reason a worn copy of “Human Punk”
by John King is parked atop my bookshelf,
is mostly due to my adventures within that
grungy, rectangular venue on Calhoun Street
in Trenton.
City Gardens delivered a worldwide
rebellion of sound to my tiny, 908 area
code: 7Seconds from Reno, the Dead Kennedys
from San Francisco, the Descendents from
Hermosa Beach, Fugazi from D.C., Gang Green
from Boston, The Ramones from New York,
GBH from Birmingham, England, etc. 90 minutes
northeast of Trenton, a dank little club
called CBGB’s had the heralded reputation,
the celebrity t-shirts, the artistically-posh
zip code, the Ramones infamy, but City Gardens
was the east coast’s true underground
concert hall, where tattooed bands played
to mohawk fans of respectable number (max
capacity around 900) and through a decent
sound system. Petite, hole-in-the-wall clubs
could handle raw Punk acts like Black Flag
or Minor Threat, but City Gardens showcased
the same Punk staples in addition to other,
less-than-starving performers such as Faith
No More, Nirvana, and Sinead O’Conner,
as well as a few retro acts like The Romantics
or The Psychedelic Furs.
Green Day at City
Gardens, photo by Ken Salerno
Almost every Friday night,
from about 1987 to 1995, my Doc Marten-clad,
punk rock associates and I would pile into
one dilapidated vehicle, slither through
a grid of suburban architecture before landing
on Route 206, drive south to Route 1, and
get off at the Olden Ave exit. A few turns
through shuttering urban blight, one rotary,
and a quick stop for pizza is all that remained
before mooring our vehicle along the outskirts
of City Garden’s dimly-lit, gravel
lot. From there, 12 dollars and a brief
frisk at the door got you access to 25 cent
water, dollar domestic drafts, a relatively
controlled mosh-pit experience, a salvo
of alt-rock unprecedented on this planet,
and a courtable hoard of gothic beauties
all of whom were appreciative of a guy with
multiple piercings, blue-black hair, and
glowering tendencies. It was dark, musty,
there was no seating save for backless stools
circling the oval shaped bar and black painted,
wooden platforms against each wall –
a humble spot to perch and narrowly avoid
the centralized throngs of flailing boots
and fists – the bathroom was a door-less,
single toilet, condom-dispensing closet
that had not seen cleanser since its initial
construction, and the entire space smelled
like a 150-year-old armpit. It was, to a
group of cigarette-smoking rude boys with
shaved heads and a glove compartment full
of Mucky Pup cassettes, beautiful. If it
is true that, upon expiration, we all ascend
to our own individual heaven, and if I had
died at the age of 20, the scenery would
not have changed.
This was as close as I, and
the majority of my likeminded friends, would
ever come to a regular place of worship,
an alternative-Mecca, a humble church with
black pews, graffiti walls, an amplified
alter, diverse rotation of passionate ministers,
and slam-dancing communion, only without
all the blood drinking, body eating, and
behind the scenes pedophilia of Catholicism.
Despite their built-in guilt and well intended
efforts, my piously reared mother and father
could never get me to trek one half mile
to hear their white-robed priest pontificate
from his little black book of fire and brimstone.
But I would climb out my second-story window
on a school night, crowd into the back of
a smoke-filled hatchback, travel 30 miles,
and pay to hear Ian MacKaye preach about
social injustice. (Again, if you do not
know who Ian MacKaye is, please heed my
initial instructions and direct your attention
away from this column. I hear Sudoku.com
can be fun.)
My
Addiction would not have been complete without
a reverent opus featuring City Gardens.
The shows I’ve attended, the music
I’ve experienced within that single
club, range from obscure to mainstream,
from violent to sublime, and produce a list
vast enough to rival most CD collections:
Agnostic Front, Sticks and Stones, They
Might Be Giants, ALL, Rollins Band, Bigger
Thomas, Mephaskapheles, Vision, Circle Jerks,
Into Another, Leeway, NIN, Biohazard, Gorilla
Biscuits, Sick of it All, Token Entry, Dag
Nasty… and many, many more. Without
City Gardens, I would not be the man I am
today. Without City Gardens I never would
have been fully wrenched free of my early,
pop-music phase, my teen years would have
been a sexless barrage of zit-popping nerdom,
I never would have picked up a guitar, never
would have developed any creative stamina,
never would have become a writer. Without
City Gardens, who knows for how long those
Dungeons and Dragons meetings would have
persisted, I’d still be Dungeon Master
Zoltar, or, even worse, a bloated, Dorito-munching,
carpel-tunnel-stricken World of War Craft
addict and avid Michael Bolton fan living
in my parent’s basement.
City Gardens echoed its final
screaming melody at the live-fast-die-young
age of 18, born in 1979, deceased in 1997,
fathered by genius club promoter Randy Ellis,
a.k.a. DJ Randy Now (randynow.com), frequented
by many, nostalgic for thousands, and, yes,
still understated and ill-remembered in
its time. In all my travels throughout this
immense country of ours, I have yet to find
another venue as eclectic, as accessible,
as socially and thematically relevant as
City Gardens… and maybe I don’t
want to. Everything seems commercial nowadays;
there are 3,000 capacity theatres, huge
10,000+ stadiums, or miniscule bars with
calendars packed full of unrecognizable
local bands. I’m sure somewhere there
is a place, or someday there will be a place,
which melds perfectly with the rising emotion
of its time, is placed exactly where it’s
needed most, offers a comparable lineup
of germane talent, and allows another litter
of confused youths to suckle upon its creative
teat… it just won’t be the same
one that raised me.
Thank you City Gardens –
RIP.
Rock
N Roll Addiction, Chapter Six
Rock
N Roll Addiction, Chapter Five
Rock
N Roll Addiction, Chapter Four
Rock
N Roll Addiction, Chapter Three
Rock
N Roll Addiction, Chapter Two
Rock
N Roll Addiction, Chapter One
back
to jerseybeat.com l back
to top
ROCK N ROLL ADDICTION by Daniel McDermott
