We live in the era of the band reunion. It’s inescapable at this moment, and has grown in popularity over the past decade, to the point where we should just openly accept that any band we might have loved from the past, living or dead, is likely to start playing shows and recording somewhere near you. Sometimes it’s a cash-in, other times it’s a stab at eradicating mid-life crisis, and even rarer is the opportunity for a band to reconnect on a purely creative level and continue to tell the story, a la Mission of Burma.
That said, nothing could have prepared me for the news I just received, via MySpace: Hackamore Brick is playing a live show in New York City on May 15th. Who is Hackamore Brick, you ask? Merely a footnote to NYC rock ‘n’ roll history, on the influential side, but what a note: their wandering compositions, brusque stylistic shifts and soulful vocals, given the 1970 New York in which they existed so briefly, makes them the very first band to take direct influence from the Velvet Underground. Some of the band’s membership had allegedly met through the foundation of the Venus in Furs Society, the Velvets’ official fan club. They recorded a lone album with Lou Reed’s future producer, Richard Robinson, entitled One Kiss Leads To Another, for the Kama Sutra label back in ’71, followed by a single, both of which vanished without trace upon their release. But those records are beloved by a handful of crate-diggers (myself included–the LP is easily a Top 10 record of all time to my ears), rock historians, and fans of musical surprises from the annals of history. Ranging from heart-felt balladry (“Reachin’”) to radio-ready pop (“I Watched You Rhumba”), from progressive rock wandering (“And I Wonder”) to blistering proto-punk (“Zip Gun Woman”), their recordings are the missing link between the Velvet Underground and Television, groundbreaking rock bands that had no formal connections other than the willingness to deviate from the expected and channel a new breed of rock music. In 1971, such things just weren’t thought of. Time has seen to it that they remain forgotten, aside from the random blog post or bootleg CD.
On Thursday, May 15th, at Bar 169 in Chinatown, a handful of us are going to get to see original members Chick Newman and Tommy Moonlight have one more go at it. I couldn’t even guess as to how this will turn out, but those of us who still care wouldn’t miss it for the world.