In this episode of Seeing Them Live, the host interviews Jesse Rifkin, the owner of Walk on the Wild Side Tours NYC and author of 'This Must Be the Place: Music, Community, and Vanishing Spaces in New York City.' Jesse shares his journey from a touring musician to a music historian and tour guide in New York City. The discussion covers Jesse's early concert experiences, his views on the uniqueness of small music venues, and how these intimate settings differ from large arena shows. Jesse also talks about the inspiration behind his tours and book, detailing the rise and fall of various music scenes and clubs in NYC. He emphasizes the DIY nature of fostering music communities and how anyone can be a part of them. The episode is a deep dive into the cultural and historical significance of NYC's music scenes and the ever-changing landscape of its venues
The podcast episode features Jesse Rifkin, the owner of Walk on the Wildside Tours NYC, a music history walking tour company in New York City, and the author of the book 'This Must Be the Place: Music, Community, and Vanishing Spaces in New York City.' Rifkin shares his background, including his consultancy roles as a pop music historian and his 12 years as a touring musician. They discuss his first concert experience, watching Bob Dylan with Ani DiFranco as the opening act at the Filene Center in Vienna, Virginia, and the interesting intersections his life has had with notable music historians like Alan Lomax.
Rifkin recounts his experience attending a unique U2 concert at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, highlighting how seeing a globally famous band in an intimate venue was a surreal and memorable experience. He emphasizes the different dimensions of enjoying massive arena shows versus small, underground music scenes. He talks about his favorite bands, particularly Akron Family and other experimental groups, often performing at DIY venues like Silent Barn and emphasizing how these experiences felt more personal and impactful.
The conversation shifts to Jesse’s walking tours, which often focus on the punk and post-punk scenes in NYC, featuring iconic sites like CBGB. He discusses the importance of understanding the human and local context behind legendary music and bands, offering a more tangible and relatable connection to this history. His tours aim to demystify the grandiosity of famous musicians by highlighting their humble beginnings in intimate settings.
Finally, Jesse talks about his book and its evolution from his extensive tours and Instagram presence, which caught the attention of his editor in 2019. He details the content of the book, which spans 60 years of music history, categorizing different NYC music scenes, and offers practical insights into creating community-driven music venues. Jesse’s mission is to show that music and performance spaces can be accessible and transformative, urging people to see the possibility within DIY approaches to music and community building.
BANDS: Akron Family, Bad Brains, Beastie Boys, Blondie, Bob Dylan, Castanets, The Cure, Elephant 6 Recording Company, Grateful Dead, Lynyrd Skynard, Neutral Milk Hotel, New York Dolls, Olivia Tremor Control, Patti Smith, Ramones, Sonic Youth, Talking Heads, U2, Velvet Underground, Wooden Wand and the Vanishing Voice, Woods.
VENUES: 171A, Apollo Theater, Bowery Ballroom, CBGB, Death by Audio, Jelly NYC, Silent Barn, Tonic, Uncle Paulie's, Wolf Trap.
[00:00:54] Charles: Our guest today is Jesse Rifkin. Jesse is the owner and sole proprietor of Walk on the [00:01:00] Wildside Tours NYC, a music history walking tour company located in New York City. Jesse is also the author of the book, This Must Be the Place, Music, Community, and Vanishing Spaces in New York City, which was published in 2023.
[00:01:16] Jesse consults as a pop music historian for Alan Lomax's Association for Culture Equity, Condé Nast Traveler, Vice, and Fodor's Traveler. Prior to his work as a historian, he spent 12 years touring the country as a working musician and playing at some of the clubs mentioned in his book. Jesse, welcome to Seeing Them Live.
[00:01:39] Jessie: Thanks for having me. I should say, from what you're reading, I'm a consultant with the association for cultural equity, but Conde Nast Traveler and that other stuff is just places where my work has been covered. I don't want to over inflate my credentials.
[00:01:53] Charles: Sorry about that. Yeah, I guess I blended them together, right? But you've contributed to those [00:02:00] magazines and such. Okay, cool. With, you know, your walking tours and your book, there's a lot to talk about, but I thought we'd first start out with some of the concerts you've attended. With, the first being Bob Dylan at, I looked this up, it was called the Filene center, but it's probably changed its name a bunch of times by now, which was in Vienna, Virginia.
[00:02:25] Jessie: Yeah, the end of Virginia, Wolf Trap.
[00:02:27] Charles: Okay.
[00:02:28] Jessie: Which is like this outdoor amphitheater place, you know, bring a picnic and hear Bob Dylan or whatever it is kind of situation. Ani DiFranco. I think was the opening act, which was sort of a weird pairing. But yeah, that was the first concert I ever went to. And, a funny thing I learned years later that it was one of the final concerts that Alan Lomax attended
[00:02:50] Charles: Oh, okay.
[00:02:51] Jessie: And now, I work for his organization. It's funny to think that I had been in the same amphitheater as this guy whose work now guides my life.[00:03:00]
[00:03:00] Charles: Wow. That's crazy. So, why did you, how did That come about? Like, why did you go see Bob Dylan? Were you a fan becoming a fan or?
[00:03:09] Jessie: Yeah. I mean, I was a kid, but I was a kid with weird tastes. I loved, really anything from the 60s. My parents, they'd sort of grown up with all that stuff. And so I was hearing Dylan around the house and Peter, Paul and Mary and my dad, uh, loved the Grateful Dead. Neither of Them were really big into the Beatles. So, I kind of found the Beatles on my own, which is a funny sort of thing. But, you know, I was just totally enamored with this music. The popular music of the day hadn't really penetrated my bubble at all.
[00:03:39] And, the 1st concert I was going to go to actually was supposed to be the Grateful Dead, in DC. And at the last minute, we ended up not going because, my mom felt that I was too young and she didn't want me to know what drugs were. And they were like, you know, don't worry. The Grateful Dead tour all the time. You're going to have like 100 opportunities to see the Grateful Dead. And then [00:04:00] Jerry, uh, you know, died. It's like the second to last show they ever played or something like that. Like he died almost immediately after. So Dylan was my consolation prize.
[00:04:10] Charles: Yeah, that happened to me, one time as well. My Mom, 'cause she took me to a lot of concerts as well, and it was a big ask, to go see, they're having this thing called the Superbowl, a Rock at Soldier Field, like all I saw Pink Floyd there on the Animals Tour.
[00:04:26] And then after that, Lynyrd Skynard was playing and it was, that Pink Floyd show was pure insanity. I mean, from a crowd perspective for a 12 year old kid. And so she's like, well, maybe we'll, we'd go see them when they come back to town, you know. We were literally standing in line and line was huge to get tickets. So, we got out of line and of course, you know, that was the last time Lynyrd Skynard had ever came to town. But, that happens. I thought maybe we could transition Jesse to your best concert, which after I kind of read about this, I didn't put it together right away, but you saw U2 at the Apollo [00:05:00] Theater.
[00:05:00] Jessie: Hmm. Yeah Yeaah.
[00:05:01] Charles: Which is in Harlem, New York, in June of 2018. Does that sound about right?
[00:05:07] Jessie: That is right. Yeah.
[00:05:09] Charles: But what struck me was like, oh yeah, that'd be cool. And then I thought, well, how big is that place? It's not very big.
[00:05:16] Jessie: No.
[00:05:17] Charles: It's like 1,500 people, I think it holds.
[00:05:20] Jessie: Yeah I mean, you know whether it's the best show i've ever actually seen I don't know. It's sort of hard to gauge but U2, it's certainly the most special U2 show. Like, I'm never gonna see U2 play at the Apollo with the Sun Ra Arkestra on horns ever again. It's funny because a lot of my work I end up focusing on, you know, very underground music or very experimental. Music. U2 are just within that realm just so constantly shit on and hated. And, I was a good soldier. I hated them for a long time too.
[00:05:57] And then at some point, around the time I turned [00:06:00] 30, it just like this switch flipped. And, and maybe it's that I was thinking so analytically about all this other music. That the idea of just like U2 was going to be something that I could never approach, you know, just like a big dumb arena show. And Bono's just this like masterful showman. It's never going to be in the same sort of context as a band I might know playing at a mid sized club or something. But then to like, kind of have that barrier get penetrated and see U2 in this tiny environment.
[00:06:32] Charles: Yeah.
[00:06:32] Jessie: It was so wild, you know, you could see the sweat on everyone's foreheads.
[00:06:38] Charles: Jesse, was it hard to get a ticket?
[00:06:40] Jessie: So easy. I showed up, just showed up day of. You know, they needed, uh, it was like a, a SiriusXM, subscriber thing or something, which of course I'm not, but, they needed, you know, they wanted it to be a packed house or whatever, and so people who had tickets who didn't show, I guess, or, or something like that. They were just handing tickets out. So I saw U2 at the [00:07:00] Apollo for free, sort of the kicker. Actually I think Ben Apatow, who was also a guest on your show was with me.
[00:07:07] Charles: That's awesome.
[00:07:08] Jessie: Yeah. So, just a surreal, deeply surreal experience.
[00:07:12] Charles: Yeah. The stars were aligned, I guess, or the planet, whatever. That's unbelievable. That's really cool. But, well, you kind of created this category, I guess. The greatest or consistently good band, you listed a couple of bands, well, one, one band in particular, this Akron.
[00:07:30] Jessie: Akron Family.
[00:07:32] Charles: Yeah. And I, I listened to a few of their songs, just because of the interview and they're interesting.
[00:07:38] Jessie: They're really something. Like, they, at this point, I think, are largely forgotten and they never really quite made it out of that smaller club thing. But there was a period of time around, like, between like 2004 and 2010, maybe, where I was just seeing them every single chance I got [00:08:00] and it was one of those things where no two shows were alike. They were so exploratory, improvisatory. They were constantly trying new things. In a way, it was sort of like, you know, I didn't get to see the Grateful Dead, but Akron Family were like New York's Grateful Dead.
[00:08:19] Charles: Okay.
[00:08:20] Jessie: During that time frame. Like, I remember seeing them at this club called Tonic on the Lower East Side, the club I write about in my book, where they were playing with these jazz musicians, William Parker and Hamid Drake. And it was, uh, I mean, that to this day is another one of the greatest shows I've ever seen. I think they, they ended up in the middle of the audience, with their shirts off like chanting and it was one of the things where they, you know, they play the most beautiful acoustic ballad you ever heard.
[00:08:47] And then, like, 6 minutes of freak out noise, just, you never knew what you were going to get with Akron Family. And Miles Seaton, their bass player, passed away a few years ago. Uh, they'd [00:09:00] broken up at that point, but, you know, now they're sort of, you're never going to see this band again.
[00:09:04] Charles: Right.
[00:09:04] Jessie: And I just feel so lucky that I did, even though it's just, if I say like, Oh, well, the best, the best band I loved going to see or whatever was Akron Family, like most people that I would say that to just sort of look at me blank faced.
[00:09:21] Charles: Cause when I was reading a little bit about them and they said that they were the social hub of the Williamsburg scene.
[00:09:28] Jessie: They were, yeah, I mean, there's, I don't know that they were the social hub, but there was a lot of bands, they were kind of part of a larger community of bands that I was going to see around that time, who were all sort of like freak folk inflected bands, who were all sort of experimental in similar ways. Another one of my favorites was this band Castanets, which was this guy Ray Raposa, and whoever he could get for that particular show. And so, you know, you never knew if it was going to be a full band or it was going to be just him or [00:10:00] him and a banjo player or whatever.
[00:10:02] Ray is another one of the most electrifying performers I've ever seen, and again, he passed away just a few years ago. But they were very closely entwined. There was a band called Woods, who are still around, but sort of a different incarnation than what they used to be. Their bass player at the time that I was seeing them was a guy named Kevin Morby, who's now a very successful singer songwriter. There's a group called Wooden Wand and the Vanishing Voice, who are also very kind of improvisational. There's a guy in that band who also would play with Castanets. Sometimes this guy, Lucas Crane, whose instrument was the tape deck.
[00:10:37] And he just had these two little cassette recorders and like a suitcase full of tapes he'd made. Of, uh, you know, just whatever weird found sounds or experimental noise or whatever, and you'd see him kind of crouched over these tape decks with headphones on, almost like a DJ, kind of making these weird sounds and sort of sampling these tapes and in real time or making loops or whatever. [00:11:00] It was just like, uh, watching a wizard at play.
[00:11:03] Charles: Yeah, that sounds really interesting.
[00:11:04] Jessie: It was incredible. And none of these bands really made it out of that, at least in terms of headlining or probably headlining, like, I don't know, 150 person clubs that the biggest or 200 person clubs. But that made it so special. I mean, it kind of the opposite of that U2 thing. Where the sort of, fascinating thing to me about U2 is just the grandiosity of it, and this was something, this community advance was something I could reach out and touch, and in some cases get to know.
[00:11:33] Like I got to know Ray from Castanets. And it just seemed so, I don't know, it was very homemade, like you could see these people's thought processes in real time as they were experimenting. You could sort of see the thrill of discovery on their faces. Along with that of the audience. It wasn't like when you go see, uh, you know, a seasoned jazz musician who's improvising, but is in like total control. There was a [00:12:00] degree of chance that all these bands were sort of letting into what was otherwise very kind of conventional song structures, you know, that just made it so thrilling to see and to be around.
[00:12:12] Charles: And so, all those bands that you just mentioned Jesse, were they part of that, that scene then in Williamsburg and Brooklyn?
[00:12:18] Jessie: They were all around Williamsburg. You know, some of the places they were playing would be in Manhattan, but Williamsburg. I mean, that's also around the time that I came to New York. So I grew up in Maryland, which is why I saw Bob Dylan in Virginia. But that was around the time I came to New York and I'd grown up really fascinated by a lot of the music that had come out of the city, whether it was 70s punk or Dylan or the Velvet Underground or Sonic Youth or whatever. But then coming to New York, you know, it was like right after the Strokes and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. and bands like that had really kind of blown up. And I loved that music, but I wasn't really that kind of person.
[00:12:58] You know, I couldn't really imagine a [00:13:00] place for myself in that sort of debaucherous meet me in the bathroom milieu. But, finding these bands, like, discovering what was going on in Williamsburg with Akron Family and Castanets and a lot of people who are playing this place the Silent Barn or Death by Audio. These were sort of tiny DIY venues. In the case of the Silent Barn, it was, you could, it was like, right in the middle of someone's house, like bands would set up in front of the kitchen sink and you'd have to walk by people's bedrooms to get into the showroom.
[00:13:32] Charles: Oh my god! I was gonna ask you, I have this in my notes, Silent Barn, were you ever there? Cause from your book, you like walk through somebody's bedroom or something to get to wherever the band is playing.
[00:13:43] Jessie: Pretty much. Yeah, the Silent Barn was just the most amazing place and you know, I was in a bunch of different bands that played there and I was friends with the people who were booking it or were some of the people that were booking it. It felt so, I don't know, I don't know what the word I'm looking for [00:14:00] is. Approachable, I guess, or it really seemed like it was something I could be a part of.
[00:14:06] Charles: Like a community, sort of?
[00:14:07] Jessie: Yeah.
[00:14:08] Charles: I was going to hold off on this, Jesse, but we're kind of veering into this question I had. I kind of had this light bulb go off over my head when, when I was reading your book, you know, this idea of a scene, which you kind of describe how you can kind of become part of the scene going out most nights of the week, every week for a couple of years.
[00:14:29] And I had interviewed this guy, Roger Mairlot, whose name comes up quite often on this podcast. He's in London, retired, and he goes to what he calls a concert or a show every single night of the week. He went for 700 and some days without missing a night. They call him the Gig Slut in London, and Vice magazine interviewed him.
[00:14:49] But I asked Roger, I said, so you count these as concerts because, I'm thinking to myself, like I go to a fair number of concerts, but they don't fit your criteria of [00:15:00] being in a scene, which, which we'll go a little bit, I guess, but like I go to concerts and they're at like 1000, 3000 capacity, some 30,000 and they're, the music's been vetted.
[00:15:12] So it's like, I've heard of these people, except maybe the opening act. It's not like going to these smaller places like you were just talking about. One, because I asked Roger, well, is it a concert? And he's like, well, yeah, it's a concert. It's, you know, I'll go to these clubs. But, it's like, I'm doing something different. I'm not in the scene. I'm going to concerts. And then I go home, you know what I mean?
[00:15:35] It was just, I always struggled with that. I don't know if struggle is a good word, but the distinction, but I think your book covers that and it's interesting you have all of these other points that happened or that have to come about to make a scene. But yeah, I just wanted to get your take on it. Am I thinking about that correctly?
[00:15:55] Jessie: I mean, I don't think there's a correct or incorrect way to think about it necessarily. [00:16:00] It's sort of the difference between seeing somebody play to 10 people in someone's residence, essentially, where it's like, Is that a concert? Is it a glorified party or whatever, you know, versus, some of the really big arena things I've seen, like, U2 or the Rolling Stones or Neil Young or Kanye West before he turned out to be what he turned out to be.
[00:16:26] And those are these incredible experiences, uh, you know, where it's just your there's this onslaught of different media and sound and it's all heightened and you're in this crowd full of people who are all there for the same thing, hypothetically. And you're hearing these songs, you know, and love. And, you're being, kind of swept up in it. And that's just an amazing experience.
[00:16:50] But then seeing music broken down almost into it's like most basic form, is the total opposite end of the spectrum, but to [00:17:00] me, equally incredible and impactful, often more impactful, you know, in terms of when I think back to like, amazing things seen. I'm glad that I got to see, you know, The Cure or whatever, but I'm, thrilled that I got to see Akron Family play at this like weird Polish nightclub in Brooklyn on Valentine's Day in must have been 2007. Like not that many people and those are the experiences I think back to more as being really personally significant and important because, you know, I did feel like, even though I was very much, you know, I don't want to overstate my participation in this stuff.
[00:17:43] I was very much on the periphery of, uh, whatever this community was. But, it was just something I could understand and I could touch, you know. I could be, I don't know, I think there's sort of a difference between watching, like, I'm still sort of like dancing around the answer to this question, I [00:18:00] guess. But, my life, the lives of the people that I know, they're never going to be Mick Jagger. Whatever he is and whatever he represents, like seeing something like that is just, uh, you know, it's like seeing the president or whatever.
[00:18:14] It's like an aberration from real life. You know, it's an escape. Yeah, it's escapism. It's an escape from real life. And the idea of music that's so approachable and on such a small scale that it just is real life, I think is incredible. That real life doesn't have to be this thing that you're constantly escaping from. Real life can be something that you can bring all of these things that you love into.
[00:18:39] I know that was a big part of the thinking at the Silent Barn, was that like, even just the act of going to a show didn't have to be a special thing. Shows could just be happening. in your home all the time. You know, you could see a band on your way to take a shower. And I remember seeing people going to take a shower in the middle of shows. You know, it's just like, there's no reason that this has to [00:19:00] be a rarefied thing, it can be just a part of life.
[00:19:03] Charles: Okay.
[00:19:04] Jessie: Did that make sense?
[00:19:05] Charles: Yeah. Totally. . Talk about some other amazing shows under most surprising, I guess you had listed, Olivia Tremor Control, the Bowery Ballroom in 2005? I guess they call it surprise guests because they knew this guy, right?
[00:19:22] Jessie: Jeff Mangum from Neutral Milk Hotel at that point was like a recluse. No one had seen him for a year, you know, he'd stopped performing in 98, I think. So to have him come out and sing with this band that was a lot of his friends from childhood and some of his ex bandmates, but having him come out was the sort of big surprising thing. But that was also, you know, the Olivia Tremor Control and Neutral Milk Hotel were part of this 90s, Scene called the Elephant Six Recording Company, which was mostly based around Athens, Georgia, not entirely, but the Athens, Georgia stuff was the stuff I was really enamored with.
[00:19:58] And it's very much the [00:20:00] same thing as what I'm talking about with the Silent Barn stuff, like Elephant 6, you know, the music was very lo fi, it was very homemade, everybody was in everybody else's band. And for me, you know, in the, in the late nineties, early two thousands, kind of seeing this stuff from afar, it was just incredible to discover the idea that you could go somewhere and just make music all day and all your friends make music all day and you all try every weird idea you can think of and, you know, live on rice and beans and, and have this whole community. And everybody's making something amazing. Like I was so hungry for that.
[00:20:34] But that Olivia show, I think it wasn't the first Elephant 6 show that I saw, but it felt like a big step up for Elephant 6, or not a step up, because you know those bands had played places like that before, but that Elephant 6 as a collective had kind of slowed down or scaled down in the early 2000s after Neutral Milk Hotel broke up and the Olivia Tremor Control for a while broke up. And this was [00:21:00] this sort of big reunion, and you know, there's probably like 10 people on stage, there's a tuba player, there's a guy, this guy, Julian Koster, who was also in Neutral Milk Hotel. At one point he was drumming on like a light up plastic sheep statue.
[00:21:17] It was just like, oh, music is everywhere. It's anything. It can be, art is anything you want it to be. You know, you can drum art. Like he also famously, there's a recording he made where the drum track is just him bouncing a basketball. Like there's no, there doesn't have to be gatekeepers or rules or anything like that. Yeah, I mean, Elephant 6. It was just, for me and I think for a lot of people that I know, a lot of people in my demographic, Elephant 6 was just transformative.
[00:21:47] Everything, all the work that I do now. All the ways that I understand music and understand community, a lot of it stems from having been exposed to elephant six.
[00:21:56] Charles: Yeah, I was reading that Neutral Milk Hotel [00:22:00] album, In the Airplane, Over the Sea, is considered one of the best albums of the 90s.
[00:22:06] Jessie: Oh, yeah widely. I mean it maybe one of the best albums ever made. And that's very much a like a consensus that's grown over time. You know, they went from being the sort of cult band and then in their absence, the legend of, of this band kind of grew and grew and grew and grew to the point where they got back together, it's probably 2012, something like that. And they were playing, if not literally Radio City Music Hall, then places like that. Like they're playing just massive venues and they're being referenced on, there's like a joke about them on Parks and Recreation, the sitcom.
[00:22:39] They went from being this very kind of culty thing where I felt like I was the only person I knew that knew this band, into something that's, that's so big and so iconic now that I'm almost a little, it almost feels sort of goofy for me to, to talk about how meaningful or how impactful it was because the world is, is just [00:23:00] full of people talking about how Neutral Milk Hotel touch their lives or whatever. You know, it's, it's almost redundant.
[00:23:07] Charles: That's super interesting, and that was like you said a scene in Athens, Georgia. Like the stuff you do, Jesse, I guess we could talk about your walking tours, which sounds really cool and I'm definitely going to go on one next time I'm in New York.
[00:23:45] Ray and Mike: Hey everybody, it's Ray the Roadie and this is Hollywood Mike with the Rock and Roll Chicago Podcast coming to you from the Illinois Rock and Roll Museum on Route 66 in Joliet, Illinois, where once a week we are interviewing local musicians and singer songwriters and the podcast itself covers [00:24:00] a wide range of topics.
[00:24:01] Including, but not limited to the history of rock and roll in Chicago, the current state of the scene and the challenges and opportunities facing musicians today. So join us every Tuesday for a new exciting episode of the Rock and Roll Chicago Podcast.
[00:24:15] Jessica Cantina: Hi, I'm Jessica Ann Catina. I've always loved music and surround myself with it every day. I've sung in choirs, took digital musical classes in college, and used to work in radio to further share my knowledge and. Experience with others. I created this podcast music Notes with Jess in 2019. I'm so fortunate of the listener growth and hearing back from some of the celebs I discussed in past episodes.
[00:24:48] That's why now I'm ready to expand, so let's have fun taking weekly music notes of throwbacks, modern hits and media. Thank you. Talk to you soon on music [00:25:00] Notes with Jess.
[00:25:04] Rick: What was the last really great rock and roll book you read? How about a good rock and roll documentary? Well, that's why I started the Rock Talk Studio Podcast, the place to go for recommendations of new rock and roll books and documentaries. Give me 20 minutes and the Rock Talk Studio podcast will get you caught up on the world of rock and roll books and docs from every possible angle and leave you with a no doubt decision on where to spend your time and money.
[00:25:31] Want to know what to read next or which film to add to your watch list? Well, here comes all the top recommendations and hidden gems you don't want to miss. I'm your host, big Rick. Join me for an exclusive look into what's hitting the shelves and the screens and get ready to rock your reading and viewing list, the rock talk studio podcast, your ultimate guide to discovering the best new rock and roll books and documentaries.
[00:25:52] Jamie: Hi, this is Jamie James on Seeing Them Live. We all have our first concert stories, so please share [00:26:00] them. We'd love to hear yours.
[00:26:12] Charles: I was, wondering, you obviously have an interest and kind of an encyclopedic knowledge of these clubs and scenes and what was interesting in your book, which I'm, I'm imagining maybe the walking tours, kind of morphed into the book then eventually.
[00:26:30] Jessie: Yeah, very much so.
[00:26:31] Charles: All the information and stuff, but let's talk about your walking tours in New York City Walk On the Wild Side NYC and from what I was reading on your website, you've got like nine tours, but you're open to the idea of doing special ones or customized ones so to speak.
[00:26:50] Jessie: I do a lot of custom stuff here and there. There's nine tours. There's a couple I do a lot. And then the rest of them are sort of like, by appointment [00:27:00] or whatever. But the really common one, the one I do the most easily is the Birth of Punk Tour. So, it's like Velvet Underground, the mid 60s up through New York Dolls, Patty Smith, Ramones, Talking Heads.
[00:27:12] You know, part of the impetus for me doing the tours was almost understanding this music that I grew up loving, through the context of what we've been talking about. You know, my own experiences participating in a community. I think of Talking Heads as, you know, Stop Making Sense or, or something like that.
[00:27:29] This grand, massive, influential, spectacular thing. But, you know, everybody starts as just some person. And the idea that this music that I loved was just made by some people, and that at some point, you could see Talking Heads play to five people in a tiny room. You know, I really wanted to kind of translate, almost, the sort of worshipful attitude that a lot of people have about the music they love. Not that there's anything wrong with that, uh, necessarily. But to [00:28:00] make it something a lot more human and a lot more approachable.
[00:28:03] And, you know, there's no reason that some version of this, at least can't be accessible. So, you know, you can talk about it all you want, but there's something about seeing just how small the John Varvatos store that used to be CBGB is, and trying to imagine seeing Blondie in that room or seeing the tiny building, two blocks away where the members of Blondie lived, you start to get a sense of these people's very mundane lives as they just sort of work and work and devote themselves to making music and end up transcending that.
[00:28:36] Yeah, that sort of guides what I do. And when I started doing it, I thought this music, understood to be more niche music, punk or post punk or whatever, uh, bands like Sonic Youth or the Beastie Boys. But, what I learned very quickly is that these people are actually extremely famous. And have a lot of fans all over the world. You know, Lou [00:29:00] Reed died very wealthy, like Patti Smith is very wealthy. There's a lot of people that really, really, really connect with this music. And because it has this sort of niche aura to it, people have a very personal relationship to it. And, you know, they want to understand it on a deeper level. They want to feel it. They want to connect with it despite the fact that it's so far in the past at this point.
[00:29:23] Charles: Yeah. And I, I would imagine, well, being in New York City, you do get people from all over the world like regularly. That's New York.
[00:29:31] Jessie: Yeah. The most surprising thing to me, honestly, has been how many locals I get.
[00:29:35] Charles: Hmm.
[00:29:35] Jessie: People who walk by this stuff every day and why would you stop to think about any of it? You know, you're so wrapped up in the New York of your own life. But then, start to see the ghosts around you or feel this sense of history as you go about your life. And, I don't know, it sort of makes you feel like part of something bigger, or makes this distant thing you love feel closer to you.
[00:29:58] Charles: Yeah, I mean, that would be [00:30:00] really neat. Like you were saying, the CBGB, the building, I mean, I had idea the scale of it, so that would be cool to, like, stand in front of it.
[00:30:07] Jessie: It's so unspectacular. And you know, anybody who did go to CBGB, like I went to CBGB long after it was cool, but you know, I, I did get to go before it closed, it sucked. Like it was tiny and it smelled bad and it was, you know, the sound was pretty good, but it was like covered in graffiti. The bathrooms were famously, like the most disgusting bathrooms uh, you could find.
[00:30:31] It became this hallowed thing. And so people would want to see these disgusting bathrooms because it's the stuff of legend. But, you know, a gross toilets, just a gross toilet and a tiny room is just a tiny room. And, yeah, maybe at some point, you could have seen Blondie or Talking Heads play in that room, but you know, you just as easily could have seen a terrible band that went nowhere. I don't know, it becomes so much more tangible, I guess.
[00:30:58] Charles: Yeah. I was on your [00:31:00] website, Jesse, and people can book right on your website, right?
[00:31:03] Jessie: , it'ss, it's all very much, reserve and in advance and I said, just, you know, so I know what I'm dealing with before I leave the house.
[00:31:11] Charles: Okay. There's lots of tours, some specific, like you were saying, like there's a Madonna tour, Patti Smith, Beastie Boys, Studios, Sonic Youth, Basquiat.
[00:31:23] Jessie: Yeah, Basquiat. Just all these different artists and the Beastie Boys one, I end up doing a lot, especially because they've touched so many people's lives. And, you know, the Beastie Boys are such a product of New York City and their such a product of these neighborhoods that we end up walking through downtown and, you know, they started out before they discovered hip hop, they were just like this terrible hardcore punk band and they were like, literal teenagers. And you can see the first stop on that tour is this place 171A, where they played early shows and where they also recorded their first EP, which I would not [00:32:00] recommend listening to. It sucks so much.
[00:32:02] Now it's like a fish restaurant and it's, it's nothing. It's just like a tiny New York storefront that you would walk by like any other. There'd be no reason to think anything great would have ever come out of it. But, you know, within the world of punk too, like Bad Brains, who are one of the greatest bands ever, I think, made their classic self titled album in that same room with, you know, pretty crappy equipment.
[00:32:28] But yeah, like if we're thinking about concerts, like the Beastie Boys, their first tour was opening for Madonna, that whole thing where you get in a van and go drive around and play to small crowds, like, they never did that, ever. The Beastie Boys only ever toured at that sort of large capital C concert level.
[00:32:48] And so, you know, I get a lot of people who've seen the Beastie Boys at some point playing in those sorts of environments. The idea that they were ever not that, like, to sort of see that [00:33:00] start to penetrate with people, it kinda just, of blows our minds.
[00:33:03] Charles: Interesting. Yeah, I didn't know that. Like I said, I definitely want to take one of these tours next time I'm in the neighborhood.
[00:33:10] Jessie: Of course, Yeah, Yeah, anytime, say the word.
[00:33:12] Charles: So I guess you were approached by your editor, I guess it was the editor, Peter Joseph.
[00:33:19] Jessie: Yeah, Peter, yeah.
[00:33:20] Charles: In 2019. And he sound like he sort of twisted your arm a little bit to write a book or no?
[00:33:27] Jessie: I wouldn't say he twisted my arm, it was more just, I mean, I've got only the nicest things to say about, about Peter, but, it just wasn't something that I thought about doing.
[00:33:35] Charles: I see.
[00:33:36] Jessie: You know, I was doing tours and Peter actually, uh, found me through Instagram because I have an Instagram where I do a lot of like New York music history stuff. So he hadn't even come on a tour or anything like that. He was just like, oh, there's clearly a base of knowledge here and probably a market for it. So it was like, yeah, you know, you thought about turning this into a book and I really hadn't at all.
[00:33:58] You know, my [00:34:00] father is a journalist. My partner is a journalist. So, I've been around writers my whole life. So I didn't think of my, you know, I was like, well, I'm not that so I'm not going to write a book. But Peter came to me with this idea and I was like, well, this is an incredible opportunity that I would just be a moron to say no to, like, I guess I'm doing this. I guess I have to do this. And then, within a couple of months, the entire world shut down, which, for all of the impacts of, of COVID. For me, in a way, it was sort of a blessing.
[00:34:30] Charles: Hmm. Okay.
[00:34:31] Jessie: Because it gave me the time and the space to really work on this and to, like, figure it out as I was going. And, you know, I did, I think, 140 interviews for the book with a lot of people who, like, had the world been functional, I would never have had access to these people.
[00:34:48] Charles: Interesting.
[00:34:49] Jessie: But they were just stuck at home and bored like everyone else, so when they get a random email from a guy with zero writing credentials, they're like, yeah, sure, [00:35:00] I'll talk to you.
[00:35:01] Charles: Well, you know, Jesse, I mean, reading your book, it's 500 pages. You're writing, you're writing is very good. It's, fantastic. And, the book is very well researched. I mean, good Lord, there's so much information, references, like you said, there's interviews with the people, with the specific scene you're talking about, which the book spans, is it like 60 years, Jesse?
[00:35:27] Jessie: Yeah, roughly.
[00:35:28] Charles: Okay. And it starts with the folk music scene in Greenwich village, right?
[00:35:33] Jessie: Yeah. Yeah, in the, like, late 50s and goes pretty much right up to the writing of the book.
[00:35:39] Charles: Yeah. And also one feature that's really cool is at the end of each chapter, which I, I don't know, I think there maybe were, I don't know, 11 chapters, maybe something like that.
[00:35:49] Jessie: Yeah, 11 chapters.
[00:35:50] Charles: You have suggested listening, I think you'd call it.
[00:35:53] Jessie: Mm hmm.
[00:35:54] Charles: So yeah, like a short list of some bands that were part of that.
[00:35:58] Jessie: Right. Yeah [00:36:00] albums to listen to. And like, the way that I put those together, I was thinking about the space, you know, this book is about clubs. It's about spaces. So in some cases it wasn't necessarily the best albums, but just the ones that would give you the most sense of what it was like to be there. So a lot of live albums, which I'm not generally the biggest fan of live albums, but, you really can kind of like close your eyes and imagine.
[00:36:26] Charles: Yeah, and it's really fascinating how these scenes are happening, and you go over this in the book, and it's like a reoccurring formula, essentially. The scene starts, people kind of start discovering it. It gets popular. And then that area where the scene is becomes unaffordable. The artists who are there, they get pushed out and it gets gentrified and to the point of basically every section of Manhattan gets kind of eaten away by this.
[00:36:55] Jessie: Yeah, pretty much. Or at least downtown. Yeah.
[00:36:58] Charles: And so it gets to the point where the [00:37:00] real estate agents, right? They're like, oh, wow. Okay. Here's a new, here's a new music scene. Let's keep our eye on this because the values are going to go up here.
[00:37:09] Jessie: Especially now with social media, it Just makes it so easy for them to keep tabs on. So this stuff happens at warp speed now. They just go like, oh look, there's shows happening. There's parties happening. I guess let's go buy some buildings in the same neighborhood.
[00:37:22] Charles: Yeah, it's amazing. And, it happens time and time again. It's like, it's almost inevitable. It's gonna happen. But I guess that's the downside sort of. But, the upside, I thought, or the inspiration I felt after reading your book was like, man, you could do this yourself.
[00:37:39] Jessie: Yeah.
[00:37:40] Charles: You know, I live out in the suburbs out of Chicago. I'm thinking, some old building that you know, I could just open it up. But you have some criteria, I guess, or, key factors you say, keep the overhead low, you know, a cheap, undesirable piece of real estate, lax approach to licensing.
[00:37:59] Jessie: [00:38:00] Yeah.
[00:38:00] Charles: Slim financial margins, open very, very late, cater to teenagers. Don't rely on alcohol. Alcohol sales, just mess things up.
[00:38:10] Jessie: Yeah, well, you know, these are not hard and fast rules, but they're, they're sort of trends that show up over and over again, especially in New York. A lot of places that I write about didn't serve alcohol. That allowed them to be open all night long. It allowed them to do a lot of other things.
[00:38:25] And it meant that all the alcohol regulations, you know, nightlife regulations, a lot of that stuff didn't apply. So they could do whatever they wanted. And, not having booze, kind of there's like a spiritual difference for sure, but it also just like there's other ways to make money. You got to get creative about it. A lot of places have food, or you know, you do like a membership situation or you charge a little more at the door or whatever. But it's not the end all be all of how to make this stuff work.
[00:38:51] Charles: Yeah. I felt kind of inspired, like I could do this, because you mentioned some unusual places.
[00:38:58] Jessie: Yeah.
[00:38:58] Charles: like this Uncle Paulie's [00:39:00] place, like just a tent, right?
[00:39:03] Jessie: Yeah. Uncle Paulie's. I mean, that's back to that Williamsburg era that we were talking about before. Yeah, it was literally a tent on a construction site. I don't know why it was called Uncle Paulie's. And that's again, I feel so lucky that I got to see a show there. Like, it was like the mess hall for construction workers during the day.
[00:39:21] Charles: Crazy, but it's so cool and doable. And there was this place called Jelly NYC?
[00:39:26] Jessie: Jelly NYC was the organization. But they were putting on shows in an abandoned swimming pool.
[00:39:32] Charles: Yeah.
[00:39:32] Jessie: And I mean, those were big shows. It was an enormous pool. Now it's a functioning pool again. But still, I mean, you know, at the time it was just kind of messed up, abandoned, dried out swimming pool. And then, I saw like, God, I don't even know. I saw so many shows there. And they were doing a lot of free shows there too.
[00:39:53] Charles: Yeah, on Sundays, I guess it was free, right, or something.
[00:39:55] Jessie: Yeah. During the summers and what have you.
[00:39:58] Charles: Yeah, so anybody out [00:40:00] there listening who's thinking of opening a club or a music place, a community spot, it doesn't have to be, like, this over the top expensive liquor license, permits. You can really, like you say in your book, DIY. You know, this is doable and I found it very inspiring.
[00:40:20] Jessie: Thank you.
[00:40:21] Charles: Not that I'm going to, you know, just a pipe dream, but, you never know.
[00:40:24] Jessie: Well, yeah, but that's the recurring thing and everything that we've been talking about is just like music or venues or whatever. Nothing has to be one thing. There's a lot of these sort of imaginative, assumed rules that don't necessarily have to apply. A concert can be someone hunched over a tape deck in a room with six other people.
[00:40:42] A venue can be literally just the space in front of the kitchen sink. Anything can be anything. And I think it's a big part of the book, a big part of the tour guiding I do, is just to really kind of emphasize that over and over, that there's no reason, if you want to be involved, and if you want to make things happen, [00:41:00] there's, there's really no reason you can't.
[00:41:02] Charles: Yeah. And, you talk about it brilliantly in your book , I found it a fascinating read. And now when I read about bands that played at this room or that club, oh yeah, okay, that's what this place is about. It does help you, like you were saying, like on your tours, visualize, to a degree, you know, without being there by reading about this history, and you cover a lot of ground and it's a great book.
[00:41:26] Jessie: Thanks for reading it and really thinking about it.
[00:41:28] Charles: It was a really fun read. So, Jesse's, we're coming up on the end of time. I know you gotta get out of here. Anything else you would like to plug or mention?
[00:41:38] Jessie: I would say anybody on Instagram, as I mentioned offhand, I do a lot of New York music history stuff on Instagram. So the handle's Walk On the Wild Side NYC. I'd love to have anyone and everyone come on walking tours. So it's WalkOnTheWildSide.NYC.Com to book those. I also sell signed copies of the book through that website. I'm not a hard person to get in touch with. [00:42:00] I'm all about accessibility. So, I'd love to share this information with anybody that's looking to get it.
[00:42:06] Charles: All right. Thanks for coming on Seeing Them Live.
[00:42:08] Jessie: Thank you. Yeah.
[00:42:10] Charles: We could have gone on for a lot longer.
[00:42:12] Jessie: As a tour guide, I'm sure you can tell, I can talk, and talk, and talk.
[00:42:15] Charles: Yeah. And the book is fascinating and, lots of stuff in there. So check it out and, Jesse, thanks so much for being on Seeing Them Live.
[00:42:22] Jessie: Yeah, thank you. Thanks for having me.