I was born in Maine and a toddler when we moved to Ohio. What I've read about brain formation makes me believe that I remember nothing of these rocks, and that anything I recall comes from family photos or my mother's descriptions. And yet...

I briefly emerged from the tortured environs of early 80s NYC to commune with family. During a trip to New England we stopped at Niagara Falls and climbed the stairs and platforms under the permanent downpour at the base of the falls.

We felt something really special was happening just by walking into the building. The Terminal, built during WWI to funnel supplies to American troops on the other side of the Atlantic, is spectacular even in a town full of spectacle. The stark concrete space is a Brutalist masterpiece before there was a Brutalist rule book, a building completely dictated by function and the need for speed in its construction. It's like walking into a Futurist cathedral.

We were ushered into a makeshift exhibition hall on the first floor steps from the abandoned train tracks that run down the center of the building. We'd been told amplifiers would be provided, though Mike still had to bring his own drum kit. Fran was given an amp more powerful than anything she'd ever played through; we'd been playing lots of gigs and she was ready. During this gig her antique Fender Cougar sounded like somebody in PIL on a Precision. Mike and her meshed with a totally solid beat that let me free as I'd never been.

At my station I found a Marshall stack taller than I was, an amp I'd been waiting to play through for my entire life. I'd used Marshalls in rehearsal spaces but never a stack, and never for a gig; my Stratocaster sounded like a Neil Young tidal wave. I was at Ramones-level amplification and it really did something for me, to me. I was also in good practice and for the first time didn't feel the absence of Byron from the lineup. My playing filled in all the spaces. The Desi trio sounded good.

We played a lot of art spaces and art audiences were always absurdly grateful that we were an actual band. We weren't sophisticated enough for the conceptual art bullshit we'd seen alienating crowds in the galleries. As in all the art spaces we played, we were there to lay down some beats and do some weird shit on top. In our best shows—and this was surely one of them—we were loud and fast and a real band.

At the Terminal show we set up not thirty feet from an installation by Komar and Melamid, artists I'd admired for years. They'd built a shrine with velvet curtains, candles, fresh flowers, and a red carpet leading to the kneeler positioned beneath a newly-painted social-realist portrait of Hitler. The JDL, never known for their sense of humor, defaced it a few days later.

The Bad Brains were a big deal, Undead had been a big deal, and Kraut was the upcoming big deal. Jerry Williams of the Hi-Sheriffs of Blue (and many other bands) operated the storefront 171A down the street; he put on shows, ran movies, and did a significant amount of recording there. Many seminal Bad Brains and Beastie Boys tracks were put on tape there. Rat Cage Records was based out a small zine shop in the basement; they put out the first Beastie Boys recordings and the famous ROIR "Thrash" cassette. The Desis recorded five or six tracks with Jerry on the board at 171A.

The controversial plaque on the wall of Niagara, the former home of A7. Though many bands were included many more were not, and people were pissed being left off the thing.

In 1973 the Hitchcock estate pulled Vertigo and four other pictures—the so-called Hitchcock Five–out of circulation. This was Rear Window, Rope, The Trouble with Harry, and the 1956 remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much. When Paramount bought the rights in 1983, Vertigo and the others acquired in the deal suddenly reappeared on movie screens. It had been a long wait.

I watched all of them except The Trouble with Harry at the D.W. Griffith on East 59th, a single-screen art house that went by many names over the years. One of its incarnations was ImaginAsian Theatre, a Bollywood house with samosas at the concession stand. In 2014 it was permanently shuttered; in New York the only constant is change.