Before we met, over on Avenue C
Hardcore chic: Carolyn was clothed and posed by a photographer friend in front of one of the biker clubhouses in the East Village. The clubhouse by the precinct on 5th Street, the one housing the Hell's Angels, is the one people are still talking about. Comments always include "safest block in the neighborhood," true until you pissed somebody off when you stumbled over a bike, or maybe until you went with one of the guys, at which point you might get thrown off the roof.
She grew up in Kansas but spent a lot of time in Colorado. Her grandparents had a farm and later she went to church camp up in the Rockies. What process is at work to turn a little girl on a horse into a bartender at a dive like Downtown Beirut?
Just a few years later this high school kid was deep into the NYC hardcore scene. First there was Killer Instinct, then X.K.I., then The Bad Tuna Experience. Though we were playing the same clubs at the same time, we never met. That happened down on Henry Street sometime in '87. Byron was trying to make some money renting out a front room he sounpdroofed; the idea was to use it as a makeshift recording studio and/or rehearsal space. I was trying to be a freelance audio engineer so I showed up with my 4-track.
Unfortunately I added some slapback to the vocals and Carolyn didn't like it. It should have been unadorned and raw. We wanted to make them happy so we asked them to reconvene a few days later. I'm glad we did: first, we got a great recording of "Beer Picnic" out of the session, and second because the band hung out and drank forty-ounce beers with us after we finished. I liked Carolyn: she was smart and cute and had a great attitude. I started hanging out at Downtown Beirut, a place literally around the corner from me. We got to be friends.
