Maxwell's: The First & The Last

It has just been announced that after 33 years of presenting many of the finest musical acts in one of the most intimate settings, Maxwell's in Hoboken, NJ will be closing their doors at the end of July.

I was aware of Maxwell's long before I ever stepped foot in it. I probably got my first bootleg cassette of a Maxwell's performance around '84 and it was likely R.E.M.. And then The Replacements. And The dB's. And Joe Jackson. And so many others. It was very clear that this was a special room. You could hear it on magnetic tape.

I don't remember the first show I saw there. However, I do remember the first time I visited Maxwell's and walked in the back room. It was the summer of 1988. I was visiting NJ prior to my move a few months later. Glenn Morrow of Bar/None Records invited me out to dinner to discuss plans for my moving out and recording my album. He suggested Maxwell's. Hallowed ground! I remember nothing of the dinner, nor the discussion.

What I do remember is, after dinner, Glenn asked me if I would like to see the back room.  To me, this was an invitation to Graceland, Sun Studios, Ardent Records or the Grand Ole Opry. "Really? We can go back there?" No bands were playing that night. The room was empty. A rock and roll sanctuary. I felt the stage floor. I climbed the steps and nervously stood in the same spot so many of my heroes stood in. The stage where so many great shows I had listened to over and over again were created. Not only that, but I was getting the tour from a member of the very first band to EVER play live music in Maxwell's. Before Glenn started The Individuals, he was in a band called 'a' with the original 3 members of The Bongos. They were the first band to walk into Maxwell's and ask Steve Fallon for a gig.

I wish I could remember the first show I saw there. It was likely The Original Sins. The first handful of shows I saw once I moved out were, for the most part, Bar/None related shows. I was broke. I had just moved from DeKalb, IL and I didn't even have a job yet. I was living on my brother's couch in Brooklyn. But I was invited to all the Bar/None shows. On The guest list! Which narrows down that first show to The Sins or TMBG, almost certainly.

As time went on, I quickly moved to Hoboken and eventually wormed my way into a job at Pier Platters in the spring of 1989. (That story is posted here.) Soon after I started at Pier, Maxwell's became my third home. For the next 6 years, I spent my days at Pier,my nights at Maxwell's and I crawled home to sleep in-between. And what a time it was. If you scrape the pole in the back room, you will certainly find plenty of O Ball DNA samples.

I have forgotten far more shows that I saw there than I remember. But there are many that stand out. A "secret" Replacements show in '89, the first Holsapple/Stamey duo show ever, the first solo Bob Mould show ever, numerous shows by Superchunk, Mudhoney, Redd Kross, Jon Spencer, Fluid, Alex Chilton, Dinosaur Jr., Freedy Johnston, Bewitched, Unrest, Poster Children, Finger, Phil Gnarly & The Tough Guys, The Electric Nubians, Pavement, Sleepyhead, Cell, Das Damen blowing out the power EVERY DAMN TIME! SO many more! As well as my own performances there.

And all the people I met! To have Peter Buck or Bob Mould or any one of The dB's come over to say hi and chat, well, I still thrill at the thought. Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name.

When Pier went down in '95, it was a body blow. It took a lot of the wind out of my sails. My visits to Maxwell's were far less frequent, though I would manage to get my ass over there a couple of times a year. Once I was even hauled out on a stretcher!

The last time I was there was in March. My old label mate, Brother JT of The Original Sins, was playing. I don't think we had seen each other in 25 years. He still puts on a show. And makes those guitars scream! It was awesome. I got to chat with my old Maxwell's pals John O'Toole, Charlie Charas and Mike Rosenberg. I ran into Lyle Hysen, Brian Musikoff and Todd. If Steve Fallon and Bill Ryan had been there, I think my head might have exploded.

After the show, I hung out with Brother JT for a while and we played catch up, swapping stories in shorthand that only labelmates would understand. It was a great night. And it is why I would like to believe that The Original Sins were the first band I saw at Maxwell's. I dunno. Maybe I'll change my mind and slip into the back room one more time, But I think I prefer to leave my last visit right here. Not knowing it was my last visit, closing the circle the way it started and spending just another night back home.

Thank you, Steve. Thank you, Todd. Clubs come and go. But to be a part of something so magnificent that has left so many memories with so many people? That's a legend. And legends never die.

A Bill Ryan sighting!

Bill Ryan has been spotted in public! He was seen at the WFMU Record Fair! Here's Bill watching The Trashmen's first Manhattan performance ever.










Here is someone attempting to photograph the wild Bill Ryan. I do not recommend this.













And this is a NY Post paparazzi photographer attempting to capture a rare photo of Bill Ryan with the rock legend, Bob Bert.













Though it is highly unlikely, should you encounter Bill Ryan in the wild, we here at Otis Ball suggest that you do not look him directly in the eye. If you have food or rare and desirable records, leave them on the ground and walk away. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO PHOTOGRAPH A WILD BILL RYAN!

That is all.

Pier Platters - Learning the Game

So where were we? A quick reread reminds me we weren't very far.

I started at Pier sometime in Spring of '89. For the first few weeks, I was picking up odd hours, mostly in the used album annex on 1st St. And a guy working there at the time, Ray, had me convinced he was in charge. He thought he ruled the used store. What did I know? He was, well, let's just say a wired guy. Putz also springs to mind. But I had to work this into a full time gig ASAP. I quit the job in the city thinking I was being offered 40 hours at Pier. Turns out, I was on my own. Brilliant. Genius.

OK. I clearly had to ingratiate myself to Bill Ryan, who ran the joint. Bill was a scary guy if you didn't know him. And at that point, I did not. He knew who I was. We'd met briefly a few months before when I first visited Pier and dropped a couple hundred bucks on Replacements rarities and similar offerings. Considering the Barn One circumstances we were introduced, I'm pretty sure I did alright on my first impressions. But that certainly wasn't gonna be enough to crash the gates. Thank god I had a winning personality and charming smile. Desperation didn't hurt neither.

My first task in the main store was inventory. I was handed a file cabinet of index cards and told to match them up with inventory stock. Clearly, this was my first hazing. But after my last job, I was prepared for boring make-work. I threw myself into the task at hand. It took some time and some awkward moments clarifying details with Bill, but I did it quick, did it thoroughly and managed to familiarize myself with the stock, which must have been the purpose of this mission. Either that or making me quit. No chance of that. I needed the job. But more important, I WANTED the job! Pier Platters was a record geek's dream.

What nobody knew was that Suzanne, the redhead you were all afraid of, would soon be going out to do lights for Sonic Youth. And then Nirvana. And then Beck. And REM. And numerous other acts that wanted one of the top lighting directors.

When I first started working at Pier, the big front window was framed with numerous copies of the same single. It was in a clear vinyl sleeve and didn't even have a picture sleeve. It was a dirty red colored vinyl and it was by a band called Mudhoney. I didn't know what that was all about. I'd never heard of them, so it couldn't have been that important. But nevermind.

So about the second week I was working in the main store, we received a number of boxes from a label called Sub Pop. I didn't understand why a store as small as Pier would be getting such a large shipment of records from a label I had never heard of. I figured I would have a busy day filing records. But I was wrong. It turned out that all these boxes only held two different albums. One of them was by some band called The Fluid, album called Roadmouth. The other title was some band called Nirvana, album called Bleach. Clearly, Bill Ryan had lost his mind. We'd be sitting on these frisbees forever. That day, we sold about 75 copies of those albums. And we were reordering before the week was done.

This was the first time, but certainly not the last, that Pier Platters blew my mind. In 1981, I bought REM's first single and I loved it. Then Chronic Town came out and I didn't care for it. I decided I'd give Murmur a try, but it was their last chance. I bought The Replacements' Sorry Ma, Forgot To Take Out the Trash album cuz I really liked the title. It was too punky thrashy for my tastes. But I figured I might as well get Let It Be when it came out, cuz nuthin much new was out that week. So you see, I knew everything about obscure underground bands. I even did stints DJing at ECC, ISU and NIU. I was a walking encyclopedia. I was a cup half full at best. And as I was realizing this sad, sad fact, I was also discovering that I was smack dab in the middle of everything. And I would soon be under the tutelage of one Professor William Ryan.

(Special thanks to Bill's favorite poker mark, Darren, for the sweet pic!)

Pier Platters - An Introduction

Ode to a fallen empire. I moved out to Jersey late summer of '88. The first job I got was at a record store in NYC. And it was miserable. I liked my coworkers a lot, but the store was, well, not my cuppa tea. The main floor was vinyl. This was back when records were still the reigning medium, though not much longer. But I worked in the CD/cassette department. This was a very Billboard centric store. Every Monday, the first job of the day was rearranging the Top 20 wall. Don't get me wrong. This establishment was very involved in breaking artists. Because the owner rented out his basement space to the major labels. If they had an artist that needed a push, the owner would buy boxes of an artists and store them in the basement. That counted as charting sales. When the artist eventually tanked, the owner just shipped the records back for a full refund and whatever he got in return. All on the artist's recoupable tab. Hooray. And for this, I made minimum wage, minus monthly dues to the instore union. I did get a pair of glasses outta the deal, which I still have and use, so I probly broke even on that scam.

Well, after about 9 months there, I finally got the call up I'd been hoping for, but doubted would ever happen. You see, one of the owners of the label I was signed to also co-owned Pier Platters. Now THAT was my kinda record store! The first time I visited Jersey to meet with the label, I ran over to Pier and dropped $200 on records I had only heard about in secret whispers with other hoarders like myownself. German Replacements promo discs with studio outtakes! Both dB's albums on one CD! And holy shit! A double LP of a festival of Austin indie bands that I didn't even know existed!

But right off the bat there was a problem. Ya see, Pier had two owners. The one I was in with was busy running the label. The other guy was running the store. And these two guys did not get along. At all. So here was the label owner telling his partner, "Here's your new employeeeeeeeeeeee!" Yippee.

OK. So I knew this wasn't gonna be easy, but there was no way I was gonna let this gig slip away. The pay was better than I was making, but more important, the perks were killer! The greatest records ever at cost! Little did I know, that was just the tip of the perks iceberg.

So I walked in knowing that I had plenty to offer this shop, but I would have to prove it. And fast! But I had a few things going for me. Besides my winning smile and sparkling personality, I had a mind for obscure rock and roll. I knew who had been in what band, which single had what otherwise unreleased B-side and so on and so forth. Although I quickly discovered that my field of knowledge was far narrower than I realized. There was one more minor issue. I was scared to death of my new boss.

Which brings us to the legend that is Bill Ryan. BILL RYAN! Grumpy, smokey, caffeiney, mumbling, arm itchy, growly Bill Ryan. I'm tempted to say there was a Bill Ryan running every record store back in the day, but it's just not true. I knew a bunch of them. They were no Bill Ryan.

I am absolutely positive that Bill wanted me gone the minute I walked in. I believe it no, I believed it then. He didn't know me. I was brought in by the enemy. Even then I knew that. Didn't take a West Point grad to see I was marching into a war zone.


And so I shall end this chapter with a cliffhanger. I had originally figured I'd write up a nice post on Pier for this blog as a commemoration of a wonderful time and place in so many people's lives, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that one mere post couldn't possibly contain the majesty that was Pier Platters. So many stories, so many people, so many pictures and mementos to gather for presentation. This story must continue! If you have any good stories and/or pictures, please leave a comment or email me for inclusion in forthcoming chapters. For on this blog, Pier Platters lives and breathes.

I would be remiss if I didn't take a moment to mention the first record store to ever employee me. Back in Dekalb, IL, I musta stopped by Record Revolution daily. It was just part of my day. I was always hoping a slot would open up and I'd finally get to live the dream, working at a record store. That slot finally opened up. Two weeks before I was to leave Dekalb for the big move to Jersey and rock stardom. Nevertheless, Mark Cerny, the owner, asked me if I wanted that job, knowing I would be gone in days. I accepted. I think I may have danced around the store as well. Mark took the time to train me and fill out all the pain in the ass employment tax forms knowing I would only be there for a week. Well, after almost 35 years, Mark finally closed up shop and retired a few weeks ago. The Rev will be missed. Mark, Bobbo and all my old friends from The Rev, thank you so much for all the great memories. Yer ol pal O still thinks of you often and remembers you fondly.