I've been endeavoring to focus my posts this month on all things spooky, eerie, and macabre, and since today's Dispatch deals with cannibalism, I think it fits the bill quite nicely.
In early 1971, I heard the song Timothy by The Buoys on local radio for the very first time. A disturbing tale of miners trapped underground in a cave-in—and the gruesome things they do to survive—it was nothing like the cheery pop tunes I usually heard on WLYV.Even though I was just a kid, I understood immediately what the song was about and got a juvenile kick out of hearing something that I probably shouldn't have been listening to at that age.
Of course, I was already heavily into monsters and horror movies at the time, so hearing a creepy rock tune about two trapped miners eating a third didn't give me any nightmares.
Songwriter Rupert Holmes went on to have a successful music career. You can read about the history behind his song Timothy here.
Many years later, while living in NYC, I attended a Morrissey concert at what was then known as The Uptown Ritz (to differentiate it from the Ritz down in Greenwich Village)—located at 254 W. 54th Street in Manhattan.
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| 254 W. 54th Street in 1992. |
I knew at that time the venue had started life as a legitimate theater before becoming a CBS Radio/TV studio—and then the legendary 1970s disco Studio 54. What I hadn't known then was that in-between CBS and the disco era, the office building had also been the home of Scepter Records.
Scepter was famous as the label of iconic 1960s girl-groups such as The Shirelles and the Chiffons, both of whom recorded at the label's original home at 1674 Broadway.
In 1965, however, Scepter moved to their new digs at 254 W. 54th Street, where acts as varied as The Velvet Underground, B.J. Thomas—and yes, The Buoys—cut studio tracks. I knew none of that history when I visited the Ritz on November 27th, 1992, however.
I had a great time at the Morrissey show that night. Moz—on tour for his excellent Your Arsenal album—was in fine voice and hadn't yet veered off into the uncomfortable political statements he's infamous for these days. During the set from his opening act, Jet Black Machine, I remember glancing around the venue and thinking about the glory days of disco at Studio 54.
I had absolutely no idea back then that just a few floors above my head, Timothy—the song about cannibalism that gave me the shivers as a kid—had been recorded in a Scepters Records studio. Thinking about it now brings a mischievous grin to my face—just like the one I wore as a kid while listening to that macabre little song on WLYV back in 1971.
Postscript: After the uptown Ritz closed in the mid-1990s, the space was vacant until the end of the decade, when The Roundabout Theatre Company found its home there—where it remains to this day.
There's more to come in the next dispatch.
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