What were you doing during the last week of March 1992?
If you were a music-loving Gen-Xer, you might have been going through the latest Village Voice (yes, the print version that you actually paid for), scanning the ads to see which bands were playing any of the dozens of rock clubs scattered around Manhattan.
Almost all of these venues are gone; the bands that played there also almost all defunct, too.
Roseland, which hosted the Sugarcubes (“the coolest band in the world” according to Rolling Stone in 1988) and a bunch of other 1990s alternative bands, bit the dust in 2014.
CBGB had Toshi Reagon and Smashing Orange on their lineup this early spring week. Mission, in the East Village between A and B, drew more of a hardcore crowd, and women got in free with the ad above.
McGovern’s, on Spring Street, “used to be a great old dive,” according to the late great Lost City blog. Today it’s still a music club, Paul’s Casablanca.
Finally, what would 1990s New York be without the Knitting Factory? This ad is from the original location on East Houston Street, before the music and spoken word venue decamped to Tribeca and then relocated to Williamsburg, where it is today.
Look, indie favorite Luna appeared on April 3!
Tags: CBGB 1990s New York City, CBGB music ads, Knitting Factory 1992, Mission East Village NYC club, Music Venues 1990s New York City, Rock Clubs 1990s New York City, Roseland NYC, Village Voice 1992
Ephemeral New York 
November 4, 2019 at 11:18 am |
I loved this!! Thank you!
November 4, 2019 at 12:59 pm |
Many of the venues may be gone, but Ticketmaster steamrolls on and on….
November 4, 2019 at 4:12 pm |
Yes, a moment in New York’s downtown music timeline….
November 4, 2019 at 5:31 pm |
i was in knitting factory a few times when it was on houston street, didn’t go after it moved to brooklyn (same with roulette. i’ve become a lazy sod). i was/am a big eugene chadbourne fan, though i didn’t see him there.
November 4, 2019 at 8:31 pm |
Feels like thumbing thru the back pages of the Village Voice.
November 4, 2019 at 9:49 pm |
Same thing happened to the disco clubs in the 80’s. A few bars now feature monthly disco nights but there is no club that is ‘dedicated’ to Saturday Ni8ght fever! I am on Long Island. NY and I practically ‘LIVED” in discoland from 1978 till Uncle Sam’s disco in Levittown Long Island burned down and the dicso scene died in the mid-80’s. Would love to see it return. Supposedly disco still lives on in Europe. I DJ;ed and still have a huge vinyl collection that hasn’t seen a ‘needle’ since then. OH, yes, there are a few guys playing disco in some bars on their laptops, but nothing matches the vibes of vinyl! The last real disco night was held in Zachary’s club as a “reunion” about 5 years ago but nothing like that since then.
November 4, 2019 at 9:55 pm |
(Zachary’s club was also in Levittown, Long Island.)
November 4, 2019 at 10:18 pm |
Almost all of the bands advertised for The Mission are downloaded on my phone right now. Still love the music, miss the old venues.
November 5, 2019 at 4:50 am |
I was a Ward 6 and troublemakers regular for years.
November 1, 2022 at 7:58 am |
remember going to Mission in Alphabet City in the late 80s (i think) – was a dodgy area and the place was tiny. Men and women shared one tiny bathroom and it wasn’t unusual for guys to be be peeing in the sink while women were on the bowl next to it. Ah, memories