A7 (Club)

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The A7 was a music club in the East Village in New York that existed from 1981 to 1984 and the first venue of the burgeoning New York hardcore scene was.

history

The club was located on Avenue A and East 7th Street, in an area that in the early 1980s was notorious as a drug-dealing center and a turf for Puerto Rican street gangs. Naming the club after the intersection it was located at later became a trend in the East Village. The space on the western corner of Tompkins Square Park was just under 50 square meters and could accommodate around 75 people. The L-shaped stage was eight inches high and only 1.50 meters deep, so that band members, with the exception of the drummers, often had to play in front of the stage. Initially, the club was played by bands like the Stimulators (with twelve-year-old Harley Flanagan on drums) or the Violators, fast punk bands that initiated the transition from punk to hardcore in the USA , and reggae and jazz bands also played. Little by little, a hardcore scene consisting of around 100 people formed around the A7, within which bands such as The Abused , Agnostic Front , Antidote , Cause for Alarm , the Cro-Mags , Heart Attack , Kraut , The Mob formed or Urban Waste formed and regularly, sometimes weekly, the A7. Other establishments were initially hardly open to these young people, as the hardcore scene was quite violent and larger clubs therefore rarely booked bands of this new genre. The A7 dispensed with an elaborate interior design and was thus able to offer the young people a cheap contact point. Established punk musicians like the Ramones , Jello Biafra and Glenn Danzig were among the regular guests, regular guest Roger Miret brought his half-brother Freddy Cricien, who later became Madball's singer , to concerts when he was seven years old. The staff was recruited from the scene, for example Raymond Barbieri worked as a bouncer in the A7, Doug Holland (Kraut, Cro-Mags) behind the bar or James Drescher ( Murphy's Law ) as a DJ.

Due to the success of his club, owner Dave temporarily rented a loft about 500 meters southeast of the A7 in 1982 at the intersection of Houston Street and East 2nd Street, which he called "2 + 2" and which had a larger capacity than the A7; the Bad Brains played some shows there. In 1983 the A7 stopped organizing live concerts. In 1984, the heyday of New York Hardcore, the club closed its doors.

In 2013, as part of the CBGB 's Festival , a plaque was unveiled on the premises, reminding of the historical importance of the A7.

Quotes

"Everyone likes to go on about CB's, but CB's didn't support the scene like Dave at A7 did. He was the first to put on the shows. "

- James Drescher (Murphy's Law)

"It was very much like your own social club. It was more than a music club. It was sort of like the way a biker gang would have their hangout. "

- Dave Scott ( Adrenaline OD )

literature

  • Tony Rettman: New York Hardcore 1980–1990 (Bazillion Points, chapter "East Village Nights: A7 and 2 + 2")

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Steven Blush: American Hardcore. A tribal history. Feral House, 2nd edition 2010, p. 196 ff.
  2. ↑ Mentioned in New York Magazine. Retrieved October 1, 2015 .
  3. ↑ Tony Rettman: New York Hardcore 1980-1990, p. 134.Bazillion Points, 2nd edition 2015.
  4. ^ Matthias Mader: Ney York City Hardcore - The Way It Was ..., p. 7. IP Verlag 2011.
  5. ^ Article in the culture magazine of New York Magazine. Retrieved October 28, 2015 .
  6. ^ Matthias Mader: Ney York City Hardcore - The Way It Was ..., p. 10.
  7. ↑ Tony Rettman: New York Hardcore 1980-1990, p. 135
  8. ↑ a b c Tony Rettman: New York Hardcore 1980-1990, p. 138.
  9. ^ Village Voice of November 18, 2013. Accessed September 2, 2015 .

Coordinates: 40 ° 43 ′ 33 ″  N , 73 ° 59 ′ 0 ″  W.