Earlier this month, I noticed a new account following me on Instagram ... for EVIL NYC, a "Rock & Roll Club Opening 4/17" in the East Village. (I sent them a DM asking for their address — no response. Just the "seen.")
Anyway, Page Six had more details yesterday about this E.Vil, which is reportedly inspired by CBGB and Max's Kansas City. Turns out it's a new venture from, among other partners, club owner Richie Akiva, whose credits include 1OAK, Butter and Up&Down
Per Page Six:
• Leo DiCaprio will have a new watering hole to meet models.
• Akiva’s partnered with Jue Lan Club’s Stratis Morfogen on E.Vil, “short for East Village and pronounced evil,” an insider said.
• The spot will open near 1970s-themed VNYL nightclub on Third Avenue in April.
• “It’s where you go to hear Aerosmith, the Clash, Guns N’ Roses, Led Zeppelin, ’80s/’90s rock, the Cult,” the insider said.
Feel free to guess where E.Vil might live near VNYL, which is in the former Nevada Smiths space on Third Avenue between 12th Street and 13th Street.
Lord help us.
ReplyDelete"deathtodisco"
ReplyDeleteClassy. F*** them. #deathtoE_VilNYC
More "theme park" nonsense. I still don't understand why people here write nasty comments about those who are nostalgic for the "gritty/old days", yet every single new venture that opens downtown is a "homage" in some way or another to those very days, usually run by some trendy restaurateur/reality TV show star. It's as Malcolm McLaren said shortly before he died: "We are living in a Karaoke culture."
ReplyDeleteEither the Gothic Cabinet space on the corner or more likely, the former Blue 9 Burger spot.
ReplyDeleteThem good ole days weren't so good.
ReplyDeleteAnon 8:33 I think the point might be that people have to create the environment of their time and their place. You can look to the past for ideas, but you cannot recreate just because you know the names. Max's was great because of the people--in my time there the Warhol people--who were regulars. The "original" Phoebe's was great because it was the watering hole of actors and painters. This is fake nostalgia in the guise of trying to cash in on the storied past. Shut up, open you place, and hope you have the personality to create a place people want to come to. This place sounds DOA.
ReplyDeleteJoey Ramone could surf?
ReplyDeleteE.Vill? Welcome to the Wax Museum of Rock & Roll. Exit through the gift shop, and dont touch the merchandise with your grubby hands unless you're buying. What a bunch of nonsense, and playing up that 80s racist theme of "death to disco" is even more offensive in the Age of Trump.
ReplyDeleteMartin Scorsese and Mick Jagger recently did a show on HBO called Vinyl about the New York Rock and Roll scene in the 1970s, featuring Max's Kansas City, CBGBs, the New York Dolls etc, and it flopped. Bigly. Part of the problem was due to the fact that the show starrred Bobby Cannavale as a coke snorting record producer who couldn't stop pontificating about how great "The Muuuusic" is while producing some of the worst music of the era. But the bigger problem is there just wasn't enough nostalgia about the era to sustain the show. Viewers didn't care about a couple of old white guys (Scorsese and Jagger's) anecdotes about how great everyting in music was back then. If you try to recreate the nostalgia of the past with a vehicle specifically designed to make you a lot of money, you are doomed to fail.
And the crap part of third avenue gets even crappier. Agreed with some of the above posts, its embarrassingly dorky to try to "pay homage" to CBGB and Max's to drum up a bunch of well money'd (or happy to go into debt) wankers to come spend exorbitant amounts to just sit around play on their phones, scream at each other, and eventually regress to doing a bunch of yip and molly. But if this place gets their sheep, they will have their wool. I wonder how Vinyl is doing... I dream of a future where these places close, and some decent food and shops come in, because I wish this crap part of third avenue, didn't have to be a crap part of third avenue.
ReplyDeleteCome on now. Rock is dead. It lives on in the actual MUSIC but that's about it.
ReplyDeletehell yeah. my bros in sons of anarchy will be stoked to have their own hard rocking cafe.
ReplyDelete"It’s where you go to hear Aerosmith, the Clash, Guns N’ Roses, Led Zeppelin, ’80s/’90s rock, the Cult,” ...and pay $18 for a drink that's half full of ice. Eff this place.
ReplyDeletegross
ReplyDeleteIf this place doesn't have live rock 'n' roll bands it is not a "rock club", sorry.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny that they wrote deathtodisco under a picture of Debbie Harry. I hope they're haunted and find that any sound system they install just plays continuous Robbie Leslie and Jim Burgess mixes from The Saint.
ReplyDelete@8:33 AM
ReplyDeletedon't be fooled, this is a theme club about a time in NYC that many of us remember and some my have only heard of but none of these people will ever go there, it's strictly for those born 20-25 years after that time.
@Givoanni,
I think your comments are the best and get excited each time I see that santa cat because I know something clever is coming. Having said that I was (am) a big fan of Vinyl. Sure it had it problems for me Scorsese's always heavy handed violence which manages to suck any joy out of a movie or tv series may have been enough to sink it. I loved the attention to details they included about the different artist and I loved the Elvis, Colonel Parker episode the best.
@2:29PM. Thanks for the compliment. I started out as a big fan of Vinyl and then turned into one of its biggest detractors after the episode where Richie drunkenly crashes his convertible in Coney Island, right in front of the Cyclone, killing both his best friend Hans and his unborn baby. Having that bad Buddy Holly (or Elvis Costello) impressionist emerge from the fog, playing his guitar in that moment of tragedy was just too much for me. But the Elvis / Colonel Parker episode was my favorite. The show had the chance right there to re-write history and have Richie take over Elvis' declining career and make some new great music. It was a missed opportunity due to Scorsese's love of the unbearable name-dropping and coke snorting Richie Finestra, not to mention Scorsese's general abuse of every single female character he has ever directed.
ReplyDeleteThey had a missed opportunity to take the show in a whole new direction, but Vinly's ratings just went off the cliff with the hystrionics, which is why HBO cancelled the show even after they had already agreed to air a second season. I hope Netflix or Amazon picks it up and hires new writers, because Terrence Winter did an absolute hack job on every music anecdote known to man. That John Lennon cameo with is mistress May Pang, the Mama Cass fat joke, the scene with Hilly Kristal inventing the name of CBGBs on the legal pad, Richie attacking Andy Warhol outside on Max's -- it was all like that drunk guy at the bar's memories of "the 70's muuusiic scene, maaaan."
So seeing these new fake music venues opening up in the EV just reminds me of disasters like HBO's Vinyl -- they had so much great material to work with but couldn't figure out how to use it properly to tell a good story. What Vinyl did get right at the end was the transition to the Disco era--the party scene with Wild Safari by Barrabas was great, and that single by Nile Rogers of Chic could have charted back then, and they could have done the same thing with Elvis, Hopefully Netflix or Amazon will try.
What a bunch of cheese. I'm sure they're gonna have a bunch of old men who think John Varvatos is hip, clueless bartenders who shopped at Hot Topic, and music spun by scenesters who act cooler than thou because they just found out about a band called Pulp.
ReplyDeleteOf course a month or so later they'll reformat to please the flannel fraternity.
12:43 PM - no live bands not a rock club. You got that right. But this isn't an era where live music is needed to sell booze or an era where the niche musicians have a new angle on how to bring music to a room full of strangers. Angry guitar rock, brainy rock, bearded rock, EDM plus whatever, all are hothouse flower genres, existing in curated scenes, dedicated space ship sound system band supermarkets and private loft / warehouse / whatever parties.
ReplyDeleteAmericans don't walk down the street and say "let's go here for a drink, they've got a band". They say "The IT guy from work's neofolk EDM thing is playing, let's go there and then get a drink." Europeans seem to actually patronize live jazz but the culture of bar bands is long gone. [oblig] SAD
Perfectly located for the NYU dormers, B&T crowd and Eurotouristas. Then they can compete with the gasping Webster Hall. That part of the zone is about as 'East Village' as a Walmart store. Might as well open the club on Washington St. at 14th. A testimony to how club culture in Manhattan is living on fumes that it has to be 'nostalgia themed.' The East Village is now a parody of itself. Like trying to make money by exhibiting a corpse.
ReplyDeleteAnd soon a brand spankn new Marriott Moxy to house the Eurotouristas!
DeleteTurning rebellion into money……the swindle continues.
ReplyDeleteThis place will be as cool as the Sixth Circle of Hell. Trying way too hard to attain hipness, and failing miserably.
ReplyDeleteThis is the Moxy hotel effect.
ReplyDeleteI feel I've already been to this place. Like kissing your sister. Nostalgia ain't what it used to be.
ReplyDeleteMan, f-hole hollow body jazz guitars with tremolo bars are *so* metal!
ReplyDelete12:43pm back replying to 4:10pm
ReplyDeleteYou don't have a clue about what Americans including and especially New Yorkers like. First off, there are TONS of live music venues in NYC where the focus has been bands, and many have been around for years. Try leaving your house sometime.
More power to this place if it can sell drinks to enough people who don't care about live music/bands for it to stay open for however long they want to be open. Problem with that is it has nothing to distinguish itself from other bars other than having a chintzy, cheesy, low-rent wannabe Hard Rock Cafe/Hogs 'N' Heifers/Sunset Boulevard rock theme which no one buys in NYC including IT guys like you talk about. New Yorkers can smell bullshit a mile away and this place is bullshit if it fronts like a "rock club" but doesn't have bands or it has a token live band here or there. If their drinks are more expensive than Continental, The 13th Step, Mona's, 7B, Manitoba's, Hi-Fi Lounge, Otto's Shrunken Head, Niagara, Berlin NYC, Parkside Lounge, Double Down Saloon, Pyramid etc. and their staff is more of the same from those places (overall surly) they're gonna lose badly.
Will Von Elmo be the house band here?.
ReplyDeleteWow 4:22 Von Elmo never got that big Gig Shame they were good live a pre Dream Theater of days gone by.
ReplyDeleteNo bands will play this place. The owners want it to be a rock theme bar with nothing but mostly major label and big indie label band music from before 1990 or 199whatever (lame.)
ReplyDeleteWhy go to this place when you could put on your choice of Music Choice channels and drink your own beer at home for a fraction of the price?
According to the website it will be at 64 3rd ave - current location of village pourhouse. I hope they don't lose the smell of vomit.
ReplyDeleteWhat a farce! This place will be an "homage" to CBGB's & Max's Kansas City as much as Vandal is to graffiti art! Richie Akiva?? Really?? I'm so glad that Leonardo DiCaprio and the like will have a "dive bar" where they can get down and dirty while "listening to Aerosmith, Guns n' Roses and Led Zeppelin" in a completely vapid, disingenuous bar that won't last.
ReplyDelete