Music and The Riots
According to Times reporter Todd Purdum, the clash had its roots in music. The park was a gathering place for scores of drunken rock fans and their boisterous street parties. The raucous affairs would rage through the night and they divided the community. News articles about the riots described some of the music groups who were involved in the melée . The New York Times quoted a handbill for The Backyards, a band looking for a drummer: "Must be dedicated, hard-hitting, in it for life. Willing to die naked in an alley for your anti-art. Outcasts and social rejects preferred but not essential." The industrial anarchist Missing Foundation were active in the riots and their logo—an overturned martini glass and "1988 - 1933"—was found everywhere on the walls of the East Village. The band's singer, Peter Missing, sang through a bullhorn and claimed industrial society was on the verge of collapse and that a police state was imminent. The overturned glass signified the band's slogan "the party's over," and the dates an allusion to the year the Nazis took over the Weimar Republic.
The riots were commemorated in the song "Hold On" by Lou Reed. The song appeared on his 1989 CD New York. The song documents the civil and racial unrest going on in many areas of New York City at the time. The chorus of the song ends with the line "I'll meet you in Tompkins Square" for the first two refrains. The line changes to "there's a riot in Tompkins Square" on the third refrain.
The Blues Traveler song "Closing Down the Park," released on the band's 1996 Live from the Fall live album, also addresses the riots. It has never been included on any studio album.
The Tomkins Square riots also parallel the riot scene in the Broadway play, Rent, by Jonathan Larson. The main character, Mark Cohen, films the riots which ... the nightly news. Paul Garrin is the real-life person who witnessed the riots, videotaped them as he was being beaten by the police. Rent also takes place in an abandoned lot, located In Alphabet City, where the homeless people have set up a tent city.
Read more about this topic: Tompkins Square Park Riot (1988)
Famous quotes containing the word music:
“During the cattle drives, Texas cowboy music came into national significance. Its practical purpose is well known—it was used primarily to keep the herds quiet at night, for often a ballad sung loudly and continuously enough might prevent a stampede. However, the cowboy also sang because he liked to sing.... In this music of the range and trail is “the grayness of the prairies, the mournful minor note of a Texas norther, and a rhythm that fits the gait of the cowboy’s pony.””
—Administration in the State of Texa, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)