It’s a good night when shaking hands with Iggy Pop isn’t the most memorable part of it. Pop and the late photographer Robert Matheu (a legend in his own right) had been at the Barnes & Noble in Tribeca, where they were signing Matheu’s 2009 book The Stooges: The Authorized and Illustrated Story.
On 1973’s “Search and Destroy,” Pop refers to himself as a “street walking cheetah.” That’s not braggadocio. Despite being short in stature, Pop is the personification of intimidating. While he was tranquil, erudite, and polite, his eyes radiated the kind of intensity that could only belong to someone who wrote “Raw Power” and “Gimme Danger.” Also, it’s not every evening you introduce yourself to somebody who helped create a genre of music. And it’s not every evening that the opposite happens, when someone who helped create a genre of music introduces themselves to you. On this particular evening, both instances happened within a few hours of each other.
Following the signing, my friend and I went across the street to the Gee Whiz Diner. In retrospect, the name of the establishment would sum up the night’s tone. While having dinner, we talked about music, which wasn’t uncommon. Over an hour into our conversation, however, something happened that definitely was. The middle-aged couple who had been seated across from us the entire time, suddenly were standing towards the edge of our table with knowing smiles. This could’ve been the beginning of a horror film. Instead, it was one of those occasions where living in New York City can feel as if there’s no difference between dream and reality.
“Hi, sorry for interrupting, but we overheard some of your conversation, and were really impressed by how much you guys know about music.” The woman said this as she and her husband continued to smile conspiratorially. When we thanked them, she pointed to the man and added “This is Ivan Kral.” Turns out the couple were Ivan Kral, the second punk rock pioneer I’d meet that night, and his wife, the entrepreneur Cindy Hudson.
While thinking of a reply, I could feel my face contorting into an expression that was somewhere between shocked and beatific. Having a part of your record collection compliment your musical knowledge will do that to you. There was only a finite amount of time to talk. How to proceed? If this were an ‘80s sitcom, the response would’ve been “Hey! You’re Ivan Kral! What’re you doing here?!” In real life, something almost as goofy occurred. As a member of the original Patti Smith Group, I knew that he’d co-written Smith’s 1979 song “Dancing Barefoot,” but in the heat of the moment wasn’t quite so sure. With nerves, the first casualty is intelligence. Considering why Kral and Hudson went over to us in the first place, this was an unwelcome development.
“You co-wrote ‘Dancing Barefoot,’ right?” It was a question phrased more like a statement, said in a slightly exaggerated, self-assured James Caan “New Yawk” voice as an attempt to mask any doubt. When he nodded in affirmation, I responded in my normal voice “That’s one of my all-time favorite songs.” Both Kral and Hudson’s faces lit up with genuine joy and even some relief. Hearing us talk about music for so long, it would’ve been embarrassing for everyone if we didn’t know who he was.
In the midst of the excitement, I completely forgot what specifically we were discussing that prompted this visit, and felt a slight wave of self-consciousness. Kral seemed to sense this. A native of what is now known as the Czech Republic (or Czechia), he said in his Eastern European accent “You know, Gene was always like that.” That managed to be the gateway into the recent (10 minutes ago) past. My friend and I had rhapsodized about Warren Zevon’s 1976 self-titled album, Hall & Oates’ War Babies, their 1974 collaboration with Todd Rundgen, and Kiss. The Gene Simmons reference Kral made was likely due to the awful impersonations of Simmons he’d presumably seen us doing earlier that evening.
Kral had enlisted in the “Kiss Army” a few years before such a concept existed. One of their original champions, he was friends with Kiss when they started, and even attended their early shows at the Coventry Club in Sunnyside, Queens in 1973. He likely bonded with Simmons, as they were both immigrants, the latter from Israel. Luger, Kral’s glam rock band at the time, would open for them in August ‘73 at the Hotel Diplomat on West 43rd Street. This was the fabled gig where Kiss met their future manager Bill Aucoin, and consequently went from outer borough oddities to kings of the night time world.
While talking with Kral in the present, it was difficult not to think of his extraordinary past. His father, Dr. Karel Kral, was the United Nations reporter for Czechoslovak news agency C.T.K. In 1966, he warned of the threat of the country being invaded by the Soviet Union. Two years later, in 1968, the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia had occurred. By then, the Kral’s were already living in New York as refugees, where Dr. Kral worked as a translator at the United Nations. The timing was perfect. The teenage Kral left an increasingly repressive society for a city approaching the grimy, glorious dawn of the ‘70s.
Maintaining a stealth ubiquity throughout that period, he performed with Shaun Cassidy, an early version of Blondie, and Iggy Pop, among others. (Kral and Hudson were at the Stooges book signing.) Kral never received the fanfare of his peers, but was as vital a figure as anyone from the ‘70s downtown rock scene. That’s in large part because of his role as composer/guitarist/bassist for the Patti Smith Group, where he spent most of the decade.
During his time with the band, he co-wrote classics like “Kimberly,” “Pissing in a River,” “Citizen Ship,” and “Ain’t It Strange.” The aforementioned “Dancing Barefoot” bridges the gap between mid-‘60s Byrds and early ‘80s goth/alternative, with its haunting guitar buzz refrain, sci-fi/new wave noir synths, and swirling 12-string guitar solo. Ethereal, ominous, and alluring, the song perfectly captures the nocturnal metropolitan ambience of late ‘70s New York. “Revenge,” also from 1979’s Wave, his last album with Smith, is powered by Kral’s hypnotic guitar arpeggios. Within seconds, before the singing even starts, it’s as if a spell is being cast. The music lives up to the exhilaration expressed in the title, combining the menacing psychedelic waltz of “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” by the Beatles with the sinister melody of “Remember (Walking in the Sand)” from The Shangri-Las.
“Because the Night,” from 1978’s Easter, and written by Smith and Bruce Springsteen, is another song that significantly benefits from Kral’s presence. When Smith repeats “They can’t hurt you now” before the chorus, you believe her in part because of Kral’s raggedly victorious guitar solo, which embodies the song’s defiant and romantic spirit. It’s similar to Springsteen’s pugilistic guitar work on Darkness on the Edge of Town, (released two month’s after Easter) in particular the solo’s beginning, akin to the rumbling before an earthquake.
Throughout the ‘60s and ‘70s, when Kral wasn’t playing guitar, he could often be found keeping a visual record of his time in New York, in the event he was ever deported. This started when he filmed Murray the K shows with a Super 8 camera in 1967. In 1974 and ’75, he documented the emerging New York punk scene, capturing what was going on at CBGB’s, Max’s Kansas City, and the Bottom Line. Kral managed to get Blondie, Television, the Ramones, Talking Heads, the Patti Smith Group, Richard Hell and the Heartbreakers, and other newcomers on film, back when the general public hadn’t heard of them. The closest to a familiar name at the time were the New York Dolls.
Kral and filmmaker Amos Poe compiled all of those acts into a film called The Blank Generation, named after the Richard Hell and the Heartbreakers performance. (The song would later become an anthem in 1977 with Hell’s then-current band the Voidoids.) Using silent 16mm cameras for the performances and behind-the-scenes footage, Kral and Poe edited the images with demo recordings of the different bands. The end result was avant-garde home movies that were essentially music videos before the term even existed. The Blank Generation premiered in New York City on April 22nd, 1976. The self-titled debut album from the Ramones, the abrasively poppy clarion call from Forest Hills heard round the world, would be released the following day. Once again, timing was in Kral’s favor.
Decades later, timing was in both of our favors. I’d seen The Blank Generation for the first time a few weeks before at the Museum of Modern Art. I had informed Kral of this, and how much I loved it. Now it was time for him to look shocked. From his perspective, what were the chances this complete stranger he went up to would’ve just seen his highly influential, but relatively obscure film? When he asked what the reception was like, I flashed back to the image of a succession of visibly annoyed elderly people leaving the theatre one by one, presumably repelled by the odd, brusque music, and experimental nature of the movie. With this in mind, I responded that it had been a good turnout.
While we said our goodbyes, Kral and Hudson told us about Kral’s YouYube channel, the “IvanKralVault,” which features clips from the massive amount of footage he accumulated over the decades. This includes silent footage of Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels at the RKO Theater in Manhattan in 1967, where a portrait of then-President Lyndon B. Johnson is flashed on the giant screen behind them. The channel makes for a perfect escape, especially now with life in quarantine.
The following day, I looked up Kral online and was reminded that he co-wrote four songs for John Waite’s 1982 solo debut Ignition. Kral played rhythm guitar as well, including on the early MTV hit “Change.” His melodic arpeggios at the end encapsulates the poignancy at the heart of the bouncy new wave classic. That same year, he did the score for Diner, one of the greatest films ever made, with keyboardist Bruce Brody, his old bandmate from the Patti Smith Group. I’d known of Kral’s involvement, but had completely forgotten about it. The previous night started to make a little more sense. It’s possible he saw my friend and I as the 21st century equivalents of the music and football obsessed characters from the movie.
On Super Bowl Sunday, one of the most sacrosanct modern rituals in America, Ivan Kral passed away. In his final years, he saw his adopted home gradually turning into a Morning zoo DJ autocracy. Unlike many of us, it’s doubtful he ever took democracy for granted. The silver lining is Kral never got to witness his beloved New York City become a mass grave site due to the malignant neglect of a bitchy, miserly, moronic, cowardly socialite. And you thought punk was nihilistic?
He also never got to see some of his fellow Michiganders putting their lives at risk to protest the necessary measures keeping them alive. Mimicking the sniveling attitude of their leader, they whine about not being able to get their hair dyed and shop for lawn fertilizer, as others quietly fade away, suffering lonely deaths that could’ve been prevented. For one last time, Kral was in the good graces of perfect timing.
His life was a great American tale, one that ranged from owning a video store in New Brunswick, New Jersey during the ‘80s to attending the memorial of former jailed dissident turned first President of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Havel in 2011, even composing and performing a memorial song called “Rest in Peace.” Kral was another New York story where dream and reality are indistinguishable. He left a country that banned rock’n’roll, then proceeded to become a crucial figure in the evolution of rock’n’roll and New York City, subsequently inspiring the rest of the world.
Ain’t it strange?