Isn’t it weird how you don’t wanna totally punch the third guy from the left?

The print edition of Sunday’s New York Times featured the above photo of U2 at the Bijou Cafe as part of this piece about how the band is the last rock band of ever and, to paraphrase Maude Lebowski, proud we are of all of them. But what interested us was the mention of the Bijou Cafe, which once stood at 1409 Lombard, and how little of its punk/new wave history survives today. For a time, we gather, the Bijou was thee punk/new wave/dance venue. It was alluded to in this oral history of the early Philly punk scene Sweeney conducted for PW back in 2001, and shows up in Michael Polizzi’s concert list (one of the more amazing concert lists we’ve ever seen, BTW) and Robert Drake’s blog, but there, the trail goes cold, save for a Teardrop Explodes ticket stub here or there. But peruse those links, and what a snapshot of old Philly nightlife you get. It almost makes you look forward to Philly circa midpoint of Great Depression 2.0, when surely, everything will get weird and dark all over again.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009 at 2:54 pm.