Vanished Venues

There is a continuing series on WNYC's music show Soundcheck about long gone music hot spots in NYC called Vanished Venues. This series started in October of last year and so far they've done about eight installments with hopefully more to come.

Some of these venues you may have heard of, others you may not have, but all of them were places where past and future legends of music came to make music -- and history.

There was the Old Metropolitan Opera House on 39th Street where opera in America was born.

There was the Palladium in Union Square where The Band, AC/DC and the Clash amongst others performed.


The Fillmore East featured the Allman Brothers Band and the Jefferson Airplane.

Max's Kansas City is where many great bands from the 1960s to the 1980s played and where the Velvet Underground performed several legendary shows. 

And there was Danceteria on the lower west side where Devo and Phillip Glass amongst others used to perform -- and where young singer and Michigan transplant named Madonna got her start. 

It's a really series that gives you a wonderful insight into the history of music in America and New York's past. Hopefully they'll do more installments -- I can't imagine how series about vanished venues in NYC can't include CBGBs. 


Who knows? Maybe one day the Bowery Ballroom, Irving Plaza, the Hammerstein Ballroom or Terminal 5 will be all but a memory ...

These venues may have vanished but their ghosts live with us, and the music they produced and the cultural impact that they had are very much alive today.