Our own John Swenson was name-checked recently in this interview with B-movie critic Joe Kane, which paints an entertaining picture of the arts-writing community in New York in the 1970s:

Didn’t write many music articles at that point but did play in a couple of writer-driven mock-rock bands, Blind Orange Julius (in 1975, first group to play CBGBs on dead weekday nights) and King Rude. King Rude used to perform a tune called “Rock Critics’ Roll” when we played the Bells of Hell bar, during which we’d try to shame our rock-crix buds in the house—Lester Bangs, Billy Altman, John Swenson, John Morthland, Bob Duncan, among others—into getting up and kicking out the jams. Lester later got his revenge by bringing his band, Birdland, to the Bells for some counter sonic dissonance.