The New York Groove

by | Oct 11, 2008 | Music

Watching the premiere of Life on Mars got me reminiscing about New York in the Seventies. And then today I gave a brief talk at a College of Arts and Science admissions open house, which I preceded with the opening slides from Bryan’s and my Writing New York class. I substituted a version of “Sidewalks of New York” performed by Duke Ellington for Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s “New York, New York,” which we usually play over the slides, but I still played Ace Frehley’s “New York Groove” at the conclusion of the slide show.

Do you remember that song? It was from Frehley’s “solo” album, released in October 1978. Frehley was the lead guitarist for the band KISS, and each member of the quartet released a solo album that fall.

Here’s a video of the song from the KISS tour that followed the release of the solo albums and the group album Dynasty in 1979:

If you prefer you can watch the same video, backed by the studio recording:



Okay, I confess: I saw three KISS shows during the late Seventies and played a parody of “Calling Dr. Love” in our senior show with a band that we called “Sweet Pig.” (The rewritten song was named for our eleventh-grade physics teacher: “Calling Dr. Rome.”)