JMaxoutfit@aol.com/ YeahMedia@aol.com

Time sorts out all artwork. Either something is so good upon its introduction that room is immediately made for it alongside other legendary works---think "Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band", "Death Of A Salesman", or "The Godfather"---or it comes and goes like 99% of other art, music, film and books. When I first heard "Lach’s Antihoot/Live From The Fort At The Sidewalk Cafe" upon its release, I knew two things; that this was one of the most honest, off-the-cuff, raw, gutsy, in-your-face recordings I’d ever heard, and that as time went by, the recording would be an aural diary of East Village life for generations to come and would be as funny and harrowing 5, 10 or 100 years later.

Hundreds of hopefuls have passed through the doors of the Sidewalk Café since. Then as now, most have no more goal than a desire to be heard, realizing there is little chance of fame or success beyond praise from a small audience. This frees them to do or say or sing absolutely anything that comes to mind, for better or worse. Nothing sucks. A hideously out-of-tune guitar or toneless voice does not automatically disqualify one from receiving a big hand. LIVE at the Sidewalk catches the cream of these troubadours in the mid 1990’s.

Seven years have passed now, enough for time to shoo away many young men and women who wrote a song in their tiny bedroom in the apartment they shared with 2 or 3 others or more while working a day job. Some only knew a few guitar chords. On Monday nights, each of them had gulped, headed down to 7^th Street and Avenue A to the Fort’s night open mike and signed up with Lach at 7:30, not knowing if they’d hear their name called first or twenty-first. They shook as their legs carried them to the microphone after their names were announced, and let their songs fly like shot from a 12-gauge. None knew if what they performed would hit anything, everything, or nothing.

You can hear the terror in the performances of Dave and Dan Shurtman of The Humans. Twins in their early twenties who dress alike in thick glasses and matching suits, they capture, in their two minute "Hypocrite", all the frustration of an intelligent person trying futilely to connect with others at a headbanging show with "I feel so alienated/At this hardcore show/I can’t believe I paid the cover charge/I’m a hypocrite/Fuck you/I know." For years my wife and I thought the line was, "I feel so empty and naked"; maybe it’s subliminal.

Major Matt Mason USA, the Eeyore of Rock, mewls his way through "Little Dog Shuffle", a 4-chord stream-of-consciousness tune with a ride-the-range tempo. Mason hasn’t any musical or vocal chops and doesn’t pretend to. He apologizes midway through when he screws up a chord and is mocked by Lach three quarters into his somewhat long song, yet there is something strangely endearing and addicting about his monotone vocals.

Jennifer Dollard of Jen’s Revenge, who performs the vitriolic "This Sucks", begins with, "Why did you send me a letter/Full of bullshit and crap". She sings in the voice of a 5-year-old, yet she conveys the utter desolation of a new breakup. She clobbers her ex with rights and lefts throughout the song and ends with "Call me sometime", and means it.

We wonder, since we assume many of these songs are diaries set to music, what has become of people like Zane Campbell, who, before he introduces his song, "Effed Up On Jesus", "Many of my friends know I went on this big acid bender last year," or the talented Tom Clarke, whose girlfriend changes her mind about having sex and leaves without explaining in "Lights On".

Some Sidewalk alumni who appeared on "Live From The Fort At The Sidewalk Café" have gone on to actual careers, but the list is short. Hamell On Trial, who buzzsaws his way through "Harmony", the 3^rd track, now commands Saturday nights at The Village Underground after recovering from a major auto accident while on tour in Texas. Muckafurgson, authors of "Killing Flies", opened for Janeane Garafalo at one of her recent shows. Others still make music while holding day jobs.

Then there is Lach, who has since released "Blang!" and "Kids Fly Free" to high critical acclaim. Lach gets three songs on LIVE at the Fort, and all are funny. If Lach could have plotted his own course without obstruction, he would have had a career like Randy Newman, Graham Parker or others whose adherence to the queer, the off-center, the different and the interesting provided an antidote from the staid, the predictable, the hyped, the dishonest and the dull. Lach has, by the force of his personality, garnered radio and television appearances, and has shoved his club and its alumni into major newspapers, the clippings of which are proudly displayed on the front window of the Sidewalk.

Yet no artist save Beck, who briefly plied his wares at the Fort in pre-"Loser" days, has permeated the masses in a significant, permanent way or caused the great tower of rock to collapse and point in a new, more honest direction. Still, Lach carries on, still refusing to believe that his club and his musicians are headed anywhere but for greatness.

In the book, "Les Miserables", escaped convict Jean Valjean is looking for shelter during a hideous rainstorm, and all who hear his made-up tale of having lost his way turn the hungry and desperate man away, mostly unkindly. Even when he seeks shelter in a doghouse, the dog returns and rousts him, biting him as he flees. He finally sits on a park bench, soaked, and a stranger approaches, asking Valjean his troubles. Valjean says, "No one will give me shelter." The stranger points to a house on a hill and says, "Have you knocked there?" Valjean says he hasn’t. "Knock there," the stranger says, and when Valjean does, telling the priest who answers he is an escaped convict, he is given shelter.

So the same principal goes for the Fort; bring with you your honesty about who you are, and why because you aren’t especially pretty or a traditional songwriting talent, no one will book you. The Fort will book you, or at least hear you out.

That Lach and the Fort have survived for almost 15 years is a measure of greatness in itself. Everyone comes to New York City to make some kind of mark, to let someone know, "I was here---I existed." Someday, Lach will be gone, and there will be no one to take his place. This is what makes "Live From The Fort At The Sidewalk" an important work. Even though the Fort alumni, including Lach, may not ever see one of their songs enter heavy rotation, the fact that a small record of the events exists gives hope to anyone who ever packed a guitar and headed to New York City.