The Brooklyn Paper: FEEL THE NOISE
The current issue
Neighborhood Map
Bay Ridge
  • Bensonhurst, Dyker Heights
Brooklyn Heights
  • Downtown, DUMBO
Carroll Gardens
  • Cobble Hill, Red Hook, Boerum Hill
Fort Greene
  • Clinton Hill, Crown Heights
North Brooklyn
  • Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Bushwick
Park Slope
  • Prospect Heights, Windsor Terrace, Greenwood Heights
GO Brooklyn
Dining Guide
Where to GO
Events calendar
Classifieds
The Brooklyn Wire
Not Just Nets
Police Blotter
Perspective
Parenting
Politics
Transit
Podcasts
Brooklyn Cyclones
Merchant news
About The Paper
RSS Feeds
CNG Boro Politics

FEEL THE NOISE

L’Amour celebrates 25 years of hosting headbanging rock ’n’ roll

By Jotham Sederstrom and Lisa J. Curtis
The Brooklyn Paper
Generation next: The Act (above) will open for The Misfits at L'Amour on Halloween night.

Tools

Print this story
digg
del.icio.us

L’Amour, the venerable punk and metal venue in Borough Park that’s hosted such disparate and legendary acts as the Dead Kennedys and Judas Priest, celebrates its 25th anniversary in November.

L’Amour has long been Brooklyn’s bastion for local and national acts, including such notables in the coming weeks as L.A. Guns and King Diamond. This Friday, Halloween perennials The Misfits, who are also celebrating 25 years of rock ’n’ rollin’, will perform at L’Amour, located on a warehouse-flanked and otherwise eerily quiet building at 1545 63rd St.

The venue itself is a monument to dingy simplicity. Think of your basement cellar, but with a couple of beer bottles strewn about. Turn out the lights, drop a stage in front and a bar in back, add some hair, and there, headbangers, is L’Amour.

Alone but for the Brooklyn Zoo, a punk and New Wave club in Sheepshead Bay during the 1980s, L’Amour has showcased the borough’s metal scene while giving a leg-up to young unknowns like Guns N’ Roses, who played at the venue in the mid ’80s, according to the venue’s Web site.

The list of bands that have rocked L’Amour’s stages since 1978 number in the hundreds and include hordes of local bands like Dashboard Mary and Sir Duke. But many, like Metallica, Faith No More and Megadeth, visited Borough Park long before becoming the household names they are today.

"I had known about it as a metal place - Metallica came out of there from what I understand," said Mike Shine, 26, lead singer of The Act, which will open for The Misfits on Halloween night. Shine said The Act’s theatrical shows employ everything from smoke machines to confetti cannons and "we always try to play every show like it’s Madison Square Garden."

Although intrigued by L’Amour’s history, Shine told GO Brooklyn, "I’m even more excited about seeing The Misfits - Jerry Only and Marky Ramone and Dez - those [The Misfits, The Ramones, and Black Flag] are three of my favorite bands of all time, so I will be in the audience watching the show, too."

At press time it had not yet been announced how L’Amour, the self-proclaimed "Rock Capitol of Brooklyn," would be celebrating its silver anniversary, so keep your eye on www.lamourrocks.com for more information.

 

L’Amour is located at 1545 63rd St. at 15th Avenue in Borough Park. On Oct. 31, The Misfits, The Act, Carnival of Souls, Scarred by Life, Kayden, Turn for the Worse, Leviathan, Agnosis, Black Moon Rising, Subjected and more will perform at 7:30 pm. Tickets are $20.

On Nov. 1, The Color Guard, Down One, The Perfect Mistake, Voice of a Secret, Six Second Crush, Wail and Vertyle perform at 7:30 pm. Call for admission price.

On Nov. 2, Six Feet Under, Behemoth, Skinless, The Black Dahlia Murder, Cyanide Breed, Deadwait, Divine Signs, Dimentianon, Locked in a Vacancy and Raza Odiada perform at 5 pm. Call for admission price.

For more information, call (718) 837-9506.

©2003 Community Newspaper Group


Reader Feedback

Enter your comment below

By submitting this comment, you agree to the following terms:

You agree that you, and not BrooklynPaper.com or its affiliates, are fully responsible for the content that you post. You agree not to post any abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening or sexually-oriented material or any material that may violate applicable law; doing so may lead to the removal of your post and to your being permanently banned from posting to the site. You grant to BrooklynPaper.com the royalty-free, irrevocable, perpetual and fully sublicensable license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such content in whole or in part world-wide and to incorporate it in other works in any form, media or technology now known or later developed.

First name
Last name
Your neighborhood
Email address
Daytime phone

Your letter must be signed and include all of the information requested above. (Only your name and neighborhood are published with the letter.) Letters should be as brief as possible; while they may discuss any topic of interest to our readers, priority will be given to letters that relate to stories covered by The Brooklyn Paper.

Letters will be edited at the sole discretion of the editor, may be published in whole or part in any media, and upon publication become the property of The Brooklyn Paper. The earlier in the week you send your letter, the better.