March 1979. Sid Vicious is dead. The Talking Heads still share a cramped loft in the Bowery, but three weeks ago millions of Americans watched them play Saturday Night Live. Punk has hit the big time. Punk is dead. Punk is everywhere. Punk is what you see when you walk from Greenwich Avenue to St Marks Place - it’s half-ripped flybills and garbage-stained kicker boots; it’s the leather-jacketed junkies on the steps leading down to dark basement flats. This is the New York of strikes, blackouts, riots, and prostitutes working Times Square.
Punk isn’t just the music anymore, it isn’t just an aesthetic - it is the language of a generation with no future.
East Village 1979 is meant to be a character-driven game for strong writers who want to collaboratively explore the punk and post-punk aesthetic in a realistic setting. There’s no need to be an expert, but some knowledge of the era is probably going to be useful, even if it’s just in one particular area (music, culture, politics, etc).
“Real” punk, the punk of the Sex Pistols and Sid Vicious, is over now at least musically, and post-punk is gaining cultural currency. The Cold War means that every child has been through a nuclear war drill, has seen what a mushroom cloud looks like and knows what an atomic bomb can do to a city. There is no internet, no mobile phones, no cable TV. There is only the midnight matinee, the fuzzy television set, the night.
Things will happen. You will be there.
Character types include musicians, journalists, students, poets, album collectors/groupies, part-time punks, and others. Worth also saying that not everyone cares about the revolution. There’s room in this storium for squares as long as you’re prepared to be affected by art and anarchy.
No magic, no urban fantasy. This should be so real, it hurts. For aesthetic, think: Radio On, Wim Wenders, Talking Heads, Television, Blondie, The Clash, Allan Moyle’s Times Square, Jubilee, Pushead, irony, dark humour, dripping taps, peeling paint, garbage, drugs, filth, no future, punk rock!
Hosted and narrated by:
Amber
Started 02/02/15.
Scenes played: 3
License: Community License
