PUNK Magazine Coffee: OPENING NIGHT
Adios Amigos hosted a nice event for us in the East Village
May Day 2025: Half a block south of the original CBGB location, Dark Matter Coffee installed a nice, big coffee bar that features great coffee brews, award-winning chocolate, nice pastries and some interesting wall paintings. Enter Miss Debra T., who met with owner Jesse, and talked him into setting up an exhibition of her photos, some of my drawings, and a tribute to the upcoming Joey Ramone Birthday Bash (May 19!!!). We are planning to throw a pre-party before the doors open at Bowery Electric, complete with a birthday cake and free stuff. Adios Amigos has made plans for a very special Joey dessert, so I strongly suggest stopping by there on the 19th if you can! Whether you have tickets for the show or not, you’re welcome to stop by and hang out and get a piece of Joey Ramone Birthday cake. (Tough to do on a Monday, so maybe we’ll do something on the Sunday before as well—let me know what you think? Thanks.)
The art and photos are scattered all over the coffee bar: Most of Miss Debra’s photos appear on the wall spaces and can be enjoyed from outside the shop, while others appear in the back (by the rest rooms), and they even wheat pasted a bunch of images stuff on a door!
In the back, by the rest rooms (very clean, by the way!), there’s a display of photos and art that went into creating the “Debtropolis” image for the Metropolis vintage clothing store (Broadway between 11th and 12th Streets).
There was a lot of free entertainment: Miss Debra’s friend, Angeleyedealism, who did free Tarot Card readings at Adios Amigos. She’s a very interesting person, I was glad to meet her. Very lively woman!
Our friend Steve Grillo, whose book Gorilla Parts was recently released, poses with one of the two tattoo artists (Chris Orta and José Quezada of Sunflower Tattoos: (I hope I got their names right!) who flew in from Chicago to give free tats to anyone and everyone. The tats were all based on PUNK and Adios Amigos images, like:
The image above was taken from the first-ever PUNK t-shirt advertisement in PUNK #1! It has somehow become the most famous image from the first issue of PUNK!
A lot of other friends showed up: Aido MacSpade (co-creator of Hep Cat), Marc Miller (who curated the first-ever “Punk Art” exhibition in 1978), Danielle Eden (more about her soon), Chris Munger (My World musician), and so many more. I wish I had taken more photos! Thanks to everyone who attended! Much appreciated.
The coffee bags (and cans!) look amazing. Here’s a tip if you’re interested in buying one: They won’t be available for very long, Dark Matter made 1,000 bags and once they sell out, that’s the end of it. Same with the cups. This is a limited edition (although if enough people buy bags before the end of the month, they might do a reprint). So buy now or else. I hope it doesn’t turn into another one of those PUNK Magazine things that ends up selling for hundreds of dollars a few years from now! You know, like the PUNK Magazine book (that went out of print last year, and that so many people ask me about, hoping I have a stash of them somewhere and now sell for hundreds of dollars!). But now or else. I ain’t gonna store a bunch of bags in my tiny apartment. Sorry.
LINK to buy PUNK Magazine Coffee: https://www.darkmattercoffee.com/products/punk-magazine
In other news, I was featured in the very popular Ramones PinheadPod: Ramone Podcast:
I think I did okay with it! They asked good questions and I think I covered some territory that wasn’t described before. Let me know how I did in the comments section? And please feel cree to comment and share everything if you like it. I appreciate the support from all of you,
SPOTIFY: tinyurl.com/JohnHSp
APPLE: tinyurl.com/JohnHIt
YOUTUBE: tinyurl.com/JohnHYt
And as always, WornFree.com is the best place to buy a wide variety of PUNK/John Holmstrom t-shirts.
Thanks so much, Christopher!
Thanks Nat! Yes! I agree! I hope they leave the door as is after the show closes at the end of the month. I love it! Meanwhile, our next two events look interesting: These Dark Matter people are formidable creators. It's great working with them.