Bonds News Reports

BOND'S CASINO, NEW ROCK CLUB, OPENS

Published: January 21, 1981

New York City's younger rock-and-roll bands will have a new showcase for their talents beginning tonight, when Bond's Casino, at 45th Street and Broadway, formerly a lavish disco, begins presenting live rock four nights a week, Wednesdays through Saturdays. The new series, which will feature adventurous New York bands such as the Bush Tetras, the Lounge Lizards and the Nitecaps, is being coordinated by Charlie Martin, whose familiarity with the breadth and depth of the city's rock subculture is a result of his experience as a talent booker and sound engineer at C.B.G.B. Doors Open at 10 P.M.

''Bond's is the largest room for rock in the city,'' Mr. Martin said this week, ''but we're going to try to run it with taste and sensitivity to the contemporary scene. We're starting off with New York bands that have built up large followings but haven't been able to play the larger clubs because they don't have major record companies and booking agencies behind them.''

The new policy at Bond's begins tonight with the Bush Tetras and continues with the Lounge Lizards on Thursday, the Sirens on Friday, and the Nitecaps on Saturday. On Jan. 29, Bond's will present Deadline, the exceptional new rock/new jazz fusion band, with special guests. The doors open at 10 P.M. and shows are at around midnight and 2 A.M. Stiff Competition

With rock clubs continuing to sprout all over the city and with the popular Peppermint Lounge just around the corner, Bond's will be facing some stiff competition, especially considering its admission prices - $10 on weeknights and $15 on weekends. A number of the city's rock clubs now charge $10 at the door, either as a matter of policy or for especially popular bands, but for $15 or less one can see a nationally known rock act from a good seat at the Palladium or Madison Square Garden - if one can get a ticket before the show is sold out. Mr. Martin admits he is ''not particularly happy'' with the Casino's policy on ticket prices, but with so many rock clubs doing booming business in the city, especially on weekends, there may well be room for a larger, fancier, slightly more expensive one.

Illustrations: Photo of Laura Kennedy

I just discovered that my neighbor for the past 30 years, Charlie Martin, was the promoter that brought The Clash to Bonds in times Square!

I live in a building right around the corner from where CBGBs was and just about everybody who worked at CB's lived in my building including Hilly. The sound guy for CB's was Charlie Martin who still lives here and I was having a chat with him at our local where we were talking about the old days when he brought up how he was the sound man at CB's and then went on to do promotion. One thing led to another and I found out he brought The Clash to Bonds. My jaw hit the floor and all I could do was thank him!

I looked it up, it's true, you never know! What a small world. Here is a link to an article about Charlie,

https://stereosociety.com/20/cmintmt.shtml

about halfway down after answer 7 is

" I came to New York with the idea of becoming a band manager and then I started helping stage-manage the club, and then getting more involved with the technology and suddenly somehow we discovered that I knew how to mix. And I started doing that in a serious way. Later on, I became a promoter and did some other things as you probably remember, the Clash at Bond’s [a large former disco at Times Square] and so forth. "

It's a Russian place called Anyway cafe, tucked away near the corner of 2nd street and 2nd ave. Love that place, they have music every night, my wife dances there occasionally as a belly dancer. They specialize in Russian Vodka infused drinks but have a selection of eastern European beers and good food.

Charlie Martin In Interview

Driven by music, Charlie Martin arrived in New York from Chicago, landing first as the lead sound engineer and later as the booking agent at CBGB 1974-80. A shorter period as general manager, chief engineer, booker (and probably chief cook and bottle washer) at Bond’s Casino in Times Square.

Charlie was interviewed by Mike Thorne at the Stereo Society from 4pm September 5 2013.

The structure of the club just seemed to emerge. In the earliest days you just seem to have evolved a set of rôles between you…

Well that was true of all of New York too. The wonderful thing about Manhattan back then was that you could invent yourself. There was a lot of space to become yourself, and to develop yourself, and become new things. I came to New York with the idea of becoming a band manager and then I started helping stage-manage the club, and then getting more involved with the technology and suddenly somehow we discovered that I knew how to mix. And I started doing that in a serious way. Later on, I became a promoter and did some other things as you probably remember, the Clash at Bond’s [a large former disco at Times Square] and so forth.

I often said that you could walk into New York back then and announce that you were a guru, and if you did a pretty good job at it everybody would say, ‘he’s a guru.’ Nobody would check your credentials. ‘Sounds good, he’s a mixer.’ And I think a lot of people were like that: they invented themselves. It was the kind of environment where there were a lot of roles to be filled: we needed mixers, and we needed promoters, we needed this and that. It was a situation where you could just walk in and invent yourself and express yourself, both musically but in lots of other roles too. So it was wonderful. It was a paradise.