NEW YORK JUNK was born in 2009 when singer-guitarist Joe Sztabnik brought together other survivors of the early NYC punk scene who played with him in the 70s and 80s at venues like CBGBs,Max’s Kansas City, and Irving Plaza. Recording in his Queens, NY basement, Sztabnik was joined by bassist Cynthia “B-Girl” Ross and drummer Gary Barnett. Later, they added guitarist Jeff Ward– a veteran of the late 1980s English punk-soul band Gunfire Dance.
NEW YORK JUNK’s street cred is real – its members having collaborated on stage, in
recording studios, and on television with the likes of Johnny Thunders, Dee Dee Ramone, Sid
Vicious and Nancy Spungen, Deborah Harry and Blondie, Stiv Bators of Dead Boys, Mick
Jones of The Clash, Wayne Kramer of MC5, and Joan Jett during The Runaways era.
Little wonder Vive Le Rock magazine describes NEW YORK JUNK as “a four-piece line-up
that, amongst them, have a history in NYC punk that qualifies them for royalty status.”
Louder Than War says NEW YORK JUNK’s recordings on their own JoeTone label are
suffused with the “same spirit” as the “savage beauty of Johnny Thunders and the
Heartbreakers’ ‘LAMF’ album and its revolutionary antecedents, ‘Funhouse’ and ‘Raw Power’
by The Stooges.”
It describes NEW YORK JUNK as a “quintessential NYC band of survivors” who “make their
own backs-to-the-wall Alamo stance against gentrification and the loss of the street poetry
and soul that was ingrained in NYC in the 70s and 80s.”
