Jesse Malin Honors an Old Friend and Classic New York in ‘Todd Youth’ Video

Jesse Malin pays tribute to his late friend and bandmate Todd Youth in the new music video for the song of the same name, filmed in New York during the coronavirus pandemic.

Youth was a pioneering guitarist in the New York hardcore scene, performing with Murphy’s Law, Agnostic Front, Warzone, Glen Campbell, Danzig, H.R., Ace Frehley, Motörhead, Cheap Trick and with Malin in the Saint Mark’s Social and D Generation. When he died in 2018, his ashes were placed beneath the Hare Krishna Tree in the East Village’s Tompkins Square Park.

“Todd was one of the greatest guitar players and a dear friend,” Malin says. “We met when I was 14.  He always made a huge impact and will be remembered forever.”

In the video, directed by Dave Stekert, Malin pays tribute to both his friend and the classic rock iconography of New York. The video was shot on the stoop of the Physical Graffiti building in Manhattan, where Malin watches masked passersby with his friend, H.R. from Bad Brains. Later, he meets up with a close friend of his and Youth’s, Jimmy G of the band Murphy’s Law, in a nod to the Rolling Stones’ video for “Waiting on a Friend.” The three of them, along with a small group of Youth’s friends and family, travel to the original site of A7, a former club and the unofficial headquarters of the New York hardcore scene during the early Eighties.

As part of his livestream series, The Fine Art of Social Distancing, Malin and his band will be performing his 2003 album The Heat in its entirety on Thursday, August 27th at 7:00 p.m. ET, livestreamed from the Bowery Electric. Advanced tickets are available now via Veeps, with proceeds going toward Malin’s band and road crew, as well as his venues like Bowery Electric.

“Very few venues are going to be able to survive. We need real financial help from the federal government like they did in Britain with the $2 billion dollar bailout,” Malin wrote in a Rolling Stone op-ed. “The government needs to acknowledge that the arts are essential to our culture, community and growth.”