Bob Dylan was a cheap cocksucker

"Bob Dylan used to come into the club for soup and Charlie was always being asked about him by young tourists. His reply was always the same. 'Bob Dylan? Dylan? Oh yes, I remember him. He was a cheap cocksucker! Never would give you a nickel. He shouldda dropped a hunnert on me for all I did for him. Yeah, he was a cheap cocksucker!'"

Welcome to nyc.ppl™. An ongoing series of interviews with ny'ers. Ivan Ulz, a well known children's musician, kicks off the series. Ivan moved to Greenwich Village, NYC in 1980. Looking for work in New York City, Ivan decided to play a hunch and applied for a job in a nursery school. He began working as an assistant teacher and quickly realized that his real expertise was in making music with children. Word got around and soon Ivan was employed as a “music specialist,” playing and singing at a number of Village schools each week.

NYC.gov has described your song Fire Truck as an "anthem among preschoolers across the country." What else is Ivan Ulz known for that might not be immediately apparent?

I started writing songs when I was 18 after I saw the British actress Hayley Mills in the film, “Whistle Down the Wind.” I was determined to meet her at the very least, so I picked up the guitar I had been playing for less than a year, and composed a tune called “A Letter to Hayley”. The song was heard by a couple of the Four Preps, who’d had several pop hits. They took me into a recording studio where I sang the song and they printed a thousand copies with my new name of Billy Kidd. It sold a moderately but shortly after that the Beatles emerged and it was decided that the Four Preps would change a few words and make my song “A Letter to the Beatles”. The song stayed on the charts for several weeks. I was shortchanged on credit and royalties but it whetted my appetite to become a songwriter.

Why do you think children respond so positively your music?

I lived in a nursery school with my parents from the time I was 7 until I was 18 and left home. Although I was an “only” child I came home to almost 40 preschool children everyday after I had gone to school of my own. They were there, I was there, and we talked and I guess just sort of hung-out. What I am saying is I learned their language. I read them stories, sang them songs, and observed their likes and dislikes. I wasn’t crazy about the situation at the time, but looking back I can see how it was a perfect grid for a children’s performer.

You are originally from L.A., but moved to nyc in 1980 where you reside now. For posterity's sake, Id like to take a moment to imagine yourself at home on Thompson St, the year is 1981, and you are walking around the neighborhood. (did they call it SOHO back then?) Can you describe for the readers what you see and hear? Is there anything extraordinary or noteworthy to report?

They did call it SoHo back then, but there was not a whole lot I had to do with it other than passing through on my way to go shopping in Chinatown. When I stepped outside the door of my building on Thompson Street I would see the Empire State Bldg to the north and the Twin Towers to the south….Nothing much was going on in SoHo as I recall. Buildings were being converted to lofts and there were art galleries around. I remember OK Harris because it was owned by a the parents of a kid I knew. I was more interested in music than the art scene. I remember Mills Tavern on Bleecker Street where I played sometimes and hung out with other folk musicians. The owner Charlie Mills was an amazing old guy in a tradition long gone. Bob Dylan used to come into the club for soup and Charlie was always being asked about him by young tourists. His reply was always the same. “Bob Dylan? Dylan? Oh yes, I remember him. He was a cheap cocksucker! Never would give you a nickel. He shouldda dropped a hunnert on me for all I did for him. Yeah, he was a cheap cocksucker!” Charley found ways to get musicians to perform at absolute minimum wage. A lot of very crazy shit went on in that place. There was dope in the bathroom and sometimes even on stage.

On Thompson between Bleecker and Third there was a chicken slaughterhouse. I was too squeamish to check it out, but I knew people who bought their chickens there. The joke was you could name your bird and watch the whole grisly process. Too much for me, but I kinda wished I’d had nerve to visit one time when it closed down.

The Village Gate was right on the corner. I remember going there only once to see Sid Ceasar. Maybe I went another time but I don’t know. Art (the owner) used to stand on the street hawking people to come in.

The Bleecker Street Cinema was going full force when I came here. Also on Bleecker was the Triumph Café and the Village Inn which we called the Village Idiot. And on the corner of 6th Avenue and Bleecker was the Pioneer Market with tiny shopping carts to fit their tiny aisles. Across the street on 6th Avenue was Jack and Jill Doughnuts which even in 1981 was from another era. It featured an atmosphere from the 1940’s and waitresses who always had time to talk with you.

There were social clubs on Sullivan, mysterious places to me, with guys who looked like gangsters even if they weren’t.

Did you have a defining moment while living in your neighborhood that finally had you feeling as if you belonged, that this is your home?

My first several years in New York were confined to the West Village, not all the time, but a whole lot of it. The part of Thompson where I lived was decidedly NoHo, that block just before Houston. What really kept me in my immediate area was when Children’s Energy Center opened just a few doors down from me. (It’s now Lupo, the restaurant) I needed work, so I went and told them no degree in nursery education but I had experience working in nursery schools since I was 9 years old. The director was impressed and hired me as an assistant teacher. Before that I had been singing some at Folk City and quite a lot at Washington Square Park. My first job singing for children and not being called a teacher was at Thompson park in SoHo when they had a playgroup in back of what now is the swimming pool.

You've been in nyc for three decades now, is there one decade you prefer? And why?

Hands down, this 21st Century is my favorite decade. I met Eva, who is now my wife, in 1999 and together we have formed a unit that is unprecedented in my life. Perhaps it has something to do with the unusual combination of me serenading toddlers and her being the educational director of the Merchant’s House Museum on East 4th Street. Whatever it is, we have a very harmonious existence I the tiny apartment, the same one I moved into in 1980. Also, this has been the decade when I have started collecting the kind of recognition as an artist that I was seeking when I moved to New York. I “teach” classes at 5 preschools in the Village on a weekly basis. Also, I work for the New York Public Library which sends me to do library programs all over Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island. I give concerts for children who are Pre-K through 1st Grade in public schools and I also entertain at some birthday parties.

You can catch Ivan this month and next, playing free shows at a number of NYPL's in Manhattan and the Bronx.

(and NYTimes stop copying me. When I documented who was riding on the train, you had to go document who was riding the train. When NYC The Blog went to the Department of Labor on 125th St to file a story, you had to go to the DoL to file a story. My next story will be about publicly listed phone numbers of well known ny'ers, so that will probably be in the Times next week too.)