by Richard Boch
Meeting of the Minds
Standing outside the club was what I did, or was supposed to be doing; meeting people and getting to know a few was inevitable. Despite my inability to look closely at myself, I could see things in others, often from half a block away. If I liked what I saw, I opened the chain. It was a big responsibility.
Michael Holman is walking down White Street wearing a continental-cut iridescent sharkskin suit. He sees me, steps up to the chain and smiles. He’s handsome, polite and secure in the knowledge that he won’t have to wait. Our camaraderie in that moment is based solely on the Mudd Club and my ability to say yes or no at the door.
Holman had left San Francisco in 1978. He arrived in New York and began working as a courier. (His van from that job was the same that eventually ran errands and helped put together the legendary Mudd Club Soul party.) Before long Michael was hanging out at Max’s, Studio 54 and Galaxy West. He checked out the Canal Zone parties at artist Sam Peskett’s Canal Street loft where he met SAMO graffiti writer and artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. In late April 1979, the earliest version of the industrial noise, jazz and space band formed by Holman and Basquiat was born. Originally named Channel Nine, the band quickly became Bad Fools, then Test Pattern. It would take another year before this meeting of the minds stepped onto the Mudd Club stage as Gray.
Right now it’s 1 A.M. Michael says hi, I unhook the chain and the door opens. James Brown’s “Sex Machine” screams. I turn around and Michael’s already inside dancing. A minute later, so am I.
Who Do You Love
Back at the door I smiled thinking of Alice Himelstein. She never really danced but she saw the Beatles perform at Carnegie Hall in 1964 and ran around London during Punk’s heyday. Alice lived in a duplex on Central Park West with her father, the renowned Doctor Theodore Himelstein. She came to Mudd every night but stayed near the bar until a band was ready to play. She laughed a big laugh, powered by an even bigger heart. I felt like we knew each other before we even met.
Michael Holman, Mudd Club boogaloo, 1980, by Nick Taylor.
Alice often got out of the cab at Broadway and I’d see her coming down the block. She carried a giant tote bag when pocketbooks were still small and wore an arm full of black rubber bracelets years before someone put them on Madonna. Her hair was a Goth shade of black until she added a touch of purple. The braided tail that started at the hairline on the back of her neck was a beautiful detail. I can’t believe I never pulled on it when I had the chance.
If she could stop laughing, Alice would be proud that I’m the one writing this story. Alice was my friend and I loved her. I know she loved me.
“Who do you love?” is always a difficult question; just ask Bo Diddley—but when Lynette Bean turned on her million-dollar smile the answer came easy. I’d see her at CBGB’s or The Bottom Line but White Street was where we became friends. She was guitarist Ivan Kral’s girlfriend, she knew everyone, and she loved Rock ’n’ Roll.
In late 1979, when Ivan started touring with Iggy Pop’s band, Lynette and I went out on a tour of our own. We ran the circuit midnight to noon, winding our way thru concerts, clubs and early-morning parties; looking for fun and trouble, we were all area access all the time.
Alice Himelstein, 1980, Hidden Identities series by Marcus Leatherdale.
When a new band or a new player came to town, Lynette showed them around, brought them to Mudd and introduced us. I became friends with some, while others just picked up a free drink and kept walking. Meeting more people than I could keep track of, fun and trouble occasionally crashed head on.
When legendary photographer Kate Simon strolled up to the door with the artist Carl Apfelschnitt, I could never tell if they were trouble, fun or funny but I took a chance and let them in anyway. They’d start out at the first-floor bar, charm a few drinks out of Steve Mass and move on from there.
Kate was born and raised in Poughkeepsie, New York. She escaped, studied in Paris, moved to London in ’72 and lived and worked there until 1977. She was around for the mayhem, when the Sex Pistols and The Clash tore the town apart and when the Heartbreakers, Patti Smith and the Ramones invaded. London was calling and burning at the same time and Kate shot the pictures.
Kate Simon, glamour girl photographer at large, Mudd Club 1979, courtesy Kate Simon.
During my time at the door and through our mutual friends, Richard Sohl and Andi Ostrowe of the Patti Smith Group, I got to know Kate. She’s the one who started calling me RB and I’m the one who’s always reminding her that she’s Kate Simon. We remain friends.
Mudd Every Night
Words like friends and love can be hard to understand, finding out what’s real and what isn’t. Drifting apart and reconnecting, most of us remember where we came from. Certain childhood friends become family, while high school—with few exceptions—is little more than a connection to time and place. The friends I made in college left a mark and still matter. Everyone I met on White Street will in some way always be part of me.
When I met Jo Shane, the artist, future surfing fanatic and sometime educator, she was a soft-spoken party girl and I was a painter working at the Mudd Club. She arrived on White Street in late 1978; Mudd was still on the down low and “artist Ronnie Cutrone and his wife, Gigi Williams, were the conduit.” Before long Jo knew her way around the dance floor, the bathrooms and Cortland Alley. Her realization that “the fabric of art and life were tightly interwoven” happened fast, and “if you didn’t want to miss anything, you couldn’t blink and you had to be at the club every night.”
We’d walk home together in the early morning daylight, smoking cigarettes and talking about art, life and the Mudd Club. We laugh about it today, but love the fact we had a crush on each other back then. All these years later, it’s still there.
I ask Jo, “What made Mudd different?”
Without pause she answers, “From the minute I walked in it changed my life.”
I know what she means: that connection from then till now, being there and never leaving.
All I can say is, “It changed mine too.”
4. A GOLDEN HIGHWAY
Jean-Michel Basquiat, smiling and dancing, 1980, by Nick Taylor.
Everything stops when David Bowie gets out of a cab. No bodyguard, no entourage; he’s alone and we head inside. I have a little coke but feel a bit awkward offering just a few lines. I find Hal Ludacer for a dose of moral support, grab Bowie and we escape to the basement. The cocaine disappears quickly.
Back upstairs an old reel-to-reel projector perched on a shelf flickers out-of-sync images of Motown. Jean-Michel Basquiat stands under the projector, his back to the wall, looking out at the dance floor grinning. Choppy waves of light fly around the room and DJ David has the crowd going Supremes crazy. It’s a trip—a throwback thrown forward. It’s getting late and the place is packed.
Bowie leaves around 4 A.M. He isn’t alone. Hal’s hanging out on the second floor and I’m sitting on the downstairs bar drinking a beer when the lights come on.
New York was always a small town: anywhere south of Fourteenth Street, familiar territory. You never knew who you might run into, though working the Mudd Club door surely changed the odds.
I’d been running around downtown for almost three years; after nearly three months at the door I know who people are without actually knowing them. Whether it’s the locals Richard Serra, Jenny Holzer or James Rosenquist, or a visiting West Coast crazy like Chris Burden, no one gets left outside. Artist and art critic Walter Robinson doesn’t have to ask; the chain just opens. Pioneering conceptualist Dennis Oppenheim lives around the corner and walks right thru the door. Artist Kiki Smith lives across the street and has no problem getting in. Belushi blubber-shoves everyone out of the way and Teri Toye just shoves without the blubber.
Back inside, one of the DJs is excited by a rumor that the guys from Van Halen are coming. They sort of creep me out and I’m not interested; besides, I can’t even name one of their songs. I’m more a
mused by the ridiculousness of Leif Garrett’s arrival. After that, and considering my chaotic but measured crowd orchestration, I need a break and a hot dog from Dave’s.
Every now and then I left work alone and walked to Murray Street. Broadway south of Canal was a golden highway with a lot to offer. The 6 A.M. streets were a pre-rush hour wasteland of cardboard-wrapped, metal-banded bales of fabric scrap waiting for pickup. The odd roll of backdrop paper or discarded canvas stretchers were the good garbage that I could use. Along the way I found old wooden doors, pieces of plywood, buckets of paint and a double-basin stainless steel sink. The sink became part of my kitchen. The rest of it became art.
North of Canal and south of Houston had the same vibe of lost and found, litter and debris, the streets even darker and narrower. The offices of the SoHo Weekly News were located just east of Broadway on Crosby Street, not far from White. Senior editorial staff, gossips and entertainment columnists emptied out into Mudd nearly every night. SoHo music editor and author Peter Occhiogrosso and future Paper Magazine founders Kim Hastreiter and David Hershkovits wandered in, got lost, and were eventually found. Nightlife scribe Stephen Saban, and the legendary tattler and social indicator Michael Musto (often in the company of actress and SoHo News contributor Sylvia Miles) arrived after 1 A.M. and poured themselves out the door a few hours later. Writer, critic and SoHo News columnist and contributor Pat Wadsley (whose résumé includes everything from 16 Magazine to the New York Post) usually arrived early and stayed late. Even publisher Michael Goldstein, dressed in a brass-button navy blazer and looking like a country club admiral, wasn’t immune to the charms of White Street.
Allan Tannenbaum, the SoHo News photographer, shot everything from the parties to the performances and the crowd outside. His visual account of the city, chronicled in his book New York in the 70s, includes a photo of me working the door in 1979. My thoughts and words, the Mudd Club ushering out the decade and moving into a new one, being part of the phenomenon and celebration that happened on White Street, introduce images of New York nightlife.
The seventies were turning eighty and I had no idea how long I’d be standing out front but as summer slowly approached I knew this was a moment I’d never forget. Within three or four years the eighties would be full swing and full-on; the need to be entertained met with a new take on nightlife. With few exceptions that vision became purely surface. By then the SoHo Weekly News was gone.
During the newspaper’s run, nearly everyone involved generously chronicled events and nonevents at the Mudd Club. Columnist Stephen Saban even reported that Richard Sohl and Andi Ostrowe were at Murray Street after hours, cleaning my kitchen. No photographs were taken of the event but by 8 A.M. my stove, refrigerator and sink were spotless—just another perk of working the door.
Tales of Mudd are vague but numerous, and the photo coverage is limited. Many tried and some succeeded but freelance photographer Alan Brand—whom Steve often stopped from taking pictures inside the club—was relentless when it came to capturing nearly every fleeting Mudd moment. Brand became a ghost years ago but his archive, if it exists, would be a goldmine. Thankfully, Tannenbaum’s images, along with those of David Armstrong and Nan Goldin, Bobby Grossman, Alan Kleinberg, Dustin Pittman, Eileen Polk, Ebet Roberts, Kate Simon, Nick Taylor and Harvey Wang speak for a perilously undocumented time.
The Right Direction
Despite the fact that there was neither a time card nor similar documentation, Vicki Pedersen called it the office and checked into Mudd every night. Like Jo Shane, she knew you had to or you might miss something. At the door, I tried to point everyone in the right direction.
There were two floors, two bars, a stage and a dance floor. The bathrooms were functioning but in constant need of repair. If you were hungry, Dave’s Luncheonette was just around the corner. Mudd had everything you needed but mail delivery, a toothbrush and clean underwear, though for some the latter was meaningless.
The door policy kept getting tighter and Steve let me do my thing, though I do remember Rebecca Christensen reminding me, “If people aren’t bringing something to the party, they shouldn’t get in”—a suggestion that always rings true.
If someone questionable or nonassessable arrived, I’d do my best to find Steve. If he had no idea who or what I was talking about, his response was usually “Let them in.” He’d disappear, reappear later and ask me to point out the person in question. He’d say “Oh” and disappear again.
Back at the door I check out the crowd, ask how many and open the chain. When Louie asks “Who’s that?” my response is simply, “I like them.” He rolls his eyes, I shrug and we let in a few more people. Then Steve steps outside and mumbles something. It’s an inscrutable, low-talking 1 A.M. mumble that occasionally turns into a semi-serious mindfuck. No beards, no fat people, no limos are a few of the favorite grenades he likes to lob at the door people. No black leather is the worst. Tonight’s mumble translates as no guys with long hair.
I’m standing there in front of one hundred people and none of the guys have long hair. My hair’s short and Louie’s is even shorter. Then Brice Marden arrives and his is nearly at the shoulder but neither of us cares. Between Louie, Joey and me, we’re the ones holding the chain and Steve’s already back inside. The final takeaway: artists (but not all), some musicians and Mudd Club regulars trump belly fat, beards, limos and long hair.
Still, it wasn’t always that much fun at the door and there was always someone behaving like an asshole, demanding recognition. There was always someone copping an attitude and wanting to know my name so they could report me to a higher authority.
Do you know who I am, whether coming from a hero like Paul Simon (obviously challenged by his diminutive stature and resulting arrogance) or some freak claiming to be a member of Earth, Wind & Fire was more sad and wrong than funny. Not letting them in was part of the genius of Mudd.
Another beguiling tactic was Hi, you don’t remember me, do you? It was less aggressive, conveyed less of an attitude, but still annoying. All anyone had to do was extend his hand or introduce herself, and give me a fucking break.
In spite of it all, almost everyone either said hello or didn’t and went inside. It was pop culture versus high art with me in the middle, happy but occasionally confused and often surprised. Taken aback that Mr. Simon didn’t turn out to be a nice guy, I was amazed to find myself giving a thumbs-up or down to anyone. Snap judgment was part of my job; it followed me home and never left.
Never About the Money
No real system for a lot of things was how the place operated; in a way a reflection of a beautiful but broken New York City. I offered chain-wielding hospitality, with a cigarette in one hand and a drink in the other. I’d step into the alley to take a piss or hang inside getting almost famous for fifteen minutes at a time. Who knows what went on behind the bar, how the liquor was inventoried, how the cash was reconciled or if it even was? Where the night deposit wound up and how it got there was a mystery—until my friend Marina filled me in.
The cover charge was rarely more than five dollars and usually two, three or free during the week. I remember Diego saying the original idea for the club “was never about the money” but by late spring ’79 that idea became impossible.
Word was well out and the club started attracting a larger percentage of a bridge-and-tunnel crowd on weekends. Today it’s no big deal, but back then everybody lived in Manhattan. New Jersey and Long Island, Brooklyn and Queens were a world away while the Bronx and Staten Island, except for the zoo and the ferry, were the unknown frontiers. Despite the stigma of another borough, the bridge-and-tunnel suburban mix soon became unavoidable and lucrative. The Friday and Saturday crowds were getting bigger by the week and if you looked good and had a little patience, chances were you got in. Boy or girl, Upper East Side or Bayside, Queens, didn’t matter—but young, pretty and single always helped. A Punk costume from the Trash and Vaudeville boutique didn’t help, and was always a bit of an eyesore. A
tourist looking to see somebody dressed in one was even worse.
Mudd Club Newsletter, Spring ’79.
Drunk on arrival or just impatient usually meant NO and people with a lot of questions didn’t fare much better. My response to How long is the wait? or Is this the line? depended on the hour, the amount and type of drugs in my system and the person asking. Stepping back and saying nothing was the best option.
There were always self-imposed guidelines to follow or not: two or three single women were usually okay, but a party of three or more straight single men was a problem to avoid. The teenage Sons of Mulberry Street, the unavoidable exception—young, handsome and a lot to deal with—were a time bomb. Their fathers would stop by too and greet me with a Hey Richie, a wink and a slap on the back. One of them, Joe the Crow, told me to let him know if his son ever caused any trouble. I smiled, thought okay, but avoided getting anywhere near the middle and just laughed when Steve told me not to let them in. I played along, didn’t fuck with them and they didn’t fuck with me. They treated me with respect and shook my hand when I’d pass thru Little Italy on a drug or pizza run. That respect would prove to come in handy.
We did our best to keep trouble outside. I stuck to people I knew or recognized and took my chances based on a good or gut feeling; I felt responsible for getting it right.
The club wasn’t big, the legal capacity of the first floor under 300. The sign, informing anyone who cared, was posted somewhere above the basement staircase, and near the ceiling—impossible for the crowd of 400 or more to see. There was no bottle or weapons check and no real security. If a problem came up, anyone willing to dive in helped us out. It was still the age of fearless innocence; we didn’t even keep a baseball bat behind the bar. A lawless respect prevailed and for the most part we got away lucky.
