by Richard Boch
As a gesture of respect for those we loved, I dressed appropriately in black Fiorucci cords, the black Tony Lamas with red piping up the side, my black leather motorcycle jacket and a tie. I wore a red-and-white polka dot shirt with a button-down collar and a Heartbreakers provenance. Despite that bit of dotted flash, reaction to polka dots and leather was muted on that serious Sunday in ’79. The combination hardly stood in the way of grief.
The suitably Goth “Reverend” Willoughby Sharp officiated over a solemn service on the first floor as troubled young rock star Nicholas Petti, a.k.a. Nick Berlin of The Blessed, rested peacefully inside an open coffin. When poet Taylor Mead closed the lid, sat on top and began eulogizing, young Nick spent a fearful forgotten hour trapped inside. He survived the ordeal and went to wreak havoc on the second floor while Gary Indiana, Jackie Curtis and Viva Superstar delivered the final eulogies. Taylor aimed for the bar and I headed back outside.
Funeral Etiquette, Rock ’n’ Roll Funeral Ball, 1979, courtesy Amy Vanderbilt and Howie Pyro.
Open Casket, Rock ’n’ Roll Funeral Ball, 1979, by Allan Tannenbaum.
The evening carried on and the Mudd Club paid tribute with words and music, serious and surreal tableaux. Artist Brien Coleman channeled Mama Cass, working the second floor with a tray of tiny ham sandwiches while mourners choked back toast points and tears. A wounded Janis Joplin, as envisioned by the constantly sobbing Mercedes, was nearly gone, surrounded by a loaf of Wonder Bread, a fifth of Southern Comfort and the spent, dirty syringes that became her undoing. Howie Pyro, doing his best Keith Moon, was tucked into bed with a bottle of whiskey and ample sedation, enough to end anyone’s pain and suffering. Tina L’Hotsky’s all too real memory of Jim Morrison was a pair of leather pants with a snake slithering out the fly. Mudd vixen Vicki Pedersen knelt nearby, anguished and inconsolable, remembering the bygone days of Jimi Hendrix.
Rock ’n’ Roll Funeral Ball, 1979: Janis Joplin in repose, Jim Morrison shrine, leather pants with snake, both by Marcia Resnick.
The ghost of Sid Vicious was still in the room, sadness over his not-too-distant passing fresh in our minds. I walked downstairs and Jackie Curtis was weeping his way through another rendition of “Loving You.” I reached for a beer, washed down a Quaalude and went outside just as Elvis was leaving the building. Some cried like rain and some a single tear, but we all got the chance to say those final good-byes that had eluded us for so long.
Rock ’n’ Roll Funeral Ball, 1979: Mama Cass with sandwiches, by Allan Tannenbaum
Rock ’n’ Roll Funeral Ball invitation, 1979, courtesy Howie Pyro.
Jackie Curtis, Live and Life, Mudd, 1979, by Bobby Grossman.
Sunday night was finally winding down.
The Dead Rock Stars–Rock ’n’ Roll Funeral Ball was a landmark event—a one-off that wouldn’t or couldn’t happen again. The shrines on the second floor became a semi-permanent installation, influencing the New York club scene and leading the way for more offbeat, do-it-yourself theme night installations.
Swan Lake
Monday night was different. Anita Sarko was the DJ and by 1 A.M. everyone’s grief seemed to have passed. Anita played music we loved, that we never heard before and, in some cases, would never hear again. She’d cue up wild-eyed favorites: PiL’s “Swan Lake” and Lou Reed’s live version of “Sweet Jane,” then turn things around with Scott Walker’s “The Plague,” a 1967 B-side rarity. At closing time she’d occasionally crash the dance floor and clear the dregs with “The Lost Sheep” by Adrian Munsey, His Sheep, Wind and Orchestra. Whichever way she played it—and no matter how much she bitched about this and that—Anita took the smart stuff out for a spin.
There were nights after work when Gary and I left White Street with Anita and hung out at her place for hours, listening to music, talking and getting high. She lived on Jones Street in Greenwich Village; Jimmy Destri from Blondie lived upstairs and Billy Idol lived across the street. We’d split at 8 or 9 A.M. and step outside into the sunshine morning. We’d walk two blocks and grab a cab on Seventh Avenue South. I’d tell the driver, “West Broadway and Murray Street please, two below Chambers,” and for some truly unknown reason the words two below Chambers always cracked us up.
If we were able to sleep, 10 A.M. seemed a reasonable hour to get in bed. Cocaine and Quaaludes seemed like reasonable drugs and a six of Dos Equis seemed a reasonable nightcap at nine in the morning. Running full speed ahead, it took me years to figure out the meaning of the word reasonable.
Avant-Garde
The rest of the week turned into a busy, beautiful mess. Club regulars poured thru the door and tourists kept showing up for a one night only. Most of them waited without getting inside and some went from muttering to name-calling to bidding me an angry farewell. I got caught up in the moment after getting hit with a “Fuck you asshole!” and a cup full of soda. I stepped into the crowd, punched someone in the side of the head and security broke it up after I got in a couple more shots. Back at the door, I took a swig of beer, lit a cigarette and felt like shit. Ten minutes later, I settled down and let more people in. When I took a break, I headed for the bathroom but avoided looking in the mirror.
I got called a lot of things but there were only a handful of people, other than the Mulberry Street crowd, who ever called me Richie. The only one who could pull it off wearing a rhinestone-studded NYC baseball cap and walk in for free was Sylvia Miles.
Whether it was the Mudd Club, back uptown to Studio 54 or a barely remembered opening night, Sylvia was either there or headed that way. She was a member of the Actors Studio, and in with the crowd at Max’s Kansas City. She knew how to steal a scene from Jon Voight in Midnight Cowboy, telling movie audiences she was “one hell of a gorgeous chick.” She could steal a scene at the Mudd Club just by showing up. I’ve always loved Sylvia and liked how comfortable she was being herself. She’d step thru the door, check things out and grab a spot at the downstairs bar. She’d make her way upstairs, when and if she felt like it.
Sylvia was smart—remembered everything and everyone—and never missed a party or a beat. She likes to say, “I wasn’t fringe, I was avant-garde,” and it’s hard to argue with that. Her association with Warhol, along with her work with Joe Dallesandro and director Paul Morrissey, was only part of the story. Her willingness to take chances, inhabiting the wildest characters while chafing and rubbing against any and all available grain, made her a legend. Fearless, funny and the first to remind people she was twice nominated for an Academy Award, Sylvia Miles was part of the Mudd Club.
Today when we speak, she calls me Richard.
Groovy
By now the fall social season was in full swing and Club 57, the East Village rumpus room, was starting to happen. Obvious and less ironic than Mudd, the new club was offbeat and kooky and people were taking notice.
Club 57 was a think tank and drunk tank, a party room and dance hall with a bar, a DJ and a small stage. Following in the footsteps and success of 1978’s New Wave Vaudeville Show at Irving Plaza, 57 (originally founded by Stanley Strychacki) became the brainchild of performance artist Ann Magnuson, filmmaker and former Mudd coat checker Susan Hannaford and poet Tom Scully. Dany Johnson was the resident DJ. Located on St. Mark’s Place in the basement of a Polish church (a safe haven and alleged front for immigrants escaping Communism), it was doing its best to become the other place to go. Klaus Nomi, Keith Haring, artist Kenny Scharf, party girl-entrepreneur Deb Parker and performance artist Wendy Wild all commuted between St. Mark’s and White Street. A band called Art had roots planted in the church basement but celebrated their Carnegie Recital Hall success with a cocktail party at Mudd. Pulsallama, the all-girl percussion and cowbell group that included Jean Caffeine on drums, found a pulse and a beat at 57. Before long they found a groove, played Danceteria, the Mudd Club, and opened for The Clash.
Despite a parallel timeline with Mudd, there was one big difference and Scharf’s simple recollection lays it out. “Club 57 was groo
vy—Mudd was cool.” The club was small-scale at the beginning: Kenny remembers walking in with Keith Haring and performer Jon Sex; Ann Magnuson was behind the bar, the jukebox was playing and they all started dancing. Listening to him tell it, it sounds like a beautiful dream.
Maybe I was too wide-awake or too tired but the few times I went there I just stood around. The Club 57 sense of camaraderie, snobbery and fun may well have been unique, but I never felt comfortable; its version of pandemonium seemed less appealing than the chaotic come-on of Mudd. To me, Club 57 felt like someone else’s party and I either went back to White Street or had a drink and went home. Oddly, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to fit in.
Dreaming with My Eyes Open
The seventies were quickly winding down and I wasn’t sure about a lot of things. The New York I’d come to, and come to love, was changing; the world was different—or maybe it had just moved on. Somewhere in the middle of that move and change, Mayor Ed Koch started freaking out about the graffiti “problem.” President Jimmy Carter was already freaking about the long-shot odds of winning a second term, while self-styled “neoconservatives” of the Republican Party were hard at work constructing a Retro Frankenstein monster called Reagan. Between all that freaking out and monster-making, I’d try a line of heroin, lie down and drift. Whether asleep or a nod, dreaming with my eyes open or closed, I still had trouble figuring out what was going on and how to keep doing whatever it was I was doing.
Working at Mudd, I had a little money but not a lot. When I started out in New York I had even less. Before that, I was in school and it’s hard to remember having anything to spend, except what went toward pot, beer and LSD.
Selling my car and loading a van with my records, my clothes and one or two pieces of furniture was a bittersweet end and a new beginning. My mother and father stood in the driveway of the house in New Hyde Park and asked if I thought I might be back. I loved them for that. Despite years of finger-wagging, cautions and endless questions, my parents had always given me my independence. They allowed me the dreams and daydreams that started in my room, listening to songs I still remember.
My first apartment at 167 Bleecker Street was a noisy, one-bedroom walk-up just five blocks west of CBGB’s. There was a bathtub in the kitchen and a “water closet” in the back of the bedroom. The landlady was old-school New York, called me Mr. Boch and had a bad attitude. New York was filthy, broke and drug-infested but somewhere in that state of decay was the offer of freedom and possibility. Musician and Bush Tetras’ drummer Dee Pop calls it a “time of self-expression” before “the poetry of the city was replaced by big business.”
The road from Long Island to New York City was an eye-opener; the nine-block journey from Murray to White, a revelation. Standing outside the Mudd Club, the first six months flew by and I didn’t blink. Then I closed my eyes and started dreaming again. Running across the street with my friends, I was seven years old. I turned around, ran back, and I was twenty-six. I woke up and heard someone mention an alligator.
That’s when I blinked.
Alligator Girls
October 23, 1979. Gary Indiana’s play, Alligator Girls Go to College, kicked off a three-night run on White Street. I only recall the first night but clearly remember the alligators.
Billed as a Mudd Club Production, the whole thing was as far out and way off Broadway as you could get; the title alone, worth the price of admission. The playbill was pure high school charm in a twice-folded, mimeograph-scented kind of way. The story revolved around two young alligator girls who lost their jobs in the circus but refused to give up. Seeking a better life thru higher education, they tried enrolling for classes at Cyrus Vance Junior College. Tina L’Hotsky and Vicki Pedersen were the stars of the show and their performances were as compelling as their namesake characters, Norma Desmond and Mildred Pierce. Marcia Resnick, Evan Lurie and Rene Ricard were billed as supporting players. The curtain was scheduled for 8 P.M. and last call at the bar was eight hours away: in between, theatre-driven mayhem.
Ten minutes into the show the audience was spellbound, speechless and drinking heavily. Following a final curtain call the cast was exhausted; the blood, sweat and greasepaint on the alligator faces of Vicki and Tina spelled triumph. The audience either headed for the bar or ran for the door. It was promising to be a long night.
While I was busy dealing with those gator girls, the band Test Pattern was playing a few blocks north at The A-Space on Broome Street. Jean-Michel Basquiat, Michael Holman, Wayne Clifford and Shannon Dawson were still figuring things out as they blasted, bleated, synthesized and percussively triangled their way toward a crazy beautiful sound. Slowly, that sound turned Gray, and the test patterns disappeared.
By midnight, The A-Space emptied out; the crowd headed for White Street and joined the alligators. The club had been officially open for nearly a year and during that time it continued making a case in point out of Judy Nylon’s idea of “correct and incorrect venues.” It was obvious—77 White was home, and no matter where the Alligator Girls thought they were going, they received their education at Mudd.
Madame Claude’s
The crowd out front often looked anxious and unpredictable while the scene on my side of the chain was taking on a life of its own. Club regulars and friends, instigators, troublemakers and even one-time visitors were “helping” and hanging out at the door. They offered me company and conversation during lulls, moral support during the chaos, and a little entertainment for anyone waiting to come in. I got an earful of almost everything and a handful of whatever was left.
Nico, the singer, onetime Velvet Underground collaborator and Warhol dark star liked hanging at the door. She was chaos, company and entertainment rolled into one, whether spooking people at the bar or closing one of her sets with a rousing harmonium-accompanied version of “Deutschland, Deutschland über alles.” When she needed air, money or a diversion she’d step outside. I usually enjoyed the company and never passed judgment on her social or hospitality skills.
Standing at the door on a warm October night, the Nico attitude and effect was contagious. When another limo pulled up in front all I could say was, “Who the fuck is this?”
Jerry Brandt waved hello, accompanied by Marianne Faithfull, music mogul, star maker and Island Records founder Chris Blackwell, and Chris’ girlfriend, Nathalie Delon, the ex-wife of French film star Alain Delon. They made it thru the crowd and I opened the chain.
Nico was dressed in black, standing next to me.
In a low somber voice she said, “Hello Marianne.”
In the direction of Nathalie, she hissed a reminder of another lifetime. “It’s okay to say hello Nathalie, I remember you from Madame Claude’s.”
The mention of the notorious Parisian Madame and all it alluded to was strange and strained enough; that Nico once had a child with Alain Delon was something else entirely. Time stood still for thirty seconds until it caught up with itself. Three iconic beauties of the sixties were standing in front of me. Whether by collision or convergence, they wound up on White Street.
Nico, Femme Fatale, 1979, by Ebet Roberts.
I was still holding the chain when the dust settled and the moment passed—everyone headed inside and Nico disappeared. Chris Blackwell was carrying a plain white twelve-inch record sleeve under his arm, and Marianne’s legendary single “Broken English” was making one of its first public outings. The club was packed, DJ David Azarch had the honor and no one had a clue what was happening. The bass started to rumble and the opening chords of Barry Reynolds’ guitar ripped thru the speakers ahead of Marianne’s beautifully weathered vocal. The room took a deep breath, the dance floor went crazy, and everyone realized we were a long way from tears gone by. I stood near the bar and had one of those starstruck moments. I’d never seen Marianne before and this was a crazy intro. I tried to engage but could barely speak. I lit a cigarette and went back to the door.
I told Kate Simon the story and she remembered photographing Nico i
n 1974. She had still found her “incredibly beautiful.” By ’79 things were different and the persona that once attracted everyone from Fellini to Dylan, from Brian Jones to Jackson Browne, had left the building long before I entered. There was still a compelling darkness to her music but the physical beauty was on a long slow fade, and her state of mind often questionable. Less alluring was her need to find Steve, who always seemed to owe her two hundred dollars, whether she was performing or not; if he weren’t around, she’d ask anyone who’d listen for twenty.
Thinking on it now, all those years ago I only saw Nico alongside me at the door. I didn’t consider or care what her motives might’ve been—I bought her a few drinks and she never tried to hustle me out of twenty dollars.
White Street Romance
Thirty minutes later Marianne left and I was singing whatever few words of “Broken English” I could remember. The people in the street seemed unimpressed. I just smiled and opened the chain.
Stephanie Richardson came thru the crowd, said “Thanks honey,” and went inside. The once or twice we talked before, she was sweet and not too weird—always a good combination. Growing up in Spokane, Washington, she had a picture of the Empire State Building hanging on her bedroom wall. In 1976, she landed in New York, rented a room in the East Fifties and found a job handing out flyers for a massage parlor. Then she went to CBGB’s, saw Talking Heads and kept going back. Other than the massage parlor sequence, the dream sounded familiar.
By 1979 Stephanie found her way to White Street. I asked her about it and she said, “The Mudd Club opened me up to a whole new life. It was more of everything, and brought everyone together.” It was the perfect response and I could’ve said the same thing.
