by Richard Boch
“Oh come on Richie, I never pay.”
“Oh come on Richie, why do I have to pay?”
“Oh come on Richie, please? I have no money.”
That’s how the nightly volley started. If I tried to ignore them, they’d wear me down and give me some coke or a Quaalude. There was no diplomacy, no negotiation, just a real-time waste of time. I usually gave up and let them in.
Turkey Dinner
Far back as I remember there was always some real-time happiness when it came to the holidays. My family got together and my grandmother made at least six apple pies, including a small one for me. I’d run around and play with my cousin Johnny until it was time to eat or go home.
Thanksgiving, 1979. Gary and I made plans to have dinner at my Aunt Olga’s house in Gerritsen Beach, Brooklyn. I was working at Mudd that evening but didn’t have to be there until 11 P.M. My parents showed up before heading off to Florida and a few aunts and uncles came in from Long Island. I’d been at the Mudd Club till 5 A.M. that morning and was still a mess when we arrived. Gary wasn’t much better but his glasses hid some of the damage. Cocktail hour was a welcome relief.
We sat down to dinner and the turkey was perfect but at one point the word fuck slipped out of my mouth. My mother looked across the table and gave me a stare. The out all night with no sleep caused her concern enough; the four-letter language only made things worse. Uncle Johnny was already loaded on a half-dozen bottles of beer and his girlfriend Edna was chain-smoking Kents and drunk on Scotch. My father just shook his head and kept eating. The rest of the table heard nothing, saw nothing and talked right over the F word.
After dinner my aunt pulled me aside in the kitchen. A world traveler who’d seen it all, rubbed elbows with Castro in ’59 Cuba and rode a jeep across the Serengeti in ’62 thought hearing fuck at Thanksgiving was a problem. My mother, Rose, who’d spent ten years working for J. Edgar Hoover’s nearly all-male FBI, followed by a stint at a Park Avenue law firm, also had seen and heard it all. My father, Armand, once stationed in the South Pacific and later a civilian with U.S. Department of the Navy, didn’t care and just wanted us to stop. On that note, I gave up and said, “I’m sorry.”
After coffee and a heavy dose of Aunt Olga’s Blitz Torte for dessert, my father and Uncle Andy drove us back to the Kings Highway subway station. We caught the D train, headed home and smoked a joint when we got there. I thought about my cousin Johnny who was killed in Vietnam a dozen years earlier and wondered what he would’ve been like had he survived. I thought about how small my family was, started feeling sad and rolled another joint. We cabbed it to One University to check out the holiday spread that Mickey put out for the regulars. I ordered a drink, tried not to say the word fuck and made it to White Street by 11.
My appearance and behavior made my parents suspicious and Thanksgiving 1979 marked the beginning of the “I’m not sure what you’re on, but you’re on something” period of our relationship. It was almost a decade before that changed.
SoHo
By 5 A.M., Thanksgiving was yesterday gone. I was beat and the idea of anything turkey made me gag. I needed fresh air and opted for the easy nine-block walk to Murray Street. I left the crowd, the bathrooms and some of the drugs behind. A stroll down Broadway, one or two cigarettes and a bottle of beer—the night was already day, the day already tomorrow.
While I was sleeping, just getting up or just getting into bed, the daylight hours several blocks north told a different story. SoHo was home to the New York gallery scene and nearly all the major players, contenders and spectators saw the new wave coming. Mary Boone might’ve been drifting in and out of Mudd in the middle of the night but by the following day she was up and running her namesake gallery on the ground floor of 420 West Broadway. The Leo Castelli, Sonnabend and Emmerich Galleries were upstairs at the same address, and Holly Solomon Gallery was a block away. OK Harris was across the street, a few doors south of the DIA Foundation’s permanent installation of Walter De Maria’s The Broken Kilometer. Tony Shafrazi, the Guernica vandal and former art advisor to the Shah of Iran, was showing up at Mudd nearly every night—his first New York gallery a few blocks north of SoHo, his Mercer Street location still a few years away.
By the time the Mudd Club opened in 1978, Julian Schnabel had fully transitioned from working in Mickey Ruskin’s kitchens to making wax paintings and paintings out of broken plates. By October ’79, the plate paintings were hanging at Mary Boone and Julian was hanging out on White. He’d stop by and have a drink, walk upstairs and visit his friend Ross Bleckner; on the way in or out he could be all charm or not but was always nice to me. He offered to come by my studio and take a look at my work but I dropped the ball and never followed up. It still bugs me to think about it and makes me realize I was chasing drugs and wasting time with greater passion than looking for a way forward. Opportunity was close at hand but possibility was slipping thru my fingers.
Ross Bleckner was another chance not taken. I had every occasion to talk about my work and ask about his, but again figured proximity and association were all I needed. He had his studio at 77 White and he lived there while I was downstairs nearly seven nights a week. In retrospect, his discipline was remarkable where mine was lacking.
Along with Julian, Barbara Kruger, David Salle and One University “jukebox curator” Stephen Mueller, Ross helped round out Mary Boone’s stable of artists. In their 2 A.M. downtime they were hanging upstairs in Ross’ loft or rounding out the crowd at the Mudd Club bar.
Artist Jeff Koons, another White Street regular, worked at MoMA. He wore a suit and tie, a smile on his face and was headed for a zillion-dollar pop, porn and puppy mill payoff. Keith Haring was soon running around with a pocketful of Magic Markers, stopping by Mudd and hanging out at Club 57. Jean-Michel Basquiat was slowly phasing out the SAMO graffiti and adding his tag to works on paper. His Xerox pieces were already hanging at The A-Space on Broome while he was dancing at the Mudd Club and getting ready to make history.
It was a new age and a changing of the guard. The front door of 77 White was the ultimate vantage point. Lined up at the bar, hanging in the bathrooms or drifting from floor to floor, future stars and A-list names ran around inside. Whether the Mudd Club was anchored in the art world or the art world dropped anchor at Mudd, it was hard to tell. Despite the missed opportunities, I thought I was doing my best to pay attention and stay on top of things. I was painting, showing up and trying not to fall behind. During the spring, summer and fall of 1979 I was still hanging on tight. Then winter started closing in.
Ponytail Guy
Sunday, December 9, I’m sitting with Chi Chi in a back booth near the kitchen door at One University Place. It’s our night off and we both order club steaks. After dinner I leave for thirty minutes to pick something up from the psycho coke dealer at 2 Charlton Street. I cab it back to Mickey’s and a minute later we’re out the door. Iggy’s playing at Hurrah on Sixty-second and Broadway; he’s allegedly going on in half an hour.
There’s a crowd outside when we arrive but we keep walking. Haoui Montaug’s doing the door; he gives us a kiss and sends us in. Squeezing our way toward the bar, the place is packed solid but there’s no sign of the band. Someone says it’s going to be another thirty minutes before they hit the stage. A guy with a long blond ponytail who follows Anita Pallenberg around comes over, starts giving me shit about the Mudd Club and wants to know why I make him pay to get in. I’ve already got a steak dinner, several drinks and more than a few lines of coke under my belt so I tell him, “Go fuck yourself, you can forget about coming in at all.” He tries to backpedal but things get louder and he wants to know why I’m giving him a hard time. We’re both behaving badly and I’m featuring my own little version of a public meltdown. Hurrah staff steps in and lets Chi Chi and me hang out in a back hallway until showtime.
Cigarettes, more cocaine, a couple drinks and forty minutes later, Iggy’s finally onstage. It’s the same band I saw in November featuring Ivan K
ral, Glen Matlock of the Sex Pistols and Brian James of The Damned. The show’s great, Iggy’s going wild but I feel like I’m starting to crack up. I ignore the warning signs and do more coke.
A week later, I let Ponytail Guy back into Mudd for the five-dollar cover. Three days after that, Steve tells me not to let him in anymore.
Peterbilt and Pendleton
I’ve been feeling better since my broken psychotic episode at Hurrah. Christmas will be here soon and 1980 is just around the corner. Go fuck yourself remains a part of my verbal communication but I’m trying to manage its use and abuse, especially around the holidays.
Weatherwise the nights are getting colder, I’m outside often working alone, and the long tweed coat’s doing its best to keep me warm. I’ve got a head of thick wavy hair tucked under a Peterbilt Trucks cap and Pendleton tartan scarf around my neck. The corduroy jeans, denim vest and Fair Isle sweater say Who cares? about fashion.
I step inside to warm up but one of the security guys is sitting on the radiator collecting the money. Steve’s at the bar with Danny Fields, Arturo Vega’s watching Anita Sarko spin records and Little Danny just walked upstairs.
Danny Fields often stops by White Street after starting out at CBGB or the Ninth Circle. He’s the ultimate music biz insider: an influential journalist, band manager and publicist. By 1979, he’s already legend, and his connection to everyone from the Doors and Nico to The Stooges, MC5, Lou Reed and the Ramones stretches all the way from Max’s back room to 16 Magazine and the SoHo Weekly News. Little Danny is a kid from Boston—a good-looking roadie and Ramones mascot who likes to fool around, fuck around and hang at Mudd whenever he can.
Arturo Vega is the Ramones’ artistic director, created their iconic logo and has been with them from the beginning. He’s back home on a night off, torturing DJ Anita and trying to get her to play “Pop Muzik.” When she’s tells him she just played it he reminds her, “It was fifteen minutes ago.”
Anita sees me, looks over and rolls her eyes. I smile, give Arturo a hug and buy him a drink. We walk away talking, Anita cues up the Sex Pistols and we all try to forget about “Pop Muzik” for at least a half-hour. Back outside the only people waiting are the same ones who were waiting when I left. The security guy looks at me and shrugs so I turn around and go upstairs looking for Little Danny.
The second floor’s full and Nurse Debbie is busy serving drinks to some very sick patients. I move toward the back of the room and spot August Darnell, formerly of Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band and currently leader of Kid Creole and the Coconuts. He’s coming out of the bathroom with two women in tow who may or may not be coconuts. I take a quick look around, give up on Little Danny and go back to the door.
There’s only about twenty people outside and two walk over to ask me if I’m still letting people in. I tell them “No” just as Andy Warhol and Benjamin Liu a.k.a. Ming Vauze get out of a cab. I open the chain, say “Hi,” and Andy whisper-speaks, “Oh hi, how’s your cute boyfriend?” My answer, “He’s inside somewhere.” The two people I said no to look at me and ask, “How come they’re getting in?”
Ignoring the question, I light a cigarette and think about the new coat someone just gave me. It’s like armor, heavier and darker than the one I have on, and by January I’ll probably need it. Maybe by then, I’ll even catch some sleep.
Boys Keep Swinging
I make it home before daybreak. I crash and the week flies by. Saturday, December 15, I’m getting ready for work around the same time David Bowie, Klaus Nomi and Joey Arias are getting ready for their appearance on Saturday Night Live.
The performance turns into a big deal, with Klaus and Joey singing backup and more on “Man Who Sold the World,” “TVC 15” and “Boys Keep Swinging.” Jimmy Destri is sitting in on keyboards and a large pink poodle with a small closed circuit TV in its mouth adds a bit of cute and scary to the SNL stage. Bowie’s vocal comes through loud and clear, Joey and Klaus cut through the mix and they all rise above the peripheral poodle insanity. Wearing a Dadaesque Tristan Tzara-inspired tuxedo for the first song, David turns into a marionette with a Bowie head for “Boys Keep Swinging.” Going for something less dramatic but equally striking, they all wear pencil skirts cut below the knee for “TVC 15.” It’s high culture and low—another constellation that came together on the second floor of Mudd.
Lizzy, Richard and Boris
From Greenwich Village to Bowery, from St. Mark’s to Mudd, whether it was Dylan’s twang and phrase, Patti Smith’s poetry or Richard Hell’s lyrical howl, the power of the word kept the song moving forward. When Bowie’s accessible sophistication became a counterpoint to No Wave’s scream and cry, walls continued to tumble.
It was 1978 when Lizzy Mercier Descloux, a Punk Parisienne, recorded the popular EP Rosa Yemen featuring the song “Herpes Simplex.” By 1979, she was living in New York and recording her first solo album, Press Colour, released by ZE Records, the company founded by entrepreneur industrialist Michael Zilkha and Lizzy’s partner, Michel Estaban. ZE was also home to New York No Wave favorites The Contortions and Lydia Lunch as well as Kid Creole and the Coconuts. Before long Mercier was appearing at the Mudd Club.
Lizzy’s White Street performance was an introduction of sorts. On the heels of the Rosa Yemen disc and the influence of an earlier connection to Smith and Hell, she took the inspiration in a new direction. Steve Mass presented it at Mudd, and the famously hard-to-read Mudd Club crowd was enthusiastic. The Worldbeat sound, Punk attitude and wild cover of “Fire” by The Crazy World of Arthur Brown pulled me off the door and onto the floor. It was one of those nights that came out of nowhere.
Only a few months earlier, that high concept, nonconcept Mass credo of allowing and presenting anything and everything opened the door for Richard Hell (minus the Voidoids) to offer some of his lesser-known work at Mudd. Following a reading of “Unrequited Narcissism” and “Confessions of a Polymorphic Soul,” the Punk originator noted, “I should be a real preacher and give a real fucking sermon every Sunday.”
Taking the high-nonconcept of allowing and presenting one step further, Steve scheduled another performance by Boris Policeband. Under a single white spot on a darkened stage, Boris began with his electric violin and police band radio amped to the max. The sound was stunning, cathartic, and cleared the room. Beyond art, genius or any sense of acquired taste, Policeband was a No Wave assault, a total White Street experience.
Boris Policeband, 1979. Mudd Club portrait series, Punks of New York by William Coupon.
At least half the entertainment at Mudd was the unseen getting seen and the unheard finally getting heard. Steve gave everyone a chance to present sound, vision and ideas that otherwise would’ve been lost. It kept the club out of any potential rut, opting for risk rather than surefire success. Even established performers and familiar faces were presented in such a way that anything might happen—and often did. When composer Philip Glass took the White Street detour, bypassing Lincoln Center, he lulled a crowd that came to drink and dance. Lydia Lunch stormed the stage and unleashed a furious barrage of spoken word—to an unnerving, heckling silence. Always stoned but usually polite Johnny Thunders ducked when Spacely jumped onstage and threw a few wild drunken punches; then Johnny let loose with his guitar, swinging a Gibson Les Paul Junior and connecting with Spacely’s head. The audience cheered. Performance and art were still social adventure.
Lizzy Mercier Descloux, performing, 1980, by Lisa Genet.
As Judy Nylon deftly put it, “Mudd was the correct venue at a time that so many places weren’t.”
Goodwill
Unlike Mudd Club entertainment, selling a million drinks at the bar and getting people to pay at the door was the commercial arm of the operation. Giving away what seemed to be half as many drinks as we sold was a near necessity that spurred creativity and fostered goodwill. It was the White Street way of giving back to the community, Steve being the occasionally reluctant but always generous host.
As Legs McNeil, editor, author, instigator and Punk, succinctly put it, “I could drink for free, people put coke under my nose and I could get laid.” Obviously, I felt the same way.
We’re closing in on late-night crazy. Steve is at the DJ booth saying something to Anita that she’s doing her best to ignore. Legs walks past, though I can’t remember seeing him arrive. I order a drink for myself, and step outside. Downtown party girl, DJ and onetime asymmetrical hairstyle model Delphine Blue is waiting impatiently at the chain. Lori and Joe Barbaria get out of a cab and squeeze their way toward the door; Lori’s brother Robbie, a cute kid in red leather jeans, is already inside. Morgan Entrekin, a blond, preppy-ish Mudd regular, crosses the street and moves thru the crowd. His hair’s a bit shaggy like mine and he’s wearing jeans; regardless, the chain opens easily.
I step back and watch Richard Lloyd from Television rush thru the door looking for Anita Pallenberg. He finds her and they leave in a flurry of vocal and animated distress. Taylor Mead floats by with a wave and a mumble about money and the crowd but can’t decide if he wants to come in. Michael Shrieve, the Santana “drum machine” and youngest performer to play Woodstock, arrives with several friends. He’s still got a head full of curls and looks younger than he did in 1969. When the door opens, Hal Ludacer steps outside, pokes me with his finger and wants to know if I’ve seen Adele Bertei. I tell him, “I think I have, but it might have been last night.”
Ramones fan and future nightlife wizard Steve Lewis stops for a minute, then walks inside and takes a shot at charming Chi Chi into an upstairs pass. Humbled by repeated rebuffs, he finally breaks through with the offer of a single red rose. After that, there’s no stopping him. Years later, Lewis commented, “The only mistake Richard ever made at the door of Mudd was letting me in.” I can honestly admit I did make a few but Steve Lewis was never one of them.
