by Richard Boch
It was still early, and tonight’s version of anything was Alan Midgette getting out of a cab with what looked to be three young sailors. Wearing hats with large red pom-poms could only mean one thing: either the circus was in town or the French navy just dropped anchor.
Big Ron got to Mudd around 2 A.M. asking if Alan and the sailors had arrived. I told him, “They sure did,” and together we went inside. One of the boys was at the downstairs bar, and Alan was on the dance floor, spinning. He was wearing a hat with a big red pom-pom. I looked over at Ron and started laughing.
We headed for the second-floor bathroom and passed three girls in a booth with sailor number two. Sailor number three was in the bathroom simply standing there, hard to resist, and not shy about ready for anything. By closing time, Who’s bringing a pom-pom home? was the question on everyone’s mind.
Half porn fantasy, half stoned reality, no matter how drunk they were we let the French navy in for free. It was an appel du devoir—a call to duty—and for the next week served us well.
The Ventures
The sailors were all over town, from the Wild West Forties to the East Village, from the Alphabets to One University to 77 White. Those pom-poms fit in everywhere and good times were easy to find.
Before I started at Mudd I’d never met any French sailors. The East Village and Alphabet City had long come undone and the West Forties were a lost netherworld dotted with Broadway musicals. By 1980 (aside from sailors on the loose, and me standing at the door of 77 White) not much had changed. White Street, for a second year, remained summer’s midnight oasis; there were one or two red pompoms in the crowd, and the Ventures were going on around 1 A.M.
An inspired booking and a band well past its prime, the Ventures took the stage and returned to early sixties form. When they covered the Surfaris’ 1963 hit “Wipeout” (a Ventures hit in ’66) the Mudd Club got hit with a wave of original Surf Punk—a sound-bite memory from a time we knew but thought we’d left behind.
I stood near the stage with future gallerist Patrick Fox and artist Robert Hawkins. I turned away and walked out front, feeling what videographer Pat Ivers likes to call “a weird time travel dislocation.” Catching the vibe of a familiar past, we tried but couldn’t overlook the nightmare of Nixon and Vietnam, Manson and Altamont. Now, the well-intentioned clusterfuck of Carter was paving the way for Reagan’s sleepwalk of a presidency: we were ducks sitting on the cusp and someone or something was ready to take a shot. Another battle was warming to a war—this time with an invisible enemy—whose unforeseen, innumerable casualties and consequences would nearly overwhelm the survivors. We never thought we’d get caught, let alone hurt. Despite our behavior and forgetting the occasional crash, dying wasn’t on our radar.
Twenty minutes later the Ventures finished with a song that sounded like another “Wipeout.” I listened from outside. I was working and people were still waiting to come in.
This Is Crazy
Whether it was on the street or the dance floor, I still had the occasional feeling of being alone in a crowd. Almost everyone knew who I was, but hardly anyone really knew me. Most of the time I was okay with it but sometimes I got confused. My personal life and working at the Mudd Club had become one and the same. I needed something more; I kept on looking.
Friday night the search continued. I was back outside thinning the herd when my friends Louis and Fred arrived. We all grew up in New Hyde Park, where Louis and his sister Diane were the kids next door. They were like family, and still are.
Louis and Fred made it thru the crowd and stepped up to the chain. Lou looked at me and said, “Richard, this is crazy,” and Fred just laughed. I just shrugged; they hadn’t really seen crazy yet but I knew they could handle anything from a planet shift to whatever the off-kilter White Street universe might offer. They headed inside while I kept working; two worlds were about to collide.
My memory says cab, not limousine; they were low-key and under the radar—even more so than Louis or Fred. The crowd was focused on getting inside, oblivious to Keith Richards and Patti Hansen walking toward the door. They were on a date and coming to the Mudd Club. I guess I opened the chain but I can’t remember.
They stopped for a moment and chatted while a hundred people began to stare. We went inside and I took them to the second floor. I didn’t see Steve right away so I parked them at the bar near Lou and Fred. I ordered drinks, said “make yourselves at home” and wandered off. I started laughing, thinking about “Satisfaction” spinning on the turntable in Louie’s basement, summer 1965. Fifteen years past, this was almost too perfect.
An hour later, I shook Keith’s hand, opened the chain and said good night. Louis and Fred hung out, waiting for me to finish. Two hours later, we wound up at a neighborhood after-hours club—Patti and Keith were there, as friendly at 5 A.M. as they were at 2. I just kept thinking about all those songs we listened to when we were kids, those songs that meant everything. I smiled, did my thing and introduced Keith and Patti to Louis and Fred.
It was a moment but I had to run. Saturday morning—the train was leaving Penn Station at 7 A.M. and Montauk was waiting.
You Know What to Wear
I disappear for two days and show up at Mudd on Monday night. Gone by 4 A.M. and I’m back on Tuesday. White Street’s busy and the crowd looks almost pretty. I run upstairs and find SVT vocalist Brian Marnell hanging out near the plexiglass DJ booth. There’s a girl on each side of him. I head for the bar and start talking to Jack Casady. I’m still a diehard fan and I want to see his band, SVT, play the Mudd Club. I want to hear Casady’s bass guitar shake the walls of 77 White.
Diego Cortez is on the other side of the room, opposite the doors to the stairway, and directly facing the Bay Area’s psychedelic past. He’s at the other end of the spectrum—No Wave or next wave—and far less distant from the post-Punk present. Alone, he’s leaning against the wall and watching what is.
Diego’s moved on, though he still comes down to White Street; sadly I can’t say the same for Anya Phillips. She came by the night Debbie Harry taped a Gloria Vanderbilt Murjani Jeans ad in Cortland Alley but that’s long past. Chris Stein wrote the jingle, Debbie sang, and a smoke machine fogged up the alley until the action moved inside. John Lurie was playing saxophone onstage and there was a quick last flash of Anya dancing with James Chance. Debbie faced off with the camera in the final shot, singing those immortal words, “When you know where you’re goin’ you know what to wear.”
Back at the bar, Jack’s disappeared, and Marnell’s still flirting with the same two girls. I take another beer, ask Diego if he wants one and go downstairs. Outside, it’s the same hundred people who always seem to be there. I let some in, light a cigarette and let in some more. Is this really what I do?
Half-Breed
I walked to Murray Street in the morning light—with sunglasses, a cigarette and a beer. I hung out at the loft and painted all day. I left for work around 10 P.M. I guess I did the same on Thursday. Friday night I showed up at the club wearing my favorite shirt: gray with black and red trim, short sleeves with a zipper down the front. It was classic Television-era stagewear, Richard Lloyd circa 1976. I loved that shirt.
I had to work Saturday as well because Gennaro was missing in action. Called Bea and said I’d be doing Montauk on Sunday and Monday—a day late but I’d be there. She said my room was always ready; two windows looking out at the ocean, the shredded remains of a curtain filtering sun and breeze. Sometimes I shared the room with Gary, other times with Ricky and his boom box. We were always playing a new cassette by Cher and her boyfriend, Les Dudek; the band was called Black Rose. They were terrible, but it was still Cher, and we figured a boom box in Montauk was the only way to play it. Then we heard the news, headed for Central Park and made the most of Saturday in the city.
Andi and Ricky offered their Patti Smith Group credentials and I offered door at the Mudd Club, as we passed thru the backstage gate of Wollman Rink. Black Rose, without a mention
of Cher, was opening for Hall and Oates; she was just the singer, trying hard to be one of the guys.
We stood there hoping for the best, but like the record, their live sound was awful. Cher looked great in tight black cutaway spandex and leather boots but the idea that she might belt out “Half-Breed” or “Little Man” was just a dream. Black Rose was all about a boom box at the beach, but we already knew that; the only reason we went to Central Park was to see Cher.
The rest of the audience had barely a clue as they sat there waiting to hear ninety minutes of watery blue-eyed soul. Ricky and Andi had bigger fish to fry and I had to work. We left before the headliners came on. To this day I have no idea what Hall and Oates is all about.
Twenty-five, Six or Seven
Sunday morning the beach was calling and I was gone. Monday was a dream and Montauk was deserted. Tuesday I’m back, running all day, no time to stop home. Dirty jeans, a T-shirt and a new pair of Converse All Stars would have to do. I’d be the example and set the tone: dress like this and you’re probably not coming in.
I hadn’t done any dope in days but was feeling fine. I called Pierre in the afternoon and he planned on coming by early to see me; when he showed up at 3 A.M. I was ready for a break. DJ David was playing the Supremes’ “You Keep Me Hanging On” but by then I felt more like the Vanilla Fudge version. We headed for the basement storage area and parked ourselves on a couple of cases of cleaning fluid. At least I wasn’t drinking it.
Pierre handed me a small foil package with a large amount of brown heroin for the bargain price of one hundred dollars. He told me to put it away and pulled out his own stash, his own piece of foil and a straw. He lit a match and we chased the dragon. I’ve never used the expression until now.
I sat on that case of brand X not-quite Pine-Sol and Pierre went back upstairs. I thought about Bleecker Street, the people I met, and how it all began. I started this job when I was twenty-five years old. I can’t remember turning twenty-six but I’m sure I was at the Mudd Club. I planned on celebrating twenty-seven in Montauk and assumed I had about two weeks to get it together. That’s not how it played out.
Ten days before my birthday, the Pretenders came to town for a much-anticipated show at Wollman Rink in Central Park. Chrissie was hanging out with either Kate Simon or Judy Nylon and Judy was hanging out with Alice. Lynette, Andi and I were hanging out with Pete Farndon. The rest of the time the band was out in Flushing, Queens, for the U.S. Open. John McEnroe was going for another championship and Vitas Gerulaitis was hitting it hard, on and off the courts.
The Mudd Club and Mickey’s, Montauk and the Pretenders—Marlboros, Heinekens, cocaine and heroin. The weather was beautiful and there were only a few weeks left of summer.
Lucifer, Scorpio, Anger
Just before the Pretenders showed up, Kenneth Anger arrived at the Mudd Club. His 1972 film Lucifer Rising was finally out in limited release, and the filmmaker and Hollywood Babylon author was making a scheduled “appearance.” His connection to everyone from the Rolling Stones, Anita Pallenberg and Tennessee Williams to Satanist Anton LaVey and Manson associate Bobby Beausoleil was certainly colorful. Anger’s influential homoerotic biker and occult film Scorpio Rising was a thirty-minute, dialogue-free pop music feast. Lucifer, on the other hand, was an aborted mash-up of Beausoleil’s music with a cast that included Marianne Faithfull, Chris Jagger (Mick’s brother) and Jimmy Page. On the night of Anger’s appearance at Mudd, scenes from both films were projected on the walls of the first and second floor.
The Anger “show” fit right in with the Mudd Club’s wide-net/wide-vision range of enlightening entertainment. Smart stuff: dirty and dangerous, funny and beautiful. For me it was the kind of weird scary shit I loved. I hung around inside and took the opportunity to get close to Mr. Anger for a few minutes. Despite his ability to channel darkness, he came off as polite, open to conversation and kind of normal. I’m not sure what I expected, and not sure if my assessment says more about him or me. I told him it was a pleasure, and I returned to the door without offering him a Quaalude, a line of cocaine or even a drink.
Central Park, Grace and Precious
My personal variation on dirty, dangerous and scary weird seemed kind of normal too. My daily routine had its own broken rhythm but I was still able to play along. Then Pretenders came to town.
Pete Farndon’s hotel on West Fifty-seventh Street was close to Central Park but thirty minutes from everything else. A room at the Gramercy would’ve been more convenient, at least for me. By day we were shopping our way around the Village, hanging at the loft and playing Space Invaders at One University. Lynette was sticking close to Pete and by 2 A.M. they were showing up on White Street. Pete was getting psyched for the big show while I was preoccupied with heroin and anxious about everything. Pete was less anxious but equally preoccupied.
Summer 1980 was the last season of scheduled concerts at Central Park’s Wollman Rink. Dr Pepper had been sponsoring the series since 1977, following in the footsteps of Rheingold and Schaefer Beer. The Pretenders’ Labor Day Weekend show was a big event and the final concert at the rink. The city was busy and the Mudd Club was packed every night. Somehow I had the entire weekend off.
Saturday, August 30, is the big day. At noon I head over to the Lower East Side, to a new hole in an old wall with two one-hundred-dollar bills. I’m meeting Andi at 5 and we’re meeting Pete at the hotel. I’m not sure where Lynette is but she’ll find us—she’s good at that.
Late afternoon and we’re on our way to the Buckingham on Fifty-seventh Street, a nondescript but upscale establishment with some sort of Mormonish affiliation. There’s no bar, no minibar and no booze—a condition heretofore unknown to whoever booked the tour.
Pete looks happy when Andi and I arrive, and five minutes later we’re all happy. I’m lying on the bed with Andi-Midge and Pete’s doing a last-minute look in the mirror. Pretenders’ manager Dave Hill comes knocking and we’re on our way.
Chrissie and her friend Diane are already waiting at the elevator. It’s a quiet ride to the lobby until Chris wants to know, “Who’s the little one?” referring to all sixty inches of Midge. It’s the needed tension-breaker and a memorable moment.
Three decades later, Andi’s down to fifty-nine and three-quarters inches but we still get a laugh out of that line.
Through the lobby and out the door, five of us are in the first car. Two blocks up Sixth Avenue onto Central Park Drive, the limo goes off-road and winds its way through the rocks to the backstage entrance. The place is a madhouse—sold out with another few thousand hanging outside. The cops start banging on the back door yelling, “Rolling Stones out here!”—generic cop code for a Rock ’n’ Roll band.
We pile out of the car, the door opens, and from over my shoulder I hear a voice I’d know anywhere. The voice that launched a thousand trips is asking the stage-door question of the moment, “Is Ron Delsener here?” Andi jabs me hard with a finger and says, “Grace Slick, Grace Slick.” I turn around, look at Grace, and all I can say is, “Come on.” Delsener, the concert promoter who founded the festival series in 1966 with CBGB owner Hilly Kristal, is around somewhere but for the moment, it doesn’t matter.
Pete and Chrissie head straight for the dressing room trailer. Jimmy and Martin are still ten minutes behind. Black leathered and greased-hair guitar slinger Chris Spedding stands at the ready. His on-and-off girlfriend and future wife, Erasers bass player Jodi Beach, is hanging out nearby. Moving on, I pass thru a mix of usual and unusual backstage suspects. John and Yoko came by to see Doug Sahm, who opened the show, but they’re gone before we arrive. Vitas Gerulaitis just walked in; Alice and Judy Nylon are already down in front, cocktails in hand. I’m standing behind a stack of amps talking to Andi when Lynette comes thru the back door. Grace and her husband, Skip Johnson, are sitting on a trunk a couple of feet away but I’m at a loss for words.
Grace is someone I’ve always wanted to meet who’s never been to White Street. Her band, Jeffe
rson Airplane, opened my eyes and blew my eighth-grade mind back in ’67. Surrealistic Pillow and the next four albums, a barrage unlike anything I’d heard. Now, over a decade later, we’re face to face; I step over to where she’s sitting but all I can come up with is, “I’ve been in love with you since I was thirteen years old.” Grace smiles at me and says, “Thank you.” I return the smile with a nervous laugh and extend an invitation to the Mudd Club. She starts talking and I start to loosen up until the crowd starts to roar. The band’s almost ready.
The Pretenders hit the stage and open the show with “Precious.” When Chrissie fires off the infamous, “Not me baby I’m too precious, fuck off,” the place goes berserk. The band follows with a beautiful version of “Kid,” “Talk of the Town” (from Pretenders II, released August 1981) and every song on the first album.
It’s tight and loud, short and sweet—a fast and furious hour and twenty minutes. At the end of the show, Chris Spedding, armed with a Gibson Flying V, joins the band onstage and they tear the Wollman Rink apart. Second encore: “Precious” for the second time and I’m laughing out loud, yelling for more. It’s one of the best shows I’ve ever seen.
Rodney
I know at some point we’ll wind up at Mudd but for the moment I have no idea what’s next. It’s early, maybe 9 P.M., and everyone’s decompressing in the trailer. Thirty minutes later, we split with Pete, and unwind back at the hotel. By 11, we’re sitting around a front table at Dangerfield’s, waiting for Rodney.
