The Mudd Club

by Richard Boch

  The end of November 1980. I was gone.

  It’s been years since the Mudd Club officially opened, since I wandered in on my way home. Together with Gary Kanner, Pat Wadsley and Steve Miller, we followed the noise to White Street. We found a DJ playing Rock ’n’ Roll and a dance floor that never stood still. It was a big dark box of a room that allowed for anything to happen. When I looked around, everyone was there.

  The Mudd Club seduced me the moment I stepped inside and within months I was working the door. Gary couldn’t stay away, and Pat knew she had to write about it. Steve Miller remembers more than one night of lucky to be alive. I fell in love with the place. It put its mark on me, and in a crazy way I’ve returned the favor.

  A few brief moments—I thought those nights might last forever.

  Spring 1978, Diego Cortez and Anya Phillips gave the push and shove that helped get it started. Steve Mass was the genius Doctor Mudd who kept it going, and everyone who stepped past the chain became part of it. I stood at the door and ran around inside—a twenty-one-month, white light experience. I never missed a night of work, and spent most of my nights off on White Street. To this day, I’ve never been sure if I was ready to leave the Mudd College of Deviant Behavior when I did; and I’ve never let the memories disappear. There was no surprise ending. It was just too much and too beautiful to hold on to.

  As Marcus Leatherdale likes to say, “It was far more than we realized at the time.”

  Brooklyn, Queens, Long Island and Connecticut—the road to New York City. The nine blocks between Murray Street and White was the neighborhood, 1979 and 1980, the Golden Age. Time passed but I still love the red wide-wale cords that Brian Jones wore on the cover of High Tide and Green Grass.

  PROGRESS, DEDICATION, INITIATIVE AND INTENSITY is the motto printed on my Mudd Club ID. If you were there, you knew. If you weren’t, it’s a great story.

  EPILOGUE/AND THEN

  Steve Mass and the widest lapels known to man, third floor Mudd, 1981, by Kate Simon.

  I grew up with Surrealistic Pillow and Rubber Soul. The Velvet Underground and Nico was the dark heavy blanket, the nightmare and the dream. Then Horses came along and everything changed.

  Life in New York City turned anything goes: beautiful, fast, reckless. The consequences still seemed minor and occasional if at all. Everyone I knew was hanging on to a sense of freedom born of the sixties, out of control by the seventies. Getting high and fucking around—nearly all of us were guilty. A version of common sense prescribed a Quaalude and a cocktail, the inevitable blackout burying any possibility of shame. Cocaine and heroin tried their best to level things out. Before long, the minor consequences weren’t.

  The Mudd Club appeared out of nowhere, opened its doors, and sat on the cusp of a changing world. For the first three years of its short life the place was on fire, and by 1981 the club had a real third floor, an art gallery and a new staff, mostly poached from Club 57. It was still crowded but the vibe was different. The irony became more obvious.

  In spite of the change it was still the Mudd Club, and I kept going whenever I could. Then in 1982 it started a slow fade, and by 1983, the fire was out.

  By then I was taking my own slow fade. Five months later, I looked in the mirror and knew it was time. That’s the short of it.

  Here’s the rest.

  Monday, December 8, 1980, started out fine. Lynette was hanging out at the loft, Gary was rolling a joint, and I was busy figuring out what album to play. Abbijane and DJ David were on their way over to help decorate the Christmas tree. The TV was on, and that’s when we heard the news.

  John Lennon was shot outside his home about one hundred blocks north of Murray Street. I called David and asked him to stop by One University and pick up a bottle of Rémy. I called Mickey, and he said it was okay. I hung up the phone and cried.

  Within twenty-four hours, I was back working the door at the Peppermint Lounge; and by late December, I was getting buried. There was nothing special about my new job and I was in trouble. The only thing I could do was let it play out and try to catch last call at Mudd. On Wednesday, December 10, that’s what I did.

  I got into a cab and headed for White Street. Well past 3 A.M., Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band were onstage: Don Van Vliet—a.k.a. the Captain—riding high on the morning end of a night. He blew my brains out and half a dozen songs later it was over. I headed for the second floor, walked up to the bar and the bartender pulled a beer out of the bathtub. I was feeling bad. John Lennon was two days gone and I was working at a mobbed-up Rock ’n’ Roll shithole in midtown. At least I was still drinking for free.

  It Never Felt Like Home

  The original Peppermint Lounge opened in 1958, and for the next couple of years it was just another West Forty-fifth Street dive. Then in 1960, a guy named Chubby Checker helped establish a dance craze called the Twist, and the house band added a Peppermint version. That’s when Sinatra, Marilyn, Jackie Kennedy and, eventually, the Beatles walked thru the door.

  In the mid-sixties, the Peppermint lost its liquor license and was shut down due to various infractions. It returned in the seventies under the name Hollywood, reclaiming itself as a dive. Its final incarnation, before going Peppermint again, was GG Barnum’s Room. The place lasted a few years and featured trapeze-flying male go-go dancers, along with assorted androgynies and drag queens offering entertainment, conversation and moderately priced blowjobs. The clientele consisted of the people who paid to love them, and tourists who liked to watch. I went once, bought a drink and felt like a tourist. I left alone.

  The club and its various alter egos had a shadowy past and a dubious reputation linked to drugs, vice and organized crime. None of that was ever going to change.

  November 1980, The Peppermint Lounge re-opening night was a madhouse. Jim Fouratt and Rudolf looked pleased, but something felt wrong. The people behind the scenes were somewhere between creepy and sinister, smiling through clenched teeth, and keeping an eye on the rest of us. The club itself was a series of rooms and open spaces that didn’t speak to one another. I had a bad feeling from the start but now it was too late. The only thing to do was to wander into the bathroom, snort up a few lines of anything and try not to think—the same way I handled most situations.

  After two weeks, I was on autopilot. David Azarch was in the DJ booth and appeared to be happy. Gary worked the entrance to the VIP room and Pat Wadsley was my partner at the door. Lynette Bean, Krystie Keller and former Danceteria employee Cathy Underhill were behind the bar, and future Chelsea gallerist Lisa Spellman (taking a break from running around Mudd in pajamas) was the cover charge-collecting cashier. Despite the familiar and semi-familiar faces, it never felt like home.

  I stood outside, surrounded by a set of velvet ropes with a clipboard in hand. I checked off names from time to time and fucked around as much as possible. With the exception of a few old friends and the usual variety of slumming celebs, the crowd on West Forty-fifth was more rock idiot and less of a downtown No Wave/art world mash-up. Jim and Rudolf’s relationship with the club was short-lived (allegedly run off by mob henchmen) and it wasn’t long before the new Pep existed solely as a music venue.

  Downtown ’81 and Beyond Words

  December 1980 and Christmas season was in full swing. Sad-looking Salvation Army Santas were ringing bells, sneaking cigarettes and collecting money along Lower Broadway. Canal Street was still dirty and jammed with traffic, and Dave’s Luncheonette was still serving grease to the late night-early morning Mudd Club crowd. I was feeling lost up on West Forty-fifth Street, trying to get past the denial and accept the facts: I made a bad move, I missed celebrating the holidays at Mudd, and White Street was still home turf.

  Beyond Words poster, Graffiti moves indoors, 1981.

  By then Downtown ’81, a movie starring Jean-Michel Basquiat, written and produced by Glenn O’Brien, co-produced by Maripol and directed by Edo Bertoglio, was headed into production. The story, the faces and places were all fami
liar, and the cast and crew already had filmed scenes inside and outside the Mudd Club. They shot the go-go bar scene at Diamond Lil’s, a dingy topless and sometimes bottomless bar located on Canal near Cortland Alley. Heavy on atmosphere and talent, Lil’s was the kind of place where a dancer could earn an extra dollar blowing out a candle with her pussy.

  DNA, James White and the Blacks, Walter Steding, Kid Creole and the Coconuts and a version of Blondie were all part of the Downtown ’81 soundtrack. I knew everyone involved but the action passed me by.

  Filming was soon completed but finances fell apart and the project didn’t see a release date for nearly twenty years. Michael Zilkha, the entrepreneurial former head of ZE Records, came to the rescue and Maripol got involved in postproduction. Downtown ’81 premiered at Cannes in 2000 but by then, Jean-Michel was gone. Art world success and excess were only partly to blame.

  In early 1981, Steve Mass opened a gallery on the Mudd Club’s third floor. Diego Cortez had just curated the show called New York New Wave at PS1 in Long Island City that included everyone from Haring and Basquiat to photographers Kate Simon and Robert Mapplethorpe.

  Immediately following PS1, Keith Haring put together the Lower Manhattan Drawing Show at Mudd. Beyond Words opened shortly after, April 9, at Mudd. Fab Five Freddy and Futura 2000 were involved as both curators and participants, and the show blew the doors of the graffiti world wide open.

  Once again, Mudd was at the forefront and I couldn’t help feeling I missed something. I felt sad not to be part of it. People forgot I was a painter and for a while I did too: I messed up, trading the door of 77 White for drugs, sex and alcohol. Now I was trying it on Forty-fifth Street but it was a losing game, a waste of time.

  Brick Wall

  During those early months of 1981, I spent a lot of time running around inside the Peppermint Lounge when I was supposed be tending the door. I saw some great live music and did more than my fair share of drugs. I lounged with Pat Wadsley in the VIP on a Saturday night where we laid ourselves down on a dirty, carpeted floor and snorted coke with Mick Jagger and Charlie Watts. Pete Townshend stood around and watched. No one else paid any attention.

  Jean-Michel Basquiat, TV Party, “The Beatnik Show,” 1980, by Bobby Grossman.

  A few weeks later I sat on the bar alongside the dance floor making out with Robert Rauschenberg. Nina Hagen was onstage, I was allegedly working and Bob was just having fun. We were both tripping on something.

  I had sex in a broom closet with a bi-closeted musician who was prettier than most of the girls in the club. The behavior was careless, the sex was casual, and it happened more than once. The closet was right outside the upstairs office, but we never got caught. I thought all of it was great fun, that it meant something—though I wasn’t sure what.

  By the time May 28, 1981, rolled around I was ready to say Fuck it. Every night for over two weeks, I left the door for thirty minutes, went down the street to Bond’s Casino and listened to The Clash tear the place apart. They were at their peak, and I was ready to crash. That brick wall was right in front of me, the small world getting smaller.

  On June 19, 1981, just days after The Clash finished their Broadway run, Anya Phillips died of cancer. As fierce as she was, she’d been sick for more than a year and couldn’t hang on. I never really knew her and there were times when she frightened me, but for Anya—Punk icon and instigator, Mudd Club force and member of the Radical Three—I have the greatest respect.

  By the end of June I was running blind and wasn’t thinking. I still believed getting high was part of whatever job I had. I didn’t give a shit about the Peppermint Lounge and the feeling no doubt was mutual. I left the Mudd Club to work with Jim and Rudolf, and wound up working for a bunch of mob lackeys and gofers. The only compensation, besides getting paid, was seeing bands like the Cramps, X, Bush Tetras, and Echo and the Bunnymen. Even Philip Glass, The Raybeats, and the Jim Jarmusch/James Nares/Luc Sante collaboration, Del-Byzanteens, played the Pep.

  In the end, it didn’t matter. Lightning had already struck a second time and it wouldn’t strike again. I lasted a little over seven months on West Forty-fifth and was fired for being out of control. I got in a cab, copped some dope and headed back downtown.

  On my own, I was treading water and needed a fresh start. I called Jerry Brandt for a favor, and he offered me a job working the door of the VIP lounge at The Ritz. The only problem: I considered myself an important person and got just as lost as Ron Wood, Robert Kennedy, Jr., or any of the models, actresses or soon-to-be-discarded child stars crashing inside. I hung out on the balcony, stood on my chair, and listened to Kraftwerk. I went to the dressing room and said hello to the bands I knew. The job only lasted a few weeks and I left without any hard feelings. I headed to One University, ordered a drink and asked for a dollar’s worth of quarters—Pac-Man had just arrived.

  Desperate times, 1982.

  Mickey Ruskin showing off his elbows. Chinese Chance, One University Place, 1979, by Allan Tannenbaum.

  Some weeks later, Larry Wright came to my rescue and hired me as a colorist at his Mulberry Street print shop. Larry, always the comedian, likes to say I came to him “to dry out after all the drugs people put in my pockets.” It’s a version of the truth, even though no one, especially me, was even close to drying out. I worked with Larry for five months and I’m forever grateful.

  Another Home

  In the early fall of 1981, Mickey Ruskin hired me as the dining room manager at One University Place. I was back in the thick of it, and my hospitality skills once again were put to good use. I had a job I loved, and the place felt like home.

  Mickey, an accidental visionary, was truly one of the all-time great saloonkeepers. He was my friend, became a mentor of sorts and always told me I “had it” if and when I wanted to open a joint of my own. Mickey treated me as family—with generosity and patience. There was no one like him.

  A year after I left the Mudd Club, New York was still an adventure. I was still hanging with Ricky, Teri, Andi and Ron. Gary and I were still Richard and Gary, and Laura Kennedy of Bush Tetras was still living at the loft and still “dating” Claudia Summers. Ricky Sohl, finishing up a stint as Iggy Pop’s keyboard player, was soon to become a member of Nina Hagen’s band. Pierre was still selling the brown Persian dope and when he wasn’t, Alphabet City was open for business. Allen Lanier and his wife Dory were living at One Fifth Avenue and their apartment was another home away from home.

  Whenever the Pretenders came to town I dropped everything.

  When 1981 came to a close, the world I knew was still hanging out at One University Place. Everybody was drunk or stoned and I thought I was Superman. I still believed my own bullshit and it hadn’t yet hit the fan. The brick wall was still at least an inch away. I was still telling myself, and anyone who asked, that everything was fine.

  When 1982 rolled around, nothing slowed down but some things started to change. I started to hear rumors that became fact. The “rare cancer” described in a 1981 New York Times article was the warning shot. Hearing that Klaus Nomi was sick but doing his best to maintain his career and health became a heartbreak. Few of us had any idea where we were headed.

  I heard the word GRID (gay-related immune deficiency), but I was unresponsive. Despite years of anonymous sexual encounters and one-night stands I didn’t see a connection, my worst experience being a case of the clap. I believed drugs were my own business and the few shared needles an on-the-spot but necessary choice. By year’s end GRID had come to be known as AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome), as the disease had now been found outside the gay community. Our once carefree attitude toward drugs and sex was forever lost in a nightmare; past behavior became suspect, even among ourselves. Fear and panic set in: those who suffered were made outcasts by those seeking blame. Stones were thrown, morals questioned, and hatred soon followed. The only compassion and support came from those of us who realized it could happen to anyone.

  Poetry and spoken
word poster, 1980.

  I kept trying to ignore it, praying it would stop. Drugs and apathy, along with my gift for denial, kept my head in the sand. I was anything but safe.

  My life still centered around the loft on Murray Street while my after-hours activity included AM PM, a late-night/early-morning drug den located down the block. The Zodiac on Mercer Street was the after-work default destination. In either place, drunken (and now high-risk) sex was easy to find.

  I was still working for Mickey, and the bar and dining room at One University were always full. You could sit in a booth with a de Kooning, a Rivers or a Schnabel hanging on the wall behind you, and order a club steak for dinner with a half-gram of coke and a few lines of heroin for dessert. Despite an ongoing mix of beauty and grime, the high-end bohemian highlife was in its final phase.

  At home I continued painting, selling a few new pieces to Solveig and my friend Susan. I was catching more daylight and less of the 10 A.M. cocaine freeze; still, there was always a dime bag of dope in my pocket. At work I tried balancing things out with very dry Beefeater martinis “in a tall glass with a lot of ice.” By midnight, I was all over the place, and by 2 A.M., one of the bartenders usually tried to cut me off. Mickey Ruskin, never the voice of moderation, pulled me aside and explained, “Six martinis doesn’t make for a good manager.” I looked at Mickey without looking at myself and replied, “I only had four or five.”

  By April 1982, Mickey finally sent me on a trip to the Bahamas with his wife Kathy keeping me company. I was supposed to dry out but I copped and got high as soon as I got to Nassau. I bought a bottle of Stolichnaya thinking that Beefeater might be the problem, and somewhere between a stash of 10mg blue Valium, cocaine and the beach, I managed to forget about heroin. I met up with a rugby player from the Canadian national team and a hustler from the Midwest. We drank, gambled and fucked our way thru the next ten days. I returned to New York refreshed and ready to dive back in but unprepared for what was in store.