Eighty-two'ed

[This is merely an update to a previous post. Normally I just tack this kind of info to the end of my original post on the topic, but since this piece is somewhat lengthy, I figured I'd also give it a separate new post of its own. A harbinger of more fresh content to come, I sincerely hope!]

My ancient entry on Club 82 has probably gotten the most criticism of anything I've written here. Too short, too inaccurate, too inauthentic, too unauthoritative. I completely agree, and I'm grateful for all the real-deal first person stories left in the comments section by those lucky enough to have hung out there. [I mean jeez, when I wrote it I didn't even make the connection that Ron Wood's short-lived Woody's, which I'd been very much aware of during its existence, was in the Club 82 space. All I can do is apologize for lack of research oomph that day.] The Bedford + Bowery blog has also helped flesh out the club's story by running a couple of pieces about it over the past year: a mini oral history of the glitter period, and a peek at what occupies it now, the Bijou. Just a few days ago, a reader of this blog wrote a comment about the Bijou. It was accidentally left on an adjacent post about the Hotel Diplomat, so I'll just insert it here.

CLUB-82 OR THE BIJOU THEATRE TURNED INTO A GAY PORNO THEATRE IN THE 1990'S AND THEN CLOSED IN 2008 FOR RENOVATIONS. IT REMAINED SHUT FOR YEARS AND JUST REOPENED IN 2013 AGAIN AS A GAY -XXX- MOVIE THEATRE. THERE IS PLENTY OF SEX GOING ON DOWNSTAIRS IN THE BOOTHS AND NEARLY PITCH-BLACK GROPE ROOM. WALK-IN LEVEL IS THE MOVIE SCREEN WITH GAY PORN FILMS. DOWNSTAIRS MOANS 'N GROANS COME FROM EVERY ANGLE...LOAD-FILLED CONDOMS ARE STREWN ABOUT, EMPTY LUBE TUBES, POPPERS, EMPTY BOOZE BOTTLES AND THE OCCASIONAL STRAY DILDO !IT IS ONLY OPEN AT NIGHT (FROM 8 PM UNTIL 4 AM) ADMISSION IS $ 14.00 AND IT STILL HAS NO KNOWN TELEPHONE NO. IT'S KINKY, IT'S QUEER & IT'S FABULOUS !

I recently saw a Guitar Center Sessions show with Blondie, which dates from 2011, but was aired a few months ago on the nearest thing to a music documentary/concert channel we have up here, AUX TV. There were interview segments in between the songs, and to my delight Club 82 was brought up. Since the whole show isn't online, I felt compelled to transcribe the discussion.  

Clem:  I saw the Stillettoes play at Club 82, which made me become aware of the two of them [Debbie and Chris]. This Club 82 was around the corner from CBGB.
Chris:  The 82 Club was a fabulous scene. It was in a basement.
Clem:  No one ever talks about Club 82.
Deb:  It was such a great place.
Interviewer:  So let's talk about it.
Chris:  People were fascinated by it here and there, but generally it's not known.
Clem:  It was a gay sort of slash lesbian bar slash trans--
Chris:  It was a tranny bar. It was a transvestite bar.
Clem:  --combination anything goes type of bar, and I dunno if you know, like, in Times Square for instance, the dancers, like, y'know, the topless dancers would dance behind the bar on a platform. And they had a platform like that at Club 82, and that's where the bands would play. The bar would be here [gestures] and the bands would play behind the bar, whether it be the New York Dolls or Wayne County or these guys [the Stillettoes]. And it was basically a dance club, y'know, that had rock and roll one night a week--what night was it, Wednesday night, right?
Chris:  Yeah, that sounds right.
Clem:  That was the rock night.
Chris:  And it was really, but it went way back, to probably even the 1940s. And they had pictures in the background, and there was a picture of Abbott and Costello with a drag queen, that had been taken at the club, and I always wanted to steal it but I regret that I probably didn't. But I dunno what happened to any of that stuff or any of those people.
Clem:  It had the aura of a speakeasy.
Chris:  Yeah, it was just great and funky and had fake palm trees and all this stuff. It was run by all these like hardcore butch old ladies.
Clem:  And all the music was dance music, except for when the New York Dolls or the Neon Boys would play. All the music was dance music otherwise, which kinda, I think it kinda made me get into dance music more, 'cause it was always in the background during punk rock, the way dance music and punk rock started, kinda started happening at the same time in a lotta ways.
Chris:  Yeah, sure.


And I suppose it should come as no surprise that the club is also lovingly mentioned in arguably THEE New York Rock Book of the Year, Paul Zone's Playground (New York: Glitterati, 2014). "Spending my nights at a place like Club 82 was better than anything the mainstream could have offered. It was a drag club in the sixties that became a glitter rock hangout in the early seventies without any redecorating: the ruffled glitter valence curtains, backdrop, and three-sided wraparound stage framed our glamorous icons perfectly."  [I don't think the 82 was mentioned at all in Chris Stein's Negative, but it's still a New York Rock Book contender.]


UPDATE 12/8/2014:  Marky Ramone has a book coming out next month. As part of the advance publicity, Bedford + Bowery did a cool post on his favorite East Village clubs of yore, including the 82.

My dream is on the screen

Debbie, Chris, and Will Hermes at the NYPL, March 27, 2013. Starts at around the 13 minute mark.

Action, Action, Action

Hallelujah--I've finally seen a picture of the Action House.  It was sold on ebay recently, but I caught it through a cross-posting on the Long Island and NYC Places That Are No More Facebook group.  Now all we need are some interior shots and performance pics.

A Great Gildersleeves reunion show will be held at the Delancey on Saturday, Nov. 3.

On November 11, Anthology Film Archives will be holding a screening and panel discussion on the movie Get Crazy, as a benefit for the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation.  This flick has truly eluded me--I barely heard of it prior to seeing an announcement for the event on the Fillmore East Archives FB page, other than the lousy review it got in the Hollywood Rock book.  Apparently it was a staple on '80s cable, but of course, I grew up in a cable-deprived household.  I rectified this by watching an upload of it on Youtube the other day. While it doesn't hold a candle to Arkush's masterpiece Rock and Roll High School, and I felt very little of the Fillmore East-inspired vibe I was expecting after the build-up of the GVSHP site's description, the flick definitely has its moments of trashy fun, not to mention a mind-bending anti-star-studded cast.

Of course you've heard that Kenny's Castaways closed down, as did Gimme Gimme Records.

For the past few days the NYC blog set has been creaming its jeans over Jeremiah's post on  Dead_Dolly's East Village flickr collection, with good reason.  One photo in her set inspired Alex at Flaming Pablum to ruminate on the Gas Station.  Also check out the pics Jeremiah posted of the now-empty Colony.

As per usual, I'm up to my ears in rock and roll books--but they seem to be coming out at an unusually rapid and prolific pace these days, no?  Only two of my more recent reads were of a New York-ish nature. I started Dick Porter's and Kris Needs' Parallel Lives, but had to set it aside for a while when more time-sensitive doorstop-sized titles (like the Neil Young and Pete Townshend memoirs) came in from the library. In the foreword, Porter and Needs write that they're working on a third book about a New York band, to complete the trifecta they began with their Dolls bio--care to hazard a guess on which band that could be?  The other book was Carol Miller's Up All Night, and I must thank Stupefaction's Tim B. for the tip. Although my musical tastes and radio habits eventually expanded far beyond AOR, I grew up with That Voice, and it was such a gas to learn more about her life and career. I especially loved her account of her Queens childhood and Long Island adolescence, and the conflict between her straitlaced/studious Jewish upbringing and the wicked lures of rock and roll--I ain't Jewish, but could still totally relate!  (Also learned a fun geographic fact--there is a 108th Street in Richmond Hill.  That road is the nearest main drag from my childhood home in Corona, but I always thought it ended at Queens Blvd. and 71st-Continental--who knew it had an extension south of Forest Park? Speaking of Corona, I had another fuzzed-out Facebook moment when I stumbled upon this photo album of a local '60s garage band called the Change-In-Tymes! Cool-ass stuff like that was long gone by the time I was a resident, I tell ya.)

And I'll close off with another thanks to Tim B. for locating a fine time-portal to the entrance of Hurrah.

Two-Trouser Boots

Rather rough sound quality, but here's some live audio with members of Chic and Blondie (and Fab Five Freddy and the Funky Four Plus One), recorded at Bonds Casino on May 11, 1981.








Thanks to EV Grieve for mentioning my old post on the Anderson Theater in his new post about the joint.  [Jeez, I gotta update that one, many of the links are dead.]  And check out Stupefaction's post with photos of X-Ray Spex in Times Square, replete with background views of an Orange Julius and the other Howard Johnson's (there were at least two, possibly even three HoJo's in the Times Square area at a certain point, IIRC).

When walking one day on the Lower East Side...

Debbie Harry and Chris Stein list a few NYC haunts crucial to Blondie history in this short NY Post article.

Hey Johnny, hey Dee Dee, Little Tom and Joey

PERFORMANCE STUDIOS--23 E. 20th Street, between Broadway and Park Avenue South. At this rehearsal/recording studio-cum-punk rock laboratory, the Ramones were invented and unleashed on the world. The facilities were designed and built by Tommy Erdelyi and Monte Melnick, as explained in Monte's On the Road With the Ramones (London: Sanctuary, 2003):

[M]y cousin Ivan...was a locksmith and had installed a lock in a loft for this lesbian couple on E. 20th Street. One girl was a musician and the other had lots of money. They wanted to make some money by turning it into a hip studio and asked him if he knew anyone who could do it. My cousin asked me about it since I was in the music industry, and I called Tommy since he had the studio experience [He had worked at the Record Plant and other studios in the late '60s.--Ed.]. We built that place by hand; designed it and everything. We had a main stage, a separate booth with a glass wall for a four-track recorder, a rehearsal studio, offices and a lobby. We provided much of the gear ourselves, so we got all the free studio time we wanted in return. Unfortunately, we were in a residential neighborhood and kept on getting dragged into court due to noise complaints...Eventually they shut us down, but we managed to make a name for ourselves in the meantime.

The book includes reprints of the floor plan and business card, which extols the studio's many virtues: "Quality sounds, creative environment, baby grand, Hammond, Marshall, Sunn, Ludwig, Shure P.A, Wurlitzer, Peavey, 4-2 track TEAC, air conditioning."

People like Blondie and the Dolls were rehearsing there. I was working with a group called Smiley. We'd make flyers, charge a coupla bucks at the door, get a crowd, talk some label people into coming down and made our own little scene. I was doing the sound and lights at the time, which Tommy taught me how to do. On the side, Tommy was working on this unknown group, the Ramones. They were terrible...I thought it was a joke. I was a musician. I had two albums out. I was into four-part harmonies. I played with a symphony orchestra for chrissakes! I came from a different world. I thought, "What is this? What the hell is going on? Forget about it!"

Famous last words--he'd go on to spend the next two-decades-plus as their long-suffering tour manager. Tommy, who had initially served as the band's advisor/musical director, was also recruited into the fold--but not until after their first gig. The original line-up, which began practicing at Performance in January '74, consisted of Johnny on guitar, Dee Dee on lead vocals and rhythm guitar, Joey on drums, and a fellow named Ritchie Stern on bass, who quit after just a couple of sessions. Dee Dee took over bass duties, but had some trouble singing and playing simultaneously. He also a tendency to get hoarse after just a couple of numbers, so Joey would sing a few from behind his kit. Their first public appearance, and their only one as a trio, took place at a Performance Studio showcase on March 30, 1974.

Johnny, quoted in On the Road With the Ramones: We took ads in the Village Voice and we played one show for our friends around March 30, 1974. We were awful. We didn't have the image down yet. Our friends didn't even want to talk to us anymore after that.

Tommy got the bright idea that Joey should be the frontman--which necessitated a search for a new drummer. The cats who came to audition tended to play in a busy Bonham or Appice-like manner, as was the style at the time. Though not a drummer himself, Tommy would try to demonstrate a simpler, Slade-like way of playing to these prospects. They just couldn't seem to grasp proper Ramone technique, though--and so Tommy eventually realized he was the only logical choice to join the brudderhood. The first show with the new complete line-up was at CBGB on August 16, 1974--but they continued to do showcase gigs at Performance throughout '74 and '75, sometimes sharing the stage with Blondie.

It's unclear exactly when Performance closed down or what replaced it. Monte Melnick of course went on to be the Fifth Ramone, and in mid-1978 Tommy conceded his Fourth Ramone status to Marc Bell when he decided to re-devote his energies to sound engineering. The address is currently occupied by the Trixie + Peanut Pet Emporium, a purveyor of pricey pet paraphernalia.

Mother's ilk

MOTHER'S--267 W. 23rd Street, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues. A gay bar that briefly served as an early punk club in the mid-'70s. Clinton Heylin writes in From the Velvets to the Voidoids (New York: Penguin, 1993), "In the spring of 1975 Mother's, a gay bar on 23rd Street, began competing for the best new bands...[it soon became] the main alternative to the CBGBs/Max's duopoly." Peter Crowley, who was then Wayne County's manager, handled the bar's booking duties. Among the bands he booked were:

Blondie, October 3-5 and November 13, 1975, and an unspecified date in January, 1977. In Making Tracks (New York: Da Capo, 1998), Debbie Harry remembers, "The first gig we played together [with Jimmy Destri] was at Mother's, which was a bar made into a small club on W. 23rd Street across from the Chelsea Hotel, where everyone played at least once."

The Ramones shared those October dates with Blondie, and also played December 5-7, 1975 according to this ad (accessible from the Blondie gig list above if this link doesn't work). An A&R-hunting Linda Stein checked out the band on one of these nights, and later gave a full report and thumbs-up to her flu-stricken hubby, Sire Records owner Seymour Stein. As she recalls in Jim Bessman's Ramones: An American Band (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993), "It was a gay bar for elderly gays. It was really a cold, winter, snowy night. Of course, they did 'Blitzkrieg Bop' and all the standards. I was fascinated by the simplicity of the lyrics and the beat, and by Dee Dee, who was always so sexy and cute! I came home and told Seymour, 'You gotta sign them!'" He auditioned them soon thereafter, and the rest is gabba gabba history.

Dig some of the other bands listed in the ad, including Mink DeVille, Sniper (so they did continue after Joey's departure after all), the Fast, Tuff Darts, Knickers (Jimmy Destri's pre-Blondie band, also featuring future Trouser Press scribe Ira Robbins), Rosie Ross (formerly with the Stillettoes), the Heartbreakers, Talking Heads, and Wayne County. The ad's heading reads, "County Line presents New York's hottest rock & roll bands"--I guess Crowley named his company after Wayne.

Speaking of the Heartbreakers, their 1976 Live at Mother's is available from New Rose/Fan Club Records.

Television, with Bananas, October 17-18, 1975. Richard Lloyd describes the place as a "little teeny crappy club" in this article.



I kinda figured Nancy Spungen would have been a regular there, since she lived about a block west on 23rd Street during this time. Her mother Deborah makes no mention of it in the essential And I Don't Want To Live This Life (New York: Ballantine, 1983; reprint, 1996), but McNeil & McCain's Please Kill Me (New York: Grove, 1996) does have an anecdote from the Senders' Philippe Marcade about the night she introduced herself and asked him to teach her how to shoot up properly.

That's all I've been able to find thus far. Peter Crowley went on to book shows at the second incarnation of Max's. Reports in Yvonne Sewell-Ruskin's High On Rebellion: Inside the Underground at Max's Kansas City (New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 1998) state that new owner Tommy Dean was attempting to give the place a misguided T.G.I.F.'s-style makeover, replete with stained glass decor and bow-tied waitresses, when Crowley stepped in to bring rock & roll back. "He basically came on board as Wayne County's manager, and since Wayne was the DJ and was an attraction at Max's, Crowley became insinuated and sold himself to the Deans, who I think really didn't know the music at that point," says musician/writer Jim Lalumia. Under Crowley's direction, Max's shared--or rivaled for, depending on your P.O.V.--punk prominence with CBs, until its 1981 closure.

Not sure when Mother's closed, but the space is currently a branch of Ricky's, the beauty-supply chain.

[UPDATE 2/7/2007: Here's some further info, generously provided by Peter Crowley!]