The Mudd Club Read online

  The Mudd Club © 2017 by Richard Boch

  ISBN 978-1-62731-058-1

  Feral House

  1240 W. Sims Way

  Suite 124

  Port Townsend, WA 98368

  10987654321

  Design: Dave Shulman, designSimple

  Cover photo by Bob Gruen

  For Alice, Mickey, Pete and Ricky

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Introduction/Outside Wanting In

  1.Quickly Said and Left Unsaid

  2.Joan Crawford, Nyquil and Fried Chicken

  3.Springtime

  4.A Golden Highway

  5.Summer ’79

  6.The Long Tweed Coat

  7.Winter 1980

  8.Hooked

  9.Birds and Flowers

  10.Summer of Love Part 2: Heroin, Surf and Sand

  11.Beautiful and Gone

  Epilogue/And Then

  Acknowledgments

  INTRODUCTION/OUTSIDE WANTING IN

  Richard Boch working the door, 1979, by Allan Tannenbaum.

  I had less than fifteen minutes, but needed twenty. I stepped off the curb, a taxi pulled over, I told the driver, “Canal and Broadway, left side, far corner.” He cruised through every light for the next ten blocks while I dug around in my Marlboro box, searching for a lost Quaalude. When I got out of the cab I ordered a vanilla egg cream and two hot dogs at Dave’s Luncheonette, a twenty-four-hour dive that specialized in extra grease and lousy coffee. I drank the egg cream fast and grabbed the hot dogs, walked two blocks and I was there. Standing outside while a dozen people watched me eat the second dog, I checked out some of the faces and swallowed the last bite. I lit a cigarette and I was ready. Midnight came and went. Hours later, the night ran me over and kept on going; after that, no telling what.

  It happened on White Street, 1979 and 1980—twenty-one months that seemed to last forever. By then, I’d been living in the city four-plus years, moved twice, and worked different jobs. I met a lot of people, made new friends and fell in love at least five or six times. Before that, I was just another kid from Long Island, trying to figure out what was going on. Now I’m just trying to remember, before the pictures fade and disappear.

  I close my eyes and look back on what’s left of my earliest memories; the black-and-yellow caterpillar in the road near my grandparents’ house in Newton, New Jersey, is one I still see. Holding my father’s hand and walking through Forest Park is one I can feel. It was summer 1956 and I was three years old.

  Two years later, I started school. I remember standing in a hallway—twenty little kids buzzing and shuffling—waiting for something but not knowing what. When the bell finally rang I was scared and drifted off into another world. Alone in a kindergarten crowd, I cried for a while until the crayons stepped in and saved me. I settled down but it was already time to go home.

  An overprotected only child, I was shy and felt outnumbered. I looked like a “normal” kid but didn’t feel that way. I was never sure what anyone else thought about me—if they noticed—or if I even cared. That part caught up with me later, and by then, all I wanted was to fit in. I just didn’t know where.

  Looking back I see a pattern—dreaming and getting ahead of myself—somewhere on the outside, wanting in and feeling alone when I got there. Seventh and eighth grade, Catholic school, a good boy longing for bad; standing around an empty playground or hanging with friends in a strip mall parking lot; going home, hoping not to smell like a cigarette. I was just getting started and already hiding something.

  It wasn’t long before I got drunk for the first time. Smoking pot and chugging cough syrup weren’t far behind. At fifteen, I was too young to know the difference between the fast lane and getting lost. Throw sex into the mix and I was eager but confused. By the time I was sixteen, I put on the headphones, turned up the music and disappeared.

  I made it through high school without too much pain. I took lots of LSD and did pretty well in college. I finished school in 1976, moved to the city and wound up living on Bleecker near Sullivan Street. CBGB’s was exploding, SoHo was the center of the art world and the soon-to-be ruins of Bohemia were still standing. The West Village bars, trucks and piers were a free-for-all; sex was easy and drugs were everywhere. I looked around, found a job, and made a little money. I shared a studio with my friends, and I was painting every day. I went out every night, came home in the morning and slept for a few hours. I was twenty-two and had no problem keeping up but knew there had to be more. I wanted to find out what. I thought I was ready for anything.

  I ran around the Village for over a year when there was still enough room to run. November 1977 I paused for a second, caught my breath, and decided to grab a piece of the city while there was something left to grab. I gave up my apartment on Bleecker for the far-off neighborhood that was becoming Tribeca and became a postpioneer in what was still a beautiful, nearly desolate environment. Two thousand square feet of raw space in a twelve-story commercial building on Murray Street became my home. The World Trade Center loomed three blocks south, Chambers Street ran two crosstown blocks north. Surrounded by subway stations and City Hall, an odd lot store called the Job Lot Trading Company was around the corner and the Lower Manhattan Ocean Club a couple blocks away. A mattress on the floor, a makeshift shower and some basic third-hand furniture were all I needed. I had a stereo, boxes of records and a roommate who loved music and liked to get high. I was tending bar in SoHo and I had cash in my pocket. I had my own studio to work in and paper hanging on the wall. I thought I was finally figuring things out and getting some answers. I never saw what was coming.

  In the fall of 1978, I walked thru the doors of 77 White Street. I saw the address and a phone number printed on a few small posters but had no idea what to expect. It was place called the Mudd Club and it felt like home the moment I stepped inside. I ordered a drink and moved onto the dance floor. I ran into some friends, spotted some familiar faces, hung out for hours and didn’t want to leave. The following night I had to go back.

  Three months later, I got the phone call that changed everything, and before long, I was working the Mudd Club door. The music was loud and the midnight hour kept coming and going. Standing outside those final days of winter, I stared at the crowd, trying to figure out who or what was coming in—and learning as I went along. Two or three drinks helped me relax; cocaine helped me feel up to the job. It was out there versus in here and I was on the inside. I never thought about how I got there, and I never thought about leaving.

  By early spring of 1979, I felt the whole world was headed for White Street—and that working the door was a big deal. I finally got what I wanted and became part of what was happening. I met everyone and the job quickly defined me. I just wasn’t sure if I was finding out who I was or forgetting who I was. I’m not sure it was even possible then to know, and I still have doubts. Though it took a once-in-a-lifetime, often crazy, dreamily inspired Mudd Club while, eventually I got the answer.

  I’ve always referred to the Mudd Club as the scene of the crime, always meant as a term of endearment. It was the night that never ended: the day before never happened and the day after, a long way off. There was nothing else like it and I wound up right in the middle. I thought I could handle it and for a while, I did.

  1. QUICKLY SAID AND LEFT UNSAID

  Mudd Club daze, 1980, by Nick Taylor.

  “If you’ve been standing here for more than ten minutes, you’re not coming in.”

  I made that announcement on more than one occasion. I had to do something. No one was leaving, and no one, at least for the moment, was getting in.

  I looked around at what passed as Mudd Club security in the summer of 1980. Moonlighting cops, gangster wannabes and one or two guys with a little height and a
few extra pounds were doing their best to keep us safe. When I started working the door in early spring of 1979 there was a chain around the front steps but no security at all: just Louie and Joey, Gretchen, Robert and Colter. We made up the rules as we went along and handled whatever came our way. The press, weekend crowds, money and the Hells Angels changed all that. In time, everything changed.

  I learned a lot watching Louie, like how to say NO by saying nothing at all. Joey was the everyman, Gretchen was the beautiful blonde and Robert kept things cool. Colter ran around chasing girls and left shortly after I arrived.

  When the night got to be too much or not enough, when we wanted to dance or hang out in the bathroom, we’d take turns, head inside and get lost. It was that easy.

  Tonight, I’m just staring at faces and by 2 A.M., it’s already too much. Aldo’s standing behind me handling security and Chi Chi’s working the stairs to the second floor. I glance at the crowd and step inside. Chi Chi looks at my face and says, “Oh honey”—the full-syllable version of the Oh hon Cookie Mueller gave me an hour ago. It’s time to disappear.

  I pass Boris Policeband, legendary violinist and pool shark, who’s holding up the wall near the door. He’s fiddling with a transistor radio, a tape recorder or maybe a Geiger counter—it’s hard to tell. Squeezing by, I pull my friend Edward with me and keep walking. We turn the corner and head for the basement. At the bottom of the stairs I take a key from my pocket, we slip into the storage area, walk halfway to the elevator and stop. It’s quiet and calm except for the muffled music, the stomping feet and the slapping sound of a security guy fucking some bridge-and-tunnel girl behind a stack of boxes. I pull a cut straw from my pack of Marlboros, unfold the twenty someone handed me at the door and snort up half the half-gram of coke inside. I hand the rest over to Edward, stare at him and smile.

  We’re able to speak again after a minute or two and hang out a little while more. We get in the elevator, take it for a ride, and step into another world.

  The air on the second floor is all cigarettes and alcohol—so thick I can feel it. Phoebe, the sixteen-year-old Westchester wild child dressed in go-go boots and one of her mother’s wash-and-wear party dresses, strolls past laughing; Mick Jagger is close behind. Edward heads for the bar while I kick the bottom of the bifold steel door on the “men’s” room. Chris Frantz opens it, says hi and keeps on talking to the same person he was talking to an hour ago. No one’s paying attention to the girl sitting on the rim of the seatless toilet, and she’s not paying attention either. Edward returns with two more drinks and we lock the door. The room’s vibrating. There’s a rainbow haze around the fluorescent lights. The ceiling looks like it’s moving. I lean back against the cool white tile and Edward leans on me—five of us inside, but we might as well be alone.

  Ten minutes later, nothing has changed. I try to stay in the moment but I’ve got to get back to the door. Aldo’s alone out there and they’ll eat him alive.

  I make my way across the second floor. The Russian Punks, crammed onto an old couch in the corner, appear to be melting. My friend’s mother, an oddball of a club regular, looks trapped inside one of Ronnie Cutrone’s black steel cages. Johnny Thunders hangs on the side of the cage, oblivious to the sixty-year-old woman inside. Everybody seems drunk, even if they’re not. I turn around, Edward looks at me, and I tell him I’ll catch him later. I’m not exactly sure what that means.

  Almost 4 A.M. If I’m lucky, I’ll be out of here by 5, home on Murray Street by 5:30 and Penn Station by 7. Gennaro’s working the weekend and I’m leaving for Montauk.

  Six hours and a train ride later I’m sitting on an old redwood chair, halfway in the shade, listening to the ocean. I’m peeling paint off the concrete deck with the sole of my flip-flop and staring at a bright white sky that even my Ray-Bans can’t turn down. The phone booth inside is the only connection to 77 White.

  Five minutes later, I get up and stick a straw into a small glassine envelope. I haven’t slept in over twenty-four hours. I light a cigarette, walk upstairs and lie down. I start to drift, my feet kicking as though I’m swimming in bed. I close my eyes somewhere between asleep and a nod.

  The weekends in Montauk are a new thing. I feel I’ve been doing everything else forever.

  It’s strange how it all started.

  The Phone Call

  Winter-springtime 1979. Hanging at home and nothing’s going on. I’m scribbling something about Johnny Rotten around the edges of a large sheet of paper hanging on the studio wall, smoking a joint and watching Taxi without sound. Roxy Music’s Manifesto is playing when the black desk model jacked-in phone starts ringing. I pick up and hear my friend Pat say, “Steve Mass is calling you right now.” I hang up and it rings again.

  “Pat Wadsley tells me you know everyone, I need someone at the door on the weekends. Richard Lloyd, Taylor Mead and some other people couldn’t get in. Come see me Friday night after eleven.”

  Steve Mass is the owner of the Mudd Club. He’s talking and I’m listening. Lots more is quickly said and left unsaid. The call lasts ten minutes, more or less.

  Roxy Music stopped, the joint went out and I’m just sitting, staring at a silent TV. What just happened? Did Steve Mass offer me a job? He doesn’t even know me. I light a cigarette and phone Pat to fill her in on the call even though it’s too soon to say Thanks or What the fuck?

  I roll another joint and make several more calls. I start telling friends I’ll be doing the door at the Mudd Club. I have no idea if it’s true, but something tells me it is.

  The Once-Over Once

  I arrive Friday night dressed in jeans, boots and a motorcycle jacket, pretty much what I always wear. Louie Chaban, dressed in silvery sharkskin pants too tight to believe, unhooks the chain. It’s heavy-duty steel made for towing or lumbering, ready to handle a serious workload. There’s no welcome mat: the chain says stay out when it has to, but for the moment, it says come in.

  I walk toward the door and notice Louie’s black Tony Lamas with red piping down the side—the same boots I have on. Joey Kelly and Robert Molnar are both working but no one pays me any attention. I step inside and tell the blonde collecting the money that I’m looking for Steve. She laughs, gets off her stool, turns around and points, all without putting down her drink, her cigarette or the cash.

  Steve Mass is at the bar in a slightly rumpled suit paired with an off-season Hawaiian shirt, talking with someone I’ve seen around but barely know. The guy’s rambling and it’s hard to cut in. I stand for a minute staring at the two until finally I say, “Hi, I’m Richard.” Steve looks at me a few seconds.

  “Oh hi, be here tomorrow at midnight.”

  I say, “Okay,” and that’s it.

  I don’t even get the once-over once.

  I’m caught off guard and leave quickly and quietly. Twice in one week I’m left thinking, What was that, what just happened?

  Walking two blocks west to Church Street, I head uptown on Sixth Avenue. I’m not even close to realizing what this job might become. I’m still trying to figure out what makes this club different; there’s a spirit and soul I’ve yet to define. I live in the neighborhood, the drinks are cheap and I get in easily whenever I show up. Maybe that’s what’s so important, or maybe there’s more.

  Steve Mass and Diego Cortez, 1978, by Bobby Grossman.

  I cross Canal, grab a cab, and head for West Tenth Street to kill time. Maybe there’ll be something going at the Ninth Circle other than the usual hustlers shooting pool and a Cherry Vanilla single on the jukebox.

  I walk in, look around and step into the bathroom. From a small amber bottle I dump two lines of coke on my fist. One blast nearly knocks me over. I walk out and wind my way along West Fourth, across Gansevoort to Washington and Little West Twelfth. Just past 1 I wander into The Mineshaft—a half-dozen anonymous, reckless encounters help pass the time and before I know it, it’s 5 A.M. I leave alone, cab it home and manage to sleep.

  I did as I was told and returned to
the Mudd Club the following night. I thought I knew what was happening but truly had no idea. Weeks later, on the heels of Bill Cunningham’s White Street photos published in the New York Times, Pat Wadsley (who often claims to remember nothing) wrote an article about the Mudd Club for the SoHo Weekly News. By then I was deep in the mix.

  The Friday and Saturday nights briefly mentioned in that fateful call turned into five or six nights a week for the next twenty-one months. Looking back, it was a lifetime.

  August 1980. Still Saturday afternoon in Montauk. I come alive after a few hours, burnt from the nightlife and the sun. I can hear the ocean and I’m wondering where the last eighteen months have gone. The room’s hot and breezy, the sheets and carpet are sandy. The sleep was deep and the pillow left creases in my face. I splash cold water, light a cigarette and grab a towel. The only thing separating me from the beach is Route 27A, the two-lane Old Montauk Highway. Teri, Gary, Ricky and Ron are already in the water.

  The world seemed small and Montauk was as far as I could run. Time was hard to measure; sometimes I felt as if the five of us had known each other our entire lives. They were my friends and like everything else, I thought those friendships would last forever.

  I tossed the cigarette and walked across the sand thinking about where I met each one of them. Ricky Sohl was first, back in 1975. He was playing piano the first time I saw Patti Smith and he gave me a note scribbled in bad French on a scrap of paper.

  I met Gary Kanner at The Ballroom, a cabaret on West Broadway between Houston and Prince, where we worked in 1978. He moved into the loft on Murray Street two weeks later. Boyfriend, lover, friend—it was hard to decide and harder to describe. Our relationship was based largely on drugs, music, movies and TV; his identity then was his connection to me, while my mixed-blessing identity became Mudd Club doorman. Our “partnership” was troubled from the start—doomed by dishonesty and resentment, any chance of love warped by codependence. We stuck it out for two decades, trying and sometimes succeeding to remain friends.