Steve Adelman - Nocturnal Admissions: Behind the Scenes at Tunnel, Limelight, Avalon, and Other Legendary Nightclubs

Behind the Scenes at Tunnel, Limelight,Avalon, and Other Legendary Nightclubs

BY STEVE ADELMAN

FOREWORD BY ANTHONY HADEN-GUEST

This book is a work of creative nonfiction. The events are portrayed to the best of the authors memory. While all the stories in this book are true, in certain instances, the author has compressed events, and some names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of the individuals involved.

Copyright 2022 by Steve Adelman

All rights reserved.

This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part or in any form or format without the written permission of the publisher.

Published by: Santa Monica Press LLC

P.O. Box 850

Solana Beach, CA 92075

1-800-784-9553

www.santamonicapress.com

Printed in the United States

Santa Monica Press books are available at special quantity discounts when purchased in bulk by corporations, organizations, or groups. Please call our Special Sales department at 1-800-784-9553.

ISBN-13 978-1-59580-114-2 (print)

ISBN-13 978-1-59580-780-9 (e-book)

Publishers Cataloging-in-Publication data

Names: Adelman, Steve, 1962-, author. | Haden-Guest, Anthony, foreword author.

Title: Nocturnal admissions : behind the scenes at Tunnel , Limelight , Avalon , and other legendary nightclubs / by Steve Adelman; foreword by Anthony Haden-Guest.

Description: Solana Beach, CA: Santa Monica Press, 2022.

Identifiers: ISBN 978-1-59580-114-2 (print) | 978-1-59580-780-9 (e-book)

Subjects: LCSH Adelman, Steve, 1962-. | Nightlife--New York (State)--New York--History--20th century. | Nightclubs--New York (State)--New York--History--20th century. | Nightlife-- Boston (Mass.)--History--20th century. | Nightclubs-- Boston (Mass.)--History--20th century. | Celebrities--Anecdotes. | New York (N.Y.)--Biography. | BISAC BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Entertainment & Performing Arts | BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs | MUSIC / Business Aspects | PERFORMING ARTS / Business Aspects

Classification: LCC F128.55 .A34 2022 | DDC 974.7/1/092--dc23

Cover and interior design and production by Future Studio

Cover photo: Drew Ressler/rukes.com

This book is dedicated to my wife Michele, who is always there beside me, and to Mary and Mel, who touched the lives of so many with their own unique ways of making us smile.

BY ANTHONY HADEN-GUEST

Your life story must include a nightlife story.

Nightclubs were part of my growing up. Just walking into a good club was an upper, with high hopes of finding yourself in good company, whether familiar faces or promising new ones. So there was that, but there was also always keeping an eye open for the unexpected because the worlds that the clubs welcomed you into differed, somewhat or greatly, but they were all worlds apart from the overly known landscapes of home, college, workplace. That said, the nightworld of big cities has changed, hugely, and it is changing still. But well get to that. Right now, its flashback time.

The London nightclubs of the late 50s and the 60s, which were my first clubs, were each the arena of a defined group. Annabels in Berkeley Square was old-school posh. Indeed, ultra-posh. Queen Elizabeth II and most of the royals had made a night of it in Annabels some time or other. But the emergent power, which was described by Queen magazine as the New Class and which included media hotshots and movie folk, would tend to go to Tramp in Jermyn Street. So it was naturally in Tramp that the debonair, late gossip columnist, Nigel Dempster, introduced me to his deceptively fragile looking protg, Anna Wintour. Then there was Esmeraldas Barn in Knightsbridge, popular on the debutante circuit. Until it morphed into a gambling club and was taken over by the ultra- violent crime lords, the Kray Twins, who saw it as a way of extending their reach into Londons posh West End.

There was also Raymond Nashs Condor Club in Soho, the name of which sounds just like the French for golden vagina, which was mostly for younger toffs, and in which I remember that witty singer, the late Jeremy Lloyd, delivering a King Arthur-themed ballad with the killer closing line: And two dirty knights make one wonderful weekend.

Also in Soho, there was the Ad Lib, which was given over to another emergent superpower, Pop, which was where the Beatles had their own private table. Indeed John Lennon appeared in a TV comedy, playing Dan the Doorman of the club, renamed the Ad Lav for the show. In 1971 they told Rolling Stone of going to a dinner at which their drinks had been spiked with LSD and tripping on their way to the club.

We all thought there was a fire in the lift, Lennon said. It was just a little red light, and we were all screaming, all hot and hysterical.

Within the club things improved. I had such an overwhelming feeling of well-being, that there was a God, and I could see him in every blade of grass, George Harrison told the mag. It was like gaining hundreds of years of experience in twelve hours.

When disco exploded in New York the sense that there was a special dimension to nightlife was yet stronger. Steve Rubell, partner in Studio 54 with Ian Schrager, was ultra-smart when he chose to disregard the social hierarchies which were foundational in the London clubs and instructed Mark Benecke, who was working the door, not to just focus on toffs, whether homegrown or Eurotrash, but upon getting a good mix, creatingRubells worda salad. This was a time of intense social curiosity, being also the time of Tom Wolfes New Journalism, so at Studio clubbing was not the comfortable same old, same old, but unpredictable, exciting.

This was also the period when the tabloid-molded celebrity culture was in an early phase. It added to the zing of Studio-going that clubbers might easily spot a movie star, a singer, a sports star Elizabeth Taylor, say, Dolly Parton, OJ Simpsonin the lobby but that nobody back then would bother them. The photographers did their thing at the door but Rubell seldom allowed them within and if the famous should elect to misbehave, well, thats what VIP rooms were for.

So to the Beatles Ad Lib trip. This was way out there, yes, but extreme experiences may well be part of any regular clubgoers memories, whether great or iffy. Such as the night in the mid-90s my date and I got privately close in the Club Liquid in Miami Beach. At least I had thought privately. Until I spotted the photographer.

Other extreme club experiences may not be things you undergo, but happenings, just things you see. Like the evening in the Pyramid in the East Village, the club where Nirvana did their first New York gig, which was where I first saw Karen Finley, writhing, emitting pure energies on the floor. Or the night I went at the invitation of the performer, Otter, and arrived in time to see her disrobe from her Little Bo Peep costumeAlice in Wonderland stockings, a plumed hatwhile another woman was running around topless, screaming at a heckler Its not that I like women. I hate men!

A bald young man then stood there while a beer bottle was shattered on his head. No blood, though. The next two bottles just bounced. End of story. A fellow then came onstage, suit and skinny tie, salesman attire, much of which he took off while he created fire, and began first to swallow it, then embrace his body with it. It didnt look as if it was particularly hot though, more like the blue flame that lingers on a Christmas pudding, so it didnt seem terribly threatening when he breathed the flame onto Otters not particularly private parts. The bald young man was standing outside with somebody as my date and I left.