#steve rubell

[babsi-and-stella]

Bianca Jagger and Sterling St. Jacques at Studio 54, 1977.

[twixnmix]

Grace Jones, Andy Warhol, Allan Carr, Olivia Newton-John, and Steve Rubell at the premiere party for "Grease" at Studio 54 in New York City on June 13, 1978.

[marisatomay]

Happy Pride to these pictures of Steve Rubell, Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, Tom Cruise, Maripol, and Martin Burgoyne in a limo at Madonna and Sean Penn’s wedding in 1985

[balsanja]

Dracula tries to enter Studio 54 with Steve Rubell himself at the door (from 1979 short "Dracula Bites The Big Apple")

[fawnvelveteen]

Polaroid of Grace Jones and Steve Rubell by Andy Warhol at Studio 54, September, 1977.

[ztilbortz]

[keycomicbooks]

Supergirl #1 (2016) Brian Ching Cover, Brian Ching Pencils, Steve Orlando Story, 1st Appearances of Benjamin Rubel, Mastrocola from Earth-0.

#Supergirl #1 (2016) #BrianChing Cover & Pencils, #SteveOrlando Story, 1st Appearances of #BenjaminRubel, #Mastrocola from Earth-0. "Reign of the Cyborg Superman", part one Supergirl is back and working for the DEO to defend National City! As #KaraDanvers, average American teenager and high school student, Supergirl must balance her life as a superhero with her new life on Earth. SAVE ON SHIPPING COST - NOW AVAILABLE FOR LOCAL PICK UP IN DELTONA, FLORIDA https://www.rarecomicbooks.fashionablewebs.com/Supergirl%202016.html#1  #VertigoComics #Vertigo #KeyComicBooks #DCComics #DCU #DCUniverse #KeyIssue #NerdyGifts

[godspeedviper]

Disco Inferno - Jack Delroy x Reader (18+)

𖤐 Synopsis: It's summer of 1977. Leo convinces Gus and Jack to visit the newly opened, and already infamous, Studio 54.

𖤐 Type: smut || oneshot || Jack Delroy x F!Reader

𖤐 Word Count: 1,933

𖤐 Rating: explicit || graphic depiction of drug usage || period typical sexism || PiV || Vaginal Fingering || Unprotected sex

𖤐 A/N: I encourage everyone to look up pictures of Studio 54 because the parties were so insane that it's hard to believe. They even brought a whole fucking HORSE inside one time. (I'm not kidding this was 100% a real thing that happened)

  Jack stares out the car window and sighs, he hadn’t expected such a crowd. They had just finished tonight’ broadcast and the last thing he wanted was to have to face yet another crowd of people after wading through the audience members on the way out of the UBC building. Even though it was long since dark out, Jack put on his sunglasses and took in a deep breath to steady his nerves before stepping out of the car and onto the busy street entrance of the club. As soon as the two men stepped out of the vehicle they were bombarded with bright camera flashes and shouts from the crowd. More and more celebrities were frequenting the discotheque in recent days, thus resulting in paparazzi practically camping outside the entrance to try and catch a glimpse of any famous attendee in scandalous attire. 

 “Mr. Delroy over here!”                                           “Tonight’s episode was great!”                                         “We love you Mr. Delroy!” 

“Where’s the missus, Jack?”                                                “Oh he’s even cuter in the flesh!” 

“Who are you wearing tonight, Mr. Delroy?” 

                                                                                                                                   “How do you feel about the current ratings?” 

                          “Jack! I’ve loved you since your radio days!”

                            “He’s so handsome!”                                   “Jack, look over here!” 

   Leo pushed him ahead trying to get them past the clusterfuck and into the venue as soon as possible. Suddenly a young woman spilled out from the crowd, causing her to fall on all fours right in front of Jack. He bent down and reached a hand towards her, to help pick her back up. Jack was instantly taken in by her appearance, and just as he was about to speak to her one of the bouncers grabbed her by the shoulder to pull her away. 

“No!” Jack interjected. “No it’s alright! She’s with me!” He pulled her close to him and locked his arm to hers. The bouncer cocked a brow in suspicion but he wasn’t gonna probe any further. 

“Ok then.” The man mumbled before stepping away and attempting to clear a path in front of the duo, now trio with Leo just behind them.

  Once inside Jack removed his dark sunglasses, placing them into the pocket of his overcoat, and the group was greeted by a long red hallway that spilled out into a massive dance floor. A few couples lined the walls, trying to have a conversation away from the noise. They walked over to the coat check booth off to the left, Leo quickly wandered off, leaving the couple to talk amongst themselves.

“Thank you, Mr. Delroy” She said, a coy smile playing on her lips.

“Oh, are you a fan of the show?” He tried to play this off as humble, but inside he was beaming with pride – of course she knew who he was, everyone did nowadays. 

“Yes, very much. You’re even more handsome in person.” 

“Now you’re just buttering me up!” He laughed, secretly thankful that the colorful disco lights obscured his blushing. Jack leaned forward, ready to steal a kiss, when suddenly Leo shouted at him for attention. 

“Jack! Jack over here! I’d like you to meet a friend of mine.” Leo walked up to him with another man at his side. Leo patted the man’s back and waved his other hand towards Jack. “Jack, meet Steve Rubell. Steve, meet Jack Delroy!” 

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Midnight!” Steve said as he eagerly shook Jack’s hand. “I see you’ve already found yourself a date for the night. You’re a real hoot with the ladies! Pun intended.” Jack laughed nervously, and Steve quickly interjected, seeing right through his anxieties. “Ah! Don’t worry Mr. Delroy, what you do here tonight is between yourself and the dance floor. None shall know about any ahem indiscretions.” He winked. 

  The three men let out a hearty laugh, although Jack was still quite nervous and clearly uncomfortable. Aside from choosing to follow Leo here, this was his first bad choice of the night. She pouted a bit at the reminder that Jack was a married man – a famous married man – but married nonetheless. 

“Now now, don’t you be upset young lady! Negative feelings are not permitted in this establishment!” Steve wagged a finger in mock disapproval. “Follow me boys and girls! I have just the thing to turn those frowns upside down!” 

  The trio followed Steve into the belly of the beast, heads turning to look all around them, awestruck at the utterly absurd levels of decadence on display. They walked through the massive dance floor, surrounded by people in all manner of extravagant dress. The air was hot, humid, heavy with pheromones and a powerful beat that seemed to possess everyone in its wake with an utterly liberating sense of mania. Steve led them to a cushy, semicircular booth within the VIP lounge by the bar. He quickly waved over a staff member and ordered “the works” for the trio of novices. 

“Voila!” Steve shouted with theatrical flair, hands motioning to the tray placed in front of them. “If there is such a thing as a breakfast of champions, then this is surely the dinner of virtuosos! Champagne, cocaine, and Quaaludes for your pleasure my dear lady and gentlemen. Enjoy.”

Leo clapped and laughed, picking up a flute of champagne for a toast, the rest followed suit. “To Night Owls! And to my dear friend, Mr. Midnight, Jack Delroy!” 

“To Jack!” Steve and Jack’s disco girl said in unison. 

  At first, Jack hesitated trying to think of something else to say, but unable to, he just blurted out “To me!” with a boisterous laugh. He took a sip of the champagne and leaned back into his seat, relaxing his body and throwing one arm around his serendipitous date. The two watched as Steve prepared the items on the tray for what was to follow. 

“Okay so! First things first, you take your little disco biscuit,” Steve said while picking up a quaalude “And you swallow that with the champagne. Then you’re gonna go for the snow so that the ‘ludes don’t put ya to sleep. And always always always remember that the proper way to do some lines is with a hundred dollar bill, nothing less. If you follow those rules you’ll have permission to say you had the genuine Studio 54 experience. Capisce ?”

  Jack put his drink aside and reached out for one a quaalude. Holding the pill between his thumb and forefinger, he offered it up to her lips. 

“Ladies first.” He said, looking at her with a dark hunger in his eyes as she opened her mouth and stuck out her tongue to receive the pill, looking up at him through thick glittering lashes. Her tongue grazed his fingers, causing a shiver to go down his spine. 

  The other men whistled and cheered in amusement. Jack, emboldened by the onslaught of praise, then reached into his pants pocket for his wallet, and he pulled out a one hundred dollar bill as instructed. He rolled it up into a straw and wordlessly handed it to the young woman beside him. The implication was more than enough to get her to reach out to the round table – seductively arching her back as she did so – and pour out a generous helping of cocaine, promptly inhaling it. This caused the men to cheer and whoop and holler. She slowly sat back down and offered the rolled up bill back to Jack.

 “ Winner next.”  She said with a wink.

“Oh she’s good !” Said Leo, nudging Steve’s arm. 

  Jack sheepishly took the bill between his fingers and watched as she reached for a pill to offer it to him in the same way he had just done to her. He stifled an awkward giggle and took the pill into his mouth, swallowing with a wash of champagne. Then, as Jack leaned forward onto the table, he heard Steve start to chant his name – egging him on – and the others followed suit.

“Jack! Jack! Jack! Jack!” 

  He took one long deep breath, inhaling a substantial amount of cocaine as the three others cheered and clapped. He felt the rush almost instantly, causing his head to spin as he leaned back into his seat. By the time he had overcome the initial jolt, Leo was already culminating his own baptism, and Steve was calling some people over. 

  The drugs hit Jack all at once and suddenly, as if by magic, he found himself on the dance floor surrounded by beautiful women. He had no idea how he got there, or who they were, but he sure was not about to complain. The disco lights formed a thick kaleidoscopic coating over the dance floor, they seemed almost sentient under the effects of the drugs, as if the light too was dancing to the beat along with everyone else. He posed for photos with important people, celebrated people, trading handshakes and drugs till his face hurt from smiling and his nostrils felt dryer than a desert, but he wouldn’t stop, he couldn’t. The energy of success was as infectious as the drive to achieve it. Jack had long since forgotten all about Minnie and any sense of self preservation. He found himself following his libido up a dark flight of stairs into the pseudo privacy of the old theater bulding’s balconettes. 

“How does it feel to be Mr. Midnight?” She asked in between sloppy kisses, her voice breathy and hot against his skin. 

“It feels fantastic,” He replied. “But not as good as I’ll make you feel.” 

   She gripped onto the railing of the balcony and lifted up her already skimpy dress to reveal a pair of sheer bikini-like panties. They were so minimal in fact, that Jack was able to push the delicate fabric aside with a finger and expose her eager cunt. He pushed a finger in, then another, and began stroking her to the languid sensual melody of Donna Summer’s I Feel Love until he could no longer hold back his own voracious desire for release. Jack hadn’t realized just how painfully hard he was until he felt a wave of relief wash through his body when he finally unzipped his fly. He lined himself up and slipped his fingers out, replacing them with his cock in one hard thrust. He saw stars, he was a star in every sense of the word, his body absolutely electrified with pleasure, skin shining like the disco itself, dusted with glitter, makeup and sweat. He could already see tomorrow’s headlines in his mind’s eye – Mr. Midnight extends his hours at Studio 54!– accompanied by pictures of himself looking glamorously trashed on the dance floor, shirtless save for the burgundy suit jacket he currently had on, alongside the likes of Grace Jones, Mick Jagger, and Steve Rubell. 

    Jack looked down at the scene below him and almost burst. He watched as she moved hypnotically against him, the low scoop of her dress allowed him to see each vertebra on her spine bob up and down as she arched her back, pushing her hips against his to amplify the power of each thrust hammering into her core. Below them, the dance floor shone like the very galaxy itself, each attendee a star in their own right, and they were all unaware of Jack looming over them in the shadows like a God of the night. The very thought sent Jack into the stratosphere. His eyes rolled into the back of his head, his mind whiting out as he reached orgasm. This was what it felt like to be a winner. This is what the view is like from the top.

Ao3 || Ko-Fi || WiPs || Request

[vinylespassion]

Diana Ross, accroupie dans la cabine du disc-jockey du Studio 54, divertit les joyeux lurons lors de la fête d'adieu organisée pour les copropriétaires Steve Rubell (en bas à droite, en pull) et son partenaire, Ian Schrager (non représenté sur la photo).

[prettyfuul]

Andy Warhol, Bianca Jagger and Steve Rubell attend a Halston fashion show circa 1978 in New York City.

[fashionbooksmilano]

Bob Colacello's Out

Bob Colacello

Introduction Ingrid Sischy, Design by Sam Shaid

Edition 7L Steidl, Göttingen 2007, 232 pages, 30x21,4cm, ISBN 9788654034

euro 50,00

email if you want to buy booksinprogressmilano@yahoo.it

Out documents a social era that seems so close and yet so far away: that wild, glamorous, disco-and-drugs-driven decade between the end of the Vietnam war and the advent of AIDS, when every night was a party night and such distinctions as uptown and downtown, gay and straight, black and white were momentarily cast aside. As the editor of Andy Warhol's Interview from 1971 to 1983, Bob Colacello was perfectly placed to record the scene, which he did in his monthly "Out" column, a diary of the frenetic social life that took him from art openings to movie premieres, from cocktail parties to dinner parties, from charity balls to after-hours clubs, often all in the course of a single evening. Although Colacello started writing his column in 1973, it didn't occur to him to take his own pictures for it until two years later, when the Swiss art dealer Thomas Ammann gave him one of the first miniature 35-mm cameras to come on the market, a black plastic Minox small enough to hide in his jacket pocket.

With their skewed angles, multilayered compositions, and arbitrary lighting effects, Colacello's pictures have an immediacy, a veracity, and an aesthetic not often found in the work of professional party photographers. He wasn't standing at the door pairing up celebrities and telling them to smile; he was in the middle of the action - "an accidental photographer", he likes to say, catching his "subjects" off-guard. And what subjects he had: Diana Vreeland, Jack Nicholson, Raquel Welch, Mick Jagger, Yves Saint Laurent, Nan Kempner, Gloria Swanson, Anita Loos, Willy Brandt, Joseph Beuys, Robert Rauschenberg and Warhol himself, at his most relaxed and private. Here as well are those who didn't survive the endless party - Truman Capote, Halston, Studio 54's Steve Rubell, Egon von Furstenberg and Tina Chow. Because space in Interview was limited, only a handful of Colacello's pictures were published each month, so most of these images have never been seen before. They bring to life a carefree but reckless moment in history when social mobility and personal expression were played out to the limits.

23/12/23

[twixnmix]

Rudolf Piper, Dianne Brill and Steve Rubell at the opening of the Palladium nightclub in New York City on May 14, 1985.

[marisatomay]

not NOW iphotos i don’t have time to think about the slurmobile at madonna’s wedding!!!

[speedwayy]

She became friends with the Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons of the downtown scene, Stephen Saban of Details magazine and Michael Musto of The Village Voice. Somewhere along the line, she dropped her last name in favor of just the initial. And, one night in a cab, James changed his last name to St. James. Lisa E. and James St. James just seemed to have a nicer ring than Lisa Edelstein and James Clark.

She got a job as a bartender at the Palladium and that cemented her club fame. ''I knew right from the start that Lisa was going to be more than a bartender,'' recalls Steve Rubell, one of the club's owners. ''Just the way I knew that Madonna was right when she used to sit on the steps of Danceteria and tell me she was going to be a star.''

Lisa no longer works at the Palladium, but she is a frequent visitor. ''If there's an opening of an envelope, Lisa's there,'' Rubell says. This very evening, in fact, she is giving a 20th-birthday party for James at the Palladium. ''Thank Heavens for Little Girls!'' reads the invitation, featuring a picture of James wearing lipstick, pigtails and a short plaid party dress and holding a teddy bear, a downtown version of Sebastian Flyte.

Lisa in Wonderland (1986)

[singlesablog]

The Club

“Good Times” (1979) Chic Atlantic Records (Written by Bernard Edwards and Nile Rodgers) Highest U.S. Billboard Chart Position – No. 1

“The key of the success of Studio 54 is that it's a dictatorship at the door and a democracy on the dance floor.”  - Andy Warhol

On April 26th, 1977, more than 4000 people showed up on 54th street between 7th and 8th Avenues in NYC to attend the opening of a newly revamped theater turned discotheque (once an opera house in the 1920s) for the grand opening of Studio 54.  Eight thousand invites had been sent from many of the bests lists in the city; the line snaked around the block that night with people clamoring to get in.  Many celebrities, officially invited, were unable to get through the soon-to-be famous doors.  Disco, a popular fusion of soul and dance music, was on the ascendant: hedonistic, generic, joyful, color-blind, and sexually promiscuous (many of the song themes would be about copulation).  It was in that year that two newly successful bandmembers from Chic named Bernard Edwards and Nile Rodgers were invited by Grace Jones and unceremoniously turned away at the door.  Jones was famously unreliable; there is no telling where she was, but when they didn’t get in they went home and wrote an angry song called “Fuck You”, then changed it to “Freak Out”, then to “Le Freak”, which then went on to become one of the biggest disco songs ever written, and afterward they went to Studio 54 as often as they liked, because there is no golden ticket in the world like fame.

I am sure I don’t have to tell you what Studio 54 was: it was one of the most glamourous, glitziest, expensive spaces in New York.  It was a party where everyone, anyone, had a good chance to get in.  It held 2,500 and often had more; it had back rooms, was famous for the famous, and sex, and drugs.  It had an incredible light show and sound system, and the best DJs.  But most of all it was entirely and profoundly mixed: rich, working class, old, young, black, white, gay, straight, gender fluid, normcore.  The two owners, Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager, had two rules: they wanted it full, and they wanted a mix, always a mix.  Only the uber famous (Halston, Warhol, Jagger, Minnelli, Jackson) were guaranteed entrée; otherwise, it was the mix that mattered.  The mix, the show (copious amounts of money on props and effects), and the music.

“A rumor has it that it's getting late Time marches on, just can't wait…”              - Lyrics from “Good Times”

The club was the answer to a very gritty and tumultuous decade for the US and New York City in particular; it may be no accident that the theater once housed the old CBS studios known as Studio 52. In the 1950s and 1960s they filmed witty game shows here, which showcased intelligent repartee (To Tell The Truth, What’s My Line, Password, The 64,000 Question), shows that were representative of an urbane and prosperous city, and of high American culture.  Rubell and Schrager kept a lot of the old leftover camera equipment from that era (whether as props or as a through-line it is hard to ascertain); in reopening its doors they presented a very new idea of glamor in New York, an antidote to the recent near-bankruptcy, inflation, gas shortages, and in 1978, a full-blown newspaper strike.  Public housing in The Bronx was a disgrace (literally on fire in 1977 and broadcast live at a Yankees game by Howard Cosell), and fear and paranoia were rampant as Son of Sam ran around viciously killing young women.  Out of all this chaos, Studio 54 and disco.  Clearly people needed fantasy, and release, and from this scene arose Bernard Edwards (bass) and Nile Rodgers (guitar) of Chic, two highly accomplished black musicians.

The idea of the band was one of sophistication; the three male leads (which included drummer Tony Thompson) were accompanied by two female singers, and everyone dressed beautifully, almost in a retro vision of glamor; the songs were straight-to-the-dancefloor extended disco tracks, or lush ballads with strings.  The songwriting was of exceptional high quality, and the playing incredibly expert (their first hits in 1977 were “Dance, Dance, Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah)” and “Everybody Dance”), and no one, no one, sounded even remotely like them: the guitar and bass lines were ingenious and infectious.  In fact, if you want to time travel and exactly conjure the feeling of the late 70s, a Greatest Hits collection will take you right there.  After “Le Freak” peaked in 1978 (it would be Atlantic’s, and parent company Warner Brothers, biggest seller of all time until Madonna’s “Vogue” in 1990) it seemed as if Chic, disco, and the nightlife of the Studio 54 crowd would go on forever.  Except.  Except.  Was there something about the sound of Chic, a warped, dragging, rather sad tone, to their hits?  The more they succeeded, the sadder around the edges the records became.

I never loved “Le Freak”, as good as it was. In 1979, I must have liked “Good Times”, because I bought it; it was the gray Atlantic label and a plain white sleeve, I remember quite clearly.  I think I bought it because of the round piano swirl that opens the record— I was obsessed with how the song was constructed; it was perfect.  But I also believe I wanted to understand how it worked, to get to the center of it, so I would drop it into the player and stare at it going around and around for clues that never came.  Something about it made me sad.  It would be decades before I went back to Chic and discovered the joy in that sadness; this was mature music for sophisticated people, and it captured those years so well, and with such elegance, and if it was sad, it was because there are always sad things seeping in, and possibly because their heyday, and all that high style, would be relatively short-lived considering the perfection of the records they were creating.

The Disco Sucks movement started on July 12th, 1979, in Chicago, Illinois. A radio shock jock held a record-burning stunt at a baseball game in Comisky park and 50,000 people showed up, and after the dj blew up piles of disco records, they swarmed the field and started a riot.  Record companies began to re-label their sleeves as Dance Records, not Disco, and the white-wash officially began.  The record burning has been likened to a Neo-Nazi event, largely inspired by disgruntled white rock fans, and inherently racially motivated, and I would say I fully believe that.  It not without irony that the rather sad quality pushing against the melody of “Good Times” was realistic.  It was to be their last No. 1 record under their band name, even if they would go on to produce 1980’s Diana (Diana Ross, but a full-blown Chic record, soup-to-nuts) which would sell 10 million copies, and both Edwards and Rogers would go on to have enormous careers as producers, especially Rodgers, with Bowie’s Let’s Dance right around the corner, not to mention Madonna’s Like a Virgin, produced by Rodgers (and on which all three Chic musicians play) as well as so many more.  Nevertheless, I am ahead of myself.  It is still 1979, and Studio 54 is still thriving.

“Now what you hear is not a test: I’m rappin to the beat.”             - Lyrics from "Rapper's Delight” *

“Good Times” topped the Billboard Pop charts in August, 1979 (B Side: “A Warm Summer Night”).  In September of the same year Nile Rodgers was in a club when he heard a song that clearly used the basic elements of their record: the bass, the guitar, a bit of the strings.  It was “Rapper’s Delight”, a novelty record produced by a very savvy Sylvia Robinson to exploit the street scenes of break dancing and rapping in The Bronx, which were usually only performed live with a boombox.  Certain songs could easy be rapped over, and “Good Times” was one of them.  However, real rappers never considered recording.  Enter Robinson, some fast thinking, and four quickly auditioned amateurs to make “Rapper’s Delight” as the Sugarhill Gang, and not only did she have it out in a flash, but on her own label, Sugarhill Records (Sugar Hill is a prosperous neighborhood in Harlem).  

That night in the club, Nile Rodgers was not pleased.  He and Edwards threatened to sue her immediately, and the matter was resolved quickly by Robinson giving them their writing credits, and thereby their money, and re-releasing it.  What he could not have foreseen was that this novelty hit (it only went to No. 38 on the charts) would actually change music forever.  It is the first successful mainstream rap record (we had the 12”, the first I ever had, in our house, and my brothers and sisters all learned the lines and became living room emcees), and it went on to establish Hip-hop as a genre. It would also lead to many copycats, and many interpolations of Rodger’s guitar and Edward’s tireless bassline, notably in Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust” and Blondie's “Rapture”.   

Looking back on it, Niles feels very differently about one of the most famous examples of record sampling.  "As innovative and important as ‘Good Times’ was,” Nile Rodgers has said, “ ‘Rapper's Delight’ was just as much, if not more so.”  He is absolutely correct, of course.  The success of the Sugarhill Gang led Sylvia Robinson, tireless entrepreneur, to convince a real rapper, Grandmaster Flash, to write and record a track about life as he saw it from the much grittier streets of The Bronx, and he released it as “The Message”, which was a pivotal first.  Rap musicians reference this song endlessly as an inspiration, and I love it just as much for its contribution to electronic music.

Back in 1979 my 14-year-old-self stood for so long staring at my copy of “Good Times” as it revolved on the turntable. Was there a reason it felt warped and catatonic as I listened to it?  I will never know. I wasn’t old enough to understand what the single portended, which was the future of pop music, years and years early.  Things were beginning, and things were ending, right there, all at once, and right in front of my very eyes. It was easy enough to listen, but very difficult to fully comprehend. I needed another 40 years.

-

Sylvia Robinson, a veteran of the biz, not only produced Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five’s “The Message” but also sang on Mickey and Sylvia’s chestnut “Love is Strange” (1956) —think Dirty Dancing—as well as her own proto-disco song “Pillow Talk” (1973), predating the moans on Donna Summer’s “Love to Love You Baby” by years, and if you don’t know it (I needed some reminding) it has to be heard to be believed.  Let’s just say it is at minimum one of the most suggestive Top 40 songs ever recorded.  This was obviously a woman with the ears and ambition for a making a hit record.  She is now known as “The Mother of Hip Hop”.  She passed away in 2011.

Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager went to prison for millions of dollars in tax evasion in January 1980, but not before throwing a big party at 54. They served reduced sentences and eventually opened the nightclub Palladium. Rubell sadly passed away from AIDS in 1989. He was 45 years old.

*(Songwriters: Richey Edwards / Sherill Rodgers)

[kulturalnylunatyk]

studio 54 Trwało niewiele ponad trzy lata, od 1977 do 1980 roku, ale Studio 54 wciąż pozostaje punktem odniesienia dla pewnej formy luzu, błyszczącego hedonizmu i joie-de-vivre. Współzałożyciel klubu Ian Shrager posunął się do stwierdzenia, że były to "narodziny celebrytów", jakich znamy dzisiaj. Shrager i jego partner Steve Rubell byli odpowiedzialni za zamknięcie Studia 54 (dzięki uchylaniu się od płacenia podatków), ale stali się nieoficjalnymi królami Nowego Jorku - goszcząc polityków i gwiazdy na swoich wielkich przyjęciach i nadzorując największe skandale swoich czasów. To było miejsce, gdzie bogaci i sławni przychodzili, aby źle się zachowywać. Ale było to również miejsce, gdzie udawali się, aby ogłosić się na scenie. Truman Capote i Tennessee Williams lubili prywatne imprezy, a Andy Warhol, Liza Minelli, Michael Jackson, David Bowie i kompozytor Leonard Bernstein znaleźli się na liście gości, na którą trudniej było się dostać niż do Białego Domu. To było zgromadzenie inteligentnych, fajnych i seksownych gigantów kultury, tańczących do muzyki disco, ubranych jak do tej pory w krzykliwe kanciaste garnitury i biorących udział w psychodelicznym hedonizmie, który zdefiniował tę erę. Nie dziwi więc fakt, że w Studio 54 odbywały się najwspanialsze imprezy sylwestrowe wszech czasów, choć doczekało się tylko dwóch z nich. Na jedną z imprez sylwestrowych legendarny organizator imprez Robert Isabell postanowił rozjaśnić sytuację, wysypując na podłogę klubu cztery tony brokatu. "To było jak stanie na gwiezdnym pyle", powiedział Schrager, "a ludzie wciąż znajdowali go w swoich ubraniach i domach miesiące później". Celem tych imprez było umożliwienie gościom pozostawienia swoich zahamowań za drzwiami - i rzeczywiście, człowiek odpowiedzialny za wejście, Marc Benecke, miał dość nietypowe i surowe kryteria. Trzeba było mieć "wielką osobowość, która wnosiła coś do imprezy". Po wejściu do środka wkraczało się w świat, w którym wszystko było możliwe i gdzie najbardziej ekscentryczne sceny rozgrywały się przy groove'owym zestawie muzycznym DJ Toma Savarese. Przy jednej okazji projektant Valentino wcielił się w rolę szefa cyrku - z prawdziwymi żywymi zwierzętami. W innym przypadku Grace Jones wykonała swoje przeboje, owinięta w świąteczny szal z choinki, usiany małymi kwiatkami. Lionel Ritchie, Diana Ross, Mick i Bianca Jagger oraz Andy Warhol mogli tej nocy wybrać dowolne miejsce na świecie, ale wszyscy zdecydowali się na Studio 54. Kiedy w 1980 roku FBI dokonało nalotu na klub, symbolizowało to koniec ery dekadencji, której od tamtej pory już nie widziano. Ale dla tych, którzy mieli szczęście uczestniczyć w imprezach sylwestrowych, Studio 54 pozostaje najbardziej olśniewającym, bajecznym i rakuskim miejscem, w którym można było być - wspaniałym, niepowtarzalnym momentem na powitanie nowego roku.