I have recently discovered a lot of photos from New York that I had put away and forgot all about. Actually for me at this point in my life it is a perfect time for me to take a journey to this distant time of magic for me before I take a new journey into the future with some specific creative projects that I have in mind. It is cleaning my closet and finding these gems and jewels. Some of these photos are of performances of some amazing people who are no longer with us, but they are still very much part of me and who I am. Other photos are portraits or special snapshots of these (for me) magical creatures. I have also included some fashion photos that I took for the London fashion house Demob which are quite nice. After those photos, well, a few photos might offend some people, some specific people and I am sorry for that if that is the case. The last photos are of lost loves that meant something to me, maybe more than what was imagined at the time. Join me in this journey if you want. I will do some writing for each group of these photos. I will be going through some more photos in my closet soon and if I am lucky I will find some more.
These photos were taken at the Club 57 benefit party at Danceteria. Club 57 fell on hard times, back in the '80s other creative clubs supported each other. Danceteria (for those that do not know) was four floors of nonstop happenings and during the summer the rooftop would be open with the view of Manhattan surrounding you. Click on the name Danceteria and the other names here in these postings for further information about the subjects. These three photos are of John Sex performing at the benefit. John Sex was a singer, performer, a damn good dancer, loved performing with his python snake and with his singers The Bodacious TaTa’s. (Wendy Wild, April Palmieri, Micki French, Myra Schiller and others) He was one of my favorite people. He was really fun to be with.
Peter Kwaloff hanging out as Miss Thang.
Two young girls hanging out at Danceteria. I don't know who the girl is on the right, but the one on the left is Debi Mazar. She went on to become quite a successful actress, jumping from music videos by Madonna to a starring role in Martin Scorsese's film Goodfellas and she has just kept on working in films and TV ever since. She is presently is in a supporting role in the popular TV show Entourage.
Fashion designer icon Katy K basking in the limelight (not the club) at Danceteria.
The Club 57 and Danceteria go-go girls dancing the night away. I think there's a go-go boy there too. In fact I know there is! And a pirate go-go girl with a hook for an arm. All the other go-go girls were very friendly with her.
In the photo above and below, Ann Magnuson sings with Kenny Scharf with the wild performance artist Ammo doing an interpretative dance. Whatever happened to Ammo?
Photos above and below, the one and only The Sick Fucks performing at Danceteria.
Elvis (played by the one and only, the talented J.P. Dougherty, who went on to star in some great shows on Broadway, such as Les Miserables, Hairspray etc.) comes out of hiding and performs at the Club 57 benefit at Danceteria and is worshipped by John Sex, Scott Wittman, Vicky Schrott and Tracey Berg.
Wendy Wild becomes the mushroom queen and performs with her band The Mad Violets along with Dino Sorbello.
The fun after party photos: John Reade, Ammo, John Sex, Vicky Schrott and Kenny Scharf.
John Reade, Ammo and John Sex. Ammo was a mischievous imp! An imp is a mythological being similar to a fairy or demon, frequently described in folklore and superstition.
It must have been a successful night indeed because here we have Danceteria owner and host Rudolf singing! I never remembered him singing ever before. Standing next to Rudolf is Scott Wittman. He produced and directed the Club 57 benefit that night and he certainly seems pleased by the event and hopefully with Rudolf's crooning as well.
A very young Wendy Wild! This is the first photo that I took of Wendy. I remember it well.
Ammo performing at Club 57 at a night he created called "Universal Interaction". Everyone who attended the event had to perform.
Jimmy Joe was Club 57 regular, bartended and played music there. He was in the house band with Kai Eric.
Snooky and Tish at Club 57.
Kim Davis with Eric Goode and Shawn Hausman at Club 57. Eric and Shawn were the owners of the popular themed nightclub at that time called Area. I don't know who the woman eating in the background is, but she sure looks hungry!
This is not a product placement ad. I did not get paid for it. This is Wendy Wild at the Grand Old Opry, a country and western theme night at Club 57.
I did a series of fashion shoots in New York for Demob, a London based fashion house. (Thanks to Jon Mole Baker) The dapper John the Greek looking happier than ever strolling down 42nd Street with the incredible beauties Carmel, Mandy and Michelle Young.
I had to include the above photo because of the expression on the face of the man on the left side walking.
The lovely Pilar Limosner hanging with style on the water tower on the roof of Danceteria.
Mandy always looked good....
Carmel, John the Greek, Michelle Young and the Empire State Building on the rooftop of Danceteria.
Carmel with the New York City Public Library lion.
A photo shoot promoting the Psychedelic Weekend at a club that was called The Cavern. The most popular psychedelic garage bands and people in New York got together for this photo shoot. I shot these two photos in front of the famous (at the time) psychedelic painted building on East 6th Street where all the Indian restaurants are. It was a building that was painted in the sixties at the height of psychedelia. It lasted quite awhile, but is no longer there now. I do not remember all of these people in the photo, but I remember most of them. There is Rudi Protrudi and Deb O'Nair from the band The Fuzztones, Wendy Wild and some members of the Mad Violets, master of ceremonies of the Psychedelic Weekend and DJ Tom Scully, Rene Laigo, Viva and a girl named The Runt. If anyone can help me with the others or if I made a mistake, let me know.
Now we are going into the naughty section of this posting! I hope you like naughty! If you don't like naughty, scroll quickly down because you might get impure thoughts. How to explain these photos? Through a friend, I got a photography job to somehow capture the downtown East Village scene in an erotic or sexual way for the New York infamous porn magazine: Screw Magazine. First of all I want to say, I never did and I do not do porn photography of any kind. Screw Magazine was famous for porn, but it was also well-known for their strong political views and extreme humor. I got together with Wendy Wild and John Sex and told them about this. I asked them if they had any ideas for this article. We decided to try to make a porn parody. New York City has garbage cans out on the street and back then people threw out perfectly good furniture and all sorts of usable items that people could find and use in their apartments. Once in awhile you would find something unique and special. As we were trying to think of how to do this photo session, John spied a thrown out mannequin on the street outside of a shop. A very special mannequin indeed!
What made this mannequin special was, for whatever reason, this particular mannequin had it's mouth open with it's tongue sticking out. The mannequin magically told us what to do for this photo session. We found out it was a she and we had a lot of fun with her. These are some of the less explicit photos. The mannequin got really carried away with us and we had to end the photo session and before we knew it we were seduced by her throughout the night. We all passed out in a state of exhaustion. When Wendy, John and I woke up the next morning, the mannequin was gone and we never saw her again, but here are the results of some of the photos. Screw Magazine was very pleased with these results. The above photo of Wendy reminds me of some famous burlesque queen. The three photos below were the beginning of the debauchery with the mannequin! I have never had one like her ever again!
This is a self-portrait of me in my hallway. After the mannequin experience I temporarily turned into a Druid, but it did not last long.
I found these photos of Lynn. Lynn was a woman in New York who I had a mad crush on. I was smitten. I was too young and shy. I felt I re-found her in the future with these photos and reflect back on the past with the experience that I have accumulated and I want to time travel to.... well, I don't know. I would bring some viagra in any case. I wonder what she is doing now and if she reads this I hope she is not offended. I just looked at the last photo of her here and the key says it all, but like many things with time I lost that key.
I normally wouldn't put a photo of me here with someone, but it better illustrates the photos below. These are not just snapshots. This is someone who made my heart beat faster, but made me crazy, Nina. I will explain in the last photo why these are not snapshots.
Why are these not snapshots? This is Nina with Charlotte Scully. I was seeing Nina at that time and I guess we were babysitting for Tom and Sibylle Scully. The contrast of Nina and Charlotte has some connection somehow for me with the eyes and the color red. The photo below are eyes looking down at me from the past. I have no idea where Nina is and what she is doing. I would like to know, but it is interesting that I know Charlotte and I am in contact with her. She is living in Paris and working as a make-up artist for film and television. Life keeps moving and changing. We live many lives in our one life and there are so many chapters. I am ready for the next chapter in my life.