Studio 54: Everything You Didn't Know

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Too Much Information is a production of iHeartRadio. Hello everyone,
and welcome with Too Much Information, the show that brings
you the little known facts and secret histories behind your
favorite movies, music, TV shows and more. We are your
disco divos of details, your platform wearing pals of pedantic podcasting,

(00:23):
your cocaine fueled friends of ultra funky facts, escorting you
past the velvet ropes of vagary and into the basement
of banality. My name is Jordan Runzog and I'm Alex Hegelin,
and today we are talking about a modern day Sodom
and Gomorrah, a club that even a non dancing homebody
like me would have loved to have gone to and

(00:45):
never would have gotten past the door. Question. Yes, we
got sodomy out of Sodom.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
What did we get out of Gomorra Gonnrhea asked him,
answered yeah, Moving on.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
We are talking about the night spot to end all
night spots, Studio fifty four. I am so excited to
talk about this. This is an episode that I've wanted
to do for literally years now, but the research took forever.
I kicked off twenty twenty three with a deep dive
into my beloved Titanic and this is almost as intense.
It's I gotta say, it's probably one of the most

(01:19):
fascinating topics we've ever tackled. I just can't wait to
dive in. Hi Go God bless you. You've been encouraging
me to take this on for a long long time now,
which actually kind of surprised me a bit. What was
it about Studio fifty four that appealed to you?

Speaker 2 (01:33):
First of all, Like just the time period in New York,
like the you know, Taxi driver era, Yeah, exactly, the
Ford to City drop dead Son of Sam Punk, other
things surely happening. But yeah, I mean the confluence of
like Hubris, yeah, and degeneracy and music, you know, that's

(02:01):
that's it. And like I did test club culture, Why
is that it's stupid?

Speaker 1 (02:09):
I don't know, you don't view it as a way
for artists to get together? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (02:14):
Sure, But like broadly speaking, I think I have a
hair up my ass about this date and time specifically
because it's sort of when live musicians started to get
faded out right, you know, and like live music, this
is like this era is sort of like ground zero
for middle class gigging musicians kind of their death. Knell

(02:37):
was like DJs, you know, and DJ culture and like
every club being like, oh, the draw is no longer
like I don't have to hire a band and promote
the band. I can just have someone play music that's
much more efficient, like and then you know, this golden
era of like this is like a pet topic I
talk about a lot, but like, I think a lot

(02:58):
of the reason that we've canonized a very particular era
of musicians in the States and the reason that they
are so good at what they do is because the
club circuit, through their formative era was really an incubator
for just learning how to work a crowd. The Beatles
in Hamburg, Yeah, building Choplin Circuit for Jimmy Hendrix, Yeah,
the Chitpland circuit. I mean, like, you know, I always

(03:20):
think of like like the jazz guys or Motown like
recording through the day and then just going to gig
at night, or like the R and B club circuit.
It was like yeah, or even like you know, I
was listening to this Creedence live album at one point
it really hit me because like.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
They were kind of like an R and B.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
Blues kind of cover band and just doing that circuit,
or even like Neil Young, like even these guys who
didn't have like crazy dumb chops in terms of like shredding,
you know, they knew how to craft solos and build
tension and release musically and do all of this like
higher level non chop aspects of music. And they were

(03:55):
able to do that because they were able to log
these insane hours where it almost didn't even matter that
they would fail or like that they might not hit
it every night, but it was like this insane intensive
that enabled them to you know, become these these musicians
that they were, and even going back to like juke

(04:17):
joint era with like blues musicians. So it's just like yeah,
and then like as soon as DJs became a thing,
like that just started trending downwards. And that's why you
know bands sound like dog today. Yeah, old man yells
at cloud segment over No. But I mean, like it
is a real thing, like I mean, and there's all
kinds of other shit that goes into it, you know,
like capitalism, the dismantling of the welfare state, like you know,

(04:41):
television in this era. Marquis Moon is like a second
or first take, and it was because they lived super
cheaply and rehearsed like six hours a day before they
went to track that album. Like you don't remember this
album too. Yeah, you just don't get to do that
as a musician anymore. You literally, it is just unsustainable
to gig and live that way like gone, you know,

(05:03):
completely bygone era.

Speaker 1 (05:05):
Sorry, unless you're independently wealthy.

Speaker 2 (05:07):
So in a way, this is like, it's very bittersweet
for me because I'm like this and you know, as
much as I love hip hop, like the DJ culture
that came out of that is just like, yep, this
is when that started to die.

Speaker 1 (05:20):
So sorry, I hear that, I understand that. I validate that.
I you know, I mean taking this on, I initially
thought it would just be a great excuse to talk about,
you know, decadence and depravity and great stories of celebrities
behaving badly in a really interesting era. But the more
I learned about the development not only of club culture

(05:40):
in the late sixties early seventies, but also disco as
a genre, it made me respect both the club and disco,
which is kind of a punchline as being this music
that has a lot of integrity because it came from
a lot of disenfranchised yes people. Is very interesting and

(06:01):
Studio fifty four became really a haven for a lot
of especially the LGBTQ community. Yeah yeah, I mean that's
something we'll talk more about later. So that was something
that was that surprised me. The more I dug into it.
I expected this to be a tale of irresponsible people
being greedy and stupid, and it became a lot more.

Speaker 2 (06:22):
And while it is that, well, there is at the
same time, Yes, that's true, that's true. Yeah, I mean
disco is I obviously I grew up at Central Pennsylvania Punk.

Speaker 1 (06:32):
I was like disco.

Speaker 2 (06:34):
But then like I had a music professor in college
who's like, I don't understand the beef with disco, and
like four on the floor, it's just like everybody deserves
to dance.

Speaker 1 (06:45):
I was like, you can find this beat, and I
was like, that is a beautiful sentiment. I have changed
my mind. I love that. Yeah. Well, we'll have a
whole segment on the development of disco a little later on,
but Study fifty four as a it's been described as
many things, an American bacchan All, the Wizard of Oz
stage by Fellini, and one of My favorite descriptions comes

(07:08):
from a twenty twenty New York Times piece by Guy
Treblay and Ruth Leferla. It was a flash of brilliance
that glittered from the rubble of a bankrupt city. Studio
fifty four was an Aladdin's cave tucked amid the porn
palaces of Midtown. I love that like a shooting star.
Studio fifty four burned bright but fast. It's heyday lasted

(07:30):
a scant thirty three months before its renegade owners, Steve
Rubell and Ian Schrager were hauled off to prison for
one of the most egregious tax evasion cases in American history,
which we'll get to. But in that brief thirty three
month period, it became more than a nightclub. It became
a phenomenon, an unprecedented mix of glamorous sophistication and primal hedonism.

(07:54):
It was a nexus of music, fashion, and newfound social freedom.
The fact that the had previously been an old CBSTV
studio was fitting, because Studio fifty four offered a place
for anyone to live their own fantasy without persecution or judgment.
It was a place not only for a generation raised
under the pressures of Watergate in the Vietnam War to

(08:15):
let loose, but more importantly, a place for members of
the LGBTQ community to feel like they could fully celebrate
the act of being themselves, which is precious. Well, we
have way too much to talk about, so I'm gonna
skip the fact teases. Let's just go for it in
lieu of cocaine. I have a big mugg of coffee
right here. Here is everything you didn't know about Studio

(08:38):
fifty four. He's gotta plug in young hearts from free here.

Speaker 2 (08:51):
I think it's got to be like Disco Inferno or
Boogie Wonderland or something like just to anything on the
Boogie Night's soundtrack.

Speaker 1 (08:57):
It's just got to be as creciates as possible. Well,
to start, allow us to introduce you to the two
hosts of the Studio fifty four back of ow, Steve
Rubell and Ann Schrager. These masterminds behind the epic thirty
three month Party met as classmates at Syracuse University, but
both were Brooklyn boys. Originally, they met when Steve Rubell,
a short guy, saw Ian Schrager, who wasn't much taller,

(09:19):
wrestling with a six foot eight basketball player, and much
like cool hand Luke, would not stay down. This resonated
with the scrappy undergrad and they became fast friends. Ian
graduated and initially became a real estate lawyer, while the
more outgoing A Gregarius Steve Rubelle opened up a chain
of steakhouses in the New York metro area called steak Loft,

(09:40):
which boasted the unforgettable, if not very subtle, slogan make
love to your stomach. I don't like that.

Speaker 2 (09:48):
No, I don't really because I watched Videodrome, which is
the most memorable image in is of a James Woods
tummy vagina.

Speaker 1 (09:57):
So that's really gross and I hate that. It was
like on the menus and everything. Yeah, I don't like that.

Speaker 2 (10:04):
Yeah, no bathing suit parts and restaurants. I mean that's
come on, man, how'd you how'd you get your how'd
you pass the food inspect how'd you get to that?

Speaker 1 (10:15):
Ian Treger convinced stever Bell to ditch the whole steakhous
idea and go into the nightclub business together because he
was intrigued by the emerging gay club scene. Treger would
have vocably described what he witnessed as quote a kind
of intense, tribal like dancing. It looked like the dance
floor was some kind of living organism, rolling and pulsating

(10:36):
up and down, breathing in and out all together. As
one other clubs up to this point had just been
basically pick up joints, but these gay dance spots were
sensory overload with the music and the lights and the
fashion and the sexual electricity. So Stephen Ann teamed up
on an early nightclub in Boston. Of all places buying
would have been a famous back bay venue called the

(10:57):
Boston Tea Party, which may be familiar for some music
nerds out there, for it was where the Velvet Underground
had a very famous residency in the late sixties, so
it's a famous spot. They also turned one of Steve's
steakhouses into a club called The Enchanted Garden, and it
was a minor success, but it had the misfortune of
being located in Queen's which was not very fashionable in

(11:19):
the mid seventies. As one club goer later said, no
one for Manhattan was going to Queens And as my
aunt would say, you need a passport to get there.
For burgeoning club owners, Manhattan was the big leagues but
now Zoolander voice why disco. Disco clubs were becoming the

(11:40):
big thing by the mid seventies, and most people believe
the name disco refers to the genre of music that
was becoming popular at this time, but the term actually
predates this by a decade. Disco was short for the
French disco tech, which literally means a library of records,
similar to the French word BiblioTech or library of place
for many books Biblio's book. In the early sixties, clubs

(12:03):
called disco techs began to open in France that played
records for patrons to dance too, rather than employ traditional bands.
I knew this was the French's fault. I mean, as
we were talking about at the top of the episode.
This was revolutionary at the time. Clubgoers got to dance
to the original versions of their favorite songs, and club

(12:23):
owners got to get away with paying a single DJ
rather than a whole band.

Speaker 2 (12:26):
The musicians were as everybody except for the people who
make it of course America and France.

Speaker 1 (12:35):
Apparently, these were generally a European phenomenon throughout the sixties,
aside from isolated spots like LA's Whiskey a Go Goo,
which initially modeled itself after a French discothech, but by
the mid seventies they were becoming more prominent in the
United States, and this is supposedly due in part to
an influx of jet setters from Europe who were wary

(12:57):
of European discos. After the socialite Jpe Paul Getty the
Third was kidnapped from one in Rome in nineteen seventy three,
Hell yeah, which resulted in the poor kid's ear getting
sliced off. Hell yeah.

Speaker 2 (13:10):
Poor kids would have, in bad choice of words, resulted
in the modern day Robert Baron aristocratic class wealth hoarding
dragon kid.

Speaker 1 (13:23):
Sorry, I mean this event was dramatized in the twenty
seventeen film All the Money in the World and No
his grandfather was. I guess John Paul Getty the First
didn't want to pay the ransom because he I think
he just felt it was set a bad precedent, So
the kidnappers sliced the kid's ear off. Hell yeah. Yeah.
So this is kind of seems like kind of a

(13:43):
flimsy theory, but I'd seen it cited in numerous sources
that this actually was one of the reasons that sparked
the discothech influx of the United States because Europeans were
scared of something like that happening. Again. Good, they should
be rich anyway, No, not me. He also heard an
interesting theory that the oil crisis and resulting economic downturn

(14:06):
in the mid seventies helped increase the popularity of discos
because the fee to get into discos was a lot
cheaper than going to a rock concert, which had been
the primary focal point for youths to meet in the sixties.
So that was some of it too. It is all
about economics. You're right, I suppose I buy that, he
said angrily. Well, this is a good time as Annie

(14:27):
to go a little deeper and look at the development
of the much malign genre we called disco. The representative quote,
aside from just disco sucks, comes from Bob Colaccio, the
editor of Andy Warhol's Interview magazine. He said, disco came
along at the moment when the baby boomers stopped protesting
and started dancing. And while this is true, it undersells

(14:50):
the genre's rich and fascinating backstory. It's really interesting to
me that disco's a reputation of being politically vapid, corny
cash in music, since it was born of the mo
most artistically authentic beginnings with disenfranchised social groups who were
forced out of the mainstream. The story of disco is
bookended by two riots that took place a decade apart,

(15:11):
first the Stonewall Riots in the summer of sixty nine,
and then Disco Demolition Night at Chicago's Kaminski Park in
the summer of nineteen seventy nine, which you recall, piles
of disco records were hauled into the outfield and blown
up in a mock ceremony overseen by a local shock jock,
before a crowd of thousands, including future actor Michael Clark Duncan,

(15:33):
rushed the field. The first of these riots was steeped
in a desire for social justice and equality all The
second of these riots was a knee jerk and really
quite stupid reaction to cultural shifts, steeped in racism and homophobia.
Some like Sheik guitarist Nile Rodgers, have likened the event
to a Nazi book burning. But we're getting ahead of ourselves.

(15:55):
Heigel talk to us about the development of disco.

Speaker 2 (16:00):
So back in nineteen sixty nine, homosexuality was still classified
as a mental illness. The FBI reportedly did surveillance on
known homosexuals. Probably James Baldwin is probably the biggest example
of that.

Speaker 1 (16:12):
Yeah, right, I would think so, is that why I
left the country for France.

Speaker 2 (16:16):
I wouldn't blame him if there was any other reason
to do it. The Tina Turner model this place the
post Office track mail containing gay material. Anyone who appeared
to be what would have then referred to as transvestites,
which was shockingly the most nuanced term that existed at
the time, would be stripped and frisked. Halloween was a

(16:37):
major holiday for gay men and trans women back in
the nineteen sixties because it was the one day of
the year that they could wear gender affirming attire like
dresses in public without being arrested.

Speaker 1 (16:46):
There are stories of cops.

Speaker 2 (16:47):
Congregating outside of known gay haunts on Halloween wordplay, waiting
for twelve oh one so that they could bust people, horrifying.
There were laws prohibiting people of the same sex from
dancing together in a place that had a liquor license,
and as a result, many gay bars, like the famous
Stone Wall in didn't even bother with a liquor license
and just operated as off a private quote unquote bottle club.

(17:13):
Until nineteen sixty six, it was illegal to even sell
alcohol to someone who you knew was gay.

Speaker 1 (17:21):
One of the more unprovable laws on the books, though,
I guess yeah, post prohibition law against serving any quote
unquote disorderly people.

Speaker 2 (17:28):
God, this country is so stupid. Oh, I'm just tammed
to begging for an anger of one star Boomer review
this episode. I really apologize.

Speaker 1 (17:37):
What legally not being allowed to serve a gay person
of beer? I think that's an okay hill to die on.
I think you're okay, okay, all right, we'll find out.

Speaker 2 (17:48):
As a result, many places that were known as gay
hangouts were monitored closely by the authorities and rated regularly.
Most of the Greenwich Village gay bars in the nineteen
sixties were owned by members of the mob who paid
off the cops keep from getting raided more often, a
process known whimsically as gayola. For example, the famous Stonewall
Inn was owned by members of the Genovesei crime family.

(18:11):
These owners treated the regulars terribly. They watered down the liquor,
they overcharged. Stonewall had no running water behind the bar
during this period, so dirty glasses were just switched through
tubs of water and immediately reused. Yeah, that's really gross.

Speaker 3 (18:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:27):
And there were also reports that the owners were blackmailing
some of the wealthier customers due to their sexual orientation,
which provided vastly more income than the bar profits. Even
well connected gay bars were rated about once a month.
Gay men apparently made it a habit to carry bale
money on them when they went out, just to be safe. God,
horrifying this country ellipses trails off, staring at the middle distance.

Speaker 1 (18:55):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (18:56):
These practices began to loosen somewhat following the Stonewall riot
in June of nineteen sixty nine. And by the way,
you and I are both the VH one pilled Boomer
hagiography lionizing generation. How late was it until you learned
about stone Wall?

Speaker 3 (19:14):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (19:15):
Man, it embarrassingly.

Speaker 2 (19:17):
Completely glossed over in all of the all along the Watchtower,
Fortunate Sun soundtracked sixties montage horses. We were fed as kids, right,
Like I think that in high school, I mean maybe.

Speaker 1 (19:32):
In central Pennsylvania.

Speaker 2 (19:33):
May I think college is my is my mayor. But
like what the July sixty nine ground zero in the
middle of all this other life changing, generation defining.

Speaker 1 (19:44):
We just don't we know what he knows about it
because it's gay people, you know what. I don't even
know if it was. I think it was I learned
about in college because I lived within like three blocks
of Stonewall and Greenwich Village at the time of school.
That might have been. I probably saw plaque or something
that was probably it. Yeah, No, it's really embarrassing. I
don't remember how late it was that I learned, but
it was fairly recently.

Speaker 2 (20:04):
In seventeen weeks on the Civil War because I lived
within like two hours of Gettysburg much on stone Wall anyway,
Google stone Wall if you don't know what we're talking about.
Too long to get into here, but really another way
it yeah, hashtag worth it. Even after the Stonewall Riots,
though many clubs had house rules banning same sex dancing.

(20:27):
Another great tangent to get into, by the way, is
cabaret laws in New York City, like if you.

Speaker 1 (20:32):
Want to rue my code, real.

Speaker 2 (20:33):
Insane discourse on bureaucracy, run a muck. It was an
incredible way for them to also completely racially profile and
disenfranchised black musicians, Deloneous Monk being one of the most famous.
The guy was on like the cover of Time magazine
and he couldn't play in New York because his cabaret
license had been revoked. Anyway, these rules gave way to
the rise of underground parties, the most famous of which

(20:55):
was hosted by DJ David Mancuso. Mancuso threw invite only
raves every Saturday in his Soho apartment, popularly known as
the Loft. I assume it was a loft. I'm guessing, yeah,
it'd be funny if it was like a one bedroom
I guess sro so nobody would have come otherwise, that's true.

(21:15):
Shout out to lofts Man. Yeah, you know, such an
incubator for everything from free jazz to minimalism throughout this
this time period.

Speaker 1 (21:24):
Do you ever live in a loft? No? I didn't either. No,
I live like I'm within sight. I can see it
out the window of the mckibbon Lofts and oh bedbugs
centraight now is it really? Oh god, yeah, I mean
that was you know.

Speaker 2 (21:37):
I it's been funny with his Indie Sleeves revival because
you will live through peak indie sleeves because you were
in college in New York. But I got to it.
I think is it was dying, But yeah, we're all dying.

Speaker 1 (21:50):
It's true.

Speaker 2 (21:51):
LCD sound System, guy Voice. I was there when them
when the mckibbon lofts were infested by bedbugs.

Speaker 1 (21:59):
I had friends who lived there. I gross, Yeah, I
don't remember. It seemed clean to me. I'm sure there's
a vice.

Speaker 2 (22:07):
Then again, I was twine. I'm sure there's like a
vice oral history of the mckibbon Lofts. Oh, there is,
there is.

Speaker 1 (22:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:15):
According to his Wikipedia page, David Mancuso insisted on playing
music that was soulful, rhythmic, and imparted words of hope,
redemption or pride.

Speaker 1 (22:23):
Nothing white.

Speaker 4 (22:25):
True.

Speaker 2 (22:26):
Admission was two dollars to pay for rent and overhead,
but attendees were never turned away for lack of funds.
Organic dishes, breads, and freshly squeezed fruit juice were freely
available for attendees. Nothing was ever sold on the premises.
Otherwise the police could argue that he was operating a
professional establishment without a license, and this was a very
real threat since the loft was raided early in its

(22:46):
existence and Mancuso was arrested for operating an unlicensed cabaret.

Speaker 1 (22:50):
He successfully disputed.

Speaker 2 (22:51):
The charges since there was no alcohol for sale and
events were not open to the public. After the raid,
Mancuso was more cautious about police presence and set up
a warning system using lights lights. When the lights turned red,
the party paused. Everyone turned down the music, turned up
the lights and sat on the floor. We should have
had that at the lodge.

Speaker 1 (23:12):
Was that illegal? I mean, I don't know if it's
a bad idea to talk about this, but the performance
spot slash practice spot that we had that also doubled
as a performance venue, Oh.

Speaker 2 (23:22):
Yeah, super legal. We sold booze. The second you exchange
money for alcohol, it becomes illegal.

Speaker 1 (23:28):
Oh that was ohs I didn't realize that was not
a legal spot. No, oh, no, Dudel, that's awesome. I
didn't know that. Wow, proud we played there.

Speaker 2 (23:41):
These underground parties were places where people could gather and
express themselves freely without fear of homophobic or racial discrimination.
One of the organizers would describe the demographic breakdown thusly.
It was probably about sixty percent black and seventy percent gay.
There was a mix of sexual orientation. There was a
mix of races, mix of economic groups, a real mix
where a common denominator was music and the way that

(24:03):
the music was played was a good old fashioned combo
of two turntables and a microphone and a mixer to
ensure the unbroken flow of tunes. These house parties elevated
the role of the DJ from a mere song selector
to the vibe director of the evening. Oough, sorry, I'm
sorry DJing. And is Bossonova even still open?

Speaker 1 (24:21):
What's Bossonova? Bossonova Civic Club on Broadway?

Speaker 3 (24:25):
Oh, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (24:27):
He definitely calls himself a vibe curator or vibe director.
They controlled the music, the lights, the atmosphere, and even
the temperature from their booth. The popularity of the loft
parties gave rise to clubs like Paradise Garage and The Gallery,
the latter of which was founded by DJ Nikki Siano,
who was famous for his innovative three turntable system that
allowed him to loop dance breaks as much as he wanted,

(24:48):
laying the groundwork for countless genres like hip hop, house
and yes disco, and he would go on to spin
at Studio fifty four. So the music played at these
gay underground parties was largely soul in our and b
from black clubs. A turning point came when DJ David
Mancuso started playing Manu Dibango's nineteen seventy two proto disco
hit soul Makassa, probably known for this these this days

(25:10):
as being the inspiration for the spoken word section in
Michael Jackson's Want to Be Starting Something.

Speaker 1 (25:17):
Mama Say, Mama, saw Mama Sakusa. That's close enough. Good.
I love it. That good job. Thank you, You're an
ally Ma ma.

Speaker 3 (25:35):
Ma Ma gu Sa.

Speaker 2 (25:42):
Mancus came across the relatively obscure single in a Brooklyn
record store and like it so much that he passed
it to a radio DJ who started playing it on
the air. By nineteen seventy four, went mainstream and broke
into the top forty, making it both one of the
first records to break through as a club hit and
also one of the earliest disco esque songs. The sonic
stew that is canonical disco has its origins and funk

(26:05):
soul salsa traditions from the Black and Latino communities. Another
major ingredient was the Philly soul streaming from Kenny Gamble
and Leon Huff's hit Factory, particularly groups like Tsop, The
Sound of Philadelphia, and the OJS. One of disco's most
distinctive features, the exceedingly easy to dance to four on
the floor. Drumbeat is often credited to Gamble and Huff

(26:26):
session player Earl Young, notably his playing on Harold Melvin
and the Blue Notes nineteen seventy three song The Love
I Lost, which is widely cited as the first disco
drumming I sure, but a lot of motown is also
that done.

Speaker 1 (26:41):
Done, wha yeah.

Speaker 3 (26:43):
Done done.

Speaker 2 (26:59):
Other music cohallmarks of disco include the percussive guitar wah wah,
I think Isaac Haye's Immortal theme from Shaft another proto
disco mainstay. Heavy syncopation on the high hat, Latin tinged percussion. Yeah,
this is a great era for auxiliary percussion gigs. Yeah
you got the got cow bell, A lot of congas,
probably some wind chimes, jazzy extended chords, strings, rhythmic chicken

(27:26):
scratch guitar style from the great lineage of James Brown.
Guitarists like Catfish Collins and Jimmy Chank Nolan as I
believe is his full nickname because.

Speaker 1 (27:38):
Of the sound that he would make when he was
just that's really good.

Speaker 2 (27:42):
Yeah, And of course the iconic you failed. You were
missing your duties. You did not mention the the iconic
octave bass parts.

Speaker 3 (27:51):
Boom boom boom boom boom boom boom, boom boom boom
boom boom boom boom.

Speaker 1 (27:54):
As your former bass player. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm very
sorry for that.

Speaker 2 (27:59):
I think, I mean, well, I this is fresh in
my mind because I played a house party actually in
December with all disco stuff, and you hear a lot
on abba, but you also hear it in like boogie
Wonderland has a pretty heavy octive part and I don't
think I can I'm just spitballing here. But it might
come from early synths and sequencers, since that was an

(28:21):
easy pattern program like a fau arpeggiator, just like Doom Doom, Doom, Doom, Doom, Doom,
doom doom of MGMT. Now, speaking of McKibben LOFs, I
can smell that phrase, how do I do?

Speaker 1 (28:38):
In that section? You know a lot more about the
development of music, and.

Speaker 2 (28:41):
I mean, it's funny that disco has you know, a
big The thing that I would just add to that
is more cultural, which is that disco, in the retelling
of it, has become so white and straight washed that
it is deeply a crime. You know, like again laying
the blame squarely at the foot of in my experience,

(29:02):
your former employer of VH one. But you know, everyone
thinks of like you know, Casey in the Sunshine Band
or Abba, and it's like, yeah, those people sold a
boatload of money and made it onto TV. But this
is black and gay music as at its core. You know,
you don't really in the popular consciousness that is just
it's just become, at least in the way I was

(29:25):
exposed to it. That's part of the reason why I
think the eyre was so developed towards it. You know
that it was like Chicago shock jock meatheads who were
just innately, on some instinctive level repulsed by it.

Speaker 1 (29:37):
You know, it says a.

Speaker 2 (29:39):
Lot about the bedrock of internalized racism and homophobia that
is this country is built on.

Speaker 1 (29:45):
Well, I think there's two theories. There's that, as you said,
the inherent racism homophobia that this country's built on. But
I think there was also people reacting to the objectively
bad stuff that was coming out as cheap castions, as
really bad, you know, watered down versions of disco that
were made by predominantly white people. Yeah. Yeah, but I executives.

Speaker 2 (30:10):
Yeah, I mean sure, but there's there's always the cash grabs.
I mean there's always, like, right, literally every form of
music has its has its garbage cash grabs coming in.

Speaker 1 (30:19):
It just seems like, yeah, I do know.

Speaker 2 (30:20):
I it's funny too because I think about, like you
also think about like this era as sort of birthing
like hard rock and metal and really like the really
ugly strains of like macho like aggressive music, like I
think of Kiss and like Black Flag two, and obviously
I love that stuff, but I mean, like when you
really think about like what the polar opposite of disco was,
it's like Gene Simmons, you know, even though they made

(30:42):
a disc, they made several disco songs, or it's and
we're on a disco label, but it's like you know,
or like Ted NuGen, like it really was concurrent with
the rise of like lungkhead rock and then also punk rock.
And I think because so much of mainstream America is
more comfortable with male posturing and misogyny than gay and

(31:07):
non white stuff. It was very easy to poison the
country against disco, and there may have also just been
a touch of people being like why in gods, like
what is this weird coming from the coasts? You know,
because there's also like a you know, you can't really
discount the San Francisco side of things, or like even

(31:29):
La but I think San Francisco at the time period
would have been way more influential as a gay mecha
in terms of music culture. Yeah, there's such a rich
stew of reasons why people hate this stuff.

Speaker 1 (31:42):
I mean, also, maybe I'm wrong. You could probably disprove
me on this, but I feel like this was a
genre maybe for the last time, or a lot of
artists who had cut their teeth in the sixties on
either rock and roll or even older artists like I
think Sinatra and even ethel Merman, they tried to follow
the trends and cut a disco song. The Beach Boys did,

(32:04):
oh shure, Karen Carpenter tried to. Yeah, Paul McCartney has one.
I mean the Rolling Stones Miss You is basically a
disco song. And so maybe that was part of it too,
is that instead of just being a new genre that
existed alongside rock and roll, it actually became something that
changed artists who were known for doing other things, and

(32:24):
maybe that made it seem more oppressive for lack of
a better term, that's interesting. Everybody had their disco song.

Speaker 2 (32:30):
No, that's interesting, And I'm going to take it one
step further into one star or iTunes reviews and say
that it was perhaps the first genre that couldn't successfully
be stolen or was so so alienating when white people
tried to steal it the way that they had for
the previous fifty years that it introduced.

Speaker 1 (32:52):
This it was so uncanny.

Speaker 2 (32:54):
Their efforts were so uncanny and repulsive that it immediately
embarrassed them in a way that it didn't when they
were able to successfully steal blues or R and B.
I mean, beach Boy is a great example.

Speaker 1 (33:06):
In nineteen sixty two sixty three, they ripped off you know,
Chuck Berry riffs to do surfing USA and fun, fun, fun,
and then fifteen years later in the late seventies, they
tried their hand at doing disco stuff and didn't work. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (33:21):
Well, early rock and roll stuff is so fascinating to
me because, like some of the stuff that we think
of canonically, you're gonna have a bitch of a time
editing this.

Speaker 1 (33:28):
Mo'm's letting it go.

Speaker 2 (33:30):
But I'm galaxy braining here, I'm I'm cooking. I'm cooking.

Speaker 1 (33:35):
You know.

Speaker 2 (33:35):
Early roll is really an interesting example because it was
coming from the rural South where there was a general
a real commingling of white and black culture. I mean,
if you read a lot of that early blues guys,
they were like obsessed with Jimmy Rodgers, the yodeling cowboy
and vice versa. Obviously, and when you do think of

(33:56):
like fifties rock and roll authentically, it is not just
black music. It's also quote unquote hillbilly harmonies and bluegrass influence.
Like you know, you really do have to think of
like as the Beatles, like Carl Perkins and Motown and
Chuck Berry and all this stuff. And I think disco
being a holy urban post industrial genre an invention that

(34:20):
equation couldn't be repeated in as quote unquote unauthentic way
as early rock and roll, so it was. I think
that's why that everybody's disco phase is so galling and glaring,
because it was really without precedent in the same way
that they were able to successfully steal the Blues or
R and B or or you know, in Sinatra's case,

(34:42):
Billy Holliday or what have you.

Speaker 1 (34:44):
Well, that's interesting, man, Where were we? This one's going along, folks. Yeah,
the first American news coverage, or at least mainstream American
news coverage at the disco scene, and it is widely
believed to be a story that appeared in a September
nineteen seventy three issue of Rolling Stone. In the piece,

(35:06):
disco tech rock journalist Vince Aletti writes, part hey party.
He spells it out phonetically. You hear the chant concerts
rising like a tribal rallying cry on a shrill wave
of whistles and hard beaten tambourines. It's at once a
call to get down and party, a statement that there's
a party going on, and an indication that disco techs

(35:29):
with a chant originated are back and force. Disco Tech's
never died. They just went back underground, but the hardcore
dance crowd was blacks latinos gaze. In the last year
they've returned, not only as a rapidly spreading social phenomenon
via juice bars, after hours clubs, private lofts open on
weekends the members only, but as a strong influence on

(35:50):
the music people listen to and buy. It's a hell
of a run on sentence there by the summer of
nineteen seventy four, the same year that Saul Makosa made
the charts Rock the Boat by Hughes Corporation top Billboard,
mostly based off of club play, and then it was
kicked off by another disco four runner, George McCrae's Rock
Your Baby. Five years almost to the day after the

(36:11):
Stonemall Riots, disco had gone mainstream. It was popular because,
as Interview magazine editor Bob Colochello would say, it had
a strong, syncopated beat that everybody could move to, like
your college professor said, you could make up your own
steps and jump up and down like a child. It
wasn't until nineteen seventy seven, with the world beating success

(36:33):
of the Begs Saturday Night Fevers soundtrack and the accompanying film,
that disco's reputations shifted and it became popularly known as
the music of choice for straight white vaguely predatory males.
So I think that had a lot of impact of
what we think of as disco fans. Disco stew from
The Simpsons, If you will, I love disco sto, though

(36:55):
I mean no, I need to. But Studio fifty four,
which opened that same year, long way towards bringing these
sounds out of the underground clubs and into contact with
the rich, famous, and influential in a way that was
slightly less damaging than say, Saturday Night Fever. Long story
short back to Studio fifty four. Steve Rubell and Ian
Schrager wanted their shot at the disco big leagues in Manhattan,

(37:19):
and in early nineteen seventy seven they set their eyes
on a former television studio at two fifty four West
fifty fourth Street. I think you know where I'm going
with this. Wait, I'll put it together. This building had
a long history of turning fantasy into reality. Built in
nineteen twenty seven as an opera theater, for the last

(37:41):
thirty years, it had been a broadcast center for CBS
radio and TV. Called Studio fifty two. It was the
home of productions like What's My Line, The sixty four
thousand Dollars Question, password to tell the truth, beat the Clock,
the Jack Benny Show, I've got a secret and Captain Kangaroo. Yes,

(38:02):
people were doing lines and having ejaculation contests, which we'll
get to later on the hollow ground where Captain Kangaroo
gallivanted with mister Green Jeans.

Speaker 2 (38:10):
Did you know that the ejaculation contest? So the mister Kangaroo,
Captain Kangaro, excuse me.

Speaker 1 (38:15):
Captain Ken he served h No, I didn't. That's all
pretty wild. Yeah. So, City of fifty four already had
a storied pop cultural history before Disco, but CBS relocated
as production base to California in the early seventies and
CBS put the building up for sale. Steve Rebell and

(38:37):
I Schrager, along with a silent partner, put up approximately
four hundred thousand dollars. I've also heard as high as
seven hundred thousand dollars, which would have been in the
area of three to four million dollars in today's money.
Still not a lot to buy the building. Their friends
thought they were crazy, the building seemed far too big,

(38:58):
and the neighborhood was a disaster area. Fifty fourth Street
and eighth Avenue was arguably the sleaziest neighborhood in the
entire city, cramped with porno theaters and riddled with crime.
They thought that there was no way that elite clientele
would be caught dead there unless they were literally murdered,
which in nineteen seventy seven was possible. It's worth mentioning

(39:20):
that this was full on taxi driver era in New York,
when the city was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy
and President Gerald Ford refused to bail out, leading to
the infamous daily news headline forward to city dropped dead.
This was a time when getting mugged was as common
as the trash on the ground, just a part of
life in New York. Grown men would ask their cabbies

(39:42):
to wait while they walked the fifteen feet from the
curb to the door of wherever they were going. An
extremely popular car accessory around this time was something called
a Benzie box, which allowed you to easily slide your
radio out of your car at night when you parked
on the street, in an effort to prevent smashing grabs
all in all New York. Was Max Fisher from Rushmore.

Speaker 2 (40:04):
Voice in the sh It is amazing to think of
all this going on, juxtaposed against like the grindhouse era,
when it was yeah, the most sleazy, horrific films that
Quintantino would later wax nostalgic about.

Speaker 1 (40:19):
Just like a couple of blocks away. Oh yeah, like
you could. You could see it from the door of
the club. It's insane. Greatest city in the world, Baby
bing Bong Comas Steve Rebillen and Srigger, they had confidence
in their vision, but they were also nervous considering this
was the biggest project they'd ever undertaken. They put up

(40:40):
an additional five hundred thousand dollars in cash for a
six week crash construction job, which transformed Studio fifty two
into Studio fifty four. They wanted it open in springtime
before the Manhattan elite to camp to the Hamptons for
the summer, but they didn't wait for a building permit
to come through, which was something of a theme with
them when it came to dealing with bureaucratic paperwork. Hold

(41:02):
that thought for later, as we'll discuss. Steve Rubell was
more of the people person, handling guests and becoming the
public face of Studio fifty four. Well Ian Schrager was
the creative producer, running operations behind the scenes. The ViBe's director,
will the ViBe's director, if you will? Yes. Schreger would
later say, when you have a nightclub, you have no
product that's uniquely yours. Use the same music, the same

(41:24):
liquor as everyone else. The only chance for distinction is
the atmosphere, the ambiance, as you say, the vibes. The
big names for nightclub lighting and architecture had been warned
off working with Rebel and Schreger by the club's competitors,
but this ended up working out for the best. Since
the building had previously been a theater, they decided to

(41:45):
hire people from a theatrical background who also worked at
the speed of a theatrical production, which proved to be
an added bonus because you know, those guys move quickly. Schrager,
who supervised the design, later said everyone who worked on
Studio fifty five never worked on a nightclub before, except
for the sound guy. This guaranteed a fresh approach. The

(42:05):
lighting was by Jules Fisher and Paul Morantz, who had
done the Broadway Show Chicago. It was their idea to
take advantage of the theatrical rigs we had so we
could have moving and changing scenery. The sound was by
Richard Long, who did most of the gay discos in town.
We had huge bass speakers on the floors. You could
actually feel the music and tweeter arrays hanging from the ceiling.

(42:27):
The idea was to constantly assault the senses in an
inspired stroke. They turned the stage the former stage, i
should say, into the dance floor because they reasoned everybody
wants to be on the stage. That's the key to
life in Manhattan or anywhere else. And they really leaned
into using the infrastructure of the old theater. They adapted

(42:48):
the existing lighting rigging system to generate special effects like confetti, snow, fog,
wind and even rain drops.

Speaker 2 (42:55):
And later on it wasn't rained. Oh.

Speaker 1 (43:01):
On the ceiling was a thirty by forty foot cycle
rama which is like a curve screen which could project
images of space volcano eruptions, who sunrises and sunsets volcanoes
if you were lucky. The whole idea was that you
were part of a show and no other club was
doing that. They wanted to break down the barrier between

(43:21):
audience and performer and create the sense that anything could happen.
And this theatrical assault to the senses made every other
club seem mundane. But you can't have a disco club
without a disco ball. So disco balls.

Speaker 2 (43:38):
Actually date back to the early nineteen hundreds, which is
amazing to me that like people were having their minds
blown by a train coming at them on a movie
screen and the disco ball at the same time.

Speaker 1 (43:50):
Well, it was like an early light show. Basically, it
was like a pre laser light show. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (43:55):
The first patent was prosaically described as a myriad reflector,
filed in nineteen seventeen by Louis Bernard wost West is
the American what is he looks German to me, could
be French. Luis Benage voiced who pledged to fill venues

(44:15):
with dancing fireflies of one thousand hues. Now he has
to be French, he would not be German. Writing like that.
These were staples of dance halls in the twenties and thirties,
and one can even be seen in a scene from Casablanca.
And they were not cheap. The average price of a
forty eight inch ball in the nineteen forties came to
four grand or twenty thousand dollars in today's dollars.

Speaker 1 (44:39):
That's insane. You can get a new HVAC system for
that if you buy it off the back of a truck.

Speaker 2 (44:44):
As lighting and special effect technology improved in the nineteen sixties,
they came to be associated with more doughty, low budget,
low resource places, which is possibly how a disco ball
came to be featured at David Mancuso's Loft Parties. Loft
DJ Niki Siano barred the idea for his own pro
disco club, The Gallery a few years later, and the
trend took off. There are some random Internet denizens claiming

(45:07):
that there wasn't a disco ball at Studio fifty four,
and while that may not have been the case when
the club first opened, there are places that claim to
have the Studio fifty four disco ball collections of rich
white people who owned guitars, ye who owned famous guitars.
According to Architecture or Digest, one is wound up in
the sun room of a private home in an Atlanta suburb.

(45:30):
Great there's also a disco ball hanging in the lobby
of the current theater that occupies the building that used
to house Studio fifty four. Yeah, how many disco balls
you think they went through.

Speaker 1 (45:41):
I've been looking at pictures of Studio fifty four and
I haven't actually been able to like see any because
I presumably would have been very high up. Yeah, yeah,
I don't know. I guess. I mean, how many disco balls.
It's not like they wear out? Well, maybe they do.
Why would they? You shouldn't light at it.

Speaker 2 (45:59):
I couldn't tell you what am I on smoke smoke rising,
and maybe they dull it. I mean, actually that is
probably the most likely thing. That they just weren't able
or willing to drop this thing down and scrub off
all the nicotine, the tar.

Speaker 1 (46:12):
That's gross. Imagine that. No, I mean that's that's one
of the least gross things that they were scrubbing off
of the walls and c oh the walls. Yeah, I
was like nobody could get something that.

Speaker 2 (46:27):
There were contests. There were contests. As you meditate on that,
We'll be right back with more too much information.

Speaker 5 (46:37):
After these messages, we even even.

Speaker 1 (46:48):
Gotten to the true insanity. Although now we're at opening night,
so now we're going to start getting to the true
insanity of Study fifty four.

Speaker 2 (46:56):
So some workers put in thirty hours straight, which I'm
sure sure they did without the aid of any artificial
stimulants to ensure that they were ready for opening night
on April twenty sixth, nineteen seventy seven. It was quite
literally down to the wire. Forty five minutes before the
doors opened. They were still laying down black astro turf.
What for the dance.

Speaker 1 (47:18):
Floor, for the dantelia, for the for the ow coves,
possibly colves, sex caves, the grotto.

Speaker 2 (47:32):
Then the lights went out on the bar, so a
poor runner was sent around to the corner bodega to
get vote of candles just before people were let in
ah bodegas and fire hazards. The True New York, True
New York Experience invites had been sent ushering the great
and good of New York society to the premiere of
Studio fifty four, advising them that the dress code was spectacular.

Speaker 1 (47:56):
Sure.

Speaker 2 (47:56):
The invite included their famous fifty four logo, which came
from the brain of High magazine graphic designer Gil Lesser,
who had also done the award winning poster for the play.
Equis famous for featuring full frontal male nudity and a horse.

Speaker 1 (48:09):
Two things. You will see a lot of it before
the theme.

Speaker 2 (48:12):
They stayed on theme. They sent these to everyone that
they wanted to be in a room. Chuck, it's your cousin.
You know that new club you're thinking about, Your cousin
Gil Lesser holding a naked man and a horse on
the rooney. They sent these to everyone they wanted to

(48:33):
be in a room with Chaer, Margot Hemingway, Brooke Shields,
who would have been carry the two twelve. God, it
is amazing that that woman didn't end up a bigger disaster.
I mean, look what we did to Linda Blair, Moore,
Linda Blair and Brooke Shilds was like the nation's disgusting wet.

Speaker 1 (48:55):
Dream before she could get her learners permit.

Speaker 2 (48:59):
And then other ugly people like mel Brooks, John Liftgow,
Zero Mostel, Jerry Orbo John and Jerry Or.

Speaker 1 (49:08):
Got an invite to the opening night of the studio fifty.
George C.

Speaker 2 (49:12):
Scott, can you imagine drunk shaped like a barrel? Belligerent
George C. Scott, Era, yeah, Jerry Stiller, Dustin Hoffman. I
can see Lee Strasburg there, I can see Lily Tomlin there,
Joan Fontaine, Joe Namath had swag though back in the day.

(49:32):
Can you imagine Joe Namath rolling up in one of
those fur coats.

Speaker 1 (49:35):
Is see, Hollywood, Joe, there's another Joe football player, Joe
Montana Mine. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I
forgot well.

Speaker 2 (49:44):
One of the first people to appear outside of the
doors of Studio fifty four is someone who very few
people would want to be in a room with these days,
Donald Trump. He and then wife Ivanka were having dinner
at the Upper east Side hotspots. Elaine's famously name dropped
in Billy Joel's Big Shot. When they're friend social like Nicky,
Haskell suggested they check out this new club. As Haskell

(50:05):
remembered in Anthony Halden Guest's book The Last Party, which
you describe as the definitive book on Studio fifty four.
It's Christopher Guest's brother or half brother something. Anthony Igan guessed.

Speaker 1 (50:16):
Huh yeah, man, he should do a Studio fifty four mockumentary.

Speaker 3 (50:21):
Ah.

Speaker 1 (50:22):
Man, that's so good. Did they hate each other? Why
haven't they done that? Anyway?

Speaker 3 (50:27):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (50:28):
Yeah, it's a great book. The last part. It's incredible.
What's the quote quote? We got to Studio fifty four,
and there was nobody there. We were like the first
we knocked on the door. Donald hadn't built Trump Tower.
Nobody knew him in those days. Their knocks went unanswered.

Speaker 2 (50:43):
About fifteen minutes later, we were just getting ready to
leave and they opened one of the doors. They didn't
even know we were waiting out there. Once inside, Trump
and Company wandered through the empty disco, Haskell continues, they
were still adjusting the lights and fixing the music. DJ
Richie Kasker dropped the needle in the first record of
the night, Devil's Gun by CJ and Company, than.

Speaker 4 (51:06):
Insignments, comments Trunk in Silent Stament.

Speaker 2 (51:17):
Stan, but the club remained dead. About a half an
hour later, there were fifty or sixty people in there.
We kept saying, gee, I wonder where everybody is. Sadly,
there are no photos of Trump showing up unfashionably early
to the opening of Studio fifty four, and his presence
made little impression at the time. Studio fifty four bus boy,

(51:38):
Richie no Tar were called. In the twenty seventeen BBC
radio documentary, no one remembered him being there the first night.
He was a non entity. He was never on the
dance floor. Trump is famously a non drinker, supposed to
the reaction to his older brother, who died of alcohol
related complications. He has claimed that he's never even had
a beer, although Vice and numerous other outlets have published
lengthy expose as featuring interviews with people who claim in

(52:00):
fact the opposite. Regardless, Trump is known as not much
of a party animal, which makes it all the more
surprising that he became something of a regular at studio,
which is what everybody in the no called it, just
shortening off. The number was in studio fifty four. Yes,
just a studio. I'd go there a lot with dates
and with friends and with lots of people, he told
The Washington Post. In twenty sixteen, he added to another outlet,

(52:23):
I would watch supermodels getting screwed, well known supermodels getting
screwed on a bench in the middle of the room.
There were seven of them, and each one was getting
screwed by a different guy.

Speaker 1 (52:34):
His quotes distilled down and to the page. So it's
really really alarming.

Speaker 2 (52:42):
Sure, man, okay, okay man. According to Trump's friend Nikki Haskell,
who led him there in the first place, the non drinking,
non dancing Mogul had business reasons for making the scene.
He understood it was an opportunity to be grabbed, phrasing.

Speaker 1 (52:56):
Wooh woh wow.

Speaker 2 (52:57):
He was not there for the drug fueled disco del
He was there to be seen with the famous people,
to network, to cut the deal whilst everyone else cut
the coke. You think she ripped that page out of
the typewriter and was like, good job, Nikki, Johnny Carson
golf sewing hack.

Speaker 1 (53:19):
But getting back to opening night, Though the first few
hours were a little slow, the crowds quickly descended on
the club in droves. The exterior of Studio fifty four
was lit up with cleague lights like a movie premiere,
but apparently no one had thought about the kind of
public attention this withdraw. Without adequate security and bouncers outside,
Rebel and Schrieger had to take interior security guards out

(53:41):
to work the front door. By eleven PM, the crowd
had gone from a trickle to a torrent of thousands,
and traffic on fifty fourth Street came to a standstill.
Frank Sinatra was stranded in his limousine, unable to get
near but Cher Margo Hemingway and a young Brookshields made
it inside, while Charlie's Angels star Kate Jackson and Henry

(54:03):
the Fawns Winkler did not. They were caught in the crowd.
Another who was stranded outside was a physician who started
distributing pills from his jumbo size bottle of Quayludes. As
one club goer told Anthony Hayden guest, the doctor started
handing them out. About thirty people standing around us took them,
and then everybody started having this mad sexual orgy. All

(54:26):
the man had their dicks out, everybody was feeling everybody else.
The crowd was moving in waves. All of a sudden
you would find yourself next to somebody you didn't know.
So that was going on outside that worked out well.
I mean, I guess April and May and New York
is pretty warm. Yeah, but it's still in literally in

(54:46):
the middle of the street, the middle of fifty fourth Street.
That's true, yea. I know it was nineteen seventy seven,
and I know it was when that whole area was
a porn mecca. But that's a lot even for then
God better days. But those who did find their way
inside were treated to an unforgettable sight as they passed

(55:07):
through the smoked glass doors. As dorman Mark Bennekey would
recall in the Studio fifty four episode of VH one's
Behind the Music, Beyond the Velvet Rope is what I
used to call the Corridor of Joy. It had orn
eate chandeliers and everybody there was screaming with joy that
they got in. You could hear the pulsating music as
you walk through. The long entranceway was mirrored on both sides,

(55:29):
with a big chandelier in it hit by lasers which
went onto the mirrors and bounced everywhere. The disco beat,
but from beyond the hallway lured you further. Once inside
the main room, you were invited to an enormous refreshment center.
Poles lined with lights, almost like an amusement ride, came
down just about eye level on the dance floor, and
they were topped off with twirling police sirens. When you'd leave,

(55:51):
they'd have little bowls of candy like tutsi rolls as
you went out into the harsh morning light of the street.
Studio opened at ten PM and served liquor into four
but never closed before six am. So yeah, usually it
was dawn when people were done. Opening night featured a
fashion show, circus acts reportedly, and a performance by the

(56:13):
Alvin Ailey Dance Troupe, and the club scored a major
coup with The New York Post the next day when
they put a picture of Share on their front page,
and Trager recalled, I remember Steve calling me up that
morning and we couldn't believe it. We were on the
front page, the whole page. No nightclub up to then
had done that. So they're off to a good start.

(56:33):
This was April twenty sixth, nineteen seventy seven, but the
next few days weren't quite as busy, and then club
owner Steve Rubelle got a call from the famous fashion
designer Halston. He wanted to throw a birthday party for
Bianca Jagger's wife. At the time, it was to be
a small affair. I've seen somewhere between thirty and one
hundred and fifty people, which it's a big spread, but

(56:56):
still it's not a lot. It's a huge building. According
to Jigends, Steve Rebell, who will learn had a bit
of an ego, initially told the world famous designer were
closed on Mondays closed. He replied, we'll open it. This
would prove to be a very good idea, because the
party yielded one of the most indelible images of Studio
fifty four, which launched the club's reputation in a big way.

(57:20):
I'm talking about, of course, Bianca Jagger on a horse.
We all have that image in our mind. You know
that shot. I'm talking about that, of course. Yeah. As
soon as Rebel got off the phone with Holliston, the
production team flipped into action, enlisting everyone they knew to
blow up white balloons and call up the Claremont stables
on the upper i think upper west Side and arrange

(57:41):
for a horse to be delivered. The big day arrived
on May second, barely a week after Studio fifty four
had opened. Everyone from Barishnakoff the Jacque Line Bassett was there.
One of the bartenders troublingly donned a diaper and popped
out of a cake for Bianca. But the highlight of
the evening occurred around midnight, when the DJ hit play

(58:02):
on the Stone Sympathy for the Devil, and the aforementioned
white steed was let out from behind a stage curtain
by a nude couple slathered in shivering paint and sparkles.
They basically had like tuxedos painted on their naked bodies.
If you would be on the Jagger and.

Speaker 2 (58:19):
Someone played Sympathy for the Devil is your walk on music?
Would you take that the wrong way?

Speaker 1 (58:26):
I think of what other Stone song would work better? Bitch,
It's it's like I said, It's like I knew that
was coming when I set you up for it. Incredible,
tremendous under my thumb, always get what you want. Yeah,
jumping jackflash, good old purpose rock, up tempo song. I

(58:50):
would have gone with that.

Speaker 3 (58:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (58:53):
The horse was let out the off the Jagger climbed
the board, and then the horse was trotted across the
dance floor while photographers went crazy. I'm changing my text
alert for you to the horse was let out. The

(59:14):
photo of Bianca Jagger on the horse went viral before
going viral was a thing. However, people of Mandela affected
two points about this moment, which you're not strictly true.
One of them is that Bianca was naked on the horse,
which is probably a rumor that got started because the
horse was in fact led out by a nude couple.
And also there's a rumor that she actually rode the

(59:36):
horse into the club from the street. Now, Bianca Jagger,
who's done a lot of work for animal rights over
the years, attempted to set the record straight in a
twenty fifteen letter to the Financial Times, who for some
reason were covering us as an environmentalist and an animal
rights defender. I find the insinuation that I would ride
a horse into a nightclub offensive, she said. But regardless,

(59:59):
this was one of the most effective publicity stunts in history,
and photos of Bianca Jagger on horseback instantly appeared in
newspapers all around the globe. Dorman Mark Benneche recalled in
a nineteen ninety eight E documentary, it just snowballed from there.
Studio opened on a Tuesday. The next couple nights weren't
as busy, but then that picture started the ball rolling.

(01:00:20):
It was that soon. So now we got to talk
about what it took to actually get into Studio fifty four,
which was famously not easy to get into. It cost
twelve dollars on weeknights and fifteen dollars on weekends, which
is about fifty dollars in today's money. But as we
all know, it took a hell of a lot more
than just cash to get past the velvet ropes. Vel

(01:00:41):
Ropes were actually put up originally because eighth Avenue and
fifty fourth Street was, as we mentioned earlier, a hub
for sex workers and they wanted to keep the prostitutes
out rude, so that's why the velvet growth. Actually one
of the first places to have velvet ropes was I
think it was the Waldorf Astoria, which was owned by
John Jacob Astro, who died on the Titanic. I always
have a Titanic fan. I was gonna say if it

(01:01:03):
was like that or the Beatles.

Speaker 2 (01:01:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:01:05):
Aside from the disco and the drugs, the most famous
aspect of Studio fifty four was the ultra strict door policy.
I find this hard to believe, but according to numerous
sources I found this was one of the first places
that had a policy that basically said you can come
in and you can't. Well. I mean, I think we
have to give it to the racists of the world.

(01:01:27):
But there have been clubs that you needed address code,
there have been clubs that you need to be a member,
there have been to pay a certain amount, that's all something.
But Studio fifty four was based purely on vibes, and
that was how they let you in. Good for them, Yeah,
Steve Bell and I Sraeger were well aware that the
more you tell someone they can't have something, the more

(01:01:49):
they want it, and that became the name of the
game was Studio fifty four. Rubelle he viewed this as
his nightly party, and the people he let in were
his guests to the party, and as with any party,
not everyone gets to be a guest. Rebel's partner co
owner Ian Schrigger, would explain, there was a kind of
institutional resentment towards us, and it was really because of

(01:02:10):
the door policy, the fact that people who were normally
big shots or rich meant nothing at studio. They thought
what we were doing was undemocratic, Unamerican and elitist, but
in reality it wasn't elitist at all. We were just
trying to exercise the same discretion you do and you
have a private dinner party at your home, create a
good mix of people and from the jump, Studio fifty

(01:02:32):
four was popular enough to be selective about who they
let inside, and co owner Steve Rebell ruled the velvet
ropes with an iron fist. He could often be found
outside of the club on a step stool, selecting members
of the crowd for admittance personally, with a subjectivity that
could be described as heartless, certainly rude and insulting.

Speaker 2 (01:02:52):
Yeah, a tire was very cruelly judged. There's a footage
of Rubel on his stool screaming at someone, don't you
ever come in here with a hat? He had a
hatred of hats, and also polyester. Polyester melts under the lights.
He'd tell people go home and get a cotton shirt,
and perhaps most terrifyingly, he would remember there's a lot

(01:03:13):
of footage out there of him screaming, didn't I tell
you not to wear an outfit like that?

Speaker 1 (01:03:16):
Last time? You can't come in. He was judgy, but
also sort of hilarious.

Speaker 2 (01:03:21):
When he would see a crowd of straight white guys
dressed like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever, he'd announce
barbecue house party to his bouncers and bar their entry.
One night, the doorman barred a guy who did look
like a Saturday Night Fever extra with gold chains, the
open neck shirt and huge hair. The man stood there
for half an hour, and they finally realized that it

(01:03:41):
was Barry Gibb of the Beugs aka one of the
only people who could get away with looking like that
at Studio fifty four in nineteen seventy seven.

Speaker 1 (01:03:50):
Rubel was also famous for splitting up couples.

Speaker 2 (01:03:53):
There are tons of stories of him just letting the
guy or just the girl in, at which point the
lucky one would shrug sorry their partner and head inside. Overtly,
straight men entering alone were invariably denied entry to prevent
predatory behavior, which is nice. Rubelle certainly had a Napoleon complex.
His behavior offered veered into the sadistic. He would tell

(01:04:17):
women that he'd let them into the club if they
would take off all their clothes, which is admittedly a
weird move for a gay man. Some complied, and in
winter this resulted in at least one woman going to
the hospital for frost bit Nipples tweeted us using the hashtag.
He had a particular hatred for what he called bridge
and tunnel people, or Brooklyn and New Jersey residents, who

(01:04:39):
traveled into Manhattan on weekends for a big night out,
and in his eyes, these hay seeds from the outer
boroughs were unsophisticated tacky and deserving of unrelenting scorn. Once
one of the bartenders arrived with friends from out of town,
Steve greeted the bartender warmly before seeing his entourage. Then
his face fell and he started screaming, no way, no way.
He eventually lent, but not before dragging the bartender aside

(01:05:02):
and hissing, don't you.

Speaker 1 (01:05:03):
Ever do this to me again.

Speaker 2 (01:05:06):
There's footage of him saying to some guy out front, Hey,
it doesn't matter that you're nice.

Speaker 1 (01:05:10):
My cousin's nice. I love her, but that doesn't matter.
She's not coming in here. And admirably he held himself
to the same standard. He would regularly admit that if
he didn't own the place, there's no way that he
would have been let inside.

Speaker 2 (01:05:23):
With all of this, the vibe outside the club was
a strange mix of glamour and desperation, which Anthony Hayden,
guest described as looking like the damned outside of Hell.
Rubel judged the crowd based on his ever changing definition
of the right stuff. He viewed himself as a casting
director who was casting a show, and the scene outside
was the audition. Rubel determined that diversity was key to

(01:05:46):
creating a vibrant, combustible atmosphere. As a result, seems totally
integrated in a way that was rare for the late seventies.
He thought that if any one group was too out
of proportion to many men, too many women, too many couples,
too many straits, too many gays, too black, to young,
too old, etc. It would put damper on the evening.
He used to say, it's like mixing a salad hold

(01:06:08):
for applause. If it gets too straight, then there's not
enough energy in the room. If it gets too gay,
then there's no glamour. We want it to be bisexual,
very very very bisexual. That was a salad tossing joke
that we were making there earlier.

Speaker 1 (01:06:28):
Thanks Ted, That is the joke.

Speaker 2 (01:06:30):
They were essentially inverting the established power structures. Rebel would
banish the suit wearing swingers, but then let their limo
drivers in great stuff. One Halloween, two women, perhaps recalling
the famous Bianca Jagger photo, took out a five hundred
dollars loan to rent a horse, which they rode nude
to the velvet ropes as twin Lady Godivas. The horse
was then granted entry and the women were not.

Speaker 1 (01:06:54):
That's incredible.

Speaker 2 (01:06:56):
On any given night, a kid who worked at McDonald's
would share couch with a super buddle. The writer Paul
Goldberger has a great quote about this from a preface
to a Studio fifty four coffee table book. The club
was viewed as a place of exclusion, which made it
an unnatural symbol for an age of inclusion. But Studio
fifty four's velvet rope in the end was far less
important than the connection the club made between the intense,
explosive dance culture of downtown New York and the older

(01:07:19):
culture of uptown New York. And by doing this, it
broke more barriers than it created. It was where the
notion of the outsider and the notion of the insider
blended so completely that you could no longer tell the
difference between them.

Speaker 1 (01:07:30):
I think that's cool. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:07:32):
Dressing out landishly was an easy way to guarantee entry.
Once a woman came out of a limo with green
and purple hair, wearing a rubber suit, dragging two plastic
dogs behind her, and she got in club staple Grace Jones,
who was a once in a lifetime icon, once in
generation I should say, UH had to fend off desperate

(01:07:53):
plebs who would literally cling to her outfit and scream
tell them I'm with you. On more than one occasion,
she would enter basically naked, which she could do because
she was as statuesque individual. Have you seen the Conan
movie She's in? No, that was the sequel, Great Great Stuff, Rubella.

(01:08:13):
I'm sure you've seen him in the Bond movie right
with Walkin.

Speaker 1 (01:08:16):
Yeah yeah, uh pull up to the bump up Baby.

Speaker 2 (01:08:21):
Rebel's chief crowd control lieutenant was Dorman Mark Bennicky, so
chosen because he was the best looking member of the
security staff. Though he was only nineteen, The club's owners
made him unbribeable by paying him more than anyone else.
Even so, that didn't stop some desperate hopeful from shoving
their hands into his coat pocket to deposit cash or drugs. And,
needless to say, being a nineteen year old in a

(01:08:43):
position of almost unlimited social cachet made him a little
bit of a punk, just like Rubel. Naturally, people tried
good old fashioned bribery, but that didn't work, he'd later say.
Then I'd say to them they should go and buy
the exact same jacket I was wearing. Forgive me, but
I was only a teen at the time, and then
go to Bloomingdale's and buy it and they still wouldn't
get in. He was in charge of adhering to the

(01:09:05):
guest list at the front door. Next to the names
were notes like pay comp or NFU for no cub.
What does that mean that they wouldn't they would be
they were not.

Speaker 1 (01:09:17):
Allowed to know. I've meant like basically like ultra VIP,
like do anything they say? Okay, okay, okay.

Speaker 2 (01:09:24):
Those blacklisted have their names under the no goods column,
as we'll discover when we talk about their tax fraud.
Studio fifty four's record books were not difficult to decipher.
Part of Mark Benecke's role at the doorman also meant
that he was in charge of managing the entourages of
those on the guest list. As with everything in relation
to fame, there was a hierarchy. A movie star could
bring unlimited guests, a prince of princess could invite five

(01:09:47):
or six guests. Counts and Countesses four, most other VIPs three,
and so on. Other rules were more or less unwritten.
For example, Mick and Keith of the Rolling Stones were comped,
but the other Rolling Stone intend to pay. Oh, that's funny.

(01:10:10):
Do you think that was just the rule for rock
bands in general? Like guitarists and front man get in,
but based on the drummer have to pay. Paul mc
keith Moon.

Speaker 1 (01:10:20):
Didn't have to.

Speaker 2 (01:10:20):
Paul mccartty God, John McVie didn't have to. Paul McCartney
had Studio fifty four.

Speaker 1 (01:10:26):
Yeah. Of all the names that I have found who
attended City fifty four, Paul McCartney was one I have
not seen. Yeah, that doesn't surprise me. Hey with his
thumbs up, Just that's like a tug boat T shirt,
Rupert the bear T shirt.

Speaker 2 (01:10:45):
Among those who were excluded at one time or another
were Frank Sinatra, ROBERTA. Flack, and several Young Kennedy's.

Speaker 1 (01:10:52):
That's fine Boston.

Speaker 2 (01:10:53):
The president of Cypress was once rejected because the doorman
thought he was the president of New York City Cypress
Hills Cemetery. Did she get but you put a nineteen
year old and chudge the door. When the son of
King Khalid of Saudi Arabia was rejected, the Saudi Embassy
to the United States wrote Rubella letter asking that he

(01:11:15):
not be rejected again. No word on the outcome, but
it would indeed be more hilarious if he was summarily
ejected again, and for some reason. Cher was also once rejected.
She reportedly said to the doorman, I'm Cher, to which
he said, I know, I have a.

Speaker 1 (01:11:37):
Hard time running that one down. I have a hard
time believing that one.

Speaker 2 (01:11:40):
Yeah, I mean, she's like the most one of the
most striking women alive and a dressed by Bob Mackie.

Speaker 1 (01:11:44):
Like, I don't that's insane. Yeah, there must be. I've
seen that appear on numerous sites and numerous outlets, so
I don't know. There must be some truth to it.
Maybe she was just delayed. I don't know. It goes
without saying that some want to be took this rejection poorly.
To prepare for any malcontents, Studio fifty four employees were

(01:12:06):
tasked with removing bottles, cans, and any convenient projectiles from
nearby trash pins. Doorman Mark Benecke often required an escort
back to his apartment at the end of the night,
t toimes it got really hairy outside. He told Anthony
Hayden guest once a regular customer had too many people
or some problem, I walked him back to his limo,

(01:12:27):
and all of a sudden, the guy starts choking me.
Another time, a car mounted the sidewalk and threatened to
run down anyone unlucky enough to be guarding the velvet ropes.
Security chief Chuck Garlick recalled the Hayden guest. A car
was by. Someone yelled out, hey, asshole. I looked and
there was a rifle pointed at me, and I kind

(01:12:47):
of let that slide because he didn't shoot. The bar
was low in nineteen seventy seven New York, but then
another morning he wasn't so lucky and someone did pull
the trigger. We walked through the entrance where the garbage
goes out. It was closer meaning the end of the night,
and we were dead. The next thing we knew, these
guys were out of a car across the street. They'd

(01:13:09):
been waiting, and they just started shooting above our heads.
Chips of brick flew down. We dived onto the ground.
I personally try to get very friendly with the underside
of a car. But some people were not deterred. At
the front door. If Steve Rebell turned them down, they
tried gate crashing. Some climbed into the building next door.
Some eleven stories and tried to find a way in

(01:13:32):
from the roof. Mark Benecke claimed that one entrepreneurial soul
sold maps that allegedly showed how to get into Studio
fifty four through subway tunnels. I can't believe that's true.
In one legendary story told by many people, including Sheet
guitarist Nile Rogers, clubgoers noticed a terrible smell coming from

(01:13:53):
the vent for days. They assumed it was a dead mouse,
but upon investigation, it was revealed to be a tux
pseudo clad reveler who tried to break into Studio fifty
four through the ventilation system. Apparently he got stuck and
froze to death, or so the story goes. Stever, Bill's
assistant had never heard this story, so maybe it was

(01:14:14):
a myth, but Studio fifty four Cohn or Ian Schraeger
confirmed it years later. So your mileage may fary at.

Speaker 2 (01:14:20):
Least one fatality attributed to Studio fifty four. No, that
that's good. That tracks Yeah, that's a good track record.

Speaker 1 (01:14:28):
Regardless of Studio fifty four took pride in their reputation
as discerning hosts when they launched a brand of Studio
fifty four jeenes. They opted for the slogan now everyone
can get into Studio fifty four. I like that naturally.
A huge part of the draw of Studio fifty four
were the celebrities. The regular presence of famous people Studio

(01:14:50):
fifty four was deemed absolutely critical. This was the beginning
of the age of the celebrity is defined by people
who are famous for being famous, and as such they
would be put on the front page of papers for
no particular reason. Remember, People magazine had been founded three
years before, and its competitor, Us Weekly began publication the

(01:15:11):
very week Studio fifty four opened. Ian Schrager later said,
there was this paradigm shift away from reading about crime
and sports heroes. People became fascinated with celebrities. We were
there at the right time and we wrote it for
all it was worth. And celebrities liked Studio fifty four
because all photos taken inside by photographers had to be
approved by Steve Rubell personally before being sent to outlets

(01:15:35):
for publications, so they felt reasonably protected. Except there was
a time when Canadian First Lady Margaret Trudeau, Justin's mom,
was photographed without underwear, and that was circulated, So that's weird.
I don't know how that got out. We should tweet
that at him.

Speaker 3 (01:15:54):
Loser.

Speaker 1 (01:15:57):
To ensure a suitably star studed evening on their premise,
Steve Bell and Ann Schraeger drew on the guest book
of legendary party promoter Carmen Delecio, and then later they
also employed a publicist named Joanna Horowitz to essentially act
as celebrity wrangler, getting famous people to Studio fifty four
nightly and making sure that photos of them wound up

(01:16:17):
in the news. Her payment structure illustrated the hierarchy of
the New York gossip rags. Horowitz would be paid five
hundred dollars for landing a photo of a celebrity at
studio and the cover of the Daily News, one thousand
dollars for a cover of the New York Post, and
just one hundred and fifty dollars for a photo in
the New York Post page six, section ooh. She also

(01:16:38):
had a sliding scale when it came to which stars
she secured for studio, She told New York Magazine in
two thousand and seven, everybody was a different price once
in a while. Ian and I would argue, because I
thought Alice Cooper sixty dollars was worth more than Sylvester
stallone eighty dollars, but Ian thought no going over the rates.
Even more, the presence of Suzanne Summers and her TV

(01:16:59):
producer husband and Alan Hamill earned Horowitz one hundred dollars,
rock singer Peter Frampton earned her fifty dollars, and TV
host Dick Clark entering the club only earned her thirty dollars.
Brutal all of it. As a point of fact, Horowitz
would later go on to work as Kevin Spacey's full
time manager for twenty eight years until he fired her

(01:17:21):
in twenty seventeen, around the time he was making the
aforementioned film All the Money in the World about the
John Paul Getty Ransom ear slicing thing before he was
cut in the wake of a sex abuse scandal and
replaced by Christopher Plummer. Also her he fired her, well said,

(01:17:46):
and now let's get to the cavalcade of stars. The
storied social scene of Studio fifty four is the stuff
of legend. You'd have Elizabeth Taylor, Andy Warhol, Betty Ford,
and designer Holston all sitting next to each other on
a couch when she was cooler.

Speaker 2 (01:18:03):
Not this is pre Betty Ford. Betty Ford, Oh so okay,
so when she partied, I think so cool.

Speaker 1 (01:18:11):
Just A quick roll call of the regulars who were
off on photograph at Studio fifty four include Breath, Calvin Klein, Truman,
Capodi e Liza Minelli, Robert Maplethorpe, Elizabeth Taylor, Andy Warhol,
Frank Sinatra, Diana Ross, Stephen Tyler, Michael Jackson, Dolly Parton,
Sylvester Stallone, Donna Summers, Grace Jones, Robert DeNiro, Farah Fawcett,

(01:18:32):
Woody Allen, John Belushi, Bernstein, uh Divine, Faye Dunaway, The
Coffee Heiress, Doris Duke, tom Ford, Diane von Fursberg, Martha Graham,
Richard Gear, Boris Nikoff, Christopher reve, Elton, John, Debbie Harry
and Jelica Houston, Tommy Hilfiger, Margot Hemingway, Rod Stewart, Rick James,

(01:18:56):
Caitlin Jenner, Tom Jones, Carl Lagerfeld, Bette Midler, Jack Nicholson,
Al Pacino, Mohammed Ali, Paul Newman, Clive Davis, Michael Caine.
They must have had a field day with his name
because it sounds like Mike Cocaine. Yeah, Yeah, Suzanne Summers,
George Hamilton, Fleetwood, Mac David Geffen, Sidney Poitier, Gregory Peck,
Bruce Springsteen, Richard Pryor, Gil Radner, Lou Reed, Heraldo Rivera,

(01:19:21):
John Travolta, Tina Turner, Robbie Williams, Paul Simon, Dan Vreelnz,
fran Lebowitz, John McEnroe, Bianca Jagger, Magic, Johnson.

Speaker 2 (01:19:29):
McEnroe, Little Tennis one with a maniacal rage problem.

Speaker 1 (01:19:36):
It was like he seemed kind of tweaked. I mean
that that rage probably came from something.

Speaker 2 (01:19:40):
God I would have loved to be I would have
loved to be there with fran Lebowitz, just like Surly
and rip it on everyone.

Speaker 1 (01:19:49):
Tennessee. Williams, You've Saint Laurent, John Collins, George Plimpton, omarsha
reef Alice Cooper, John voightd Eartha kit El, Brenner, pele O,
J Simpson, Rupert Murdoch. Who's worse? Jimmy Carter's mother, Anna
got her in there, Chevy Chase, Jack Lemon, Shelley Duvall, Hello,

(01:20:09):
I'm Shelley Carry Grant Barbis streisand Coretta Scott King, Jackie oh,
Arnold Schwartzenegger, Ryan O'Neill, Jievon, She, Glorious Swanson, Walter, Joe Namath,
Salvador Dali, the aforementioned, Margaret Trudeau, Chare, David Bowie, Freddie

(01:20:31):
Mercury and the rest. Actually one more, especially for Heigel.
Actress Sylvia Miles, who got her role in the Toby
Hooper slasher The Funhouse after bumping into Toby at Studio
fifty four.

Speaker 2 (01:20:43):
Wow, Toby Hooper, that's really funny, Like he would have
made Texas chainsaw massacre at that point.

Speaker 1 (01:20:49):
Yeah, and everybody, everybody.

Speaker 2 (01:20:53):
But it's just so funny that like this disgusting grindhouse
movie would have gotten him in.

Speaker 1 (01:20:59):
I mean it's not anyway, that's amazing. Good for Toby.
Other regulars are perhaps more surprising. Mark Bennochy the Dorman,
recalls classical pianist Vladimir Horowitz turning up regularly with his
wife Wanda. He always wore earplugs. He hated the music
but loved watching the people. A Vanity Fair retrospective from

(01:21:19):
nineteen ninety six offered this evocative description of the scene
on any night at Studio fifty four. One could find
Diana Ross, fran Lebowitz and Farah Fawson on the dance floor,
John Mceroe, Ilie Nastey, don't know who that is? And
Cheryl Tig's at the bar, Lynn Wyatt, Syle Schomberger and
Kenny J. Lane on the bakette. Don't who any of

(01:21:40):
those people are. Barry Dillar, Calvin Klein and David Geffen
against the back wall, Rod Stewart, Peter Frampton and Ryan
O'Neil up in the balcony, Peter Beard in the ladies room,
Debbie Harry in the men's room, and a teenage Michael
Jackson and the DJ booth playing with the lights and sounds.
The journalist Beauregard Houston Montgomery incredible name, later said of
the scene, and it was so exciting. I sometimes had

(01:22:02):
to take a tranquilizer. Same dude, you saw so many celebrities.
The code was he didn't speak to them, but very
often they spoke to you. I don't think any stalkers
got into fifty four. Steve Rubell was the stalker. That
was the unwritten rule Studio fifty four was that you
never asked anybody to dance. You could get up and

(01:22:23):
dance and you might end up dancing next to Cathain
Deneuve or Truman Capodi, but you had to play it cool.
Andy Warhol would say that the club was a dictatorship
at the door, but a democracy inside. Part of the
magic of Studio fifty four was that it made normal
people feel like stars, and stars feel like normal people.

Speaker 2 (01:22:41):
Normal people, though may have been something of an exaggeration. Yeah,
a sort of eccentrics who guaranteed the aforementioned feliniesque vibes
also made the scene, including people wearing nothing but leather
straps or a wedding veil. Others would recall a couple
who would often come in. The woman would be naked

(01:23:03):
and the guy was dressed like Abraham Lincoln, and their
bit was that he would follow her around with a
flashlight pointing at various parts of her body, probably not
the back of her head, though right. One regular was
an individual known only as roller Rena, who was affectionately
known as the fairy godmother of Studio fifty four. Rollerina

(01:23:24):
was a man in a wedding dress and roller skates
who would roll down Broadway and straight into the club.

Speaker 1 (01:23:29):
By day, he was a Wall Street stockbroker.

Speaker 2 (01:23:31):
And a friend who knew him wouldlater say he used
to hide his costumes in different nooks and crannies in
the cities because there was no way that he could change,
especially in those days from his job on Wall Street.
He was like Superman, hiding and putting on his costume
in a phone booth. And then, of course, there's Disco Sally.
A contemporary New York magazine article paints a vivid portrait

(01:23:51):
a tiny seventy seven year old lawyer named Sally Lipman
was mourning the death of her husband when she happened
upon the disco scene and it changed her life. Dressed
in tight pants and high top sneakers, she became Disco Sally,
a star at Studio fifty four who drawn audience of
adoring fans as she got down on the dance floor.
Many would call her dancing, usually with little to no clothes,

(01:24:13):
with leather trucker dudes, getting bodily passed around the crowd
to her men's delight, and she was there almost every night.
Club manager Mark Fleischman would describe her in his memoir
Inside Studio fifty four as a sprightly thing in her
late seventies who danced like a thirty year old and
was accompanied by a handsome young man named John on
her arm. She was a retired Jewish lawyer who became

(01:24:34):
a judge and suddenly went crazy due to the combination
of cocaine and the Studio fifty four effect. But back
in the day, she would dance NonStop from midnight to
five am, many nights a week, taking only bathroom and
cocaine breaks. She was there so often that she became
close to the staff and often invited them back to
her apartment for dinner. As Studio fifty four manager Scott
Bitterman said, Sally represented the best of the club for me.

(01:24:57):
She was neither rich nor famous. She was a woman
who love to dance and have fun with her friends
in the evening.

Speaker 1 (01:25:02):
Oh oh.

Speaker 2 (01:25:04):
The other stars of the scene were the DJs at
Studio fifty four was one of the inner sanctums of
the Sorry Old Man Yell's at club. The DJ booth
was one of the inner sanctums of the club, high
up above the dance floor and lit so it could
be seen from all vantage points. VIPs would be invited
up to intro and sometimes even select records. They even
released a record called A Knight at Studio fifty four,

(01:25:26):
which was a medley of disco songs mixed live at
the club. Needless to say, it instantly went gold. The
DJs were very, very important at that time because they
were crucial and breaking songs by trying them out at
these nightly raves. As a hilarious Dan Rather hosted sixty
minute segment from nineteen seventy eight, tests songs could make
hundreds of thousands of dollars thanks to club popularity without

(01:25:47):
requiring airplay. Case in point I Will Survive, which was
actually a B side for Gloria Gaynor before Studio fifty
four DJ Richie Caxker CAx sore case in point Survive,
Steady case in point I Will Survive which was a
B side for Gloria Gaynor before Studio fifty four. DJ
Richie Kaxer began playing it at the club after it

(01:26:09):
was a hit on the dance floor. He used his
cloup to get it played on the radio. This helped
turn disco into a four billion dollar a year industry.
Side note, did any of you know that Gloria Gaynor
recorded I will Survive after she broke her back during
a mid concert fall and had to relearn how to walk.
It was not an anthem about recovering from heartbreak. She

(01:26:30):
was literally in physical agony. Do you know that I didn't? Actually,
she recorded the vocals in a back brace, which she
credits for helping her sing with such conviction. Truly a legend.
I will Survive as far from the only disco standard
that took off thanks to the folks of Studio fifty four.

Speaker 1 (01:26:48):
Ah, this is one of my favorites.

Speaker 2 (01:26:50):
In fact, their draconian door policy inspired Nile Rodgers and
Bernard Edwards to compose a smash for their band Chic.
It began on New Year's Eve nineteen seventy seven. Nya
and Bernie found themselves unable to get past the front
door at studio, despite the fact that their songs were
probably being played at that very moment inside. Rogers told
Sound on Sound. In two thousand and five, we were

(01:27:10):
invited to meet with Grace Jones at Studio fifty four.
She wanted to interview us about recording her next album.
At the time, our music was fairly popular. Dance Dance
Dance was a big hit, but Grace didn't leave our
name at the door, and the doorman wouldn't let us in.
They just waited around until the early morning hours. We
stood there as long as we could take it, until
our feet were finally just way too cold. We were

(01:27:32):
totally dejected. We felt horrible. However, if it's any late
breaking consolation to them. Henry Winkler The Fawns was also
turned away that night.

Speaker 1 (01:27:44):
He didn't get into the opening night either. God Faun
no love at the funds.

Speaker 2 (01:27:47):
It would be great if if he ended up hanging
out was with now Rogers and Bernard Edwards and wound
up co co write, or even.

Speaker 1 (01:27:59):
Better way, he made it inside and ended up producing
Grace Chnce's next novel.

Speaker 2 (01:28:04):
Yes actually Bernard Edwards and now Rogers then headed back
to Nile's apartment, which was just a few blocks away.
He picked up the story in an interview with Anthony
Hayden guest, saying, we grabbed a couple of bottles of
champagne from the corner liquor store and then went back
to my place, plugged in our instruments and started jamming.
We were just yelling obscenities. Studio fifty four, Come go off.

(01:28:25):
Those scumbags come and we were laughing. We were entertaining
the hell oft ourselves. We had a blast, and finally
it hit Bernard. He said, hey, Nile, what you're playing
sounds really good, And within half an hour they composed
a song called Off. After some lyrical tweaking, they arrived
at the slightly more top friendly title. First we changed

(01:28:48):
it from GoF to freak off, and that was pretty hideous.
Then all of a sudden, it just hit me. One second,
the light bulb went off, and I sang ah Freako.

Speaker 1 (01:29:00):
Nice.

Speaker 2 (01:29:00):
Released as le Freak in September of nineteen seventy eight,
the song would become Chic's first number one and biggest hit.
Perhaps understandably now, Rogers now considers Mark Benecke the Studio

(01:29:21):
fifty four door man who would not let them in
a friend.

Speaker 1 (01:29:24):
I love that. I love that story. Yeah that's great.
I just yeah, man, they should have stuck with off of.
We're gonna take a quick break, but we'll be right
back with more too much information in just a moment. Well.

(01:29:50):
In addition to the DJs and the doorman, the Studio
fifty fourth staff was notable for its fleet of shirtless
and short, short clad bus boys and bartenders. This was
not but strictly by design, at least at first. Hilariously,
the first bartender who took off his shirt was this
self described scrawny guy from Queen's named Scottie Taylor, and

(01:30:11):
he was just hot and sweaty and figured no one
would care or even notice since the customers were mostly
half naked, and he took off his shirt. Club owner
stever Bell did notice. He came over and said, Scotty,
that's great. I love that. Put your shirt back on. Then,
looking at Scotty's more handsome and muscular cowork as you said,
you other guys take your shirts off, like to pause

(01:30:32):
and briefly observe how messed up this was since the
eighteen to twenty one year old bus boys were the
most vulnerable on staff and they were basically being used
as playthings for the likes of Freddie Mercury and allegedly
a famous fashion designer known for his boxer shorts. Watching
a documentary on Studio fifty four taught me with the
phrase around the world meant in certain circles did daft

(01:30:55):
punk some them. This was in the brief window between
the ad of birth control and the AIDS epidemic, when
sex was more or less seen as without consequences, STDs
were easily treatable. There was basically nothing you couldn't cure
without a shot a pickup line. At Studio fifty four,
it was basically, according to several hi, you look real,

(01:31:16):
real nice, I'm sure said in a different way. No, yeah,
David Lynch, Yeah, that's different what Nile Rogers, who presumably
was back in Studio fifty four as Good Graces after

(01:31:38):
Penning the Freak, said in a nineteen ninety eight ITV
documentary sex in the bathroom was one of the most
common things in those days. I felt like I didn't
have a good time if I didn't have sex in
a semi public place. I feel like that's not true.
But okay, niall, there's so many other ways to have
a good time, or at least maybe wasn't as common

(01:32:00):
as he's making it seem. But okay, I you know what,
I wasn't there. It was a great quote about the
Studio fifty four bathrooms from Judith Linked in a twenty
twenty New York Times oral history. Before there was LGBTQ,
there were bathrooms at Studio fifty four. You had no
idea what anybody was. People also had sex in the

(01:32:22):
upstairs balconies, where you could get busy watching thousands dance
down below. This area was upholstered in rubber because it
was deemed easy to hose down in the morning. That
was the stated objective by the architects. Grace Jones wrote
in her memoir. Up high in the seats above the stalls,

(01:32:42):
you could disappear into the shadows and get up to whatever.
Up above the balcony there was the rubber room, with
thick rubber walls. They could be easily wiped down after
all the pottery activity that went on. There was even
something above the rubber room, beyond secretive up where the
gods of the club could engage in their chos and vice.
High up above the relentless dancers, it was a place

(01:33:04):
of secrets and secretions, the in crowd, the in crowd,
the in crowd, and inhalations sucking and snorting. Man, don't
ever say that to me again. Grace Jones said it
to you. That's true. Would it have been easier to

(01:33:24):
take coming from her as it would have? Actually an audiobook? Yeah, yeah,
I'm sorry sorry to hear that from me. I'm really
sorry from what you're about to hear from me. On
a related note, in what I can't believe you left
me with this, I thought you would have just taken them.
Are the one to share the story. In what must
surely be one of the grossest stories we have ever

(01:33:45):
told on the show, club owner Steve Rebel once held
an ejaculation contest with his bar boys. The one who
ejaculated the furthest was invited to Barbados with him Furthest
or most. I think it is like a long jump
vertical or horizontal horizontal. Hm, I imagine I'm assuming one

(01:34:09):
of the well presumably don't. I don't know if he
was involved in this contest, but one of the bar
boys was Alec Baldwin.

Speaker 2 (01:34:18):
Told in a different shooting incident, Oh man, he walked
into that one and a few other things at Studio
fifty four.

Speaker 1 (01:34:29):
Oh oh, your boys on it. I'm cooking. He spent
two months work working as a He spent two months.
He spent two months working as a busboys Studio fifty
four in the fall of nineteen seventy nine, and he
recalled the scene in the balcony. When speaking to Interview
magazine in twenty twelve, gay man would go up to

(01:34:51):
the balcony and fondle one another. It's just like Jack
Donnie Voice. Usually couples, very distinguished, wealthy, well dressed, well
healed gay men would go up to the balcony and
quote discuss things. They'd ask your boy here to go
downstairs and quote unquote fetch them a pack of cigarettes.
Cigarettes at Studio fifty four were probably like eight dollars,

(01:35:12):
and they'd say, well, keep the change. I was a
very popular cigarette snatcher in the balcony. I was the
Rick Blaine of well healed homosexual balcony dwellers at Studio
fifty four. A very efficient way to tell that story, Alec,
but thank you goodness.

Speaker 3 (01:35:30):
So that's so.

Speaker 1 (01:35:31):
That's the balcony, and the balcony was more or less
open to anyone, but the ultra exclusive enclave for decades
and depravity of Studio fifty four was the infamous basement,
accessible only by a hidden stairway, also known as the Playroom.
This cavernous area was very much a basement in the
truest sense. It was grungey, graffitied and unglamorous, decorated with

(01:35:53):
old party decorations, pillars of rolled carpet damage, banquettes, and troublingly,
a children's playground swing set and kittiepool filled with beach balls. Yeah,
mattresses were thrown onto concrete floors and secluded corners where
extra special guests could have a moment alone with the
bus boy of their choice. God, it's like the Fritzel's

(01:36:16):
Basement or something. Rebel once arranged for a well known
countess to have a basement rendezvous with a bartender. She fancied.
The barman handcuffed the countess at her request, and then
promptly forgot about her. Hours went by before Rebel realized
she was missing and rescued her from the basement. As

(01:36:37):
gross as it was, celebrities knew that they weren't going
to be bothered or more importantly, photographed in the basement,
and few photos of it exist. Security men brandishing walkie
talkies secretly patrolled the area, removing any uninvited gawkers. Grace
Jones wrote in her twenty sixteen memoir, celebrities headed for
the basement, getting high, down low. Not even those who

(01:36:59):
got inside the club could all make it into the basement,
you'd stumble into half hidden rooms filled with a few
people who seemed to be sweating because of something they
had just done or were about to do. Needless to say,
many drugs were consumed even more blatantly than they were upstairs.
I've read reports of basement VIPs entertaining themselves with strawberries

(01:37:21):
dipped in cocaine, which seems to make no sense whatsoever,
because I don't think you get high that way, and
it tastes bad. But yeah, there is two things, two
things that are important to both of us. But apparently
the story is legit. The Soviet ballet dancer Rudolph Duryev
came across this scene and helped themself to one of

(01:37:43):
these strawberries dipped in cocaine, apparently thinking the white powder
was powdered sugar. He then spat it out and called security,
believing that they were trying to poison him. The seventies
could sometimes be the.

Speaker 2 (01:37:58):
Dumbest decade, perfect segue to getting into one of the
most famous.

Speaker 1 (01:38:03):
Deal were getting us to drugs, folks, cocaine.

Speaker 2 (01:38:08):
We've gone this far talking in detail about Studio fifty
four without talking about the famous moon with the spoon,
huge light display depicting a crescent moon snorting coke, waxing, gibbis,
waning gibbis.

Speaker 1 (01:38:23):
I don't know what any of that means.

Speaker 2 (01:38:25):
This was essentially the god of Studio fifty four, and
it would ceremoniously be lowered over the dance floor several
times an evening, at which point people would literally get
on their knees and bow. It's difficult in twenty twenty
four to understand the casual nature with which cocaine was consumed.
At the time, it was taken as a fact that
it was not addictive, with one Studio fifty four regular
proclaiming it was written in the newspaper.

Speaker 1 (01:38:49):
That's not far off, though.

Speaker 2 (01:38:51):
Cocaine implements quote unquote tools we're advertising magazines. These range
from small silver spoons that hung around your neck, twenty
two care gold razor blades, the gasper snow injector, advertised
with the slogan do it orally.

Speaker 1 (01:39:06):
Nasally?

Speaker 3 (01:39:07):
Is that what they mean?

Speaker 1 (01:39:08):
What does a snow injector? I'm gonna look at this up.
I think it gets more up your nose faster. Wait,
I'm gonna hang on a sec and.

Speaker 2 (01:39:17):
Even merrors where the ad copy read tonight's forecast snow.
There is a high front bringing snow to much of
the nation tonight. Light to heavy accumulation is expected. We
urge our viewers to prepare for this high front with
quality mirrors from easy line. Precut grooves, beveled edges, and
a corkbacking are just a few reasons why these merrors

(01:39:38):
are so popular. Hurry to your neighborhood headshop before the
supply runs out. I just sent you the the snow
injected Oh okay, that's what a buld model and pocket
oh turkey bas. The natives of South America used hollow
reeds to blow the powder down each other's soroat. Of course,
of course they somehow managed to drag that in.

Speaker 3 (01:40:02):
Oh boy.

Speaker 1 (01:40:04):
This method put the snow more directly into the lungs
that did not damage delicate nasal and sinus membranes, so
you could just blow cocaine right down your throat. Good lord.
All of this to say, offering someone a line or
bump was on par with offering them a cup of
coffee or red bull or a toot of their vape.

Speaker 2 (01:40:28):
I'm sure it was expensive, but for people who were
in New York's main industries finance, fashion, entertainment, and so forth.
It was considered normal. For Christmas, the Studio fifty four
owners put together gift baggies of cocaine that were handed
out by Santa. There was a photo of a very
excited Robin Williams grabbing one. It was even a guy
on staff, Lenny fifty four, whose sole job appeared to

(01:40:50):
just be doing drugs along with the VIPs. It's like
the Mighty Mighty Bosstones had a guy on stage for
like twenty years whose whole thing was just chilli dancing.
They had a guy who's on the payroll's job was
just to do cocaine cocaine, Lenny Bostone. Lenny Bostone, please
call me Lenny. My father was mister fifty four. Cocaine

(01:41:10):
was quite literally part of the currency at Studio fifty four,
as patrons would tip bartenders and vials of coke, and
just like cash, they would throw all of the vials
into a bucket and divvy them up among staff at
the end of the night. Cocaine tended to breed generosity
or egregious waste. It was not uncommon for someone to
use a one hundred dollars bills to snort cocaine and
then just throw it on the ground like a candy wrapper.

(01:41:33):
And then someone else would grab the one hundred dollars
bill on the floor, use it to do lines themselves,
and throw it away again. While coke may have been
the drug of choice, it was far from the only
illicit substance being consumed at Studio fifty four. There are
legendary and therefore possibly mythical stories of revelers putting amyl
nitrate poppers in the ac ducts and telling the DJ
to play fast songs. An occupational hazard for the cloak

(01:41:56):
room staff was accidental contact ties due to the poppers
that would occasionally explode after being left in people's coats.
Sometimes the stars would actually hang out in the coat
room to relax a little bit, the chill tent, if
you will, and then the co check woman would also
would then go out and hang in the club themselves
and then come back reporting on all the gossip that

(01:42:18):
they'd picked up. And then, of course were Kayludes, the
horrifically and pretty much always abused downers, pain killer and
sleep aid known as disco biscuits before they were outlawed
by the FDA in nineteen eighty two. You may, perhaps
horrifically remember Bill Cosby referring to them as thigh openers.

Speaker 4 (01:42:39):
Or was that?

Speaker 1 (01:42:39):
Oh was that Hugh Heffner. I think it was Hugh Heffner. Actually,
oh god, I've never heard that.

Speaker 3 (01:42:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:42:48):
Coailudes were a favorite of co owner Steve Rubell, who
often overindulged on the dance floor. Club goer Nicky Haskell
offers this vivid description. He'd beat the bar drinking his
Coca Cola with about ten straws. You could always see
when he had a couple of queludes because he'd slightly
foam at the mouth.

Speaker 1 (01:43:05):
It was a look. But enough about the drugs. Let's
talk about the themed parties. The most Jordan saidence effort
Stewie's sexy party theme.

Speaker 2 (01:43:19):
Here, Rubert and Schreger would throw themed parties, tackling them
with it over the top intensity that could only have

(01:43:40):
been fueled by cocaine. They came from a competitive background
out in Brooklyn, where as one of their friends observed,
the prevailing mentality was my bar mits was going to
be better than your bar mitzvah.

Speaker 1 (01:43:52):
Once a month they had Cocaine and then You Go Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:43:55):
Exactly once a month, they would draw on the Broadway
expertise of their staff and transform the venue into a
fantastic stage set for one night only. They would frequently
drop between forty and fifty grand for these productions, but
as far as Eden Scheger and Steve Rubelle were concerned,
this was a valuable marketing tool for the club. These
parties helped create the reputation that anything could happen at studio,

(01:44:16):
blurred the line between patrons and performers. If the dance
floor was literally the stage, then the building itself became
a sound stage on which the club owners created their
wildest fantasies. Once they transformed space into Louis the Fourteenth Castle,
with twenty violin players and white tails lining the entry hallway.
For their first anniversary in April nineteen seventy eight, they
threw a circus themed celebration with drafts and a marching

(01:44:39):
band that played Happy Birthday. There was another circus theme
party later on for the fashion designer Valentino that featured
a circus ring with sand and mermaids on trapezes, hastily
arranged in just three days. Costumes were borrowed from the
filmmaker Fellini the third mention of Fellini in this episode
for his nineteen seventy movie The Clowns. The animals would

(01:45:00):
frequently get them into trouble, though Rubel and Schreger received
a citation from the New York Department of Health Bureau
of Animal Affairs, reading, in part, gentlemen, it has come
to the attention of this department that a leopard and
panther were president. You're at a party in your establishment
on or about December thirteenth, nineteen seventy seven. You are
hereby advised that this incident was in violation of two

(01:45:21):
different sections of the New York City Health Code. You
are hereby ordered not to have animals in attendance on
your premises. Love so much about that they only got
an approximate time and date for the leopard and panther
a party from Michael and Tina Chow, founders of the
upscale Chinese eatery. Mister Chows transformed the dance floor into
a Hong Kong street scene with no disturbing racial overtones.

(01:45:44):
I am sure for Valentine for Valentine's Day. For Valentine's Day,
Studio fifty four morphed into a garden with fully soldid
flower beds, picket fencing, a group of harpists and bus
boys dressed as Cupid. The entrance hallway was lined with
one hundreds of televisions playing a supercut of famous cinematic
kisses and love scenes. You know VHS or Betamax at

(01:46:06):
the time, Oh, I don't know. On Oscar night, they
ordered a literal truck full of popcorn and filled the
dance floor with TVs so people could watch the ceremony
while they danced. They decked out the place with palm
trees to resemble the Coconut Grove, a silver screen era
Hollywood hotspot. Naturally, Halloween was the biggest night of the year.
Mark Fleishman, one of the managers and later owner of

(01:46:27):
Studio fifty four, would say, one year we spent fifty
grand transforming the main entrance hall into a haunted mansion
that included live monsters jumping out of our guests as
they made their way across rickety bridges through a graveyard
while howling and other very strange loud noises played in
the background that was probably be Unca Jagger. The party

(01:46:48):
Alana Hamilton gave a Mercedes Air Mick Flick featured a
Mercedes wrapped in gold le may a brigade of Hell's
Angels on Harley's roared onto the dance floor. For Carmen
de Lecio's birthday party, our Loggerfeld held a candlelit eighteenth
century party with the staff in court dress and powdered wigs.
I would have thought he would have gone for more

(01:47:08):
of a third Reich Vibe baby with Hugo Boss present
Ah google that one, folks. Bionca Jagger's birthday in nineteen
seventy eight was disturbingly a baby party with ice cream
cone vases, bowls of cracker jacks, bus boys in diapers,
and probably Brooke shields. Oh, Beyoncreick cut as much of

(01:47:33):
that as you want, all of the all the Brooke
shield stuff. You think Epstein gotta cut his teeth here.
Oh you know what it might have been like.

Speaker 1 (01:47:41):
He might have only been too young four or five? Yeah. Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:47:45):
Bionca repaid the favor for Steve Reubell's birthday by popping
out of a cake before nearly suffocating in a blizzard
of plastic snow. Stevie Wonder threw a party for his
personal assistant, which he performed at presumably somewhat lacking in
the visual.

Speaker 1 (01:47:58):
Department, but just nice thing to do for your personal assistant.

Speaker 2 (01:48:03):
Describing one party Mile former model Describing one party, former
model Kevin Haley told Vanity Fair in nineteen ninety six,
as you came up the ramp in the foyer, you
looked out through little windows into little booths with little
people doing things.

Speaker 1 (01:48:18):
Editor Yeah, editorial, Yeah. The one that sticks out of
my head had a little people family eating a formal dinner,
apparently a scene inspired by Hieronymous Bosh. Sure man, do
with that what you will.

Speaker 2 (01:48:31):
These are a couple of lightning round instances. But Jordan
take us on a tour of some of the just
some of the more insane parties. Yeah, that serve as
a reminder that cocaine is indeed drive well.

Speaker 1 (01:48:44):
Many in Studio fifty four consider Elizabeth Taylor's birthday in
nineteen seventy eight as the most amazing party of all.
The Lady of Honor was treated to a performance by
the Rockets, which she watched from a float of Gardenya's
while standing between then husband Senator John Warner of Virginia
and designer Halston, and this party apparently went a long
way in bolstering the Rocket's reputation because Radio City at

(01:49:06):
this time in the late seventies was in danger being
closed down. So this brought a lot of attention to
the Rockets and saved them from presumably maybe shutting down,
which I think is interesting. Liz was later presented that
same night with a life sized portrait of herself made
of cake. Her biographer offered this description in the book
The Lady The Lover The Legend of Elizabeth Taylor. A

(01:49:30):
dozen well endowed hunks, naked but for sequin posing pouches,
and some with joints dangling from the corners of their mouths,
scattered guardina pedals and the couple's path as they entered
The dancing and fun continued near the early hours, the
atmosphere heavy with the stench of poppers, and Elizabeth b
bopping with a bevy of gay porn stars until John Warner,

(01:49:51):
her husband, put his foot down and said they were leaving.
Andy Warhol meanwhile wrote a less than flattering recap of
the party in his which was later published. Liz looked
like a belly button, he wrote, the man had a
way with words, like a fast little juby doll. Diana

(01:50:12):
Freeland was there and people were being brought over to Liz.
She was the Queen. I met a quarterback, Bob, presumably
Bob Coloccio the Interview. The editor of Interview magazine was
watching Bianca Jagger take poppers and he said to Diana Vreeland,
it really becomes more like pagan Rome every day, and
she said, I should hope. So isn't that what we're after?

(01:50:37):
So that was Elizabeth Taylor's party. The folks at Studio
fifty four also threw a party in honor of Dolly Parton,
but sadly and sort of predictably, she was not that
into it. When she visited the city for concert dates
in May nineteen seventy eight, Steve Rebll somewhat condescendingly decided
that they would transform the dance floor of Studio fifty

(01:50:58):
four into a farm. What a prick, I get. Yeah,
I know, she didn't grow up on a farm, you
fing chud.

Speaker 2 (01:51:05):
Also, it was one of the more successful nationale singer
songwriters for literally over a decade at this point.

Speaker 1 (01:51:13):
Ugh welcome Michael Musta remembered in an e documentary about
Studio fifty four. Steve went all out for that. They
had haystacks and horses and donkeys and mules running through
the club. Most of the animals were procured from a
farm in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Isn't that where you're from? No, oh, Cumberland,
never mind.

Speaker 2 (01:51:33):
Yeah, Bucks County is I think closer to Philly. That
might actually be where freaking Taylor Swift is from.

Speaker 1 (01:51:38):
Yeah. We had big wine barrels be filled with corn.
We had a farm wagon we brought in and piled
with hay. We had chickens and a pen. This is
from club associate Rennie Reynolds, who was one of the organizers. Unfortunately,
the guest of honor, Dolly, was less than amused. Dolly
came and was completely freaked out by the number of
people there. Club associate Rennie Reynolds can she had not

(01:52:01):
had a Studio fifty four experience. She was real nervous
about this whole deal and went up to the balcony
and sat up there for a while.

Speaker 3 (01:52:07):
Eew.

Speaker 1 (01:52:08):
She was not a comfortable lady there, all thought of
Studio fifty four making Dolly sad that's yeah, hateful. My
personal favorite Studio fifty four party was the one held
for the premiere of Greece in July nineteen seventy eight.
The organizers turned the venue into rydel High producer Alan

(01:52:28):
Carr recalled in nineteen ninety eight, he walked in and
the hallway was nothing but lockers, high school lockers on
both sides, and then you went into the main part
of the club and they had all these old convertible
cars of the fifties. These were obtained by the aforementioned
Renny Reynolds, the kind of official party gopher guy who
got livestock for Dolly's party. But these vintage autos were

(01:52:49):
a lot harder to come by than farm animals. He said.
I called various places and it was impossible. Nobody wanted
to rent a car to Studio fifty four. So I
found this little autom museum down somewhere in New Jersey,
and they agreed to bring these cars up and six big,
thin classics were parked on the dance floor. But minutes
before showtime and when the doors were supposed to open,

(01:53:10):
the fire marshal threatened to shut it down, citing a
major hazard. Apparently the cars hadn't been drained of gasoline,
so each vehicle had to be taken out onto the
street where its tank was empty. They siphoned out and emptied,
and then pushed back inside by hand. Everything went relatively
smoothly after that, except for one minor incident. There was

(01:53:30):
a nineteen fifty Chevy convertible that got a bit trashed
because people climbed in and burned the seats. Randy said,
so we ended up having to pay for new seats,
but the party was wild. They returned them to the
autom Museum and the guys like, did you guys my cars?
Truman Capoti still in here?

Speaker 2 (01:53:52):
Someone pops out of the trunk like kenjiong in the hangover,
like launched out of it naked. It's Alec Baldwin.

Speaker 1 (01:54:05):
The last major party that was held at Studio fifty
four before Steve Rebell and Ian Schrager arrested for tax evasion,
which we'll discuss shortly, took place on New Year's Eve
nineteen seventy eight. Our dear sweet Rennie Reynolds, the man
responsible for the fifties cars and Dolly's livestock, was tasked
with turning the club into an igloo, he told The
New York Times in twenty twenty. We created walls of

(01:54:28):
ice for the entire main room. The ice company came
with blocks of ice and bags of crushed ice, and
they told me that if you used the crushed ice
between the blocks, it acted like mortar. We backlit the
ice with black light that read as glowing blue. We
had a couple of feet of artificial snow for depth.
When I first walked in, the walls looked kind of frosted,

(01:54:49):
but then they became more beautiful as the outer layers melted.
There was also diamond dust. I used diamond dust a
bunch of times. On any given morning, you could walk
walk along West fifty third Street at the back of
the club and you could see it sparkling. I wasn't sure.
I googled to make sure that wasn't like some kind
of industry set design term for just like random glitter,

(01:55:13):
no literal diamond dust dust shaved from diamonds. Studio fifty
four was known for dropping items down onto the dance floor,
everything from white balloons to ping pong balls and confetti
and feathers, and on New Year's Eve, four tons of
glitter was dropped, leaving a four inch pile. Ian shrey Or,

(01:55:34):
one of the club's co owners, later said, you felt
like you were standing on star dust. People got the
glitter and their hair and their socks. You would see
it in people's home six months later, and you knew
they'd been at Studio fifty four On New Year's Okay, man.

Speaker 2 (01:55:52):
Yeah, just the eternal reply to everything about Studio fifty four.
Now chord suddenly turns into a minor c he gravelly
voiced behind the music, guy says, but it wasn't all
diamond dust. The downfall of Studio fifty four actually has
its seeds in the opening of the venue in spring

(01:56:13):
of nineteen seventy seven. In the rush of everything they
had to do to get the club open in six weeks,
they declined to get a liquor license since the wait
time was too long. Instead, they just applied for one
day catering permits, which are intended for weddings or parties.
Steve Rubelle and Scheger's company was technically called Broadway Catering Corp.
And as a result, they had to renew the permit

(01:56:35):
every twenty four hours. There is people differ over whether
this was actually illegal, but the State of New York
obviously didn't appreciate it isn't a liquor license in New
York something like fifty thousand dollars.

Speaker 1 (01:56:47):
It's a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:56:48):
Yeah, and Studio fifty four was obviously a little too
visible to bend the rules so flagrantly and publicly. They
also didn't even have a certificate of occupancy or public
assembly license, so they were just tempting fate for three years,
almost three years.

Speaker 1 (01:57:03):
Not even three years. They didn't even make it a
month or what. They screwed this up?

Speaker 2 (01:57:06):
Oh, I thought it was the total lifetime. It took
them less than a month for the good City of
New York Bing Bong to catch up with them. Stephen
Ian simply forgot to apply for their twenty four hour
catering license, much like gay bars in the nineteen sixties.
The authorities had been watching them closely, fully expecting them
to have a slip up of this nature, and the

(01:57:27):
New York State Liquor Authority was ready to bust them
the night that it had occurred. It wasn't just a fine.
The club was invaded by thirty uniformed policemen. They was
so over the top that bartenders assumed that they were
just patrons in village people like costumes until they shut
off the music, turned on the lights, and kicked everyone out.
Rebell and Schreger got arrested, and, as Schreger said, from
that moment on, we became a juice bar. They kept

(01:57:49):
the place open for six months, selling juice while encouraging
people to secretly bring their own bottles and mix themselves.

Speaker 1 (01:57:56):
Alcohol was actually not on the list of the.

Speaker 2 (01:57:59):
Highest and substances at Studio fifty four. The studio continued
serving non alcoholic drinks exclusively until Justice for the New
York Supreme Court ordered the New York State Liquor Authority
to grant Studio fifty four a liquor licensed that October.
The liquor board, God, there's so many acronyms. The NYSLA

(01:58:20):
chairman's it's the New York State Liquors Or. State Liquor
Authority complied with the Supreme Court ruling, but objected to it,
claiming that the judge had been influenced by Studio fifty
four's upscale clientele. But this was all only a preamble
to an incident. On December fourteenth, nineteen seventy eight, when
the club was raided by dozens of IRS agents with

(01:58:42):
a warrant to investigate claims of fraud and income tax
evasion in case the catering license anecdote didn't make this clear.
Rubel and Schreeger were bad at being criminals, and even
worse blatantly obvious about it. They openly bragged about the
club's income, with Rubel saying during a TV interview, what
the I R s doesn't know won't hurt them. What

(01:59:04):
a fucking idiot. It is really amazing. How like that's
like just man, the Dunning Kruger effect. Just dumb people
just living their best life out of vainglorious arrogance.

Speaker 1 (01:59:20):
Oh, it gets worse.

Speaker 2 (01:59:22):
If you go to Harvard, they tell you not to
do this stuff. They paid eight thousand dollars in taxes
that year after taking in multiple millions. Rubel also gave
an interview to New York Magazine in which he said
profits are astronomical.

Speaker 1 (01:59:41):
Only the mafia does better.

Speaker 2 (01:59:43):
This proved to be the literal straw that broke the
camel's back, and that it also probably did some cocaine
through because a copy of that article was literally sent
to the IRS with the quote underlined. Supposedly, a disgruntled
former employee of this video contacted the IRS and told
them that Rubelle and Schreger were skimming money and they

(02:00:04):
were narrative voice shaker. In one year, they grossed.

Speaker 1 (02:00:10):
Three million and skimmed two point five million off the top,
hiding their tracks with the classic two sets of books.
Trick skimming, for those of you who've never seen a
mob movie, is when money is taken home and not
reported to the IRS to pay taxes on the.

Speaker 2 (02:00:25):
Only problem was that they hid a tremendous amount of
undeclared cash on the premises, which isn't good when you're
being investigated, since that tends to be the first place
the IRS will look dipshits. Nightclubs are cash. Nightclubs are
cash industry, and they had so many bills in their
bar regis that would overflow and they literally couldn't close it,

(02:00:49):
so they'd take the cash out every hour or so
to empty it. Steve Bell wore a huge puffer coat
that he had lined with cash, like a kid smuggling
suits out of a candy shop. Each morning, massive portions
of the previous night's take would be stuffed in garbage
bags and hidden above ceiling panels, eventually smuggled home to
Rebel's apartment and concealed in a secret room. All in all,

(02:01:12):
it wasn't smart to openly brag about your egregious and
poorly concealed crimes, and when one of their disgruntled ex
employees tipped off the RS, the probable cause was quite probable.
Studio fifty four was rated at nine thirty am on
December fourteenth, nineteen seventy eight, somewhere between thirty and forty

(02:01:33):
IRS agents knocked on the door, which was opened by
the cleaning guy. Ian Schreeger showed up, was found to
be in possession of an envelope of cocaine and was
promptly arrested. In addition to finding large amounts of drugs
and cash and garbage bags stuffed above the ceiling panels,
the IRS came across two sets of books, one for
the IRS and one for the three partners. They would

(02:01:54):
literally write skim or sk which.

Speaker 1 (02:01:58):
Was helpful for the IRS.

Speaker 2 (02:02:00):
Ultimately, the books revealed that they'd taken eighty percent of
the club's earnings. Schreger called it the Richard Nixon of skims.
Rubelle apparently felt the same way. He greeted news cameras
that day with a gleeful I feel like the President.
This was one of the biggest busts in IRS history.
One hundred thousand dollars in cash was found in the

(02:02:21):
trunk of Steve's car and nine hundred thousand in a
safety deposit box at citibank. These financial books also contained
detailed entries for party favors for guests, which, as we'll discuss,
led to some hilarious revelations. The books literally outlined exactly
who was being given which drugs, and the FEDS also
found hundreds of thousands of party favors drugs in a

(02:02:45):
safe in the club's basement. What had begun as an
investigation at tax evasion quickly spiraled into multiple felonies, and
yet Rubel and Schreger's hutzpah was undimmed. When one of
the IRS agents at the US Attorney's Office asked Rubell
if they'd let him into Studio fifty four if they
saw him waiting on the street, Steve replied, Nah, you're

(02:03:06):
one of the gray people.

Speaker 1 (02:03:09):
The way you got to admire that to have just
a fraction of that confidence in anything I do. This
is one of my favorite stories of this episode. One
of the many revelations found in the Party Favors book
was a hilariously petty move on the part of the

(02:03:30):
Studio fifty four owners. In August nineteen seventy eight, Steve
Rebill celebrated Andy Warhol's fiftieth birthday by presenting him with
a garbage can filled with one thousand dollars in crisp
new one dollar bills. Warhol told his friends that it
was the best present he'd ever received. In one especially
playful moment, his friends tipped the garbage can over Warhol's

(02:03:53):
head and showered him with the cash. He was not
amused and got down on his hands and knees in
a desperate attempt to collect all the bills.

Speaker 3 (02:04:02):
Studio fifty four.

Speaker 1 (02:04:02):
His bookies kept meticulous records of all these gifts, and
after these records were seized by the irs, New York
Magazine published a list of these party favors, and Warhol
was shocked to discover that his pale of cash only
contained eight hundred dollars and not a full thousands like
he was told. Warhol colleague Bob Cachello wrote in his memoir,

(02:04:26):
Andy's first reaction was, you mean they told me there
was one thousand dollars in there and there was only
eight hundred. Oh I knew I should have counted it.

Speaker 2 (02:04:36):
H true.

Speaker 1 (02:04:37):
Pittsburgh legend money before arc stevervilla And and Schrager spent
a night in jail and will release the next morning
on fifty thousand dollars bail apiece worked out by their lawyer,
the legendary Roy Kohane, familiar to drama fans for being

(02:04:58):
a character in play right Tony Kushner's epic Angels in
America and No Fixer Well. He might have been Trump's
lawyer in the eighties. He's probably one of the most
famous lawyers of all time. He was known as the
legal Executioner. He was the man who'd sent the Rosenbergs,
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg to the electric chair in the fifties,
and served as Senator Joe McCarthy's personal pit bowl during

(02:05:21):
the Great Red Scare of the fifties before going on
to be a lawyer for a number of heavy duty
mob guys. Rebel and s Traeger were close to Roy Cone,
even socially they threw him a birthday party at Studio
fifty four, sending out invites that looked like subpoenas, which
I appreciate. So this partially explains why the Studio fifty
four guys acted with such impunity. With roy Cone on

(02:05:43):
their side, they basically felt like gods. But they also
put their schems money to good use because roy Cone
was apparently just one of This might have been an exaggeration,
but I've seen this number sided thirty seven lawyers that
the owners of Studio fifty four hired to defend them.
This included the guy who put Jimmy Hoffer in prison,

(02:06:05):
the man who represented Attorney General John Mitchell at the
Watergate trial, and to others. In an effort to get
their clients out of this self created mess, they took
the novel approach of going after the presidential administration, which
is the legal equivalent of drop kicking a hornet's nest.
They alleged that Jimmy Carter's White House Chief of Staff,

(02:06:27):
Hamilton Jordan, had been one of the VIPs to partake
in cocaine in Studio fifty four's basement, Though, as an
article in People Magazine read at the time, not even
Jordan's defenders deny his reputation as a party guer. This
strategy backfired. No charges were brought against Hamilton Jordan, and
now the President's office, the highest office in the land,

(02:06:47):
was pissed at Rebel and Trager. George blue voyce, I
have the worst attorneys. Why would you do that? Why
I pick a fight with Yeah, you already have no
leverage at all, Oh man, I don't know. On June

(02:07:07):
twenty eighth, nineteen seventy nine, a grand jury indicted Rebel
and s Traeger on twelve counts, including fraud, tax evasion,
obstruction of justice, and conspiracy. One of the prosecutors couldn't
believe that they had tried to get away was skimming
eighty percent of their revenue, he said in a twenty
seventeen documentary. In the thirty three months they were doing it,

(02:07:28):
I think there was a skim of two point five
or three million dollars, an astronomical amount of skim, which
was ridiculous. If you're gonna skim, skim ten twenty percent,
not eighty. They were being pigs about it. Maybe the
RS guy was like, Okay, we know this happens, but yeah, Jesus,
this was a bridge too far. Yeah, Rebel and Schrager

(02:07:48):
was sentenced to three and a half years in prison,
plus a fine of twenty thousand dollars. This was a
very long sentence for first time offenders, but public sympathy
was largely not in their favor, especially after what jerks
they'd been to people on the street.

Speaker 2 (02:08:04):
All right, like yeah again, unbridled hubris, Yes people, people
clapping as your wax wings felt, and Melton, you've fall
into the sea.

Speaker 1 (02:08:14):
The overall sense was that these guys finally got what
was coming to them. But before they were sent down river,
they were determined to throw one final party, an epic
going away bash that they intended to be the best
party Studio fifty four had ever seen. Set for the
evening of February second, just two days before they were
two to start their prison sentence. The final blowout was

(02:08:36):
billed as the end of modern day Gomorrah. The event
list featured two thousand of Studio fifty four's most faithful,
including Richard gear Halston, Jack Nicholson, Reggie Jackson, Calvin Kleine,
Andy Warhol, who I guess forgave them for the short
two dollars and as Yeah, Sylvester Stallone, who I can't

(02:09:00):
really imagine. At fifty four and Laurna left, Diana Ross
serenaded the owners from the DJ booth, and Laura's sister
Liza Minelli saying New York, New York to them. Steve
Rebell got into the Sinatra spirit by wearing a fedora
and playing My Way over and over and over again,
along with I Will Survive, both of which he drunkenly

(02:09:21):
warbled along to. He also gave a speech from a
mechanical platform high above the dance floor, hilariously framing his
nightclub and subsequent's financial fraud as a noble act. Steve
was coked out of his mind, remembered one in attendance.
Bianca was hugging him and he was saying, I love
you people. I don't know what I'm going to do

(02:09:43):
without studio, and everyone was crying and weeping. The moon
with the spoon came down and everyone cheered as Steve
kept playing My Way and I Will Survive over and
over until the dawn came hunting. Whatever happened to the moon,
I don't know, believe me, I've looked into it. I

(02:10:05):
know that hard Rock bought. There was a Sun that
didn't have any drug paraphernalia with it. I actually interviewed
one of the hard Rock cafe historians and they said
that hard Rock decline to purchase the Moon with a spoon.

Speaker 2 (02:10:20):
I don't know where it is now. I'd very much
like to know if you were a loved one. The
morning after the party ended, Rebel and Schreger were taken
to Manhattan's Downtown Correctional Facility, the d Rigger spot for
New York's hottest white collar criminals, where Jeffrey Epstein is
found dead allegedly of suicide nearly forty years later. The

(02:10:42):
Rebel and Schreeger vowed to keep Studio fifty four open
while they served their time. It immediately became apparent that
things were not the same. Their legal and financial problems
also continued to mount. After the IRS bus, it became
open season on the pair, and as soon as judges
saw Studio fifty four in the briefings, it was basically
an open and shut case. Some people even sued because
the dorman had been mean to them. They lost their

(02:11:05):
liquor license because the state of New York doesn't give
them to convicted felons, and with all their offenses, it
would cost somewhere in the neighborhood of a million dollars
in insurance each year to keep the place open. Ultimately,
they sold Studio fifty four while they were in prison,
despite Rebel's insistence that he never would. One of the
people interested in buying Studio fifty four was reportedly Dick Clark,
which lol lmao. After a lot of complicated legal wrangling,

(02:11:30):
the likes of which is not very interesting, the club
wound up in the control of restaurant tour Mark Fleischmann,
who did the deal with Rubel and Scheger in jail
for four point seventy five million. They would stay on
as glorified consultants, but their involvement from then on was minimal.
Fleischman was quoted as saying, I just wanted to make
the place look straight and make it look reasonable and
not so far out and not so illegal looking, thus

(02:11:53):
robbing it of all of its appeal.

Speaker 1 (02:11:56):
But also a fairly low bar for a club owner.
True tru two things canna be true at the same time.

Speaker 2 (02:12:02):
Yeah, everyone agreed that it had lost its luster, both
because it lacked the audacity of Rebel and Schreger and
you know, changing tastes as the me decade turned into
the yuppie eighties. Case in Point, nineteen eighty two, radical
social activist Jerry Rubin started hosting Business Networking Salons, a
networking event for business people at the club on Wednesday nights.

(02:12:23):
Jerry Rubin one of the original yippies alongside Abbey hobby.

Speaker 1 (02:12:28):
Oi.

Speaker 2 (02:12:30):
Prospective guests would only be admitted if they had a
business card, which is not a bit from American Psycho,
but sure seems like one disco had died at the
dawn of the eighties and hip New Yorkers now looked
downtown for their nightlife. Studio fifty four passed through a
handful of owners, and by nineteen eighty nine it was
a shell of its former self, with peeling paint and
a dropped ceiling covering the famous dome. It's like that

(02:12:53):
CVS on green Point Avenue, that is, or Manhattan Avenue
in green Point that used to be a disco.

Speaker 1 (02:12:58):
I just walked by. Yes, it's been like completely redone sad.

Speaker 2 (02:13:03):
Oh were they maybe making it into or are it's
still a CVS or they're making it in No, it's.

Speaker 1 (02:13:07):
Like it's like a shell. Now it's just like it
looks like a building facade. You can like look all
the way through it.

Speaker 3 (02:13:12):
Now.

Speaker 1 (02:13:13):
They cleared it out, they gutted it and said ultimately.

Speaker 2 (02:13:16):
Studio fifty four was leased to the owners of the
Ritz Nightclub, who relocated their club there, and clubs have
operated at the venue under various names until nineteen ninety six,
when it underwent a conversion back to a theater, which
it has been since nineteen ninety eight.

Speaker 1 (02:13:29):
It is currently gearing up for production of the.

Speaker 2 (02:13:31):
New musical Days of Wine and Roses, a bittersweet coda
and then Everyone Died. Steve and Ian were released from
prison in April of nineteen eighty one after serving just
fourteen months. They'd been given a reduced sentence in exchange
for cooperating with the government and other tax evasion cases,
in short, turning rat a classic Roy Khan defense technique.

(02:13:54):
This was also the guy who helped preside over the
House Investigation American activities in the nineteen fifties, and as
a result, their reputation took a hit. The prison sentence
probably didn't help ether They tried their hand at opening
another club down on fourteenth Street called the Palladium. It
did become a popular hotspot for new wave acts and
downtown New York artists like Boscot and Keith Herring, but

(02:14:17):
the exuberant hedonism of the disco era was hampered by
the scourge of AIDS, which decimated the scene that had
hung out at Studio fifty four. It claimed the lives
of at least half of the bartenders and most of
the set designers, not to mention many of the guests.
Halston diedes of complication from AIDS, as did Studio fifty
four's notorious attorney, Roy Kahan, so did the club's host,

(02:14:37):
Joe Remy, and ultimately so did Steve Rubel, who died
in July nineteen eighty nine at the age of forty five.
Rubelt was closeted most of his life, and his cause
of death was reported at the time as hepatitis and
septic shock. He was given the diagnosis by his brother,
a physician, and they agreed not to tell their parents
and by extension, the public, the truth. His funeral featured

(02:14:59):
miniature velvet ropes, which, fitting his gravestone, is emblazoned with
the phrase the quintessential New Yorker Ian Schrager meanwhile became
one of the premier developers of hotels in the country,
and on January seventeenth, twenty seventeen, he received a presidential
pardon from President Barack Obama.

Speaker 1 (02:15:25):
This country a bizarre end to a bizarre story. In America,
your ability to throw a good party trumpsaw.

Speaker 3 (02:15:37):
You know.

Speaker 1 (02:15:37):
I touched on this at the start of the episode.
I have to admit my feelings about Studio fifty four
shifted the more I learned about it for this episode. Initially,
I thought this was just gonna be an excuse to
tell tales of absurd and off obscene, decadentes and depravity
among the rich and obnoxious.

Speaker 3 (02:15:52):
And we had that.

Speaker 1 (02:15:52):
We certainly had that, especially especially in the last hour.
But learning about the scenes roots in the post Stone
Wall law parties and seeing what a haven fifty four
was for an extremely wide demographic of often disenfranchised people
made me rethink a lot of my cynical preconceptions about
the club and dis misiviews of disco. It may have

(02:16:13):
been naive and irresponsible, but for many, Studio of fifty
four was emblematic of an all too fleeting era of
freedom without fear, fear of legal persecution, fear of sexual diseases,
fear of drug addictions, fear of social judgment, and all
the insanity was an offshoot of that giddy, giddy feeling
before the advent of AIDS, crack and the social regressions

(02:16:35):
of Reagan's America. Journalist Michael Musto ends an e true
Hollywood story doc on Studio fifty four by saying, we
knew it couldn't last forever. It had doom written on
every piece of glitter. Nothing that fabulous could last forever, right,
Housto just got mustad, folks, And Bianca Jagger was there

(02:17:07):
on a horse, and the horse was also present. That
horse got turned into.

Speaker 2 (02:17:13):
Glue use on the envelope to the subpoena Sunrise, Sunset,
the Circle of Life and so forth. Folks, thank you
for listening. This has been too much information.

Speaker 1 (02:17:28):
I'm Alex Heigel and I'm Jordan Runtalg. We'll get you
next time. Too Much Information was a production of iHeart Radio.
The show's executive producers are Noel Brown and Jordan Runtalk.
The show's supervising producer is Michael Alder.

Speaker 2 (02:17:46):
June, the show was researched, written and hosted by Jordan
run Talk and Alex Heigel.

Speaker 1 (02:17:50):
With original music by Seth Applebaum and the Ghost Funk Orchestra.
If you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave
us a review. For more podcasts on iHeartRadio, visit the
iHeartRadio you app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.

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Studio 54: Everything You Didn't Know

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