Mudd Club
The Mudd Club was a well-known nightclub in the Tribeca area of New York that had existed since 1978. The owner Steve Mass reopened the club in 2001 in Berlin-Mitte .
history
new York
The club was opened in October 1978 by publicist Steven Mass, art curator Diego Cortez and singer Anya Philips. It was in an attic apartment at 77 White Street in Manhattan that belonged to the artist Ross Bleckner. It was named after Samuel Mudd , a doctor who treated John Wilkes Booth after his assassination attempt on Abraham Lincoln . Mass says the nightclub was started with just $ 15,000 in start-up capital. In order to get a license, it was declared a cabaret before the opening.
The club had a bar, gender-neutral toilets, and a revolving gallery on the fourth floor. There were live concerts in the genres of punk , new wave and experimental music.
The club quickly became a fixture on the New York underground scene. He had a reputation for being hip, often elitist. Many budding cult figures from Manhattan met here, such as the artists Jean-Michel Basquiat , Keith Haring and Nan Goldin , and the musicians David Byrne , Arto Lindsay , Lydia Lunch and Klaus Nomi .
The Ramones mentioned the Mudd Clubb in their song The Return of Jackie and Judy , as did the Talking Heads in their song Life During Wartime (1979). Frank Zappa made fun of the club in a song called Mudd Club , which appeared on his album You Are What You Is .
Many hip-hop pioneers such as Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash also frequented this club around 1980. A graffiti artist from the Bronx, named Fab Five Freddy, knew the people in the club and was commissioned by them to throw a hip-hop party, whereupon he brought the crème de la crème of the then still young hip-hop culture to the club got. Inspired by the different styles that came together in the Mudd Club, Afrika Bambaataa released the single "Planet Rock" in 1982, using a sample by the German band "Kraftwerk".
Berlin
In 2001 Steve Mass reopened the club on Große Hamburger Strasse in Berlin-Mitte . Until the club closed in 2008 for construction work, smaller independent bands often performed here .
Web links
- Mudd Club: From Soho to Mitte (Tagesspiegel, April 3, 2001)