Night Dancing

Much has been written on the origins of New York City's frenzied nocturnal life and its influence on the evolution of dance music. The subterranean dance floors of clubs such as the Paradise Garage, Studio 54 and The Loft have reached mythical status inspiring countless books on the subject.

Here are our favourite titles, most of which are first hand accounts capturing the essence and substance of the overheated NY dance floors. Taking us on journeys, which go beyond the music, lights and glitter, our selection looks into the life dramas, comedies, tragedies, and the hopes and dreams of men and women who bring their fuel injected energies to dance the night away.

DISCO by Albert Goldman

Disco (Albert Goldman, published by Hawthorn, 1978) is considered to be one of the seminal texts on dance music and the main source from which all other texts about disco were born. Goldman seizes the scene from the multiple perspectives of a musicologist, sociologist and anthropologist. Best known as the biographer for Elvis and John Lennon, Goldman became fascinated with disco after interviewing Frankie Grasso for Penthouse. His extended essay retraces the disco explosion back to its primeval roots drawing comparisons to Venetian Balls from the mid 19th century and other excessive forms of hedonism.

Despite the overriding emphasis on the obvious glamour of clubs such as Studio 54 and Xenon, this book features more important underground clubs such as Crisco Disco and Paradise Garage. The book is jam-packed with an eclectic mix of text, trivia and archive photos, including a four page spread of 22 discotheque entrances, long since forgotten. Bobby Guttadaro, Tom Savarese, Cerrone, Georgio Moroder, Grace Jones, Tom Moulton and David Mancuso are all featured.

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DANCER FROM THE DANCE by Andrew Holleran

Dancer From the Dance (Andrew Holleran, published by William and Morrow Inc, 1978) is a Dante-esque depiction of the frenzied life of gay men caught up in the hedonistic club circuit of 1970s Manhattan and Fire Island. The novel details with brilliant humour the smoke filled discotheques, bars, bathhouses, encounters in the midnight parks of Greenwich Village, and drug fuelled bacchanalian parties on Fire Island. A poetic tribute to the city after the daylight vanishes.

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LOVE SAVES THE DAY by Tim Lawrence

Love Saves the Day (Tim Lawrence, Duke University Press, 2004) is the most authoritative study of American dance music culture between 1970-79, from its subterranean roots in Noho to the glitzy nightclubs of Mid Manhattan. Everyone who has shaped 1970s urban nightlife is interviewed thus incorporating a mix of anecdotal accounts, alongside factual information, extremely rare photographs, 22 special discographies and a general discography detailing over 600 releases.

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HOUSE LEGEND - THE CORE OF DANCE MUSIC

House Legend - The Core of Dance Music (published in Japan, 2002) serves as homage to the pioneers of the New York classic disco and house scenes. Dance Legends such as Timmy Regisford, Frankie Knuckles, Ron Hardy, Larry Levan, David Mancuso, Walter Gibbons, Francois K, Joe Claussell, Lil Louis, Larry Heard and DJ Harvey are all featured in this particularly detailed trainspotter's guidebook. The Discs section at the back of the book offers a must-have listing spanning three decades of classic tracks.

KEEP ON DANCIN' by Mel Cheren

Keep on Dancin' (Mel Cheren, published by 24 Hours for Life Inc, 2000). Don't be off put by the "scientology-esque" cover design, Mel Cheren's autobiography is a moving insightful account of Disco's creation, flamboyant explosion and it's virtual annihilation by AIDS. The founding father of West End Records, self-proclaimed "Godfather of Disco", and key figure behind the Paradise Garage, tells from an insider's perspective, a story of sex, drugs, disco and the birth of DJ culture.

For over a decade the Paradise Garage, was at the apex New York's underground nightlife, spawning a style of music that would become known simply as Garage. The book closes with a list of 300 friends who lost their lives to AIDS and special appendices of West End Records complete discography as well as a list of songs produced and re-mixed by Larry Levan.

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NIGHT DANCIN' by Vita Miezitis

Night Dancin' (Vita Miezitis, Valentine Books, 1980) is probably the most exhaustive survey of New York's clubs in the late 1970s, offering an inside look at the variety of disco experiences to be had in Manhattan and its metropolitan area. Studio 54, Xenon, Sybil's, Ice Palace, 12 West, Paradise Garage, Better Days, Cotton Club, The Fun House, Copacabana, 24K, Soap Factory, Empire, The Mudd Club are all included.

Miezitis' fun text captures the essence of each club through a mixture of insightful anecdotes, interviews and snippets whilst Bill Bernstein's photographs are full of exhibitionists, voyeurs, freaks and hedonists; each photo capturing the variations of movement, dress, pose and attitude particular to each club.

JUNGLE FEVER by Jean Paul Goude

Jungle Fever (Jean Paul Goude, published by Xavier Moreau, 1981). Jean Paul Goude's erotically charged Jungle Fever, published by Xavier Moreau in 1981, indirectly pays homage to the decadent energy of 1970's New York's nightlife. A whole chapter is devoted to his then partner Grace Jones, and his art direction of her seminal 1981 "One Man Show". Another series of images documents, within staged scenarios, the tribes that frequented the dance floors at the time. Jungle Fever is a high-octane collage reflecting Goude's infatuation with the spirit of underground New York.

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DOWNTOWN by Michael Musto

Downtown (Michael Musto, published by Vintage, 1986) was written by scenester and Village Voice contributor Michael Musto, takes off where Night Dancing finishes, and offers a revealing look at the netherworld of Downtown, New York in the post disco years. It offers a unique and witty insider's view to the creative explosion between fashion, art, performance and clubs. It was this inventiveness that created, seminal no wave arenas such as The Palladium, The Pyramid Club, Mudd Club and Max Kansas City. Luminaries of the Lower East Side are featured: Kenny Scharf, Keith Haring, Stephen Sprouse, (a very young) Marc Jacobs, Johnny Dynell, John Sex, Diane Brill to name but a few.

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Disco Bloodbath by James St. James

Disco Bloodbath (James St. James, Simon & Schuster, 1999) serves as an apt epitaph to the culmination of extreme hedonism of New York's club scene. James St. James' novel is a hilarious and vivid true-life account of the outrageous Club Kid's that pranced their way across the dance floors of New York's trendiest clubs in the early 1990s. It details the dizzying excesses of their bizarre, almost surreal universe of abandon, gender bending, decadence and drugs. Most notably focusing on James' friendship with Michael Alig, the self proclaimed King Of Clubs and party promoter extraordinaire, who was convicted in November 1996 for the killing of his drug dealer, Angel.

Text by Conor Donlon
Photography by Ben Benoliel