Preface ix
Acknowledgments xvii
Introduction 1
Part I. 1980: The Recalibration of Disco
1. Stylistic Coherence Didn't Matter at All 11
2. The Basement Den at Club 57 30
3. Danceteria: Midtown Feels the Downtown Storm 48
4. Subterranean Dance 60
5. The Bronx-Brooklyn Approach 73
6. The Sound Became More Real 92
7. Major-Label Calculations 105
8. The Saint Peter of Discos 111
9. Lighting the Fuse 122
Part II. 1981: Accelerating Toward Pluralism
10. Explosion of Clubs 135
11. Artistic Maneuvers in the Dark 155
12. Downton Configures Hip Hop 170
13. The Sound of a Transcendent Future 184
14. The New Urban Street Sound 199
15. It Wasn't Rock and Roll and It Wasn't Disco 210
16. Frozen in Time or Freed into Infinity 221
17. It Felt Like the Whole City Was Listening 232
18. Shrouded Abatements and Mysterious Deaths 239
Part III. 1982: Dance Culture Seizes the City
19. All We Had Was the Club 245
20. Inverted Pyramid 257
21. Roxy Music 271
22. The Garage: Everybody Was Listening to Everything 279
23. The Planet Rock Groove 288
24. Techno Funksters 304
25. Taste Segues 314
26. Stormy Weather 320
27. Cusp of an Important Fusion 331
Part IV. 1983: The Genesis of Division
28. Cristal for Everyone 343
29. Dropping the Pretense and the Flashy Suits 369
30. Straighten It Out with Larry Levan 381
31. Stripped-Down and Scrambled Sounds 400
32. We Became Part of This Energy 419
33. Sex and Dying 430
34. We Got the Hits, We Got the Future 438
35. Behind the Groove 449
Epilogue. Life, Death, and the Hereafter 458
Notes 485
Selected Discography 515
Selected Filmography 529
Selected Bibliography 521
Index 537
Tim Lawrence is Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of East London and the author of Love Saves the Day: A History of American Dance Music Culture, 1970–1979 and Hold On to Your Dreams: Arthur Russell and the Downtown Music Scene, 1973–1992, both also published by Duke University Press.
"[O]ffers fresh detail and insight on the clubs, DJs, parties and
recordings that emerged from the scene. He even offers DJ playlists
from different clubs."
- Andy Beta (Wall Street Journal) "The focus here is clearly
music. Mr. Lawrence even includes some D.J. playlists for the
listener to investigate. But Life and Death is more expansive than
that - it takes you deep into a time and place, the
good-old-bad-old-days of pre-Rudolph Giuliani New York, which many
have valorized for some time now. If the 1970s have been thoroughly
examined, the early ’80s have been left relatively unexplored,
and while Mr. Lawrence provides a lot of minutiae, he also delivers
a story with some sweep." - Michaelangelo Matos (New York Times)
"Life and Death provides the most intensive mapping of this brief
era of New York subculture we've yet seen. The book's strength is
its depth of research, drawing on the realtime journalism of
the era as well as many new interviews. The detail is fascinating,
as Lawrence salvages ephemeral events, forgotten people, and lost
places from the fog of faded memory." - Simon Reynolds (Bookforum)
"Tim Lawrence's Life and Death on the New York Dance Floor
1980-1983, the definitive history of that fabled time in the city,
is already taking on the status of a sacred text." - David
Hershkovits (Paper Magazine) "[I]f you have no abiding love for New
York, disco, hip-hop, studio techniques, or fast and dirty
real-estate shuffles-there must be such people,
statistically-perhaps Life and Death on the New York Dance Floor
will not hold you. But if you care for any of those things, and
even if that concern borders on the obsessive, you will benefit
from Lawrence’s investigations."
- Sasha Frere-Jones (The New Yorker) "Reading Life and Death
on the New York Dance Floor as a clubber in the city is to reflect
not only on what’s been lost over the past three decades, but on
how the sounds, events and characters at the center of Lawrence’s
story still influence NYC’s nightlife. . . . [W]hat Life and Death
on the New York Dance Floor makes acutely obvious, as both volume
and prism, is not just the cultural value of the city’s party
scene, but how it also serves as a moral compass – and how it still
can." - Piotr Olov (The Guardian) "Lawrence goes into remarkable
depth to portray this world which, during its few short years,
gained expansive popularity and had a significant impact on art,
film, literature, and culture. His meticulous research, with
details on the leading figures, trends, events, places, and music
that made it all happen, also provides critical/analytical
commentary on the social backdrop of the times, the genesis of the
emerging and eclectic music/dance styles, and the essence of this
artistic renaissance. In addition to the well-selected photographs,
notes, and bibliography, set lists, discographies, and a
filmography add to the title's impressive breadth. Cultural
historians and those familiar with the 1980s milieu will find this
informative and insightful." - Carol J. Binkowski (Library Journal)
"Life & Death defines New York's unnamed era of invention. When Boy
George was nicking from the cloakroom at Blitz, and everyone else
was at The Batcave, this is how it ran in NYC. With hundreds of
interviews, deep research and enlightening playlists, it's almost
as invigorating as being there."
(DJ Magazine) "The cast of characters in the book can be
staggering, the exhaustive accounts overwhelming - Lawrence
interviewed or corresponded with more than 130 people, and he makes
room for their voices - but that's part of the point: He wants a
crowded and motley party. This is a scrupulously researched,
marvelously detailed history." - Megan Pugh (Village Voice)
"Lawrence has mustered convincing evidence for the case that
Madonna was not the most important cultural creation of early 1980s
New York. . . . Lawrence is most convincing when he documents the
remarkable variety and genre-blurring fecundity of sounds available
to tuned-in city dwellers, a diversity that was even more bracing
when contrasted with the monotonous airwaves stifling the rest of
North America." - Robert Anasi (TLS) "Exceptionally accessible (the
author’s passion for his subject shows through on every page; it’s
easy to imagine how his knowledge and genuine interest opened many
a door and got people talking, telling tales recorded here that
might not otherwise have seen the light of day), the raw, new
energy of the city is accurately captured and conveyed. No small
feat.... Seriously, when’s the last time you read a book you could
actually dance to?"
- Tom Cardamone (Lambda Literary Review) "Life and Death on
the New York Dance Floor is a remarkably intense piece of
'community history writing.' It breathes life into an iconic
historical epoch and sociocultural scene without ever retreating
into nostalgia or naive celebration. In fact, there's something
unexpectedly electrifying about reading Lawrence's exceptionally
well-researched historical studies. It is the sensation of remotely
yet meaningfully becoming part of something hitherto only secretly
known. One becomes slowly yet unequivocally aware of how that
specific era's cultural and sociopolitical conditions, so
thoroughly reconstructed in these works, resonate with the current
sense of cultural and political impasse." - Niels Van Tomme (The
Wire) "[A] compelling tale, beautifully told. As one who was
fortunate enough to have landed in New York during this timeframe,
Lawrence does a cracking job capturing a time when even listening
to the city’s black radio stations at noon could change your life.
It was a surreal, magical period of ground-breaking activity which
now seems hard to believe could actually happen at the same time in
the same city. Finally, here’s the proof." - Kris Needs (Record
Collector) "Through a comprehensive and lushly detailed text
stuffed with original photos from dance floors, DJ booths, and
parties, Lawrence imparts the mood, the music, the faces and the
places from that remarkable era, with a nostalgic nod to nights
where 'a new kind of freedom was set to rule the night.' ... Dance
music historians will want this book for reference, while others
who recall these days with a sense of longing will close its covers
and dream of the days when nightlife amounted to a line of cocaine,
a Madonna remix, and a dark, packed dance floor in a basement club
in the Village."
- Jim Piechota (Bay Area Reporter)
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