Rodney Bingenheimer's English Disco
Address | 7561 W. Sunset Boulevard (Oct 1972-Dec 1975) 7561 Sunset Boulevard Los Angeles, California United States |
---|---|
Type | Nightclub |
Opened | 1972 |
Closed | 1975 |
Rodney Bingenheimer's English Disco was a Los Angeles nightclub located at 7561 Sunset Boulevard on the Sunset Strip from late 1972 until early 1975. It catered to the glam rock movement. The club was infamous for widespread drug use and hosting underage girls at parties, but it was also a popular spot among rockstars, including Cherie Currie, Joan Jett, and Iggy Pop.
Early background
In late 1971, music industry publicist Rodney Bingenheimer moved to London after becoming fed up with the American music industry. While in England he saw the birth of the glam rock movement and David Bowie suggested Bingenheimer open a glam club in Los Angeles. In October 1972, Bingenheimer and his record producer partner Tom Ayres opened the E Club at 8171 Sunset Boulevard, which is next to the Chateau Marmont,[1] at the start of the Sunset Strip. In late December, they moved the club away from the strip to 7561 Sunset Boulevard with the new name, Rodney Bingenheimer's English Disco. Kim Fowley later recalled, "The English Disco was more a public-toilet version of the E Club. The new location gave it the teenage stench it needed. Everybody had great hair and great make-up, and there were Lolita girls everywhere. People worked at it."[2] It soon became the center of the new glitter rock movement in Los Angeles. Bowie biographers Henry Edwards and Tony Zanetta noted, "The crowd at the club ranged in age from twelve to fifteen... nymphet groupies were stars in their tight little world. Some dressed like Shirley Temple; others wore dominatrix outfits or 'Hollywood underwear,' a knee-length shirt, nylon stockings, and garter belts. These stargirls streaked their hair chartreuse and like to lift their skirts to display their bare crotches. As they danced they mimed fellatio and cunnilingus in tribute to David's onstage act of fellatio on Ronno's guitar."[2]
Peak
In November 1973 writer Richard Cromelin reported, "Once inside, everybody's a star. The social rules are simple but rigid: All you want to hear is how fabulous you look, so you tell them how fabulous they look. You talk about how bored you are, coming here night after night, but that there’s no place else to go. If you're not jaded there's something wrong. It's good to come in very
In 1987 Pamela Des Barres wrote, "...they called me awful names at Rodney Bingenheimer's English Disco, old being the most popular odious declaration of loathing. I let them get to me; they told me I was over the hill, and I looked in the mirror, inspecting my twenty-five-year-old face for early stages of decrepitness. The most hideous of these tartlets was Sable Starr.[5] She thought she invented nipples and pubic hair."[6]
Newsweek magazine reported in January 1974 that "The dance floor is a dizzy kaleidoscope of lamè hotpants, sequined halters, rhinestone-studded cheeks, thrift-store anythings and see-through everythings. During the breaks, 14-year-old girls on 6-inch platforms teeter into the back bathrooms to grope with their partners of the moment. Most of the sex is as mixed as the drinks and the drugs the kids bring with them.[7] Twenty years later, author Pleasant Gehman recalled, "I was in the age group of people who were sophisticated enough to be experimenting with drugs and sex, but way below the age to legally be participating in any of this debauchery. Not only that, it being the Swingin' '70s and all, our very sexuality was one big, fat gray area. Most of us couldn’t decide if we were gay, straight, or bi – and nobody was really keeping tabs, either. Our adventurous spirit actually fit in with the prevalent freewheeling attitude of the time, and mixed with the handfuls of pills we were taking, as well as the Olde English 800s we guzzled in back alleys, it made sexual classifications totally irrelevant.[8] A Newsweek reporter wrote, "Young men who dress like transvestites but almost invariably maintain that they are straight. 'I may dress flash, but I’m no faggot,' sniffs 18-year-old Kenny (Doll) Malloy, sporting a Lurex halter and tight satin pants. 'I do, however, think you’re simply stunning,' he added to Newsweek’s Peter S. Greenberg. Adds Chuck Starr, a 17-year-old prep-school student: 'I'm the No. 1 male groupie in the United States. Last year I had a thing with Mick Jagger. But it wasn’t a physical thing—it was all mental. Me and Mick just lay there and talked all night. 'I'm not gay or bisexual. I’m just glamorous.'"[7] Cromelin also noted at the time, "There are two distinct modes operating at Rodney’s. The more obvious is the extreme narcissism. The kids dress up so painstakingly not to be admired by their friends, but so they may admire themselves. Even if they ostensibly have a partner on the dance floor, each glistening form is alone, drinking in his or her own image that fades to faceted infinity in the three mirrored walls that surround the floor, fading like the British single whose last distant note will be instantly overwhelmed by the opening bass of the next song before silence is allowed to. At this first level there’s no interest in hustling or in picking up, but there’s plenty of that coexisting. After all, this is Hollywood, where self-furtherance permeates the air like the smog".[4] The house band were Zolar X, who claimed to be alien and sang in their own language.
In 1989, former
Decline
By the fall of 1974, glitter rock was waning in popularity. In October a "Death of Glitter" night was held at the
Partnership and licensing problems led Rodney Bingenheimer's English Disco to close in early 1975.
References
- ISBN 978-0-87930-943-5. Retrieved 29 June 2017.
- ^ a b Edwards, Henry and Zanetta, Tony. Stardust: The David Bowie Story, New York, Bantam Books, 1987
- ^ Trynka, Paul, Iggy Pop: open up and bleed, p 142
- ^ a b Cromelin, Richard with Pile, Susan and Tereba, Tere, Rodney’s: Dali’s Holograph of Alice Cooper Could Not Be More Bizarre Than Rodney Bingenheimer's English Disco (interview), November 1973
- ^ Note:Sable Starr, born Sable Hay Shields on 15 August 1957, died on 17 April 2009 of cancer.www.themusicsover.wordpress.com/2009/.../17/sable-starr/
- ^ Des Barres, Pamela, I'm With the Band: Confessions of a Groupie, New York, Beech Tree Books (William Morrow and Company), 1987.
- ^ a b Greenberg, Peter S, "Clockwork Rodney’s," Newsweek, 7 January 1974
- ^ a b Gehman, Pleasant, "Just a Crazy Little Place: Sweet Memories of the Sugar Shack," BAM, 24 March 1995, p 14
- ^ Currie, Cherie and Shusterman, Neal, Neon Angel: The Cherie Currie Story, Los Angeles, Price Stern Sloan, 1989
- ^ a b Hoskyns, Barney, Waiting for the Sun: Strange Days, Weird Scenes, and the Sound of Los Angeles, New York, St. Martin’s Press, 1996
- ^ Kent, Nick, The Dark Stuff: Selected Writings On Rock Music 1972–1995, New York, Da Capo Press, 1995
- ^ McDonell, Evelyn and Powers, Ann, Ed. Rock She Wrote: Women Write about rock, pop, and rap, New York, Cooper Square Press, 1999
- ^ Loud, Lance, "Los Angeles 1972–74: Glam rock loses its virginity," Details, July 1992
- ^ Des Barres, Pamela, Take Another Little Piece of My Heart: A Groupie Grows Up, New York, William Morrow and Company, 1992.
- ^ Bockris, Victor and Buell, Bebe, Rebel Heart: An American Rock ‘n’Roll Journey, New York, St. Martin’s Press, 2001
- Westwood, Los Angeles, Californiaon September 26, 1975