MADONNA NAME CHECKS HALF OF 80s DOWNTOWN NYC –(*NOTED ARE MY ASSOCIATIONS)

Danceteria is one of Madonna’s most talked-about songs on Confessions II and it name-checks a LOT of my friends & Downtown legends. Everyone is doing their remembrance of the club and those folks, so not to be out, here are mine.

Martin’s artwork & design for Madonna’s first single, Burnin’ Up/ Physical Attraction

‘Meet this boy called Martin Burgoyne, he’s my best friend, he’s my Boy Toy…

Madonna’s number one guy, her bestie and first manager, graphic artist and cutie, Martin Burgoyne. I knew Martin a bit, mostly when I saw him on the street or at the Pyramid. He designed Madonna’s single album sleeve for Burnin’ Up/ Physical Attraction and created the artwork from Photo Booth pictures he shot of her, so .

Martin & Berns Fry (Polaroid x Trey Speegle)

Martin was HIV positive and Madonna’s career took off around this time too. We had a benefit at the Pyramid for him that Keith designed, I think it was the only time I sort of halfway met Madonna, was at that benefit. Keith had just come back from Madonna’s wedding (he took Andy Warhol as his date) and I remember him showing me his pictures from it in the dressing room that night, it was front page news worldwide. Martin died the next Fall. He was 23. Madonna was devastated. We all were.

Marin & Keith, photo Andy Warhol

‘Cut to the front, there’s Haoui Montaug…’

Haoui Montaug was THE doorman of the day and my boyfriend in the early 80s. At every other club, you’d hear people yelling at the velvet rope, “Haoui! Haoui! He hosted a night called “No Entiendes” referenced in the song, “I don’t think you understand this. Madonna performed for the first time at Danceteria and Haoui introduced her.

Everybody loved Haoui. He was smart, charming funny.

But Haoui was HIV positive too and after being diagnosed with AIDS, he announced to friends he was having a “suicide party” to say goodbye. I heard it was happening and I used to live in that loft with him where that party was held. I have to say, I was mad at him and all his friends who went at the time, for letting him leave the party so early, so to speak. But in fairness, at the time, being diagnosed as being HIV positive WAS a death sentence. Madonna was reported to have attended the farewell fete by phone. He took his his own life the following morning. He was 39.

‘Get on the elevator, I run into Debi Mazar…’

Debi M & Keith (Polaroid x Maripol)

Another person everyone loved and still loves, Debi Mazar or as she was known then, Debi M. She was younger than all of us, not by that much but I think she started going out at 15-16, and wasn’t much older when she was working the elevator at Danceteria.

For all you kids, you might ask, “Why was she running the elevator?” Well, this was a manual elevator which was in many building for YEARS (some still exist in doorman buildings, but on of the reasons besides being a fortune to install a modern automatic elevator is that it providied a job, which was unionized.

With Debi at Artwalk, Coalition for the Homeless where my work was auctioned & Debi spoke in 2019

Debi was (and is) a fab makeup artist and did Madonna’s makeup in the early days. After they had been friends for years, Debi auditioned for Scorsese and was cast in Goodfellas but Madonna had lined her up to do her makeup for her Blonde Ambition tour so Madonna told her NO, she was already booked. Debi turned the part down but as fate would have it, the actress they hired couldn’t do the part and they came back to Debi and then she told Madonna she was taking the part. The role changed her life.

Since those early Danceteria days, Debi’s screen credits have included Malcolm X to the TV series Younger and more and they are still friends and vacation together. I honestly credit Debi with being one of her close friends that’s kept her real through out the decades. Btw, she’s the only person name-checked in Danceteria who also appears in the video.

A Still from the Danceteria video with our Debi M…

‘There’s Fab 5 Freddy…’

Fab 5 Freddy (Fred Brathwaite) is a pioneer in the hip-hop scene, and has been repeatedly name-checked, most noteably in Blondie’s Rapture in 1981, too, he also together the film Wild Style with Patti Astor and wenton to become a VJ for MTV’s flagship hip-hop show.

‘…and Basquiat…’

With Jean Michel in ‘83 (Polaroid x Maripol)

Jean Michel and Madonna dated in 1982, just before they both broke through. His continued use of hard drugs was what ultimately led to the end of their relationship and his own life.

“He wouldn’t stop doing heroin. He was an amazing man and deeply talented. I loved him.”

After their split, Jean made her return two paintings that he’d given to her. She heard later that he’d painted over them in black paint.

Jean died of a heroin overdose in 1988. He was 27.

‘…Keith Haring…’

Keith Haring in a custom Stephen Sprouse tux at his Party of Life in 1984. Dress by Sprouse and urn by Keith. (Polaroid collage, Trey Speegle)

Keith with one of his urns, a sculpture and an early painting circa 1984. (Photo from my scrapbook)

Keith and Madonna were tight from the beginning. I met Keith when he was a bus boy at the first Danceteria in the Summer of 1980. He had just painted a mural at the club over the stairs.

His meteoric rise sort of mirrored Madonna’s. At his first party of life in 1984, she sang Like a Virgin from a bed. I’d have pictures but I ran out of Polaroid film before she went on.

I was at Vanity Fair as a designer in the art dept around this time and suggested Keith for a cover and it ended up happening.

Keith died of AIDS in 1990 at the age of 32. In 2023, Keith was among the figures included in Madonna’s tribute to those lost to AIDS on her Celebration world tour, along with Martin.

‘Kenny Scharf… Everyone came from Shafrazi –
Sha-fra-zi, to the beat…’

I met Kenny Scharf when he was sharing a loft with Keith when I first came to town and have known him ever since. Tony Shafrazi showed Keith’s work as well as Jean Michel & Kenny Scharf’s. It’s funny she named-checked Tony because for years, his defacing Picasso’s Guernica was the reason Keith’s work wasn’t in MoMA. The last time I saw him was the Club 57 show at MoMA. In more recent years, Shafrazi’s name is mud in the art world because of his vocal support of Trump. Enough said.

Kenny Scharf & Tony Shafrazzi (with early Scharf’s in the background) at MoMA’s Club 57 exhibit in 2017. (Photo, Trey Speegle)

‘There’s Maripol…’

Me in a mask with Maripol at Club 57 opening at MoMA in 2017.

Maripol. She was Madonna’s bestie in the early days and styled her with her rubber bracelets, wedding dresses and ripped jeans. I first met Maripol in 1980 when she was a salesperson at Fiorucci. French, funny, and tough as nails, you don’t fuck with Maripol unless you want a fight.

She styled Madonna’s first two album covers, the music videos for Burning Up and Like A Virgin, and her first, The Virgin Tour. Since those days she’s continued taking her amazing Polaroids (she has several books and has exhibited through the world) and is just as tough as ever. I need to check in to see if she’s talked with Madonna lately…

Madonna x Maripol

‘…and a guy named Fred’

OK, I’m kinda stumped. The song name-checks Fab 5 Freddy and The B-52s’ frontman is Fred Schneider, but quite who the mysterious “guy named Fred” is supposed to be is up for debate. A fan on Reddit suggested it’s photographer Fred Seidman, who shot Madonna’s for The Village Voice years before she made it big. Who knows.

With Kenny & Fred Schneider at my 50th birthday party

With Kate Pierson & Angel Zimick (& Kenny) at my birthday party in NYC.

‘...the B-52s had money to burn’

Yes, the B-52s were stars before Madonna and so she considered them “established” which is probably why Madonna says they “had money to burn”. I know them both for years and they are known to be quite frugal, but Fred thought it was funny and posted on Instagram a mention with “Ha Ha Ha…”

‘Lounge Lizards had so much style…’

Dressed in their 40’s and fifties suits and ties they were stylin’ those lizards.

‘Lower East Side, take a walk on the wild side…’

Not referenced by name, Madonna’s “take a walk on the wild side” is a nod to Lou Reed’s hit where he name-checks, Jackie Curtis, Holly Woodlawn, Joe Dallesandro and Candy Darling, Warhol factory superstars.

Then she sings “do do do do do do” section of Take A Walk On The Wild Side. And Lou Reed is credited as a co-writer on Danceteria, for legal purposes –allegedly!

(via Interview, HuffPost UK)