Miss Marianne Faithfull:

Miss Marianne Faithfull:
(Born December 29, 1946) Songs she inspired: She Smiled Sweetly, Let's Spend The Night Together, She's Like A Rainbow, You Can't Always Get What You Want, Wild Horses, I Got The Blues, 100 Years Ago, Winter

Miss Anita Pallenberg:

Miss Anita Pallenberg:
(Born April 6, 1942) Songs she inspired: You Got The Silver, Sister Morphine (words by Marianne), Wild Horses, Coming Down Again, Angie, Beast Of Burden, All About You

Friday, June 17, 2011

New York Was Such A Pity, But At Max's Kansas City, We Won...

(Part 1 of several...)
So, it's probably "No Surprize" (the Aerosmith song that this entry's title is taken from) to you all that I have this mild obsession with famed New York City nightspot Max's Kansas City (that sadly no longer exists).  "The back room" at Max's was the coolest, hippest place to be in the city circa 1972, and the great club, owned by Mickey Ruskin, was the home away from home for a slew of rock's most infamous players and their fabulous counterparts.  Max’s opened at the end of 1965, and quickly attracted its New York School neighbors – artists, painters, sculptors, fashion designers (Betsey Johnson being one), and then Andy Warhol. After Andy and his Factory crew regulars started to frequent there, others quickly followed. The Glam Scene of the early 70's brought some of rock's elite to Max's, not just to dine on Lobster and chick peas and luxuriate in the back room, but also to perform.  The New York Dolls, The Stooges and Aerosmith were regulars, and developed quite a following based on their early performances there.  Bruce Springsteen, Gram & Emmylou, Tom Waits and many others passed through in the early 70's, before Max's became the stomping ground for predominantly punk rock and new wave groups in the late 70's (after Mickey was no longer the owner). But it wasn't just the well-known faces that, in perusing the books "High On Rebellion: Inside The Underground at Max's Kansas City" and "Max's Kansas City: Art, Glamour, Rock n' Roll", I found so compelling; it was also those Max's regulars that, infamous at one time, are relatively unknown, people like Wayne County and tragic Warholian Andrea Feldman, who, at 24, committed suicide by jumping off a building. There were so many fabulous people, and great photographers like Anton Perich, Leee Black Childers, and Danny Fields (only to name the most ubiquitous) were there to capture it all. Mickey Ruskin was a unique club owner in that he was a true patron of the arts; Lou Reed fondly recalls living on Mickey’s hospitality at Max’s to keep him alive: “Mickey, thin, hawk-faced, dark stringy hair severely parted and forever hanging over his right eye, was personally responsible for my survival for three years because he fed me every day. While I sometimes showed up for the five PM buffet, it was actually the ‘tab’ that made it possible for me and a small army of other artists to exist just to the left of the line that defines more extreme modes of criminality… People thought the Velvet Underground really existed, this appendage of Warhol’s. But we were broke, totally and completely and always had been. Money went for drugs or drink—not food. And there was never any money. But there was always Mickey and Max’s. We had a home in Mickey’s game room, this extension of his psyche, his home. He was interested in artists. He liked them. He wanted them to have a place. He wanted them to survive…”

Max's postcard (notice some fabulous faces here?) put together by Leee Black Childers:
 Oliviero Toscani and Donna Jordan:
Alice Cooper:
Dorothy Dean & Jackie Curtis:
Pristine Condition:
Tinkerbell:
Viva and Andy Warhol:
Joe Sallessandro:
Photographer Leee Black Childers and Ava Cherry:
 
Unidentified, Jackie Curtis, and Richard Harris, 1972:
Bob Colacello & Gerard Malanga, 1970:
Elodie & Jean-Pierre Kalfon, 1974:

A conspicuous and debonair Mick Jagger:
 The Dolls live at Max's:
Television's Tom Verlaine and Patti Smith:
Iggy & Lou x 2:
Johnny fuckin' Thunders:
Heartbreakers-era Johnny Thunders:
Celebratory David Johansen:
BFFs Patti Smith & Robert Mapplethorpe:
Back room regulars:
The center aisle: 
John Waters:
 
David & Cyrinda Foxe....Max's golden couple:
 
Gram Parsons & Emmylou Harris...a much beloved duo that I would kill to have seen here:
 THE BOSS, before he was, well, The Boss:
 
 
 
 
 
Beautiful Bebe Buell, often seen at Max's with her steady partner, Todd Rundgren:
 
Andrea Feldman:

All images posted here = scanned by me. Further reading?  Get "High on Rebellion: Inside The Underground at Max's Kansas City", or "Max's Kansas City: Art, Glamour, Rock and Roll".  As usual, please contact me if you would like a photo in my original scanned size (usually very large).
Photographer credits:
1 - Leee Black Childers
4-6, 8, 9, 11-14, 17-22, 26, 28, 29-33, 46-51, 53-55 - Anton Perich
7 - Brigid Berlin
10 - Billy Name
15, 16 - Elliott Landy
23-25, 34-36 - Danny Fields
27 - Stephanie Chernikowski
37-43, 45 - Lily Hou**
44 - Chuck Pulin
 52 - Archie Strips

**Please note that Lily Hou has prints available of her photos, including unpublished ones.**

15 comments:

Rhiannon said...

Love the pictures of Gram and Emmylou!

Anonymous said...

Amazing photos, as always. I must say, I really enjoy your write-ups and reviews, so I always squee when I see a long text. Looking forward to more 70s NY material. I'm more familiar with the UK Punk scene, but now I'm waiting for my copy of Please Kill Me. Have you read it (and did you like it), Leith?

Many thanks for the great photos. Marketa

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Leith said...

Anonymous, thank you so much for that great compliment! Yes, I have read (and LOVED) Legs' book "Please Kill Me". Definitely recommend it!

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Anonymous said...

Hello YOU HAVE NOT CREDITED THE PHOTOGRAPHERS FOR THESE PHOTOS YOU HAVE HERE. ALSO YOU MAY NOT SCAN THEM AND SALE THEM TO PEOPLE ONLINE. THIS IS CALLED FRAUD.
I AM ONE OF THOSE PHOTOGRAPHERS YOU SO CALLED BOUGHT A PHOTO FROM. IF I FIND THAT MY PHOTOS HAVE BEEN TAKEN SCANNED... SOLD... I WILL SEEK LEGAL ACTION AGAINST YOU AND HAVE YOU REMOVED FROM THE WORLD WIDE WEB ALL TOGETHER. THIS IS A DISGRACE TO ARTISTS.

Leith said...

Hi Anonymous,

I'm very sorry to have upset you... I do try to credit the photographers of these pictures and if your pictures have not been, I would be more than happy to do so or to remove them. I do NOT sell any photos that I scan. I've never made a dime off this blog or any of the pictures I scan. In fact, the opposite. I don't know what gave you that impression; when I said "if you want the larger size, email me", it was in reference to if someone wanted a larger version of the picture for their personal use (to use as a desktop background or whatever), since I resize them for the blog. I'm truly sorry to have offended you. Please let me know.
Leith

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Anonymous said...

Thank you for the pics of Gram & Emmylou! xoxoxoxo

Anonymous said...

I should have written thank you for posting the pics of Gram & Emmylou. I don't want anyone to think you sold or gave them to me. Just enjoyed seeing them on your site.

xoxoxo

Anonymous said...

Was there a lot of Satanism, or Luciferianism going around in those circles then?

Unknown said...

Hi - thanks for these - Brilliant!
Wasnt Joe's last name D'Alessandro with a D not an S.
Minor detail.

Anonymous said...

I have been looking for a vintage postcard from Max's for my collection.
Is this one for sale? Any idea where I can buy one?
Thanks for any information you can send.
kunyausa@hotmail.com