The Studio 54 DJ and New York club scene fixture chats on the history of analogue sound systems and the clubs that housed them.

By Lenny Fontana

The trials and tribulations of club life in the now gentrified Skyscraper Jungle! But once upon a time the city was dangerous and mysterious. There is so much to try to account for. But here is a bit of a history ‘crash course’, and also a personal account on what went on and what I witnessed and heard.

One of the first questions I always receive from other DJs around the world is: ‘What happened in New York City and what led to the changes in the nightlife industry?’

See, NYC has always had a reputation as a mecca for clubbing since the late 1960s, with DJ Terry Noel playing at Sybil Burton's famous club called Arthur. Terry dazzled the crowd with his mixing on Technics belt-driven turntables, with the use of stage lighting to create a theatrical experience. And DJ Francis Grasso at the Sanctuary, with his two turntables and no pitch, was making changes or mixing the music seamlessly throughout the night, creating a whole new experience for the clubbers of the day.

But it wasn’t until 1970 that one man would change the landscape of how music was to be heard. That man was David Mancuso, and he was the DJ and owner of world-famous The Loft. He loved throwing parties and wanted to have that fun experience week after week, so he created his own discotheque in his personal apartment.

David made sure that the sound system was the best money can buy at the time. This happened to be a Klipsch Sound system which was installed by the great sound engineer of the day Alex Rosner from Rosner Custom Sound. Alex Rosner helped create the DJ mixer that we all use today. He designed it to cue up using headphones, and have different inputs coming into a central box with faders.

With the help of the imagination of David Mancuso, Rosner was able to make the first cluster of tweeter arrays with piezo tweeters that never once before existed. These they placed in the middle of the room, and later became known as ‘Tweeter Z Arrays’.

So many future sound engineers and installers witnessed what was being created and then went on to make history. Two sound men that stand out from the disco era are Richard Long, with his company RLA, and DJ Barry Lederer, with his company Graybar Sound.

RLA was able to really showcase its deep bass sound system in two main clubs which catapulted its reputation to the number one position. One club was Paradise Garage and the other Studio 54. Graybar Sound installed the system in 12 West, another famous NYC Club called The Saint, and Trocadero in San Francisco.

The Saint had an elevated dance floor with a planetarium projector which made for an incredible experience. The sound system was in the walls, creating a dome. Whereas Garage was a traditional wood dance floor, which was ‘floated’ to cushion the dancers for the long 12 to 14 hour stretches of dancing. Garage had Bertha Bass Bottoms with Levan Extensions to thrust the bass across the floor, JBL Bullets hanging and Waldorf speakers and so much amplifier power. The DJ booth was to die for; can you imagine having all your records inside a round carousel that he would spin to pull what he needed thru the night? It was truly ‘Alice in Wonderland’ in every way. At that time we had so many great clubs with huge sound systems and great lighting systems with acres of wood floors to break your back and be the Fred Astaire of the night. My first experience hearing the great Paradise Garage Sound system was because of my longtime dear friend David Lozada (may he R.I.P.) He said to me one night: “You have not lived till you see what I am about to show you, and hear this place I am taking you.” Well, to say the least it was more than amazing. He happened to be close friends with Larry Levan, and all the staff who loved him. I went there on a Saturday night, coming from another famous club called the Funhouse where Jellybean was resident on Saturdays.

Needless to say I was in my Italian track suit type gear: cut T-shirt, sweat pants, and white sneakers. It was 6am and when we walked into the club it was on fire, and I mean on fire, plus it smelled like a mens locker room. Kind of like walking into Sodom & Gomorrah. The sound system was pulsating and breathing life. The people where electric and the place was burning up.

Paradise Garage had no air conditioning: just huge exhaust fans, that would clear out the hot air in a moment. Larry was playing stuff like Bad For Me and Double Exposure’s Ten Percent. If I can give it a rating of ’10 out of 10’, let's say I would give it an ’11 out of 10’. I never heard sound like that before, so deep in bass and crystal clear.

*Altec Lansing ‘Voice Of The Theatre’ speakers*

David Lozada took me in the booth and I experienced seeing Larry playing for the first time on three Thorens TD125 MK2, with a Urei 1620 Rotary Mixer. He had the RLA 3 Way Crossover and RLA Q5000 EQ that he was adjusting constantly on every record. He even had a light controller chase system above him, with full control of all the EXIT Lights and all the disco lighting on the dance floor. So when he wanted to darken the room, or do something drastic, he would take over the lights and presto, they changed.

Watching this all go on I can say it was quite overwhelming to say the least. I even witnessed super stars that came up in the booth from television and screen. I thought I was a DJ up to that point. After going to the Paradise Garage, I felt like more like a tailor. I needed to step up my game both musically and technically.

At the same time rival DJ Kenny Carpenter was playing at Studio 54, then going on to play at the biggest dance floor in the city at Bonds International with an RLA Soundsystem that just did not cut it at all. The place was just too damn big. Kenny told me himself that sound installer Richard Long wasn’t happy about the installation because the owners of Bonds did not want to make the huge financial investment to take it all the way.

So… back in the late 1970s and early 1980s I use to go to my grandmother's house in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, and stay over. The kids on the block who use to hang out with would talk about this teen club they went to, called Odyssey 2000 on Saturday afternoons in Bay Ridge. Well, I begged my grandmother to let me go with them, and she did.

I was just about able to see the DJ playing; it could of been DJ Ralphie Dee but I’m not one hundred percent sure. They had the disco floor lit up, just like in the movie Saturday Night Fever. I had no idea it was the same place. After the movie came out everyone here in USA was doing The Hustle. Odyssey 2001 looks huge in the movie. In reality it was a very small space. I do remember seeing the Altec Lansing Sound System called ‘Voice In the Theatre’, which to me sounded OK. When I started going out I saw that system in a lot of places in Brooklyn.

Sometime in the 1990s I ran into Bacho Mangual at, for the record, Pool. He was the resident at Plato’s Retreat and Revelations in Brooklyn. He told me about another famous DJ that he use to dance to named Richy Condina.

I never met Richy in the 80s or 90s. He was kind of out of the scene, like lot of the first generation DJs. My wife's cousins, Dennis and Robin, who grew up in Brooklyn, told me about another famous club called Dr Feelfunnies. They said that before disco hit Brooklyn, this young DJ was playing all this obscure dance music. I discovered it was DJ Richy Condina. His club influenced the whole Brooklyn disco movement, helped a whole lot of guys become DJs, and possibly launch the sound of disco in Brooklyn way before Saturday Night Fever even happened.

A lot of people will beg to differ on this. But its been verified! Richy Condina played some Fridays with Francis Grasso at Sanctuary in 1969. He was taking what he was experiencing at the Sanctuary and recreating at Dr Feelfunnies in Bayridge Brooklyn.

DJ Nicky Siano is also responsible for the way a lot of us play. He came up with the use of three turntables, and worked a sound system like no other.

He had his club called The Gallery on Houston Street, which was not to far away from The Loft. Now, David Mancuso was not into mixing or blending records. He would play the song from start to finish and then play the next one. Nicky was in his loft-style party, creating the blueprint for what was to come next. He was also inspiring two friends named Larry Levan and Frankie Knuckles, who happened to work for him in those days, and the story goes on from there.

As a DJ I was able to get a chance to play on an RLA Soundsystem in New York. That system was in The Underground in Union Square, 14th Street, with Baird Jones as my boss. It didn’t sound great compared to Paradise Garage’s system. But looking through today’s glasses, it would be classified as an incredible sound system.

The room was very narrow, but Richard Long made it work, and it was one of his last systems next to the Palladium and The Roxy. I had three Technics SL-1200 MK2 turntables in the DJ booth floating on rubber bands, a Urei 1620 mixer, a Technics 1500 reel to reel, and last but not least a great lighting guy.

What more can I ask for than to be playing in the Big Apple? You have to realise that there were, like, twenty Ministry of Sounds in New York City in those days.

*Tony Humphries playing at Zanzibar New Jersey*

Here is my personal experience about Studio 54.

First stop, the DJ that is unsung and not famous is DJ Richie Kaczor. He was there from the opening. To be clear, I was not old enough to play the original time in 1977-1981. That was DJs such as Robbie Leslie, Ken Carpenter, Nicky Siano, Dwayne Holt, Leroy Washington, Tom Savarese and many others did guest spots there.

Let me tell you, it was not what you all dreamed of by the time I arrived. The famous RLA Soundsystem was gone, and I was blessed to play on the Clair Brother's Sound system which sucked big time, and distorted. The crowd was full of Wall Street-type yuppies and aristocrats, but what can I say it was a huge room and a chance to play in New York City.

During that period I was telling people that I am playing there but no one truly cared. This is way after disco ended, and all the excitement and thrill was gone by this point. House music was just beginning and a whole new dance craze was on the rise. Clubs like Lovelight, Bassline, Wildpitch and Soundfactory rose up after the end of the Garage era. We where blessed with Steve Dash and Phil Smith, and their Phazon Soundsystem which was installed in Twilo.

The first digital sound system of the mid-1990s was installed in Sound Factory Bar by Steve Dash. That was another big change from the analog sound that we where all used to. You had the late great Frankie Knuckles there on Fridays, and Louie Vega on Wednesday nights. Sound man Gary Salzman (RIP) helped shape a few rooms in the 1990s, as well, with his GSA Sound at System, Sound Factory on 46th Street and Centro Fly. At The Roxy he installed his famous Phazon system.

One club had a great looking sound system, but it had phase issues, was David Soto’s installation in The Shelter at Hubert Street. It had six huge stacks, but it just never sounded right. Even later the club originally called The Area, which then became Shelter, and at the end became Club Vinyl, had the last of the big RLA-type systems. Danny Tenaglia purchased it after the club closed down.

Sound Designer Lewis Feldman (RIP) installed his sound system in Red Zone. After the first week the neighbours had him turn it down, and put a limit to how loud you can play it.

That, right there, was the start of the tenants moving into neighbourhoods where clubs existed and had the power to make the call to complain and have your club shut down.

The demise of New York City nightlife is the hardest thing for me to write about.

A lot of it has to do with the gentrification that was instituted by Mayor Rudy Giuliani. His idea was to clean up the city and regulate night life by moving it to the Westside; actually that would have been from the streets of 26th to 34th.

No one really knew who truly was Rudy Giuliani till September 11, 2001 when the famous Twin Towers fell. Once upon a time he was the District of Attorney of New York, and he went after the mafia and many organised criminals. One person he targeted was nightlife impresario Peter Gatien.

Peter owned the last major clubs in NYC: The Tunnel, Palladium, Club USA, and Limelight. These clubs had big rooms and were all doing well. When nightclub promoter and club kid Michael Alig was indicted for manslaughter, Giuliani went full power after Gatien. He held him responsible for standing behind Michael Alig and his club kid friends, who where involved in the techno parties at Limelight and Tunnel.

Well, I personally worked for Gatien, and I happened to play at Tunnel and Palladium in those days as many of the New York DJs did. For me it was the last part of New York City ruling the world. As you know, Gatien was dethroned and he lost his clubs. Being Canadian, he was extradited back north of the border. That was the end of it all for him, and for a lot of the grandioso club scene.

*Kenny Carpenter plays at Bonds Manhattan*

We all complained at the time about how horrible it was when these clubs where opened. But looking back once again it was lot better than today. Palladium had the last RLA system in New York; Junior Vasquez was the last to play and close the club. His night was called Arena, and it became famous with the progressive house crowd. After the change happened we experienced more of the lounge-style clubs such as Cielo and Output, which both just closed in December 2018, and had Funktion One Sound.

Here we are in the present and now Brooklyn is on the map as being the leader of the club scene. On to the next chapter…

The Story of NYC Through Sound And Change

The Studio 54 DJ and New York club scene fixture chats on the history of analogue sound systems and the clubs that housed them.

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