CULTURE

Nicky Siano The Gallery. Frankie Knuckles. David Byrne. Arthur Russell. Words Andy Thomas Portrait Janette Beckman Photographs Nicky Siano Collection

Opening in a New York loft in 1972, brother Joe. While the Loft’s music and rose from the dance floor of the Gallery. the Gallery made Nicky Siano the first atmosphere was a clear influence, he “Larry Levan, Walter Gibbons, Tee Scott star DJ of the disco era. Writing for the took things in a whole new direction would all sit in the booth, taking notes,” New York Times, Sheila Weller recalled at the Gallery. “It seemed like Nicky’s said Studio 54 DJ Kenny Carpenter. a visit to the club: “The wildness is bumped-up version of the Loft,” says “Nicky Siano was the king of DJs. He was exquisitely wholesome. Furious dancing. New York DJ Danny Krivit. “Nicky was so fierce he could put on a record and Crepe paper and tinsel. Body energy more aggressively working the sound people would scream.” Andre Collins, shakes the room. In darkness pierced by system, as well as mixing. He could also who went on to spin at both Better Days perfectly timed burst of light, Labelle’s get very funky and go all over the place.” and the Warehouse (New York’s version, rousing ‘What Can I Do For You?’ takes The Gallery became known for its in the Bronx), was another DJ who found on a frenetic holiness. The floor is a drum sound system, created in association with his calling at the Gallery. “I was brought to the dancers – many of them gay, most Alex Rosner. While Rosner had worked up in the projects and being gay there was of them black – whose up-sprung fists with Mancuso to create a system for the hard. The Gallery was a haven, it allowed and tambourines lob the balloons and Loft, Krivit heard distinct differences. me to be around older gay people and to streamers above what seem to be “The Gallery was louder and musically hear music that told our story. Nicky used collectively-chosen intervals.” more aggressive and pumping. It sounded to paint pictures with the music. He Creating a euphoric and fierce great, but it seemed like the Loft had a was the first DJ to touch my heart.” soundtrack, Siano revelled in his star bit of audiophile edge.” While the sound Another Gallery dancer was avant- status. “At the end of the evening he at the Loft wrapped dancers in a sonic garde cellist Arthur Russell. After being would sit down, take off his shoes and blanket, the Gallery’s system assaulted introduced to Siano by a mutual friend, socks, and start to mix with his toes,” the senses. Beneath a canopy of brightly Russell suggested they make a record recalled Michael Gomes, editor of the coloured balloons, the crowd screamed to together. The result was the 1978 Sire Mixmaster newsletter. Siano became the extremities of Siano’s playing. Writing Records 12” ‘Kiss Me Again’ under the renowned both for his experimental beat in New York magazine in June 1975, Mark moniker Dinosaur. This glorious slice of mixing and use of technology, cutting Jacobson captured the theatrical DJ in full disco featured a young David Byrne on between records using a crossover and flight. “Swaying his rear end to the motion guitar. Despite working on a number of variable speed turntables – and how he of the needle on the VU meter of his uncompleted tracks, they only released used them, peaking and dropping through $20,000 system, he flips 45s across his one more record. Out on Sleeping Bag the mix to a sea of raised hands. It was body like dwarf frisbees, landing them Records in 1984 under the name Felix, into this intoxicating environment that on one of his three turntables.” the mutant disco/proto-house of ‘Tiger a group of film students from New York One of those dancers to marvel at his Stripes’ (and the even more out-there University walked one night in 1977. theatrics was a young Frankie Knuckles, alternative version ‘Move’) sounds as Invited by Siano’s cousin Gary Turzilli, the legendary DJ from Chicago club the progressive today as when it swirled a fellow student, for the next eight months Warehouse, who passed away last year. around the Loft more than 30 years ago. they documented the scenes. You can now As well as helping blow up balloons and When the Gallery closed due to see their footage thanks to a new film giving out acid, he spent a lot of time in Siano’s spiralling drug addiction, he from Siano and Turzilli: Love is the the booth watching Siano’s every move. continued to spin for five months behind Message: A Night at the Gallery 1977. “It was like discovering the wheel,” he the decks at Studio 54. More in keeping An Italian-American from Coney told writer Tim Lawrence. “Nicky would with his underground status was a spell at Island, Nicky Siano learned his craft by constantly play with the speed, and I had after-hours party Buttermilk Bottom, but watching David Mancuso at the Loft never heard anybody do that before. it would be 20 years before he DJ’d again. and Michael Cappello at the Limelight. It became difficult listening to other Getting clean in the 1980s, he worked as a After a spell as a DJ at the Round Table guys play in the old style after that.” HIV counsellor before making his return he opened the Gallery with his friend Just as David Mancuso was a teacher to DJing at a Larry Levan tribute party Robin Lord thanks to a loan from Siano’s to Siano, so a whole new school of DJs at New York’s Body&Soul in 1998. >

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Clubbers in the Gallery Rique Spencer and Frankie Knuckles

Gallery cloakroom staff Dee Dee and Chuckie

were like, ‘We want to do this dancing the amp off to [Eddie Kendricks’] ‘Girl thing’. We found out about the Firehouse You Need a Change of Mind’, then at the [held by the Gay Activists Alliance] – very break of the record the tweeters there wasn’t alcohol served there so they came on and he plunged the room into could let in young people – and we started darkness. You couldn’t see a thing except going. It was in SoHo. Walking through for a lamp at the end of the room. I was SoHo in those days was incredibly staring at the lamp and then at the next dangerous. It’s hard to imagine now. Once musical change it dimmed and went you got below Houston Street there were out, and I thought, ‘Oh my god, he’s Nicky Siano, Rique Spencer, no streetlights and no one knew addresses. controlling every little thing in the room’. Larry Levan and Gallery If you said to a taxi driver, ‘Take me to co-founder Robin Lord Wooster and Spring,’ he’d look at you like, What was the mix of people like? Dancers at the Gallery ‘Where’s that?’ They had no idea what It was about 85 percent black and gay and SoHo was. So we went down to this very 15 percent Hispanic with a few white What was your first memory of music, secluded place. I tell you, we were scared hippies, but really it wasn’t just one type growing up in Coney Island? for our lives, but when we got inside, there of crowd. It’s like that girl says in the film, My brother was 10 years older and he was this music playing and everyone “Everyone working, being, growing and repeal that fucking law making it illegal great time there, but I kept butting heads after loft; we put together a business plan was buying a lot of records. I came across was dancing and it was like, ‘Wow, experiencing together,” and that was the for two people of the same sex to dance with the owners. I was trying to get them and went to my brother. He took a bit an album in his collection with this really I love dancing and I love this music.’ truth of it. That whole anti-establishment together. Stonewall had a huge impact. to do this and that to improve things but of persuading but had some money from beautiful image on it; it turned out to be hippie thing was obviously where David nothing got done. As long as they were an insurance settlement and decided Laura Nyro’s first album. Then I got this How were you introduced to the Loft? Mancuso was coming from. He’s spoken Dancing and the whole community making money they didn’t care. So I was to invest it into the Gallery. stereo with the money I saved up doing After going to the Firehouse I started about the importance of the anti-war took on a whole new importance. getting frustrated and Robin and I would a paper round. It was a Zenith Circle of collecting records, and my brother had movement at the time – well, you have It really did. The dancing was our way of What were the early days like? Sound stereo with these special speakers; this little party at his house. I had these to understand something. The Vietnam demonstrating unity and love and caring When we first opened the Gallery it was they faced up and there was a cone on top records like ‘You’re the One’ by Little thing was happening so intensely that for each other, and saying, ‘Yes this is our for straight people. We figured there was that pushed the sound around the room. Sister. I put it on and started dancing everyone was at a protest, sometime and community and we are starting to feel ‘BACK THEN, already one for gay people, let’s open one with Robin, and my brother’s girlfriend somehow. There were protests daily and unified’. Before, we had spent our lives for straights. But it didn’t work out. We Did that encourage you to buy records? came over and she started dancing with people would just spontaneously start feeling fragmented and alone, and now IF YOU HAD didn’t lose money but we were just about I went out and got these Mantovani us and said, ‘There’s a place where I go chanting on the street. It was pretty we had a place to go every Saturday night paying the rent. That was it. Then I hear records. Cheesy but well-orchestrated to party and it’s in a guy’s loft and you sensational. So when you came into the where we’d meet and share that unity. ONE GOOD that the Loft is closing for the summer. remakes of songs by people like the would love it’. She said she would take clubs and heard songs with messages like, So we printed up some cards. And we Beatles. And I used to just listen to them us Saturday night. We got in there ‘Love your brother, love your sister’ and How quickly did it all change? MIX IN AN stood outside the Loft and handed out on this sound system purely because about one in the morning and the place all the anti-war stuff, then you thought, It took a couple of years for the clubs to HOUR YOU these invitations. of the sonics. I was just into the whole was already packed. And I freaked out. yeah, this is all connected. open, but there were bars where you could experience of the textures of the sound. That’s when I knew, and said to myself dance. What they would do was stick two HAD A GOOD How was David with that? ‘I have to play records’ to be part of The other pivotal event was, of course, speakers in the corner and clear away the He was mad. At the time it was all very When were you first aware of the clubs? this. Something just hit my soul. the Stonewall Riots. What are your tables and chairs, and say, ‘There you are, NIGHT’ underground and people didn’t do things In 1969 I’d gone to a summer workshop recollections of those events? you can dance there’. And people went like that. Today it would be normal to to do a play and met a guy named Dean. How was it different to the Firehouse? I was there the second night when they because there was no other place to go. promote your party in that way. I saw it We started hanging out together and he Firstly, the sonics. David [Mancuso’s] were still going on. There were people But when the Gallery opened in 1972 talk and talk and started looking into just as an opportunity. Although he was took me down to the Village. I started sound system was always great, but that sitting down stopping the traffic on 6th the clubs started popping up all over. rentals of lofts. At the time, there were mad, he was also secure in his position and hearing people saying that they ‘went original system at 647 Broadway was just and 7th Avenue from going anywhere. tons of signs everywhere for lofts that had a huge waiting list. The waiting list dancing’. I really didn’t know what they phenomenal. It was like nothing I had There were people everywhere screaming Could you tell me a bit about your were for rent. All the industry had moved was bigger than his membership. At the meant. It turned out all the places you had heard before. Every little nuance in the for equal rights. Then [Mayor] Lindsay time spinning at the Round Table? over to places like New Jersey so these end of the night someone came up to him to be 18 to get in. Robin [Lord] and me records stood out. I remember he turned quietened things down, saying he would I loved playing records and was having a spaces had been left vacant. So it was loft and said, ‘David, David what are we going >

137 CULTURE | Nicky Siano to do this summer?’ Well, someone had He built me the first crossover, he built a part in the movie when the whole dance brought one of our cards in from outside it from scratch. Before that there had floor is singing the words to ‘Turn the and dropped it. So he picked it up and just been a bass and treble thing on the Beat Around’; they would do that all the handed it to them and said, ‘Why don’t mixer. Even today the crossovers don’t time, and it wasn’t just one or two people, you go here’. He really was that secure. do what ours did at the Gallery. it was the entire room. It was all about the togetherness, and camaraderie. How was the next chapter of the Gallery? You also became famous for honing in Amazing, 650 people on opening night, on the breaks of a record? What were people wearing? then it grew and grew until we regularly Well, at the Round Table they didn’t have The first Gallery was the fashion industry had 800 every Friday and Saturday. It a cue, so when you look at vinyl you can watering hole, every designer and model was just a phenomenal success. clearly see where there are significant would be there. Stephen Burrows was changes in orchestration. The colour of bringing everyone like Calvin Klein, Willi Had the Limelight already opened? the vinyl will lighten, so you can find the Smith, Giorgio di Sant’ Angelo, every Yes. Although it was a bar, unlike those break in a record by looking at the vinyl. Saturday night. Larry [Levan] used to other places it was designed for dancing. I relied on that for years, even at the wear these cap-sleeved shirts he made, and I remember walking in one Christmas and Gallery where I had a cue system. within a month they’re on the racks. There everyone was in white and they had a was a definite relationship. Calvin Klein white tree with white lights. It was just How did the sound differ from the Loft? jeans and all that stuff that happened buzzing with this energy. But it closed David’s sound to me was a little bit better with Calvin was all there at the Gallery. at 4am so it wasn’t an after-hours club. but a lot of people preferred the Gallery For a little dumpy club it was a real After it closed everyone would come from because it was louder. During the first star-studded dress-up event. there and the other bars to the Gallery. year we didn’t really hit our stride until we got a spectrum analyser and put in a The record most associated with the What influence did David Mancuso Gallery is MFSB’s ‘Love is the Message’. and Michael Cappello have on you? How did you break that track? As a DJ, Michael had all the influence on Michael Cappello and David Rodriguez my playing style. As far as my attitude ‘IT SHOULD [fellow Limelight DJ] took me to Jackie to clubs and how they should be run and NEVER HAVE Thomas at CBS Records and she played certain aspects of design, David had [MFSB’s] ‘The Sound of Philadelphia Nicky Siano, 1976 all the influence. I was very lucky. (TSOP)’ for us. We went nuts for it. Then CLOSED. I WAS I was playing at [midweek club] Le Jardin Can you describe Cappello’s style? and the owner John Addison comes in the records for a little bit?’ I said, ‘Sure’. Tell me about the end of the Gallery? Body&Soul and he asked me to play for Michael learned from Francis [Grasso at ON HEAVY booth with this kid. He asked if the kid So he asked me to show him what to It should never have closed. I was on Larry’s birthday. That really was a magical the Sanctuary], supposedly the first DJ DRUGS AND could play a few records. So he gets up do, and we sat there and fooled around heavy drugs and not paying attention to night and it started everything again. to beatmatch, but I really think what he and he puts on the other side of ‘TSOP’, a bit, playing records. He started at the playing records much. So when the lease did was more about timing. He did what WAS NOT which was ‘Love is the Message’. That [Continental] Baths, working the lights, came up, I had gotten tired of constantly What feelings do you get playing now I call blending, and was really good at it. was the first time I had heard it. So I took then he started using my connections bumping heads with my brother. I was compared with back at the Gallery? Michael learned from him and he was PAYING it home and started listening to it. On the at record companies and got records like, ‘So fucking close it’. The day we The first few years of the Gallery when also very good. Michael and me were so original LP it was only a three-minute for himself and started playing. auctioned the stuff, the guys came from I was sober I used to get this charge when similar, we had that killer instinct. If the ATTENTION’ groove, and I realised if I just played that Buttermilk Bottom and asked me to play. I played. I still get it now, especially in dance floor was up we’d want to go further one part back and forth it would be really Arthur Russell also came through the So we just moved down there, everyone places like the UK. When everything is with it. I’d push it and push it. We would cool. I took it to the Gallery and started Gallery – how were you introduced? came. We did it from 1977-81, but it was working and you can feel the buzz in the peak the crowd a lot more than David. But parametric EQ with 312 settings. When doing it over and over; from the back of I used to see him dancing; he was an all about the [Paradise] Garage by then. room, it’s still amazing. It’s wonderful back then, if you had one good mix in an Rosner put those pieces of equipment in the room I heard ‘Turn this motherfucker energetic dancer, to say the least. He to still get that electric feeling. hour you had a good night. If you did that, the sound system clicked and it became out!’ And it starts to grow. It was just a was going out with my friend Louis and How did you begin the HIV work? afterwards everyone was like, ‘Mary, you symphonic. That was done in theatres, phenomenal electrical experience. Then he came into the booth one day and said, First of all I got sober – that was the should’ve heard his mix’. It wasn’t like now not clubs. I had a drum machine to mix we brought in the third turntable to play ‘We can make a record like this’. So we most important thing. Then David Nicky Siano plays at The Date, with when everything is blended seamlessly – into, he hooked me up with a tape loop these sound effects when I was mixing started meeting and then went into Rodriguez got sick and died and I was Danny Krivit, at the Loft Studios, it’s just a load of crap, another boring echo. All these things just came to me, two records. I started playing the jet plane the studio for ‘Kiss Me Again’. really upset. It was a very bad time in London, NW10 on 5 April night. You may as well stick on a tape or but Alex taught me a lot about sound. noise over it, which Larry and Frankie New York. I got a job as a counsellor and residentadvisor.net something. Back then you really had to At the old Gallery, the way the room was [Knuckles] would both do. There was What was he like to work with? then became the HIV coordinator. I went have skills. You had to know how fast or configured and the amount of sound we also this album Sonic Seasonings [by Arthur had a problem finishing things. He back to school and got my degree in social The documentary is out now slow all your records were to beatmatch. had, I think we surpassed David. Then we Wendy Carlos] with the sounds of would just keep recording and recording. work and got a really good job as head of loveisthemessagemovie.com You really had to know your records. went to the new Gallery and had higher a rainstorm and I would use that. I had to stop him at some point. But ‘Kiss HIV services for this place in the Bronx. ceilings and a bigger room and never got Me Again’ had a lot of very interesting I wrote a book [No Time to Wait] about One thing you became known for was any more equipment, whereas David Frankie and Larry were the two most things on it. David Byrne used to live it. But after 12 years of doing all this I using the EQ to cut between records. had so much amazing equipment. famous people inspired by you. When downstairs from Arthur so we got him had eventually got burned out on it all. Yes, people really didn’t do that back then. did you see they had aspirations to DJ? to play guitar on the record. We got really I told [Alex] Rosner I wanted the bass How about the atmosphere? Frankie never really came to me and good musicians and it just came together. After a long break you eventually came horns on one knob and the tweeters on I would just start peaking one record after said ‘I want to start playing records’ but But Arthur was difficult to record with, back in the late 1990s. another so I could control each volume. another and it would get so frantic on the Larry did. The Gallery had been open he was a musical prodigy and sometimes Two weeks after quitting [the HIV work] So he said what you want is a crossover. floor that people would scream. There’s about a year when he said, ‘Can I play those kind of people don’t speak English. I got a call from François [Kevorkian] at

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