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♪♪

[man] Max's Kansas City,
where is that?

Is that in Kansas?

[rock music playing]

♪ All right, yeah

♪ All right

♪ Take a tip from me and get
Ready for the big parade ♪

♪ It's the place to be
Every night's a happy holiday ♪

♪ The kids are jumping around
Everybody's doing loop de loop ♪

♪ Just a making the rounds

♪ Like a speed freak
In a telephone booth ♪

♪ The downstairs is packed

♪ And the groupies
Are all dressed up ♪

♪ Upstairs the New York Dolls

♪ Are kickin' it out
Looking tough ♪

♪ You've got a
Personality crisis baby ♪

♪ Down at Max's

♪ All the boys are

♪ All the girls are...

[music fades]

[buzzing]

[rock music playing]

People always talk about
the significance of CBGB's

and how important
a club that was.

Obviously, it was,
but I always liked Max's.

[rock music playing]

If you date punk rock

to the New York Dolls

and The Velvet Underground
and Suicide,

Max's was there
well before CBGB's.

It was a place that had
a lot of history,

not just punk rock history but
classic rock and roll history.

The cool thing about it,
it was the cool factor.

It wasn't the idea of going in

and playing
Madison Square Garden

because we weren't
big enough to do that yet,

and there was a lot of other
little places to play,

but Max's was the place.

It was the cool place.

Max's was kind of like...

as far as debauchery
and just, like, madness,

it was kind of like
as outrageous as Studio 54.

But, like, funky
and gross, and poor.

It was always
sex and drugs at Max's.

So even when it was
an artist hangout,

it was all about sex and drugs.

It was avant-garde,
it was very eclectic.

There were artists,
there were writers,

and there was music.

Things could happen there.

You go some places,
and things just don't happen.

It was truly the greatest club,

and I have been
through clubs everywhere.

Max's was it.

That was it.

That was joy.

You know,
what the group is wearing

is as important as their music.

So yeah, we're super interested
when fashion and music

are connected
with music and fashion.

That's what was going on.
And art.

[woman] Culture and fashion
do not come out of nowhere.

[tongue clicks]

[rock music playing]

New York is an all-night town.

There are very few of those.

Actually, in the United States,
most places

close down around one or two
in the morning at the latest.

But New York
can be open all night.

["Sunglass City"
by The Deadbeat Poet plays]

Mickey Ruskin was a serious man,
I would say.

I remember him
being kind of tall,

a little bit aloof,

right there at the front door

watching everyone
who was coming into Max's.

He was very, very friendly.

He liked me a lot.

He came to see one of my plays,
and he loved it.

So I could do no wrong.

I just used to waltz in.

Prior to the existence of Max's,

New York was populated
with discotheques,

with everybody dancing to
Chubby Checker records

and the whole go-go scene.

At that time,
there was no local band scene.

Because you live in New York.

Everybody comes
through New York,

and none of the local clubs

really had anything more than
cover bands playing for dancers.

Once word got out
of what Max's was...

And part of that was fostered

by the participation of
Andy Warhol and his superstars,

who were right
down the block, literally.

That's when the original
members of the factory

were going there,
- Edie Sedgwick, Taylor Mead -

and all of those people.

[Jimi LaLumia] So the moment
Warhol started showing up

with his gallery of
theater and film stars

and thereby, the in-crowd models
started showing up as well,

at that point,
it became the talk of the town.

Max's became the hip in place.

[Elliott Murphy] Mickey Ruskin
was creating that atmosphere.

He was picky,
but he had good taste.

So the people who
he would let into the back room,

and that we considered
regulars, I guess,

were first the artists.

Mickey was great because
Mickey went to every table.

Mickey was just
one of those guys

that everybody
accepted as being.

It didn't matter
if they were artists.

He was, I think,
the art aficionado.

We never paid for anything.

We were just there to entertain,

but the front room was like
people like Frosty Myers,

Win Chamberlain,
John Chamberlain.

I mean, Max's Kansas City
certainly was not a venue.

It was a restaurant
in the front,

and in the back,
it was the back room.

Max's was a place where
people who were rebellious

on a bunch of
different levels gathered.

[rock music playing]

[music fades]

[music playing on TV]

[male narrator]
Max's Kansas City,

a restaurant near the factory,

is the gathering place
for New York's underground.

Almost every evening,
Warhol's clan can be found here.

Kansas City functions as both
an unofficial casting agency

and a public playground.

Everything in this world
is at the same time

both common and pretentious.

Individuals who, once again,

could very well be only copies
of their real selves.

[Penny Arcade] Before 1968

was when Andy Warhol
was actually at Max's.

After he was shot,
he very rarely came to Max's.

And he was shot in 1968.

[Elliott Murphy]
And it was smart, you know.

There were smart people there,

they wanted to talk,
conversation...

Maybe you can compare it.

The closest thing we had to
the round table of the Algonquin

in the 20s was the back room
of Max's Kansas City.

[Alice Cooper] It was
a great place to hang out.

There was nobody there
trying to get your autograph

because everybody
was bigger than you.

[scoffs]

[Ruby Lynn Reyner] When Max's
became really popular,

and I mean, all these
movie stars started coming...

Warren Beatty,
Jane Fonda came.

And you know,
they came to the back room,

they wanted to hang out with us.

They told me, "Oh, you got
to meet Jane and Roger."

She was with Roger Vadim,

and they said Roger Vadim
had a long, skinny penis.

And they wanted
to take as many little...

you know, punk-type

of little superstars in waiting
home with them.

I practically lived there.

I would go during the day
for the free food.

We would tell
Mickey all the time.

I'd say, "Mickey,
it's my birthday,"

just so he would give us
a bottle of champagne.

[Penny Arcade] I started going
there in the middle of 1968

because Jackie Curtis took me,

and Jackie Curtis
took me in the afternoon

because there was free food.

If it's one thing
drag queens want,

it's free food.

With big giant salad balls.

We found a couple of worms
in the salad.

[country rock music playing]

[Alice Cooper] It was always
going to be sort of the Warhol,

the Larry Rivers,
the New York artists.

And then rock and roll
just came in as...

following that in
the second wave.

And then it was...
We just kind of took it over.

Well, Max's did not have
live music until 1969,

near the end of
the winter '69-'70.

Danny Fields brought
the first bands in.

There was no intention
to have it be a venue

with regular performances.

He brought in Stooges,

Alice Cooper,
Velvet Underground.

[Alice Cooper] Well,
I think the Warhol people

brought in the rock.

You know, Velvet Underground.

And I think we were one
of the very first bands

to play there in 1970.

The police actually
came in and said,

"You've got to turn it down."

We were very loud.

I mean, most bands went in there
and they were half acoustic,

and half, you know...

We were in there like The Who...
[laughs]

...in a room
the size of a restaurant.

[Jimi LaLumia] The Velvet
Underground are considered

the foundational factor
for the New York rock scene,

alongside the New York Dolls,
who followed shortly thereafter,

also who were
headquartered at Max's

for a good part of the time
doing shows there.

Velvet was something else.

It was a different sound.

So they were like
"Pushing Ahead",

Walk on the Wild Side.

That was ahead of its time.

I love the Velvet Underground.

I love the Warhol scene.

And we knew the Warhol scene
was hanging out at Max's.

And one of my favorite albums

is the live album that
the Velvet Underground did

at Max's, live at Max's,

which was recorded on
some tiny little cassette

or machine, or little tape
reel to reel, or something.

But also, we loved Iggy Pop.
I loved Iggy Pop, the Stooges.

The Stooges played at Max's.

Each time it seems
to get crazier and crazier.

Where does it stop?

I don't know, probably
some kind of extreme violence.

There was an act at Max's
Kansas City a few weeks ago

- Iggy Pop is his name -
who cut himself on stage

and ended up with 16 stitches.

["Going Back to Max's Kansas
City" by Joe Sztabnik plays]

think Danny Fields and I
were the ones

that took him to the hospital.

[Jayne County]
Iggy had been playing at Max's.

And he'd been rolling
around on the glass,

rolling around on the glass
that was on the stage

and getting up and bleeding,

just bleeding all over
from the broken glass.

Iggy's on stage, and
he's rolling around on stage,

cutting himself all over,

and people would go,
"Oh really?

Oh really?
What else is he doing?"

That was the attitude at Max's.

"Oh, what else is he doing?"

[Alice Cooper] Iggy was not
a New York guy at all,

he was a Detroit guy.

And I think that's what...

He is animal.

He was certainly
the godfather of punk.

In Detroit, he'd come out
with a pair of Levi's on

and no shirt.

And I mean, he was built great.

I mean, the guy didn't have
an ounce of fat on him,

and he was a contortionist,

and he had this kind
of street thing.

Guys loved him, girls loved him.

He was-- he had this thing.

He was just sexual up there,

and from what I understand,
he was pretty well-endowed.

I don't have to say
what I understand.

If you lived in Detroit,
you saw his penis

as much as you saw his chest

because he would always
just take it out, you know.

[laughs]

[Peter Crowley]
And it wasn't until '71 or '72

that it became a regular venue.

That was when the Gaslight Cafe
in Greenwich Village

lost their lease,

and Sam Hood,
who booked the Gaslight,

asked Mickey, could he use
the upstairs room for bands?

And Mickey said, "OK,"

and that's when they began
having regular bookings.

[Penny Arcade] A lot of people
who worked in the music industry

went to Max's.

It was an incredible
mix of people

because there was
a rebelliousness

that wasn't limited to
somebody's behavior.

People were
intellectually rebellious.

They were
gender-rebellious,

meaning they chose
their own gender.

[music fades]

[rock music playing]

Yeah, it was the home of--

it was one of the homes
of punk, really.

That's what it was for us.

Yes, the fact that
we could read about it,

hanging out with Bowie there,
with Lou Reed and Warhol,

and the whole scene going on...

And Brigitte, so-and-so,
and all the different names...

and I don't know,
all the people.

[Ruby Lynn Reyner]
But I remember

Brigitte used to pull down
her pants in the back room...

Or I don't think she even
pulled down her pants.

I think she shot Amphetamine
right through her jeans,

right into her butt.

Yeah, big shot of speed.

And of course, it was
a crazy place too, you know.

There were a lot
of drugs going on.

Andy Warhol, superstar,
pristine condition,

we used to get up on the table
and flash our tits.

And Alice Cooper was there.

Alice Cooper, I think,
must have lived there

because every time
I went there, I saw him.

[Alice Cooper] We were
kind of like the first band

that really put
really good hard rock

with a really good band

together with, you know,
the genderbending thing,

and the name, and the glamor...

Glamor, horror, and violence
all packed into one,

but the songs were good.

I mean, I remember looking out,
and there were all these guys.

I guess it was
the New York Dolls

that were just coming up.

And they watched our show,
and they understood, "Oh, OK."

And at that time, Bowie was
coming to see us in England,

and he came and brought
The Spiders from Mars

and said, "This is
what we should be doing."

[Louie X. Erlanger]
I saw Mick Jagger in there,

David Bowie, and Lou Reed.

A lot of different people
would go in and out of there.

["Magnet" by
Stony Sugarskull plays]

And all these people
were out every night,

between Max's,

and not far away was
Harold Black's 210 club,

where you could meet everybody
if you were cool enough.

And it was David Peel

and "The Pope Smokes Dope",
"Marijuana",

and this was radical things
for the time.

Yeah, you know, fearless.

[Lenny Kaye] All of Downtown
Manhattan was very compressed.

There was a sense that
the avant theatre community

was bleeding into
the avant music community,

that was bleeding into
the avant film community.

All of these people
gathered in the back room

of Max's Kansas City.

So Max's became
a well-known place,

plus it was the Warhol crowd,
so it was uber hip, ultra hip.

Everybody knew where it was at.

That wasn't like today.

There wasn't loud music coming
through the back room, you know.

And Debbie Harry
was the waitress.

The back room was her foundation
for getting started

by making contact
with that crowd,

becoming part of that crowd.

She was hard to miss
because she was this...

You know, she was this
gorgeous blonde girl,

and she was also
a Playboy bunny before that.

Max's was pre Studio 54,

and who they wanted to let in
and not let in.

I mean, there wasn't
a velvet rope outside,

but if you went,

you had to get Mickey's blessing
to kind of sit in the back room.

It was really crazy.

You'd walk in there,
and this table would be Bowie,

you know, Frank Zappa,
and da-da-da,

and the next table
was George Harrison

and da-da-da, and da-da-da.

I mean, every table was like...

You wanted to sit
at every table.

There was a lot
of table hopping.

You would go and sit
in one booth of people,

and you'd see other people
you knew at other booths,

and they would know the gossip,
"So what's happening?"

"We were sitting over there
with so and so."

"What's happening? Is it true
he has a little peener?"

"Tell us all about it.
We want to know."

"What did he say?"

"Is it true that he likes
to be shit on?"

You'd meet people in there that
you'd never thought you'd meet.

I really liked Andy.

I thought Andy was great
because he was really unique.

He really did want to take
pictures of everybody.

I don't know how many
Polaroids he took

of everybody in that
room that night,

but he did that every night.

Mickey took care of us.

Mickey did, yeah.

The chickpeas on the table.

And if somebody started
a chickpeas war,

then it was all out.

Bang! You'd get hit,

and you'd see somebody
on the side go, "Yeah, got you!"

And it might be
Elizabeth Taylor.

I remember going there
one night with George Harrison,

and one of the cool
things with him was

there'd be three girls
at the other end,

you know, on the other
side of the table.

He always carried
a little pouch of rubies,

and once he decided
which one he wanted to be with,

he would put the ruby down
in front of her.

And if she picked up the ruby,
that was a done deal then.

Well, you know, there were
nights I went in there...

And I knew John Lennon.

And he was always trying
to get me into politics.

You know, John loved politics.

He loved the whole,
"We can change the world."

I said, "John, you want
to change the world.

I'm just trying
to entertain them."

[laughs]

I remember Jane Fonda,

you know, sitting next to
these heroin dealers.

But that's what she wanted.

She wanted to be
around the lowlifes,

the real gritty New York scene,

which that's what it was.

I was just the kid,

and I would come there
with the folks and eat dinner

and pass out, and they'd
stay there all night.

Allegedly, they only
forgot me once.

[interviewer laughs]

That's the story that
I have heard, however.

And so, consequently,

I'm a second generation
Max's aficionado.

[rock music playing]

The Dolls were pure New York,

and they had no problem
walking around

in high heels and all this.

And I admired the fact
that they took it so far.

Well, there was nobody like them
at the time in New York City.

I mean, everything at Max's
had been more Velvet Underground

and all the Andy Warhol people,

and this was a totally
different scene.

This was a glam scene.

It was not like
the Velvet Underground.

We were hanging in the
same places, the same clubs.

Max's was the den
for the Dolls,

That was the sort of
headquarters for the Dolls.

And it was sort
of amateurish too.

It wasn't like going
to see Led Zeppelin

or these bands that were
really, like, professional.

It didn't look like
it was rehearsed.

It didn't look like...
It barely came together.

It was kind of like a trainwreck
in process or something.

So I went to see them
every week.

They had a residency.

And I would go there
all the time,

and I kept hoping that
they would get better.

We were playing the Coventry...

with KISS and the Ramones
opening up for us,

and people like that and stuff.

Moving out into the Boroughs,

you had the Harlots
of 42nd Street,

you had street punk,
the early performances of KISS.

You had a sense of
seeing growing

that would form a foundation

for a very elemental sense
of New York rock and roll.

The Dolls were
very much emblematic

of that next step
that culture takes.

Culture takes a next step.

They embodied many rock and roll
traditions within them:

the blues, the kind of
three-chord great hit single,

the sense of flash and trash,
and having a great time.

They were a great show band.

They reeked of rock stardom,

which meant that they were after
what we were after also.

In Europe, they wouldn't
be aware of the Dolls

and be interested
in their music.

In America, they couldn't
have cared less.

They thought they were a
bunch of druggie transvestites

who wore women's dresses
on stage,

which was not true at all.

A new rock group has surfaced
at Max's Kansas City

and created a sellout.

[Sylvain Sylvain] Our
first album had just come out.

It was just released,
and we were scheduled

to play Max's Kansas City
for six nights in a row.

We sold it out,
two shows a night.

And it was a small place.

I mean, 50 people, 60 people.

You know, you put
100 people in there,

and that's-- they're gone.

I saw the Dolls,
and they played Max's,

and I said, "You know,
I could do this.

I could get a band together,
I'm doing it on the stage."

Obviously, the biggest
foundational event

was when Danny Fields
decided to drag Iggy Pop

down to Max's one night,
where he ran into David Bowie.

And the Bowie-Iggy Pop
coalition, from that point,

became legendary,
with a series of albums

and working back and forth
with each other.

I think the most interesting
thing about Max's Kansas City

was it was at a time
when the rock world

and the art world
melded together,

and it was also a time

when the audience
wanted something new.

[rock music playing]

[Neon Leon]
And then you had the MIAMIS,

and they had a great song

which was very popular
in the underground

called "We Deliver".

Because they came up
with this thing about,

"OK, you call us on the phone,
and we deliver."

But they weren't
delivering pizza.

They had a spliff
delivery service.

New York in the '70s,
it was just this kind of place.

It was like, anything goes.

There were no limits.

A little scary too.

[laughs]
You know.

They weren't aiming
for punk rock.

I mean, although
they did do Suicide

and New York Dolls
and such,

they were also doing
Howlin' Wolf.

When Mickey had Max's, the music
upstairs was very eclectic.

You had folk singers.

I mean, you could
have Arlo Guthrie,

you could have
Bruce Springsteen, the Wailers,

John Fahey, and myself.

♪♪

♪ Well after baby comes around
We're going downtown ♪

♪ And see what it is
we should know ♪

♪ Don't matter about the city

♪ Girls and boys
Are always pretty ♪

♪ And like leaves in the fall
They will blow ♪

♪ Into the place
Where there's a scene ♪

♪ And a screaming machine
They will go ♪

♪ And you can laugh
You can stare ♪

♪ But we're all
In the same damn show ♪

♪ Na-na-na-na-na

♪ Na-na-na-na-na

♪♪

♪ You might find yourself
In Paris ♪

♪ In a burning drugstore

♪ And Rome's Spanish steps
Are just around the corner ♪

♪ You can be in London
In a hard rock cafe ♪

♪ And Max's Kansas City
Got the same things to say ♪

♪ And I said, Whoa now baby
What are we doing this for? ♪

♪ And she says,
You better shut up ♪

♪ Cause you know who
Just walked in the door ♪

♪ Now give me something more

[instrumental]

I'm not sure, but he left
a lot of bills behind.

Because when I was with David
Bowie's management company,

I had a charge account at Max's

and ran up all kinds of bills,

and a lot of people ran up
bills, and Mickey couldn't--

It was all these bills
that he couldn't pay or make.

[Peter Crowley]
Mickey had walked away.

I don't think he even
declared bankruptcy,

and he just turned the key
and lock, and walked away.

While Tommy Dean was in Paris
with Laura Dean,

they saw in the Herald-Tribune

that Max's had gone
out of business,

so they called their lawyer
in New York and said,

"Go check and see what it would
take to get this place."

The lawyer discovered that
there was one lien, $3,500.

Tommy paid the electric bill,
boom, he got Max's Kansas City.

["Hangin' Out
by Elliott Murphy plays]

[music fades]

-♪ Gimme a C
-♪ C

-♪ Gimme a B
-♪ B

-♪ Gimme a G
-♪ G

-♪ Gimme a B
-♪ B

-♪ What's that spell?
-♪ CBGB

-♪ What's that smell?
-♪ CBGB

[Jimi LaLumia] Wayne County,
in December of 1973.

It was the first of the Max's
recorded artists

to play
Hilly's on the Bowery,

just as it was about
to turn into CBGB's.

Wayne opened that door
at that time.

The fabrication of television,

just happened to be walking
down the street one day in 1974,

when Hilly was
changing the sign,

and that's how CBGB's
was discovered?

No.

Oh, New York City in the mid 70s
was Danger City.

And I remember getting on the
train after a night of Max's,

and once, Clem Burke
got on the train with me

to sort of scope it out
and make sure everything was OK

because it was Danger City.

[Frank Infante]
The Lower East Side, back then,

you just went there
to cop heroin.

There was no other reason
for me to be there.

The rents were cheap and all,

but in terms of anybody else
going there, there was no point

in going unless
you're going to go get drugs.

And so you had
a place like CBGB's

that met people

that really didn't have any kind
of reputation or anything.

You could be anybody and just
go down there and get a gig.

At that point, CBGB's
was the only game in town.

82 Club had closed,

every other venue
for unsigned bands was dead,

and my friend, Mike Umbers,
turned me on to Mother's.

And I went up there,
and I built the stage

and started
putting bands in there.

And then when Max's reopened,
it opened as a disco.

And that wasn't working,

and the new owner asked me
if I would help him out.

And I said, OK,
and I just moved

all my Mother's operations
into Max's.

But Peter Crowley,

when he started
booking the bands at Max's,

it totally changed Max's.

It put Max's really on the map
with all those bands, you know,

bands like Blondie
and the Ramones playing there.

Peter ran Max's,
he managed Wayne County.

He got us.
He understood us right away.

Hillary never understood us.

CBGB's, God bless Hillary,

but Hillary, the whole thing
fell into his lap,

and I never ever,
ever got the impression

he knew what to do with it.

He didn't understand the music,

or he didn't understand
the Ramones or the Dead Boys.

I don't think
he understood any of it.

[Frank Infante]
And basically, it was taken over

by a certain bunch
of people and bands,

and it became the place
for all these bands to play,

you know, like the home spot.

[Peter Crowley]
It built on itself,

and then all these record
companies started coming down,

and they started to sign groups.

[rock music playing]

[Louie X. Erlanger]
You know, Mink DeVille...

I met Mink DeVille down there.

He really knocked me out
as a singer.

I heard him do
"These Arms of Mine",

and I just thought,
"This guy can sing anything,

and there's no young singers
that can sing like this."

He had a voice that
could go very deep

and also could reach up
to falsetto with no effort.

Willy DeVille was the coolest
guy on the scene, absolutely.

And you know what, the other
bands recognized it as well.

I remember having a conversation
with Jerry Nolan

and him saying,
"Watch this guy.

He's the epitome of cool."

And he was. There was nobody
like Willy DeVille.

[Jimi LaLumia] So Max's
developed its own lineup,

and CB's developed
their own lineup as well.

And at a certain point,
things became a bit more rigid.

["Junkie See, Junkie Do"
by Jimi LaLumia plays]

Yeah, the whole scene
really was concentrated

at Max's and CBGB's.

Some bands were Max's bands,
some bands were CBGB's bands,

and sometimes
there was crossover.

If you were going to Max's,
you were going to CB's.

If you were going to CB's,
you were going to Max's.

There was this whole thing of
like CB's bands and Max's bands.

But when I was in Shrapnel,
we were lucky enough

to play both places.

CB's didn't have a back room.

CB's had the Bowery,
you know what I mean?

CB's had the hotel next door,
the Bum hotel,

and they're throwing bottles
at us downstairs.

[Neon Leon]
It was a very creative place,

but Hilly had a dog,

and there was shit
all over the floor!

He never would clean the shit,

and he didn't really
clean the bathrooms.

So all the bathrooms
smelled like urine,

the floor smelled like shit,
but the music was good.

That was a drag because
it was a great place to be.

It really was.

[Elliott Murphy]
I played one gig at CBGB's.

I was not a fan of CBGB's.

I thought it was a dump,
you know.

But I liked Max's.

By the time Tommy Dean came in,
it was punk, and it was--

He was booking a lot of the
same bands who played at CBGB's.

But I didn't just book
local bands

at Max's in the beginning.

So I brought in Luther Allison,

Mongo Santamaria,

Discotex,
and the Sex-O-Lettes.

This was not working out,

so I stopped doing that
after a few weeks

and concentrated
on the New York bands

who would work for the door.

And we gave them the door,

whereas Hilly
gave them the door

after he took the Hilly tax
off the top.

So everybody liked
to play Max's more than CBGB's.

Every band was different.

There wasn't one kind of thing.

I couldn't categorize it
as just punk rock or what--

You couldn't really pin down

because all different kinds
of bands played there.

Max's volume two,

when it changed hands from
Mickey Ruskin to Tommy Dean,

was really the birth

of the New York underground
at that point.

Because prior to that, with the
exception of the New York Dolls

and maybe one or two
other artists,

Max's was very mainstream
record label acts

or acts that were auditioning
for Clive Davis, primarily.

Clive signed Bruce Springsteen
at Max's Kansas City.

He signed Aerosmith
at Max's Kansas City.

[soft rock music playing]

One day, I'm walking down
in front of the Chelsea Hotel

on 23rd Street in New York.

Who do I see coming out
the lot is the front?

Malcolm McLaren.

He said,
"How's the Dolls, mate?",

you know, and all this.

And I say, ""Ah,

pretty fucked up, man,
we're about to break up."

And then that's how
we got together

and we started doing the whole
Red Patent Leather show.

[Bob Gruen] It wasn't
like he became

the manager of
the New York Dolls.

He kind of organized some shows

so that they would
wear his clothes.

What Malcolm did do
was save their lives

because they were so
down and out.

Johnny and Jerry had
pretty severe heroin habits.

Arthur was drinking more
than anybody had ever seen.

So Malcolm put Arthur
into Roosevelt Hospital,

into a detox unit there,
and he got Jerry and Johnny

into a kind of
drug detox situation

to clean them up a bit,

basically so that
they could play a show

and wear his clothes,
and publicize his outfits.

For me, seeing the Dolls
in that period

was seeing actually
an era transition.

Because you've also lost
the glam rock scene

that was part of New York
in the early '70s.

And it's moved over
to a club called CBGB,

where the style of dress
is different

and the attitude is different,

and the presentation
is different.

A band like Aerosmith
started out making money

and just kept making money,

and they were making
money in barrels.

The Dolls were like losing money
in fucking barrels.

And they're gonna go,
take Arthur out of rehab

and go down to Florida
and start a tour

with no roadie
and Malcolm driving.

But as soon as they got there,
Johnny and Jerry

were more interested
in feeding their heroin habit

than in playing any shows.

And they got some
of the local kids to go out

and try to find new heroin,
and it wasn't good enough,

and they wanted to come back to
New York to get some more dope.

But yes, I mean, it's very hard
for anybody to score,

especially back in 1975
in Tampa, Florida.

That's where we were.

Thunders and Nolan can't
score drugs down there,

and they said, "Well, fuck it.
We're going back to New York."

And David told them that
if they came back to New York,

if they left the tour
just because of drugs,

he didn't want to play
with them anymore.

[Marty Thau]
And at that point,

David and Syl knew
that the Dolls were over.

[Bob Gruen] In the end, they
were truly ahead of their time.

They predicted not only
the coming of punk

but the renaissance
of garage rock.

[rock music playing]

I think Syl had
to sell a guitar

in order to buy
a ticket for Malcolm

to get back to London.

[rock music playing]

He said to me, "Mate,
what do you want to do?

"I've got all these--
my wife's got all these kids

"hanging around the shop,

"and we could put
a great band together for you,"

and all this kind of stuff.

And I said, "All right,
well, let's try it."

And he said to me,
"Look, give me your guitar

and your piano, by the way, and
I'll send you a plane ticket."

[Marty Thau]
And he went back to London

with his tail between his legs,

but he learned a lot
from the downtown music makers

and taste makers.

And so he put together
the Sex Pistols,

which was a combination
of the Dolls attitude

and the Ramones
three-chord riff,

and Richard Hell's fashion.

[Sylvain Sylvain]
He loved Richard Hell.

He left me a suit
that I gave to Richard.

He took that whole--
he borrowed, man,

from that whole thing there
with The Police,

"Kill Me",
"The Blank Generation".

We did all this.

We put all this together.

This guy, this shopkeeper,
comes in,

and he takes all the ideas,
and he runs with it.

[Peter Crowley]
Malcolm claimed that

he invented the Sex Pistols,
yada, yada, yada.

That's an extreme exaggeration.

He did introduce
Rotten to the band,

but the band already existed,

and basically,
they created themselves.

[Billy Idol] Eventually,
in England, it did explode,

and it went kind of mega,
you know.

The Pistols went mega
after being on the bill grunge.

It just exploded.

[Penny Arcade]
I remember Danny Fields

asking me to come down to CBGB's

because he was
representing the Ramones.

I had never seen the Ramones.

And then you go in,

and there were these
gawky-looking creatures,

you know,

and they were all wearing
motorcycle jackets.

[Jay Jay French] They were
simple, but they were--

they had something.

You could see it.

There was a unification
of images,

a unification of playing.

There were all exactly
on the same page.

[Peter Crowley] When you have
the Ramones on one hand,

and Blondie, and Talking Heads,

lumping them together
as punk rock was a bit strange.

The Talking Heads were
definitely a breakthrough band.

The Ramones
we would go to see,

but the Ramones,
after a short period of time,

became more of a CBGB's band.

[Alice Cooper]
I love the Ramones

because the Ramones
were just street kids.

They didn't try
to be the Beatles.

They weren't trying to be this.

They were the Ramones.

When you heard a Ramones song,
you knew it was the Ramones.

When you heard a Blondie song,
you knew it was Blondie.

That's the important thing,
is that identity.

The identity was so strong.

To get that identity that nobody
else had was really important.

[Jayne County] Blondie,

with their radio-friendly
approach to pop singles,

became theband.

The group reflecting the success
of the New York rock scene.

No one would believe
that Blondie

was going to become
such a-- so big.

And when she became bigger,
it's like, "Oh my God,

"yeah, even Patti Smith
got a little crazy

when she started
getting so big."

I always considered Debbie
the Marilyn Monroe of punk.

And Patti Smith, well,

she's not the Marilyn Monroe
of punk, that's for sure.

So I DJ'ed at
Mickey Ruskin's Max's

and I DJ'ed at
Tommy Lane's Max's.

I remember Dee Dee Ramone coming
to me and in the record booth

and the DJ booth,

and saying to me,
"They're all saying we're punk.

We're not punk,
we're rock and roll."

Punk was kind of forced
on everyone.

[Penny Arcade]
People want to go on and on

about punk at Max's

as if it was some kind
of political movement

like it was in London.

In England, punk
was a political movement.

In New York, punk
was a bunch of people

trying to get a record deal.

[rock music playing]

[Jayne County] Dee Dee was going
out with this crazy girlfriend

who had been
with Arthur Kane before,

and she had tried to chop off
Arthur Kane

from the New York Dolls;

tried to chop off his stumps
so he couldn't play bass.

What was her name?

Crazy... Crazy Connie.

Everyone called her
Crazy Connie.

She was totally psychotic,

and that was the story
that people used to tell

about how when Dee Dee was
going up to 53rd and 3rd...

♪ 53rd and 3rd

["53rd and 3rd"
by The Ramones plays]

♪ Let's cruise to the shore
Get some beer ♪

♪ We need some more
I feel good tonight ♪

♪ Let's get drunk
And have a fight... ♪

And he came back from hustling,

went up to 53rd and 3rd,

and Connie got mad because
Connie caught him with a trick,

and she freaked out and tried
to stab Dee Dee in the cock,

and tried to cut his cock off.

And he had scars on his cock.

And so one night at Max's,

I was upstairs
in the dressing room

and Dee Dee came up
to go to the bathroom.

And he went to the bathroom,
and he turned around and said,

"Wayne, look at my cock,
look at my dick, look what she--

"Connie tried to chop it off.

Look, there's scars
all over my dick."

And Dee Dee was the first person
who noticed my tits

when I was growing--
started taking hormones

and growing my chest.

And Dee Dee was like,
"You've got tits, Wayne.

Look you've got little tits."

And I said, "Yeah,
I'm going to grow tits."

And he said, "Oh,
don't grow 'em real big.

Don't grow 'em real big,
just grow a handful."

And he took his hands,
and he put them right there.

"Just grow a little.
Just a handful is enough."

But luckily, I didn't have
to get anything done.

They just grew on their own,

much to the disbelief
of people at Max's.

And Patti Smith, oh my God!
What a bad reaction!

She saw them.

I was walking down the street
one day and I ran into Patti.

And I go, "Hey Patti",
and she goes, "hey, hey.."

[mumbles]
...like that, you know.

And then she went...

...back like that because
she got a gander on my tits.

Her reaction was like,
"What's that?"

And then she clammed up,
so it was--

My tits were
very famous at Max's.

[Peter Crowley]
The place was pretty successful

with those bookings,

and Tommy set out immediately
to enlarge the upstairs.

So we ended up with a room
that would hold 200 people.

Well, Tommy Dean was great.

But basically,
you worked for Laura Dean.

She was the boss.

She wore the pants.

[Jayne County] You know,
during the first,

Max's was really--

The place was really
for artists

and for the Warhol crowd,
and people like that.

During the second Max's,
it was more the music.

It was Blondie, Ramones...

Patti played there, of course,
on television,

and all these other bands that
didn't go on to do anything

but they were
part of the Max's scene.

There were a lot of people
that hung out at Max's

that made Max's what it was

that did not go on
to be big stars,

but they really did make Max's.

One thing about Max's is
you oftentimes went on

very, very late, super late.

So what we were looking at in
our audience were prostitutes,

taxi drivers, Warhol,

superstars, junkies, writers...

whoever didn't have to wake up
like at 8 o'clock or earlier.

♪♪

♪ Some say

♪ That we [inaudible]

♪ That life is just for living

♪ The object only win

♪ Keep your head

♪ But I say

♪ There is no denying

♪ We all question dying

♪ If you can't hear the crying

♪ Then you're [inaudible]

[vocalizing]

[Sonny Vincent] We liked Max's
because you could do

anything you wanted to there.

You could be wild,
you could lay down,

you could jump in the audience,
you could deconstruct songs,

you could play songs
with bad endings,

play bad songs
with great endings...

You could experiment,
do whatever you wanted to.

We really felt like
we'd arrive somewhere

and that this was the center
of the universe for us.

Every night
there were genius bands.

I don't remember seeing
any band I didn't like.

[Peter Crowley] I found
The Cramps at CBGB's,

and they were doing
the audition night.

In the middle of their set,
Hilly came over and poked me,

and he laughed, and he said,
"You think they're serious?"

And I said, "I don't know
if they're serious,

but I think they're fabulous."

I mean, they were terrible.

They were so out of tune
it was painful.

They were crying because
they came from Ohio

and they expected
to be CBGB stars,

and here they were
being rejected.

And I said,
"You can come to Max's

"and I'll give you bookings,

but you got to bring
a tuning machine to my office."

[Phil Caivano] The other band
that I really think

doesn't get enough credit,
Suicide...

they were really
that art music,

didn't know what was
going to happen,

scary, phenomenal.

There was one time Alan got up
on stage with a cassette player

and played it through the PA
because Marty wasn't there.

Like, it's a Suicide show,
it didn't matter.

I call him Suicide.

So for me, he always
did weird shit.

And when Suicide played,
it could be quite an event.

Bottles being flung,

physicality,
being chased off stage.

[Alan Vega] [inaudible] Suicide
was [inaudible] me,

We both had our way.

And our way was democracy.

So in words, we only played
what was good for both of us.

And then the Max's Kansas City
album came out,

and I recorded three tracks.

Peter Crowley decided to take
my "Death to Disco" single

after my borrowing a paragraph
from Punk Magazine.

And that became a mainstay on
the Max's Kansas City jukebox.

[Sonny Vincent] The scene was
great as far as the clubs

and the music.

It was really inspiring,
a lot of feeling.

And a lot of the bands were
very raw, which I liked a lot.

I liked the rawness.

I liked the fact
that it wasn't fake.

Nobody was doing it
only for the money,

except perhaps
a few notable exceptions.

And yeah, it was great.

It was really great. It was
inspiring chills and thrills.

In high school,
I really used to go a lot.

I used to kind of cut class
and take a train at the city,

and go to 48th Street
and check out all the guitars,

and then I'd head down
to Max's Kansas City

and spend all night there,

and come home late
and get in trouble.

[rock music playing]

[crowd cheering]

One of the pivotal moments
in the New York rock scene

was the Dick Manitoba-
Wayne County incident at CBGB's.

After that occurred, the scene
was never quite the same.

There was a real divide between
Max's Kansas City and CBGB.

And that was mainly
because of the fight I had

with Dick Manitoba
onstage at CBGB's.

He was harassing me and saying
very homophobic things.

[Jimi LaLumia] Manitoba
of the Dictators

heckled Wayne County in a way
that Wayne took as menacing.

[Jayne County] And then
he jumped up on stage

to go to the bathroom,
but I didn't know

he was going to the bathroom.

I thought he was jumping up
onstage to hit me.

He'd been yelling horrible
things at me from the audience.

When he jumped up on stage,

I did not wait to see
what he was going to do.

I just conked him
with the mic then,

and he fell off the stage
and hit his head into a table

and gave himself a concussion.

[bell dings]

Then he proceeded to jump up
on stage again with me.

[Jimi LaLumia]
They wound up on stage together,

battling, fighting, punching.

[Jayne County] And finally, I
had to pin him down to the floor

and just go bam, bam, bam.

There's blood everywhere,
you know.

[bell dings]

And it just turned into
a whole War and Peacescenario,

which divided
the New York rock scene.

And I think that people
at Max's were disappointed

because they said, "Oh my God,

we wish that this had happened
at Max's and not CBGB's."

[Phyllis Stein]
The Heartbreakers

were a Max's band straight out.

And part of the reason
they were a Max's band

is because Max's
paid them a lot more

than Hilly paid his bands.

The Dolls had been a Max's band,

so it was a natural progression
for the Heartbreakers.

[rock music playing]

That band basically
revolved around drugs,

not as a band
but as individual members.

[Jayne County] They brought in
a very drug-oriented audience

because at one time,
people used to come to Max's

to see if this is going
to be the gig at Max's,

that Johnny Thunders drops dead.

Eventually,
he played on it, you know.

They had advertisements: "Catch
us while we're still alive."

[Jayne County] They also
captured a New York sensibility.

You know, Chinese Rocksand
that sense of dissolute abandon.

[Bob Gruen] In spite of
whatever drugs he was on,

he knew how to take care
of business.

Of course he was
pretty slick about it.

He'd have a show
at Max's scheduled,

and so he'd talk Tommy, - a teen
who was the manager at Max's -

he'd talk Tommy into
giving him an advance,

and then he'd show up
on the day of the show

and say there was nothing
he could do.

He had pawned his guitar,
he'd run out of money,

and he had the guitar
in the pawn shop

and he needed more money
or he couldn't play the show.

And Tommy was in a bind. If
he said no, there was no show.

If he said yes,
they don't make money.

So he's the kind of guy
that if the show sucked,

it didn't matter.

It was always exciting and cool,

even if he fucked up,
and it didn't really matter.

But when he was on,
and everybody was all together,

obviously, it was better.

Possibly some of the greatest
rock and roll music

ever composed

by some of the greatest,
including Jerry Nolan,

who was crazier than them all.

The greatest music that
you could possibly hope for,

but just mismanagement,
including me,

that just wrecked it up.

We were all hanging
out at Max's.

I mean regularly, every night,

it would be Johnny,
Jerry, me, Stiv.

Tommy Dean was still
supporting Johnny Thunders

in a lot of ways
by giving them food

and paying them advances,
and all of that kind of stuff.

During the Happy Hour,
there was free food,

and a lot of the
musicians would come,

and that would be their only
hot meal of the day.

But that put 3,000 to 4,000
to $5000 in the register

before I even did a soundcheck.

Therefore there was
no heavy pressure on me

to book for money.

Well, I first went
to Max's in 1978.

I was now in a group,
Generation X,

my own punk rock group.

I was actually on
a press junket in New York.

Patti Smith was doing a showcase
for her album Radio Ethiopia

at Max's, so who I first saw

doing an incredible show
at Max's was Patti Smith.

So it was like, "Wow."

I mean, she was
a massive hero to us.

And so we loved Horses,

and there I was getting a sort
of a view into her new album.

So Max's... there,
it was all coming true for me.

[rock music playing]

I used to hang out
at Max's all the time

and CB's, and for a long time,
my old band, The Stimulators,

we were almost like
the house band at Max's.

We used to play there so much.

Along comes Harley.

12 years old, kicking
his drum kit over twice a night.

And this was also two sets.

Max's was two sets a night:
an early set and a late set.

I'd go there to see
The Stimulators

when I was a kid
before my band could play,

and there was little Harley
playing the drums

and Denise's aunt on guitar
blowing us away.

We played there very often.

We were beloved at Max's.

And early on,
when we began,

our set was so fast
and so invigorating.

And we'd knock over the table

so we could have room
to jump up and down,

kind of Pogo-ing.

So whenever
The Stimulators played,

the staff had to take away
all the tables and chairs

before we began,
or they would be destroyed.

But anyway, I started playing
there around the same time

that Sid was doing
all his shows there.

He was living
in New York at the time.

It was right after
he had left the Sex Pistols.

[Jayne County] Oh yes, he used
to come to me and he'd go,

"Wayne, do you think Sid is gay?

"I think Sid not be gay.

He can't fuck me."

And I'm like, "You're on drugs,
you're on dope, you're on junk.

He can't fuck you."

The first Thursday,
Sid went over well

as far as ticket sales
and all that sort of thing.

Nancy was happy.

Poor Sid was half dead.

He had the flu
or something similar

with a very high fever.

He'd gathered a really
good set of musicians.

The band was just fine.

[Nick Marden] Mick Jones
jumped up in the air too much.

[laughs]

Other than that, they were a
good, solid rock and roll band,

Mick Jones, Killer Kane,
and Jerry Nolan playing drums.

What a fantastic band!

And he sang.
He did his best.

I mean, it was a lot
of criticism that people had,

that they were shit
and everything.

I thought it was great.

You know, it's rock and roll,
it's not perfection.

I loved when Sid sang.

♪♪

♪ I create a lot of problems
But now I'm really gonna try ♪

♪ Been in a messy situation

♪ And for you it's been no fun

♪ But if we're
Getting down to favors ♪

♪ Then honey you can do me one

♪ But take a chance on me

♪ Take a chance on me

♪ Take a chance on me

♪ Take a chance on me, yeah

[instrumental]

♪ Well I know
I'm just a junkie ♪

♪ And I can't make it
off the floor ♪

♪ But all that
Really doesn't matter ♪

♪ Because with you
I'm something more ♪

♪ It's just a little
Complicated ♪

♪ And everything they say
Is true ♪

[rock music playing]

[Neon Leon] The death knell
for the scene, I think,

was Sid and Nancy's deaths,

and it brought
a kind of attention to it

that wasn't really
necessary to the scene.

It wasn't really safe in here.

The blitz incident
took place in 1978,

when a lot of bad things were
happening all over the scene.

[Denise Mercedes] Johnny Blitz
got attacked and stabbed,

and that was really bad.

I mean, that kind of changed
the feeling of, like...

punks and musicians
walking down the street

and feeling that
you could get attacked

because of the way you dressed
or the way you looked.

[Sonny Vincent] I think
it was threatening to people,

to the extent--
more than we realized.

We'd walk down the street
and people would say,

"Where the fuck you going?
To a Halloween party?"

Or, you know, "Look at
that crazy motherfucker."

[Denise Mercedes] It's funny
because when I think back

to the whole punk scene
in New York,

and CBGB's, and Max's,

and you really think
about the different bands,

I would say that
the Heartbreakers,

and the Voidoids,
and even the Sex Pistols,

I would say, were not tough.

They were not
macho kind of guys.

But the Dead Boys
were legitimately tough.

They were from Cleveland.
They were from Youngstown.

They were scrappy.

They would mouth off to people.

Even Stiv, as tiny as he was,

wouldn't hesitate to get
into a fight with somebody.

[rock music playing]

We played with
the Talking Heads,

we played with Iggy,
we played with the Ramones...

You know, I got friendly
with the Ramones and Johnny.

Especially Johnny.

♪ Well everyone suffered
For weeks and for weeks ♪

♪ When the telephone building
Burnt down ♪

♪ Well, there were
Many lonely days ♪

♪ When I just didn't speak

♪ Well over on my side of town

♪ Well over on my side of town

♪ It's just like
when the circus is around ♪

♪ You see the clowns
They're nodding out on downs ♪

♪ And the junkies
Are making dead sounds ♪

[vocalizing]

♪ And I'm Ruby
From the wrong side of town ♪

♪ And I'm a girl
With both feet on the ground ♪

♪ I always thrive
while others just survive ♪

♪ I'm Ruby
From the wrong side of town ♪

[Jesse Malin] I tried
to sneak in a few times

and in those days, they didn't
really hit you too hard

if you were underage; 11, 12.

It wasn't like it became
where they had IDs.

But I tried to sneak in.

I had no money,
and I had, I don't know,

like a fifth of whiskey
or something on me,

or some small...
I don't know what I had.

And they threw me
down the stairs.

The bouncers were really tough.

And I just went
right down those stairs.

Jesse, he was too young, man.

Can't be throwing a little kid
down the damn stairs.

Shoot.

[Ruby Lynn Reyner]
In the beginning,

it was like hanging out,

and the people were interacting
with each other,

and we were creating.

Plus, I kind of,
at the same time,

was introduced
to shooting amphetamine.

And then it became
kind of a criminal element.

It was like the speed...

It got dark.
It became very dark.

People would offer us
drugs as kids,

and you could see
that so much of this

was going on in bathrooms.

And I also was noticing that,
at the time, that men and women

would go into
the same bathroom together,

and nobody bothered them.

It was like-- that was normal.

If one bathroom was full,
they'd just go on to another.

You had men in the ladies room
all the time,

and ladies going into
the men's restroom.

The bathrooms that matches
were integrated.

[Donna Destri] They weren't like
the bathrooms at CBGB's,

where you took your life
in your hands.

I mean, I would never go
to the bathrooms at CBGB's.

That was just like bacteria
to the n-th degree.

Max's were clean at least.

There was some sex going on
in the bathrooms, I'm sure.

There's the famous story
of Eric Emerson having sex

in the bathrooms at Max's, so...

I don't know
about that personally.

[laughs]

[Ruby Lynn Reyner] He used
to take girls into the bathroom

and have sex with them.

He asked me one time,
"Do you want to have my child?"

[Louie X. Erlanger] Sex was
rampant in the bathrooms,

as well as,
you go into a stall

and you hear a lot of sniffing
in the stall next to you.

[Harley Flanagan] It wasn't
like a bunch of rich people

sniffing blow.

It was a bunch of total
scumbag, crazy,

punk rock, junkie, prostitute,
fucking messes.

And here, my 12-year-old ass
is running around,

hitting people up for quarters
for the pinball machine, yeah.

"Do you have any quaaludes?"

"Uh... No I'm on speed tonight."

It was such
an extraordinary place,

where you never know
who you would run into

or see,

or who would perform.

Everybody from Wayne County...

Where else would you see
someone like Wayne County?

Well, Jayne is, you know...
How can I shock you?

And how many different ways?

Fabulous.
Fabulous performer.

Every couple of months,
I would play Max's.

But when I moved to England,
I would come back and play

like one night there,
and it would be a big night,

because I'd been away
in England for six whole months.

People would come to see me,

there'd be lines
around the block.

You know, lines around the block
at Max's Kansas City.

"Come see us," you know.

♪ The New York Dolls
Are kicking it out ♪

♪ And looking it up

♪ You've got
A personality crisis, baby ♪

♪ Down at Max's

♪ All the boys are

♪ And all the girls are

♪ All the kids are
They're down at Max's ♪

♪ Blondie's all in a buzz

♪ She's on the cover
Of the New York Rocker ♪

♪ Dee Dee Ramone
Strips his bass to the bone ♪

♪ He's a blitzkrieg
Blitzkrieg, blitzkrieg bopper ♪

♪ The Heartbreakers
Are going to give you ♪

♪ A taste of going steady
With Pirate Love ♪

♪ You'd better watch it
'Cause the Electric Chairs ♪

♪ Are gonna fry your brain

♪ Come on, boys!

♪ The downstairs is packed

♪ And the groupies
Are all dressed up ♪

♪ Upstairs the New York Dolls

♪ Are kicking it out
And looking it up ♪

♪ Bad girls
Just looking for a kiss ♪

♪ Down at Max's

♪ All the boys are

♪ And all the girls are

♪ All the kids are...

[Jimi LaLumia] Years later,
I heard the various stories

about money being manufactured
in the basement.

I always said,
"I never heard that."

Because if I did,

I would probably have asked
for some of the gig money

that we sometimes didn't get.

[Peter Crowley] He and Laura,
again, they were in Paris.

They have all their
brilliant ideas in Paris.

And they noticed
that French money

is different sizes for
the different denominations.

And they noticed that American
money is all the same size.

And the biggest problem
for counterfeiters in America,

at that time, was getting
a hold of the correct paper.

So they got home

and Laura started working
with various bleaches

and things like that,

and she figured out
how to bleach out a $1 bill

without destroying it.

At the same time,
Xerox came out

with a new color copier
that was so precise

it could do the very
fine lines in money.

So they started
bleaching out those ones

and printing the hundreds.

And they figured out how to pass
them without getting caught.

They would go to Atlantic City
and buy chips.

He was relatively adept
at gambling, so at one time,

he could make money playing
poker and that sort of thing.

By 1881, he wasn't
so good at it anymore.

It was the influence
of the White Lady that...

Well, that got him involved
in doing all this crazy shit

in the first place,

and then also
threw off his skill.

So anyway, here he was,

printing away money,
printing away money.

He made two mistakes.

First mistake was, he paid the
electric bill with bad money.

Around 1980, a vice president
from Con Ed came to Max's

and said, "So Tommy,
we'll take your check,

but we won't take
your cash anymore."

If I was in Tommy's shoes
at that time,

that would tell me it's time
to get out of the business,

to stop, because if
the Con Ed people can catch me,

how far behind can
the Treasury Department be?

[rock music playing]

The rise of what we now know
as New York hardcore

starts with the Bad Brains'
first shows in New York.

And the Bad Brains
had played Max's

when they hadn't quite yet
made the break yet,

when they were still
kind of a punk band.

[Dr. Know] That shit
was punk rock.

[laughs]

We had something to do with that

because it was the message

and the music,

and then the speed.

We saw that a lot of people
believed in us

and supported us,

and kept on coming,
and coming, and coming.

And eventually,
the kids would sell out.

[Jesse Malin] Max's,
at that point,

became the foundation

for the early,
early versions of hardcore,

along with CBGB's, which
was having hardcore matinees.

But Peter was booking them
at nighttime.

[Jimi LaLumia] Glenn Danzig
gives full hosannas

to Max's and to Crowley

for allowing the misfits
to cut their teeth at Max's.

[Steven Bush]
So in some ways,

you could say that
the whole hardcore,

New York hardcore scene,
really starts at Max's.

And it's very true.

The final days of Max's was
the earliest days of hardcore.

And the hardcore scene
was beginning in New York,

and my band, Heart Attack,
put out a record, God is dead.

And I was going
to junior high school,

but all my friends in
the Boroughs were making bands.

Before CBGB's would do
the hardcore matinees,

Max's was accepting it.

[hardcore music playing]

[applause]

[rock music playing]

[Billy Idol] When I actually
came to live in New York,

in March of '81,
I did hang out at Max's.

After a few months
of living there,

I gradually met
Steve Stevens,

and we started to put
a band together.

We had a drummer,
Steve Missal.

When he said,
"Tonight I'm playing,

"it's the closing night
of Max's.

Max's is closing, I'm in one
of the bands they're playing,"

I said, "Can we jump up and
play before or after you play,

or something, or before you?"

And he said, "We could get up
and play a couple of tunes."

[Billy Idol] And we played
Dancing With Myself.

We played about
four or five songs.

And I could see
the minute that we got on

people going,
"Fuck, it's Billy Idol."

There I was on the stage,

where people like Alan Vega
and Martin Rev of Suicide

had been on that stage.

A lot of my heroes,
the music I loved

that came out of New York
had been on that stage.

It was my way of saying "thanks"
by getting up there

and doing this jump up,
and sort of, in a way,

cementing myself a little bit

in with the Max's history,
in a way.

So I knew, man,
this is the last night.

And it did,
it shut the next day.

That was, I believe,
the last show of the--

before Max's closed,
and it was our first show.

You'd go from CB's to Max's,

it didn't really matter
who was playing.

You just went anyway,

especially if they
let you in for free.

And Peter Crowley was nice
enough to let me in for free.

Because Birdland
played there a lot,

and the Rattlers
played there a lot.

The Rattlers was actually
the very last band

to play on the stage at Max's.

And I think that's
a huge honor,

because Max's does not get
enough acknowledgment

for all the bands
that broke out of there.

[Donna Destri]
My friend Dorothy, one night,

fell asleep upstairs
under a booth.

OK, she was really wasted,

and she fell asleep,
and she came walking down,

early in the morning, while they
were still counting the money.

And I was asleep in the car,
waiting for Michael,

and she said--
she walked down the steps

and all of a sudden,
all the guns went up.

So, yeah, they were doing
something shady, come on.

[laughs]

[Peter Crowley] Second mistake,

which brought down
the whole house of cards:

Laura went to the gift shop
in Atlantic City,

bought a purse,
and paid with a bad 100.

And they remembered
who passed that bad 100,

and she got arrested,

and they were going
to prosecute her.

Tommy went to the
prosecuting attorney and said,

"If you let her go
with no charges,

I'll plead guilty to whatever
you want me to plead guilty to."

So he went away to the country
club prison for four years

in the 80s,

and the sad part is while
he was in there, Laura died.

In '81, the final blow to Max's

was he needed money

to pay back the guys
in Atlantic City.

And you have to pay them.

And the only way he could
get that kind of money,

in legitimate money,
was to sell the building.

I had made him
so much money in the 70s

that he was able to buy
the Max's building.

And he owned it outright,
no mortgage or anything.

The woman who owned
the office building next door

wanted desperately
to have Max's gone

because of
the broken glass, vomit,

and whatever that was there
every morning.

And so Tommy went
to her and said,

"If you give me
a million dollars,

I'll give you the business
and the building."

And she said, "OK."

He peeled off a million,
he went and paid off

the boys in Atlantic City.

And that was the end
of Max's Kansas City

and put me in the street.

[rock music playing]

[Jimi LaLumia] Max's does not
get the due that it's deserved.

Max's closed
at the dawn of the 80s.

CBGB'S remained open.

Hilly stayed in business
for another 20 years

and was able to stay
in the public eye,

whereas Max's died
in the end of '81.

By default, CBGB's
became the punk place

for the MTV generation.

Max's unfortunately
was cut out of that equation.

[Denise Mercedes]
Max's was very unique

because it allowed
the diversity of acts,

of humans, to come together,

no matter what you
were trying to do.

We had the platform and the
ability to experiment on stage,

bring our best,
see what happened.

And we were all there:
gay, straight, Asian, Black,

Hispanic, White...
Who wasn't there?

We were all there,

kicking ass
on that fucking stage.

[Sonny Vincent] We had
some managers back then

and they said, "Oh, Sonny, drink
this before you go on stage,

it'll cut the edge."

Well, after a while,
I was really cutting the edge.

And I told Gene, "Oh, we're not
going to play the first song.

Let's start with
the second song."

And I told the drummer, Gregory,

"We're not going
to play the first song,

let's start with
the third song."

And then I started
with the eighth song,

and there was this din of noise,
and the audience loved it,

and I was going,
"Wow, this is so great.

I can do what I want."

[Harley Flanagan]
I'll tell you man,

Max's was a really crazy place.

You can only imagine
what it was like for me.

I was 12, and you got people
like Johnny Thunders

stumbling down the steps
from the dressing room

with, like, a syringe
hanging out of his arm,

and talking about,
"Are we on yet?"

I mean, total debauchery.

[Nick Marden]
Crazy people there,

crazier people,
or flashier people,

or on other nights,
it was just the regular people.

Which, for the Max's crew,
that could be anybody.

[Phil Caivano]
I think in a lot of ways,

Max's was more important
than CBGB's,

because of the lineage
of the history of it.

It was all, like,
this line that went back

to the Velvet Underground,

and that was the club that
I had in my brain,

from the magazines,
from the stories,

from records, from songs,

from print.

That's why it was
so important to me,

and that's why
I loved it so much.

[Alice Cooper]
Back at Max's Kansas City,

there were a million ideas
launched back there,

in that back, because
there was so much creativity

in that room back there.

Remember this,

if you forget everything else.

They were all stoned,
all the time.

And this is the Clash
and the Sex Pistols,

and Sid, and Malcolm,
and me, and Susie.

Everyone.

David Bowie, Gene Pitney,
to Mick Jagger--

Mick Jagger, the Rolling Stones.

Wherever they were,
they were all high

all the time.

Everyone was high.

No one was straight ever.

[rock music playing]

[Elliott Murphy]
So Max's was really, for me...

You know, there's the whole
art side of Max's too,

and the Andy Warhol side,

but from the music side,

Max's played
a very important part

in the Golden Age of music.

And I'm very grateful
to both Mickey Ruskin

and Tommy Dean for all the...

for how much attention
they paid to that, you know.

[Alice Cooper] I was having
the most fun I've ever had

and being-- it was part
of the Alice Cooper thing.

It helped me create.

Max's Kansas City helped me
create a lot of things.

[Jayne County]
The legacy of Max's lives on.

In one way or another,
Max's legacy lives on.

It'll never die, really,

because Max's, it's like--

it's like Paris was in the 20s,
or Berlin was in the 30s,

or England was in the 60s.

Max's in the 70s was,
like, famous.

It's going to be
always remembered.

It's going to be written about
and filmed about always.

[Harley Flanagan] I'm up
on stage playing, and I'm like,

"Give me a Coke! Get me a Coke,"
meaning a Coca-Cola,

and half the crowd thought I was
yelling "Coke" like cocaine.

I mean, this is
the fucking mentality

of how depraved this shit was.

[Jesse Malin]
The thing about Max's II for us

was kids could play there,
or even go to shows there.

You felt like you were
really part of history.

You'd seen it in the magazines,
you knew the iconic ad

that was in the paper,
that strip ad.

To see your name in it,
in the Village Voice,

it really meant something.

It felt like you were
part of something.

[Ruby Lynn Reyner]
I, like-- Mr. T used to say,

"I pity the poor fools that
don't have Max's Kansas City."

Because Max's Kansas City was
a once in a lifetime experience.

[Steven Bush] You're asking why
all these really cool shows

of soon-to-be stars
were happening there,

and there's your answer:
it really was the place to be.

[Nick Marden]
There would be an energy there.

And some nights
it would be a bummer energy,

it'd be like real
heavy junky energy.

Other nights it would be
this weird aggro energy.

Other nights, it would be
a mellow thing.

But there was always
something percolating there,

as opposed to other places,
where you'd just sit down

and drink and leave.

[Harley Flanagan]
A lot of good times, though.

I saw some great
fucking bands at Max's.

And it was really cool to...

I should say, it isreally cool
to have played there.

It was a great piece
in New York history.

[Denise Mercedes] Without
Peter Crowley, without Max's,

I can't imagine what
the New York music scene,

what the music world
would have lost.

That was my first gig
in America, really.

It was at Max's Kansas City
on their last night.

[Alice Cooper]
It's an era gone by.

It's a place that's gone by.

And it will always be a place
that's almost like...

Everybody wanted to
at least be there once.

You know, they go,

"That must have been
spectacular!"

And I go, "It was."

["Leave My Pussy Alone" by Jayne
County and Jimi LaLumia plays]

♪ In the name of science
There's nothing you won't do ♪

♪ You think you have the right
But it's wrong ♪

♪ You know that's true

♪ Killing, scarring, torturing
The ones that can't fight back ♪

♪ We'll do their fighting
For them ♪

♪ You'll get a big payback

♪ Keep your hands off my pussy
Don't you mess with my pussy ♪

♪ Just leave my pussy alone

♪ Not tonight with my pussy

♪ It ain't right with my pussy
Just leave my pussy alone ♪

♪ Yeah
Leave my pussy alone ♪

♪ In the name of profit
You're monsters on the loose ♪

♪ You've crossed the line
Too many times ♪

♪ Your neck is in the noose

♪ You slash their throats
You stab their eyes ♪

♪ You lead them to their doom

♪ Just so that some old bitch
Gets to test a new perfume ♪

♪ So keep your hands
Off my pussy ♪

♪ Don't you mess with my pussy
Just leave my pussy alone ♪

♪ Don't you stare at my pussy

♪ Don't you dare with my pussy
Just leave my pussy alone ♪

[instrumental]

♪ In the name of justice
We're knocking down your door ♪

♪ We'll chain ourselves
We'll paint ourselves ♪

♪ We'll nail you to the floor

♪ We'll spray paint
All your furs ♪

♪ We'll boycott
All your stores ♪

♪ Until you get the message
We won't take this anymore ♪

♪ So keep your hands
off my pussy ♪

♪ Don't you mess with my pussy
Just leave my pussy alone ♪

♪ Not tonight with my pussy

♪ It ain't right with my pussy
Just leave my pussy alone ♪

♪ So keep your hands
Off my pussy ♪

♪ Don't you mess with my pussy
Just leave my pussy alone ♪

♪ Don't you stare at my pussy

♪ Don't you dare with my pussy
Just leave my pussy alone ♪

♪ Yeah, pick on somebody
Your own species ♪

["Max's Kansas City"
by The Electric Chairs plays]

♪ Take a tip from me

♪ And get ready
For the big parade ♪

♪ It's the place to be

♪ Every night's
A happy holiday ♪

♪ The kids are jumping around
Everybody's doing loop de loop ♪

♪ Just a making the rounds

♪ Like a speed freak
In a telephone booth ♪

♪ The downstairs is packed

♪ And the groupies
Are all dressed up ♪

♪ Upstairs the New York Dolls

♪ Are kickin' it out
Looking tough ♪

♪ You've got a
Personality crisis, baby ♪

♪ Down at Max's

♪ Max's Kansas City

-♪ All the boys are
-♪ At Max's Kansas City

-♪ All the girls are
-♪ At Max's Kansas City

-♪ All the kids are
-♪ At Max's Kansas City

♪ Down at Max's

♪ I see Patti Smith

♪ She's the Stagger Lee
Of rock 'n' roll ♪

♪ She threw a seven and eleven

♪ And she always knows
Which parts to hold ♪

♪ And I see Lou Reed
And Iggy Pop ♪

♪ There just to get
Higher and higher ♪

♪ Go get them boys
One more drink ♪

♪ And they're going to set
The place on fire ♪

♪ Go get 'em boys

♪ The downstairs is packed

♪ And the groupies
Are all dressed up ♪

♪ Upstairs the New York Dolls

♪ Are kickin' it out
Looking tough ♪

♪ Bad girls just a lookin'
For a kiss ♪

-♪ Down at Max's
-♪ Max's Kansas City

-♪ All the boys are
-♪ At Max's Kansas City