Blue Ivory Nightclub charges $20 for admission for customers to get in. From our archives: Read Are We Having Fun Yet? by by Melissa Harris, a dispatch from the frontlines of the Buckhead party scene. Once Dad got over the shock of it, he came around. The cabarets tallest drag queen, Ziggy Stardust (Chester Phelps), was my dads right-hand man. In its heyday, The Royal Peacock on Auburn Avenue stood firm as the crown jewel of Atlanta's rhythm and blues scene. If you've stumbled upon this blog entry, I'm hoping you'll further stroll down Memory Lane with mecome along to Atlanta circa 1985. A flood of new bars, lounges, and clubs helps make Castleberry Hill Atlantas newest nightlife destination. Underground Atlanta reopens with a lineup of bars in Kennys Alley but fails to capture the magic of its heyday. In June of 1981, orange juice pitchman and former beauty queen Anita Bryant, known for her vocal anti-gay stance, stopped in. People would just go up there to cool off from dancing and to do some drugs, and then, theyd go back downstairs. VICKI: It was a home for so many gay people. By David Drawbaugh. Hottest years: 2005-2009. On big weekends like Hotlanta River Expo, no one on the dance floor had a shirt on or, sometimes, no clothes, periodif security hadnt gotten to them yet. MJQEntered through an unmarked side door of a seedy hotel, the original MJQ was an underground Euro lounge dropped in the middle of Ponce. He wasnt thrilled at first, but he accepted it. But by the time it closed in July 2004, Backstreet had become a 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week playground for the entire city. Youll have to stay the whole night. 1994A big year for major club openings gives Atlanta the jazz-funk bohemia of Yin Yang Cafe; the underground hipness of the original MJQ; the S&M-themed industrial dance club the Chamber; and the scenemakers haven in Buckhead, Tongue & Groove. Even if you didnt communicate with these people on the outside, you looked forward to seeing these same folks at the club. 5 not-so-true romances: The couples who kept our tongues wagging, Desert Storm: The first war televised live around the world (and around the clock), Where are they now? So many customers would come up to me and say, Thank you, thank you, thank you for what youve done here. 2010Nonis, the Sound Table, Cafe Circa, and other bars lure nightlife to underappreciated Edgewood Avenue. ANDREA VARA ERWIN: Henrys other daughter, Andrea, also worked at the club. Honestly? A seemingly endless battle over the club ensued between Cornwell and city officials. I just thought I was working too much. With a nondescript entrance near Ponce City Market, party-goers can expect a gritty, unpretentious crowd of 20-to-30-somethings getting sweaty dancing in the subterranean spot.The party spills over into two rooms, with themed music ranging from hip-hop to punk, and . Motorhead, Timothy Leary, Johnny Thunders and former Rolling Stone Mick Taylor all appeared. A great deal, it turns out. They hired extras to come in to play the crowd for the stripping scenes. Sign up for our newsletter to get the best of VICE delivered to your inbox daily. Lil Jon, who partied with the music mogul that week, admits he feels nostalgic for those days when peopleeither from Atlanta or visitingactually danced. In this day and age, we could never have what we had back then. 2023 CREATIVE LOAFING, LLC. You could just be yourself. CLOSED NOW. I didnt think too much of it at first. (205) 477-0603, The Green Lantern on Facebook. I felt like the tiniest fish in an ocean of people. But on the legs of running back Jamal Andersonwho rushed for 1,846 yards, nearly twice as much as he ever had or would againand a smothering defense, the Falcons rattled off a nine-game winning streak to end the season a franchise-best 142 atop the NFC West. A decade later, it would be renamed the Royal Peacock. The 1990s were perhaps our city's most transformative decade. After his Miami Limelight disco burned to the ground in the late '70s, enigmatic club king Peter Gatien set his sights on Atlanta. 1990s. BROWN: When we finally got inside, I was blown away. And for the remaining few who were able to experience these establishments, the memories provide a colorful illustration of the variety of nightlife our city hosted through the years. I got them to tear that out. It makes sense that in our city "too busy to hate," filled with transients and few who stay put, we've largely forgotten our history. Russ Bowen-Youngblood/ Eclipse & DAVID Magazine. Retro Dance Club. The Loft. Sylvester was a regular performer for us. 2005Rapper T.I.s Club Crucial proves to be an instant hit in Atlantas Bankhead neighborhood. I didnt have to hide it anymore. It was where the QT in Midtown is located now at Ptree and 6th. Theyve been a couple for 43 years. Bunnies were also forbidden to date customers. HENRY: [laughs] Their mother was in charge of having those kinds of conversations with them. VANESSA: We held many, many memorial services at the club up in the cabaret. Drinking age = 18. Over the years, the times changed, and we changed with them. Take our nightlife. The Gold ClubThis edifice to the ecdysiasts art was a haven for excess throughout the decade: an epilepsy-inducing blur of neon, mirrors, and throbbing music; wall-to-wall hotties serving up in-your-face table dances; and stratospheric bar tabs. It was Atlanta's most popular and successful nightclub in terms of revenue and attendance and has also been featured in Nightclub & Bar's Top 50 Clubs in the United States for 2015. . 7. CL could devote a whole issue to now-defunct nightspots, but here are a few too consequential to be forgotten. "You could probably count on a fight at least every other night," says Eric Snoddy, a former Metroplex security guard and doorman. The Abbys. The Arrogance and the Ecstasy: Gnter Seeger has been called a tyrant, an elitist, a snob. Welcome to Atlanta's premier nightlife guide. 48. I said, Dont you f**king hate when that happens? Classical, country and blues have historically been well represented. Gay nightclubs spring up, like the Cove in Morningside and the Armory in Midtown, as well as drag bars like Hollywood Hots on Cheshire Bridge and Mrs. Ps on Ponce. Arguably the craziest decade for Atlanta nightlife, the '90s see the continued explosion of the Mardi Gras-level party scene of Buckhead Village. From hundreds to thousands to tens of thousands, Freaknik grew, but during its first decade, almost all white Atlantansand many black Atlantans over the age of 40were oblivious. The doctors told me I likely contracted it 10 years before that. It wasn't always this way. But nearly 30 years ago, it was mostly hip-hop tracks from the coasts and other Southern cities, like Miami and Memphis, that boomed from speakers at local clubs and on the streets during Freaknik, the citys now-defunct unofficial spring break bash. It was our family business. I loved it. They couldnt get anything to work. But as the century drew to a close, Midtown, once a haven for hippies, slowly reinvented itself into a swanky live-work-play district, with million-dollar penthouses near the clubs main entrancecondos owned by working professionals who wanted to sleep at night. In the beginning, the massive, three-level, 10,000-square-foot space (it had housed Langs Interiors in the 1950s), catered almost exclusively to the citys burgeoning white gay male population. Home to Charlie Browns Cabaret and a disco floor that drew gay and straight revelers, Backstreet was the go-to place to party after other clubs closed.Fate It stopped rainin men in 2004 after a city ordinance mandated 3 a.m. closings. THE SECRET IS OUT! (There It Is), The remains of the games: Ranking our Olympics infrastructure, Atlantas true Olympic legacy: Not brick, mortar, or granite, Are We Having Fun Yet? Homosexual activity. It was more about the beauty of these men dancing together. There was also a restaurant, a jumbo Jacuzzi with changing rooms and a small movie theater filled with pillows in place of seats. Flashback photos: Atlanta buildings and streets in the 1980s. This was on a Saturday night at midnight. Then came federal indictments alleging the strip club was little more than a gilded brothel, with profits funneled to the Mafia.Fate The building on Piedmont Road is now the Gold Room, just a plain old nightclub. In '83, Gatien moved to New York to open a Limelight club there and his brother Maurice was given the reins of the Atlanta club. Things havent been the same since the days of Club Kaya, the Chamber, and the Gold Club. The DJs wouldnt let us sweep the floor or even take the trash cans from around the dance floor. There were no places to sit in the whole room.. It was truly a 24-hour metroplex. 2011After two years of legal battles, the Gidewon brothers of Vision and Compound fame spend millions to open two new, upscale Midtown nightclubs, Vanquish and Reign; the clubs close four years later. They were charging people different rates. Old School Music Clubs. When people were digging through their purses looking for their ID, all sorts of weird shit would inevitably come falling outdildos, coke, pills, you name it. She spent the evening dancing with the unlikeliest partner, gay evangelist Russ McGraw, and D'Alema photographed them on the dance floor. Gay people played hard, they drank hard, and they danced hard and had more money to spend than the straight crowd. . Rijeka, Hrvatska. 7 iconic Atlanta nightlife spots of the era. In November 1987, legendary Plasmatic Wendy O Williams performed with opening act Scream, which included drummer Dave Grohl, later of Nirvana/Foo Fighters fame. At the top of the stairs, keyholders were greeted by a woman dressed in the trademark Bunny suit bunny ears, stockings, four-inch heels, white cuff links and a form-fitting corset uniform. He was a good dad. Cornwell went for an indestructible look, anticipating the venue would see its share of bumps and bruises as the crowd slamdanced the night away. My whole plan in moving to Atlanta was to become a DJ at the biggest club in the SoutheastBackstreet. 1990sArguably the craziest decade for Atlanta nightlife, the 90s see the continued explosion of the Mardi Graslevel party scene of Buckhead Village. She said, Dont sweat it, bitch. Please post photos, memories and exploits from your favorite hangout. 0.9 miles. But how have those construction projects paid off? This now-defunct drive-thru strip club allowed customers to watch dancers strip through a window without ever leaving the comfort of their cars. His wife, Sara, and her sons, then 4 and 6, were kidnapped from . She stayed to watch me do Eartha Kitts Champagne Taste.. On the other side: the Solid Republican South, gathering mass and best represented by Newt Gingrich. But by the end of the decade, the era of upscale lounge nightclubs featuring vocalists and comedians was being ushered out the door. The stainless-steel DJ booth was built into the wall. Eclipse Di Luna Parkplace. Revisiting the Hedonistic Bliss of New York's Legendary '90s Nightlife Scene. A headline in the 1990 edition of Pandora, the University of Georgia's Yearbook, reads, "Social Studies: Most . He gets help when Blakes, the gay Cheers, opens. Our DJs were Billboard reporters, so they were hooked into everything new. But after we got the 24-hour liquor license [in 1987], it was a gay bar until all the other bars in town closed and then, everyone piled into Backstreet. We never used it. I didnt want to be rude, so I watched for a while. These days you'd better not blink or you'll miss the current It Bar, that one watering hole that'll flourish for a few months then suddenly dry up. LUST: The music stopped, and there was dead silence. The notorious photo made it on the cover of the Atlanta Journal, in the pages of Time, Newsweek, Playboy and more than 200 American newspapers. 90s-2000s House Party Saturday @ Josephine Lounge - Atlanta Sat, Dec 17, 10:00 PM + 12 more events The drinks are expensive for an Atlanta club but they do offer plenty of tables. It was magical. HENRY: In the early years of the club, there were a lot of door policies in place you certainly couldnt do today. Gatien usually sequestered himself in the executive offices with a novel and a glass of wine. Photograph by Russ Bowen-Youngblood/ Eclipse & DAVID Magazine. 5th Gear - Baltimore Pike, Media, PA. 19th Hole - North Hills, PA. 25th Hour - Wilkes Barre, PA. 94th Aero Squadron - 2750 Red Lion Rd. Atlanta Uniteds new kit just dropped, with a fresh take on the classic look, Why Im enraptured with Atlantas raptors, A love letter to Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Art Papers annual auction is a love letter to Atlantas art scene, Georgia could soon be home to the worlds first vaccine for honeybees, Meet the MARTA bus operator who has been driving for 50 years, The birds stopped singing: Inside the battle for Atlantas South River Forest, Feel the Yeppa: A new Buckhead restaurant combines Italian dishes, coffee, and Formula One racing, Videos: Mayor Bottoms, Killer Mike, Bernice King give passionate speeches during protests, The scent of water: Searching for hidden springs in downtown Atlanta, Hell and high water: A harrowing journey from Myanmar to Clarkston, Georgia. The Place Bar, Grill And Nightclub. College Park, GA 30337. Dance Clubs 80s Music. He wanted it to be a white male gay club. It was our job to do it quietly. In the '70s, the Sweet Auburn district went into economic decline, which put a damper on business at The Peacock. Everyone has their favourite place for a night out, but over the years that has had to change for many of us. It was like this fortress in the sky. We started handing out free condoms. Your skin color, gender, your sexuality, socioeconomic statusnone of that stuff played a role at Backstreet. Now 45, Elliott is based in Frisco, Texas. When this kinkier cousin to the Masquerade opened in an unmarked warehouse off Cheshire Bridge Road in 1994, it scratched an itch Atlanta didnt know it had. The wait could be as long as four hours. Thank God, my health insurance had kicked in two months before that so I could actually go. 2000sCity Halls tougher stance on nightclubs and bars, combined with a surge in development (and followed by the Great Recession), cool Atlantas overheated nightlife scene. A few shows later, it was closed for good. Backstreets infamous 10,000-plus nights of dancing, drag, drugs, and debauchery, spanning the years from 1975 to 2004. He told me, Were not coming home if you get tired. For example, women couldnt come in unless they were escorted by men. The Atlanta Playboy Club, along with the rest of the chain, swung hard in the '60s. He reminisced of the days before private sections and bottle service. LUST: One night in 1997, my equilibrium was off. As he talks, he walks over to a rolling storage bin that houses a series of crates and shows off a small portion of the mementos hes kept since this time. Scarlet O ' Hara's in Underground. Thats where DJ Nabs landed his legendary set. Back in the 1960s, in Boston, our grandfather [Henry D. Vara,] my dads dad, owned the Punch Bowl, one of the most prominent gay bars in Boston. The Chatterbox lounge. Talk about nervous! Here, we chronicle Backstreets infamous 10,000-plus nights of dancing, drag, drugs, and debauchery, spanning the years from 1975 to 2004recounted by the people who owned the club, worked there, documented its life span, and, of course, partied inside the legendary Atlanta nightspot. I got to escort Madonna into the club one night in disguise, the Baldwin brothers, Lenny Kravitz. Minimum Age: 21. But you'll always have your memories. A caged dancer would be lowered from the ceiling and land at the foot of the stage. How much money? Corruption in DeKalb is nothing newremember Pat Jarvis? RupertsFilling the shoes of the Limelightthe disco of Disco Kroger famewas a tall order, but Ruperts kept Buckhead dancing thanks to its 12-piece house band, the self-proclaimed fabulous Ruperts Orchestra, which pumped out vanilla covers of Top 40 hits.Fate The club closed by the late 1990s, but you can still book the band for your next soiree. That would interrupt the party. We never spoke of it again. Id hit that stage, man, and grab many a redneck, spin his arm around his back, and march him out those double doors. This article appears in our October 2020 issue. She was a trip. Let your hair down at this trendy Atlanta nightclub! My grandfather knew gay clubs were big money. It was the same vantage point where I had stood the first time I went there and realized I wasnt the only gay person in the state. . The response in the room was so loud, security came running up the stairs. VANESSA: Growing up at Backstreet, you kind of got desensitized to things like that after a while. I remember being on the phone with Big Sam from the Eastside Boyz and we literally were like, If we say this, they gonna do this. Best Nightlife in Atlanta, GA - SkyLounge, Tongue & Groove, The Basement, Sanctuary, Red Phone Booth - Downtown Atlanta, Moondogs, Flight Club, Compound, Havana Club ATL, Johnny's Hideaway Its the groups debut single that he credits the club with making a local hit, though. It would be another two years before the state lifted its own ban, but unincorporated DeKalb and many other counties would remain dry for decades, making Atlanta a nightlife hot spot. Night Clubs Bars Taverns. "TLDR: If you want a night out with drinking and dancing to country music, this is your spot." more. CHARLIE BROWN: The emcee of Charlie Browns Cabaret, which ran upstairs at Backstreet from 1990 to 2004, Brown was married to technical director Fred Wise on December 29, 2019, on Browns 70th birthday. He recorded all of his sets, which includes tapes labeled Freaknik 98 Sunday, Kriss Kross/G.M. EFR CPR/AED; From Business: Prepare yourself for an evening of handcrafted cocktails, music, and elevated vibes at Aura Lounge. Yet throughout the 1990s, the citys pioneer hip-hop artists and DJs would find their unique sound at a set of bygone bars and clubs, solidifying the connections that would catapult them into stardom. 1980Nightclub impresario Peter Gatien arrives in Atlanta to open the Limelight, a neon-lit disco that featured a giant slip n slide and sharks swimming under the glass dance floor, which quickly attracts visiting celebrities like Eartha Kitt, Andy Warhol, and Rod Stewart. In 2003, after years of battling neighbors and city hall, Atlanta officials declined to renew the clubs 24-hour liquor license, the sole remaining one in the city. Atlanta Restaurant & Club Scene In The Mid-1980's. Nov. They were filled with things like rolling papers, condoms, snacks, lube, and video head cleaner people sniffed to get highbasically, anything you needed to stay for the entire weekend. Crowds would line up in front of the club, in all their studded, spiked, leathered and dyed glory. HENRY: Word got around that celebrities could be anonymous inside Backstreet. Night Clubs Dance Clubs Disc Jockeys. VICKI: It was a scramble on some nights, but they had enough crew to break everything down. ELLEVEN 45 CLUB. FRIDAY NIGHT! In the '70s, discos, rock clubs and singles bars took their place, and strip clubs began revealing more than Bunnies ever would. BackstreetOne of the largest gay bars in the Southeast, this two-story Midtown club was among the few Atlanta nightspots with a 24/7 liquor license. Tom Wolfe's Atlanta-centric "A Man in Full" was the talk of . A friend took me. The upstairs bar had a huge fishbowl and a bird aviary. "You could finish a game in two minutes and just say 'next.'". CLOSED NOW. I said, Cause Janet Jacksons ass is gonna be sittin there! Thats how addicting that place was. The crowd was a mixed bag of straights and gays decked out in the tight, shiny disco style of the era. Located in the heart of Midtown Atlanta and styled after a historic opera house, Opera Nightclub is one of the favorite party experience of the city. Cramming into clubs packed with big hair, booze and pounding music was a rite of passage in the 1980s and into the 1990s. Although it had a promising start, it failed to catch on, closing in 1987 after it was damaged by fire. So, that could be a challenge. It was our crowd starter. The event was a financial bust, and the club was hit hard. A stop here became de rigueur for NBA stars with names like Ewing, Rodman, and Mutombo. Goliath's Sauna (2002) Police in Calgary, Canada, drew criticism after a 2002 raid of Goliath's Sauna & Texas Lounge, the only gay bathhouse in town. The Peacock is now managed by Moongate Inc. and features reggae and hip-hop performers. I didnt even care what I had on. Aunt Charleys, a casual neighborhood bar, begins a 20-year run in Buckhead at the apex of the Peachtree-Roswell split. Everyone who came in knew these DJs were the best. 1987Ruperts opens in the former Limelight space, boasting a house band covering Top-40 hits. 1989A former wood-shavings mill in Old Fourth Ward is painted black inside and out and transforms into the Masquerade. Inside the nightlife spots that gave DJs and artists a stage to turn the Southern capital into a musical hub. I always thought there should be a plaque or something thing. The audience was primarily African-Americans in their mid-30s. Tionne T-Boz Watkins, Lisa Left Eye Lopes, and Rozonda Chilli Thomas burst onto the scene with their DayGlo fashions and a 1992 debut, "Ooooooohhh. Iris Presents: Kumarion & Smoakland Presents Liquid Smoak High Rollers Tour. Featuring a rooftop, amazing DJs, a well-thought-out menu, drinks, cigar, and hookahs, Alibi Atlanta has it all. Bar. Confetti and snow would periodically fall from the ceiling. But it was such a relief off of me. Sure, there are exceptions to this rule, but Atlanta's club crowd isn't known for nesting. Take a look at these popular gay dance parties and nightclubs in Atlanta. Most celebrities spotted at The Metroplex were on stage, and they ran the gamut of counterculture notoriety. I walked over to her and said, Naw, you aint Cathy Rigby. atlanta nightclubs 1990sdaniel hayes million dollar bogan net worth. I went out to get into my truck one night, and I looked in the car parked next to me and saw two guys involved. 1998Sean Combsthen Puff Daddyopens Justins restaurant in south Buckhead; patrons come to eat, then dance and party the rest of the evening. The Butthole Surfers actually lived at the club for a week in 1988 before migrating to Athens. Home. In the 1990s, Gold Room was a renowned but shady strip club, but it has now been renovated into a glittering tribute to Atlanta's abundant nightlife. Since 1961, Atlanta magazine, the citys premier general interest publication, has served as the authority on Atlanta, providing its readers with a mix of long-form nonfiction, lively lifestyle coverage, in-depth service journalism, and literary essays, columns, and profiles. People went to the basement to dance. At the time, Backstreet was not very drag queenfriendly. WISE: As that redneck went down the steps face first, everybody in the upstairs cabaret jumped up, and 400 people had their faces pressed to the glass of those French doors across the entire back of the room. The show ran continuously all night. The first time he came in, I discreetly went over to his table, introduced myself, and said, Youre here to have fun. The only rule was they had to shoot during the day, break everything down, and be out before our crowd came in at night. I even remember the song that was playing[Barry Harris] Dive in the Pool (Lets Get Soaking Wet). I was just mesmerized. You'd wake up in the afternoon the next day and that night's band would be arriving. Climax Outside Pittsburgh, Pa. This marked the beginning of the end. See more ideas about atlanta, georgia history, atlanta georgia. After a career spent in newspapers, I needed time to become familiar with CNNs staff, operations, finances, and plans for the future. From the 1920s through 1950s the city was a major center for country music. Over the decades, the club was featured in the HBO documentary Dragtime, Comedy Centrals Insomniac, and MTVs ElimiDate. Backstreet represented the good old days of gay life in Atlanta. HENRY: My father was a manly man. The first bar I went to as soon as I got off the plane was Backstreet. I had never seen such plush carpet. If we say this, they gonna do that, he recalls. "In the mid-1990s, everybody flooded to the far corner of Surrey Center where Studio 54 (later renamed Chevy . The Limelight is the Disco that gave the Disco Kroger it's name. LUST: All that stopped when Carmine stepped down and Henry and Vicki took over. It was a nightmare. The 1995 Source Awards at Madison Square Garden, in New York City is often considered a critical inflection point during this time. It was one of many incidents I had to endure when I first came to Atlanta. Checking IDs could get tricky because there were a lot of transgender people who still had their biological appearance on their IDs, but they would be dressed as the opposite sex. He had this rugged exterior. 321 Pharr Rd Ne A. Atlanta, GA 30305. The house music is great, but I felt the songs in the Hip Hop room were from years ago. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the building was host to another dance . Still doesnt have a sign. Buckhead Village comes alive. It really hit him hard. The ChamberGirls in cages. My first day at CNN was August 1, 1990. We had the best clubs, the best bars, the best discos, and when they all shut down at night, they came home to mama, Backstreet. The Atlanta Playboy Club, along with the rest of the chain, swung hard in the '60s. 80s 90s Music And Bar. He took off running, so I took off my wig and my heels and went after him. I watched a lot of the scenes being filmed. Thats how I got what turned out to be the primetime shifts on Friday and Saturday. The Limelight - Stunning Photos From 1990s Favorite NYC Nightclub - New York City, NY - New York City after dark in the '90s was an ecstatic time captured by photographer Steve Eichner. "Sometimes he'd bring some of the bigger celebrities back to his house to party, but he'd end up excusing himself and going to bed while the party kept going.". Latin Night Clubs 21 and Over. Fred Wise and I met in Knoxville in 1977, and by Christmas 1978, we had moved to Atlanta. 1933Prohibition is repealedbut not in Georgia, which had outlawed liquor since 1908. In the morning when we left, the sun was out as we walked to the car. Gladys Knight came as a visitor, but we got her on stage. We wrote it for the club and we wrote it visually seeing what people would do to what were saying.. That was unique. There in the field, we saw two dudes just going at it. (4) (186) 8.3. Squabbles over a liquor license and an ordinance requiring performers and employees to be fingerprinted caused an uproar. Different flavorsvanilla, chocolate, caramel. At our nightclub in Atlanta, GA, we're proud to cultivate an. 1974Music promoter Alex Cooley operates his Electric Ballroom, the leading music venue of the era, in the Georgian Terrace for most of the decade. Phila. Live Music Venues. Illegal in some contexts 2021. Gay clubs made good business sense. I learned, living through the civil rights and the gay rights eras, how to deal with it. She loved her party favors, lets just say. But by the end of the decade, the era of upscale lounge nightclubs featuring vocalists and comedians was being ushered out the door. Dance Club. I need this table, this table, and this table to move. 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