I think the last time I actuallly set foot in the Limelight was sometime circa 1995. I'd gone to see Gang of Four (though, honestly, it wasn't really Gang of Four so much as Andy Gill and Jon King with someone I don't remember on drums who was not Hugo Burnham and Lawrence from Levitation on bass, taking the place of Sara Lee, who -- in turn -- had taken the place of the great Dave Allen -- but I digress) with my friend Stephan. I remember dancing with some blonde girl while some very smiley-looking guy stood off by the bar, staring at us. "Who is that guy?" I asked her. "Oh, that's my boyfriend," she blithely replied, "I think he likes you too!" Welcome to the Limelight.
While I was never what anyone would call a "club hopper," I darkened the doors of the deliciously sacreligious club in question several times, normally to see bands play in its apse. Along with Gang of Four, I remember catching Foetus, New Model Army, Vent 414, KMFDM, the Lords of Acid, the Bastards of Execution, Fractured Cylinder and --- wait for it -- even my beloved Killing Joke (on the Pandemonium tour) all at the Limelight. Also, for a little while in the very early 90's, I was friends with girl who used to "work" in club promotion, which meant she went to nine or ten clubs a night, handing out flyers for other club events. I went along once or twice to follow her on these missions (usually running out of steam well before the end of her shifts, `cos I'm a big girl's blouse, after all). We'd go to places with names like Morrissey's, Big City Diner, the Lovesexy Lounge, The Sound Factory, the Tunnel and bunch of other spots I don't remember. We'd always end up back at the Limelight, as that's where her boss was. Oh, and her boss was none other than one Michael Alig. I met the guy once, and he was wearing assless pants and had teardrops painted on his buttocks. Again, welcome to the Limelight!
As fate would have it, Michael Alig went onto infamy after he chopped up one Angel Melendez and put his dismembered coprse in a crate and dumped it in the Hudson River. Only problem with that plan was that, instead of sinking, said crate floated over to New Jersey, where it was recovered and blah blah blah. If you care about this particularly gruesome saga, you should check out "Party Monster."
In any case, by the time all this stuff was going down, the bands were no longer playing at the club anyway, so my reasons for going had pretty much evaporated. The Limelight was shuttered. I remember they had a big sale, pawning off items from the club, like the doors from the stalls in the bathrooms (where that creepy old men's room attendant dressed like a priest). That was kinda that for while, until the club re-opened, so I gather, as Avalon. With my club-going days well behind me, I'm afraid I can't speak with any authority on the subject, but evidently all that's over with now too as the Limelight is now going to re-open as a mini-mall. Fucking shocking, right?
As if the whole notion of turning an Episcopal church into a lascivious hotbed of carnal boogieing wasn't sacreligious enough, shouldn't the idea of turning it into a marketplace really upset the faithful? (I'm reminded of some episode in the Bible wherein Young Jeezy drives out the merchants and the moneychangers from the temple). In any case, should you care, here's the whole poop as reported by the unsurprsingly puffy-chested New York Post.
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