This is kind of a dumb one, but I feel it’s worth addressing, as I don’t really like to get shit wrong. I mean, it certainly happens – probably more so than I’d prefer – but when I can, I like to correct my mistakes.
In any case, I have a friend named Peter, who I actually met when he reached out to me about some entry or another I posted here on this stupid blog about some subject simillarly near’n’dear to his heart. Turns out that we had a lot of stuff in common, and became fast friends thereafter.
These days, Peter works at a spot in SoHo that I find myself walking by on my communtes home from the office, and we’re getting into the habit of stopping and chatting.
During the course of same last night, Peter started some anecdote that -– for a reason that now elludes me -– involved an invocation of sultry pop chanteuse Sade Adu. Knowing our mutually shared allegiance to all things Punk Rock, Peter felt obligated to preface his invocation with a sheepish confession that he’d always loved Sade. Not that he was worried, but I told him that I – too – stand with Team Sade (technically and pedantically, it’s worth pointing out that Sade -– like Blondie before them -- is a band, and not just its titular singer). In college, alongside apparently mandatory copies of the first Violent Femmes record and the Legend compilation by Bob Marley (everyone I knew seemed to own both of these), you were always bound to find a copy of Sade’s Diamond Life. Didn’t matter if you otherwise listened exclusively to Black Sabbath, Oingo Boingo or fuckin’ Hank Williams – everyone owned Diamond Life, if only in that it was simple, sonic shorthand for “don’t come knockin’.” If I heard “Smooth Operator” or “Hang On To Your Love” or “Frankie’s First Affair” emanating from behind my front door during those four years, that usually meant that one or more of my roommates were … y’know …. goin’ at it. It was either that or Avalon by Roxy Music.
Yeah, so anyway, I love Sade. You’d be a fool not to. Beyond their music being sublimely crafted sophisto-pop ripe for the classiest of sexytime, there’s just no arguing with the enigmatic Ms. Adu’s voice. Feel fee to disgaree, but you’re just wrong.
Back to Peter’s story: For some reason he felt the need to invoke Sade with regards to a torrid teenage tryst he’d been attempting to conduct at the time with a young lady who went to my high school (this was a year or two after I’d graduated -– we didn’t cross paths). It was at this inconvneient point in Peter’s narrative that I interjected with a bit of unsolicited trivia.
“Dude, you know Sade used to bartend in the East Village, right?”
This kinda de-railed Peter’s monologue, so I never found out how his story came to fruition.
The problem was, I couldn’t remember the specifics. Was it King Tut’s Wah-Wah Hut (now Niagara) on Avenue A? or the Lismar Lounge (now d.b.a.) on First Avenue? Those didn’t sound right. Can you imagine Sade at the Lismar Lounge? Maybe it was Downtown Beirut???
In any case, I swore to him that it was true.
Turns out, of course, I was off on a couple of points. Sade Adu was indeed a bartender, and did indeed spend some time on the Lower East Side (see photo below of “Sade & Co in Alphabet City in 1982,” purloined from NYC Nostalgia), but the venue wherein she poured drinks … was actually Danceteria, which actually makes a bit more sense, when ya think about it.
So, yeah, my bad. You can read what I have to say about Danceteria, meanwhile, here, here, and here, …. should you care, of course.
ADDENDUM: there have been ... developments.
Recent Comments