Season 1 · Episode 6
Club kid · Artist · Author of New York Club Kids
Released 4 Oct 2021 · 54:12 as a podcast
Every name, club, book, song, night and look from the interview - 108 references and 258 mentions in this episode. Walt Cassidy goes from a California childhood and a punk Mohawk in Norfolk, Virginia to Kent State and, in 1991, New York - Wigstock in Union Square, an art studio in the attic of The Building, the club kid houses in Gramercy Park and the stage of the Limelight. Michael Alig, Desi and the second wave of club kids, drag queens versus club kids, the House of Field and the Style Summit, and how the 90s turned darker - deconstructed.
Black V-neck T-shirt, cropped bleached hair, a beard and tattooed forearms
A pale grey wall, a silver microphone and his New York Club Kids book on the desk
Fake blood
Fake blood and emergency-room looks - the club kids searching for impact
Walt's mentor once they bonded at the Limelight: Walt says Michael lightened him up, and that his self-promotion looked like selling out then and forward-thinking now
Heard as “Michael / Michael Alec / Michael Alley”
Where Walt arrived in July 1991 - and found his logical family
Walt's closest club-kid friend of the second wave; they met eyeing each other on the dance floor
FashionClub kid looks
Heard as “Desi”
Host; wants Walt back for more - 'we could talk for another three hours'
Heard as “James”
Walt's first New York sight: the 1991 edition in Union Square - 'biblical' - and he sometimes thinks it was the best one
Heard as “Whig stock / Wigstock / Woodstock”
'Punk gave me my skeleton and the club kids gave me my flesh'
FashionMohawk, eyeliner
Heard as “punk”
Then Jojo Field: put Walt, the only club kid, on the guest list of his 'Fabulous 500' birthday at the Palladium and took him under his wing
Heard as “Jojo”
Co-host; asks whether the club kids really had an ideology
Heard as “Barbado / Randy”
Walt's group were all huge KISS fans - he saw the Dynasty tour at seven
FashionFace paint
Heard as “KISS / Kiss”
Second-wave club kid on the dance floor, later at the 24th Street club kid house
Heard as “Christopher / Christopher Comp”
At Wigstock 1991 Walt mistook Ru for Diahann Carroll; the hosts had just started managing Ru, a couple of months before Supermodel
Heard as “Rube / Rue / Rupa”
Refined, razor-sharp and, Walt says, no fans of club kids - until Jojo took him in
Heard as “House of Field / House of Fields”
The guest: Walt Cassidy, second-wave club kid, artist, jewelry designer, singer in the band Boob and author of the book New York Club Kids. Links to his Night Fever episode
FashionClub kid looks, jewelry design
Heard as “Walk Paper / Walt Cassidy / Walt Paper”
Where Walt was born
Headlining Wigstock 1991 in Union Square; Walt had seen them in Cleveland
Heard as “Delight / delight”
Walt's first club job was at The Building for Keoki's Groove Thing; Walt says the scene split into Keoki people and Michael people
Heard as “Keoki / Keyoki / Kyoki”
Drag as self-branding and personality, as James puts it; Walt says its queens brought back a pristine 70s drag
Heard as “Boy Bar / Boy bar / boy bar”
Where Walt's wave of club kids came from, with industrial and hardcore
FashionGoth looks
Heard as “goth”
Where Walt studied African studies and painting, and was a political activist
Heard as “Kent State”
Deconstructing drag in a performance-art setting, as James puts it; where Walt saw Ru perform
Heard as “Pyramid”
Where Walt go-go danced in the cage, bonded with Michael on stage, and met the voguers on the main floor
Fake blood and emergency-room looks - the club kids searching for impact
FashionFake blood
Heard as “bloody look / bloody looks / fake blood”
Part of the 90s turn to deconstruction, as Walt sees it
FashionDeconstruction
Heard as “Grunge / grunge”
Walt says Musto has described his wave of club kids as scarier and tougher
Co-host; asks what made the club kids click for Walt
Heard as “Benton / Fenton”
A giant black mohawk and eyeliner - the goth look on the public bus to school in Norfolk
FashionMohawk, eyeliner
Heard as “Mohawk / mohawk”
His other idol
Heard as “Basquiat / Boschi”
Second-wave club kid Walt names with Desi and Christopher
Heard as “Pebble / Pebbles”
Second-wave club kid Walt names among the dance-floor crowd
Heard as “Sacred / Sacred Boy”
Walt says she discovered him and gave him his first job, drawing illustrations for the VIP room at The Building
Where James was during Walt's early years
Make-up washed off, green Queen Helene mint julep face masks, white T-shirts and white briefs
FashionGreen face masks, white tees
Heard as “mint julep / tidy, whitey”
Walt met him dancing at the Limelight; he brought Walt into the House of Lamour
Heard as “Caesar”
Walt's first ballroom house, through the dancers he met at the Limelight
Heard as “House of Lamour / House of Lemour”
1992: Walt and Kevin Aviance were crowned king and queen
Heard as “Style Summit / style summit”
Peter Gatien's Times Square club, open by the time the scene turned darker
Walking by at Club USA, rehearsing a presentation with Zaldy, Walt recalls
Heard as “Matthew Monzaldi / Matthew and Zalbi”
Rehearsing a presentation at Club USA with Mathu
Heard as “Monzaldi / Zalbi”
A rigid, tailored Gaultier garment against 90s clothes ripped apart with the seams and scars showing
FashionDeconstruction
Heard as “deconstruction”
Fenton and Randy's company, as James says in the intro
Heard as “World of Wonder”
Walt's band - one of James's favourite bands of all time
Heard as “Boob”
Walt's book - first about 500 pages, cut off in 1996 to stay an affordable art book
Heard as “New York Club Kids”
James's book - the era James wants to talk past
Heard as “Disco Blood Beth”
Another stop before California
What the move from California to a Missouri ranch felt like
California childhood
Walt quotes him: from your biological family to your logical family
Heard as “Armistead Mopin”
Part of Norfolk's New Age undercurrent - links to the Cayce organisation in Virginia Beach
Heard as “Edgar Casey”
How Walt describes the witch who ran the occult shop in Norfolk
The end of Walt's first walk down Manhattan
Diahann Carroll's show - and Walt's image of 80s money
James was a go-go dancer for them at Wigstock 1991
An African-studies kid with rubber-banded hair - indie, college radio
FashionRubber-banded hair
Heard as “rubber banded hair”
James's example of the drag queen as a personality
Heard as “Hollywood Lawn”
His make-up got prettier - and Desi teased he was turning into a drag queen
FashionFeminine make-up
Heard as “turning into a drag queen”
A Bette Midler impersonator was part of the Christmas dinners Walt remembers
No eyebrows, piercings and day looks - you couldn't hide
FashionNo eyebrows, piercings
Heard as “didn't have eyebrows”
Keoki's night where Walt got his first job
Heard as “groove thing”
Walt's first club job, for Keoki's Groove Thing - with an art studio in the attic
Heard as “Building”
Eyes rolled back, fluttering his wings - the moment Michael told him he belonged
FashionDragonfly wings
Heard as “dragonfly”
Walt's art school in New York; first semester in its dorm
Heard as “SVA”
Where the two club kid houses were, on 22nd and 24th Street
Walt's housemate at the 22nd Street house
Randy: it inspired them - but were they projecting an ideology onto the club kids?
Heard as “party monster doc”
Where the cute boy in Walt's example came from
With Michael Alig, embraced the branding side of the club kids, Walt says
James recalls her Sharon Tate look at a ball - the moment he started doing bloody looks
The look Miss Guy did, as James recalls
Walt worked at Pat Field's
Heard as “Pat Fields”
With Walt and Desi in the middle of the main dance floor
Heard as “Earl”
The 'sweaty boys from Staten Island' on the Limelight dance floor
Venue of Jojo's 'Fabulous 500' birthday
Jojo's birthday invite list - Walt was the only club kid on it
Heard as “fabulous 500”
Crowned with Walt as king and queen of the 1992 Style Summit
Asked Walt at the Style Summit if he was a boy or a girl - 'neither'
Walt's example of the rigid, tailored 80s garment
FashionRigid tailoring
Heard as “Gaultier”
A pale grey wall, a silver microphone and his New York Club Kids book on the desk
FashionBlack V-neck T-shirt, cropped bleached hair, a beard and tattooed forearms
His home library, floor-to-ceiling books
FashionA black top with an open slit neck and chunky black glasses
A wood-panelled trailer
FashionA cream and mustard geometric-print knit polo and black glasses
A grey-green curtain
FashionA white T-shirt with red and navy Breton stripes and clear-frame glasses
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