The Worst Gigs Ever Part 1
CHEETAH & FUN CITY, NEW YORK CITY 1968.
Cheetah was a short-lived magazine and a chain of go-go / psychedelia dance halls in different cities through the country. The Cheetah in Los Angeles was formerly the Aragon Ballroom on the Santa Monica Pier where Lawrence Welk sudsed. It had been given the “mod” treatment with an almost entirely stainless steel decor and some really unsittable pieces of “group” furniture all metal shiny. The word acoustic had no meaning in the ricocheting clang of every noise in the room.
But that was just boot camp for The Cheetah in New York City.
Kaleidoscope had no business being in NYC in 1968 so of course thats where we were. Almost upon arrival our bookings collapsed when they realized what they had booked. The Cheetah couldn’t back out though, because we had a contract to play 3 in the chain – and this was the second. There was a rotating stage divided 3 ways and three bands would set up and spin around after each set with the next one all set up ready to play. Ah, but the house policy was that the music being played by the disappearing band was to be continued by the new one finishing the turn. All the same tune without missing a beat. We asked why? Well, so the dancers won’t have to stop.
We’re on second so the first band starts and it’s a rhythm and blues cover band. Sam and Dave. “I’m Your Puppet” by James & Bobby Purify, some Sly I think, they’re not too bad doing covers but holy shit the crowd. They slowly filter in and besides they are almost all black they are dancing in formation. By the time we run to our spots and the stage starts to turn they go into the switch-over song “Funky Broadway” or “The Horse” something they assume we have got to know and boom we are face to face with about two hundred folks mid movement. The sound that emanated from our collective hands was not funky funky anything. It was kind of like a Chinese Opera version of “Louie Louie”. I never saw so many frozen people go into the instant “What is that Shit?” mode.
Time and space stopped. As they began to shrink away like fog in a sort of horror we went into one of our dance tunes, the ones that made people dance in Arizona, San Francisco, Boston and other small burgs. We were feeling good, we were doing our stuff now somebody always was going to respond. The ones still there did.
Finishing the set we went through what we thought were all our winners but the room with the dance floor was entirely empty- the crowd was everywhere else in the building you could squeeze, Until that merciful moment when the stage began to turn and we were cued to start up the turning tune- something we knew they could never play.
They didn’t bother – the 3rd band was a much larger R&B cover band with lots of horns and they turned our little ditty into a roaring “Funky Broadway” which chain reacted into a sea of formation dancing almost instantly. The guy from the place came around and gave us a pep talk lying and saying there were people who liked it and so on. By the time the wheel was ready to move again our stuff wasn’t on it.
We were informed that next Cheetah stop in New Jersey was out of the question because we were entirely unsuitable and they were much more of a dance place than this one. We now needed money to (1) Eat and (2) Go home. Late freezing ass November. But our manager finds a job – at Fun City! Times Square, its Fun City!
The place has girls dancing “wildly” in second floor windows where the drooling tourists look up to catch them frugging in semi skimpy outfits. You can hear the live band churning as they cavort. Sounds like “Funky Broadway” or “(Hitch it to) The Horse”. They don’t seem to care that we aren’t funky though. All the management seems to require is that you maintain a sort of constant noise level so the gals can do their gyrations.
So the first night we do and they do. Can’t help noticing that there are hardly ever any customers though. At least not any who come in for more than a few minutes at a time. Always men. Two kinds- rubes and pimps.
Second night the creepiness is overwhelming. One of the Puerto Rican girls who looks 15 asks me if I want to go downstairs for an Orange Julius. I really didn’t say yes but we ended up there. She told me she would love to go to California with me and just get out of this. I didn’t know if it was for real or a load of crap (which I still think it was) but I saw the guy in charge of her welfare and he looked a lot tougher than Harvey Keitel in “Taxi Driver”, she was probably 26.
By the end of the second night management actually realized we didn’t do “Boogaloo Down Broadway” and replaced us with a large R&B cover band that included gymnastics and chair leaping (none of which was visible to the street crowd).
This was good because I was not going back another night. Looking at the soot-blacked snow and frozen spit on the street I was ready to crawl back to Los Angeles on my knees if I needed to.
