The Dawn of Disco and Other Memories |
Clifton nightlife explodes in the 1970s
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By Jack De Vries |
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It
was the decade of the bad haircut.
Face it. If you grew up in the 1970s, there’s a high school yearbook
picture you’d like to burn, and it’s yours.
It was a time like no other. The 1970s began with the idealistic promises
of the 1960s and ended with the start of the “greed is good” 1980s.
In the 1970s, Richard Nixon halted the Vietnam War, declared he was “not a
crook,” and flew away on a helicopter from the White House after he proving
that he was. After Nixon, Gerald Ford pardoned his old boss, fell down a
lot, plunked people with golf balls, and bumbled out of Washington as the
decade ended.
In local pro sports, Dr. J, wearing a beach ball-size afro, kissed the sky
for the then New York Nets. The Knicks won a championship in 1973 and
wouldn’t make the NBA finals again for another 20 years. The New York
Giants and Jets stayed far away from the Super Bowl, the Mets almost won
the World Series in 1973, and the Yankees showed them how it was done in
1977-78.

In the movies, Luca Brasi slept with the fishes in The Godfather, Rocky
Balboa proved he was not another “bum from the neighborhood,” and, in a
galaxy far, far away, Star Wars made its first jump from light speed into
our lives.
And on the music scene, things really got interesting. In Clifton’s
nightclubs, like others across the country, a revolution was about to take
place.
In the 1960s, rock and roll music was innocent, then ground breaking—the
sound track of a nation in turmoil. It railed against injustice, celebrated
personal freedom, and fought to stop the Vietnam War. By the early 1970s,
the war in Southeast Asia was history, everyone was a little too free, and
injustice was on the run.
With no cause to rally behind, early 1970’s rock music fell into an abyss
of excess—never-ending drum solos and 15-minute art-rock songs. And just
when the music became too much to bear, people remembered why rock and roll
was so much fun.
It has a good beat and you can dance to it. Disco was born.
One man who has seen it all is Ed Rothschild, DJ Wild Worm, currently
playing the hits at Joey’s Place on Allwood Road on Wednesday and Thursday
nights. Rothschild, a music historian, has watched the club scene for the
past 30 years and been a DJ since 1973, starting in the Ram’s Horn on Route
46 in nearby Garfield.
“In the early ’70s,” Rothschild says, “‘Glitter Rock’ was big, and artists
like Gary Glitter and David Bowie were popular in the clubs. People went
out to see rock bands like Another Pretty Face.”
Also popular were keyboard-driven bands like Yes and Emerson Lake and
Palmer, and hard rockers like Led Zepplin and Black Sabbath—groups that
hardly inspired dancing. However, those bands would soon make room for a
new style of music—one with a steady, syncopated beat.
“Disco in this area started in clubs in Passaic and Paterson, and spread to
the more suburban towns,” notes Rothschild. “The first big club playing
disco music that I remember was The Joker in Passaic, who had a DJ named
‘Flamingo Joe.’”
The new music found homes in the local Clifton nightspots. Krackers
attracted good weekend crowds and had the best Sunday night dance party in
the area, hosted by DJ Johnny Tripp. J.P.’s on Route 3 (located where the
Clairmont Diner is now) featured both bands and a DJ, drawing big crowds on
the weekend and Tuesdays.
Joey Harrison’s Valley Lodge was another up-and-comer. Today the site of
the Charlie Brown’s restaurant on Van Houten Ave., Joey Harrison’s started
as nine-stool tavern in the 1960s, established by former boxer, Joe
Barcellona Sr. In the 1970s, the club expanded, attracting a 30-plus
singles crowd at night.
Joey Harrison’s would become an even bigger nightspot in the 1980s. The
club would change throughout next three decades, becoming Joey’s Place,
Joey’s Nightclub, and Yakety-Yak, owned throughout that time (except for a
brief period in the mid-1970s) by three generations of the Barcellona
family. Joey’s “celebrity bartenders” serving the large crowds included
Jerry Carroll, Tony Alfano, Richie Malgieri, and Cass Cattuso.
Casey’s was another club that would make its mark in the 1970s, then roar
through the 1980s, drawing huge crowds. Now the site of Joey’s Place and
formerly the home of the Clifton Pub, Casey’s featured an elegant supper
club on one side—complete with waitresses in long gowns and hats—and a
nightclub that drew a singles on the other.
Featuring live bands, Casey’s added Byron “B.G.” Hogan as its house DJ as
the disco boom hit. Serving up the fun behind the bar at Casey’s was the
late George Ouelette and Doug Berger.
Casey’s did big business throughout the week, and drew even larger crowds
on the weekends and on Monday nights with its zany “Gong Talent Show,’
featuring the Challenger-Meade Band.
“We
hosted the Gong Show for 13 years,” says Casey’s owner Ed Cassatly,
“outlasting the TV show. We once received a letter from the TV Gong Show
saying they would take legal action if we didn’t stop using their name. I
sent them back a letter saying to go ahead, the publicity would be worth
it. We never heard from them again.”
Clifton nightclubs like Rick’s Pub and Ashley’s would join the lineup as
hot spots in the 1980s. Besides drawing big crowds on the weekends and
solid business throughout the week, Rick’s established a huge Friday
afternoon Happy Hour following, and Ashley’s would attract big crowds on
Wednesdays and Thursdays, along with big weekend business,
In all the clubs of the late 1970s, the scene was similar. Well-dressed
customers packed around the bar and dance floor, as their ears were
serenaded with the steady disco beat. Colored lights flashed across the
dancers as DJs mixed songs together in one steady stream of music, becoming
local entertainment celebrities. Often club owners had to slow the beat
down so customers would stop dancing to buy drinks. On almost any given
night, a person could walk into at least one Clifton nightclub and find New
Year’s Eve.
“Most of the 1970s was a happy time,” says Rothschild. “Mixed drinks were
cheap (about $1.50) and the people were dancing again.”
Popular music in the early to middle part of the decade came from
performers like KC And The Sunshine Band, Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes,
Gloria Gaynor, and the O’Jays.
“The first big phase of disco,” remembers Rothschild, “started around 1975
with songs like Fly Robin Fly by Silver Convention and Van McCoy’s The
Hustle. On the radio, only WBLS was playing disco.
Besides launching a No. 1 hit, McCoy’s The Hustle started a new style of
dancing, and couples glided together across dance floors using intricate
steps. While incredibly popular for a time, the new style dancing was not
for everyone.
“As a DJ,” says Rothschild, “I saw the Hustle do more harm than good—it
almost killed a lot of clubs. People who knew how to do the Hustle loved
it, but I’d see others walk in who didn’t, feel intimidated, and leave. It
wasn’t until the people in Studio 54 started dancing free-style before it
began to change. After that, clubs in this area followed, and people became
more comfortable dancing disco again.”
Slowly, music began to change, with New York radio station WKTU leading the
movement with an all disco format. The European influence of producers like
Giorgio Moroder became evident in the 1976 monster hit of “Love to Love
You, Baby” by Donna Summer, with the sultry Disco Diva exploding on the
scene and taking the new music to a new level.
Established artist like Rod Stewart, Elton John, and Queen began trying
tried their hand at disco. “Even the Rolling Stones,” notes Rothschild,
“had a disco song, Miss You, in 1978.”
But all was not rosy on the dance floor. Predictably, disco’s popularity
caused some rock and rollers to blast the new music as canned,
mass-produced, techno-nonsense, with no soul or feeling. Rock fans wearing
“Disco Sucks” shirts were common. Only New Jersey’s Bruce Springsteen’s
appearance on the national scene stole the spotlight from the new music in
the 1970s.
But not for long. Tony Manero was about to arrive.
In 197X, the movie Saturday Night Fever opened and changed the disco
landscape forever. John Travolta’s Brooklyn strut in a white
three-piece-suit captured the public’s imagination and established disco as
America’s beat. The Australian Bee Gees became the worlds No. 1 band, with
hits like Stayin’ Alive and Night Fever. The Tramps also scored a big hit
off the SNF soundtrack with Disco Inferno.
“Saturday Night Fever,” says Rothschild, “got everybody involved and on the
dance floor—including the kids listening to the Allman Brothers and Led
Zepplin. It became cool for everybody to get dressed up and go out.”
Cassatly agrees. “Saturday Night Fever not only defined the era,” he says,
“but added to it. The movie was more than a story about Brooklyn kids, it
said to that it was okay to go out, have fun, and dance. Unlike much of the
music today, disco songs were happy, with words people could sing along to.
In the 1970s, we needed to relax and enjoy—remember this was an era of
double-digit inflation coupled with a lousy economy.”
Fashion was reborn in the 1970s. The decade started with people wearing
faded jeans, carpenter pants, and wild long hair and progressed to dancers
wearing suits and dresses made of indestructible polyester material and
platform shoes. Hair spray was an essential, as men cut their locks to
replicate Travolta’s blow-dried, combed-back style. The decade ended with
club-goers wearing designer jeans and Capezio shoes.
“Designer jeans were huge,” Rothschild says, “everybody in the clubs were
wearing them. Ones made by Jordache, Calvin Klein, and Sassoon were
popular. People shopped in stores like Chess King and Proving Ground in
Paramus Park and Willow Brook Malls. By the end of the 1970s, that
three-piece suit look from Saturday Night Fever was over. The Bee Gees
didn’t last long as a big disco band either.”
As the 1970s ended, disco would face new challenges, as punk rock and new
wave music claimed turf in the music wars. But the Clifton nightclubs (with
the exception of JPs), would continue to thrive in the “Big ’80s,”
attracting bigger crowds than ever before, drawing in customers from almost
every North Jersey city and making Clifton the place to be seen after dark.
“The 1970s set the stage for everything that came after—including what’s
going on in the clubs with music and fashion now,” says Rothschild. “It was
an ‘imbecilic’ time.”
For information on hiring Ed Rothschild, DJ Wild Worm, for your next party
event, call (201) 796-5119. Look for articles on other entertainment eras
in upcoming issues of the Clifton Merchant |
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