//Richard Boch, 4am, Mudd basement, 1980. Photo: Lynette Bean Kral//

//Fab 5 Freddy Brathwaite, The Times Square Show, 1980. Photo: Bobby Grossman//

Tonight’s DJ appearance at Manhattan’s’ Soho Grand by the city’s clubland legend Richard Boch – who will be joined on the decks by none less than Fab 5 Freddy and Club 57’s Dany Johnson – affords an opportunity to champion one of my favourite books of the year.

//Judy Nylon and transient tattoos, 1979. Photo: Lisa Genet//

//Cookie Mueller, 1979. Photo: Bobby Grossman//

Boch’s The Mudd Club is a visual and literary orgy of delight, packed full of striking images and tales of glory and excess from the late 70s/early 80s nightclub where he was the kingpin doorman and communed on many levels with the good, the bad, the deviant and the simply deranged of popular culture.

//Clockwise from top left: Vicki Pedersen’s membership card; staff member Debi Mazar by Rhonda Paster Corte; ID card flipside; Cookie Mueller, 1979 by Billy Sullivan; Lisa Rosen 1980 by Maripol; Richard Sohl + Richard Boch in Montauk by Ron Beck; Kate Simon’s ID card 1980//

//Clockwise from top left: Vicki Pedersen/Joan Crawford Mother’s Day Event 1979 by Marcia Resnick; Nan Goldin Night School at Mudd 1979 by Billy Sullivan; Pat Ivers and Emily Armstrong 1980 by Robin Schanzenbach; Hal Ludacer 1979 by Eileen Polk; Eric Mitchell and Amos Poe 1979 by Marcia Resnick; Anya Phillips and James Chance, Mudd dance floor 1979 by Chris Stein//

You want to know how David Bowie corralled Joey Arias and Klaus Nomi to back him on Saturday Night Live? Read it here, along with hundred of other yarns to make your hair stand on end.

//Poison Ivy Rorschach post performance. Photo: Alan Kleinberg//

//Damita with cowgirl tattoo, 1980. Photo: Ebet Roberts//

Gossipy and jaw-dropping with a tone which is by turns sardonic and dewy-eyed for times long gone, The Mudd Club is a must-have.

The Mudd Club is published by Feral House; copies available here.

Festivities at the Soho Grand’s Club Room, 310 W Broadway, New York, NY 10013, kick off at 9pm tonight. No cover. Details here.

Tags: Cookie Mueller, David Bowie, Debi Mazar, Ebet Roberts, Fab 5 Freddy Brathwaite, Feral House, Joey Arias, Judy Nylon, Kate Simon, Klaus Nomi, Maripol, Poison Ivy Rorschach, Rhonda Paster Corte, Richard Boch, Richard Sohl, Saturday Night Live, The Mudd Club, Vicki Pedersen

//A Prayer For Madonna, The Face, September 1983. Photography: Kate Simon, text: James Truman. This was the superstar’s first substantial UK press appearance, five months ahead of her British live debut//

Of the many talented photographers who provided The Face with its visual verve, Kate Simon was uniquely positioned to chronicle the cutting edge cultural developments in New York in the 1980s.

Simon had spent much of the previous decade in London, photographing musicians and performers from Bob Marley and David Bowie to the Sex Pistols and The Clash (whose debut album features her striking portrait of Strummer, Jones and Simonon). Crucially, Simon’s work also appeared in the New Musical Express during The Face founder Nick Logan’s editorship of the music paper.

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Tags: Bob Marley, Carl Apfelschnitt, Cookie Mueller, Debi Mazar, Halston, James Chance, James Truman, Jellybean Benitez, John Giorno, Kate Simon, Keith Haring, Madonna, Nick Logan, Pierre Clementi, Radio City Music Hall, Riochard Sohl, Robert Mapplethorpe, Sonos, Stephen Sprouse