The Strange Case of the Mad Professor by Peter Kobel

Author:Peter Kobel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lyons Press
Published: 2013-07-01T16:00:00+00:00

The mid- to late 1970s made for heady times in the rock scene in New York City. NYU students could slam shut their textbooks and walk a few blocks to CBGB on the Bowery, where a rock ’n’ roll renaissance was blossoming. The grungy venue booked punk and new-wave bands such as the Ramones, the Patti Smith Group, Television, Blondie, and Talking Heads—both clubs are immortalized in the Talking Heads’ song “Life During Wartime”: “This ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco / This ain’t no fooling around / This ain’t no Mudd Club or CBGB.”

Because of its longevity (1973–2006), CBGB has more of a place in the cultural memory, but the Mudd Club, which opened in Tribeca in October 1978, was unique, and Cornyetz was a habitué. More than a rock venue, it became something like a 1920s Berlin cabaret, fusing music, art, and fashion. Talking Heads, James Chance and the Contortions, and The B-52s played there, but the space, which shuttered in 1983, also had a rotating art gallery, curated by Keith Haring, and it gave significant exposure to other artists, such as Jean-Michel Basquiat and Kenny Scharf.

Cornyetz wasn’t a fan of punk, but he was an aficionado of new wave, especially devoted to Blondie and its lead singer, Debbie Harry. When Assistant DA Amorosa first visited Cornyetz to question him about B-J’s drug case, he noticed the pictures of Harry in Cornyetz’s apartment. “Is she your girlfriend?” he asked.

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