Remembering Phoenix

After we had gotten, in disco parlance, 'sufficiently cocktailed,' we'd head way downtown to the trashy gay nightclubs, places with names like Bullwinkle, Hotbods Desert Dance Palace, and our favorite, Sammy's Steak House—a sleazy toilet that served neither steak nor any other kind of meal. The gay clubs played the best music—a combination of hardcore disco (Lime, Sylvester, The Twins) and dance-punk (New Order, The B-52s, The Thompson Twins) that drove us mad with pleasure. Here, in the 'bad part of town' at 2 in the morning, freaking out to DJ Hubert's obscure Eurotrash mixes, we could forget the suburban strip-mall jobs and junior-college grind that awaited us on Monday. And Tuesday. And, we feared, forever." ~ Robrt Pela

(I knew Hubert, although not well—and didn't particularly like him. My most vivid memory of the guy—and one of the main reasons I didn't care to be around him—was how from his perch in the DJ booth at HisCo. Disco about six feet above the dance floor and very near the club's entrance, he'd lean over the glass divider and yell "Uterus!" at the female patrons walking in.)