Rock and Roll Meltdown: The Circus Nightclub Story 1979-1983

In 1979, rock and roll was in revolution. While FM radio covered the nation with a nonstop format of Fleetwood Mac, Foreigner, Kansas, Styx, Led Zeppellin, and more Fleetwood Mac, it was a different story in rock clubs all over America. In dingy, sweaty venues from LA to New York, punk rock and new wave bands were retelling the rock and roll story. In New Jersey, from Ramsey to Carteret, from Hoboken and Fort Lee, to the little town of Bergenfield, it was a time of great clubs and even greater music. This book chronicles those times and gives a first-hand account of a club owner’s remembrances of that famed era. Included are exclusive interviews with band members, rock fans, and former employees that witnessed this special time in rock history in a way that can only be told through their words. Meanwhile, the author’s commentary places the reader into a rock club at the center stage of the revolution. In LA, it was X, The Blasters, the Germs, the Go-Go’s, and The Knack. In Boston, it was The Cars and Human Sexual response. In England, it was the Sex Pistols, Elvis Costello, The Jam, and The Clash. In New York, it was Blondie, Talking Heads, and The Ramones. At the author’s club, The Circus in Bergenfield, New Jersey, it was John Kay and Steppenwolf, Twisted Sister, New Riders of The Purple Sage, David Johansen, Johnny Thunders, Joe Perry, Cyndi Lauper, The Plasmatics, Steve Forbert, Rick Danko, Jorma Kaukonen and yes, The Ramones too. It was the roaring 70s and 80s. Sex was safe, drugs were plentiful, and great rock and roll played seven nights a week. Piles of cash rolled in for the bands, their handlers, and the club owners. The popular drug “blow” was just about everywhere you looked and floated in and around the club scene just as fast and plentiful as water from a faucet. The extraordinary cover and tribute bands mentioned in this book only scratch the surface of the talent that performed during this amazing era. In many cases cover bands were drawing larger crowds than national recording artists; they were crowds large enough to require security guards just to get them to the stage safely. But all that would change in 1983 when the drinking age went up to 21 in New Jersey and for the rest of the country in 1984 when the U.S. Congress passed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984. Clubs folded like dominos falling; bands sold their fancy box trucks and equipment, and it was over as quickly as it started. It was “The Great Rock and Roll Meltdown.”