Bugging Out on the Endless Peak

The Fun House was a dance club in New York that reached a peak in the mid-1980s. It was famous for under-age patrons, rampant drug use, occasional fights, and no-nonsense bouncers (all of whom looked like Gold's Gym poster boys). I spent a few weeks going there and wrote this report originally for the Village Voice. The club was raided the day the story appeared (and closed for one night), and word on the street was I was in big trouble. But the owners actually liked the story and thought it was good publicity. I concentrated on finding the best group of kids I could, with the best energy, and just followed them around for a few days. Today, the club is probably best known for having helped launch Madonna, who held several early performances there, and used it as a testing lab to tweak her early records.