The Mudd Club was a SoHo nightclub that was opened in October 1978 by publisher Steve Mass, art curator Diego Cortez and singer Anya Phillips. The Mudd Club was located at 77 White Street in downtown Manhattan, New York and quickly became a major fixture in the city's underground music and counterculture scene. It was named after Samuel Alexander Mudd, a doctor who treated John Wilkes Booth in the aftermath of Abraham Lincoln's assassination. Soho is an area of Londons West End in the City of Westminster. ... A nightclub (often shortened to club in both the UK and US) is an entertainment venue which does its primary business after dark. ... For other uses, see Manhattan (disambiguation). ... The term underground music has been applied to several artistic movements, notably to the early psychedelic movement of the mid 60s centred in Los Angeles. ... In sociology, counterculture is a term used to describe a cultural group whose values and norms are at odds with those of the social mainstream, a cultural equivalent of a political opposition. ... Dr. Samuel Alexander Mudd (December 20, 1833 – January 10, 1883) was born in Charles County, Maryland. ... John Wilkes Booth John Wilkes Booth (May 10, 1838 – April 26, 1865) was an American actor who is most famous for assassinating Abraham Lincoln. ... Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865), sometimes called Abe Lincoln and nicknamed Honest Abe, the Rail Splitter, and the Great Emancipator, was the 16th President of the United States (1861 to 1865), and the first president from the Republican Party. ...

In order to secure the space for the Mudd Club (a loft owned by artist Ross Bleckner), Steve Mass described the future venue as cabaret. Mass claims to have started the nightclub on a budget of only $15,000. Ross Bleckner (born 1949) is an American artist from New York City. ... A Venue is commonly the scene of an event or action (especially the place of a meeting). ... Cabaret is a form of entertainment featuring comedy, song, dance, and theatre, distinguished mainly by the performance venue - a restaurant or nightclub with a stage for performances and the audience sitting around the tables (often dining or drinking) watching the performance. ...

The club featured a bar, gender-neutral bathrooms, and a rotating gallery on the fourth floor. Live performances showcased punk rock, new wave, and experimental music Punk rock is an anti-establishment music movement beginning around 1976 (although precursors can be found several years earlier), exemplified and popularised by The Ramones, the Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Damned. ... New Wave is a term that has been used to describe many developments in music, but is most commonly associated with a movement in American, Australian, British, Canadian and European popular music, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, growing out of the New York City punk rock scene, itself... Experimental music is any music that challenges the commonly accepted notions of what music is. ...

The Mudd Club acquired a chic, often elitist reputation and was frequented by many of Manhattan's up-and-coming cult celebrities. Individuals associated with the venue included Jean-Michel Basquiat, David Byrne, Lydia Lunch, Klaus Nomi. The Ramones mentioned it in the song The Return of Jackie and Judy and Frank Zappa poked fun at it with a song titled after the club that appeared on his albums You Are What You Is and Thing Fish. It is also mentioned by the Talking Heads in their 1979 song, Life During Wartime, released as a single and on the album Fear of Music, and co-written by David Byrne. Chic is an American band that was formed in 1975/1976 by guitarist Nile Rodgers and bassist Bernard Edwards. ... Elitism is a belief or attitude that an elite — a selected group of persons whose personal abilities, specialized training or other attributes place them at the top of any field (see below) — are the people whose views on a matter are to be taken most seriously, or who are alone... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... David Byrne. ... Lydia Lunch (born Lydia Koch on June 2, 1959 in Rochester, New York, also the birthplace of female rock musicians Kim Gordon and Wendy O. Williams) is an American rock singer, poet, writer, and actress. ... Klaus Nomi (born Klaus Sperber) (January 24, 1944–August 6, 1983) was a German counter-tenor and baritone singer and performer, noted for his remarkable vocal performances and unusual stage persona. ... The Ramones (L-R, Johnny, Tommy, Joey, Dee Dee) on the cover of their debut self-titled album (1976), cementing their place at the dawn of the punk movement. ... Frank Zappa Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American composer, guitarist, singer and satirist. ... Talking Heads. ... This page refers to the year 1979. ... Fear of Music was the third album by Talking Heads and was released in 1979. ...

See also

• CBGB