The Brats and the Fire

Fashion Week is draining, even for a very unfashionable fellow like myself. I attended a Blackbook party at GoldBar last night and chatted up friend and GoldBar designer Robert Mckinley. For my money, it’s the most well-designed joint in town. A super-hot crowd was on hand including former Joonbug honcho and founder of my blogging career Shane Neman (now you know who to throw rocks at). I stopped by La Esquina to visit friends and ran into Riz and a table of other amazing DJs, including DJ AM. La Esquina is my favorite restaurant, and after all these years the quality of the food, the service, and the relevance of the crowd keep me coming back.

I returned home at midnight with nothing at all to write about, since tomorrow’s scheduled story is percolating and I’m trying to give it a few more days. I opened my email only to see a band’s business card going back to 1976 Max’s Kansas City Records for The Brats. My old friend Keith West and Joe “TV” Guido contacted me through the Blackbook office, and it seems that The Brats will be performing at my boy Eddie Brady’s club Crash Mansion next Thursday, February 26. The Brats were the Bloody Social of their time, a can’t-miss act with a huge following that sold out every night. Every hot girl in town was in attendance, so needless to say, I caught every show—but then tragedy struck.

At a gig at the Great Gildersleeves, the actually hip music venue up the street from CBGB’s, a fire broke out and (if memory serves me correctly) nine people were in critical condition and many others were badly hurt. I was in attendance that night, and I watched the bands’ manager fill flash pots, and then watched a cigarette fall into the pot. The band would always emerge with guitars blaring through a fiery pyrotechnic stage-filling flash, but this time, the premature flash ignited the room. After fires, people always say, “It happened so fast,” so there is no way to describe everything. I was safe behind a dividing low wall next to a column, but in an instant the flames shot through the crowded room, igniting patrons, tablecloths, and everything in its way. People were running around screaming with their hair on fire; I was 25 feet away, and my eyebrows and lashes were singed. The crowd all charged to the front door, falling over each other in panic, so I grabbed my cousin and pushed him towards the unused side door and called the fire department. Biker bartenders leapt over the bar to put out the flames, but one male patron sat in a chair, unmoving, burnt from head to toe. Only about three minutes had passed when the bikers put out the flames and the fire department had finally arrived.

When debate occurs in clubland about the need for a cabaret license, I always remember the flames and the dude in the chair. The great Gildersleeves had no fire control panel that automatically calls the FDNY, and instead the public panicked and crushed each other. It all happened too fast—in a club where people are dancing or a band is playing, a fire could spread in seconds without people realizing what is happening. That fire in Rhode Island killed so many people because they were distracted and didn’t realize until too late that there was danger. I’ve heard the lamentation “no more dancing police” because bars and lounges without proper fire control and safety features feel that they too should have the right to have dancing. But at a bar or lounge, it is theoretically easier for a patron sitting and talking to realize that a fire is happening. This poses a huge threat to public safety. I feel that cabaret licenses should be easier to get than they currently are, but also that fire control systems and all public safety features must be a part of the deal. I will be attending The Brats at Crash Mansion, and I will do what I’ve done upon entering every club since that night: I’ll check to see where the fire exits are.