Giuseppe Cipriani & Socialista’s Extended Holiday

A new generation of young professionals are making their way up the club ranks and will -- in the not so distant future -- be running things. Jonathan Schwartz comes to mind over at Strategic Group, as well as today’s girl on the spot Ms. Lindsay Luv. For a very long time, creative types were locked out of nightlife as the business boys broke down fun into pie charts and spreadsheets. For many, it was indeed the fun that broke down. Lindsay Luv is upwardly mobile, and as my good friend Voula would sometimes say: unstoppable. But before we get to Lindsay, I’d like to comment on a very big story that's percolating around town -- the "continuing closing" of Socialista.

On the surface, it seems like a minor violation from the Health Department, which would normally be handled quite routinely so people could be spilling Grey Goose on their Christian Louboutins in a matter of days. But it’s not happening, and that little not happening says a lot.

Now, I don’t pretend to know all that’s going on, but there are people hinting that there is a lot more to it, involving the Andrew Cuomo investigation on Giuseppe Cipriani and how he managed to get his liquor license despite the fact that he’s no longer qualified to have one. The cover story floated that it would put all these people out of work, and nobody wants that, etc. etc. But with Caroline Kennedy’s Senate bid floundering in a sea of “you knows,” Andrew Cuomo, the next guy in line, is dying for a headline. But Socialista can’t open, according to a pal who quoted the great Armin, “because Giuseppe can’t come back into the country, so the problem can’t be cleared up with the violation, and the club will remain closed.”

My source says that it’s not the government that Mr. Cipriani has the problem with, because he “played ball” with them. My guy says the people that were mentioned in these conversations between Cipriani and the government are not happy, and they very much want to “discuss” this matter with Cipriani in private—so he’s opted to stay far away. Now, people whisper things in my ear all the time, and often it just doesn’t make sense—but damned if this doesn’t sound real. It could be a cool movie depending on who writes the ending. Anyway, to Lindsay.

What do you do, Lindsay Luv?
I’ve worked in marketing and the music business for about seven years since I moved to New York from Boston. My parents were both teachers, and I decided I wanted to go to New York and be a big music industry hustler and DJ and do all this crazy stuff, and they were like ... “OK, just pay your bills.” So I came out here, and I originally wanted to do comedy writing on the side, so I worked on Chapelle’s Show the first season.

As a writer?
No, I was in PR. I was doing my first internship at Comedy Central, and then I randomly got hooked up with the Raveonettes and their producers and so forth.

Tell me who the Raveonettes are.
The Raveonettes are a big rock band. They were on Columbia for a number of years, and they’ve put out five or six albums now. They’re an amazing band—they’ve toured with Depeche Mode, they kind of sound like the White Stripes, and at the time they weren’t as big as they were. They’re playing at Webster Hall on Friday. I met their producer—who was the old producer from Blondie and the GoGo’s, Richard Gottehrer—and he kind of became my mentor. He was the reason I worked in music ... he was this old school music producer, and he wrote the songs “I Want Candy” and “My Boyfriend’s Back.” He kind of took me under his wing, and we started working on the Raveonettes. I was helping with the management team for a while. That’s how I started off in the music business, and since then I’ve worked for a number of lifestyle and marketing agencies, throwing big events in New York with top talent like Chromeo, Justice and the Raveonettes. Castles was my last big show with this agency I just worked with. So the Raveonettes kind of started me off, and then I started working for marketing agencies as a business development events-planning kind of guru ... booking big talent at venues all across New York for a different brand.

So now you do Tuesday nights over at Ella, one of my favorite places—designed by Carlton Varney, an old school guy, who did the green room at the Oscars last year. And I guess he’s famous because he did Joan Crawford’s house.
I’m kind of doing two halves of all these clubs. On one side I’m a resident DJ at some of these places—for example, we just got hired to be the resident DJ at Cain on Wednesdays. I’m going to be doing Saturdays at Webster Hall in the Studio, and then Tuesdays at Ella, and then a lot of other gigs are falling in between. So I’m throwing two hats—one side of it is I’m DJing these parties, and I’m promoting and hosting and all that, and the other side is that I’m actually being hired by a lot of these venues to do marketing consultation, promotional things, booking of the talents. So not only DJing the nights, but also helping them run the nights, hire the talent, and really do the whole campaign.

And what has attracted you to club business—are you in it for the money, the boys, the combination of these?
I think a little bit of both. I think I just really like the hustle. I love hustling, I love just moving quickly, I love the speed of the nightlife business. I’m definitely not a daytime person, I sleep until 11 o’ clock every day. But I really like the hustle and I like the idea of traveling. Nightclubs, they’re all over the world.

So where are you going with nightclubs? Where can you go? Are you going to be an owner one day? Or PR, is that something you would do?
I don’t really like PR. I hate girls in PR—PR girls are just way too girly and intense, especially the fashion PR girls. They all sit around and just squawk all day. I can’t deal with that. I think I’d like to be a nightlife entrepreneur, just opening lots of nightclubs and running the show. More on the marketing and promotional side than anything else would be my ultimate goal.

And the music industry?
I would want to work with venues that are really involved in music, not venues that are just there ... not that this is a bad club, but like Tenjune is a little more just about selling bottles. I like the clubs that are really focused on music. I’d really want to be booking great talent, that’s why I like it at Webster Hall.

I was surprised when I first became aware of you, which about six or seven months ago. I hit it off with you, I liked your energy, and when I started talking to people about you, trying to do my research, I found out that everybody knows who you are. You’re this girl about town, and you’re branding yourself—is that something you’re very conscious of?
Very very conscious. I think that perception is reality, meaning it’s important for me to just keep my face out there. Sometimes people think I’m way more fabulous than I am; they’ll call me and ask, “Can you get me Madonna tickets?”. And it’s funny to me because a lot of it is perception, and I’m OK with that, as long as it keeps moving me in the right direction. A lot of it is reality too. I have worked with some great artists and done amazing things, and some of it is me just throwing myself out there and getting my picture up all the time, and calling people like you and just hustling hard. I’m up every day taking meetings, doing interviews, scheduling photo shoots, whatever it is I have to do to keep getting to the top.

An example of this is this interview—you were non-stop. I told you that today I’m completely booked, and then I had about 15 minutes between 2:30 and 3 p.m., and you said, “Let’s do it!” No matter what, you’re unstoppable.
Yea, I remember I watched Alicia Keys’ True Hollywood Story, and I don’t want to be famous like that. It’s more that I just see the people that are really driven make it the best. I’ve had at least ten really top-trained DJs saying, “Lindsay, can you manage me? How are you getting all these gigs? You’re not as good of a DJ as me.” And I said it’s because I’m up every day, I’m hustling my shit, I know people, I work my contacts. All these people, they sit around waiting for stuff to happen, and I don’t think you can wait for anything to happen. You have to really keep on people and keep yourself out there without being obnoxious and annoying. You have to be likeable, but you have to work hard.

You’re unstoppable.
I have a lot of energy. I don’t sleep. I’m probably like you—I sit up all night downloading music, listening to tunes, and making music and doing weird shit. It’s like you can’t stop for a minute in this business, or you get walked right over and somebody else is taking your spot.


The Raveonettes Tickets
Music Hall Of Williamsburg Tickets
Brooklyn Tickets