NOEL IT ALL (Part Three)

[cpnews]

Yesterday we posted day two of Steve's conversation with Noel Ashman. They chatted about his love of the white T, his relationship with various celebs, and talk of a girl by the name of Ivy Supersonic. If you missed day two, read it now. Otherwise keep on reading for day three.

I went by the Eldridge space the other day. I’m looking to buy a bike and I stumbled past it as I was shopping around. It turns out I know the space well as Paul Sevigny was looking at it before he found Beatrice. I talked him out of the space, or at least he went along with the advice I was giving him. I thought it was too small for Paul’s needs and the location right by Bob’s and the Sapphire didn’t excite me. That was a minute ago and it might be right for Matt’s crew now. A minute or so ago the scene was far different than it is right now. Everything on 27th Street was working and meatpacking was automatic. That’s obviously not the case as I hear of at least one imminent closing in a prime West Chelsea location, while others continue to struggle along. Will Fashion Week and the return of the smart set from their summer homes provide the shot in the arm all are depending on? Will lowering gas prices spur the bridge and tunnelers to use the bridge and tunnels again? Will the absence of the Yankees from post season play be a boost to the October club season? Things are shaping up to be a game of musical chairs with maybe two or three chairs being pulled out at a time. The gathering storm clouds threatening clubdom are so serious that I might not attend the Exxxotica NYC convention on September 12th as a sign of support.

I went to the sample sale at Barneys with Nicole and my pal Uriel and his lovely gal Nicky; we saw every bottle host and bartender in town scrambling for Christian Louboutin shoes and Marc Jacobs dresses. A super trendy crowd was preparing for the new year on the cheap. There weren’t ten people in this huge crowd that didn’t belong in a great club, I sure hope someone opens one soon. There was a time that Noel Ashman alludes to in his interview, when all the major clubs were abandoned and the more loungey/ restaurant type joints were all the vogue. I’m so bored with the formula pushed on an increasingly bored public. If I went a bit farther than many felt necessary in my praise for young Matt Levine last week, it was because although some of his ideas seemed… er … far fetched, at least they were new ways of looking at the status quo. I’ve reached an age in my life where enthusiasm is as important as talent. Too many of the super geniuses in club land are resting on their laurels and their hands and their asses, and I celebrate anybody willing to come along and shake this shit up. Mr. West seems ready to go down by the Chelsea Piers with Danny Devine and Jus Ske, answering all the questions that people have been asking about that location for the last five years. I hope this latest entry will succeed as it’s a pretty cool space, and I’ve always liked Danny and Jus.

I visited the Roxy the other day at the bequest of some clients looking to use some of the considerable amounts of furniture and fixtures still contained at this sleeping mega club. It was a scene right out of Citizen Kane, with fancy chairs and mirrors and ottomans and sconces lined up in long neat rows. Roxy lays dormant now closed by real estate types with lofty ambitions. Hundreds of roller skates are strewn around and posters screamed the reasons to attend events that happened long ago. I picked through the bones and got what I needed, but what I wanted was Victor, or Jonathan, or Roman, or anyone to slam that giant sound system once again. I spent a lot of nights at 1018 and the Roxy as it became known. I felt like a grave robber rummaging through it and had to leave. Nothing has replaced the Roxy. Its’ “scene†has settled into a hundred bars and a few saloons that some call clubs, but none can ever attain the energy of this sprawling giant.

Steve Lewis: Alright, so you have all these celebrity owners, and you’re trying to come up with a name.

Noel Ashman: Well certain people didn’t really care, but some of them really cared. They would not settle on a name they didn’t like, so getting everyone to agree on a name was extremely difficult. Both times, NA and Plumm were very big challenges.

SL: Where does The Plumm come from?

NA: One of the guys who was very adamant about choosing a good name was Chris Noth. I came up with about twenty names that I went through with him, and The Plumm was one of them.

SL: Why is it spelled with a double M?

NA: To differentiate. I don’t like plum, it’s too common a name. I wanted a name as close to the actual fruit, but not make it just a fruit exactly - does that make sense?

SL: Say it again.

NA: I wanted to make it visually have a name, and I like the way Plumm looks on paper.

SL: It does look good on paper, the fat m’s are really cool. Alright so how did the name come up?

NA: Well it was one of the twenty names I had jotted down that I thought of. I had gone through the list and everyone was like, ‘Yes. No.’ I had certain people who wanted one, certain people who wanted another. Chris was one of the ones who didn’t like a lot of them, he was like, ‘No, no no.’ So The Plumm was on my list, and the funniest thing about it was that while I was talking to Chris I was eating a plum. He was like, ‘I can’t hear what the fuck you’re saying, what are you doing?’ And I was like ‘Oh sorry, I’m eating a plum.’ He said, ‘That, I like that one,’ which I was actually getting to anyway.

SL: Love that.

NA: And then he really campaigned for that name. He went around the set of Sex and the City and asked everyone their thoughts.

SL: How important is the name?

NA: You know, the funny thing about it is, people make a big deal out of it when in reality the name is not that important.

SL: Well you called one of your clubs Veruka, which is what, a bunion or something like that…

NA: It’s a wart. In Latin it translates to mean wart.

SL: It’s a wart, hmm.

NA: But we named Veruka not from that meaning but from the character Veruka Salt of Charlie And The Chocolate Factory. Veruka Salt being the surly little girl who wanted everything and wanted it right now, so it’s kind of like a joke on the crowd that we have there, ‘I want to get in and I want to get in right now.’ That’s how we came up with the name. But yeah, you could name the club ‘Shit’ and it could still be great.

SL: OK, now you worked at Supper Club and a ton of other places. How old are you now?

NA: Oh, old.

SL: Not as old as me, you’re not Steve Lewis old.

NA: I’m thirty-eight.

SL: Thirty-eight’s a good age, you know you’re reaching that forty age.

NA: What’s funny for me though is that I’ve always been by far the youngest person in anything I’ve done. Even back when I was promoting I was the youngest, back when we had Earnest and Alexander promoting, I was the youngest.

SL: Alexander, we were trying to remember that name the other day.

NA: Oh really?

SL: You know what the funny thing is, that you worked at Tatou also didn’t you?

NA: Of course.

SL: We actually were discussing this the other day also, we couldn’t get the spelling of Tatou from an interview we did with Kelly Cutrone, but then Mason Reese called in and spelled it out. I mean we knew it wasn’t spelled like tattoo but…

NA: How is Mason?

SL: Mason’s doing great, he has little restaurant down on Ludlow Street. He’s doing great, I speak to him all the time.

NA: Tell him I say hello.

SL: He reads the blog avidly. Yeah, he’ll want to come by and see you. He actually came to your birthday.

NA: Oh really? Geeze, I was so drunk. Did you see how drunk I was?

SL: Yes you were drunk on your birthday. I did come by on your birthday, which you have to admit, that’s rare that you get me out, but I did make my appearance.

NA: I didn’t see you.

SL: You did see me, you just don’t remember. Ask Kip he let me into the VIP. Mason said he was stopping in so I’m sure he was there.

NA: I’m sure, I was so obliterated. My girlfriend literally had to hold me up cause I could not stand on my own.

SL: By girlfriend you mean you’re dating Paula Devicq?

NA: Yes, we date off and on.

SL: It’s hard to have a relationship and a club.

NA: Right, and she’s the kind of girl who’s in bed by 10 o’clock. She’s not a nightlife girl.

SL: Well my current girl is not either, even though I’ve met all three of the significant exes in my life at nightclubs. I had met my first wife out at night, my second wife and now my third relationship, which will end up being my wife.

NA: Are you with the Asian girl?

SL: I’m with a blond. The Asian girl and I broke up with about three years ago, almost four. And now the girl I’m with, Nicole, she’s the love of my life.

NA: That’s awesome.

SL: Yeah, two years now we’re together, and it’s two years of nightclubs is like what?

NA: Ten years.

SL: Right, it’s a fifty year relationship.

NA: No doubt about it.

SL: And how about your mom, does your mom want you to settle down with a nice Jewish girl?

NA: She’s like, ‘What are you waiting for?’

SL: Your mom is a trip. What is your relationship with her in the club, is she a hands-on day to day kind of person?

NA: She helps out. With NA I had a couple partners who were more day stuff, book keeping and that end of it, the business end. We had a huge falling out which is a long story, so when we opened Plumm my mom kind of came in and helped with those sort of things.

SL: She’s not one of the sixteen celebrities, but she’s in there.

NA: She’s in there yeah, she’s a small investor.

SL: Well she’s a great lady. But I mean I only met her when I was in there trying to work, and it was a trip. She’s really hands on, she was like really, ‘Why, why, why, why, why?’

NA: Well it’s funny cause she never had anything to do with anything I did club-wise, ever, until The Plumm.

SL: She’s great. Noah has his sister Judy doing that end of it for them, then there’s Richie who has his sister at 1 Oak.

NA: I went to high school with his sister, I never put that together. I just saw her recently at my high school reunion and that’s when I realized that it was Richie’s sister. I knew each of them separately but I never realized they were brother and sister.

SL: I think that’s important - that family bond. There are so few people you can trust.

NA: Exactly

SL: I want to ask you what your feelings are on clubs today and those of the past.

NA: I mean, back in the day there were a handful of really good clubs that people had access to go to. You had Veruka, Mumba, Chaos, Magnum, Life; those were the only clubs anyone relatively trendy or cool would go to. There were something like six, seven, eight, nine, ten maybe; clubs that were trendy and cool to be seen at.

SL: So basically, at that time you could count the clubs on your fingers.

NA: On your fingers, exactly. And as far as good clubs, you only had Veruka and Mumba, those were the only two at that time.

SL: I thought Life was pretty good.

NA: Life was great, but the period I’m talking about was after it had been open for like four and a half years. Life was my favorite club in the beginning, and I thought Life for the first year was amazing.

SL: I thought the second year was better, you know that.

NA: Do you really?

SL: Yeah, I thought the second year of Life was better. I thought it was more natural; it was more of a mixed crowd and it was a lot more fun. Still maybe it was ten percent of your high end, but the middle was the filler. It was great. But yes, now things are different. How many clubs do you count now?

NA: I actually counted them once because I was just so intrigued by it, of the clubs that are not necessarily the coolest, but clubs that someone could think to go to.

SL: Or those that a DJ or a promoter could work.

NA: Exactly, and I counted one hundred and thirty-five.

SL: One hundred and thirty five right now? So you’re talking that this bubble has to burst, that there’s too many clubs right now.

NA: One thing that’s really destroyed clubs is bottle services. It used to be that in order to get into a club you had to do something, you had to be interesting, you had to look cool. You had to have an interesting vibe, you know?

SL: You had to have some credentials.

NA: Exactly, you had to either be important, or you had to look important, interesting, or artistic.

SL: You had to contribute to the overall scene of the club.

NA: Exactly. And you might have worked at McDonalds, but if you wore a really cool suit, you made yourself look interesting, that was what you wanted in the club. Someone who worked at McDonalds could party next to, you know, Calvin Klein. That was the point of clubs going into the 80’s and the 90’s, and what happened to that was bottle service, even though I’m partially responsible because Veruka was one of the first clubs to do it. The difference was that our idea of doing bottle service was so that you would not have to have a waitress who would come with a tray of drinks and spill it all over people, and it was big mess. I was at clubs in Europe a lot, London, Paris; you’d see clubs there where they had bottles and mixers. The crowd was so much more comfortable. And that’s why we started doing bottle service, it wasn’t to bang someone over the head.

SL: Life really took it to a certain level, but then everyone took it to another level, which was the start of having to buy bottles to get in.

NA: And that’s what ruined it to me. See when we did bottle service it was done to make it easier for the customer, more comfortable. But it became a way to bang people over the head, to charge them a lot and make them pay a thousand dollars to walk in the door.

SL: It became a way to pay the rent, rents went through the roof.

NA: True. And to me, that was a problem. Now you have people who could get into clubs just because they’re going to be buying a bottle, whereas they would never even try to get into a hot club before because they’d be afraid to try.

SL: They’d just hand over a bunch of Benjamin Franklins and get into the club.

NA: To me it really changed the whole way clubs operate.

SL: What percentage of your business is bottle service as opposed to bottle business?

NA: Hmm, that’s a good question. Probably thirty or forty percent.

SL: Still good, a lot of people do sixty or seventy.

NA: Maybe we do fifty. Actually to be honest with you, it depends on the night. Certain nights we do a whole rock night where we do no bottle service at all, and then there’s certain nights like Saturday where we do more. The one thing we’ve tried to do at Plumm is that not everyone who can buy a bottle can get in. I have said, ‘Don’t let idiots in even if they’re buying bottles, I don’t care.’

Good Night,

Mr. Lewis

Interview conducted and written by Steve Lewis.

Interview has been edited and condensed by Jessica Tocko.

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