The Cockettes - New York City Trip

New York City Trip

Once Hibiscus had left the group some of the members saw the departure as an opportunity to capitalize on the media attention from articles in The Rolling Stone and Maureen Orth's in The Village Voice as well as Rex Reed's nationally-syndicated column. Whereas Hibiscus was dedicated to anarchy and breaking down boundaries others in the group saw the potential of the efforts and they had even hired a director. Hibiscus was explicitly political and committed to free performances as a part of the hippie ethos. At the same time Sylvester was being noted as a stand out act for his singing. He was getting funding from Gregg Gobel, the son of George Gobel, and had started to transform into an accomplished singer even hiring the Pointer Sisters as his back-up singers. With Hibiscus, the defacto leader of the group now gone, plans for a New York City show that could catapult the group to even greater fame where set into motion and tied to a double bill of the Cockettes and Sylvester's new band. Although rock-promoter Bill Graham passed on the opportunity for a New York show he did connect the group with Harry Zerler, "a wealthy talent scout for Columbia Records" and booked Sylvester as the opening act.

News of the 47 Cockettes boarding the flight was covered by local television and in full drag the group took over the airplane even complimenting the stewardess' "drag". Once in New York they were housed in a dingy hotel where heroin was easily scored but spent most of their time as celebrated guests at dozens of parties where they could eat and drink for free, running a tab at a local diner and getting free taxicab rides. Sylvester knew the Cockettes were not going to do well but he was determined to make his debut as a rock star and practiced with his band every day. The Cockettes were still transitioning from being "a happening" to actually doing structured performances. The group had one week to prepare but they had few resources and little energy after all the parties. They were however the talk of town and their show was the hot ticket.

In November 1971 the Cockettes, minus former Cockettes (now the Angels of Light), were booked for performances at the Anderson Theater in New York City. The venue had no sound or lighting systems and needed a curtain. The stage was also twice the size of the Cockettes usual one so all the sets had to be rebuilt from scratch in six days. They opened with "Tinsel Tarts In a Hot Coma", a send-up of films about Broadway in the 1930s. According to accounts of the time, "Everybody who was anybody" came to the Cockette's New York opening, including such celebrities as John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Liza Minnelli, Truman Capote, Gore Vidal, and Angela Lansbury. Also attending were Andy Warhol and his own infamous gender-bending drag performers Holly Woodlawn and Candy Darling. But with the Cockettes' loose San Francisco magic, the opening night was a disaster (New Yorkers expected a tightly performed show). And in the theatre things went from bad to worse when Angela Lansbury walked out on the show, soon followed by Andy Warhol and most of the rest of the audience. After the show Gore Vidal quipped, "Having no talent is not enough." Apparently the New York professionals did not view the group as talented.

What had seemed so fabulous in San Francisco did not translate well in New York City. Also, the group did not have ample opportunities to rehearse, so their performances in New York were not their best. Of course, no one told New Yorkers that the Cockettes were rather anti-rehearsal. For the Cockettes, the idea was to have a blast onstage with the true spirit of Hollywood. For San Francisco, the Cockettes, in the late 1960s, were beautiful, funny, liberating, psychedelic messengers from the gods. For most New Yorkers, it was "You've got to be kidding!," and the celebrities the Cockettes had so wanted to impress were not impressed. Later, the Cockettes tried to explain their New York failure by commenting "the New York audiences did not understand us," (although it appeared perhaps New York had understood them). After a week of disastrous "Tinsel Tarts..." playing to empty houses, they performed their original musical "Pearls Over Shanghai" for the remaining 2 weeks of their contract, and the Village Voice gave it a rave. But it was too little too late. Sylvester and his band was the lone exception but he disassociated himself after several nights on advice from his business friends.