Karen O and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs performed to a packed crowd at Don Hill’s in September. (MARC DIMOV/PatrickMcMullan.com)
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Legendary New York club owner Don Hill, who died this week, was an undeniable man of mystery. He was a quiet man, whom friends remember as a great listener — someone who rarely talked about himself. And on the few occasions when he did talk about himself, it tended to only generate more confusion.
When The Post interviewed Hill in September, the rock club lifer said he was 59; conflicting public records put him between 56 and 66. Hill also spoke of his divorce 30 years ago. Friends from that era, including Smithereens frontman Pat DiNizio, never knew Hill was married. Others thought he still was.
But this much is certain: He was a man who impacted New York City’s rock scene like almost no one else.
While first working at Kenny’s Castaways in the ’70s, Hill was helpful in booking a young Jersey kid named Bruce Springsteen. As a manager at Cat Club, he brought in an up-and-coming Seattle band called Soundgarden. And on the night he opened Don Hill’s in 1993, the Smithereens played. In coming years, Spacehog and Lisa Loeb would hone their skills in the venue where rock legends like Debbie Harry hung out. But it wasn’t just bands that Hill booked to keep the music scene alive. In the early ’90s, Don Hill hosted the wildly popular, gender-bending Squeezebox parties. From 2005 to 2007, Hill gave the room to deejay trio the Misshapes, whose style sensibilities defined the era’s downtown movement.
While the people who hung out at Don Hill’s were often fashionable types who defined cutting-edge cool, Hill himself didn’t look the part of the flashy night-life impresario. He often went unrecognized as he stood under the marquee of the Greenwich Village club that has borne his name for 18 years. Of average height and relatively thin, Hill was most often found in jeans and crisp white shirts, maybe a leather vest. Flashy duds, never. It was not about the image for Hill — it was always about the music.
Now that Hill’s gone, the rock club scene he nurtured is bereft.
“To me, it’s over, the whole New York rock thing. This was a nail in the coffin,” says musician and rock ’n’ roll scenester Michael Houghton, 49, who first met Hill when he was managing Cat Club in the ’80s. He compares Hill’s passing to the death of Joey Ramone and the closing of clubs like CBGB and Max’s Kansas City.
“Don was the last of the
Mohicans.”
Model One Management founder Scott Lipps, who was also Hill’s neighbor on Spring Street, says he’ll miss passing Hill on the corner outside the club and talking about bands.
“He was super-passionate about rock ’n’ roll. Every time I’d pass him on the street, he’d want to talk about music,” says Lipps, who added that Hill was always a courteous host.
“He could be standing next to Kate Moss and Steven Tyler, and he was no different. He had no ego at all,” he says.
“I remember his being really excited when Iggy Pop played there. He was into it. But he was never star-struck.”
Others agreed. “You could be Mick Jagger, and he’d treat you the same as a busboy,” says sound engineer Bob “Night Bob” Czaykowski, 60, a longtime friend and neighbor of Hill. If bands needed to rehearse at his club, or community boards needed a place to convene, Hill would allow it — for free. “I’ve worked with some big bands,” says Czaykowski, who has toured with the likes of Aerosmith. “But if Don said ‘I have three new bands playing and I need a sound engineer,’ I’d be there in six minutes.”
Fellow rock bar owner and musician Richard “Handsome Dick” Manitoba, 57, remembers more intimate outings with Hill. “Don, me, and my wife, Zoey, would go out to lunch every couple weeks, and we’d talk about professional wrestling, rock ’n’ roll and the Yankees,” he says. “Anyone who likes those things can’t be bad.”
Though Manitoba laments we lost a “piece of an era,” he says, “When we lose something, we look for something that’s going to be the same. We’ll get new Joey Ramones and and Don Hills. They just won’t be the same. Don left a legacy. He made a difference. That’s the most important thing you can do.”
Night-life impresario Nur Khan, who just last year went into partnership with Hill in running his club along with DJ Paul Sevigny, insists the show will go on and the music will still play loud, just as Hill would’ve wanted it. He says the club’s last year — which saw surprise performances from Iggy Pop, Dead Weather, Hank Williams III, BRMC and Florence and the Machine among others — was a fitting swan song for his friend and partner.
“All things considered, we did some great things here in the past year, and he went out on top,” he says. “It was the perfect send-off.”