Party Monster Killer To Be Released from Prison
Notorious New York club promoter Michael Alig is to be released from prison in May, 18 years after murdering fellow club kid Andre ‘Angel’ Melendez in a drug crazed assault.
Long term Alig associate and New York nightlife expert Steven Lewis said Alig will be helped by a support group of friends when he’s released on May 5 and said he believes he has been rehabilitated.
“He will be staying with a close friend, and has been recruited for creative jobs by many,” said Lewis in a posting on BlackBook.
“There is no chance that he will return to clubs as a way of life, but he will paint and write, and as always, try to impact the way we think,” he added. (http://bit.ly/1r1TaVf )
During his incarceration, Alig served time in some of America’s most brutal prisons including Rikers Island, though chatting to Interview Magazine recently he said prison violence in his experience had been remarkably minimal with most fellow inmate proving to be ‘surprisingly accepting and nice and helpful.’
“In fact, the people you’d think I’d have the biggest problems with are my closest allies. Like the Bloods and the skinheads—all the people you’d think would hate me,” he continued.
“I think they see me as a kindred spirit. Especially the Bloods. They are leaders of this kind of cultish, anarchic, underground, subversive movement.” (Interview Magazine: http://bit.ly/1qNFvTN )
Details of Alig’s upcoming release emerged days after the Guardian published an approving essay on Coachella Music Festival founder Gary Tovar who served seven years in jail in the 80s after being busted for being California’s biggest pot dealer.
Noting how he has since turned Coachella into ‘America’s most profitable festival’, the paper also highlighted his formative years trying to break British punk bands including Public Image and Siouxsie and the Banshees, which he funded with millions of dollars he made from selling weed.
Chatting to the Guardian, the nowadays 60-year-old promoter sounded unrepentant and even proud of his earlier adventures.
“When I was doing both my things – smuggling and concerts – I considered them crusades,” he reflected,
“Now I think we won on both ends. Our music won – you can hear a Ramones song in an elevator – and we won on the marijuana front.”
http://bit.ly/1hwG01Z (Outkast @ Coachella 2014; review: “the mainstream interest at attending music festivals, driven by the proliferation of EDM mega-fests, has brought in a wide swath of people who simply aren’t what readers of a site like this would consider music fans . . . It’s a new era for live music, and acts that aren’t going to be bringing the requisite amount of energy to please a crowd filled with thousands of casual fans need to consider their audiences more carefully . . . ‘)
