Joe Dorgan is a local DJ/promoter/club-owner that has been in the El Paso music scene for almost 30 years. Love him or hate him, you have to respect the man for bringing many underground artists to town, many before they broke big. Dorgan was also part of a legendary underground radio show in the late 80’s into the 90’s called Stepping Out that played all the REAL good music of the time, pumping out underground sounds that would never see the light of day on the mainstream stations. Although Club 101 has seen several locations, Dorgan remembers the early days.
Were you born in El Paso?
Born and raised. El Paso is my home town.
How did you first get interested in music?
In my neighborhood I saw these 2 girls playing a record player on the floor, playing KC and the Sunshine Band, of course they were cute girls, I was just a kid and I wanted to meet them. There was I remember a cool guy (in the neighborhood) that had Rolling Stones records, I love the Stones. I had a job by 14; I was spending all my money on 45s, 8tracks and vinyl. In high school I was huge in music. A friend of mine told me that I said back in high school that I was going to start a club. I didn’t know that it was going to happen! I was on the basketball team in high school. The players were predominantly black— I was listening to Earth Wind and Fire, music that they liked. And then I went to college, it was alternative music. I got into a fraternity; this fraternity was like in Animal House. I started playing (DJing) at parties. These parties used to be where there was a record player on the floor and you put on an album and listen to it, so we built a DJ booth. Back then, the mainstream was AC/DC and certain groups, but I was the kid that had the Romantics or an unheard group (then) Depeche Mode. I was playing all this alternative music, and it just took off from there.
I rented this hall on the west-side called the Mesa Inn Ballroom, and I started DJing there. It was a famous club pre Club 101 called The Lost Iguana. It was just a warehouse, it was a wedding hall, but I was playing on Fridays. The kids, or the people, were coming to them were interested in … that’s when the Smiths were huge, maybe it was like 87 or so. I noticed on Saturdays they didn’t have weddings all the time, so I said I want to start booking shows there. I had the Bo Deans…
What shows did you go to then?
Yeah there was places before me. Where Robinson street is (where Black Market is now) was a punk rock place, there was a lot of cool punk rock shows. I saw shows at Sound Seas, they had several different locations of Sound Seas. There was the pig farm way out on the east-side where I saw Faith No More, I saw Black Flag at the downtown location. There was a club called The Coke House which was the Coca Cola building. The Mesa Inn was doing shows. I was a fan of music. I was a fly on the wall as a kid watching shows.
And you started DJing and booking shows at Lost Iguana?
My very first show was Book of Love. I was just calling booking agencies, and I got a lot of no’s. And then this agency said, “Ok we have a cancellation in Flagstaff, Arizona so you like to do Book of Love? You have 3 days to promote it.” Made a flyer, we were able to fit 400 people in there at the Lost Iguana, and then we started doing a bunch of shows there, and I really got the bug for live music. I remember the Bo Deans; that was a famous show. It was so packed, the power went out the band kept playing, and then the power came back and the band was still playing!
Power 102 was playing music called freestyle, so there were a lot of these freestyle shows. Exposé, they had just come out with “Point of No Return,” I had them 2 nights. The second night, this club in Juarez wanted me to take Exposé, so I took the road manager and the lead singer. They put her in VIP and champagne and all this stuff… I was a kid, I was having a good time, probably drank to much. We are coming back, we get pulled over, I have an El Paso license, the manager has a New York license and the singer has a Florida license— we are going to get searched. The lead singer had a vile of (whispers) cocaine, and so I sobered up real fast. I didn’t know if we were going to go to jail or what. The road manager was an attorney, so we got to go back, and the girl she was real sorry. I never heard from them again!
It (Lost Iguana’s second location) was a warehouse off Pellicano (street). It was a wedding hall, it didn’t have a liquor license it was byob. I was just barely in college so we were trying to get a college crowd, but there was a huge influx of cool high school kids. Back in the 80’s there was a bunch of these kids that were… I just realized I couldn’t dress as cool as they were. There was a lot of kids that were really into Morrissey. There was the guys that were wearing the skirts and they were in the girls bathroom the girls in the guys bathroom, should we let these high school kids in? It was all about the music.
How did you transition and start Club 101?
I was DJing at a bunch of different clubs. I always had these owners that when I started doing very well, they changed the deal on me, so I just got frustrated; I needed to open up my own club. I started looking around, and I looked in the paper, the El Paso Times. I would call these warehouses, cause I was thinking of the Lost Iguana, “Hi, I’m interested in doing a club in your warehouse. Click.” So I saw this add about warehouse for rent which is now Union Plaza— it wasn’t Union Plaza it was downtown El Paso. So he’s (owner of warehouse) from Dallas so I thought ok, I’m going to try a different approach, “Hi I’m interested in doing a wedding hall.” So we met, and we hit it off and he goes, “Have you ever thought about doing just a club instead of a wedding hall?”
Of course everyone thought I was crazy because it was a dilapidated rundown warehouse district. You would see a lot of people crossing over to get on the trains to get to the United States, a lot of homeless sleeping there; it was a rough neighborhood. A lot of people were like, “Are you serious? Are you crazy?” We opened December 30 1989. We had black curtains, couches from Goodwill, it was a warehouse club. We had a girl that was a DJ and she was at UTEP who made metal, she was very into the art scene at UTEP, so 101 was very connected to the art scene, like a coffee house, we were changing it constantly, we had art shows… we were very alternative, cutting edge, we weren’t playing mainstream stuff.
What were some of the bands early on?
(Looking at Joe’s Club 101 scrapbook from 1991) Village People, Flock of Seagulls, Book of Love, Mighty Lemondrops, Soup Dragons, Anything Box,Tragically Hip from Canada, … this is the most famous show, when Nine Inch Nails came. It was two days before their very first Lollapalooza and it was going to be in Phoenix. They had canceled back then, and I was like I don’t know, and they were like, let us play at your club for $5… and we had lines around the building! We had religious people there protesting. When the religious people came, the news media came, the TV people came, the fire department came, and they said I was 50 people over capacity. I got on the microphone, “Hey does anybody like to refund their tickets for Meat Beat Manifesto next week?” Oh crap, we have to get 50 people out of here before we start the show. I got all my bartenders and employees and counted them out, they went out the front door; I got them (back) in through the backdoor. But we were still short, nobody wants to leave, but we were able to start the show. Trent Reznor and his guys were just standing around (before the show) they bicycled into Juarez because they just wanted to kill time. That was crazy, I just remember them riding around the city.
What other shows?
White Zombie… Pantera was one of the greatest shows ever; those guys were really nice. NOFX was a sell out show. Marilyn Manson, he had the craziest rider (backstage show demands). I think on the rider he had live chickens. Where the hell do I find live chickens? I heard later that he was messing with promoters. We had him twice; I had a club on the east-side called Metropolis.
Any diva artist?
I just remember the lead singer of Suicidal Tendencies yelling at me, he was in the middle of the street at 101 yelling; we got him calmed down. There was this all girl group called L7, “Where’s my goat milk!” Some of these riders were ridiculously large. One of the artist rider was for Moby, we had to go to the health places to find stuff he was asking for, but that’s cool, we just couldn’t find it. The simplest rider we ever did was Snoop Dogg: KFC chicken, he wanted a Playstation, he wanted a limo… but it wasn’t like a deli tray of this and that, and 2 pages.
A lot of people wondered, how did I get (people) to these shows? I used to do this radio show called Stepping Out on KXCR; it was for high school kids to learn about radio, right over here at five points. I started doing it when I was at the Lost Iguana.
I have recorded cassettes of Stepping Out!
We would play local bands too. We had one microphone. We had bands cram in there and play live! Stepping Out was a 10,000 watts station, KLAQ was 100,000 watts station, on Sunday nights from 8pm to 12am, Stepping Out had 25% share of the market! I think there are people out there that want something different. I’d like to recreate that show.
What do you see in the future?
Music is such an addiction with me and a lot of people here in El Paso. I’m not doing music full time anymore… somehow I’d like to do a bar or club and be able to do music, and hopefully do some live music too, just finding the right location, and of course in El Paso.
