See below left for picture gallery

In the late 1970s and 1980s, New York sizzled. The economically ravaged city became an affordable refuge for a wave of artists, performers and impresarios. Creative envelopes were pushed, clubs descended into debauchery and the DIY ethos of punk prevailed.

Recording it was Paula Court, resident photographer at the Kitchen Centre, a performance space that nurtured America’s avant-garde and numbered Philip Glass and Laurie Anderson among its prime movers. Court’s book New York Noise features more than 400 shots of the era’s leading lights including Madonna, Andy Warhol, Patti Smith and William Burroughs. She prefers to let her pictures do the talking, but on this page and overleaf, subjects including Anderson and David Byrne reflect on ten years of artistic dynamism.

ANITA SARKO Disc jockey

"When I arrived in downtown Manhattan from the Midwest in the late 1970s, I thought, ‘This is it.’ It was Bohemia’s last gasp - imagine the most progressive kindergarten, where you could follow your whims, uncontrolled by adults. It wasn’t a case of “We’ll all do this or that” — everybody just got it. Or if you didn’t you ran out of there screaming.

It was like life as performance art, but without the creepy pretentiousness. Whatever you wanted to do, you did it. If you wanted to paint, you came here to paint; if you wanted to be a musician, you picked up a damn guitar.

I used to DJ at this amazing place called Squat Theatre, which was put on by an East European theatrical troupe who came to New York on tour and never went back. They took care of Nico when she got strung out and put on these avant-garde shows where Sun Ra would perform and John Cale would come and do his viola stuff.

Then there was Danceteria, which we held in a mansion on Second Avenue near Gramercy Park that we rented off this old gay guy. Everybody was having sex in every corner and on every staircase. Madonna was a regular and she was really awful. When she got famous she became very nice, but back then I’d get into big fights with her — she would scream for me to make the music louder but the owner had a big padlock on the amp.

I also played at Andy Warhol’s funeral wake in 1987. I ended up next to him at some dinner party once. He was very sweet, but one of the most boring people I’ve ever met."

DAVID BYRNE Musician

“During that time I lived in about five different places – Lower East Side, Upper West Side, East Village, NoLita. Never got to call any one place home. New York was a scary and legendary place – and downtown was like a Bohemian living museum, which was pretty thrilling for an aspiring artist and musician.

“Legends walked the streets – well, from a skewed boho POV. It was all very new and exciting, at least for me – and it was incredibly funky, the sleaze and poverty were everywhere. There were more beggars and homeless than on the streets of Mumbai, and that’s saying something. The cheapest hookers in town were on Chrystie Street, where Talking Heads once shared a loft. Now there’s a Whole Foods and luxury condos on the corner.

“I’m not complaining or nostalgic for the bad old days – some things are genuinely better – I feel no nostalgia for the old Times Square, for example. What might have gotten lost was that one could incubate one’s work inside the supportive bubble of a close and sometimes desperate community. Now that period of incubation is incredibly short, the chicks are thrown out of the nest immediately.

“There was a nice rubbing together between disciplines during the latter part of that time – borders were definitely fuzzy, which was inspiring. Sometimes there were collaborations – but even when there weren’t there was an awareness of what was going on outside your own field, which is healthy. But it took its toll – look at the tiny numbers who survived to have an ongoing creative life and career – a few handfuls, that’s it! Maybe that is all that ever survives and flourishes in any generation, but it seems harsh. I think some of the artists have fared better in the long run than the majority of the musicians.”

LAURIE ANDERSON Performance artist

“It was dark, dangerous, exciting. We knew we were creating a brand new art scene. We then watched that scene disappear. There weren’t boundaries or categories. We all worked on each other’s pieces and it didn’t matter that one was a dance-like thing and another was a sculpture-like thing.

“At one point almost everyone I knew was working on an opera. You’d walk down the street and everyone you met would say, ‘How’s your opera?’

“I guess opera was just a loose way to say big indefinable things. The definitions came later – applied, for example, by art schools to keep order in their curricula.”

BILL T. JONES Dancer and choreographer

“It was hardly unique in being a time when people in various disciplines collaborated . . . It was a time of many cliques and clans, extremely competitive. The notion of community was dubious as careerism was rampant. All scenes were dominated by a hyper-awareness of the media. Who was on the cover of what magazine was a powerful motivator.”

RHYS CHATHAM Composer

“Almost everyone was older than me. I was like the ‘kid brother’ of Phil Glass. So when the CBGBs’ scene exploded it was very exciting. Here was something that felt like ‘my’ music. People like Patti Smith and Richard Hell were very encouraging to a lot of people. You thought, well, if they can do it. Why not me?”

Paula Court’s New York Noise is published on Monday 26 by Soul Jazz. Anita Sarko was in London to play at Fabric’s new Oberon night (www.fabriclondon.com )

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