Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Kerry Jaggers: The Unknown Soldier of the Starck Club!



 The fun in making a documentary film is you learn a lot of stuff in the process. For instance, most folks assume Philippe Krootchey was the 1st DJ at Starck Club? Right? Not exactly... First off, if you have no clue what I'm talking about, get up to speed here: http://jfafilms.com/films_warriors_of_the_discotheque.html



The early progression of DJ's was a bit fuzzy to me, and obviously many others. The DJ for the first 6 months of Starck Club's existence was a very cool dude named Kerry Jaggers. While PK was 'sposed to be there opening night, he missed it. Grace Jones manager suggested Kerry, and he flew in from NYC the next night for the next 6 months, and then PK came from Paris and took over. 



Of course, as my film covered, PK's tenure hit a glitch or two and then Kerry suggested Rick Squillante and the rest as they say is history. Kerry was instrumental in not only the sound, but also adjusting the lighting and helping set Starck on it's way. Also, on KJ's initial sojourn to Starck he brought w/ him MDMA in powder form, perfectly LEGAL at the time, and once again the rest was history. Now, it should also be added that a former seminarian student named Michael Clegg, based in North Texas, was a huge proponent and propagator of MDMA in the early 80's and after initially nicknaming it Empathy, decided Ecstasy was a better name. However, the popularization of MDMA as a dance elixir, if you will, traces it's roots to late 70's downtown NYC club scene Kerry cut his teeth on so to speak.

For a various number of reasons I was unable to get Kerry in our doc, but intuitively knew enough to know he was an important player and made sure he was included in the credits. So, in that spirit, I offer up a special salute to the Unknown Soldier of the Starck Club, Kerry Jaggers. Salute! Here's brief peak at Kerry, he has the best line in the segment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vEIt4MSiNQ