Physical Processes

‘Owen writes fast and tough, like a cop flick voice-over – if anything, Clubland Confidential is Robin Moore’s The French Connection remixed for the “chemical generation” ‘ -The Guardian

Clubland Confidential is the true story of the rise and fall of a decadent nocturnal empire that stretched over several American cities and spawned its own subculture of celebrities and wannabes. Journalist, Frank Owen spent nearly a decade inside the nightclubs of the 1990s – an era when disco gave way to more unsettling dance music, cocaine was supplanted by Ecstacy and heroin, ‘clubkids’ mingled with bully boys, trans people danced with stockbrokers, and celebrities looked on. But as the drugs got out of control, their world became murkier and slowly began to implode. As clubland decadence turned to darkness, its self-publicised king, Michael Alig, committed one of the most notorious crimes of New York’s recent history – the violent murder of Angel Melendez. With his friends fleeing for cover, a tangled web of mafia-related crimes begins to emerge and the secrets of New York nightlife are dragged through the courts.