bigfootkit wrote: ↑Sat Oct 07, 2023 7:57 am
*EDIT*
Scratch this request. I've since heard the whole thing. Crossfire is the best song by a mile, the other 2 songs are rather safe sounding rock with definite new wave/pop leanings.
Seems 'Black Magic' was the singer's nom-de-plume rather than a band name, one she'd used in her prior career when she was apparently 'the highest earning stripper in Canada'. I can confirm that she was rather good at removing her clothes whilst gyrating to music, after a viewing of her Black Magic & The Pussycats - 'Leather & Lace' softcore porn vid (conducted purely for research purposes obviously).
Sorry, i felt it best to obscure Ms. Magic's nether regions on the cover before posting it on a family forum like The Corroseum:
I'm not sure how intersted anyone here is in this band, but i just stumbled upon a lot of interesting info about 'Black Magic's career after the lone EP on a blog completely unconnected to music. I've copy & pasted the relevant parts together to tell the story of this particular part of her career as i was sure trivia fans would enjoy the bizarre details..
It's quite the wild tale, even if you have zero interest in their music.
I was unsure where to post it, so please do feel free to move this post to another location if you feel it would better fit there DaN.
Written by David Hughes, who worked as a doorman/cashier/DJ at Toronto strip club 'Le Strip' from 1982-1994 & originally (spread across several different articles) featured here:
https://thejohnfleming.wordpress.com/
In 1983/84 I had a chance encounter with my ex-girlfriend and her boyfriend while I was working as an armored car guard picking up money from McDonald’s Restaurant at 239 Yonge Street in Toronto, which was directly underneath Le Strip’s burlesque theater.
My ‘ex’ had become a top-billed exotic dancer in Canada, working under the stage name ‘Black Magic’ and was a business partner, with Don, running, managing and performing at Le Strip.
She and her boyfriend had a management agreement with (the club's owner) Don Cullen where they would handle the day to day running of the club and she would appear once a month to perform there. At the time she was one of the highest paid strippers in Canada and could command a weekly fee anywhere in Canada that was hard to believe.
The club was located on the 2nd floor at 237A Yonge Street and had started in the 1960's as a ‘burlesque theater’, but it offered something no other strip club in Toronto could… total nudity!
There was a loophole in the City of Toronto’s bylaw forbidding total nudity in any establishment that sold alcohol. Financially, no strip bar could stay in business if they did not serve booze.
The proprietors of establishments which featured exotic dancers AND alcohol had to ensure performers wore “G-strings and pasties” while on stage. The rationale behind this bylaw was that, obviously, without total nudity there would be no sin in the city.
However, the virtuous Burghers of Toronto didn’t count on the ingenuity of market forces and human nature. Le Strip got around the total nudity prohibition and flourished for decades by offering intimate glimpses of female anatomy to young and old alike…as long as they practiced sobriety while in the hallowed halls of what owner Don Cullen often referred to as “the blessed church of the vertical smiling academy”. (lolashell5)
The intimate ‘theater’ setting could hold approximately 120 patrons cloistered around the T-shaped stage and had a candy and pop vending machine… but no alcohol was served… Only total nudity…on tap… serving up 6 different performances lasting 15 minutes at one and one half hour intervals.
Eventually, in the early 1990's, table dancing was permitted as a result of a court decision which overturned a section of Canada’s criminal code which dealt with morality issues.
Accepting the offer of employment at Le Strip as a doorman, I began working a few nights a week mostly on weekends. In due course, I was introduced to Don and he knew me at first as Black Magic’s former boyfriend.
Working as a ‘doorman’ in an establishment that didn’t serve alcohol was an exercise in oxymorism… People who haven’t been drinking are generally pretty quiet and well-behaved.
Once the girls were on stage, all eyes and minds were focused on one thing and one thing only!
I was working as cashier when my ex-girlfriend ‘Black Magic’ and her boyfriend/manager got into a dispute with Don about her wages and business relationship.
Customers could buy a yearly membership at Le Strip by paying a small fee (less than the cost of admission) and then paid a lower admission fee than non-members each time they attended the club and showed their membership card. Non-members were able to view the show but had to pay a higher price for admission. Le Strip only closed on one day every year… Patrons could tip performers while they were onstage during their 15 minute endeavor… which they performed 4 or 5 times per shift. It never ceased to amaze me how the sight of female anatomy could vacuum the greenbacks from patrons’ wallets.
As a cash business, each night the day’s proceeds were counted and deposited into the safe located in the DJ’s booth. Le Strip was open 7 days a week and closed on only one day of the year. (I can’t remember if it was Christmas or New Year’s.)
At the end of each week, the twelve Monday-Saturday performers and the six Sunday performers were paid out of the accumulated deposits. What was left over paid the salaries of the two DJs, the cashiers and, lastly, the cleaners (who happened to be me – Yes, I admit, I was double dipping at Le Strip, earning an extra $30 to cleanup the detritus that accumulated at the end of each day!)
Whatever was left over went to the maintenance and operation of the club and what was left over after that went to Don… which often wasn’t much.
The dispute between ‘Black Magic’ (at the time a star performer who commanded and received $5,000 per week to perform all over Canada) and Don reached a peak the day before payday, when the safe was full of that week’s take. She and her boyfriend entered the premise after hours and helped themselves to the contents and, without warning, left the business arrangement she had with Don and Le Strip.
Don was devastated. He had full trust in Black Magic and her boyfriend and their actions hurt him deeply. Later on Don showed me the letter she had left inside the safe outlining her grievances and itemizing the amounts she and her boyfriend believed were owed to them.
An amount, incidentally, that just so happened to be what was in the safe at the time… roughly $5,000.
Now $5,000 in 2024 doesn’t sound like a lot of money but, in 1983/84, it was a significant amount. There were 21 employees expecting to receive their week’s wages on Saturday… employees who had bills to pay, families to feed, clothe and shelter…and the safe was empty!
Seizing the moment, Don made an emergency trip to his bank and withdrew the funds from his personal bank account. Everyone was paid on time.
That’s the kind of man Don was.
I became a Confidential Informant for the Ontario Provincial Police as a result of a counterfeit money scheme that occurred in 1984. Le Strip saved Christmas for Toronto merchants by preventing the laundering of $20 million US dollars during the peak Christmas sales rush and the seizure of said monies and the arrests of all the perpetrators involved which, sadly, included my ex-girlfriend ‘Black Magic’ and her husband.
In 1986 all involved were convicted and sentenced to jail terms in federal prison except for my ex-girlfriend who was found not guilty… I was the Crown’s chief witness during the trial.
David Hughes