Pure Ecstasy | Inside the Infamous Starck Club

The epicenter for 1980s counterculture wasn't spawned in New York, Los Angeles, or even Manchester, England but in the most unlikely of places, Dallas, Texas. The infamous Starck Club was a Shangri-La for the rich, the famous, the uber hip: movie stars, rock stars, sports celebrities, Dallas debutantes, politicians – and anyone else who had the attitude and duds to convince the phalanx at the front door to let them pass. MDMA or “Ecstasy”, the then legal drug, was adding euphoric fuel to the fire.

The club's policy of welcoming all including gays, straights, rich, poor, black, white and everything in between was attracting worldwide attention and local hostility. The only thing not allowed inside was prejudice and that made the Starck the target for city leaders, the police and Reagan's war on drugs.

On August 8, 1986, a DEA raid at the Starck lead to the emergence of a new progressive subculture, Rave, which would soon be known from Los Angeles to Detroit to London to Ibiza.

Pure Ecstasy focuses on the club as a microcosm of the 1980s. Music, fashion, politics, culture, and designer drugs each played a role in the drama which made Starck Club the hegemonic nightspot of the 1980s.