Clubbing in Rome: The Piper still shaking its booty after nearly 50 years
Unlike Studio 54, which closed in 1991, the Piper is still around. It’s an unassuming place from outside. The name is lit up in red above a single door leading down two flights of stairs to a sprawling room the size of a small opera house. I took a long time walking down the stairs, not because my intense loathing for clubs made me feel as if I was descending into the Inferno of Italy’s greatest writer, Dante Alighieri. It’s just that I couldn’t stop looking at the pictures in the stairwell. There was Jimi Hendrix with his afro and microphone in hand. Tina Turner, when she was the appropriate age for her micro miniskirts, was dancing on stage. The Italian pop singer, Patty Pravo, whose iconic “La Bambola” (The Doll) helped me learn Italian in language school so many years ago, looked hotter than any of her American contemporaries. The Piper really is an institution. Unfortunately, it caved into 21st century marketing strategy and is now just another disco for Roman youth who think Jimi Hendrix is Germany’s goalkeeper.
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