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No Wave icon Anya Phillips (girlfriend of singer James Chance) was one of the founders of legendary New York nightspot the Mudd Club. Burroughs, Debbie Harry, Nico, Lydia Lunch, and other downtown figures populated the nightclub that hosted bands like Talking Heads, DNA, Chance’s The Contortions, and The B-52′s.

Photographer William Coupon started his career in New York City, documenting the Mudd Club’s thriving counterculture scene throughout the late 1970s. Coupon would later go on to photograph George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, but we’re more than happy to stare at a young Klaus Nomi, photographed like a classic Renaissance painting. See more of Coupon’s portraits in our gallery, which we spotted in his Behance portfolio.

Image credit: William Coupon