Dave Shelton, better known as Medusa, passed away earlier in the week. His death was announced on his Facebook account by his friend, Miguel Ortuno.
“Just when you thought 2020 couldn’t get any worse, it took away your sense of normalcy, it took away your fun, your gatherings, and now it took away one of the kindest, most generous people to ever exist in the nightclub world and in the world in general,” wrote Ortuno. “Dave Medusa has sadly passed away. He passed this week of natural causes and we are just announcing this tonight as we wanted the family to be notified first.”
https://www.facebook.com/davemedusa/posts/10158360694673886
Dave “Medusa” Shelton’s Legacy
Shelton was a prominent personality in the Chicago nightlife scene during in the ‘80s. His wildly popular nightclub Medusa’s was a hotspot up there with legendary clubs like Paradise Garage and the Warehouse (where Shelton got his start throwing parties, according to 5 Magazine).
Medusa’s not only influenced a myriad of DJs, but it was an open, wild melting pot of Chicago’s often segregated partygoers. “We had pimps from Cicero. We had the Rush Street crowd. Broadway in Boystown. Punks were coming from [the late-night bar] Exit,” Shelton told Chicago in 2017.
Valerie “DJ Psycho-Bitch” Scheinpflug said, “There’d be someone with a Mohawk standing next to someone in assless leather chaps standing next to somebody with feathered hair wearing a sport shirt [at Medusa’s].”
The Chicago nightclub was infamous for its debauchery and outlandish exhibitions. VJ Joe Michelli said, “Let me paint a little picture: Take a bit of Santeria ritual weirdness, blend in some Reagan-era paranoia, a mock crucifixion, alien hairstyles, dreary guitar noise, strobe lights, and veiled, half-naked girls in body paint. It was shocking, transfixing, and utterly out of this world. Dave loved it. All of the staff did, too.”
At the same time, the club itself was unassuming. Located in an out-of-the-way neighborhood with little going on, it became a fixture of the scene by word of mouth. It’s eclectic curation of music and art and unabashed welcoming of all cultures spoke for itself.
Ortuno wrote that he would share any memorial details from Shelton’s account as they become available.
