Episode 266: The Club Cinq-Sept fire
Disaster Area
Disaster Area
4.2 • 839 Ratings
🗓️ 15 May 2026
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It should have just been a regular Saturday night dancing to rock music and having a good time at the relatively new dance hall outside of Saint-Laurent, France. But in the early morning hours of November 1st, 1970, what was likely one dropped match or cigarette turned the Club Cinq-Sept into an oven.
Videos:
Articles and books:
-
Youth to Burn: Guy Debord on the fire at Saint-Laurent-du-Pont
-
Virtual Globetrotting: Diagram of the layout of the Club Cinq-Sept
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello, everybody. This is Jennifer Matarise. And before I get started with the episode today, I'd just like to take care of the usual housekeeping. For starters, paid requests are now reopened. If you're interested in submitting a disaster request, please double-check the list of requests I most recently posted to the podcast, Facebook and Tumblr accounts to make sure your requests has not already been made. Also, please look through past episodes to verify I haven't |
| 0:20.8 | already covered the disaster in question. To submit a request, you can send a donation of $30 or more |
| 0:26.3 | to the podcast, PayPal at disaster area at mail.com, on Venmo at Disaster Area Podcast, |
| 0:32.6 | or on Cash App at Disaster Area Pod. Just add the name of the disaster to the notes on your |
| 0:37.2 | donation. If you have an idea for an episode subject, but you're not sure if it qualifies, feel free to message me and I can approve one way or the other. The subject from this particular episode was chosen by Jamie, and I'd like to thank them for the request and for the donation. If you'd still like to help support the podcast in another way, you can do say with a one-time |
| 0:54.3 | donation through PayPal, Venmo, or cash app, or on a per-episode basis through Patreon |
| 0:58.5 | at www.com slash disaster area podcast. A per-episode donation of even as little as a dollar |
| 1:06.2 | an episode can help me do things like pay the rent and keep the lights on. And if you do join |
| 1:10.3 | the Patreon, |
| 1:15.0 | you will get new episodes ad free as soon as I record them, rather than waiting until they are released on the main feed. So if you do become a patron, I would very much appreciate it. |
| 1:19.8 | You can also follow the podcast on Facebook at Disaster Area Podcast, on Instagram at Disaster Area |
| 1:25.6 | Pod, and on Tumblr at Disaster Area Dash Podcast. Also, please think about rating and reviewing the podcast on Instagram at Disaster Area Pod and on Tumblr at Disaster Area |
| 1:27.8 | dash podcast. Also, please think about rating and reviewing the podcast on |
| 1:31.9 | audible, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, wherever you might listen to me. And as always, the |
| 1:37.2 | sources for each new episode can be found at disasterareapodcast.wordpress.com or in the |
| 1:43.1 | episode description wherever you might be listening to me. |
| 1:46.2 | The sources for this episode include an article by Flore Caron for France Three Regions called |
| 1:52.8 | The Worst Thing is the Sound of Silence, 50 years after the Five-seven tragedy, the memory, |
| 1:58.0 | and the grief remain intact, except the title is in French, so I am not |
| 2:03.0 | going to say all the French stuff. An article fromlibcom.org titled Youth to Berm, Guy Debord |
| 2:09.8 | on the fire at Saint-Laurent-Dupont, a virtual globe-trotting diagram of the club, a contemporary |
| 2:16.6 | in New York Times article entitled |
... |
Transcript will be available on the free plan in 7 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Disaster Area, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Disaster Area and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.

