[Misc] Clubbing (not in Brighton)

[LlcoolJ]

To take my mind off the relentless grind of passing on information to clients about the government lying about compensation, I was just chatting to a mate about the good old days.

We were out every weekend in Sheffield but also went all over the country for a night out.

This was late 90s/early 2000s and the best (for me) was Birmingham.

So when looking for a photo of the Q Club to send to him I stumbled across this article.....

https://www.timeout.com/birmingham/blog/15-signs-you-were-on-the-birmingham-club-scene-in-the-90s

We were at most of these including the 1999 Planet V/Music First rave at Q (best club I've ever been to bar none). Atomic Jam, Flashback, The Custard Factory etc etc

Leeds was good. Sundissential (also in Brum) Glasshouse and the like. Tony De Vit FFS!

The gay clubs in Manchester. Strawberry Sundae in Vauxhall. Creamfields.....

And of course in Sheffield Gatecrasher, Scuba, Rise, Remedy, outdoor parties in the Peak, driving to warehouses in Derbyshire, unused steelworks in the city…... and the club we set up in our cellar.

I'm now an old git so it would be sub standard to even try to go to most clubs (plus I'd need two days in bed to recover) but these are the things that live with you forever.

So! Please cheer me up with more stories of where you went and why it was BANGING.

We've done Brighton clubs from back in the day but what about the rest of the country, and indeed the World.......

 

[Bakero]

Bristol, early 00s. Drum n Bass. Lakota (sweat running down the walls), The Depot (hours of dancing interspersed with the odd game of pool then into the 24 hour cafe/pub section when the club shut down at 6), Black Swan (occasionally stumbling into the pub section where you'd get funny looks from the old rastas), Blue Mountain, The Level, many others that I can't remember the names of. After parties where Saturday morning turned into Sunday. Outdoor raves in the countryside - get in early enough before the police seal the perimeter to stop it growing but allow it to carry on- getting tailed for what seemed like hours by the police while driving back, praying we don't get pulled over. Good times.

 

[Mr Banana]

The Custard Factory is still going, I think. Went to a festival there in 2011. Revisited briefly in 2016 - bit like a condensed North Laine with more art and fewer posh shops. Top place.

 

[Barham's tash]

Pretty standard I know but Turnmills really was cracking in the early noughties and a travesty that it was forced to close.

 

[Coldeanseagull]

Buntys(I think) Guildford late 70's Frequented by the young ladies from the WRAC. You took your life in your own hands by mingling with these girls. Another one from my army days, was more of a barn dance just outside Warminster. Banjos and extra digits a plenty, I can tell ya!

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Vancouver, 83-86, the Luv Affair, and numerous smaller venues whose names escape me. If anyone who was there at the time remembers the name of the tiny club with black and white check tile dance floor, located on Ruchards or Home (forget which) I'd love to be reminded. After living in London it was a breath of fresh air to be able to go out at night without fear of being attacked for looking queer.

 

[Guinness Boy]

Brighton area was my mainstay in the 90s. Shark Club first and then a member at The Zap club on Friday nights. We'd occasionally venture to either Sterns or Club UK in Wandsworth but my favourite trip away was to the successor to Club UK called Voyager at a club called the Complex in Angel, London.

Four floors - downtempo / trip hop at the bottom, two floors of techno and a bar at the top with pool tables and Playstations. The middle two floors had sweat flying off the walls from about midnight on and looking back on it, the stairs between the rooms were very likely a major fire risk. Saw Sven Vath, Jeff Mills and David Holmes in particular absolutely rip the place up. Very, very nearly got locked in the loos for a whole day as the lights went out in the gents as I was having my end of the night piss.

On a recent lads trip to Slovenia I thought I recognised a friend of a friend but couldn't place him and he swore he'd not met me. It turns out that the first time we went up there our driver got lost in London on the way home and we got pulled over. 7am and everyone in the car with a can of lager except the driver. You'd never get away with it these days but we managed to talk our way out of it when two tramps started a violent fight ten yards away. We both told exactly the same tale in the bar after our days' Slovenian adrenaline sport - he'd been in the back of the car and I was in the front seat.

 

[LlcoolJ]

Buntys(I think) Guildford late 70's Frequented by the young ladies from the WRAC. You took your life in your own hands by mingling with these girls. Another one from my army days, was more of a barn dance just outside Warminster. Banjos and extra digits a plenty, I can tell ya!

Quality!

 

[Creaky]

Our regular haunt was The Orchid in Purley with the occasional visit to The Locarno, (later renamed The Cat’s Whiskers), in Streatham.

It was at the Orchid I first heard The Who live in the early ‘70s - not sure how the dress code, including wearing a tie, would go down today!

 

[LlcoolJ]

Our regular haunt was The Orchid in Purley with the occasional visit to The Locarno, (later renamed The Cat’s Whiskers), in Streatham.

It was at the Orchid I first heard The Who live in the early ‘70s - not sure how the dress code, including wearing a tie, would go down today!

Man. Dress codes in crap clubs used to do my nut in.

Anyone allowed in if they had black trousers (£2 from Primark) and shiny shoes (£5 from TK Maxx). Likelihood of causing trouble, massive.

"Sorry mate you can't come in with jeans and trainers"

Combined cost £150, likelihood of causing trouble, zero.

 

[AmexRuislip]

Brunel Rooms in Swindon and the Hammersmith Palais (emergency services night), were always great venues for me, during the late 1980's.
Fantastic funk n soul sounds, all night.

 

[AmexRuislip]

Brighton area was my mainstay in the 90s. Shark Club first and then a member at The Zap club on Friday nights. We'd occasionally venture to either Sterns or Club UK in Wandsworth but my favourite trip away was to the successor to Club UK called Voyager at a club called the Complex in Angel, London.

Four floors - downtempo / trip hop at the bottom, two floors of techno and a bar at the top with pool tables and Playstations. The middle two floors had sweat flying off the walls from about midnight on and looking back on it, the stairs between the rooms were very likely a major fire risk. Saw Sven Vath, Jeff Mills and David Holmes in particular absolutely rip the place up. Very, very nearly got locked in the loos for a whole day as the lights went out in the gents as I was having my end of the night piss.

On a recent lads trip to Slovenia I thought I recognised a friend of a friend but couldn't place him and he swore he'd not met me. It turns out that the first time we went up there our driver got lost in London on the way home and we got pulled over. 7am and everyone in the car with a can of lager except the driver. You'd never get away with it these days but we managed to talk our way out of it when two tramps started a violent fight ten yards away. We both told exactly the same tale in the bar after our days' Slovenian adrenaline sport - he'd been in the back of the car and I was in the front seat.

The Zap club was always a good night, as was the nightclub on the end of Eastbourne Pier late 80's (cannot remember name)

 

[BN9 BHA]

Man. Dress codes in crap clubs used to do my nut in.

Anyone allowed in if they had black trousers (£2 from Primark) and shiny shoes (£5 from TK Maxx). Likelihood of causing trouble, massive.

"Sorry mate you can't come in with jeans and trainers"

Combined cost £150, likelihood of causing trouble, zero.

So true.
I remember seeing people coming out of the Top Rank Suite in Brighton during the 80s, lads all wearing white shirts, black trousers and shoes, looked like they had just finished work in an office.

 

[Peteinblack]

Man. Dress codes in crap clubs used to do my nut in.

Anyone allowed in if they had black trousers (£2 from Primark) and shiny shoes (£5 from TK Maxx). Likelihood of causing trouble, massive.

"Sorry mate you can't come in with jeans and trainers" Combined cost £150, likelihood of causing trouble, zero.

Yeah, that used to boil my p*** too - the clubs with the 'smart dress only' policy and gorilla-looking bouncers on the door were precisely the places where you'd get fights, stabbings and glassings on a Friday/Saturday night.

Hardly ever any trouble among the 'scruffy' clientele of The Hungry Years 'dancing' (playing air guitar ) to hard rock, heavy metal and a bit of punk.

Same when I lived in Leeds in the 1980s - 'alternative' nightclubs like Le Phonographique, and The Warehouse, full of punks, Goths, and Art-College Indie-kids, were friendly with very little trouble. yet 'smart' nightclubs like 'Tiffanys' were where all the thugs used to go in gangs, with their pringle jumpers and 'loafer' shoes (the ones with the little tassels on top) - and the women all had shaggy perms and polyester miniskirts. dancing round their handbags in white stilettoes, underneath a glitterball .

 

[AmexRuislip]

To take my mind off the relentless grind of passing on information to clients about the government lying about compensation, I was just chatting to a mate about the good old days.

We were out every weekend in Sheffield but also went all over the country for a night out.

This was late 90s/early 2000s and the best (for me) was Birmingham.

So when looking for a photo of the Q Club to send to him I stumbled across this article.....

https://www.timeout.com/birmingham/blog/15-signs-you-were-on-the-birmingham-club-scene-in-the-90s

We were at most of these including the 1999 Planet V/Music First rave at Q (best club I've ever been to bar none). Atomic Jam, Flashback, The Custard Factory etc etc

Leeds was good. Sundissential (also in Brum) Glasshouse and the like. Tony De Vit FFS!

The gay clubs in Manchester. Strawberry Sundae in Vauxhall. Creamfields.....

And of course in Sheffield Gatecrasher, Scuba, Rise, Remedy, outdoor parties in the Peak, driving to warehouses in Derbyshire, unused steelworks in the city…... and the club we set up in our cellar.

I'm now an old git so it would be sub standard to even try to go to most clubs (plus I'd need two days in bed to recover) but these are the things that live with you forever.

So! Please cheer me up with more stories of where you went and why it was BANGING.

We've done Brighton clubs from back in the day but what about the rest of the country, and indeed the World.......

Used to regularly attend the Caister Soul weekends way back, special times, nobody cared what they wore, as long as the music was good.

 

[Baker lite]

Met a Canadian bird once, she took Me clubbing, never again, took Me months to get the blood out of my strides...

 

[LlcoolJ]

Yeah, that used to boil my p*** too - the clubs with the 'smart dress only' policy and gorilla-looking bouncers on the door were precisely the places where you'd get fights, stabbings and glassings on a Friday/Saturday night.

Hardly ever any trouble among the 'scruffy' clientele of The Hungry Years 'dancing' (playing air guitar [emoji38] ) to hard rock, heavy metal and a bit of punk.

Same when I lived in Leeds in the 1980s - 'alternative' nightclubs like Le Phonographique, and The Warehouse, full of punks, Goths, and Indie-kids, were friendly with very little trouble. yet 'smart' nightclubs like 'Tiffanys' were where all the thugs you used to go, with their pringle jumpers and 'loafer' shoes - and the women all had shaggy perms and polyester miniskirts. dancing round their handbags in white stilettoes, underneath a glitterball .

"Townie scum" as they were generally referred to by the actual ravers/ non dickheads in Sheffield.

It was only when we ventured out of the city and went to the wrong places that we encountered that kind of shit as we knew the places to avoid in Sheffield.

 

[Official Old Man]

Magaluf when acid (music) arrived. DJ'd in the Pink Elephant plus a few nights in BCM (thanks Damien) along with winters in Mano's Place. Circa 1987 to 1993
Don't remember much of it though, free booze all night, except I made a lot of money.

 

[Peteinblack]

"Townie scum" as they were generally referred to by the actual ravers/ non dickheads in Sheffield.

It was only when we ventured out of the city and went to the wrong places that we encountered that kind of shit as we knew the places to avoid in Sheffield.

Yeah, they were known as 'Townies' in Leeds too, or 'Tetley Bittermen' (after the Leeds-based Tetley brewery). Like you in Sheffield, we soon learnt which pubs to avoid at weekends!

 

[Algernon]

I lived in Monchengladbach in Germany and somehow when I was 13 a Squaddie talked my old man into letting me (along with a mate) tag along with him for a weekend trip to Middelburg, 2.5 hours drive away in Holland.
It was a Friday evening when we got there and we went straight to a club. I was only 13 but somehow got in. I say club, it was actually in a barn.
It was packed to the literal rafters with statuesque dutchies. The females weren't interested and the males just wanted to scare my childish teeth in.
We stayed for a very long and tense 2 or 3 hours during which the front of my Levi red tab jeans felt the strain as I watched gorgeous Dutch girls from my safe space.
We drove to a sandy beach (our accommodation), socially distanced ourselves from each other then I watched the fluorescent waves break whilst I hurriedly knocked one out.

On the drive home on the Sunday the exhaust fell off his Renault 13.