The Bradley’s article is great.
I remember a place up some stairs there, was quite a small carpeted room and you had to become a member (no joining fee, and they gave you a paper membership card) to be able to drink in there.
Might be this spot I remember, via an un-marked door and up loads of stairs, I think it was on Moor Street next to the Palace Theatre (Les Mis in those days, now Harry Potter)? Above or next to a taxi place? Late 90s. Sold beers and other things through a hatch in a room right at the top. Went a few times when Thursday nights got out of hand!
That’s it!
Do places like this still exist and it’s just that I don’t know about them now? I was in the sauna tonight and two guys were talking about a rave they had gone to in a meat freezer in Walthamstow. I live there and had no clue this kind of thing went on (although I’d occasionally see remnants of raves on the marshes during my Sunday morning long run)
Chill out room?
waaaay before my time, but there’s a great video on YouTube of tonka getting their sound system out of that arch. and I realised it was the same arch that World Unknown used to use. – I asked Andy if he knew the previous history, and he said he first heard about that arch through Felix.
I love that link between different eras though. especially there.
such a great video, arch is seen about 6 mins in.
Lots of mates in there, so young!
Yeah thats the Tonka arch - I had my eyes opened at their party there - great vid!
(How about this for a link between eras - after Tonka another soundsystem company (Systems Etc) used that arch for storage. They then moved to an arch in Elephant, which then became Corsica when they moved out!)
Think you’ll find Felix’s parties were round the corner in Whirled Arts arch on the Camberwell side of the lights.
So has the Nightlife Czar position been replaced by this?
I notice the article quotes one of the Nightlife Taskforce as saying
“But when it comes to clubs, it’s quite obvious what the primary issue is at the moment: overheads. The overheads are often a lot greater than the income being made.”
Scroll a bit further down the news and you get stuff like this
and this
Obviously the nightlife scene is on decline, but has applying the soulless capitalist mindset of “drain the punter and industry of every single penny until there is nothing left” really helped much here?
Also, is any of this going to change much about any of our clubbing experiences? We have to go and see Bradley Zero play in a slightly smaller club?
I guess the thing is you need those larger, more accessible events like WHP to draw in the younger generation and then some of them gradually find their niche and get involved in going to smaller nights and do their own thing.
I am not sure i buy this trickle down economics theory with the music that is being played at these big scale events right now. It’s Hard House, Hard Dance, Donk, Hard Trance etc.
I’m also not convinced the demographic for WHP is below 30 either, so that generation already have their tastes pretty much decided. I spoke to a festival promoter yesterday who told me that the average age at his last festival (which was not a million miles from a WHP looking thing) was 32.
Where did the Gatecrasher kids go after that all ended? I feel like they just put clubbing behind them and started sharing far right opinions and “phones ruined clubbing” comments on Facebook.
Dare i say it… The concept of clubbing itself is becoming niche.
Edit* …and maybe that is a good thing, smaller clubs have always been my preferred thing anyway…
Yeah i dont doubt that its the case. If you took 1000 people who went to the superclubs in the late 90s, most of them enjoyed that for a few years and then moved on. Theres always a minority for whom its a stepping stone to something more credible or permanent though.
Both experiences are as valid as each other, and id rather those big mainstream events existed in some capacity rather than not at all, even if its not my thing.
The average age at something like WHP being higher than i imagined might just be down to cost as much as anything else.
Yeah, you are totally right. I hope there is a way for it all to continue in some form.
Im sure i went to a thing they put on at St. Matthew’s Church basement, with Trouble, and then the excellent night in Loughborough Junction, and the very non specific ‘something in a wine bar’ in maybe '88?