Aah man that sounds brilliant
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Ha! I went here once too and it was equally grim. Would have been 2005 ish. Was sitting across the road with my then girlfriend having a meal, then decided to crack out the MDMA as one does on a random Thursday night. I was 25, so definitely old enough to know better, but in my inebriated state, thought it might be a bit of a laugh. It wasnât. Lads in rugby shirts throwing beer over each other etc. We promptly left, but the whole ordeal was quite depressing. I remember thinking it unfathomable that this was the highlight of some peopleâs week.
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My first club night was the Sub Club in Glasgow at age 15. Would have been late 95. Iâd love to say that it was to see Harri and Dominic, but it was an under 18s happy hardcore night. Still bloody amazing to teenage me whoâd been quite obsessed with dance music from a very young age.
First over 18s night was in 98 at a notorious shit hole called Bonkers Show Bar where the DJ downstairs played a mixture of commercial house and Euro trance!
A year later I discovered the Arches and that changed everything. Then a year after that, things had gone full circle and I was back in the Sub Club where it all started.
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1985 Tiffanyâs in Exeter. I was 13 and my older friend bought 3 of us tickets for a jazz-funk all-dayer, The Humdinger. Unbelievably, i got in, and remember in the daytime seeing a reggae toaster perform and in the evening seeing Edwin Starr fall off a chair while singing and Chad Jackson scratching with some gum on a chair leg. I wonder if it was the same chair?
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the Bonkers compilations used to pop up on adverts and they genuinely terrified me as a kid.
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I played at a couple of those as a guest, it was run by 2 uni students, Barry and Mario. Barry Castignola is a comedian/comedy producer now. Good nights. The Old Timepiece was ace, I was resident at Cheesey Club on a Thursday, amongst others nights there.
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Bonkers was the name of the actual venue and it was a very suitable name!
The Bonkers compilations were entirely separate as far as Iâm aware. I do remember the first one being all the rage when I was in high school around 97.
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Nothing iâm aware of. Being a local, and theirâs being a student night, i was kind of peripheral to the people/scene. I am friends with Barry on the social medias, i shall ask.
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I always thought they were connected but I was nine years old in 97 so I had no clue! Am I right in thinking Bonkers had unwritten rules about where you could sit/dance based on your local young team, and if you went to the wrong corner you would expect a battering?
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I went to a night there once, was a lot of speed garage & champagne going on from what I can remember.
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I donât know if thatâs true, but it wouldnât surprise me. It was a violent nightclub for sure. I was more into the peace and love vibe, so quickly moved on to pastures new.
Not sure how to post links yet, but see below.
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Apparently Brightonâs iconic Casablanca Club is being demolished today. Many people down hereâs first nightclub no doubt. (My friend told me just a few weeks ago his daughter had just been to her first club and it was this one)
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My kids have also been going there. Very sad.
I disgraced myself (again) there at a Gramm album launch party. I wouldnât accept that you werenât allowed to take drinks between the two floors so I asked the barman for a black bin liner. Poured my pint into it, carried it downstairs to the basement and tried to decant it back into a fresh glass. I mean ffs, how off your rocker do you have to be to think thatâs a good idea?
Sad loss of an iconic venue.
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Hammersmith Palais - 13th July 1985 (Live Aid day).
Got in with some fake ID that my then girlfriendâs sister knocked up for me at work (I was a very young looking 16 year old). I recall the resident house band called âLunar Parkâ had some commendable stabs at New Orderâs âBlue Mondayâ and âAxel Fâ by Harold Faltermeyer. I think I drank about 4 pints of Fosters and a vodka and lemonade, threw up on the Nightbus home and got slung off by the driver in Chiswick High Road. Pretty much how much I expected the evening to pan out.
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Christ that takes me back
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Are you from Chiswick? Grew up there!
Only ever made it to the Palais 3/4 times. When a glass missed me by inches (1992), I didnât return
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At 17 i was sneaked into Errol Alkans Trash club when visited my older brother in London. Coming from a small town in Sweden, the experience was so overwhelming i walked out after 45 minutes. I then sat on a bench outside all night waiting for my brother. I remember wearing a green longsleave with âSUCK MY DISCOTEQUEâ printed on the chest. When i came home from the trip I bought my first DJ equipment.
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No, I grew up in Hounslow but Chiswick was on the Nightbus route home.
Yes it could be a bit Wild West in there at the best of times. Saw some draw droppingly nasty punch ups in there and the bouncers didnât take much encouragement to wade in either. In my minds eye I recall every single one of them looking like Pat Jennings.
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Sparkles was a âclubâ in my hometown that did an under 18s night on Thursdays. Relax was riding high the first time I went aged 13 I think. I remember the girls all dancing to Soft Cell and the boys all huddled in the dark corners plucking up the courage to go join them, or taking the piss out of each other and pushing each other over. Come on EileenâŚ
Aged 17 me and my friend Jules took some Morning Glory seeds (as you do) and went to the Sixties night at The Point in Milton Keynes, hoping to hear The Creation, or The Aquarian Age, or The Pretty Things and stuff we obsessed over from Bam Caruso compilation LPs, but instead all we got was Lulu Shout, Band of Gold and Jive Bunny. Whilst tripping slightly. And trying to not get beaten up. A case study in psychic warfareâŚ
That was still the time you had to dress like an estate agent or a used car salesman to get into provincial clubs. Handy for all the actual estate agents and used car salesmen there I guessâŚ
And local psychopaths.
We went to the The Dome in Birmingham for some sub Hitman and Her night a while after that. We smoked loads of Hash on the way and arrived totally fucked. As we were queuing Julesâ Brother Ade fell his entire length like a roll of carpet, then got up and carried on as if nothing had happened. We dropped acid inside. It was not a good idea. On the bus on the way back some girl I worked with stuck her tongue in my ear for a good 30 mins. And I got my tops. She was a manager at the place I worked and was definitely abusing her position. I let her though. Definitely a strange experience, a psychedelic fumbleâŚ
First âproperâ club was Future on a Thursday night. Well the worm had definitely turned, for me. After that it was Eddie Richards night Outer Limits, local free parties, forays to Milwaukees in Bedford, Edit Block, the Release parties at The Loft⌠the list goes on.
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Youngsters today donât know their born without the fear of local psychopaths prowling clubs looking for strange behaviour
I once got threatened for âtrance dancingâ to Stakka Humanoid in Granthams only club
( proper shoes / shirts tucked in)
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