Accidentally Trendy

Please note: This is written from memory, so may not be entirely accurate, but hopefully it is.

 

I’ve never really been a big night clubber, but there was a period in the early nineties where me and a couple of pals (usually Jed and sometimes Mark I think) frequented some of the more offbeat London club nights.

This was a time when Britpop was in its infancy and easy listening or, to give its more trendy name, loungecore, was beginning to arouse interest. The easy listening boom would culminate in Mike Flowers almost topping the charts with a lounge version of Wonderwall by Oasis.

It was this kind of scene that interested me, so when we heard about a new club opening that played music of interest, we got into Jed’s parents VW campervan and went for a night out in London.

How I might have dressed for a club night

The club was called Tongue Kung Fu and was at the forefront of a renaissance of clubs whose music and general scene massively influenced the rise of Britpop. Tongue was great in the early days, before it caught on big time and had to move to a bigger venue. It played the grooviest tunes and hip kids were dressed in immaculate swingin’ sixties suits and miniskirts. Lack of photo evidence from our jaunts means I can’t fully remember what we wore, I some groovy 60’s threads, so I may well have worn them. 

Somehow us geeks had stumbled onto the beginning of some trendy new movement, so we decided to move on. The writing was on the wall when one night the actor who played Trevor Cleaver in Grange Hill showed up wearing a trench coat and with an entourage of hangers-on. Let’s just say he was acting the Big Man i.e. being a bit of a tit...

Trevor Cleaver, ages ago...

Next up in my memories of clubland is the Double Six Club. This was one that played easy listening tunes whilst you sat around and played board games. The games were all vintage ones, many based on old TV shows like Dad’s Army or It’s A Knockout and old classics such as Mousetrap and Haunted House. The games were mostly disappointing. There was an unusually high quota of vaguely famous/on-trend people at this one. Again, this club really grew in popularity. One week they were filming a piece for ITV’s ‘This Morning’ show and spoke to us for a few minutes. About a week later someone told me that we were seen on the telly that morning talking about nightclubs. I have no idea what we said and have never seen the clip...

Another disappointing game

And so we moved on, this time to my all-time favourite club of all time – Misery! Misery started out in Scotland before venturing down south and their motto was ‘This club is shit’. I had a Misery t-shirt with this motto on, but sadly it is lost. The idea was that it was indeed a miserable experience attending their night. They played a fair selection of easy listening but also some really bad stuff like Rene and Renato or Abba sung in Hindi. 

The proprietor would wander around in a dressing gown brandishing a large water pistol. We went to the opening night at The Milk Bar, and it was packed with all kinds of weirdos and celebrities. There loads of film crews there. We gave an extensive interview to Swedish TV about the London club scene. Obviously, I have never seen the interview, maybe we are cult figures in the Nordic region. Channel Four were also there, and I have recently discovered the clip and we are seen in the background!

Misery was super popular for a couple of months, but interest rapidly tailed off and attendance dwindled massively. It was moved to a smaller venue. The ‘music’ became more bizarre. Their ambition to drive people away with the most truly miserable shit music was working. We enjoyed it and stuck with it to the end. 

Me and Jed appear on a Channel 4 'entertainment' show

The final night was very poorly attended, it was pretty much just us there. I think some people wandered in every now and then, looked confused then left in a hurry. My abiding memory of that final night was the club host crawling around the floor with a toy gun whilst an LP featuring the sounds of the Vietnam war played...

Nothing could top our miserable experience with Misery, and we gradually faded away from the club scene. It was a fun time and great being at the forefront of a new scene, and indeed, becoming accidentally trendy...

Me in the background in grey coat and Jed dancing. 

Also naked people which I had forgotten about...