Life After Dark

by Dave Haslam

  In 1991 there was a unique club in Manchester, hidden away behind the Central Library, just as sweaty as Bowlers, but with a clientele unlike anywhere else in the city. According to one regular at the No.1 on Central Street, Kath McDermott, the crowd were ‘reprobates’ – gay and gay-friendly. ‘Rent boys, straight girls, queens, scallies, dykes and dealers,’ she remembers. It was an old-fashioned basement club, more 70s naff than industrial chic, but it had a loud sound system and a DJ, Tim Lennox, who played quality ravey house every Saturday.

  There was a successful women-only event at the Thompson’s Arms on Sackville Street, Manchester, through the 1980s and clubs like Napoleon’s, the Mineshaft, and the Archway, wine bars like Stuffed Olives, High Society, Hero’s and Manhattan Sound, and pubs like the Rembrandt and the Union were either overtly gay venues or extremely gay-friendly. This activity was despite the best efforts of the homophobic Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police at the time, James Anderton, who saw indecency and subversion everywhere and subjected gay venues to clampdowns and raids. For him, policing was a moral crusade. Other police chiefs agreed. In 1981, Harold Salisbury, an exchief constable in Yorkshire, was asked which groups his force kept files on, and among those he listed as worthy of surveillance and disruption were ‘The IRA, the PLO, anyone decrying marriage and family life or pushing drugs, homosexuals.’

  The No.1 was the first stirrings of a new generation, the game-changer for gay clubs in the city. It was ecstasy-laden and house-music-loving. It wasn’t poser-ish like Stuffed Olives or Hero’s had been, and it wasn’t a pick-up place; or, at least, the predatory aspect was diluted. In addition, although gay men and lesbians were aware they had common ground, they had rarely partied together, until the No.1. Freedom and friendliness is how Kath remembers it. ‘Us girls would take our baggy T-shirts off and dance all night in our bra tops. Smiles as big as buses, hugs (lots of hugs).’

  In some cities, there were signs that the ‘hug drug’ was not just breaking down barriers and creating more tolerance on dancefloors, but also on the street. The amount of lager-fuelled aggression that could mar nights out and city life in the 1970s and early 1980s diminished. Life after dark for gay men and lesbians became less hidden away, more open. As well as events at the No.1, gay nights playing upfront house music to a mixed clientele in Manchester included weekends at Paradise Factory (from 1993). The Thompson’s Arms hosted the ‘Strangeways’ all-nighter, from 2.30 a.m. until 9.30 a.m. – ‘the North’s only queer nocturnal’ – run by former Haçienda staffers Glenn and Brendon.

  A feature of house music in the first years of the 1990s was the variety of styles. Many clubs rocked to big hands-in-the-air anthems. But in London, for example, Justin Berkmann was a fan of American garage – a style historians usually consider a more purist version of house, and trace back to Larry Levan and Paradise Garage (hence the name, ‘garage’), which became associated with the likes of Frankie Knuckles in Chicago and Junior Vasquez and Tony Humphries in New York. Garage was a subgenre London clubbers had first heard at Delirium and High on Hope: American, disco-tinged and soulful rather than ravetastic, euphoric Italo.

  In 1990 Berkmann met James Palumbo, son of Lord Peter Palumbo, who’d been schooled at Eton and then Oxford University. In 1990 James was working as a banker in Morgan Grenfell’s property division, and despite having no background in music or clubs (but appreciating Berkmann’s passionate descriptions of what could be achieved), he and his friend Humphrey Waterhouse decided to help finance a venue; they found a potential site in one of London’s less salubrious areas, Elephant & Castle. Being away from built-up areas was something of an advantage when it came to obtaining a licence, as was the lack of alcohol sales on the premises. Ministry of Sound opened as a juice bar, open from midnight until ten o’clock in the morning. As a sign of their commitment to this purist sound, they persuaded Tony Humphries to become Ministry’s first resident DJ. From its opening, though, the Ministry of Sound has always positioned itself as the respectable face of nightlife, and looked for a way to protect and exploit its name – much like the way the Mecca organisation steered themselves through the 1930s.

  Tony Humphries became one of a number of American DJs who built an audience in the UK in the mid-1990s. Many of them were producers too, some responsible for early acid house classics, like Todd Terry. He’d play at clubs including ‘Hard Times’, which established its reputation in Mirfield in Yorkshire (Roger Sanchez was another Hard Times hero). In 1995 it moved to the Music Factory in Leeds where Todd Terry recorded a Hard Times compilation live. On one occasion DJ Erick Morillo appeared at Hard Times with his MC, the Mad Stuntman (they had a number of hit records together as Reel 2 Real, featuring the Mad Stuntman chanting irresistibly vacuous phrases such as ‘I like to move it, move it’). Afterwards, as dawn was about to break, Hard Times resident DJ Elliot Eastwick and his colleagues were halfway back to Manchester (where Elliot was based) when they realised the Mad Stuntman was still back at the club locked in a cupboard. They turned back and freed him. Ten years later, ‘I Like to Move It’ featured in the hit animation Madagascar. Twenty years later, the exact circumstances of how the Mad Stuntman came to be locked in a cupboard for several hours are still not clear.

  A few artists were revered but in general clubbers weren’t interested in acts with albums or careers; it was all about singles, remixes, DJs and clubs. So, attractively packaged DJ-curated and mixed compilations of records filling dancefloors branded by clubs was a neat match-up. The Ministry of Sound compilations and Sasha’s mix albums for Renaissance were a souvenir for those who visited the particular venue, and a sampler for those who hadn’t. And an earner for all concerned: Ministry of Sound compilation albums were capable of selling 500,000 copies.

  At Heaven, on Thursday nights, the competing styles of purist and polished US garage and high-octane hardcore breakbeat played itself out at a night called ‘Rage’ run by the Pure Organisation and launched in 1991. Rage started with Colin Faver and Trevor Fung playing US-flavoured house in the main room and Fabio and Grooverider in the upstairs Star Bar. Fabio and Grooverider had first worked together on the pirate radio station Phase One. They’d originally played hip hop and funk but, converting to house, they established a reputation for playing the toughest Detroit techno and breakbeat rave at warehouse parties and hardcore nights, mostly in London (although in 1991 Fabio played the Eclipse and Grooverider played at Shelley’s).

  With an ever-growing following, Fabio and Grooverider took over as Rage’s main-room residents, playing to 2,000 people. They’d created a sensation around their DJing by incorporating swirly Belgian techno, speedier breakbeats, powerful basslines and minimal warehouse classics into a storm of sound that was a long way from the harmony-laden vocal house of radio-friendly tracks like ‘Where Love Lives’. Fabio later recalled how instinctive their DJing was. ‘We didn’t have a clue what we were doing – we were just fuckin’ around and doing what felt right.’

  Fabio and Grooverider, along with music emerging from labels like Moving Shadow, were mapping out the path from hardcore rave and techno to both jungle and drum & bass. They were also attracting a multiracial crowd. The way they mashed up the genres encouraged a mix on the dancefloor, although the atmosphere could be heavy. Fabio later described Rage as ‘scary sometimes’. There was an edge to the night, unpredictable electricity. ‘You knew it could kick off at any moment, but in a weird way it just added to the intensity.’

  Rage ended in 1994 but, as with other significant clubs, as well as providing intense nights out, it also inspired. Two Rage regulars were Kemistry and Storm, who met while at college in Northampton. Kemistry was in Sheffield for a while and got turned on to electronic music there. Kemistry and Storm went on to become two outstanding drum & bass DJs. Storm later paid tribute to the influence that Rage had. ‘I’m not sure where we’d be without it. Rage was like a religion. We were all joined by this really emotional feeling that we were experiencing something new.’

/>   In cities like London, Manchester, Sheffield and Liverpool, there’s always been upfront music played somewhere, even if it’s hard to track down, but in the early house era, people who’d often had to travel to big cities for their music fix established their own scene, an alternative to their local mainstream discos and to the big-city clubs.

  To make something happen you didn’t need a name DJ, just someone with some import twelve-inch singles, a sound system and some lights. And maybe a smoke machine. In Chester, for example, the DJ and impresario John Locke had the ‘Blast Club’ at High Society, a Georgian building on Love Street which had been Smarties in the late 1970s (when it hosted gigs by the Damned, the Pretenders and others); it’s now the Forest House, a pub operated by JD Wetherspoon. The Blast Club evolved into a house music club from its alternative roots and by 1990 was attracting interested and interesting local people, including Charlotte Horne, Darren Hughes and Paul Roberts. Paul was making music, as part of K-Klass.

  By 1992 a number of clubs rooted in the Midlands that helped define clubbing in their cities in the 1990s had launched, including ‘Progress’ in Derby and ‘Wobble’ in Birmingham, where DJ Phil Gifford would be joined by guests including Twitch & Brainstorm from ‘Pure’ in Edinburgh, Justin Robertson, Allister Whitehead and Dean Thatcher. Also in Birmingham, the Que Club had opened in a glorious former Methodist Hall, and ‘Miss Moneypenny’s’ launched in the summer of 1993 at Bond’s nightclub on Bond Street, near Constitutional Hill (other nights at Bond’s included ‘Oscillate’). In Nottingham, James Baillie at Venus became one of the legendary club promoters of the era; guest DJs like Allister Whitehead and Fatboy Slim used to plead to play at his venue, and among the most enthusiastic regulars was the actress Samantha Morton.

  Cream had been born not long after James Barton had walked away from the 051. He’d become involved with managing K-Klass at the time they were looking to place their newly recorded dancefloor-filler ‘Rhythm Is a Mystery’ with a major label. Paul Roberts and Darren Hughes had both moved to Liverpool from Chester. Darren started hanging around, doing odd jobs and giving advice, says James. ‘He was also one of the voices when we were doing the 051 telling us how it was. It’s fucked, you need to leave, you’re losing your reputation.’ Darren also picked up on the dynamic between James and Andy Carroll. It was clear to everyone that Andy was strong in terms of music but less entrepreneurial, less of a ‘doer’, in James’ words: ‘Darren was a different animal. He was relentless in his pursuit of something whereas Andy was a bit mañana, “I’ll do it tomorrow”.’ In October 1992, Carroll, Barton and Hughes launched a weekly event at Nation in Liverpool. Barton came up with the name. It was to be called Cream.

  More than twenty years later, it seemed OK for me to ask some pertinent questions. Like, did they have a business plan?

  ‘No.’

  Did they have a legal agreement between the three of them?

  ‘No. We came in as DJs and promoters on a door-split with the owners of the venue, Stuart Davenport and Len McMillan. We worked out creatively what we wanted; we hadn’t worked out what we wanted business-wise. I wanted to get my old crowd back out; I wanted to reconnect with the early motivations for getting into all this.’

  The room was 400-capacity and the team made it look and feel as good as they could. Darren’s girlfriend and Paul Roberts’ girlfriend were textile designers and they did prints for the walls and flowers were added to the club decor. ‘House music with a party vibe’ was the aim. Despite all their best efforts and fine theories, however, their guest DJ almost derailed the first week when Fabi Paras struggled to connect with the crowd. James thinks the music was too serious. ‘He was in trouble,’ is Barton’s stark assessment. ‘There was a pool table in the venue at the time and I remember sitting on the pool table and I remember Darren coming up to me and asking, “What shall we do?” I just said, “Go and fuckin’ get him off.” I wouldn’t do it, I got Darren to do it and he dragged him off and Fabi wasn’t happy.’

  Paul Bleasdale went back on for the last hour and a half and the first night was deemed a reasonable success; 450 people had come through the doors. The following week, however, the numbers fell to 250. But that turned out to be the core crowd. From that point Cream built its reputation, with Andy, Paul Bleasdale and James Barton DJing most weeks. By the end of 1993 they’d moved up a level. They’d expanded into a bigger room and enjoyed a huge August Bank Holiday event, followed by a busy new student term and a very successful New Year’s Eve.

  If the various clubs discussed in the last chapter could claim to be creatively and musically pioneering, then Ministry of Sound and Cream have a claim to be commercially pioneering; they pursued other activities, other ancillary income streams. In its heyday, the Haçienda never released house music compilations, even though there was an extensive black market in cassettes of DJ sets and, of course, it was part-owned by a record company. The Haçienda missed other merchandising opportunities as well. In the ‘Madchester’ era, bands including James and Inspiral Carpets were selling thousands of T-shirts (it was said that both bands made more money selling merchandise than they did selling records) but at the Haçienda the discussions about whether and how the club should get round to doing some T-shirts dragged on and they were late to the market. Eventually a merchandise stall was set up just inside the club, and Factory and the Haçienda took a unit at the indoor market Afflecks Palace (which for some time was run by Fiona Allen, who went on to co-create the TV series Smack the Pony and to have acting roles in Skins and Waterloo Road).

  Behind the scenes at Cream, James took the decision to tell Andy he was no longer part of the organisation. They’d met at the State, been through Quadrant Park together, and remained on good terms. Darren was still relentless, booking DJs. He found three or four big-name DJs every week for eight years. ‘He lived, slept, dreamed it; he was all things Cream right through the week,’ says James, of Darren. There was a lot of detail to attend to. Image, too, was important for Cream, Renaissance, Ministry of Sound and the other big players, how everything was presented – the club decor, the look of the adverts, the albums and flyers.

  Other venues, in contrast, were coming to an end. In 1993 the Eclipse decided to call it a day. The pressure of drug use in the club was one factor; police raids netted drugs of all kinds, and one young man, nineteen-year-old Christopher Doust, died after a night there (he’d bought drugs from a dealer outside). Another factor was the struggle to maintain credibility. The Eclipse had helped blaze a trail, but by 1993 most towns had some sort of dance club playing uplifting four-to-the-floor vocal house. Most clubbers could access the music – Radio 1 was championing ‘Show Me Love’, and the culture had gone mainstream. ‘There were also people with better ideas,’ says Stuart Reid. ‘I had stood still and lost my way.’

  Ministry of Sound and Cream started as clubs and then moved into releasing records. On the other hand, Metalheadz was first a label then became a club. It was inspired by Rage. One evening in Rage’s early days, Kemistry took her boyfriend Goldie there. Storm tells the story: ‘The night Goldie really “got it”, we came back to our flat and he said, “Right, I want to make this music, you’ll be the DJs, we’ll have a label and a club, we’ll make some T-shirts.” That was our dream and that dream became the Metalheadz label.’

  The first Metalheadz releases in 1994 had powerful basslines but a lustrous, even ethereal, sheen, and included artists such as Photek, DJ Peshay, Doc Scott and Wax Doctor. Then the label launched the weekly ‘Metalheadz Sunday Sessions’ club night at London’s Blue Note on Hoxton Square in July 1995. It was a tiny dancefloor; the club was always packed, overflowing. Fabio had just started ‘Speed’ with LTJ Bukem at the Mars Bar in Charing Cross; he guested on the opening night. Goldie was very much the face of the night, his profile rising on the back of his debut album Timeless.

  Tragically, Kemistry was killed in a road accident returning home from a gig in April 1999. Kemistry and Storm had become two of seve
ral female DJs who had good followings in the mid-1990s. There was Lisa Loud, who had moved on from the Future and was playing nationwide; Smokin’ Jo with a key DJing residency at ‘Trade’ in the early 1990s (Trade, created by Laurence Malice, was a pioneering after-hours event opening from 4 a.m. until 1 p.m. on Sundays at Turnmills, a Farringdon venue owned by John Newman, the father of DJ Tall Paul); DJ Paulette, who made her mark at the Haçienda’s ‘Flesh’ night; Anne Savage, big on the hard house scene in the 1990s (and half of the Tidy Girls, with Lisa Lashes); Andrea Parker, who attracted great critical acclaim for an album on the K7 label (she was later DJ for Radiohead on an American tour); and Charlotte Horne from Chester became DJ Lottie, and went on to feature at clubs including ‘The Gallery’ at Turnmills, ‘Bugged Out’ and ‘Shindig’, and to front shows on Radio 1. And that’s a far from exclusive list.

  The rave scene also attracted hooligans, hippies, students and druggies, and idealists and entrepreneurs cashing in. Spiral Tribe – who had been involved in warehouse raves in London until police action led them to relocate outside the capital and go on the move – were one of several itinerant sound systems plugged into the free party network. Another example, based in Nottingham, were DIY, who had a sound system they’d use to host free parties in the city and various club nights (including ‘Bounce’). Then, outside Nottingham, they set up in rural locations usually: quarries, lay-bys, common ground on moors or in valleys. These sound systems often linked up with descendants of older counterculture traditions represented by New Age travellers as well as, in Spiral Tribe’s case, London’s squatting community and the mid-1980s anarcho-punk scene represented by the likes of ‘Club Dog’, which had made its base at the George Robey on Seven Sisters Road, Finsbury Park (the venue was, briefly, the Powerhaus).