C30, C60, C80s! Brilliant Night Out for a good cause. 27th February.-

Eighties is not vintage, anyone who tells you that is after your money. The eighties were fun though and I know what I am talking about having teenaged my way through it. It is probably the last decade to have a distinctive stylistic character which can be applied to fashion, music, architecture and graphic design. As a period it was a real rollercoaster, you can think of Thatcher and yuppies but most of us were poor, unemployed and very pissed off.

On the other hand it was an era when you knew how to have a really good time and to hell with anyone who tried to stop you. Want to waft around Clapham looking like a zombie rag doll, fine.  Feel like dancing to German Industrial music dressed as a 17^th century cardinal? Who was going to stop you.  Also it seems to me to be the last era when people demonstrated against things that didn’t attack their pockets (yes students I am talking about you), like bombs and dismantling entire sections of the economy.  I suspect it might have been one of the last periods that was a really good laugh… even if it was fuelled by gallows humour and very cheap cider.

A very good opportunity to celebrate it, whether you were there or not is presenting itself on the 27^th. The details are below. I can wholeheartedly endorse this event. Not only is it for a very good cause but I know the organisers personally and they put a great deal of thought and effort into everything they do. If helping out the hospice is not enough, the line-up of performers includes the best cabaret around, the venue is atmospheric and has pub prices and there are lots of good prizes.

On the dressing up front there is great fun to be had, your vintage best would be fine, back then the Wag Club was adrift in zoot suits and forties rolls, how about New Romantic excess? Ska boy skin head cool? I seldom need much encouragement to go back to type: Goth. If you weren’t around this may be your chance to see if you would have liked the look and sound of it at least.  Please go. Details below:

Miss Rose Thorne & Beyond The Cabaret

present

for one night only...
...
C30, C60, C80s, GO!

A Charity Night Of 1980's Inspired Burlesque & Cabaret
Hosted by Benjamin Van Louche

Starring many of the UK's top cabaret & burlesque performers!

Sunday 27th February, Bethnal Green Working Men's Club, Pollard Row, E2

Doors 7pm ~ Show 8pm ~ Tickets £10
http://www.wegottickets.com/event/102247


C30, C60, C80s, GO! A pop-a-ramic evening of the best (and worst!) the 1980s had to offer, all squeezed into the skin-tight jeans of a plethora of top-flight and frenetic cabaret & burlesque acts! Think pouting New Romantic chic meets the seething discontent of 3 million unemployed! Think unfeasibly big hair, Rubik's cubes, ZX Spectrums and shoulder pads you could land a plane on!

ALL proceeds from the night are going to The Ayrshire Hospice.

EIGHTIES-TASTIC THROWBACK PERFORMANCES FROM:
Fancy Chance, Mat Fraser, Rod Lightning, Crimson Skye, Kiki Kaboom, Sienna Lately, VJ Spankie, Ginger Blush, Honey Wilde, Kitten von Strumpet, Becky Boobala, Khandie Kisses, Ooh La Lou, Liberty Pink, Tom Baker, Mat Ricardo, Rosy Cheeks,and more!!!


PLUS 80S DISCO TIL LATE, with sounds from the likes of:
Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, Gary Numan, The Associates, The Smiths, Adam & The Ants, Visage, The Human League, Japan, The Teardrop Explodes, The Jam, The Psychedelic Furs, Echo & The Bunnymen, Blondie, Spandau Ballet, Bow Wow Wow, Ultravox, Soft Cell, A Flock Of Seagulls, Tears For Fears, The Cure, Talk Talk, OMD, Yazoo, Fad Gadget, ABC...

If you cannot go perhaps donate some sponduliks, by going here:

http://www.justgiving.com/Elisabeth-Hannah

Minn x

Here's to the Night!

On Saturday Fruity played some gypsyish accordion ditty. It made you want to be sitting in a Paris café by night, hugging both your absinthe and a sailor. Well it would have made me want to be there if I hadn’t been at the Don’t Dali with the Devil party.

Brassai photograph.

Night is a world lit by itself.  ~Antonio Porchia,

People are cat or dog people. They are hate/love Marmite people and they are Day or Night people. I’m a dog/hate/night person. It’s physiological if nothing else, some people don’t really catch up with being awake until, oh, about 3pm. Even when well getting out of bed before nine am is like pulling myself from a vat of treacle. Fortunately my chap is the same, unfortunately unless I choose to be a waiter, actress or night bus driver most of the world isn’t.

For the happiest life, rigorously plan your days, leave your nights open to chance.  ~Mignon McLaughlin

Biology aside it could be upbringing, or being brought up properly. Until they are about nine most children need to be in bed well before that hour. For myself and a few others this was terrible, the adults had the best television and the best fun when we were dismissed. Being an adult I now understand the necessity of getting downtime from brats but then it was just cruel, especially as I really really wanted to watch Monty Python’s Flying Circus sooo much and it came on just after the deadly strike of the clock at eight. So the evenings are a time of promise, and dusk (the most beautiful time of day to me) heralds all the best kinds of fun. Not for me  larks, yomping and breakfast.

‘Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o'clock is a scoundrel.’  ~Samuel Johnson

I'm romantically drawn to the night and three ideals appeal. One is the Paris of the twenties as shown in Brassai photos. All those deranged art students, hard drinking plebs and stylishly skanky ladies of the night. Lots of gypsy accordion music there. Then I like the idea of the West End in the late 20’s and early 30’s, supper clubs, dazzle balls and grand dinners all converging like a scene from an Anthony Powell novel, laced with dangerous foreigners, looming wars, glamorous cars and furious dancing. Finally Soho in the 40’s and 50’s, dingy bohemian and clever. Spivs, painters and nutters roaming through the streets looking for liaisons, free drinks and a clever quip. All at night. 

Chelsea Arts Club Ball.

 Night is the other half of life, and the better half.    GOETHE

We look better and sound better by night. It doesn’t matter so much how young and fresh you are, a few sequins or an old little black dress goes a long way in the inky twilight and where and who you know are more important than daddy, your job or your income. The night is mysterious, the later it gets the less boring the people become (or possibly the drunker you get). And when the night does end it comes with the challenge of the journey home: classic black taxi if you are flush but lairy night bus more usually boarded. My life  so far and most of the best memories are a combination of nights, it’s where you make and break romances, meet your best friends and your best enemies. The thing I most begrudge work is it’s curtailment of my nights and the imposition of mornings.  Should I win the lottery I imagine mentally the parties I’ll throw, the places I’ll drink, the clubs I’ll open. The worst aspect of my illness at present is the fact that I tire and retire at a stupid time. Everyone will know I am well when they see me careering down Greek Street at 2am with a stupid grin on my face reeking of tequila. Here’s to the night! xxx

Soho in the fifties.

Shoreditch Soho House on a sunny afternoon..

Exterior of Shoreditch Soho House

Last weekend I went to Shoreditch Soho House. When this opened in Shoreditch it was the final nail in the coffin for any impression that the area was still ‘bohemian’ or that particularly over-used soubriquet ‘edgy’. How can it be when the wealthy media types that are Soho House’s core constituency regard it as fashionable? That is not to say the area has been gentrified. I still had to hurl profanities at two complete strangers whilst walking through the place. It is a grotty bit of London and Commercial Road is a long way from Notting Hill. Shoreditch Soho House is in a large erstwhile industrial warehouse type building overlooking the Overground depot so not a particularly glamorous locale either.

However that being said I do get this outpost of Soho House. It is always a pleasure to visit Soho House in Soho as I am invariably in excellent company and find the staff, drinks and food good. However I am ambivalent about the clientele (my fault, probably just a bit too ‘old Soho’ around the edges). Also I never liked, apart from the mirrored bar area, the interior. Too dull and Conranesque for me. Never liked the combination of Georgian and mid-century styles which feel like a numbing down of 17th century flamboyance. I also feel it lacks the loucheness of other modern Soho Clubs. Soho House does not seem to feel so much like a club as an leisure amenity, members seem to know the staff but not each other.

Soho Shoreditch house is, I think, am attractive place. Not so much the roof side pool area. I think pools on roofs are a fantastic idea, and this one is nice as is the inspired concept of placing an open plan windowy bar beside it. However it was obviously a poseur’s paradise and the people around it looked a bit Eurotrashy. Still more pools and gardens on London roofs, please. It is a GOOD THING.

The Soho House Pool.

The floor below was more my cup of tea; runs the span of the building and includes a bar, a games room, a large rustic looking restaurant with pizza ovens and then another all-purpose room. This floor was a pleasure. The industrial elements, 30’s style squared utilitarian windows, concrete and exposed brick were set off with what can only be described as a rustic urban aesthetic. It worked well. The bar, set in a central Island and surrounded by seating and more windows had a touch of 70’s brutalist chic about it.

Seating in the 'Square Bar'.

The bearded one mentioned ‘airport lounge’ but in a good way. I really liked this room and we started off there, sadly we didn’t stay as some very industrial drilling on the floor below was disturbing us. Next to the bar is a games room, including a billiard table and working old school sit-down electric games console tables. These include, I was informed, Space Invaders! More points scored. Sadly it was overrun by small noisy kids so it wasn’t us scoring, although thankfully they are not allowed into bar areas and not a common occurrence. Still, a good space and a ‘clubby’ idea.

The Restaurant.

The restaurant is curiously woody, with a wall of green plants and flowers and long communal bench type tables. A wall of pale blue wood is nod to that mimsy distressed French rustic style that runs rampant across Sophie Dahl kitchens and overpriced boutiques throughout West London. I would have preferred to see the urban feel continued but perhaps that is what it takes to sell food to the chattering classes these days. It wasn’t busy when I was there but the pizza ovens built into brick walls were roaring away. We ended up in the final area, a kind of drawing room space full of large pink womb like sofas. A relaxing area but rather soporific: my friends were falling asleep. Mind you that could have been down to the quality of my scintillating conversation.

Womb-like big pink sofa room.

I genuinely liked the way Shoreditch Soho House looked, it had great views over London and distinctly different spaces. It is wonderful to see old industrial buildings turned into public and leisure spaces and the club had been designed with thought and attention. The elements I am not convinced by in the Soho branch work well in a building that is more adaptable, and as my friend pointed out less hampered by issues of planning permission. It was quiet when I went but I imagine that on a Friday night it has a lively buzzing feel. And whilst space invaders are welcome, bankers apparently are not. Which must make it a welcome haven in that area. I’d like to see it during an evening rather than on a warm slow summer Sunday afternoon. I’d still rather be a member of a small friendly boozy club or an old Pall Mall institution. However if I was more modern in my outlook the Shoreditch outpost would be the kind of place I’d enjoy spending some time in. I'm hoping for a pizza next time....

View of Games Room through well-stocked shelf wall.

M x