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London's Burning? © ukhh.com 1999 - 2002
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04.11.02 words Shook-Yaa
It's with great regret that I write to inform you all of the passing of one of British culture's more revered and least cultivated institutions: London nightlife. It had its times from the Swinging Sixties to the Decadent Eighties to everything else that was good. But, something weird is happening in our nation's capital. The melting pot runneth over and spills the gravy on the stove. For it's best part going out in London is good cheesy harmless school disco cheeky fun. At its worst, it is a malevolent aunt who has managed to out-pretentious herself. A good friend of mine recently conceded defeat at the hands of the Cockney party gods and in a fit of despair, bought a play station. I haven't seen him since. I'm headed that way too, mind. I haven't been out anywhere exciting in weeks either. I'm close to buying him a spare controller and joining him on the couch. It's getting that close, people. The only good DJ to be found is in my bedroom. The only people I want to talk to have their numbers stored on my SIM card. Also, the offie on the corner is doing a special 6 for £5 offer on Red Stripe. That's how much one bottle of beer would cost in today's working man's club.
Where did this disillusion start? When did it start? Who started it? Has anyone complained to their mum? I know where it started for me.
It was about a month ago. I met a friend of mine in Picadilly Circus after work. The need to fill our mouths with the taste of beer overtook us in that frenzied post work state and we rushed to find somewhere. I am allergic to Wetherspoon's and other chain pubs (no such thing as a privatised public house really is there?) so we struggled to find somewhere relatively empty to sit (yes sit, not perch on shoulder-height tables) and have a cheap (not expensive) beer. We failed to find at least that much in Picadilly Circus and found ourselves standing outside a trendy West End night-spot, famed for its celebrity regulars and smartly dressed bouncers. It was 5pm, we were thirsty and out of a mild curiosity to see how the other half live, we entered. It was empty and flashy. The bar downstairs had a dance floor and a DJ playing danceable chart hit songs on his CD turntables (a charlatan, if I ever met one). The drinks were expensive and the only way for underpaid underlings like me to pay was to put drinks on my card, in the hope that it wouldn't be declined. I left my card behind the bar and sat down with my friend to discuss various inequities and irrelevancies. At this point, I should note that neither of us wears suits to work and on good days, my friend is a sloppy dresser. I was in my ripped jeans and Radiohead ("Kicking Squealing Gucci Little Piggy") T-shirt with my white skate shoes. He wore a T-shirt with the Guinness emblem and ripped paint-splattered combats. We sat and chatted and ignored the lack of life around us in an attempt to drown out S Club 7.
At about 7, we noticed a general wealth of life around us and looked up from our stimulating conversation about nature's ability to self-replicate. Suits and gladrags surrounded us. Men milled about with their beer bottled and suits (ties carelessly pulled downward) or smart trousers and checked shirts. Women enjoyed their amorous advances, sipping on whatever cocktail had been featured on "Sex and the City" that week. Even though the place was full, people were keeping their distance from us, looking over at our dishevelled appearance and lack of manners. All to the soundtrack of Ricky Martin. I shook my head at these people so desperate to prove to themselves that they didn't lead the boring lives they so obviously did. The sole reason to go to this bar (and half of our reason for being there) was to spot and party with celebrity. Now this was a packed bar at 7pm on Friday. People obviously had to be home for 9pm "Friends". While the pop techno beats swept through the room with boring precision, they all kept to their conversations about Jordan-sightings and Jamie Oliver recipes and "Friend"-esque love life's DOA conversations. My phone rang rescuing me from this social hari-kari and I ran outside to answer it. I spoke to my mum, reassuring her of my return home at a decent hour and turned to return to the bar. I was stopped outside the door by a bouncer who screamed at me from 3 centimetres away: "NO TRAINERS". I apologised and said that I had spent the last few hours and a good tenner on drinks in there. They told me tough shit and said no trainers again and told me to be on my way. I told them that they had to at least let me fetch my bag and my friend also. After much arguing, I ran inside grabbed my friend and we legged it.
If you can't find a decent bar in and around Leicester Square that's not full of young urban professionals and darling temps and German tourists, what hope is there? I was scared by our experience in this place. I couldn't believe the lack of any attempt to try and make the place a comfortable place to be. My confidence in finding this in London started to wane.
A few weeks later, I was forced by another friend to go partying with his friends in Kensington. Stop right there. Yes, the Kensington/Chelsea posse. I was led to a converted town house across the road from the Natural History museum. Luckily I was on the guestlist otherwise I would never have been able to afford the extortionate cover charge. (Look, I'm sorry to keep harping on about prices in London but they are ridiculous. You can get paralytic-drunk in Madrid for the price of a pint in London. Puts things in perspective. Now, where was Easyjet's phone number again?) Walking up the stairs of this converted town house, I was a little intimidated. I was in the internal cogs of the rah factory. Walking into the bar, I found a sea of polo shirt/khaki combos and leather trouser/Jimmy Choo ensembles. The whole venue must have been sponsored by Harvey Nicks. After paying one whole tenner for two bottles of Stella I sat down with my friend and we tried our best to mingle. But the hurdles we encountered were the lack of common ground we had with people. I didn't know what it was like to live off daddy's credit card and holiday in Hawaii every year. Investment banking held no interest for me and I didn't live around there. Start-stop conversations plagued me all night. The only alternative in that situation is to just get drunk. But, at a fiver a bottle? I doubt it. I nursed that baby for two hours. Eventually, we made our way to the dance floor. At least so we could drown the rah out with some beats. Wrong! DJ's intent on playing fashionable house and euro-pop ruled the decks and people were going mad for music made famous by Dutch techno-duo 2Unlimited. And in an un-ironic way too.
The ponces got drunker and ruder and picked fights with barmaids for their menial jobs and with bouncers for being intellectually inferior to their daddy-sponsored education. There was no interaction and communication and respect and humility in that room. It was one-upmanship and showboating. It was my house is bigger than your Porsche and my ego is larger than your nose job. There was no regard for the surroundings or the people out for a quiet time. Arguments were picked and the night ended for me with a American girl telling some posh rich girl near me that she wanted to feed her a grenade and then acted out shooting the girl was her fingers.
I left shell-shocked at this place. The pretence outweighed the pretence in the previous bar tenfold and the bubbles in which everyone in there lived all clashed so they ended up bouncing off each other. Caught in the middle, I found myself quite misanthropic and insular. And I was supposed to be on a night out! I couldn't enjoy myself in a place like that and so my despair widened.
I then made a conscious decision to choose somewhere to go out, somewhere I would enjoy, with my kind of atmosphere/my kind of people/my kind of music/my kind of prices. I chose Hoxton for the reason that it was trendy, with cool interesting artists, not afraid of liking hip hop and punk simultaneously and being round the corner from Hackney, quite cheap.
We arrived at the Hoxton triangle and chose a bar to be in. The music was electro-clash, cleverer than thou, irony in the Alanis Morrissette mold, blip-hop. Lots of old school Public Enemy rip-off beats and squelchy sounds. Followed by deep house does the eighties with androgynous vocals followed by retro garage punk that followed a formula so intently it disproved Darwin's theory of evolution. Hoxton puts off the whole 'if it's good music we'll play it' vibe but it tries too hard to be trendy and so holds a niche market of fashionable retro, which is so anti-forward thinking it falls over arse backwards. And this to me is a problem. Ordering a beer, I found a twenty pence difference in the beer prices and that was in the opposite way to one that I'd hoped. The atmosphere was that of slumming chic. People walked around in their fascist fashion outfits, all laying claim to the possibility that they had first discovered the thrift store and wearing retro clothes in an ironic way. Mullets and big tongued gola trainers are back in style in Hoxton. When these things were in fashion first time around, I was beaten up for being naf. Haircuts cost 50 quid just to get the 'I didn't bother really' look. Just like the thrift store look. It's all carefully engineered to make the onlooker feel that these people are starving artists and that it's cool to be a starving artist. I'm a starving artist and you know what? I hate being hungry. Slum chic is not cool. Pretending you don't have money and you're one of the people, the working class, the proletariats is crap. Forget working class credibility. You need credibility in general first.
I ran away screaming again.
(In the midst of all this drinking :ahem: research, I did discover a nice pub in Carnaby Street but only because I've seen Liam Gallagher there twice and he seems nice.)
But people, I doubt I'm ever going out again at this rate. I know you're all jumping for joy on this one but let me tell you: it's scary out there. People are out there spending ridiculous amounts of money to look cool, by either wearing suits, doing lots of Class As or looking poor. People are scary, there's no good music left in the entire city cos no one appreciates good music anymore. If it's easy and accessible we'll take it. If it's crap but had a cover story in the NME, we'll play it. I know I'm moaning but I do know how to have a good time. I just doubt there's anywhere left to have a good time in London. Student Unions are ideal. But I'm no longer a student. I dunno what makes more sense: buying a games console or moving to Edinburgh or Dublin or Bristol or Montpellier or Nairobi or Melbourne. Is it the same the world all over? Or is London facing corporate suicide head on collision with capitalist-friendly relaxing nights out? I don't know but until the inevitable culture implosion happens, I'm staying at home.
Now… what time is 'EastEnders' on?
