The Slimelight
Back in the 80s, a bunch of us left the suburbs and went up to London one saturday night. One or two of us had heard about this place in Islington. We ended up at a dark doorway at the end of a blind side street behind Angel tube around 3 or 4 in the morning. Had to get a member to sign you in. Somehow we blagged it. I didn't remember much except dry ice and punks and goths and bikers and hippies and their music were everywhere. And some AMAZING goth girl threatening to cut my mate's bollocks off with a rusty razor. The best bit? It was a legit club that stayed open until the tubes started at 7am. No alcohol sold, so you took yer own. £6 for non-members, £4 for member. A real bargain at the time.

A few weeks later I was at a loose end one Saturday night owing to my recent discovery that all my friends apparently hated my guts and wanted me to die.

I decided to go back to this club 40 miles away in North London. I worked in town so the trains were paid for. Stop at the ATM on the way to the station, and off I go. Except the Nationwide ATM was out or order. So were the other 3 in Staines that evening. Oh well, I can sort it in London. Get on the train.

Could I find a single working ATM between Waterloo and Angel? Could I buggery! I ended up getting there at 1 in the morning, all but skint, and walked straight through the door and into the club without paying.

I headed up these wide, deep stairs to the first floor. Pulsing music got louder. My 17 year old brain is being assaulted.

Through another door, and it got proper noisy. The place looked like a hastily vacated warehouse. Bits of furniture and benching and stuff. Chicken wire walls. A tyre swing. Televisions bolted all around showing the same movies and art films. Neon tubes here and there. It was like a massive squat. A dancefloor was over to the right, all dry ice and coloured lights and bass. Beyond that, somewhere you could buy a coffee and amazing banana and honey sandwiches.

The people were off the scale. Every subculture was there. Mostly Goth, but sexy goth and not miserable goth. Fuck me the women were outrageous, so were some of the blokes. There was a big fetish element to the look, because this was before the BDSM 'scene' got out of the Mansions and into the clubs. More than a few off duty strippers used to turn up for a boogie.

The Look was young, pervy and tripping, and makeup for everybody. Boots and hair were spiky. Boys and girls all got dressed up.

Mixed in were a lot of various 'alternative' types. Bikers, hippies, even a few skinheads occasionally. The music was a whole blend of uber-cool shit. Bags of attitude all the way.

I found a corner and sat down and rolled a little joint and wondered what to do for the rest of the night.

I didn't wait long. Two girls, in crushed velvet and crimped hair finery, came over and said hello, are you by yourself? There's a bunch of us, why don't you come over? So I did and met all these people and we hung out all night and went back to waterloo together the next morning to get the train home.

I was a motorbike courier mon-fri, so the mohican had to go under a helmet, and my black nail varnish would steadily chip off through the week. I was known as 'the Black Fingernail'. Every day, I would wear the same shit that I'd taken off the night before.

The following Saturday, I did my hair, did my makeup, and headed back to town to meet up with my new mates.

That was my 7 day week for the next few years.

Work, club, sleep sunday, repeat.

I probably went almost every weekend for the next 3 years. We had mad, crazy times. We took good drugs. I discovered how to dance. There was love, intrigue, drama all mixed up with the speed and the acid and the music. Not to mention the whole pretentious goth thing! Wahay! I loved all that! "If a thing's worth doing, it's worth overdoing" was our creed.

In all the years of going, I never saw any real trouble there. I hardly saw any bouncers, either. No cops, ever.

A few times I used to wander outside at 4.30 or so, daybreak and I've been sweating on the dance floor for hours tripping on the lights, the smoke, the clothes and bodies.

I'd step out the door and it felt like diving into a pool. Looking straight up at the building site cranes towering up from the other side of the small side street we are on, I watch them wave and ripple gently. Quick cup of tea and a giggle, and it's back inside for more. Makeup and hair would of course stay perfect throughout the night's gyrations.

The club would turn the fire alarm on for a few minutes at 7.30am to wake up the sleepers and we'd all shamble off to the tube, and hang out at waterloo for a few hours drinking tea and eating attrocious bacon sandwiches from casey jones while the LSD just tailed off nicely......

The scene of my hedonistic youth climaxed with meeting my future wife. (We were together 20 years this march) After a year or so, we slowly started not going so often, and it tailed off as these thing do.

We didn't completely stop going for years and years. New Years Eves were the final times we went. My 1986 membership card always getting us in, even without the leathers or the makeup.

For us, it was always the best club. Anywhere else we went was just so-so. Camden Palace, Elec.Ballroom, KitKat, yeah so what. This place was cheap and all-night and fucking great. There was nothing like it. When Acid House first hit, we'd get these guys in dayglo smiley gear arrivng cos their clubs closed at 4am!

All were welcome. That was probably the best of it.

Length? As far as I know, it's still going.
(CADmonkey rollllllllled another one, just like the other one, Thu 9 Apr 2009, 3:16, 13 replies)

Thoroughly enjoyed your tale. Nice one!
( enoughblueskyforsailorstrousers, Thu 9 Apr 2009, 8:32, closed)

Slimelight?
Top joint. Only went the once, and got really funny looks when I asked which were the ladies and which were the gents.
(Bear Pookie The Frankly Challenged. Halloween is coming to town., Thu 9 Apr 2009, 9:34, closed)

I'm trying to remember
if I have been to the Slimelight. I've been to all the others that you mentioned but the only club I can remember which was open til 7am, had no bar and was somewhere in North London, possibly Angel, was a large corrugated iron roofed building, looked like a Scout Hut.

My mate, on the other hand, used to travel down to the Slimelight with the Hitchin goths, I was invited but never could be arsed, story to follow...
( stopmeandslapme Cometh the hour, cometh your mum, Thu 9 Apr 2009, 9:58, closed)

Scout hut club
That might have been Wraith. It was started by ex-slimelight crew. They never got a proper venue, just squatting around Old Street. We went a few times.

They were at the Daily Mirrors offices at the top of chancery lane. Lots of coppers steamed in about 4am and threw us out, and impounded the cloakroom! If we wanted our bags, etc back, we had to go to the station, where they took a statement from us.

"Did you pay to get in"
"yes"
"who did you pay"
"bloke on the door"
"can you describe hime?"
"yes. Leather jacket,Black spiky hair, black pointy boots, black clothes. Silver jewellry. A bit pale."
etc.
Cue a room full of goths quietly sniggering as this poor copper dutifully wrote it all down before doing the next one.

I got my bag back with an itemised receipt. I've still got it somehwere. "one mascot - furry" it says. lol.
(CADmonkey rollllllllled another one, just like the other one, Thu 9 Apr 2009, 11:40, closed)

Wraith
That's the one.

Don't think I ever went to Slimelight then.
( stopmeandslapme Cometh the hour, cometh your mum, Thu 9 Apr 2009, 11:56, closed)

Used to love the Slimelight and go every week (late 90s)
Bizarrely, I stopped shortly after I moved to Islington just after the turn of the millenium. Met most of my mates there, although they've stopped going too.

There's talk of a farewell outing there soon for someone's birthday, not sure I fancy it at this point though!
( wangmaster2000, Thu 9 Apr 2009, 12:17, closed)

Isn't that club based at Electroworx?
I have a feeling that the club is a paintball venue by day called Electroworx. Or at least it used to be. May be wrong though
(Tom Jones's Mojo Hasn't had any since, Thu 9 Apr 2009, 12:41, closed)

My thoughts as well
Electrowerkz is the club behind Angel station down that little road.

The Bangface night there is messy as, had a great night there a few months back.

Great story!
( Risk It For A Biscuit has a helicopter and lives in space, Thu 9 Apr 2009, 14:37, closed)

Electrowerkz
Yep, that's the one.

www.electrowerkz.com/
( wangmaster2000, Thu 9 Apr 2009, 15:25, closed)

I loved that place.
Used to come out at 7:00, hop the tube to victoria and the bus to oxford and get home at about 9:30 in the morning.

One morning a little old lady got on the bus with her granddaughter, and asked if the granddaughter could sit next to me. Being a six foot long-haird black-clad zombie-looking weirdo smelling of smoke and booze and with makeup all down may face, I said yes.

As I got off the bus she said "Thank you, of all these people you looked least like a child molester."

I love that granny, even today.
( Mockingbird Practitioner of SCIENCE, Thu 9 Apr 2009, 20:00, closed)

Agree
with everything you said about the place. As a relative youngster then with bleached blonde hair halfway down my back, more make up than all of my girlfriends put together, it was hard to find places that were accepting AND safe. The Slimelight was always that and the most non judgemental place in the/my world.

Does anyone remember a place above an Irish club in New Cross called 'A Million Rubber bands' that used to string sheets and net curtains across the dance floor from the balcony and project arty films and cartoons onto them all night? Played a strange mix of current (80's) Goth, 70's punk and 60's?

Bugger to get home from at 2am though.
(MadBouncyDog Barking at the moon since, Thu 9 Apr 2009, 22:13, closed)

its still there
and still going strong, with the same mix of beautiful people and angry punks.. i love the place :D
( Azra3l Lubrication Persuasion and Brute Force ™, Fri 10 Apr 2009, 3:39, closed)

A lovely tale
So I clicked :)
(harrumph, Fri 10 Apr 2009, 18:54, closed)