Halloween at the Kit Kat Club 1984/2024

Kit Cat Club Halloween Special: Sat. 26 Oct 2024

 omearalondon.com

 

 

I was amused to see that even ageing goth clubbers like to mark anniversaries and can be a bit wistful for times gone by; it makes these creatures of the night trying so hard to appear undead and vampiric reassuringly all too human after all. 

 

Anyway, for one night only, the famous Kit Kat Club [1] was reincarnated on Saturday for a Halloween special in the hope that it might be possible to summon the alternative spirit of the mid-1980s with a musical mix of post-punk, dark disco, and synthpop. 

 

The strictly enforced dress code consisting of  glam-goth, cyber, industrial, fetish, drag, burlesque, steampunk, etc. is apparently in place to protect the club's status as edgy and avant-garde and encourage individual imagination and diversity [2].

 

One can't help thinking, however, that its real aim is to create a safe space for those who, for whatever reason, feel threatened by street wear and casual clothing; as if a single pair of trainers might somehow challenge their beautifully crafted aesthetic and dispell the whole illusion of the night. 

 

According to an online flyer for the event (see above): 'There will also be legacy guests, fashionistas, Glampires, a Monsterlune Catwalk Show, two live bands and a dedicated area where we can immerse ourselves in nostalgia, with visuals, photos and music evoking memories of those classic '80s nights that defined a generation.'

 

Unsure if such a gathering would delight the original founder and godfather of goth Simon Hobart [3], or have him spinning in his grave, I decided to give it a miss. 

 

Besides, I've never been much of a clubber and was never really a goth. Although, having said that, there were gothic elements to my look in this period; as can be seen in the photo below taken on 31 October 1984, when, concidently, I paid my one and only visit to the Kit Kat ... [4]

 

 

S. A. von Hell looking a bit post-punk gothic

(Halloween 1984) 

 

Notes

 

[1] Operating out of a "converted warehouse known as the Pleasure Dive in Westbourne Grove", the Kit Kat would quickly become "London's premier goth hangout, providing a more glamorous and tongue-in-cheek alternative to its more po-faced rival, the Batcave in Soho".

      Lines quoted from David Hudson's obituary for Simon Hobart in The Guardian (2 November, 2005): click here.

 

[2] I'm actually paraphrasing from a statement concerning the dress policy of the Torture Garden, not the Kit Kat, though I'm sure both venues would justify their dress codes on the same grounds. See my post on Europe's largest fetish club published on 12 December, 2012: click here.

 

[3] Simon Hobart - who would go on to become a crucial figure on the gay club scene in London - launched the Kit Kat Club in February 1984. Following a huge police raid (intended to discover drugs) in January 1985, 20-year-old Hobart found himself on the front page of The Sun where he was described as the 'Godfather of Goth'. Sadly, Hobart died in 2005 (aged 41). See the obituary by David Hudson cited in note [1].

 

[4] Unfortunately, I don't remember much about my visit and, if my diary entry from 31 October 1984, can be trusted my experience of the Kit Kat was entirely uneventful; much as I'd like to report that I copped off with Princess Julia that night, I left at the relatively early time of 1.30 am and caught the nightbus home.

      Note that the photo was taken earlier that day in Soho Square (and not at the club).   

 

 

Put on a Little Makeup and Make Sure They Get Your Good Side: A Brief Note on Positive Punk

The Class of '83 ... Photo by Mike Laye

 

"Consigned to a foul demise by the forces of cash and chaos, punk broods alone in its dark tomb. 

Its evolution away from the light has been a cruel and twisted one, from guerilla assault on the media 

to ghost dancing on the bones of Red Indian mysticism, from glue to Gothick. 

Naturally, unattended for so long, its hair has grown. So have its aspirations." [1]

                                                                                                                                      

  

What is so-called positive punk? 

 

I'm not sure I knew back in 1983 when the movement was first identified by Richard North writing in the NME [2] and I'm still not sure I know even now, although, if North is to be believed, it seems primarily to involve the internalisation of punk's energy in order to produce a new gothic sensibility. 

 

In other words, it was punk - but this time with feeling - as reimagined by the art school crowd and drama students who looked on in (Rocky) horror at the antics of those for whom the word Oi! was invented (by yet another music journalist, this time working for Sounds; the loathsome Garry Bushell).  

 

And, in a sense, that was my crowd; the crowd who danced the night away at Le Phonographique to the sounds of the Southern Death Cult and the Sex Gang Children [3]. And yet, at the same time, it was never quite my crowd and I never quite followed them into the night. 

 

I don't know why: perhaps it was because the gloomier-than-thou fanaticism of Killing Joke meant more to me at the time than any form of positivity. Also, I quite liked a lot of the three-chord rubbish that North dismisses, if ultimately conceding that this can become a bit boring after a while and that a soft-centre is often more seductive than a hard core.          

        

 

Notes

 

[1] Marek Kohn, 'Punk's New Clothes', in The Face (Feb 1983): click here to read on punkrocker.org.uk

 

[2] Under the pen-name Richard North, the interesting figure of Richard Cabut - bass player with Brigandage - wrote his positive punk manifesto in a piece entitled 'Punk Warriors' for the NME (19 Feb 1983): click here to read on punkrocker.org.uk

 

[3] Musical bonus: Southern Death Cult, Fat Man (1982): click here / Sex Gang Children, Sebastiane (1983): click here.