Above: 9 Hanover Street in London. The anonymous looking green door is now the Paragon Lounge bar and nightclub. In the 1980s it was a nightclub called Prohibition, as one of Kim Blacha’s interviewees explains:
“Inside it was really tiny and absolutely packed. It was known as the poser’s paradise. It was a place you just had to go to… I was twenty and my boyfriend was twenty-six so I always felt a bit out of my depth with his friends. Looking back he didn’t take good care of me. He used to go off and talk to people and I didn’t know anyone… It was a place where everyone knew everyone else, so I was a bit left out sat on my own. At the time I didn’t mind, but looking back I would have expected him to be a bit more considerate. I was just excited at being there so I didn’t complain or anything. It was so different from everything I was used to. The clothes were incredible and the way people looked. You felt everything was new and beautiful and you were right in the middle of it…
“We went to lots of parties - this must have been eighty-one, eighty-two. There were parties and discos every weekend. The funny thing is, now I look back I didn’t enjoy any of them. I was always too nervous. I felt this is my life about to begin, so I mustn’t mess it up. I had to get things right - the right clothes and hair and everything. I remember there were two records in particular - Open Your Heart by Human League and Just Can’t Get Enough by Depeche Mode. Whenever those records played everyone went on the dance floor. It was as if it was a secret code. Everyone seemed to know what to do except me. Everyone knew what it meant except me. Even today I hear those records and they make me feel sick with anxiety…
“I stopped going out with him in eighty-four. Then I got married in eighty-five and that’s when the eighties came to an end for me. All the London nightspots came to an end for me, and I settled down in Reading…”
Note: this idea of the 1980s coming to an “end” in 1985/86 is a recurring comment. Possibly the cultural innovation was over by the middle of the decade and from 1987 became a parody of itself (formulaic music by Stock Aitkin Waterman, innovative fashions turning into fancy dress and “big hair”, individuality giving way to more collective instincts). By late 1988 a new and more democratic youth culture was on the way in.
Above: “Even today I hear those records and they make me feel sick with anxiety…” Just Can’t Get Enough came from Depeche Mode’s Speak and Spell LP (1981), Open Your Heart came from The Human League’s Dare LP (1981). Records from Kim Blacha’s private collection.
PS this “series” on the 1980s is not going to be all fashion and frivolity (which reflects Kim’s interests). I plan to introduce some political and socio-economic background to introduce an element of dull seriousness. There might even be footnotes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bhg8D8MVYxQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c24-zoTlLiQ
2 comments:
The 1980s coming to an end in 1985/86? What an odd idea! I do find the idea absolutely absurd. We were just entering the era of the first hand-held mobiles, the yuppie crash had yet to happen, as had Acid House.
Would you say that with the '60s overshadowing the '70s, flared trousers and all, the '70s didn't really get going at all? No, of course you wouldn't.
Decades are decades. Measurements of time, with various events occurring within them. This revising of the past by people like yourself is absurd.
Hi Andy,
I notice on your profile you put your age as 43 which means you would have been 15 in 1980 so possibly you don't remember the early half of the decade as other people do?
At the end of the day you have to let the people who were there speak for themselves and record what they say as dispassionately as possible. Yes their memories are imperfect but we should listen with respect.
No-one I have talked to has mentioned mobile phones or being a yuppie (which was more a marketing label at the time - only later did it acquire a perjorative connotation). Acid House was 1988 I think - and I would start the 90s in 88 (sorry to offend your dating system).
Thanks for commenting.
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