Steve Strange showed a generation that they could be, in Gary Kemp’s words, ‘more exciting than we imagined we were’
Last year’s Spandau Ballet documentary Soul Boys of the Western World spent a considerable amount of time focusing on two Soho clubs in London, Billy’s and the Blitz, where the nascent new romantic scene was born. Over footage that looks pretty remarkable – 26 years later, in an era when almost every youth cult of the past has been assimilated into the mainstream, you’d still attract a great deal of attention walking down the street dressed like certain members of its clientele – various band members list the nights’ memorable qualities. There was the music assembled by DJ Rusty Egan: Bowie, Kraftwerk and Roxy Music, Krautrock and disco, Throbbing Gristle and Ennio Morricone. There were the kind of people the club attracted, a very British, slightly wonky take on Warhol superstars, their DIY glamour held together with sticky tape and string: “Fabulous nobodies,” as one commentator put it, “who thought they were famous already.” And, perhaps most striking of all, there was “this boy called Steve on the door”. Even in the all-bets-off, anything-goes aftermath of punk, there seemed something remarkable about an 18-year-old from a small mining town near Caerphilly loftily pronouncing on who could and couldn’t come in to London’s hippest club.
Related: Steve Strange: one of pop's secret architects
Related: 'The birth of the London club scene': Bowie Nights at Billy's Club – in pictures
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by Alexis Petridis via Electronic music | The Guardian
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