Wednesday 6 September 2017

Batcave: the former legendary club

If subculture takes place, it is not possible to avoid the mention of the Batcave club, the Ollie Wisdom team operated in London, Soho.
England, the beginning of the eighties. A steamy, cool early evening in the entertainment district of the city, in the dark lights of lights and advertisements glitter. There is unemployment, nihil, insecurity, arrogance of ineffectiveness, escape from everyday life. Boots, boots and high heels are heard. A small group walks through the streets. Over-sized waistcoats, stretched sweaters, leather jackets, better-looking jackets, cheap tights and makeup, hairstyles for hairy shapes ... Young people are having fun.

Batcave was one of England's many clubs, which were popular meeting places for underground subcultures. Cheap drinks, dusty checkered flooring, carefully tapped walls, camouflage of the muddy plaster with different torn fabrics and nets, grids and cages, enthusiastic makeup in both men's and men's wards, and of course better ones ...
But what was it that highlighted among the other alternative clubs? Soho is packed with entertainment. Similarly, and similarly legendary, though much more elegant, for example, the new Romantic Blitz club (blitzkid named after the batcaver).
The specialty of Batcave might have been that he was not so elite that young people could not afford to give them space to fantasy, it was an opportunity to break away from the greed of everyday life, to rave a little, to experiment with fashion and music.

When the Bats Cave opened in 1982, it was far from the goal of creating a goth club. The main profile of the bowie cult glam rock and the new wave had some horror aftertaste, but the darker mood of the place soon subtracted the later decisive figures of the musical and cultural life of the nascent subculture. Among them were Siouxsie, Robert Smith, Marc Almond, Nick Cave, Danielle Dax, and Ausgang, Zor Gabor, Test Dept, Fetus, Bone Orchard, Zero Le Creche and Flesh For Lulu bands. Of course, the hosts' own band, Specimen, also often entertained the big-name.

We went to Batcave because they allowed me for free, the atmosphere was nice and friendly, good-looking people gathered down there. But music, that was horrible! This is all romance with death! Anyone who has been confronted with death may say that there is nothing romantic about it. "
Robert Smith, The Gloom Generation, 1997, Details Magazine

Nick Wade, who perhaps knew more than Nik Fiend, was at this time at the club. From here, friendship with Nick Cave, and here he began to break his wings together with Mrs. Fiend, a joint music project, so we can say that Alien Sex Fiend is a real Batcave band. As a foreign guest in 1984, Christian Death also respected, and Specimen also visited the States as a traveling traveling circus, they took Batcave's decoration and their modest performance, bringing the British and American subcultures closer. The club did not only tour abroad, but it was inside the Soh. she moved, but the mood and the name remained unchanged. Beside live music Dj Hamish (Hamish McDonald) was responsible for the mood, who also played guitar and sang in the Sexbeat band.
"There is a big difference between '77 punks and '83 pockets, Mick Jones (ed. The Clash) came down to Batcave and stood alone, he did not know where he was. The old puppets need the Pistols, the new ones have switched to Alien Sex Fiend, and although many goth bands can not be danced, they have the deep, tough bang. " 
" Batcave is attracting a chameleon-like company and you can see a rockabilly guy dancing with a goth girl. Various groups come together and listen to each other's music ... "
Hamish, The Face, 1984


But what about music in batcave? We are talking about a controversial topic, since batcave as a genre is a fairly delicate concept, as many people, as many views and opinions. The oldschool goth subculture has been bunched over many times, but it does not seem to be getting bored for so long.

Many people today are used as the synonym for deathrock, although they can be distinguished from both space and sound. The reason for this is that the deathrock scene, especially after the 2000s, is in many respects based on this English foundation (for example, Sex Gang Children, Alien Sex Fiend favorites), and strange modes are brought by fans of the deathrock genre they prefer to use the club logo.

I think it might be somewhat closer to the description of the English music of the era, usually in Batcave and similar pubs. It mainly covers new wave, post punk, melancholic or morbid punk, and positively punk (goth) performers.
During this period, the term goth was not widespread yet. Most people said they were punk or wavers. Siouxsie, Dave Vanian and many others, like punk, lived in the public domain, at first The Cure was also an alternative band running on UK top lists.

In the strict sense, however, only the gangs in Batcave use this term. For similar reasons many people use batcaver for the former visitors of the club, members of younger generations and others of similar interest in other countries are called oldschool goths or deathrockers.

However, it must be acknowledged that the Batcave club itself is largely due to the cultural and clothing aspect of the goth subculture, and the main musical influences have been largely out of the club, and the concerts of later bands will not have been achieved.
A lot of people gathered here, from the more fashionable punk to the new romance to the androgens and fetish fans who considered it a more tolerant place for wilder punk pubs.
"We do not have any dresscode or the like. After all, how do we decide that it's okay that we do not just because it looks like. " 
Ollie Wisdom, London Weekend Televison, 1983

Fashion, for example, thanks to the deathrockers' tattered pantyhose exterior to Specimen, the smocky jabs, strong makeup and pointed punch the appearance of blitzkids, the presence of chains, corsets, leather and rivets on the fetish medium, band t-shirts and painted coats for the punk ... Ideas and thoughts have circled in this varied medium and became a completely new concept that today as goth we know subculture.
"When we went out with Batcave last year, it became clear that people wanted to dance, not just sitting at the black candles in an" alternative "club. In small towns like Colne, we have found that they want to party, rave, but just modern music such as Cocteau Twins. It was very difficult to incorporate older glam rock as well. There are now Batcave evenings in Liverpool in Plane, Leicester in Belfry, Hacienda in Manchester ... "
Hamish, The Face, 1984

The club's organizers have already released a musical selection in 1983 under the name Young Limbs and Numb Hymns, similarly followed.

In the memory of the Batcave club, a booklet published in several books, including volumes of chronological photographs of the club's daily lives, staff, audiences, cabaret performances and concerts, have been released. Some of these recordings are also available on the Internet.
Accessed   http://deathrock.hu/batcavepast#page  © Copyright: Sage Noir 








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