In the seventies, there was such an abundance of good clubs in London, that the club crawl after a late dinner used to take hours. During the early part of that decade, one of the most popular clubs in London was The Hat on High Street Kensington, known to its loyal patrons as ‘Yours Or Mine’. It was supposed to be a gay club, but it was frequented by trendy straights and all stars. Bianca Jagger with her entourage of fashionable gays was a constant visitor. The club was tiny. The tables were covered in red paper tablecloths, the lit dance floor was tiny, but the underground dive had a magical atmosphere. The characters in “Frantic,” my early 1970s nostalgic novel, almost lived in a club called The Igloo, which was a pseudonym for The Sombrero. ‘At The Igloo, the desperate couple bypassed the forbidding bouncer at the door promising to pay the admission money next time. Half running, half jumping, they descended into the murky bowels of the club.
Tramp on Jermyn Street was still an institution, and the Speakeasy, the Music Business club on Maddox Street was still going. But, when disco became fashionable in the late 1970s, a huge number of clubs opened. Down the street from Tramp, which was still playing hardcore The Rolling Stones, a club called Maunkberry’s was populated by a younger crowd. The late Marc Bolan and David Bowie used to hang out there, as did Arnold Schwarzenegger during his bodybuilding days. Wedgies on the Kings Road was a bit off the beaten track, but all the toffs used to go there for dinner and dancing, due to the club’s titled managers Lord Burgesh and Sir Dai Llewellyn. Regine, the international queen of nightclubs, added her London club to her international chain. It was on the top floor of the former Derry & Tom’s (later Biba) on High Street Kensington, but in the end it turned out to be a bit out of the way for committed clubbers. When the club was first conceived, Andy Warhol and his entourage would stroll the rooftop garden, and European royalty like Caroline of Monaco would throw parties there, but the club soon died.
Without question, The Embassy Club on Old Bond Street was the best club in town. It was the UK clone of Studio 54 and had a good sized dance floor, perfect for disco dancing to hits like Gloria Gaynor’s ‘I Survived’. The opening party was packed with British aristocrats and celebrity celebrities. Michael Fish, who invented the herringbone tie, asked a select group of “lunching ladies” to organize the guest lists, forbidding them to invite their gay friends, which was ironic since the club’s male clientele later became mostly bisexual.
As well as the big nightclubs that were conducive to amyl nitrate-fueled dancing, there were more intimate membership clubs like Mortons in Berkely Square, famous for its long ground-floor bar, and, of course, the futuristically designed Zanzibar in Covent. Garden. On any given night, you’d meet ‘everyone who was anybody’ at their long bar. The owners went on to form the successful Soho club called Groucho’s in the 1980s. But, for the clubbers of the late ’70s who loved to boogie into the wee hours of the morning, clubbing was all downhill from then on.
Copyright: 2006