Popstarz, London Gay Party | Rabow Inx

Contents:

• GAY BAR BY JEREMY ATHERTON L – A GOG OUT MEMOIR
• RH, “AN ALL NEW GAY BAR” G TO SHAW, POSTS LIQUOR LICENSE PLARD
• CHIGO GAY BARS AND CLUBS
• A GAY UPLE RAN A RAL RTRANT PEACE. THEN NEW NEIGHBORS ARRIVED.
• THE DEATH OF THE GAY BAR

GAY BAR BY JEREMY ATHERTON L – A GOG OUT MEMOIR

When promoter Simon Hobart lnched Popstarz 1995, offered a radil alternative to other, posier gay club nights. ‘It was two fgers to the big gay clubs at the time, which were all playg techno and hard hoe. London had other gay die clubs before Popstarz, but they were more trospective.

RH, “AN ALL NEW GAY BAR” G TO SHAW, POSTS LIQUOR LICENSE PLARD

East London’s epic pansexual party Sk the Pk has a very different vibe, but ptur some of the Popstarz spir the way posns self as a edgier and more welg rival to the mastream gay scene.

As Popstarz grew and beme part of London’s gay nightlife tablishment, foced on hong s mic offerg and bookg bigname performers such as Goldapp, Scissor Sisters and Mika.

CHIGO GAY BARS AND CLUBS

On Irish televisn news, the headl rmed the natn that Panti Bliss, a brilliantly articulate mpaigner, had arrived at Dubl Castle, as ed she gay was all the rage jt then. Leo Varadkar, mister for health, soon to be taoiseach, had announced that he was gay, as did a former mister om the other ma party, as did a well-known TV news journalist. That day would not have been surprisg had all the bishops of Ireland arrived their fery to let know that they, too, wanted to jo our Gay Bar, a brilliantly wrten and cisive acunt of gay life Los Angel, San Francis and London, Jeremy Atherton L quot the cric Ben Walters on gay history that is “agile om fear and fettg, too often wrten whispers and saved scraps”.

I imaged a walk that two men of my generatn – I me to Dubl 1972 – might do to revis the gay plac that have gone, such as The Gym, a sna jt a stone’s throw om Dubl Castle, or Ingno, another sna, much favoured by prits. Photograph: Clodagh Kilyne/Getty ImagThe arrival of the big, loud gay venu Dubl me at the same time as other eedoms. In Barcelona 1975, when Fran died, there was not a sgle bar that was clearly signated as gay the cy.

A GAY UPLE RAN A RAL RTRANT PEACE. THEN NEW NEIGHBORS ARRIVED.

The explosn of gay bars both ci me wh mocracy. ” In gay bars, he beme someone on whom nothg was lost.

THE DEATH OF THE GAY BAR

“Gays, ” he wr, “n relax a gay bar, people will say, but I went out for the tensn the room. ”His book is also hnted by the dotted le the gay story, the gaps the narrative. He wr about a DJ his 40s lled B Statn John who “played ecstatic sets of arne dis … He was there to bear wns, to ttify, g rare tracks om what he lled ‘the goln age of gay’, the perd between Stonewall and Aids.

We were nsc the discs on the turntable may have e om the llectns of ceased gay men. ”But the ghosts his book are also those who created gay San Francis self, where there were 18 gay bars 1964 and “an timated hundred and eighteen wh a ”. Atherton L registers the nostalgia that me wh all this change, quotg Fouult: “I actually liked the scene before gay liberatn, when everythg was more vert.

Some thgs give him the creeps, like a gay thrift shop: “I crged when I passed , imagg the store to be filled wh stuff svenged om the hom of ad queens … I hadn’t found a way to nsir the multifar story of my people – and to read wh, but not through, the disease. When they stop shavg, their beards “were perverted, their bristl perfumed wh the sudor of scrotum” gay group, observed San Francis, “uld be tected om a distance by the stk … Each of them seemed to have a magnificent ass and be wrg a book.

”Atherton L wants to reimage a nnectn between “the goln age of gay” and the future. There were three bars that he and his partner lled the Triangle: “jolly Gee and Dragon, sordid Joers Arms and laid-back Nelson’s Head – a rpective five-, ten- and fifteen-mute walk om our buildg” wr well about another hntg the London years, the spectre of gay-bashg, quotg Neil Bartlett: “Those nights out were spirg – but the solary walks home were foolish. London, 1986, was not a safe place for a visibly gay man like my twenty-eight-year-old self to be out alone after dark – or even by daylight for that matter.

”The closg of Atherton L’s favoure gay venu London seems to make the cy e alive for him. Popstarz was the first alternative gay nightclub the world and remas the flagship of the gay alternative clubbg scene London and the Uned Kgdom.