Slimelight

The Slimelight club (often referred to as Slimes by regulars) is the longest running goth nightclub in the world. It is an alternative music club which is open every Saturday (and on New Years Eve) from 10pm to 7.30am (when the London Underground transport network starts running) with 2 or 3 floors playing music genres such as darkwave, EBM, trad goth, gothic rock, futurepop, power noise, synthpop, industrial, and noise.

It is currently (2008) located at Electrowerkz, 7 Torrens Street, Islington, London, UK (behind Angel tube station) where it has been since 1987, though it had a number of other locations previously. The building in which the club is currently situated in was previously an abandoned industrial complex, and the club started out in the early 1980s as a regular squat party in Ladbroke Grove. At that time it had the name the Kitkat Club.

History

The club's facilities were rather basic when it was first started in the late 1980s. The name comes from the fact that for a brief period in the summer of 1987 the club was held in a disused church on High Holborn, and "The Slimelight" is a parody of The Limelight, another famous club of that era also located in a church. Over the years the club has been renovated and upgraded to feature all the mod cons of a proper nightclub, however it retains much of its decaying, abandoned feeling, due partly to the architecture and partly the state of disrepair of some facilities.

The club itself was started by amongst others Simon Hobart, Big Mac, Dave "The Rave" Adrian CB, Jason McBain, Daz, Jez Moore, Michelle P, Paul Bridges and others. These founders left around 1989 to form the short lived but heavily subscribed "Wraith".

The club claims a membership of around 10,000 people worldwide, and has a loyal following of regulars who attend every week. Originally the club had a policy of "bring your own booze", but nowadays, due to licensing laws, the club has installed licensed bars, serving alcoholic beverages until 5am and soft drinks until 7:15am, with bars on every floor.

In the last few years the club has also put on many live shows including gigs from VNV Nation, Combichrist, Lahannya, The Crüxshadows, Xotox, Rotersand, Suicide Commando, Revolution By Night, Autoclav 1.1, Nitzer Ebb, And One, Melotron, Pneumatic Detach and Agonoize. It has also hosted a number of black metal acts in recent years, such as Rotting Christ and Archgoat.

The club has a strict no photography rule.

Trivia

The club was mentioned by the band Killing Miranda in their song "The Ballad of Torrens Street".

In the past the building was owned by Hoover and was also a horse hospital.

The building is currently used on non-club nights as an airsoft and paintball venue.

The song "Angel Station" (the tube station right around the corner of the club) by the band This Vale Of Tears [http://www.myspace.com/tvot] was written right after a visit of 2 of its band members

External links

* [http://www.slimelight.net Slimelight's official website]
* [http://www.waningmoon.com/gothica/articles/6660063.shtml Slimelight's entry in the Encyclopedia Gothica]
* [http://www.electrowerkz.com/]