To ask if anyone here frequented the Banshee club in Manchester in the late 80s

[DuelingFanjo]

Posting here for traffic (sorry).

Anyone here a Goth in a past life?
I am watching the BBC four programme with all the goth stuff and it's made me really regret that I have few photos (and coherent memories) of my time as a student in Manchester and then at the Square Club in Cardiff.

Did you have a local Goth club, got any pictures or memories?

Halloween Topic!

[MasqueradeWaltzer]

Yes, watching too! Never went to the Banshee but my Mancunian university boyfriend was a devotee.

We were at Bristol, used to go to a club called The Whip in the (now demolished, I think) Studio nightclub. Did my PGCE at Nottingham and spent many a night at Rock City wondering where the girls got their amazing eyebrow jewellery.

I have many, many memories - mainly of setting fire to my Hard Rock hairsprayed and backcombed fringe when lighting cigarettes...

[DuelingFanjo]

Ha ha. I think setting fire you your hair was a goth rite of passage.

The Banshee is also demolished :(.

It seems like several lifetimes ago.

[MasqueradeWaltzer]

Which were your favourite goth bands? I was Cure, Bauhaus, Siouxsie, Sisters of Mercy, not so keen on some of the rockier stuff.

[seesensepeople]

Hi Fanjo,

Spent many a night at the Banshee (didn't see myself as a Goth, more a Rock Chick) also Jilly's, the Playpen, Pheonix, UMIST and Swinging Sporran...

[LoveVintage]

I didn't, live in Scotland, but am watching the programme. I wasn't even a goth but went to loads of goth/indie clubs and gigs. Saw Siouxsie and the Cure relatively early maybe 1978/9. Saw bands like Sex Gang Children, Flesh for Lulu, as well as better ones like Bauhaus, Joy Division. Loved Spear of Destiny. Feeling old and nostalgic watching this.

[BitchesGetStuffDone]

Watching it too!

My mum was an 80's goth, I love looking at all her photos.

[Pipbin]

I used to go to Jilly's in my student days.

[Yambabe]

I used to go to the Banshee occasionally. I was more of a regular Jillys/Rockworld girl but my brother's band(s) used to play at the Banshee so I often went along to watch.

[CMOTDibbler]

We're watching it too, and I was just reminiscing about when it took real commitment to wear the black - hunting out tiny shops in obscure places, haunting second hand shops etc.

When I went to uni, I used to crimp and spray my flatmates hair into an amazing cloud - and spent part of my first grant cheque on over the knee suede boots which I held up with silk scarves. Happy days

Which one was the Square? I used to go to the rock night at the union, Subways, Bogiez (vile beyond belief), and a nasty place that was in a sort of arch that dripped from the ceiling

[MasqueradeWaltzer]

My brother LOVED Fields of the Nephilim. He was singer in a local band at the time and tried very very hard to sound like the lead singer .

[RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie]

Watching here too, but didn't go to the club in Manchester. Had to settle for a ten minute slot at the local under-age drinking den, if we were lucky.

[MasqueradeWaltzer]

I went to Subways! On my one and only night out in Cardiff. Preceded by a pub called the Four Bars?

[DuelingFanjo]

Yeah, cure, siouxie, Bauhaus and sisters of mercy.
Things like NIN etc became popular just as I was leaving Polytechnic and I was never into them as much.

Seesense and Pibin, I was always a bit scared of the rockier club upstairs, was that Jilly's?

[DuelingFanjo]

Oh, masquerade, Subways was where we all went to when the Square club closed down. four bars is, I think, now an irish pub or something like that but I will always know it as Four Bars.

Oh my god, the mission. I used to listen to them on my Walkman while walking morosely along the beach in my home town.

[DraaaamaghAlpacaaaagh]

I was a goth (though only in a very subtle way!) in the early 80s in Leeds, the home of the Sisters of Mercy.

I have a Sisters of Mercy t-shirt from about 1983 & it still fits me I only wear it in bed now, though

I've just set the programme to record - it's on again later.

[DuelingFanjo]

square club was at the back of a building down some narrow stairs and then back up,again to the goth bit, also dripping with wet (sweat, urine?). Because I was a student in Manchester i didn't get to go to the square club much, only really started going once my degree ended and then it closed down.

Lots of people I know went to Bogiez.

[MasqueradeWaltzer]

I went to see the Mission a ludicrous number of times! The atmosphere at their gigs was always fantastic.

[mejon]

I'm watching too - God I'd forgotten some of the bands and some made right old rackets . CMOT - the Square was an upstairs room in a club in Westgate Street I think (I only ever went there once as I did my college days in Leicester). There's a Square Club FB page Duelling in case you haven't come across it.

[RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie]

I think The Mission are the band I've seen live more than any other - them or The Wedding Present, anyway.

[CMOTDibbler]

I forgot Tuesdays at Clwb Ifor Bach as well.

My fave memory of Subways was nowDH dancing to Sympathy for the Devil completely of his face. And a dear friend trying to snog me after vomiting into his bag

[sausagefries]

Bitches are you even old enough to post on MN?

I am still a goth, no past life for me. Anyway, surely the 80's was only a few years ago?? [feeling old and grumpy]

[PlantsAndFlowers]

Yes! And Spiders in Hull.

[DuelingFanjo]

I wonder if I might know some of you?

There's not enough Jesus and Mary chain on this programme!

[RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie]

Marychain not really goth, but that doesn't seem to be stopping them re Depeche Mode and Strawberry Switchblade! LOVE the J&M more than everybody apart from The Smiths (outs self as not a real goth at all).

[MasqueradeWaltzer]

Yes, where's the JAMC?

I think my most-frequently-seen are split between The Mission, The Cure and Nick Cave (oh hello).

I bet some of us have placed our snakebite-and-blacks on adjacent tables in the past .