90's London

[Sweetasstevia]

I've lived in London for nearly 25 years now but rarely get into the centre these days (I last worked in town in 2008.) I'm always stunned how much things have changed and have been feeling very nostalgic lately for the London of my uni years and youth: 1990 - 2000.
For starters I miss how Covent Garden used to be with the mechanical toy museum and Neal street East around the corner. I miss burgers at Ed's Diner and Jonny Rockets. I miss seeing arty films at the ICA, the montepulicano lounge club and whirligig, the mad market in South Kensington and how Camden used to be before it got all posh!
What things do you miss?

The good mixer in Camden , if that's the one I remember did the cheesy easy listening night - never until that night had I been to a club where the theme tune to Test Match Special was a dance floor filler. Fab.

The Sugar Lump club somewhere near aldwych? Around '87 ish. The kit Kat club... They are all coming to me now.

dear god we've moved parallel to each other, Noddy. I had my 21st in Fungus Mungus, and was heartily sick at some stage and a lady at another table waved a crystal over my forehead to make me better. I did love a bit of waving lumps of crystal back then. Wore a lump of quartz on a strip of leather around my neck.

Yep me too seemed to remember dressing in white too hoping to catch the eye of the bloke from the Beloved but never did! Think the night at Linfords was called the temple iirc

Forgive my ignorance but how do I ask MN to move thread and where's the best place for it dit? History?

Did anyone go to The Swan in Stockwell?, massive Irish pub with live bands and music until the early hours. I can remember going to the Gardening Club and a club in Wandsworth, forget the name. I also remember Road House in Covent Garden, drunken Friday nights, after a hard week in the office

History! or ?

Better still how about filing user 'elderly parents' not the meaning MN had in mind I know but it made me giggle

Under not user! I mean

Road House in Covent Garden - was that the tequila slammer place? Huge long bar down the centre? If so, I can't say I actually remember any of our after-work nights there ...

Lol @ 'elderly parents'! Ideal location!

white hoody, white leggings, travel fox high tops and cutler & gross sunglasses accessorised with lump of clear quartz.
sharp.

Club UK used to be in Wandsworth, miss that place and it's madness....

Ok I've put in a request to get thread moved

Was Club UK the place that used to do student nights with all drinks £1 and played 'Rythym is a Dancer' a lot. Near to the covered market?

and for west london - 192 and the Cobden club, Woodys and Paradise by Kensal Rise, plus late nights at the Globe where there'd be a high chance of spotting Damon Albarn skanking with a Red Stripe in hand

Yup! All those - we must have stumbled past each other at some point!

Too many people to fist- bump with! But, yay, plasticpinkflamingo! Have a fuzzy, altered-consciousness hug, and a toke maybe?

Funny, the last time we went over - a few years ago - my Dad said "everything's packed for the consumer now, isn't it?". Homogenised... I've always thought of London as a young person's city. I was 26 when I left. I'm glad I had the best of it. My mother always said that London is a rich person's city. Maybe she's right? Perhaps the youth have been priced out & creativity has gone as a result.

I think your parents were bang on there. Grayson Perry was on the radio the other day- he said he got started as a potter while he was living in a squat, and pottery classes were cheap. So what's someone like the young Grayson Perry going to be doing nowadays? Working all hours in a hipster cafe and struggling to pay the rent in a shared house? Doesn't give you much time to develop your ground breaking, initially unprofitable practice, does it? Ditto all the other artists/ musicians who used to live in v. cheap accommodation or in squats- David Bowie springs to mind, but there were loads.....London used to be one of the leading arts cities of the world, but it's dying from the roots up.

I wonder if all the action now might be in run down Northern cities now- I'd love to go and see what's happening in Liverpool and Sheffield nowadays....

Anyone remember the Leisure Lounge?

Yes! Was that Holborn by the Viaduct had to upstairs I think?

Does anyone remember when the City had the barricades around it? We would be driving through trying to avoid being stopped by the police and getting searched!! Got lost every Saturday night

YY Leisure Lounge, I remember now! And whilst we're on the subject of Holborn, what about Villa Stefano? Right by the station wasn't it?

Cosa Nostra at Villa Stefano - Damn I had forgotten all this stuff! I was out 5 out of 7 nights but can't remember diddly about where I was going - Now I know!!

London used to be one of the leading arts cities of the world, but it's dying from the roots up

This exactly! We need a revolution!

Loved Villa stefano

Stubborn I'm with you there... Not sure if there what's happening elsewhere in the UK but I get the feeling those old rave days were so brave and new at the time, now everyone's used to the idea it's lost it's novelty and everything's become bland. There's not the same excitement of the unknown any more. From the 60s onwards the music was new, the drugs were new, everything was about youth and creativity, perhaps for the first time ever? Now fashion, music etc have become homogenized, reworked and somehow more jaded as a result. Maybe I am just old...

Maybe I am just old... Well, I definitely am old now! I keep querying my oldster-sounding "Young people today, blah blah, they're not doing anything NEW!" whinge, and actually finding it true. Not only are the music & design mere re-hashes of the old stuff, but they consciously reference it. I hate to say this - honestly, because I think young folks ought to be anarchic - but the talent seems to have been successfully co-opted by corporatism. It's really bloody sad.

I ought to be going "What ARE they wearing? Call THAT music? I can't understand this modern technology!" - etc. So why aren't I being shocked?

Me too for the office bar, I worked in the same street

I worked around there too but hated the office - went in there once under duress, payed £5 to get in - heard the first few bars of 'We are Family' and had to leave - asked for my money back and got it!!

Do you remember the far more classier Jerusalem across the road, had red railings and you went downstairs? Served food on big tables until the DJ came on then everyone climbed up on the benches and tables and danced the night away!

What's really annoying is when "kids" either call something "old skool" and actually it's from about 1999, or something's remixed (take TLC's Waterfalls as an example (caveat, it's a shit tune I know)) and you think the original version was from a few years back and it turns out it's bloody 20 years old. Pfff...