 Interactive map of Batcave | |
| Address | Dean Street,Soho, London |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 51°30′48″N0°07′57″W / 51.5134°N 0.1326°W /51.5134; -0.1326 |
| Type | Club-night |
| Events | |
| Opened | 21 July 1982 |
| Closed | 1985 |
TheBatcave was a weeklyclub-night launched at 69Dean Street in central London in 1982. It is considered to be the birthplace of the Southern Englishgoth subculture. It lent its name to the termBatcaver, used to describe the early fans ofgothic rock music, who would adorn themselves in Batwing coffin necklaces to distinguish themselves from other goth clubs.
The original Batcave ran for five months every Wednesday from 21 July 1982 at theGargoyle Club at 69Dean Street,Soho, moving out when the upper floors were sold off that December.[1][2] Originally specialising innew wave andglam rock, it later focused ongothic rock.Olli Wisdom,[3] the lead singer in the house bandSpecimen, ran the night with Specimen's guitaristJon Klein as art director, and initially with the assistance of production manager Hugh Jones. Regulars included musicians and singers such asNick Cave,Robert Smith ofthe Cure,Siouxsie Sioux,Steven Severin, the members ofBauhaus,Marc Almond and the members ofFoetus.[3] The novelistRupert Thomson included an account of a Batcave club night in his 2010 memoirThis Party's Got to Stop.
An array of bands would play live, alongside 4-hour sets from their resident DJ Hamish MacDonald, and when the club-night transferred to the former Subway club at 28 Leicester Square in February 1983, a guest DJ presided upstairs with a US Army jeep parked by the bar. (The Batcave decamped later that year to Fooberts and in 1984 toGossip's, both in Soho). The bands involved includedelectronic leading actAlien Sex Fiend,[1] the host's band Specimen who took influence from 1970sglam rock,[1] Hamish's band Sexbeat, andSex Gang Children, who would go on to prove influential in the gothic rock,dark cabaret anddeathrock movements. At the Gargoyle, the Batcave also showed 8mm films in its old theatre and occasionally featured unusual cabaret such as Mr Swing the Fakir and mud-wrestling. Olli Wisdom toldThe Face: “We don’t suck our cheeks, we have fun.”[4] In an interview for Mick Mercer'sGothic Rock, Jonny (Slut) Melton said of the Batcave:
It was a light bulb for all the freaks and people like myself who were from the sticks and wanted a bit more from life. Freaks, weirdos, sexual deviants ... There's people around who'll always be attracted by something shiny, glittering, exciting. At the time the Batcave wasn't a doomy, Gothy, droney grungey sort of place ... It was more Gotham City than Aleister Crowley.[5]
The Batcave was foundational to the establishment of thegothic rock genre andgoth subculture.[6] Journalist Michael Johnson stated that the Batcave largely establishedgoth fashion, however had a less significant impact on the development of the gothic rock music.[6]
In 1983, a vinyl record entitledThe Batcave: Young Limbs And Numb Hymns was released on theLondon Records label. The compilation included Specimen ("Dead Mans Autochop"), Sexbeat ("Sexbeat"),Test Dept. ("Shockwork"),Patti Palladin ("The Nuns New Clothes"),James T. Pursey ("Eyes Shine Killidiscope"), Meat of Youth ("Meat of Youth"),Brilliant ("Coming Up for the Downstroke"), Alien Sex Fiend ("R.I.P."), and The Venomettes ("The Dance of Death").
If the Batcave had not existed, goth would still have happened – maybe without the camp, glammy elements, but it would have happened. Without the Phono, I'm not so sure. Certainly, it played a much bigger part in the creation of a distinctly goth style of music, while The Batcave probably helped the look to evolve, not least because it got itself on television.