With regulars including Blur, Oasis, Pulp and Leigh Bowery, it was a club night that quickly became the place to be seen, and was thriving between 1991-1996 in various venues across London.
To help promote his new compilation ‘Martin Green Presents: Super Sonics – 40 Junkshop Britpop Greats‘, I caught up with Martin to find out about the club’s origins, Oasis’ first time there, touring with Pulp, and I embarrassingly fan-girl about the band Shampoo for about five minutes!
Find out more about Martin on his website.
Transcript
Martin Green 00:00
Remember Leigh Bowery coming down will turn out this big outfit and walking through the crowd and these two indie girls and all look is fat. Our last thought as the band is that
K Anderson 00:14
I am K Anderson and you are listening to lost spaces, a podcast that mourned the death of queer nightlife. Every episode I talk to a different person about a venue from their past, the memories they created there and the people that they used to know. smashing was a club night that found itself at the epicentre of the Britpop scene, and though it wasn’t a queer night had what my guest and co founder Martin green calls a queer sensibility. With regulars including blur Oasis, Pulp and Leigh Bowery it was a club that quickly became the place to be seen, and was thriving between 1991 and 1996 in various venues across London. To help promote his New Compilation, SuperSonics 40 junk shop Britpop grades, I caught up with Martin to find out about the club’s origins of waste. This is first time they’re touring with pulp. And I also embarrassingly fangirl about the band shampoo for about five minutes.
Martin Green 01:47
We just set it up because we were sort of bored of what was going on in clubs that become very predictable and pedestrian. House Music was very dominant. And the same time we set up trade set up, which was kind of GAPI kind of gay house club. Because before then a lot of gay people hadn’t massively got into house music they were into, into high energy. And so trade was very much a kind of house. II take in club. But we’ve been bought a house music because we’ve been going to house clubs a bit earlier in the 80s. So we want to do a club where you mixed up all kinds of different styles of music. And that wasn’t about drug taking, and it was much more about our party. There’s almost like a party in your bedroom. So we played all kinds of different music, punk, new wave, electro disco, Burt Bacharach film, soundtracks, all kinds of different things. And we’ve mashed them all up. So you didn’t know what was going to come next. And the first night we did it, there was a 70s disco night on in the venue and they’d finished and moved on we took over. So the first night I had a queue of people in Afro wigs. Coming up to about the music, we can’t send music, it’s terrible. Turn it off. It’s awful. What are you doing? To me just ignored it so and then the following week, there was about 30 people in our club. But it was a fantastic night
K Anderson 03:28
was any other club had moved but didn’t tell anyone
Martin Green 03:32
they’d moved in. This was the pre internet didn’t really find out unless you read your flyer in detail or picked one up. You know, people didn’t really know what was going on you. You basically had two options you had a flyer or time out. But if you hadn’t looked at time out or picked up a flyer saying we’re moving you didn’t know what was going on.
K Anderson 04:00
Just imagine all these angry people in flares and
Martin Green 04:05
they were really angry. And we were playing things like x ray specs and we play things like jaw jammer odour and things like that. They didn’t want that kind of disco, you know, they wanted sort of car wash disco. Yeah. Anyway, so the following week were very quiet. But we had a really good time and a few onwards started to get around London that there was this interest in I happen on a Wednesday night. And people are Leigh Bowery would come down and suede started coming down and hope started coming down and blurs that had come in down and different Pete burns and all kinds of funny people funny mix of people would come to the club and hang out and dance around and gradually these little bands, these indie bands I was mentioning, who was you know, we just saw they rarely charted. I started to have some charts success. The first one was suede. suede had this had some charts success and a few hits and, and we’ve asked the DJ for them as we DJ for suede and and that that started to take off and then blood started to take off. And then Oasis started to take off needs to come down a bit. And then Paul started to take off and I used to do the pole tour DJ. So I saw that really take off. And it was a very, it was a very quick scene. Although it wasn’t strictly gay. It was full of people. It was full of gay people that didn’t want the house music all night long. Yeah. But a straight people that didn’t want to ask music all night long. But the linkings that what linked everybody was an openness in terms of musical taste. And also we encourage people to dress up. So at the time, you know, the rave thing was still going it was all jeans and T shirts. So we were you know, we were all in suits and Kipper ties and people were all dressed up. So not the charity shop clothes. And
K Anderson 06:14
when charity shops were still good.
Martin Green 06:16
Yeah, before the cool thing when they were cheap, so it was very much a movement and a scene. And you know, in it, and then it started to take off the mean we start getting busier and busier
K Anderson 06:35
than ever before. So before we get into it getting busier, what was that like in the first few weeks when there was only like 3040 people showing up and kind of how did that feel?
Martin Green 06:46
Well, it’s brilliant because we have this great big venue. And we do the hokey Cokey, and we do the Congo around the venue, and it was absolutely brilliant. And then we had ranking photographer ranking, we were just out of college, in a corner taking photos of everybody. So and Jefferson hat from days of confused there just set that up. And they were digital features and things. So it was it was really good. It was really good. But um, people really dressed up. And
K Anderson 07:18
so there wasn’t like extra pressure from the venue to get bring more people in or there wasn’t that kind of
Martin Green 07:24
it was Wednesday night. And in a way, London was like, the way it’s suddenly become now because of the lockdown. It was very quiet. You had all these mothballed venues which were terrific. This was an old disco. And it was the actual venue where to booze to be at five, it was called Maximus. So it was a big old disco. And they were just sat empty, because they’d been a big recession. No one had the money, people. But people still kind of wanted to go out and do things. So we took it. We just thought we didn’t take advantage of it. But we found that we could get these fantastic venues rent free, and do what we wanted to Maximus for a while and it did build on put x on their bands on and it sort of took off. And then we moved to the old strip club called the gas light of St. James in Mayfair. And that was really good fun. And then and it was that red velvet boobs and kind of Victorian kind of style, and a little lap dance floor. And that’s when the blur, the blur, boys all came down and denim, and those bands started to come down. And then then they started to get some success. Because of Maximus it was suede used to come and hang out down there. And then the gas light it was blue. And then and they said again six MCs and then we moved to the eve Club, which was this beautiful place in Regent Street, where Christine Kelly’s work now has a big line of dance floor which elevated off the floor mccamey stage and Paul used to come down all the time, as well as some members of suede and blur. They everyone was part of this in the gang and then they all started getting this success and and the club really took off and all their careers really took off. So before they were just all playing in our little venues in Camden and stuff and doing that. It was the indie scene that rarely bothered the mainstream charts. I mean, you had the Smiths were like the biggest indie band of the 80s and they never had a number one here. They were normally in the sort of top 10 You know, it like a cult thing. You know, because what you dismiss going on you add Paul Young and simply reading all that kind of commercial stuff in new ways, independent from, you know, commercial success. But then these indie bands suddenly start again, commercial success and, you know, front page of the tabloids and all those kinds of things.
K Anderson 10:18
Yeah, yeah, it was just like, must have been really strange to have had all those people that you knew suddenly thrust into the spotlight that no one was maybe anticipating for those bands.
Martin Green 10:32
Yeah, it was a very old time. And remember, the thing is, none of those people thought they were going to get that level of success they did and what I’m, what are they all the majority of the part for my weaknesses, but the majority of those bands, ones that I put on the supersonic album, were came from art school backgrounds. So they had quite a queer aesthetic, even though a lot of them are straight. And there was also a lot of women in bands then. So I wanted to re address that with album. And because Britpop is kind of being rewritten, as this laddie guitar, see. And actually, it was an it became that later on. But initially, it was lots of women. There was a kind of queer core part of it, there’s a lot of electronics, there’s a lot of experimentation. And that is what I wanted to reflect the SuperSonics album, back on is diversity. And it was very anti America, it was very anti grunge. He was very into dressing up. And being small, and, and European as well. It wasn’t like a British, British, British in terms of kind of art school and a key and kind of as a Serbia. Weird. It was like that, but it wasn’t, it was very kind of European in that kind of European mod. Feel.
K Anderson 12:06
And so that so that was kind of going on in the music scene, what was happening in the gay scene at that time, because you talked about trade. Opening, and that was mostly house music was the same kind of quite cookie cutter at that stage, like mostly the same types of venues. Yeah,
Martin Green 12:26
the gay scene are gone. The gays, the gays in trade, trade, and FF and those clubs are because we’re very dominant. So there wasn’t really a queer alternative. We were kind of the queer alternative. So find of gay people that didn’t want all that came to our club. And then while we were run in Adrian, the one that promoters used to run a club called the kit kat club with Simon Hobart, ran a club called bedrock, which was an indie club. And Adrian said to Simon, you should what you should do is do a gay indianized because there’s a lot of gay people that come to our club and they love indie music. There’s a rule there’s a rule. I think it was probably you could probably trace it back to people’s love of Human League and Smith’s and those kinds of things. So there’s all gay people that didn’t really want this go and house music at all. They want Indian rock and they love that. So the outcome mixed up all kinds of things. So Adrian said there’s some you should do like a gay indie night, and just play or indie record. So he sat up at night called pop stars. Stars started, I think it was probably about 95 I suppose that kind of period. And he started this very successful 9495 of them. So he’s out this so he’d been running in the nights that they’ve been kind of straight. So it this guy in the night became a successful night. And then you had Ducky started up in 95 doing a similar thing that we did but with a with a voc from town with a gay audience aiming more gay audience. We didn’t we didn’t aim anybody we just said you know, the doors are open. You can come along you know, if you like it you like if you don’t, you don’t. So we you know, we were open to all kinds of people from all kinds of backgrounds. But they will they went for more of a gay audience and and very successfully, and then you had a club called then club skinny came along and chunky, chunky, and lots of different clubs came around that were were be more experimental and it wasn’t just about cruising and you know, and you know, in trying to pick up And that kind of thing. So. And I think we were very much part of when we were there kind of foreign at all that when we played games at the club we did musical bumps, musical statues, all kinds of different things.
K Anderson 15:14
Yeah. So tell took me through how this actually works. So do you just stop the music and tell everyone right? We’re gonna play musical statues now?
Martin Green 15:21
Yeah. Well, we had a magic moment as a host. And I think we’re more very, very strong and bossy. Right, you lock Come on, on the floor, we’re going to do some exercises to do some exercises, or we’d have a band on or we’d have a game. Sometimes you’d only plan a couple of days before we’d have a treasure hunt sometimes. Right? You’ve got you get into teams, and you have to go out and you have to come back with a bag of chips or a can of coke or open Oakley. funny things to all these people charging around town, and then we do a conga. We do all that it was just, you know, we were just doing nutty things.
K Anderson 16:11
And so on a typical night, what would your role be? Well, I’ll
Martin Green 16:15
start off on the door. So I used to do so I DJ to Michael Murphy DJ. So Michael gone first. And he play up until the Act came on or the performance or the band or games or whatever you’re doing. And then I take over. But because we, we were popular. I used to go on the door with Adrian to make sure our mates got in, because we’d have these queues. And we wanted our friends to come in. Because there was a lot of people that came to the club in the early days. And we wanted to make sure that they could come jump into the front of the queue because it’s gorgeous when no one was down there. So so I’m just sort of hovered about the door, really making sure pulling people out people out there dressed up, they made an effort. People that were friends make sure they all got in just that kind of thing. So I remember being on the door once and Adrian had had a phone call earlier that days, and races were coming down. And we we’ve been playing shake when we played supersonic as I shake maker just come out. And I had a copy of that we used to play supersonic down and people liked it. So it’s very early days for races. And they were just in London, and they came to the club. And we knew that we’re going to put them on the list. Anyways, they turned up and just they turned out i’d recognise nothing. I’d seen them on the telly or I just seen them live somewhere. I mean, that’s I knew they were a cab board up and that you’d walk out of the cab in that some mad outfit. And he came and Matthew was obsessed with people dressing up, you’ve got to dress up, you’ve got to dress.
K Anderson 18:05
I think I know where this is going.
Martin Green 18:08
And then so I used this was stood on the door, saying oh, we were on the guests were racist. And Matthew came out of the cab and said, right, you know, who are you? And they said, Oh, racists and and this message turned to us and you’re not gonna let them in, are you? And they said, Yeah, they’re on the guest list rely on when we play the record, and really write you like next time you come down, make an effort, and then went into the club with the sheep. And then came up and asked for their record, occupy our record right now was about the record and they danced about their own record, and danced around to their own record. And then they come up and ask for the Beatles. And they were really, really sweet and completely intimidated by Matthew. And then they used to come every week. And then of course, they sort of took off and started to get in a little bit attitude, but not much
K Anderson 19:06
attitude at
Martin Green 19:09
the time. I mean, that, you know, you’ve you’ve got to remember so when you’ve got all these kind of indie kids and all that going on, you’ve got Leigh Bowery down there in these big mad outfits, terrifying the life out of everybody jumping up and down. Dance Floor to elastica. And so you had the freaks down there as well as the indie well, so it was a so you know, you can’t Liam Gallagher isn’t even going to intimidate the Bowery. So, that was fine. But then, as I said they all started taking off so I was on the door one night and a cab pulled up. And Jarvis got out the cab with Damon Albarn and a couple of Other people from Blur and Pulp, they came over and said, Oh hey doing more chatting to them. And they were waiting for another cab with a couple the other members from the bands that the pump and blow had been on. They’ve just done something like that since filming or they’ve done something together. And blur had just broken through with our life poll still hadn’t, you know, it’s pretty common people. They’ve been on top of pops with babies, but it was, you know, top, lower top 20 hit. Anyway, so these girls are walking down Regent streets or Dame and outside chatting to us and started screaming Damon Damon Damon, and ran across the road, trying to chase him into the cloud. So we had to hold them back. And they will send a email we love Diamond Diamond Diamond. And Jarvis was stood right next to them. And they completely ignore Java is interested. Within months common people came out. And then it was Jarvis Jones. Yeah. So it was quite interesting how the trajectory of those performers went so rapid.
K Anderson 21:07
Yeah, I mean, that’s good if I could your head, right.
Martin Green 21:12
Yeah, because I don’t think any of them as I said, you know, because indie bands hadn’t really got that level of success in this country. No one was really interested in. And then suddenly, the press were, and it was one beget the other so it all escalated quite quickly. I’m sure I’m sure the later on, I mean, we finished in seven, in 96, we got to 1996. And we said well, ended 96 We were so fed up with our mates getting hassle in the club. Or it didn’t really feel like a place that certain people could hang out in. And then we just thought, you know what we’ve done five years that nothing we finished it.
K Anderson 21:54
So what do you mean by that?
Martin Green 21:56
Well, what happened is people when we were when we went into the gossip columns and everything, and featured about this club, all these bands hanging out, people would come down to meet the see the bands. Or they didn’t they just came down because they wanted to be in the club with the music. And that was it really. And so once you become like a sort of
K Anderson 22:19
terrorist alternation.
Martin Green 22:20
Yeah, Star spot a tourist destination, we will not what’s that we didn’t set out to be there. And we’d sort of done what we started wanting to do. And that was it. Really. So we finished it.
K Anderson 22:32
Ah, and so do you remember the last night?
Martin Green 22:38
I’m not really kind of? Yeah, I mean, the last night? I think it was all right. It wasn’t. You know, I think by then we didn’t every week for five years. And I think we were just sort of had enough. I think we finished around New Year’s Eve. It was always it was still really it was still good fun. But we could see it. Changing job was only in the last sort of six months. We just thought you know why it’s time to finish, you know? And, yeah, to be pretty funny injury. Interesting. You said though, I can’t really remember that much at all. We just thought, Well, you know, that’s it now.
K Anderson 23:20
And then, but then what was that? Like? afterwards? If like your inner your life was wrapped up in that club, and you were doing it every week to suddenly not do it?
Martin Green 23:30
When I was getting those DJing work? Do you have the things massive Lamar was doing minty? I was talking to Pope de jambe for them. There was lots of other things going on. And I ran a bar with Adrian. And I was putting compilation albums out and so I’ve had been a career doing doing that since anyway. And I’d hate to think I was still doing smashing after all these years. I mean,
K Anderson 23:57
when was the last time you did a conga line though.
Martin Green 24:01
Oh, actually, I’ve had I’ve had a few Congo. I’ve I’ve managed to get conga lines going a few time? Yeah, actually, I did a party. Thor ends average couple, few years ago. And I played something and I’ve got the studio and I’ve got them all in the Congo around his sculptures, and that was good. So I’ve been kind of I’ve got a few things that if you drop them at the right moment, you know, I had a birthday party last May and we had to conquer the birthday party. Again, Apple.
K Anderson 24:41
Oh, okay. Fine.
Martin Green 24:43
Because the club got to capacity. We used to do to conquer out the out the exit fire exit on Regent Street, then back down the fire exit. And people that were in the queue. We go quick get on the end of the Congress. They get on the end of the Congress. Get people in as well.
K Anderson 25:08
So yeah, so it’s gonna win when there was that kind of problem with that, you know, the wrong type of clientele coming. And
Martin Green 25:16
it was just, it wasn’t what we were about. We weren’t, we never set up so we never set out to be a celebrity club. And there was a few of those around. We just set wanted a club for our mates to come and hang out and dance the music. They liked dancing too. So we had prints Turner up in a big limo pulled up outside. The driver came over to Nord got prints in the limo wants to come to the club. We said Oh, great. He said, Can you open the VIP area for me now? And everyone’s got the and he wasn’t disgruntled and drove off. But then we had Michael Stipe down there. You know, Courtney Love Keanu Reeves, all kinds of people. They never ask for the IPS or any special treatment they just come in and dance around with everyone else.
K Anderson 26:01
And so you didn’t see you hadn’t you didn’t implement any kind of door policy or anything in order to weed weed out people
Martin Green 26:10
dressing up in incorrectly. We didn’t put people down and jeans and T shirts. We’re very much into people dressing up. And and that was it really. You know, and people, a lot of people remember. It was a very different time. So I DJ out now and young people are very open minded. So in terms of john so you can play a bit of disco a bit at house a bit raw, a bit of glam, the indie bit of you know, you can play completely a bit of soul a bit a Motown northern soul, you can play really across the board. And they all love it. They know what they all like is the hits. I mean, they don’t like all the besides the obscurities, they do tend to get the hits. They like things match up a bit. They like things remix, but they do like a big variety. But when I grew up I mean I’m 54 now people were like that it was very tribal. So if you’re a punk you like punk if you like if you liked reggae like reggae, if you like indie like indie you know, etc etc. So people were very narrow minded in those narrow minds people didn’t know every disco record go in every punk record go you know, they were very they had deep knowledge but they were very narrow minded. So what then so clubs would play rare groove maybe disco probably know how struggle Play House Music disco club, they disco, you know, people were very specific, you might get one or two genres mixing up, but you might get used to do a lot of jazz nights and they play a bit of jazz and a bit of jazz funk and a bit of soul. But they’re moving play punk as well. Where we would really play across the board so there was very few people that were about of my generation people that come into the club and people that younger that we’re open like that so you had to have a certain mentality to be want to dance one minute to break beat track you know one minute then to Beatles into David Bowie then to a glam record then to some weird electronic record and then you know, so there was all sorts of different so many different things make something a bit George mo Rhoda then you know, pole record or so you know, there was somebody that only attract a certain type of mentality Really?
K Anderson 28:58
And we didn’t talk about what your go twos were are for DJing so what what songs that if you hear them Now, take you back to that club.
Martin Green 29:11
I’m all there was one I used to play called Black right by Mandingo, which was on an album The first album I compiled with the sound gallery, and it was a big orchestral, Wild Wild Wild guitar freakout track that was numbered smashing. Then there was a version of jesus christ superstar, which was an electronic version used to play that. Then ping pong by stereolab that was a track that he used to get played lots. Hold sorted for ease and Where’s Mr. Play? Queen bitch, David Bowie, X ray specs will turn dayglow Jamie rode the chase. There was a lot of. So it was a quite a mixture of tracks, there’s a track called evca by john Jacques perrey, which is a new electronic track from 1970, which everyone liked. And then there’s a track called Indian vibes by Dave pike. And that was a 60 sitar track. And people loved that. So, you know, there was this weird mix of bits of hippie bits of Sammy Davis, Jr. You know, it was a real mix of stuff. You never really know what was gonna come next. Yeah.
K Anderson 30:39
Were there any songs that completely killed the vibe? II?
Martin Green 30:50
Think so. Yeah, there would have been, there would definitely, definitely be ones will be put on a goal that didn’t really work. But I don’t know if it’s funny quote. But the thing is, quite often, you’d play something because a lot, some of the media was quite nutty, you play something and a few people would dance, then you go. But you know what, I really liked hearing it. You play again next week, and then some more people would dance. Today, people getting into this new play again, and then more people would dance. And then it suddenly, after about a month that became the track of the club, you know, for that little period?
K Anderson 31:25
Yeah, you just yeah, it’s it’s a weird thing, isn’t it? DJing? Like, you just have to sometimes be a bit bold with your decisions. And the crowd will come with you.
Martin Green 31:34
Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think it’s it’s kind of different now. Because I think people tend to want things that are more familiar to them now. Because of the way people listen to music because of the whole, you know, they’ll they’ll just listen to a quick snippet of it on Spotify or Amazon or wherever.
K Anderson 31:55
And well, that’s it like nothing’s obscure anymore. Is it? Like there’s no songs that you find in a charity shop? Because you can find them all on Spotify?
Martin Green 32:04
Exactly. Yeah, you can’t do I mean, we were hunting that stuff in the charity shop. That’s what we were getting it all from. And then our mates were coming to the club. We’re bringing their records down. So I mean, Jarvis turned up at the club with a test pressing of common people. And he said, oh, I’ve got in, I’ve got this for you. So I was the first person to play common people aren’t anywhere, pressing here. And he did the same with disco 2000. So we were the first people to play out the club, I was the first person to play column people
K Anderson 32:35
did like the crowd know that it was a pop song. Or
Martin Green 32:39
it was very funny, because quite often playing things like that. You had a sort of a mixed response, and you play the next week, and then it’d be a bigger response. And then, you know, then it might got better radio players, they used to pre release a lot of stuff then before they came. So people became aware. And then but these are bands that used to gig a lot. So people would hear the songs. But common people was one of those ones, you put it on, and everyone went nuts. They all seem to know it. Or if they didn’t know it, they loved it straight away. It was very instant. And it was one of those rare occasions. Because it’s an old record. It’s not like a disco record or anything. It’s kind of the way it starts and builds. And, you know, it’s got a narrative to it, you know, which you don’t normally get in pop songs. And they went crazy. And I always went crazy for it. So it was one of those ones that been a hit. And I was on the pope tour when that came out. So I went on this poll common people call Pope tour around the country. And as it was climbing the charts and doing well, suddenly, it was in a poll suddenly. So again, as the tension that’s the data setting out and you know, there was a lot of buzz about it. Jarvis was getting a lot of focus and you know, they’re all kind of meat jobs when ain’t Jarvis and so it was quite an exciting time to be in the middle of all that
K Anderson 34:10
Yeah, imagine
Martin Green 34:12
Yeah, I think dented and as I said before, you know, those in the bands did get a quite a gay following. And as I said, there was a lot of female led bands at the time. So the shampoos and elastic currents, the perlan echo belly and there was a lot of women in Britpop well what became Britpop that started from that Riot girl See?
K Anderson 34:38
Yeah, so let’s quickly talk about shampoo were they ever in smashing
Martin Green 34:43
always working grumpy
K Anderson 34:46
amazing. menswear went out with one of them carries really do you know, like they’ve completely dropped off the face of the earth so there’s like nothing about like, what they’re up to now on the internet.
Martin Green 35:00
No, I don’t know why I’ll have to ask around. They did. I put on a track on the app, the DJ for them as well. dJ dJ and the performance I did a gig. I did DJ for all of those bands as well everyone and track what now I was beside of Trumbull
K Anderson 35:18
Yeah, an amazing sound. Yeah.
Martin Green 35:20
Right, which is a great track and it sounds really good. And people it’s funny because when I told indie people I was putting the album together, they were all great guy. Great. And I said shampoo and we’re all now handstand then. And then. But then I played that track. And they were brilliant.
K Anderson 35:38
Yeah, they sound like we’ve got a really bad rap. Yeah, it’s terrible.
Martin Green 35:42
Yeah. And all that kind of thing. But those records sound great. And the production’s really good. They’re, they’re really good attitude. They look great. And I think it’s time for shampoo re discovery.
K Anderson 35:57
Yes, maybe we can start it. Let’s hope so. Yeah. Yeah. No, they’re amazing. Like, you know, Viva La Mecca babes. What an amazing song.
Martin Green 36:07
Yeah, they’re really good. They were they were way ahead of its in what happened is, so as report exploded. Then what happened is that it sort of started to dip down a little bit, and then pop came up. Yeah. So pop, which had been very popular been sought out for a long time. And then Spice Girls happened, what we Williams happened. There were lots of things that happened, which became pop so shampoo were kind of like a blueprint for Spice Girls, Girls allowed or that kind of thing. They were just ahead of the game of that
K Anderson 36:48
Yeah. sanitised version.
Martin Green 36:51
Yes, yeah, less than version. So, it’s racist. We’re sort of Robbie Williams kind of to what he says we’re doing and when he hits with it, you know? So that’s to be that way. It’s what happened, the pop up kind of pop came back, and then it sort of disappeared into the, into the distance.
K Anderson 37:14
You said before that smashing was queer in a 90s way. What does that mean?
Martin Green 37:23
Um, because it was very inclusive. Our thing was, we didn’t care where you’re from, what your background was, what your sexuality was, or anything or what your age was, it was, if you are open minded, and you had the right attitude, you will come in. So we had really well, you know, really odd people down there. We used to have these trends used to come down with Agent K. And juicer come down in and with a briefcase and a trench coat on, and pair of glasses and a bob wig. And she just sort of stand around, wander around. And then she’d leave a briefcase on the dance floor, and then return pick it up again. And then she’d leave it in distance but like she was some spy agent Kay, really all. So you’d have been and then the Leigh Bowery is jumping about and then peepers all sorts of funny, just on the odd bunch of people. And, and then people are always wonder and new shampoo. And those are people as well. So so it was queer in an acceptance and a attitude, whether or not really 80s gay clubs, were not gay clubs, the kind of so called kind of gay run clubs, like Blitz and taboo, or they were freaky and dress up and flamboyant. They were very cliquey. Unless you were in that clique, you wouldn’t get in, they were really strict on the door, you had to know people, it was all like that, where we weren’t, we were much more open. And it was like, you know, kalorien don’t come in. We don’t care that you have to accept what we’re doing. If you don’t like it, then fine. But if you do like it, then you’re part of the game. It wasn’t about you know, what you were wearing in terms of labels and that kind of thing? Because most people down there in jewellery shop clothes, you know, so it was a different type of attitude. It was more inclusive, where the 80s club scene had been very exclusive.
K Anderson 39:43
Did you ever go to smashing? Well, if you did, I would love to hear from you. Please share any stories or anecdotes or photos that you have from that time through social media. You can find me on most platforms with the user handle K Anderson, the music And you can find out more about Martin at his website, Martin green sound.com and also an extra plug his New Compilation Martin green presents SuperSonics 40 junk shop Britpop grades is available now, law spaces is not only a podcast but a contact record as well. I’ve been writing songs about queer venues and the people who used to live their lives there. And we’ll be releasing songs over the coming year. You can hear the first single, well green boys which is also playing underneath my talking right this very second on all streaming platforms. If you liked this episode, I would really appreciate if you subscribe, left a review on Apple podcasts or just told people who you think might be interested in listening to. I am K Anderson and you have been listening to lost spaces.
