Gay bars in hanley stoke on trent

My First Club takes us back to the beginning, transporting DJs and producers back into the depths of their memory, asking them to take us on a trip to those pivotal first nights in clubland. He decided to give us two takes on the first club experience. Follow him into the dismal depths of a dingy high street club in Stafford, and then into the glory days of acid house in a gay club in Stoke on Trent.

Who were you with? Where was it? How did you get there? What were you wearing? It sounds hideous but it was the thing back then. Who was playing? The same guy who played every week, he played all night. What was the crowd like? What were the toilets like? Not ruined or up to the ankle in rave piss, just ok toilets.

What did you do after? Got a taxi outside and went home. That was basically my age when acid house really hit it big in the UK and I started going to acid nights. I was with Dean who I was recording with at the time under the name Rhythm Mode D and later formed Bizarre Inc with, plus a few other mates from Stafford.

It was in the basement of a gay bar in Stoke On Trent called the Excalibur. You had to wait upstairs until the DJ announced it was open downstairs and you walked into complete darkness apart from a strobe light and loads and loads of smoke.

Altern 8’s Mark Archer’s Life Was Changed in a Gay Club in Stoke

I drove in my Mini, picked a few mates up and headed to Stoke, being followed by another mate with a car full, going round roundabouts like five times because we were being dicks. I was wearing a home made acid smiley t shirt I still have it. I painted loads of different coloured smiley faces on a white t shirt and it glowed like mad when I got in there under the UV.

The mixing was either horrendous or none existent, but it was about the tunes and you could forgive a few bad mixes. Not that many people mixed back then. It was really fresh, a total change from what I was used to. Everyone was there for this one type of music, everyone was mad friendly and danced all night. There were no fights, no people sitting round waiting for their kind of music to come on.

By Ashley Fike.