Legendary Nights with the Bright Young Things

The generation that came of age in the aftermath of the First World War and the Spanish Flu did a lot more than just bob their hair and drink all the time. Well, they did do those things too, but let’s take a closer look at those party animals of the roaring 20s a century…

Meet the London Club Kids Who Made Punk Go Pop

Sex, drugs and lots of black eyeliner. Just a regular Tuesday night at the Blitz Club. At the turn of the 1980s, London’s teenage squatters, outcast art school kids and disillusioned punks all descended on a barren Covent Garden in search of a good night out. By simply living out their wildest and wackiest fantasies,…

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Inside a Secret World War II Officers’ Club

In downtown St. John’s, Newfoundland, there is an old warehouse overlooking the harbour, that looks as anonymous as all the other brick buildings surrounding it. At least until you look at the roof… For protruding out of the flat roof, is what appears to be a rather unusual looking aerial. It is thicker than you…

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This Dark Age of Disco and the Brave New World of Nightlife

Did Covid really kill the disco? Or was it just the nail in the nightclub’s coffin? Some would argue the clubbing era officially died near the end of the 00’s, and that it was the age of social media that pulled the trigger. It’s a nostalgia-driven debate that can be found thriving in the comments…

Legendary Paris Nightclub of the 80s Reopens as a Cultural Shrine to David Bowie

On a steamy summer night in 1981, it wasn’t unusual to find David Bowie surrounded by Paris’ premiere debs and drag queens, tossing around a blow-up ball in an underground discotheque pool, or Grace Jones singing “La Vie en Rose” on a Harley Davidson at clubs like Le Palace – the French capital’s answer to Studio…

The 1920s Speakeasy Club with a Treehouse in the Backyard

We’ve stumbled upon the backyard of a speakeasy club called the Krazy Kat Club in Washington DC, July 15, 1921. It looks like they might have decided to move their staff meeting outside to their treehouse in the heavy heat of July– and nobody is in the mood for business. Every workplace should have a backyard…

Inside Le Monocle, the Parisian Lesbian Nightclub of the 1930s

If you were to hang around Montmartre after sundown in the 1920s & 30s, it’s likely you were looking for something a little more Avant-Garde than what you might find on the Parisian Left Bank. At the time, it was a haven for struggling artists, bohemians, burlesque dancers, straying husbands as well as a vibrant gay & lesbian community. In Montmartre, they…

The Ruins of Batman’s Lair in Thailand

The Batman nightclub entertainment establishment sits decaying away in the Thai coastal city of Pattaya, often associated with its notorious sex-tourism trade, though there is much more to the city than that seedy side. Derelict for over 20 years, the crumbling club sits on Soi Batman, the street that still carries its name, as it…

The Secret Members Clubs of 1960s London

From the hoity toity Gentlemen’s clubs in Pall Mall to the more colourful hidden establishments of Soho, this 1960s British short documentary delves into the ‘secret life of London’. Slightly outdated in its delivery (note the oh so hilarious sexist quip at 2m 55s), Look at Life was a series produced for screenings in cinemas before the main…

The Holiday Party at Studio 54 Got a Little Out of Hand

Tod Papageorge was not your average lingering Studio 54 paparazzi, in fact, he spent three decades as a Masters professor and director of photography at Yale. Time magazine calls his photographs of bleary-eyed disco queens as “something akin to poetry“. I can’t decide if his poetry makes me feel uncomfortable and guilty for looking, or naïve and prude for thinking…