Barely a hundred people attended our opening twenty-three years ago in December 1990. Actually barely fifty, but all these years later Queer Nation is still here.
Before I give you details of our next event I best tell you about the birth of the club that has provided a quality alternative house sound track for the last twenty-three years across a range of venues including Substation, Gardening Club, Crash, Factory and Fire. QN, as it’s generally affectionately known, serves soulful house with an Americana flavour… The kind of house music you’d expect from my friend Frankie Knuckles in Chicago or the late, Larry Levan at the Paradise Garage.
And it’s been best when we’re in intimate venues so I am thrilled that Troy & Michael have invited us to Barcode Vauxhall for a monthly residency.
The seeds for Queer Nation were sown by Norman Jay, a former Kiss Fm DJ, at a club we ran in Camden called High on Hope in the very late 80s. We’d had a string of great guests, many of whom we confirmed on the night including Chaka Khan, Gwen Guthrie, En Vogue and Adeva. They’d be in town and wanted to come to ‘our little piece of New York in London’. When the club closed I decided to open a gay version.
I chose the name Queer Nation as I’d been on holiday in San Francisco and my best friends told me about these ‘gay punks’ called Queer Nation who’d do radical actions. The name was (and is) sometimes controversial. But I not only lifted the name I also shameless hijacked their artwork too (which they belatedly approved!) A punky Xerox cartoon…
And on a Sunday night in Covent Garden, Dec 1990, something very special was born. DJs on the flyer included Merran, Breeze (RIP), Norman Jay, Princess Julia and Luke Howard. We stayed at the Gardening Club for 7 years on a Sunday.
It was a gay one-nighter: attitude free, affordable and welcoming of all nations and cultures and also all genders – as long as you were into the music it really didn’t matter did it? I’d never felt part of the mainstream gay clubscene. It wasn’t for me.
Queer Nation was always a slightly misunderstood club night. It’s not and never has been an urban club even though we win awards in that category regularly! Our raison d’etre was to play the finest soulful music- house and for it to be attitude free. If we have two rooms then we include an alternative to that too: on Saturday 9th ‘new school’ DJs Mark Ashely Dupé and Niyi Maximus Crown will play 90s R’n’B, a bit of afro beat and some new urban house sounds.
In the main room, Supadon and Mista Pierre will serve new and classic pumping jumping American house!
Highlights of the last 23 years? Live shows by Beverly Knight, Ultra Nate, Barbara Tucker… Hosting club tents at Summer Rites in Brockwell Park and Shoreditch Park this year. Every Saturday night at SubStation – the sweat dripping off the ceiling… And Luke Howard, Supadon and Jeffrey (or our beloved Francesco RIP) spinning.
Hosting musical and fashion icons from Vivienne Westwood, Prince and others. Doing monthly parties in Paris with Joycelyn Brown and Ce-Ce Penniston and Candy Jay on the bill coinciding with a weekly radio show there on Radio FG.
• Queer Nation is at Barcode Vauxhall, 69 Albert Embankment, Vauxhall SE1 on Saturday 9th November (every second Saturday of the month from then on). £6 before 12am, £8 after.
