Club Night: Chick Habit featuring Amity & JD Samson

Now, I have to admit that I haven't actually been to Candy Bar in a while. I see myself as outside of the core customerbase. When I think of Candy Bar I think of uber-trendy student lesbians, under 25, and who are single and looking for fun. Thursday night was quite an eye-opener to the fact that the customerbase of this bar is expanding beyond this stereotype.

I wasn't the oldest lesbian in the room, I wasn't even the only lesbian not looking for a night of fun. Hell, there were even lesbians who aren't uber-trendy types (me included!).

This event was bound to be popular; JD Samson (known  most famously from Peaches and Le Tigre) was the top bill on her only UK date this tour.

Chick Habit runs from 9pm to 3am. A weekly event every Thursday (occasionally doubled up with Candy Bar's own comedy night beforehand). This week was a special Chick Habit, starting with Amity and ending with JD Samson (DJing from 1am).

Amity was on early to a select crowd. The crowd were extremely mixed, and clearly there for the music since they were all paying attention and listening to the music rather than chatting away which was nice as at some gigs there is little respect for the artist on stage when they are a support act.

Amity, originally from Wolverhampton has been around since about 2003 and released her debut EP in June 2011. Amity isn't your usual artist, she plays live the guitar, ukelele, kazoo and drums (at one point all in the same song at the same time - you need to see it to believe it). She is quite an alternative artist and uses some amazing techniques within her songs - well worth catching on one of her future gigs.

Between Amity and JD Samson we had DJ Amy B and DJ Cece Wyledeck Estrada keeping the dancefloor bopping with a variety of indie, electro, rockabilly and alternative music.

From 1am JD Samson hit the decks, and showed she is a truly remarkable DJ. She is a legend in her own right, and could have easily just played her normal set and the music she enjoys, but regularly you'd see her popping her head over the DJ booth to check the response from the crowd. She interspersed her style of music with floor fillers that pleased the audience, introducing new music whilst ensuring the dance floor remained full at all times.

If you haven't been to Candy Bar in a while, perhaps you might fancy giving it another go. They have a variety of nights now, for all tastes including Laughing Labia comedy show, Girls-A-Loud Karaoke, Monday Madness, Shake and Pop, Monster and Sunday Social.

The next Chick Habit is on Thursday 11 October and features Moya, a singer-songwriter from Brighton.

Naomi

Club T Launch

Date:             Thursday 22 March 2012
Location:       Dalston Superstore, 117 Kingsland High Street, London E8 2PB

men as guests, women as guests, all welcome

The Dalston Superstore is an interesting bar to take in, being long and thin with strange sculptures on the walls and hanging from the ceiling. Exposed pipes along the roof give it an almost industrial feel while the silver disco ball in the corner adds a bit of glamour. The dance floor is downstairs only tonight it was off limits. I am here for the brand new and very exciting T Club. Unlike most of the clubs I go to with the proviso of ‘Men as guests’, tonight it was ‘Women as guests’.

The T Club is a fully inclusive night, so there was no real desire to turn women away at the door; rather it was a joke among friends which grew into an actual event. The T Club is a celebration of LGB and especially T, our forgotten friends at many a queer night. A lot of emphasis was put on making this night a safe space for all genders, with the security all chosen for their knowledge of the LGBT community. Even the toilets are unisex. It was an unknown and untested idea, but one that worked. Over 100 people walked through the door this night, with all having a good time. 

When I first arrived there was still room to move, not for long however. Very quickly I was trapped in a little bubble of lesbians, unable to go anywhere due to the mass of people talking and dancing. Despite this I was still able to get served at the bar, a small miracle I was very appreciative of. All around me were trans people, lesbians, straight couples, mixed groups and East London types. It was so mixed it was difficult to know who was who. At one point I thought a girl was trying to chat me up, only it turned out she was there to support her young gay male friend. Even the music was mixed, with La Roux, Missy Elliot and Azealia Banks. There was even some Spoken Word earlier in the night.

All up it was a very successful night. If you want somewhere to go where politics or gender don’t matter, the next T Club is on the 19th April.

The T Club on Facebook

About the T Club

The T club was devised and created after an almost flippant facebook conversation between friends, after one of our friends, who is trans, was refused entry from a london club... one thing led to the other and i jokingly said, a T club, with women as guests? and it went from there and a considerate amount of support and understanding...

The T club however, is a club for trans, genderqueers and all in between with their women and men as guests... following the queen Bees avant garde attitude, it's a hub full of fun, mingling, dancing, performing watching and costume dressing for the T lovelies and their friends in a safe and queer environment.... simple in its complications and a disco with a difference...

celebrating gender diversity...

---

Feature by Ida Raine, 10 April 2012

The Beautiful & The Damned

Date:               Saturday 29 October 2011
Location:         Protocol, Vauxhall

The poster for The Beautiful and the Damned promised a classy venue with costumed beauties, and on this front the event did not let me down. 

The venue, Protocol, shared an entrance with another event, but the security deftly pointed people into the entrance they needed. Protocol boasted a comfortable booth area for some semi-private sitting, and two dance rooms that were appropriately decorated with spiders and a lot of webs. Though both dance rooms had their own bar, differing staffing levels sometimes left the bar 3 people deep. On the plus side, each room also had a welcoming tray piled with marshmallows and gummy candy to keep your blood sugar levels peaked. 

At 11pm the club was only about a third full, but many more women and a couple of men continued to arrive so by midnight the club was comfortably full. Kudos to all the people getting into the spirit of Halloween - I was impressed that so many people had more fake blood that I did! A special mention to the party of friends that included Freddy Kruger and Jason from the Friday 13th movie franchise, but my stomach actually turned when I spotted the fire-fighter with a cockroach crawling out of putrefying cheek flesh- good effort!

The crowd was quite varied, I'd guess the age range was 20's-40's, with a good number of unfamiliar faces. I particlarly like the policy of a women's night, with men as their guests. I think this works well to encourage women's mainly spaces that are comfortable and fun. 

So far so good. Where I was a little disappointed was in the merging of the styles of music between the rooms. What promised to be an RnB room, and an 80's/indie room soon seemed to merge into two rooms with very similar music. The indie room tried to be too modern and fell into a mainstream rut; whilst the room that had RnB at the beginning on the night, rocked out to 80's hits later in the night. Luckily the rooms were separated only by an entrance (with very good sound insulation) so it was a quick trip to investigate where the best tracks, or hottest costumes were! But there wasn't enough distinction between the rooms for my short attention span.  Also, drinks were a bit on the expensive side: a can of beer and a drink with mixer priced at over £9!

Overall, I had a good night and will keep a look out for other similar parties, especially if there's another chance to get the costume makeup on.

Review by Tali and Vaux