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Club organisers Cliff and Len |
Down in the dumps? Then why not a night of feelgood misery?
INSTEAD of speed dating, there will be speed hating, karaoke will become gloomeoke.
The Feeling Gloomy club night at Islington Academy celebrates its second birthday tomorrow (Saturday), and organisers Cliff and Len have come up with some variations on classic games.
For speed hating, clubbers talk to their partner about things they hate. In the extreme version, according to Len: “You just sit exchanging insults with the person across the table for three minutes. We don’t encourage that variant, but it’s popular, particularly with women.”
He added: ‘But we’ve got quite a strong gay following, and I’m getting all my gay friends down, so there won’t just be heterosexual hating.”
Gloomeoke is karaoke without the joy, and a chance to play Blind Hate is also promised.
But it’s all being done in the best of low spirits. Len said: “It’s our way of saying thank-you. We have some of the most fantastic customers in the world and many have become our friends. We won’t make a bean, but we will have an ace party.”
Cliff explained the night’s unusual origins: “I had no job and no girlfriend, and was lying in bed feeling like the world wasn’t such a good place, when There Is A Light That Never Goes Out by The Smiths came on, and I thought “this is pretty funny, actually”.
“We realised we could uplift people via gloomy music, and the first two nights were pretty popular so we went weekly, and now we’ve been going for two years.”
The club night has attracted radio DJ Edith Bowman and actor Paddy Considine to its peculiar brand of feelgood misery, and even spawned the world’s only indie air-guitar band, The Miserablists.
Music will come from Cliff’s mother, DJ Iris, who will be spinning gloom-rock classics like Love Will Tear Us Apart, Blue Monday and Folsom Prison Blues.
With money from the night going to The Samaritans, there is even a serious reason to get gloomy.
The club night is at Islington Academy tomorrow (Saturday). £6 (£3.75 adv). |
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