The UK’s Oldest Goth Club Slimelight Celebrates its 30th Birthday
In a dark age where so many of London’s nightclubs are closing down (Fabric, Turnmills, the list goes on) it seems as though London hates its denizens of the night.
Gentrification, rising rents, the price of property have played the villain’s part in this accursed play. Starring roles in the Tale of London’s Music Scene have been given to predictability and profit.
Those wilful creatures who want to embrace the night and the chaos, to meet strangers and dance out their truths in darkened rooms, have been pushed into the background and are finding it increasingly difficult to get even a walk-on part.
Enter Slimelight, stage left. It’s the world’s oldest goth club, seething with baby bats and Venerable Ancient Ones alike. It’s succeeded in retaining the same venue, Eletrowerkz, since 1987. However, it began – like so many pure ideas – as a collective dream in a London squat.
Yes, Slimelight boasts amenities like working taps and sensible toilets and functioning bars. It isn’t the kind of roofless worn-out ruin you’d struggle to spend a stormy night in. Yet this watering hole for the undertribes still has an industrial, bohemian feel. It is scuzzy and dark. Its exterior landscape echoes its interior soul.
It’s a place where you can go when you’re poor and want to live life differently and not feel like the odd one out. It’s a place where the dark is genuinely welcoming. It’s what we do in the shadows.
Evolving (but not too much, thankfully) with the times, Slimelight is Goth Eternal. Where other clubs fall, it stands. We’ll have some of whatever it’s drinking, whether it’s rhesus negative or snakebite and black. It’s clearly doing Slimelight – and the goth scene – wonders.
Happy 30th birthday, you beautiful creature. May you reign eternal, and continue to grant the shadowpeople of London and beyond somewhere to go after dark.
Slimelight details
Electrowerkz
7 Torrens Street
London
EC1V 1NQ
United Kingdom
