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People who don’t go clubbing (on Saturday night)
It has nothing to do with staying-in-being-the-new-going-out. The latest is to never really have been out at all and have no intention of addressing this whatsoever. These are the people who have forever “stayed in.” Here are their relatively interesting stories...photography: Ewen Spencer photography: Ewen Spencer
EVAHappy to bid her youth bye-bye, Eva holds no truck with Middle Youth marketing concepts. "I can't wait to be in my mid-forties so I can spend all my time in the house wearing mules and a dressing gown. And phoning up hunky pizza delivery boys..." she fantasises out loud. Then the mucky dream goes all wrong: "But they're never hunky, really, are they? They usually look more like... the lead singer from Ultrasound.” Eva is a proud couch potato at the age of 27. She shuns the social whirl and its fastly flashing lights.
Indoors. Dimly lit. Saturday night and sofa so good: "The settee was £2,000 and it’s the most comfortable in the world," she claims. "It's beige, needlecord - look how nice and big it is." [Caresses textured contours - thinking of fantasy pizza boys' contours?] "You can sink into it, it's like an island. Occasionally, though, I switch to the leather chair [also beige] and put my feet up on the matching pouffe." The seating arrangements in contemporary Disco Land cannot hope to compete; be they of the Philippe Starck mode, as seen in custom-designed clubs such as The End, or The Scala's contrived couches of battered bohemia. "Getting a sofa as comfy in bars or clubs is like a military operation [sighs wearily] and if you get one you have to guard it all night." (Incidentally, the last time she went out on a Saturday night was to the really-trendy-a-year-or-so-ago-though-not-so-much-now Dogstar. Cajoled into it by so-called friends, of course. "A nightmare,” she snorts. “We had to wait a minute to get a drink. I said 'This is shit - let's go.' We got a bottle of vodka and went home and had a better time there.")
Anyway, another boon chair-wise are the vast corner cushions, which can be taken off the settee, scattered on the floor - in a 1960s manner - and are ideal for marathon TV viewing sessions. "I couldn't live without cable TV," Eva gasps, turning even more translucent of facial hue, "this TV is like my altar, and I'm not ashamed to admit it." Then there are the happy hours of death and destruction spent on the Playstation. (With peers, who must be pressured to stay in and let their hair down.)
"I like driving games, like Ridge Racer," she begins, innocently enough, "it has a Japanese lady singing, ‘You're The One For Me', then her shoe breaks off and Ridge Racer pulls up and gives her a lift... and the cars always end up going out of control. I like fighting games, too; the sort aimed at 17-year-old boys. We play one called Tekken and (suddenly gets excited) YOU REALLY KICK THE SHIT OUT OF EACH OTHER." She breathes in the beige ambience of the lounge, grabs a Marly Li and regains her composure: "I suppose the violence is cathartic, or - who knows? - I might do it for real…..."
The second-hand experience rears its head in other areas, also. For instance one senses that knowledge about nightlife is essential conversational fodder among metropolitan sorts. "I flick through style magazines.... what? Er, yes... including Sleaze Nation, so I can gen up on what's going on and talk knowledgeably about clubs. It always stands me in good stead. Well, no-one ever seems to guess that I never go to them.’
MARKUS Markus is a Swede in London. Fond of miserablism - as are many of his Goth-laden homeland, with its high suicide rate among the young - he enjoys introspective pastimes (reading - Poppy Z Brite, art-house films - Cocteau) and woe-is-me music, also. Such as crackling old records by dead gloom wench, Nico. Yet, at the more commercial end of the musical spectrum, he thinks Britney Spears is cute, and her songs irresistibly cock-a-hoop. "Hit me baby, one more time..." he sings, momentarily quite chipper. The smile soon fades, though, when he is asked about the weekends he must endure. And about the merciless French people - chronically addicted to clubs - whose hedonistic leader, Francois, he shares a small King’s Cross flat with.
As he discloses details of last Saturday night, it conjures up the feel of a BBC1 Crimewatch reconstruction: "It was about 2 am," begins Markus, "I was sound asleep, then I felt someone shaking me. I woke up, it was light in the room, but it took me a few seconds to focus properly... There were 4 faces looming over me - all gurning, and with big black eyes. They stunk of stale sweat and cigarettes." Yes. And? "Then they started shouting 'Let's go to TRA-A-A-ADE!' and jumping up and down on my bed [gestures to the paltry single mattress] and I'm shouting 'Fuck off you bastards, I was asleep,' but they just carried on doing it, laughing, shouting and screaming..." He was forced to flee; locking himself in the lavatory for a good hour-or-so, until they left. And this is the sort of thing which happens each weekend - all weekend, giving him a perma-frown and a washed-out pallor at odds with his tender 23 years.
Markus wants (desperately) Saturday nights to be like this: Just some peace and fucking quiet - in the company of his beloved books/videos/records, a bottle of voddy and (really pushing the boat out) a Findus microwaveable Fisherman's Pie. (Plus, he might phone friends - he has some - on his mobile, as it's free at the weekend). 'Avin' it tres large does not come into it.
Instead. "I'll come back from work in the evening and find them all having small drunken gatherings before they go out," he growls. "I smile, try to be nice and friendly, try to disprove what my flat-mate has almost certainly warned them about me... But then they start playing Michael Jackson remixes really loudly, over and over again. They always seem to find Francois' worst records that I've tried to hide - like Technotronic or C&C Music Factory - and play them over and over, as well.
Then they'll go off to some club for a few hours... then they're back again to get ready for the next place... and they play the shit music again. It's a nightmare." It is not as if you could write to an agony aunt or uncle about problems of this ilk.
They may be caring, have a way with words and medical qualifications of prestige; but they tend to not be very au fait with French people into Techno and booze and other things, too.
Indoors. Dimly lit. Saturday night and sofa so good: "The settee was £2,000 and it’s the most comfortable in the world," she claims. "It's beige, needlecord - look how nice and big it is." [Caresses textured contours - thinking of fantasy pizza boys' contours?] "You can sink into it, it's like an island. Occasionally, though, I switch to the leather chair [also beige] and put my feet up on the matching pouffe." The seating arrangements in contemporary Disco Land cannot hope to compete; be they of the Philippe Starck mode, as seen in custom-designed clubs such as The End, or The Scala's contrived couches of battered bohemia. "Getting a sofa as comfy in bars or clubs is like a military operation [sighs wearily] and if you get one you have to guard it all night." (Incidentally, the last time she went out on a Saturday night was to the really-trendy-a-year-or-so-ago-though-not-so-much-now Dogstar. Cajoled into it by so-called friends, of course. "A nightmare,” she snorts. “We had to wait a minute to get a drink. I said 'This is shit - let's go.' We got a bottle of vodka and went home and had a better time there.")
Anyway, another boon chair-wise are the vast corner cushions, which can be taken off the settee, scattered on the floor - in a 1960s manner - and are ideal for marathon TV viewing sessions. "I couldn't live without cable TV," Eva gasps, turning even more translucent of facial hue, "this TV is like my altar, and I'm not ashamed to admit it." Then there are the happy hours of death and destruction spent on the Playstation. (With peers, who must be pressured to stay in and let their hair down.)
"I like driving games, like Ridge Racer," she begins, innocently enough, "it has a Japanese lady singing, ‘You're The One For Me', then her shoe breaks off and Ridge Racer pulls up and gives her a lift... and the cars always end up going out of control. I like fighting games, too; the sort aimed at 17-year-old boys. We play one called Tekken and (suddenly gets excited) YOU REALLY KICK THE SHIT OUT OF EACH OTHER." She breathes in the beige ambience of the lounge, grabs a Marly Li and regains her composure: "I suppose the violence is cathartic, or - who knows? - I might do it for real…..."
The second-hand experience rears its head in other areas, also. For instance one senses that knowledge about nightlife is essential conversational fodder among metropolitan sorts. "I flick through style magazines.... what? Er, yes... including Sleaze Nation, so I can gen up on what's going on and talk knowledgeably about clubs. It always stands me in good stead. Well, no-one ever seems to guess that I never go to them.’
MARKUS Markus is a Swede in London. Fond of miserablism - as are many of his Goth-laden homeland, with its high suicide rate among the young - he enjoys introspective pastimes (reading - Poppy Z Brite, art-house films - Cocteau) and woe-is-me music, also. Such as crackling old records by dead gloom wench, Nico. Yet, at the more commercial end of the musical spectrum, he thinks Britney Spears is cute, and her songs irresistibly cock-a-hoop. "Hit me baby, one more time..." he sings, momentarily quite chipper. The smile soon fades, though, when he is asked about the weekends he must endure. And about the merciless French people - chronically addicted to clubs - whose hedonistic leader, Francois, he shares a small King’s Cross flat with.
As he discloses details of last Saturday night, it conjures up the feel of a BBC1 Crimewatch reconstruction: "It was about 2 am," begins Markus, "I was sound asleep, then I felt someone shaking me. I woke up, it was light in the room, but it took me a few seconds to focus properly... There were 4 faces looming over me - all gurning, and with big black eyes. They stunk of stale sweat and cigarettes." Yes. And? "Then they started shouting 'Let's go to TRA-A-A-ADE!' and jumping up and down on my bed [gestures to the paltry single mattress] and I'm shouting 'Fuck off you bastards, I was asleep,' but they just carried on doing it, laughing, shouting and screaming..." He was forced to flee; locking himself in the lavatory for a good hour-or-so, until they left. And this is the sort of thing which happens each weekend - all weekend, giving him a perma-frown and a washed-out pallor at odds with his tender 23 years.
Markus wants (desperately) Saturday nights to be like this: Just some peace and fucking quiet - in the company of his beloved books/videos/records, a bottle of voddy and (really pushing the boat out) a Findus microwaveable Fisherman's Pie. (Plus, he might phone friends - he has some - on his mobile, as it's free at the weekend). 'Avin' it tres large does not come into it.
Instead. "I'll come back from work in the evening and find them all having small drunken gatherings before they go out," he growls. "I smile, try to be nice and friendly, try to disprove what my flat-mate has almost certainly warned them about me... But then they start playing Michael Jackson remixes really loudly, over and over again. They always seem to find Francois' worst records that I've tried to hide - like Technotronic or C&C Music Factory - and play them over and over, as well.
Then they'll go off to some club for a few hours... then they're back again to get ready for the next place... and they play the shit music again. It's a nightmare." It is not as if you could write to an agony aunt or uncle about problems of this ilk.
They may be caring, have a way with words and medical qualifications of prestige; but they tend to not be very au fait with French people into Techno and booze and other things, too.
JONJon the artist must first run the gauntlet to the nearest 7-11. "This is a really rough area (most shitty bit of Leyton), so you have to dodge all the freaks that hang around by the shops," he explains. (A seven-foot tall, heavily tattooed, Iggy Pop lookalike pot-calling-kettles-black, if ever there was one). He will squirrel his purchases - usually a bottle of Bell's whiskey and a bunch of grapes, to be guzzled later - back to his dropping-to-bits house (one condemned as dangerous by the council). "It's going to be pulled down next month... not surprised, it's a fucking bin," he laughs, airily.
Having arrived back all sweaty and flustered, he cranks up some inspirational vinyl on the stereo - maybe melodic favourites like Cannibal Corpse. Jon: "They're either from America... erm, or is it Birmingham? I can't remember which." Their best track? "It's called Raped With A Knife, or something like that." (Nice.) Also being spun at some point in the proceedings shall be fellow shout-a-lots Bio Hazard and Public Enemy.
While other 24-year-olds are out painting the town red, Jon remains in splendid isolation, making images that few ever clap eyes on. ("I hate showing them to people.") With an aesthetic vigour and vim - little seen since the days when Helen Daniels in Neighbours went all abstract - he paints, paints, paints... and then? He paints. More and more paintings. (At the moment, upon the back of Shola Ama 'new album out now' posters, found in a skip). Hence, endless works litter the room, most with a figurative element: a cock fucking a pig's bottom, a pretty lady fingering her fanny, for instance. Stylistically, some works are expressionist-carefree, complete with drips and splashes. Others are more detailed and literal, with plenty of painstaking shading in pencil crayon. And post-modernly, many include catchy slogans such as these: JON THE MOTHER FUCKING PSYCHO, NAZI - PLEASE INSERT YOUR NOB, BOY GEORGE FAT POOF. (It seems unlikely that Athena may one day render his works into postcards). By the way, big Jon is little shackled by art history. "Really, I hate all of them [artists] so I had to start doing paintings that I like, myself."
By 11 pm-ish, he'll be hard at work - enjoyable work - conjuring up his next masterpiece in cheap children’s paint, procured from Poundstretcher. Later, his girlfriend Rachel will come over, but for now he must make-do and mend with the company of his collection of 200-or-so dolls and toy figures. They perch malevolently on a shelf, a brand new £40 Furby at the helm. "I like the ones you get from charity shops best," Jon explains, "just pedestrian nobody-dolls - not Sindy or Barbie - ones - with Biro'd make-up on and arms missing. I do plays with them, and if I get a new one, sometimes I let it sleep in my bed..."
As Flava Flav bellows Don't Believe The Hype so loud that your ears nearly fall off, Jon swills down more booze and remembers something significant.
"This girl, right, she's a friend of Rachel's. She was going on and on about a club she'd been to; saying about how wicked it was, and how you could do whatever you want there, and you could really be yourself and blah blah blah. And I thought 'Yeah, but you can do whatever you want, and you can really be yourself at home. And you don't have to queue up for hours to get in, either.’”
MEZ Twenty-five-years old, a graphic designer and obviously worth a bob or 2, she would strike you as the sort who'd like a cavort down the Met Bar with All Saints/Meg/shop assistants. In her living room, the predictable symbols of success are plain to see: big telly (Sony), fluffy carpet (Wilton), footwear (Prada). And yet, those shoes have never crossed the Met's, or any other famous celebrity pub's threshold. Mez is far more likely to stop in - lounging on the 100% wool - and watch the box.
Why? "I like my own company and making my own entertainment... always have." The flat reveals tell-tale signs of male-hood, though. "My boyfriend lives here, too," she confirms, "but he does actually go out most Saturdays. He quite often wakes me up when he gets back - throwing up in the toilet...”
A typical Saturday night Chez Mez will involve some combination of the following: Biro-ing around the evening's programming in TV Quick ("a quality mag" she insists, "much better than Sleaze Nation"), tuning in to You've Been Framed, with Lisa Riley or Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, with Chris Tarrant, and then setting out her stall of nail varnishes. "I've got about 20 different sorts - some cheap and some expensive," she reveals. Nail care gets her heady with excitement (maybe it's the fumes): "My favourite is Nars, it's French." She launches into one: "It has a certain cachet, because you couldn't get it in Britain for ages. They're designed by a charismatic maestro of make-up called Francois Nars and they're packaged in tactile, black matt rubber compacts." [Memorised advertising jargon?] "I always use the 3-stroke method," she continues, sounding dominatrix-like, "it's the professional manicurist's way of doing nails. You should always do your toes in a different shade from your hands, though, it's disturbing not to." Mez looks a little sad, as she proffers her obsessed-over talons for inspection, "My nails are knackered - look - they've got a rippled effect, which is a sign that the nail bed is damaged. So, if I'm doing the whole routine, I'll have to fill my ridges with special ridge filler, and I might hack away with the cuticle scissors, as well..." A true feminist, she then chucks the clippings on the floor for her hungover partner to hoover up on Sunday.
There are many windows in this posh block of flats. It would be difficult to tell from whence mouldy fruit had plunged. So, if the five available TV channels are not delivering first-class entertainment, Mez might well install herself upon the windowsill, and fling things at "targets" as she calls hapless passers-by. "There was a bunch of bananas that had gone brown in the kitchen, so I broke them up and aimed them at targets, bit by bit, last Saturday," she recalls with glee. "Oh, but a real geezery bloke that I hit started shouting, though, going 'facking cant!' - because he had squashed banana all down the back of his shirt. I think it was Moschino, or Versace. It's good here, because I can duck down behind the window after I've thrown something and they can't see me."
She feels no guilt regarding the Moschino/Versace man's dry-cleaning bill, nor for a gang of young skateboarders - whom she recently poured 7UP over.
It is the weekend, after all.
Having arrived back all sweaty and flustered, he cranks up some inspirational vinyl on the stereo - maybe melodic favourites like Cannibal Corpse. Jon: "They're either from America... erm, or is it Birmingham? I can't remember which." Their best track? "It's called Raped With A Knife, or something like that." (Nice.) Also being spun at some point in the proceedings shall be fellow shout-a-lots Bio Hazard and Public Enemy.
While other 24-year-olds are out painting the town red, Jon remains in splendid isolation, making images that few ever clap eyes on. ("I hate showing them to people.") With an aesthetic vigour and vim - little seen since the days when Helen Daniels in Neighbours went all abstract - he paints, paints, paints... and then? He paints. More and more paintings. (At the moment, upon the back of Shola Ama 'new album out now' posters, found in a skip). Hence, endless works litter the room, most with a figurative element: a cock fucking a pig's bottom, a pretty lady fingering her fanny, for instance. Stylistically, some works are expressionist-carefree, complete with drips and splashes. Others are more detailed and literal, with plenty of painstaking shading in pencil crayon. And post-modernly, many include catchy slogans such as these: JON THE MOTHER FUCKING PSYCHO, NAZI - PLEASE INSERT YOUR NOB, BOY GEORGE FAT POOF. (It seems unlikely that Athena may one day render his works into postcards). By the way, big Jon is little shackled by art history. "Really, I hate all of them [artists] so I had to start doing paintings that I like, myself."
By 11 pm-ish, he'll be hard at work - enjoyable work - conjuring up his next masterpiece in cheap children’s paint, procured from Poundstretcher. Later, his girlfriend Rachel will come over, but for now he must make-do and mend with the company of his collection of 200-or-so dolls and toy figures. They perch malevolently on a shelf, a brand new £40 Furby at the helm. "I like the ones you get from charity shops best," Jon explains, "just pedestrian nobody-dolls - not Sindy or Barbie - ones - with Biro'd make-up on and arms missing. I do plays with them, and if I get a new one, sometimes I let it sleep in my bed..."
As Flava Flav bellows Don't Believe The Hype so loud that your ears nearly fall off, Jon swills down more booze and remembers something significant.
"This girl, right, she's a friend of Rachel's. She was going on and on about a club she'd been to; saying about how wicked it was, and how you could do whatever you want there, and you could really be yourself and blah blah blah. And I thought 'Yeah, but you can do whatever you want, and you can really be yourself at home. And you don't have to queue up for hours to get in, either.’”
MEZ Twenty-five-years old, a graphic designer and obviously worth a bob or 2, she would strike you as the sort who'd like a cavort down the Met Bar with All Saints/Meg/shop assistants. In her living room, the predictable symbols of success are plain to see: big telly (Sony), fluffy carpet (Wilton), footwear (Prada). And yet, those shoes have never crossed the Met's, or any other famous celebrity pub's threshold. Mez is far more likely to stop in - lounging on the 100% wool - and watch the box.
Why? "I like my own company and making my own entertainment... always have." The flat reveals tell-tale signs of male-hood, though. "My boyfriend lives here, too," she confirms, "but he does actually go out most Saturdays. He quite often wakes me up when he gets back - throwing up in the toilet...”
A typical Saturday night Chez Mez will involve some combination of the following: Biro-ing around the evening's programming in TV Quick ("a quality mag" she insists, "much better than Sleaze Nation"), tuning in to You've Been Framed, with Lisa Riley or Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, with Chris Tarrant, and then setting out her stall of nail varnishes. "I've got about 20 different sorts - some cheap and some expensive," she reveals. Nail care gets her heady with excitement (maybe it's the fumes): "My favourite is Nars, it's French." She launches into one: "It has a certain cachet, because you couldn't get it in Britain for ages. They're designed by a charismatic maestro of make-up called Francois Nars and they're packaged in tactile, black matt rubber compacts." [Memorised advertising jargon?] "I always use the 3-stroke method," she continues, sounding dominatrix-like, "it's the professional manicurist's way of doing nails. You should always do your toes in a different shade from your hands, though, it's disturbing not to." Mez looks a little sad, as she proffers her obsessed-over talons for inspection, "My nails are knackered - look - they've got a rippled effect, which is a sign that the nail bed is damaged. So, if I'm doing the whole routine, I'll have to fill my ridges with special ridge filler, and I might hack away with the cuticle scissors, as well..." A true feminist, she then chucks the clippings on the floor for her hungover partner to hoover up on Sunday.
There are many windows in this posh block of flats. It would be difficult to tell from whence mouldy fruit had plunged. So, if the five available TV channels are not delivering first-class entertainment, Mez might well install herself upon the windowsill, and fling things at "targets" as she calls hapless passers-by. "There was a bunch of bananas that had gone brown in the kitchen, so I broke them up and aimed them at targets, bit by bit, last Saturday," she recalls with glee. "Oh, but a real geezery bloke that I hit started shouting, though, going 'facking cant!' - because he had squashed banana all down the back of his shirt. I think it was Moschino, or Versace. It's good here, because I can duck down behind the window after I've thrown something and they can't see me."
She feels no guilt regarding the Moschino/Versace man's dry-cleaning bill, nor for a gang of young skateboarders - whom she recently poured 7UP over.
It is the weekend, after all.