The Batcave was a weekly club-night launched at 69

Dean Street Dean Street is a street in Soho, central London, running from Oxford Street south to Shaftesbury Avenue. Historical figures and places In 1764 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, then a young boy, gave a recital at 21 Dean Street. Admiral Nelson stayed ...

in central London in 1982. It is considered to be the birthplace of the Southern English

goth subculture Goth is a music-based subculture that began in the United Kingdom during the early 1980s. It was developed by fans of Gothic rock, an offshoot of the post-punk music genre. The name ''Goth'' was derived directly from the genre. Notable post-p ...

. It lent its name to the term Batcaver, used to describe fans of the original

gothic rock Gothic rock (also called goth rock or simply goth) is a style of rock music that emerged from post-punk in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s. The first post-punk bands which shifted toward dark music with gothic overtones include Siouxsie a ...

music, who would adorn themselves in Batwing coffin necklaces to distinguish themselves from other goth clubs. The original Batcave ran for five months every Wednesday from 21 July 1982 at the

Gargoyle Club The Gargoyle was a private members' club on the upper floors of 69 Dean Street, Soho, London, at the corner with Meard Street. It was founded on 16 January 1925 by the aristocratic socialite David Tennant, son of the Scottish 1st Baron Gle ...

Soho Soho is an area of the City of Westminster, part of the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century. The area was develop ...

, moving out when the upper floors were sold off that December. Originally specialising in new wave and

glam rock Glam rock is a style of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom in the early 1970s and was performed by musicians who wore outrageous costumes, makeup, and hairstyles, particularly platform shoes and glitter. Glam artists drew on diver ...

, it later focused on

Olli Wisdom Oliver John Wisdom (8 March 1958 – 23 August 2021) was a British Goa and psy trance musician, and clothing producer, who lived in London. From the 1990s he recorded under the name Space Tribe. Early life and education Olli Wisdom was the eld ...

,Lowey, Nick
In The Batcave With Mr & Mrs Fiend: Alien Sex Fiend On Goth & Marriage
''TheQuietus.com''. 8 September 2010 the lead singer in the house band

Specimen Specimen may refer to: Science and technology * Sample (material), a limited quantity of something which is intended to be similar to and represent a larger amount * Biological specimen or biospecimen, an organic specimen held by a biorepository ...

, ran the night with Specimen's guitarist Jon Klein as art director, and initially with the assistance of production manager Hugh Jones. Famous regulars at the Batcave who came for meeting friends and having a drink, included musicians and singers such as

Nick Cave Nicholas Edward Cave (born 22 September 1957) is an Australian singer, songwriter, poet, lyricist, author, screenwriter, composer and occasional actor. Known for his baritone voice and for fronting the rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Ca ...

, Robert Smith of

the Cure The Cure are an English Rock music, rock band formed in 1978 in Crawley, Crawley, West Sussex. Throughout numerous lineup changes since the band's formation, guitarist, lead vocalist, and songwriter Robert Smith (musician), Robert Smith has re ...

Siouxsie Sioux Susan Janet Ballion (born 27 May 1957), known professionally as Siouxsie Sioux, is an English singer, songwriter, musician and record producer. She was the lead singer of the rock band Siouxsie and the Banshees (1976–1996). They released 11 ...

, Steven Severin, the members of

Bauhaus The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the Bauhaus (), was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., 200 ...

Marc Almond Peter Mark Sinclair "Marc" Almond, (born 9 July 1957) is an English singer. Almond first began performing and recording in the synthpop/ new wave duo Soft Cell where he became known for his distinctive soulful voice and androgynous image. He ...

and the members of

Foetus A fetus or foetus (; plural fetuses, feti, foetuses, or foeti) is the unborn offspring that develops from an animal embryo. Following embryonic development the fetal stage of development takes place. In human prenatal development, fetal develo ...

. The novelist

Rupert Thomson Rupert Thomson, FRSL (born November 5, 1955) is an English writer. He is the author of thirteen critically acclaimed novels and an award-winning memoir. He has lived in many cities around the world, including Athens, Berlin, New York, Sydney, ...

included an account of a Batcave club night in his 2010 memoir ''This Party's Got to Stop''. An array of bands would play live, alongside 4-hour sets from their resident DJ Hamish MacDonald, and when the club-night transferred to the former Subway club at 28 Leicester Square in February 1983, a guest DJ presided upstairs with a US Army jeep parked by the bar. (The Batcave decamped later that year to Fooberts and in 1984 to Gossip's, both in Soho). The bands involved included

electronic Electronic may refer to: *Electronics, the science of how to control electric energy in semiconductor * ''Electronics'' (magazine), a defunct American trade journal *Electronic storage, the storage of data using an electronic device *Electronic co ...

leading act

Alien Sex Fiend Alien Sex Fiend are an English gothic rock band, formed in London, England in 1982. The current lineup of the band consists of Nik Fiend and Mrs Fiend. Five of the group's albums and 12 of their singles reached top 20 positions in the UK indie ...

, the host's band Specimen who took influence from 1970s

, Hamish's band Sexbeat, and

Sex Gang Children Sex Gang Children are an early gothic rock and post-punk band that formed in early 1982 in Brixton in London, England. Although the original group only released one official studio album, their singles and various other tracks have been pack ...

, who would go on to prove influential in the gothic rock, dark cabaret and

deathrock Death rock (or deathrock) is a rock music subgenre incorporating horror elements and gothic theatrics. It emerged from punk rock on the West Coast of the United States in the early 1980s and overlaps with the gothic rock and horror punk gen ...

movements. At the Gargoyle, the Batcave also showed 8mm films in its old theatre and occasionally featured unusual cabaret such as Mr Swing the Fakir and mud-wrestling. Olli Wisdom told ''The Face'': “We don’t suck our cheeks, we have fun.” In an interview for Mick Mercer's ''Gothic Rock'', Jonny (Slut) Melton said of the Batcave:

"It was a light bulb for all the freaks and people like myself who were from the sticks and wanted a bit more from life. Freaks, weirdos, sexual deviants ... There's people around who'll always be attracted by something shiny, glittering, exciting. At the time the Batcave wasn't a doomy, Gothy, droney grungey sort of place ... It was more Gotham City than Aleister Crowley."

As the terms "new punks" and "goth" became interchangeable, much of the image and fashion adopted by the subculture can be traced back to the bands that played at the Batcave. In 1983, a vinyl record entitled ''The Batcave: Young Limbs And Numb Hymns'' was released on the

London Records London Recordings (or London Records and London Music Stream) is a British record label that marketed records in the United States, Canada, and Latin America for Decca Records from 1947 to 1980 before becoming semi-independent. The London nam ...

label. The compilation included Specimen ("Dead Mans Autochop"), Sexbeat ("Sexbeat"),

Test Dept. Test Dept, sometimes credited as Test Department is a British industrial music group from London, England, that was one of the most important and influential early industrial music acts. Their approach was marked by the use of "found" material ...

("Shockwork"),

Patti Palladin Patti Palladin is an American singer and musician of the punk rock and post-punk / new wave genres. She is primarily known for her work with Snatch (with Judy Nylon), Johnny Thunders, and the Flying Lizards. Career Palladin was a member o ...

("The Nuns New Clothes"), James T. Pursey ("Eyes Shine Killidiscope"), Meat of Youth ("Meat of Youth"), Brilliant ("Coming Up for the Downstroke"), Alien Sex Fiend ("R.I.P."), and The Venomettes ("The Dance of Death"). The inside notes:

"Look past the slow black rain of a chill night in Soho; Ignore the lures of a thousand neon fire-flies, fall deft to the sighs of street corner sirens — come walk with me between heaven and hell. Here there is a club lost in its own feverish limbo, where sin becomes salvation and only the dark angels tread. For here is a BATCAVE. This screaming legend of blasphemy, Lechery, and Blood persists in the face of adversity. For some the Batcave has become an icon, but for those that know it is an iconoclast, it is the avenging spirit of nightlife's badlands — its shadow looms large over London's demi-Monde: It is a challenge to the false Idol. It Will Endure."

In terms of contemporary club culture, the Batcave has to be seen as the root of indie dance music. Its two rules: 'No Funk, No Disco' set it apart from the norm of club music in the early-80s. It was the first club specifically geared to provide a dance floor for

punk Punk or punks may refer to: Genres, subculture, and related aspects * Punk rock, a music genre originating in the 1970s associated with various subgenres * Punk subculture, a subculture associated with punk rock, or aspects of the subculture s ...

, rock,

rockabilly Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music. It dates back to the early 1950s in the United States, especially the Southern United States, South. As a genre it blends the sound of Western music (North America), Western music ...

, glam,

reggae Reggae () is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, " Do the Reggay" was the first popular song to use ...

garage A garage is a covered structure built for the purpose of parking, storing, protecting, maintaining, and/or repairing vehicles. Specific applications include: *Garage (residential), a building or part of a building for storing one or more vehicle ...

and

psychedelia Psychedelia refers to the psychedelic subculture of the 1960s and the psychedelic experience. This includes psychedelic art, psychedelic music and style of dress during that era. This was primarily generated by people who used psychedelic ...

. Within months, the DJ setlist was being quoted in ''

The Face The face is a part of the body, the front of the head. Face may also refer to: Film * ''The Magician'' (1958 film) or ''The Face'' * ''The Face'' (1996 film), an American television film * ''Face'' (1997 film), a British crime drama by Antonia ...

'' and ''

Sounds In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave, through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid. In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' by the ...

'', and the club began setting a soundtrack for the mid-1980s. In 2008, Specimen played live at a 25th Anniversary Batcave party hosted by Club Antichrist in London. The show was recorded as a live album, ''Specimen Alive at the Batcave'' and released on Eyeswideshut/ Metropolis Records. In 2009, Specimen's

Jonny Slut Specimen are a British band founded in the 1980s. Their music has been described as spanning many different genres of music, including glam, goth, punk and post-punk, and the band is widely credited as one of the pioneers of the goth subculture ...

and Jon Klein appeared at New York's

Fashion Institute of Technology The Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) is a public college in New York City. It is part of the State University of New York (SUNY) and focuses on art, business, design, mass communication, and technology connected to the fashion industry. It ...

following the exhibition 'Gothic Dark Glamour', which featured Jon Klein's 1983 'Pigeon Shit'

DIY "Do it yourself" ("DIY") is the method of building, modifying, or repairing things by oneself without the direct aid of professionals or certified experts. Academic research has described DIY as behaviors where "individuals use raw and sem ...

stage outfit alongside high fashion designers such as

Christian Dior Christian Ernest Dior (; 21 January 1905 – 24 October 1957) was a French fashion designer, best known as the founder of one of the world's top fashion houses, Christian Dior SE, which is now owned by parent company LVMH. His fashion houses a ...

and

Alexander McQueen Lee Alexander McQueen CBE (17 March 1969 – 11 February 2010) was a British fashion designer and couturier. He founded his own Alexander McQueen label in 1992, and was chief designer at Givenchy from 1996 to 2001. His achievements in fashio ...

. The Fashion Symposium acknowledged the Batcave as a major influence on prevailing high fashion.

References

External links

"A short 8 minute tv report from Reporting London, by London Weekend Television, from 1983"

Youtube: A Danish TV documentary about the Batcave club in London and the band Specimen, 1984
{{Goth subculture Former buildings and structures in the City of Westminster Nightclubs in London Goth venues Goth subculture New wave music Music venues completed in 1982 Former music venues in London 1982 establishments in England Soho, London Club nights