It was the London nightclub where, for 18 giddy months four-and-a-half decades ago, the DJ was intent on “inventing the sound of the future” with a playlist heavy on art-rock, synthpop and obscure European electronica. Where the habitués dressed like the future, too – a riot of homemade fabulousness, punk and post-punk tribalism, accessories galore, fashion student iconoclasm and a little bit of pirate.
And on whose dancefloor the pop stars of tomorrow posed, plotted, preened and performed. This was The Blitz Club, a short-lived sweatbox with a long-tail influence. Boy George worked the cloakroom, Spandau Ballet performed their first gig there, Sade was a regular, the co-creators found themselves with a hit single by way of their day job as members of Visage, and a glamorous new subculture emerged from the cramped floor of “a dusty old wine bar” within the dilapidated environs of the old Covent Garden market: New Romantic.
