Impotent Fury: a club night homage
Sometimes I get this ringing in my ears. It will be a song that suddenly whisks me to a place in time; this time, I’m transported to the dawn of the 21st century, to the fashionably gritty nightlife district of Shoreditch, East London, and I am hit by a blast of body heat and smoke as I step into one of the city’s most credible clubs: 333 Old Street. And I am struck by this song the DJ is playing: the immediate, incongruous ‘80s pop smash hit of Bananarama’s Love In The First Degree. It is my first time at monthly club night Impotent Fury, and in a brief, brilliant affair, I fall in love with it forever.
Impotent Fury was the brainstorm of DJ/designer Fred Deakin (who also formed dreamy sample-fuelled duo Lemon Jelly with Nick Franglen, and whose current creations fuse music and amazing digital art), and it undeniably stemmed from a particular era. Pre-millennial tension was easing into the naughty noughties, and London club culture was booming, right across the city. Shoreditch would give rise to a spread of hipsters, but back then, its landmark venue 333 was also a kind of “anti-superclub”, smart and spiky in its attitude, as characterised by its influential fanzine, Shoreditch Twat, helmed by venue promoter/writer Neil Boorman. There was already an alluring irreverence here, but Deakin’s night added a surreal, joyous sense of fun that melted any ice on the dancefloor.
Impotent Fury took over all three levels of 333 – there was weird karaoke and cabaret in the murky basement, while the top floor Mother Bar often felt like a woozy house party. But very little could drag me away from the packed main dancefloor; this was where you’d find the club’s prominent centrepiece: a variety show-style “Wheel Of Destiny” which would be ceremoniously spun every 30 minutes to decide the music policy. On that first night, I’d walked into a set-list dedicated to pop hit factory Stock/Aitken/Waterman, but Impotent Fury’s music policy was broad-ranging, fast-moving and fantastically random; the pointer might land next on drum’n’bass, or half an hour purely from Stevie Wonder’s rich Innervisions album, or classic British sitcom themes (hopefully including the elevator shimmy of Are You Being Served? with its “going up!” hook). In the spirit of the night, you just went with it all, and cheered louder and danced harder with every spin.
For all its novelty, this club never felt like some snide ironic statement; rather, it was ardently absurd, and passionate about all kinds of music, cool or not. Deakin might have taken crafty pleasure in trying to clear the dancefloor, but he always knew how to pick an excellent tune, whatever the Wheel decreed. I recently reminded him of that Bananarama first impression, and he hooted, happily: “It’s a brilliant pop record!”. Which is simply true.
London’s social scene can often seem frustratingly aloof, but Impotent Fury’s silliness felt easily convivial, if also random by nature. I recall a sweetly earnest English guy once trying to chat me up there by speaking Nepalese; it didn’t work, partly because it was a bit too random, and also because I’m Iraqi.
The main floor also featured the “Wardrobe Of The Stars”: a strange little lair with rails of mismatched second-hand clothes that you could model, and walk away in, if you liked. This would usually involve me cherry-picking what I thought looked like a funky vintage coat, which would transpire to be a mouldering, sick-coloured heap of material in the harsh light of day. Because nightlife is a magical time, and this was an enchanting place.
Club culture should also be a hotbed of great design, and Impotent Fury’s artwork was consistently brilliant, created by Deakin’s Airside Studios, and depicting a vivid, hypercolour array of everyday British heroes: a snooker-playing old gent, a prototype hipster, masked health professionals. It made for very collectible flyers, as well as some excellent promo items, including a club T-shirt, which I was very alarmed to once find my Dad wearing; I don’t know how he’d got hold of it, but I never saw it again.
We’re now told that British clubs are dying, casualties of an economic slump and a “luxury” property boom. I’m certain that nightlife energy never dies, it just fluctuates over time, though it’s currently hard to imagine Impotent Fury as a big Friday night out in a rampantly branded scene not given to much risk-taking. But its offbeat, distinctly British imagination feels irrepressible – these days, the Wheel Of Destiny would surely feature EDM alongside Northern Soul – and its parties left the most colourful impression. As they always did, even after two night bus rides home, when I would eventually resurface, bleary, but with a brazen hallelujah ringing in my ears.