\n\t\t\t\tAs we step through the door a well-dressed, well-spoken lady steps out and asks, \u201cWould you like to view the property, sir and madam?\u201d At least that\u2019s the gist of what she said, the exact words lost amid the blast of breakbeats that confronts us. She then leads us, like an estate agent, around the club. We soon understand why. Club Labyrinth is just that, a maze of dark tunnels, staircases and caves like one of those haunted houses at the funfair. We keep expecting the floor to cave in and the walls to start moving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our guide takes us to view The Garden. It\u2019s out some fire doors, past a gigantic stack of debris including about 20 bin-bags. And what a cute scene awaits us. A bunch of tripped-out clubbers sat in a kind of corrugated iron shed. It’s freezing cold. One of them sees me taking notes and panics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou’re not the Old Bill are you?\u201d he stammers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNo,\u201d I tell him. \u201cIf I was, I’d have a baseball hat and a hooded top.\u201d He seems slightly reassured.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe got raided last week,\u201d explains Guide Girl Gwen. \u201cAbout 50 police in riot gear came through the garden. They didn’t find anything, of course.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To the chill-out room! It has the slowest beats in the club, yet there\u2019s few tracks slower than 130 bpm. On a video screen, mind-bending cyberdelic videos are being shown. \u201cThis is our cinema. We switch the music off and show a movie here every week at one. Last week Police Academy, this week it\u2019s Hook.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Next she apologises about the state of the toilets (\u201cwe’re getting them done up soon\u201d) and shows us The Tunnel and the Trance Room, before leaving us in the main arena. This is the domain of Warlock, Bill Bunter and his gang of ridiculously-named DJs. The breakbeats seem to be getting faster, the faces bonier and uglier, the eyes expanding like they’re about to explode. \u201cOh my God,\u201d I announce and turn to lan, but he has gone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I’m alone in hardcore hell, being jostled by skinny lads who are jogging on the spot. Everywhere I look I see The Scream cartoon. My heartbeat seems to have speeded up to the 175 bpm of the music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The phrase \u2018loved-up\u2019 could never apply to these gurning hardcore children. The grinning ones look like mass murderers; the aggressive dancers resemble skinhead thugs and the ones with vacant stares look like the scary schizophrenics you meet in shopping centres. Somebody grabs my arm and | actually scream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It’s lan back from taking his pictures. We stumble to the exit and out on to the street. The alarm of some nearby shop is ringing loud and clear, raided while we were in the club. We make a quick escape.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Published in Mixmag Vol. 2 Issue No. 25 – June 1993 as part of their 24 Page Clubbing Special. A SCRAP of advice is thrown our way – \u201cmake sure you park on the main road.\u201d Wise words in the kebabland of Hackney. Previous visits have involved being harassed by mini-cab drivers, shot at by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[225],"tags":[229,241,419,234,244,973],"class_list":["post-3756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-magazines","tag-229","tag-club-labrynth","tag-dalston","tag-double-dipped","tag-labrynth","tag-mixmag"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dankew.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dankew.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dankew.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dankew.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dankew.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3756"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dankew.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3756\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3760,"href":"https:\/\/dankew.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3756\/revisions\/3760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dankew.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dankew.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dankew.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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