Dalston Superstore

I write a monthly gossip column on Queer nightlife for Sticky Fingers Publishing. For my most recent column I shared some throwback memories of Dalston Superstore

Despite Female Trouble putting on a night late 2020 seated event whereby Celeste dished out bare-arsed spanking over the bar for entertainment, not being allowed to stand up and dance at the table did put a slight dampener on me being able to publicly declare my unwavering support for the kinky proceedings.

So come April/May 2021 I returned to Superstore once COVID regulations had finally eased, finally without being restricted to sitting at a designated table for the entire evening. As the thick wave of nostalgia washed over me Milk Shandy caught my eyes, looked up and yelled “OMG, throwback!” I wasn’t expecting my absence from nightlife to be registered by peers so diligently and for whatever reasons (Leo) I couldn’t help but take the note personally: a punch to the gut I hadn’t prepared myself for. The truth was, I was now a throwback. A relic of a long forgotten past. My presence: fossilised fun.

Despite the many positives working in night life, the fact is, if you stop showing face for a relatively brief period of time you’ll fall out of the radar and to those who also regularly show face, you’ll cease to exist. No excuses, not even a global pandemic. I remember one afters in 2018 greeting the host with a “I haven’t seen you in a while, how are you” to which they replied “well you never come out anymore do you?” It had been 3 weeks. God forbid I might be overworked, underpaid, overwhelmed and needing a bit of me time.

I’ve DJ’d, hosted and put on a night at Superstore. One DJ set involved an outerbody experience surrounded by rambunctious moon-eyed club kids prancing about. Despite my body going into autopilot I remember hallucinating ghosts of my past silently walking past the front windows. In hindsight I was dissociating but I didn’t realise that at the time. It was around that time I realised I absolutely needed a break from working in nightlife to get my head sorted. Although not to be celebrated at all, a global pandemic just happened to pop out of nowhere and due to lockdown a much-needed break came into being, however I didn’t realise exactly how different life would be, but who did really?

I have the archetypal, meme-friendly memories of Superstore I’m sure we all share: DJ sets in the toilets, group selfies with randoms (one-night-bezzies) in the toilet mirrors, hushed keys of various powders in the toilet, even more one-night-bezzies in the smoking area etc etc. But the one memory that sticks with me the most was the night I put on my first event there: CRITTERS. Despite a good turnout I wasn’t invited back and I have a feeling it may have been something to do with the drama of my living situation at the time spilling onto the dancefloor and escorted out by security onto Kingsland Road.

Despite this being a gossip column I won’t mention any names in this short tale. My partner at the time and housemate were not getting on at all, as in whenever they were in the same room together sparks and obscenities would fly not getting on, leaving a mess for the other housemates and myself to clear up and smooth over. Some words were exchanged on the dancefloor in front of the DJ booth on the ground floor and for whatever reason my housemate took a swig of their beer and spat it into the face of my ex who then threw their beer into the face of my housemate who then lunged forward towards my ex who then shoved them, causing the housemate to slip on the spilt beer and end up arse over tit on the floor, struggling to get back on their feet. It was chaos. As in that-moment-in-films-when-the-music-suddenly-stops pandemonium. A circle had formed around me as everyone stepped back to not get any beer over them and also get a clearer sight of it all. Jaws were agape, flashes going off, shock and awe all around. Anyways, the housemate then went outside to the security, crying about this, that and the other and eventually got my ex escorted out and banned from Superstore. Considering only a few months prior they were banned from VFD for burping in the Security’s face it left us with little or nowhere to socialise. Wonderful.

In the end the relationship fell apart, as did the friendships with those housemates. However over time and a bit of space a few of us have reconciled our differences and it’s all amicable now. I haven’t really got a lesson in this story other than an appreciation for the fact a space like Dalston Superstore exists and how despite taking spaces like that for granted, you never know what might happen when you go and that’s a magic you’ll unlikely find anywhere else. Bless you Superstore and the entire team that keeps it running so chaos continues to endure. Long live the unpalatable chaos of Queerness.

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xox