SEQUINS AT NOON

Homage to Michael Lumsden (aka MegaSal), responsible for Gay2Gay, a radio show which broadcast from 1992-1998 on WearFM in Sunderland. Gay2Gay was the first weekly gay radio show in the UK. At the helm was Lumsden who's nightly antics and predilection hi-NRG helped established the genre in the region; he was well loved and remembered by many in the North East.

‘It's definitely an interesting place. I had a good time regardless of strange environment. As far as getting inside, I just walked up to the door by myself and the bouncer asked me if I knew this was gay friendly club, I said yes and he just let me in without any bullshit. Once you go inside it's almost feels like old dirty movie set. ‘ (3/5 stars - Google)

We’re in the heart of downtown Chicago. It’s 4 AM on a Sunday and the year is 1984. A thin man behind the decks starts up a reel to reel, a lone drum machine begins to pound in a near pitch-black club beneath Michigan Avenue.

An hour spent soaking in the sonic bath of artist and filmmaker Derek Jarman. This episode is about ebbing tides, forboding lighthouses, throbbing nuclear power stations and the beauty of marginal spaces.

From their origins as a Washington D.C. based collective in 1973, named after the heroine of a lesbian pulp fiction novel, Olivia Records became a hugely successful production company marketing politically and socially radical songs and performances that came to define the "women's music" movement.

When Heaven opened it’s doors in 1979 it had a capacity of 3000 people. It’s size and central location made it entirely unique within Europe and in the 2 proceeding decades it’s barrel vaulted ceilings shook to the sounds of Disco, hi-NRG, acid rave, Jungle and Ambient House.

In the brief period spanning the golden age, the adult movie industry in America, Europe and Japan enjoyed unprecedented popularity among mainstream audiences. Driven partly by the zeitgeist of the sexual revolution soft, as well as hardcore un-simulated sex scenes, were interwoven into the narratives of these films, many of which were even lauded by critics.

The attitudes and sexual practices of gay men have unrecognisably changed since the 1950s and the bathhouse provides a perfect prism in which to observe this evolution. While music never normally served as the primary attraction for patrons, atmosphere and building the right mood was without doubt integral for proprietors.

A sequin spangled dragqueen draws deeply from a pint of weak summer ale. In the corner a suited gentlemen relaxes his tie and takes a furtive peep through the swinging doors of the snug where rent boys trade stories from the previous night. 

It’s a midsummer night in Manhattan’s lower West Side and the city is burning up. The queue into the club stretches round the block – they’re a motley clientele of blacks, latinos, gays, straights, punks and a few streetwise kids. At the end of the concrete ramp is a set of doors. The bass is blending into the midnight police sirens and above the doors is a neon light bent into a flexed, bulging bicep with the words Paradise Garage written inside.