end of an era
A man who fathered many iconic club nights (and thus kicked off a few subcultures as well) died on Sunday evening. His name was Simon Hobart and I was a bartender at his nightclub “the ghetto” for a year. It is very hard to quantify what that means. It is hard to explain to someone who hasn’t worked with Simon, or gone to his clubs. It is hard outside of the gay scene, to explain why an alternative gay scene could be so important, So fundamental, to a generation of gay people .
For those that don’t relate I’ll put it this way: Coming out can be a pretty difficult thing. And if you don’t know any gay people, going out to gay clubs is pretty essential. But what if you don’t like house music? what if you’re more into drinking than drugs? what if your fashion is more Johnny rotten than paul smith? Suddenly options start looking a little limited. Until you walk into a place where the techno is replaced by blur and the smiths. And the indie chic that you’re wearing actually fits. The people around you wouldn’t be caught dead in most of the bars in soho. Darling, you’ve arrived….
I’ll be honest, I have never been the biggest fan of popstarz, I’m not enough of an indie kid. But I always understood how important it was to be there. The ghetto for me was even more of a triumph me. The differing music policies meant a different crowd from night to night, and I really can’t think of any other gay club with such a healthy mix of men and women.
Simon was the first person I’ve met who was responsible for starting a scene. And not only starting it, but nurturing it and helping it diversify in to sub-scenes. He doesn’t fit your description of what the owner of a business should be. He was much more than that.
He WAS every night that he ran. He was popstarz and the ghetto and trash palace.
His colours in the décor, his close friends working with with him, his kind of crowd working the bar. He knew most (if not all) of the regulars by first name. He was friends with them, he drank with them. Everyone adored him. He was a godfather of sorts, a grand dame. He would never tell you his age but he would happily regale you with stories about when he was in a band, or when he ran his own goth club, which was before he was a drum and bass promoter, and then of course the many incarnations of popstarz.. His fashion sense was alternative, but his voice belied posh origins. And he was terribly conservative and prudish about certain things. Often laughingly so.
He gave up smoking while I worked at the ghetto. This was huuuuuuge. With his boyfriend and best friend on his case to quit (at the serious instruction of his doctor) Simon took to having covert drags off the cigarettes of staff members, always coming close to being caught. There was something very childish about him at times. But it was that childish spirit that infused the passion he had for everything he did. Above all else he was deeply visionary. He always had a million ideas up his sleeve, just waiting for the right opportunity to unleash them. but then he would always lament that there were only 7 nights in a week.
I worked at the ghetto for a year. I was definitely ready to move on after that year, but I wouldn’t trade the experience I had for the world. The energy created by that place is so difficult to describe. I have been on the gay scene in this city for ten years. I have visited the gay scenes of many other European and American cities. The ghetto is a scene unto itself and a multifaceted one at that. After a while I stopped going to the ghetteo (when I stopped working there). I felt like I had lived it for that year, and very intensely. I couldn’t go there casually. It was strange to go there when so many of those I had worked with, and even served, had moved on. But I always liked the idea of the club being there. I always felt like it was somewhere I could go. And if for any reason I ever found myself in soho, the only places I would want to go were trash palace and the ghetto.
But I did feel a little guilty from time to time that I didn’t visit as often. For the past year it seemed that every time I went to trash palace or the ghetto, I would only see Simon on my way out. Most of the time he wouldn’t have seen me come in, and he would playfully chastise me for my fly-by visits.. A month ago I invited him for my birthday drinks, forgetting that we shared a birthday. I didn’t hear anything from him, and assumed he was too busy to get back to me. But two days after, I got a message from him. The Friday before our birthday was the ladytron gig at popstarz (which he had organized) so he had started our birthday hungover. Despite the fact my appearances at either of his establishments had practically dwindled to nothing, he still made me feel welcome in coming back. “ When you tire of Shoreditch you know where to go” . That was my last exchange with Simon Hobart.
Last night my girlfriend and I talked for ages about Simon. She and I met working in the Ghetto. In a way we owe our relationship to him. Its something that made us both feel sad and awkward and shocked all at once. By the time I went to sleep I was exhausted. In the early morning I had restless sleep, filled with strange dreams. When I finally woke and looked at my girlfriend I told her I had strange dreams. But I stopped myself from uttering the thought that followed
“ I had a horrible dream that Simon died”
Because it feels like it should have been a bad dream.
I really wish it was.
http://www.popstarz.org/html/bios/aboutsimon.html
