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I wasn't having much luck getting in the mood for the final Stay Beautiful on Saturday, until I realised that never mind the weather, my main problem might be that I was listening to a steady stream of grumpy Americana (Two Gallants, Drive-By Truckers, Tom Waits) - so I chucked on some Placebo instead, and I was back in the zone. Already knew what I was wearing; the same shirt and tie I wore to the first Stay Beautiful, back in 2001 when most of the recent regulars would never have got past even SB's splendidly lax ID policies of the early days (Hell, one of the DJs was underage). Back before I knew any of the people I've met at SB (and so many people that is, lovers and friends and mates and just people you know to nod to if you see them somewhere else), or all the people I then met through them. Even before the club existed the messageboard did, and that was probably my second regular online hang-out, long before Livejournal - indeed, it was a conversation-cum-running joke on the SB board which resulted in the creation of this very journal, because I refused to create my own.
So yes, same shirt and tie, plus black suit again. Like how in Sandman, none of the other Endless ever calls Death by her name, because she's not only and not always Death, and we always meet her twice, we just don't remember the first time. Look, it made sense to me, OK?
And right from the start, there were old faces and new and the whole thing is still in my head as a rush of sensations which can't quite be put into words and would really best be conveyed as some kind of vertiginous montage, helped by my spending most of the evening at exactly the right pitch of drunkenness, that sort where everything just seems somehow epic (in the real sense, not just the general term of approval), all dancing and kissing and glitter everybloodywhere.
Unless some of us end up in positions of (cultural) power, I don't think Stay Beautiful is ever going to enter the cultural discourse like the Hacienda or Studio 54 or Shoom; it never spawned a sound that took on the world, for starters. Hell, it doesn't even get talked about like Trash, and I went to Trash, and it was dreadful. Its legacy is more social than cultural, but for a time, it was our place. And then as we drifted away, it still managed to find a new 'us' and become their place, and what do you know, lately the old us and the new 'us' have got to know each other a bit more and we got on too. It's sad that it's over, but it managed so much more than most clubs ever do, knit the threads together. Even if it never gets to be on the noughties nostalgia checklist, we'll remember. Goodbye, Stay Beautiful.
So yes, same shirt and tie, plus black suit again. Like how in Sandman, none of the other Endless ever calls Death by her name, because she's not only and not always Death, and we always meet her twice, we just don't remember the first time. Look, it made sense to me, OK?
And right from the start, there were old faces and new and the whole thing is still in my head as a rush of sensations which can't quite be put into words and would really best be conveyed as some kind of vertiginous montage, helped by my spending most of the evening at exactly the right pitch of drunkenness, that sort where everything just seems somehow epic (in the real sense, not just the general term of approval), all dancing and kissing and glitter everybloodywhere.
Unless some of us end up in positions of (cultural) power, I don't think Stay Beautiful is ever going to enter the cultural discourse like the Hacienda or Studio 54 or Shoom; it never spawned a sound that took on the world, for starters. Hell, it doesn't even get talked about like Trash, and I went to Trash, and it was dreadful. Its legacy is more social than cultural, but for a time, it was our place. And then as we drifted away, it still managed to find a new 'us' and become their place, and what do you know, lately the old us and the new 'us' have got to know each other a bit more and we got on too. It's sad that it's over, but it managed so much more than most clubs ever do, knit the threads together. Even if it never gets to be on the noughties nostalgia checklist, we'll remember. Goodbye, Stay Beautiful.
