In 1981 the Whiskey-A-Go-Go became the Wag club, when musician-turned-club-promoter Chris Sullivan and two business partners bought the lease. Sullivan, bored with the relentless monotony of the electronic music favoured by the New Romantic scene which had sprung up in The Blitz and St Moritz clubs, felt it was time to revive the music of his youth. "At the time, all the West End clubs were playin
g sh*t pop music, so I wanted to open somewhere for me and people like me, a cool club with a great mix of music, whether it be jazz or funk or disco or reggae, a different vibe every night," he says. Sullivan's idea of a club that changed atmosphere, music and clientele every night was a fresh and radical departure, and soon there were queues down Wardour Street as a hip young crowd of art students, musicians, designers and shop assistants. And so it was that hip-hop legends Grandmaster Flash and Afrika Bambaataa played their first UK gigs here, while Shane McGowan was clobbered onstage with a guitar by his co-singer Caitlin. Some of the most popular acts of the 80s graced the venue's tiny stage, including Fine Young Cannibals, Tom-Tom Club, and Bananarama. "Everyone you can think of used to come here; David Bowie filmed the video to [his 1984 song] 'Blue Jean' here, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards even Al Pacino." On the dancefloor, regulars included Boy George, John Galliano, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Neneh Cherry, Michael Clark and Leigh Bowery, as well as any number of models, stylists, photographers, style journalists and "fabulous nobodies". The trendy crowd led to accusations of snobbery and elitism, but Sullivan says it was simply a matter of looking after your own. "It was a tiny place, so of course we had always had people on the door picking out the regulars from the queue. That's why it was so successful, because we would never let any of the nights get swamped with newcomers. It's the people who make a club, and if you can keep your regulars the club will thrive." During the mid-80s, the regular Friday night slot, Black Market, spawned the rare groove scene which did so much to fuel the growth of hip-hop and rap in the UK. It also disproved the "elitism" tag, says Sulllivan. "All the other West End clubs at that time turned young black kids away, the Wag was the only place that wanted them." In its last few years, instead of luminaries of the rock and pop, the club was more likely to play host to a less fussy thirtysomething crowd as newer pretenders took the lead in the highly competitive London nightclub scene. But in the halcyon days, De Niro was so impressed with the club that he visited it for three weeks in a row when it was pioneering a revolution that its founders claim changed Britain's clubbing scene for good. The Wag, a forerunner in the concept of theme nights, kept ahead of the game in the Nineties by launching an Asian night, called Bombay Jungle, one of the first of its kind. A regular said: "Coming to the Wag reassured me that I'm not the only one suffering from a cultural identity crisis." The Wag Club shut it's doors on May 5th 2001. Description composed of extracts from two articles by Alix Sharkey [the Guardian] and Anna Whitney [the Independent].
