by Steve Strange - Blitzed
Queues were soon forming around the block again, and I was busy all night on the door. I mad lot of enemies by trying to make the club look good. Barely a night would go by when I wasn't spat at least once. An evening would not be complet without someone threatening to punch me out.
The club was a platform for new talent. Apart from the fashion crowd, there was jounalist Robert Elms, who wrote about the scene, and photographers Gabor Scott and David Johnson who recorded the visuals for posterity. Ben Kelly, who went on to desigh the Hacienda in Mahcester, was part of the crowd.
The brilliant thing was that everyone involved had a role. George was in the cloacroom in his white-faced kabuki made-up and kimono, Rusty, in his fifties suits, played the records, and I was on the door in my high hair and high heels, carrying a silver-topped cane. I only every tried DJing once, on a night when I tried to set up a kind of cafe society, playing Shirley Bassey, Dusty Springfield, Frank Sinatra and escalator background music. But Ionly dabbled, because I was always needed on the door. Until I Blitz regular Rosemary Turner, I didn't trust anyone else to do the door. She watched me to learn my techniques an then she was ready to do it herself. My door policy was always very strict. Membership was 2 pounds, entry was 1 pound and everyone had to pay - even the regular faces and the people who would become Spandau Ballet. If people didn't want to pay, and thought they were above it, I'd say, " Who the fuck are you ? "
Look back at the pictures of Blitz or the documentaries and you'd think it ws a poseur's paradise, the home of the beautiful people, but it wasn't always like that . People were often either speeding or drunk. There was plenty of glamour, but it was also very debauched. There was always someone falling over. The men were always in the ladies loos putting their make-up on because it had the best mirrors. Sometimes you'd walk into the loos and the scent of hairspray would almost knock you ou. But one thing you can say about Blitz is that there were no barriers. The women didn't feel threatened at all by men using their toilets.
Gradually the media started to pick up on the success of blitz. Boy George was becoming know in his own right, but I was the one who was initially singled out and courted by the press because of my striking apperance, and because I was one with the power to allow people in.
Everything was going well at Blitz, George and I were being seen at parties, and a day later it would be in a gossip columm as the national newspapers tried to give a name to the movement. The Face and i-D had started and they were reporting on the scene as well, dubbing it the Cult With No Name, The Blitz Kids and the Now Crowd. Pick up the Evening Standard, and there was my stark, white face, scarlet lipstick, jet black, piky hair 12 inches high, steamed and crimped with steel steamers, staring out at you. WE didn't get any coverage in the NME or Melody Maker because that sort of paper liked to think that they had discovered you, make you their darlings, build you up, and then knock you down. We didn't care, we were making it without their support, having gone straight into the mainstream.
It was just my lucky that a quite drunk Mick Jagger turned up at the door with his entourage. It has always been said that I held a mirror up to his wrinkly face, as I did with a lot of potential customers, and said, "Would you let yourselof in ?? ". Although I did pick on people who didn't have the right look, sadly that's not what happened at all. I explained what had happened with the fire officer to Mick's friends, who were more sober Meanwhile Mick was getting annoyed, saying, "Don't you know who I am ?" I tried to be polite and his friends tried to calm him down as he went off in search of nightlife elsewhere. But it just happened that a tabloid jounalist was there at the time. By the following day, the story had to out, with typical press embellishment, and the legend of Blitz being the ultra-esclusive club for the new young élite was established.