Shameless Hussies women-only lesbian Brighton club night 1992 / 1993
Shameless Hussies was born out of two meetings – some lubricated by herbal tea…others not. A meeting made when this house music-obsessed soul found myself at the Women Only night Venus Rising at the Fridge in Brixton where promoter Teri Murray, Pav, MC DriWeave and DJs’ Queen Maxine, Sista Jean, DJ Louise, Funky G, Smokin Jo, Sister Bliss and Vicki Edwards (oh Vicki Edwards) fed an addiction that would mean 30 years behind the decks. And a meeting where Brighton Pride 1992 saw the group Lesbian Strength, complete with the infamous Lesbus, dental dams and not-so-supportive headlines in the Evening Argus decided to support my idea of a club night in Brighton as part of their fundraising Pride activities.
Shout out to Tiz Cartwright, Annie, Mandi, Claire, Amanda, Allie, Jo, Frankie, Dani Ahrens and the many souls involved. Especially Tiz Cartwright – who alongside this house addict wanted to dance to a different tune. Venus Rising was our inspiration and for this wannabe DJ, Club Shame at The Zap its gay blueprint.
So we brainstormed and begged. The girls at Venus Rising offered their services for free, advising on promotion and providing DJ Vicki Edwards to play. Bristol’s Rita Lynch was booked. DJ Misbehaviour from Festival Radio and The Escape Club aka Trish agreed to also DJ. Flyers were created as we raided the thesaurus to name our collective adventure – the party now known as Shameless Hussies
And on Wednesday 20th May 1992 at Fagans Nightclub, on East Street (home of a bubble tea and chicken shack today) we brought together a bunch of women determined to party with purpose.
Quim Magazine had a stall, Lesbian Strength distributed Safer Sex Kits – easily reusable if washed in a gentle solution of bleach and hung on laundry lines. A slide show was provided by local photographer Abigail Dombey. Our first ever banner was created by Heiki Kathoka – an Aussie lesbian my ex Joss Munroe met in Bristol. Oh, the connections we all made. And against the odds it started to work.
So smoke machines were hired, slide shows by photographers Del LaGrace Volcano, Tessa Boffin and F. Ryden Lopez were projected, and bed sheets were painted on by banner artists including Melissa Bushill, Lucy Choules, Bee and Liz. Brighton Resource Centre badge machine and photocopier was activated (over and over and over) thanks to the fireball energy of Dani and co, and the streets of Brighton were pummelled as Tiz Cartwright and I started the hard sell.
My diaries of the time were filled with the word ‘flying” – not a side hustle or code for a particularly hot date – but the relentless flyering and postering one had to do to get the word out. No social media. No emails, no mobiles. Just photocopies, shoe leather and bits of Blu-tack.
We did three parties at Fagans – one party fundraising for The Face magazine’s Lemon Fund – their defence fund in the Jason Donavon libel case who was suing The Face for libel after it said he was gay. And then we moved to The Reform Club on Ship Street, now upstairs at The Walrus where the manager Michael did everything he could to make us feel at home. Shameless had their first theme night –The Safer Sex Party – not as some well thought-out marketing strategy to entice more clubbers but a cheap way of distracting attention from the fact they couldn’t afford big-name DJs and some local enthusiast called KTB was on the decks. The Love Room made its first appearance, a Dark Room at the back of The Reform Club inspired by the gay club scene in San Francisco (very Tales Of The City) but failed miserably as none of us were shameless enough to know what to do in it and couldn’t find our way round in the dark even if we wanted to. And so it began – Tiz and I and our like-minded house music lovers desperate for a space we could call our own.
Kate Wildblood February 2024
