After a lack lustre January that saw us fail to show our hand at any of their happenings and with so many new clubs & events launching elsewhere this month, this coupled with an undercurrent of uncertainty as promoters & key players have been pulled from the picture, we start our new series of “Seventh Day Sermon’s” by entering the lion’s den that is Orange Nation and share our thoughts on why we are finding our favour faltering.

Striking an independent balance is part & parcel of our core aims and achievements when we promote the clubs, events, music producers, businesses & publications that we do, while we also apply plumes of passion as well as conviction, both which have built the reputation we have today for not just spreading the love, but balancing our coverage in terms of reviews, previews, recommends & other posts fairly & consistently. And while many are hugely appreciative of our support, remarks such as “…one of the industry’s most loved columnists…” contributing to a continual stream of gracious gratifications that make our work worthwhile, we are all too often accused of being biased by and to certain quarters of the clubbing circuit, this never having been an issue with the internationals we support, but right here in London. Indeed, if we had a penny for every crumb of criticism, every moaning message, every conflictual comment and every enraged e-mail we have received over the years, our piggy bank would be brimming by now. However, we would be the first to admit that, for persistent periods over the last twenty four months, but particularly in the last twelve, our appearances & our posts have leant too far much in the direction of Orange Nation and its collection of clubs, our excuse, while no real defence, is that in both Beyond and certain key players & promoters in the Orange Nation mix, we have had a favourite frolic & a flock of firm friends.

Indeed, our support for Orange Nation has, in the main, been extremely positive in the last few months, the controversial edge that used to be a feature of our early work, all but disappearing, a casual comment from a D.J. pal on the Beyond dance floor recently confirming this, when part of the conversation included, “…I really miss your controversial posts…”, those so called critical & contentious articles, reviews & features never posted simply to poke & provoke, but based on actual beliefs and witnessing of shortcomings. And we have never been one to skirt issues or avoid tricky matters, while as we said earlier, we have always sought to strike a reasonable balance when faced with the difficult dilemma of saying it as we see it, particularly when recommending clubs & events, recent examples of parties falling into that bracket including Matinee “Pervert”, Beyond & Manic Panic! That said, when great things happen and when really good events come up, we are the first to throw our wholehearted support behind them, in the case of Orange Nation, Deelooded benefitted from one of our most positive previews ever, while we boosted their January Free Clubbing offer, the new February pass and, as recently as this weekend, their As One “In The Park” festival which, on paper at least, looks to be one of the best gay gatherings in years. 

However, the phrase, “…what a difference a day makes…” or in this case, a handful of 2013 weeks, has come to bear upon our brow, as we have found ourselves taking off those rose tinted glasses that, in the case of Orange Nation, we have been accused of wearing for far too long and in so doing, clouding our judgement and prejudicing our publications, although with those glasses now off, our eyes have re-opened to a host of other clubs & events that we have been overlooking, we  find ourselves, once again, sharing our coverage more evenly & fairly, while naturally picking out those clubs & events we consider deserve our full blown attention, shifting the emphasis away from the Orange Group & their events. Yet while we haven’t turned our back on Orange Nation, far from it, following a disturbing set of developments in recent weeks, we find our favour towards them faltering, a whole set of circumstances changing the way we both view the group and feel we can actively propel & promote some events of theirs in a positive way. And this is manifested in the fact that the mainstay brands, such as Beyond, A:M, Later & Orange, have been subject to constant tampering, many damaged as a result, some irreparably so, while D.J.’s, promoters and organisational individuals within & connected with the organisation have been treated dreadfully, reports of abuse and other shocking incidents & irregularities, many inexcusable in our eyes, leaving us asking questions of our own opinion of the Orange Group. Furthermore, of the spartan new ventures & club concepts Orange Nation has brought to us recently, they have either consisted actually of nothing new, or the idea & concept of the so called new is flawed on so many levels, thus rather than adding to the capitals clubbing circuit choice, they are simply replacing what has been lost with the same old same old, that or doomed for disaster drudgery.

Now, while a whole host of the accounts, claims & stories surrounding the mistreatment of individuals at the hands of Orange Nation leave our skin crawling in disgust, it would serve no purpose to either reveal the details of cases, circumstances, issues or indeed individuals, but rather to highlight this as a significant reason why we have found our favour to this clubbing group faltering. But what we can account for, are those club brands which have fallen prey to either Orange Nation’s greed or their desire to fix something that isn’t broken, Beyond right at the top of our list, not least that we have made no secret of the fact that it attained the status of our favourite club of all time. However, that very status is now in serious danger of dissolving, as we are left bemused by the sheer volume of “Midnight” events in 2013 alone, while the timings continue to chop & change as often as the wind direction, the same being said for the resident team of D.J.’s, some of whom are left off the weekly roster completely, while others are snubbed for their audacity to play for other promoters. So, as a result of this, Beyond, for us, has lost its appeal & draw and while the numbers may not be reflective of our view, the club is nowhere near as great this year, as it was last, the year before last, or the year before that, other examples extending to A:M, which was inappropriately used to fill a Friday clubbing schedule, lost its afterhours appeal as a result and now,  having now switched back to its Saturday morning status, looks like struggling to survive, Orange, the emblem of the group, a pale of its former self, like many of the brands, having changed promotional hands as often as hot dinners, while the less we say about Manic Panic & District XXX the better, the concept of the former probably the worst we have ever seen, while the latter is a copycat of what proved to be one of our favourite frolics of 2012.

However, it goes much deeper than all of this, as with the benefit of hindsight, we look back over the last two or so years and see how the scene has changed and not for the better but for the worse, much of this lying at the doors of Orange Nation, how the scene schedule on Saturday’s for example, is not a patch on what it used to be, as promoters & clubs have been squeezed out of the partying picture, certain promoters throwing in the towel on Vauxhall and moving elsewhere, while others have been forced out of business completely. Moreover, with Orange Nation’s seemingly insatiable desire to dominate the capitals clubbing circuit, many of those Saturday scene shindigs are now no more, yet have not been replaced by Orange Nation events, the group’s creativity on what should be the biggest clubbing day of the week being to simply extend the opening hours of Beyond. Indeed, as a result of the crushing of competitors to Orange Nation’s own perceived clubbing crown, what it has simply served to achieve is that Vauxhall is left as the only playing ground for what we would call mainstream &/or big style regular gay clubs, the lack of any decent new brand blood to replace the ones lost, leaving the existing ones both monotone & mundane, for us, verging on the downright boring. But there is more that has dented our demeanour towards Orange Nation, that being the instantaneous & irreverent jumping of ship of many of those involved with Profile/Lo-Profile, moving not just themselves but brands associated with the former, all to Orange Nation and seemingly without a blinking of an eye or with any sort of respect for what has been a genuine loss to the scene, not just in Soho but London wide, the legacy that our Wardour Street wonders could have left, rather simply gobbled up by Orange Nation, the spotlight specifically on Society, while more indiscriminately, PLAY>TIME, which when you look at District XXX, is that copycat clubbing we referred to playing out for all to see.

On the positive, we can breathe a sigh of relief that ventures such as East Bloc in Shoreditch and its clutch of club nights is serving up viable & now very popular alternatives to the Vauxhall same old same old, while real success stories like WAR, DISH, SOS & Heroes, are offering both vitality & variation to Vauxhall. Indeed, it has been pleasing to see previously pushed out promoters returning to the scene, bringing with them fresh new ideas & clubbing concepts, This Is Prohibition one such example, we also finding new blood sprouting up in Soho, Bakebox a couple of weeks away from its second showing, Swallow another newbie and Manbar finding its feet & stride with a whole set of soiree’s sprting some of the biggest D.J. stars on the London scene, while existing parties Room Service & Gigolo remain as popular and packed as ever. And scratching beneath the varnish & veneer of Vauxhall itself, there is much happening to rock that so called dominating world of Orange Nation, Union fighting back with the likes of Booster, Wrong & others, Hard On! (now based there) reporting one of its best ever turnouts just last night, while Barcode looks like it may be coming back into its own, The Eagle having just celebrated its ninth year and still pulling in the numbers now as it did then, clubs such as Tonker, Carpet Burn & Horse Meat Disco major contributors. Plus with a big announcement imminent, one which will pave the way for a fairer, more fun-filled & positive playing field in Vauxhall and beyond, the inclusive nature of the players & performers within the scene the main thrust, it seems that competition crushing is a thing of the past and with this exciting news about to erupt, it may be more than just our favour towards Orange Nation that falters, but a cataclysmic change to the capitals clubbing circuit that sees a future bright and not just one that is Orange. (DISCO MATT)