Lovely shot by Deb Wozencroft of the ferociously talented Ajah UK.

Fantastic cartoon describing DJ Claud Cunningham's impact on Manchester's club scene. Claud (along with some friends) was the pioneer behind Black Angel - a safe space club night with a focus on BAME LGBTQ women and music.

This cartoon is by Queen Josephine and is taken from DIVA magazine, Feb 2016.

Piece by Daniel Nolan taken from Manchester Evening News announcing HomoElectric's move to Hidden, 17 DownTex Mill, Mary Street, Manchester.

Thanks to Jamie Bull.

Piece by Daniel Nolan taken from Manchester Evening News announcing HomoElectric's move to Hidden, 17 DownTex Mill, Mary Street, Manchester.

Thanks to Jamie Bull.

A video of the first ever Shit Lesbian Disco at which 800 women (including me) danced, screamed, rapped, ranted, played pool and fell over. The atmosphere was really something.

The same crew are putting another event on Friday 26th Aug 2016 - Pride weekend.

"Shit Lesbian Disco is a collective of women who are tired of not seeing women-only spaces. We are black, white, short, tall, bi, lesbian, trans, hetero, cis, old skool, new skool, femmes, butches, bois and andro.

The venue is in central Manchester and has an 800 capacity. There will be DJs, dancing, visuals and pool tables. It will have all female bar, cloakroom and security staff, and the venue is totally wheelchair accessible."

Excerpt from Matthew 'Kiss Me Again' Rothery's blog:

Aretha Franklin: A Deeper Love

I'm posting this song - well this particular remix of this song - because it took me by surprise. It's a very well-known song, I've had the record since it was released in 1994 and I bought the 12" in a bargain bin somewhere. I rescued it from my attic back home in Cumbria. This was my first experience of 12" club remixes and I don't think I really liked it at the time or understood why it was such an extended version. I thought it was a bit of a gamble for me to play it in the Soup Kitchen.

'What?
You played that in there?
How did you get away with that?'

Yeah, it's a huge queer anthem. Yeah, it was from Sister Act 2 and some might say it's a cheesy, commercial selection but when I played this at Kiss Me Again, the response was huge. Like I said, it took me by surprise. I remember I mixed it with something that had a much harder edge to it and this just filtered through and the faces I saw in the crowd singing back at us were full of smiles and recognition. At that moment I think something about what we're doing with Kiss Me Again just clicked. We're doing this for you because you need soul, you need to feel positive and you need to feel proud of who you are.

We named Kiss Me Again after one of our favourite records. 'Kiss Me Again' by Dinosaur was released in 1978 and produced by Arthur Russell and Nicky Siano and also features David Byrne on guitar. It's the ultimate dancefloor record and it emerged from an evolving queer club culture at a time when there was nothing else like it. This record is loved by everyone who hears it. We wanted to include everyone on our dancefloor. We didn't want to alienate or exclude anybody who wanted to come and dance. We want you to feel safe and happy.

Manchester's queer club history is rich and colourful and has meant a great deal to me since I moved here. You can learn a lot from a dancefloor.

Don't waste your time trying to impress people that don't want to be impressed.

Dance to your own tune and you will be loved for it.

We'll keep buying records and I'll rescue some more from the attic.

Matt

X

Photo by Jack Kirwin/JK Photography.

This captures the wonderful spirit at the annual Bollox Club Queer Pride Party.

The flyer said:

"Raise your queer flag at a special Bollox party on Sunday night of Manchester Pride weekend.

This year we fill the Deaf Institute's 3 floors and 2 terraces with a diverse line-up featuring the city's favourite LGBTQI club nights, DJs, performers, artists and show-offs.

Pick and mix from these fancy fairies:
***Kiss Me Again DJs (Soup Kitchen)***
***Zoe McVeigh (LIINES)***
***Danny Olson Lane (Cha Cha Boudoir)***
***Rod Connolly***
***Miss Field's Painting Parlour***
***The Most Depressing Night Of Your Life (Power Ballad Disco)***
***Trish Dee (PA)***
***Dischord's Takeaway art exhibit***
***More more more***

We'll be making a donation to the following charities: George House Trust, Manchester Mind and Survivors UK.

THIS IS FOR THE OUTSIDERS // CELEBRATE YOUR*SELF*

Photo by Jack Kirwin/JK Photography.

This captures the wonderful spirit at the annual Bollox Club Queer Pride Party.

The flyer said:

"Raise your queer flag at a special Bollox party on Sunday night of Manchester Pride weekend.

This year we fill the Deaf Institute's 3 floors and 2 terraces with a diverse line-up featuring the city's favourite LGBTQI club nights, DJs, performers, artists and show-offs.

Pick and mix from these fancy fairies:
***Kiss Me Again DJs (Soup Kitchen)***
***Zoe McVeigh (LIINES)***
***Danny Olson Lane (Cha Cha Boudoir)***
***Rod Connolly***
***Miss Field's Painting Parlour***
***The Most Depressing Night Of Your Life (Power Ballad Disco)***
***Trish Dee (PA)***
***Dischord's Takeaway art exhibit***
***More more more***

We'll be making a donation to the following charities: George House Trust, Manchester Mind and Survivors UK.

THIS IS FOR THE OUTSIDERS // CELEBRATE YOUR*SELF*

Photo by Jack Kirwin/JK Photography.

This captures the wonderful spirit at the annual Bollox Club Queer Pride Party.

The flyer said:

"Raise your queer flag at a special Bollox party on Sunday night of Manchester Pride weekend.

This year we fill the Deaf Institute's 3 floors and 2 terraces with a diverse line-up featuring the city's favourite LGBTQI club nights, DJs, performers, artists and show-offs.

Pick and mix from these fancy fairies:
***Kiss Me Again DJs (Soup Kitchen)***
***Zoe McVeigh (LIINES)***
***Danny Olson Lane (Cha Cha Boudoir)***
***Rod Connolly***
***Miss Field's Painting Parlour***
***The Most Depressing Night Of Your Life (Power Ballad Disco)***
***Trish Dee (PA)***
***Dischord's Takeaway art exhibit***
***More more more***

We'll be making a donation to the following charities: George House Trust, Manchester Mind and Survivors UK.

THIS IS FOR THE OUTSIDERS // CELEBRATE YOUR*SELF*

Rather striking promotional poster for ‘Gay for Techno’ club night at Retro Bar.

‘Fleshback: Queer Raving in Manchester’s Twilight Zone’ is a Boiler Room and British Council film uncovering stories from Manchester’s LGBT+ clubbing scene.

In the early 90s, Manchester’s queer scene was blown wide open by the Hacienda’s seminal queer party, Flesh and its progenitor Number 1 Club on Central Street. Aided, or some would say ruined, by hit TV show Queer as Folk, the scene entered the national mainstream a few years later.

The film explores this history while revealing all about those carrying the torch of alternative rave culture in the new era, featuring collectives such as Homo Electric, Meat Free, Body Horror, and High Hoops. Each has a different approach and musical feel, drawing in different crowds, yet sharing the same vision. The film uses archive footage to highlight the continuum between Flesh and the parties that are happening today outside of Manchester’s city centre.

The release of the film marks the 30th anniversary of the enactment of Section 28. Section 28 was the last piece of homophobic law in the UK. It stated that councils should not “intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality” in its schools or other areas of their work. Section 28 was enforced in 1988 before it was repealed in Scotland in 2000 and then 2003 in the rest of the UK.

Steffi, DJ and promoter for Meat Free in Manchester, says, “People are very honest up North, and big movements don’t always wash with the Northerners. We’re not about branding or excluding people. Sexual identity is not at the forefront of our parties.”

Directed by Stephen Isaac-Wilson and produced by Anais Brémond.

A film about The Lapsed Clubber Audio Map - a place for members of Greater Manchester’s original rave community to preserve and share their spoken word memories of clubbing and its culture during the ‘first decade’ of rave, 1985-1995.

The Lapsed Clubber Audio Map is a partnership between Manchester Digital Music Archive and Manchester Metropolitan University.

It began in 1998, at the first ever Homoelectric party, with a group of ‘disenfranchised misfits’ uniting against the over-commercialisation of ‘Gaychester’ and partying in the basement of a dingy old lesbian bar on the edge of Manchester’s Gay Village.

21 years later and 10,000 ravers of all persuasions packed into an abandoned railway warehouse on the outskirts of Manchester city centre for what was billed as the ‘UK’s biggest ever queer block party’, feat. Black Madonna, Seth Troxler, Honey Dijon, Roisin Murphy, Larry Heard and more of the biggest names in electronic music.

So how did Homoelectric - a raw, no-frills party for homos, lesbos, heteros and don't knows - grow to become the UK's most influential LGBTQ+ club night?

Skiddle meets co-founders Luke Cowdrey (aka Luke Unabomber) and Kath McDermott, as well as a number of Homoelectric DJs, friends and family, to tell the story behind Manchester's maverick black heart disco.

A promo video for Bollox Club, the wild alt-queer night where protest and partying collide.

Design: Paul Hemmingfield

A poster for Homobloc, the gathering of 10,000 LGBT+ clubbers at Mayfield Depot, curated by the team behind Homo Electric, backed by The Warehouse Project.

This was a landmark happening in Manchester, featuring some of the world's best-known DJs, plus a crop of Manchester faves.

By all accounts the crowd *wasn't* full of cunts, which really is a monumental achievement.