Ibiza
The late 1980s acid house explosion
‘It was like Balearic brainwashing!’ laughs Nancy Turner, who as Nancy Noise became one of the White Isle’s DJ crusaders. She’s explaining the early forays into Ibizan nightlife and specifically, her discovery of Amnesia and its DJs Alfredo and Leo Mas. It’s not surprising that Turner might find herself in the midst of a musical Big Bang. Her dad, Mickey Modern (Mickey Turner) was an original mod, friend of DJ Jeff Dexter, and managed acts like Nik Kershaw.
She had been holidaying on the island since 1984, becoming increasingly obsessed with its beauty and, especially, its wild musical menu. A quartet of girls flew out in May 1986 for the whole summer: Nancy, Tanya Newlyn, Joanne McKay and Michelle East. They were taken to to Amnesia early in the season by island workers they met at Cafe Del Mar. ‘Oh my God,’ she says. ‘Couldn’t believe it. Open air, loads of lovely looking people. Colourful characters. That was it then. That’s when we started going every single night.’ They had little money but a lot of cheek so gaining entry often required some clever cockney chicanery. They went every night for the rest of the season. ‘We left after the summer in 1986 and literally all we spoke about was Amnesia. Every time we got together we’d just and talk about it. We were like lunatics.’
The following season all the pieces of the jigsaw fell into place.
’You’ve gotta come over and see the place, it’s going mental!’
Speaking these words from Ibiza to London, another island regular: Trevor Fung. 1987 had been an amazing summer for Fung. He and his cousin Ian St Paul had taken over a little upstairs bar in San Antonio and renamed it the Project Club. They’d attracted a large portion of the many Brits who were in Ibiza working the season, including Nancy, who again came for the whole summer, this time joined by Lisa Loud (Lisa McKay), who after numerous trips in 1986 had sacked off her job and thrown her lot in with the Balearic adventurers.
By selling tickets for the big clubs on the island, Fung ensured the Project became a packed meet-up place. Through each hot Spanish night crowds spilled out into the street as Trevor dropped a kicking combination of London club favourites like Mantronix and the wild Balearic tunes he was learning about from Alfredo at Amnesia.
Fung had been partying on the island since 1979, able to fly over as often as weekly thanks to a day job in the travel industry. Entranced by the bizarre constituency of visiting celebs, Eurotrash, wily Brits and international gay party monsters, he was now assiduously gathering contacts on the island, especially since he was bringing tunes over from the promotion departments of London record labels and selling them to the island’s key DJs.
Back home in Streatham he ran a small club also called the Project (originally Ziggy’s wine bar), with good friend Paul Oakenfold. The two had met on the jazz-funk scene on a coach trip to Slough where the bus had its windows smashed in (a strange incident of London/Slough soul-boy rivalry). Fung was DJing jazz-funk in the shadow of the Soul Mafia, and Oakenfold was a chef with a lot of questions about how you became a DJ. The Streatham Project Club ran from 1981-89, with a sound system brought in each Friday by their warm-up DJ, Carl Cox from Brighton (who Fung claims started on a fee of £30 for his trouble).
In Ibiza Fung had gradually cottoned on to ecstasy. He first tried it in 1986, an orange and white capsule strong enough to make him throw up, bought from a dealer who now owns one of the most famous clubs on the island. At the end of August 1987, he was about to share Ibiza’s party secret with the whole of London.
The first time Trevor invited him to Ibiza, Paul Oakenfold decided he didn’t like the place and went home early. But now he wanted to come out and celebrate his birthday. Ever the shrewd operator, Oakenfold had shot up the nightlife pecking order – he was plugging records for Def Jam and doing well as a hip hop DJ. He asked Trevor to find a place to stay for him and his friends: DJs Danny Rampling, Johnny Walker and party promoter Nicky Holloway.
‘When the boys arrived, I took them to the bar,’ says Fung. They were immediately struck by the current buzz in Ibiza compared with the sniffy rare groove scene back home. ‘They were like, “Fucking hell, can’t believe this”.’ Smiling to himself that his adopted island was already working its magic, Trevor reached in his pocket and prepared to really impress them.
‘I didn’t want to say too much, so I just said, “Try this, it don’t do too much to you”.’ He laughs uproariously as he remembers it.
They ended up at Amnesia. ‘Johnny was sitting in a speaker. Danny was jumping up and down. Paul was like, “It’s changed since I last been here.” Chaos!’
‘I was very hesitant at first,’ recalls Walker. But having seen Paul and Danny and Nicky do one and then go skipping and hopping around the club holding hands, going “I love you”, I thought, “well, this doesn’t look too bad, I’ll try one”. And suddenly the whole night just turned into this fabulous, sparkling, colourful night. I just felt so wonderful. I remember walking into this high white-walled sort of building, through the gates and into this fabulous open-air club with palm trees and a mirrored pyramid and dazzling light show going on, and all these wild crazy flamboyant people dancing about.’
‘I was dancing and I noticed this movement,’ remembers Lisa Loud. ‘It was someone with Barbie dolls stuck on a swimming hat by their heads: legs everywhere. There was also a girl wearing a wedding dress, with a wedding cake on her head. Amnesia was just this incredible mix. Everyone went to everywhere else, but it felt like it started in Amnesia, that look, that collection of personalities and colour. It just seemed to really fit the music, because it was just never one way or the other; it was completely all over the place.’
Everyone found themselves dancing furiously to joyously eclectic music, much of which would have been an anathema to the self-consciously cool club scene back in London: pop-dance like George Michael’s ‘I Want Your Sex’, followed by Chicago house like Ralphi Rosario’s ‘You Used To Hold Me’, followed by an obscure indie record like ‘Jesus On The Payroll’ by Thrashing Doves. The lightbulbs went on. ‘Hearing Alfredo play, it was completely mindblowing compared to what we were used to in London. We were like, “Wow! What the fuck is this?” ’
By the end of the week, they’d resolved to introduce this life-affirming experience to London. Walker recalls the sense of mission they all felt. ‘Soon as we got back, “You’ve got to try this!” Every club we went into, we were like, “Have you tried this? You gotta have some of this, it’s unbelievable.” ’
• To pre-order Last Night A DJ Saved My Life, hit the link below. If you buy from the Heavenly Bandcamp store, each copy of the book comes with a repro copy of Vinyl Maniacs, the in-store magazine from Vinylmania, the historic record shop run by Charlie Grappone and most closely connected with the Paradise Garage and Larry Levan. The issue is full of reviews and charts of the era, plus an interview with Sylvester and a photo story shot at Keith Haring’s ‘Party for Life’ birthday at the Garage that year, full of famous faces from the NYC dance world.