From Aces to Angels

Go-Go Nights

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  Now, before I continue on my musical odyssey, for the benefit of all you people who had never heard of the place, a word or two about the notorious Go-Go Club. As I mentioned earlier, it was originally an old building in the Waterside that Ken Gallaher renovated. It stood along the waterfront approximately where the new railway station now stands. After the renovations were complete, it still wasn't exactly Stringfellows, but I'm sure that Ken was astute enough to realise that it was in a redevelopment area so there wouldn't be much point in sinking too much money into it. 
  When it was first opened Ken called it the 'Whisky a Go-Go' which in time was abbreviated to the 'Go-Go' and then just 'the Club.' It was open seven nights a week and in the main drew its patronage from Ken's other establishments. 
  Getting it up and running wasn't without its teething problems, for at the start Ken fell foul of the musicians' union. He wanted to employ disc jockeys but the union insisted that he use 'live' musicians. A compromise was reached when the union agreed that he could use a 'Discoteque' (a large juke box) plus a live band. 
  Although only licensed to sell cider, I'm sure the odd bottle of harder stuff was smuggled in past those ever vigilant doormen, Joe Mc Bride, Patsy Brolly and Eddie Mc Court. In the unlikley event that members of the R.U.C. (who raided the place a couple of times) are reading this, I would just like to state that I personally never witnessed any illicit liquor being consumed on the premises. One thing that did suprise me though was the fact that due to the club's close proximity to the Foyle river, as far as I'm aware, nobody ever fell in.
  The doors were hardly open until the religious fanatics (of all denominations) and the 'Holy Joes' were out in force. They were eagerly joined by the gossip mongers of the general public. Boy they really had a field day.
  According to them the Go-Go was the proverbial den of iniquity and should be closed down forthwith. There were, they claimed, strippers performing obscene dance rounetis every night. Even worse, there were rooms upstairs were prostitutes and homosexuals indulged in orgies and all sorts of perversion and debauchery. 
  It was all complete balderdash of course. As far as rooms upstairs were concerned, there was only one little cupboard of a place which had one wall knocked out and  was used as a stage for the band. Incidentally, you had to be a fit man to get to this 'stage' for it necessitated crawling under the bar counter, climbing up a ladder, another crawl on your hands and knees across a couple of rickety planks and squeezing in through a little hole in the wall. If there had have been any such diabolical goings on taking place in this confined space, I'm sure that we would have noticed. At floor level, directly below the stage, there was a hole cut out of another wall in which the juke box was situated.
  Occasionally, this hazardous nightly ascent up to the bandstand sometimes cost us a clip round the earhole, when Lena, the bar lady, got her leg felt. As for obscene dancing, the only 'obscene' dance I observed was when we caught the odd glimpse of thigh  tashe audience eight feet below did the Limbo.
  Far be it from me to claim that there were no sinners in the club, and that some folks (especially the boys) weren't looking for a little nookie now and again, but nothing happened in the Go-Go that didn't happen in the more 'respectable' places round the town. I had my first sexual 'experience' at a 'record hop' run by the clergy in the Craig Memorial hall. According to their logic, that should have been closed down also. 
  From the day and hour the club opened until it closed, I think the number of times that the records on the jukebox (or the 'discoteque' as Ken insisted that we call it) were changed or updated were few and far between. I suppose that in a way I was brainwashed by that machine for even today, anytime I hear certain songs, especially 'Single Girl' by Sandy Posey and the Rolling Stones 'Let's Spend The Night Together,' I immediately think of the Go-Go club and it's a bitter sweet feeling. In my mind's nose I can actually smell the burgers cooking in behind the bar. Now before I descend completely into a state of melancholy, let's move on to other things.
  One item of recreation on which we used to while away the time when we weren't on stage was the football machine. This machine cost a tanner (two and a half new pence) a game, but unknown to Ken it cost me nothing, and I'll tell you the reason why. When playing, I used to stand beside the little drawer that contained the sixpences. This little drawer was faulty and I used to ease it out when nobody was looking and put the same tanner in all night. Now Ken, if you're reading this, I estimated that over the years I owed you about œ50, but, if you subtract that from the money you underpaid us over the same period and send me a cheque for, let's say, around œ200, we'll call it evens, okay? 
  There were, when I think of it now, moments of intense excitement in the club, like the time a young maiden who was visiting the ladies' room, let out a yelp when she happened to notice a lecherous eyeball peeping in through a chink in the window. In righteous indignation, almost the entire male staff gave chase to our intrepid voyeur. They chased him the whole way up Duke Street and up the steep steps towards Gobnascale, but like the Scarlet Pimpernel, he completely disappeared and they never discovered the identity of our elusive Peeping Tom friend. The thing that upset the girls mostly was the question of how long he was indulging in these nocturnal escapades.
  Unfortunately I couldn't find one person who had a photo of the Go-Go and I'm sure there must have been some taken. I know that Ken's brother Eugene, who was a professional photographer, took a few but where they are is anybody's guess. Tragically Eugene died in the late sixties as a result of a road accident.
  There was one little incident connected with the club that gave us a close encounter with fame. It happened not too long after the club was opened. Ken had just bought himself a new Citroen car (a plush vehicle in the sixties) and was taking Colm and myself from the Casbah to the club. 
  There were a couple of other people in the car and we had our guitars with us. At the bottom of Orchard Street there was a large crowd of girls milling about in an excited fashion. We wondered what was going on and then it struck us that there was one of the English beat groups (we can't remember exactly which one but it may have been 'The Swinging Blue Jeans' or 'The Troggs') on tour in Ireland. It transpired that they were staying either in the old Melville or City Hotels (both now demolished) and when the crowd saw the fancy car and our guitars they mistook us for the group. When we realised what was happening we played up, and hiding our faces began to wave out at the crowd. Well that was a mistake for they immediately surrounded the car banging on the roof and yelling and squealing.
  Understandably, Ken was a bit concerned about his new car and had to almost run over the top of them to get away. It certainly gave us a little insight into what the big time was like, and although we were only pretend pop stars, it took us a couple of days to come down. Boy were we young and foolish.
  Not only did the Americans and the British bring their custom to the club but they also brought their friendly feud. Unfortunately once again this good humoured bantering could escalate into something more serious. More often than not the friction was caused by the ongoing competition for the affections of a young lady and fuelled by an over indulgence in Southern Comfort and other mind altering beverages.
  But they just didn't fight with one another, they battled among themselves as well. Personally, in spite of these occasional dust ups, I enjoyed the whole atmosphere and had many's a good laugh there.

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