Our First Flyer (click to enlarge)
Our first candy Bar flyer - click to enlarge

A little history of the night

Richard and Adam - two friends and DJs with a shared love of weird electronic music - began thinking about doing a club together at the at the end of 2002. Richard is an old bummer who'd got bored to death of the music played in gay clubs, but had found his passion reinvigorated by the nights Nag Nag Nag and The Cock at The Ghetto in London - both were playing the music then known as "Electroclash" (RIP) - and by Manchester's HomoElectric. Their club looked destined to become one of those "Here's a good idea!" things that they discussed endlessly down the pub but never got off the ground. I'm sure you know how it is.

Then, in early 2003 Richard was taken to Dyke Bar - a once-a-monther then held in the basement at Club New York. Richard was smitten. What he loved about it was that it was a tiny, little club that was full of really interesting people. And the music wasn't bad, either. Eureka! At first, he thought about doing a boys' version, Rock And Roll Queer Bar, playing Queercore and the punkier Electroclash stuff. Hmm...

All Richard and Adam needed now was a venue. They thought about doing it upstairs at The Queen's Head. They thought about The Core Club. They thought about The Joint. But after trip to Josh The Barber's Sunday nighter, GBH at Storm last May, he knew he'd found the right place. Storm used to be Secrets - one of Brighton's oldest gay clubs. It had recently been taken over by this nice man called Simon. He was doing an excellent job overhauling the place, but it had still kept a bit of its olde worlde charm. What was cool about it was that it still seemed like the sort of place you imagine Marc Almond was singing about on Non Stop Electronic Cabaret.

Richard grabbed Simon from Storm one night at Bar 150 and explained his funny idea. Though by now, it was closer to Adam and Richard's original one - a Homo Electro Disco. And Simon, god-love-him, was really up for doing it. They had a venue. They had a date. And they'd finally settled on a name taken from a favourite Peaches' track.

Fuck The Pain Away finally opened its doors on August 17th 2003. Richard had a great time - though he was a bit pissed off that not many people liked ARE Weapons' Don't Be Scared. But they liked Adult's Hand To Phone and Queen of Japan's I Was Made for loving you, so it worked out pretty well, didn't it?

PS After a most rocking 18 months, the last Fuck The Pain Away at Storm was held on Sunday January 9th 2005.
FTPA moved into a new home and slot on the first Saturday of each month at Candy Bar, on March 5th 2005.