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This is a selection of comments on, and reviews of our club that have appeared in various magazines and websites.
If you have been to our club, and would like to write a review,send it to me and I will include it on this page.From Pleasure Boy, a recent visitor to Electric Dreams on our last Friday night:
Just thought I'd email u to let u know what a great night myself & some friends had on the 7th birthday party of E.Dreams. Unfortunately, we're not able to make Mondays, as work always beckons on Tuesdays but I've been to a couple of Fri nighters now and loved it - especially the recent one. The music was a great mix of old and some of the better of the new, the crowd was genuinely eclectic and the atmosphere was fabulous - dressy, yet friendly.
By club regular, Ian Hayward:
As ever, after a night at Gossips, my mind is full of Electric Dreams, all that wonderful music, those beautiful faces, discovered names, snatches of conversations. Your club is extraordinary, so thank you for that!! New Romantic music was always special in the way that it encapsulated so much fantasy, the Goth element is much the same, only darker, of course, doors thrown open onto palaces of pleasure, chambers of the esoteric, a dream for each of us, whatever our eccentricities and tastes might be. I cannot express how much it means to me... it is more than just a good time, it is the chance to really live on a level or in a fashion that daily life tends to shove to one side. Daily life is a foolish business!!!
Electric Dreams at Gossips, Soho
From Liv4now.com
Natalie Sanderson / 2003-01-24 11:26:49
Electric Dreams at Gossips, Soho
New Wave of New Wave of New Wave of New Wave isn’t goth, gottit? Electric Dreams is one of the best 80s clubs in London, with Adam Ant look-alikes camping it up to Transvision Vamp and Iggy Pop, with a bit of hardcore synth thrown in to keep the punters happy. Founded in 1997, Electric Dreams is one of the most established 80s clubs going, and Gossips – although it doesn’t look like it – has always had a reputation for being cutting edge. It may be old skool, but we don’t care. Electric Dreams is comfortable cool. And sometimes, that’s all you want.
By EOL Audio.com
Technically a night devoted to the electronic 80s, Electric Dreams is a relaxed and friendly club, where it's entirely possible to sit down and chat until waiting for a favourite song to come on. Requests can often get played, and it's actually quite easy to get to know the DJs. The dancefloor is quite small, but as the club is usually only comfortably half-full on Monday, it's not a problem.Bands I Like That They Play: Depeche Mode, Apoptygma Berzerk, Sisters of Mercy, Joy Division, Gary Numan, Kraftwerk, Pet Shop Boys, The Cure, Front 242, Soft Cell, Duran Duran. Also the only club I know that plays Sigue Sigue Sputnik on anything like a regular basis.
They Also Play: Spandau Ballet, other new romantic bands
Best Bit: The friendly, laid-back, unpretentious atmosphere
Worst Bit: Getting people to come out on Monday night
Electric Dreams UK-style Website review by Suite 101.com
Author: Michele
Published on: September 15, 2000A Website Review: Electric Dreams
www.electricdreamsclub.comI received an email during the summer and wanted to check out Electric Dreams (ED). I am visiting London soon, I was really interested in what they think of the '80s music, fashion and style.
'80s music is typically connected to UK club scene; appropriately enough, this website is about Monday nights at a nightclub in London called Gossips. ED boasts to spinning the best music from the decade - New Romantic, New Wave and alternative sounds (check out who they play). One can read more about how they started in the Details section.
ED is a no-nonsense, definitive website - no gimmicks, no flashy advertisements. Right off the bat on the main page, there is a snippet of news headlines about the club, then can go directly to the News page. There's also Listings page where dates are placed for fans to see the bands they love(d). It is a bit dated however, but keep on scrolling down for upcoming dates for Gary Numan, The Sisters of Mercy and Duran Duran.
The Downloads page has nifty screensavers from various artists including Adam and the Ants, Frankie Goes to Hollywood and David Bowie.
Electric Dreams also held themed band nights, such as Depeche Mode and The Cure, cover bands and even showed "Star Wars - The Phantom Menace". A real touch is their Staff page so one can get into the minds of the people of Electric Dreams and find out why Gary Numan is so prominent on the site.
And, finally,if you are not too sure how it will be there even after you know all of the above, ED even shows you pictures of rest of the DJs and regular club-goers. How's that for customer service and comfort?
From Time Out magazine. Article by Arwa Haider.
Cool's out for summer as clubs embrace fancy dress. By Gavanndra Hodge of The Independent Newspaper
Published: 25 March 2001
The formula is simple. Revellers put on their old school uniforms (or something that looks like it), drink Bacardi and Coke out of a plastic cup, and dance to such sing-a-long classics as Madonna's "Like a Virgin".If it's Saturday night, and the place is full of what appears to be fifth-formers on speed, then it must be SchoolDisco.com, part of the growing dressing-up phenomenon.
The weekly club's success means that hundreds of people are turned away every time it opens. It is now so popular that in two weeks' time it will move from its current venue, Vauxhall Grammar School in south London, to the cavernous building that formerly housed the Hammersmith Palais.
And rock 'n' role is spreading. Yesterday a new club, Rollerdisco, in north London's Bagleys Studios, opened its doors. It revives a pastime, popular in the early Eighties, which involves spending an afternoon gliding aimlessly around a roller arena in day-glo skates and lurid Lycra. Tonight London club Home House will host its Oscars pyjama party, where members who couldn't quite make it to the awards ceremony in Los Angeles will bed down for a night, wearing their most magnificent nightwear.
Suddenly, if you're not dressing up, you're not having fun. Club after club is getting into this closet and emerging with a costume theme.
"What people enjoy about SchoolDisco.com is that they can float around looking and behaving like teenagers, but without having all the angst of that age group," says Dave Swindells, club editor of Time Out. "Clubs are often too serious. The emphasis is always on being underground and cutting edge. But increasingly people don't want that from their Saturday night - they want to have fun."
Certainly at SchoolDisco. com there is little opportunity for looking cool. Its atmosphere promotes a schoolyard mentality: minor scuffles erupt at the edges of the soggy dance floor; pigtail tugging is employed as a primitive flirting tool and entwined couples occupy the shady corners.
Nights inspired by the Seventies and Eighties have long been popular on the club circuit. Carwash in London's Soho, now 10 years old, is where those who hanker after an evening in full Saturday Night Fever regalia go. Eighties revivalists are given the opportunity to bask in nostalgia at nearby Electric Dreams. Here New (and old) Romantics mingle with the country's last surviving Goths. But SchoolDisco.com has given this busy subsection of the clubbing world new energy and exposure.
The popularity of School Disco.com prefigures a wider trend. Increasingly dressing up is a prerequisite for going out. It is a movement against the constrictive culture of cool of the late 1990s when to smile was frowned upon, to laugh unheard of and any outward appearance of having fun would no doubt result in immediate ejection from the party.
There is now a wealth of dressing-up opportunities for the partygoer. At Club Montepulciano a £3 charge (in addition to the £12 entry price) is levied upon those who don't adhere to the Fifties glamour dress code. Sartorial tips on the website include "a cigarette holder and evening gloves never fail to inspire" and "if you can walk in it, it isn't evening wear".
The club has been running for seven years, but consistently high demand recently prompted a move from its long-standing venue, the Rivoli Ballroom, to the larger Camden Centre in London's Euston Road. Now the club can accommodate nearly 800 people, and it is always full.
"I've noticed that the dressing-up side of things has become even more important," says co-promoter Heilco Van Der Ploeg. "Everyone makes a huge effort, either making or hiring their costumes. People love to dress up."
Home House, where membership costs from £600 a year (plus a £600 joining fee), hosts frequent themed parties, the most recent being last month's Crocodile Party which entertained more than 500 members dressed as elephants, monkeys, gorillas and crocodiles. The trend has even spread to the Continent. The notorious Manumission club in Ibiza club last year added a fancy dress shop to the other attractions on offer.
A new generation of partygoers has embraced dressing up because it offers the ultimate in Saturday night escapism. The attraction is the disguise element, and anonymity promotes hedonism - which is what going out is all about.