LIMITED SIGNED EDITION – contains a print signed by Jonny Slut, Jon Klein and Sophie Chèry. Limited to 250

London 1982. As the new romantic youthquake of 1981/1982 faded, and after what felt like a lifetime since punk’s last gasp, a tiny nightclub opened its doors in London’s Soho. Drawing to it a new generation of misfits and miscreants with a penchant for polysexual hedonism, for dressing up and showing out, The Batcave became the dark heart of alternative club culture, just like The Roxy and The Blitz before it.

Art school students, ex-punks and psychobillys, boys and girls, gays, straights, don’t-knows and don’t-cares, Camden and Kensington Market stallholders, professional squatters, kids on the dole, kids in bands, nocturnal music journalists, edgy fashionistas, androgynous randoms and even a smattering of bona fide popstars – from Nick Cave to Siouxsie Sioux, Marc Almond, Robert Smith, Killing Joke and Sigue Sigue Sputnik. All were welcome to pile in, gawp at the hair, ripped, torn, bleached and rubberised fashions, and death-mask make-up and take in the dancefloor’s heady musical mix of beats-heavy post-punk pioneers, outsider icons like Wayne County and The Cramps, and a teetering pile of lusty glam rock singles from the likes of T. Rex and The Sweet.

The club even had its own house band, Specimen, fronted by charismatic and ghoulishly handsome frontman Olli Wisdom (RIP) as well as playing host to a slew of first-wave bands of what came to be known as “goth”. And it is with Specimen’s Jon Klein (later, a Banshee, too) and keyboardist Jonny Slut (later founder of legendary club night Nag Nag Nag) along with Sophie Chery from another stalwart Batcave band, Sexbeat, who’ve worked with Demon in putting together this deluxe and definitive musical and visual accompaniment to a moment that sparked a global youth cult.

This 90-track 5CD Collection is the first of its kind. It captures both the fun and freedom of The Batcave and a revolutionary moment in time. It’s also the first to reflect the musical influences on the scene and how that scene pointed forwards. Above everything else, it’s a fascinating evocation of what you’d have actually heard had you stumbled into that sweaty, energetic dive between ’82 and ’84. With its very strong tracklisting, Young Limbs Rise Again includes music from just about everybody that mattered – from The Cure to Joy Division, from The Sisters Of Mercy to Sparks. Accompanying the 5CDs is a stunning 80-page hardback book, with an introduction from Kris Needs, packed with flyers, record sleeves, over 100 photographs, many previously unseen, and the full story of the club as told by the people who were there.

×