Vague was an influential art club night held at The Warehouse nightclub in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, from 1993 to 1996.
History
Vague metamorphosed from an earlier proto-club night called the Kit Kat Club at Arcadia operated by Suzy Mason and Paul Fryer (former lead-singer of eighties electropop group Bazooka Joe). Fryer and Mason then in brought in Nick Raphael, and debuted Vague at the High Flyers club in Leeds on 10 April 1993, before moving to The Warehouse a month later. Vague blended kitsch with the artistic and theatrical; its outlandish theme and costume parties included a recreation of a day-night out at Blackpool Pleasure Beach only inside the club that was believed to have been filled entirely with beach sand, parasols and miniature fairground rides, a retake on royal garden parties that was held annually and an evening with Vera Duckworth a fictional character from the British soap opera Coronation Street.
The club is credited as being the first in the UK to advertise itself as "mixed"– i.e. for homosexual, heterosexual and polysexual patrons equally, however the claim is not entirely true for example the promoter Leigh Bowery and creator of the Taboo Club night in London in 1985 could be credited with embracing poly-sexual identities in club culture at a much earlier date. Although the vetting of customers on the door at Vague was notoriously strict, for example it was rumoured on some occasions that visiting male heterosexual customers were asked to dress up as a woman, then come back to the club or passionately kiss another male customer in front of door staff, to prove they held no prejudices (a rumour, but never my experience as a heterosexual male - the door staff were always lovingly tolerant of gender and sexuality differences, but Madame JoJo [such a nice person - harsh but fair] - was always delighted to receive a sherbet fountain [not a euphemism] as a sweetener to help accept us non-gay chaps into the club. I hung out with the most flamboyant, spectacular and beautiful queens, yet still met a female, heterosexual partner in the club, which underlines the wonderfully inclusive and eclectic nature of the place). Once inside, the atmosphere was one of tolerance, hedonism, and sexuality.
The British music newspaper Melody Maker featured Vague in 1994 in a review called "For Frock's Sake" and described the club as a "Dance Equivalent of Andy Warhol's The Factory", whilst the Daily Telegraph journalist Tim Willis depicted the scene inside of the club as one of "Bacchanalian excess" for the feature "Up North Where Anything Goes". The pioneering ethos that was behind Vague is what made it so successful years before any other club in the UK adopted a similar safe-space approach, according to Richard Smith speaking in 2006 then editor of Britain's leading gay publication Gay Times on the banning by the UK government of gay straight door policies he stated "one of the most important clubs of the 90s was Trannies With Attitude Vague in Leeds. They – quite consciously – started and worked at building up a big mixed, polysexual club night, and succeeded”. The notoriety of Vague during this period helped to put Leeds firmly on the international club scene radar along with the city's other major house music venue, Back to Basics.
The Vague sound
The club played a mixture of Handbag house, hard house, hard trance and Classic and electronic Disco music played on the main dance floor, with a more eclectic selection of music played on the upper floor such as Glam punk, Musicals.Rare Soul and Jazz Styles. Resident DJs TWA particularly championed "Techno Disco" or "tesko" (for legal reasons) a brand of disco house at the club. A number of Vague anthems included TWA's Disco Biscuit and Nasty Girls, Atlantic Ocean's Waterfall, Björk's Big Time Sensuality, Lisa Lisa Cult Jam's Let the Beat Hit 'Em, WestBam's Wizards of the Sonic, Fierce Ruling Diva's Get Funky, The Lisa Marie Experience's version of Keep on Jumpin' Keep on Jumpin', Gat Decor's Passion, and Alison Limerick's Where Love Lives. TESKO has been defined as Techno with sex put into it; in other words encapsulating the power of Techno then adding in Funk and the love of Classic Disco.
DJs
Original resident DJs included Fryer and Raphael as "TWA"(styled as "Trannies With Attitude" or "The World is Androgynous") and Phil Faversham, later residents included Anne Savage Curtis Zack, Daisy & Havoc. Guest DJ's appearing at the club have included Pete Tong for a live recording of the BBC Radio 1 Essential Mix, Guy Williams, Princess Julia, Paulette and Billy da Kid (a.k.a. Billy Hanshaw)