ABOUT
Shoom was named #7 in Billboard magazine in their ‘Top 25 Clubs of all Time’, and is widely known as a spear-header for the Dance Music Scene we all love today.
Strawberry scented smoke, mirrored walls, and rare vinyl celebrated at religious heights to a pulsing crowd in a sweaty underground venue playing the new Acid House sound.
Shoom was a catalyst club that kick started the UK Dance Music scene and movement in 1987 in a old fitness centre basement in Southwark, South London, UK. Former BBC Radio 1 Dj and music producer Danny Rampling came back from Ibiza with fellow friends and DJ’s Paul Oakenfold, Nicky Holloway, and Jonny Walker and they separately started their respective clubs that changed the course of clubbing as we know it.
Shoom was also the very first club to place the now ubiquitous ‘Smiley face’ on it’s flyers, and which became the logo of the club and for the Acid House scene, which is widely accepted as now a standard symbol. DJ’s gracing the decks with founder Danny Rampling were Carl Cox, Andrew Weatherall, Tony Humphries first UK gig, DJ Alfredo, Colin Favor, Mark Moore, Coldcut, Terry Farley, Pete Heller, to name a few.
Pop stars like Boy George, Paul Rutherford of Frankie Goes to Hollywood, The Pet Shop Boys, and Dexy’s Midnight Runners would rub shoulders on the dance floor at Shoom with cool London clubland faces, art + fashion students, and clothing designers like Rifat Ozbek , Patrick Cox, Nick Coleman. This crowd mixed with suburban club kids with an anything goes DIY attitude, were all at Shoom which was one of the first clubs in the UK at the start of the Acid House movement and was pioneering and shaping this new music scene movement, and is widely recognised as one of the first party’s responsible for the ‘clubbing’ experience that we all know today.
Fast forward to the present and this is what Shoom looks like. A riot of colour, unity, fun, and damn good music. Think vibrant decor+performers, new wave Techno, Acid, and House talent, cutting edge Live acts, hard-hitting acclaimed headliners of music heritage, State of the Art visuals, lots of confetti, smoke, giant smiley flags, contemporary dancers, mixed crowd gay and straight, futuristic styling, collaborations with top Artistic brands, and even the odd dark room thrown in alongside a sleek, thoughtful production mixed with wild abandonment.
The 25th Anniversary party was held at Cable Nightclub in London in 2013 and tickets for the two day event sold out within an hour. Another Anniversary on the 30 Years was held at Bankside Vaults, London that saw Goldsmith University’s Professor William Latham’s ‘Mutator’ Virtual Reality being experienced in a club for the first time, and PsychFi featuring their VR/ Augmented Reality keeping the crowds suitably on their toes. There was also Walk Pro 3D using projections to expand the experience and challenging the boundaries of Music, Art, Dance, and Culture is what Shoom is all about.
Shoom is now expanding its reach Worldwide, with two shows in the legendary club, Paradiso, in Amsterdam with Danny Rampling, Dj Pierre, Analog Kitchen (Live) ILONA (Live) to name a few acts gracing a historic venue that has had everyone from Prince to Pink Floyd on its stage.
Shoom is the stuff of Legend, that is now back to celebrate not just the Heritage, but the future stars of Techno and Dance Music culture today.
Welcome Shoomers. : )
P.S. Want to bring Shoom to your city? Please contact MN2S for enquiries on how to make this happen!.
PRESS
Interview Danny Rampling: how we made acid house club Shoom
The mid-80s was a depressed period for youth culture. People were waiting for something to happen. In August 1987, I joined Paul Oakenfold, Nicky Holloway and Johnny Walker for Paul’s birthday week in Ibiza. We went to Amnesia, an open-air club that got going around four in the morning, and it was a revelation: a melting pot of people dancing to a wildly eclectic mix, from pop, rock, reggae and film scores to house, techno and acid. It was totally intoxicating, the Balearic sound, and it inspired us. I decided to start my own club night, to sprinkle a bit of that Ibiza magic in London.
Shoom: An Oral History of the London Club That Kicked Off Rave Culture
In September 1987, four London club and pirate-radio DJs – Nicky Holloway, Paul Oakenfold, Danny Rampling and Johnny Walker – spent a week on the Balearic island of Ibiza, a place where, legend had it, as journalist Chris Heath wrote in 1990, “it was even possible to get drugs on room service.” The British quartet was visiting Trevor Fung and Ian St. Paul, with whom Oakenfold had thrown parties. Eventually, the group wound up at Amnesia, a large open-air space run by DJ Alfredo.
In 1988, Acid House Swept Britain. These Fliers Tell the Story.
LONDON — In early 1988, Danny Rampling, a D.J., asked George Georgiou to design a flier for his club night Shoom in a south London fitness center.
“They used to clear all the equipment away and put a sound system and a D.J. in the corner,” Mr. Georgiou said. “It was extremely loud, very crowded, this awful strawberry smoke everywhere, strobe lights going off all the time.”
He was given one condition for the flier: It had to feature a smiley face. Mr. Georgiou knew it well; his mother had sewn one on his jeans when he was a child. “It wasn’t a graphic symbol I was particularly fond of,” Mr. Georgiou said. “I just found it a bit silly, to be honest. I thought, how do I make it different?”
The future of clubbing: Shoom 30 will feature VR artwork that responds to your dance moves
In 1987, Danny Rampling went on a now-legendary trip to Ibiza with Paul Oakenfold, Johnny Walker and Nicky Holloway. On their return, inspired by the experience, Danny started Shoom – a club credited with the birth of acid house in the UK. He also notably created its ubiquitous logo, the yellow smiley face that is visually synonymous with the genre. “It’s an iconic symbol that many people warm to, as it evokes childhood memories and represents happiness, joy and fun,” Danny tells It’s Nice That of its origins. “It will always stand the test of time as all strong, positive images do.”
Danny Rampling Talks Shoom 30
Trace the current dance industry back to its roots and there are a few seminal parties throughout the world that were instrumental in providing the catalyst. What started off as a new musical experience in club parties would evolve into a youth movement and later a global industry but, at the heart, it was a group of individuals with a passion for the music, a desire to share that with as many people as possible and a freedom of expression, tolerance and community that came with it. Shoom is one of those parties – Danny Rampling’s reaction to a holiday in Ibiza in 1987 that became one of the most important club gatherings of all time and was instrumental in sparking that lifestyle revolution.
Shoom Tour Bookings UK and International
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