We revisit The Dungeon Club, home for Nottingham mods during the 1960s

If you were a mod in the 1960s then chances are you twisted the night away at The Dungeon Club. The venue was opened by Mick Parker who had been running The Beat Club at Rainbow Rooms on Broad Street, which was the first space frequented by Nottingham’s mods.

By the time the Dungeon opened, England was experiencing the start of the mods and rockers era, which had roots in the 1950s beatnik coffee bar culture. Known for their calamitous clashes, the two groups represented the opposites of a burgeoning alternative youth culture; rockers were biker-types who wore black leather jackets and other motorcycle-related items, while the mods often rode scooters and dressed in smart tailored suits, macs and mini skirts.

The mods flocked to The Dungeon as it became known for cutting-edge live music and all-nighter sessions. This was a different club for the time - much of the music played was the new American sounds that couldn’t be heard elsewhere. A mix of Motown, rhythm and blues with some jazz, legendary acts such as The Small Faces, The Drifters, The Kinks, Little Stevie Wonder and Rod Stewart all played at the Dungeon.

For club regular Maurice Moore, it was the music that got him into the club. “I was in a band with some lads from school called The Salty Dogs. We did this gig and there were some girls there who said, ‘We’re going down to this new club in Nottingham called The Dungeon. They play all the music, you’d like it’. At the time we were listening to The Animals, Spencer Davis and all that, so off we went. That was it - we never looked back after that,” he said.

Kate Holmes, another regular, recalled the bands she loved. “I don’t know how Mick Parker booked the bands. He got the ones that were flying high in the charts like The Small Faces or The Kinks. He was really clever with his bookings, because it was a relatively small place to put on such major acts, like Charlie and Inez Fox from America,” she explained. “My most memorable night was Screaming Lord Sutch. He was downstairs in The Dungeon and started his act by coming out of a coffin and charging around the stage. It’s one of those acts I will never forget.”

The decor of the Dungeon was a tad eclectic, with dark walls and glass cases that contained stuffed animals, fish and birds. The overall feel of the club was a sort of dive bar meets DIY space - so much so that Stevie Wonder was rumoured to have hit his head on one of the glass cases containing a stuffed fish while performing.

The unrefined, DIY nature of the club added to the performances, making them even more memorable. This included a set from Screaming Jay Hawkins that saw the electrics blow as he launched into I put a spell on you. When the musician jumped forward, there should have been a flash, but all anyone could hear was the horn section.

The walls often dripped with condensation when the nights really got going. At a gig by The Who drummer Keith Moon graduated from playing drums to playing the wall, across the floor, on the fire extinguisher and the glass animal cases. (It was rumoured he broke two or three much to Parker’s annoyance.)

Unlike today in an era of stadium tours, barriers and bouncers, there was little separation between artists and audiences. “It’s different to now because there was the stage to the side which was a couple of feet off the ground. We were so close to the acts. There was one instance where I was listening to some band and Keith Moon was beside me,” Maurice said.

“The cloakroom was an interesting place because the artist’s dressing room was through there,” Kate said. “The artists would pass by the hatch to get to the stage and would be milling around there. Charlie and Inez Fox of Mockingbird fame appeared in 1965. Charlie saw me waiting to collect my coat so he took my cloak ticket and found it for me. That was typical of the way the bands used to mix with us. There were no pretences. There was a very low stage, which I think was just a couple of railway sleepers, so you were more or less on the same level as the artist.”

As for DJs, Peter Stringfellow, who ran the Mojo Club in Sheffield, was a close friend of the owner. On invitation from Parker, he began DJing the club often, towards the later flower power years, with armfuls of flowers he would throw into the audience.

"Kids used to come from all over the country to the all-nighters at the Mojo, always a big following from Nottingham," Stringfellow once recalled. “Mick said they would come back to the Dungeon and talk about me, so he asked me to come down. I think, looking back, those days were the pinnacle for me. You would get these big American stars playing on small stages in little clubs like the Dungeon and the Mojo. It didn't get better than that.”

Incredibly, the club was unlicensed so there was no alcohol. As new coffee machines made their way from America, there was coffee served in glass or Pyrex cups with saucers and classic red Coke machines. If you put a glass bottle in, another would pop out already cold.

“It was just a coffee bar with soft drinks - no alcohol,” Kate explained. “The majority of people weren’t bothered about it. There were people that went to the Royal Children pub, but my crowd were happy to be dancing and enjoying themselves.”

The word mod originated from ‘modern jazz’, which was one of the first types of music the subculture listened to, and being a mod was all about the look. For the men, it was tailored suits or jeans and rain macs. Leather coats were in different colours and worn longer than today. A trip to the tailors was a necessity to make sure an outfit fit properly or to find items they couldn’t buy easily. 

For women, the mod look meant mini dresses, suits with jackets ending above the hemline and a line drawn above the eyeliner - which was an innovative look and a tricky style to recreate. Many made their own dresses or bought things they could sew onto existing outfits. When miniskirts took off, many found them scandalous, but at The Dungeon they were encouraged and there was even ‘shortest mini skirt competition’ held in 1966. Before tights became widely available, it had been hard to wear a miniskirt as stocking tops would appear just below. 

Looking and acting cool was another key part of the mod culture: “I would get to the top of Stanford Street, hear the music and want to run,” said Linda Lowe, another regular at the club. “I used to have to tell myself - you’re a mod, you don’t run.”

For anyone looking to hear about what was up and coming, checking out Friday night music show Ready Steady Go! was imperative. Kate would watch it religiously looking for the latest styles to emulate: “It would give you an indication of what the latest fashions were because things changed week to week. We had a look at the television to see what the styles were or the latest dance because you needed to keep up,” she explained. “I used to wear dolly rocker dresses which I bought at Paraphanelia in Nottingham. I’ve still got one.”

When it came to hairstyles, the new Vidal Sassoon five-point cut (think British supermodel Twiggy) was all the range. However, the make-it-yourself culture meant that often, haircuts were courtesy of your mates in the bathroom. “We used to cut our own hair and I used to cut my friend’s hair,” said Linda. “We used to go down the toilets in Market Square. If you went to the Dungeon for the first part of Sunday afternoon then they would chuck you out for a bit so you would hang around the square.”

The club became known for its legendary ‘all-nighters’ - opening for business on a Saturday, then closing for an hour at midnight before reopening to let guests back in. The police began to get nervous about large groups of teenagers heading to these all-nighters, and rumours were abound that there was more than coffee on sale to help people stay awake. 

In 1967, a decision was made to raid the club with busloads of police descending on Stanford Street ahead of a performance by The Drifters. The club was packed. It had been closed for renovations for a while so excitement for its reopening had hit fever pitch. Those inside had no idea the police were en route and their arrival caused a wave of panic where people tried to get out or to the toilets to flush their stash.

“I was there when it was raided,” Maurice remembered. “I went outside and looked up the road to see police marching down in twos and a bus. I went back inside and a bit later, the lights came on and police were everywhere. They interviewed people then threw them outside unless they were too young and they had to get them home.

I was there with my friend and we were just hanging around waiting to be searched. He sat down on the floor next to a jumper and moved it accidentally. There was a massive pile of pills underneath. He actually went and told a policeman who searched him then we went out.”

Undeterred Maurice and his friend headed to another all-nighter at the Beachcomber before returning to the Dungeon when the coast was clear.

Linda, whose dad was a city councillor at the time, added another perspective on the event: “He was on the watch committee which policed things like that. He actually had to go to the Dungeon and walk around. He had a word with Mick Parker, came home and said, ‘Don’t you ever stop going there’. He thought he was a lovely man who only had our interests at heart. ‘He only wants you to have a nice place to go’ - I thought, yeah right!”

The police found about sixty people under the age of seventeen who were taken to city police headquarters so that phone calls could be made to get them home. It is estimated that over a hundred police questioned six hundred people that night, although only five were prosecuted in the end.

Newspapers were delighted with the raids as it promised salacious headlines or an insight into the dreaded new ‘youth culture.’ One read: “Teenagers fainted because of deplorable ventilation it was said and police found there were 710 young people there when they visited the club in the early hours of Sunday, March 16. The club was licensed for 400.”

The club never really recovered from the raid, with many regulars beginning to drift away to other clubs such as The Boatclub in West Bridgford. Mick Parker later became the manager of Club Pigalle on Heathcoat Street before moving to London. He then later opened Camden Place, a home for punk acts and Steve Strange. The scene began to move on as the mod scene gave way to the flower power years. The Dungeon was closed in 1968 but would reopen later that year as the Eight Till Late.

A reunion club still meets regularly to discuss and relive the Dungeon years, which has included raising a glass to its sixtieth anniversary this year. Founder of the reunion group, Ann Barry would like to see something done about the lack of a marker on the building.

“We would like to see a permanent marker, such as a plaque recognising the Dungeon Club and its importance in the musical heritage of Nottingham. There are such tributes in other cities acknowledging their similar sixties clubs, such as Newcastle, Cheltenham and Liverpool.”

A big thank you to Maurice Moore, Linda Lowe, Kath Shaw, Kate Holmes, Paul Clay, Ann Barry and Mick Crossland for sharing their memories, information and photographs. You can read more about The Dungeon Club days at dungeonmods.wordpress.com