Infinity, Old Burlington Street, W1, Tuesdays, 10:30pm-3am, £4 NUS/flyer, £5 without. Beer at £1.50 11-1am.

White Heat may have been the most infuriatingly trendy club of 2004, visited by Kate Moss et al, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not surprisingly good. Like all mid-week club nights at Infinity, the drinks (and entrance!) are cheap, and there’s plenty to get you dancing both upstairs, and in the tiny bar downstairs.

DJ’s Olly (from After Skool) and Matty provide the expected indie fare, from the usual classics through to newer art rock and post-punk. Chances are, though, you’ll be too drunk to notice half the time what they’re even playing…!

As far as I know, the Rabbit Hole is sadly no longer in operation…

Last year the Rabbit Hole was situated at Oxford Street’s dingy Metro Club and now, after a break of many months, it returns at the even dingier Verge, promising beer at “pub prices” and no doubt all kinds of other shenanigans. However, the pub they have chosen to base these prices on is hardly the cheapest around, and the evening as a whole gives off a bizarre sense of a second-rate Monarch. Obligatory fishnets and eighties haircuts on the door, and two insane women leaping around behind the decks to their own “Indie Boys” would be all that would be needed to complete the experience. That said, there’s a nice mix of indie classics and S Club 7, and it’s not a bad night for those Fridays when the Queens of Noize are sadly absent from the Monarch.

Typical music: Libertines, S Club 7, The Darkness, Joy Division, Pet Shop Boys, Human League, Wings

The Borderline, Charing Cross Road

Every Friday night, 11pm - 3am with live band at midnight, £6

It’s clubs like The Queen Is Dead that have made me hate “This Charming Man”. There’s surely plenty of other Smiths songs in the world (one of which the night is named after, for Christ’s sake!), so why play the same one over and over again?

The Queen Is Dead appears to have been created for people who have either just turned 18, and never been to an indie club before, or balding men in suits who’ve decided to re-live their youths after a hard week at the office (and yes, several of these can be seen bouncing around the Borderline’s stage after the band have finished) - there’s nothing interesting or even mildly exciting here, simply the same old songs from the same bands. You’d be forgiven, on entering the venue, for thinking that The Clash’s only track was “London Calling”, and the Stone Roses (followed by the Happy Mondays for crying out loud!) only ever wrote “I Am The Resurrection”. There’s the occasional more recent track, but even those are verging on the obvious - The Killers’ “Somebody Told Me”, Moz’s “Irish Blood English Heart” - and if I listed every song played in the hour or so I managed to stay, you’d no doubt be as bored as I was.

Now at The Purple Turtle, Crowndale Road, Camden, once a month, Fridays, 8pm-2am, £4 with flyer, £5 without. Visit www.thefanclub.info

The Fan Club is a fantastically cool and successful club night that currently resides at North London dive (and ex pole dancing club) ‘The Verge’, Kentish Town. Run by resident DJs Val (also of The Dark Stuff), Paul and Andy, The Fan Club started as a one-off club night in May 2000 and was immediately given a one a month residency. It has since had a host of resident & guest bands & DJs and plenty of credible customers to boast about. Current resident band are Ex-Rental (ex-rental.com), a very camp, eclectic elecropop enthused 3 piece. Other regulars include Luxemburg (www.luxembourgweb.co.uk) and Romeo Trading Co. (www.romeotrading.co.uk). With the list of past acts including The Libertines in Sep ’00 and The Darkness in May ’01, keep an eye on the Fan Club bands as it seems Val & Co. have an eye for spotting the next big thing…

Before, between and after the bands, the vibe of the night is electropop, alternative 80’s, new wave, cool indie, NY punk, pop and disco, as well as tracks by current artists who fit in with the general atmosphere of the night. Past guest DJs have also added their own tastes to the night, including Mark Morriss (The Bluetones), Simon Price (Stay Beautiful) and John Kennedy from XFM.The Fan Club usually has a great buzz about it, it’s almost a shame that they have to hold it at the Verge which is one night club in London that leaves a lot to be desired. It’s grotty, too small and is exceedingly flat and impersonal. But thankfully, Val and co. see to it that while you’re there, the music leaves you little time to care about this. Not only is there an extremely wide range of music played, the tunes are classics that everyone should have in their record collection. Forget leaving fashionably early, you’ll end up drunk on the dance floor at 2am, confused as to why the lights have come on and spoilt your good time.

Typical Music: Bowie, Ladytron, Madonna, Duran Duran, The Smiths, The White Stripes, Fischerspooner, Joy Division, Suede and much much more!

Getting Away With It - special 31st Jan 2004

Tonight is a very special night at The Verge in Kentish Town North London. Not only do we get 3 very interesting and eccentric live bands and not only do we get The Pet Shop Boys, The Smiths and New Order all night but we get the most loveably camp comedian on TV playing them all! No not Graham Norton…David Walliams! For a very 80’s theme night there couldn’t have been 3 more appropriate bands playing; Ex-Rental (The Fan Club current resident band), The Reflections and Sub-Culture, all with floppy fringes, great retro clothing (on occasion very tight!) and lots of eyeliner which really got everyone in the mood for the night. And the sounds had everything from Human League synths, to Morrissey melodies.

In between bands the other guest DJs playing were Nick Nyro (Upside Down/Dot Dash) and The Hot Bedfellows (a href=”http://thehotbedfellows.com/”>thehotbedfellows.com). Between them and Mr Walliams they played the most Smiths and Pet Shop Boys songs I’ve ever heard played in a nightclub before… or at least all on the same night. It was almost like listening to an entire album in your bedroom, if, of course, you had a bar and some disco lights in there too. Oh and about 200 people. Drunk people. David treated us to the ultimate irony of ‘I’m Not Scared’ by Patsy Kensit and Eighth Wonder, which of course was co-produced and written by The Pet Shop Boys. And, as promised, he also played the “West End Girls” remix given to him by Mr Tennant himself. It sounded super. Well done The Fan Club for the coolest most nostalgic fun night in a long, long while!

Well, our sold out Halloween event came and went with way too quickly, infused with loads of blood, severed heads, ghouls and topped off with some very loud music. They came in their droves, Jack The Ripper, Vampires and their victims, loads of zombies, all to enjoy music from The Sons (AKA The Ghostbusters), Ghouls Aloud, Sludgefeast and the legendary Do Me Bad Things, who topped the night of nicely. It was a complete massacre!!.

Full gallery of pics coming very soon, and please don’t be too upset if you missed it, you are a fool, but if wish hard enough then there might be another one next year…

333 Bar, Old Street, EC1

Monthly Fridays, 10pm - 5am. £7 advance/flyer/before 10:30, £9 otherwise. Visit www.clubautomatic.co.uk

Advertising itself as “an argument between guitars and club culture”, Transmission recently took over at the Barfly from five years of Saturday’s Casino Royale (which, however, is still to be found at Transmission on a monthly basis). With an impressive array of guest DJs (the launch night saw the entire Cooper Temple Clause upstairs, and further guests have included Perry Farrell, The Rapture, The Raveonettes and Scissor Sisters), and music likely to appeal to the indie-dance-funk-electro clubbers who inhabit the Monarch for the Queens of Noize on a Friday, Transmission was, and is, a sure-fire hit. If you haven’t already, you need to check it out!

Typical music: Pixies, BRMC, Joy Division, Strokes, Ladytron, Blondie, Iggy Pop, Primal Scream, The Music, Radio 4

The Barfly/Monarch, Chalk Farm Road, NW1, and seemingly just about everywhere else!

Fridays (check Barfly website for specific dates and prices, or Queens of Noize), 10:30pm - 3am. Usually £7 with flyer/NUS, £9 without.

Anyone who’s a regular on the London indie scene cannot have failed to witness at least one DJ set by the Queens of Noize in the past year. From their regular Friday night slots at the Monarch to their involvement with just about every other band/event (Junior Senior, the Libertines, Return to New York, Sonic Mook - the list goes on), Mairead and Tabitha’s insanely epileptic dancing and mix of current indie, classics and Justin Timberlake make them noticeable at the very least. And when the DJs are so enthusiastic (if they’re not pulling each other’s hair), it’s simply rude not to have a good time. Go see ‘em. Your life will be better for it.

All together now - “Indie boys don’t deserve it, copping a feel now they got a record deal…”

Fortress Studios, Old Street, EC1V - or Canvas, Kings Cross Goods Yard, N1

Hidden down a back alley in London’s Old Street, The Fortress looks like an average office building from the outside, save for the bright pink lights highlighting the name of the club over the door. Upon entering we were led up a brightly-lit staircase to ‘Room 2’. It’s a small office room which has just been converted into a club simply by dimming the main lighting, adding some disco lights and some decks, and a bar in the corner which gives a strange feel of buying sweets form the school tuck shop rather than a bottle of beer. There’s no dance floor and the music is quite lame up to the point where the DJ plays Franz Ferdinand.

I’ve never seen a stranger mix of people. It’s a very student-y atmosphere. On one hand some people are wearing the latest Hoxton drag, while others are smelly, chubby greasy beer swigging tracksuit wearing oafs!

After one can of Budvar we decide there has to be more to it than this and decide to go exploring the many levels of the office/club. Most are just closed-off rooms and toilets, but then… Aha! We discover there is an altogether cooler, more atmospheric basement where the music is a relief, the lights are more colourful & laid back and the band will be playing. XFM’s Eddy Temple Morris and Jeff Automatic provide some great tunes as usual in the basement, while upstairs Mark Beaumont form NME plays funk.

All in all it’s OK for a free night, a little odd but quite relaxed and interesting. Worth a look, if only the once…

Infinity, Old Burlington Street, W1, 1st Thursday of every month, 8pm-late
£5 before 11pm, free afterwards. 2 for 1 on beer and vodka 11-1am.

Baby Seal Club was created by London band Angels Fight The City (www.angelsfightthecity.com), and has now been housed by Infinity for over 9 months. Presenting a great variety of bands, including frequent appearances from themselves, as well as John Libertines’ Yeti, Dustin’s Bar Mitzvah and Whyte Seeds. Guest DJs also abound, among which the Pyrrha Girls spin their discs every month, with guests having included Neil’s Children and New Rhodes.

The music is varied, both in bands and in DJs afterwards, from the most ridiculously trendy to the most ridiculously fun, and the cheap beer ensures that you’ll stay later than you should at a mid-week club night!