Club Rub, 21st May

So many fetish events, each offering something slightly different, but mostly to the same fun and friendly naughty crowd.

And so I went to one of the longest-running fetish events last month, Club Rub – also touted as one of the friendliest. It’s certainly one of the smaller ones, held upstairs at The Garage, making it quite intimate and meaning you can chat to people quite easily. (I rather enjoyed being at a kinky party while there were people in the very same building beneath likely having no clue as to what was going on above them.) 

They were celebrating their 19th birthday and it really did feel like a birthday party for the hostess, the lovely Miss Kim – a doyenne on the fetish scene – and her friends. For the special occasion there was an Animal theme, and the end stage, normally reserved as the play area, was decked out with a paddling pool and dog bowls containing doggie treats for the pet play people that had been hired for the occasion.

We also had the wonderful world pole dancing champion doing several pole dancing shows throughout the evening which were truly outstanding. How she can manipulate her body around that pole, sometimes hanging vertically beside it, was jaw-dropping.

So there was perhaps less play going on at Club Rub (and certainly no sex) but it was a lot of FUN. Slightly unusually for events of this ilk, the music was fantastic – slightly mainstream dance tracks that you’d definitely recognize if you like that kind of music and that would probably sound familiar even if not, and people actually did take to the floor to dance. 

Well done Miss Kim - keep it up!

Pinch, Strange Days, 20th February

Strange Days is the new 60s/indie pop night from the guys behind Star Shaped (which I have yet to get to).

It’s a monthly event at The Garage and we went along to the launch which was free to create a bit of hype. It was pretty much exactly what it says on the tin and if you’re a fan of the indie from yesteryear then you will absolutely love this night. The tunes were strong from the get-go and we danced and pogoed all the night through.

The one thing I would say is that in terms of recent indie music, there was a dearth. Tame Impala somehow snuck in but they were the only recent tune I can recall hearing and I thought it might have been because the song they played (Elephant) sounds very 60s anyway.

The only thing was that it was fairly empty – if you could have taken the crammed and sweaty vibe of Des Was a Bowie and swapped it for the crowd here, it would have made for a perfect night.

Pinch

Before heading over, we stopped in the very lovely, very charming Pinch, tucked on a side street way off the Kingsland Road stretch. It is well worth making the journey though. We arrived not too long before it shuts at 10:30/11ish and were welcomed in by the girl behind the bar who asked us what kind of flavours we fancied and made some perfect suggestions, before chatting to us about where we were going and what good places there were to go in the area. There were a couple of other couples in the place besides us, but it’s small so it didn’t feel empty. I think if this were my local you’d hardly ever get me out of it. It feels very different to Sager + Wilde, which up until now I would have said was my favouite wine bar, but I had an instant affinity with it. Sometimes things just click between you and a place. I can’t wait to bring my fellow wine lovers here.