Rusty Egan on creating the Blitz, the Soho club night that gave birth to the New Romantics — and why his new compilation of its top sounds doesn’t feature Boy George Early days: Visage members Rusty Egan, John McGeoch, Barry Adamson, Billy Currie, Dave Formula, Steve Strange and Midge Ure. Photo: Sheila Rock Rusty Egan DJing at the Blitz Club in 1979. Photo: Peter Ashworth Dancing at the Blitz club night.
Photo: Terry Smith Archive Steve Strange, the frontman of Visage, who co-founded the Blitz with Rusty Egan. Photo: Terry Smith Billy’s Club was just one of a glut of late-night discos in London’s Soho at the tail end of the 1970s. In early 1979, a pair of young musicians with something of an entrepreneurial streak brazenly told the owner that they could fill the place on Tuesday nights if he let them play what they wanted.
Rusty Egan and Steve Strange got their wish and the Blitz Club was born. The Blitz may have been in existence for only 18 months, but its influence can still be felt today. Not only is it credited with giving birth to the New Romantics movement, but it also helped shape the distinct pop sound of the 1980s and beyond.
Manchester’s Hacienda remains the most important British club when it comes to impact on culture, but as for club nights — Egan and Strange’s creation only ever happened on Tuesdays — the Blitz stands out on its own. Strange died of a heart attack at 55 in 2015, but Egan, now 66, is still going strong. A musician and DJ, he has.
