THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE INTREPID FOX (PART TWO)

Maybe it’s just that I’m getting old, but the ‘new’ Intrepid Fox (that’s the one in St Giles Circus) just doesn’t seem as mad as the old one was in the late 1980s.

It really was a haven for all of the London reprobates and I was mighty proud to be one of them.

I left you with a story of being strangled in The Intrepid Fox by Duff McKagan and I pick the story up a few days later. (Part one here)

I had already seen Guns’n’Roses once at The Marquee and the second of their trio of gigs was on this fateful day. Basically even before they had an album out, there was a huge buzz around Guns, so it meant queuing up for most of the day to ensure you got in.

So basically what do you do while you are queuing? Drink…. And drink again.

This involved many visits to the Fox, just a few yards down the road, plus various drinks consumed in the queue. It didn’t help that Slash wandered up and down the gathering line of people with a video camera and a bottle of Jack Daniels – which he let many of those waiting slurp from.

So by the time we got into The Marquee we were more than jolly. Well, hell this was the newest and baddest rock’n’roll band since The Sex Pistols, what could possibly go wrong?

A couple of dances around the filling Marquee and tumbles onto the floor, soon saw me and my friend ejected onto the street. This couldn’t be happening. It was Guns’n’Roses – at The Marquee. Even then I knew this was a momentous occasion that would go down in history. After drunkenly pleading with the doorman to give me another chance (ok I’d already had three chances inside), I sought refuge in The Intrepid Fox.

There were a few inside, including ex Hanoi Rocks guitarist Nasty Suicide.

“Nasty! Nasty!” I blurted. “You know the guys at The Marquee really well. Can you get us in?”

In his distinctive deep drawl Nasty said no he couldn’t do anything, but try round the back of the venue and mention him.

So we ran from The Fox to the back door of The Marquee and had just about sweetalked our way back in when I had to dribble out. “Ahh thanks mate, only we’ve just been thrown out.”

That of course, was that! It was back to The Fox to drown our sorrows, but it didn’t help. I was completely and utterly wasted. I soon left to go and find a night bus …. at 8pm!

 

The original on Wardour Street.

 

I visited the original Intrepid Fox a million times between 1987 and 1992ish. The upstairs club was fun and you’d always get to hear ‘Somebody Put Something In My Drink’ by The Ramones.

I remember going there with work colleagues once, who were dressed reasonably normally but nothing to speak of. The doorman stopped them from going in which they thought was hilarious.

Pink lipsticked and spiky blond haired me said. “S’ok, there with me!”

Those were the days.

Then there was the guy who’d bring his pet mouse to the pub with him…etc etc .. most memories lost in a long forgotten drunken haze.

I went back to The Fox a few times in the 90s but it was never (or I was never quite the same). Then a few years ago, I discovered it had a new home, just behind Tottenham Court Road. Let the madness begin all over again.

Part 3 soon!