| RACHEL AUBURN: Everything was really wild. It was drugs, poppers, boys in pants. It was sexually very uninhibited - both women and men. It was just like "Wow!" People discovered Ecstasy and we weren't that aware of HIV. It was pretty much free-for-all sexuality. |
| MATTHEW GLAMORRE: The whole Taboo gang were so tight, they were like an impenetrable clique. Rachel Auburn ond Julia and Jeffrey and Leigh were very solid. Anybody that tried to get near them would just get completely slagged - including myself. The Taboo people were completely unapproachable. But then I was absolutely unapproachable! Everybody was desperate to be in, but really keen not to look like it. Everyone was trying to out-cool each other. This was where cool hit its pinnacle of macabre theatricality. Everybody was ultra cool. And everybody was ultra vile to each other. |
| PHILIP SALLON: Leigh used to come up and insult me and I just used to go up to him and insult him back. But he liked that! You couldn't really insult him, because he got high on it. |
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| Matthew Glamorre: There were quite often fights down there. Nowadays I' see them as disco playfights. Everybody was vile to each other. Everybody was fucking horrible to themselves and to each other. People were picked on. People were victimised. And put up with it to be cool. There were groups of people that would go and gang up omn people. It was very school playground. |
| RACHEL AUBURN: It was very competitive. The whole thing was fuelled by very strong arty creative people. They were fashion designers, artists, film makers, and so it was very bitchy - but funny. Lots of people couldn't cope with it. Leigh had the ability to cut to the care wit his bitingly honest nasty humour. But there were loads of people who were really attracted to that - the negativity. It was hard. Leigh surrounded himself with sycophantic people - most of them could take what he dished out. |
| PHILIP SALLON: Me and (Boy) George used to go round chatting to everyone. They used to be into who's who. "Ohhh helllooo!" They all talked like that - drawn-out voices. "Hellooo youuuu". "Are you wearing the right clothes? - if you're not, I don't want to know you." It was that kind of thing. Leigh once said to someone I know that he'd never speak to anyone unless they were dressed up - that's the sort of person he was. And then they saw him a while later when he was out and he had an old pair of jeans on and he ran away. I really hated it with vengeance. Originally Leigh used to creep and crawl, but then he got on his high horse. He was into being important. He was desperate to advance his career. He was swanning around being cool, saying one-liners and it was all an act. It was all one big fucking can trick. |
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| PAM HOGG & MICHAEL CLARK |
| LAURENCE MALICE: The debauchery! It was very common for people to all end up on the floor pissed out of their heads or off their boxes. The behaviour was what Americans would describe as 'messy'. Taboo was a very messy crowd. |
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