International Club

[ClaphamCommoner]

Do you mean this place? It used to be a night-club but for the life of me I can't remember the name. It's had a few renames over the years.Thank you, Chrism. Yes, I know where this is, though it looks somewhat different today, and it looks like the part of the street I thought was where the RatT was. I have pics of the street today (front and back, facing on to Meanwood Rd) but I can't work out how to upload them onto here. I've been trying to pin down the locations for months: even the guys I used to go there with, 35 years ago, couldn't remember where it was. Thank you!

[ClaphamCommoner]

Hi Clapham Commoner,The premises were the same. The place was known, at various times, as the Shaheen Club, the New Shaheen Club and Room at the Top (and possibly others names too).' Sheepscar Junction' was broadly the junction of Meanwood Road, North Street, Roundhay Road and Sheepscar Street North. From memory, I suspect that the premises were technically on Sheepscar Street North. Funnily enough, being brought up in Woodhouse, I always knew the junction as the 'Golden Cross Junction' as there was a pub of that name at the junction of North Street and Meanwood Road.As you say, the club premises were above commercial premises and shops. Between these buildings and Appleyard's garage was a car park and a petrol station. In the 1980's, the premises below the club were a private hire taxi place and I seem to remember that there was a murder committed outside the premises.There are photographs of the area on Leodis. Here is a very old photograph but the premises can be seen on the right:http://www.leodis.net/display.aspx?reso ... AY=FULLIan    Brilliant. So that's confirmed then? I knew it as the Room At The Top around 1974-76, which would fit with it changing its name whenever it needed a new identity after the cops tried to close it down, and it having been the Shaheen Club and New Shaheen Club earlier in the 70s. I seem to remember an arch that ran through to the back (the kind that a cart or carriage would have passed through in the 19th century) and that we drove through this and parked in an alley behind. Thank you for solving a very old mystery. This has been bugging me for ages.

[ClaphamCommoner]

Leodian wrote: Earlier query from Leodian:- I wonder if that could be a folk club that I used to go to in what I think would be the early to mid 1970's. It was on North Street near to the New Briggate end in small premises on an upper floor that you reached up a narrow flight of inside steps. I seem to recall seeing Tony Capstick perform when he was still not that well known. Thanks ClaphamCommoner. Yep, that is definitely not the folk club I went to. Some years before my Chapeltown days, while still at school, I was more into folk and saw Tony Capstick at the Grove Inn in Holbeck. That would have been autumn 1969. (Yikes!)

[Septic Tank]

The International was originally the Glass Bucket Club early 60's, a converted synagogue, I was a kid attending Cowper St school and walked past it every day from our house in Leopold Square. Jimmy Hendrix played there just before being discovered. Known locally as the Nash, or the politically incorrect 'Sooty Club' it was a good place to carry on drinking after 3 in the old days of licencing hours. We used it when rained off in the Steel erection business , also a haunt of gamblers,villains, brasses & the Law, especially when the Ripper case was on the go.

[colinski]

Hi, Does anyone remember the opening night of the Glass Bucket Club in Francis Street?
It was on the day that Jamaica celebrated its first independance day in the 60s The place was full, the music (blue beat or Ska which eventually became known as Regea, was great, and entire families of West Indian immigrants attended, including Grandmas and Grandads. The club was opened specifically for the West Indian community by one white man and two Jamacians who ran the club until its drinking licence was revoked by the magistrates for serving alchohol at 10.45 pm. It was later run by a certain Mr Hyman whose only interest was in making a lot of money, fast. It was all downhill from there.

[colinski]

Anyone remember the time around 1968/9 when the Manager of the International Club, I think it was on Francis St. off Chapeltown Road, was arrested for assault on a police officer? A plain clothes sergeant I think. I believe many of the club members turned up at court as witnesses for the Manager, Clem I seem to remember his first name as. He was found guilty I believe and fined ten shillings. I would be grateful for any more info.John Croggy

Clem, a West Indian gentleman of small stature, was only a front man for Lee Hyman, the owner of the club, who could not get a drinking licence because of previous convictions. So the licence was obtained in Clems name.

[MattGlxns]

This is a really interesting thread to read. Great stories and anecdotes. My first and only exposure to the Phoenix Club as it was called then, was in the late 80s and also happened to be my first ever trip to Leeds before moving here in July 1998. My friend Ian and I were part of the psychobilly movement at the time and we went to an all-day festival at the Phoenix on 22 October 1989 called Night of the Long Knives and headlined by the Meteors. Poster can be viewed here: https://www.45worlds.com/live/listing/t ... -club-1989.

I was 17 and I remember that it was the first time I'd been allowed to travel to another city on my own. I remember being outside the club waiting to go in and feeling excited and also a bit scared. I'd never been to anywhere like Chapeltown in my life before that and having grown up in a tiny mining village near Saltburn on the North East coast, it blew my mind to be in a space bustling with so many people of different backgrounds. I'll never forget how exciting it felt at the time. There seemed to be so much music going on in the building simultaneously.

Really nice to read a bit of history on here about the club from people who knew it well.