Clubbing Saved My Life

37-year-old Chris Drake: saved from depression by the miracle of techno!
CHRIS Drake used to be sensible. Married 16 years with a nice house, brogues, moustache and a paunch.He mowed the lawn on Sundays, listened to Pink Floyd and worked all week to sustain his middle-class lifestyle. He thought he was happy. "Work had become my life," he says. "I was working until ten or eleven at night, but that enabled me to afford the house. You get caught up in this whole stereotyped thing, where everyone's into materialistic shit. It's fine when you're doing it, but looking back..."

Then Chris and his wife broke up. He packed his belongings into a car and drove to London. His life had suddenly capsized, after 37 years. He spent the next six months clinically depressed and feeling suicidal. His GP put him on Prozac, which helped him get by, not get better. He'd go out drinking a lot with a boozy crowd he'd just met, but this didn't really change anything either. He knew by now he wasn't happy. Still, he became mates with a guy at work called Tom, ten years younger but also going through a messy divorce. They started driving to work together, chatting about stuff. One day Tom put some techno on the car stereo.

CHRIS didn't like or understand it. Then he found his way in, weirdly,through The Shamen's album 'Destination Eschaton', a trancey concoction of Europop, trance, and banging acid. It touched something in Chris. He ended up buying a compilation album, 'Club Mix '96'. A bit cheesy, maybe, but he played it continuously. He made Tom take him to his first proper club: London techno night Ultimate Base. "I used to live in a hippy squat before I was married," he says. "The club was like that but much more active, everyone really friendly. I lost it - I hadn't danced so much since 1980."

And so Chris ended up going to Tribal Gathering '97. "That was my rebirth," he says quietly. He played catch-up with dance music, buying four CDs every weekend: the Global Underground series, hard house and pumping techno. He spent New Year's Eve at Return To The Source's bash in Brixton, South London - still dancing when the lights came up. Now he clubs twice a month, often heading into Brixton for the Kinetic club, where Andy Dixon DJs. "Everyone's so up for the music. I love it," he says enthusiastically. Chris is still going through the initial love affair every clubber has with dance music, having the time of his life.

Some of Chris's colleagues - he's a principal orthodontist (assesses and fits external braces) at Queen Mary's Hospital in Roehampton - think he's gone a bit mad. He's shaved off that sensible moustache, lost more than two stone, and they don't really understand why. But Chris has made new friends at the hospital, and he feels much happier with his life. The weekend's for going out now, not a spot of DiY. "This is me now," he says. "Club culture's the most positive experience I've ever had. I've certainly never felt more passionate about anything." The new Chris Dixon might not be half as sensible as the old Chris Dixon, but he's a lot happier.
MARK WHITE

Greg West's journey from a mental hospital to Miss Moneypenny's

GREG West has been clubbing for 12 years now and music is his life. In fact, it very nearly saved his life. Last year, he lost his job of five years. He lost his girlfriend. He lost his home and he lost his friends. He ended up in hospital suffering from depression. "I'd been going out six or seven nights a week before then," he says, "and then when all that happened, I wouldn't leave my room. I became a recluse." Greg had started clubbing at Ritzy-type venues in his home town of Wolverhampton, denim shirt-clad and sporting a moustache. Then one night, four years ago, he discovered Miss Moneypenny's in Birmingham. "I remember being told it was the hardest club to get into, so I went out and bought myself some new clubbing clothes and we all travelled down there. There was a guy on the door in drag and I just thought, 'Excellent.' "When I walked through the doors it was like paradise without the beach," he smiles. He soon became a Chuff Chuff regular, dressing up for each theme and enjoying every second.

But then he was sacked from his job. "They said I was too into the scene," remembers Greg. He slipped into a deep depression and before long he was looking out of a hospital window. "But when I was in there, I saw a lot of people with problems much worse than me, and I thought, 'Well, I'm not so bad as I thought I was.'" He discharged himself and managed to get a job within a week. That weekend, he went back to Miss Moneypenny's. "I found myself standing there and thinking, 'How could I leave this scene?' A lot of people you see in clubs don't seem to be having a good time, there's a lot of unhappy people, but me and my friends always made the most of it. Within a year I'd completely turned my life around and I'm now a company director, and I've got a beautiful girlfriend." It's not just the club scene that keeps Greg sane, it's two other things as well - learning to switch off on Sundays and, most of all, the music itself. So keen is he to not miss a thing, he's been known to get his mates to tape Pete Tong's Radio One show when he's on holiday. "At the end of the day," he says softly, "clubbing has really helped me, I've made a lot of genuine friends and I don't know what I would have done without it."
MIRANDA COOK

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