Helsinki Futurist Discos

tammikuuta 25, 2025

Aira Samulin (on the right) with a Futurist.
In the late 1970s and early 80s, two Helsinki journalists, Jukka Lindfors and Kari Lempinen (a.k.a. Walter de Camp) were editing the magazine Uusi Laulu ("New Chant"), which had, just in a couple of years of time, transformed from a somewhat serious leftist culture publication into a more ironic, "postmodern", even "hipster" journal, encompassing the latest fads and intellectual trends; including music, literature, visual arts, and clubs, also introducing the concept of "camp" culture to Finnish audiences, and so on.

Comical, self-ironic transgressions in the very spirit of punk were the order of the day: In 1980 Uusi Laulu had arranged a tongue-in-cheek campaign to liberate keskiolut (popular middle-strength lager strictly available only at the state-owned liquor stores and licensed grocery stores), to be sold also at R-kioski convenience stores. In 1981 there had been an event with a religious theme at Helsinki's Ostrobotnia, the venue which had been divided into "Heaven", "Hell" and "Purgatory", where the Biblical events had been enacted in front of the audience, such as walking on the water, striking water from the rock, and so on. The accusations of blasphemy had faced Uusi Laulu, who had been sued but finally acquitted in 1985.

Jukka Lindfors and Kari Lempinen had recently visited London’s New Romantic/Futurist clubs such as The Blitz and Billy’s, and wanted to import a similar concept also to Finland. Thus were born the first Futurist discos in Finland. The first of these, Jouluksi kotiin (“Home for Christmas”), against its very title, took place in the middle of summer, 21 July 1981, at Klippan, a traditional Art Nouveau style club-restaurant established in 1899 and located in an island in front of Helsinki.

The title of the event was probably an ironic reference to Jaakko Pakkasvirta's 1975 film of the same name, which was a bleak, black and white story of a working class man who perishes during the process of building his family a house of their own, being a prime example of the 1970s Finnish cinema of Socialist Realism; representing with its politically oriented seriousness a mindset markedly different from the self-ironic playfulness and hedonism that were to follow with the new generation after the punk years.

The slogan of the event was "Tyyli on köyhän perusoikeus" ("Style is a poor man’s basic right") and narcissism, "the paradise for poseurs", was the theme of the night. Celebrities such as Aira Samulin were seen attending the event which was a combination of disco, underground fashion show, cabaret and performance art; the recording artist Jimi Sumén, “Finland’s David Bowie”, taking care of the DJ duties. It was a blend of Futurism and vintage styles, with trendies, rockers, fashion freaks and the LGBTQ people all meeting on the dance floor.

The event gathered a lot of publicity, also notoriety in Finnish media, who probably didn't get the inherent self-irony contained in the club's "narcissistic" claims. Finland's pop philosopher du jour, Dan Steinbock, had recently published his book Narsismin fasismi ("The fascism of narcissism", Gummerus 1981), which had raised some considerable media interest. In his reading, inspired by the Frankfurt School, Steinbock was extremely critical also of the youth culture's recent mass movements, such as disco, punk, et al. This helped to provide fodder to all kinds of casual commentators in newspapers and magazines, more than willing to readily condemn the Futurist clubbers without taking any deeper look what might possibly be behind such strange goings-on. Narcissism became another handy catchword for both left-wing and conservative critics who traditionally found all such modern pop phenomena extremely dubious.

Later on, also organised by Uusi Laulu (who had changed their name to Aloha!), Restaurant Kaisaniemi had its regular Einstein A Go Go club (1981 - 1984) where the male participants put on a make-up in the men's room, and the singer Markku Arokanto was seen swimming and skiing on the dance floor. Another theme night by Uusi Laulu, the Finnish Independence Day Reception, on 6 December 1981, took place at the club-restaurant Botta (formally known as Ostrobotnia), another traditional milieu that was established in 1912.

In Finland the synthetic Futurist/New Romantic pop was simply called "futu", and during the first two or three years of the 1980s it was the hottest thing among the late-teens/early-20s Helsinki trend slaves, who traditionally want to be "where it's at". Another Helsinki club of the era, Bela Lugosi (1981 – 1985), organized by Pete Europa, Sally Flesh, Panda Nikander and General Njassa, took place at Vanha Poli (Polytechnic Students' Union), embracing the nascent Gothrock culture.