SCANTS 180 FOX STREET JHB

Scants opened on the 19th August 1983 at 180 Fox Street. The owners, Stan Herson and Bruce Kennedy would later go on to open Heaven, but this was the pair’s first foray into the nightclub business.The resident Scants DJ was Andrew Wood assisted by Jannie Vermaak. Both used to DJ at Mandys, but Jannie preferred operating the lights (and later the lasers) leaving the music to Andrew. Scants was also the first club in South Africa to have lasers. They came a few months after the club opened resulting in the club also being known as SCANTS Laserdrome.   The timing was perfect in catching the wave of new club music that was burning up underground and mostly gay dancefloors in Europe, USA and Canada. This was High Energy (or HI-NRG). Coming out of the ashes of disco in the late 1970s, this music was largely synth and drum machine driven influenced by more experimental disco producers like Georgio Moroder and electronic bands like Kraftwerk and Cerrone. Leaders in this new sound were producers and musicians like Bobby Orlando (who worked with Divine, Flirts and Roni Griffith) and Patrick Cowely (who had worked with Sylvester in the 1970s) as well as producers out of Italy and Germany who nurtured a sound that was to be known as Italo Disco and Euro Disco. Many today cite them as godfathers of modern dance music. This sound fueled gay dancefloors across the world and was the sound of liberation for many young gay men and women at the time. Of course, the music crossed over to other dance fans reaching the mainstream via the likes of New Order’s ‘Blue Monday’, Frankie goes to Hollywood’s ‘Relax’, Pet Shop Boys (it was Bobby Orlando that first recorded and produced them before their initial success) and later, Stock Aitken & Waterman productions like Dead Or Alive ‘You spin me round’, Mel & Kim’s ‘Respectable’ and Bananarama’s cover of ‘Venus’.

Andrew left Scants after some time to DJ at The Dungeon and other clubs and returned to Stan and Bruce’s next club Heaven in 1986. 
Scants was forced to close down in 1985 as the block that the club was on was sold to Rand Daily Mail (who went bankrupt shortly thereafter). The owners immediately set out to build a new club a few streets away and Heaven was its replacement 6 months later. 

The Scants block was eventually redeveloped. Today a large ABSA building covers several blocks with the original position all but gone. 

Special Thanks to Andrew Wood for all the names and information and Stan for the all the photos.