NIMAL JAYAWARDENA sits in the darkness and peers through the window at sun-splashed Shelley Street in Central. It's mid-afternoon in his grungy music club Amnesia. With its black sofas, dark red walls, chipped disco ball, well-trodden dance floor and stage, it's a throwback to the heyday of punk. And this weekend the venue is celebrating its sixth birthday.
Amnesia is on the third floor of an office block called Al Aqmar House off the escalator in SoHo. Opening hours? Erratic, to say the least - it opens only a couple of times a month, to host underground punk, rock, drum'n'bass and hip-hop performances.
Over the years, the gigs have ranged from unknowns to renowned. In 2003, Japanese rockers Electric Eel Shock delivered a blinding show. Australian band Regurgitator also played there after headlining last year's Rockit Festival. Frontman Quan Yeomans says he's a fan. 'It's punky. It's good - just the way a punk rock venue should be.'
Amnesia was launched six years ago, after Jayawardena quit his job as a brand manager, two years after returning to Hong Kong from studying at Arizona State University.
He'd been organising DJ nights at the now-defunct CE Top in Lyndhurst Terrace. 'We were flying in cheap house DJs, but it was always packed. Within a month we gathered together $60,000 to open our own nightclub.'
With partner and promoter Didier Li, he formed the Matrix Entertainment Group and launched Amnesia. 'I never wanted a flash nightclub,' Jayawardena says. 'I wanted a space for artists to express themselves, whether DJs or bands.'
After a financially difficult first year, they've finally developed a solid, if somewhat unusual, club phenomenon. One of the more popular, long-running nights has been Brown Sugar, which offers a mixture of indie, Brit-pop, rock, electro and dance.