Royal Albert

Went for a drink at the Royal Albert this week (460 New Cross Road), formerly the Paradise Bar. It's a perfectly fine pub for a beer and a chat, run by Antic, the firm behind the East Dulwich Tavern, Dogstar (Brixton) and various other South London watering holes.

Still even as I sat on a comfortable sofa I couldn't help missing the scruffy glamour of the old Paradise Bar. In fact my sofa, under a stuffed bird of prey, was at the very spot where the stage used to be, with its plastic flashing disco floor. Was this really the place which just two or three years ago helped launch Art Brut, Bloc Party, The Long Blondes and many others? Actually a quick check on Google shows that it was three years ago this very night that Bloc Party played there. The Art Brut gig was an Angular records launch, a night when I climbed up on that stage myself to talk a bit about my Deptford Fun City book. Anyway enough instant nostalgia, for a reminder of what it was like check out this short film of Clor playing at the Paradise Bar.

Mules etc.

Haven't really done enough justice here to the Artful festival, suffice it to say that there's still plenty of music and other fun to be had before the end of October, including Shot by Both Sides tomorrow at the Venue in New Cross:


Line-up is:
THE MULES
Skiffle, music hall, hillbilly knees-up and jug-band blues fed through a new wave mixer.

STAINED GLASS HEROES
Taut, angular melodies, skewed punk/funk and fuzzy electronics, evoking Can, Magazine & PiL.

THE BRIAN JACKET LETDOWN
Balmy kaleidoscopic pop, complete with kitchen-sink melodies, kazoos and bent psych-folk.

Notes from the Island

Notes from the Island is a project exploring the mysteries of the traffic island at the junction of New Cross Road and Queens Road: 'The Island welcomes everybody. Every day many visit and thousands pass close by, though few notice it. It is a place of brief encounters, of buried secrets, of moments glimpsed in rear-view mirrors. A brief pause on a journey. The Island has no border controls, no prisons, no buying and selling. Is it a utopia? Perhaps it could be, a sanctuary of non-interference amidst the surveillance cameras'.

As a contribution to Artful month, Notes from the Island will be collaborating with You are here but why? on some exploratory mapping of the Island at 3 pm on Sunday 15th October 2006. After a guided stroll around the Island 'we will consider ways of mapping the Island and the routes through and around it in time and space. If its raining we will be in the White Hart pub opposite'.

Radical Stuff at Goldsmiths

5pm on Thursday 12th October (This Thursday), Town Hall Pirates present 'The Weather Underground' a documentary by Sam Green and Bill Siegel about US urban guerillas of the late 1960s/early 1970s. Somewhere at Goldsmiths, venue to be confirmed but wander around looking for posters and you should be able to find it.

Then on Thursday, November 2 at 5.30pm there will be a commemoration of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 in Room 143 of the Richard Hoggart building of Goldsmiths College, Lewisham Way, New Cross, London, SE14. The meeting is sponsored by Revolutionary History journal and the London Socialist Historians Group.

March for Migrants Rights

Tomorrow (Saturday October 7th 2006) the London-wide 'March for Migrants' Rights' is taking place in Southwark demanding an end to detention and deportations, and equal rights for migrants and refugees.

It start at 12 noon by the Imperial War Museum (Geraldine Mary Harmsworth park) before heading up Borough High Street and past Becket House, a government reporting centre for asylum seekers in St Thomas Street, SE1.

It's all part of an international day of action. Further details here and at No Borders London.

Update: Report on march

Several hundred people took part in the March for Migrants' Rights today in South London, starting off from the Imperial War Museum and marching up Borough High Street before pausing at Becket House in St Thomas Street, a Home Office 'reporting centre' where asylum seekers have to report and may be detained without warning. The march finished with a rally in Tanner Street Park in Bermondsey.

Banners on the march included the new No Borders London one making its debut, as well as Southall Black Sisters, Latin American Workers Association, Bolivia Solidarity Campaign, Barbed Wire Britain, International Organisation of Iranian Refugees and many others.

Pull Tiger Tail in New Cross

The Wolfgang Bopp presents;

Pull Tiger Tail

Pull Tiger Tail – Selected on the Guardians weekly playlist and making Steve Lamacq froth at the mouth like a rabid badger in a sherbet factory, Pull Tiger Tail are certainly on somewhat of an upward trajectory. They have already appeared in session on John Kennedys XFM show and have been described by the NME as “the sound of the summer”…well its Autumn now but you get their drift. If you listen to any radio station other than Magic FM you will likely have heard their marvellous Animator single and then have had it stuck in your head for the a week.

Fear of Flying

Fear of Flying – Described as “very promising” by the clued up folk at Soundsxp, Fear of Flying have been signed up to the Young and Lost label along with PTT. Their single “Routemaster” garnered much critical praise, and we will be delighted to see what all the fuss is about this Friday.

Date: Friday 6th October
Doors: 8pm – 12.15am
Price: £4 on door
Venue: The Montague Arms, 289 Queens Road , New Cross, SE15 2PA
Tel: 0207 6394923
Nearest Tube: New Cross Gate
Nearest BR: Queens Rd , Peckham