Future sound of New Cross

People sometimes talk about the New Cross scene, but it seems to me there are any number of different scenes, albeit ones that overlap at the edges. As well as the various Montagu/New Cross Inn/Rocklands/Angular scenettes there is a whole scene of younger bands either in or just out of school, with their own website New Cross Scene. On Friday 4 March 2005 some of them are playing at the Telegraph Hill rock night, including Phoenix Jam, Eleven IQ, Gebus, Provocative, Tone-Deaf Messiah and The Only Hopes. Its at the Telegraph Hill Centre, top of Pepys Road, Doors open 7.30, admission £4. If you are out of your teens you will feel very old.

Live in Rocklands

You can't keep a good bunch down and the Rocklands crew are back, with new players Beat Crazy, at busy old halls of the Amersham Arms, 388 New Cross Rd, Rocklands (erm, that'll be New Cross) SE14.

The first night of their LIVE IN ROCKLANDS gigs will be on Wednesday 9th March, from 8pm until midnight and will cost 35/£3 concs. Playing are The Modern, "dark wave synth pop" apparently, Luxenbourg, "pop noir", and a band called William who do "weirdrock". I like the sound of weird rock.

DJs will include Simon Price of the Stay Beautiful club. Maybe see you there. Future nights will be posted up near the time but you can get more details on these, and loads of other things, at the Rocklands site.

Totally Wired

If you live in New Cross you should be able to hear a new radio station for the next month, put together by Goldsmiths students. Wired is broadcasting on 101.4 fm (or online at www.wired.gold.ac.uk) all day, every day until 23rd March.

Past Tense Publications

Past Tense Publications, purveyors of South London histories, mythologies and mysteries, have a new website. You can now peruse their catalogue and order online pamphlets such as 'Deptford Fun City - a ramble through the history and music of New Cross and Deptford' and 'Down with the Fences! - battles for the commons in South London'. Check it out at: http://geocities.com/pasttensepublications/

Lumiare de la Loup

There’s plenty of music out there and there’s plenty of film too. There’s film clubs out there too. Joining Exploding Cinema and My Eyes! My Eyes! is the equally well named WEREWOLF Underground Film Club. Their opening night is on Sunday, 6th March at the Funky Munky bar in fair Camberwell, 25 Camberwell Church Street, London SE5 and costs £4.

They will be showing the British Premiere (possibly the first film premier in Camberwell ever?) of FAITES VOS JEUX By AKAS and Filmgruppe Chaos (‘in loose cooperation with the copyright violation squad’ apparently)

‘ FAITES VOS JEUX ‘ is, and I quote “a feature film made without a camera, a collection of pirated images/ 'samples' from home movies, adverts, art-videos, TV news, documentaries, game shows and movies from Hollywood to 'Bollywood'.”

So, perhaps, more like a film made on lots and lots of cameras, along with “doses of sandpaper, acid, felt-pens, 'Letraset', sharp blades and other devices” that tells the tale, somehow, of “a baby born in the seventies to the end of his life by suicide. Along the way the film explores political events, music, andmedia styles : the deaths of Germany's Red Army Faction (Baader-Meinhof Group) in a high-security prison, the rise of the punk movement, early eighties new wave culture, the Gulf War, the WTO-riot in Genoa and ultimately to a 'mega-media-mix' showdown of th eevents of 9/11 and the war against terror.”

As I said about something else a while back, could be brilliant, could be a bit of old toss but it looks an interesting night. There’ll also be ‘Klassik shorts, live tv mixing and MC Ray Beam.’

Nearest tubes to the Funky Munky are the Oval and the Elephant & Castle, though there not that near, you’ll need to get a 12, 36, 436, 345 or 171 bus.

Gluerooms & Scaledown

I've not got round to photographing the new poster for the Gluerooms but it's a good one. Loads of horses are going into the top of a grinder and coming out as glue (or dog-food, I suppose) at the bottom. Is this a commemorative Charles and Camilla poster?

Presumably down to February being a sawn-off runt of a month, they are not running on the last Wednesday of the month, as is their present set-up, but the first Wednesday of March, the 2nd.

Pay £3 from 9pm at the door of The Amersham Arms, Amersham Road, New Cross (just by New Cross station bridge) and you will get a live ‘ticky tape set’ from DJ Tendraw & The Gypsies Dog & No Disco and live music from Moonus (who may be “psy-groove-poetic-ilic excursions deluxe" but may not be, part of the fun of writing about Gluerooms is finding out about who’s playing) and The Reactorcore Is Splendid.

All together now: “The reactor core is splendid, it gives us light to read. Each sub-atomic particle is a friend indeed.”

Tendraw & The Gypsies Dog will also be appearing this Friday, 25th February, at central London music club Scaledown along with Blackheath-er Rebecca Closure. Scaledown is free to members (join on the door) and starts at 7pm upstairs at The King and Queen, 1 Foley Street London, W1.

I Swear I Was There at The Venue!

An acquaintance of mine is coming back to south-east London for a quick holiday after three years or so in American and he asked "What's new?"

"Well," we said, "beer's gone up, fox hunting is meant to be banded, you can't laugh at Bible botherers anymore and the pubs still aren't open 24 hours because there's worries about people getting drunk."

I was being a bit of an old misery. What I should have told him, and him being an ex-New Crosser he would have understood, is that the Venue is doing proper music again! Friday 18th was a great night, the vaulted basement bar is a slightly arabesque (I love that word) features, the crowd where the usual mix of local scenesters, from non-smiley young boys (who we laughed and pointed at) to girls who love to hit the dressing-up box to so many other weird and wonderful people. The bands were all loveable, from the multi-instrumental, experimental punk noise from Mitten, to the cheeky on-stage banter and sheer love of being there from both the ever-gorgeous cartoon-punksters The Blue Minkies and the boppy Raw Sex (as in the Roland Riveron duo) of The Fucks.


So let’s do that again! Angular are planning another night at The Venue in March but before then those other punk-providers I Swear I Was There are putting Lovell’s Wharf, SONY (Somewhere Outside New York), Fine Lines and The Idle Lovers on at The Venue on Friday 4th March from 9pm with multiple DJ’s. Entry is £3. The Venue is on the New Cross Road, giggers go to the side entrance on Clifton Rise.

Arabesque Nights

Hubble Bubble is back in Deptford on 26th February for more Turkish-fusion tubes from Oojami and Balkan brass-band the,um, The Balkanatics. There’s also beats, belly dancers, trapeze artists, DJs and Turkish food.

It’s £8/£6 a ticket, a darn good chance to wig out to some great beats and an ace introduction to Turkish and Arabesque music . Go, go, go (if you can).

It’s on at the Albany, Douglas Way, Deptford, 8pm to 2am.

Nirvana in New Cross?

The Venue in New Cross has seen many tribute bands, incuding 'Teen Spirit - a tribute to Nirvana'. Over at Urban75 there has been a bit of discussion about whether the real band ever played there, with a couple of people thinking they saw them there. 

It can be difficult to be sure about gig memories, half the bands I 'saw' at the Venue I only semi-heard through a drunken mist, or I missed most of because I was dancing upstairs. After digging around at Nirvana-obsessive sites, I am pretty sure they never played at The Venue. 

However according to the very comprehensive www.livenirvana.com Kurt Cobain and the rest of the band did go there on the 22 August 1991 to see 'Mudhoney', 'Hole' and 'Captain America'. The following day they played Reading. This was about a month before 'Nevermind' was released. 

Someone who was there thinks that Nirvana may have played a few numbers with Mudhoney, but I'm not sure about this either. There is a Mudhoney set list for this gig which doesn't mention doing any numbers with Nirvana, but who knows? 

 Anyway that was then, this is now, I'm off to the Venue tomorrow (Friday) for the Angular night.

Who does that bell toll for?

There’s this new mystery in New Cross, I’ve heard it on my road twice in the last few days.

We’re in the dark, grey, guts of February and, by the gods and goddesses, it’s cold out there. Not only is the cold closing itself around my, and everyone else’s, extremities with an intensity of grip normally associated with pit-bulls, solider ants and bull-dog clips but everyone around me has the chapped nose and wheezy rasp about them of the long-term cold sufferer.

So why have I, whilst lurking in the warmth of my burrow near the New Cross end of the Lewisham Way, heard an ice-cream van playing it’s chimes twice in the last few days? Not only have I heard these chimes (the traditional, discordant ones that sound like a sack full of cuckoo-clocks and musical boxes being rolled down a steep hill) but I’ve heard the familiar whirr of an ice-cream van engine.

My burrow-mate, Clare, even saw someone approach this van last night, purchase something and disappear back in to the sterile, frozen night. What can this 'ice-cream van' be selling? Surly not ice cream? Is it a roving burger-van, filling in before the festival and fair-ground season and making do before haunting the car-boot sales this weekend? Is it delivering oily meat to the masses on the street and on demand? Is it selling soup and tea? Weed and speed? Gloves and scarves? Is it bringing much needed cheese, wine, hot pizza and chips to ones doorstep and, if so, why am I not aware of its services?

It is selling something I don’t know about to beings in New Cross that I normally do not encounter or perceive? It is like a ghostly galleon or the wild hunt or the enchanted party boats that travel the Amazon, providing entertainment for ‘the others’ amongst us and only glimpsed by mortals on clear, moon-light bathed nights?

The next time I hear it I’m going out there to catch it and see. I hope I am able to come back afterwards and let you know what I shall witness.

St Valentine Be Hanged!

Monday, 14th February, London. The restaurants of the city will be filled with couples, listlessly munching their pizza, staring glassy eyed in to the middle-distance wishing they could think of something to say to each other.

Perhaps a guitarist or fiddler will sidle up to them and begin to play. He (or she) doesn’t care about what they are doing, the couple are embarrassed but they all go through with this awkward and joyless ritual. It is, after all, Valentines Day.

The tired rose on their table will fade a little bit more and lose another petal.

Other couples will have just got back from a weekend break, tired and a bit fed-up with the craft shops and cloying tea-rooms of out-of-season resorts and retreats. Yet more will wonder what to dread more, gifts of cuddly toys or of novelty, and cheaply made, racy underwear and fluffy-handcuffs. All of which are made with slight, ironic shrug, just in case the gesture is taken too seriously.

Look, if you’re in love, or if you just enjoy shagging a particular person a lot, celebrate it your own way and at your own time. Celebrate it every day it’s there.

And this Monday, well, come to SELFS and see “A Man Called” Jason Oliver discuss a, perhaps, different form of physical passion. Jason has recently been described by no-less of a wise-woman as Treadwell’s Christina Oakley as “a lively speaker and a serious practitioner” as well as “Engaging, intelligent, thought-provoking. We can only imagine that whatever he's speaking on, he makes the evening out worth the journey.” Good use of the royal ‘we’ there.

Jason will discuss suspension and other forms of body ritual and compare these with the techniques of everyone’s favourite self-loving proto-chaos magician, Austin Osman Spare.

Here's the details Jason gave me plus some other shameless SELFS promotion (location and directions after these messages:

14th February: Jason Oliver – Suspension and other Body Rituals.

Jason will discuss body ritual with specific relation to suspension, both past and present, and its relation to the death posture as posited by Austin Osman Spare. Other body modifications will be discussed as a peripheral to these body rites of passage.

Jason is studying at the Royal College of Art for a Masters degree, his main themes being body modification, ritual and associated practices.

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SELFS now distributes books, pamphlets and magazines on our chosen interests of paganism, folklore, forteana, high strangeness, radical history and the occult. We currently hold:

Deptford Fun City – Neil Gordon-Orr: £2

Down with the Fences: Battles for the Commons in South London – Past Tense Press: £1

Fowlers Troop and the Deptford Jack in the Green: a history of an old London
May Day tradition – Sarah Crofts: £1

LVG Vampire Chronicles Issue: Slayer Special: £2.75 (with an article by me in it).

Do contact me if you think you have something we could distribute for you.
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SELFS made the national press! One Hermione Eyre (possibly not her real name) cam to SELFS on the 10th January, made a few notes, gave Jeremy Harte the rave review he deserved and then wrote us up in the Independent on Sunday on 16th January.

The review can be read here.

It’s not on the Indie website so I had to scan the photocopy Jeremy sent me. We, “the pagans”, are “lovely”, says the bar staff of The Spanish Galleon, which is nice to know, and they talk about foxes a lot and wear a fair bit of purple, do a bit of note taking in green biro and but, ultimately, are “friendly” according to Hermione. Hopefully she wasn’t too perturbed by the thought of the Galleon bar-staff thinking she may be one of those ‘pagans’ (or forteans, folklorists or various other SELFS sorts).
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As well as posting the above over the interweb, I have finally gotten around to setting up an online photo-gallery for SELFS which includes three pictures from the epic Jack Gale walk in Greenwich Park in 2003 and one of our first goes at watching the Winter Solstice sunrise at Hilly Fields Stone Circle in Brockley in 2003.

Also in there are a few photos, that I’ve pinched off Stewart Smith, of former SELFS speakers (me, Gordon Rutter, Richard Freeman) mingling with March’s speaker Mark Pilkington as well as (before this turns too much into ‘Hello’ magazines for pagans and forteans) some snaps of last years Fowlers Troop Jack in the Green procession around Greenwich pubs, the Lion’s Part October Plenty gathering and our growing collection of ‘plant people’ pictures.
The link to the SELFS & Forteana page is here, The gallery is updated as often as we can so if you have any SELFS-related pictures (or pictures of cute, furry animals) that you’d like to put up there, such as pictures of speakers, SELFS or related events or anything interesting snapped in South East London then do please let me know.

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SELFS meets every second Monday of the month upstairs at The Spanish Galleon, 48 Greenwich Church Street, SE10 9BL. Talks start at 8.00pm and costs £2.50 / £1.50 concessions.

Greenwich Mainline & DLR: Turn left from the main exit, walk about 5-10 minutes, the Galleon is on your right, at the cross-roads.

Cutty Sark DLR: Turn left from the station, right when you get to the road, the Spanish Galleon is across the road.

Buses: 177, 180, 188, 199, 286, 386.

Contact email
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Long Lost Club

The Lost Club is one of New Cross's more interesting music nights, presenting an ecletic mix of bands and performers with a dark and punky atttiude. Their next night is at Cyclicart, 308 New Cross Road, New Cross and costs £3 (£2.50 with lost badge. My Lost Club badge sits very proudly on my pea-coat and often draws admiring comments. Well, it has twice, anyway).

Doors are at 8pm and you get this long, Lost Club line-up for your money: Twisted Charm, The Lazy Angels, The Dirty Pins, Wearesix, Venus Pollution, Thatchers Clit (shudder), One Jah and acoustic stuff from Deadeye and Zen.

Also performing are Jazzman John, Jo Angel, Paul Abbott and the migraine that is Spinmaster Plantpot.

Pirate Punk Pub

This Friday / Tomorrow / 11th Feb has the Greenwich Pirate mob putting on another bunch of bands, described as "some of the finest bands of the area with a penchant for the female singer" which is perfectly fine by me as well as girly DJ's..

Live are The Violets, Alice And The Enemies and Lovelle's Wharf, DJ's are Love Pirates, Bodie & Doyle and, um, Daisy. Not that that means much to me but I'm sure they'll be a good and drunken mix of punk-rock and disco.

By the very magic of the venue nights are the Monty are always magical. The time is 8-12, Rntry: £3/2 concs.

Call of the Wild

Saw a poster on a tree in Gellatly Road today offering a £500 reward for finding a parrot, 'last seen in Meeting House Lane' (Peckham). Strangely a few weeks ago at the other end of the road there was a poster seeking information on Freddy, a missing parakeet. What's going on?

Until recently I believed that such creatures were doomed to die in London, at least until some JG Ballard-style future in which the ruins of the city are submerged in tropical vegetation. But then on Peckham Rye last year I saw a flash of green and became aware of the parakeet population living there and indeed all over London (the South West being particularly popular). According to this report there may be up to 30,000 parrots and parakeets living wild, descended from escaped pets. Presumably all the birds in solitary confinement have heard the call of the wild and plot for the moment when the cage door is accidentally left open - looks like at least two are on the run right now in this area.

Pound shop pop at the Venue

Angular records and friends are starting a regular night in the basement at The Venue (Clifton Rise, SE14). They promise "Set in the heart of New Cross behind a crushed velvet curtain, an Angular Disco is musical ordnance in the face of something less linear. Angular Recording Corporation hosts a regular night of art-punk-electro-new-wave-indie-pound-shop-pop. Badges and brogues welcome, virtuosity will be confiscated...".

First up on Friday 18th February are The Fucks, The Blue Minkies, Mitten plus DJ's Greenwich Pirate, Throw Another T.V. In The Thames.

A month later on Friday 18th March its Neils Children with Wet Dog. I saw the former at the Vibe Bar in Brick Lane a couple of months ago and they were really good (well with a name like that how could they not be), some of their stuff reminded me of Deptford's own Alternative TV.

Tax on the door is £3, 9pm start.

Time for the Chinese New Year in Greenwich

It's nearly time for Chinese New Year and the National Maritime Museum (NMM), being in charge of Greenwich Observatory, is into all things chronological, are putting on some events. They look good:

Most exciting are the Chinese Astronomy planetarium shows from Saturdays the 5th to the 19th February at 14.30. These “live digital planetarium show, explore the myths and legends surrounding the Chinese constellations and their relationship to the Chinese calendar” will be at the National Maritime Museums Neptune Planetarium. Price is £4.00 adults, £2.00 sprogs.

On Wednesday 9th February the NMM Lecture theatre is screening (for free) “a variety of mainstream and Chinese art house films”. More information (Such as, presumably: “why are you showing these potentially interesting films at such a stupid time of day?”) can be obtained via this email address.

Sunday 13 February is the ‘Chinese Community New Year' and the NMM will have free events from 12.30 - 16.00 which will include plenty of Chinese dance, Chinese dance workshops as well as mask and flag making and Chinese calligraphy workshops.

All through February there is a ‘family trail’ to “discover our beautiful collection of Chinese objects on display.” For directions and the link, visit the museum’s website.

People's Republic of Disco

Went to the Windmill in Brixton on Saturday for People's Republic of Disco. For those who don't know, the premise is that everybody can bring two tracks which are randomly selected to play, thus offering a practical critique of superstar DJs and other nonsense. Inspired by Friday's Gang of Four gig (which led to the Montague Arms being mentioned in the New York Times!), I took along 'At home he's a tourist', which got a good crowd reaction. Altogether now - 'down on the disco floor, they make their profit'. Next PRoD is on 19th February.

If ever you are short of something to do in South London of an evening, you are more or less guaranteed some aural stimulation at Windmill. There's far too many events to mention here, but Angular artistes Luxembourg and The Vichy Government are there next Tuesday (1st Feb).

New Cross Red Cross Crawl

Bit of a late one here but recently our friend Bongo Tom has burst forth, literally frothing, about this local music event. There is a music festival taking place up and down the New Cross Road this Sunday, the 30th January, called Red Cross New Cross . It's a charity mass-rock out to raise money for the Tsunami appeal.

This will take place during the day and night at the Catapult Club, round the side of the Amersham Arms, 338 New Cross Road, the Walpole Arms, 407 New Cross Road, New Cross Inn (aka Bar Alchemy but I think they're trying to quietly drop that one) 323 New Cross Road, and the Goldsmiths Tavern, 306 New Cross Road, which is trying to get a bit of it's old reputation back after changing from a gritty punk venue with boarded-up windows to what resembled, as far as I could see through the glossy windows, a British Legion Club more at home in Camberley than New Cross.

The New Cross Inn has Dirty Pretty Things, cartoon punks Bogus Gasman, the spooky and lovely sounding Gemma Ray, Crowd, Monster Raging Boogie Party and the charmingly named Yellow Snow,

It's a punk/ska a-go-go at the Catapult Club with: Inner-Terrestrials (politico ska-punk band), Pain (I think this'll be the ex-RDF lot gotten noisy, usually spelt P@IN, I think), Headjam, Hoover & Pitman and Short Bus Window Lickers. I would guess this one i will be your best chance of sighting a studded leather jacket, a Crass t-shirt with the sleeves cut out or a green-mohican.

The flyer I have promises "an eclectic mix of blues and jazz sets from new and established local musicians" at the Walpole and Bongo Tom backs that up by saying: "lots of familiar local acoustic groups and musicians, such as the Repertoire Dogs, playing in the Walpole. It'll be a chilled-out acoustic session, gradually getting more energetic through the day and culminating in a jam session." Bongo Tom will be banging his bongos there, apparently.

The Goldsmiths are chilling too with " eclectic mix of blues Redroute, jazz sets from Stone Pony and established local musicians The Sly Ones, the Purples and Stabilisers."

Who is playing when will be listed on the day and that's a lot of bloody interesting music for a fiver. A contact email for the event is redcrossnewcross_at_yahoo.co.uk (swap _at_ for @)

Down at the Cross Bones

John Constable is Southwark’s shamanic poet, singer of songs and teller of tales of the lost history and magic of London’s outlaw borough. If my memory serves me correctly, John was talking through Southwark as the Jubilee Line extension was being dug below him and as the excavation encountered the Cross Bones graveyard, a site for paupers, prostitutes and other outsiders. As a skeleton was unearthed, the Goose, the goddess of outsiders, aspect of Isis and genius loci of Southwark contacted John and began singing her songs through him and his colleges in the Southwark Mysteries.

The focus for John at present is to leave a shrine on the site of the Cross Bones for the individuals interred beneath. London transport and other greedy developers are attempting to build an office on the site so, at 7pm on the 23rd of each month, John and others go to the gates of the site on Redcross Way, (just north of junction with Union Street), London SE1, (Borough tube, or London Bridge - Borough High St exit), to commemorate those buried there.

John says:

to honour the souls of the outcast dead, the prostitutes and paupers buried there...
to sing the songs of the Goose and Crow...
to perform our own (syncretic not dogmatic) inclusive rituals...
to bring our own offerings - ribbons, flowers, feathers and other totems...
to tie them to the gate, adding our personal sigils to the >self-transforming shrine that has appeared...
to envision the memorial garden that is already taking root, despite the
best efforts of the would-be developers...
to reclaim magic, mystery and true community in the heart of our city...

(after which we all head off to a convenient watering hole to shoot the breeze, conspire with our higher selves and see how the spirits move us). The shrine has recently gained some extraordinary totems, including a piece of stone from the wall of Jerusalem, willow wreaths (for protection), a wand (once waved in through the door of 10 Downing Street during presentation of an SFC petition to reform the draconian laws that punish working girls and boys), and John Crow's 50 year old teddy-bear (with the >straw spilling from the seams) bound with ribbons of power…at recent 23rd gatherings, magic has occurred...

Piper at the Gates of Sainsbury

Entering New Cross from Peckham, the first real landmark you encounter is the sacred ground of the Montague Arms followed by the cross-roads of New Cross Gate. Further along however, just before you get to New Cross Gate station, is a bloody massive Sainsbury where just about everyone around New Cross goes shopping (I've bumped into friends old and new there).

So, on the SELFS email list this morning Robert asks:

"Walking along the alley between the Sainsbury's fence in New Cross Gate and JDsports shop, there is a strange full sound emanating from a pipe high up on thewall and as one approaches passes it by it alters in it's pitch."

Being obsessed with furry animals both cute and vile, I reply:

"Knowing what goes on in that bit of New Cross I think it might be some sort of anti-rat device that uses high-pitched noise though I don’t know if our monkey-ears should pick it up. High frequency sound drives the oily little bastards mad and, hopefully, away"

Robert, who has a lot more sense that me, replies:

"I'd guess it's some sort of vent for an extractor fan, it's audible from some distance and quite musical"

To which I reply to, rather witlessly:

"Maybe it should have a show on Resonance FM"

Then Jason Oliver chips in with:

"i think it might just be an extractor fan, although experimenting with it yesterday by walking up the alley and then walking down the path to Sainsbury's, you can make your own Coil-style anti-anthems, at no cost whatsoever."

Which is a relief to the Duchess of Rocklands Minxy because she says:

"oh thank god for that, i had a funny moment on me bike once. i had to get me clanger out and squeeze it back at the noise. i didnt think i was going mad though, its lovely"

And so Jacqueline Woo-war Smith piped up:

"Ah, I love a singing pipe...a pipe on a gate in Glastonbury was singing to me the other day! Perhaps pipes are taking over!!?"

Which may be true so I'll be careful when shopping tonight. I may just seek this pipe out, though, and have a bit of a boogie.

End of the Affair?

The Slutski messages at New Cross have been painted over again but there was a new piece of writing in the tunnel that leads to the London Bridge-bound platform. On the right hand side of the tunnel someone, I think it's the same person who wanted 'Slutski' to 'Phone' them, has written 'I don't love you anymore'.

Which is a sad thing to see first thing on a Monday morning because the world needs more love than humanity is currently generating. It’s written in a strange way too; at the end of each word the pen slides back, putting a squiggle through each word as if the author isn’t quite sure that what they write is the truth or that they don’t want it to be true. The thing is, once one has written something down, it is out there in the world and is on its way to becoming truer than it ma have been before. Especially if it’s written in the dingy tunnel at New Cross station and read on a cold Monday morning.

Once that magic has worked what you have to do is move on.

Gang of Four in New Cross

So one of the greatest bands of all time decide to play their first gig in 20 years and where do they choose to play - The Montague Arms of course! The Gang of Four have reformed on the back of everyone from the Red Hot Chili Peppers to Franz Ferdinand playing around with their punk-funk sound, and to prepare for some big gigs next week they played the 'secret' gig in New Cross tonight. When I heard about this today I thought it must be a joke - in my local music pub? On the stage where even I have trod?

But it was all true and a big, crowded, sweaty affair it was too - they were by far and away the most danceable white band of their genre/period and they still sounded sharper than 90% of groups then or since. Their critical thinking hasn't dated at all (capitalism still exists I'm afraid), unlike some of the more sloganeering bands of that period, and some of their material has acquired new resonances. As John King bashed out a rhythm with a piece of metal on a microwave, intoning the lyrics of 'Ether' -"white noise in a white room" - I was reminded that while the H-Blocks in Ireland might have closed (the song's original subject), torture by British troops is still pretty topical.

When some bands reform they seem embarrassed and half-hearted, but nobody could accuse the Gang of Four of that on tonight's performance, with singer Jon King scurrying around the stage on all fours, guitarist Andy Gill's intense stare, and original rhythm section Hugo Burnham and Dave Allen shaking the stuffed animal heads, marine ephemera and other bizarre decorations in this most idiosyncratic of South London taverns.

Didn't catch the full set list but for any Go4 obsessives out there it started off with 'What we all want' followed by 'Not great men', 'Ether' 'Why theory?', and 'Return the Gift'. Next songs included 'He'd send in the army', 'At home he's a tourist', 'Anthrax', 'Natural's not in it', before finishing up wiht 'To Hell with Poverty'. A short set of encores included 'We live as we dream alone' and 'Damaged Goods', before they came back on again for 'Essence Rare'.

Desperately Seeking Slutski

I first saw it written in the tunnel and on the poster hoardings of New Cross station. Some one was asking, in black marker pen, for someone to ‘Phone Me Slutski’. It got painted over in the tunnel but a new plea appeared a day or so later. ‘Phone Me Slutski’.

Then we were walking up from the Ravensbourne River the other day toward Lewisham and there is was again, ‘Phone Me Slutski’, scrawled across a phone box near the station.

It could all be some sort of art project, of course, there was a chap who would write “Do not move, this is street art” on the fridges, old tires and other stuff that had been dumped in New Cross last year. He did it for reasons that, I’m sure, made sense to him. There were posters pinned to the lamp posts around Goldsmiths and the Marquis of Granby last August pleading for someone called Viv to get in touch with some sorrowful someone and that the sorry one loved (maybe still loves) him or her. It could have been art or it could have been someone writing out their desperation on the streets where their love walked.

‘Phone Me Slutskí’ hasn’t got the manic edge of something like the Viv posters (I wish I’d photographed them), there’s no pleas, no number, just the command: ‘Phone Me’ and the named ‘Slutski’. Maybe a nasty rash, not love, has blossomed between the two, or more, people involved in the Slutski affair or perhaps the Sluteé (as opposed to the Slutski) craves more from the Slutski but the Slutski, as the name suggests, had left without leaving so much as a phone number, PO Box number or details of their regular drinking hole.

Or maybe this a different language for love or lust, one I don’t know. There’s more out there, at least one for every person in the world, and most of them are only understood by those directly involved (if they’re lucky).

Sounds of SE14

New Cross and surrounding area has been a source of musical creativity from the Music Hall-era through to punk, reggae and up to the present day. As part of the Telegraph Hill Festival, I will be doing a talk on 'The Sounds of SE14', illustrated with excerpts of music from bands and artists linked with the area (OK, I might stretch it to include bits of Brockley and Deptford). It's all planned for Saturday 5th March 2005, at the Telegraph Hill Centre (next door to St.Catherine's Church at the top of Pepys Road). Doors open with music from 8:00 pm, with the talk starting at 8:30 pm sharp with the aim of finishing by 9:30 pm to allow plenty of drinking time afterwards. Details are being finalised, but is should be £3 entrance including a free copy of my 'Deptford Fun City: a ramble through the history and music of New Cross and Deptford'. Expect to hear, and hear about, Louis Armstrong, Spike Milligan, John Cale (of Velvet Underground), Malcolm McLaren, Bonzos, Dire Straits, Kate Bush, This Heat, Alternative TV, Ozric Tentacles, Jah Shaka, Squeeze, Blur and much more beside.

Get stuck into The Gluerooms

I'm very fond of the Gluerooms, the monthly experimental and improv night that takes place at the Amersham Arms, 388 New Cross Road, New Cross (on the New Cross Station railway bridge).

The first one for this year is on Wednesday 26th January, from 9pm, and features Richard Sanderson, who has appeared on these pages before in various guises, under the name of 'Richard of Hume'. He'll be indulging his passion for squeeze-boxes and electronica and it should be as interesting as anything a lap-top and melodeon playing, old New Wave Punk Morris Dancer could throw together.

Along with Richard, the London Electric Guitar Orchestra are performing. I have no idea what they sound like but their name conjures up something interesting, doesn’t it? I know that Thurston Moore and Lee Renaldo of Sonic Youth met, many years ago, in Glenn Branco’s Guitar Orchestra so maybe the London group sound like an orchestra of guitars played by at least two people who will, in the future, go off and form a band as good as Sonic Youth. Or maybe they won’t but I think it's worth the risk of seeing them, just in case.

It’s £3 entry and there’s the usual house disco. All proceed for this month go to the Tsunami relief appeal.

Shaun of the Dead

Despite being set entirely in Crouch End, the exterior shots around "The Winchester" pub, a main feature in this very British zombie film, were the Duke of Albany on Monson Road in New Cross Gate. I was tipped off when the chimney of the Millwall incinerator appeared in one shot, as Simon Pegg & co cross a road to get to the pub.

The Music Room on the New Cross Road tell the story of how they got involved here and I met the chap how played the zombie that got into Shaun’s flat and lost an arm in a fight. He’s the one-armed dancing partner (not a euphemism, they really do do dance classes together) of my boss, who lives in Brockley, and came in to the office to do some design work.

There is a planning application out there to turn the pub into flats but I don’t know if this has gone through yet or if the pub is still open. Here’s a description of the pub, describing it as looking “closed down” already and here’s a website where one intrepid fan visited the pub while on a pilgrimage of SotD locations.

All together now "Dan, dan, dan, duh-dan-du-dan. White lines!"

Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band

Another New Cross-linked band was 60s pranksters The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band (best known for 'Urban Spaceman'). The band's Neil Innes (later of The Rutles) described meeting the band's singer for the first time: "I first met Vivian Stanshall in a pub in New Cross, not far from Goldsmith's College. He was overweight, wearing a black frock coat, Billy Bunter trousers and carrying a euphonium under his arm. His broad face dwarfed the miniature, oval-shaped, violet tinted Victorian spectacles perched on his nose and, on either side of his head, he sported very large false ears made of unpleasant pink rubber! It occured to me immediately, that here was an interesting man, even for an art student and this was only 1963 - or was it 1964?".

Made in SE London

According to the South London Press, Daniel Bedingfield recorded his first album, 'Gotta Get Thru This' in his bedroom at his parents' house in Manor Avenue, Brockley. The same paper also reported that Matt Hales wrote Aqualung's 'Strange and Beautiful' on a piano under the stairs in his Brockley flat.

What other front doors round here hide a cauldron of musical creativity (for better or worse)? In the pub last night somebody claimed that The Orb's 'Little Fluffy Clouds' was recorded in a housing co-op flat in Jerningham Road, New Cross. Can anybody throw any light on this? I am doubtful. However The Orb's fantastically titled 'A Huge Ever-Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules From The Centre of the Ultraworld'(1989) was recorded at 'Trancentral', the KLF's HQ based in Jimmy Cauty's house in Camberwell (not sure of the exact location - again any suggestions welcome).

It's Halloween (apparently)

New Cross & Deptford have quietly appeared in quiet a few recent films, either filled with vampires in 'Interview with the Vampire', zombies in 'Shaun of the Dead' and the things that pass for human beings in the fiction of Hanif Kureishi in ‘Intimacy’.

Now New Cross itself (or herself or himself, I’m not sure if anyone has tried to dowse the sex of the genus loci of our area) is appearing as the star of a film along with some of the band he/she/it cherishes so well. “Rocklands - Live In New Cross” is showing at the (perversly named) Halloween Short Film Festival and features such local musos as: Art Brut, Bloc Party (who I think I saw on Top of the Pops on Friday but I may have been dreaming (or brainwashed by Art Brut records)), Corporation:Blend, The Crowd and The Ludes are among many bands thrashing away in the film.

It’s on Sunday 16th January at 10pm with two other Charlie Productions, the company that made the film. The festival itself describes itself, on their site, as “Punk Rock in it's outlook, and uncompromising in it's vision” which is, of course, what we like here at Transpontine.

On Friday 14th January, from 9pm, south-east Londoners MyEyes MyEyes will be running some short films at the festival too, followed by films presented by the ever-lovely Fortean Times. Who have very little to do with south-east London but I read it every month anyway.

The full program is here, entry is £1.50 Mon-Fri; £2.50 weekends The ICA is at The Mall, London SW1, near where t’Queen lives.

Away with the Fairies in Greenwich

At South East London Folklore Society on Monday 10th January, Jeremy Harte will be speaking on 'Explore Fairy Traditions'. Jeremy Harte combines folklore scholarship with a lively style to show what the presence of fairies meant to peoples’ lives. He draws on legends, ballads and testimony from Britain and Ireland to reveal changelings, brownies, demon lovers and abduction into the Otherworld. His research is based on primary sources and many errors about fairy tradition are laid to rest. Jeremy is the author of numerous articles on earth-mysteries, folklore and more, his book Explore Fairy Traditions was published by ’Explore Books’ in October 2004.

It all happens at 8 pm upstairs at The Spanish Galleon, 48 Greenwich Church Street, SE10 and costs £2.50 / £1.50 concessions.

Re:cycles

If your new year resolution is to get fitter you could do worse than check out Greenwich cyclists. They have a number of rides arranged around over the next few months, including one next Sunday to Dagenham!

The Swear

New Cross indie darlings The Swear are headlining The Baby Seal Club at Infinity (10 Old Burlington St, Mayfair) on Thursday 6th January along with Twisted Charm and Angels Fight The City.

New Year in New Cross

At five to twelve, the band in Skehans pub was belting out a Waterboys cover, while the sound of a gospel choir drifted out from the House of Bread church in Kitto Road.

We headed up to the top of Telegraph Hill park where a couple of hundred people saw in the New Year with bubbly and fireworks, not to mention a fine view of other people's fireworks going off all over London. People have been gathering there every year since Millennium Eve (although a few months earlier, in August 1999, lots of us watched the solar eclipse there). The event isn't advertised or organised - people just seem to gravitate towards the highest local point, and why not?

What did you get up to?

Winter Folk Stuff in SE London

That was a year and a half, really. I am now off to be sealed in to the trunk of an enchanted oak-tree, somewhere on Telegraph Hill, New Cross, where I shall be padded in with moss and be groomed by pine-martins and fed chestnuts and drops of mead by my trained army of squirrels who shall also defend my tree from any that would disturb my rest.

I shall arise again when I am requires, 10th January for Jeremy Harte's talk on 'Fairy Tradtions' at SELFS and the next SELFS newsletter will be gathered by my faithful information magpie, Philbin, and typed up by my crack Badger-squad.

Before I go, however, there’s a couple of folky events in south-east London you may want to know about. Blackheath Morris Men are dancing around Blackheath on Boxing Day (also known as St. Stephens Day and the 26th December), with the Fowlers Troop Molly and the [insert name here] Mummers. There’ll be at there pubs are around these times (as it is with this sort of thing, times as ‘ish’): 12:00 Princess of Wales on Blackheath, 14:00 The Crown, Tranquil Vale in Blackheath Village and 15:00 The Duke of Edinburgh, Lee High Rd, near the Lee end of the road (Tiger's Heads, Sainsbury's etc.). Best just hang around the pub.

Bigger and louder is the Lions Part Twelfth Night celebrations. It's that time of year again, see the Lions Part website for pictures from earlier years, here’s the details: Monday 3 January 2005, 2:15pm

Celebration of the New Year mixing ancient seasonal customs with contemporary festivity ON THE BANKSIDE, OUTSIDE SHAKESPEARE'S GLOBE.

THE HOLLY MAN FROM THE THAMES To herald the celebration, the extraordinary HOLLY MAN, the Winter guise of the GREEN MAN (from our pub signs, pagan myths and folklore), decked in fantastic green garb and evergreen foliage, appears from the River Thames brought by the Thames Cutter, Master Shipbroker.

THE MUMMER'S PLAY The MUMMERS will then process to the BANKSIDE JETTY, and perform the traditional 'freestyle' FOLK COMBAT PLAY of St. George, featuring the Turkey Sniper, Clever Legs, the Old 'Oss and many others, dressed in their spectacular 'guizes'. The play is full of wild verse and boisterous action, a time-honoured part of the season recorded from the Crusades.

KING BEAN AND QUEEN PEA CAKES distributed at the end of the play have a BEAN and a PEA hidden in two of them. Those who find them are hailed KING and QUEEN for the day and crowned with ceremony. They then lead the people through the streets to the historic GEORGE INN in Borough High Street for a fine warming up with STORYTELLING, the KISSING WISHING TREE and more DANCING. TWELFTH NIGHT IS FREE, accessible to all and will happen whatever the weather.

Damaged Goods

The new Asda supermarket on the Old Kent Road occupies the site where two of the best albums of the late 1970s were recorded- 'Entertainment' by the Gang of Four and Ian Dury's 'New Boots and Panties'. The studio at 488 Old Kent Road was set up in the late 1960s as Maximum Sound Studios, and was used extensively by Manfred Mann. When Manfred bought it in the early 1970s, it was renamed The Workhouse. Others who recorded there included Motorhead, The Damned, This Heat, Squeeze and The Long Ryders, while Musical Youth's 1982 Number One 'Pass the Duchee' was mixed there. The studio was bought by Pete Waterman in the late 1980s, but burnt down soon afterwards (part of it surived as a rehearsal stuido).

Another building on the Asda site was the TV rental shop on the corner of Ossory Road. Squatted from October 2002 until its eviction by Asda/Walmart in January 2004, itt was the scene of the 'Reclaim the Future 2' party in February 2003, when 2000 people attended for an anti-war/anti-capitalist benefit with bands, DJs, films and workshops. It also served as the focus for the Dis-Asda campaign against the supermarket, the failure of which is now there for everyone to see.

Bellevue rendezvous

Back in New Cross, Cafe Crema, at 306 New Cross Road next door to Prangsta and Cyclic Art, is having "mighty soul voice" of Belleville tonight, which is accompanied by "guitar, harmonica and sampled beats" at their extablishment tonight (Friday 17th).

£3 not only gets you this gig but a hot meal too, which an be washed down with the cafe's range of beers, wines, fair-trade tea and their hot-choclate.

Starts at 8.00, café open from 7.00. Call Chris for more info: 07905 961 876. Or phone the café on: 020 8320 2317

Scaledown: SE London invades Fitzrovia (or something)

Scaledown is a brilliant music club runs by a south-east Londoner in the upstairs room of the King & Queen pub, 1 Foley St, W1W 6DL. The concept is that performers give 15 minute performances with minimal gubbins, the music is either acoustic, played from a lap-top or just the human voice. I gave a spoken word performance there once and got out intact too. It's a relaxed and enjoyable way of seeing what talent is out there.

This Friday, 17th, from 7pm and most of their performers are from the New Cross / Greenwich area. The line up is (in alphabetical order):

Rebecca Closure, of Blackheath, is “A unique solo performance from an artist who has previously appeared here under the name fs ion .Here promising us something new for our Winter special. Rebecca's work is always challenging, intelligent and weirdly groovy.”

Lyndsey Cockwell, New Cross,: Scaledown says “For the last year Lyndsey has been taking her unique music all over the world for a series of solo performances, so we're delighted to welcome her back to London with her unique mix of soulful voice, funky, deep bass guitar and lo-fi sampling. Lyndsey's combining of the singer/songwriter's craft with a lateral thinking aproach to arrangements makes for an engaging but always warm performance.”

Sharon Gal, another New Crosser, as the best of us are,: “Bassist and vocalist with innovative improv power-trio Voltage (and originally a punk rocker from Israel). Sharon here gives a solo performance with electronics, amplified objects and her extraordinary voice. Sharon can also be heard every week on Resonance FM as co-host with Edwin Pouncey of the show "Diggers".”

Claire Lemmon & Melanie Woods, Greenwich: “Mainstays of the adventurous indie band "Sidi Bou Said" and now the creative force in "Eva Lema". Claire and Melanie perform a set of songs with starkest arrangements possible- taking the "scaledown" concept to its logical conclusion; performing acapella.”

Wet Dog, neither I nor Scaledown know where Wetdog are from but we like the look of where they’re at: “There's already a healthy buzz about this young trio which has seen them compared to The Slits, The Fall and "Skank Bloc Belogna" period Scritti Politti- a kind of neo post punk perhaps? For this performance the group will be scaling down to suit the more intimate environment. But the power and innovation of their songs will remain.”

The last act, Stereoclic, is Scaledown co-host and my mate Richard “Melodian playing, Badge collecting, Morris Dancing, Reason dolling” Sanderson. He lives in Hither Green.

There y’go, a good tip for music fans, a brilliant tip for stalkers and if your thing is to stalk innovative musicians and you like south-east London, fill yr boots son.

Tickets to Heaven

If you're free this weekend, which may be a long shot, I don't know, why not get really into the Yule spirit with Geoids Amateur Operatic Society's show 'Tickets to Heaven', a collection of 22 Victorian ballads celebrating, kinky, morbid buggers that the Victorians were, "blighted love, death or heroism and occasionally all three with a preposterous backstage melodrama full of divas, jealousies, political intrigue, misunderstandings and family reunions.”

Each show starts at 7.30 and the run ends this Saturday (18th), tickets are £8/£6 (which includes Lambeth and Southwark residents). The venue is an intriguing theatre that appears to be underneath the main concourse of Waterloo station. More details can be found here and a map here.

Indiepop

Treated myself yesterday to the wonderful Rough Trade shops Indiepop 1 compilation, transporting me back to the late 1980s, Talulah Gosh, early Creation, Sarah Records, paisley shirts and the Camden Falcon. The compilation includes 46 tracks, some from that era, including South London jingle jangle favourites The Field Mice and The June Brides, and some more recent in a similar vein. In the booklet notes, Matt Haynes of Sarah Records reminds us of the DIY ethos of this scene: 'everywhere you looked... people were doing things: wrting letters, editing fanzines, inventing bands, compiling cassettes, setting-up record labels, plotting revolutions'. He also remarks on the cool sexual politics of a scene where women musicians were prominent, and boys didn't feel the need to be geezers (this was after all just before the Brit pop counter-revolution). Of course this aesthetic has continually bubbled up, from Riot Grrrl to Belle & Sebastien, but in an age when every pre-punk bloke-rock cliche from heavy metal to prog has been disinterred, it is surely time for another revolt of the 'twee' underground.

The booklet also includes this fab old flyer from an indiepop night at the Fountain in Deptford. I think this was before I lived round here - does anybody know when it happened, or have any memories of it?

The Longest Night

21st December is the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. The sun will rise over London at 8.03 am. A good, if cold, place to watch it happen is Brockley Stone Circle, a circle made by local artists and the like in Hilly Fields. This astronomically correct stone circle dates all the way back to 2000AD.

As with last year, no formal ritual is planned, come along and do your own thing, be it private or public, spiritual, astronomical or personal, before going to work (or bed or where ever). The solstice itself is at 12.41am.

The nearest stations to Hilly Fields are Ladywell, Brockley and Croften Park. Buses are the 171, 172, 122 and 484.

Info and map of Hilly Fields is here. Some useful information about the Solstices can be found on the National Maritime Museum’s website.

SELFS Yule Quiz

It’s the SELFS Yule quiz on Monday 13th December from 7.30pm and social which means everyone gets into SELFS free, have a laugh and try and win something on the quiz. Come check our horns, hooves and teeth and share with us your stories, schemes and dreams.

The quiz will be the usual mixture of questions on the themes SELFS interests itself in: “Paganism, Folklore, Forteana, High Strangeness and the Occult”, some questions will be easy, some a bit harder and a few will be a bit silly. A lot of them will be multiple choice so everyone will get some sort of chance.

There’s a cash first prize, a prize for best team name and sundry other prizes for runners up. Do come and join in.

SELFS meets every second Monday of the month upstairs at The Spanish Galleon, 48 Greenwich Church Street, SE10 9BL. Talks start at 8.00pm and costs £2.50 / £1.50 concessions (except for December which is free.)

Greenwich Mainline & DLR: Turn left from the main exit, walk about 5-10 minutes, the Galleon is on your right, at the cross-roads.

Cutty Sark DLR: Turn left from the station, right when you get to the road, the Spanish Galleon is across the road.
Buses: 177, 180, 188, 199, 286, 386.

Use Your Loaf

The Use Your Loaf Collective are back in action, several months after their Deptford centre was evicted. While still looking for a new permanent home, they are holding a party on Friday 17th December, 7.00 - 11.30pm, promising 'scrumptious food... good beer... live music...wicked gossip and sparkly people'. All happening at the Open Arts Platform, Hales St, Deptford.

Use Your Loaf Centre for Social Solidarity was a squatted project at 227 Deptford High Street. A semi-derelict former bakers shop was transformed for a couple of years into a space for cafes, meetings, music and general hanging out. Then in July, property developers Glen International boarded up the building. The collective got back in, and 30 people saw off High Court bailiffs in August. After a last acoustic music social, featuring among other things a terrible version of 'Career Opportunities' by me accompanied by mandolin, Use Your Loaf was finally evicted at the beginning of Spetember when 30 bailiffs and riot police smashed their way through the front door. Boo hoo - but the Loaf will rise again! Further information: useyourloaf@btinternet.com

So Farewell then Pop of the Tops

Pop of the tops started life as an eager, wide-eyed and mildly loopy guitar music club as the much-missed Paradise Bar. It's was loud, it was enthusiastic, it was good.

Then the Paradise Bar was closed down and Pop of the Tops was evicted. The Music Tourist Board still thrives and there's plenty going on in New Cross, as this blog-zine demonstrates but we'll miss the crazed pup that was PotT.

But not with out one final flourish. The Lams, Crash Convention, Nebraska, M.A.S.S., Corporation:Blend, Digital Sneakers are going out with a bang (crash and a wallop) this Thursday, 9th December. Dj-ing is from The Fairies Band, Dirty Sounds and Captain Kev of The Cut Throats is doing MC'ing duties.

The venue is, sadly not the Paradise Bar, I think that’s heading toward bistro-hell for a while, will be Goldsmiths Student Union, Dixon Road, New Cross. It’s £4 / £2 concs and you can get tons more detail here.

The irony that Top of the Pops, the BBC's wet-brained pop program is being binned at around the same time as this farewell gig hasn't escaped me, either. It’s a pity I’m seeing a kraut-rock Gamelan band play that night, though but, hey, it’s not everyday that two sets of mates support Lee Renaldo.

South London Radical History Group

We’re back, we’re bad, it’s the return of the SOUTH LONDON RADICAL HISTORY GROUP

So. Though our regular venue, the very lovely Use Your Loaf squat centre in Deptford, was evicted in September, we’re still kicking… After a short rest and a brisk walk, e’re getting things together again, at a new venue. Next Meeting: WEDNESDAY 15TH DECEMBER, 8PM at 56a Info Shop, 56 Crampton Street, SE17 (nearest tube: Elephant and Castle).

Let’s discuss: THE HISTORY OF SQUAT CENTRES IN LONDON, 1970S - 2004... History, experiences, moans, groans, grumbles, high points, surreal stories... Licenses and legalisation: selling out or survival? The past, the present, the future...

The good folk at 56a are working towards a chronology of squatted spaces in London. If you have fliers or posters to donate or for copying, to fill in the gaps in their records, bring em along...PLUS: If you’re interested in a quick tour of 56a’s famous archive of radical papers, mags, leaflets, etc,come along at 7.30.

email: mudlark@macunlimited.net. Write: c/o 56a info Shop, 56 Crampton St, London, SE17.

Saving the Commons

Back from the pleasingly packed Anarchist Bookfair, clutching the usual collection of radical product from the four corners of the world, including some South London gems. Hot off the press is a new pamphlet, 'Down with the Fences: Battles for the Commons in South London' (Past Tense Publications) describing how so many of our remaining green spaces have been 'preserved from development by collective action' over the centuries. The battles of Plumstead, Wandsworth and Sydenham commons are described in detail, as well as the riotous fence levellers who saved One Tree Hill in Honor Oak from becoming a private golf course just over a hundred years ago. You don't have to wait another year to pick up a copy from the next bookfair - the pamphlet is available now from 56a Info Shop, 56a Crampton Street, SE17 3AE.

Live at the Montague Arms 1971

Here's the cover of the now legendary 1971 album referred to below. More details here.

On The Lookout

The music clubs of south-London are like mushrooms. They spring up in all sorts of unlikely places and if you go ahead and try them they are often tasty, sometimes mind expanding and occasionally cause you to soil yourself and die. So take care when sampling music clubs and mushrooms.

One of the latest crop is ‘On The Lookout’ which starts its first night in the function room of The Kings Arms, 25 Roupell Street, (the nearest Tubes are Waterloo and Southwark) this Saturday 27th December from 7pm. The Lost Club message board, which I perloined this from, promises “a minimally organised night. Nothing fancy. An open floor for anyone with anything vaguely interesting to say. Music, talks, lectures, discussions, rants etc..”

Certainly playing with be Adrian R. Shaw, whom you can read about here, and a stall by The Meowing Kitten who’ll be supplying ‘uv clubwear’ and ‘one off t-shirts’ and not, sadly, a small furry animals with claws.

They seem pretty hopeful that people will turn up and do turns. If you’re not at the Dog & Bell Pickle Contest this Saturday night, in the Waterloo area and happen to have, say, a thumb piano, accordion or musical saw with you, they may well be pleased to see you.

Magical Pubs in South London Pt. 2

This is a continuation, due to length, of the Magical pub list I started here.

The Dog & Bell, Deptford

Loving this place is a sign of my advancing of my years and slowing pace, yes, but also of the maturing of my tastes. The Dog & Bell is a real ale pub, is always has five cask ales on the go, including guest ales and some interesting bottled boozes too. By all the gods that be, I have drunk some fine beer in this place. It has a scruffy and eccentric clientele and an ivy-covered corner in the beer garden. It is a perfect place for a chat with friends over a pint. Perfect.

Time was I wouldn’t have given a toss about the Dog & Bell being south-east London CAMRA’s ‘Pub of the Year 2004’ but nowadays that’s not only that which excited me there, there’s also the ‘Home Made Pickle Contest’ CAMRA are running with the pub on the 27th November.

Do not pity me, though, for that sort of thing is good.

The Cricketers, Greenwich

The Cricketers starts well. It’s pubby, what some people might mistake for ‘dingy’, with three cask ales, toasted cheese sarnies, a book on local history on sale behind the bar and décor doesn’t look forced or contrived.

There are also board games lying around so you can play connect-four or drafts while you drink, which is conducive to the relaxed atmosphere. All of this is good, there are not enough ‘actual’ pubs in the world and lots of brightly-lit, soul-less holes trying to fake it.

The magic at The Cricketers really happens on a Tuesday night, of all nights. The Greenwich Traditional Music Co-Operative get their fiddles, flutes and assorted squeeze-boxes out and start playing traditional English folk tunes.

If that doesn’t constrict your accordion, and I accept that my tastes can lean toward the ‘beardy’, then at around 10pm on this night the bar staff dole out free cheddar and biscuits to go with your beer and music. If that isn’t magical, then I don’t know what is.

The Wibbly Wobbly, Surrey Quays

‘Pub’ is, of course, an abbreviation of ‘public house’, a house anyone can walk into and fill themselves with booze and crisps for money. This place is a barge sitting in Greenland Docks in Surrey Quays but its interior is ‘pure pub’ making it, perhaps, a ‘public house boat’. Anyway, enough of that, there’s a beer-garden that is an adjacent floating platform performing a ‘beer garden’ function.

It’s a site to see, really. One day I dream of taking charge of the pub, having a few beers by my drinking arm, a jar of pickled-onions under my right-arm and cutting the moorings. I would then tour the world, searching for ancient sacred sites and bizarre animals, hither-to unknown to science, on my floating pub. I can see the telly series based on these adventures on BBC3 already. Let it be known that I would like the part of ‘Skitster’ to be played by Emily Woof, if possible.

The Montague Arms, New Cross Gate

The location isn’t promising, the Monty is on the very boundary where bouncy New Cross becomes edgy Peckham and the exterior looks ominous, there’s big black boards with ‘COACH PARTIES WELCOME’ painted on them.

And s othe coach-parties should come. Along with the Brockley Stone Circle, the ruins of Lesnes Abbey and the wonky dinosaurs of Crystal Palace Park, the Montague Arms is one of the seven (or more) wonders of south-east London. The interior is full of old naval equipment and trinkets and stuffed animals and human skeletons watch you are you enjoy your ale. Think of an old, dusty museum that had been opened as a pub without clearing out the exhibits.

One of the family who run the pub, they may not be related but them seem like one big family, collected old psychedelic projectors so on the stage, there’s a stage, one can often enjoy illuminations of zodiacal signs and other strange beasts.

And of the stage, well, many have performed there, local music clubs such as Fear of Music, the Lost Club and Throbb put on interesting and eccentric music there but, good though many of them are, none of them can beat the house entertainment.

I know not his name despite seeing him often. When the coach parties come to the Montague Arms on a Saturday night they, and any locals who potter in, are entertained by a blind organist who does ‘interpretations’ of both current pop songs, classic tracks and other surprises. This may be more than one evening rolled into one by my, frankly, harmed and faulty mind but in one sitting I have heard ‘Closest Thing to Crazy” by pony-loving Katie Mela-woo-warr, David Bowies ‘Life on Mars’ and the hymn ‘Jerusalem’ all played on a moog, often in a jaunty oompha style. All of these are interspersed with abuse hurled at the bemused Dutch and German coach parties and offers to let someone from the audience to get up and sing to the locals.

It’s very much like Bill Bailey when he performs Cockney versions of rock songs but real and performed by someone with south-east London engrained into them. In, remember, the strangest looking pub you will ever sit in. And according to this page and this page on the UK Cabaret Records website, not only has he been doing in since 1972 but he’s also had four live albums out of him and his mates insulting the big-haired tourists of yesteryear and mingling Beatles songs with Hawkwind. The man’s a dangerous genius.

It’s both Yule and my birthday in December. Have you enjoyed reading this? Those records must be out there somewhere. You know what to do.

Magical Pubs in South London

A comment attached to Neil’s ‘Magic Pubs of South London’ post read: “The Wickham Arms in Brockley is a great little pub as well.”

Which is fantastic, thank you, all comments and reviews are welcome at Transpontine but I do feel the wrong end of the stick was grasped, if only slightly, of that particular piece. While the Spanish Galleon and The George Inn are two good pubs that have strange and magical meetings in them, SELFS and WiccaUK, and the Fox on the Hill is a Wetherspoon’s pub where people discuss the Northern Traditions over their wether-burgers and cheap pints of Summer Lightning, these are pubs where magical happening take place and not, strictly speaking, pubs with a sense in south-east London that have a sense of magic about them.

Though another group I am jolly fond of, ‘PSI in the Pub’ used the Fox on the Hill for a discussion on parapsychology and it has a slightly pagan Fox shrine at the front and a totem-pole nearby so maybe this particular member of the Wetherspoon’s chain is touched by some manner of magical influence.

Anyway, I digress. As far as I know, no magical or paranormally inclined groups meet at the Wickham Arms in Brockley, (if any do, please let us know) and while it’s a nice pub that has plenty for the Karaoke fan, I’m afraid it does not hold too much of a spell over me.

Which is what I want to talk about, Arthur Machen once said that he found “the average church, considered as a house of preaching, is a much more poisonous place than the average tavern;” and I would agree with the Welsh git as far as a pub, a good pub, a place where people gather, talk, live their lives, love their loves and eat their salt & vinegar crisps is a sacred space.

Particularly these three pubs, which are the first of seven pubs in south-east London, that I think are magical:

The Greenwich Union, Greenwich

(Click any pub names in this ramble to obtain less bias details, the address and how to get there.)

While the Union is often frequented by the braying, moneyed and preening end of Greenwich’s community, not to mention cursed some pretty banal live musicians, the spell of this place is worked by the beer. Raspberry beer, properly brewed lager that shows one why the damn stuff caught on in the first place, Chocolaty stout and many other interesting brews are sold there. They are tasty and yet not a gimmick.

And they are all brewed up the road in Charlton. When it comes to beer it is best if one drinks local and acts mental. Avoid the fiddly food, though.


The Sun & Doves, Camberwell

Again, this pub/bistro is toward the ‘trendy’ and ‘a tad over-priced’ end of the spectrum but it makes it just for the art on the walls, which is often ‘loopy’ and the garden. The garden sits in three different sections and one could easily hide in some parts. There is a totem pole in the centre, at least there was the last time I was there, that is made up of eyes, each one slightly more open than the last. I like to sit in the sun there, pint in hand, watching this eye open (and then close) before me.

That might be a combination of drink and heat-stroke though.

Moonbow Jakes, Brockley

Moonbow Jakes makes a good intermediary between the ‘swanky’ pubs and bars and the more beardy, old man venues we shall be encountering in the next couple of entries. There are three MJ’s, one in Catford, which I’ve never been to, one in New Cross with a record shop in the basement and the one I am concerned with here, the Brockley Moonbow Jakes.

Part café/bistro during the day, with newspapers, coffee and comfy sofas, at night this place takes on the air of a scruffy bar with beer, wine, live music and pastry products. It captured my heart the night that I and my Transpontine fellow-conspirator Neil New-X drank very large bottles of beer whilst being harangued by an insane New Zealander who was hosting a poetry night at the bar that night to get up and do some poems ourselves. We had no poetry, I had a few things I had written for a party Clare B and I were having later in the week, blessings to go on presents and the like, and I volunteered those. The compare said ‘yes’, bought me another very-large-bottle-of-beer and I managed to totally avoid making, what would have been, my extremely drunken live poetry debut. There were too many poets booked anyway.

I think that story, while utterly pointless, touches on some of the things that are good about south-east London and, indeed, life itself.

Read Part two here.

Reclaim the Venue!

Once upon a time The Venue in New Cross was one of the best places in London for bands. In fact, even before it was refurbished as The Venue it was a key stopping off place on the alternative gig circuit as the plain old Harp Club (I recently came across a Wire bootleg recorded there in 1985). In the 1990s, Blur, Pulp, Oasis, PJ Harvey and Radiohead all played there, and people came from all over to see them. I remember queuing half way down to New Cross station to see Chumbawamba. At some point it all went wrong, and The Venue switched to cover bands.

On December 3rd the first step towards reclaiming The Venue as somewhere worth going to will take place when Angular Records hold their first birthday party and tenth event in the bar there. The line up's not confirmed yet, but as it will be a release party for The Long Blondes 'Giddy Stratospheres' single, the appearance of Sheffield's finest might be expected. Definitely not to be missed.