Band of Holy Joy

We have lots of writing about music here at Transpontine, but not enough actual music. To correct this we are now going to try and include links to MP3s, concentrating on South London obscurities and otherwise unavailable stuff.

First up, The Band of Holy Joy, decribed in The Rough Guide to Rock as follows: 'Amidst the glossy, superficial optimism of a lot of mid-80s chart music, Band Of Holy Joy were lauded by the music press for bringing the dirt and hurt back into pop. The ramshackle line-up – acoustic instruments ranging from accordion to toy trumpet, and not a guitar in sight – invited comparisons with The Pogues, but there was something very English about a group steeped in lowlife London and happy to make something of it. What they made of it fitted the band’s name. Singer/lyricist Johny Brown supplied the words for strangely uplifting songs of urban angst that brought comparisons with Brecht and Brel, but were firmly contemporary, with privatization, Prince and E-type hedonism all targets for the densely detailed lyrics. The band grew out of a group of friends living in the New Cross area of south London, although Brown was originally from the northeast of England. A south-London indie label, Flim Flam, released their first records, the mini-album THE BIG SHIP SAILS (1986) and the full-length MORE TALES FROM THE CITY (1987)'.

As Deptford Fun City notes, Band of Holy Joy emerged from a squatting (later housing co-op) scene centred around Nettleton Road in New Cross. Vocalist Johny Brown told Melody Maker in 1987: 'It was at a time when New Cross was really brilliant... Me and Max used to live in a big house with Test Department. That was how Holy Joy were formed... in Test Department's basement where they rehearse. We found an old organ there. It was this big house with no windows. They had a black door with a wreath on it and the house was haunted’ (Melody Maker, 1987).

BoHJ’s 1986 album ‘More Tales from the City’ was recorded at Chocolate City in New Cross, a now vanished recording studio on New Cross Road (think it was where that now equally defunct night club stands between the White Hart and Besson Street). The band split up in 1992, although they did reform a couple of years ago.

Mad Dot, from 'More Tales from the City' includes the immortal lines: ‘I get the madness in my head, when I lie for days in bed, or when I walk up the New Cross Road, When I’m starved and I haven’t been fed'

Band of Holy Joy - Mad Dot (MP3)

Some of their later stuff is available at ITunes but not 'More Tales...', which defintely deserves a re-release.

Music Monday: 30 years of Band of Holy Joy

It is now 30 years since Band of Holy Joy were formed in New Cross, and they're still going strong (albeit with some big gaps along the way!).

One of their first releases was a 1984 cassette  'More Favourite Fairytales'  put out by Glasgow-based Pleasantly Surprised. The sleevenotes say:

'Holy Joy were formed in the summer of 1983 when Johny and his sister Max found a synthesiser in the cellar of the house they were living in and started messing around on it. They then brought in Brett (Test Dept's visual genius) as he had an organ and could also play various instruments. John at this time was taking photographs that had everything in common with the songs Johny and Max were writing. They persuaded him to trade in his camera for a mouth organ, tambourine and various other instruments. Test Dept then took them under their with and they played places like Manchester, Sheffield and Retford. After these performances Holy Joy decided to go into the studio then came a few more dates in London at their own club "The Stomach Pump" Situated in a crypt in Deptford and also playing with Einsturzende Neubauten.

"More Favourite Fairytales" was recorded on a four track portastudio in late winter / early spring '84 and is a follow up / progression to a previous cassette entitled "Favourite Fairytales For Juvenile Delinquents" which they consider to be more background music than anything else.Plans for the proper studio and record a 12 inch version of "Liquid Lunch" and a 7 inch of "Consumption" and one day soon M.F.F will appear properly recorded on a record. Also being talked about is a video film tentatively called "Seven Days Of Agony And Holy Joy". At present more songs are being written and recorded. They have also made some new instruments and have come up with a whole host of new sounds and noises. Ideas are also underway for some film music. All in all "Holy Joy" are a very creative and exiting conception and in my opinion you shall be hearing a lot more from them in the near future'.

Well a lot more has certainly been heard, latest from them is the third in an ongoing series of films featuring tracks from this year's return to the cassette 'City of Tales, Volume 1 and 2'. 'Empty Purse Found in Hotel Lobby' features band drummer William Lewington and Joanna Pickering.



Lots more Transpontine BoHJ

Band of Holy Joy at Ivy House on Friday

A great gig coming up this Friday 6th April 2018 at the Ivy House in Stuart Road SE15 (east side of Peckham Rye) with the Band of Holy Joy:

'A night of beastly beatitude and other sonic deviances at the Ivy House in London. Come and join us at The Ivy House London's first co-operatively owned pub with the best back room and stage in London. Band Of Holy Joy make a long over due return to South London whilst welcoming Quarterlight down from the North East and looking forward to grooving with the house cats Pendennis, this will be all held together with our brilliant MC Richard Strange [ex Doctors of Madness], who will be channeling his rogueish inner Donleavy spirit the whole night through. Come and join us for some good old bohemian beatnik post punk kicks...'

I've waxed lyrically at this blog a number of times about BOHJ so for now will just repeat what I wrote about them last time I saw them: 'The Band of Holy Joy are surely one of the greatest bands ever to have been associated with New Cross. In the late 1980s they were fairly massive on the indie scene with their lush Brechtian/Brelish/folk-tinged tales, but they split up in 1993... Obviously if you loved them then you will want to see them now. But apart from nostalgia, why bother? Well since they reformed they have been putting out some fine new music...  Rather like The Pogues, their music was always 'mature' - back in the day they were young musicians singing as if they were old men and women looking back on lifetimes of passion and regret. Now maybe they've grown into the songs!'  

They have been fairly prolific in recent years, and their latest album 'Funambulist We Love You' (2017) is as strong as anything they've done before.  They are always a great live act, so come along on Friday. I have my ticket get your's here for a mere £7: http://www.wegottickets.com/event/429200

Little Earthquakes... Independent Records Labels & SE London

The joint Independent Label Market/London Brewers Market in Greenwich on Friday night (5/5/2017) was good and busy, with music, food and drink stalls and Lewisham's Unit 137 Sound System shaking the rafters of the indoor market.

I wrote the following piece for the programme giving a quick overview of independent labels associated with SE London, in particular New Cross/Deptford/Lewisham. I say 'associated with' because you can't necessarily pin down the label based on an office/mailing address. So for instance, I included Stay Up Forever, arguably an East London label, on the basis of tracks being recorded in Deptford (the Punishment Farm studio mentioned was originally upstairs in the now closed Harp of Erin pub, then known as Round the Bend, on New King Street). Similarly I mention No Hats, No Hoods on basis of association with Lewisham artists, though its address is in E2.

Little Earthquakes that changed the world

In 40 years of  vinyl, cassettes, CDs and digital downloads, the independent labels and artists of South East London have helped launch and popularise whole genres of music. Some of these little earthquakes have ended up shaking the world, at least those parts of the world ready to be shaken by a guitar riff or a bass wobble.

The punk period saw the first big explosion of DIY music and independent labels.  Miles Copeland named his label  Deptford Fun City because, according to Jools Holland, ‘he had been so amused by Deptford High Street, never having seen or heard anything like it before’.  A major aim was to release early tracks by Greenwich’s Squeeze, who included the young Jools on keyboards. Squeeze were soon to be recognised as some of the best songwriters of the New Wave period but as well as their sweet melodies Deptford Fun City released some of the more experimental sounds of the post-punk period by Alternative TV, the band founded by Deptford’s Mark Perry , the sometime editor of legendary punk zine Sniffin’ Glue.

Reggae sound system culture was another key ingredient of the SE London social/sonic mix in this period, and this too found expression through influential independent labels.  Dennis Harris’s Eve Records in Upper Brockley Road was to give birth to the Lovers Rock label in this period, popularising a new style mix of reggae rhythms and soulful vocals that remains part of the palette board of pop down to the present.

In the early 1980s, a new industrial sound began to emerge that included  noise made from bashing metal and other found objects.  The pioneers of this in the UK were Test Dept; like many bands at this time, they self released early material on cassette, before moving on to vinyl and releasing records on their own Ministry of Power imprint on Some Bizarre records.

The Band of Holy Joy started out in similar milieu – some of them even sharing a house with members of Test Dept in New Cross -  but their songs of love, despair and the city took them in a different direction. Their breakthrough record  was the 10” EP ‘The Big Ship Sails’ released on Flim Flam records in 1986. Flim Flam was an independent label  as well as a club of the same name that took place at the Harp Club in New Cross – later to become The Venue.  It was started by BOHJ and Beloved manager Robert Lancaster with each record given a ‘Harp’ serial number presumably in reference to the New Cross club.

Back in the late 1970s, Counterpoint record shop in Forest Hill was the main local outlet for punk and new wave records. Owner Andy Ross was in band Disco Zombies who released their 'Drums Over London' single on their own South Circular Records in 1979. Fast forward ten years and Andy Ross was working for indie label Food Records when he went to check out a band called Seymour featuring a couple of students from Goldsmiths in New Cross. He persuaded them to change their name and signed them - you might have heard of Blur.

In the 1990s electronic music explosion, a specifically London contribution  was the Acid Techno sound pioneered by the Liberator DJs  - the 303 drenched banging soundtrack to London free parties. Many of the classic tracks were released on Stay Up Forever  records, and recorded at D.A.V.E. the Drummer’s Punishment Farm studios in Deptford. International techno/speedcore label Praxis Records also sold records for a while from a shop on New Cross Road in that period.

The early noughties saw a revival of intelligent guitar based  bands and a key label was Angular Recording Corporation, founded by ex-Goldsmiths students Joe  Margetts  and Joe Daniel.

The release of the  ‘The New Cross’ compilation CD album in 2003 by Angular Recording Corporaton and associated nights at the Paradise Bar (now Royal  Albert pub)  led the music press to talk of the ‘New Cross Scene’ .  While not all the bands were actually from the area it was through Angular’s New Cross portal that bands like Bloc Party, Art Brut, These New Puritans, The Long Blondes and Klaxons had their first releases.

Following in Angular’s footsteps, No Pain in Pop  was founded by Tom King and Tom Oldham in New Cross in 2008, putting on nights in local pubs before releasing a diverse range of material from indie pop to post-dubstep – and the UK release of the 1st album by Grimes,  Geidi Primes.

A recording studio on the Juno Way industrial estate in New Cross helped launch another new sound on the world, with Defenders Entertainment releasing Crazy Cousins’ ‘UK Funky’ tracks  including their highly influential remix of Kyla’s Do You Mind (2008) – later covered by The XX and sampled  by Drake on ‘One Dance’ (2016). Also from New Cross,  Andy Blake’s disco/house label  Dissident Distribution released a critically acclaimed series of  limited issue 12" singles from 2007 to 2009.

The spirit of Dissident and Andy Blake’s ‘World Unknown’ clubnights have informed the most recent wave of ex-Goldsmiths upstarts known as The Rising Sun Collective. Along with labels such as Squareglass they are carrying the torch for S.E. D.I.Y. with a series of parties, mixtapes, and vinyl releases spearheaded by artists such as A House In The Trees and Semi-Precious.

The recent upsurge in 2^nd wave grime is giving birth to may new independent labels as artists seek to take control of their careers. Brockley’s finest Novelist has launched his own Mmmyeh Records,  having first come to prominence as part of grime collective The Square with their famous Lewisham McDeez track released on No Hats, No Hoods.  Independent labels have come a long way since the first punk and reggae 7 inch singles, but the DIY spirit lives on.

You can check out tracks from some of these on the accompanying Spotify playlist here: https://open.spotify.com/user/independentlabelmarket/playlist/0xzi0yipqBDCCI62zqCIe1

1. Alternative TV – Action Time Vision (Deptford Fun City, 1978)
2. Brown Sugar - I’m in love with a dreadlock (Lovers Rock, 1977)
3. Test Dept - Fuckhead (Ministry of Power, 1986)
4. Band of Holy Joy - Rosemary Smith (Flim Flam, 1986)
5. Star Power  – Nothing can save us London (Stay up Forever, 1994)
6.  Long Blondes - Autonomy Boy (Angular, 2004)
7.  Veronica Falls – Beachy Head (No Pain in Pop, 2010)
8.  Kyla – Do you Mind, Crazy Cousinz remix (Defenders Ent, 2008)
9.  Cage & Aviary - Giorgio Carpenter(D‎issident,  2007)
10. The Square - Lewisham Mcdeez  (No Hats, No Hoods, 2015)
11. Semi Precious - No Distractions (Squareglass, 2017)

Limited for time and space for this article,  there's a lot more that could have been included. Johny Brown  from Band of Holy Joy has asked me about Desperate Bicycles, arguably the DIY label pioneers of the punk period. I did consider them but wasn't sure about extent of their SE London connection. Think first single was recorded in Dalston, but their 1978 'New Cross, New Cross' EP on their own Reflex label apparently followed a period rehearsing in New Cross. He also mentioned Bastard Haircut records, associated with Brain of Morbius. 

As covered at this blog before, there were other New Cross reggae labels in late 1970s/early 1980s, including Fay Music, Studio 16  and Sound City Records. 

In wider SE London beyond Lewisham, there's lots more to consider, perhaps most significantly on the punk front Conflict's Mortarhate label, starting out in Eltham, and One Little Indian which started out with Flux of Pink Indians in Forest Hill. 

Loads of dance labels out there of course, could have mentioned Controlled Weirdness' Unearthly records (including his great South London Bass track).

Who would you add to the list of SE London independent labels?

I have travelled the buses late at night

One of Margaret Thatcher's many reported contemptible utterances was that '"A man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus can count himself as a failure" (though actually there's some doubt exactly what she said, when, or even whether she said it all!).

Was it prophetic that just two days ago The Band of Holy Joy posted a refutation of this sentiment on youtube, with a film to accompany their gorgeous song 'I have travelled the buses late at night' (from their album City of Tales): 'I have seen the rich take the goodly fight, to drive the poor neatly out of sight,  I have seen the poor chase the shadows of the rich, they want to scale the Shard but they end up in Shoreditch'.



The song perhaps also references an earlier response to Thatcher's alleged remark - 'Only Losers Take the Bus' by The Fatima Mansions (1989).



The Band of Holy Joy are arguably the finest band to ever emerge from New Cross. The Fatima Mansions were an Irish band named after a Dublin housing estate, so no Transpontine connection there... Although Fatima Mansions' singer Cathal Coughlan was previously in Microdisney with Sean O'Hagan who apparently lived in New Cross at some time and rehearsed at The Music Room in New Cross with his later band The High Llamas. O'Hagan is evidently still around South London - someone mentioned seeing him at a recent Dulwich Hamlet FC match. See it all connects.

Band of Holy Joy/Test Department

We've enthused about The Band of Holy Joy here before, arguably the best band to come out of New Cross in the 1980s. Good to see they are busy again - in fact they are doing a cabaret/theatre piece, Troubled Sleep, at Chat's Palace in Hackney this week (5 December). Good too to see BoHJ singer Johny Brown getting a four page profile in The Wire magazine (December 2008), expounding on influences including Brecht, Behan and Burroughs.

Brown now lives in Stoke Newington, but in the interview he recalls that in the 1980s 'we were rooted in New Cross. Test Department and [UK comedian] Vic Reeves, they were our peers'. In the mid-1980s, he was sharing a house in Nettleton Road with another band, Test Department, who he compares with BoHJ; 'Test Department were incredibly masculine ... and we were extremely feminine. We were about romance, about a Britain that was fading away, contrasted with a reality that was quite dark. But there was definitely a spirit shared. Test Department were polemic where we were quite poetic, personal, romantic, the way we saw things. But then again, personal is political. They were out on tour with the miners during the strike, and you can't get more personal than people's lives being affected like that... It was totally opposite to Test Department, who were in training upstairs being militant. We were downstairs on drugs writing these really weird dirges. It was chalk and cheese'.

In terms of the local scene, Brown remembers 'there was lots of cheap housing in New Cross then, lots of squats and housing association houses, and there was Goldsmiths College too. [Test Department's] Angus was top boy at Goldsmiths, so it was mix of squatters, students, genius guys and general misfits. Vic Reeves was a very informed guy, with this art background and he was a really brilliant musician, very much an improvisor, working with people like Steve Beresford way before he made his hit record. The very first music I made when I came to London was with Brett [Turnbull film maker], Vic Reeves and his girlfriend Lucie Russell, and a guy called George on saxophone. We used to do this beautiful free rolling stuff with this cheap and nasty yellow and black plastic Wasp synthesizer. Of course everybody eventually moved away'.

(Thanks to John at Uncarved for letting me know about this article)

An Australian in New Cross

What She Said is a blog by Melbourne-based Hariklia: 'Every day I post an entry from one of my diaries, that was written on the same day (date and month) that I post it, from any year between 1970 to the present'.

From 1986 to 1988, she was living in New Cross, seemingly in a housing co-op in Hatcham Park Road area. Her diary entries for that time feature various local landmarks amidst the usual diary boy/girl trouble - shopping in Lewisham, going for a date in the Goldsmiths Tavern (now the New Cross House), indie club A Million Rubber Bands at the Harp Club (now the Venue), night bus journeys home, playing pool in the (now closed) Royal Archer, stepping out in Nunhead Cemetery with local heart-throb Johny Brown of the Band of the Holy Joy:

'24 January 1988... I’m sitting, right this very second, in the park atop Telegraph Hill. It’s a lovely day for this time of the year. But I’m so reminded of JB here. How many Sundays ago was it that we walked through this very park going to Nunhead Cemetery? I keep thinking I’ll see him walking past with another girl, hand in hand. Another Sunday, another girl. That day was so wonderful and I remember thinking how I was sharing something I really enjoyed, for a change. We saw a few solitary people there, and I thought that for once it wasn’t me, walking alone and seeing a happy couple, thinking how romantic it would be. I was part of a couple, having a romantic walk amongst the graves and statues and fallen trees. JB tried to catch a falling leaf for good luck'


(hope Hariklia won't mind me using this great picture of a gravetop Johny in Nunhead 1987)

I moved down to London around this time too, living in Brixton. So sure our paths have crossed a number of times at many of the places she mentions, as I too frequented the Harp Club, the Town and Country Club, The Falcon (Camden) and Band of Holy Joy gigs. And indeed I once kissed a girl who (claimed to have) kissed Robert Smith of The Cure who... well, maybe we are also connected in a 'I've danced with a man, who's danced with a girl, who's danced with the Prince of Wales' kind of way. Shame I missed out on two things she managed to do - seeing Prince at his peak in London and going to the last ever gig by The Smiths at Brixton Academy (though I did see them three times).

Band of Holy Joy at Dash the Henge

Dash the Henge in Camberwell has so much interesting stuff going on in addition to selling records, not to mention having a pop up Henge in Brixton arcade. This Saturday 23 August sees a performance at 5 pm by the legendary Band of Holy Joy, launching a new CD of poetic psychogeographical experimentation 'Data breach on haunted beach', also available at bandcamp.

Check out their Bad Punk show on Resonance FM too. 

'to the broken bottled beach once more...'

Update after the gig:

Really enjoyed the performance at Dash the Henge, a stripped back BOHJ mainly performing from 'Data Breach...' with a spoken word tale of drugs, death and revenge on the North East coast. But they also played a few of their early favourites including Rosemary Smith and Fishwives, the latter's dysfunctional relationship now reconciled with a new ending where they go out together and join a Palestinian solidarity demonstration. Good to see some members of Test Dept there too, a band who like BOHJ started out in New Cross. Look out for some early unreleased recordings from them coming out soon, also look out for BOHJ doing a full band gig in Brighton on 26 October 2025.

Last Orders at Montague Arms?

Very sad to have to confirm reports that the legendary Montague Arms (289 Queens Road SE15) has closed - at least in its current incarnation. The pub hasn't been open since the New Year, and its future has been in doubt since the deaths of Stan and Bet Pownall (both in their 80s) who had been running the pub with owner Peter Hoyle since 1967. I'd heard that the family had decided to close it, but was waiting for an official announcement and hoping that there would be some change of plan. But last week the pub's famous stuffed animals were put up for auction at Toovey's.

Pete Hoyle (left), the late Stan (centre) and Bet (right)

The pub managed to combine being one of the last old style South London boozers with being the home for succesive waves of people looking for somewhere welcoming and quirky to put on interesting events.

In the past ten years the pub has hosted various great music and club nights including Throbb, Fear of Music , Greenwich Pirate, Wolfgang Bopp, Coronary Crumpage (where Anna Calvi played an early gig in 2008), Frog Morris, White Noise and The Ticket that Exploded. Paul McCartney popped in for a drink once in the 1980s,  and in 1989 the NME intervewiewed Nick Cave, Shane MacGowan and Mark E Smith in the pub.

Its decor was unique, combinining maritime memorabilia (diving helmet, ship model) with Victorian stuffed animals (zebra, oryx). Not to mention that scary Santa they used to bring out at Christmas with the plastic bags over its hands. The pub's fame travelled far and wide - it was selected as the best pub in the country in the Rough Pub Guide book (2008) and highlighted as 'one of our strangest, and best, boozers' in an unusually good article in The Sun only last November.

People used to sometimes joke about the 'coach parties welcome' sign outside, but for many years they did a deal with coach drivers from the continent driving up the A2 into London who would stop off (no doubt for free food and drink) at the pub with their passengers. I was in there one night when a coach load of Dutch tourists came in - they loved the place, what a great introduction to London.

Here's some of my top Montague Arms memories:

- Sunday lunch with the family being entertained by The Two Petes - the legendary house band consisted of drummer (and pub owner) Pete Hoyle and Pete London on keyboards and vocalists. They actually put out three limited release 'Live at the Montague Arms' albums in 1971/72, featuring their inimitable cover versions of songs, and were still going forty years later. In their early days comedian Jimmy Jones also joined the act. I particularly remember their version of Wonderwall - and my son getting up on stage when they were performing and singing Twinke Twinkle Little Star.

- Gang of Four (2005) - one of my favourite ever bands played their first gig for twenty years in the pub. I was there, standing next to Phil Jupitus I recall.

- Bloomsday (2008) - one of those random nights when you end up watching some Eastern European avant garde jazz band (Tudósok)  and loving it. 

- Brockley Ukulele Group - my first time on the stage was giving a short talk on New Cross history at a My Eyes, My Eyes film night, but then in 2008 I performed there a few times with the Brockley Ukulele Group, including once on the same bill as my old faves RDF (or rather their later incarnation The Faction).

- Band of Holy Joy last December - so glad I went to that, my last visit to the pub. Fitting that it should have been one of the finest bands ever to emerge from the local area playing at one of  last gigs at the Montague Arms, if not the final one.

I guess it's still possible that the pub may be resurrected in some form rather than be converted into flats. Any recent lottery winners who want to do the world a favour get in touch with the family quick.

See also: report at SE London CAMRA; Hollow Legs bids goodbye to New Cross and The Monty (like Lizzie I always think of the pub being in New Cross, some would argue it's technically Peckham on account of its SE15 postcode)

Post your Montague Arms memories and stories in the comments (if you've got any evocative photos email me).

Here's a little tribute video I have put together quickly with images found online plus a recording of the The Two Petes performing MacArthur Park:

Update: by a strange coincidence, Greg Hoyle (son of Pete) also posted a video on youtube a couple of weeks ago made up of pictures of the pub set to a Two Petes soundtrack (in this case America). I swear I didn't see this until after I'd posted my film!

Band of Holy Joy at the Montague Arms

The Band of Holy Joy are surely one of the greatest bands ever to have been associated with New Cross. In the late 1980s they were fairly massive on the indie scene with their lush Brechtian/Brelish/folk-tinged tales, but they split up in 1993.

Next week, on Thursday December 22nd, they are playing at the Montague Arms. Obviously if you loved them then you will want to see them now. But apart from nostalgia, why bother? Well since they reformed they have been putting out some fine new music - their new album How to Kill a Butterfly (Exotic Pylon records) got a 4-star review from Mojo.

I saw BoHJ several times in their heyday (including at both Town and Country Clubs), and  have seen them once since they got back together, playing at The Windmill in Brixton a few years ago. I thought singer Johny Brown acually sounded better at the latter. Rather like The Pogues, their music was always 'mature' - back in the day they were young musicians singing as if they old men and women looking back on lifetimes of passion and regret. Now maybe they've grown into the songs!  

More Tales From the Crypt

St Paul's Church in Deptford has recently had a major restoration project, including the crypt. Twenty years ago though the latter 'was a damp , mildewy, run down place with dirty walls and dirty floor and a dodgy loo without doors' (from here). It was also a major subcultural centre.

Pyschedelic Club

In the mid-1980s there was a regular Friday night Psychedelic club. The flyer, left, is from 1985 - note the enticement to 'Be early - people are dying to get in'. Run by Andy More, the club was more like an indoor festival featuring regular appearances from free festival favourites like The Ozric Tentacles and The Magic Mushroom Band. It became known as a place where people could drink and smoke dope all night without having to worry about the police - I am sure this had nothing to do with the promoter being an ex-policeman.

Born2Rant has posted her memories of club there on her interesting hippiecounterculture blog: 'with the dope smoke , the fantastic lightshows, the colourlful drugged up crowd dancing like maniacs, and of course the amazing music , it became a magical place. There were very few public places in London you could smoke dope safely... The Ozrics were playing and the vibe was amazing. All these girls were on stage and dancing with them... the place was packed solid and everyone was doing mad psychedelic dancing and bumping into each other under the strobes' (she also mentions there being a separate gay night in the Crypt).

Bands who played there included The Ozric Tentacles, The Magic Mushroom Band, Treatment, The TV Personalities, The Invisible Band , The Cardiacs, Space Pirates, Wooden Baby, Nukli, Mighty Lemondrops, 1000 Violins, The Trogs, The Pink Faeries, The Shamen and The Stone Roses (I was surprised by the latter but its confirmed here).

Reggae Sound Systems

In his Short History of Music in South London, John Heathcote mentions reggae sound systems playing in the Crypt. This is confirmed in William (Lez) Henry's excellent What the Deejay Said, which includes a detailed account of an early 1980s soundclash there featuring his own Ghettotone sound system, Revolutionary Hi Power and Frontline International (the latter apparently victorious after turning up with a truck load of speakers to literally blow away the opposition). He says: 'a popular venue at the time was the 'Crypt' in Deptford... where the spirits of the dead were regularly replaced by the spirits of the living-black, tomb-ravers'.

Other clubs

The Band of Holy Joy played some of their first gigs at at an early 1980s club called The Stomach Pump in the crypt. Johny Brown from the band recalls that 'the club was run by two extremely groovy guys called Slug and Chin and some of the best times of my life were had in there'. Charles Hayward's Camberwell Now also played at The Stomach Pump in November 1983, so I am guessing it was a fairly leftfield kind of place.

There were also punk gigs - anarcho-punks Virus played there in 1986. Then in 1998 there was an early acid house club Boomshanka on Saturday nights. The picture - of a Psycho's Mum gig in 1988 - gives a sense of the space.

Tell us more if you have any memories/flyers etc. Also, I believe scenes from Interview with a Vampire were filmed at St Pauls.

Band of Holy Joy on YouTube

Following our recent post on the Band of Holy Joy, I came across this great video for their song 'Tactless' on YouTube, featuring them being introduced by Vic Reeves. See it here.

Towards a South East London Top 20

Thanks to everyone who came to my Sounds of SE14 talk at the Telegraph Hill Centre last night - it was a surprize to have a full house on a Saturday night. For the uninitiated it was a mixture of me playing and talking about music linked to New Cross (with a bit of Deptford and Brockley thrown in). Here's twenty tracks I played - not necessarily the all time South East London top twenty but a sample of different times and scenes.

- Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine – The Only living boy in new cross (1992)
- Robert Wyatt – Red Flag (song written in New Cross, 1889)
- Marie Lloyd – Coster's wedding (1904) - 'Queen of the Music Hall' lived in Lewisham Way.
- Fats Waller – The Joint is Jumpin (played at New Cross Empire, 1938)
- Goons – You gotta go owww (Spike Milligan lived in Lewisham and performed in Deptford)
- Bonzo Dog Band – Canyons of your mind (met at Goldsmiths, New Cross)
- Velvet Underground – Venus in Furs (John Cale went to Goldsmiths)
- Squeeze - Up the Junction (Greenwich band, early gigs in Deptford)
- Kate Bush – Hounds of Love (lived in Brockley, played at Royal Albert before it was the Paradise Bar)
- Chords – Maybe Tomorrow (Deptford/SE London mod revivalists)
- Alternative TV – Action Time Vision (Mark Perry from Deptford)
- Dire Straits – Sultans of Swing (lived on Crossfields Estate, song about a Deptford pub)
- This Heat – SPQR (late 70s, lived in Speedwell House squat in Deptford)
- Homosexuals – My Night Out (as above)
- Johnny Osbourne – 13 Dead and Nothing Said
- Linton Kwesi Johnson- New Crass Massacre (previous two both about New Cross fire)
- Test Department – Roman war song
- Band of Holy Joy – Mad Dot (previous two both started out in Nettledon Road, New Cross).
- June Brides – Every Conversation (Lewisham band, played a lot in New X)
- Blur – Song 2 (met at Goldsmiths)
- Placebo – Nancy Boy (met in Deptford, Brian Molko lived in Drakefell Road)
- Steve Harley- Judy Teen (lived in New X, went to Edmund Waller school)
- Violets – Laxteen (current Angular favourites).

All other suggestions welcome!

Nettleton Road Nexus

Nettleton Road in New Cross is a small street in South London that has had a disproportionate impact on leftfield music, particularly it seems in the 1980s. My understanding is that at one point it was squatted and then became run as a housing co-operative (and still is).



We have already mentioned in these pages that members of Test Dept lived at 8 Nettleton Road, and it seems that members of The Band of Holy Joy did too. We also have it on good authority from somebody else who lived there that Colin Jerwood, lead singer with anarcho-punk band Conflict (pictured here), was born in the street.


Now, over at the always interesting Greengalloway, Alastair Livingstone has recalled a a few more connections:

"Although I spent most of my years in London north of the Thames (in Ilford, Islington and Hackney) I was briefly a south Londoner - New Cross... Part of the psychogeography of south London Transpontine are exploring are music links, and Neil has asked if I know of any... Got three:

Mitch of Hagar the Womb / Snork Maidens / Flack lived on Nettleton Road 10 years ago.

Mouse of Psychic TV lived at 10 Nettleton Road mid/ late eighties (at no. 10)

Bob of Blood and Roses also lived at no. 10 in late eighties".

The bands mentioned all deserve a post of their own, and I will supply more detail when I finish reading The Day the Country Died. Alistair himself was involved in the seminal punk zine Kill Your Pet Puppy and has described a 1983 New Year's Eve party in Nettleton Road:

'Year started with a party at Mouse's house (Nettleton Road/ New Cross) where we listened very intensely to first Psychic TV album. Mouse later became a Psychic TV person (played on Godstar single) . Min was also at party, and by September had moved to Beck Road- next door to PTV Temple HQ. As per previous blog, Min became Zos Kia singer/ wrote words for song Rape. Zos Kia in turn evolved into Coil'.

Some other local music connections

Nettleton Nexus Revisited

Our recent post on Nettleton Road in New Cross and its musical productivity in the 1980s has set a few memories working. Alec Turner, formerly of Nettleton Road and now living with family in a remote part of Norway, has told us that:

- he lived in the early 1980s at number 28. This was where Colin from Conflict was born (pre-housing co-op days) .

- Alec then lived at number 11 along with Karen and another female member of the Hagar the Womb. At this time, Alec himself was in a band with his friend Martin called The Depth Charge Souls. They released a single, The Price of Love, in 1986. It made it to second single of the week in Melody Maker and got played once on John Peel.

- members of The Mekons and a guitarist from Blue Aeroplanes also lived in the street as well as members of Test Dept and Band of Holy Joy (as mentioned in earlier post). Bob from Blood & Roses and Mitch (also of Hagar the Womb) lived at number 5. Alistair from Kill Your Pet Puppy zine thinks he lived at number 24.

All the house numbers aren't very important, as it was a co-op people moved in to one house and then maybe moved to a room in another house as it became available. All this does show though what a cauldron of music this place was, as well as some interesting continuities over time. For instance, Hagar the Womb ended up on Conflict's Mortarhate records, whose founder Colin was born in the same road. Any more memories and documents (print or music)?

Listen to Depth Charge Souls - The Price of Love MP3

Transpontine TV

I’ve put together a Transpontine playlist of videos on YouTube of music and songs linked to South East London. Take a look at:

Band of Holy Joy - What the Moon Saw (1985) – gorgeous song, the band recently reformed and when I saw them at the Windmill in Brixton last year they were fantastic. Cherry Red recently released a retrospective compilation, Leaves that fall in Spring (see review at Swedish Nurse).

Test Department – Total State Machine (1984) - awesome industrial assault from their Beating the Retreat album in solidarity with striking miners.

Conflict – The Serenade is Dead – live anarcho-punk action from 1985.

(the previous three bands all had connections with Nettleton Road in New Cross)

The Violets - Mirror Mirror (2006) – current Angular favourites.

Linton Kwesi Johnson – It Dread Inna Inglan (1979) - unaccompanied reading from dub poet, ex-Goldsmiths student and long time Brixton resident – ‘no matter what they say, come what may, we are here to stay inna Inglan’.

Squeeze - Up the Junction (1979) – from Top of the Pops, ‘I never thought it would happen with me and the girl from Clapham’. The SE London band played early gigs at The Oxford Arms in Deptford (now the Birds Nest).

Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine (1992) – The Only Living Boy in New Cross.

Shirley Temple (1936) – Old Kent Road – US child start goes cockney in the film Little Princess.

Brain of Morbius (2003) – I'm a Busy Bee and I'm loaded – big in New Cross and apparently massive in Hungary

June Brides (1986?) Every Conversation – live version of one of the greatest 1980s indie-pop songs. The band were based in Lewisham (lived in Courthill Road) and used to rehearse at studios off Creek Road in Deptford.

Figurant at Strange Parade

A mesmerising audiovisual performance at Strange Parade in Nunhead last month (28 February 2026), with Inga Tillere's film piece accompanied by words from Johny Brown (of Band of Holy Joy) and musical accompaniment from Mark Beazley (bass) and Jono Podmore (theremin and other sounds).

'Figurant' is centred around the 'discarded fragments of space and time' embodied in a found 8mm film from 1960s Elmer in West Sussex. Tillere treated the film by leaving it submerged in the River Ravensbourne by Lewisham Hospital, recovering it later, and meticulously scanning it frame by frame.

Super 8 film is always uncanny as a dead, flickering medium carrying memories from at a time when moving images of ordinary people were rare. The effect was doubled by its Ravensbourne wash, bringing out unexpected colours that heighten rather than completely obscure its English seaside footage from 60 years ago. 

I have recently had some old super 8 film digitised, having not viewed it for more than 40  years and not knowing what was on it. There were unexpected glimpses of my late father and grandmother, as well as of my younger self, with that patina of time that heightens the strangeness of old film that has been lying around for decades. 

'Figurant' played with this resurrectionist aspect of old film footage. 'A séance for lost film. A tale of all that survives' that brings back to life its unspeaking minor characters glimpsed through a glass darkly. For a moment there I felt like I was actually present at a seance as the spoken word accompaniment echoed the language of spirt mediums.  Look out for more from the 'One Tree Hill Mystical Society'

Deptford Fun City Revisited

A very good turn out (50+) at my 'Sounds of SE14' New Cross and Deptford musical history talk last night at St.Catherines, thanks for everyone for coming. For me it was great to have a mixture of some of the people who make the area interesting in one place, and in some cases ‘networking’ in the pub afterwards – those present included Caffy from Music Tourist Board, Mark Sampson (whose ‘New Cross Sympony’ was played), Ceri James (whose 'Deptford Broadway' was also played), Catherine from Cartridge, our very own Scott from South East London Folklore Society, Andrew from Ragged School Blog, Paul from Deptford Free Radio (who recorded the talk for a future podcast) and Paul Hendrich from Goldsmiths' Town Hall Pirate, the latter a new initiative looking to contest Deptford's colonial legacy as seen on the old Town Hall (now a Goldsmiths building) with its statue of the slaver Francis Drake. If you want to find out more sign up here and select 'Town Hall Pirate'.

Here's the music I played last night. If you want to know more about the connections between them and SE London, you'll just have to come along to my next event, likely to be in May during the Made in Deptford festival.


Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine – The Only Living Boy in New Cross
Roy Harris – Ratcliffe Highway
Robert Wyatt – The Red Flag
Marie Lloyd – A Little of what you fancy does you good
Fats Waller – The joint is jumpin’
Spike Milligan – The Q5 Piano Tune
Bonzo Dog Band – Monster Mash
Velvet Underground – Black Angel’s Death Song
Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel – Come up and see me make me smile
Dire Straits –Sultans of Swing
Squeeze - Cool for Cats
Alternative TV - Action Time and Vision
This Heat – SPQR
Kate Bush - Cloudbusting
The Flying Pickets – Only You
The Fabulous Poodles – Mirror Star
… and the Native Hispters – There goes Concorde again
The Chords – Maybe Tomorrow
The Only Ones – Another Girl, Another Planet
Japan – The Art of Parties
Homosexuals – My night out
Johnny Osbourne – 13 Dead
Linton Kwesi Johnson – New Craas Massahkah
Test Department – New World Order
Band of Holy Joy – Mad Dot
Ozric Tentacles – Sploosh!
The June Brides – Every Conversation
Blur – Girls and Boys
Placebo – Nancy Boy
Blak Twang – Trixsta
The Violets – Laxteen
The Swear – Ch ch eh!
Shortwave Set – Is it any wonder?
Mark Sampson – New Cross Symphony
Zen – Deptford Broadway.

A Transpontine Top Ten

A big weekend is planned in Deptford and New Cross on May 5th and 6th, with loads of live music happening in local pubs and other venues (including one very exciting international act, fingers crossed). Keep an eye on Rocklands for emerging details. Anyway for the programme I've come up with a Transpontine Top Ten of songs/artists linked to the area. In no particular order, here it is:

1. The Only Living Boy in New Cross (1992): Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine had a top five hit with this tale of ‘greboes, crusties and goths’
2. New Craas Massakkah – Linton Kwesi Johnson (1984): dub poet’s take on the 1981 New X Fire.
3. Up the Junction – Squeeze (1979): South London kitchensink drama from band who started out on Deptford Fun City records
4. Mad Dot – The Band of Holy Joy (1986): ‘when I walk up the New Cross Road when I’m starved and I haven’t been fed’.
5. Nancy Boy – Placebo (1996): former Drakefell residents who met in a pub in Deptford.
6. Action Time and Vision – Alternative TV (1978): Deptford and ATV’s Mark Perry started Sniffin’ Glue, the original punk fanzine.
7. Gravity’s Rainbow – Klaxons (2006) :first single on Angular records when they were just a little band in New Cross. The song title references Thomas Pynchon’s novel, which features a rocket explosion in Greenwich Park.
8. Cloudbusting – Kate Bush (1985): Kate started her career living in Brockley and playing gigs at the Royal Albert in New Cross Road and the Rose of Lee (now Dirty South)
9. Judy Teen – Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel (1974): glam rocker grew up in New Cross.
10. Death Cab for Cutie – Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band (1967): Bonzos met at Goldsmiths in New X, performed this song in The Beatles ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ film and gave a name to current US emo rockers.

Fairly arbitrary I know, the list could be a lot longer. What would your suggestions be?

Convention of Hysteria (1985)

February 1985 and a pretty radical weekend of music at the Albany Empire in Deptford - The Convention of Hysteria with New Cross's own Band of Holy Joy and Test Department joined by Diamanda Galas, Evan Parker and others. Somewhere out there there's a bootleg of this gig, of which Galas has recalled:

'Well, the Convention of Hysteria was me solo one night. Me with Test Dept the next, Evan Parker -who I had played with once in San Diego - and ... I don't really know who else was on it. Probably one or two other Some Bizarre artists. The performance with Test Dept was alright. I can't criticize them if the electronics broke down.

FE: Was that a written piece?
Diamanda: No. I structured a piece for all of us. So we did something and in certain ways it was pretty interesting. It received a very horrified response because the vocal levels were already incinerating the place, then Test Dept came out with these gigantic, I mean GIGANTIC, steel things, with no shirts, sweating and playing these things that were put through processing by my engineer. So it was even more monstrous. Then I was on the top, so it was some sort of weird S&M ritual. It was fun. I liked it and they're good guys.

"Diamanda Galas: Tura Satana Without Cleavage", Interview in Forced Exposure #15 (Summer 1989)

Anyone out there remember this? Doesn't sound like you'd have forgotten it if you were there.