Chumbawamba, Levellers and more: New Cross Venue 1991

I have posted previously about the Venue in New Cross Road, closed since Covid but in the early 1990s one of the top live music places in London, particularly for up and coming indie bands. This selection of references from Sounds music paper from January to March 1991 shows just how busy it was. There were gigs every Friday and Saturday and sometimes on other nights in the week. Bands finished by 11 pm but there was a club afterwards until 2 am (known on Saturday night as Awesome), with coaches back to Trafalgar Square afterwards, from where you could get a night bus to most parts of London. 

Sounds 5 January 1991:

The Levellers reviewed- 'It seems that the tribes of the rainbow have gathered here tonight. Every shape, style, colour and form of youthful life'. Just don't call them Crusty.

Chumbawamba, Thatcher on Acid

Subhumans, Long Tall Texans, The Hinnies, The Cropdusters, Chumba

Anarcho-punk band The Subhumans played two consecutive nights at the Venue - reunion gigs which Sounds in 1991 described as a 'nostalgia trip... might be your last chance to get down to timeless classics'. Not quite - I saw them twice at the New Cross Inn in 2024!

Sounds 19 January 1991:

Melvins, Steel Pole Bath Tub, Ocean Colour Scene, Fieldmice, Heavenly, The Orchids, Easy, Close Lobsters, Afgan Wigs.

Ocean Colour Scene

Sounds 26 January 1991:

Dr Phibes and the House of Wax Equations

The Fieldmice, Heavenly, The Orchids - I might have been at that one, definitely saw Heavenly there at least once

Sounds 2 February 1991

American bands The Melvins make their UK debut at the Venue in 1991, supported by Steel Pole Bath Tub

Chumba's gig on 12 Jan 1991  reviewed-  'The entire Venue is bathed in a sea of punks dancing'.  'Outside the roads are clogged with the prospective audience'. I think I went to this one, I remember the queue stretching down to New Cross station.

Easy, Close Lobsters

Sounds 9 February 1991:

Carter USM and Billy Bragg to play 'Stop the War in the Gulf' CND Benefit

Leatherface, Sleep, Working with Tomatoes

Sounds 16 February 1991:

Bleach, Basti, Suncarriage

Perfect Disaster, Bleach, The Darkside, Catherine Wheel, Chapter House

This issue Sounds featured a chart of the most requested records at the Venue - Carter USM, Nirvana, Cud, Throwing Muses, Orange Juice etc.

Sounds 23 March 1991:

Half Man Half Biscuit supported by 'Levellers 5' (not to be confused with The Levellers, a different band who had to change their name as the latter went massive)

East Village, Jesse Garron and the Desperados, Shack, Guana Batz, Long Tall Texans, Rattlers, Green on Red (great American 'paisley underground' band).

'Despite its out of the way location, the Venue in New Cross has proved itself a welcome addition to the London gig circuit and has become a comfortable, popular place to frequent - as proved by the full house for tonight's first birthday celebrations'. Headliners 'Lush are the brightest stars of the future'. Support bands  are Moose and another who tread 'their well worn 60s groove'. Whatever did become of Blur? The following year Lush were supported by Pulp at the Venue.

Sounds 30 March 1991

Front Line Assembly, Solar Enemy, Ganz Heit

See previous posts

New Cross Venue Flyers 1900-95

Spiritualized at the Venue 1991

More New Cross Venue Memories (including Lush)

Venue Flyers (including Sebadoh and Belly)

More Venue Flyers

Goblin Band and some South London folk nights/open mics

Goblin Band were great at the Goose is Out last week (Friday 31st January 2025) at the Ivy House, bringing a new energy to traditional folk song including not one but two versions of Widecombe Fair, a song which as they note they have resurrected after it being out of fashion for years. Excellent support too from Scottish singer/harpist Holly Murphy and unaccompanied singer Victoria Lynn

Holly Murphy

Folk music is pretty accessible for those who want to take part, you don't even need to learn an instrument! For people who want to try singing and performing themselves there are plenty of entry points locally. The Goose is Out has a monthly singaround at the Ivy House (next one is  Sunday 9th Feb) where people take turns with standing and singing a song.

Deptford Folk is on the last Thursday of every month downstairs at the Endeavour, 39 Deptford Broadway, and has floor spots. Folk of the Round Table is a weekly Sunday open session  at SET Social (55a Nigel Road SE15 4NP). There is a Thursday night open mic at the Shirkers Rest in New Cross. As a spin off from that a New Cross Songwriter's Circle is doing a night there too.

Railton Road Radical Histories Mural

The 'wall of respect for the radical histories of Railton Road' was painted  in 2021 by the RAD Mural Collective on a wall at  the 198 art space at 198 Railton Road. Designed by Jacob V Joyce and Monique Jackson, it packs in a lot of local historical detail, referencing black, queer and other radical spaces and scenes associated with the area. These are  mostly from the 1970s to 1990s, though there is a nod to more recent events with local firefighters shown taking the knee during the Black Lives Matter protests of 2021. 

According to the mural#s designers, 'Railton Road was once known as ‘The Front Line’ due to the sheer amount of anti-racist and counter hegemonic activisms which erupted on this street. A commemorative blue plaque which reads ‘The Front Line’ is painted into the top right corner of the mural. Beneath it local artist and often forgotten hero of black British LGBT history Pearl Alcock leans out of a window. Framing the scene on the left an art work by Rotimi Fani-Kayode, another LGBT icon and member of the Brixton Artist Collective, looms over a sleepy eyed Rasta opening his door in fluffy slippers. References to local organizations include the CLR James Supplementary School, radical squatted book shop 121 Books and a banner which reads ‘Black People Against State Harassment, B.A.S.H, a self defence campaign group also based on Railton Road. The Black Panthers, The Gay Liberation Front, Race Today Collective, and many other anti-racist, queer and feminist groups have been founded or run on this radical South London road'. The Front Line was the centre of the 1981 uprising, also referenced in the mural which was commissioned to mark its 40th anniversary.

I lived in Brixton for best part of ten years in some of these times so was taken aback (in a good way) walking past the mural recently to see all this so boldy and brightly represented, including the 121 Centre where I spent many a happy hour and maybe a few not so happy ones too! You could do another mural, or several, about just the things that happened there, as I summarised elseswhere:

'The 121 Centre in Brixton, variously known as an ‘anarchist centre’, ‘social centre’ and ‘squatted centre’, was a hub of international radical activity and much else throughout the 1980s and 1990s. The house at 121 Railton Road, SE24 was squatted by a group of local anarchists in 1981  (though it had previously been squatted by radical black activists) and was finally evicted in 1999. It is now private flats. Its four storeys included a bookshop, office space, printing equipment, kitchen and meeting area, and a basement for gigs and parties.

Over 18+ years it was the launchpad for numerous radical initiatives, some short-lived, others having a more lasting impact. Many groups used 121 for meetings and events, including Brixton Squatters Aid, Brixton Hunt Saboteurs, Food not Bombs, Community Resistance Against the Poll Tax, Anarchist Black Cross, the Direct Action Movement, London Socialist Film Co-op and the Troops Out Movement. Publications associated with 121 included Shocking Pink, Bad Attitude, Crowbar, Contraflow, Black Flag and Underground.

There was a regular Friday night cafe and many gigs and club nights, including the legendary mid-1990s Dead by Dawn. 121 was a venue for major events including Queeruption, the Anarchy in the UK festival and an International Infoshop Conference. It was, in short, a space where hundreds of people met, argued, danced, found places to live, fell in and out of love, ate and drank'.

 

Rubbish & Nasty, New Cross Road - noughties ''nu-rave squat-chic"

Was chatting today about noughties New Cross and was reminded of Rubbish and Nasty, a music/retro clothes shop that was at 308 New Cross Road from around 2006-8. It was part of a row of interesting places including Prangsta (304), Cafe Crema (306), and a little earlier the squatted coffee shop at 310. All in a row living under the curse of threatened redevelopment by the landlord, Goldsmiths College (at time of writing mostly empty).

I believe it was run by Ian McQuaid, who used to work at Morps record shop, downstairs in Moonbow Jake's cafe (I think he also put on the Fear of Music nights at the Montague Arms).  Also running the shop was Sophi Soni who created a great Rubbish Fairy shrine behind the shop.

Found a couple of photos of the shrine, including this one from Darryl SE7

...and this one from the Rubbish Fairy herself, on insta now as house_of_doll

The place was mentioned in an article by Joe Muggs, 'Is New Cross the New Camden' in the Standard (9 Nov 2007) which proclaimed it as the haunt of 'nu-rave squat-chic types'

They put on some gigs/parties there, remember seeing Lost Penguin there in 2006.

David Lynch/Elephant Man in Shad Thames SE1

Shad Thames/Butlers Wharf has been used in so many films, evoking as it does to this day the lost world of dockside London with its warehouses and narrow streets.

It was memorably used in 'The Elephant Man' (1980),  starring John Hurt and Anthony Hopkins and directed by David Lynch, who was hired for the job by producer Mel Brooks.

David Lynch on set with John Hurt

As Mel Brooks recalled in his book 'All About Me': “The first day of shooting with David Lynch was in October 1979 on Butler’s Wharf on the South Bank of the Thames River just east of London’s Tower Bridge. It was a chilly day, and David Lynch had arrived earlier on the set without a coat. I sent somebody to Harrods department store with David’s measurements and bought him a warm, dark blue, brushed woolen English overcoat. He wore it every day — I’m not kidding. Every day! Whether he was indoors or outdoors, every time he directed a scene for The Elephant Man he was wearing that blue coat. I think he might have believed it was some kind of good luck charm.

Many years later in 2013, when I was awarded the American Film Institute’s prestigious Life Achievement Award, among the celebrated filmmakers that honored me that night was David Lynch. When he told the story of how we had met on The Elephant Man he actually brought out onto the stage with him the blue coat that I had bought for him at Harrods, which he had carefully tucked away in his cedar closet all these years. I can’t tell you how touched I was at the sight of that coat.” 

Anthony Hopkins

Update 22 Jan 2024 - I originally thought that the Anthony Hopkins picture above was in Shad Thames but it has been pointed out that it is probably Wapping High Street across the river. It seems that both streets were used in the film. According to  'Making the Elephant Man: a producer's memoir' by Jonathan Sanger (2016): 'Wapping High Street was a long cobblestoned road filled with wharves that dated to around the time of our story. It was right next to the famous Tower Bridge. The wharves were soon to be gutted and refurbished into high end condominiums but we still had enough time to capture them in their 19th century squalor. Shad Thames was also close to the river but on the opposite side from Wapping and also consisted of a series of cobblestoned alleys and dead ends that had not yet been prettified. We decided to center our opening sequences around these streets'

  Reelstreets has also identified some scenes being filmed in Clink Street SE1, round the back of Southwark Cathedral. And Vanessa Woolf has said that she believes the production used the Jacob Street film studios SE1, a little further along the river from Butlers Wharf.

A scene in Clink Street, according to Reelstreets

Wonder if Lynch crossed paths with film maker Derek Jarman at this time? The latter was living in Butlers Wharf in 1979.

Hollydale Tavern reopens

The Hollydale Tavern - on the corner of Hollydale and Brayards Roads SE15 - has been spruced up and reopened, having been closed since 2019. We popped in for an early evening drink last week, very child friendly at that time of night with craft activities for kids going on and families ordering in pizza from Yard Sale.

The pub has an exhibition of delightful bird prints by locally based artist Fran Giffard. Fran says 'I  live and work in Peckham Rye, London. When I am not drawing birds in my studio, I am studying them at the Natural History Museum or the Horniman Museum' (interview with her at Little Observationist).

photo by Fran Giffard 

Goldfinch 

HMS Belfast: Housing Protest (1981), Spandau Ballet and some seagulls

HMS Belfast is a 1930s built Royal Navy warship that has been permanently moored on the south bank of the Thames between London Bridge and Tower Bridge since 1971. It is managed as a tourist attraction by the Imperial War Museum. I am not a big fan of military hardware and remember a not so exciting trip there when I was at school, but no doubt there are interesting stories to be told about it not least its manufacture in the Harland and Wolff shipyward in Belfast -a notoriously sectarian workplace where Catholics had been violently expelled from their jobs - and its wanderings through the last days of Empire.

Not to mention that time it unwittingly hosted an early gig by Spandau Ballet in July 1980. The story is that they booked it as a private graduation party for some Oxford students. As remembered by their manager Steve Dagger: 

'Our host began to suspect he had been misled as the band’s equipment started to arrive and became agitated. His mood blackened as he saw the nature of the crowd that was arriving. This was the combined forces of hip London Blitz/club culture at its finest. There were Elizabethan inspired crossdressers, there were Soul boys, Rockabillies, there were Fritz Lang futurists, there was Boy George, Marilyn, Phillip Salon in their prime and one man in a wedding dress with fairy lights who asked Graham if there was a plug socket he could use to illuminate. Rusty Egan, the DJ from the Blitz and our great friend began his set of electronic sounds. It got worse still as the party got started and as the crowd became boisterous with drink, drugs (there was a lot of acid and speed ), and a degree of sex... Legendary club promoter Dave Mahoney, Polecat band member Phil Bloomberg, and others, although on the guest list, stole a rowing boat, and boarded the Belfast from the river. As the fire eaters that Chris had booked arrived and combined with his discovery of 2 men having sex in the engine room, it would be fair to say that our host went mental' (Source:  Spandauballet.com). The ship also featured in 1980s videos for Kelly Marie’s It Feels Like I’m in Love  and Depeche Mode's People are People.

Spandau Ballet on board ship

Dave Gahan (Depeche Mode) below deck

In  April 1981, HMS Belfast's eyecatching properties were put to use in a short protest demanding that the nearby Hays Wharf site be converted for housing not offices. Peter Tatchell, who took part, later recalled 'We bought a group concession in the name of the East Dulwich Tennis Club and then strung huge banners from the bridge.’  Tatchell can be seen between two banners in photo below, seemingly with the slogans 'Homes not offices' and 'houses on Hays Wharf'. At the time Tatchell was secretary of Bermondsey Labour Party and was soon (1983) to face  a virulently homophobic campaign when standing in the notorious Bermondsey byelection of 1983. The Hays Wharf campaign was not successful, though as highlighted in the excellent SE1 Stories exhibition and pamphlet, community action in that period did achieve some victories which is why social housing was built close to the riverfront from Waterloo to Rotherhithe.

photo by George Nicholson

Anyway today you can meet some interesting gulls chilling out by the boat and note how the Royal Navy appropriated their colouring for camouflage.

Black headed gull - in winter plumage with a whte head

Herring Gull

 Post prompted by a couple of pleasant encounters with seagulls in January 2025 and seeing the SE1 Stories exhibition at the Castle lesiure centre in Elephant and Castle.

Children of Hiroshima - peace meetings in 1950s Lewisham and Bromley

The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament was founded in 1958 and its first wave of activism peaked in the early 1960s at a time when fears of nuclear war were at their height. The movement against nuclear weapons started a few years earlier, with a key campaigner being the Methodist minister Donald Soper (1903-1998) - who incidentally went to Haberdashers school in New Cross.

In October 1955 'a ten day peace campaign by South London pacifists' included showings of the Japanese film 'Children on Hiroshima', documenting the impact of the first use of a nuclear weapon ten years previously. The film was shown 'in Bromley library and various church halls in Bellingham, Downham, Lewisham and Catford culminating in a  public meeting in Lewisham Town Hall.

Peace News 7 October 1955

Lewisham Borough News, 11 October 1955. Venues for film shows including St Dunstan's Church Hall, Bellingham; Public Library, Bromley High Street; Wesley Church Hall, Downham; St Mark's Church Hall, Lewisham; St Laurence Church Hall, Catford; St Luke's Church Hall, Downham

400 people attended the event in Lewisham Town Hall on 25 October 1955 with an extra hall being needed to accommodate demand.  As well as the film showing, Dr Soper gave a socialist and pacifist speech quoting from Joseph Rotblat (a physicist who had walked away from the Manhattan Project that developed the first nuclear bomb) 'Two of every three people don't have enough to eat. Economically we can have guns or butter but not both. The world must dedicate itself to producing necessities for the life of its increasing population or it will squander its resources in killing suddenly those who do not starve slowly'.  Also speaking was Sybil Morrison (1893-1984). Born in Sunderland Road, Forest Hill she was active in the women's suffrage movement then a lifelong peace activist.

Peace News 4 November 1955