Suburban Relapse

Slightly Lost is the latest in a long line of people queuing up to slag off Croydon as 'a soulless, concrete homage to pure capitalism'. In fact one time Croydonites Kirsty McColl and David Bowie are quoted expressing similarly wrathful sentiments about their one time home.

I would be the last one to argue with this, Croydon is exactly as Slightly Lost describes it. One of the few redeeming feature of the town centre is the famous second hand record shop Beanos, and even that it threatened with closure. And if Croydon is dull for many of us, let’s not forget that for some it is a real hell-hole as the home of the notorious Lunar House immigration office. As a recent enquiry highlighted, this is a place where asylum seekers and other migrants face at best a bureaucratic nightmare and at worst detention and deportation.

Jamie Reid, most famous for Sex Pistols art work, was previously involved in a Croydon-based anarcho/situationist printing press The Suburban Press (based at 9 Sidney Road, SE25). An early edition of their zine includes a picture of Croydon town centre and the caption 'Lo! A Monster is Born - Croydon redevelopment 1956-1972 (see cover here).


A Jamie Reid design - Destination Boredom & Nowhere = Bromley & Croydon?

One of the best dissections of South London suburban life is Hanif Kureishi’s novel, 'The Buddha of Suburbia' (1990), a depiction of coming of age in the 1970s by the Bromley-raised author. The narrator, Karim Amir, is 'from the South London suburbs and going somewhere'. Amir/Kureishi is scathing about where he lives: ‘a dreary suburb of London of which it was said that when people drowned they saw not their lives but their double-glazing flashing before them’. And, again: ‘In the suburbs people rarely dreamed of happiness. It was all familiarity and endurance: security and safety were the reward of dullness'. In the suburbs he does find some sub-cultural oases – at one point he goes to see Kevin Ayers at the Three Tuns in Beckenham where 'my friends that I loved were standing at the bar, having spent hours in their bedrooms preparing for the evening, their gladdest moment being when a pair of knowing eyes passed over their threads'. But ultimately he has to go further into London and indeed New York to find the excitement he craves.

Still, Michael Bracewell also makes a good point in 'England is Mine: Pop Life in Albion from Wilde to Goldie' (Harper Collins, 1997): 'That the suburbs, as opposed to the city, have been the prime incubator and kindergarten for principal players in English popular culture is as certain as the equally strong role of the provinces. Around the extreme south-east of London, along the Bromley, Croydon and Sutton belt (a suburban curve, linking the urbanity of Lewisham and New Cross to the quasi-ruralism of Epsom and Leatherhead), the suburbs would become famous as a launch-pad for punk rock’.

Croydon has certainly giving birth to plenty of music over the years. As well as Kirsty McColl and David Bowie (the latter actually born in Brixton), Croydon was the birth place of Ralph McTell, writer of the 'Streets of London' – recently designated as the no.1 London song by Time Out. The no.2 song on their list, Waterloo Sunset, was also apparently partly inspired by Ray Davies's journeys to Croydon Art School. Several members of The Damned came from Croydon (see previous post), and Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs of Saint Etienne also hail from there. One of my favourite songs of all time, Saint Etienne’s Hobart Paving takes its name from a Croydon-based company. Let's not forget the Purley Queen herself, Kate Moss – more of a muse than a musician, though she did contribute vocals to Primal Scream’s excellent version of Some Velvet Morning.

So is there something about the comfortable dreariness of places like Croydon that inspires people to leave and create something better? For Amir/Kureishi 'our suburbs were a leaving place, the start of a life' leaving him 'looking for trouble, any kind of movement, action and sexual interest'. If this restlessness is one source of creativity, there might also be a more prosaic reason for the suburbs’ contribution to the culture industry, namely that they are full of middle class kids with the cultural capital (education, equipment, confidence, connections) to make it in music and publishing.

Either way, 'So fuckin' Croydon' (a phrase coined by Bowie) remains apposite.

For a different take, see Weird Croydon or even Strange Croydon.

Test Dept

Next up in the roll call of great South East London bands is Test Dept. To quote from Deptford Fun City: 'Test Department were formed in 1981 from a group of people living at 8 Nettleton Road [New Cross]. They broke new ground with their ‘metal bashing’ industrial sound, using scrap metal for percussion. Their support for the Miners' Strike is documented in their 1984 LP, ‘Shoulder to Shoulder’, recorded with the South Wales Striking Miners Choir'.

In his book 'Queer Noises: Male and Female Homosexuality in Twentieth Century Music' (Cassell, 1995), John Gill describes the experience of an early Test Dept performance:

"One sunny Saturday afternoon early in the 1980s, a colleague and I found ourselves wandering the streets of south of Blackfriars Bridge, on a caper that was straight out of Thomas Pynchon. A band who had given us a tape of their music, crashing industrial gamelan music battered out of steel springs, oil drums, sheets of metal, vast tanks, drills and buzzsaws, had invited us to one of their performances. The precise address of the concert had to be kept secret. They hired industrial premises – railway arches, warehouses, industrial depots – under the guise of anonymous charities… We were told to keep an eye out for their initials – TD, for Test Dept, a collective from New Cross in South London…

It was probably the only concert I’ve attended where I wondered if I was going to die. Test Dept were (and remain) stunning, breathtakingly noisy and quite terrifying… As they drummed up metal thunder on an adventure playground’s worth of industrial detritus, violent electronic noise was bled into the mix and grainy Russian revolutionary films were projected on to band and stage… The smell of oil was everywhere, and when they began applying cutting machinery to their instruments, producing volcanic spurts of sparks 20 feet across, people stubbed out cigarettes and backed towards the door". At a similar event nearby some time later, Test Dept were arrested before starting.

I saw Test Dept much later, at the last big night at Brixton squat venue Cool Tan in 1995.

Watch Test Dept - Compulsion (1984) at YouTube

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.

South East London Synagogue

This must be one of the great lost buildings of New Cross - the South East London Synagogue in New Cross Road, where the Jehovah's Witnesses Kingdom Hall now stands.

According to Jewish Communities & Records, this building was consecrated in March 1905 and was destroyed by a German air raid on 27 December 1940. After this the congregation moved temporarily to 117 Lewisham Way (recently known as the Elephant house and demolished just last month). It 'returned to its original site in 1946, first to a temporary hut and then to new purpose-built synagogue in 1956'. However the congregation went into decline and it closed in 1985, by which time it only had 56 male members compared with 294 in 1939.

Afterwards the old synagogue was squatted for a while and used as a rehearsal space for Test Department, among others. I assume the 1950s building must have then been demolished, because the Jehovahs Witnesses hall looks more recent (correct me if I am wrong).

The synagogue seems have been started by Ashkenazi jews from eastern Europe living locally. Services started in a house in 452 New Cross Road in 1888, and then moved to two rooms in Nettleton Road, followed by a hut in in 1889 Lausanne Road until the building above was opened.

Credits - picture comes from South London Liberal Synagogue - I believe this is the earlier building rather than the 1950s one.

Irish Dance Halls in London

My friend Myk had a Christmas leftovers party last night where people brought along unwanted presents and put them into a lucky dip. As a result I came away with a book I've been meaning to read since it came out, Joe Boyd's 'White Bicycles: making music in the 1960s' (Serpents Tail, 2005). Its a good read, covering his adventures in the US and British blues, jazz and folk scenes as a producer of Fairport Convention, Nick Drake and Vashti Bunyan.

Boyd was also one of the people behind the legendary UFO psychedelic club in Tottenham Court Road (1966-7) with the early Pink Floyd as the house band. One thing I hadn't realized before was that UFO was held in an Irish dance hall called the Blarney Club. This got me thinking about the untold influence of Irish dance halls on wider popular culture in London, as large places outside of the main music industry circuits and therefore available for people to use for more marginal and emerging musics.

In New Cross, the Venue was previously The Harp Club, and even before it changed names was being used for gigs and indie clubs. In Camden, The Electic Ballroom also started out as an Irish dance hall, whilst the Kilburn National has hosted The Pixies, Nirvana, The Smiths and The Sex Pistols (I saw The Wedding Present there once).

So endeth the final Transpontine post of 2006.

Drive carefully

It is traditional at this time of year to warn people to drive carefully. I would like to add that particular care should be taken if you are anywhere near cars being driven by the police in South East London, especially in the Shooters Hill area

Last week a 16 year old girl was killed just off Shooters Hill after a police chase 'Teenager Samantha Clark died after accepting a lift home from a party in a stolen 4x4, police said. The trainee legal secretary, 16, was killed when the Jeep Cherokee careered into a tree and burst into flames following a high-speed police chase... Flowers have been left at the scene of the crash in Plum Lane, Woolwich, alongside messages from family and friends. A spokesman for Scotland Yard confirmed that the silver vehicle was being followed by an unmarked police car with its blue lights and siren on (more)

There have been a number of other incidents in the same area. For instance, in June 2002 a 29-year-old female pedestrian in Shooters Hill was killed when hit by a police car.

A year later in June 2003 'Two police officers and a Kent man suffered serious injuries when their marked police car collided with the man's car... at the junction of Shooters Hill Road and Marlborough Lane, SE18. The two police officers, both men, suffered leg and chest injuries. One of the officers has been discharged from hospital, and the other officer is now in stable condition. The 53-year-old man, from Orpington, was cut from his car and taken to Kings College Hospital, where he remains in serious condition'.

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.

Greenwich Solstice

I went along to a Winter Solstice celebration in Greenwich Park last week (22nd) arranged by the Tribe of Avalon. They very kindly asked me along to sing a song I have written, 'On Snow Hill', which refers to that hill in the Park. In his book, 'Goddesses, Guardians and Groves: the Awakening Spirit of the Land' (Capall Bann, 1996), Jack Gale associates Snow Hill with a Winter Goddess, a Snow Queen linked to the Saxon deity Holda. What is undeniable is that there are Saxon burial mounds on the hill, and nearby a filled in, but still noticeable well. It felt special singing the song at the well (the well gets mentioned in the song too), one of a number of site-specific singing sessions I've done this year. These have included singing 'Georgie' (a poachers ballad set in Shooters Hill) in Oxleas Wood at the top of Shooters Hill at the start of the South East London Folklore Society walk there in the summer, and singing with Juleigh 'The Only Living Boy in New Cross' as part of the Telegraph Hill Festival at Page Two in Nunhead. Next year I am planning to get the music project off the ground on a more regular basis with 'Winterland' (watch here for details).

Greenwich Park felt like a fitting place for the turning of the year, as this year a lot of threads of my life seem to have run through it. Back in April, there was Tom McCarthy and Rob Dickinson's excellent Greenwich Degree Zero exhibition at the Beaconsfield gallery in Vauxhall, based around an alternative history perspective on Martial Bourdin's death in Greenwich Park in an 1894 bomb explosion. I gave a talk at the exibition, 'Stargate SE8: time, space and parklife' which combined my local history and Association of Autonomous Astronauts interests. Jem Finer, Pogue and sound artist, was also on the bill and through meeting him we both ended up taking part in Brendan Walker's wonderful Fairground Thrill Laboratory at the Science Museum in the Autumn, an event that combined space-themed talks and music with a go on the Booster fairground ride.

Then of course there was the unforgettable wedding of fellow Transpontinians Scott and Clare in Greenwich Park, an event which showed that it was possible to have a ceremony in keeping with your beliefs without frightening the horses or the relatives. Jacqui from Tribe of Avalon conducted the wedding, Jack Gale talked briefly about the history and spirits of the Park, Scott & Clare led the leaping over the broomstick.

Frost Fair

I went to the Frost Fair at Bankside in the week before Christmas. Not quite up there with the historic fairs held on the frozen Thames, but there were lots of stalls and the Globe opened for a pound, with a short George and Dragon play on the stage. Angels were spotted on the Millennium Bridge (photo above). Of course this year a number of people have claimed to see a Thames Angel for real - there is even a Friends of the Thames Angel fan club (see also). Men in white frocks may not have been what they had in mind - but what else is an angel?

James Brown

So farewell James Brown... dead on Christmas Day, what an exit. I made a Christmas CD for friends this year and included his great 'Santa Claus go straight to the Ghetto' (could have put the Belle & Sebastian version on, but much as I love them no one can really cover James Brown).

The James Brown sound will always remind me of my early days in South London, just after I'd moved to Brixton in 1987. I used to go to Dance Exchange at the Fridge, with Jay Strongman DJing. It was the pre-house 'rare groove' period, with the music dominated by James Brown and his associates - among the biggest records were Brown's own 'Get Up Offa That Thing' and others made by members of his band, particularly Maceo Parker (Cross the Tracks - Maceo & the Macks) and Bobby Byrd (I know you got soul).

As well as the Fridge, there were other smaller clubs playing similar music in the area - there was Wear it Out upstairs in the Loughborough Hotel in Brixton, and Dance Chase above the Alexandra at Clapham Common. Another important night was Wendy May's Locomotion at the Town and Country Club in Camden, playing a mixture of funk and northern soul.

Soon electronic beats would begin to squeeze out the 1970s funk sound, but James Brown provided the DNA for the next wave of dance music through the endless sampling of loops from his band (where would Public Enemy and many others have been without them?). There is always hyperbole when somebody dies, but I can honestly say anybody's who's been out dancing in the past 40 years should raise a glass tonight to the Godfather of Soul.

Back to 1995

As a compulsive hoarder of flyers and other ephemera from many years of parties, gigs and rampages through the streets, it is gratifying to have finally found a use for them in the last couple of years since I got my scanner working - yes, posting them on sites for other obsessives to go, wow, that was quite a night etc. etc.

I've just posted a mid-1990s batch over at Urban75 in their Lost Squats of Brixton section, including some from the legendary Cool Tan parties in the former dole office on Colharbour Lane and one from the Bar Sate industrial night at 121 anarchist centre on Railton Road.

I've also been sticking up photoes at UK Decay, an absolute treasure trove for anybody interested in punk rock in Luton (mainly ex-Luton punks like myself).


Flyer for a 1995 party at Cool Tan in Brixton, featuring Luton-based free party drum'n'bassheads Exodus Collective. I recall that Luton electronica outfit Click Click played that night. This is a real period piece with a reference to the recently passed Criminal Justice Act (clamping down on raves) and 'cold taps turned on' referring to unscrupulous clubowners trying to force e'd up dancers to buy water from the bar by turning off the taps in the toilets.

New X Inn Headjam

Happening at New X Inn tomorrow. Details from Leadpipe

Music Monday: Status Quo

[post updated September 2021, following death of Status Quo bass player Alan Lancaster]

Status Quo were one of the most successful British rock bands from the late 1960s to the early 1980s, 'Rocking All Over the World' but with roots in Forest Hill and Peckham

Lead singer and guitarist Francis Rossi spent his early years in Forest Hill (Mayow Road and Perry Rise), where he attended Our Lady and St Philip Neri RC primary school. His Italian extended family ran the local ice cream trade with vans and a shop, Rossi's Ice Cream in Catford Broadway. In his autobiography 'I Talk Too Much' Rossie mentions going to 'Len Stiles Music on Lewisham High Street. This was a record shop that also sold musical instruments including electric guitars. Len Stiles was the place where you hung around smoking your Nelson cigarettes and yacking about music'.  Later Rossi moved to Balham where his family ran a sweet shop, but after getting married at Peckham Registry Office he set up home in Forest Hill.

Bass guitarist Alan Lancaster meanwhile grew up in Cator Street, Peckham. He and Rossi met at Sedgehill Primary School in Beckenham where they first started a band - initially in a Kenny Ball style trad jazz trio! Switching to guitars they played their fist proper gig at the Samuel Jones Sports Club in Lordship Lane SE22.

Rehearsing in a garage next door to the RAF Air Training Corps centre in Lordship Lane (not far from the Horniman museum in what is now Highwood Close) they poached drummer John Coghlan from another band rehearsing at the barracks. Coghlan was from Dulwich and went to Kingsdale school. Now known as The Spectres, the band played other local venues such as El Partido in Catford, the Bromley Court Hotel and in 1967 Abbey Wood park with Pink Floyd.

After hooking up with guitarist Rick Parfitt while working at Butlins in Minehead they became 'The Status Quo' in 1967, later dropping the 'The'.  Their first gig with new name was at The Welcome Inn in Eltham and their first hit 'Pictures of Matchstick Men' came the following year in 1968, a slice of English psychedelia-lite. In the early 1970s the band began adopting the denim-clad rockier image and sound that they became famous for.  

There’s a 1972 Status Quo photo shoot in Peckham, this one is by the Peckham Unionist Club which was apparently on corner of Peckham Hill Street and Commercial Way

Must admit I had an early teens Quo moment before I got into punk. Their style/sound became a bit of a cliche, but is is time for a critical re-appreciation? Some of their peak period stuff has this almost Krautrock drone like repetition and is pretty powerful.

 

Gone to the Dogs

Went for a walk along the River Ravensbourne from Catford to Ladywell last month, came across the remains of Catford Dogs Stadium - the sign and the entrance block seem to be all that's left, with the rest demolished. Can't say I was ever a regular punter, but I did get taken there once as a leaving present from a job. I quite like the current melancholy dereliction, no doubt soon it will be a building site.

Further along the river was looking beautiful, towards the Catford end it does feel quite rural, if you screen out the buildings at the edge of your vision.

Punk in South London

I wasn’t sure about reading ‘Punk Rock: an oral history’ by John Robb (Ebury Press, 2006). Sometimes your love for things can be ruined by them being over-mythologised and analysed, and I’ve rationed my reading of punk books on this basis. This book is quite refreshing though as it is entirely in the words of people involved in British and Irish punk up until about 1984. Along the way, some of the myths about punk are quietly demolished. For instance the notion of punk emerging in opposition to all previous musical trends doesn’t hold water when you find out that most of the key players were obsessively involved, if only as fans, in all kinds of pre-punk scenes – not just Bowie and Pub Rock (the approved influences), but also the 70s underground of Hawkwind and the Pink Fairies.

So what about South London connections? Well the Bromley Contingent of Siouxsie, Billy Idol and co. has been well documented before, as have the Croydon connections of The Damned, but I hadn’t realized that the latter’s Rat Scabies and Captain Sensible met while working at Croydon’s Fairfield Halls, taking in everything from Jerry Lee Lewis to Mrs Mills. The Damned rehearsed in a Bermondsey warehouse owned by their early manager, John Krivine (who was also behind the shops Boy and Acme Attractions)

The Sex Pistols first proper rehearsal was upstairs in the Rose and Crown in Wandsworth (John Lydon had earlier made his way to the Crunchie Frog pub in Rotherhithe for a rehearsal in August 1975, but the rest of the band failed to show up). A key early gig was the following February at Andrew Logan’s Valentine’s Night warehouse party at Butler’s Wharf in Bermondsey, featuring Jordan jumping on stage to have her clothes ripped off by Lydon, who then started smashing up the equipment. The gig had an electrifying effect on Mick Jones and Brian James, seeing the Pistols for the first time and inspired to follow suit (eventually forming The Clash and The Damned respectively).

TV Smith and Gaye Advert of The Adverts started out in a flat in Clapham when they first moved up to London from Devon, while Colin Newman of Wire lived in a ‘very rough squat in Stockwell’. Don Letts, a key figure in the punk-reggae crossover as DJ at the Roxy club ‘lived in a house in Forest Hill with five other rasta brethren: Leo Williams who was later in Big Audio Dynamite and Dreadzone, JR, Tony and my brother. We were really the staff, the doormen at the Roxy’. Mark Perry of Sniffin’ Glue and Alternative TV gets his say (‘We were working class kids from Deptford. We weren’t middle class ponces from Bromley or Chelsea’).

The book follows through to second wave of punk bands and its various sub-genres such as anarcho-punk. It also attempts to rescue the reputation of Oi bands, misunderstood as right wing skinheads when they were actually working class socialists if the book is to be believed. In this category come Deptford’s The Business, whose guitarist Steve Kent recalls ‘I was living in Deptford in the early punks days. Some friends of mine found out that punk groups were playing at the famous Kings Head in Deptford, which later went on to be the subject of the Conflict song. We had a punk gang down there on Friday and Saturday nights, which was the punk night, and there would be bands in the punk room’.

Above all the book conveys the excitement of rapidly expanding possibilities, of Do it Yourself mayhem and violent reaction from shocked patriots and passers-by.

Solstice Satire

Saturday 23rd December 3pm

Bring a song, story or poem. Cozy up around a campfire or inside our yurt. Hot chai and mince pies on the go. Food donations or other welcome.

One Tree Hill allotments(KEEP OFF PLOTS). Entrance half way up Honor Oak Park Road beneath the trees. Ring the bell.

Monkees

The Monkees' movie HEAD is being shown next Wednesday 13th December in New Cross. The film, plus delicious veggie food, costs a mere £4. At Cafe Crema, 306 New Cross Road. 7.30pm for food, 8.00pm for the film.

Modern Antiquarian

Getting increasingly addicted to The Modern Antiquarian, a fantastic compendium of stone circles and other ancient sites in UK and Ireland named after Grandmaster Julian Cope's book of the same name and subject. Most London sites have long since vanished, but there are still a few burial mounds to be found, including at Winns Common (Plumstead), Shooter's Hill (Shrewsbury Tumulus) and Wimbledon Common.

Yule be sorry if you miss it

South East London Folklore Society returns with Folk Yule: an evening of story telling, song, acoustic music, traditional and magical games and other (mostly) carbon neutral entertainments. You're welcome to join in with a song, story or some other entertainment.

Thursday 14th December, revels shall commence from 8pm in the upstairs room of The Royal George, 85 Tanners Hill, Deptford, London, SE8 4QD. Just off the Lewisham Way. (map here). A £2.50 donation is requested to cover room hire and other costs.

Contact scott@selfs. org.uk or clare@selfs. org.uk

I'm Your Fan

Greenwich Picturehouse are showing Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man next week, a documentary about my favourite Jewish Buddhist Canadian singer-songwriter. Should be good, even if features a tribute concert with obligatory performances from U2, Rufus Wainwright and others not worthy to touch the hem of Len's garment.

Sympathy for the Devil

Watched Sympathy for the Devil last night, Jean-Luc Godard’s film structured (very loosely) around The Rolling Stones recording their greatest song. I am not a great fan of The Stones but this song has a particular resonance as the track always played as the last record at The Venue in New Cross during many 1990s indie-nights, with hundreds of drunk people 'whoo whooing' in chorus for most of the song.

In musical terms the film demonstrates what a triumph the recorded version is in comparison with some of the dire earlier takes. Also noteable is that Keith Richards plays bass throughout with ostensible Stones bassist Bill Wyman relegated to Maracas.

But this is radical avant garde 'cinemarxism' circa 1968, so the music is only one element of a collage with elements including a narrator reading political porn (‘Foster Dulles went inside to order Princess Beatrice a Molotov Cocktail’) , staged scenes of armed Black Power activists in a car scrapyard down by the Thames and a parody of the banality of interviews with a young woman pursued through a wood answering in monosyllables to questions like 'Do you feel exploited from the moment you step into an interview?' and 'Do you think drugs are a spiritual form of gambling'. Meanwhile figures pop up in the London landscape painting graffiti about Viet Nam.

God knows what the later Sir Michael Jagger made of it all, though apparently even this version was too much of a compromise for Godard whose final take left out a complete version of 'Sympathy for the Devil' only for the film to be edited to include it at the end without his consent over images of fighting on the sand in a section entitled 'Under the Stones the Beach'.

Life is Cheap

A horrific story on the front page of this week's South London Press (17.11.2006), which for some reason isn't on their website at present:

A corpse was left rotting for weeks after council officials failed to help a man living in a cleaning cupboard, it was claimed today. The man, an immigrant from Togo known as Atayi, was found after residents reported a sickening smell. Police went to a cupboard used to store cleaning products at Perronet House in Elephant & Castle at 12.15pm on Wednesday. After smashing down the door officers found the body of the man, in his late 40s. Cops at the scene told people living on the second floor the man was thought to have been dead for at least three weeks.

People who live in Perronet House told the South London Press Atayi had been working in the block but lived rough so he could send as much money as possible back to his wife and children in Togo. Early reports suggest he died from carbon monoxide poisoning - it is believed as a result of cooking on a camping stove - but a full post-mortem is expected today. Questions are being asked of Southwark Council after claims they had been told the man was squatting in the 8ft by 4ft cupboard as long ago as May but failed to act. It is said that Atayi worked as cleaner for the council and was therefore able to get past security doors at Perronet House....."

Although this an extreme case, it is indicative of the conditions of migrant workers in London today, people who may be branded as 'illegal' and denied rights such as access to healthcare, but who are relied on to the dirty jobs that nobody else wants to do. People who work as low paid cleaners in every office in town, paid a pittance and making profits for multi-national cleaning firms like ISS. If you feel the urge to do more than sigh and turn away, you might want to check out the Justice for Cleaners campaign which is organsing two weeks of action in support of ISS cleaners next week. This isn't just a London issue either, check out the current Justice for Janitors strike in Houston, Texas.

Strange vehicles of South London (1)

This Russian T-34 tank has been situated at the corner of Mandela Way and Pages Walk (just off New Kent Road) for a few years. From time to time it gets painted - at one time it was pink, but this is its latest colour scheme.

Vultures

After the recent Nunhead Black Panther incident, we now have reports of vulture sightings in Richmond Park and Beddington sewage farm, near Croydon.

Ladywell Pool Saved

Well done to Save Ladywell Pool campaign - Lewisham Council has now reversed its decision to demolish it to make way for a much-needed new secondary school. The school will be built instead at Lewisham Bridge. Details here

Your Arsenal

Down by the River Thames at the site of Woolwich Arsenal today, many of the old buildings still standing from when it supplied guns and ammunition for the Empire, but now being turned into luxury flats.

My great great grandfather, Thomas Cook, worked there in the 19th century and his father and grandfather before him (in the 1851 Census, Thomas junior is listed as a 'laboratory boy' and his father as 'labourer, Royal Arsenal'). Later Thomas's sister Jane worked there as a teenage 'cartridge maker' while another brother, John, worked as a 'metal turner' in the Royal Laboratory.

You can only take nostalgia so far, and it is surely better that these buildings are now homes instead of factories producing lethal weapons for the British army. Still, once again I ponder the irony of riverside locations where the poor once lived and worked becoming, in the words of a brochure I picked up today, spaces for 'bespoke penthouse living'.

On another tack entirely, entering the site from Beresford Street, there is an unusual weather worn statue (above) bearing the plaque 'Deus Lunus - late Roman work, brought from Egypt'. Any ideas what a statue of a moon god is doing at Woolwich Arsenal? It stares across to a fine 1764 sundial, complete with moon and St George & Dragon imagery (below).

Beerism

Tales of a Nunhead micro-brewery, anyone?

Cyclism

I've also been intrigued by Witcomb cycles, an ancient looking bike shop in an even more ancient looking building in Deptford. Now thanks to Slightly Lost in the World you can read the full story of its pivotal role for the global cyclist massive. Must get the two wheeled monster out of the cellar.

Openlab

In a Peckham art squat today it's the last day chance to take in Openlab 3, featuring 'Installations, sonic interventions, video works, animations, digital musics' from more than 20 artists and musicians engaging 'in the aesthetics and politics of Free Open Source Software'. It's open from 1 to 7 pm, with performance from 4 pm at The Midnight Blue Gallery (autoitalia south-east london gallery), 82-86 Queens Road, Peckham.

Lost Penguin Found in New Cross

Strolling down the New Cross Road last Saturday afternoon I stumbled across a gig at Rubbish & Nasty by Lost Penguin. It was great, amidst the retro clothes and vinyl in the shop there was a riot of fuzzy bass, shouty boy/girls vocals, drum machine and korg synth noises, stripy jumpers, yellow jackets and more. Ever in search of the Riot Grrrl revival (OK I know it never really went away), I am pleased to report that some of their faster tracks reminded me a little of Le Tigre.

Anyway there's more free music action on Saturday afternoons until Christmas, with Tea and Toast Band tomorrow at 3 pm, and a Wonktronica Showcase on 18th November. All at 308 New Cross Road.

Dis-Orient X

'Ten years after the book Dis-Orienting Rhythms: the Politics of the New Asian Dance Music (zed books 1996) we've decided to have a party (or a wake) and discuss, and dance, about the new world disorder.

3pm start - speakers - Sonia from ADFED, Anamik Saha of Goldsmiths, Sanjay Sharma, Aki Nawaz showing the new Fun-da-mental video, & panel discussion... finish 6pm

Followed by Dis-Orient X club night 7.30 - 12with Aki Nawaz from Fun-da-mental and SPARK! on the decks.

Friday 17 November @ New Cross Inn.

A benefit for the 1857 Indian war of Independence Commemoration Committee. Donations at the door. All welcome'.

How does it feel? gig at the Windmill

Our fave indie-pop night, How Does if Feel? are putting on a gig on Thursday November 9th at The Windmill, Blenheim Gardens, Brixton. The line up is
Francois/Amida/The Steadies/The Darlings and it all starts at 8pm, a mere five pounds entry.

Francois are described as 'Bookish boys with library tans singing', Amida as 'quietly cool, gloriously romantic, indie pop janglers'. The Steadies reference 'Nick Drake and Belle & Sebastian and every loveable acoustic
dreamer going'. The Darlings remain a mystery, but doubtless have impeccable music taste.

Radical film night in New Cross

Class Acts presents a double bill of cinematic delights plus yummy food.

'The Free Voice of Labor-the Jewish Anarchists' tells the story of the anarchist movement among Jewwish immigrants to the USA from the 1880s until the final days of the Jewish anarchist newspaper 'Freie Arbeiter Stimme' in the 1970s.

'An injury to One- the Frank Little story' tells the story of the mysterious death of the Wobbly organiser Frank Little in 1917, following his radical organising of the workers of the Anaconda Mining Company. The film includes music from Low, Jim O'Rourke and William Oldham.

Wenesday 15th November, 7.30 for food, 8.00pm for film. At the Cafe Crema, 306 New Cross Rd, SE14. Only £4 includes delicous veggie meal.

Further information from useyourloaf@btinternet.com

New River

'The roving South London Radical History Groupies are going to walk along the south end of North London's New River and do a bit of sightseeing, and politico-historical chattering along the way... the idea is to meet up at Turnpike Lane tube at 2pm on Sunday 26th November and work our way down the river, stopping at Clissold Park cafe for a cup of tea, and then on to Sadlers Wells. After that we can wander back to Angel or Chapel Market to hang out in a pub and maybe try one of the "eat as much as you like" buffets... bring umbrellas, gossip and chat about historical spots we pass...'

For further information, or to be added to the SLRHG mailing list, contact mudlark1@postmaster.co.uk

Klaxons

Good to see James Righton of 'new rave' instigators The Klaxons giving South East London its dues in the NME student guide (October 2006). Among his five favourite London places he lists are the Montague Arms in New Cross, the Skillian Centre rehearsal studio in Deptford, the Wah Wah squat in Peckham and the silver box in the middle of the Elephant and Castle roundabout, a 'portal to another dimension' where he once spoke to a fox!

Beast of Nunhead

'Interesting if true' report in the South London Press (20 October 2006) about a possible Alien Black Cat sighting in Nunhead:

Panther prowled into my lounge

A space scientist had a close encounter of the furred kind when a black panther called at his home. Astro physicist Brian Shear claims the big cat walked into his living room and settled on his settee in the early hours of Thursday.

Brian said: "It had green eyes and was between four to five feet long, nose to tail. This was no pussycat. It didn't miaow, it growled. I'd been sitting in my armchair when it walked in. I didn't try to get too close to it because I was concerned it might bite me. I just sat there and talked to it like you would a normal pussy cat. I said, 'Hello puss, where've you been then?' and it just growled. It seemed quite content and I didn't feel threatened. I don't think it would have harmed me.It seemed familiar with humans."

The 64-year-old diabetic said he had woken up at his home in Nunhead Lane, Nunhead, feeling ill and opened his front door to let some air in but got the uninvited house guest instead. After an hour the cat left Brian's home and disappeared towards Dulwich.

It is not the first time a big cat has been reported in South London. Last year dad-of-three Tony Holder said he was pounced on by a large cat-like animal in the backyard of his Sydenham home. Armed police patrolled the neighbourhood for several days afterwards and people were warned not to use local parks. Experts suspected a black panther had leapt at Mr Holder.

Ghosts and Monsters of south-east London

Samhein is over but today is the Day of the Dead.

SELFS is resting at the moment ('retreating to jump further' as they say) but we're still doing the odd bit. I'm giving a talk on the 'Ghosts & Monsters of Brockley & Surrounds' at Moonbow Jakes coffee shop and bar from 8pm tonight.

That'll be strange and fortean things happening in Brockley, Nunhead, Honor Oak, Lewisham, Deptford and Sydenham. There'll also be a couple of other local writers doing readings.

Sorry it's late notice, I didn't have a time until this morning, but I hope someone could come along.

Moonbow Jakes Brockley: 020 86949128

325 Brockley Road, London SE4 2QZ.

Find them equidistant between Brockley (turn right and up Brockley Road) & Crofton Park (turn left and down Brockley Road)

Train stations. Buses 122, 171, 172 & 484

Royal Albert

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

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

Mules etc.

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


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

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

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

Notes from the Island

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

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

Radical Stuff at Goldsmiths

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

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

March for Migrants Rights

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

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

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

Update: Report on march

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

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

Pull Tiger Tail in New Cross

The Wolfgang Bopp presents;

Pull Tiger Tail

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

Fear of Flying

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

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

The Mystical Forest

South East London Folklore Society, 11th September: Jack Gale – London's Green Web

Jack Gale is a pagan and magickal writer on much experience, warmth and wisdom and tonight he shall be discussing London's "mystical forest". South London features heavily in the talk and Jack in an expert in the magickal history of south-east London. At the Spanish Galleon in Greenwich at 8 pm.

Contact SELFS and Subscribe to SELFS newsletter.

Autum walk from the wood to the River

On Sunday 17th September there will be a chance to explore the sites of ancient rites, apparitions, folklore and natural wonders with Pagan Federation South East London and South East London Folklore Society. Join them for a Sunday afternoon picnic and stroll along part of the Green Chain Walk, from Oxleas Woods to the Thames Barrier.

The walk starts at Oxleas Wood (meet by the café at 1pm) and finishes by the Thames, and will wander through the ancient woodland of Oxleas and the hideaways of highwaymen before taking in the site of Charlton's notorious Horn Fair (where apparently men `quite frequently wore women's clothes and amused themselves by striking women encountered on the fairground with sprigs of furze') and stopping to picnic near Charlton House, haunted Jacobean mansion. Then onwards for deer and peacock-spotting and over a Roman hill fort before passing a modern stone circle on the way to the Thames.

It's also international Chalk4Peace weekend, so people are encouraged to bring chalks if they feel so inclined.

For further information contact clare@selfs.org.uk or scott@selfs.org.uk.

Reservoir Reservations

At the top of Telegraph Hill, on Jerningham Road in New Cross, there is a walled off covered reservoir site. The reservoir is apparently now redundant, and St James Homes is planning to build 13 houses on the site. In the mean time, the site is a nature reserve in all but name. Human visitors are not encouraged, which for me makes it somehow more appealing as a kind of Secret Garden (I must scale the wall before they build on it). Anyway not everyone's happy with the loss of this green space, and there's a public meeting on the 11th September at 8 pm to discuss the plans. It takes place at the Telegraph Hill Centre (next to the Church at the top of the hill), where the plans are currently on display in the foyer.

Blow-Up

At the Photographers Gallery there's an exhibition of stills from Michelangelo Antonioni's classic swinging London movie Blow-Up, including some set in south east London locations. There's a shot of David Hemmings emerging from a building with a sign saying National Assistance Board Camberwell Reception Centre - this is the old Spike homeless hostel in Consort Road, SE15 which features at the beginning of the film. Part of this is still standing and has been squatted for several years, with the Council recently granting a licence.

There are also a number of photos of Maryon Park in Charlton, a crucial location where Hemmings' photographer character inadvertently takes pictures of the crime which is central to the film's plot.

Also on at the Photographers Gallery is an exhibition of photos from the London Fire Brigade archive. Thrill to the sight of a 1951 bus crash in the Walworth Road, chortle at a 1947 image of a 'boy being rescued from a milk churn' in Lambeth. My favourite was of a fire in Lyndhurst Grove SE15 in 1963 seemingly contributed to by the haphazard piles of books stacked all over the house including up the staircase. There but for the grace of God go I...

Both run until September 17th and are free. The Gallery is at 5 & 8 Great Newport Street, London WC2H 7HY (Nearest tube Leicester Square).

Walking the Ravensbourne

From London Below blog

Green Gatherings

A couple of interesting sounding green events coming up locally. On Monday 28 August there's a Green Man Fayre at the One Tree Hill Allotments, behind Honor Oak Park train station, SE23. Its on from 12 - 6 pm and costs £2. More information about the allotments from South London Permaculture.

Then on Sunday 3rd September there's an invitation to picnic at the Brockley Common Opend Day (next to Brockley Station). It's on from 12 noon to 4 pm. More details from Brockley Cross Action Group.

Shot by Both Sides

Shot by Both Sides promise 'A spektakular soiree of degeneracy and bloodlust' in the Basement Bar at the Venue in New Cross on Friday (August 11th), featuring three bands: 'Luxembourg (Extravagant and alluring 5-piece angular pop, with a similar swaggering spirit to Roxy Music or early Suede), The Low Edges (Widescreen melodies and Spector-ish atmospherics from band who cite classic novels and folk tales as influences) and Gifthorse (Bedsit glamour and arch, sardonic lyrics from tragic romanticists). All this plus DJs playing '60s garage, northern soul, motown, funk and - cripes - indie until the wee hours'. Its on from 9pm-2am (£4/£3 NUS). [apologies - earlier version of this post had the wrong date - good news is you haven't missed it]