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Home , Boy George, Carnaby Street, Derek Ridgers, Doc Brown (rapper), Ganton Street, Great Marlborough Street

A project by Lucy Harrison RAMILLIES STREET

MARSHALL STREET NEWBURGH QUARTER

Carnaby Echoes is a commission by artist Lucy Harrison AMES ST. that reveals the hidden stories heritage UPPER J of the Carnaby area. From 1930s clubs such as NEWBURGH STREET the Nest and the Social Parlour, to the introduction of Ska to the UK by Count Suckle and

GREAT MARLBOROUGH ST. Duke Vin at the Roaring Twenties Club in the . ADWICK STREET ADWICK

O This history encompasses several diverse musical styles

(including jazz, , , rock and R 10 B 13 hip hop) as well as a wide range of venues including

, record companies, magazines and shops LOWNDES COURT LOWNDES

MARLBOROUGH CRT. MARLBOROUGH that attracted particular music fans and sub-cultures. It is these curious and unknown narratives that Carnaby 14 Echoes uncovers by connecting the sounds, stories and

12 characters from locations around Carnaby with a series BEAK STREET BEAK of embedded commemorative plaques. These markers 11 then link to film and audio interviews accessed via a 15 Above Carnaby Street, 1982. UPPER JOHN ST. website and audio walking tour app in which contributors including , Count Suckle, Dynamo and Mark

CE T Y COUR Ellen are brought back to buildings that hold significant KINGL 1 music memories for them. This publication accompanies

ON STREET ON the project presenting texts, archive images and film stills

RAMILLIES STREET A

T’S PL T’S 2 relating to locations around Carnaby Village.

T GAN 3 4 Music and fashion remain at the heart of Carnaby #carnabyechoes

Village. Many fashion stores have links to musicians and carnabyechoes.com R FOUBE Carnaby continues to support emerging music through Fold out for Carnaby Echoes live events. Carnaby Echoes has been commissioned by carnaby.co.uk location map. Shaftesbury PLC. @carnabylondon LITTLE MARLBOROUGH STREET KINGLY STREET CIRCUS OXFORD CIRCUS

REGENT STREET RAMILLIES STREET

MARSHALL STREET NEWBURGH QUARTER SOHO

. UPPER JAMES ST NEWBURGH STREET

GREAT MARLBOROUGH ST. 9 Carnaby Echoes is a commission by artist Lucy Harrison

ADWICK STREET ADWICK that reveals the hidden stories behind the music heritage O

8 of the Carnaby area. From 1930s jazz clubs such as R 10 B 13 the Nest and the Florence Mills Social Parlour, to the introduction of Ska to the UK by Count Suckle and

LOWNDES COURT LOWNDES Duke Vin at the Roaring Twenties Club in the 1960s. MARLBOROUGH CRT. MARLBOROUGH This history encompasses several diverse musical styles CARNABY STREET 14 (including jazz, reggae, rhythm and blues, rock and 11 12 hip hop) as well as a wide range of venues including BEAK STREET BEAK nightclubs, record companies, magazines and shops that attracted particular music fans and sub-cultures. It . is these curious and unknown narratives that Carnaby 15 UPPER JOHN ST Echoes uncovers by connecting the sounds, stories and

CE T Y COUR characters from locations around Carnaby with a series

KINGL 1 of embedded commemorative plaques. These markers ON STREET ON then link to film and audio interviews accessed via a 7 Top Carnaby Street, 1982.

RAMILLIES STREET website and audio walking tour app in which contributors

A PL T’S

2 including Boy George, Count Suckle, Dynamo and Mark T GAN 3 Ellen are brought back to buildings that hold significant

4 music memories for them. This publication accompanies R GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET FOUBE the project presenting texts, archive images and film stills 5 6 relating to locations around Carnaby Village.

LITTLE MARLBOROUGH STREET PICCADILLY Music and fashion remain at the heart of Carnaby KINGLY STREET CIRCUS Village. Many fashion stores have links to musicians and Carnaby continues to support emerging music through OXFORD live events. Carnaby Echoes has been commissioned by carnaby.co.uk CIRCUS Shaftesbury PLC. @carnabylondon

REGENT STREET PICCADILLY CIRCUS There’s a Time and a Place Miranda Sawyer

Carnaby Street seems like a time, rather than a Lucy Harrison, an artist who uses place to get how exciting everything was, how chaotic and the-Sex-Pistols-to-Radiohead history that tells the place. And that time is the sixties, or an ersatz to people’s stories, has uncovered a new old youthful, as though all responsible adults had story of British pop in acceptable linear fashion. version. One with minis and Minis and mods and Carnaby Street. One that’s still musical, but not been locked in a cupboard and the keys chucked Anything that doesn’t fit is disregarded; the train- mop-tops, where wrong-uns mingle with Rolling so clichéd. One where histories jump, stop-start, into Regent Street. And I look at Mark Ellen, tracks run straight, with room for one carriage at Stones, blue bloods with Beatles, a time of trippy fold back on themselves, fast forward, fade who worked there before me, sitting in the white a time. What Lucy Harrison has done is reminded psychedelia and groovy chicks and squares who and emerge again, louder, stranger, but still space that was once our office, a place filled us that not everyone was on that journey. Some just don’t get it, man. We see Carnaby Street lit connected. One where the stories are unknown, with paper and people and mess and optimism. detoured, some were ignored. Carnaby Street by a lava lamp, swirling, swinging. Did that era forgotten or never heard. So we hear about the Sitting, remembering. To go back to a place isn’t an era; or if it is, it isn’t just the one. ever exist? Carnaby Street time? Beatles rocking up after-hours to the Bag O’Nails, to recall your life in it is a privilege; Lucy has dancing and carousing into the morning; learn of taken every scene’s players and put them where It’s strange how we use place names as brandishing his first major pay check they were, no matter what is there now. That’s a shorthand, for tragedy (Dunblane) or of £1000; of Keith Moon drinking the bar dry. But important; not just for the memories but to Below from 1990, triumph (Waterloo), for culture, high and low we also discover the Roaring Twenties, which understand the evolution, the onward march, your including Miranda Sawyer’s Stone Roses feature. (Glyndebourne, Glastonbury). Madchester equals brought ska and sound systems to the West End; significance and insignificance. Things change, ; Kings Road means punk. Places are and Deal Real, where Diesel is now, a British hip- times change, and so they should. defined by events, by epoch, by sound; and, in hop hangout favoured by Mos Def, Kanye, the turn, come to define those events, that epoch, Wu Tang Clan when they were over in the 2000s. A scene gains traction through its interpretation; that sound. Should we start again? Forget the And a place for happenings, the Artists’ Own how its story is told defines its future. Manchester, era, consider the area? For every place has Gallery, founded at 26 Kingly Street in the 1960s the city I grew up in, has always had its pop what, in Carnaby Street time, were called vibes. by Keith Albarn, father of Damon; whose band, culture chroniclers; writers who tell its tale, Something in their fabric that seems to favour Blur, years later, signed to Food Records, around whether of post-punk Joy Division or Stone certain activities. And so clubs and shops and the corner on , and drank in the Roses’ Madchester. I’m a music journalist: I am bars spring up that, over the years, create a White Horse on Newburgh Street. asked over and over about the Hacienda, about small environment conducive to a particular New Order; sometimes about Britpop. Not about frame of mind. Landlords and councils can make I worked at Smash Hits when it was on Carnaby Brixton, where I’ve lived for over 20 years. I don’t a difference too; as can the layout of streets, Street, above the BOY shop, in the late 1980s fit into the easy clichés about Brixton; also black a location within a city. Just off-centre; in the and early 1990s. My first proper job, and it was pop culture is rarely so well documented as white. middle but not mainstream. as amazing as could be. I could never believe There’s a straightforward -through- 1

Murray’s Club 16-18 Beak Street 1913-75 Left Murray’s Club, c1920s. Below Stills from Pathé news reel, 1922.

Murray’s was a jazz and cabaret club on Beak Street which opened in 1913, whose displays and costumes became more extravagant and risqué in later years. The venue is known for its notorious hostesses, Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice- Davies, who were both implicated in the Profumo affair in the 1960s. Murray’s Club closed in 1975. 2

The Cat’s Whisker 1 Kingly Street 1950s

The Cat’s Whisker was a coffee bar in the 1950s which played rock ‘n’ roll and skiffle, and which saw the invention of ‘hand jiving’, a form of dancing which was said to have been started due to the lack of space in the club. The bar was started by entrepreneur Peter Evans and was one of the first in to have a juke box.

Left and above Photographs of the Cat’s Whisker by Ken Russell, 1957. 3

Bag O’ Nails 9 Kingly Street 1930s-present The Bag O’ Nails has been a since the 1930s, when it was originally a jazz club. In the 1960s, it was owned by John and Rik Gunnell, who started out at the Flamingo in . The club became famous as the location of Jimi Hendrix’s first London gig and was a hang out for musicians such as and the Beatles. It is also known as the place where Paul McCartney met Linda Eastman who later became his wife. A new incarnation for the club came in the 1970s when it became Miranda, owned by Felix Dennis, publishing magnate, poet and one of the founders of the underground magazine Oz. In 2013 it is once again named the Bag O’ Nails.

“We were in the agency business, my brother and I. We had Georgie Fame and all those kinds of artists, Chris Farlowe, PJ Proby, Long John Baldry, Rod Stewart… They all played in bands of ours… I used to import a lot of the American acts, like Ben E. King for the Flamingo, and I got John Lee Hooker over, and we were known in the business, so opening up a club was a doddle… We had an opening night, the night before we opened, and we invited the Animals, and Keith Moon, and PJ Proby down here to practice running the club. We all got wasted, and spent a lot of money, but it opened successfully.” Left The interior of the John Gunnell, interviewed by Lucy Harrison, 2013 Bag O’ Nails in 2013. Above John Gunnell in the Bag O’ Nails, 2013. 4 Kleptomania was a clothes shop run by Tommy Roberts and Charlie Simpson in the 1960s. It was first located in Kingly Street and Kleptomania then later moved to Carnaby Street. 10 Kingly Street

Left The interior of the shop in 2013, now called William & George. Below Kleptomania in the 1960s.

“There was always accompanying music… Jimi Hendrix, Donovan, a lot of Dylan, , Cat Stevens, Tea for the Tillerman. It was just a handful of albums, and people had their favourites. It was a sort of precious thing. You had the albums and to go and buy one was your whole Saturday. Tommy used to go off to South Molton Street and come back clutching new ones. Country Joe and the Fish, Vanilla Fudge, the Mamas and the Papas… Apart from when Charlie was in there; he would put some soul on, and someone else would come and take it off again.”

Martin Cole and Annie Millar, former shop assistants in the 1960s, interviewed by Lucy Harrison, 2013 5 In the 1930s there were six or seven mostly “I had made my way to the quiet back street, unlicensed jazz clubs in different basements which has the air of a ‘servants’ entrance’ to the along Kingly Street. These included the Nest, main thoroughfare, and taken refuge in one of its The Nest Club which was situated at number 23, between 1934 several night-clubs. and 1939, and hosted some of the jazz greats of 23 Kingly Street the era. The clubs became known as ‘basement The small room, underground though it was, had bottle parties’ due to the practice of selling the sense of airiness. The silky material which hid 1934-39 bottles of spirits from local shops as a way of the ceiling and suggested a tent, flapped in the getting around the licensing laws. breeze of electric fans; the white shirts of the four men in the orchestra were cool; the dancing floor, “Housed in a basement in Kingly Street, behind being deserted, provided an illusion of space. the stately facades of Regent Street, it was exclusively the preserve of London’s then tiny Only a few of the small tables round the edge black community; a microcosmic in the of it were occupied, some by habitués, some heart of town. Such whites as ventured down its by semi-professional partners, one by a Nice precipitate staircase to sniff the marijuana-scented Couple on their first visit. These, who might air, gawp at the uninhibited high spirits of the have been in their first term at Oxford, drank habitués, and enjoy for breakfast the best corned little, observed much and spoke to nobody. Later, beef hash in Europe, were the usual thrill-seeking when the primitive rhythms of the music became West Enders, perhaps a sociologist or two, but overpowering, and the atmosphere oppressive above all, the jazz musicians. For it was Nestwards with heat and smoke, and the floor a packed that visiting black musicians, here to tour the mass of neurotics absorbed in the orgiastic ritual music halls, or to fulfill such other engagements of the dance, their tall figures, performing a that were open to them, always gravitated at the rumba as innocuously as if it were a minuet, were end of their day’s work. There one might find, at a landmark, But, at the beginning, they did not one time or another, , Art Tatum, take the floor. Its emptiness would have made Coleman Hawkins, members of the them conspicuous.” band like , Sonny Greer and I spent a Night in a Negro Night Club, by Hugh Ross Williamson, Barney Bigard, Garland Wilson and . The Listener, August 05, 1936 On a night when such as these were in town, the word would circulate: ‘So and so will be at the The article is believed to have been written about Nest tonight. Be there!’ And on such memorable the Nest, although it is not referred to by name. occasions the room would burst at the seams, and The Listener, August 05, 1936 the music would throb beneath the pavement of Kingly Street until long after dawn.” Like many other clubs in the area, records Left Leslie Thompson in 1930s. And the Bands Played On, 1977 An informal history suggest that the Nest closed during World War II, Opposite Interior of the Nest, of British dance bands by Sid Colin unknown photographer. and re-opened in 1944 as the Florida Club. 6

Artists’ Own Gallery 26 Kingly Street 1960s

Artists’ Own Gallery held exhibitions, events, happenings and gigs in the 1960s, when it was run by Keith Albarn and others.

“A regular slot, it was either weekly or fortnightly, were AMM, who would come downstairs, and they were a bunch of young musicians without any straightforward obvious instruments, who would play on anything, from a Heinz Beans tin, to washing lines, to dustbins, you know, because it was noise in “music”. But it was very controlled, and very long sessions, once they got going, it was actually quite difficult sometimes to draw a line under the proceedings.” Left 26 Kingly Street poster, Keith Albarn, interviewed by Lucy Harrison 2013 1960s. Above Keith and Hazel Albarn in the building as it is in 2013. Overleaf Photographs of the exterior of the gallery.

7 Opposite Johnny Slut (Johnny Melton) in the Batcave, 1983. Right Sophie Chery in the building during its demolition in 2013. Fouberts Club Below right The Batcave coffin, with Jon Klein and Ollie 18 Fouberts Place Wisdom, 1982. 1980s

Fouberts Club hosted a number of nights in the 1980s, including the Batcave, which was run by members of the bands Specimen and Sexbeat, and for a period of six months it was also home to Philip Sallon’s Mud Club.

“The Batcave was a mixture of Glam and Goth, with a sticky carpet… Jon Klein did a lot of the decoration, a lot of the paintings. We used to bring the nets and we used to spend a lot of time decorating. The coffin had to be put up each week from the place in Soho. Coming down here, with the coffin under your arm, just setting it all up. I think that’s why a lot of people liked this club, it was very individualistic and had a touch that some other clubs didn’t have. In particular, it was very strong on the aesthetic of the dark gothic visuals.”

Sophie Chery from Sexbeat, interviewed by Lucy Harrison 2013 8

Deal Real Records 3 Marlborough Court 2004-7

Deal Real was a hip hop record shop in Marlborough Court from 2002 until 2007, hosting live events and open mic nights including performances from Mos Def, , and on one memorable occasion, .

Left Peaches and BabyBlu in the former Deal Real store, now a branch of Diesel. Above Amy Winehouse in the store, 2004. Overleaf clockwise Estelle in the shop, Mos Def performing with Baby Blu, John Legend and Kanye West, 2004. Opposite top left Estelle in the shop. “Initially it was just us and our friends who rapped, Opposite top right Deal Real and then word spread and it started getting in its heyday Opposite bottom and below packed every Friday, and we’d start inviting Mos Def performing with Baby the American boys over when they were here. Blu, John Legend and Kanye We’d say, “Come to the home of hip hop, if you West, 2004. want to promote your show to the real fans”. I remember Mos Def was over here and he came through and he became addicted, he brought Pharoahe Monch, and Kanye West, and then it just spread from there, the , the Wu Tang Clan, Redman, Slick Rick, it was unreal. I met all my heroes right here.”

Doc Brown, interviewed by Lucy Harrison 2013 9

Street Theatre 12a Newburgh Street 1980s

Street Theatre was a shop run by Peter Small in the 1980s, who also later ran the Foundry. Boy George worked there as a window dresser.

“It was a bit of a rag and bone shop; there was so much stuff in there. It was full of things… We tried to sort it out but in the end we decided to go around the corner to the Foundry instead. There were a lot of freaks around here, look at it: it’s like a village. It was a safe place to be. Unless you Opposite Boy George in Street knew about this street, you didn’t really wander Theatre, 1980. Above Boy George in The Regal, through.” 1980. Above right Boy George outside Boy George, interviewed by Lucy Harrison 2013 Antidote, the building where Street Theatre was, 2013. Background Interior of Antidote Wine Bar. Opposite Boy George with 10 one of the shop dummies, 1980s. Left Foundry feature in New Sounds New Styles. Below Photographs from the The Foundry Foundry, 1980s. 12 1980s

The Foundry was a clothes shop that Peter Small opened to add to his Street Theatre shop in the early 1980s. Boy George worked as a window dresser and Sue Clowes sold her designs, which were worn by bands such as , the Cure and Bananarama.

“It’s an area where you can walk, which is perfect for show-offs… Carnaby Street was like a catwalk. Often people didn’t even buy anything, they just walked around looking amazing. It’s a perfect area, because you’ve got a really good space, lots of back streets, you go to Newburgh Street and then Ganton Street, and then do the whole of Carnaby Street, and everyone would see you.”

Boy George, interviewed by Lucy Harrison 2013 Left Mural on the walls of Lord 11 John by Binder Edwards and Vaughan, 1967. Right Douglas Binder and Dudley Edwards in Carnaby Lord John Street, 1967. 43 Carnaby Street 1960s

Lord John was a shop that sold mainly -style clothes in the 1960s. Lord John was distinctive because of the mural by Binder, Edwards and Vaughan that was painted on the outside walls. The pop art collective painted murals on houses, designed furniture, and customised cars and other objects, including Paul McCartney’s piano and the car seen on the cover of ’ Sunny Afternoon EP from 1966. 12 12 the florence mills club eleven social parlour 50 Carnaby Street 50 Carnaby Street 1950 1930s

In the 1930s, 50 Carnaby Street was the home In 1950, the Club Eleven jazz club moved to of the Florence Mills Social Parlour, run by Amy 50 Carnaby Street, but closed after only six Ashwood Garvey, the former wife of Marcus months when it was raided by the police. The Garvey, and the Trinidadian calypso singer club took its name from its eleven founders – Sam Manning. business manager Harry Morris and ten British bebop musicians. It was first opened at 41 Great “In the evenings, artists, activists, students drank Windmill Street in Soho, in 1948, and had two and supped and kept their spirits high at Amy house bands, one led by , and the Ashwood Garvey’s West End restaurant. There, other by Johnny (later Sir John) Dankworth. according to the Trotskyist writer CLR James, the Scott’s sidemen included , Lennie only good food in town was served and, if you Bush, Tommy Pollard, and , while were lucky, the 78s of Trinidadian calypsonian Sam Dankworth’s included Leon Calvert, Bernie Manning, Amy’s partner, spun late into the night.” Fenton, Joe Muddell, and Laurie Morgan.

Delia Jarret-Macauley; The Life of Una Marson, 1905-1965

“The Florence Mills Social Parlour in Carnaby Street, which [] set up as a social centre for black people in London, formed part of a web of social support sustained by black women which was vital both to cementing black political networks and in creating homes-from- Opposite Amy Ashwood home within an alien and racist environment.” Garvey, 1930s. Right in 1950. Clare Midgley ‘Bringing the Empire home; women activists in imperial Britain, 1790s-1930s’, in: At Home with the Empire: Metropolitan Culture and the Imperial World, Catherine Hall, Sonya O. Rose (Eds.) The venue was called the Sunset Club in the The Roaring Twenties 1950s, but in the early 1960s it was renamed the and Columbo’s Roaring Twenties. The owner, Lennie Weston, had intended the club to attract a young Jewish 50 Carnaby Street crowd, but when this plan failed he invited the Jamaican DJ Count Suckle to play there. Suckle, 1961-1970s real name Wilbert Campbell, had stowed away on a Danish banana boat in 1954 along with Duke Vin and another man called Lennie, a journey that took four weeks. Suckle and Vin were among the first in the UK to create ‘sound systems’ and Suckle ordered rare records all the way from shops in Tennessee to be played in the club, which he also managed and protected by acting as a bouncer. Initially playing American R&B, he then began to play ska reggae and the club became popular with a multi-racial crowd including well-known musicians, such as Mick Jagger and . Although many remember a friendly atmosphere in the club, “It was a nightclub for everybody, if you want to Count Suckle recounts how it was also frequented stay out late and you want to dance and you want by ‘villains’ in the early days, that drugs were to mix, it was the only club in the Sixties. Georgie plentiful and that it became a hang out for pimps Fame was there, the Animals, , all those and prostitutes on account of its late opening. boys used to come down, , it Like the 1930s jazz clubs on Kingly Street, it was was that club that everyone wanted to come to. initially unlicensed, but instead sold bottles of All of those boys were young, in their teens, I spirits from local shops to be mixed with the cola knew the Stones when they were only 17 and 18 that was served at the bar. years of age and they liked the music we were playing, because some of them recorded that music that we played, especially the Stones and

Georgie Fame, they used to borrow our records Left Photograph from Lloyd and rehearse and play the music.” Coxsone performance, 2013. Above Count Suckle in the Count Suckle, interviewed by Lucy Harrison 2013 1970s. When Suckle left the club in 1964, Duke Vin took over as DJ, and was followed by Lloyd Coxsone, who calls the club “the first multi-racial club in the ”. By the late 1960s the club had a licensed bar and also served food. Coxsone left for some years but then returned

Far left Lloyd Coxsone. along with Denzil Exodus when the club was Left and above Photographs renamed Columbo’s. In the 1970s and early taken by “Junior” in the Roaring Twenties, late 1960s. 80s, Columbo’s continued to attract well-known Top right Denzil Exodus, Lloyd clientele, including Bob Marley when he was in Coxsone, Mikey Foreigner in the UK, and perhaps more surprisingly, TV sports the former Roaring Twenties building. pundit Jimmy Hill. Opposite and background 13 Images from NME, 1979. Below Neil Spencer and Paul Between 1976 and 1986, the offices of the du Noyer in the former NME legendary music publication New Musical New Musical Express offices, 2013. Express were to be found at 5-7 Carnaby Street. the third floor of “The atmosphere and the passion of the debates that went on in the office, sometimes 5-7 Carnaby Street actually went as far as breaking into fist fights. 1976-1986 People were so committed their corner of the musical universe, they fought their corners very aggressively, and there were always arguments about who we should be featuring, and who should be on the cover, but it was very productive. Being in Soho you had all the record companies nearby, and venues and studios, so it meant that anyone you wanted to meet, you could go and see them in person, or they would just drop in off the street, because there was no security or anything.”

Paul du Noyer, interviewed by Lucy Harrison 2013 14 Smash Hits magazine was run from 52-55 Carnaby Street in the 1980s, and also started the Face from an office in the Smash Hits building. Smash Hits was a fortnightly magazine, produced in colour and known for its 52-55 Carnaby Street irreverent humour and inclusion of song lyrics and imaginative photo shoots. The offices of 1980s Don Arden, who managed the in the 1960s, were previously at this address and Kerrang! magazine followed Smash Hits.

“In the middle of this huge pop music explosion, here was this publication that wanted to take pop music seriously… Smash Hits welcomed these people with open arms. They looked fantastic on the cover; the print had beautiful registration of colour. We ran the lyrics, which fans really liked. The readers might not ever see this group, but they were going to see them on Top of the Pops, and hear them on the radio, and Smash Hits was like linking up an electrical circuit, and all the fairy lights came on.”

Mark Ellen, former editor of Smash Hits, interviewed by Lucy Harrison 2013

This page Mark Ellen in the Smash Hits offices, 1982. Opposite Mark Ellen in the former Smash Hits offices, 2013.

15

Tatty Bogle Previously at 11 Kingly Court 1920s-2012

Tatty Bogle club was a private club in a Kingly Court basement. It was opened in 1917 in by a group of Scottish officers. It then moved to Kingly Court and opened as an out-of- hours drinking club. It was used as a bomb shelter during World War II and the wartime membership book contains names such as Burgess, Maclean, Anthony Blunt and Buster Crabbe.

Frances McDevitt, who ran a night at the club in the 1990s, described the clientele as the “Soho underbelly”, consisting of “Lords, Ladies, hookers and boxers”. The pianist Michael Thorpe Jackson would play, and would personalise the tune he was playing for each person who walked in through the door.

Left The interior of , formerly Tatty Bogle Above Tony Pitt and Lois Lane in Tatty Bogle Opposite Frances McDevitt in Disco. This page and opposite Marshall Street, 1982. interview with Is this something that you were keen to happen in a given place but you can walk past explore through the project, to reveal this the building and know nothing of it. lucy harrison parallel Carnaby story? Yes, and what became clear is that The Roaring In previous projects such as Mapping Your Twenties was one of the reasons why Carnaby Manor you have drawn together narratives became attractive for people including musicians and personal histories at a time of architectural to visit in the early 1960s, and is incredibly and social change in a residential area. Was important for the people who went there, and yet your experience very different working in a I don’t think it was included in many of the media context that is driven by ongoing changes Lucy Harrison is an artist based in London. Her Lucy Harrison graduated from the Royal College reports about Carnaby from that time. As far as and shifts and defined by retail and venues art practice investigates people’s experiences of Art’s Printmaking MA in 1999. I can see, the overwhelming majority of the pop rather than inhabitants? and memories of places. It takes the form of stars who are pictured in representations of that Yes and no, when I work on those other projects photographs, book works, video and various Could you talk a little about where your era are white, with the exception of Jimi Hendrix, with local residents I am just as interested in forms of printed and published material. interest in history stems from and how it drives and it’s been really fascinating to discover that someone who has just moved to a place, who Through researching historical material and your practice? there was this other version of history that could only works there, or who has a fleeting memory collecting personal accounts, Lucy considers I’m interested in how we record history, and how be discovered if you looked in the right places. of it. So someone who works in a place for a how the significance of a place is recorded the way in which this is done affects how we I don’t even think this is always intentional that time or who has a strong memory of another over time. In so doing, Lucy uncovers narratives remember things, sometimes making our view people do this, but that is why we should be era just has another version of that place in their and moments that may not have been widely of the past fairly subjective. This is why I try to careful of marginalising people and their stories imaginations, it’s not necessarily any less valid. known in the official or mainstream history of an compare individual people’s memories of events even if it is accidental. However it did mean that the buildings had area. Layers of the past are gathered through or of eras with what has been documented; so many layers of stories, as the tenants have memories of architectures, streets although memory can be unreliable and In terms of places, I’m also fascinated by the ways changed so many times over the years. Also, and personal encounters. fragmented, what actually goes down as ‘history’ in which the past can resonate through time, and although there are people who live in Soho, you can be just as subjective and driven by the events can repeat themselves in different forms could see the community of central London as Lucy’s art projects often involve residents of fashions and viewpoints of the time in which it at the same locations. While making the films being one that is spread out across different a place in the work, such as Mapping Your was recorded. In this project it’s been fascinating for this project, we’ve often found visual echoes places, as people visit and spend evenings there Manor (2011), a commission for the Olympic to discover that there were many other versions within the buildings; people have unintentionally and then return home. Delivery Authority which culminated in a series of Carnaby and the surrounding area which used colours or lighting which were there in of audio recordings made with people who live aren’t necessarily the one most people think of previous eras. When we were filming in Ben In exploring places you use archives, or work near to the edge of the Olympic Park. when they picture ‘Swinging London’, which was Sherman we found that the playlist they use in museums and primary material but overall Other recent projects include Hostings (2013) an amazing time, but is also the only one many the shop contained several of the tracks that your research is driven by people’s own stories at Archway Library, London, a commission for people associate with this street. More than one would have been played in the same building and memories. Could you describe the sense Islington Council / Air Studio, and The Feelgood person has responded to me saying I’m working when it was the Roaring Twenties nightclub- just of responsibility that brings? Collection (2012), an exhibition of home made on a project around Carnaby by instantly talking a coincidence really, but strange to think that the Often people don’t realise how interesting their tributes to Canvey Island band Dr Feelgood, about “that era” as if it is frozen in time. same records are being played back into that own memories are to other people, and it’s the shown as part of Thames Delta at Focal Point space without anyone realising. It’s perhaps more small details that help us to understand what Gallery, Southend. strange to think that these extraordinary things things were really like at the time they are talking Credits

about. So often it’s about trying to persuade means is that the person who is brought back is Participants / interviewees Commissioned by Hazel Albarn, Keith Albarn, The Bee’s Knees (Aila Floyd, Shaftesbury PLC people that there is something really interesting either struck by the complete differences, or is Holly , Elsa Petit), Baby Blu, Doc Brown, Sophie Chery, about what they may see as nondescript. People reminded of elements they may have forgotten: Sue Clowes, Martin Cole, Lloyd Coxsone, , Curators Emily Dankworth, Dynamo, Dudley Edwards, Mick Eve, Denzil Futurecity often don’t have confidence in their own stories where the stairs were, the view from the window, Exodus, Mark Ellen, Mikey Foreigner, Malcolm Garrett, Boy but instead suggest others who they see as who was next door, the sounds they used to George, Kasper de Graaf, John Gunnell, Alison Hay, Sef Khama, PR and Marketing Eric Lau, Dick Laurie, Kervin Marc, Frances McDevitt, Annie Millar, Sister ‘experts’, however it’s always fascinating to find hear…. I hope that people watching the films or Paul Du Noyer, Olu Olutayo, Vincent Olutayo, Peaches, out different viewpoints of the same event or using the app will be able to imagine the streets Gillian Pearson, Philip Sallon, Tom Salter, Neil Spencer, Graphic Design Count Suckle, Tantrum, TY, Karen Walter, Tony Washington Charlie Smith Design era, perhaps from someone who was more in the and the buildings in these different eras and also background or a less predictable choice, perhaps. to remember how they are now, as the city is Thanks also to the following for their help Camera and video editing Christopher Barr, Gus Berger, Felix Dennis, Jeff Dexter, Richard Bevan constantly changing. Back in the Day Walks, Jonny Melton, Nick Logan, Pat Long, How did you approach filming the spaces as Mark Powell, Patterson Riley (The Great Frog) Howard Rye, Additional camera work Conversation between Lucy Harrison and Sarah Carrington, Tony Shrimplin / The Museum of Soho, Catherine Tackley, Tom Lock, Anna Fernandez de Paco they are now and accommodating the gap Futurecity Curator. Pete Townshend, Val Weedon / Small Faces Fan Club, between people’s memories of the place and Wolfram Wiedner, Levi Wilson Audio recording and editing Jessica Marlowe their adjustment to the function and look of Thanks to the following companies and their staff these buildings in 2013? Antidote Wine Bar, Bag O’ Nails, Byron, Diesel, Disco, App production One of the things I enjoyed most about the Courthouse Doubletree Hilton Hotel, Irregular Choice, Levi’s, Calvium Mor, Red Onion, Ben Sherman, WeSC, William & George project was the comparison and contrast between Research consultant what was being talked about and what could be seen around us in the fabric of the building. I Additional Research wanted to explore the architecture and details, Lucy Kelleher and almost try to find leftovers of what the Marker fabrication people were saying, not just literally, like a mirror Millimetre being in the same place as it used to be, but also other visual echoes between the words and the objects. So I tried to gain access to the buildings whatever their current usage, meaning that we filmed interviews in empty spaces and in building sites if that was how they were now. What it also Above Denzil Exodus, Lucy Harrison and Lloyd Coxsone. PHOTO Credits

about. So often it’s about trying to persuade means is that the person who is brought back is Intro page The Foundry David Trace / Archives Centre New Sounds New Styles image courtesy Paul Gorman people that there is something really interesting either struck by the complete differences, or is Foundry photographs courtesy Alison Hay about what they may see as nondescript. People reminded of elements they may have forgotten: Murray’s Club Courtesy Heritage Images Lord John often don’t have confidence in their own stories where the stairs were, the view from the window, Film stills courtesy British Pathé Photographs by Martin Cook but instead suggest others who they see as who was next door, the sounds they used to The Cat’s Whisker Club Eleven ‘experts’, however it’s always fascinating to find hear…. I hope that people watching the films or Courtesy Topfoto John Dankworth photograph: GAB Archive / Getty Images out different viewpoints of the same event or using the app will be able to imagine the streets The Bag O’ Nails Roaring Twenties era, perhaps from someone who was more in the and the buildings in these different eras and also Photographs by Richard Bevan Main photograph Thomas Lock. Inset photograph courtesy background or a less predictable choice, perhaps. to remember how they are now, as the city is Count Suckle Kleptomania Roaring Twenties polaroids taken by “Junior” in the club constantly changing. Photograph by Richard Bevan. Archive photograph courtesy Performance photograph by Richard Bevan

How did you approach filming the spaces as Tommy Roberts Archive Lloyd Coxsone photograph by Thomas Lock Conversation between Lucy Harrison and Sarah Carrington, they are now and accommodating the gap Futurecity Curator. The Nest NME between people’s memories of the place and Leslie Thompson photograph courtesy Jeff Green Photograph by Richard Bevan their adjustment to the function and look of Artists’ Own Gallery Smash Hits these buildings in 2013? Poster courtesy Keith and Hazel Albarn Mark Ellen 1982: Getty Images One of the things I enjoyed most about the Photograph by Richard Bevan Photograph by Richard Bevan Polaroid photos courtesy Keith and Hazel Albarn project was the comparison and contrast between Tatty Bogle what was being talked about and what could be Foubert’s Club Photographs by Richard Bevan Archive photographs by seen around us in the fabric of the building. I Sophie Chery photograph by Richard Bevan Following pages wanted to explore the architecture and details, Photographs by David Trace, courtesy City of Westminster Deal Real Archives Centre. and almost try to find leftovers of what the Photographs by Alexandra Eavis, except photograph of people were saying, not just literally, like a mirror Estelle by Kenza Worrell Q&A Photograph of Lucy Harrison by Thomas Lock. being in the same place as it used to be, but also Street Theatre other visual echoes between the words and the Archive images © George O’Dowd objects. So I tried to gain access to the buildings Other photographs by Richard Bevan whatever their current usage, meaning that we filmed interviews in empty spaces and in building sites if that was how they were now. What it also Above Denzil Exodus, Lucy Harrison and Lloyd Coxsone.