This blog post by a photographer Mrs A has come across in her music business dealings made me
laugh out loud. Reminding me of my troubled and haphazard route to Wilko
Johnson’s book signing this Summer. I think I’ve
found a kindred spirit. So cue a non-racing post.
I’m thoroughly enjoying
reviewing a few gigs and CDs for my mate’s music website. On Friday I went to
see Viva Le Pink in Camden. I hooked up with my old mate and music biz veteran,
Cookie and we sought out The Black Heart boozer round the corner from the
World’s End. I thought I’d been in most of the drinking dens and music venues
in Camden. But not this place. It was a revelation. Neon crucifixes and warped
posters adorn the walls and there are more tattoos in your face than on a trip
to Southend. And not the LOVE/HATE knuckle jobs either. These were full sleeve
fantasy depictions, swirling Celtic images and complicated rose and thorn
creations. There was even a stout on tap called Camden Ink.
The place was heaving. We
fought our way to the venue upstairs, squeezing between (and sometimes over)
sweaty bodies, to arrive mid set for the support act Ruckus dishing out a fearsome
punk/rockabilly growl that could only have been the product of a Stray Cats/Misfits
one night stand. We hung around long enough to get signed in on the guest list.
“We’re on Viva Le Pink’s guest list”, I grinned at the bruising bouncer on the
door. He dismissively pointed me to a table on the right. I could see Missy Le
Pink, leader of the band we had come to see, sat behind the table, leopard
print coat covering up her stage attire. I tried again. “We’re on the guest
list”, I grinned at the bloke minding a cash box and a book of raffle tickets.
In my quiet little world this is the only time I get to feel like I’ve got some
status. I’m special, important, a VIP: I’m on the guest list. Usually, it’s
only because I’m Mrs A’s ‘plus 1’. Not this time though. I was there in my own
right and I had my own plus 1.
Missy looked over at me and
nodded when she heard the words ‘guest list’. The puffed up moment of self
importance was very quickly popped. Raffle ticket man pulled out a scrappy piece
of paper that looked like second hand bog roll. There were a few blotchy,
indecipherable marks splattered across it. He flipped the paper over, looked a
bit blank, shrugged his shoulders at us and scribbled an ‘x’ in red felt tip on
the backs of our hands. No red carpet tonight then.
After a pint downstairs,
we came back for the end of the ‘Rockin Raffle’. Viva Le Pink had promoted this
debut show themselves. This included sponsorship by Missy’s own tattoo lotion
business. It seemed at first that every prize in the raffle was a bottle of the
said lotion, though I did see a few t-shirts and other merchandise being passed
around.
If the raffle was a good idea, then the pole
dancing routine was a stroke of genius. This may surprise many readers, but
I’ve never seen a pole dancing routine up close and personal before.
The dancer in question was tiny, lithe, sinuous
and 60% tattoo covered. Apparently, pole
dancing has been shedding its sleazy, strip joint reputation over the last ten
years and is now seen in some of the most respectable gyms and dance clubs. There is undoubtedly an erotic element to the pole dancing experience,
but I was more impressed with the athleticism, balance, control, poise and all round strength of the
performance. I had barely begun to ponder these conundrums
and debate their finer points with Cookie when the band hit the stage. We were
treated to a slap of fully charged psychobilly with trolley loads of energy and
a good few original tunes chucked into the covers mix. Here's the official review. If the invention and effort of
tonight's showcase is anything to judge by, they will go far.
Before the gig, I'd met Cookie in the Euston Tap, a reasonably new boozer shoehorned into one of the
two Victorian lodges that flank the former Euston Grove in front of the
station. The lodges used to usher horse-drawn traffic through under the iconic
and lamented Euston Arch and onto the platforms. I can feel a historical
footnote coming on…*
I don’t know why it’s taken me so long
to get here. It’s a cracking pub. Eight regularly changed cask ales on offer
together with and a further 16 on keg and a plenty of speciality bottled beers.
The adjacent remaining lodge is now ‘The Cider Tap’.
Cookie is a legend at EMI. He's worked there for
the thick end of 35 years and has seen it all. He had brought along a copy of ‘Now
82’ for my girls and described working on the very first ‘Now That's What I
Call Music’ eons ago. One of Cookies chores at the time was to obtain the
permissions from Danish Bacon to use the image of the pig that adorned the
first few album covers. What a sexy industry.
Mrs A worked on that first collection too. As it
happens, we pulled out three boxes of vinyl from the loft only last weekend to
fuel a night of sad musical nostalgia with some friends. One of the boxes revealed the first six
‘Now’ double albums nestling between a limited edition Metallica 12 inch box
set and Bowie's ‘Absolute Beginners (extended version)’. That’s neither
alphabetical, not chronological. Who filed them is what I want to know.
It was a cracking night. But the boxes will go
back into the loft now and instead I’ll haul out, using an ‘A’ frame and a
small electric winch, six boxes and four bags of Christmas decorations.
*groan*. Still. At least there is Newbury's Hennessy meeting to get me through
the weekend.
* Euston
Arch, a widely revered symbol of the railway age was ripped down in a
shameless act of architectural vandalism in the 1960s when such treasures
were less well respected than now. The demolition was part of the station
redevelopment that resulted in a larger “dingy, grey, horizontal nothingness" of a structure. This I can
attest to on the basis of 15 years of commuting through this grim, soulless
wind tunnel. The two lodges just off Euston Road are all that remain of the
original station. Eminent historian Dan Cruickshank spent 15 years locating
the stones of the arch. He found that they had reached an ignominious end as
in-fill for an off-shoot of the River Lea in the East End. He now heads a
campaign to have the Doric arch rebuilt as part of the next generation of
proposals to revamp Euston Station. More power to him.
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