A project by Lucy Harrison

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Fold out for Carnaby Echoes location map.

Carnaby Echoes is a commission by artist Lucy Harrison that reveals the hidden stories behind the music heritage of the Carnaby area. From 1930s jazz clubs such as the Nest and the Florence Mills Social Parlour, to the introduction of Ska to the UK by Count Suckle and Duke Vin at the Roaring Twenties Club in the 1960s. This history encompasses several diverse musical styles (including jazz, reggae, rhythm and blues, rock and hip hop) as well as a wide range of venues including nightclubs, record companies, magazines and shops that attracted particular music fans and sub-cultures. It is these curious and unknown narratives that Carnaby Echoes uncovers by connecting the sounds, stories and characters from locations around Carnaby with a series of embedded commemorative plaques. These markers then link to film and audio interviews accessed via a website and audio walking tour app in which contributors including Boy George, Count Suckle, Dynamo and Mark Ellen are brought back to buildings that hold significant music memories for them. This publication accompanies the project presenting texts, archive images and film stills relating to locations around Carnaby Village.

Music and fashion remain at the heart of Carnaby Village. Many fashion stores have links to musicians and Carnaby continues to support emerging music through live events. Carnaby Echoes has been commissioned by Shaftesbury PLC.

Above Carnaby Street, 1982.

#carnabyechoes carnabyechoes.com

carnaby.co.uk @carnabylondon

CARNABY STREET

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Carnaby Echoes is a commission by artist Lucy Harrison that reveals the hidden stories behind the music heritage of the Carnaby area. From 1930s jazz clubs such as the Nest and the Florence Mills Social Parlour, to the introduction of Ska to the UK by Count Suckle and Duke Vin at the Roaring Twenties Club in the 1960s. This history encompasses several diverse musical styles (including jazz, reggae, rhythm and blues, rock and hip hop) as well as a wide range of venues including nightclubs, record companies, magazines and shops that attracted particular music fans and sub-cultures. It is these curious and unknown narratives that Carnaby Echoes uncovers by connecting the sounds, stories and characters from locations around Carnaby with a series of embedded commemorative plaques. These markers then link to film and audio interviews accessed via a website and audio walking tour app in which contributors including Boy George, Count Suckle, Dynamo and Mark Ellen are brought back to buildings that hold significant music memories for them. This publication accompanies the project presenting texts, archive images and film stills relating to locations around Carnaby Village.

Music and fashion remain at the heart of Carnaby Village. Many fashion stores have links to musicians and Carnaby continues to support emerging music through live events. Carnaby Echoes has been commissioned by Shaftesbury PLC.

Top Carnaby Street, 1982.

carnaby.co.uk @carnabylondon

how exciting everything was, how chaotic and youthful, as though all responsible adults had been locked in a cupboard and the keys chucked into Regent Street. And I look at Mark Ellen, who worked there before me, sitting in the white space that was once our office, a place filled with paper and people and mess and optimism. Sitting, remembering. To go back to a place to recall your life in it is a privilege; Lucy has taken every scene’s players and put them where they were, no matter what is there now. That’s important; not just for the memories but to understand the evolution, the onward march, your significance and insignificance. Things change, times change, and so they should.

A scene gains traction through its interpretation; how its story is told defines its future. Manchester, the city I grew up in, has always had its pop culture chroniclers; writers who tell its tale, whether of post-punk Joy Division or Stone Roses’ Madchester. I’m a music journalist: I am asked over and over about the Hacienda, about New Order; sometimes about Britpop. Not about Brixton, where I’ve lived for over 20 years. I don’t fit into the easy clichés about Brixton; also black pop culture is rarely so well documented as white. There’s a straightforward The Beatles-through-

the-Sex-Pistols-to-Radiohead history that tells the story of British pop in acceptable linear fashion. Anything that doesn’t fit is disregarded; the train-tracks run straight, with room for one carriage at a time. What Lucy Harrison has done is reminded us that not everyone was on that journey. Some detoured, some were ignored. Carnaby Street isn’t an era; or if it is, it isn’t just the one.

Carnaby Street seems like a time, rather than a place. And that time is the sixties, or an ersatz version. One with minis and Minis and mods and mop-tops, where wrong-uns mingle with Rolling Stones, blue bloods with Beatles, a time of trippy psychedelia and groovy chicks and squares who just don’t get it, man. We see Carnaby Street lit by a lava lamp, swirling, swinging. Did that era ever exist? Carnaby Street time?

It’s strange how we use place names as a shorthand, for tragedy (Dunblane) or triumph (Waterloo), for culture, high and low (Glyndebourne, Glastonbury). Madchester equals acid house; Kings Road means punk. Places are defined by events, by epoch, by sound; and, in turn, come to define those events, that epoch, that sound. Should we start again? Forget the era, consider the area? For every place has what, in Carnaby Street time, were called vibes. Something in their fabric that seems to favour certain activities. And so clubs and shops and bars spring up that, over the years, create a small environment conducive to a particular frame of mind. Landlords and councils can make a difference too; as can the layout of streets, a location within a city. Just off-centre; in the middle but not mainstream.

Lucy Harrison, an artist who uses place to get to people’s stories, has uncovered a new old Carnaby Street. One that’s still musical, but not so clichéd. One where histories jump, stop-start, fold back on themselves, fast forward, fade and emerge again, louder, stranger, but still connected. One where the stories are unknown, forgotten or never heard. So we hear about the Beatles rocking up after-hours to the Bag O’Nails, dancing and carousing into the morning; learn of Jimi Hendrix brandishing his first major pay check of £1000; of Keith Moon drinking the bar dry. But we also discover the Roaring Twenties, which brought ska and sound systems to the West End; and Deal Real, where Diesel is now, a British hip-hop hangout favoured by Mos Def, Kanye, the Wu Tang Clan when they were over in the 2000s. And a place for happenings, the Artists’ Own Gallery, founded at 26 Kingly Street in the 1960s by Keith Albarn, father of Damon; whose band, Blur, years later, signed to Food Records, around the corner on Golden Square, and drank in the White Horse on Newburgh Street.

I worked at Smash Hits when it was on Carnaby Street, above the BOY shop, in the late 1980s and early 1990s. My first proper job, and it was as amazing as could be. I could never believe

There’s a Time and a PlaceMiranda Sawyer

Below Smash Hits from 1990, including Miranda Sawyer’s Stone Roses feature.

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murray’s club 16-18 BEAK STREET

1913-75

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.

Left Murray’s Club, c1920s.Below Stills from Pathé news reel, 1922.

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The caT’s Whisker1 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 London to have a juke box.

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

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bag O’ nails9 KINGLY STREET1930s-PRESENT

Left The interior of the Bag O’ Nails in 2013.Above John Gunnell in the Bag O’ Nails, 2013.

The Bag O’ Nails has been a nightclub 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 Wardour Street. The club became famous as the location of Jimi Hendrix’s first London gig and was a hang out for musicians such as Eric Clapton 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 brotherand 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.”

John Gunnell, interviewed by Lucy Harrison, 2013

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klePTOmania10 KINGLY STREET

Kleptomania was a clothes shop run by Tommy Roberts and Charlie Simpson in the 1960s. It was first located in Kingly Street and then later moved to Carnaby 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, Jefferson Airplane, 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

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The nesT club 23 KINGLY STREET

1934-39

In the 1930s there were six or seven mostly unlicensed jazz clubs in different basements along Kingly Street. These included the Nest, which was situated at number 23, between 1934 and 1939, and hosted some of the jazz greats of the era. The clubs became known as ‘basement bottle parties’ due to the practice of selling bottles of spirits from local shops as a way of getting around the licensing laws.

“Housed in a basement in Kingly Street, behind the stately facades of Regent Street, it was exclusively the preserve of London’s then tiny black community; a microcosmic Harlem in the heart of town. Such whites as ventured down its precipitate staircase to sniff the marijuana-scented air, gawp at the uninhibited high spirits of the habitués, and enjoy for breakfast the best corned beef hash in Europe, were the usual thrill-seeking West Enders, perhaps a sociologist or two, but above all, the jazz musicians. For it was Nestwards that visiting black musicians, here to tour the music halls, or to fulfill such other engagements that were open to them, always gravitated at the end of their day’s work. There one might find, at one time or another, Louis Armstrong, Art Tatum, Coleman Hawkins, members of the Duke Ellington band like Johnny Hodges, Sonny Greer and Barney Bigard, Garland Wilson and Fats Waller. On a night when such as these were in town, the word would circulate: ‘So and so will be at the Nest tonight. Be there!’ And on such memorable occasions the room would burst at the seams, and the music would throb beneath the pavement of Kingly Street until long after dawn.”

And the Bands Played On, 1977 An informal history of British dance bands by Sid Colin

“I had made my way to the quiet back street, which has the air of a ‘servants’ entrance’ to the main thoroughfare, and taken refuge in one of its several night-clubs.

The small room, underground though it was, had the sense of airiness. The silky material which hid the ceiling and suggested a tent, flapped in the breeze of electric fans; the white shirts of the four men in the orchestra were cool; the dancing floor, being deserted, provided an illusion of space.

Only a few of the small tables round the edge of it were occupied, some by habitués, some by semi-professional partners, one by a Nice Couple on their first visit. These, who might have been in their first term at Oxford, drank little, observed much and spoke to nobody. Later, when the primitive rhythms of the music became overpowering, and the atmosphere oppressive with heat and smoke, and the floor a packed mass of neurotics absorbed in the orgiastic ritual of the dance, their tall figures, performing a rumba as innocuously as if it were a minuet, were a landmark, But, at the beginning, they did not take the floor. Its emptiness would have made them conspicuous.”

I spent a Night in a Negro Night Club, by Hugh Ross Williamson, The Listener, August 05, 1936

The article is believed to have been written about the Nest, although it is not referred to by name. The Listener, August 05, 1936

Like many other clubs in the area, records suggest that the Nest closed during World War II, and re-opened in 1944 as the Florida Club.

Left Leslie Thompson in 1930s.Opposite Interior of the Nest, unknown photographer.

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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.”

Keith Albarn, interviewed by Lucy Harrison 2013Left 26 Kingly Street poster, 1960s.Above Keith and Hazel Albarn in the building as it is in 2013.Overleaf Photographs of the exterior of the gallery.

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FOuberTs club 18 FOUBERTS PLACE

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

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

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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, Amy Winehouse, and on one memorable occasion, Kanye West.

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.

“Initially it was just us and our friends who rapped, and then word spread and it started getting packed every Friday, and we’d start inviting the American boys over when they were here. We’d say, “Come to the home of hip hop, if you 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 Black Eyed Peas, the Wu Tang Clan, Redman, Slick Rick, it was unreal. I met all my heroes right here.”

Doc Brown, interviewed by Lucy Harrison 2013

Opposite top left Estelle in the shop.Opposite top right Deal Real in its heydayOpposite bottom and below Mos Def performing with Baby Blu, John Legend and Kanye West, 2004.

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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 knew about this street, you didn’t really wander through.”

Boy George, interviewed by Lucy Harrison 2013

Opposite Boy George in Street Theatre, 1980.Above Boy George in The Regal, 1980.Above right Boy George outside Antidote, the building where Street Theatre was, 2013.Background Interior of Antidote Wine Bar.

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The FOundry 12 GANTON STREET

1980s

Opposite Boy George with one of the shop dummies, 1980s.Left Foundry feature in New Sounds New Styles. Below Photographs from the Foundry, 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 Culture Club, 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

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lOrd JOhn 43 CARNABY STREET

1960s

Lord John was a shop that sold mainly mod-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 the Kinks’ Sunny Afternoon EP from 1966.

Left Mural on the walls of Lord John by Binder Edwards and Vaughan, 1967.Right Douglas Binder and Dudley Edwards in Carnaby Street, 1967.

In the 1930s, 50 Carnaby Street was the home of the Florence Mills Social Parlour, run by Amy Ashwood Garvey, the former wife of Marcus Garvey, and the Trinidadian calypso singer Sam Manning.

“In the evenings, artists, activists, students drank and supped and kept their spirits high at Amy Ashwood Garvey’s West End restaurant. There, according to the Trotskyist writer CLR James, the only good food in town was served and, if you were lucky, the 78s of Trinidadian calypsonian Sam Manning, Amy’s partner, spun late into the night.”

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

“The Florence Mills Social Parlour in Carnaby Street, which [Amy Ashwood Garvey] 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-home within an alien and racist environment.”

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.)

In 1950, the Club Eleven jazz club moved to 50 Carnaby Street, but closed after only six months when it was raided by the police. The club took its name from its eleven founders – business manager Harry Morris and ten British bebop musicians. It was first opened at 41 Great Windmill Street in Soho, in 1948, and had two house bands, one led by Ronnie Scott, and the other by Johnny (later Sir John) Dankworth. Scott’s sidemen included Tony Crombie, Lennie Bush, Tommy Pollard, and Hank Shaw, while Dankworth’s included Leon Calvert, Bernie Fenton, Joe Muddell, and Laurie Morgan.

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The FlOrence millssOcial ParlOur

50 CARNABY STREET1930s

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club eleven50 CARNABY STREET

1950

Opposite Amy Ashwood Garvey, 1930s.Right John Dankworth in 1950.

“It was a nightclub for everybody, if you want to stay out late and you want to dance and you want to mix, it was the only club in the Sixties. Georgie Fame was there, the Animals, The Who, all those boys used to come down, the Rolling Stones, it was that club that everyone wanted to come to. All of those boys were young, in their teens, I knew the Stones when they were only 17 and 18 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 and rehearse and play the music.”

Count Suckle, interviewed by Lucy Harrison 2013

The venue was called the Sunset Club in the 1950s, but in the early 1960s it was renamed the Roaring Twenties. The owner, Lennie Weston, had intended the club to attract a young Jewish crowd, but when this plan failed he invited the Jamaican DJ Count Suckle to play there. Suckle, 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 Pete Townshend. Although many remember a friendly atmosphere in the club, Count Suckle recounts how it was also frequented by ‘villains’ in the early days, that drugs were plentiful and that it became a hang out for pimps and prostitutes on account of its late opening. Like the 1930s jazz clubs on Kingly Street, it was initially unlicensed, but instead sold bottles of spirits from local shops to be mixed with the cola that was served at the bar.

The rOaring TWenTies and cOlumbO’s

50 CARNABY STREET1961-1970s

Left Photograph from Lloyd Coxsone performance, 2013.Above Count Suckle in the 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 West End of London”. By the late 1960s the club had a licensed bar and also served food. Coxsone left for some years but then returned along with Denzil Exodus when the club was renamed Columbo’s. In the 1970s and early 80s, Columbo’s continued to attract well-known clientele, including Bob Marley when he was in the UK, and perhaps more surprisingly, TV sports pundit Jimmy Hill.

Far left Lloyd Coxsone. Left and above Photographs taken by “Junior” in the Roaring Twenties, late 1960s. Top right Denzil Exodus, Lloyd Coxsone, Mikey Foreigner in the former Roaring Twenties building.

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neW musical exPressTHE THIRD FLOOR OF 5-7 CARNABY STREET

1976-1986

Between 1976 and 1986, the offices of the legendary music publication New Musical Express were to be found at 5-7 Carnaby Street.

“The atmosphere and the passion of the debates that went on in the office, sometimes actually went as far as breaking into fist fights. 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

Opposite and background Images from NME, 1979.Below Neil Spencer and Paul du Noyer in the former NME offices, 2013.

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smash hiTs 52-55 CARNABY STREET

1980s

Smash Hits magazine was run from 52-55 Carnaby Street in the 1980s, and Nick Logan also started the Face from an office in the building. Smash Hits was a fortnightly pop music magazine, produced in colour and known for its irreverent humour and inclusion of song lyrics and imaginative photo shoots. The offices of Don Arden, who managed the Small Faces 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.

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TaTTy bOglePREVIOUSLY AT 11 KINGLY COURT

1920s-2012

Tatty Bogle club was a private club in a Kingly Court basement. It was opened in 1917 in Frith Street 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 Disco, formerly Tatty BogleAbove Tony Pitt and Lois Lane in Tatty BogleOpposite Frances McDevitt in Disco.

This page and opposite Marshall Street, 1982.

Is this something that you were keen to explore through the project, to reveal this parallel Carnaby story?Yes, and what became clear is that The Roaring Twenties was one of the reasons why Carnaby became attractive for people including musicians to visit in the early 1960s, and is incredibly important for the people who went there, and yet I don’t think it was included in many of the media reports about Carnaby from that time. As far as I can see, the overwhelming majority of the pop stars who are pictured in representations of that era are white, with the exception of Jimi Hendrix, and it’s been really fascinating to discover that there was this other version of history that could be discovered if you looked in the right places. I don’t even think this is always intentional that people do this, but that is why we should be careful of marginalising people and their stories even if it is accidental.

In terms of places, I’m also fascinated by the ways in which the past can resonate through time, and events can repeat themselves in different forms at the same locations. While making the films for this project, we’ve often found visual echoes within the buildings; people have unintentionally used colours or lighting which were there in previous eras. When we were filming in Ben Sherman we found that the playlist they use in the shop contained several of the tracks that would have been played in the same building when it was the Roaring Twenties nightclub- just a coincidence really, but strange to think that the same records are being played back into that space without anyone realising. It’s perhaps more strange to think that these extraordinary things

happen in a given place but you can walk past the building and know nothing of it.

In previous projects such as Mapping Your Manor you have drawn together narratives and personal histories at a time of architectural and social change in a residential area. Was your experience very different working in a context that is driven by ongoing changes and shifts and defined by retail and venues rather than inhabitants? Yes and no, when I work on those other projects with local residents I am just as interested in someone who has just moved to a place, who only works there, or who has a fleeting memory of it. So someone who works in a place for a time or who has a strong memory of another era just has another version of that place in their imaginations, it’s not necessarily any less valid. However it did mean that the buildings had so many layers of stories, as the tenants have changed so many times over the years. Also, although there are people who live in Soho, you could see the community of central London as being one that is spread out across different places, as people visit and spend evenings there and then return home.

In exploring places you use archives, museums and primary material but overall your research is driven by people’s own stories and memories. Could you describe the sense of responsibility that brings?Often people don’t realise how interesting their own memories are to other people, and it’s the small details that help us to understand what things were really like at the time they are talking

Lucy Harrison is an artist based in London. Her art practice investigates people’s experiences and memories of places. It takes the form of photographs, book works, video and various forms of printed and published material. Through researching historical material and collecting personal accounts, Lucy considers how the significance of a place is recorded over time. In so doing, Lucy uncovers narratives and moments that may not have been widely known in the official or mainstream history of an area. Layers of the past are gathered through memories of architectures, streets and personal encounters.

Lucy’s art projects often involve residents of a place in the work, such as Mapping Your Manor (2011), a commission for the Olympic Delivery Authority which culminated in a series of audio recordings made with people who live or work near to the edge of the Olympic Park. Other recent projects include Hostings (2013) at Archway Library, London, a commission for Islington Council / Air Studio, and The Feelgood Collection (2012), an exhibition of home made tributes to Canvey Island band Dr Feelgood, shown as part of Thames Delta at Focal Point Gallery, Southend.

Lucy Harrison graduated from the Royal College of Art’s Printmaking MA in 1999.

Could you talk a little about where your interest in history stems from and how it drives your practice?I’m interested in how we record history, and how the way in which this is done affects how we remember things, sometimes making our view of the past fairly subjective. This is why I try to compare individual people’s memories of events or of eras with what has been documented; although memory can be unreliable and fragmented, what actually goes down as ‘history’ can be just as subjective and driven by the fashions and viewpoints of the time in which it was recorded. In this project it’s been fascinating to discover that there were many other versions of Carnaby and the surrounding area which aren’t necessarily the one most people think of when they picture ‘Swinging London’, which was an amazing time, but is also the only one many people associate with this street. More than one person has responded to me saying I’m working on a project around Carnaby by instantly talking about “that era” as if it is frozen in time.

inTervieW WiTh lucy harrisOn

crediTs

Participants / intervieweesHazel Albarn, Keith Albarn, The Bee’s Knees (Aila Floyd, Holly France, Elsa Petit), Baby Blu, Doc Brown, Sophie Chery, Sue Clowes, Martin Cole, Lloyd Coxsone, Alec Dankworth, Emily Dankworth, Dynamo, Dudley Edwards, Mick Eve, Denzil Exodus, Mark Ellen, Mikey Foreigner, Malcolm Garrett, Boy George, Kasper de Graaf, John Gunnell, Alison Hay, Sef Khama, Eric Lau, Dick Laurie, Kervin Marc, Frances McDevitt, Annie Millar, Paul Du Noyer, Olu Olutayo, Vincent Olutayo, Peaches, Gillian Pearson, Philip Sallon, Tom Salter, Neil Spencer, Count Suckle, Tantrum, TY, Karen Walter, Tony Washington

Thanks also to the following for their helpChristopher Barr, Gus Berger, Felix Dennis, Jeff Dexter, Back in the Day Walks, Jonny Melton, Nick Logan, Pat Long, Mark Powell, Patterson Riley (The Great Frog) Howard Rye, Tony Shrimplin / The Museum of Soho, Catherine Tackley, Pete Townshend, Val Weedon / Small Faces Fan Club, Wolfram Wiedner, Levi Wilson

Thanks to the following companies and their staffAntidote Wine Bar, Bag O’ Nails, Byron, Diesel, Disco, Courthouse Doubletree Hilton Hotel, Irregular Choice, Levi’s, Mor, Red Onion, Ben Sherman, WeSC, William & George

Commissioned byShaftesbury PLC

CuratorsFuturecity

PR and MarketingSister

Graphic DesignCharlie Smith Design

Camera and video editingRichard Bevan

Additional camera workTom Lock, Anna Fernandez de Paco

Audio recording and editingJessica Marlowe

App productionCalvium

Research consultantPaul Gorman

Additional ResearchLucy Kelleher

Marker fabricationMillimetre

about. So often it’s about trying to persuade people that there is something really interesting about what they may see as nondescript. People often don’t have confidence in their own stories but instead suggest others who they see as ‘experts’, however it’s always fascinating to find out different viewpoints of the same event or era, perhaps from someone who was more in the background or a less predictable choice, perhaps.

How did you approach filming the spaces as they are now and accommodating the gap between people’s memories of the place and their adjustment to the function and look of these buildings in 2013?One of the things I enjoyed most about the project was the comparison and contrast between what was being talked about and what could be seen around us in the fabric of the building. I wanted to explore the architecture and details, and almost try to find leftovers of what the people were saying, not just literally, like a mirror 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

means is that the person who is brought back is either struck by the complete differences, or is reminded of elements they may have forgotten: where the stairs were, the view from the window, who was next door, the sounds they used to hear…. I hope that people watching the films or using the app will be able to imagine the streets and the buildings in these different eras and also to remember how they are now, as the city is constantly changing. Conversation between Lucy Harrison and Sarah Carrington, Futurecity Curator.

Above Denzil Exodus, Lucy Harrison and Lloyd Coxsone.

PhOTO crediTs

Intro page David Trace / City of Westminster Archives Centre

Murray’s Club Courtesy Heritage ImagesFilm stills courtesy British Pathé

The Cat’s Whisker Courtesy Topfoto

The Bag O’ Nails Photographs by Richard Bevan

Kleptomania Photograph by Richard Bevan. Archive photograph courtesy Tommy Roberts Archive

The Nest Leslie Thompson photograph courtesy Jeff Green

Artists’ Own Gallery Poster courtesy Keith and Hazel AlbarnPhotograph by Richard BevanPolaroid photos courtesy Keith and Hazel Albarn

Foubert’s Club Archive photographs by Derek RidgersSophie Chery photograph by Richard Bevan

Deal Real Photographs by Alexandra Eavis, except photograph of Estelle by Kenza Worrell

Street Theatre Archive images © George O’DowdOther photographs by Richard Bevan

The Foundry New Sounds New Styles image courtesy Paul GormanFoundry photographs courtesy Alison Hay

Lord John Photographs by Martin Cook

Club Eleven John Dankworth photograph: GAB Archive / Getty Images

Roaring TwentiesMain photograph Thomas Lock. Inset photograph courtesy Count SuckleRoaring Twenties polaroids taken by “Junior” in the clubPerformance photograph by Richard Bevan Lloyd Coxsone photograph by Thomas Lock

NME Photograph by Richard Bevan

Smash Hits Mark Ellen 1982: Getty ImagesPhotograph by Richard Bevan

Tatty Bogle Photographs by Richard Bevan

Following pages Photographs by David Trace, courtesy City of Westminster Archives Centre.

Q&A Photograph of Lucy Harrison by Thomas Lock.

about. So often it’s about trying to persuade people that there is something really interesting about what they may see as nondescript. People often don’t have confidence in their own stories but instead suggest others who they see as ‘experts’, however it’s always fascinating to find out different viewpoints of the same event or era, perhaps from someone who was more in the background or a less predictable choice, perhaps.

How did you approach filming the spaces as they are now and accommodating the gap between people’s memories of the place and their adjustment to the function and look of these buildings in 2013?One of the things I enjoyed most about the project was the comparison and contrast between what was being talked about and what could be seen around us in the fabric of the building. I wanted to explore the architecture and details, and almost try to find leftovers of what the people were saying, not just literally, like a mirror 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

means is that the person who is brought back is either struck by the complete differences, or is reminded of elements they may have forgotten: where the stairs were, the view from the window, who was next door, the sounds they used to hear…. I hope that people watching the films or using the app will be able to imagine the streets and the buildings in these different eras and also to remember how they are now, as the city is constantly changing. Conversation between Lucy Harrison and Sarah Carrington, Futurecity Curator.

Above Denzil Exodus, Lucy Harrison and Lloyd Coxsone.