103 places where London’s rock ’n’ roll happened, and 4 just outside, decade by decade, each with its story and the sources it was checked against.
1960s
The Clissold Arms
December 1960 · 105 Fortis Green, N2
Ray and Dave Davies grew up across the road at 6 Denmark Terrace, and in December 1960, aged 16 and 13, the brothers gave their first public performance in this pub. A few years later they were the Kinks. The pub keeps a Kinks room and a plaque, and their Muswell Hill childhood runs all through the 1971 album Muswell Hillbillies.
Sources: CAMRA North London, Curious London: the Muswell Hillbillies extract
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102 Edith Grove: the Stones’ flat
1962–1963 · 102 Edith Grove, SW10
In the summer of 1962 Mick Jagger and Brian Jones rented a flat here, and Keith Richards soon moved in, with a friend, James Phelge, making four. It was squalid enough that Richards called it a pigsty, and it was here, as the band found its line-up, that they started writing their own songs. When the Stones staged their 2016 exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery, Jagger in particular wanted the flat rebuilt in all its mess, dirty dishes and Muddy Waters records included.
Accounts differ. Accounts date the move-in to May or to August 1962.
Sources: Time Out: Exhibitionism and the Edith Grove flat, Ahram Online: the Stones’ exhibition opens, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette: Stones history on show, News24: five facts about the Rolling Stones
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Abbey Road Studios
From 1931 · 3 Abbey Road, NW8
EMI’s studios opened here in 1931 and became the most famous in the world. The Beatles had their first EMI session in June 1962 and recorded almost all their music in these rooms with producer George Martin; the studios were renamed after their 1969 album. Pink Floyd made The Dark Side of the Moon here in 1972–73. It’s still a working studio, the building is listed, and its front wall is covered in fans’ messages.
Sources: Wikipedia: Abbey Road Studios, Historic England: the Abbey Road Studios listing
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Decca Studios: the Beatles’ failed audition
1 January 1962 · 165 Broadhurst Gardens, NW6
On New Year’s Day 1962 the Beatles, with Pete Best on drums, drove down from Liverpool and recorded fifteen songs here in about an hour for a Decca audition. Decca turned them down and signed Brian Poole and the Tremeloes instead. The same studios had cut Lonnie Donegan’s “Rock Island Line”, and later made early records for Decca and its Deram label, including David Bowie’s 1967 debut album.
Accounts differ. The famous brush-off, “guitar groups are on the way out”, was pinned on Decca’s Dick Rowe by Brian Epstein, but Rowe always denied saying it.
Sources: Wikipedia: The Beatles’ Decca audition
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HMV, 363 Oxford Street
8 February 1962 · 363 Oxford Street, W1
On 8 February 1962, fresh from Decca’s rejection, Brian Epstein brought the Beatles’ audition tape to HMV’s flagship store to have it cut onto disc. The disc-cutter, Jim Foy, liked what he heard and introduced him to Sid Colman of the publisher Ardmore & Beechwood upstairs, who put him in touch with George Martin at Parlophone: the chain that led the band to Abbey Road. George Martin unveiled a plaque here in 2000, and HMV moved back into the building in 2023.
Sources: OUPblog: Brian Epstein and the Beatles’ contract, Sound of the Hound: HMV, 363 Oxford Street
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Joe Meek’s studio
1960–1967 · 304 Holloway Road, N7
In a flat above a leather-goods shop, the visionary producer Joe Meek built a home studio and made records nobody else could. “Telstar” by the Tornados, recorded here in 1962, became the first record by a British group to reach No. 1 in America, and his echo-drenched, space-age sound has influenced producers ever since. Meek’s life ended in tragedy at the flat in February 1967.
Sources: Wikipedia: Joe Meek, London Remembers: Joe Meek
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The Bricklayers Arms: the first rehearsals
May 1962 · 7 Broadwick Street, W1
In May 1962 Brian Jones advertised for musicians to start a rhythm and blues band, and rehearsed in the room upstairs at this Soho pub. The boogie-woogie pianist Ian Stewart answered first. Mick Jagger came too, and brought Keith Richards along; Richards later said the first rehearsal of what became the Rolling Stones was above an old pub in Soho. Within weeks they played their first gig, at the Marquee. The pub has gone, and the building later became the record shop Sounds of the Universe.
Accounts differ. Accounts differ on where Brian Jones’s advert ran: Jazz News or Melody Maker.
Sources: Ultimate Classic Rock: the Rolling Stones’ first show, Reverb: Keith Richards remembers the ’60s, Shady Old Lady: the Bricklayers Arms
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The Ealing Club
From March 1962 · 42a The Broadway, W5
A damp basement opposite Ealing Broadway station where, from 17 March 1962, Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies’s Blues Incorporated ran London’s first regular rhythm-and-blues night. It became a magnet for would-be bluesmen: Mick Jagger sang with Korner’s band, Charlie Watts drummed for it, and Jagger and Keith Richards met Brian Jones here. Its regulars read like the first wave of British rock.
Sources: Wikipedia: Ealing Jazz Club, uDiscover Music: the Ealing Club and the birth of British rock
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The Flamingo Club
From 1957 · 33–37 Wardour Street, W1
A basement club famous for weekend all-nighters where modern jazz turned into rhythm and blues. Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames were the house band in the early 1960s, and the crowd (mods, musicians, West Indian Londoners and off-duty American servicemen) made it one of the most mixed nights out in the city. It’s also a footnote to the Profumo affair: a 1962 fight here involving two of Christine Keeler’s acquaintances fed into the scandal.
Sources: Wikipedia: The Flamingo Club, Flashbak: Christine Keeler, Georgie Fame and the Flamingo all-nighter
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The Northwood Hills Hotel: Elton John’s first residency
From 1962 · 66 Joel Street, Northwood Hills, HA6
Across the road from Northwood Hills station, this pub hired a 15-year-old Reg Dwight in 1962 to play piano from Thursday to Sunday nights, and the regulars knew him as Reggie. Seven years later, now Elton John, he and Bernie Taupin were living with his mother at Frome Court on Pinner Road nearby, where Taupin wrote the words of “Your Song” at the kitchen table one morning. The pub is now the Namaste Lounge, and a PRS for Music plaque marks where he started.
Sources: PRS for Music: Elton John’s Heritage Award, Wikipedia: Elton John, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: Bernie Taupin, London Shoes: Elton John’s Pinner
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The Water Rats (the Pindar of Wakefield)
December 1962 · 328 Gray’s Inn Road, WC1
In December 1962 a 21-year-old Bob Dylan, on his first trip to Britain, sang at the Singers Club Christmas party upstairs in this pub, then called the Pindar of Wakefield; it’s usually counted as his first proper UK performance. The Pogues played their first gig here in 1982, and on 27 January 1994 Oasis made their London debut on the same small stage.
Accounts differ. Dylan also did short floor spots at other folk clubs that week, so “first UK gig” depends on how you count.
Sources: Wikipedia: The Water Rats, London Remembers
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The first Marquee: the Stones’ first gig
12 July 1962 · 165 Oxford Street, W1
Before Wardour Street, the Marquee was a jazz club in the basement of the Academy Cinema here. On Thursday 12 July 1962 a stand-in band billed as the Rollin’ Stones (Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Brian Jones, pianist Ian Stewart and bassist Dick Taylor) played their first ever gig, filling the slot left when Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated went off to do a BBC radio broadcast. Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman were still months away.
Accounts differ. Nobody agrees who played drums. Mick Avory, later of the Kinks, was billed in the press but has said it wasn’t him; Tony Chapman is the usual suspect, and some who were there remember no drummer at all.
Sources: Rolling Stone: the Stones’ first gig, fifty years on, IORR fan club
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39 Stanhope Gardens: Pink Floyd’s lodgings
1963–1965 · 39 Stanhope Gardens, Highgate, N6
In September 1963 two architecture students, Roger Waters and Nick Mason, took rooms here from Mike Leonard, a tutor who built light machines. Their band rehearsed in the front room, where the gear stayed set up, and for a while called itself Leonard’s Lodgers. Syd Barrett, Waters’s childhood friend, moved in the following year, and Richard Wright also lived here; by late 1965 the lodgers had become the Pink Floyd Sound. The BBC later filmed the band here with Leonard and his light machines.
Sources: Wikipedia: Pink Floyd, American Songwriter: the art classes behind Pink Floyd, The National: Pink Floyd’s old Highgate home, SWNS: Pink Floyd’s former London home sells
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57 Wimpole Street: the Ashers’ house
1963–1966 · 57 Wimpole Street, W1
Paul McCartney lived in the attic here with his girlfriend Jane Asher’s family from late 1963 until 1966. In the basement music room, where her mother taught the oboe, he and John Lennon sat side by side at the piano and wrote “I Want to Hold Your Hand”, and in his room at the top of the house he woke one morning with the tune of “Yesterday” in his head. With fans waiting at the front, he often slipped out the back way.
Sources: Wikipedia: I Want to Hold Your Hand, The Beatles Bible: Jane Asher, Beatles in London: give my regards to Wimpole Street
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EMI House: the Please Please Me stairwell
1963 and 1969 · 20 Manchester Square, W1
EMI’s head office, where photographer Angus McBean shot the four Beatles grinning down over the stairwell balcony for the cover of Please Please Me in 1963. In 1969 they came back to restage the picture for their abandoned Get Back album; the two photos later became the covers of the “red” and “blue” greatest-hits albums. EMI has long since moved out and the building has been redeveloped.
Sources: The Beatles Bible: the Please Please Me cover shoot, The Beatles Bible: the Get Back photo session, Wikipedia: Manchester Square
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Eel Pie Island Hotel
1956–1971 · Eel Pie Island, Twickenham, TW1
A rambling Victorian hotel on a Thames island, reached by a footbridge, where trad-jazz dances turned into rhythm-and-blues nights in the early 1960s. The Rolling Stones, the Who, the Yardbirds and Long John Baldry all played its ballroom. The story goes that Baldry heard a young Rod Stewart playing harmonica on Twickenham station after a show and took him into his band. The hotel burned down in 1971.
Sources: Wikipedia: Eel Pie Island, London Museum: Twickenham’s Eel Pie Island
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Prince of Wales Theatre: “rattle your jewellery”
4 November 1963 · Coventry Street, W1
At the Royal Variety Performance on 4 November 1963, with the Queen Mother in the royal box, John Lennon introduced “Twist and Shout” by asking the people in the cheaper seats to clap their hands, and the rest of the audience to “rattle your jewellery”. The cheeky line, broadcast to the nation days later, did as much as any record to make the Beatles everybody’s band.
Sources: Royal Variety Charity: the 1963 performance, The Beatles Bible: the Royal Variety Performance
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The Crawdaddy Club
1963 · Station Hotel, Kew Road, TW9
Giorgio Gomelsky’s Sunday-night rhythm-and-blues club in the back room of the Station Hotel, opposite Richmond station, gave the Rolling Stones their first residency from February 1963. The crowds, and a visit from all four Beatles on 14 April 1963, spread the Stones’ name fast. When they moved on, the Yardbirds, soon featuring a teenage Eric Clapton, took over the night.
Sources: Wikipedia: Crawdaddy Club, Louder: the club that launched the Stones and Clapton
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The Goldhawk Club: the Who’s home ground
1963–1965 · 205 Goldhawk Road, W12
A members’ club in a Georgian house, known on weekend band nights as the Goldhawk Social Club. The Who played here again and again from 1963, at first as the Detours, and gained a loyal following of local mods; Roger Daltrey grew up in Shepherd’s Bush, and this was home ground. They last played here on 3 December 1965. It is still the Shepherd’s Bush Club, with a blue plaque from 2014.
Sources: Wikipedia: The Who’s 1962–63 performances, PeteTownshend.net: the Goldhawk Club blue plaque, London Remembers: the Who’s plaque, Genesis Publications: Who 50
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The London Palladium
1963 and 1967 · 8 Argyll Street, W1
On 13 October 1963 the Beatles topped the bill on ITV’s Sunday Night at the London Palladium, watched by millions at home while screaming fans besieged the stage door. The next day’s papers made the scenes front-page news, and Beatlemania soon had a name. In January 1967 the Rolling Stones played the same show and caused a row by refusing to wave goodbye from its famous revolving stage.
Sources: Wikipedia: London Palladium, uDiscover Music: the Stones’ Palladium row, January 1967
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Denmark Street: Tin Pan Alley
1926–1977 · Denmark Street, WC2
Britain’s Tin Pan Alley: one short 17th-century street of song publishers that became the nerve centre of the pop business. Melody Maker was founded here in 1926. At No. 4, Regent Sound is where the Rolling Stones recorded their first album; Elton John worked for a publisher at No. 20 and wrote “Your Song” on the street; and from about 1975 to 1977 the Sex Pistols lived and rehearsed in the outbuilding behind No. 6, where John Lydon’s graffiti and caricatures survive. In 2016 that house was upgraded to Grade II* listing.
Accounts differ. David Bowie is said to have camped here in a converted ambulance while chasing a break. It’s a much-repeated story that’s hard to pin down.
Sources: Historic England: Denmark Street’s 17th-century houses listed
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Marylebone Station: A Hard Day’s Night
April 1964 · Melcombe Place, NW1
The opening chase of A Hard Day’s Night, with John, George and Ringo sprinting from screaming fans to catch their train, was filmed here on two Sundays in April 1964, while the station was closed. Richard Lester’s film caught the Beatles’ wit and speed on screen and set the template for decades of music films and videos.
Sources: The Beatles Bible: filming at Marylebone, 5 April 1964, Wikipedia: A Hard Day’s Night (film)
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The Marquee Club
1964–1988 · 90 Wardour Street, W1
For a quarter of a century this was the most important small rock club in Britain. It moved here from Oxford Street in March 1964. The Who’s Tuesday-night “Maximum R&B” residency made their name; David Bowie, Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, Yes, Jethro Tull, Genesis and countless others played it on the way up; and on 12 February 1976 the Sex Pistols, supporting Eddie and the Hot Rods, smashed up the night and earned one of their first music-press mentions. The building is now flats, with a plaque to the Who’s Keith Moon.
Sources: Camden New Journal
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The Railway Hotel: the first smashed guitar
September 1964 · High Street, Wealdstone, HA3
A Victorian pub on the bridge by Harrow & Wealdstone station where the Who played every Tuesday from mid-1964. One night that September Pete Townshend jabbed his guitar into the low ceiling and cracked its neck, then, hearing laughter, smashed it to pieces. The crowd expected it every week after that. Their future manager Kit Lambert first saw them here. The hotel burned down in 2000, and flats on the site are named after members of the Who.
Accounts differ. Most accounts date the first smash to September 1964; a few put it in June.
Sources: Rolling Stone: Townshend smashes it up, thewho.net: Pete’s smashed guitars, Wikipedia: the Railway Hotel, in Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy
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Les Cousins
1964–1972 · 49 Greek Street, W1
An unlicensed basement folk and blues club beneath a family restaurant, open from October 1964 until April 1972 and famous for its all-nighters. Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, Davy Graham, Sandy Denny, John Martyn, Al Stewart, Nick Drake and a young Paul Simon all honed their songs down here, and the intricate guitar music it nurtured flowed straight into British folk-rock. In the late 1950s the same cellar had been the Skiffle Cellar.
Sources: Tradfolk: in celebration of Les Cousins, John Martyn archive: Cousins of Soho
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The Ruskin Arms: Small Faces and Iron Maiden
From 1965 · 386 High Street North, Manor Park, E12
In 1965 Steve Marriott was working at the J60 music shop along High Street North when Ronnie Lane came in with his father to buy a bass. With Kenney Jones and Jimmy Winston they formed the Small Faces, rehearsing upstairs at this Victorian pub, which Winston’s parents owned, and playing their earliest gigs here. In the late 1970s it was a rock pub, and Iron Maiden had a residency here. The pub has since closed.
Sources: Wikipedia: Small Faces, Wikipedia: Jimmy Winston, CAMRA: the Ruskin Arms, Penny Black Music: the Ruskin Arms remembered
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Carnaby Street
1960s · Carnaby Street, W1
A back street of workshops that became the shop window of Swinging London. From the late 1950s John Stephen opened boutique after boutique selling sharp, affordable menswear to mods, and by 1966 (the year Time magazine declared London “the swinging city”) Carnaby Street was dressing the Who, the Small Faces and their fans, and being gently mocked in the Kinks’ “Dedicated Follower of Fashion”.
Sources: Wikipedia: Carnaby Street, Wikipedia: John Stephen
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Chiswick House: “Paperback Writer” and “Rain”
20 May 1966 · Burlington Lane, W4
On 20 May 1966 the Beatles filmed promotional clips for “Paperback Writer” and “Rain” among the statues and conservatory of these 18th-century gardens, directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg: early music videos, made so the band didn’t have to keep turning up at TV studios in person.
Sources: The Beatles: the Paperback Writer film, The Beatles Bible: filming Paperback Writer and Rain
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De Lane Lea Studios
1964–1966 · 129 Kingsway, WC2
A basement studio beneath 129 Kingsway. The Animals recorded “House of the Rising Sun” here on 18 May 1964, the year before De Lane Lea took the place over, and on 23 October 1966 the newly formed Jimi Hendrix Experience cut their first single here: “Hey Joe”, which took Hendrix into the British Top 10 within weeks of its release that December.
Sources: Ultimate Classic Rock: Hendrix’s first recording session, Phil’s Book: the studio at 129 Kingsway
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Indica Gallery: where John met Yoko
November 1966 · 6 Mason’s Yard, SW1
A counterculture gallery and bookshop backed by Paul McCartney. The night before Yoko Ono’s exhibition Unfinished Paintings and Objects opened, John Lennon dropped in for a preview, climbed a ladder to read a tiny “YES” on the ceiling, and asked to hammer a nail into one of her pieces. Both later called it the moment they met.
Accounts differ. The date is debated: the show opened on 8 November 1966, so the preview was most likely the 7th, but Lennon and Ono always gave 9 November. Barry Miles, one of the gallery’s founders, disputed that it was their first meeting at all.
Sources: Wikipedia: Indica Gallery, The Beatles Bible: John Lennon meets Yoko Ono
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Royal Albert Hall
1963–1970 · Kensington Gore, SW7
Rock came in through the front door here. The Beatles and the Rolling Stones shared the bill at a Great Pop Prom in September 1963, and Bob Dylan played two nights in May 1966. Cream said goodbye with farewell shows in November 1968, Jimi Hendrix played two concerts in February 1969, and Led Zeppelin filmed a celebrated show here in January 1970. John Lennon even gave the hall a line in “A Day in the Life”.
Accounts differ. The famous bootleg sold for years as Dylan’s “Royal Albert Hall” concert, the one with the “Judas!” heckle, was actually recorded in Manchester.
Sources: The Beatles Bible: the Great Pop Prom, uDiscover Music: Cream’s farewell at the Albert Hall, Wikipedia: Led Zeppelin’s 1970 UK tour
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The Bag O’Nails
1966–1967 · 9 Kingly Street, W1
A late-night musicians’ hangout tucked behind Carnaby Street. On 25 November 1966 the newly formed Jimi Hendrix Experience played an early showcase here for the music press and business, the night the London industry realised what had arrived. On 15 May 1967 Paul McCartney met the American photographer Linda Eastman here during a Georgie Fame set; they married in 1969. The building is now a private members’ club.
Sources: Wikipedia: The Bag O’Nails
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The Polytechnic: Hendrix sits in with Cream
1 October 1966 · 309 Regent Street, W1
On 1 October 1966, barely a week after arriving in London, Jimi Hendrix asked to sit in with Cream at a gig at the Polytechnic and tore through Howlin’ Wolf’s “Killing Floor”. Eric Clapton later said it was a song he’d never had the technique to play; witnesses describe him leaving the stage stunned. The Polytechnic, now the University of Westminster, is also where Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters, Nick Mason and Richard Wright met as architecture students.
Accounts differ. Most accounts place the gig at the Polytechnic’s Regent Street building; one local history puts it in the college’s Little Titchfield Street building, a short walk away.
Sources: Louder: Hendrix at the Regent Street Polytechnic, Fitzrovia News: Jimi Hendrix, hear my train a-comin’
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The Roundhouse
From 1966 · Chalk Farm Road, NW1
A Victorian railway engine shed that became a counterculture cathedral. On 15 October 1966 it hosted the all-night launch party for the underground paper International Times, with Pink Floyd and Soft Machine playing amid the light shows. The Doors played their first British shows here in September 1968. Motörhead played their first ever gig here on 20 July 1975, supporting Greenslade, and on 4 July 1976 the Ramones’ first UK gig, watched (the legend goes) by future members of the Clash and the Sex Pistols, helped light punk’s fuse. It reopened in 2006 after a long closure, and that December George Michael gave a free concert here for 2,000 NHS nurses, keeping a promise made in the last week of his mother’s life.
Sources: Wikipedia: Roundhouse (venue), uDiscover Music: the Ramones at the Roundhouse, Wikipedia: Motörhead, Roundhouse: George Michael’s concert for nurses
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The Scotch of St James
24 September 1966 · 13 Mason’s Yard, SW1
A basement club in Mason’s Yard where the Beatles and the Rolling Stones drank in the mid-1960s. Jimi Hendrix’s first London performance is placed here, on the night he arrived from New York, 24 September 1966: he sat in with the house band, and word of him swept the scene within days. A month later, on 25 October, the new Jimi Hendrix Experience played a private showcase here.
Accounts differ. Most accounts give 24 September 1966, the night he arrived; Rod Harrod, who booked the club, remembered it as 26 September.
Sources: Wikipedia: The Scotch of St. James, Louder: Hendrix’s first UK show, by the man who booked it
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The UFO Club
1966–1967 · 31 Tottenham Court Road, W1
London’s psychedelic underground in one basement. From 23 December 1966 Joe Boyd and John “Hoppy” Hopkins ran Friday all-nighters in the Blarney Club, an Irish dance hall beneath a cinema here, with liquid light shows, films, poetry and the house bands Pink Floyd and Soft Machine. After a News of the World exposé the landlord ended it in July 1967, and a final run at the Roundhouse folded that autumn, but it set the sound and look of British psychedelia.
Sources: Wikipedia: UFO Club
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24 Chapel Street: Brian Epstein’s house
1967 · 24 Chapel Street, SW1
The Beatles’ manager lived here. On 19 May 1967 he held the press launch for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in this house, the day the photographer Linda Eastman took her first pictures of the band. Three months later, on 27 August 1967, Epstein died here of an accidental overdose, aged 32, while the Beatles were away in Wales.
Sources: The Beatles Bible: the Sgt Pepper press launch, Wikipedia: Chapel Street, Belgravia
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Alexandra Palace: the 14 Hour Technicolor Dream
29–30 April 1967 · Alexandra Palace Way, N22
On 29–30 April 1967 thousands filled the Great Hall for the 14 Hour Technicolor Dream, a benefit for the underground paper International Times after a police raid. Dozens of bands and poets played on two stages, with light shows everywhere; Pink Floyd came on in the early hours of the morning, and John Lennon was among the crowd. It’s remembered as the high point of London’s underground.
Accounts differ. Attendance estimates vary widely, usually somewhere around 7,000 to 10,000.
Sources: Wikipedia: The 14 Hour Technicolor Dream, Alexandra Palace: 14 Hour memory
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Maida Vale Studios
From the 1960s · Delaware Road, W9
A former roller-skating rink rebuilt as BBC studios in the 1930s, where generations of bands recorded live sessions for radio, above all for John Peel’s shows from the late 1960s on. For many acts, from the Fall to Nirvana, a Peel session was the first time the country heard them properly. The BBC Radiophonic Workshop was based here too. The BBC sold the building in 2023 to a group including Hans Zimmer, which plans to keep it as studios.
Sources: Wikipedia: Maida Vale Studios
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Queen Elizabeth Hall: Games for May
12 May 1967 · Southbank Centre, SE1
On 12 May 1967 Pink Floyd took over the South Bank’s brand-new concert hall for Games for May, a show of light projections, bubbles and tape effects, with an early surround-sound rig that sent sounds whirling around the room. Syd Barrett wrote a song for the occasion that became “See Emily Play”. The bubbles, and the daffodils handed out to the audience, stained the seats, and the hall banned the band.
Sources: Southbank Centre: revisiting Games for May, Wikipedia: Games for May
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Royal Courts of Justice: butterfly on a wheel
31 July 1967 · Strand, WC2
In summer 1967 Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were jailed after a drugs trial in Chichester, and the sentences caused an outcry; even The Times ran a famous editorial asking “Who breaks a butterfly on a wheel?” On 31 July 1967 the Court of Appeal here quashed Richards’s conviction and gave Jagger a conditional discharge, a landmark in the establishment’s uneasy truce with rock.
Sources: Wikipedia: The Rolling Stones’ Redlands bust, West Sussex Record Office: the Redlands drugs bust
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The Apple Boutique
1967–1968 · 94 Baker Street, W1
The Beatles’ short-lived psychedelic shop opened in December 1967 on the corner of Baker Street and Paddington Street, its whole façade covered in a vast mural by the Dutch design collective The Fool. After objections the mural was painted over; the shop lost money from the start and closed at the end of July 1968, when the band simply gave the remaining stock away.
Sources: Wikipedia: Apple Boutique, The Beatles Bible: the Apple Boutique closes down
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The Rainbow (Finsbury Park Astoria)
1967–1982 · 232 Seven Sisters Road, N4
As the Finsbury Park Astoria, this vast, ornate cinema is where Jimi Hendrix set fire to his guitar on stage for the first time, on 31 March 1967, on a package tour with the Walker Brothers, Cat Stevens and Engelbert Humperdinck. The Who opened it as the Rainbow on 4 November 1971. That December an audience member pushed Frank Zappa off its stage into the pit, breaking his leg; in January 1973 it hosted Eric Clapton’s comeback concert, and in 1977 Bob Marley’s shows and the Ramones’ live album It’s Alive. It’s now a church and a Grade II* listed building.
Sources: Wikipedia: Rainbow Theatre
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The Saville Theatre
1965–1970 · 135 Shaftesbury Avenue, WC2
Brian Epstein, the Beatles’ manager, took over this theatre in 1965 and turned its Sunday nights into rock concerts with the Who, Cream and Jimi Hendrix. The most famous came on 4 June 1967: Hendrix opened with “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”, released only days before, with Paul McCartney and George Harrison in the audience. The Beatles filmed their “Hello, Goodbye” promo on its stage on 10 November 1967. It’s now a listed building and a cinema.
Sources: Camden listing, The Beatles Bible: filming Hello, Goodbye
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Waterloo Bridge: “Waterloo Sunset”
1967 · Waterloo Bridge, WC2
Ray Davies’s song about watching the sun go down over the Thames from here reached No. 2 in 1967 and has become London’s unofficial anthem; he sang it at the closing ceremony of the 2012 Olympics. He has said it began life as “Liverpool Sunset”. Stand on the bridge at dusk, look west, and you’ll hear why he moved it.
Accounts differ. Who are Terry and Julie? In 1967 Davies said that if the song were a film they’d be Terence Stamp and Julie Christie; he later denied the couple were about them, and his biographers link Terry to a young relative.
Sources: Wikipedia: Waterloo Sunset
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23 Brook Street: Hendrix’s flat
1968–1969 · 23 Brook Street, W1
Jimi Hendrix lived in the top-floor flat here with his girlfriend Kathy Etchingham in 1968–69, and was fascinated to discover that the composer George Frideric Handel had lived next door at No. 25 two centuries earlier. Hendrix’s rooms have been restored as part of the Handel Hendrix House museum, and an English Heritage blue plaque marks the building.
Sources: English Heritage: Jimi Hendrix’s blue plaque, Heritage Fund: Hendrix and Handel
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34 Montagu Square
1965–1969 · 34 Montagu Square, W1
Ringo Starr leased this flat in the mid-1960s and lent it to friends. Jimi Hendrix and his manager Chas Chandler lived here at the end of 1966; John Lennon and Yoko Ono moved in during 1968 and shot the nude cover of their album Two Virgins here, and a police drugs raid that October made headlines. An English Heritage blue plaque to Lennon was unveiled in 2010.
Sources: Wikipedia: 34 Montagu Square, English Heritage: John Lennon’s blue plaque
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Gerrard Street: Led Zeppelin’s first rehearsal
12 August 1968 · Gerrard Street, W1
Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and John Bonham played together for the first time in a cramped basement rehearsal room on this street on 12 August 1968. They kicked off with “Train Kept A-Rollin’”, an old Yardbirds number, and as Jones remembered it, “the whole room just exploded.” Within weeks they were touring, and by October they were Led Zeppelin. Ronnie Scott had opened his first jazz club in a basement here in 1959.
Accounts differ. No one knows exactly which basement it was; the room was converted long ago, so this pick marks the street rather than a door.
Sources: Wikipedia: Gerrard Street, Ultimate Classic Rock: Led Zeppelin play together for the first time
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Olympic Studios
1966–2009 · 117 Church Road, SW13
South-west London’s answer to Abbey Road, in a former cinema. The Rolling Stones made a run of albums here, Beggars Banquet and Let It Bleed among them, and in 1968 Jean-Luc Godard filmed them building “Sympathy for the Devil”. The Beatles cut the backing track of “All You Need Is Love” here, Jimi Hendrix recorded much of Are You Experienced, Led Zeppelin made their first album in October 1968, and the Who recorded Who’s Next. The studios closed in 2009, and the building reopened as the Olympic Cinema in 2013.
Sources: uDiscover Music: the story of Olympic Studios, Cinema Treasures
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Trident Studios
1968–1981 · 17 St Anne’s Court, W1
This independent Soho studio had eight-track recording before Abbey Road did, which is why the Beatles came here on 31 July 1968 to record “Hey Jude”. It then became David Bowie’s workshop: “Space Oddity”, Hunky Dory and The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars were all made here, as were Lou Reed’s Transformer (produced by Bowie and Mick Ronson), early Elton John records including “Your Song”, and Queen’s first albums. The building still houses a sound studio.
Sources: Wikipedia: Trident Studios
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3 Savile Row: the rooftop concert
30 January 1969 · 3 Savile Row, W1
Apple Corps, the Beatles’ company, moved into this Georgian townhouse in 1968. At lunchtime on 30 January 1969 the band carried their gear onto the roof and played their last live performance, 42 minutes of new songs with Billy Preston on keyboards, as office workers climbed onto neighbouring roofs and the police arrived to turn it down. “I hope we’ve passed the audition,” Lennon quipped at the end.
Sources: Wikipedia: The Beatles’ rooftop concert
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Hyde Park free concerts
From 1968 · Hyde Park, W2
The first free rock concert here, on 29 June 1968, was headlined by Pink Floyd. Blind Faith made their debut to a vast crowd in June 1969, and on 5 July 1969 the Rolling Stones played just two days after Brian Jones’s death: Jagger read from Shelley, hundreds of butterflies were released, and Mick Taylor played his first show with the band. Queen drew a huge crowd for a free show in 1976, and in 2005 Pink Floyd reunited with Roger Waters here for Live 8.
Accounts differ. Estimates for the Stones’ 1969 crowd range from about 250,000 to half a million.
Sources: Wikipedia: List of concerts in Hyde Park, Wikipedia: The Stones in the Park, Wikipedia: Live 8
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The Abbey Road zebra crossing
8 August 1969 · Abbey Road at Grove End Road, NW8
On the morning of 8 August 1969, photographer Iain Macmillan stood on a stepladder while a policeman held up the traffic and the Beatles walked back and forth across this crossing; one of the six frames became the cover of Abbey Road. The crossing was given listed status in 2010 and fans re-enact the walk all day long. It’s a real, busy road, so watch the traffic.
Sources: Wikipedia: Iain Macmillan, uDiscover Music: the Abbey Road cover, fifty years on
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The Bowie Bandstand
16 August 1969 · Croydon Road Recreation Ground, BR3
On 16 August 1969, weeks after “Space Oddity” came out, Bowie and the Arts Lab ran a free one-day festival around this 1905 bandstand, the Growth Summer Festival, with Bowie organising, compèring and singing. He turned the day into the song “Memory of a Free Festival”. The bandstand was listed Grade II on the festival’s 50th anniversary in 2019.
Accounts differ. Local lore says he also worked on “Life on Mars?” here; that’s unconfirmed.
Sources: Historic England: the Bowie Bandstand listed
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The Three Tuns: Beckenham Arts Lab
1969 · High Street, Beckenham, BR3
In 1969 David Bowie and his landlady Mary Finnigan started a Sunday-night folk club in the back room of this pub. It grew into the Beckenham Arts Lab, with music, poetry, puppets and light shows, and a proving ground for the songs that made Bowie a star. A plaque has marked the building since 2001; it’s now a restaurant.
Sources: Bowie Wonderworld: Bowie in Beckenham
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Twickenham Film Studios: Get Back
January 1969 · The Barons, St Margarets, TW1
In January 1969 the Beatles rehearsed on a chilly soundstage here for the film that became Let It Be. Tensions boiled over and George Harrison walked out on 10 January, briefly quitting the band; the sessions moved to the basement studio at Apple in Savile Row and ended with the rooftop concert. Peter Jackson’s Get Back (2021) restored the footage. The band had also filmed scenes for A Hard Day’s Night and Help! here.
Sources: Wikipedia: Twickenham Film Studios, The Paul McCartney Project: the last day at Twickenham
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1970s
Imperial College Union: Queen’s first London gig
18 July 1970 · Prince Consort Road, SW7
Brian May was a student at Imperial when, in 1968, he advertised on the union noticeboard for a drummer. On 18 July 1970, with Freddie Mercury singing, Roger Taylor on drums and Mike Grose on bass, Queen played their first London gig in the Union Concert Hall here, three weeks after their very first show, in Cornwall. May has called it their first proper gig. In 2013 he and Taylor came back to unveil a PRS for Music plaque on Prince Consort Road.
Sources: Imperial College London: Queen’s heritage award, Wikipedia: Union Concert Hall, Rock’s Backpages: Queen’s first London gig, Radio X: when Queen played their first gig
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Ronnie Scott’s
16 September 1970 · 47 Frith Street, W1
London’s great jazz club has been here since 1965, after starting in a Gerrard Street basement in 1959. It earns its place on a rock map for one night: on 16 September 1970 Jimi Hendrix joined Eric Burdon and War on stage, the last time he ever played in public. He died two days later in Notting Hill, aged 27.
Sources: Wikipedia: Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club, Ultimate Classic Rock: Jimi Hendrix’s last performance
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23 Heddon Street: the Ziggy Stardust cover
13 January 1972 · 23 Heddon Street, W1
On the wet night of 13 January 1972, photographer Brian Ward posed David Bowie on the pavement outside No. 23, under the sign of the furrier K. West, for the cover of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. The furrier’s sign is long gone, but a plaque marks the doorway and fans still stand on the spot to recreate the pose.
Sources: Ultimate Classic Rock: the Heddon Street plaque, National Trust Collections: the Ziggy Stardust sleeve
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BBC Television Centre: “Starman”
6 July 1972 · Wood Lane, W12
On 6 July 1972 Top of the Pops showed David Bowie, in a quilted jumpsuit, singing “Starman” and draping an arm around guitarist Mick Ronson’s shoulder; it had been filmed in Studio 8 here the night before. A generation of British teenagers have described it as the moment their lives changed. Top of the Pops was made here for decades; the building has since been redeveloped.
Sources: DavidBowie.com: Starman on Top of the Pops, fifty years on, Louder: the most influential minutes of UK TV
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Hammersmith Odeon
3 July 1973 · 45 Queen Caroline Street, W6
On 3 July 1973 David Bowie stunned a packed house by announcing that this was “the last show that we’ll ever do”: the retirement of Ziggy Stardust, filmed by D.A. Pennebaker. Bruce Springsteen made his British debut here in November 1975, Dire Straits recorded their live album Alchemy on 22 and 23 July 1983, the last two nights of an eight-month tour, and Kate Bush returned in 2014 for her 22-night residency Before the Dawn. It’s now the Eventim Apollo.
Accounts differ. Motörhead’s No Sleep ’til Hammersmith (1981) is named after the venue, but it was actually recorded on tour in Leeds and Newcastle.
Sources: Wikipedia: Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (film), Wikipedia: Hammersmith Odeon, London ’75, Wikipedia: Before the Dawn (Kate Bush residency), Wikipedia: Alchemy: Dire Straits Live
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430 King’s Road: SEX
From 1971 · 430 King’s Road, SW10
Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood’s shop kept changing its name and look (Let It Rock, Too Fast to Live Too Young to Die, SEX, Seditionaries), and its rubberwear, bondage trousers and slogan T-shirts helped invent punk style. The Sex Pistols formed around the shop; in August 1975 John Lydon auditioned by singing along to Alice Cooper’s “I’m Eighteen” on its jukebox. It’s still a Vivienne Westwood shop, Worlds End, with a clock that runs backwards.
Sources: London Museum: Westwood and McLaren, King’s Road royalty, Wikipedia: Sex Pistols
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St Martin’s School of Art: the Pistols’ first gig
6 November 1975 · 107–109 Charing Cross Road, WC2
On 6 November 1975 the Sex Pistols played their first ever gig in a common room here, supporting the art-school band Bazooka Joe; bassist Glen Matlock was a student at the college and got them the booking. They borrowed the headliners’ amps, got through a handful of songs, and the plug was pulled. Bazooka Joe’s own bass player, Stuart Goddard, was so struck that he soon reinvented himself as Adam Ant. Thirteen years later Jarvis Cocker came to Saint Martins to study film, and a Greek student he met at the college gave him the idea for Pulp’s “Common People”. The college moved to King’s Cross in 2011 and the building is now the Foyles bookshop.
Sources: Ultimate Classic Rock: the Sex Pistols’ first show, Wikipedia: Bazooka Joe, Wikipedia: Common People
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The Lyceum
1969–1980s · 21 Wellington Street, WC2
Long before The Lion King moved in, the Lyceum’s ballroom was a rock venue. On 15 December 1969 John Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band played a UNICEF benefit here with George Harrison, Eric Clapton and Keith Moon in a sprawling line-up: Lennon’s last live concert in Britain, and the last time he and Harrison shared a stage. In July 1975 Bob Marley and the Wailers recorded their album Live! here; its version of “No Woman, No Cry” became Marley’s breakthrough hit in Britain.
Sources: The Beatles Bible: the Plastic Ono Band at the Lyceum, uDiscover Music: the 1969 Lyceum gig
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Battersea Power Station: the flying pig
December 1976 · Circus Road West, SW11
In December 1976 Pink Floyd tethered a giant inflatable pig between the chimneys to photograph the cover of Animals. On the second day of the shoot it broke free, drifted up into the flight paths around Heathrow and came down in a field in Kent. The finished cover combined photographs. The restored power station reopened in 2022.
Sources: Wikipedia: Pink Floyd pigs, Pink Floyd: 1976 timeline
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Dingwalls
5 July 1976 · Middle Yard, Camden Lock, NW1
A Victorian timber warehouse by Camden Lock that opened as Dingwalls Dance Hall in June 1973. On 5 July 1976, the night after their Roundhouse show, the Ramones played their first British headline gig here, with the Stranglers supporting. Members of the Clash and the Sex Pistols came to watch, and outside afterwards the Stranglers’ Jean-Jacques Burnel and the Clash’s Paul Simonon came to blows, an early sign of the rivalries in London punk. It still puts on gigs, and got its old name back in 2023.
Accounts differ. Burnel has said he hit Simonon after Simonon spat; elsewhere he has talked of being bottled, and some who were there remember only a minor scuffle.
Sources: Camden Market: Dingwalls, a rock ’n’ roll legacy, Louder: the Ramones’ first UK shows, Camden New Journal: Dingwalls gets its name back
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Rehearsal Rehearsals: the Clash’s base
1976–1978 · Camden Market, Chalk Farm Road, NW1
In 1976 the Clash’s manager Bernie Rhodes leased a scruffy former railway warehouse in the yard of what’s now Camden Market. The band rehearsed and wrote here, and the cover of their first album was shot in the alley outside the door. When a critic dismissed them as a garage band, they answered with “Garageland”. The yard is now part of the busy Stables Market.
Sources: Camden Market: Camden Town’s punk story, Wikipedia: Garageland (song)
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Rough Trade: the first shop
From 1976 · 202 Kensington Park Road, W11
Geoff Travis opened a record shop here in February 1976, stocking reggae, American imports and the first do-it-yourself punk singles. It grew into a distributor and the Rough Trade label, which put out records by the Smiths and became the heart of British independent music. The shop later moved round the corner to Talbot Road.
Sources: Wikipedia: Rough Trade (shops), Hot Press: Rogue traders
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Screen on the Green
29 August 1976 · 83 Upper Street, N1
At midnight on 29 August 1976 this Islington cinema hosted a punk triple bill: the Sex Pistols headlined, with the Clash and Buzzcocks in support. It was one of the Clash’s very first London shows and a sign that punk was becoming a scene rather than one band. It’s still a cinema.
Sources: Wikipedia: The Screen on the Green, Diffuser: the Sex Pistols’ Live ’76
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Stiff Records
From 1976 · 32 Alexander Street, W2
Stiff was started in 1976 by two pub-rock managers, Dave Robinson and Jake Riviera, on a £400 loan from Dr Feelgood’s singer Lee Brilleaux, and ran from a shopfront office here. On 22 October 1976 it released the Damned’s “New Rose”, generally counted as the first British punk single. A young computer operator called Declan MacManus kept dropping in after work; as Elvis Costello he gave the label its first Top 20 hit, “Watching the Detectives”. Ian Dury and Madness followed.
Sources: Wikipedia: Stiff Records, Elvis Costello: the My Aim Is True liner notes, Dream Deferred: a short history of Stiff Records, Louder: Stiff Records’ best albums
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Thames Television: the Bill Grundy interview
1 December 1976 · Euston Road, NW1
On 1 December 1976 the Sex Pistols, booked at short notice after Queen pulled out, went live on Thames TV’s teatime show Today. Goaded by presenter Bill Grundy, guitarist Steve Jones swore on air, with Siouxsie Sioux and other Bromley Contingent fans standing behind the band. The next morning’s Daily Mirror headline, “The Filth and the Fury!”, made punk a national scandal overnight. The Thames building beside Euston Tower was demolished in the 1990s.
Sources: Wikipedia: Today (Thames Television), Wikipedia: Bill Grundy
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The 100 Club
20–21 September 1976 · 100 Oxford Street, W1
A basement jazz club since the 1940s that hosted punk’s coming-out party. Over two nights in September 1976 the 100 Club Punk Special put the Sex Pistols, the Clash, the Damned, Buzzcocks, Subway Sect and the Vibrators on one bill, and Siouxsie and the Banshees played their first ever set, an improvised noise with Sid Vicious on drums. On the second night a thrown glass shattered against a pillar and blinded a young woman in one eye.
Accounts differ. Sid Vicious was arrested over the glass, but accounts of exactly what happened still differ.
Sources: Wikipedia: 100 Club Punk Special, Wikipedia: 100 Club
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The Cart and Horses: Iron Maiden’s first home
1976–1978 · 1 Maryland Point, Stratford, E15
Steve Harris formed Iron Maiden in East London in 1975. After a first gig at St Nick’s Hall in Poplar on 1 May 1976, they soon began a run of shows on the small stage here, and kept coming back until April 1978, building the local following that launched them. The pub still calls itself the Birthplace of Iron Maiden, and its walls are covered in the band’s memorabilia.
Sources: Wikipedia: Cart and Horses, Planet Rock: Steve Harris and the early days, London Shoes: the Cart and Horses and Iron Maiden
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The Valley, Charlton: the loudest concert
31 May 1976 · Floyd Road, SE7
On a rain-soaked bank holiday, 31 May 1976, the Who played Charlton Athletic’s football ground and went into the Guinness Book of Records for the loudest concert ever measured. Fans had camped in the streets overnight, gates were knocked down, and tens of thousands packed the open terraces.
Accounts differ. Sources quote both 126 and 120 decibels for the reading. Guinness later dropped the category for fear of encouraging hearing damage.
Sources: Charlton Athletic: fifty years since the Who rocked the Valley, Wikipedia: The Who by Numbers Tour
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42 Oakley Street: Bob Marley
1977 · 42 Oakley Street, SW3
Bob Marley lived here in 1977, after surviving an assassination attempt in Jamaica, while he worked in London on Exodus, the album Time magazine later named the best of the 20th century. An English Heritage blue plaque marks the house.
Sources: English Heritage: Bob Marley’s blue plaque, Jamaica Observer: blue plaque honour for Bob Marley’s house, Billboard: Bob Marley’s Exodus anniversary
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BBC Radio London: Honky Tonk
Summer 1977 · 35a Marylebone High Street, W1
BBC Radio London broadcast from windowless studios behind the old Radio Times building here. Charlie Gillett’s show Honky Tonk gave early airplay to Ian Dury, Elvis Costello and Graham Parker, and in summer 1977 Dire Straits brought him their Pathway demo, hoping only for advice. He played “Sultans of Swing” on air, record companies started ringing, and within two months the band had signed to Phonogram’s Vertigo label. The BBC left the building in 2009.
Accounts differ. A former member of staff dates the station’s move here from Hanover Square to 1976; no official date has been found.
Sources: Wikipedia: Charlie Gillett, Louder: the story behind Sultans of Swing, Random radio jottings: fifty years of BBC Radio London
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Farrer House: Dire Straits’ first gig
June 1977 · Crossfield Estate, Deptford, SE8
In April 1977 Mark Knopfler moved into a first-floor council flat here, shared with his brother David and the bass player John Illsley; with the drummer Pick Withers they became Dire Straits. That June, at a local festival, they played their first gig, still billed as the Café Racers, on the open ground behind the block, the power running from a socket in John’s flat. “Sultans of Swing” came from a down-at-heel Dixieland band Knopfler watched in a near-empty pub nearby. Knopfler and Illsley came back in 2009 to unveil a plaque here.
Accounts differ. Knopfler has placed the Sultans of Swing pub in Deptford, an early biography puts it in Greenwich, and locals have named at least five pubs.
Sources: East London Lines: Dire Straits return to Deptford, Far Out: the Deptford estate that birthed Dire Straits, Wikipedia: Sultans of Swing
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Hammersmith Palais
1919–2007 · 242 Shepherd’s Bush Road, W6
A dance hall from 1919 that gave its name to one of the Clash’s greatest songs. On 5 June 1977 Joe Strummer went to a reggae all-nighter here expecting rebel music, and came away writing “(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais”, part reggae, part state-of-the-nation address. The building was demolished in 2012.
Sources: Wikipedia: Hammersmith Palais, Hammersmith & Fulham Council: the Palais on the Black music history trail
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Marc Bolan’s Rock Shrine
16 September 1977 · Queen’s Ride, SW13
In the early hours of 16 September 1977 the purple Mini carrying T. Rex’s Marc Bolan failed to take the little humpback bridge here, left the road and hit a tree. Bolan, a passenger, was killed two weeks before his 30th birthday. Fans have tended a shrine at the tree ever since; a bronze bust was added in 2002.
Sources: Wikipedia: Marc Bolan’s Rock Shrine, English Heritage: Marc Bolan’s blue plaque
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Pathway Studios: the Dire Straits demo
24 July 1977 · 2a Grosvenor Avenue, N5
A tiny eight-track studio in a converted garage, with one 25-foot room and a cramped control room. In 1977 Elvis Costello’s My Aim Is True and the Damned’s first album were recorded here, and on 24 July Dire Straits cut a five-song demo, “Sultans of Swing” among them, that would get them a record deal. Madness made early recordings here too. The studio closed in the early 2000s, and the building is now two small flats.
Sources: Wikipedia: Pathway Studios, American Songwriter: the demo that landed Dire Straits a deal, Stereoboard: My Aim Is True at 40
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The Jubilee boat trip
7 June 1977 · River Thames, by Westminster
During the Queen’s Silver Jubilee, the Sex Pistols hired a riverboat called the Queen Elizabeth and played “Anarchy in the U.K.” and “God Save the Queen” as it cruised past the Houses of Parliament. When it docked, police were waiting and there were arrests, including manager Malcolm McLaren. That week “God Save the Queen”, banned by the BBC, stood at No. 2 in the official chart.
Accounts differ. Many people still believe the chart was fixed to keep it off No. 1. That has never been proved.
Sources: Wikipedia: God Save the Queen (Sex Pistols song), London Museum: pageantry and protest at the Silver Jubilee
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The Roxy
1976–1978 · 41–43 Neal Street, WC2
For a few months the Roxy was punk’s home club. Generation X played the first gig on 14 December 1976, and the Clash and the Heartbreakers headlined the official opening on New Year’s Day 1977; X-Ray Spex, the Adverts, Buzzcocks, the Slits and almost every punk band followed, except the Sex Pistols. Between sets DJ Don Letts played dub and reggae, sparking a crossover that shaped what came next. The founders were evicted in April 1977 but the club ran on until April 1978. A plaque went up in 2017.
Sources: Wikipedia: The Roxy (Covent Garden), Seven Dials Trust: the Roxy’s people’s plaque
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33 Daventry Street: Joe Strummer’s squat
1978–1979 · 33 Daventry Street, Lisson Grove, NW1
Joe Strummer squatted here from late 1978 into 1979, one of his most creative stretches, writing songs that went on London Calling. The streets around were a punk enclave: the Slits rehearsed a few doors along, and Julien Temple filmed Sid Vicious’s “C’mon Everybody” in this house. The story goes that Strummer had first run into Mick Jones and Paul Simonon at the Lisson Grove dole office nearby. The housing co-op that now owns the building put up a blue plaque on 7 December 2016, the anniversary of the “London Calling” single.
Sources: Westminster Extra: plaque unveiled to Joe Strummer, Vive Le Rock: Strummer’s blue plaque, Heatwave: the plaque unveiling, December 2016, CMU: a blue plaque for Strummer’s squat
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Electric Ballroom
From 1978 · 184 Camden High Street, NW1
A former dance hall that turned into one of Camden’s essential rock rooms in 1978. That August, Sid Vicious played his farewell London show here, billed as “Sid Sods Off”, with Glen Matlock, Steve New and the Damned’s Rat Scabies backing him, before leaving for New York. It has hosted punk, two-tone, goth, indie and metal nights ever since.
Sources: Wikipedia: Electric Ballroom, Wikipedia: Vicious White Kids, Radio X: Sid Vicious’s last UK gig
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The Hope and Anchor
1970s · 207 Upper Street, N1
A tiny cellar beneath an Islington pub that was a key stage for pub rock and punk; the Stranglers, Ian Dury and the Damned all played here, and the 1977 Front Row Festival was recorded here for a live album. On 27 December 1978 Joy Division played their first London gig to a near-empty room; on the drive home Ian Curtis had his first recognised epileptic seizure.
Accounts differ. Most accounts put Ian Curtis’s first seizure on the drive home; one local history places it on stage in the cellar.
Sources: Wikipedia: Hope and Anchor, Islington, Punk77: the Hope and Anchor, Wikipedia: Joy Division (the drive home from the Hope)
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Victoria Park: Rock Against Racism
30 April 1978 · Victoria Park, E3
On 30 April 1978 tens of thousands marched from Trafalgar Square to Victoria Park for the Rock Against Racism Carnival, organised with the Anti-Nazi League. The Clash, Steel Pulse, X-Ray Spex and the Tom Robinson Band played, and the sight of punk and reggae fans standing together became one of the defining images of the decade.
Accounts differ. Crowd estimates range from about 80,000 to 100,000.
Sources: Hackney Museum: the Carnival Against the Nazis poster, Searchlight: Carnival against the Nazis, Victoria Park
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The Blitz: the New Romantics
1979–1980 · 4 Great Queen Street, WC2
From 1979 Steve Strange on the door and Rusty Egan on the decks ran a Tuesday club night at the Blitz, a small wine bar here. It became the home of the New Romantics: Spandau Ballet played here in 1979 and 1980, a teenage George O’Dowd, later Boy George, worked the cloakroom, and Strange and Egan formed Visage. In 1980 David Bowie came looking for extras and picked Strange and three other regulars for his “Ashes to Ashes” video.
Accounts differ. One account has the Tuesday nights ending in October 1980; the London Museum dates them 1979 to 1981.
Sources: London Museum: Blitz, a revolutionary club night, Wikipedia: Blitz Kids (New Romantics), DJ Mag: Steve Strange remembered
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The Dublin Castle
From 1979 · 94 Parkway, NW1
An Irish pub on Parkway with a small back room for bands. Madness first played here on 16 January 1979, having told the landlord, Alo Conlon, that they were a jazz band to get the booking. He asked them back, and the residency that followed built their following in the year they released One Step Beyond. The back room has given early gigs to bands ever since, among them Coldplay’s first under that name in 1998, and Amy Winehouse played here and sometimes helped behind the bar. Madness unveiled a plaque here in 2017.
Sources: Wikipedia: Dublin Castle, Camden, PRS for Music: the Madness Heritage Award, Camden New Journal: farewell to Alo Conlon
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Wessex Sound Studios
1969–1979 · 106a Highbury New Park, N5
A Victorian church hall tucked behind St Augustine’s church hid one of Britain’s great studios. King Crimson recorded In the Court of the Crimson King here in 1969, and in October 1976 the Sex Pistols cut “Anarchy in the U.K.”, coming back later for Never Mind the Bollocks. Queen made “We Will Rock You” here, and between August and November 1979 the Clash recorded London Calling with the producer Guy Stevens. The building is now flats.
Sources: Wikipedia: Wessex Sound Studios
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