Words and music. Home is Brixton, South London. Communications consultant specialising in music and culture. Currently living and working in Bari, Puglia.
The player on the left is Gary Mabbutt playing against Feyenoord in the UEFA Cup second round in 1983. He spent 16 years at Tottenham, captaining the team from 1987 until 1998 and was the first captain I can remember after starting to support Spurs during the 1994/5 season.
Mabbutt overcame several barriers to becoming a professional footballer, including Type 1 diabetes and severe asthma and he also battled to return to the first team after two serious injuries; a fractured skull sustained in a match against Wimbledon in 1993 and badly breaking his leg in a game at Blackburn in 1996. He led by example both on and off the pitch (he lifted the FA Cup for us in 1991) and now dedicates his time to being a club ambassador and working with street children and diabetes charities.
During the recent pandemic, he revealed how he has been working with a loneliness charity and has personally made over 1,300 phone calls to elderly and vulnerable people since the first lockdown began in March 2020.
Gary on his charity work during the pandemic
Gary embodies the true spirit of Tottenham Hotspur, not ENIC or the travesty that is the proposed European Super League. The only ray of light following the ESL and Jose Mourinho news today is that our former midfielder Ryan Mason may get his chance to shine as a promising young manager in the League Cup Final next Sunday after having his playing career so cruelly cut short by injury aged just 26. Onwards from here. To dare is to do.
Gary relives Tottenham’s 1991 FA Cup Final victory at Wembley
Note: I began writing this piece earlier in the week and planned to publish it sooner but was unfortunately sidelined for a few days with some Covid vaccine side effects. Whilst I’m eternally grateful for receiving the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab, it was best to rest up for a couple of days until the aches and fever subsided. For those who are yet to be vaccinated; the side effects are nothing to worry about – they just made me more inclined to pop paracetamol, binge Rick Stein’s BBC series on India and watch England unconvincingly beat Poland in the World Cup qualifiers than turn my attentions to creative writing.
30th March 2021, Bari
20 years ago today my life changed and it would never be the same again. After several months of anticipation and numerous phone conversations between anxious parents, my old pal Mike and I saw the Manic Street Preachers live at Brixton Academy, South London – my first ‘proper’ gig (I’m not counting Slade’s performance at a guitar show at the Birmingham NEC the year before). Live music has been a huge part of me ever since – I’ve played over 350 gigs in various groups myself and whilst I cannot put an exact figure on it, I estimate that I’ve seen well over 1,000 artists perform in the subsequent two decades.
I had been heavily into the Manics from the age of 11 onwards after being given 1998’s huge number one album This Is My Truth Tell Me Yoursfor my birthday on cassette. The album contained a string of massive singles but I was more intrigued by the R.S. Thomas quote in the liner notes and the complex nature of some of the lyrics. I found out that the hit single ‘If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next’had been written about the Spanish Civil War, ‘S.Y.M.M.’ a reaction to the Hillsborough Disaster and that ‘Tsunami’ concerned the troubled ‘Silent Twins’, Jennifer and June Gibbons, who only communicated with each other using a language unique to them and shunned the outside world. I discovered the band had a chequered and much more radical history, prior to their recent mainstream success and I was captivated.
The Manics onstage at Wembley Arena with The Anchoress. May 2018.
My school friend (and early bandmate) Mike ‘got’ the band’s appeal too and soon the Manics had usurped Nirvana as our favourite band and were a major influence on an early line-up of our teenage band Felix Mandelson. We bought all of the band’s older albums and it’s safe to say that the band soon held deity-like status for us. When we spotted a red full-page ad written in block capitals in a copy of NME in early 2001 announcing a UK tour for their latest album Know Your Enemy, we knew we had to get tickets to one of the London shows – two consecutive nights at Brixton Academy.
The back of a bootleg tour t-shirt I bought on the pavement outside Brixton Academy and the Spanish Civil War that inspired the number one hit single ‘If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next’.
Our parents were initially wary as we were only 13. Whilst I had an older sister living in Bermondsey in South London, Brixton rightly or wrongly, had a reputation as a dangerous and lawless place and to my emerging musical knowledge, Brixton Academy was a venue more favoured by the dance music fraternity – The Chemical Brothers and Fatboy Slim had both recently played huge shows there. However; eventually it was decided that we could go and after phoning the venue to ask for more information about the show, a very helpful member of staff at the Academy told my parents that it “was an ideal place for a first gig” and even explained in detail about the “sloping floor that means you get a good view wherever you stand”. Thank you to whoever was manning the venue’s phone lines that day.
“We live in urban hell, we destroy rock and roll’
For the unfamiliar; I will try to sum up the Manics’ story. Summarising 30 years of history in a few paragraphs is no easy task. Formed in the mid-1980s in the South Wales mining town of Blackwood in Gwent, two cousins James Dean Bradfield and Sean Moore (they were actually more like brothers after Sean moved in with the Bradfields following his parents’ acrimonious divorce) formed a band with school friend and aspiring footballer Nick Jones (known as Nicky Wire due to his gangly frame) and later the slightly older and fiercely intellectual Richey Edwards. Spending much of their formative years ensconced in James and Sean’s bedroom, the friends devoured Situationist literature, leftfield films and a whole host of musical influences ranging from Guns N’ Roses and Rush to Magazine and Wire to Public Enemy and James’ love of the melodies of Motown Records to C86-era obscurities like The June Brides and Tallulah Gosh.
The Manics (left-to-right); James Dean Bradfield, Richey Edwards, Nicky Wire, Sean Moore) outside the gates to Buckingham Palace. January 1991.
Their nihilistic early singles ‘Suicide Alley’ (1988, self-financed) and ‘New Art Riot’ (1990, Damaged Goods) were massively out of place against the cultural backdrop of the ecstasy-fuelled acid house scene and the so-called Second Summer of Love of ’89 but got the band noticed. A press release written by Edwards from this time claims “We are as far away from anything in the ’80s as possible” and on stage the band would wear white shirts that they stencilled with slogans such as ‘Culture of Destruction’, ‘Useless Generation’, ‘Lonesome Aesthetic’ and ‘Kill Yourself’. The Manics signed initially to Heavenly Recordings where they released the two classic singles ‘Motown Junk’ and ‘You Love Us’ before moving to Sony imprint Columbia Records on a long-term album deal. The Manics were one of the first bands signed by a certain Rob Stringer who has since gone onto become Chairman of Sony Music Group and CEO of Sony Music Entertainment. They remain close friends to this day and this relationship may well be central to the band’s longevity on the label.
‘Motown Junk’ live at the Marquee Club, Soho in 1991. This video is notable for the dozens of stage divers who invade the band’s performance!
The Manics released their debut album Generation Terrorists in 1992, an 18-track opus of incendiary lyrics and political polemic set against squealing guitars and a very American-sounding stadium rawk production. It did have some brilliant moments though namely, the precociously ambitious ‘Motorcycle Emptiness’, ‘Little Baby Nothing’ and ‘Stay Beautiful’. The band’s public persona became more set in stone during this era too; singer / guitarist Bradfield and drummer Moore were the musical masterminds who wrote the songs and rhythm guitarist Edwards and bassist Wire the outspoken ‘Glamour Twins’ who drafted the lyrics, gave interviews and dictated the band’s aesthetic. The band claimed they had “made the greatest rock album ever” and that they would split up after selling 16 million copies. 29 years and 12 albums later, the band are still together.
The official video to ‘Motorcycle Emptiness’, filmed in Tokyo in 1992 and an unofficial influence on the future Sofia Coppola film ‘Lost in Translation’.
1993’s follow-up Gold Against The Soul, recorded at the sumptuous residential studio Hook End Manor was a fairly forgettable, more radio-friendly affair but the Manics hit their creative peak with 1994’s The Holy Bible. Recorded cheaply in an industrial estate behind Cardiff Central train station and containing a set of dark existential lyrics from Richey Edwards (themes included suicide, anorexia, prostitution and the holocaust), the album is a difficult album to listen to but is pretty much flawless from start to finish and remains the group’s creative benchmark. However, Edwards’ mental health had begun to unravel as early as 1991 when he carved the words ‘4 Real’ into his arm with a razor blade in front of the then-NME journalist Steve Lamacq who had been questioning the group’s integrity and he went onto be hospitalised on more than one occasion for depression, anorexia and alcoholism.
Clockwise (from top left); 1.) and 2.) The band’s regulation military uniforms of The Holy Bible-era. 3.) Jenny Saville’s artwork for The Holy Bible album 4.) Richey Edwards following the notorious ‘4 Real’ incident. 5.) James Dean Bradfield and Sean Moore onstage at the London Astoria in December 1994 – Richey’s last ever show with the band.
On 1st February 1995, Edwards vanished from his hotel room in Bayswater, West London on the eve of the band’s US tour to promote The Holy Bible. He left behind a book of lyrics (these would finally be used on the band’s 2009 Journal for Plague Lovers album) and some mysterious photos of foreign-looking buildings. His Vauxhall Cavalier was found abandoned near the old Severn Bridge at Aust Services but he had also regularly been withdrawing £200 every day from his bank account in the weeks leading up to the disappearance. Richey Edwards has never been found and sadly both of his parents have since passed away without knowing what happened to their son.
In the 2019 book ‘Withdrawn Traces’, Sara Hawys Roberts and Leon Noakes (with the full cooperation of Edwards’ sister Rachel) made a convincing argument that Richey had staged his disappearance; he had long been fascinated by recluses and self-imposed exile and had talked about wanting to spend time in Israel, living on a kibbutz. Whatever happened to Richey Edwards; one thing is clear; he did not want to be found.
After consulting Richey’s parents, the band made the difficult decision to continue as a three-piece (Edwards’ main artistic contribution was his lyrics and image – he didn’t usually contribute musically to albums and his guitar was turned down low in the mix at live shows). The sloganeering shirts of yesteryear and military uniforms of The Holy Bible-era were gone and they returned with a more palatable image and the Phil Spector-inspired Everything Must Go album in 1996. The lead single ‘A Design for Life’ became one of the decade’s most famous and recognisable songs although it’s chorus lyric of “We only want to get drunk” was frequently wrongly interpreted by lager lads as a drinking anthem, when it fact it was a critical comment on how the powers that be often looked down sneeringly at the working class. The song opened with the line “Libraries gave us power” which was inspired by an inscription above the former library in Pillgwenlly, Newport and fittingly the Manics opened Cardiff’s new library in 2009.
The release of Everything Must Go finally resulted in mainstream success for the new three-piece Manics and both the album and its ’98 follow-up This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours were certified multi-platinum, spawned numerous Top 10 singles and saw the band pick up BRIT Awards on two separate occasions for Best British Group and Best British Album. The band saw in the year 2000 with a huge show at Cardiff’s newly-built Millennium Stadium in front of 60,000 fans and bizarrely, they also knocked Westlife off the top spot to claim the first UK number one single of the new millennium with the abrasive standalone track ‘The Masses Against The Classes’.
However, mainstream success and being the new darlings of the music industry sat uncomfortably with the Manics and This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours’ successor Know Your Enemy, released on 19th March 2001 was a challenging, sprawling, 16-track album taking in a myriad of genres and influences. There was primal rock reminiscent of The Stooges (‘Found That Soul’), sunshine ‘60s pop (‘So Why So Sad’), lo-fi (‘Wattsville Blues’), a futuristic take on punk (‘Intravenous Agnostic’ and ‘Dead Martyrs’) and even disco (‘Miss Europa Disco Dancer’) – Diana Ross’ ‘My Old Piano’ was the first single James ever bought, after all.
Jeremy Deller’s video for ‘Found That Soul’.
The artwork, created by Welsh painter Neale Howells featured a blood-stained, lyric-covered wall and throughout the album were lyrical references to leftist politics and in particular, the United States’ relationship with the outside world. The album contained a paean to Elián González (‘Baby Elian’), the Cuban child who had been the subject of an intense custody battle involving the US and Cuban governments, a tribute to the singer and Civil Rights activist Paul Robeson, who also spent time in Cuba (‘Let Robeson Sing’), a track featuring My Bloody Valentine guitarist Kevin Shields called ‘Freedom of Speech Won’t Feed My Children’ and even a curious cover of ‘We Are all Bourgeois’ by ‘80s far-left indie group McCarthy.
Neale Howells’ artwork for Know Your Enemy and the cover to ‘The Masses Against The Classes’ – the first UK number one single of the new millennium.
This album felt like it was the Manics flexing their creative muscle again, reconnecting with their more radical roots and perhaps alienating some of their newer, more casual fans in the process. This sentiment was reinforced when it was announced that the group would be launching the album with a show at the Karl Marx Theatre in Havana, Cuba becoming the first Western group to play in the country since Billy Joel 20 years earlier. The Brixton Academy show on 30th March was only their fourth show since the monumental Havana gig and it’s against this backdrop that we’ll return to that evening in 2001 in the next instalment…
In last week’s post I talked about an often-overlooked gem of a town, Gioia del Colle – 40 km inland from Bari and a town which has become renowned for its cheese and wine. In this post I will turn my attention to three other off-the-beaten-track towns; Casamassima and Triggiano in Puglia and Bronte near Catania in Sicily.
The countryside around Bronte, Sicily.
Casamassima
“The building is horrible and really old and looks like it should be in a horror movie!”
The teenage student had been asked to describe a building in his hometown and had chosen his scuola media (middle school). He continued:
“And there are these really awful trees that grow outside and make the classrooms really dark. For me; they should knock the school down and rebuild it again.”
And when asked about whether he liked living in his hometown, Casamassima?
“Not really. It’s a really boring small town and there’s not much to do apart from studying, running and going to the pizzeria. Tourists never come here.”
Then he remembered something that might vaguely be of interest:
“Oh, but there is this one cool thing. In the centro storico, some of the old houses are painted blue because they thought it would protect them during the… [he looks up the correct word] plague.”
So, when I found myself with a school holiday in February, I took myself off to Casamassima – also known as Puglia’s ‘Blue Town’.
It’s a town with a population of 19,000 that’s 25 minutes’ drive from Bari and nestled at the foot of the Murge Plateau. It has an interesting history and was most likely founded during the Punic Wars by the Roman general Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus. In the 14th century it was attacked by the army of Louis I of Hungary and whilst nearby cities like Bari resisted the attack thanks to its city walls and defences, Casamassima fell and the troops razed the village to the ground, burning and killing everything in sight. It was then subsequently rebuilt by the Principality of Taranto, under The Kingdom of Naples and later commandeered by the Acquaviva and Vaaz families (of Portuguese-Jewish origin).
I arrived in Casamassima in the afternoon on a cold and blustery day and found myself a parking space, near an ugly school building surrounded by huge weeping willow-style trees, that spookily matched my student’s description. If this was the place he was describing, he was spot-on, as you can see below.
Photo: Google Street View.
A short stroll took me into the town centre and after walking through a stone archway and into a narrow street, I found myself in Casamassima’s centro storico and soon enough I began to see several medieval-age stone buildings painted in light blue lime. Casamassima is known in Puglia as “Il Paese Azzurro” (“The Blue Country”) and local legend has it that houses in the town were turned blue by adding copper sulphate to quicklime, after an outbreak of plague in 1658 (transmitted by sailors arriving at the port of Bari) to both ward off and show gratitude to the Madonna for protecting the town against the disease.
In the 1960s, the Millan artist Vittorio Viviani was struck by Casamassima’s uniqueness and began painting new works using the town’s centre as the backdrop. This played a part in reviving the centro storico’s fortunes and also resulted in a period of urbanisation in the town (up until then, most of its residents’ primary source of income had been from agriculture). A large shopping and commercial centre (‘Parco Commerciale Casamassima’) was also built on the edge of the town, although it’s attracted much criticism from locals who see it as an eyesore and are dismayed by the fact that many of its units remain empty.
Casamassima; ‘Il Paese Azzurro’.
This wasn’t my first visit to Casamassima though. Back in the summer, I had visited Villa Pagliaro; an imposing masseria built around 1870. ‘Masseria’ is the Pugliese word for a ‘fortified farmhouse’ and they are a common sight throughout the region. There is a different word for these sorts of buildings, depending on which area of Italy you live in so ‘masseria’ is very typically and exclusively Puglian. I had been given an Italian lesson (and delicious tomato and rosemary crostini) courtesy of one of its residents Tiziana, as well as a tour of the villa’s grounds – now mainly used for the cultivation of olives, cherries and when the season is right, Indian figs (or Barbary figs or the ‘prickly pear’). Tiziana’s partner’s father owns the masseria and had been brought up there so the family was determined to continue making their living as authentically as possible, rather than transforming the building into a luxury wedding venue or boutique hotel, like so many others in the area.
Villa Pagliaro, Casamassima.
However, this masseria also had a secret. During World War II, its top floors became something of an unofficial nightclub for Allied soldiers based in the area and was a place for them to hang out and socialise. As well as an old piano, the attic levels of Villa Pagliaro still contain a number of well-preserved wall paintings and murals from the 1940s. There is a great article about them on the fascinating Barese local history website Barinedita.
The WWII-era murals on the top floor of the masseria. Photos: Barinedita.
Triggiano
Triggiano is another small town in Puglia; about 10 km from Bari driving in the direction of Rutigliano with 14th century origins. If you want a snapshot of daily life in a sleepy Italian town then it’s worth spending a few hours in Triggiano.
It’s actually larger than Casamassima (its population is circa 30,000 but somehow seems a lot quieter and quainter). Its outskirts are mainly non-descript concrete apartment blocks but the town’s centre boasts a number of Baroque 17thcentury churches and a small centro storico. There are plenty of cafes to choose from for a quick espresso hit, as well as the usual delis, pasticcerie and macellerie you’d expect to find in any typical Italian town. Prices were actually slightly cheaper than in the larger cities like Bari and Lecce too. On my way home, I also drove through the nearby Noicattaro and at 5pm on a Saturday the attractive centre was bustling with people fetching supplies for their evening ahead. Perhaps a place to explore in greater detail in future.
Triggiano apparently also has important emigrant communities in both the United States and Venezuela. During the festival of the Madonna della Croce in late-September, families often return to the town to show their children their origins and to donate money to the locality.
Out and about in Triggiano.
Bronte
I spent ten days exploring Sicily in September before the start of the new school year and just after my mates from London Mark and Stu had visited me in Bari. The eight-hour drive through rugged and mountainous Calabria all the way to the ferry terminal at Villa San Giovanni was an experience in itself and I then spent time in Messina (a rough and ready port city but with good food), Cefalu (beautiful but touristy), Palermo (a fascinating, heaving multicultural city), Syracuse (steeped in ancient history and mythology, plus heavenly seafood), Fiumefreddo di Sicilia (um, The Godfather) and Catania (a lively, fun city full of hip hang-outs). However, it was the small town of Bronte, about an hour from Catania and lying in Mount Etna’s shadow that really stood out to me.
Bronte, Sicily.
Bronte is a town that revolves around the growing and harvesting of its very own ‘green gold’ – the pistachio nut. Bronte’s pistachio nuts are said to have a unique flavour (“the perfectbalance between sweet and savoury”), texture and vibrant green colour that is incomparable to any other and they are sought-after by chefs all over the world.
Bronte’s position 760 metres above sea level and on the Western slopes of Mount Etna is said to contribute to its pistachios’ unique quality as the plants absorb nutrients and minerals from the soil containing old lava deposits. The cultivation of pistachios is a tradition that’s handed down from father to son and retrieving the nut from the tree is still done by hand and in some cases, by shaking the plant. As a result of this centuries-old and painstaking process, Bronte pistachios are DOP-certified (of course) and often fetch high prices. You will notice in Sicily that rather than parmesan or pecorino cheese, crushed pistachios will often be served on top of pasta dishes and you can pick up a bag of these pre-crushed at local markets for only a couple of euros.
The first impression of Bronte upon visiting is that it’s a very lush-looking and scenic place. It’s surrounded by green hills, olive groves and cactus fields, yet the ominous presence of Mount Etna is clearly visible from just about anywhere in the town. I stopped for lunch at a small café and picked up a panino, arancino, water and coffee for €2.50 and even though there were several shops dedicated to the humble pistachio nut, it didn’t seem like they were visited by many tourists (it is about one hour’s drive from Catania, around the other side of Mount Etna).
Mount Etna from the road to Bronte.
I took a walk around its quiet, hilly streets, passing the occasional tractor and trailer and through a park that overlooked some hills covered in green vegetation before picking up some of these hallowed pistachios for my family back in the UK. They were very tasty and succulent and were certainly a lot greener than the varieties you find in supermarkets.
Bronte and the surrounding countryside is well worth a visit if you are looking for something a little more unusual to do in Sicily. You can find out more about the town, its history and places to stay here.
I’ve always been a little suspicious of the places that everyone says you simplyhave to visit and am naturally more drawn to the under-the-radar destinations that pass a lot of people by. Whilst the pristine towns close to Bari on the Adriatic Coast like Monopoli and Polignano a Mare are lovely places to have lunch and spend an afternoon, I much preferred exploring the less conspicuous nearby coastal towns Giovinazzo and Mola di Bari, or the misunderstood, slightly rundown, but thoroughly absorbing Taranto.
I’ve yet to visit Florence, Rome or Venice during my extended stay in Italy but I had a great time exploring Bologna, the backstreets of Lecce, Piacenza, Ravenna, Turin and Vasto. In the rugged state of Calabria, most tourists head for the picturesque clifftop settlement of Tropea. Instead I chose to divide my time between the backwater towns Belvedere Marittimo, Diamante and Scalea. I think you have a more authentic experience than in the towns purely oriented for tourists and you get a better feel for everyday Italian life and culture this way.
Despite the ongoing disruption and travel restrictions that have been imposed over this past year as a result of the pandemic, I’ve tried my very best to see and experience as much of Italy as I’ve possibly been able to (also, of course, only when it’s been safe to do so). For the early part of 2021, Puglia was classified as ‘zona gialla’ (‘yellow zone’) and we were not allowed to leave the region. Whilst this was naturally frustrating; it was also a chance to visit some of lesser-known towns within Bari’s immediate vicinity.
Gioia del Colle
I had been intrigued by Gioia del Colle (“Joy of the Hill”) ever since reading about it during my visit to Taranto last August. I had been told that Gioia was the go-to place in Puglia for buying the best fresh mozzarella and burrata (cream-filled mozzarella for the uninitiated) and that it was also famous for its red wine – the Gioia del Colle Primitivo.
I finally got around to visiting two weeks ago and was pleasantly surprised by what I found. Gioia del Colle is a charming small town with a population of 28,000, about 40km inland from Bari, driving down the Strada Statale 100 in the direction of Mottola and Massafra. Much of its prosperity going back hundreds of years has been as a result of agriculture and food production – cheese and wine, but also olive oil and pasta.
As with many Pugliese towns, its outskirts are nondescript and a tad industrial; casual urban sprawl, dotted with the odd mid-century concrete high-rise and petrol station. However, the quaint town centre is focused around the nucleus of the central Piazza Plebiscito and several ornate Baroque churches namely, Chiesa di San Francesco, Chiesa di San Rocco and Chiesa di Santa Maria Maggiore. The latter was originally built in the 11th century and then rebuilt in 1764 following a fire and acts as the city’s principal place of Christian worship. It’s also located in the oldest part of the city, on the edge of the claustrophobic residential maze of the Centro Storico and a stone’s throw from the Norman-Swabian Castle which has Byzantine origins. The castle is now home to the Gioia del Colle National Archaeological Museum.
Clockwise (from top left); 1.) Looking towards Chiesa di Santa Maria Maggiore. 2.) The church’s interior. 3.) Inside Chiesa di San Francesco. 4.) Chiesa di San Rocco. 5.) Its ornate interior. 6.) The Norman-Swabian Castle.
I arrived in the town after lunch when all was still quiet due to the Italian South’s habitual early afternoon period of downtime, il pisolino. It wasn’t until nearer 5pm that the town whirred into action again, its caseifici and macellerie opening their doors for the second time that day, Chiesa Santa Maria Maggiore preparing for the early evening funeral of a local dignitary (the hearse was struggling to manoeuvre the corners of the medieval streets of the Centro Storico when I passed it) and the central piazza becoming a meeting places for both teenagers and uomini vecchi(“elderly men”), alike.
Piazza Plebiscito.
Gioia del Colle’s best-known export is its cheese and its mozzarella has even been awarded the much-coveted DOP (‘Denominazione d’Origine Protetta’) certification. This DOP label ensures that not only has the product been made with locally-sourced ingredients and by local farmers and artisans but that it has also been created using time-honoured traditional methods. Admittedly, Italy’s mild climate, all-year sunshine and fertile (and in some places, volcanic) soil makes it something of an agricultural nirvana and there are numerous different esteemed DOPs for any given product. Italy currently has 138 DOPs in total and over 40 for extra virgin olive oil alone.
Despite having started 2021 on something of a post-Christmas health-kick (rigorous daily exercise, curtailing the booze and copious amounts of oats, natural yoghurt and cider vinegar), I thought it would be rude not to delve into some of the dairified delights of Gioia’s cheese shops (known as ‘caseifici’). After some quick-iPhone led research I decided on ‘Caseificio Artigianale “Masseria Corvello” di Michele Spinelli’on Via Gabriele d’Annunzio, a short walk from the town centre. It proved to be an excellent choice and I was reassured that rather than having a huge cabinet full of lots of different types of cheese, they stuck to a smaller number that they obviously knew were really special.
The counter at Caseificio Artignale ‘Masseria Corvello’, Gioia del Colle.
I picked up some Gioia del Colle DOP mozzarella, a chunk of provolone, a small cylinder of the salty Pugliese semi-soft cheese Cacioricotta and an unusual white cheese that the lady behind the counter described as “formaggi fermentato”. The small individual pearls of mozzarella were delicious and succulent enough to enjoy as a starter with just a drizzle of olive oil, cracked black pepper and some green valerianella leaves (cooking with it seemed like sacrilege). The provolone was ideal for grating into pasta and for baking with and it’s long-lasting – there’s still plenty left. Cacioricotta has been a favourite Pugliese cheese of mine for a while and is equally tasty served with cooked orecchiette and tomatoes (the classic dish Orecchiette al sugo), or on its own with slices of fruit such as figs. The formaggi fermentato was a real revelation; a pungent white cheese that was soft in texture but had the saltiness and bitterness of a strong Roquefort.
Gioia is also famed for its wine and in particular its Primitivo variety which is typical of Puglia and ‘DOC’-certified – ‘Denominazione di origine controllata’. It is required to have a minimum alcohol level of 13% and it is thought to have been popularised in the area by monks who found conditions suitable for cultivating the vine during the Middle Ages. I didn’t buy any wine during my visit to Gioia but did see a bottle of its Primitivo for sale in Bari a week later for €23. Perhaps one for next time I’m celebrating.
I did manage to track down the former site of the Cassano Distillery on the edge of town though. In the late 19thcentury, Gioia del Colle was renowned for not only its wine but also its cognac and spirits using leftover wine that had been distilled. The Cassano Distillery was opened in a former farm in 1891 and thrived until 1914 when the business transferred into the ownership of the Taranto Family and the distillery then subsequently fell into disrepair. It was transferred to the health authority in 1970 to be converted into a hospital but then was taken over by the municipality of Gioia del Colle in 1997. It was renovated in 2006 and is today protected by the Ministry of Culture and Environment as a site of monumental and environmental heritage and hosts concerts and events. It was unfortunately closed up and deserted when I visited but it would be very interesting to explore in non-Covid times.
The former Cassano Distillery.
The old distillery’s entrance.
8km to the north-east of Gioia is the WWF-protected woodland area Boschi Romanazzi. I thought I’d take a quick detour via there on my way home and as the light began to fade. The main road forked right down an unmade road, took me past a grand-looking pair of gates, a roadside shrine to the Madonna and then a lonely crumbling masseria (someone’s dream home in the waiting, before opening out into an expanse of deciduous trees and green fields. It actually looked quintessentially English and was very different to the arid plains and olive groves that surround Bari. A fox even jumped over a hedge in front of my car and for a moment I had to pull over to Google “are there foxes in Italy?”. For some reason, I thought they only stuck to Northern Europe.
The crumbling masseria I passed on my way to Boschi Romanazzi.
I continued down a track marked by a sign with a large red circle and a white line running across it and then clocked a farmer on a rusty-looking tractor who was finishing his day’s work. He eyed my bright red car with an English registration plate suspiciously and I decided it was the right time to turn around and head back to the main road. I filled the tank up with petrol, got back on the SS100 and made good time getting back to Bari, eager to be home ahead of the 10pm Covid curfew.
Boschi Romanazzi, Gioia del Colle.
As with many obscure Italian towns, Gioia del Colle actually has a tenuous link to Hollywood celebrity too. Sylvester Stallone’s grandparents Silvestro (a barber in the town) and Pulchiera were born and raised in Gioia before emigrating to America in 1930. There is even a mysterious photo in existence of Sylvester, alongside his father and brother in 1965, said to be taken in the town. Its location has never been able to be confirmed though.
Gioia del Colle is definitely worth a visit if you are in Puglia. It’s driveable in a day from the cities Bari, Brindisi and Taranto and there’s enough in the town to even make a relaxing weekend break. It might be a good idea to fast leading up to it though, bearing in mind the calories you are likely to consume in decadent cheeses and rich red wine.
The streets near to Gioia del Colle’s Centro Storico and the town hall (“Comune di Gioia del Colle”).
In my next post; I’ll continue the theme of exploring under-the-radar places and will talk a little about Puglia’s “blue town” Casamassima, nearby Triggiano and a small town under Mount Etna’s shadow in Sicily whose economy revolves around “the green gold” – the humble pistachio nut.
Why The Pipettes were marvellously out of place in 2004
15 years ago this month, The Pipettes released their first single to dent the UK Top 40 (reaching number 35 in March 2006), ‘Your Kisses Are Wasted On Me’. Whilst it’s a jaunty-sounding two-minute pop song with a catchy refrain, it contains a wistful pre-chorus and a barbed lyric where the singer pleads with a needy ex-boyfriend to finally leave her alone. “And you might cry for some time” and then later in the track; “I want you out of here, don’t send me wild / you’re just a child.”
On a trip to Nashville, Tennessee some years later whilst working for the Jack Daniel’s music team, I found out that a colleague actually met her future husband at the video shoot for ‘Your Kisses Are Wasted On Me’. The band invited fans to be in the audience and it was shot at the much-missed Kilburn Luminaire – both Music Week and Time Out London’s ‘Venue of the Year’, before closing its doors and being turned into student accommodation in 2011.
The official video to ‘Your Kisses Are Wasted On Me’.
The Pipettes formed in Brighton in 2003 and the group originally started life as the vision of local musician, actor and writer Robert “Monster Bobby” Barry. Bobby was already a luminary of the city’s alternative music scene and friends with established Brighton bands such as British Sea Power, The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster, The Electric Soft Parade and Brakes. Inspired by the heartbreak pop of the girl groups of the early 1960s, yet determined to give it a modern slant, Bobby recruited various faces from across the Brighton music world and brought them together for an initial get-together at The Basketmaker’s Arms on Gloucester Road in the North Laine area. The first line-up of The Pipettes was born.
The Pipettes. Left-to-right; RiotBecki, Gwenno, Rosay.
Consisting of three singers and their respective adopted alter egos; poet and photographer Julia Clark-Lowes (“The Duchess”), Rebecca Stephens (more commonly referred to as “RiotBecki”) and multi-instrumentalist Rose Elinor Dougall (“Rosay”), it was agreed that The Pipettes would be backed by an all-male band known as The Cassettes. This would feature Monster Bobby himself on guitar, drummer Joe Van Moyland and brothers Jon and Seb Falcone. Only the three female Pipettes would take part in any interviews and the individual personalities of The Cassettes were deliberately largely anonymous; in live shows, members could only be identified by the initials embroidered on the musicians’ matching knitted beige cardigans. Julia would leave The Pipettes in 2005 and be replaced by the Cardiff-born singer Gwenno Saunders who had left Wales aged 16 and moved to Las Vegas to star in Michael Flatley’s ‘Lord of the Dance’.
In contrast to the drab outfits The Cassettes wore onstage, The Pipettes’ uniform were kitsch blue and white polka dot dresses, heavily leaning on late-1950s fashion. Their sound wore its influences on its sleeve too; Phil Spector-produced girl groups like The Ronettes and The Crystals, the harder-edged Shangri-Las and Motown’s more soulful Supremes, yet also British Invasion-era solo artists such as Cilla Black, Helen Shapiro, Sandie Shaw and Dusty Springfield. However, songs such as ‘Pull Shapes’ also showed a more modern side, incorporating electronic and disco elements, as well as the songwriting and production prowess of the ‘80s powerhouse Eurobeat trio Stock Aitken Waterman.
‘Because It’s Not Love (But It’s Still A Feeling)’
Despite being heavily influenced musically by the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s, The Pipettes’ attitude and lyrical content was thoroughly modern and the group avoided falling into the revivalism trap. Whilst Dusty sang “I only want to be with you”, The Pipettes fiercely warned off potential suitors; “leave me alone, you’re just a one night stand.” The Crystals sang the praises of a male protagonist in their most famous song ‘He’s A Rebel’, but The Pipettes reminisced about ‘Judy’, the intimidating bad girl at school; “she used to do things I thought were rude / but I never said anything to her face / ‘cuz my friends, I thought she’d kick my arse all over the place.” Then there was the small matter of grievous bodily harm on the indie disco dancefloor in ‘It Hurts To See You Dance So Well’:
“Half past one on the dance-floor, And my thoughts have turned to murder, Can’t these strangers feel my eyes, burning into them, They know that I want to kill them.”
‘It Hurts To See You Dance So Well’
‘It Hurts To See You Dance So Well’ live at the Brighton Freebutt. 30th September 2007.
The group also spoke in interviews about how their formation was very much a reaction to becoming tired of the post-Strokes and pre-Arcade Fire musical landscape of the early to mid-noughties. Whilst not dissing their music specifically, they were also antipathetic towards The Beatles and the consequent legacy they inspired; in particular, “all of the really boring all-male guitar bands”. When asked to name her favourite artists of the 1960s in an interview with the Spanish fanzine Yellow Melodies, Rose named girl groups “The Shirelles, The Chantelles and The Revlons” and tellingly, “Pulp and Sleater-Kinney” for the ‘90s. The Pipettes definitely had a riot grrrl side to them too and even though their melodies were impeccable and unmistakably poppy, their songs were permeated with shrieks, yells and chants that wouldn’t be out of place on a Bikini Kill, Huggy Bear or Shrag record.
Various live shots of The Pipettes between 2005 and 2007.
I first saw The Pipettes live in late 2005 at the tiny Cardiff Barfly. It was a matinee show on a Sunday afternoon and my English Literature coursemate Matt (later the frontman of the band Drowners) and I arrived early (and hungover) to gingerly nurse a lunchtime pint, unsure of exactly what to expect. The crowd was relatively sparse but the show was great, with the band working their way through many of the tracks that would later appear on their debut album ‘We Are The Pipettes’ (released in July 2006 and produced by Gaz Parton of The Go! Team fame), complete with their trademark synchronised hand jives and choreography. I also recall it being one of Gwenno’s first performances (if not the first) with the band and several friends and family were there with it being a hometown show for her.
The next time I saw them live would be 18 months later and in slightly different surroundings; The Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury 2007. It was my first Glasto’, I had just turned 20, was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and on Saturday had been up watching bands from 10am whilst my friends still dozed at our Kidney Mead campsite HQ. Even though they went onstage in the lunchtime slot The Pipettes were my fourth act of the day; “you don’t seriously like these do you mate?”, was one of my more sceptical mate’s reactions to the gig.
The Pipettes performing their signature tune ‘We Are The Pipettes’. The Pyramid Stage, Glastonbury. 23rd June 2007.
In many ways, that Pyramid Stage appearance represented the pinnacle of the first incarnation of The Pipettes’ career. Their debut album was released to generally positive acclaim and their chart positions gradually increased with each single, peaking with ‘Pull Shapes’ (No. 26 in the UK, also in July 2006). However, Rose Elinor Dougall and RiotBecki both left the band in early 2008 and the consequent revolving door policy of Pipette members never saw the band reach the same heights again. 2010’s album ‘Earth vs The Pipettes’ only featuring Gwenno and her sister Ani, bombed both critically and commercially.
The cover to the group’s debut album ‘We Are The Pipettes’.
The Pipettes story has a happy ending though and the group proved to be quite the launchpad for future endeavours. Since leaving, Rose Elinor Dougall has had a well-respected solo career, releasing three albums and collaborating and touring with Mark Ronson. Her brother Tom played guitar with the brief indie starlets Joe Lean & The Jing Jang Jong and is now in psychedelic band and former Heavenly Recordings signing Toy. RiotBecki / Rebecca Stephens has collaborated with Californian singer Jesca Hoop and appears regularly with her live. Former drummer Joe Van Moyland (real name; Joseph Bernays) was the frontman of the short-lived but massively-hyped aforementioned Joe Lean & The Jing Jang Jong and will be familiar to many readers as Sophie’s brother Jamie in the British comedy Peep Show.
Clockwise (from top left); 1.) Rose Elinor Dougall performing live. 2.) Gwenno live at Islington Assembly Hall, 2018. 3.) The short-lived Joe Lean & The Jing Jang Jong. 4.) The Cassettes’ former drummer Joe playing Sophie’s brother Jamie in ‘Peep Show’.
It’s Gwenno though who has perhaps, experienced the most success since leaving the band in 2010. She initially toured as synth player with both Elton John and Pnau and then signed to Jeff Barrett’s eclectic Heavenly Recordings in 2015 as a solo artist in her own right. She has since released several EPs and two widely-acclaimed minority language albums (she was raised by Welsh and Cornish language activist parents) including ‘Y Dydd Olaf’(‘The Last Day’) which won The Welsh Music Prize in 2015 and 2018’s Cornish language album ‘Le Kov’. The Cornish Language Board claimed that the latter directly resulted in a 15 percent increase in people taking Cornish language exams in 2018 and Gwenno was made a Bard of the Cornish Gorsedh at a ceremony in Saint Just, Penwith in 2019. Gwenno also collaborated with the Manic Street Preachers in December 2020 to re-record English and Welsh versions of their track ‘Spectators of Suicide’, with the download proceeds going to food bank charity The Trussell Trust and Missing People UK.
Gwenno at The Bard of the Cornish Gorsedh ceremony, 2019. Photo: Greg Martin.
The Bard of the Cornish Gorsedh ceremony. Gwenno is third from left. Photo: Greg Martin.
The Pipettes (and The Cassettes) were proudly independent and fiercely claimed that “we manufactured ourselves” and that every member was as involved in the creative process as the other. That said, Rose and Gwenno have both since talked about how they eventually found being in the group “restrictive” as they began to develop musical ideas that were outside of the tried-and-tested formula and given the free-spirited nature of all of its members, The Pipettes would always have a limited shelf life. They were fantastically out of place set against the musical backdrop of the time though (Jet, Razorlight and Kaiser Chiefs anyone?) and although they paid their dues to the girl groups of yesteryear musically, they put to right the subservience and patriarchal nature of their lyrics. Outspoken, risqué and most importantly fun, The Pipettes were ahead of their time. Give their debut album ‘We Are The Pipettes’a spin and re-immerse yourself in their world for 33 minutes.
A 2006 mini-documentary about The Pipettes
The full set from The Pipettes’ show at the Camden Barfly. 25th February 2005
In my last post, I waxed lyrical about Jamboree; a unique venue that started life in the Cable Street Studios complex in Limehouse and has recently announced its return to the Kings Cross area of London.
“Every now and then, you find a music venue that has a certain special aura and is simply unlike any other you’ve been to before. Sometimes it’s unique in its interior or location, sometimes it’s the warmth and generosity of the people running the place and other times it’s the programming of the events and the venue’s cultural or historical significance.Jamboree in Limehouse was one of those.”
‘The return of Jamboree’ (Set Your Own Scene, 22nd February 2021)
I want to now shine a spotlight on some of the other special venues that have particularly stood out to me over the years, either from playing gigs at them myself or watching as a punter. Here is a snapshot of ten that immediately spring to mind from Bari to Bedford, via LA and Pune, Maharashtra.
I’ve included links wherever possible to the venues in question – please do take a look and find out more about them! They need all the support they can get after this pandemic year.
On stage at Clwb Ifor Bach with The Screenbeats. May 2007 (photo: Ed Salter).
I had been reading about Cardiff’s legendary ‘Clwb’ (also affectionately known locally as ‘The Welsh Club’) for years prior to going to university in the city and it lived up to expectations as the beating heart of the city’s alternative music scene. For at least the first year of university, the highlight of my week was going to The Dudes Abide night on Fridays where the DJ was usually Gary Anderson who also ran the hallowed Cardiff indie-pop night Twisted by Design at the nearby Dempsey’s (now bizarrely Gareth Bale’s sports bar Elevens) on Saturdays and Cardiff’s famous rugby pub the City Armson Thursdays. Through regularly going to these nights as an 18-year-old I discovered Belle & Sebastian’s back catalogue, became obsessed with The Supremes and tracks like ‘The Rat’ by The Walkmen, ‘Happy Together’ by The Turtles and ‘The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth’ by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah became as ubiquitous to my ears as commercial radio’s airplay of Kelly Clarkson’s ‘Since U Been Gone’ around that same time.
The Welsh Club spanned three floors catering to pretty much every genre possible on various nights of the week. I spent on average six hours a week here between 2005 and 2008 and even met Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr there in 2008 after one of his first gigs as a new member of The Cribs at the nearby Student’s Union. I was a little tongue-tied to really say much to him other than ask for a photo but I had a better chat with Ryan Jarman from The Cribs a year earlier when we were both watching Everett True (the journalist who introduced Kurt Cobain to Courtney Love) and Manics biographer Simon Price DJ in the downstairs room. Ryan remembered an early regional newspaper interview I did with them at the Reading Fez Club back in 2004 and the main topic of conversation was how passé and justplainwrong the current Sex Pistols reunion was (The Cribs had recently supported them at Brixton Academy).
Now Clwb is the subject of some exciting new expansion plans involving the venue taking over the derelict building next door. Hopefully these plans will cement Womanby Street’s position as Cardiff’s cultural quarter (as well as the longstanding hub of the annual Sŵn Festival) for many decades to come.
Clockwise (from top left); 1.) Clwb Ifor Bach, Womanby Street, Cardiff. 2) The downstairs floor during Swn Festival 2012. 3.) Telegram getting ready to play a Jack Rocks show at Clwb for Swn Festival 2015.
I stumbled upon the Shisha Jazz Café whilst staying in Pune, Maharashtra for a few days in November 2019. Part of the ABC Farms complex in the hip Koregaon Park district of the city that actually contains a couple of live music venues, the café was one of my favourite hangouts from my trip to India and provided some much-needed calm after a week of rushing around hectic Mumbai. Part-jazz café, part-jungle treehouse; there were several huge trees growing through its floor, rustic tapestries and kitsch lanterns hanging from the rafters and its wooden walls were adorned with pictures of the likes of Chick Corea, Dizzy Gillespie, Bill Evans and Sun Ra. It is also home to the Pune International Jazz Festival. It’ll be one of the first places I head to when I visit Pune again.
A national institution as far as independent music venues go, Band On The Wall on Swan Street in Manchester’s Northern Quarter has been hosting live music since at least the 1930s. The venue got its name from the fact that the musicians originally played on a raised stage halfway up the pub’s wall! The venue has had a long association with jazz, blues, folk and punk and today prides itself on hosting an eclectic array of artists from a wide range of genres. I saw tabla player Saleel Tembe perform there in 2018 and before the concert he hosted an interactive workshop with the audience – that’s just the kind of place Band On The Wall is. Now a registered charity, the venue was awarded £3.2 million in 2007 by Arts Council England and the Heritage Lottery Fund to transform into a music venue for the 21st century.
Saleel Tembe at Band on The Wall, August 2018 and a band quite literally playing on the wall at the venue circa 1946 (photo: The Band On The Wall archive).
Forever immortalised on screen as the location for the filming of Super Hans’ notorious “juice cleanse stag do” scene in the cult British comedy series Peep Show,Passing Clouds was a community-run arts venue off the Kingsland Road in Dalston, East London.
Opened in 2006; the venue hosted musical nights, as well as community-led initiatives including the ‘Permaculture Picturehouse’, healing and self-development workshops and swing dancing and instrument lessons. Housed in the former printworks of the Hackney Gazette, two notable gigs at Passing Clouds for me were Sun Ra’s Arkestra led by the then 91-year-old saxophonist Marshall Allen and the Brixton-based Effra Hall Jazz Band. There was a blizzard during the latter gig and a subsequent snow fight ensued afterwards, culminating with my friends and I being branded “bumbaclarts” by an angry Rastafarian gentleman who was accidentally hit by a stray snowball whilst enjoying a smoke outside.
Passing Clouds was sadly closed down and boarded up in 2016 and is now The Jago.
In a way, Bari’s equivalent of London’s former Passing Clouds venue, Ex Caserma Liberata is a squatted space located in the city’s former Rossani Barracks. Whatever your political persuasion is regarding people squatting in derelict buildings, it’s difficult to argue that Ex Caserma Liberata isn’t a hive of creativity and home to a friendly and welcoming community. In non-Covid times; the space consists of a music venue that hosts both bands and DJs, a permaculture garden, impressive sculptures and street art, workshop spaces and even an indoor skate ramp. It hosts everything from punk festivals to dub nights to poetry readings and political meetings. The site is set to be transformed by the authorities into an urban park and public library in the not-too-distant future at a reputed cost of €450 million so the Barese need to make the most of this unique space whilst they still can.
Ex Caserma Liberata and one of Bari’s most interesting emerging bands Strebla performing there in 2019.
In 2007, a huge Victorian pub on the corner of Effra Road and Brixton Water Lane which had previously been known as The George Canning and then The Hobgoblin became Hootananny. Now run by a Scottish family, ‘Hoots’ dedicated itself to live music, particularly (but definitely not limited to) the world music side of things. You never know quite what you’ll see when you go to Hootannany but on a Friday or Saturday night it’s guaranteed to be lively. Boasting a large hostel on the upper floors (what a great idea if you were a music-loving traveller) and a huge garden out the front, you can choose between whether you soak up the music indoors or sit and enjoy a cold beer and some excellent Caribbean food on the benches outside. I’ve had some of my best nights out in London here and it was also a packed place to watch the England football team’s unexpected run to the semi-finals World Cup 2018.
I’ve written about seeing Berlin’s Ellen Allien at the Sound Department Club just outside Taranto before, but this is a truly unique place. Located about five miles outside of the city near to the Italian naval docks and hidden out-of-sight amongst olive groves and Mediterranean scrubland, the venue appears to be entirely made from shipping containers. There were two separate live rooms; one that was low-lit and a distinctly industrial affair and the other which was brighter and more house-flavoured. At about 3am, the club’s security staff winched up the metal sides of the venue to transform it into an open-air space and an hour later, the roof slid back to let in the early morning Pugliese sunlight.
Tbilisi DJ Newa’s Boiler Room set live from Sound Department, Taranto. December 2019.
Located in LA’s at-times, self-consciously hip Silver Lake neighbourhood, The Satellite made its name in the 1990s as the famed Spaceland venue. Its first ever gig in 1995 featured The Foo Fighters and Beck, it hosted early shows by The White Stripes and The Silversun Pickups and it was the venue choice for Arthur Lee & Love’s comeback show after Lee’s release from prison in 2001. It also starred in the Jim Carey film ‘Yes Man’ as the venue where Zooey Deschanel’s character’s band played their live shows. We saw The Bulls there who played a bemusing shoegaze cover of ‘Alright’ by Supergrass – I think we were in the minority in the audience by actually being familiar with the original version.
The Satellite was quite similar to many British venues of a similar size but everything was just nicer, albeit in a slightly sanitised, yet typically Los Angelan way. The toilets were clean and didn’t smell, the floor wasn’t sticky and awash with stale beer and there was even a pool table at the back of the room for in-between bands. Instead of a greasy burger van being stationed outside, there was of course, a converted silver Airstream caravan serving up delicious tacos. Once the epicentre of Silver Lake’s alternative music scene, there are now plans afoot to transform The Satellite into a restaurant.
From sunny LA to Bedford. My old band The Shake was offered a show at The Angel back in summer 2006. The venue on Bedford Broadway had hosted Oasis back in 1994 (it was still extremely proud of this) and was enjoying a new lease of life after a refurbishment and recently hosting Razorlight whilst they were still on their ascendency (and still credible). We had been due to support The Heights, a former Guardian New Band of the Week and Best Before Records signing. However, they had pulled out a couple of weeks before and we were moved up the bill to become the impromptu headliner.
Despite most of the audience originally buying their tickets to see The Heights, it was one of the best shows we ever did and we played to a packed and receptive room. Despite Bedford not exactly being a hotbed for rock and roll, the venue was clearly a labour of love and had a great soundsystem. We got paid, given free beer and even got a cheery hug from the promoter after the show! Sadly, The Angel shut down a few years later (it had stiff competition from the long-established Esquires venue around the corner in the town) and is now Doorstep Dolci, a café specialising in “American-Belgian Waffles, oven-baked cookie dough, artisan gelato and milkshakes.”
The former location of The Angel music venue, Bedford.
The Troubadour on Old Brompton Road, West London is best-known in music circles as being the venue for Bob Dylan’s first ever UK gig in 1962. Opened in 1954 as a coffee house, it was one of the city’s prominent folk venues of the time hosting performances from Joni Mitchell, Bert Jansch, Davey Graham and Sandy Denny, as well as the more raucous Jimi Hendrix, Charlie Watts, Sammy Davis Jr (slightly more raucous) and Led Zeppelin – the latter would jam at the club after shows at the nearby Earls Court Arena. Today, it retains many of its original features and décor but has been expanded to include a restaurant / café, outdoor dining space, small art gallery as well as the 135-capacity downstairs venue. I played here in 2010 and contemporary artists to come through its doors in recent years include Florence Welch, Ellie Goulding, Adele, Jamie T and Ed Sheeran, with its small size making it ideal for showcases. The Troubadour was also the inspiration for the Los Angeles venue of the same name, with it even copying the distinctive typeface above the door. Time to put its London counterpart on the musical map again.
The Trobadour’s interior, virtually untouched since 1954 and Ronnie Wood and Mick Taylor playing the club in 2013.
Every now and then, you find a music venue that has a certain special aura and is simply unlike any other you’ve been to before. Sometimes it’s unique in its interior or location, sometimes it’s the warmth and generosity of the people running the place and other times it’s the programming of the events and the venue’s cultural or historical significance.
Jamboree in Limehouse was one of those. It was the live music venue for the Cable Street Studios complex; an 88,000-square foot former sweet factory that was built by Batgers Confectionery in the 1860s. Despite the site being worth a small fortune to potential developers, its owner was a keen believer in the power of the arts and culture and by 2011 it had become a thriving artistic community consisting of over 200 individual artists’ studios, a mosque and a transgender nightclub, happily co-existing side-by-side and the Jamboree venue.
The old Jamboree venue, Limehouse, London.
Many of the artist studios also doubled up as residential dwellings; the workspace and the kitchenette area on the ground level and then a wooden mezzanine above housing the sleeping quarters. My old school friend Charlie spent a couple of years there and it was always fascinating to go and see him and meet the various characters who also called the studios home.
On one occasion Charlie organised for the Imam of Cable Street’s mosque to give a talk to the other residents about the customs of Islam and there would also be frequent ‘Open Studio’ days where the complex would open its doors to the public. The artists would welcome you into their studios to view their latest work and there were also many performance art spectacles. One performance that stands out in my mind was an artist dropping pieces of broken glass down a stone staircase on piece at a time. Remarkably, he had worked out that each piece had a different pitch and the result was surprisingly musical.
Clockwise (from top left); 1.) Cable Street Studios, Limehouse (photo: Ewan Munro). 2.) The old entrance to Jamboree (photo: Ewan Munro). 3.) My friends Roger and Hanna outside Jamboree, December 2013. 4.) Another view of the live room at Jamboree.
Charlie and I had become good mates around the age of 14 when we formed a four-piece guitar band called Felix Mandelson. We covered The Vines and Red Hot Chili Peppers and our own songs were a perfect blend of naivety and well-meaning pretention. “New Era” (written by moi and our rhythm guitarist Mike) paid homage to Che Guevara and contained the chorus line; “It’s the beginning of a new era for us // We’ve got to stop the pigs from exploiting what we’ve got”. On the other hand, one of Charlie’s songs “Enemies to the Peace” quoted verse from Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet. Charlie has since gone on to be a successful actor on both stage and screen and the last time I caught up with him, he had been touring Europe in Dracula playing Jonathan Harker.
Anyway, the evening I discovered Jamboree, I had taken the DLR over to Limehouse after work (I was living and working in Islington at the time) to catch up with Charlie over a couple of beers and we had decided to check out what was going on across the courtyard. We lucked out that night as it turned out that Simo Lagnawi was performing – one of the main proponents of traditional Gnawa music in London. Simo, originally of Amazigh (Berber) origin had spent several years travelling around Morocco studying Gnawa music, as well as Ahwash chanting before relocating to London. He has since set up the London School of Gnawa in the city’s East End.
Simo Lagnawi performing at Jamboree.
It was a captivating concert with Lagnawi being joined onstage by two other Moroccan musicians whilst accompanying himself on the guimbri, a three-stringed instrument made from stretched camel skin and goat gut. The music was strangely hypnotic with complex polyrhythms and syncopated, repeating riffs and chants. Everything was kept in time by one of the musicians frantically playing the qraqeb – iron castanet-like finger cymbals. There were only around 50 people present in Jamboree that evening but everyone was silent whilst the band was playing; fully absorbed in their music.
Simo Lagnawi performing at the V&A Museum, London in 2013 – around the time we also saw him play at Jamboree.
Jamboree was a unique venue too; a cross between a bohemian café and Tony Hornecker’s pop-up restaurant-cum-art installation The Pale Blue Door. The stage and the venue’s windows were surrounded by velvet drapes, comfortable sofas and arm chairs were dotted around the room and there was art from some of Cable Street’s artists adorning every wall. The venue took a chance on booking artists not usually looked at by more mainstream music venues too – Eastern European folk, calypso and zouk performances, Celtic roots music and gypsy jazz. Charlie mentioned that Jonathan Richman of The Modern Lovers fame had even performed a secret acoustic gig there too.
Unfortunately, in 2018 just shy of its tenth anniversary Jamboree was forced to close its doors after being served notice by Cable Street Studios’ new landlord Sudbury Properties. After a temporary stay on Three Colt Street, also in Limehouse, it shut its doors at the beginning of 2020, potentially for good.
I was overjoyed, however, to receive an email last week announcing that Jamboree would be returning in 2021 with a new home in Kings Cross, North London. Kings Cross – as recently as a decade ago, one of the last undeveloped parts of Central London and a quasi-red light district – is fast becoming the destination of choice for the creative industries. As well as behemoth companies such as Google, Facebook, communications group Havas, PRS for Music and Universal Music now calling the area home, there are some much more interesting developments happening just beneath the surface.
For example, the music start-up incubator community Tileyard is home to several emerging challengers in the music and tech space and the likes of Mark Ronson and Sir Antony Gormley even have studios there. The Spiritland audiophile bar opened a few years ago on Stable Street and boasts that its huge, bespoke soundsystem is “the best in London” (I’ve been there a few times and it is pretty special – as are the huge speakers inside each individual bathroom cubicle). The team behind Omeara in Flat Iron Square (led by Mumford & Sons musician Ben Lovett) opened the 600-capacity Lafayette venue in February 2020 and although its launch has been disrupted by the pandemic, it’s set to reopen later this year. Although one night there will set you back around £200, the newly-opened Standard Hotel just off Euston Road and owned by the same group behind LA’s notorious den of iniquity the Chateau Marmont, contains its very own venue and has promised regular music events and “cultural happenings”.
Clockwise (from top left); 1.) Tileyard, Kings Cross. 2.) Inside the newly-opened Lafayette. 3.) Inside The Standard hotel. 4.) The prized sound system at Spiritland, Stable Street.
These new venues join the already well-established bastions of live music in Kings Cross such as The Scala (where the iconic cover to Iggy & The Stooges’ Raw Power album was shot), the famous grassroots venue Water Rats, arts café Drink Shop Do and electronic music club The Egg. The Guardian and The Observer newspapers have, of course also been based on York Way, Kings Cross since 2008 too.
Clockwise (from top left); 1.) The Egg, York Way. 2.) The Water Rats, Grays Inn Road (photo: Adam Bruderer). 3.) The iconic sign outside The Scala (photo: Ian Muttoo). 4.) The front cover of Iggy & The Stooges’ ‘Raw Power’ (taken at The Scala) 5.) Drink Shop Do, Caledonian Road.
Whilst there’s no denying that 2020 has been the toughest year on record for the performing arts, there are also some encouraging signs outside of the Kings Cross bubble. The Music Venue Trust confirmed at the beginning of February that 13 venues on its ‘danger list’ had already been saved from imminent closure. Only last week, the creation of the first-ever trade body for the live music industry LIVEwas announced to widespread support. Many venues such as Band on The Wall in Manchester and The Wedgewood Rooms in Portsmouth have used this time to carry out essential repairs to their venues with The Wedge relaying the wooden floor in its main room.
Repairs taking place at The Wedgewood Rooms, Portsmouth. October 2020.
Even closer to (my adopted) home in Bari in Puglia, there are some green shoots of recovery appearing too. The 1920s Art Deco venue Kursaal Santa Lucia on the city’s Lungomare (‘seafront’ to you and I) is set to reopen in spring this year after a lengthy refurbishment and shows are already starting to be tentatively booked again in venues such as Teatro Petruzzelli and Teatro Kismet.
The soon-to-be-reopened Kursaal Santa Lucia, Bari.
Hopefully the post-Covid age will see a Belle Époque-style resurgence for the live music sector and a surge in creative pursuits in general. Watch this space.
The story of The Middle Earth; London’s radical first underground club
Pre-Covid (will we refer to this time as ‘P.C.’ in years to come?), I lived for going to gigs and I’ve always found live music venues and their history fascinating. My sister Rachel helped kick-start this obsession as a teenager when she bought me the book ‘Rock and Roll London’ by Max Wooldridge – containing a foreword by the provocative Sex Pistols and New York Dolls impresario Malcolm McLaren.
I spent two weeks staying with her in Bermondsey, South London in 2002 and again in 2004 whilst doing work experience at NME magazine, then based in King’s Reach Tower, Waterloo. At NME, the workies would be allowed to leave the office at 4.30pm but my sister wouldn’t finish work in Covent Garden until nearer 6pm so I’d use this hour and a half to wander around Central London with the ‘Rock and Roll London’ book in hand tracking down the city’s various musical landmarks.
‘Rock and Roll London’ by Max Wooldridge
King’s Reach Tower, the former home of NME. Now refurbished and known as ‘South Bank Tower’
From the Sex Pistols’ notorious squat at 6 Denmark Street to Syd Barrett’s former pad on Earlham Street to the site of Trident Studios (where Bowie recorded ‘Ziggy Stardust’, amongst countless others) on St Anne’s Court in Soho, making a pilgrimage to these hallowed haunts was a fun way to pass the time and it helped me to become familiar with the more obscure streets of Soho, Fitzrovia, Mayfair and Covent Garden. Ironically, these areas would be where I would spend much of my PR career ten years later.
I secretly hoped that some of the musical magic of the city would rub off on me and I began spending increasing amounts of time on Denmark Street (London’s Tin Pan Alley) after finishing work at NME, trying out various guitars that I had no intention (or financial means, being only 15 at the time) of buying. The assistants in shops like Andy’s Guitars, Macari’s and Wunjo, many of them aspiring musicians themselves, didn’t seem to mind though and were very accommodating; courteously getting down the vintage Fender Jaguar or rare Gibson Melody Maker that I’d asked to test out from the display wall. One evening after work, I spotted Coldplay guitarist Jonny Buckland out shopping for guitars on Denmark Street. Although personally not a huge fan, in 2002 they had just released their 10 x platinum album ‘A Rush Of Blood To The Head’ and were fast on their way to becoming the stadium band we all know today so I figured out that I was in the right place.
Denmark Street today looking towards St Giles High Street and the Google offices.
One of the many guitar emporiums on the street.
I was also fascinated by former punk clubs The Roxy on Neal Street, The Vortex on Wardour Street and Louise’s on Poland Street, as well as the early folk and skiffle venues Les Cousins on Greek Street and the 2i’s Coffee Bar on Old Compton Street. On Wardour Street, I tracked down both the influential jazz, R&B and calypso club The Flamingo and the radical, unofficial HQ of the New Romantic movement The WAG Club, as well as the three incarnations of the world-famous Marquee Club on Oxford Street, Wardour Street and finally Charing Cross Road.
Clockwise (from top left); 1.) Dave Vanian of The Damned onstage at The Roxy (photo: Derek Ridgers). 2.) The queue outside The Roxy on Neal Street. 3.) Siouxsie & The Banshees at The Vortex (photo: Ray Stevenson) 4.) The Sex Pistols outside their Denmark Street squat5.) A flyer for The Vortex featuring The Buzzcocks, The Fall and John Cooper Clarke 6.) Malcom McLaren, Steve Jones, Glen Matlock, Marco Pirroni and pals get the drinks in at Louise’s, Poland Street.
Clockwise (from top left); 1.) Kids in mod attire outside The Flamingo on Wardour Street 2.) The entrance to The WAG Club 3.) Bill Kent at the 2i’s Coffee Bar, Old Compton Street 4.) The Marquee on Wardour Street, Soho in 1975 5.) and 6.) Donovan and a young Paul Simon perform at Les Cousins on Greek Street (photo: Ian Anderson).
Then there was The Middle Earth at 43 King Street in Covent Garden – London’s first ‘underground’ venue and prior to that, England’s first-ever boxing club, before closing its doors in 1936. Housed in the large basement of the palatial 18th century Baroque mansion Russell House, the oldest remaining building in Covent Garden Piazza (built in 1717 for Admiral Russell, the First Earl of Orford), The Middle Earth for a short period in the mid-late 1960s was the most exciting hippie club in London. The direct successor to the UFO Club(“U-Fo”, to those in the know) on Tottenham Court Road, the club’s Saturday night house DJ was future Radio 1 broadcaster John Peel and it hosted shows by illuminati such as Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd, David Bowie, The Electric Prunes, Ike & Tina Turner, Marc Bolan’s Tyrannosaurus Rex, Soft Machine, Tim Buckley, The Who, The Byrds (featuring Gram Parsons), Jefferson Airplane, Fairport Convention, Zoot Money and Captain Beefheart.
A selection of line-up posters for The Middle Earth including The Doors at its later home of The Roundhouse in Camden Town.
During the day, the cellar that played host to The Middle Earth doubled up as a storage space used by the nearby fruit and vegetable market. By evening, the stench of rotting fruit and veg, combined with the fumes from the club’s numerous incense burners was said to be somewhat intoxicating. Bizarrely, the venue’s ‘bar’ sold mainly apples, rather than alcoholic drinks. The club was famous for its floor-to-ceiling film projections, liquid slides and light shows, and hosted poetry and plays, as well as live music. One notable production was by The Tribe of the Psychedelic Mushroom who performed a play based on The Tibetan Book of the Dead. Far out, man.
John Peel introducing Marc Bolan’s Tyrannosaurus Rex (a nascent version of T. Rex) onstage at The Middle Earth. ‘Sarah Crazy Child’. November 1967.
As with the UFO, The Middle Earth’s lifespan was a brief one. Its doors usually opened at around 10pm with revellers finally emerging into the Covent Garden daylight around 8am and the police were highly suspicious of these bleary-eyed hippies who had been spending all night down in Russell House’s basement. The psychedelic club was finally closed down in 1968 after a police drugs raid, during which a curious device known as ‘The Trip Machine’ was dismantled and then confiscated. The team behind The Middle Earth went on to host events in a former Victorian railway turning shed, The Roundhouse in Camden Town. Acts to perform at these events would include The Doors, playing their only non-festival UK shows and the first gig by Led Zeppelin in 1968.
When I first visited 43 King Street in 2002, the building was still empty and in a semi-derelict state, but it has now been restored to its former glory and the upper ground floor has been taken over by the flagship store of high-end Brazilian shoe brand Melissa. Its four-bedroom penthouse flat occupying the top two floors was recently listed for £7.75 million.
Russell House, 43 King Street, Covent Garden. Home to ‘The Middle Earth until 1968.
The former entrance to The Middle Earth.
The Roxy on Neal Street, once the stamping ground of The Clash, Siouxsie & The Banshees and renegade film-makers Don Letts and Julien Temple is now the flagship London branch of Speedo swimwear. The Vortex at 203 Wardour Street is part of the Simmons Bar chain. Louise’s is the site of bougie private members club and cocktail bar Milk & Honey. The location of The Flamingo and in later years, The WAG Club is now home to Irish pub chain O’Neill’s (although its upstairs function room is called ‘The Flamingo Room’ in a nod to the building’s history). Only the 2i’s Coffee Bar has stayed vaguely connected to its musical roots. In 2021, it is the retro-themed Poppie’s Fish & Chips restaurant (I spent some time freelancing in an office opposite) but as you head down to its basement-level dining room, a bright neon sign declares; ‘The 2i’s Coffee Bar; Home to the Stars’.
Poppies’ Fish & Chip Shop on the site of the former 2i’s Coffee Bar on Old Compton Street.
90 Wardour Street, the location of the Marquee Club’s soho incarnation (now a high-end restaurant and luxury loft apartments).
However, cities are constantly changing and evolving and different areas and movements will pick up the mantle when it comes to clubs, the arts and creative industries. As Kierkegaard once noted;
“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
Soren Kierkegaard
We can take great inspiration from places like The Middle Earth and The WAG Club and the counterculture scenes they spawned but can only learn and build from them as we look towards future generations.
In my next post, I’ll be looking at why despite the huge economic hardship caused by the pandemic, it’s not all doom and gloom for London’s live music circuit.
The WAG Club on Wardour Street became one of London’s coolest nightspots in the 1980s and was a fixture of the city’s alternative nightlife until finally closing its doors in 2001. The club was the brainchild of Chris Sullivan, a dandily-dressed Welshman and soul music obsessive and a genuine community formed around the club. In 2008 and 2009 my old band The Screenbeats played a couple of shows at Chris’ stylish new Cardiff venue Tabu. The most memorable gig was a Primal Scream aftershow party; we didn’t go onstage until 1am and playing to an audience including Bobby Gillespie, Andrew Innes, Barrie Cadogan and bizarrely Kermit from Black Grape was surreal to say the least.
Clockwise (from top left); 1.) The WAG Club community celebrating its 10th anniversary 2.) The WAG’s patrons included David Bowie, Naomi Campbell, Boy George, KRS-One and Neneh Cherry (pictured) 3.) and 4.) Photos of some of The WAG’s regulars 5.) – 7.) The club’s distinctive interior .
In my last post, I shared some musings about ‘curry’; touching upon its origins and how its popularity increased in Britain during the Victorian era and then more rapidly in the mid-20th century. I also talked about how food is so often tied-up with memories and recalled some stories involving friends and family, as well as some of the more interesting Indian restaurants I’ve had the pleasure of visiting.
I wrote previously about how the process of making a curry is one that I find incredibly satisfying and therapeutic. Coming up with my own variations is also a lot of fun too and below is a recipe I recently came up with for a fresh-tasting, zingy and healthy curry. Perfect for a cold winter evening and even tastier heated up the next day!
Tomato, lentil, courgette and shredded chicken curry // Turmeric rice with peas
4 x servings
What you need
For the curry
4 x medium chicken breasts
1 x white onion, finely chopped
4 x garlic cloves, crushed and finely chopped
1 x 500g canned tomatoes (I used Mutti tomatoes but any brand will do)
1 x 500g canned lentils, drained
2 x medium courgettes, halved and then cut into 1 cm cubes
4 x dried red chillis, chopped (fresh chillis are fine but the curry will be more fiery)
1 x cinnamon stick
1 x whole nutmeg
1 x teaspoon cayenne chilli powder
1 x teaspoon ground turmeric
1 x teaspoon fennel seeds
1 x teaspoon cumin seeds
1 x teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 x teaspoon coriander
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
Sea salt and black pepper, to taste
For the rice
360g of basmati or pilau rice (enough for 4 x servings so adjust your portion sizes depending on how much you usually eat!)
3-4 tablespoons of peas (I use jarred peas but frozen would be ok)
1 x vegetable stock cube
1 x teaspoon of turmeric
Sea salt and black pepper, to taste
Steps
The curry
1.) Add the chopped chillis, cayenne powder, fennel seeds, cumin seeds, turmeric, ginger and coriander to a pestle and mortar. Grind to release the flavour and crush the fennel and cumin seeds. Set aside.
2.) Finely chop the onions. Crush the garlic with the back of a large knife and then also chop.
3.) Cut the chicken into large chunks and brown in a large saucepan with a small amount of oil over a medium-high heat until sealed.
4.) Transfer the chicken to a plate and ‘shred’ with a knife and fork. Cover with foil and set to one side.
4.) Heat a tablespoon of oil in the saucepan over a medium heat and add the onion and garlic. Cook for 4-5 minutes until softened and golden.
5.) Add the ground spice mixture to the pan and combine with the onion and garlic, stir constantly, not allowing it to burn.
6.) Add the drained lentils and cubed courgette to the pan. Stir occasionally and cook for a further 5 minutes.
7.) Add the canned tomatoes to the pan, as well as the cinnamon stick and nutmeg. Add a little water if the mixture appears too dry. Bring to the boil.
8.) Once the mixture in the pan has boiled, reduce to a low heat, return the shredded chicken to the pan and gently simmer for 40 minutes. Stir occasionally.
9.) Taste the curry mixture after 30 minutes and add a tablespoon of white wine vinegar to bring out the acidity in the dish. Add extra salt and pepper, according to your own personal taste.
10.) Serve alongside the turmeric rice and vegetables of your choice.
Rice
1.) Cook the rice, according to the instructions on the packet. Add the vegetable stock cube to the pan and the turmeric.
2.) Halfway through cooking, add the peas.
3.) Drain well and season with salt and pepper, to taste. Serve with the curry.
Serving suggestion
I found this dish works very well served in bowls. You can serve the curry on a bed of rice in a bowl or alternatively, alongside it on a plate. The vegetable accompaniments are up to you but on this occasion, I roasted some chickpeas and spinach in the oven for 15 minutes with some olive oil, thyme and salt and pepper.
Noun: “A dish of meat, vegetables, etc., cooked in an Indian-style sauce of hot-tasting spices and typically served with rice.”
Verb: “To prepare or flavour (food) with a sauce of hot-tasting spices.”
(definition from Oxford Languages)
Origins: “Curry is an anglicised form of the Tamil word ‘kari’ meaning ‘sauce’ or ‘relish for rice’ that uses the leaves of the curry tree (Murraya koenigii). The word kari is also used in other Dravidian languages, namely in Malayalam, Kannada and Kodava with the meaning of ‘vegetables (or meat) of any kind (raw or boiled), curry’”.
(A Dravidian Etymological Dictionary)
Chicken patiala at the Dakshin Bar & Grill, Mumbai. Contender for the perfect curry? I think so…
As with so many other things in modern popular culture, the word ‘curry’ is a bastardised English umbrella term. One that was created to describe all manner of distinctly different types of cuisine from the Indian subcontinent. Or to quote food historian Lizzie Collingham and the author of the definitive tome ‘Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors’; “most likely an English bastardisation of a Portuguese bastardisation of the Tamil world ‘kari’ – which was used to describe spices or seasoning.” So, there you go.
In Britain, ‘curry’ grew vastly in popularity during the Victorian era and Queen Victoria was said to be a great lover of spiced dishes. In fact, she even employed two Indian chefs to prepare her curried lunches especially. The ‘classic’ British buffet dish and sandwich-filler; Coronation Chicken stems from this royal association after it was created for Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation banquet in 1953. It is thought that it was directly inspired by the Jubilee Chicken dish which was created for George V’s silver jubilee in 1935 and also contained cold cuts of chicken, curry powder and mayonnaise. Creative cookery at its most innovative.
The number of ‘curry houses’ or more upmarket ‘Indian restaurants‘ started to increase in the 1950s and 1960s before reaching a peak in the 1970s. Part of the success of these new curry houses was down to the fact that they still served alcohol well into the early hours of the morning at a time when most pubs would stop serving at 11pm. In 1983, there were over 3,500 Indian restaurants open in the UK and today Bangladeshis still run approximately 85-90 percent of these eateries.
The famous ‘Curry Mile’ of Indian restaurants. Rusholme, Manchester.
However, the food in the majority of Indian restaurants has been anglicised and tailored for British palates and you would struggle to find a lot of the dishes on the menu in India. For example, Chicken Tikka Masala is thought to have been invented in Britain and directly derived from the Northern Indian dish Butter Chicken, whilst the British Indian variation of Vindaloo is much spicier than the original which was a key component of Goan cuisine and was created especially for curry houses, with the addition of potatoes and chilli peppers. The Balti on the other hand makes no secret of its humble origins, being introduced to menus in Birmingham in the early 1970s (although it may have been inspired by Northern Pakistani cuisine).
I’m going to contradict myself now and will talk about ‘curry’ or ‘curries’ for the rest of this article. I personally find that there is nothing more satisfying to cook than a curry. From softening the onions and garlic and then adding the spices to form the base, to browning the meat or adding vegetarian substitutes such as chickpeas or lentils, to adding tomatoes or stock and gently simmering the stew, the whole process is incredibly therapeutic.
The food we eat is intrinsically tied up with memories too. Whenever we would visit my paternal grandmother who was half-Indian and raised in Meghalaya, a curry or dhal would inevitably be on the stove and the fragrant smell would hit you as soon as you walked into the house. My dad was delighted when I started cooking and bringing home curries in Food Technology classes at school and we discovered that cardamom pods were a fine addition to a Chicken Madras – although there is some dispute about whether the dish actually originated in Madras (now Chennai) or once again, in the British curry houses of the 1960s. My dad had rarely eaten cardamom pods as a youngster because it turned out that Grandma didn’t like them! Although initially wary of hot food, my mum also became partial to milder curries after meeting my dad and she would often make tasty meals for us like the sweet and sour Hawaiian Chicken on a Friday or Saturday night – learning many of the recipes from her Indian mother-in-law.
I remember experiencing a proper high-end Indian restaurant for the first time whilst studying in Cardiff too. My sister Rachel and brother-in-law Stuart had visited me for the weekend in March 2006 and after a day of sinking pints and watching the Six Nations rugby in various pubs on the side roads off St Mary’s Street, they treated me to a slap-up meal at the city’s Spice Quarter, located on the site of the former Brain’s Brewery. The uber-attentive service and having the table tended to by three or four waiters at any one time gave me an idea of what to expect when I eventually visited India some 13 years later.
Talking of university, there was also the much-loved but at times slightly questionable Kismet. Located on the rough and ready Cardiff thoroughfare City Road, Kismet became the venue of choice for various friends’ birthday celebrations each year. Unbelievably cheap even for a student’s budget, a main course would set you back in the region of £3.50, plus a pound for a naan or rice. Once my friend Emily and I ordered a bottle of red wine to share and two arrived on our table. We apologised and sent one back, only to be told that it was buy one, get one free on bottles of wine that evening. Of course. At £5 per bottle, we were not complaining. Kismet also specialised in takeaway ‘doggy bags’ as their portions were rather on the large side. I can still visualise my old housemate Rhys running into the restaurant’s kitchen after a poor waiter, convinced that he was about to throw his leftover food away and not into the prerequisite doggy bag. How the bars or clubs we went to afterwards felt about having to contend with a cloakroom full of takeaway curry bags remains uncertain. Kismet has since closed and is no longer a fixture of student life in Cardiff.
The much-missed Kismet restaurant. City Road, Cardiff.
During the London years, going ‘for a curry’ became a regular part of post-work socialising. I was once chuffed to find myself dining next to former Yardbirds guitarist and ‘Hi Ho Silver Lining’ singer Jeff Beck at the famous Gaylord Restaurant on Mortimer Street. The restaurant opened its doors in 1966, was a one-time favourite of The Beatles and even in 2015 it was old-school in every detail – the food and service was excellent though. Sadly Gaylord shut its doors in 2019 after 53 years of serving “upscale Mughlai cuisine” originating from North India.
The former Gaylord Restaurant, Fitzrovia, London. A one-time favourite of The Beatles (and Jeff Beck).
Other notable London curry houses included the huge, raucous and noisy Pakistani eatery Tayyabs in Whitechapel; a place that was as much renowned for its beer as its food (you could order it by the crate if you were celebrating) and the quaint, charming Agra Restauranton Whitfield Street in Fitzrovia. Opened in 1954, the place is like stepping back in time and is still run by members of the same family today. The Indian Veg (or Indian Veg Bhelpoori House in full) on Chapel Market in Islington specialised in no-frills, yet tasty all-you-can-eat vegetarian fare for £6.50 – its walls covered with pro-vegetarianism slogans and propaganda posters. Its proximity to The Lexington venue made it an ideal pre-gig fuelling station of choice.
Clockwise (from top left); 1.) The queue for Tayyabs in Whitechapel. 2.) The Agra Restaurant on Whitfield Street, London. 3.) The one-in-a-kind Indian Veg, Islington, London. 4.) The Indian Veg’s propaganda-laden interior.
Then there were the two restaurants that also offered rooms for the night as well; the Indian YMCA on Fitzroy Square (I worked around the corner from here for a couple of years so it became a favourite spot for lunch) and The India Club on The Strand. Both are long-standing London institutions serving hearty and wallet-friendly Indian food. Situated up an unassuming staircase at 143 Strand, the latter was launched in 1951 by The Indo League with the aim of “furthering Indo-British friendship in the post-independence era” and as with the Agra Restaurant, it is like stepping into a time capsule. Given its history, I have often found myself wondering if my grandparents would have visited The India Club in the 1950s. Let’s hope that all of these well-loved London institutions can survive the current hospitality industry crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Clockwise (from top left); 1.) The bar at The India Club, 143 Strand, London. 2.) The India Club’s dining room – practically unchanged since 1951. 3.) The canteen at The Indian YMCA, Fitzroy Square, Central London.
On my trip to India at the end of 2019, it would be an understatement to say that I ate well. However, I often didn’t eat at fancy places, instead preferring local recommendations or low-key, hidden-away gems. The food I ate with my relatives in Shillong was delicious and included regional specialities such as Doh khleh (a sort-of salad made with parts of the pig’s head) and Doh sniang nei iong – pork cooked with sesame. However, the food in Meghalaya was actually milder and not as spicy as in the rest of India. In Kerala in the south, a lot of the dishes were lighter and more fragrant, perhaps as a result of using coconut oil rather than ghee, whereas in Goa fish and more Portuguese-influenced fare reigned supreme. Mumbai and Pune were culinary melting pots, as with any other metropolis, whilst in Chennai there were numerous options when it came to street food, as well as fiery appetisers like the city’s signature Chicken 65 (invented by the Head Chef at the Buhari Hotel and allegedly containing 65 chillis per kilogramme of chicken).
Just a snapshot of some of the dishes I had the privilege of trying during my visit to India.
However, the distinction of being the tastiest dish I sampled was reserved for the Dakshin Bar & Kitchen;a simple Punjabi restaurant off a busy main road in the Fort district of Mumbai that had the Indian Super League playing on big screens on the wall. I ordered Chicken Patiala one evening without thinking too much about it and it was one of the best things I ate during my time in India. It was unusual too; a thin egg omelette prepared and then cooked in the highly-spiced rich, creamy chicken curry. All washed down with an ice-cold Kingfisher, of course.
The Dakshin Bar & Grill, Fort, Mumbai.
Chicken Patiala at Dakshin Bar & Grill, Mumbai.
Over these past 18 months both in India and now in Italy, some of my favourite discoveries have been places that I’ve stumbled upon by chance or that have been a word-of-mouth recommendation from a local. The delicious Chicken Patiala at Dakshin was no exception.
To find out how to make the dish, check out the short video below courtesy of Chef Smita at Get Curried. In my next post, I’ll be sharing a recipe of my own!
