Psychogeographical Meanderings - Brixton > Soho #5

Routemasters, black cabs, couriers and white vans continue to ping past at rush-hour pace. Meanwhile, coming the other way an Anti-Nazi League march merges with a CND rally, heading to Brockwell Park or to confront the National Front.

The chants and songs blend in and out of tune: "Maggie, Maggie, Maggie, Out, Out, Out", "The National Front is a Wanker's Front - Smash the National Front". Whistles, drums and Red Stripe cans driving the rhythm on from The Oval up the Brixton Road on to Brockwell Park. Where rain pours down and The Style Council wrestle with a poor PA system.

We can wave and cheer our support for the Home Counties rebels, suburban revolutionaries and the interminably volatile splinter groups losing sight of the ultimate aim. They head on towards Weller & Talbot, we head on towards Hobbs & Edrich... A pint of London Pride beckons.

"Smash the National Front..."

Bringing dark thoughts into the bright light

As I have documented elsewhere, most notably here, I have had personal brushes with depression and it even got to the stage where I contemplated taking a final and fatal route.

That has changed, it is off the table now.

The reason is twofold:
1) I have found new strategies to cope with dark days (which still come by the way) and they help to avert tumbling into a whirlpool of morbid self-reflection.
2) A friend of mine recently could not find a way out of his own particular maze and sadly ended up taking his own life. Such a desperately sad loss. But it is a loss that must have a positive legacy and it will...

More to follow.

Life is timeless, days are long when you're young...

A long time ago, when young mods stalked the earth...

Hastings Pier ☀︎ 9th June 1979

(Smev, Me, Al, H)

- Picture recently discovered in the Museum of Youth Culture

The Dreams of Children

She was younger than me, by about a year or so. Corkscrew hair, funny, sharp and dangerous. We'd all get the bus to and from school, cramming about 400 kids into about 8 buses from outside the school gates. Got to get on the first bus!

The queue was always carnage: Bags, elbows, knees and heads - nothing was off limits. Got to get on the bus first!

Traveling via the Station and things could only get worse. Off one bus onto another. Got to get on the next  bus!

To be honest I can't even remember why I bothered to rush home. Nothing to do or eat when I got there, except play music - loud!

I suspect it was just about getting on the same bus as the girl with the corkscrew hair.

Psychogeographical Meanderings - Brixton > Soho #4

Late night gig crowds flood out from the Academy. A young Bowie waves hello to his dreams. On the Brixton Road, bombing towards The Oval, an Olympic Couriers cycle courier nearly dies under the wheels of a huge haulage truck. The BMW in front had cut the courier up and he had to swerve out into the middle of the road. That was close...

Ignoring one-way signs and red lights is one thing. Cheating death is another.

Meanwhile, we stride purposefully towards where a carriage has pulled up outside an abandoned house. The batteries on the Sony Walkman fades, 'Because of you' by Kevin Rowland stumbles into silence. The tall figure of Mr Sherlock Holmes emerges from the fog...

The graffiti tags on the wall... RACHE

A change of batteries and tape 'Cupid & Psyche '85' melts into our ears. We can move on, as far as Holmes is concerned
- the case is closed.

The Butterfly House

Psychogeographical Meanderings - Brixton > Soho #3

The clank and holler of Electric Avenue disappears behind us in a cloud of reminiscences, with the faint scent of late nights clinging to the blackened pavements. The rattle of the Victoria bound train glides overhead. Time to cross the road.

The Brixton Academy looms behind the rainclouds and the hymns of Nick Cave, Paul Weller & The Pogues ricochet around the auditorium. A wraith whispers...

Take a little walk to the edge of town
And go across the tracks
Where the viaduct looms
Like a bird of doom
As it shifts and cracks
Where secrets lie in the border fires
In the humming wires
Hey man, you know
You're never coming back

Past the square, past the bridge
Past the mills, past the stacks
On a gathering storm comes
A tall handsome man
In a dusty black coat with
A red right hand...

- Nick Cave

But we must head on to the future and a possible meeting with the World's first consulting detective!

Psychogeographical Meanderings - Brixton > Soho #2

The Dogstar looms ahead... a pint of Guinness and a fish finger sandwich - the ultimate 'White Bread, Black Beer'. A little further down Coldharbour Lane, lies a recording studio, the air thick with diminished chords and popstar dreams. But we aren't heading that way today. Heading straight on down towards Brixton tube station.

The unnecessarily attractive 'Militant' agitator selling a socialist heaven to an unforgiving commune of commuters. Dope dealers and Big Issue vendors vie for our attention. The morning crush and the evening throb clash in the spinning middle distance of memory. I could curtail this whole journey by simply turning right and heading down the escalator. But where is the fun in that?

A copy of Midweek under my arm. The rain mingling with the sunshine and snow. Shooting a glance down Electric Avenue, the smell of curried something blending in with the tang of rush-hour petrol. Sweet sounds drifting out of record shacks and ghetto-blasters again. The soundtrack of this, that and every other day... East of the River Nile, Club Classics Vol 1 and Technique...

Psychogeographical Meanderings - Brixton > Soho #1

Following on from a re-imagined kaleidoscopic stroll from Langney Green to the end of the Pier. The next drift, takes us from St Matthews Church in Brixton, to Carnaby Street, Soho.

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The junky upstairs was arrested last night. He'd come to the door, topless and brandishing a knife. It wasn't a good look, nor was it a good evening to be hosting the Finnish Girl from next door. Thankfully, things were calmed by the presence of my flatmate holding a stool and me waving a Gray-Nicholls GN100...

First thing in the morning, crisp frost clinging to the grime of the once pink pavement, out and over the road. The option was either walk past the Ace Cinema or The Fridge, good nights spent at both venues. Either way one had to skirt St Matthews Church, which was firmly planted on the roundabout at the foot of Brixton Hill. Up the hill and over the intervening 60 odd miles was home but the flat with the junky upstairs would have to do for the moment...