TOM
VAGUE’S HOLLYWOOD BABYLON W11
INTRO
1 NOTTING HILL
IN BYGONE DAYS
2 NOTTING HELL/HEAVEN
W11
3 SYMPATHY FOR
THE DEVIL
4 HOUSES OF THE
UNHOLY
5 ONE FOOT IN
THE GROVE
6 MIDDLE EARTH
W11
7 THINGS LOOK
GREAT IN NOTTING HILL GATE, WE ALL SIT AROUND AND MEDITATE
8 HOUSES OF THE
UNHOLY REVISITED
PART 8
HOUSES OF THE UNHOLY REVISITED
Goth The 70s Grove rock scene died with Steve Peregrin
Took on Cambridge Gardens in 1980, but the spectre of
the rocking undead continued to haunt the Notting Hellmouth
for some time. The proto-Buffy post-modern goths Bauhaus
appeared on Campden Hill at Queen Elizabeth College;
Siouxsie and the Banshees and Marc Almond haunted the
Portobello Hotel bar – which had goth previous
from Alice Cooper, Nico and the zombie rocker Roky Erickson;
on Blenheim Crescent, Miles Copeland gave us the psychobilly
Cramps and the Lords of the New Church; on All Saints
Road, Nick Jones managed the Sisters of Mercy, Skeletal
Family and Ghost Dance; Screaming Lord Sutch inhabited
St Luke’s Mews; Jackie Leven of Doll By Doll,
who lived on Ladbroke Grove, wasn’t really goth
but his Celtic blues were nevertheless from the dark
side; Killing Joke was first made in Notting Dale, and
revived in Finch’s along with the Lords of the
New Church and Transvision Vamp.
Immersed in Crowley’s Uniform: Killing Joke Killing
Joke succeeded the Clash as the first local heroes of
the 80s, on a post-punk funk tip, and ended up occult
heavy metal. Recently re-formed, as mad, bad and dangerous
as ever, Killing Joke’s interrogations of music
journalists (rather than vice versa) were carried out
on Portland Road. Paul Morley wrote with trepidation
of his: ‘They have a first floor flat in a large
old house in Notting Hill Gate. We walk through an echoey
hall, up bare wooden stairs and into a small room...’
Thoroughly immersed in Crowley’s uniform of imagery,
their track ‘The Fall of the Because’ was
taken from Crowley’s The Book of the Law, and
the sleeve of their second album ‘Follow the Leaders’
featured a procession holding cards from the Crowley
designed Tarot pack. In 1982 the Killing Joke saga ‘Revelations’
album featured Masonic symbols, as they went to Iceland
to sit out the apocalypse at the time of the Falklands
war. The singer Jaz Coleman, who went on to be a producer
of world music, is the son of the equally renowned local
Labour councillor Bob Pandy, and brother of the speed-rapper
JC001.
The Lords of the New Church, the Damned and the Dead
Boys The more trad goth rock early 80s outfit, the Lords
of the New Church, were a former punk supergroup; consisting
of Brian James of the Damned, Stiv Bators of the Dead
Boys, Dave Treganna of Sham 69, and Nick Turner of the
Raincoats and Barracudas. Their label, Illegal, was
based in Codrington Mews on Blenheim Crescent, on the
site of the Prodigy’s XL label office. Having
named themselves after the Kensington New Church on
Pembridge Villas, the Lords soaked up the bohemian atmosphere
of the Alex, Blenheim and Finch’s, and came up
with possibly the definitive local song. In their goth
rock-meets-Burundi beat ‘Portobello’, they
somehow managed to cram most local mythology, thus:
‘If you are living outside of the law, run to
your hole-in-the-wall, bohemian hideout, smugglers’
inn, find safety and refuge within, strangers’
bazaar, doesn’t matter who you are, there’s
a melting pot of lunatic fringe, seething with sedition,
anointed with wisdom, the streets of Portobello’s
extremes, if voting could change things they’d
make it illegal, truth is the sword of us all, insane
are the normal, musicians are outlaws, the artists and
Rasta and dreams, dreams, dreams, we gotta go –
Portobello, yeah, you gotta go – Portobello!’
The Lords, in turn, inspired the following gothic psychogeographical
prose in Zigzag from the juggler-journalist Tony de
la Fou (formerly Tony D): ‘In our research into
existing occult conclaves at the Society for Psychical
Studies, myself and companions unweaved a tangled thread
of mystery and deception that led to a Unitarian church
in Pembridge Villas, running between Westbourne Grove
and Notting Hill Gate. This street has been notorious
since the days of piracy and smuggling for its interlocking
subterranean passages running only the damned know where.
Near the Grove end, in true Lords style 5 yards from
a bus stop marked New Church we found a moulding, slumbering
vault in the cemetery which showed signs of recent entry
and re-sealment... Beneath the ground, trapped in the
labyrinths that lace Notting Hill’s underbelly,
we lunge at the oncoming bats with our notebooks...’
The goth scene on Westbourne Grove, at the Earl of Lonsdale
and Duke of Norfolk pubs and the Kitkat club, remained
undead throughout the 80s. The Kitkat (named after the
Berlin Cabaret club) was the least serious local manifestation
of the dark arts. City Limits’ Rose Christie (a
Notting Hill gothic horror name if ever there was one)
recalled the goth club ‘Bringing the Grope to
the Grove’: ‘The venue was barely ready
– it hadn’t been cleaned or soundproofed
– and the police turned up at 2.30 to shut things
down. But, after the first week, this Kitkat was booming
– meeting and matching young goths with its ‘bring
your own drink all night rave’ (meaning till 8am
Sunday morning) initiating an era… speed remained
their clubbing drug until, in the summer of ’85,
the police carried out an undercover raid in Westbourne
Grove. Policewomen clad a la Carnaby Street goths as
seen in the Sun.’ (obviously not the sun. Ed).
Tales from the Crypt: Blood and Roses Following in the
footsteps of the original local goth author Arthur Machen,
Tony de la Fou wrote of the Kensal Green anarcho punk
venue Centro Iberico in his anarcho-punk-magick-goth
fanzine, Kill Your Pet Puppy: ‘Today we trek to
a crypt most unholy… It was scrawled on the back
of an old copy of KYPP, postmarked Westbourne Park.
Westbourne Park, that name summons the memories, those
cider-tainted days at the old A Centre, located towards
the dilapidated end of Harrow Road. We had fun last
year, being political with Conflict, colourful with
Rubella Ballet, magickal with Blood & Roses or just
leaping around shambolically with the Mob… ‘The
corpse stirs once again.’ Westbourne Park? Pack
those bags, I’m on my way…’
The Centro Iberico, Anarchy or Alternative Centre at
421 Harrow Road, was a former school, squatted by Spanish
anarchists. As well as accommodating the early 80s anarcho-punk
scene, the centre had a suitably Crowleyan gothic vibe
from nearby Kensal Green cemetery and industrial backdrop
of the gas works to host gigs by Blood and Roses and
Throbbing Gristle.
Having taken their name from Roger Vadim’s 1960
vampire movie, Blood and Roses arrived on the scene
with their Crowleyan ‘Love Under Will’ EP,
and split before positive-anarcho-magick-punk became
goth. As the guitarist Bob Short puts it in Mick Mercer’s
goth book: “Who wants to sit around in a primordial
castle, going round sticking their fingers in skulls?
It’s boring.” In Bob Short’s Shadows
Never Die horror comedy film, shown at last year’s
festival, an ageing punk band are condemned to a hell
world. In a tenuous Cabbalistic Madonna link, the ‘Ray
of Light’ producer William Orbit lived in the
old school caretaker’s cottage. Tony de la Fou
recently appeared on Never Mind the Buzzcocks juggling
on a unicycle.
From Ritual to Romance: Throbbing Gristle/Psychic TV
The Cryptic One Club, in a church crypt on Bishop’s
Bridge Road, was an earlier real-punk (not goth) venue
recommended by Tony D’s Ripped & Torn fanzine,
where Throbbing Gristle also appeared. Genesis P Orridge
of TG was the most serious Crowleyan pop star of them
all. After singing ‘love is the law’ on
TG’s Industrial hit single ‘United’,
and haunting Rough Trade on Kensington Park Road, he
launched Psychic TV and his own occult cult group, the
Temple of Psychick Youth, which encompassed most things
magickal; Crowley, Burroughs, Brion Gysin cut-ups and
dreamachines, Charles Manson, Austin Osman Spare sex
magick ritual, the magical significance of the number
23, taboo imagery in general, Brian Jones and proto-rave
hyperdelia. The local Crowleyan industrial heroes, prag
VEC inhabited Markland House by Latimer Road station,
and frequented the Golden Cross pub (now the Market
Bar) on Portobello.
Along the goth Harrow Road, the Cure appeared at the
Windsor Castle pub; Nick Cave’s Birthday Party,
the Sisters of Mercy, UK Decay, Southern Death Cult
and Sex Gang Children played the Zigzag club on Great
Western Road; Miranda Sex Garden, the goth 17th century
madrigal trio, started out busking on Portobello and
ended up on Mute on Harrow Road.
Since the pop fandemonium at Wilkie Collins’ funeral,
Kensal Green has hosted Steve Peregrin Took’s
earthly remains, goth photo sessions dating back to
Genesis, the funerals of Freddie Mercury and Joe Strummer,
Beth Orton says she was inspired by the Kensal Green
angels, and the cemetery is still a top goth tourist
attraction.
Planet Alice, Motown Majic and the Wiiija board The
Planet Alice shop at 284 Portobello Road made a tenuous
acidhouse connection in the mid 80s psychedelic revival,
featuring Doctor and the Medics and the Alice in Wonderland
club. The Mau Mau bar at number 265 started out as the
Motown Majic Company’s Original Soul Bar, remembered
in the ‘Majic’ stone in the pavement outside.
The early 90s Rough Trade shop label, wiiija, was concocted
from their postcode W11 1JA, not as a goth ouija board
reference.
Hollyweird W11 Gillian Anderson, ‘Scully’
out of X-Files, was injured in a mystery fall at her
flat opposite Tesco’s on Portobello – The
truth is out there.
Matthew Vaughn, the Notting Hill based producer of Lock,
Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, turns out not to be the
son of Robert Vaughn, who played ‘Napoleon Solo’
in The Man from UNCLE, but of George de Vere Drummond:
So he’s not a new Napoleon of Notting Hill but
an old lord of the manor.
Heathcote Williams, the local beatnik playwright/poet/graffiti
artist etc, recently reappeared in the holy grail conspiracy
thriller Revelation, along with Trellick Tower.
In another Masonic hippy local link, the ‘never
ending genesis’ over 10 years of Peter Gabriel’s
£5 million townhouse off Ladbroke Square; incorporating
the old freemasons’ hall next door into a recording
studio, meditation centre and swimming pool; caused
much local anger and a court case in which Gabriel sued
the builders for £1.5 million.
In breaking magical local news, Robert Pattinson, who
played the schoolboy wizard Cedric Diggory in Harry
Potter and the Goblet of Fire, appears in the forthcoming
local film How To Be.
Invoked from Tom Vague’s Getting It Straight In
Notting Hill Gate pop history www.historytalk.org
Vague 41
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