London

Crawl crew (Left to right) Eloise (DR), Jake (OOTF), Laura (DR), Katie (CC), Lisa (CC), Will (ACTH), Alex (ACTH), David (ACTH)

The event
Camden Crawl

The record shop
Out On The Floor

The club men
Adventures Close To Home

The party people
Dolly Rockers


Feature continues

The event: Camden Crawl
As a unique showcase for new acts, the infamous Camden Crawl is a distillation of everything that is good about Camden: wild, beer-soaked, unpredictable and the indie equivalent of speed-dating a load of bands then never calling any of them back. This year, for the first time ever, there’s so much going on that the event is taking place over two whole days (which means you’ll need two whole livers to cope with it). The evil genii behind this glorious mess are festival director Lisa Paulon (above right) and event manager Katie Dunne.

‘The Crawl is all about new music,’ says Paulon. ‘It’s about being the first to tip people off about all the great new sounds and, hopefully, let people self-educate themselves just by making these things available. But I also appreciate the importance of keeping live music alive here – because there’s nowhere else like this, not just in London, but the whole of the UK. This is the place everybody goes to play their first gig.’

The Crawl’s roots lie in an informal collective of labels, venues and PRs plying their trade in early ’90s Camden, who began hosting all-dayers at the Dublin Castle, with a free seven-inch (this was in olden times, remember) included in the price. From here, the nascent festival began to expand, subsuming more and more clubs, pubs and basements until it became the Crawl we know and love, and yet fear in equal measure.

The now-established tradition of the secret big-name headliners took flight – turns like Supergrass and Wolfmother have played tiny venues, while the likes of Hot Chip, Klaxons and the Kooks all made early, defining appearances at Crawls past. Of course, given its rock pedigree, Camden is the only logical home for such an orgy of new music.

‘It’s where you gravitate towards naturally when you come to London, isn’t it?’ muses Dunne. ‘It’s the hub of everything musical and indie and punk rock. It was the first place me and my friends flocked to. Then you just end up hanging out here all the time, because it’s where everything is going on.’

‘Yeah,’ says Paulon. ‘I was 16 on my first visit. That was when I got my nose pierced.’