London

F is for…
Flatshares
Johnny Borrell meets The Libertines (in a flat on Camden Road, 1999)
‘Pete and Carl were living in a flat on Camden Road. I went round and met Pete; my friend knew him and we were trying to borrow some money off him to go to the pub. He had a stack of books and I picked up ‘Nausea’ by John-Paul Sartre, and we started talking about it. We played each other a song – he played me ‘America’ by Simon & Garfunkel, and I played him ‘Rock ’N’ Roll’ by The Velvet Underground. He said he was looking for a bass player, and I said I knew a guy called John, and that was it. In later days, John left the band for a bit, and when I found myself walking down Whitechapel High Street with absolutely nowhere to go, I bumped into Carl, who said, “Do you want to play bass?” I replied, “I'll help you out for a week or whatever.” I tried to kick the skiffle out of them a little bit, and then that whole Rough Trade thing begun, and that was when Gary joined the band and John came back. Good luck to them by the way; I was a fan before anybody else in the world, because I was a fan before they even formed.’
Johnny Borrell, Razorlight Feature continues

G is for…
Good Mixer
Blur invent the classic Britpop pub (1994)
‘Originally when we went to the Mixer there was almost no one there apart from a couple of old men; this was the very early ’90s and Food Records had just moved down the road. We needed a new pub and we thought: This one is all right – it’s got a snooker table, and it’s got Jimmy Reed on the jukebox. So we’d listen to Jimmy Reed, Link Wray, Tom Jones, Nancy Sinatra – all sorts of good stuff on the jukebox – and play pool. Then Andy Ross from Food started having his meetings there and suddenly it was full of music people within a year.

‘It was very different then. It had a very sticky carpet, a piano, and it was just [landlords] Pat and Michael. I don’t know how well they were doing before the music people moved in. I mean, along with the hassle, it brought them quite a lot of money, I’d imagine. But now it’s very touristy. It’s strange that people go there looking for indie stars. I loved it because you got people in groups, but you also got the people that I used to like more, which is proper painters, decorators, carpenters and people from the market.’
Graham Coxon

H is for…
Hype
Menswear invent the indie band goose chase (Dublin Castle, 1994)
‘Our third gig ever was at the Dublin Castle. It was ridiculous: wall-to-wall music business types, with 400 people trying to cram in to a room that could hold 200 tops. I was bricking it as I walked on-stage. I looked out at one point and saw all of Pulp, Graham Coxon and Jonny Greenwood from Radiohead. I’d only moved down from Birmingham two months before – it really was like the streets were paved with gold. I can’t remember much past that, but I’m pretty sure some of us went to the Laurel Tree and did a load of gak. We thought it was all great fun, little did we know…’
Simon White, guitarist (now manager of Bloc Party)

I is for…
Inclusive
The Ballroom goes Electric (Electric Ballroom, July 28 1978)
Bill Fuller’s Electric Ballroom (formerly the Buffalo) reopened in 1978 with a show headlined by a band called The Greedies – made up of Thin Lizzy’s Phil Lynott, Scott Gorham and Brian Downey, the Sex Pistols’ Paul Cook and Steve Jones, Rainbow’s Jimmy Bain and legendary guitar virtuoso Chris Spedding. A visibly impressed Sid Vicious was also in attendance. Were these punk purists really supposed to be mingling with such rock dinosaurs? Well, maybe just the once…

J is for…
Jamiroquai
Acid Jazz is born (1987)
The official name of the night was Talkin’ Loud And Saying Something, but most people knew it as Dingwalls. It was the cradle of the music we would come to know as Acid Jazz – the scene that spawned Galliano, Brand New Heavies and, unfortunately, Jamiroquai. The live acts who appeared there included such legends as Roy Ayers, The JBs and Courtney Pine. But it wasn’t the names on the flyer that sold the tickets, it was the dedication of DJs Gilles Peterson and Patick Forge. ‘Like any great club, the strength was the punters themselves,’ recalls Forge. ‘Post-soulboy suburban meets post-rare groove inner-city meets hardcore jazz dancers, ‘ace teds’ coming down from Shoom, progressive mods and proto-beat heads. And though it was littered with myriad tribes, the only thing that mattered was the music.’

K is for…
Killer cuisine
Britpop café (George & Nikki’s, Parkway)
‘George & Nikki’s was excellent because you could get a big Spanish omelette and some chips, but then you could also, if you were a bit shaky, get a bottle of cheap wine as well. And it had all those smashing photos of people from “EastEnders”; “Lots of love, Frank Bruno”, things like that. It’s sad it’s closed, but there are some excellent shops that, God knows how, have survived. Like the coffee man on Delancey Street who fills the road up with his roasty smell.’
Graham Coxon