London

R is for...
Rock tribes
Whether it's the Ramones or Roll Deep Crew, the message on your chest is the war paint of Camden Town's diverse musical factions. Time Out meets several generations of moshpit warrioirs to find out who wore what, when and why.
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S is for…
Squatting
Parkway Cinema squat (1995)
At a time when most of the nation was up in arms about the crusty menace, the Advance Party’s squatting of the vacant art deco Parkway Cinema had unexpected results. It actually won approval from the local community and press, especially for the free film shows they put on for children. The Advance Party also hosted a succession of squat parties featuring crews from the free party scene, including Aardvark and Liberator soundsystems. A £4 entry fee (to cover not just costs, but repairs to the building) entitled partygoers to an orgy of trance, and best of all, the feeling of being somewhere secret and forbidden, until the small hours – actually, the surprisingly large hours – of Sunday. Feature continues

T is for...
2-Tone
The start of an Empire (late ’70s)
The 2-Tone sound, and most of its practitioners, may have been born in the West Midlands, but the undisputed home of 2-Tone was Camden High Street, where its offices functioned as an unofficial clubhouse for the roster. As former Special Neville Staple tells us: ‘I was living really nearby, sharing a house with Stella from The Bodysnatchers. That was around the time we were touring with The Clash, who were based up the road. Then you had all the different people who’d come into the area. It made it exciting. There were some serious parties going on in those days. We were always up for something.We’d start off at the World’s End, which was near the office and just see where we went from there.’

U is for…
Unusual performances
Moll Cutpurse nicks stuff (Mother Red Cap, early 1600s)
Centuries ago, Camden was nothing but pubs. Ah, how times change. Actually, until the late 1700s, the area north of St Pancras was mostly farmland and heath. In those days, Camden had just two public houses, the Mother Black Cap (which is still there), and the Mother Red Cap (now rebuilt as the World’s End) which hosted the odd performance from notorious thief, fence, pimp, highwayperson and proto-rock idol Moll Cutpurse (née Mary Frith). The cross-dressing vagabond performed bawdy semi-improvised spoken word, accompanying herself on the lute, which sounds not unlike going to see Patrick Wolf nowadays. No wonder Cutpurse was eventually committed to the notorious Bethlehem asylum in 1644.

V is for…
Videos
Madness film ‘House of Fun’ (1982)
Native north Londoners Madness have made numerous references to Camden, such as ‘One Better Day’ being inspired by the Arlington House hostel (round the corner from the Good Mixer, irony fans). The interior shots for the ‘House Of Fun’ video – where a pharmacy (off Kilburn Park Road) is transformed into the titular domicile of amusements – were filmed at Escapade, the family-run novelty shop on Camden High Street. Escapade had only just opened when the band shot the video for their future (and only) Number One single. These days, happily, it’s still doing a roaring trade. But don’t try buying condoms in there, it’s really embarrassing.

W is for...
White & Red Stripes
Jack White plays in a kebab shop (Marathon Bar, Chalk Farm Road, 2004)
On Friday November 19 2004, while in the country for the wedding of Ben Swank (formerly of The Soledad Brothers), Jack and Meg White popped into the Barfly to watch now-fellow-Raconteur Brendan Benson, with whom White made his first impromptu performance of the evening. Then, leading a raucous crowd, he retired to that legendary kebab-shop-cum-late-night-drinking-den, the Marathon Bar. After eating kebab and chips, he asked to sit in with resident rockabilly maestro Daniel ‘The Kingsnake’ Jeanrenaud (who you may also have seen playing on the Northern Line) – White’s five-song set featured rock ’n’ roll classics like ‘Hippy Hippy Shake’ and ‘Blue Suede Shoes’. Pilgrimages are made to this sacred site every night, in the hope of witnessing another historical moment. Or perhaps to get a kebab and a can of Red Stripe.

is for…
Prince
Pint-sized pop legend plays shopkeeper (Chalk Farm Road, 1994)
It was the ’90s – the Berlin Wall had fallen, the Democrats were in the White House, the rosy fingers of a glorious New Labour dawn were poking over the blue horizon and, most importantly, Britpop had made London globally cool again. And so, in the grip of an acute case of Swinging London Fever, the artist formerly known as The Artist Formerly Known As Prince decided to open a shop dedicated to himself in fashionable London’s fashionable Camden Town. Perhaps he imagined his outlet’s proximity to MTV would ensure a steady stream of musicologists popping by to stock up on soul. More likely his knowledge of Swinging London was based on a Transatlantic viewing of ‘Austin Powers’ and he thought we’d all go cuckoo for his reproduction purple loons and raspberry berets. As it stands, this somewhat unusual trinket/curio/gewgaw/ CD/calendar emporium spluttered along for less than a year before the funky midget called time.

Y is for…
Young blood
Kate Nash gets her groove (Barfly, July 20 2004)
Kate Nash is the hot new property on the block. Like a kind of musical mill refurb, with a glass-fronted lift. These days she plays an extraordinarily diverse mix of sounds fusing indie, electro, hip hop beats and kitchen-sink experimentalism, but Nash started out as a sensitive singer-songwriter type. Which, it transpires, is all Camden’s fault. ‘Funnily enough, it was seeing Regina Spektor at the Barfly that actually made me want to be a musician,’ says Nash by way of explanation. ‘I went to see her on my own, and just thought it was the most incredible thing, seeing her sitting alone on the stage, holding everyone spellbound.’ For more info on Nash go to www.myspace.com/katenashmusic.

Z is for…
Zero tolerance
(Camden Palace, 2000)
Believe it or not, garage was once an underground music, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a big deal. The most popular pirate radio show, Delight FM’s So Solid Sundays, drew over 10,000 listeners every week. The slot featured a veritable army of DJs spinning and MCs spitting from 12-10pm (which explains why So Solid’s line-up was so big). So when So Solid announced a double-headline show with Freek FM’s equally popular Heartless Crew at the Camden Palace, it was always going to be a big deal. For the most part, the show was good natured, boisterous, loud, crowded and a bit too hot. Although accounts vary from the disappointed to the luridly fantastical, what’s generally accepted is that some of Heartless Crew’s extended entourage had (sweary) words with some of So Solid during the changeover, as Heartless man Mighty Mo prepared to pass the mic to So Solid’s Neutrino. Handbags were drawn, but ultimately no grapes were crushed in anger. By the next morning, though, Chinese whispers had turned this ultimately inconsequential encounter into ‘Roll With It’ vs ‘Country House’ times The Beatles vs The Stones to the power of Biggie vs Tupac. Garage was now a dangerous, unruly force, and a vicarious thrill. Overground acceptance was just ‘21 Seconds’ away.