Music

Works by local artists adorn the walls

Of course this won’t be the first time you’ve heard about New Cross being fashionable – with Goldsmiths University at its centre, it has long been a hotbed for creativity. The Conservative regeneration efforts of the 1980s also encouraged more artists, musicians and other poor people to move in to bolster the area’s dwindling population.

‘Basically, Margaret Thatcher did that,’ laughs Butchery. ‘She said, “Look, fuck off there, to the fucking quagmire in Deptford fucking Creek”, and now it’s a culturally very rich area.’

In the past, New Cross has nurtured the music of Squeeze, Kate Bush and the not-much-missed Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine, as well as the comedy of Vic Reeves, who cut his comedy teeth in the area’s pubs. More recently, Bloc Party and Art Brut led the hugely hyped but shortly lived New Cross Scene beloved of the style mags before it fizzled out, ultimately a victim of its own diversity. It’s telling that current press darlings Klaxons, also from New Cross, aren’t asked many questions about their hometown. Feature continues

The crucial difference from other similarly creative neighbourhoods such as, say, Shoreditch, is the spirit in which everyone has entered into their work. It’s as inclusive as you can get –the whole raison d’être of the New Cross scene is to encourage universal participation.‘The big word of south-east London is “involvement”,’ agrees Lewis Dyer, singer-guitarist with bubbling-under local skuzz-ska heroes Rank Deluxe (who also produces a fanzine and runs a club night). ‘Don’t question why you’re doing it, just get involved and do something. The modern world isn’t full of spectators. People go on the internet and write their own blogs, they make their own videos and put them on YouTube. People have gone from consumers to co-creators, they’re interested in being watched and watching at the same time. It’s a conversation rather than a lecture. It’s not about one-upmanship either; people aren’t saying, “Look at what I can do, I can do something better than you.” It’s like, “Look what I can do, how does that makes you want to do something?” It’s not about competition, it’s about community. I just love it man, it’s what I live for.’

The Alps

It’s this constant effort to raise both individual and communal confidence levels that makes Rocklands so inspiring, and also so friendly. As Butchery says, ‘If you’re really into something and you’re staying up all night drinking pints of coffee trying to get something done, and you meet other people who are doing a similar kind of thing, you realise you’ve got a good exchange of ideas, and it just leads to a massive cross-pollination.’

New Cross may not strike you as one of London’s more glamorous locations, and it isn’t. Which means there’s not much to do if you don’t make your own fun, and not a lot of pretty things to look at if you can’t paint your own landscapes. The Rocklands crew are bound by a mutual desire to make their lives more beautiful and exciting, but beyond that there are no set rules.

‘It’s very much an anti-scene,’ says Charlie Beall, singer with Seeing Scarlet (Xfm’s most requested new band of the moment, fact fans). ‘It’s about not creating borders or boundaries and finding space for all sorts of expression. In pretty grim surroundings, you need that and you need those people to make sense of the environment that is London. Because it can be a cold and heartless place, and you kind of find understanding through the people and how they interpret it.’