Picture Soho in 1955. The narrow streets off Old Compton Street are thick with cigarette smoke and the smell of espresso. Teenagers in drainpipe trousers crowd into basement coffee bars, clutching instruments they built themselves from tea chests, washboards, and broom handles. Nobody in these dim, sweaty cellars has any idea that they are about … Read more
Lindsay Kemp (3 May 1938 – 24 August 2018) was a Scottish dancer, mime artist, actor, teacher, and choreographer who profoundly influenced British performance art and famously taught David Bowie the art of theatrical movement. His unique blend of mime, dance, and avant-garde theatre shaped the visual language of some of the most iconic performers … Read more
Soho in the 1950s was a neighborhood vibrating with post-war energy, coffee bars on every corner, and teenagers hungry for a new kind of music. Tucked away at 59 Old Compton Street sat a small basement venue called the 2i’s Coffee Bar, a place that would change the course of British music forever. It was … Read more
Picture David Bowie on a London stage in the summer of 1972. The lights drop. A figure in a quilted jumpsuit steps forward, deliberate and slow, commanding every eye in the room before a single note rings out. That entrance, that calculated stillness before the storm, did not come from nowhere. It came from a … Read more
Walk down Wardour Street today and you will see cocktail bars, chain restaurants, and construction scaffolding. But if you close your eyes and listen carefully, you can almost hear it. The rumble of an overdriven amplifier from a basement. The clatter of a snare drum bouncing off brick walls. The chatter of a crowd spilling … Read more
Imagine getting arrested over 300 times for what you believe in. Imagine being beaten by neo-Nazis on a London street, headbutted by a bodyguard, and pelted with eggs year after year. Then imagine getting up the next morning and doing it all over again. That is the story of Peter Tatchell, the activist who never … Read more
On the night of September 16, 1970, Jimi Hendrix walked into Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in the heart of Soho, London. He wasn’t booked to play. He wasn’t even supposed to be there as a performer. But before the night was over, he would take the stage one final time. Two days later, he was … Read more