Denmark Street: the Traditional Heart of the London Music Business
Peter Watts in conversation with Max Décharné.
Thursday 5 December 2024 at 7.00pm (90 mins approx).
“This is the street where the NME and Melody Maker were started, where the Rolling Stones recorded their demo album and the Beatles signed their first publishing deal,” says veteran music journalist Peter Watts. “It’s where the first UK charts were compiled and were David Bowie recruited some of his first bands. As the music industry changed, Denmark Street changed with it, albeit sometimes reluctantly. As well as musicians, I write about the historic nature of music publishing on Denmark Street, explore how the street later came to be lined with instrument shops and celebrate the 12 Bar, one of London’s great small venues. Along the way, we’ll encounter many of the greats of music from Lionel Bart and Joe Meek to Sex Pistols and Jeff Buckley.”
Guest speakers:
Peter Watts's previous books include a biography of Battersea Power Station. In his former role as a Time Out features writer and in his current role as a freelance journalist, he has written about most aspects of London life—from airports to zoos. Once he even endeavored to take every London bus in numerical order from first stop to last.
Max Décharné is a musician as well as author of ten books, his most recent being Teddy Boys: Post-War Britain and the First Youth Revolution. He was the drummer of the band Gallon Drunk, and is the singer and songwriter of the band The Flaming Stars. His other books include Vulgar Tongues: An Alternative History of English Slang and King’s Road: The Rise and Fall of the Hippest Street in the World.
Life with David Bowie and the Spiders From Mars
Suzi Ronson in conversation with Travis Elborough.
Wednesday 20 November 2024 at 7.00pm (90 mins approx.). Doors open at 6.30pm.
From the stylist behind David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust look, an electrifying peek behind the curtains during a legendary chapter of pop culture history.
Suzi Ronson was working in a Beckenham hair salon in the early seventies when Mrs Jones came in for her weekly shampoo and set. After being introduced to her son David and his wife Angie, Suzi finds herself at the Bowies’ bohemian apartment and is soon embroiled in their raucous world.
Having crafted his iconic Ziggy Stardust hairstyle, Suzi becomes the only working woman in David’s touring party and joins the Spiders from Mars as they perform around the globe. Amid the costume blunders, parties and groupies she meets her husband-to-be, Mick Ronson, and together they traverse the absurdities of life in show business, falling in with the likes of Iggy Pop, Bob Dylan and Lou Reed along the way.
Dazzling and intimate, Me and Mr Jones provides not only a unique perspective on one of the most beguiling stars of our time but also a world on the cusp of cultural transformation, charting the highs and lows of life as one of the only women in the room as it happened.
The Sohemian Society would like to thank Pamina Brassey and Tom Wilcox, without whose help this event would not have been possible.
Guest speakers:
Suzi Ronson is an author, songwriter, and former hairdresser and stylist. Her memoir, Me and Mr Jones, prompted the novelist Hanif Kureishi to declare that “few can offer such insight, and tell this fascinating story with such verve.”
Travis Elborough has been described by The Guardian as “one of the country’s finest pop culture historians.” He's the author of many books, including Wish You Were Here: England on Sea, The Long-Player Goodbye, Through the Looking Glasses: The Spectacular Life of Spectacles, and The Atlas of Vanishing Places, which won the Edward Stanford Travel Book Award in 2020.
Pariah Genius
Iain Sinclair talks about the Soho photographer John Deakin.
Wednesday 16 October 2024 at 7.00pm
The latest title by literary giant Iain Sinclair follows in the footsteps of photographer John Deakin, whose chronicles of Soho life—and the world of Francis Bacon and his friends—have so influenced our perception of that generation’s work.
In this bold fictionalisation, Sinclair enters the underworld of Deakin’s life and imagination. The result is an engrossing, utterly unique portrait of a man who some felt was a fallen angel, and others, the devil himself.
Guest speaker:
Iain Sinclair is a prolific writer of fiction, poetry and non-fiction. In an experimental body of work, including titles such as Downriver, Lights Out For The Territory and London Orbital, Sinclair's writing has consistently pushed at the boundaries of genre and form.
Teddy Boys: Post-War Britain and the First Youth Revolution
Max Décharné in conversation with Marc Glendening.
Wednesday 18 September 2024 at 7.00pm
“Enormously enjoyable” (Dominic Sandbrook, The Sunday Times)
With their draped suits, suede creepers and immaculately greased hair, the Teddy Boys defined a new era for a generation of teenagers raised on a diet of drab clothes, Blitz playgrounds and tinned dinners. From the Edwardian origins of their fashion to the tabloid fears of delinquency, drunkenness and disorder, the story of the Teds throws a fascinating light on a British society that was still reeling from the Second World War. In the 1950s, working-class teenagers found a way of asserting themselves in how they dressed, spoke and socialised on the street. When people saw Teds, they stepped aside. Max Décharné traces the rise of the Teds and the shockwave they sent through post-war Britain, from the rise of rock ’n’ roll to the Notting Hill race riots. Full of fascinating insight, deftly sketching the milieu of Elvis Presley and Derek Bentley, Billy Fury and Oswald Mosley, Teddy Boys is the story of Britain's first youth counterculture.
Guest speakers:
Max Décharné is a musician as well as author of ten books, his most recent being Teddy Boys: Post-War Britain and the First Youth Revolution. He was the drummer of the band Gallon Drunk, and is the singer and songwriter of the band The Flaming Stars. His other books include Vulgar Tongues: An Alternative History of English Slang and King’s Road: The Rise and Fall of the Hippest Street in the World.
Marc Glendening is the co-founder of the Sohemian Society. His connection to Soho dates back to when, as a baby, he visited the Colony Room where his father, the painter Ronald Glendening, and his stepmother, Sohemian Society stalwart Yvonne Glendening, were regulars. Marc works as a free speech campaigner. He also writes occasional journalism, which has appeared in publications such as Spiked and The Critic.