Legendary Vibrators and Stranglers guitarist takes loaded on a stroll through Soho and shows us landmarks of the London music scene.
You can live your whole life in a city without having a clue about some of its most interesting stories. Every day, you could be trotting past multiple places of great cultural significance, nose too stuck in phone to realise. Sometimes, they could be disguised as the fire exit to a large chain bookstore, or it could be commemorated by an inscription on the wall at ankle height. Or it could be a case of craning your neck up a bit and looking at what’s adorning the upper levels of the building you normally walk past without a second glance.
“If you work in London, all you want to do is get out of the tube, go to the office, keep your head down, go to Pret, back to the office,” says former Vibrators and Stranglers guitarist John Ellis. “You’re just not aware of the history that you’re walking by. It’s a different world.”
So, with a view to gaining some insight into London’s partially obscured rock and roll heritage, we decided to join John for a rock and stroll round Soho.
We meet in Manchester Square, south of Marylebone, outside the Wallace Collection – as fine a hoard of artistic plunder as you will ever see. It’s surprising to me that it’s the starting point for our tour – I’ve been inside – it’s a place I associate more with muskets and suits of armour than Sex Pistols and rock’n’roll. I mention this to John.
“That’s good that you can’t connect because it’s a total red herring,” John says. “But the toilets are nice here.” Smart man. After visiting them, and yes, they are lovely, we begin the tour. Our first stop is a set of railings on the east side of the square, where we recreate a famous an early promo shot of some young upstart from the early days of rock’n’roll. EMI was across the road, so Manchester Square has provided the backdrop for many a rock star’s promotional images – from the Beatles to the Pistols to the artist we’re honouring now – a young chap from the ‘60s called David Jones, who would later change his surname to Bowie. Whatever became of him?
We move out of Manchester Square and head south to Wigmore Street. John instructs us to look up a lot of the time: “some of the best stuff you can see in London is up.”
Indeed, we look above ground floor level, and beyond the blue plaque for Simon Bolivar, the rooftops and crenelations are adorned with artwork carvings, with gargoyles looming and looking out over the roads of central London like stone sentries. We turn onto Wigmore Street and pass the original Apple Corps building (the Beatles company, not the omnipotent computer people) at 95 Wigmore Street. This was their headquarters prior to taking up residence at their Saville Row site, famed for the rooftop gig that brought the Fab Four’s career to a close.
We make our way past the famous Wigmore Hall and up round the back of the Langham Hotel to Regent Street and come to a stop across the road from Broadcasting House. In amongst the collection of chain coffee shops is the old Regent Street Polytechnic, which was the site of Jimmy Hendrix’s first UK show in 1966, supporting Eric Clapton’s Cream. It also happened to be the birthplace of Pink Floyd. There are some decals in the front window that tell passers by of the hallowed ground they are on. We continue down to Oxford Street, past the former site of Beatle’s producer George Martin’s AIR Studios and down Argyle Street to the Palladium.
“The first thing I ever saw at the palladium was Cliff and the Shadows in panto,” John says. In the window is an advert for an upcoming Blue concert. “This was where the Beatles famously suggested the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret rattle their jewellery in appreciation at the Royal Variety Performance in November 1963. One of the classic London auditoriums.”
We go on past toff department store (the Queen mum’s favourite shop apparently) and round the corner onto Great Marlborough Street, passing the old magistrates court where the footage of Mick Jagger being done for possession of marijuana was shot. We skirt the top of Soho and re-emerge on Oxford Street, not far from the site of the old HMV store between Oxford Circus and Tottenham Court Road.
“This is the very first site of the Marquee club. It was one of the big homes of British blues – you have bands like Cream and Fleetwood Mac as a result of it,” John says. We scamper across the road and into a doorway. This is the legendary 100 Club, site of the infamous Punk Special festival in 1976, featuring bands of the ilk of The Sex Pistols, The Clash, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Damned, Buzzcocks. And the Vibrators. “That was the night Sid Vicious chucked a pint pot into the audience and nearly took some girls eye out.” Ah, what a charmer he was.
We head down Wardour Street and back into Soho – “Do you know why it’s called Soho? The legend is that it’s a hunting cry, So Ho. This was one of the hunting grounds for Henry VIII.” It feels kind of fitting that so many rock’n’roll landmarks are in the same space as where our most debauched king used to get some of his kicks. We pass buildings named in honour of their craft of yesteryear, places like Hammer House, Cinema House and Paramount house. We stop outside the Ship, which had Henry VIII been into rock stars in the 60s, would have proved a target rich environment for the tubby Tudor lothario. And it’s also where the story of Born Slippy begins. Just down the road from the Ship is the second location of the Marquee, which is marked by a bunch of inscriptions around knee level which reads like a who’s who of rock music from the 60s and 70s. Jimi Hendrix. The Rolling Stones. Fleetwood Mac. Rod Stewart. No Vibrators or Stranglers though. I suggest to John we come back later with a sharpie and rectify that. He nods sombrely.
We cut through an alleyway and come out by Foyles on Charing Cross Road. Next to this is Saint Martins School Of Art, which was the venue for the first ever Sex Pistols gig, and next to that is the final resting place of the Marquee (v3), now a pub, the Montagu Pike. We cross over and head down to Shaftesbury Avenue, passing the old Saville Theatre, now an Odeon. “This was owned by Brian Epstein. He used to do Sunday gigs here – one week you’d have Pink Floyd, Yes, Fairport Convention on the same bill, then the next week, Jimi Hendrix and Crazy World of Arthur Brown, That was where the Beatles turned up and he serenaded them with Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club band.”
We now head south to Covent Garden and Neal Street, where a Blue Plaque commemorates the Roxy. “The Roxy was a shithole. It stank and had a sticky carpet,” says John. “But this is why I do these walks – I was standing here one day, before the Blue Plaque was done, and a bloke shuffles along with two people in tow – he was doing a walk. He was reading from his notes, and someone asks him a question, and he says, ‘I’m sorry, don’t ask me questions, I’ve got a script to follow.’ And I thought, fuck, I can do a better job than that.”
And he does. We leave Covent Garden to hit Chinatown (all you can eat Dimsum is part of the payola for this story. Nice.) As we turn into Shorts Gardens, we encounter another walking tour. I suggest getting tooled up and having at them, but John just hisses at them. Their leader is fumbling with a tablet. The other tour group passes, its guide hanging their head in shame and skulking past furtively. He knows. Or doesn’t.
John does his walks about 4 times a year, and they’re a great way to kill a few hours. Book one here: https://www.indytute.com/products/rock-and-stroll-walking-tour#prod-desc