Notting Hill Diary

A unicycle

A word of warning to gentlemen unicyclists

As I attempt to master riding my unicycle around the (currently festive) streets of Notting Hill, I learned a very important lesson that none of the youtube tutorials tell you about. If like me, you value your as yet unconceived offspring, take especial care with, shall we say, product placement while mounting your chosen form of novelty transport.

I don’t think I’m going to be able to sit straight for the rest of the day. Have a happy Carnival!

Krysten surveys a suspicious damp patch on the ceiling

Somewhat off-topic, but with a tenuous link, On the evening of the same day that Rotten Hill Gang play Carnival, Monday August 31, the première of the movie “The Descent Part 2″ takes place in Leicester Square,

What’s the tenuous link? Well one of our two singers, Krysten Cummings, is in that movie and as a consequence will have to dash off straight after our set to get changed somewhere and go to the première.

I don’t know too much about the movie first hand, aside from he fact that she was unavailable to sing for us for several weeks a few months back (our other singer Alexia Collen filled the spaces admirably, taking the lead on Krysten’s songs as well as her own), so I’ll just be lazy and quote from the press bumpf:

“The Descent - Part 2″ continues the story of Sarah, who as the only survivor of an all-female caving expedition gone horrifically wrong, suffers severe psychological trauma. Unable to speak, she accompanies a rescue team back to the cave she has just emerged from, but events once again take a sinister turn.”

So now you know.

That lovely Gaz Mayall has once again asked Rotten Hill Gang to play on his Gaz’s Rockin’ Blues stage on Talbot Road at Carnival

Quite why I’m not sure, because his theme this year is Cuba, while we remain resolutely Dickensian, but no matter, I’m certainly not complaining. Last year was great fun and I’m sure this year will be, plus our drummer Arran will actually get to play this time.

We’ll be on at 2pm. Mick will be playing with us. Not to ruin the surprise, but I just have an inkling that we’ll be playing Should I Say or Should I Go at the end.

Here’s a nice picture of the band. By the way I still don’t really know whether we’re “Rotten Hill Gang” or “The Rotten Hill Gang”. I’m going without the definite article for now. Any thoughts anyone?

A nice picture of Rotten Hill Gang. Left to right: Mick Jones (Guitar - not really in the band ), Arran Ness (Drums), Jimmy Raygun (Rap), Redskin (Rap), Krysten Cummings (Vocals), Alexia Collen (Vocals), Andre Shapps (Guitar), Gary Stonadge (Bass) - photo by the wonderful John Gladdy

Police has released a series of shaky and poorly focused CCTV images of 14 twats they want to interview regarding the bottle throwing finale to this year’s Carnival. You can see them here on the BBC site.

I’m pretty confident that I’m not one of the people in the pictures, but I’d still love to have some footage of me and the rest of Rotten Hill Gang running through the hail of bottles dress in our full stage regalia!

I knew this was going to be a special day because for the first time in nearly 30 years (yes I was a kid then!) I actually felt mildly nervous before we played.

  

The view from the stage about 45 mins before we went on. Even the Powis Mews (opposite) was packed and there were thousands more to the left and right out of shot. It filled up a lot more than this by the time we played

Who’s your drummer?

  

The balloon, made by our near neighbour Rosie. Looking owards stage right

We woke up on Monday morning not quite knowing which drummer we were going to play with. Dominic, who plays with Mick’s band Carbon Silicon, was scheduled to play, but we hadn’t heard from him, so I picked up Arran, who’d done such a brilliant job of playing with us on Friday at Cobdens. In the event Dom turned up, so I felt sorry for Arran, but he had a good time and we’ll definitely be working with him again.

We took our guitars over to the stage at around 1pm and already the crowds were building up. By the time we returned at about 2:45 we were seriously having to push our way through and by the time we were due to play, my advice to avoid the crush by standing at the end of Powis Mews was a piece of history as people stood up to 25 yards back into that tiny side street trying to get a view.

  

Your host, the ever ebullient Gaz Mayall

Gotta love them Trojans
The Trojans very kindly let us use their backline and lent us a guitar lead and Gary, Mick and I sat under the stage tuning up.

They cleared the stage of dancers about 5 minutes before we were due to go on and we got up there and plugged in. As we launched into our first song “Londoner” we knew it was going to work out just fine and as the last notes of our final song proper “Pick a Pocket” died away some 20 minutes later the crowd packed into Talbot Road was still dancing.

Should I Stay or Should I Go?
Then Mick launched into the opening chords of Should I Stay or Should I Go and a mass sing-along followed. That song has pretty much reached folk status and it’s a heck of a lot of fun to play as well.

Even Prince Buster gets nervous
We left the stage feeling good and stayed around to watch the Trojans from the DJ booth yet another 8 feet above the stage because there was nowhere to go. I chatted a bit with Prince Buster about being nervous and he said “Yes I once had that conversation with Sam Cooke and Mohamed Ali …”

  

The Gang

One last look
After Carnival was over, Gaz grabbed us, gave my phone to a cop and made us pose with the stage in the background.

Left to right, (?), Martin Muscat (my and Mick’s cousin), Gaz Mayall, Gary Stonadge, Jason Mayall, Ray Kolodny, Mick Jones, (?), me, Neil Apteka.

Just when you thought it was safe to walk up Ladbroke Grove
Once the crowds had started to disperse we took our gear back to Powis Terrace and moved on to the barbecue, where we stumbled into the rioting that had started further up Ladbroke Grove, but that’s another story …

The Rotten Hill Gang line up on August 25, 2008:
Dominic Greensmith - drums
Gary Stonadge - bass and vocals
Reds - rap
Krystin Cummins - vocals
Mick Jones - guitar and vocals
André Shapps - guitar and vocals

  

Some nice flowers

As anyone who’s seen the news in the since Monday knows, Carnival ended on a slightly sour note for those unlucky enough to be caught on one part of Ladbroke Grove at around 8:30pm on Monday.

A dumb end to a great day
We’d all had a fantastic day. The gig was great and we had intended to leave immediately afterwards to get to Don’s barbecue, but we realised even as we were playing that this was going to be impossible because of the shear numbers of people, well up on last year, on Talbot Road between us and the flat on Powis Terrace in which we planed to leave our guitars, so we stayed to watch The Trojans (with Prince Buster) and to hear Natty Bo spinning records till the end.

  

Relaxing

As the crowds cleared we dropped of our gear, then using our local knowledge we decided to take a back route as far as possible to avoid the crush of people leaving. That route took us to the very top of Portobello Road. Meanwhile, unknown to us, a stand off that had been developing between the Police and about 40 “youths” (according to reports) had errupted into actual violence on Ladbroke Grove.

Using our local knowledge to walk into trouble
Our “clever” route took us through a housing estate the joins the top of Portobello Road to Ladbroke Grove just south of Sainsburys. Had we walked straight up Ladbroke Grove, we would have ben stopped some 40 yards earlier by a line of Police vans. As it was, we emerged slap bang in the midle of the gap between the Police and a group of what we quickly realised, was a group of bottle throwing morons.

  

A cat

Pass the bottle
The first bottle that landed 3 feet away from me I mistook for one that had fallen off the window ledge of one of the flats behind us from under which we’d just walked. As another, and yet another smashed down near us with a strangely satisfying crunch, we realised what was going on and Wifey, Mick, Gary, my cousin Martin and a couple of other friends ran as fast as we could towards Sainsburys.

I dearly wish I had some video of us running if only because I somewhat resembled David Niven in Around the World in Eighty Days, top hat ‘n’ all. Part of me thinks I should have calmly walked out of it.

We’d barely escaped when someone shouted “They’re coming this way!” and we hoofed it again.

Postcode wars?
The strange thing was that in the midst of the rampage we could hear people shouting out local postcodes. I clearly heard “W12″ and I’m pretty sure “W2″ was also represented. Had we become involved in some bizarre postocde war? If so I was quite prepared to say “Hmm. You make a very cogent point sir. Your postocde is indeed superior to mine and I declare you the winner”. Would have sounded good, dressed as I was.

Dr Livingstone I presume
As we moved further towards the end of Ladbroke Grove, there were Police standing in, I guess, chevron formation, funnelling us all to the sides of the road. I think there were three or four such lines of Police and at the second, one of them stopped me briefly and said “Dr Livingstone I presume”. The next day friends and I both agreed that the policing at Carnival had improved no end over the last 30 years.

Won’t stop me going to Carnival though.

The party’s over
After weeks of build up I can’t believe it’s all over. We played on Gaz’s stage at 3:30pm on Monday to a crowd who were, let’s face it, already determined to have a good time and they danced through five songs that they’d never heard before (albeit the first was based around “Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner” and the last “Pick a Pocket”) before being rewarded with Mick singing “Should I Stay or Should I Go”.

Morons
Unfortunately we caught caught up in the bottle throwing afterwards as we walked up Ladbroke Grove to go to Don Letts’ barbecue.

I don’t have much time to write now, but I got loads of pictures, some from the stage and later on I’ll post something more meaningful.

I just went for a wander around the neighbourhood to see how things are going. People are out building stages, getting in beer supplies, putting up boards outside shops that aren’t opening and generally preparing for the onslaught.

I ended up on Talbot Road to take a look at how the building of the Gaz’s Rockin’ Blues stage is going. In this case I’m going to let a few pictures do the talking for me.

Hint - as with most of this site, if you click on a picture you’ll see an enlarged version of it.

  

Gaz’s stage being built

The theme of Gaz’s stage this year is Around the World in Eighty Days. Behind the centre piece you can make out the Globe, 103 Talbot Road, the last of the old style Notting Hill clubs and the place after which we named the Big Audio Dynamite song an album called - er - The Globe, it being right opposite my old studio in which we recorded much of it.

Immediately to the left you can see the Trojans sign. The Trojans is Gaz’s excellent ska band who will be playing both days of Carnival late in the afternoon to, I can confidently predict, rapturous crowds.

  

What used to be my studio where we recorded The Globe

Opposite The Globe is a narrow little road called Powis Mews. If you want to see the Trojans, or indeed Rotten Hill Gang (for we are playing at 3:30pm on Monday), but you don’t like crowds, I recommend you stand at the start of the mews because you can see the stage perfectly, but you’re out of the crowds.

On the right hand corner as you face the mews is the building that housed my studio. It was kind of like living in a bunker. Mick and I survived for months on a healthy diet of tea and kebabs from what used to be the Serene Fish Bar two doors further along washed down with a sort of instant cappuccino impersonation that Nestlé were producing at the time (just add water) that we christened the “sludguccinno”.

As you can see, the place that was my studio is boarded up for Carnival. The street outside gets jam packed and it’s likely that someone would go through the window just from crowd pressure.

  

Serge and his wife in their corner shop

On the left hand corner of the mews is a corner shop owned by Serge (sorry Serge, in all the time I’ve known you I never did ask how to spell your name!) and his wife (whose name I’ve name even asked!). Until a few months ago I hadn’t been in there in 13 years, but Serge greeted me by name as if I’d only been in yesterday.

For Carnival itself, they board up most of the shop, allowing a small serving hatch through part of the door. They take the whole thing in very good humour, all things considered.

As in many parts of the world, your local small shop can form a focal point for communities and walking back into Serge’s made me feel at home on Talbot Road again. He even asked about several friends that used to come round to the studio back then.

Serge also owns “My Beautiful Launderette a few doors further down the road. Serge is also the proud owner of a handsome beard and moustache.

  

The multi-trunked elephant is to be auctioned off after this Carnival

Turning round again to face the stage and looking towards the right, is the elephant on wheels that seems to fit perfectly with this year’s theme. Luckily it’s also fitted with several other years’ themes too. In fact it’s appeared for many years now, but this is to be its last Carnival and then it’s being sold (for charity I think).

  

More of the set being built

Panning further left again, here’s another part of the set being built.You can see the huge PA through which the DJs and bands will be playing then a boat (actually it’s only half a boat) over the backdrop of the sea and finally a few of the guys constructing part of what will form the barrier in front of the “backstage” area.

  

Is Natty Bo the coolest man in Notting Hill?

Here’s a closeup of the guy with the white beret in the picture above is the extremely cool Natty Bo, who also happens to be an extremely nice guy. Natty is singer with his ska band Top Cats, and also has another band, Ska Cubano, whose premise is that ska swept across every island in the Caribbean in the 60s apart from Cuba because of Castro’s rule. In a sense they have created a style of music that never was, but should have been.

it’s rather nice that Mr Bo is so cool that he even dresses up to help construct the set for Carnival.

   

Claudia Jones

Fifty years on from the Notting hill riots, two plaques have been unveiled in honour of Claudia Jones, commonly referred to as the “Mother of Carnival”.

Born in Trinidad, she spent much of her adult life in the US before she was expelled for “un-American activities”. On being granted in the UK she founded Britain’s first black weekly newspaper, the West Indian Gazette and, following the Notting Hill Riots of 1958, she organised a walk from Powis Square to Tavistock Square to emphasise the positive aspects of Caribbean culture in London.

In January of the following year, she organised an evening featuring West Indian culture in St Pancras. The event was a huge success and it continued for the next five years. Sadly she died before the event being a Carnival proper in the streets of Notting Hill (strictly speaking the two were only loosely related).

The plaques have been unveiled on Portobello Road and Powis Square.

 

A stack of barriers awaiting their orders

How close are we now?
Carnival is here in 1 day

How can you tell?
Well mostly by something called “the date”, but also because of the appearance of stacks of barriers at the corners of major junctions waiting to be deployed sometime over Saturday night. This pile I shot yesterday morning at the junction of Oxford Gardens and St Marks Road, but believe me, they’re everywhere.

Didn’t I hear somewhere that Rotten Hill Gang are playing?
Why yes, thank you for asking! We’re playing on Gaz’s Rockin’ Blues stage on Talbot Road on Monday and 3:30pm. Mick is playing with us, so it should be a corker. Come dressed for Around the World in 80 Days.

I don’t think I can struggle through the crowds …
How do you think I feel?!! Never mind, if you can’t make that, we’re also playing at then Cobden Club, 170 Kensal Road at 8:30pm on Friday. We’re airing a new song about London so you could catch its début.