Camden

Rachel Verinder

Well-known member
Now I quite like the Chalk Farm area. Marine Ices, and only a quick hop over the bridge to Primrose Hill. Lots of good restaurants and picknicking in the park involves substantially less risk of said picnic being nicked by HORRIBLE DOG as happened with Sinker and I on Hampstead Heath on Saturday bah.

But Camden Town! Full of Sven Svensson and his Swinging Goth Backpackers who still think it's 1982! The air is unbreathable/non-existent! Useless tattoo parlours! Record shops in decline (Rhythm gone, Out On The Floor not what it used to be)! If it's not tourists it's Nick Hornby types who still think it's 197-bastard-5 and BLOCK MY WAY in MVE looking for fucking Ducks Deluxe cutouts and anyway the bastard CD cabinets are always locked! And the place's unofficial anthem "Camden Town" by Suggs is officially ratified as the WORST, SMUGGEST PIECE OF PISS MUSIC EVER (ESPECIALLY THAT BIT IN THE SECOND VERSE WHERE HE GOES "MADNESS IN THE AIR")!

Only the truly insane would even consider moving here and enduring the torture on the off-chance of seeing Alan Bennett in Sainsbury's (Local) of a vacant Thursday morning.
 
Rachel Verinder said:
Now I quite like the Chalk Farm area. Marine Ices, and only a quick hop over the bridge to Primrose Hill. Lots of good restaurants and picknicking in the park involves substantially less risk of said picnic being nicked by HORRIBLE DOG as happened with Sinker and I on Hampstead Heath on Saturday bah.

But Camden Town! Full of Sven Svensson and his Swinging Goth Backpackers who still think it's 1982! The air is unbreathable/non-existent! Useless tattoo parlours! Record shops in decline (Rhythm gone, Out On The Floor not what it used to be)! If it's not tourists it's Nick Hornby types who still think it's 197-bastard-5 and BLOCK MY WAY in MVE looking for fucking Ducks Deluxe cutouts and anyway the bastard CD cabinets are always locked! And the place's unofficial anthem "Camden Town" by Suggs is officially ratified as the WORST, SMUGGEST PIECE OF PISS MUSIC EVER (ESPECIALLY THAT BIT IN THE SECOND VERSE WHERE HE GOES "MADNESS IN THE AIR")!

Only the truly insane would even consider moving here and enduring the torture on the off-chance of seeing Alan Bennett in Sainsbury's (Local) of a vacant Thursday morning.

Simply live up the hill in leafy, fragrant and august Belsize Park, only deigning to descend on the flob-strewn tarmac of Camden Town to buy magic mushrooms and shoes. Worked for me for years.
 
Primrose Hill, er, "dogging"

Rachel Verinder said:
Now I quite like the Chalk Farm area. Marine Ices, and only a quick hop over the bridge to Primrose Hill. Lots of good restaurants and picknicking in the park involves substantially less risk of said picnic being nicked by HORRIBLE DOG as happened with Sinker and I on Hampstead Heath on Saturday bah.

We got dogged last year up on Primrose Hill while sitting around one of those foil barbecue things one afternoon. A big white shaggy hound came bounding into us, tongue lolling idiotically. Glowing charcoal and cinders were showered in all directions, and became tangled in his furry coat. The dog was actually smouldering by the time its owner arrived and patted it out.

If only it had happened at dusk, the lightshow would have been spectacular.
 

martin

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Oi! That's my old haunt, if you don't mind. You never went in 'The Elephant's Head' back when that teddy boy used to do the Saturday night rockabilly disco - brought teds, skins, punks, goths and mods together without the slightest hint of aggro. He'd play Elvis, Link Wray, Carl Perkins and occasionally slip in something like Gloria Jones' "Tainted Love". OK, so every now and then some out of town buffoon would jump in the Lock, and be dragged out by an ambulance crew once (s)he'd been exposed to the biochemical detritus and corpses of a hundred putrefying dogs and drowned babies that lurked within, but Rhythm Fucking Records??? The produce in that place was always overpriced, compared with Hanway St anyway. Admittedly, the place went downhill after 'The Elephant's Head' became just another refurbished dull bar, Compendium Books closed down and the Electric Ballroom bouncers stopped me from entering 'Full Tilt' cos "Sorry, punk dress code", but I'd still rather drink in the Hawley than anywhere in Bethnal Green. But you're right, that Suggs song was abysmal - then again, the day that patronising clown comes up with a decent single, I'll jump in the Lock. Where were you in 1990 when that psychotic long-hair in felt pyjamas used to play avant garde noise skronk (unintentionally) on his flying V guitar outside Chalk Farm tube? And what about (etc etc) (PS - I'm in Cyprus on work and it's fucking crap, but I'm going to a 'Cuban' night tomorrow)
 

martin

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PPS - read 'Camden Girls' by Jane Owen, it's the worst book ever written by anyone about anything, I cringed at every sentence
 

owen

Well-known member
during my (mercifully brief) time working at MVE they always stuck me in the camden basement. (despite living 5 mins from the greenwich branch) hundreds of portugese kids looking for damned records and pronouncing it 'dam ned'.

i did find an acen 12" in the bargain basement which was some consolation
 

dominic

Beast of Burden
i lived in camden town back in 92/93 while studying at university college london -- lived in ifor evans hall on camden road -- and then my mates lived off the archway stop on the northern line -- if i recall correctly, i had to walk up camden road to holloway road or some such thing to get there by foot

still have a soft spot in my heart for the area, though it's certainly changed a lot since then -- i.e., nyc is not the only city on earth that's been over-gentrified

used to be able to buy mickey finn and jumping jack frost mixtapes in camden market, which much to my regret i managed to lose

and then there was zoom records opposite the camden town subway stop, which i think billy nasty owned

and the house crew used to play camden palace

the pub world's end, which i perhaps went to once, is still there

another new development since 92/93 is magic mushrooms openly sold in camden market -- mushroom species from all around the world, including mexico and south america

and the market is like 4 times the size of what it used to be

and lots more shops, going much further up the main arteries than i recalled
 

dominic

Beast of Burden
dominic said:
i lived in camden town back in 92/93 while studying at university college london

*studying* is not the correct word

i ended up having to drop half my classes for the entire year, i.e., kinda got a sweetheart deal on that one, i.e., had to plead nervous breakdown, which was actually pretty damn close to the truth considering all the drugs i did that year

my closest english mate had to repeat his entire first year -- i.e., he started from scratch at ucl the very next year

(he was ultimately banished to australia for several years in late 90s)

and there were many other casualties never to be heard from again, evidently

i still don't think i've fully recovered
 

dozer

Member
just moved out of camden

have to say I grew quite fond of it - it made places like primrose hill/hampstead, where everyone seems to be clean/normal seem a bit (read massively) boring

admittedly, culturally it is dead though...

dozer
 
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