London's margin clubs

mms

sometimes
there used to be this place off shaftsbury avenue i used to go to years ago, you needed a laminate card to get in, 3 story building with a place to buy weed up the top, a bar a games room a big smoking room and a place to dance, really good. run by a mob of guys, total shabeeen, squatted style. it lasted a year or so until it was raided by police marksmen and the lot, a friend was in there at the time lying on the floor with a machine gun at his head, police say they were selling crack etc, but they quite obviously weren't, i mean that would be dumb, and there was no sign they were selling much more than these slightly pricey bags of weed.
 

john eden

male pale and stale
It would be good if people didn't post up precise locations or names of places that are currently engaged in semi-legal activities...

As you were! :cool:
 
I've been in a place in Haringey that was one of those seedy-looking Turkish or Cypriot mens' clubs with a pool table that was selling weed.
Way back in the early 90s my friends used to score from a petrol station on Cambridge Heath Road.

Hackney Wick there are a few odd clubs with hundreds of asian teenagers outside in cars... also there's a well known squatted pub there where they have raves, last time i went the music was surprisingly good (i was expecting the worst trance/crusty acid techno i suppose).

There are a few Spanish bars near Oxford St. where you buy a meal to get in which is actually just a cracker or something they throw straight in the bin and thereby get round some law or other, you can go and get pissed at 5am with a few other desperadoes.
 

viktorvaughn

Well-known member
Hackney Wick there are a few odd clubs with hundreds of asian teenagers outside in cars... also there's a well known squatted pub there where they have raves, last time i went the music was surprisingly good (i was expecting the worst trance/crusty acid techno i suppose).

I've been to that place too, music was pretty good - radioactive man in the man room and a wicked selectah playing roots n reggae in the little one. Got a graffed owl on the outside as i remember?
 
yeah I think so.
i'd have to walk down there to work it out.
the bloke had a ponytail but then lots of blokes did in those days. one week he got busted there and we did't see him again.

also I remember trying to buy a Lion Bar at one on Bethnal Green road and the bloke going "no, no lion here, dangerous animal, this is London, there are no Lions"
it was odd.

we used to go to the salmon and ball next to bethnal green tube and dance on the tables to the DJ playing stuff like Shades Of Rhythm and Congress and Rozalla.
 

wonk_vitesse

radio eros
It would be good if people didn't post up precise locations or names of places that are currently engaged in semi-legal activities...

I agree entirely, how about chatin about the ones that have since closed :)

Anyone remember the Greenleaf on Landor Rd SW9 , takeaway place that if u decided (or knew) to go to the toilet led in to a dark alley with a little dance room about the size of a small bedroom, a rig up to the ceiling, a big record rack took up one wall and the DJ played using an old style phone as a headphone, skunk was in the air and ready to be bought. I tried to dance but....i was too stoned.

eventually the owner was had up in court for dealing, everyone moaned afterwards that it would only increase the stress on street.........
 

mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
I agree entirely, how about chatin about the ones that have since closed :)

Anyone remember the Greenleaf on Landor Rd SW9 , takeaway place that if u decided (or knew) to go to the toilet led in to a dark alley with a little dance room about the size of a small bedroom, a rig up to the ceiling, a big record rack took up one wall and the DJ played using an old style phone as a headphone, skunk was in the air and ready to be bought. I tried to dance but....i was too stoned.

eventually the owner was had up in court for dealing, everyone moaned afterwards that it would only increase the stress on street.........

Lol they put big signs up on the tube where you go up the escalators the week before it was raided telling tourists not to go there, great place.
 

Blackdown

nexKeysound
went to this place last night that while not culturally marginalised, was kinda physicaly: it's under London Bridge station and called Shunt. You enter a side door by the food hall and then you're under the arches. it's flipping massive: you walk through about eight or ten darkened archway areas, each big enough to hold a whole club itself. (It's kinda like the venue Lost and UR used to use opposite Millbank down by the Thames).

then art exhibits appear, followed by a film being projected in one archway and a theatre space in another. you turn right and there's another massive room - maybe four of these spaces conjoined and it's a bar area, with a piano, DJs, audio art exhibits/experiences, tours for "bedtime stories"...

The whole thing is like a bit of Glastonbury's Lost Vagueness under the station and the maddest contrast is how damp, dark and huge it is and how it's sitting next to the busy, City-focused station.
 

mms

sometimes
went to this place last night that while not culturally marginalised, was kinda physicaly: it's under London Bridge station and called Shunt. You enter a side door by the food hall and then you're under the arches. it's flipping massive: you walk through about eight or ten darkened archway areas, each big enough to hold a whole club itself. (It's kinda like the venue Lost and UR used to use opposite Millbank down by the Thames).

then art exhibits appear, followed by a film being projected in one archway and a theatre space in another. you turn right and there's another massive room - maybe four of these spaces conjoined and it's a bar area, with a piano, DJs, audio art exhibits/experiences, tours for "bedtime stories"...

The whole thing is like a bit of Glastonbury's Lost Vagueness under the station and the maddest contrast is how damp, dark and huge it is and how it's sitting next to the busy, City-focused station.

yes been wanting to go there for a while, missed a really good exhibition down there.

http://www.shunt.co.uk/
 

Lichen

Well-known member
there used to be this place off shaftsbury avenue i used to go to years ago, you needed a laminate card to get in, 3 story building with a place to buy weed up the top, a bar a games room a big smoking room and a place to dance, really good. run by a mob of guys, total shabeeen, squatted style. it lasted a year or so until it was raided by police marksmen and the lot, a friend was in there at the time lying on the floor with a machine gun at his head, police say they were selling crack etc, but they quite obviously weren't, i mean that would be dumb, and there was no sign they were selling much more than these slightly pricey bags of weed.

I remember that it place and i remember it getting busted. it was almost opposite the Astoria, right?
 

sufi

lala
several east african/ugandan places up & down new cross rd
playing the standard schedule of:
1/2 hr reggae/ragga
1/2 hr hiphop/r&b
1/2 hour NDOMBOLOoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

you can get in no probs - nyamachoma is also served!
 

sufi

lala
i reckon that place someone mentioned near elephant may be axum: an ethi late-night dinner-dance joint, i had 1 wild night there - £15 minimum charge iirc,

khat is a more sedentary activity so usually khat houses are like stripped down/burnt out squats, sometimes with extremely grim crack-house like atmosphere, i've visited this type in deep somali areas in whitechapel & wembley - you'd be the only non-somali
the best khat place i know is on cable st, which has very genteel elderly yemeni/benadiiri clientele, still running 15 years after my first visit albeit non-smoking nowadays:rolleyes:
 

sufi

lala
i reckon that place someone mentioned near elephant may be axum: an ethi late-night dinner-dance joint, i had 1 wild night there - £15 minimum charge iirc,
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or was it wabi shebelle?
 

viktorvaughn

Well-known member
What's Khat like?

I bought some from a Somali grocers and muched it. I'm not sure i did it for long enough though or in the correct manner. Produced a gentle pleasant feeling but i'd had a few wines at the time anyway!

Anyone got any tips for the correct consumption method?
 
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