Soho protesters fight to save 'spirit of London'

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jan/30/soho-protesters-fight-to-save-spirit-of-london

Version 0 of 1.

A group of activists have barricaded themselves inside a recently closed live music venue in central London that has previously played host to acts including Adele and Jeff Buckley. The protest is against what they say is a high-speed gentrification process that is homogenising an area formerly known for alternative culture.

Several dozen people, some of them long-time squatters, have shut themselves inside what was until earlier this month the 12 Bar club on Denmark Street, a narrow road adjoining Soho sometimes known as Tin Pan Alley, which has long been associated with Britain’s pop and rock music scene.

View of the outside of the 12 Bar. Managed to get out when bailiffs were elsewhere pic.twitter.com/THVY7h5ZnS

Some of Denmark Street’s long-standing musical instrument shops remain but much of the surrounding area is being transformed, a lot of it due to massive work connected to the Crossrail project, an east-to-west rail link running in part through the centre of the capital.

The 12 Bar, based in a grade II-listed building which was once a forge, has seen early performances in its tiny venue space over a 20-year history from musicians including Buckley, The Libertines and Adele, with the latter making her London debut there.

This is the tiny and now empty room where bands played in the 12 Bar. Bailiffs still lurking, I'm told. pic.twitter.com/sPIfj4RFTq

Last month the venue’s management said it was being given a month’s notice to quit the Denmark Street site. The closing night was on 14 January.

Notice was reportedly given by Consolidated Group, a property company which has specialised in developing sites in and around Soho for 30 years.

While the 12 Bar has found another home of sorts, holding occasional nights at an Irish pub in Holloway, north London, a group of protesters occupied the vacant Denmark Street venue earlier this week, and have been served with an eviction notice.

They say the loss of the venue following the closure in November of the famous Soho nightclub Madame Jojo’s, and the earlier demolition of other central London music and nightlife venues like the Marquee and Astoria, will accelerate a process of removing counter-culture from the area, leaving it bland and dominated by chains or venues aimed at the well-off.

“A lot of British popular music culture has come through grassroots venues and squats,” said one of the protesters, a squatting activist named Phoenix. “The government and corporate developers are running roughshod over the spirit of London.

“They were given one month’s notice, told they had to leave by 16 January, that’s it. That’s no way to treat a venue that’s been opened for so long and has had so many amazing acts come through it.”

If small, central live music venues were removed from the capital, he added, it would be huge cultural loss: “The spirit of Soho, even the spirit of London, is gradually being whittled away. So much culture has come out this small place. It’s part of British alternative culture. Do we just want another load of chains, Tescos and Starbucks? The 12 Bar should have been protected.”

As bailiffs arrived outside following the expiry of a deadline for the protesters to leave, they barricaded themselves inside the club, using wooden planks, iron bars and other implements.

One of the protesters inside, who gave his name as Joe, said the area was in great danger of losing its unique character: “Soho has been about freedom – creative freedom, sexual freedom, gay, lesbian and transgender freedom. It need to be protected.”

Consolidated Group did not immediately respond to a request for comment.