Heaven 17 return to Camden Town
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| Glenn Gregory, Heaven 17 lead singer, and Berenice Scott on synthesiser |
Padding along Camden Town's night-time pavements.
Passing small flats selling for penthouse prices.
Sadly, some crumbling Camden corners look lost, forever.
Camden Snooker Club on Delancey Street.
A favourite old haunt for younger cue eagles and gentle old men.
Demolished.
('Leave no trace...)*
Even the once trendy Blair Babes wine bar next door on Arlington Road.
Derelict.
Boarded.
(...Hide your face')*
A passer-by puffs smoke from his 'Camden Carrot'.
A more resolute local tradition.
My destination - the Jazz Cafe on Parkway.
Scene of a raucous homecoming party for 1980s 'Synth Britannia'. (Thursday, 20 February 2014)
('Sweat my youth away').**
Party hosts?
Heaven 17.
Heaven 17.
Martyn Ware on Roland synthesiser, and inspiration.
Glenn Gregory, on rich vocals, and charisma.
Inspired post-punk, synth-futurist pioneers of the earlier British Electric Foundation.
Sheffield's finest, who glowed the hope of white hot synth-pop against the gloomy despair of concrete cold 1980s Britain.
A hostile Thatcherite era of social unrest.
A country tearing up its industrial base in favour of a false financialised future.
A country tearing up its industrial base in favour of a false financialised future.
A decade defined by 'succeed, or don't exist'.
An era that spawned the financial meltdown of 2008 - and, in turn, the rise of today's austerity.
But an era that can't be entirely dismissed as a basket case.
As, out of that mire, came heavenly music, allowing you to say...
...'Hello to my Soul'.**
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| Martyn Ware, Heaven 17, on synthesiser (where else?!) |
Heaven 17 lyrics from:
* 'Temptation'
Photos: © Paul Coleman, London Intelligence, 2014
Paul Coleman, London Intelligence, February 2014
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