Sideways at SXSE: Part I

All the characters and events are fictionalised and any resemblance to persons real or historical is entirely coincidental…

The bus that bore us away from that place felt like some heavenly chariot (never mind the empty beer cans and half-eaten takeaway boxes, for things can get messy in heaven too). We had been rescued from the verge of physical and psychological collapse; all that was left to do was get home, eat, and slip into a stupor of the sinful. With bags under our vacant eyes, sickly pale skin, and an aura resembling a swarm of locusts, we were casualties of a two-day bender.

Right before we left, a private chef with magnificent dreads sat next to us on a pavement bench and did a bump of coke off his hand in full view of passing motorists and pedestrians. The horde of people drinking pints and smoking cigarettes provided excellent cover.

“Do you guys want some?” he politely asked Eliza and I, brushing white flecks of rocket fuel off his nostril.

“Wellllllll,” said Eliza while side-eyeing me.

“Yeah… if you’re offering,” I said, returning her dutiful sidelong glance of ‘if you will, I will too’.

However, the chef’s coke-laced brain acrobatically leapt towards a different conversational trapeze. “I’m LOADED!” he announced. “I make A LOT of money. £30 an hour from cheffing. If you ever want to borrow money, I’m the one to ask.”

With his kind face that perfectly concealed his potential for aggression, I thought he’d make a good loan shark. Thankfully, he totally forgot about his coke offer, because we would’ve taken it, distorting the end of the night into an endless downward spiral.

The chef spotted a familiar face in the crowd and traipsed off without another word.

“On that note,” said Eliza mirthfully while springing to her feet, “it’s time to leeeave.”

“YAAAAAHyahyahyahyah.”

“YAAAHyahyahyahyahyah,” we jabbered in unison.

Back on the heavenly 436 bus. We recounted to each other all the bands we’d seen tonight, how they’d compared to yesterday’s acts, and all the creamy men and sumptuous women who’d regaled us from the stage.

“You should write about this weekend,” Eliza suggested.

“YUUUUUUUUHyuhyuhyuhyuhyuh,” I went absent-mindedly, to which she gave an equally stupid, “YUHYUHYUHYUH.”

“But seriously,” she said, “that was such an odd vibe. It’d make a great article.”

I sat up, gave the idea some thought, and promptly nodded off.

*

She was right though. Recollections of this weekend dismembered by booze have been flashing through my head ever since. So bizarre was the chain of events, the memory insists on being remembered.

Each recollection alters the memory itself. Even now, as I sit here remembering the weekend merely two days later, I’m changing its makeup. Like a clumsy sculptor, I’m ruining my wet and pliable creation each time I handle it. Before I deface the memory further, I’ll seal it in my equivalent of a glass display case; reams of digital A4 pages that’ll never see the light of day.

We were dropped into a microcosm of society with its own chaotic ecosystem; the music scene. There was a ceremoniousness to the artistic and chemical hedonism we witnessed. We’d found ourselves in the midst of some kind of pilgrimage. Musicians, photographers, poets, weirdos, drunks, and all sorts of brilliant and horrible people gravitationally flocked together in a blindingly fantastic gathering.

Same as every atomically bound friendship group, we’ve got a group chat where, among other random crap, we send each other links to gig tickets. One evening Eliza sent a link for South X South East (SXSE) happening in Camberwell over the 12-13 April weekend.

“The festival’s happening over a couple of places,” Eliza explained when we saw her next. “It’s more of a street piss-up than anything else…”

The places in question are The Old Dispensary, this aged and rickety pub with a stage. Across the street is Dash the Henge, a record store with a stage. Down the road in one direction is The Bear, another cracking pub, sans stage, avec DJ. In the other direction is Camberwell Green. People would be moving back and forth between all these places. “It’ll be like Woodstock for fuckwits. Some of these acts only have a few hundred monthly Spotify listeners…” interjected Eliza.

My friends Belle, Sophie, and River were unavailable over that weekend. Tabby and I, on the other hand, had bought a ticket halfway through Eliza’s description. She had us at “street piss-up”.

*

Saturday 12th April, 2025.

Tabby, Eliza, and I met at my Camden flat, where I cooked them a hun-brunch of avocado on toast with scrambled eggs served with Screwdrivers. Because Tabby can match my fiend, she suggested I score some narcotic assistance, which I spent all of yesterday frantically doing to no avail. Not enough supply to meet demand, I guess. I got us a pack of vogues instead because they’re basically the same thing anyway.

“This is my nan’s camera,” said Tabby while pulling out an old digital Kodak out of her African print tote bag. “She didn’t want it anymore so I took it.”

“FLASH ON!” announced Eliza, “Hangover-style evening is a go!”

“YAAAAAAA” I whooped, already ever so slightly tipsy.

“YUH YUH,” replied Eliza. “I ran into so-and-so’s best friend on the train today.” So-and-so and Eliza were seeing each other some time ago until he abruptly and indelicately broke it off. “Bit of a clanger that, isn’t it? It’s fine though. Although we might run into the other unmentionable today.” Eliza is currently seeing said unmentionable, well… kind of. They’ve known each other for about a year and have been going out for a couple of months, until he started acting like a salty bastard towards her and she resolved never to see him again after the last time she became too entangled and gave him up for lent. “He introduced me to a lot of the bands playing today and tomorrow, so I’m a bit worried we might run into him. I actually wasn’t even serious about the tickets but then you two had bought yours so I guess I’m going to have to supervise yous aren’t I.”

“Do we have to look out for someone?” I asked.

“Well…” drew Eliza, “Between people who’ve blocked me, sofas I’ve slept on, and the nameless faces at house parties. There’s quite a few.”

Quite a few was an understatement. Over the course of this weekend I was given a whistle-stop tour of the South East London music scene. But even that statement is a bit of a misnomer because this scene barely covers all of SE London. It’s a random fermented cocktail of people from Deptford, Camberwell, Brixton, and Peckham. Or, if you geographically orient yourself using universities, it’s an admixture of Goldsmiths and Camberwell students. The degrees of separation around these parts are incredibly weak because everyone knows each other through so many overlapping and unlikely connections. A dense social vortex which we were heading right into the eye of.

“Are we gonna have to fight someone?” said Tabby with devilish relish, “Because me knuckles are itchy.”

I egged her on.

“So are mine darling,” Eliza replied, “But hopefully it won’t come to that. Everyone there is quite nice though, I think you two would really get along with Aaron (pronounced Eron).”

Would there be a showdown between Eliza and her old flame if they met? Although bulletproof on the surface, she’s a softie at heart. Eliza had divulged us a few words about his behaviour, and always in a tone fraught with pain and annoyance. Clearly a sore topic. The future was laden with drama. As she said, it was unlikely that things would go down, and if they did, we’d jump into the fray with her. But enough about that, my drink isn’t going to finish itself. 

We rode the tube to Oval station, from where we could take the bus to Camberwell. “Or we can just walk instead,” said Eliza, “It’s only 20 minutes, and look at this day,” she said with a sweeping gesture of her arm. It certainly was a day to look at. The world was dressed to the nines in the most resplendent sunshine. Trees and grass howled out in orgasmic green under such brilliant lighting. We’re already a nation of chronic drinks, but there’s a certain strain in our DNA that’s deeply affected by even the slightest trace of sunshine. A primal thirst for alcohol comes ricocheting to the surface as scores of people descend upon pubs, beer gardens, and parks. All siblings in collective intoxication. At 21 degrees C, today was peak getting-drunk-in-the-sun weather.

All three of us were dressed in primary colours for an outing. Tabby was dressed as the brilliant afternoon sky with her flowy blue denim jeans and velvet blouse cradling the yellow star of her t-shirt. Eliza glowed in her ruby-red mid-length dress. “I look like a street harlot in just the dress,” she declaimed while putting on a beatnik brown corduroy blazer. Both wore different flavours of DMs. I was sporting yellow denim with a deep purple Hawaiian shirt. You can imagine how cool we looked and felt.

The houses looked more disreputable along the way; cracked and peeling plaster with overgrown front yards were becoming the norm. A staring contest was going down between the flats on one side of the street and an abandoned, blackened pub on the other. A portrait of Gustave Klimpt was nailed to a headboard with religious wantonness. This refined dilapidation told us we were approaching cool country.

Passing under the threshold of a railway bridge, we found ourselves walking past The Bear, one of the venues. The scene was out in full force. Vast numbers of people lined the pavements with drinks and cigarettes in hand; if none of the chairs were free, they stood; and if they had no place to stand, they sat on the curb. This was a sight we’d get used to pretty quickly. Cool is more a vibe than a word at this point, given how nebulous the term has become. But by god did everyone look sub-zero!

I felt like I had stumbled into a mineral cave, so dazzled were my eyes by all the charity store gems everyone was wearing. Baggy bell-skirts; soft trenches; sherpa-collared flannels; roughed-up t-shirts; trousers ranging from dirty corduroy to pristine velvet, wide flares and garrotting hems, checks to stripes; long summery dresses; weirdly patterned blouses; camo tops; denim jackets holding on for dear life; frilly crops; black leather dusters turning grey… Equally eclectic was the footwear; all manner of DMs; Adidas Sambas and Bermudas everywhere; snakeskin or embroidered cowboy boots; platforms; socks in sandals; clogs; Uggs…  The entire visible spectrum of light was represented on people’s heads through pigtails, plaits, buzzcuts, curls, space buns, highlights, and a whole plethora of hairdos. Almost everyone was inked and had piercings. There was very little of what the boring folk would call sophistication, but such a concept didn’t belong here. These weird wardrobe combinations just worked; giving off a confident (sometimes too much) aura of insouciance. Everyone’s either broke or close to it, so just throw on whatever you find in the charity store and hope for the worst.

Such were the muted kaleidoscopic outfits throughout the whole weekend.

“Looks really vibey in there,” I remarked.

“Let’s get our wristbands from Dash the Henge first,” suggested Eliza as she marched ahead, “and then we’ll figure out what to do.

Someone called Janani FX was playing at Dash the Henge when we walked in there. Which explains why everyone was crowding and swaying around the tiny stage up front where a slender woman in a flowing cream dress was softly whooping along to a backing track. It was one of those shops that’s longer than it’s wider. T-shirts and scarves were hanging off the ceiling. Once I got my wristband, I began flicking through the records for this was, after all, still a record store. It wasn’t until I saw the posters and signs did I realise it was record store day too! Hence all the hullaballoo. This was one of those niche and hyper-local record stores you don’t find everywhere, proven by me not recognising most of the stuff I was flicking through.

With four singles under her belt at the moment, Janani FX’s breathy, nasally voice outlines soulful patterns across the cloudless sky of her understated instrumentation. And then she’ll do a few verses in Tamil where her vocals take on an acrobatic quality, twirling over her bedroom pop-y melodies like a stunt plane. Her latest single “Cinnamon” turns up the electro-weird on the production, with droning effects that cascade up and down the mix.

Maybe it was a wonky sound check or a timidity on Janani’s part but her vocals sounded quite muffled, as if delivered through cotton. Despite that, she delivered a sweet and often jumpy set which kept most of the crowd in hypnosis.

We grabbed drinks from the off-license next door and sat on the grass in Camberwell Green while chatting and smoking. After three drinks each and a healthy bath of sunshine, we all headed to The Bear. Something irresistible pulled us toward it, even though The Old Dispensary and Dash the Henge were much closer. The source of this attraction became clear once we walked into the pub’s airy interior; it was the grumpy old DJ spinning Cuban bangers from the 60’s and 70’s. A happy sun was emblazoned across the desk, over which he stood, playing one groove after another. In his grey t-shirt and black rectangular glasses, our morose DJ was serving middle-aged dad energy – but the wrong kind. Where he should’ve been giving ‘dad on the beach’, he was instead giving ‘dad in the doghouse’. He had the whole place wrapped around his finger, yet why was it that Tabby, Eliza, me, and a couple of others were the only ones dancing? Perhaps they weren’t as smashed as us. More times than I care to count did I pull out my phone and Shazam his set. Why cultivate what could’ve been a wholesome rapport with a cool and grumpy dad when I can make the sterile and apathetic hands of technology do my bidding? I never did learn the dad’s name in the end…

Tabby and I drank cider all evening while Eliza opted for a Guinness every now and again. We sat with our drinks on the curb, smoking and celebrating life. Maybe it was the alcohol or (more likely) the company of people I love, but it felt like everything would be right in the world – despite everything going wrong. “There’s a certain alchemy in friendship,” Tabby once wrote to me, “that turns silence into something golden.” Instead of silence, we were vivaciously yapping something priceless; our words mingling with the wind and blown across the land. Outweighing all my decadence was the intoxication of this same alchemy.

We headed back to Dash the Henge where someone called Joe Pancucci was groaning into a microphone while holding a bright yellow Gibson SG. We didn’t stay long, just shuffled around awkwardly until we got bored and went out for another cigarette. The pavements were so clogged by drinkers who looked like they’d been caught in a garment factory explosion that I was surprised they weren’t spilling out onto Camberwell New Road. I had imagined a beeping stalemate between motorists and drunkards.

Right across the road was The Old Dispensary (colloquially known as The Old Dip; Tabby thought it was The Old Dick this whole time) where a band called Plutoz Beach were playing. Eliza approached The Old Dick with what I thought was worry in her walk. Once I was inside, I saw a woman with a painted face howling into her microphone to the point of feedback; I then theorised the reason for Eliza’s consternation. Something familiar in the tone and lyrics told me I’d heard a story like this before; my wistful friend beside me may have something unfortunate in common with our songbird on stage.

“Wonderful, would you like a drink?” I asked Eliza.

“Go on then!” she replied happily.

While at the bar, apart from seeing an old man dressed exactly like me (might he be my real father?), I got a chance to look around the place. With a will of their own, my eyes went up towards the ceiling with its octagonal alcove from which hung a rusted chandelier. Each side of the octagon had a frosted window which let in sunshine as if through some complex valve. The way the chandelier’s arms were coiled in on themselves made it resemble some mechanical spider descending from the ceiling by a single thread. A tasteful sense of disrepair radiated off the yellowing wallpaper, draught taps with taped-on labels, wobbly and worn tables, and a sticky floor. People were here, it was happening.

A set of double doors by the stage brings you to a fork in the road; you can either go to the toilets on the left or the beer garden to the right. A large toucan balancing a pint on its beak was painted on the wall leading outside. “Lovely day for a Guinness” it said. With full bladders, we sat on a bench waiting for sweet release. The seal had been broken long ago so the alcohol was going straight through us. As if some heavenly window were opened, a fresh breeze laden with the woodiness of tobacco came wafting from the beer garden. A perfect balm against the miasma of piss that crept out of the men’s stalls.

“Fancy a jam tonight?” I asked Eliza.

“YAHYAHYAH!” she said.

“YAAAAAHYAHYAHYAH” chirped me and Tabby.

“What can I play?” asked Tabby – self-professed as having no musical talent.

“Bang a cheese grater like a cowbell with a wooden spoon!” I suggested.

Someone exited the cubicle to the sound of flushing.

“YOU CAN PLAY THE FLUSH!” Eliza suggested exuberantly.

“Do a flush solo queen!” I told her.

We were clearly getting into the spirit of the music we’d come here to see.

Back in the crowd. “Aaron!” called Eliza to a large man walking past. His size was rendered even more grand when he turned and stared at us through black-out round glasses. He wore a bright yellow dashiki with blue patterns running up and down the sleeves and neck. His smile was as bright as his skin was dark, and something in his manner made me trust him implicitly.

“He plays bass just like you,” Eliza told me. Ahhhhh there it is, he’s also a noisy cretin like me.

He wasn’t alone. Aaron with an E’s companion was just as tall, but only technically as his ridiculously tall mullet made up for the height deficit. Otherwise, he’d only reach up to Aaron’s shoulder. It must take copious amounts of product for him to keep his hair standing like that.

“Hey I’m Fenton,” he said while extending a leather-jacket-clad arm.

Fenton?! Eliza’s reaction was apparently the same when she met him for the first time right outside the Old Dick. Her first outing among the South-East London music scene was uncomfortably as an awkward plus one. Apart from the guy and his friend Jasper, she knew no one, and her fresh-blood status made her feel incredibly overwhelmed. Strange and anonymous faces flitted past her at a hundred kilometres per hour. What was this bizarre clan of people and could she fit in? It was when her social indecision had reached a fever pitch that she met a man with a mohawk twice his height who went by the name of Fenton. Fenton?! All she could think of was that video of a dog chasing after deer in Richmond Park while his owner runs full-tilt after him yelling, “FENTON! FENTON! JESUS CHRIST FENTON!” From his mohawk to his weedy appearance and the fact that his name was Fenton, she found him the mascot of an unbearable night out. But that impression was flipped when she got to know him better…

“How you feeling about your set?” Eliza asked.

“It’s already happened!” Aaron informed with not inconsiderable indignation, “They moved our set earlier so we just had to do it. It is what it is!”

Even though we weren’t able to see Hyperdense, we ended up spending enough time with Aaron and Fenton that evening that it felt like they were performing live for us, just without musical instruments. During all their gigs they couldn’t look more dissimilar; when not in a daishiki, Aaron espouses a casual beatnik wardrobe of suit pants and sweaters in unusual fabrics like velvet; whereas Fenton looks like a pixie-twink-biker in his mesh vest, leather pants, and a mohawk the height of the Crystal Palace transmitter. Yet their conflicting appearances complement each other on a psychological level.

“Y’know kiki and bouba?” Eliza asked me.

“Yeah, that spikey and round shape,” I screamed over the deafening music.

“Bulbous, even!” she chirped.

“Yeah, what about it?”

“Do they remind you of that? I don’t know.”

“How?” I asked, puzzled and intrigued in equal measure.

“You instantly know which one’s called kiki and which one’s bouba without being told. Just like you know which one’s Aaron and which one’s Fenton. They both have such a specific look that you just know. You know?” she rattled off in my ear, unable to overcome the volume in the place.

Completing the Hyperdense power trio is their drummer, who also couldn’t look more different than his bandmates. Where Aaron and Fenton occupy two extremes of the glam spectrum, their nondescript drummer blends into the background like a chameleon. It looks as if the drummer is being switched out every gig. A drum kit playing itself with vigour! So stealthy does the drummer seem on stage (a paradox in itself) that for all we know he was with Aaron and Fenton that whole night and we didn’t notice him.

With two singles out so far – “Puke” and “Dumbass” – they’re carrying on hard rock’s long and distorted tradition of ridding people of their hearing in the most bombastic way possible. The clean and tight refinement of the drumming and Aaron’s deliciously simple basslines balance the chaos. The only thing surpassing the gunk in Fenton’s growl is his overdriven guitar that erupts in fiery fusillade like a military bomber dropping its payload. There’s an ironic self-deprecation in their undecorated lyricism that matches the primal sweatiness of the venues they usually play. At this tempo, drenched in mosh-pit beer, you hardly need poetry…

2/3s of Hyperdense bid their farewells and squeezed deeper into the crowd, to skim the front of the stage upon which Plutoz Beach was making some magnificent noise.

Jaz, the frontwoman of the band, had a face so brilliantly painted that the makeup settled on her like a porcelain mask. Maybe it was the stage lighting messing with my alcohol-coated eyes but she had the immaculate appearance of a jack-in-a-box burlesque dancer. There was just something about that cinched blouse with frilly sleeves. She stood centre stage with a small keyboard, springing at her mic as if puppeted by invisible strings.

The rest of the band’s wardrobe – guitar, bass, and drums – was much more understated but no less iconic. They belonged up on that stage in the same way a family belongs in a portrait. Four singles make up Plutoz Beach’s recorded output. Their first offering, “cry n0 tearz” is this gloomily cynical reality-check which breaks through the sad-girl dark-wave aesthetic with its nauseating synth heartbeat and a cascade of vocal and electronic effects. Best listened to while drowning.

Jaz’s vocals on “More Than a Drunken Night” pierce through a rising tide of dissociative electronics, leaving impious imprints on the instrumentation that encroaches like an unwelcome blackout.

Their most recent single “boy under the lights” opens with a short passage from How the Grinch Stole Christmas: “In her head bum-tumbled a conflict or two; ‘If the Grinch was so bad, then why did he save me? Maybe he wasn't so bad.’” Compared to the hollowed-out depression of their first two singles, the sonic hues lighten up to an aching, manageable melancholia. It’s the sound of searching for a ray of goodness amongst someone’s toxic muck. 

Without warning, the band caterwauled into their signature tune, accompanied by the enthused whooping of the crowd. The jaunty, almost carnivalesque instrumentation of their third single “Nobody Loves Me” provided some weird backing for the lyrical themes of the song – which I’m sure you can work out. Jaz continued to consume the microphone with her wails in the higher registers. As if flipping off a swaying crowd, the band erupted into some pretty freaky noise halfway through the song. While the bassist held rhythm, the guitarist strummed wildly at his strings as if trying to detach a leech from a limb while the drummer ravaged his kit. They repeated this musical self-destruction a couple more times, totally throwing off the crowd, before launching into the final movement of edginess. Even Eliza couldn’t help bopping along to their set despite her complicated allegiances to her old dalliances.

“She’s just such a rockstar,” is how she later described Jaz.

Soon after their set finished, we went to the beer garden to contaminate our lungs. The place was piled sky-high with people, given that the crowd filtered out before the band. We were nestled safely between the armpits of the neighbouring buildings. Dispassionate walls, blackened by the smoky murk of many decades, were snaked by drain pipes and the unflattering ends of exhaust fans. Iron stairs connected various parts of this charmingly gross urban hideaway. What sights had these walls witnessed over the years, I wondered? Stories accumulating like feral grime, told in a language no one would ever understand – unless you speak building.

A man wearing a fedora and a loose T-shirt was disconsolately messing around with a mic and a MacBook on stage. This would be something, I thought derisively. He pressed play on his laptop and an energetic backing track began blasting from the speakers. The triplet drumming pattern and running bass groove made it impossible for the crowd to not move. The man on stage began decorating the backing track with some sudden and breathy singing. “GET UP! GET UP! GET UP!” he commanded. My cynicism was blown away by his shouts. I was gripped by the insuperable urge to dance, so I flailed myself around like one of those wacky-wavy-inflatable-tube-men you see at car washes, all the while taking pictures on Tabby’s digital camera. Who was this fantastic man?! I just had to know. This was a soft punk act from the 80’s called The Woodentops, except the rest of the band were AWOL. It seems either the vocalist here is flying solo with material he wrote for the band or he just couldn’t get the rest together. Despite that, he had the whole crowd wrapped around his fingers, especially when he stepped out in their midst and everyone danced around this geezer as if he was some messiah. The next few songs he played were slower but no less danceable. Most of the songs came from their 1986 album Giant.

Mr. Woodentop left the stage as inconspicuously as he took it, while the whole crowd blearily funnelled out front for a smoke. All manner of people approached us for a conversation, usually with the pretext of stealing a cigarette. I must’ve handed out four cigarettes using Eliza’s baccy as if it were my own while she was in the toilet. Once she returned, we were approached by an old-ish man of about fifty, clad from head to toe in motorcycle gear. He was handing out leaflets for a film club he’s running.

“My name’s Digger,” he said to our bewildered faces, “and yours?”

Digger! We introduced ourselves, inviting some pleasant conversation about motorcycles, stick-and-poke tattoos, and music that I don’t quite remember, especially since I kept running off to the toilet.

Eliza and Digger attempted to exchange contact details but hit a wall when he said he wasn’t on Instagram. “Let me give you my digits,” he said.

Digits! Who was this man called Digger who goes around giving people his digits? There was something innocent in his manner which suggested he truly meant digits rather than saying it just to sound cool. I had reached a point of drunkenness where I thought he was talking about fingers…

It was 20:40 in the evening now and even though bands would still be playing till midnight, we decided to take this gathering to The Windmill in Brixton. Someone called Pink Eye Club would be performing there.

Since the very beginning of our friendship, Eliza has been responsible for digging out a whole clan of musical acts from the depths of obscurity and introducing me to their stuff. They’re either extremely weird or go incredibly hard – mostly both. I would say her finger is on the pulse of the music scene, but it’s more appropriate to say she’s choking it with her bare hands. My Spotify playlists unceasingly grow as a result of it.

We ran into Aaron with an E and Fenton with his obelisk hair in the smoking area just as we were gearing up to leave.

“Are you coming to the Windmill?” Aaron asked.

“For Pink Eye Club?” said Eliza, “Yeah, yeah. See you there?”

Most conversations had this weekend sounded like people shouting down separate phones at each other. It appeared most of the performers from today would be blowing off steam at The Windmill after their sets. So it made sense to follow the crowd.

“Shall we ride a Lime Bike there?” Tabby suggested.

It would be a horrible idea to get on a Lime Bike in the state we were in and then ride it for half an hour from Camberwell to Brixton across London’s rubbish cycling infrastructure where motor vehicles and bikes intermingled without any safe separation. Which is why we went ahead and did it anyway.

Our terrific trio staggered down the street to the nearest bikes we could find. After downloading the app, unlocking one, and hopping on, I realised the brilliant irony of my situation. For the longest time, I’ve wanted to steal a Lime Bike but was too afraid to commit. It’s more like copping a free ride than it is stealing. A couple of years ago you could lift the back wheel, run alongside the bike on its front wheel and drop the back once you picked up enough speed. The momentum would bypass the lock and you’d be able to ride it – provided you’re fine with the incessantly loud clicking of the lock. Even though I’ve known this trick for quite some time and have been in perfectly secluded situations to pull it off, the idea of clickety-clacking on a stolen bike through the night, drawing undue attention to myself always struck the fear of law and judgment in me. And now here I am, sitting on a Lime Bike, about to pay for it! Never mind that the company has fixed what they consider the flaw in their locking mechanism and now you can’t hack into them. Unless there are ways of breaking into them which I don’t know about, in which case someone please tell me because this journey cost me £7.83.

Having never ridden a Lime Bike before, I was wholly unaccustomed to the way it lurches forward like a bucking horse. Our laughter boomed through the night, dissolving in the glow of the traffic lights as we glided through Camberwell towards Brixton. Somehow, we got there in one piece; with only one incident where Tabby’s bike fell over at a traffic light right before it went green. The phone in her basket flew right out, which I grabbed while she got back on her feet. Due to the batteries that power them, these bikes are quite heavy.

An incredibly cute and fluffy dog was asleep underneath the ticket desk at The Windmill. They had brown fur and were the size of a German Shepherd – I don’t really know if they were one, I’m really bad at dog breeds… The man checked our tickets, stamped a ghost on our wrists, and let us in. Small oases of warm rainbow light were the only guidance in this tenebrous place. I’ve watched many YouTube videos of Geordie Greep’s new band doing regular performances here. Now I was staring in wonderment at that same shimmering tinsel stage that caught the colourful lighting like tofu catches the flavour of the dish it’s cooked in.

Tabby and I were at the bar while Eliza went to the toilet. On her way out she saw us at the bar but also a curious sight. An unspeakable head of bleached hair went out back.

“Guys he’s here…” she said woodenly once she approached us.

“Who… Him?! Where?” asked Tabby with the alertness of an eagle in her eyes.

“He just went out to the smoking area,” she told us.

“What do you want to do?” I asked.

“Let’s just get a drink and go sit outside. Pink Eye Club aren’t on till close to 11.”

“Are you ok darling?” Tabby asked.

“Yeah, I wasn’t expecting him to be here! I thought he definitely won’t be here if he wasn’t at the fucking festival… duuuuuuh! Maybe I should be less spontaneous from now on… Guess he hasn’t seen us yet. The worst thing he can do is pretend to not know I am, right?”

With drinks in hand, we headed out the back. The beer garden in The Windmill is massive. There are the usual wooden tables with parasols around the corner where le unmentionable went. But there was also a little hideout where my wits were blown apart.

“What the fuck is this place?!” I drunkenly howled, unable to stifle my surprise. It was an indoor smoking area, but outside.

“It’s the indoor outhouse,” announced Eliza triumphantly, “Have you never been here before?”

“Nope!” I said, gazing at the walls covered from top to bottom in murals and graffiti. The place looked like a regiment of drunk teenagers armed with spray paint and posca pens were turned loose. Not even the framed artwork was spared, assimilated as they were under the same layers of paint and ink that drowned the walls. Peeling leather couches surrounded a large square table, upon which a foil barbecue tray had found a new purpose as the communal ashtray. We had to wade through a thick layer of cigarette smoke towards an empty spot in the corner of the room. Smoking a fag in an indoor public space just hits different. Bring back smoking in restaurants and train carriages. You know what, bring back smoking on aeroplanes too! Dedicate a small ventilated cabin as the smoking area and we’ll take a step closer to creating a flying pub.

Aaron with an E in his daishiki and Fenton with his vertical hair walked into the smoking area, pleased to see us.

“Ayyyyyyyyyyyy,” I screamed, my volume knobs fried from booze, “it’s Sun Ra!” Equally fried, it seems, were my manners and sense of propriety because that was a bit of a questionable statement. Thankfully he didn’t mind. Phew!

“How much product do you go through a day?” I asked Fenton, mesmerised by his Everestian hair.

After a humorous chuckle, he replied, “Not that much actually!”

“Really? I thought you’d be slathering buckets of gel on it.” Because that’s exactly what it looked like.

“A fair bit yes, but no, not that much.” His manner suggested he’d had this conversation before, a bit too often.

Someone asked who is more fuckable, Wallace or Gromit?

“Gromit, obviously!” said Eliza.

“But he’s a dog,” Fenton interjected.

“But Wallace is an idiot,” Tabby countered.

“He’s still a dog though,” Fenton doubled down.

“Gromit’s got more human characteristics than Wallace does,” I said. “Have you seen those elaborate contraptions?” This was a bit disingenuous on my part because I (uncultured heathen that I am) haven’t seen a single Wallace and Gromit film yet. Eliza, Tabby, Belle, and Sophie intend on making it required watching for me, among other culturally significant gems I’m totally privy to from under my rock. But I do know that Gromit is known for his elaborate contraptions! (Wallace is actually the inventor, as I found out later) Fake till you make it baby.

“Get me a man like Gromit,” Eliza pleaded to the world.

“What do you think?” I asked a man and woman smoking a cigarette opposite us who’d been following our conversation. “Who’s more fuckable? Wallace or Gromit, and why is the correct answer Gromit?”

“I agree!” said the woman in a low-cut white top and jet-black hair. “I’d fuck Gromit.”

Her companion echoed her sentiments. Seems it was unanimous. Or we’re all just depraved.

“Alternative question:” I said to the random pair opposite us, “Which ocean is most fuckable?”

After a moment’s deliberation, she replied Pacific. “What about you?”

“Arctic!” I said without hesitation.

“Why?” was her nonplussed response.

“I just think that the Arctic ocean would be quite freaky in bed. Although it’s interesting you say Pacific. Most people have given that answer?”

“Do you just go around asking people what ocean they want to fuck?” Eliza poked from behind me.

“Nooooooooo,” I replied bashfully, “it was an Instagram post. Most people answered Pacific. I wonder why?”

“There are a lot of holiday destinations along the Pacific,” Tabby offered.

“Bitch you’re so right!” I said.

“You think of the Pacific and you think of good vibes, easy-going, chilling on the beach, drinking a cocktail…” Tabby explained.

“It’s a holiday fuck!” the random woman across from us contributed righteously.

“Fuuuuucking hell look at what I’ve still got!” groaned Eliza and we all turned to face her. Her hand was furtively hidden in the depths of her bag as if retrieving it from the mouth of some ravenous yet toothless animal. She pulled out a bright blue, shiny luchador mask with grey accents around the eyes and mouth. Eliza’s mother had recently bought this back from Mexico. It’s been a bit of a cursed object that we like to bring out to unnerve people, but usually only in private. What made us want to bring this out in public, none of us really know. 

“Oh my god hand it over!” I howled. She was only too happy to be rid of it, not wanting to be caught dead holding this authentic wrestling mask. In my wrecked state, the subtleties of cultural appropriation were totally lost to me, so I laced up the mask, put my glasses over the top so I could still see, and sat with the accursed veil on my face for a good five minutes. At least no one outside those immediately present will be able to make out the identity of this insensitive fool.

I went inside for another drink and saw that the dog previously asleep by the front door had awoken! Not only that but they were avidly milling around the Windmill, walking right out to the dance floor, brushing past people’s legs, and rolling over at the feet of fawning drunkards. My mission for drink I totally abandoned and began following this majestic dog, hoping to pet it. It was too fast for me, however, evading all my attempts for affection. Story of my life.

All sense of chronology in my memory begins to break down at this point. Without any sense of up or down, the who, what, when, where, and why of my conversations is disoriented. And because the only two witnesses I can trust in this saga had reached similar depths of inebriation as me, the retelling of the rest of this evening will be a patchwork of guesses and delusions.

We left the indoor outhouse to sit out in the open air around the corner. We occupied a table right behind the one the unmentionablewas sitting at with his back to us. Eliza sat opposite me and Tabby, commanding a full view of his table. We’d been here for a couple of hours so it would’ve been impossible for him not to have seen her; either at the bar or while walking past the indoor outhouse. She knew this as well as us, hence her tense aura. By all appearances, he was ignoring her. I turned around to catch a glimpse but she stopped me. After some silently nervous deliberation, Eliza said, “I’m going to talk to him.”

Before either of us had time to reply, she was up and strolling towards the valley of the shadow of death. Me and Tabby were left to ourselves; we turned around every now and again to steal a glance at this person who’s been the bane of Eliza’s existence lately. A head of peroxide and some wisps of cigarette smoke were all we saw. After some time Eliza returned with a haunted expression on her face.

“He pretended not to know who I was…” she said, not wanting to keep the words in her mouth anymore. “I fucking predicted that the worst thing he could do is pretend not to know me and then he does just that!”

There’s some cruel cosmic irony in the fact that Eliza met the unmentionable one for the first time in the Wetherspoons in Stanstead Airport; also called The Windmill.

Suddenly we found ourselves right in the midst of a gyrating crowd while a man was rhythmically speaking into a microphone with his shirt unbuttoned; rotund belly proudly on display. Behind him was an invisible man in US Army camo controlling the decks. Both were sweating profusely. It felt like we’d just been dropped in the middle of it all, with no cause to the effect.

Eliza wore a dejected face for the rest of the evening; she could drill holes with those eyes. “I need a drink,” she announced quietly and sidled to the bar.

Up on stage was Pink Eye Club, the musical product of Haydn Davies, a man in a humorous love affair with disco. A slew of singles have culminated in an album he released in 2023 called Disco Reality. The beats that carry the album are simple yet irresistible once you’ve had a few drinks in you. All the while Haydn delivers what I can only describe as a drunk oration of his lyrics that either hold some moral morsel, speak his own praises, or criticise snobs. With tracks titles like “Art School Fuckers”, “Heterosexual Pissing Contest”, and “The Day That I Became A Legend”, the album’s tongue is securely in its cheek.  Although not nearly as silly, the stuff here is very reminiscent of Jim E. Brown, another musician making strange waves in the scene.

The crowd was pressed up right against the stage like soldiers in a trench. Aaron and Fenton appeared dancing out of some void, with the triumph of astronauts who’d survived a crash landing. For the assembled cavalry, Haydn was decorating his beats with barely musical spoken word from the hilltop of the stage. His sweat-slicked body glittered vampiric under the stage lights, ruffled hair glued to his forehead. The beats crawled up my leg and took refuge in my stomach from where they had me under their spell. Caught in this collective hysteria, I pointed Tabby’s camera in clueless directions, making the place explode white-hot under the flash.

“That man on the decks is Jasper,” said Eliza when she came back from the bar. “He’s friends with the one who shan't be named and is also in House Arrest who’re playing tomorrow.” His face was wide and flat enough to support the broadness of his mischievous grin. Hair also plastered across his face and a pair of black wraparound sunglasses across his eyes, he was a picture of cultivated vagrancy.

In such a close-knit scene, it’s not uncommon at all for musicians to appear in each other’s bands. In fact, any artistic community will have the tendency to inter-pollinate. Like free-floating atoms undergoing a creative reaction, they’re bound to form molecules. Take Jasper for example, apart from playing in House Arrest and occasionally DJing with Pink Eye Club, he’s also in two other bands; The Ringards and Children of the Pope. Neither the exception nor the rule, such prolific musical output is galvanised by being surrounded by other musicians who want to work with you. Record a guitar part here. Appear in a music video there. Fill in for a missing drummer at a gig. You get the idea.

Such an open-borders attitude between the various bands in the scene goes totally against this archaic and overly-romanticised idea of the lonely genius. No art is created in a vacuum but rather through the invisible inspiration of those around you. A healthy culture of collaboration cements the musical principles of a scene; a guide that musicians can either follow or wilfully defy in the pursuit of their artistic visions. Without such solidarity, musicians are like castaways in leaky boats navigating the open ocean of the biz, vulnerable to the prowling piracy of greedy labels and publishers.

It was an illuminating realisation of how interconnected the bands and venues in this scene are the more I learnt about them.

Eliza, who’d been swaying on crestfallen autopilot to the music so far, suddenly reanimated and began singing along to Haydn’s next song.

“YOU’RE JUST A STUPID FUCKING MAN. IN A STUPID FUCKING BAND!” went the refrain which Eliza screamed along to with the intensity of one exorcising a demon.

Without any sense of continuity again, we were outside waiting for our Uber to pick us up. When did the gig finish, did we stay for another drink, who knows the answers to these questions? Even though the night tube was running, none of us were in any state to brave the brutalities of public transport on a Saturday night. This would be the worst time to bump into our own kind. 

Whisked down the ever-tightening streets of London, we felt torn and frayed. While Eliza was holding back tears in the front, I was holding back vomit in the back. Tabby was the only one among us to hold herself somewhat straight (excluding the taxi driver of course).

“I’m going to have to avoid The Windmill now,” said Eliza with a defeated chuckle.

“The Windmill is your Moth Club!” I said after opening the window enough to restore a bit of order to my spiralling brain.

Gasps of agreement all round. If the taxi driver knew the story, he’d agree too; so I’ll briefly recount it for his benefit. Our friend Belle (who was with us today in spirit) is spiritually barred from Moth Club after an episode of alcohol poisoning so extreme and terrifying that it was a miracle she lived to see the next day. The merest mention of the place is enough to drain the colour from her already-pale complexion.

“But I fucking like the Windmill,” Eliza protested to the world.

We gorged ourselves on falafel and hummus wraps from a kebab shop around the corner to level ourselves out.

That jam session we were anticipating all day was a disaster. Both our motor function and hearing were so scrambled that scarcely could we tell how untuned our instruments were. Our disoriented dissonance felt a fitting requiem to this day full of raucous music. Angrily unplugging our guitars, we slipped into fitful sleep; unsafe in the knowledge that we had another whole day of this ahead of us.

*