Music scenes in Waltham Forest – alternatives
Waltham Forest has long been home to many vibrant musical subcultures, from punk and New Wave to reggae, house and grime. Small but passionate scenes found homes in record shops and labels, schools and colleges, and pubs and venues across the borough.
Walthamstow Art College was the alma mater of Ian Dury, the Walthamstow Assembly Halls the location of early performances by The Stranglers and the Sex Pistols. The Granada Cinema – now soon to be reopened as the Soho Theatre – was the location of the first UK performance by James Brown in March 1966.
Small Wonder Records – a record store and label operating on Hoe Street – put out the first singles of Bauhaus and the Cure, among many other punk and alternative acts, and the Trojan Records studios off Lea Bridge Road in 1993 saw the first recording by Desmond Dekker in a decade, for the album King of Kings which he recorded with the Specials.
Homegrown talent too has flourished in the borough, from the days of pub rock bands performing in pubs like The Standard on Blackhorse Road and the Anchor and Hope on Lea Bridge Road, to the emergence of acid house and rave in the 1990s in venues like the Dungeons nightclub in Leyton providing a home for pioneering DJs.
Waltham Forest’s influence was felt further afield, too, not only in the records put out by its independent and alternative labels, but in its publications too – publications like the zine Ravescene, put out by Gwen and Josh Lawford in Chingford between 1992 and 1994, and Nihilistic Vices, a punk zine published in Walthamstow in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
If you have any memories of making music in the borough – playing yourself, attending gigs, shopping for records or anything else – we would love to hear from you.