The Roxy Club

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The Roxy Club was a nightclub in the London borough of Covent Garden and from December 1976 to April 1978 the venue for many live concerts and a meeting place for the punk scene .

history

The little club on Neal Street was opened as a basement bar under the name Chaguaramas and was a gay disco in 1976. At the end of the year he was discovered by Gene October , who was looking for a rehearsal room for his band Chelsea . His manager Andy Czezowski, who was also the accountant of the clothing and thrift store Acme Attractions on King's Road , rented the club and soon realized that the place could become a suitable place to go for fans of the emerging punk . Here he wanted to give the new musicians the chance to play in front of like-minded audiences. Together with business partner Barry Jones, the owner of the studio in which The Damned recorded their first demos, he founded the Roxy in December 1976 .

The band "Chelsea" had now been dissolved and their members Billy Idol , Tony James and John Towe had Generation X founded. Together with Siouxsie and the Banshees , Generation X was the first band to perform at the Roxy on December 14, 1976 under the aegis of Czezowski . The next night Johnny Thunders and The Heartbreakers played there. After the success of these two concerts, Czezowski negotiated a lease on terms of £ 350 a week for the next three months. On January 1, 1977 there was the official opening event with The Clash . The first DJ was Czezowski's colleague from the Acme Attractions store, Don Letts . In addition to punk , which was hardly available on records at the time, he played a lot of dubreggae . In retrospect it is seen as a particularly strong stimulus for the influence of dubreggae in English punk, such as B. at The Clash, blamed.

In the following months, many bands took to the stage, some of them had already established themselves, others appeared in front of an audience for the first time: The Jam , The Vibrators , The Damned , The Boys , Slaughter and the Dogs , Squeeze , Buzzcocks , The Cortinas , The Police , Motörhead , Sex Pistols , The Stranglers and many others. In addition to British bands, US punk bands such as Johnny Thunders 'Heartbreakers, who came to England in December to support the Sex Pistols' Anarchy Tour , and Wayne County & The Electric Chairs also played .

Also, The Adverts was one of the first bands that played at the Roxy. Her singer T. V. Smith recalls in a later interview:

“ Since opening in December 1976, the Roxy has been the meeting place for the new 'punks'. Actually we weren't called punks at that time, there wasn't a word for who we were. Every day at the Roxy you could meet other young people who also wanted a change in music. In the first four or five months it was very intense; there was actually something new to discover in the audience every day. "

Although the club was flourishing, the costs had been borne by the fact that you didn't just have to finance the rent. Constant complaints from residents resulted in high fines. A break-in in the bar put an additional strain on the financial situation. Andy Czezowski and his crew were already facing an eviction after just 100 days of existence of the club when recordings for a live album began in April 1977. The album Live at the Roxy was released in July 1977 and immediately climbed to number 24 on the UK charts. This ensured the continued existence of the club, but the old crew had already been ousted.

It continued in the Roxy with the new owner Kevin St.John and with gigs by The Saints , The Radiators from Space and a spontaneous appearance by Iggy Pop . Meanwhile, a second or even a third wave of punk bands made their appearance in the Roxy, such as B. Sham 69 , Manace and Killjoys , along with a flood of bands that had attached themselves to the genre. At Christmas they celebrated for 48 hours. Two nights followed in which a second live album was recorded. In January, bands like Adam & The Ants and The Psychedelic Furs performed for the first time. But there were no more bands with big names and the Roxy lost its appeal. Jock McDonald's attempt to bring the club to a new high with various stunt shows also failed, and the Roxy finally closed its doors after April 24, 1978.

Discography

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Dave Thompson : London's Burning: True Adventures on the Frontlines of Punk, 1976-1977 . Chicago Review Press, Chicago Illinois 2009, ISBN 978-1-55652-769-2 . Page 208.
  2. ^ Friends of the House - TV Smith. From nothing to a hit single in six months. Die Toten Hosen, December 2010, archived from the original on November 3, 2009 ; Retrieved October 20, 2013 .
  3. ↑ Fansite with concert dates, pictures and newspaper clippings (English)

Web links

Coordinates: 51 ° 30 ′ 53 "  N , 0 ° 7 ′ 35"  W.