Photo Vinegar Yard Flea Market, London: 𝓐 𝓚ⅰ𝓬𝒌 Ìռძⅰ𝓮 𝓝𝒖ꚍⱿ

January 21, 2023

London Can You Wait?

More London stuff I am afraid, it seems to be a feature as I/We trot around a whole bunch more of it, clearly I need to start writing a travel blog or 'tarting myself out' as a tourist guide!😂. The header photo showing some more crazy London artwork by British artist Joe Rush, the venue is a tiny flea market called Vinegar Yard located on the south side of the Thames, it's not far from the iconic Shard building. The market itself contains a handful of small stalls selling second hand books, vinyl, clothes, vintage maps, jewellery, pretty much all sorts. We popped down there a couple of times recently and brought R Kid a vintage World Map for their birthday (they love a good map!) and again more recently with friends. It's a nice and compact market, just enough to keep you amused for an hour or so, after that there is a restaurant next door as well as a trot along part of South London past the London School Of Fashion, many 'artisan' type shops, nice little pubs and as this part of the river used to serve some purpose back hundreds of years ago it contains many old grand factories and architecture.

The area of Bermondsey was known back in the day for leather and tanning as well as being a home to Sarson's Malt Vinegar (I am sure the smell mixing leather and tanning with distilling vinegar around the area back in the day must have been quite pungent!), check out LayersOfLondon.org for more info.

Old Operating Theatre Museum: Picture Source Pinterest via thrillist.com

If you head the other way back to London Bridge station you pass the 'Old Operating Theatre Museum' which again is a lovely piece of history showing a unique insight into the history of medicine and surgery. Anyhoo, enough of the history and South London for a while and onwards 'To The City'...

We'll Find Our Own Way...

Gene, one of the bands from the whole 'Brit Pop' era that I really loved and still do. They seemed to me to be so much more than the tag they became associated with or the comparisons they drew based on the attitudes and writings in music press at the time. They were often compared to The Smiths, I guess lead singer Martin Rossiter's style perhaps caused a comparison? Not sure if, from his perspective would he have been happy about it? Maybe it helped or hampered them in gaining recognition, who knows?

Primary — Gene, Picture Source: Discogs.com

I guess perhaps they were overshadowed by some of the 'big hitters' of the day such as Oasis or Blur, to be honest there were so many good 'Brit Pop'/'Indie' bands about at the time you were kind of spoiled for choice.

The Band

Martin Rossiter - Vocals
Matt James - Drums
Kevin Miles - Bass
Steve Mason - Guitar

The album was released on their own 'Costermonger' label in 1995 (the term Costermonger being a Market Trader selling fruit and veg from a handcart prevalent in the 18th Century especially in London Markets such as Smithfield, Spitalfields or Billingsgate).

I got their album 'Olympian' not long after it came out in 1995 and was quite 'blown away' with the sound. They were quite simply awesome, it was an album you could put on and not want to skip any of the tracks, from the fast paced 'Haunted By You' to the very mellow title track 'Olympian'. I still have it tucked away in my collection and dug it out again recently. The vocals and the whole musicianship on the album is quite stunning, evidently the band drew their influences from bands such as The Jam, The Style Council, The Smiths and The Clash.

Olympian Track List

Haunted By You
Your Love, It Lies
Truth, Rest Your Head
A Car That Sped
Left-Handed
London, Can You Wait?
To The City
Still Can't Find The Phone
Sleep Well Tonight
Olympian
We'll Find Our Own Way

Secondary, 6 of 7 — Olympian, Picture Source: Discogs

It is/was quite unusual in that there are some wonderful piano pieces and beautiful vocals and where it matters some 'punchy guitars' added to that the solid backbeat and bass-line. Tracks like 'Left-Handed' and 'To The City' kick straight in with a punch.

On the converse side have a listen to the beautiful 'grief-ridden' title track 'Olympian' at the youtube link, quite stunningly timeless with it's quiet piano and vocal start to the swooping vocals and musical crescendo towards the end, this band really should have made it much bigger than they perhaps did.

I also liked the 'snarl of aggression' in the lyrics of the track 'Sleep Well Tonight' a real dig against sh*t homophobic attitudes of the day, a positive message at a time perhaps when attitudes towards the whole gay scene were still maybe a little more 'knuckle dragging' than should have been for a much more 'well educated' mass.

You can catch all the tracks from the Gene album on the youtube playlist link 'Olympian'.

Concert Memories

I got to see them at the V97 Festival and they were as impressive live as they were on vinyl. The festival was quite a 'gig' for amazing bands, the headliners were Blur on Saturday night who absolutely 'rocked' the show. I also got to see other favourites of mine i.e. Echobelly, Placebo and Pavement to name a few.