It seems Camden is having an identity crisis. How do we keep the spirit of the Camden music scene alive without turning it into a gross caricature of itself? – A pretense of authenticity in exchange for cash? Well, it seems that beneath the veneer of the ‘tourist’ Camden, the true Camden spirit is alive and well. It just takes a bit of tracking down…
Stepping out of Chalk Farm tube station, I stared at Google Maps trying to locate The Fiddler’s Elbow. I walked off the beaten track of the main road down the residential side streets feeling a little lost. The street was quiet and residential with a typical semi-suburban London feel, definitely not the place for passing trade or tourism.
The place has an impressive history (that is pretty well known). The pub was established in 1846, and it’s been the Fiddler’s Elbow venue from the 70s onwards. As soon as you walk into the place, you can smell the history. The floorboards sometimes shift under your feet and the décor feels like it has been collected over a long period of time. The wall over the stage is adorned with decades worth of old records and there’s even a chair embossed with HR that has reported origins in Buckingham Palace.
There have been some big names here, too. Bands like The Vibrators and The Dammed have graced the stage, but that isn’t something the venue really focuses on. The Fiddler’s Elbow is all about the future, as I found out when I got to sit down with owner, Dan Maiden.
“Places like this are very hard to come by as they’re all shutting down. And all the pubs are shutting down. Before everyone used to go out and see live music, and that’s going very fast. I think what’s important is that musicians have a venue like this. If the likes of James May wasn’t picked up in a small venue, how is he going to play the Roundhouse?”
Dan prides himself on the Fiddler’s being a truly independent music venue, described as a true labour of love. For him it’s all about providing a platform for fresh talent. Dan himself is also a musician and identifies as an old mod. I’m quickly reminded that what makes this place great is the amount of diversity on offer:
“There’s no vetting of bands whatsoever, because if you as a musician love what you do, then who am I to say what you’re doing is not good enough for the stage? To me, that’s really wrong. You learn your craft on stages like this, and that’s what makes us different.”
Dan tells me he only hires musicians to work in the pub, as they know the best about how musicians would like to be treated when they come to play in a venue. I’d imagine that comes in handy when they’re listening to up to 28 live bands per week!
Their regular nights include Crawdaddy! (northern soul, R n B and ska on vinyl), open mics, and a Magic night. On the more bizarre end of the spectrum, we have Weirdsville, where every couple of months a bunch of people turn up in spacesuits and listen to Rockabilly music. There are also plenty of one offs from every genre you could imagine, from Jazz to Grime (and everything in between). It’s not just bands that play here – anyone who falls within the arts bracket has the opportunity to perform and hone their craft.
Dan likes to offer a bit of everything so that everyone in the local community is catered for, and everyone feels welcome. He tells me that he’s always having people from the surrounding neighbourhood pop in for the first time, despite walking past for 10 or 20 years…
“Back in the day, there would be lots of gigs down in Camden on a Saturday, you couldn’t get in! All of them under the Camden Lock bridge, they’re all shut down now. I’m trying to reintroduce that, because I think that’s really important – that people that can’t go out at night for whatever reason, or people with kids who are really young could bring them in for a while, if they’ve got the right ear protection. They’d be able to pop in and see live music during the day. It’s all about giving people that option and it’s massively community-led.”
Dan tells me that if anyone in the local community needs the space, Fiddler’s is open from 4pm so the venue is available for anything – poetry readings, book signings, you name it. He’s also hoping to bring back day gigs to serve the local community even more, which I think is an incredible idea. I like the idea of popping out in the day for a bit of music and still being able to have a whole evening of Netflix ahead of me!
The focus on the local community is largely linked to Dan’s wife, Nancy Wild, who is the licensee and a Camden woman born and bred.
It seems to me that The Fiddler’s Elbow manages to achieve that authenticity that I’ve been talking about. It’s a total roulette as to what you might experience, both in genre and in quality. One night you might be listening to the next big thing, the next night it might be your neighbour’s kid learning how to hit a drum. And actually, that’s the charm of it all. It’s holding on, despite the mass closures and the rise of online music sharing instead of real gigs.
Good on yer, Dan.