Everything has an underbelly. You scratch in the right place and you can catch the scent of the particulate. Those granular details that give a place its feel. I’m always sniffing them out. Walking slowly, savoring every step.
A scene is a forest of people connected through the mycelium of creativity.
A community of artists bound by a subterranean joy. That is why I am here. To seek out the wilderness of feeling and feel it.
The first place I went in South London was The Windmill. Located in Brixton, this venue operates as a nerve center for the scene. A launch point for several critically-acclaimed bands to recently emerge from South London, like Squid and Black Country, New Road, The Windmill fosters an ecosystem of originality. Always giving space to new artists, its stage is both accessible and coveted. Its reputation extends far beyond the scene where it lives and yet it remains irrefutably local.
I go on a Monday night. Bands I’ve never heard of on the bill. Eight quid for the door. Why not fly blind to my first show in London? I’m not going to get another chance to have a first time. Let it be this.
I walk over to the venue from a nearby pub and pause outside to take it all in. Standing in the light of its sign, I look across the street and see a construction site blocked off by a chain-link fence. Soon there will be a crane here. Not a huge one given the size of the plot, but it will still cast a shadow.
Location, location, location.
I make my way inside and find the bathroom. It’s always the first thing I do at a show, not just for the strategic importance, but for what’s inside to read.
Dive bar bathrooms never disappoint. They always tell you what people are feeling. And the view from inside The Windmill is a silly one.
I stick around for all three acts, weaving between regulars and friends of the bands until the last act when I got an unobstructed view in the front. The stage area is remarkably small, awkwardly shaped. Booths nearby with wine bottle candlesticks covered in wax.
I can’t help but think about drunk people near open flames. But The Windmill has great faith in humanity. It shows. Here on a Monday night, the venue is filled. Folks just turning out instinctively—the hallmark of a healthy creative scene.
“Follow the bliss,” said the opener, sitting out back with a cigarette at the end of the night.
“Indeed.”
Over the next few days I will explore a symmetry of coincidence, where my itinerary and my wanderings collide. Soon I’ll be visiting Stonehenge. Then I’m going to check out a new record shop opening in Camberwell, South London called Dash The Henge.
Two henges, one traveler. Let’s see where this goes.
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Feature photo by the author. October 2022. The Windmill Brixton.
