This article is transferred from the author | Zhang Lushi
In an antique guitar shop on Danish Street, a Gibson guitar hangs next to a poster filled with signatures of famous musicians and bands. Image: GettyImages
In the baptism of neighborhood reconstruction, an old street that has witnessed many legendary histories of British pop music faces the contradiction between renewal and nostalgia.
In the process of urban transformation around the world today, an English word that has evolved from the French root is very common: "Gentrification". In urban sociology, it means "the influx of the upper middle class into traditional blue-collar neighborhoods."
About 10 years ago, when the German "Hamburg Harbor New Town" was being developed, I listened to an anti-"gentrification" writer Christoph Twickel trying to trace the roots of the "gentrification" of the city: the era of the company, the city center, the industrial city, is in the past, and now it is the era of the "global city", and the enterprise factories have moved outside the city, so the city needs to find another heart. Around the world, it is not uncommon to see revitalised urban areas revitalized, such as London's Notting Hill, which is typical of the transformation from obscurity to a golden neighborhood.
Some Western countries have been exploring this road of old city transformation since the 1970s. Some old towns with historical and cultural heritage values need to be rebuilt due to their disrepair, and the location where the old town is located has commercial development value, so it has become the target of real estate developers who make profits from urban development. The usual practice is that developers look at a piece of land, tear down old buildings, build high-end commercial houses and office buildings, and then sell them to people who can afford it, while "indigenous people" have to roll up and leave under the soaring housing prices. In this urban development mode, it is inevitable that ancient buildings with rich historical and cultural heritage will be destroyed and the urban human environment will be tampered with.
In recent years, however, urban transformation with respect for history seems to be increasingly common. Of course, many of them are because the original building is a protected cultural relic and cannot be changed according to law; This is beyond spontaneous respect, or the practice of reaching agreement after communicating with the local population. One is the renovation of a single building, like many century-old houses in England are renovated into new hotels or apartment buildings, the developer will refer to the original appearance of these buildings, and then do the renovation under the guidance of public institutions such as "English Heritage" and local municipal authorities.
The other is the transformation of an entire street or a whole block. Like the recent transformation of Denmark Street near London's Soho, a tribute to the history of pop music on the street can also be seen in the new spaces that are gradually taking shape. The wide audience of popular music determined that such a neighborhood renovation was by no means limited to attracting the wealthy gentry. If we trace the development of the recent history of British rock, the participants and audiences of this group of cultures are even the opposite of the rich class.
The "Danish Street" was transformed, thus creating an interesting tension.
"Danish Street" takes its name from queen Anne of England's husband in the 17th century, Prince George of Denmark, the street developed from the late 17th century, until the 19th century, it was always a residential area, and then slowly appeared hardware shops. Since the beginning of the 20th century, independent music publishers have successively settled in, which has also opened the history of "Danish Street" as a major place in British pop music.
There is a saying in the british new bands and brokerage circles: "If you want to eat the bowl of music, you have to go to Danish Street." Image: GettyImages
For someone who has gone to Dane Street to buy an electric piano and guitar and usually comes here to visit the instrument shop when he has nothing to do, I am very concerned about the progress of the renovation of this neighborhood. If you're someone who cares about British pop and rock 'n' roll, a history of Danish Street since the 1950s may be of interest to you. The famous pop music outlet New Musical Express (NME) was founded in 1952 on Danish Street and did not move out until 1964. At that time, the music publishing trade on the streets of Denmark began to decline, and the "Rolling Stones" had just begun to appear with songs they had written. A number of independent recording studios appeared on the street, including the famous Regent Sound Studios. At that time, there was a saying in the new band and brokerage circles: "If you want to eat the bowl of music, you have to go to Danish Street." Guitarist Jimmy Page, who later became the lead brains of the band "Zeppelin," often came here early to record guitars for other bands; In 1964, the Rolling Stones recorded their first album here, including their first hit single, "Not Fade Away," and the hugely popular rock band The Kinks also recorded in an underground recording studio on Danish Street.
Since the opening of the first guitar store in 1969, a number of side-by-side musical instrument stores have opened on Danish Street. In 1992, Peer Music, the last music publisher on the street, moved out, and "Danish Street" became a veritable "musical instrument street". After entering 2000, the rent of "Danish Street" soared, and several long-established musical instrument shops were forced to close. Looking back, before this renovation, every time I came over the years, I felt a depression in the street. So renovations are not necessarily a good thing.
The renovation began with a stop near Danish Street, the Crossrail, which began operating this year. The construction of the Transrail began in 2009, and it was also in that year that British Heritage included the street in the list of "endangered", and later the local municipal government included "Danish Street" in the list of protected streets. However, "protection" does not mean that there are no changes, and in 2013 the local government announced that "Danish Street" would be developed and renovated together with the "Trans-Railway" project, including the demolition of some buildings.
Danish Street was once a well-known "musical instrument street", but in the face of the torrent of the times, many established music stores have also fallen into an existential crisis. Image: GettyImages
On the façade of Building 9 Danish Street today hangs a blue plaque with the words "Tin Pan Alley" and a small note "1911-1992, House of British Publishers and Songwriters, and The Giaconda," the meeting place for all of you. The 'Blue Plaque', a historical marker that began in 1866, marks the important association of specific addresses within London with historical celebrities and is today operated by Heritage Britain. The plaque on the street was only hung in 2014. The Giaconda was a café where the Rolling Stones signed a contract with a record label, and in the early 1970s David Bowie often spent the night outside the café door and finalized his first accompaniment band line-up here, where guitar "gods" Jimi Hendrix and Elton John also came here for coffee and meeting people, making the café famous. The shop next to the blue plaque has long since closed after changing hands several times and has now been transformed into a steakhouse.
As for the meaning of "Tin Pan Alley", the source is also interesting. In the early 20th century, the New York Herald carried an article written by journalist Monroe H. Rosenfeld that described "different sounds coming from many cheap pianos at the same time", reminiscent of "the sound of scrap copper and rotten iron beating in the alley". It's actually a street of pop music publishers in New York city at the end of the 19th century, and "Danish Street" was later seen as the "British version of Tin Pan Alley."
Developers bought 16 buildings on Danish Street a few years ago for renovation, and the most appealing to British pop and rock lovers was the remodeled building space, including Regent Sound Studios, the recording studio of the band "Rolling Stones" who recorded their debut album in 1964; While working at the music press here, Elton John wrote his early hit "Your Song," which debuted in 1971, and David Bowie created the stage personality "Ziggy Stardust" on "Danish Street" and, of course, the recording and residence of the band "Punk Rock" pioneer "The Sex Pistols." Today, these spaces have become hotel rooms called "Chateau Denmark". This means that the era of "everyone can play the guitar" has been turned upside down today as "everyone can sleep in the birthplace of 'punk rock'".
The Rolling Stones in 1964. Image: GettyImages
The building next to the blue plaque is the British National Grade II Heritage Protection Building, the appearance must not be changed, I walked into the building, saw the stairs did not move, decoration and transformation are in each door. Viewed from outside the door, each room is designed to look and feel like a recording studio. And in the hotel bedroom, when I saw the skull on the bedside wallpaper, the cross above the wardrobe, and the jacuzzi and the bar full of alcohol in the scarlet room, I was a little curious about what kind of crowd Chateau Denmark would attract.
Maybe there will be Bowie, "Rolling Stones" fans, and "punk rock" fans? Among the definors of "punk rock" that emerged in the mid-1970s was Patty Smith in New York and "sex pistols" in London. In fact, from the name of a band with an obvious "out-of-character" such as "The Sex Pistols", and the lyrics of the band criticizing the sociality of the British "conformity" in one of its masterpieces, "God Save the Queen", we can understand the "punk" expression of that year. The musical landing point of the "punk" spirit is to treat some conventional social customs with a rebellious attitude of "removing its dross", and to express political ideas in a high-profile manner in the lyrics is more popular than the sharp instrumental playing skills or the rounded voice. That is to say, having an attitude is the most important, technology is secondary, which is equivalent to lowering the threshold of "playing music" and increasing the participation of ordinary people. The "punk" fashion sweeps the world for good reason.
The 1977 performance of The Sex Pistols. Image: GettyImages
"Sex Pistols" only existed as a complete band for more than two years, but the symbols of "anarchism" in their music and the dress of the band members had a profound impact on a large number of latecomers, and were even recognized as the starting point of British punk rock. In the early days of the band's activity, it was based in two 17th-century buildings on Denmark Street. From 1975 to 1977, shortly after the "Sex Pistol" was incorporated, the band's manager, Malcolm McLaren, rented the space in the building, and the basement floor was used as a recording studio, where the early demos of the "Sex Pistol" were recorded. Upstairs is the living space of band members Glen Matlock and Steve Jones. Lead singer John Lydon (stage name Johnny Rotten) left self-portraits and other graffiti in the upstairs room, which were also included in the "Protected Heritage" list.
In addition to the decoration style, another obvious paradox in my opinion is that the hotel starts at more than 400 pounds a night, and the lovers of non-mainstream music culture have always been non-rich people. Maybe it will attract the once non-mainstream music fans, today's aging middle class? Just like the pop music festival held in Hyde Park every year, most of the bands invited are more senior, and the corresponding audience also has a certain spending power. I heard that there are also unfinished rooms, which will be decorated with drums, and the bedroom will have the feeling of a rehearsal room. If you are not a pyramid-tip musician or a traffic star, you may not be able to afford to live here with the income of ordinary full-time musicians. Business people who formed bands when they were young should like the music theme tour here.
Chateau Denmark's room, and part of it, is in a newly built building on the edge of "Danish Street". Many of the bedrooms are "punk" themed rooms, with well-colored accents in the rooms, stick figures on the glass doors of the bathrooms, and half-artistic and half-ambiguous installations on the bedside tables. This symbolic consumption can stimulate the senses, but it makes fans wonder where to start for a while.
Perhaps this is the use of business practices to pay homage to the limitations faced by the culture of a particular historical period. The essence behind "spend the night like a rock star" is more like opening a bottle of high-priced wine on the brand-new bar and using your imagination to make the Regent Sound Studios ruins overflow with "legend".