The rock'n roll Tsar and other stories....

[flaviomatani]

I, along with a few other people, got persuaded by Sam to go to 'the Marathon' in Chalk Farm at midnight last night. Well... now and then, just when you think you've seen everything, you will run into something like this. This is simply a kebab shop where they sell booze until very late (how did they get an alcohol licence.. let alone a late night licence?), full of assorted Camden nocturnal fauna, a den of shouting and pushing with people eating kebabs, shouting over the counter or across the room... and, in the back room, a French rockabilly belting out 50's rock'n roll playing a battered old Stratocaster guitar. A yellowing poster on the wall proclaimed the fame of the 'Rock'n Roll Tsar', with a long list of famous people that had come to some somewhat dodgy North London kebab shop to see him play or play with him. All amidst the noise, the tramps outside asking you for spare change to buy a drink (full points for honesty), the general decor and furniture that wouldn't have been out of place in a side-of-the-road bar in the most run down part of Venezuela, the frying smells...

Comments

[bulletproofcat.livejournal.com]

my god I must have walked past that place 100s of times!

[flavius-m.livejournal.com]

I know, same here.... apparently (see cyberpunkgrrl's post below) the place is a local insitution (actually, looking at some of the audience the night I was there you would really believe it is an institution...) :D

Very interesting, though. I like to know mad places like that exist, even if I don't often go.

[cyberpunkgrrl.livejournal.com]

Blimey... can't believe that place is still going!! We used to go there after Club Kitten at a now non-existance club on a tuesday night about 5 years ago!!

The Marathon is a fantastic place for just chilling out after clubs/pubs...

:)

[flavius-m.livejournal.com]

Yeah, apparently it's been going much longer than that. I was a bit overwhelmed by it all at first, i think...couldn't make sense of the den, the noise and the packed crowd. Half of North London seemed to be there that night, too.

[(Anonymous)]

Flav

I hate this place. It was my second time in this Kebab place. How could I have persuaded you guys to go somewhere I d need to be persuaded to go to ?
XX
Sam

[(Anonymous)]

We did have fun there, didn' we ? :-)
Thanks for the dinner yesterday XX
Sam