Areas normally evolve stylistically according to the culture of its residents, but what’s fascinating about the changing face of East London’s Shoreditch and Hoxton over the past ten to twelve years lies with the sudden influx of artists. A once culturally starved cross section of shoe shops and warehouses was suddenly overrun by vagabond beatniks, renegade artists who moved there in some cases out of desperation because they couldn’t afford to live anywhere else. These artists have since redefined what the area stands for. And since the arrival of this happening posse, the prancing clan of soap-less flamboyance, Shoreditch has been inundated with such a vibrant array of creativity spewing out in different mediums, it’s difficult to recognise the defining characteristics of what made the area so important to the people who grew up there.
Furniture polishing workshops from the seventies and eighties evolved into studio spaces and galleries. Old man pubs sifted seamlessly into trendy, ironic art caverns. And the clientele of which were no longer paunchy working men of cockney swagger, but waiflike androgynoids in denim tights brandishing portfolios and foot-long moustaches, or “Choffs” (toffs who dress as chavs) as they are known in some circles. DJ’s were no longer geezers with a few boxes of records looping Come On Eileen and Jive Bunny. Now they were neon slick, drug addled noise technicians, manufacturing beats without rhythms because they know what makes us dance.
It was once an exciting time. Ten years ago I was overjoyed to find myself nestled in the corner of an illegal underground rave a few minutes down the road from my old primary school. Coiled bug-eyed in the corner of a pop-up soiree dribbling aspirin onto my sleeve while people dressed as pirates, Victorian princesses and demonic gypsies flailed around in some kind of decadent trance. It all felt so invigorating and discreet. But the secret got out, and the dream mutated from a throbbing feral beast into a measly slug. Clubs such as Herbal and 333 were suddenly the target of party goers all over the capital. Londoners by the busload turned up to dance, vomit and die on our doorsteps. Even Shoreditch Church housed a Pete Doherty gig, and the once best kept community secret was suddenly being flaunted on the cover of Time Out and Modem for all to seek out and annihilate.
In no time at all there was a massacre, and a new breed of party-goer entered the scene: the lolly-pop boys. People from lands afar like Kent and Essex ventured into town to experience what they had only read about on status updates. And the pavements became encrusted with vomit, food for the pigeons to feast on. By daylight Saturday mornings, bodies lay strewn in doorways, twisted unconscious into some demented configuration like the fossilised remains of an ancient reptile, waiting to be dusted off by some palaeontologist or parking attendant. The sounds became louder and more nonsensical, the drinks more expensive and the clientele helplessly ravaged.
Recognising that there was money to be made, advertising companies and media enterprises set up shop. Clubs and live music venues grew out of nowhere, swiftly followed by record stores and recording studios and Shoreditch suddenly took another vital step to becoming the new Soho, while Soho became the old Dalston, and Dalston the new Shoreditch. Most of the original Shoreditch artists jumped ship either into a graphic designer roles or affordable bedsits in Hackney. And it seemed what was once an interesting, singular, artistic expression by a community of passionate individuals with nothing but a dream slowly became a hollow gentrification and just another case of pop eating itself.
So what’s left for the future of the area, of the media machines that have taken residence in buildings that used to be shoe shops and pharmacies? While the remaining few of the old school Bethnal residents sit quietly in the shadows of the Birdcage sipping pints, the once happening scene is ravaged, stripped bare of all it was once worth by the conglomerates and withering on the doorstep of Jaguar Shoes. Our worn out, knackered, once happening beast of an art machine has sold out like the rest of them and has nothing left to say. Either the forces at work finally recognise that a change is needed, and act now before it’s too late, or just pack up and leave. Because there will always be a new breed of fresh-faced individuals standing quietly in the shadows, observing patiently, waiting for the right time to pounce.
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