1. T 01708 501762 | M 07734 712855 | E lisaemilywade@hotmail.com | www.lisawade.co.ukMAGAZINES: Zest Media
16
Femi Fem has been at the heart of the
west London music scene for many years
and now he’s back in Acklam Road as
musical director of Supperclub.
Pendle Harte catches up with him
PHOTOGRAPHY BY HAnnAH YOUnG
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A converted stable off the Harrow Road
is a shrine to salvaged materials and
rescued furniture. Absolutely takes a
tour around Retrouvius
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ABSO FEB12.indb 50 27/01/2012 15:51
17
PROFILE
F
emi Fem knows
everybody. He’s a popular
man – it comes with the
territory. Providing the
people of west London
and further afield with music to
party to for more than 20 years
makes a person a lot of friends. He’s
warm and friendly too – not jaded
by the years of late nights – and
his enthusiasm for music has been
a lifelong theme. “Doing parties
connects you to a place and you
know lots of people. You provide
that service for people you become
their friend and they like you,” he
tells me over coffee in W10.
“My friends laugh and say that
I always work in the same square
mile,” says Femi – because his new
job takes him right back to the spot
where he worked years ago. Femi’s
Friday night Rotation was a long-
running night in the 1990s, when
the club under the Westway was still
Subterania. And it was at a Rotation
reunion on the same site in 2009
that his new job was born – meeting
the club’s new owners led to Femi
becoming Musical Director of what
is now Supperclub. He says this with
a smirk. Doesn’t he like the title?
“I like it but I think it’s funny,” he
says. The corporate-sounding gig is
a world away from the spontaneous
world of illegal warehouse parties he
was running in the 80s – or at least
the job title is. Supperclub, he says,
has a new energy all of its own.
“A friend of mine came the other
day and he said it was like New York
in the 80s. I see the London 80s
warehouse scene in it – eclectic,
gay, multicultural, sexy energy,
musically very sound.”
Having grown up in Ealing in a
family originally from Sierra Leone,
Femi was involved in Norman Jay’s
famed Shake and Fingerpop parties
in the late 1980s and shot to fame
in 1990 with the Young Disciples.
The band made a big splash with
singer Carleen Anderson but split
up after just one album, Road
to Freedom – due, Femi says,
to the record company’s lack of
understanding. The Young Disciples
were part of a burgeoning acid jazz
scene and paved the way for DJ
one nighT The lighTs wenTi
up anD There was Thisi
guY in The miDDle of Thei
Dancefloor wonDeringi
whY’s iT all over – hei
jusT looKeD liKe a normali
guY buT iT was spiKe leei
51
INTERIORS
R
etrouvius comprises
two spaces, a Victorian
stable and adjoining
terraced shop totalling
5000 square feet.
the site at 2a Ravensworth Road
used to be the stables for Harrow
Road’s horse-drawn trams before
becoming a car repair centre; when
Retrouvius took it on in 1999, the
arge open space rapidly got filled
with timber, furniture, stone and
other curiositiess, sourced from all
over London and further afield.
Retrouvius expanded into the
adjacent 1016 Harrow Road in 2008.
the derelict building, formerly a
cleaning company, was in a poor state
of repair complete with leaky roof
and mouldy carpets and flooring.
Retrouvius gutted the entire site
according to its philosophy to re-use
materials wherever possible – and the
building was completely reassembled
almost entirely from salvaged
materials. All internal joists are old
timber, the staircase is made from
tropical hardwood rescued from a
THE STAIRcASE IS MAdE fROM
TROPIcAL HARdwOOd REScUEd
fROM A ScHOOL ScIENcE
LAbORATORy (cOMPLETE wITH
ObScENE GRAffITI)
SHOP VIEw
SHOPfRONT fAcAdE MAdE
fROM MAHOGANy ANd cOPPER
LIGHT wINdOwS fROM
A cROSSRAIL dEMOLITION
INTERIORS
ABSO FEB12.indb 51 27/01/2012 15:52
54
INTERIORS
LOVE LETTERS
Cass Art’s Kensington store is the
prefect place to find a bit of crafty
inspiration. £5.50 for each letter.
www.cassart.co.uk
WindoW sHoPPEr
50 GolBornE
50 Golborne is very much the kind
of shop that used to be on Golborne
Road before Golborne Road was
home to Stella McCartney, only it’s a
more stylish version of the old junk
haven. there are lots of old clothes,
of course – though they’re the kind of
vintage pieces that might be borrowed
by Vogue for a shoot, not the £1 rail
kind – and there’s also a diversity of
furniture and funny antique pieces.
on our last visit we were coveting a
miniature wooden school desk and
chair, a bamboo tikki-style bar, a
pair of angular pink chairs that were
featured in a Pet Shop Boys video and
this unusual triangle cupboard. Quirky
stock spills out onto the pavement and
it’s certainly worth more than a detour.
50 Golborne Road W10
www.50golborne.com
INTERIORS
Interior
the best trends, local
gems and designers
inspirationsinspirationsinspirations
ROB RYAN
Mr Ryan’s intricate paper-cuttings have
taken the design world by storm. We love
the slightly ott romanticism of the line
of poetry that only makes sense once the
mugs are placed side-by-side. £16.99
www.tch.net
LEATHER CANDY COIN
PURSE
inspired by the original Love
Heart sweets, these retro purses
by natthakur are a fizz of rhyming
slang: Bees and Honey (money),
treacle tart (sweetheart), turtle
Dove (love) and Heavenly Bliss
(kiss). £35 each
www.culturelabel.com
ABSO FEB12.indb 54 27/01/2012 15:54
61
FOOD & DRINK
ON ARTISAN dU cHOcOLAT’S
wEbSITE, THE SHOPPING bASkETI
IS cALLEd “yOUR STASH”
C
hocolate is bigger
than ever. over
the past decade, in
paradoxical parallel to
an increasing obsession
with detoxing, exercising and
health, and alongside rising obesity
statistics, there has been a rise and
rise of chocolate as a luxury, even
fashionable, substance.
We’re not talking about your
supermarket box of Roses, or
your service station Mars bar.
Most definitely not. today’s luxe
chocolate comes from the single
origin bean and is tempered in
notting Hill, Chelsea or Mayfair.
And for your Valentine, nothing
less than a high quality heart will
do, pitched perfectly between
naughtiness (it is, after all, basically
quite bad for you) and stylish design
to make it truly desirable.
today’s chic west London
chocolatier is endowed with
mystery and magic, like Willy
Wonka but more grown up. Extra
magic comes from collaborations
with artists, designers or chefs –
like Celia Birtwell’s printed lollies
for Melt, or Heston Blumenthal’s
experimental but popular tobacco
truffle for Artisan du Chocolat.
Marc Demarquette is an award-
winning chocolatier with a shop
in Chelsea and a kitchen in north
Kensington. His specialities include
the Highland malt ganache and
an award-winning house honey
ganache, plus beautiful painted
caramels such as rhubarb caramel,
elderflower caramel and Manuka
caramel as well as the now
ubiquitous sea salt caramel. Salty
caramels are having a moment,
and at Artisan du Chocolat, not
content with the original version
(a dark chocolate ball, cracking in
your mouth to release a heavenly,
intense caramel with just enough
salt to prevent it from being sickly)
there is a range of flavoured ones
including lemongrass, sage and
thyme, spiced fig and even balsamic
vinegar. these may not be mixed
by waterfall, but there’s certainly a
degree of trickery involved.
“Chocolate makes everyone smile,
even bankers,” is written on the
wall at Melt, Ledbury Road’s white,
architecty chocolate boutique. And:
“there’s more to life than chocolate,
but not today.” in a recession,
you might not be able to afford
diamonds, but you’ll probably be able
to splash out on a bit of the brown
stuff. Chocolate has a long history
of being highly prized and Aztecs
are said to have used cocoa beans
as currency. its supposedly addictive
qualities add to its mythology –
though they are vastly exaggerated.
on Artisan du Chocolat’s website,
the shopping basket is called “your
stash” in a joking reference to
illicitness – and the marketing of
it as something a bit cheeky and
highly prized is something that
works for Rococo too, with its
stylish, arty packaging, fun creations
and luxurious Belgravia store.
At Rococo, they make chocolate
asparagus spears in asparagus
season, chocolate cigars, chocolates
disguised as grapes, Jersey Royals,
olives, ravioli and quail’s eggs. their
slogan “once bitten, truly smitten”
again is all about love, and addiction.
But entering the world of chocolate
can’t all be about indulging your
own love of chocolate, as Rococo’s
founder Chantal Coady points
out. “You might have a bit of a
sweet tooth to start off with in this
industry, but as times goes by you
learn that real sugary chocolate is
ultimately not satisfying and the
sign of a really good chocolate is
one that you only need a small
piece of to hit the spot.”
that’s the essence of it.
Everybody loves chocolate and
smaller quantities of higher quality
stuff is what we all need to be
eating this 14 February. t
L-R:MELT;MELT;wILLIAMcURLEy;dEMARQUETTE;ROcOcO
ABSO FEB12.indb 61 27/01/2012 15:57
60
Clever recipes and canny marketing
have made chocolate into an art form
of its own, says Pearl Boyd
Hot
chocolate
ABSO FEB12.indb 60 27/01/2012 15:57
56
When did you start The Forge?
What was the inspiration behind
setting it up?
The whole project started in
2005. We (myself and co-owner
Adam Caird) had been freelance
musicians until then and felt that
there was a need for a small,
intimate, acoustically designed live
space that offered the best in young
talent across classical, jazz and
world music.
Why did you decide to run both a
restaurant and music venue?
We wanted to be able to offer the
whole experience where audience
members could enjoy great live
music with quality food and wine in
a relaxed and informal setting.
North London based Burd Haward
Architects are behind the award-
winning design; did they come up
with the concept of separating
the two buildings or was this
an approach you were always
interested in?
We worked very closely with
the architects to realise our
concept of a flexible space
where the two areas could work
separately, but could also easily
come together. The design itself
was also informed by the previous
building on the site (the Café
Delancey).
All That
Jazz
Founded by musicians Charlotte and Adam Caird
seven years ago, The Forge is a unique restaurant, bar
and venue with an emphasis on live music. Described
as Camden’s ‘hidden gem’, it has undergone a recent
revamp with a brand new bar and mixologist on board.
We chat to Charlotte about what 2012 has in store...
57
ARTS &
CULTURE
What makes The Forge unique as an
entertainment venue? What do you
like about your Camden location?
We are unique as we offer the
highest quality facilities for
acoustics but in a relaxed and
informal setting. We are like
a concert hall but without the
stiffness or formality. We are also
very easy to get to from all parts of
London. The Forge itself is slightly
tucked away so we like the fact
that we have been described as
one of London’s hidden gems. We
are unique in that we offer such a
high calibre of musicians and food
- recent musicians have included
Claire Martin OBE and Sir Richard
Rodney Bennett.
Tell us about the new bar you’ve
launched.
We’ve recently had the pleasure of
welcoming to the team a fantastic
mixologist who has created an
enviable cocktail menu! We grow
many herbs and a few fruits on
site so he’s currently infusing and
mixing spirits with homegrown
rosemary and lavender along with a
few tomatoes and strawberries. This
keeps our cocktails seasonal, which
is in line with our cuisine.
What kind of music and
entertainment do you find
inspiring? How do you go about
sourcing musicians to play at The
Forge?
We are constantly looking for
musicians with a new voice and
something individual to say.
Musicians tend to get in touch with
us - they are the ones that we’re
interested in - the ones with get up
and go!
What do you think of the music
scene in North London?
There are pockets of people
doing really good things in well
established places and organisations
but also lots of great new places and
ideas popping up. Recessions often
mean interesting times for the arts.
The problem everyone has, though,
is getting people to try new things.
We attended the pop-up musical
garden party earlier this year
which was a fun evening and an
interesting way of utilising the
space. What have some of your
most successful events been and
what ideas do you have for the
near future?
Past events include a lovely night
of food, live music and poetry
reading with Louis de Bernières.
We always take part in the London
Jazz Festival in November and
hosted their launch party back
in 2009.
In terms of both regular and one-
off events, what do you have lined
up this year?
Future events include our regular
Sunday morning classical series,
Keys and Coffee, our Friday
night jazz with dining, Saturday
morning children’s music sessions
and Saturday evening world music
series. 2012 will see some really
exciting one-off events including
our first ever Farmer’s Market in
February and a Pop-Up Cannoli
Counter (a Sicilian sweet treat) over
the Valentine’s weekend. March will
see the return of our popular gin
tasting workshop called Mother’s
Ruin. It will definitely be an exciting
year for us!
forgevenue.org, 3-7 Delancey
Street, NW1 7NL, 020 7383 7808
2012 will see some really exciting one-off
events including our first ever farmer’s
market in february and a PoP-uP cannoli
counter (a sicilian sweet treat) over the
valentine’s weekend.