Stavordale Road, N5

Wet wallpaper, curry stained mattresses, mashed potato, music papers, tube trains, Stork margarine, British council houses, Golden Virginia, same old discos, the greasy chip shop on the Holloway Road, Capital Radio ... these are among the things mentioned in The Nips' Stavordale Road, N5. The song refers to the group's formative days when Shane, Shanne and associates were living in a musty bedsit Drayton Park way. The song reminds me of one of my favourite Shane quotes, from the April '79 edition of Zigzag where he says: "When I was excited in the punk days, I wrote about being bored. Now that I am bored I write about being excited. It's a rock 'n' roll fantasy." 30 odd years on and the Holloway rock 'n' roll fantasy lives on ...