There’s always been a home for degenerates and misfits. For years, people have found a place to come together to drown in misery, booze and other fellow rejects. Now, one of Soho’s last glimmers of rock and roll is being scrapped for new flats.

Denmark Street, also known as Tin Pan Alley, has been given the death sentence as famous venues like 12 Bar are being forced to shut down, pushing them into the gutter. The street is famed for recording sessions with big stars like the Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix. It’s the birth place of the NME and where the Sex Pistols lived. The streets are lined with the worn away piss of ancient rock stars, screaming music history.

A petition has been started to save the street’s rock and roll history from future property plans. But most of the road has already been left soulless and barren for years. The damage seems to have already been done.

The gentrification of London has been a problem for most of the city’s cultural areas. The government have brought in new schemes that seem to erase the essence of our rich history. Camden buskers have been forced out to make way for tourist-style dancing DJs, destroying the very soul of an area birthed on alternative music. Music venues have been shutting all over London due to a need for luxury housing which The Music Venue Trust has been tirelessly campaigning against. With so many protests and petitions, it seems as though the authorities don’t care about the rock and roll scene in London.

12 Bar is relocating to Holloway Road, close to where former neighbour The Intrepid Fox has moved to. Could there be an answer to the demise of Denmark Street in north London?

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