Portobello Road

I was 23, so I thought it was a pretty good thing.

And I bought a lease on a tiny little shop just off the Portobello Road.

And I called her up and said, I'm opening my own gallery.

And she said, why isn't it in the West End? Straight off.

Yeah.

And I obviously love, I don't like the song as much, but like the production of Portobello Road is just amazing.

So fun.

So fun.

We can communicate through dance.

I thought the costume designs were really beautiful.

Again, specifically in Portobello Road, I was like thinking of all of the work that needed to go into, you know, the extra, like these aren't just extras standing in the background.

They actually need to put together costumes for everyone.

I kind of went to school in St. Albans in Hertfordshire and then moved sort of the dawn of 88.

I moved to Labrador Grove where I lived for many, many years and lived on Portobello Road and just around the back, the kind of top end of Labrador with the kind of less posh end or what was the less posh end which is now you know another posh end of Notting Hill but yeah and had an incredible time in Labrador Grove there was I mean there was just so much going on at that point I was living on Goldborne Road and around the corner there was a kensal road that was that was probably about 50 studios at the time there was these big kind of warehousey spaces loads of studios and there was i had a studio i shared a studio with the boys zone with terry farley and andrew and then we had at the grid studio where we worked a lot eastcote was there there was our record company was there virgin and our PR and a graphic designer.

I literally had to walk around the corner from where it was and the entire sort of world of, of, of dance music was just, just there.

And, uh, and on, on a Friday night, I go to the pub on the corner and, you know, pretty much guaranteed to pick up a remix basically.

Yeah, all kinds of people.

We lived next door to...

I mean, this is not in a, you know, well, it was on Portobello Road, so it was fairly, fairly flash, but Tom Hollander lived about three doors up and Gary Davis, the famed Gary Davis of Ooh Gary Davis lived across the road.

He was a very nice man.

was a very heavy drinker, without a doubt an alcoholic.

But we all hung out in this pub called the Warwick Castle, which was in the Portobello Road, before the Portobello became just full of tourist shops.

And it was a very unusual place.

So we were always in the pub.

And probably...

the first place I still love playing little bars and clubs and things I still love that little intimacy of we do a night every Thursday on Portobello Road near where I live and it's a tight it only holds about 100 people but it's it's quite tight and it's nice it's I like it like that yeah.

If you had to bring your free all-time favorite albums to a desert island what would they be?

See, that's really hard.

God.

What? Can I ask? So we, I need to talk about Portobello Road.

So we lived in this place.

Do you know Portobello Road in Notting Hill? Anyway, we both felt really ill there.

It was so busy.

Like it's a very poor estate attraction.

And I put them in my rucksack and I thought I can sell these in London plus the carpet that I bought in.

So I went to Portobello Road, met a couple who were really kind to me and I set up a stall in Portobello Road and lived off that for about two and a half years, every Friday, every Saturday.

uh selling buying and selling antiques basically so i would go around the england down to maidstone and places like that and buy stuff and bring it bring it to portobello road and sell it on fridays and saturdays did you make good money at that

yeah

but it was all cash you knew you could not do it forever And how did Brazil

I would have a drink or two, but I was more interested in the cinema.

The antiques was really interesting for me because it helps you understand history.

So Portobello Road was very interesting.