Saturday, 7 March 2009

Kenwood: nights out - the Scotch of St James.


By 1967, John had become a virtual recluse. Twas not ever thus - in '63, '64 and '65 he was often to be soon "oot and aboot" around the then fashionable clubs - the four most noteable being the Ad Lib (no photos that I have seen - though the lift ("THE LIFT'S NOT ACTUALLY ON FIRE YOU IDIOTS") remains, off Leicester Square (the Ad Lib is now an office)), the Speakeasy (now a hellish shop of some kind), the Bag O' Nails (now a titty bar) and the Scotch (now also a titty bar). The Scotch happened to be in Mason's Yard, which was also the home of Indica - and thus Yoko. This pic shows Patti Boyd in the Scotch, and is one of the very few photos of these places to be in circulation. The Beatles had their own table here, and anyone foolish enough to sit there pre-Fabs night out would have been asked to shift. (Keith Moon once came up to the Beatles in one of these clubs and asked "Can I join you?". John replied "Yes, sit down" and Moon "the Loon" said "No, you don't understand - can I join you?". A reasonable try, but Ringo was much better.)

2 comments:

  1. This is great info. + I love the Moon anecdote hee

    Do you know why John started staying home? :(

    ReplyDelete
  2. Various reasons - partly as a reaction to the stress of Beatlemania, partly as a result of drugs, and partly because John was naturally quite a reclusive person, according to many who knew him.

    ReplyDelete

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