The summer of '95 : the sun is shining,
Britpop is making
superstars out of
nobodies,
speed costs less than
cigarettes and all the young, beautiful people are going to a tiny pokey
pub behind the market in
Camden called
The Good Mixer.
The Good Mixer was notable for two things:
It was an unusual social event - pop stars and plebs getting drunk in the same place. For a while it seemed like the democratisation of music was finally underway, as Blur, Oasis, Elastica, Supergrass, The Charlatans and innumerable music journalists. Then Oasis defected to the Met bar, cocaine replaced speed as the drug of choice and everyone realised that Menswear were pants (pun intended).
The doyens of the old circuit still hang out there occasionally (a friend of mine met Elastica there a while back), but it's day has long passed. As have the days of semi-decent music being in the charts. Oh well.