02/06/2024
Vague contribution to Dave Insurrection’s ‘Anarcho-Punk: Music and Resistance in London 1977-1988’: The Vague fanzine office moved to 154 New North Road in Islington in 1983 as our west country neighbours the Mob moved out to Grosvenor Avenue, when they formed the Black Sheep housing co-op. At this time the Vague editorial staff included Anna Scheer and Maria Burton, the Southern Death Cult merchandiser muses, as the positive-punk group was splitting up and the singer Ian Astbury was teaming up with Billy Duffy from Theatre of Hate as Death Cult-The Cult. I think this largely took place at 154 New North Road as Ian took over my old room in the damp basement with his girlfriend Jacqueline Mathers, a descendant/great-granddaughter? of the co-founder of the Order of the Golden Dawn Samuel Liddell Mathers. Jacqueline was a really down-to-earth beautiful Bradford lass but once scared the s**t out of me when she grabbed my bum at the bar in Heaven; and I was nicked with her bunking the tube to Brixton to visit Billy but we were let off due to her occult powers.
At first we were sharing 154 with Les from ? fanzine and his girlfriend ? from the Mob and Blood and Roses scene. I introduced Ian Astbury to Mark Mob outside 154 on New North Road and they seemed to get on OK although Ian was moving away from his anarcho-punk roots at the time. We ended up sharing the house with the Amebix from Bristol after Welsh Sam(antha) Railton moved them into the room next to mine. I relocated with them to the Anarchy Centre on Roseberry Avenue when we were duly evicted from I54 in late 1983. A few of Xmal Deutschland also stayed there when I was doing their tour merchandising. I went to see ‘Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life’ from 154 with Ian Astbury and Jacqueline Mathers. Ian really pi**ed off the next door neighbours throwing bits of the banisters into the back garden before we were evicted, and he did some great anti-Goth graffiti art in the living room. Billy Duffy didn’t convert me to Led Zeppelin at New North Road but I’ve since come round to that occult Cult influence. Picture Chris Johnson of Vague, Manuela Rickers of Xmal Deutschland and Ian Astbury artwork 154 New North Road
