Located at 120 Holland Park Avenue, the London Cavern was a short-lived club in West London that operated during the mid-1960s.
Melody Maker lists The Dukehounds as regular Thursday band during May/June 1965. The following dates are all from Melody Maker unless otherwise noted.
18 May 1965 – Initial 4 (every Tuesday)
25 May 1965 – Initial 4 (every Tuesday)
1 June 1965 – Initial 4 (every Tuesday)
3 June 1965 – Dukehounds (every Thursday)
8 June 1965 – Initial 4 (every Tuesday)
15 June 1965 – Initial 4 (every Tuesday)
22 June 1965 – Initial 4 (every Tuesday) Not listed after this date for a while
2 July 1965 – Initial 4 Kensington Post also lists The Dae ‘B’ Four
3 July 1965 – The Cardinals (Kensington Post)
4 July 1965 – Top group (Kensington Post)
5 July 1965 – Themselves and The Effect (Kensington Post)
6 July 1965 – Dae ‘B’ Four and The Tribe (Kensington Post)
9 July 1965 – Initial 4
12 July 1965 – Bern Elliott & The Klan with Initial 4
16 July 1965 – Initial 4
18 July 1965 – Dave Whittling & Uncalled Four plus John Spencer and Guest Artists
19 July 1965 – The Five Dimensions and Initial 4
20 July 1965 – Group Survival
According to the Kensington Post, 3 September issue, Marshall Scott Etc played every Sunday, so presumably that includes 5 September 1965.
The Middlesex County Times on 24 September and 1 October both list The Eyes as resident band on Tuesdays. That would include 28 September 1965 and 5 October 1965.
According to Boyfriend magazine, The Four Pennies played at the club on 11 October 1965.
I’d be really grateful if anyone can add their own confirmed shows at this club plus any memories. Please get in touch as well if you know any local papers that advertised shows here as Melody Maker didn’t advertise the gigs very often. The following (incomplete list) is from 1966 and was taken from Melody Maker:
3 March 1966 – Blues Ad-Lib
4 March 1966 – The Lincolns with supporting group
5 March 1966 – Marshall Scott Etc with supporting group
6 March 1966 – Fives Company
10 March 1966 – Blues Ad-Lib
11 March 1966 – Hamilton King & The Blues Messengers with supporting group
12 March 1966 – The Pieces Fit and Blues Ad Lib
13 March 1966 – Fives Company
17 March 1966 – C-Jam Blues
18 March 1966 – Five’s Company with supporting group
19 March 1966 – Jo Jo Gunne with supporting group
20 March 1966 – The Peasants
24 March 1966 – C-Jam Blues
25 March 1966 – The Lincolns
26 March 1966 – Hamilton King & The Blues Messengers
27 March 1966 – The Peasants
29 March 1966 – The Syn
30 March 1966 – The Pieces Fit
1 April 1966 – The Pieces Fit and The JRS
3 April 1966 – The Syn
7 April 1966 – The Herd
8 April 1966 – Sky Fever
9 April 1966 – Norman St John Show and Hamilton King & The Blues Messengers
10 April 1966 – Marshall Scott Etc
11 April 1966 – Jo Jo Gunne
22 April 1966 – Dee Dee Warwick and The Sloane Squares
23 April 1966 – The Rouges
24 April 1966 – The Sloane Squares
just to say i have up on one of my youtube channels : puresandoz25 that features a great video of the marshall scott bandcheck it out!…david.
Bob Hodges’ diary notes that The New Jump Band played here on the following dates:
24 October 1965
2 November 1965
11 November 1965
7 December 1965
Alan Wherry also remembers Richard Henry & The Zig Zag Band playing one show here during 1966 (would have been between June-October).
My name is Brian Helm,I was the vocalist in The Pieces Fit.We played many times at this venue.
Chris Andrews emailed to say that Hammersmith band John Brown’s Bodies played here several times. He added he played here on his first night with the group
During 1964 this club operated as the Bedsitter club. See Melody Maker issue from May 64, page 13:
https://worldradiohistory.com/UK/Melody-Maker/60s/64/Melody-Maker-1964-05-30-B.pdf
Great article on the Cardinals who had a residency at the Bedsitter and also played at the venue when it was renamed the London Cavern:
https://barnsburyboys.weebly.com/music—movin-on.html
I never played a gig, there ,but they had a connection with Norton / Yorke , mangement agency , Turnham green chiswick,( their biggest band was Manfred Mann whose song 5,4,3,2,1,was used for the legendry READY STEADY GO friday night, rock show and turned them from a £ 15 a night band into pop stars ) , and a lot of the groups , who played there ,also played The Boat house , kew bridge , which was a good gig in its day ,and where booked through Norton Yorke . They also had a lot of new groups play there including The Tridents ( jeff beck ) , the fee was £ 50 ,for a 4 night residency , monday to thursday or £ 30 for friday night or saturday night !
Do you know if anyone from the Norton Yorke Agency is still around and might have more information?
HI Nick , I can t help you with the Norton Yorke agency , contacts, as I moved around a lot , with different bands / projects , but the London cavern , was also used for recording demos , they had a good set up for the time , REVOX recorders , which in 66/67 came the A77 mk 2 , which was a class , 2 and 4 track recorders , and streets ahead of its time !Marshall Scott , recorded demos there , which norton yorke passed onto EMI HAYES , and they got a contract ,with them , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yl_cQZTICEE&t=77s and it was so advanced the video for its time I thought they would go big time but ?????????????????, they played regular at the london cavern , the same as the boathouse , and when they played The Beatles , Lucy in the sky with diamonds , it brought the house down , it was so good to this day I ve never heard it played better !Also another group on your gig list for the cavern , was C-JAM BLUES , they went along the same route ,basicaly and released a song called CANDY ,I think that was emi too . I recorded a couple of times there myself with different bands , but I prefered recording , to playing the same tracks night after night , at gigs ! I play with other musicians as one of projects , not as a regular or a long term ,career thing ,even today 55 years on ! cheers ritchie .
hi Nick ,
Did you get my latest e-mail , on the london cavern , regarding The Herd . with their members Peter Frampton /Andy Bown , who played the Cavern and went onto great , futher things !super bands / live aid etc ,??????????????????? .
If of no intrest okay , NO PROBLEM ! I will NOT, contact you again !
It was just I enjoyed helping out on some where I know well !and times I shared with some wonderful people !
Thankyou for publishing my thoughts / memories , of those days ! it was great to be a part of your project !
with best wishes , ritchie .
p.s. checkout my latest project
What a Amazing Dream ! Love and a Peaceful World !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpjTD689X54
our Eldest daughter is trying to get her husbands , mother out of KYIV , and its full scale war outside her flats , with NO CHANCE of escape ! and she is 80 years old !
cheers mate ritchie .
hi Nick ,you might be intrested in this , in respect of of the london cavern .
THE SYN was a regular ,band playing there in 1966 , they moved on in 1967 to the MARQUEE MARTIN , agency ( owners of THE MARQUEE CLUB wardour street london ) this is CHRIS SQUIRE ( bass guitarist in THE SYN ,) talking about a gig there at the marquee club in 1967 , to support a unknown band JIMI HENDRIX Experiance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eo-lBnTc3So ( whose early , english gig was for £15 , at the RICKY TICK CLUB Hounslow high street west london ) he meet Mitch Mitchell , who was ,a counter assistant at JIM MARSHALL ( amplifiers etc ) shop on the UXBRIDGE rd Hanwell west london , when Chas Chandler took JIMI in there to get kitted out with a MARSHALL 100WATT STACK .Mitch told us he was up for a job with this american guy , to be his drummer along with Ansley Dunbar ( ex john mayell ) and mitch got the job !
Chris Squire / the syn , evolved , in too super group YES ,and one of their first gigs was at the ALBERT HALL , LONDON , for to be support band on THE FAREWELL CREAM GIGS !
Alec Cullen got in touch to add this information
The London Cavern was originally called “The Bedsitter”. It was in a basement below a chicken shop on Holland Park Avenue…not far from The Esperanto bookshop.I used to go there a lot. Apart from The Cardinals there was a band called”The Dukehound” one of whom had a cousin in “The Who”( we never found out who was who in either band.
Alan Price ex Animals played his first gig as “The Alan Price Set” in The London Cavern.
We also had a West Indian geezer “King Ossie” who played great ska and reggae records while making chka, chka, etc noises through the microphone
We used to score our “dubes” (amphetamines) down there before we went up to Soho for the weekend. I used to go to The Disc ( La Discotheque).
Cheers, Alec