Also known as: —
Location: 51 London Street, Richmond
Current status: No longer a venue
Active: 2011–2017
History
London Street was a house party venue that operated from the Richmond home of Christchurch musician Brian Feary between 2011 and 2017. It emerged in the years following the September 2010 and February 2011 Canterbury earthquakes, which had devastated much of the city’s traditional live music infrastructure — among the casualties was Goodbye Blue Monday, a bar where Feary had regularly performed. With commercial venues closed or demolished, a loose network of house spaces grew up across inner-city suburbs to fill the gap, providing informal stages for Christchurch’s underground music community during the city’s slow rebuild.
London Street sat alongside All Plastics and Pagan House as one of the key addresses on the post-earthquake house show circuit. Shows were all-ages, informally organised, and driven by the DIY ethic of the Christchurch independent music scene rather than any commercial ambition. The venue occupied the living and performance spaces of Feary’s Richmond rental, with bands setting up equipment among the furniture and audiences crowding in wherever they could.
Feary was central to this scene both as host and performer. Over the London Street years his drumming credits included The Dance Asthmatics, X-Ray Charles, Salad Boys, Wurld Series, Magic Eye, Kool Aid, and Brian Tamaki and the Kool-Aid Kids. He and Dance Asthmatics guitarist Joe Sampson co-founded the Melted Ice Cream label to release the band’s recordings, eventually extending it to a compilation — Sickest Smashes from Arson City — that gathered key acts from the Christchurch underground.
Acts documented performing at London Street include The Dance Asthmatics, Carb on Carb, and X-Ray Charles. The Dance Asthmatics recorded their 2015 EP Lifetime of Secretion there — credited on the Bandcamp release as “recorded via the Alpaca Technique, London Street, Christchurch” — an EP that went on to earn international reviews and US distribution. The recording, made in a residential room with whatever was at hand, reflected the DIY ethos underpinning the venue throughout its six-year run. London Street wound down as a performance space around 2017.
Recorded via the Alpaca Technique, London Street, Christchurch
The Dance Asthmatics, Lifetime of Secretion, 2015
Richmond, Christchurch 8013, New Zealand