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London's stages and concert rooms: the West End houses and the playhouses that make their own shows, the grand halls, the churches with a musical life, the jazz basements, the comedy clubs, the clubs proper, and the rooms above pubs where things start. What is on is listed under each venue, and in What's On.
What is on at them this week is in What's On: Performance
The oldest independent music venue in the world, a basement under Oxford Street where jazz started in 1942 and punk in 1976.
JazzLate
Robert Feldman rented the basement of a restaurant at 100 Oxford Street on Sunday nights in 1942, for £4 a night, to run a swing club, and Glenn Miller came down to hear his eight-year-old son play the drums; the American GIs brought the jitterbug, which most London clubs had banned. It has been open ever since, which makes it the oldest independent live venue anywhere: Louis Armstrong played it in the 1950s, the Rolling Stones in the 1960s, and on 20 and 21 September 1976 the Punk Special put the Sex Pistols, the Clash, the Damned, Siouxsie and the Banshees and the Buzzcocks on the same stage over two nights and gave the movement its start. Northern soul all-nighters followed, then Paul Weller, Oasis and the White Stripes. It nearly closed in 2010 and was saved by a campaign and a sponsor, and it is still a red-lit room for 350 people with the stage along one wall and the bar along the other.
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Data is compiled from public sources including OpenStreetMap, under the ODbL. Hours change often, so check before making a journey.