The Rosendale

65, Rosendale Rd
Dulwich SE21 8EZ

[Fanfare trumpets]….“and the winner of the 2007 Time Out Gastropub of the Year Award is….The Rosendale in Dulwich”. Gasp!

Yes, this is true. The once-dodgy drug den and general working men’s grubby hideaway is now officially (according to Time Out) the best tavern eatery in the entire Greater London area. What makes this such an exceptional accolade is that The Rosendale had only been open for three months prior to receiving the award. Clearly, there must’ve been a dearth of worthy candidates before June 2007. Maybe London needs more gastropubs after all?

The Rosendale’s Australian proprietor, Mark van der Goot, is a former Mayfair sommelier with a sturdy award-winning pedigree – The Greyhound in Battersea forms part of his growing portfolio. Peering through the large Georgian bay windows of Ocado country – aka, South East London – he saw a vision of the future, a vision of a land filled with hope, promise and Molton Brown. He invested large wads of cash in The Rosendale’s refurbishment; he gathered together a team from The Ivy and The Ritz; and he created a wine list that had more depth than those that were on the Titanic. Yet, even with all this swaggery, and the praise that has since come with it, The Rosendale has the makings of a royal bore.

Wikipedia’s definition of a ‘Gastropub’ is a “public house which specialises in high-quality food, a step above the more basic ‘pub grub’….usually [with] an atmosphere which is relaxed”. This sounds about right for The Rosendale. Posh nosh and subdued environs is all it really knows.

The expensive overhaul has been taken straight from the ‘borough council’ school of design as the interior’s gaping void is as welcoming as a municipal building. The walls have been painted with ‘hint of bleak’ white, the furniture is upholstered with authentic ‘vapid’ brown, whilst the chandeliers’ extreme level of illumination provide the perfect conditions for a photo shoot. This is not a pub, this is a library.

There are a variety of signals that provide this scholastic facade: the difficulty in finding it; the lack of music; the removal of viable loitering areas. You cant smoke in the garden; the wines are displayed on a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf; and, when ordering, you should expect to wait an age for it to arrive, even if it’s just a beer in the ‘bar’. Simply find a seat, keep quiet and don’t ask any questions.

HOWEVER, there are two aspects to The Rosendale’s patchwork repetoire that allow it to hitchhike on the road to Zeitgeist, thumbing for arbitrary kudos: that be the food and wine, see.

The chef is confident in his creations and his menu boasts an eclectic awareness. Salt and pepper are banned from the restaurant because, obviously, you cant better perfection. His South African arrogance is legitimate, though, as each dish is prepared with precision and care. The quality of his ingredients is so powerful it should be floated on the stock market: royal parks red-legged partridge, dukka-spiced Kenzie Farm ostrich fillet; citrus-rubbed swordfish with grilled squid. The man even smokes his own fish, bakes his own bread and churns his own butter. Sadly, though, being a South African, the word ‘vegetarian’ rarely appears in his vocabulary. But with some careful pillaging of the menu - al dente ricotta ravioli with aubergine purée, skip the main, head straight for the poached pear surprise dessert – all is not lost.

The wines are equally extravagant. The wine list - a book of MANY chapters - is 31 (!!!) pages long. It houses over 500 bins - some sensible, some wacky, some ‘boutique’ in their appeal – spanning several decades. There’s a page of wines by the glass, 13 of each colour on show. Champagne, page of. Sav Blanc, page of. Malbec, page of. Shiraz, page of. Chardonnays get two pages and Cabinet blends get four. New world, old world, it doesn’t matter, it’s all there.

And so, the definition of a Gastropub on Wikipedia is correct, up to a point. It omits the lack of service, the hideous attempts at style and the whiff of an ostentatious bottle brigade. Otherwise 10 out of 10 for the wine list, 9 out of 10 for the (restaurant) food, and 6 out of 10 for the (bar) food, the location, the service, the décor, the atmos, and so on.

Double up

What has four legs and says 'Boo'?
A cow with a cold.

What has four legs and says 'Aaaa'?
A sheep with no lips.

Hadouken!

Politicians, environmentalists, citizens of Mother Earth, gather round for some important news: base.ad has discovered the world’s first truly renewable energy source. This scientific breakthrough revealed itself during a recent atomic demonstration at The Astoria. It was shown that with just the right quantities of 7-Up and Day-Glo, every teenager on planet Pop has the potential to power the entire European community. The first step is to simply fasten an electroconductive device to each youngster. The second is to introduce high levels of radioactive rave and grime. The explosive reaction produces gigantic measures of heat and kinetic energy, both of which can then be harnessed.

The level of anticipation was akin to that of the day before summer holidays, leading to all Dads and journalists taking safety on the upper balcony. Even before Hadouken! entered the arena, Late Of The Pier’s heavy doom-synth support resulted in a cascade of fluorescent colour being lauched towards the stage. It’s fair to say the kids were hysterically excited. And quite rightly, too.

The sold-out show amounted to only 45 minutes in running time, but any longer and Chernobyl would’ve looked like a picnic. In a room so hot even the air conditioning was sweating, Hadouken! appeared to the sound of sirens, useful in drowning out the high-pitched wails of their audience. Beginning with an assault on the mainstream - ‘The Bounce’ - the GameBoy geeks raced along at breakneck speeds, determined to make the wheels fall off. James Smith’s savage but sonic lyricism was flaunted in the Aphex-cum-Dizzee ‘Liquid Lives’ and the Sex Pistol anti-style rant of ‘Superstar’. With each passing moment someone’s life was in danger.

The pixelated punks lost their crowd, very briefly, during a crash test of new material. Smith opted to sing in showtune style, whilst his band did a synth rock impression of Europe stuck in ‘The Final Countdown’. Nevertheless, the lull gave medics the opportunity to extract the bodies of those that had perished in the carnage.

Singalong favourite ‘Tuning In’ and new single ‘Leap Of Faith’ brought the crowd back to a mere stampede. And only moments before they departed for bed - they all had school in the morning - the crowd endured the accelerated square bass lobotomy of ‘That Boy That Girl’, which would’ve made even The Prodigy cry.

It’s a little over a year since Hadouken! played their first ever gig. For a band that doesn’t even have an album release yet, this was testament to the capacity of the internet. Hadouken! and their generation have embraced one another with fierce DIY aspirations. That, plus the wear fluoro like they invented it.

Powerful stuff.

Dave Gahan (Depeche Mode)

‘Superstar Dies From Overdose In Hotel Room’ - a headline that appears with saddening regularity. Janis Joplin, John Belushi, Anna Nicole Smith - all tragically slipped away, alone in a haze of terrifying darkness. The same can be said of Dave Gahan, Depeche Mode’s turbulent vocalist. He too found himself in a hotel room, slowly abandoning reality, a fatal injection of cocaine and heroin coursing through his veins until his heart stopped and, officially, he died. But only for two expansive minutes as an unknown force looked down upon the ambulance and decided May 28th 1996 was not his time to perish.

Clearly, an event like this is bound to have a lasting effect on a mere mortal. The prolific scars left by such a trauma mean Gahan’s perception of time is heavy and complex. He spoke openly with base.ad recently about the introspective inspiration behind his latest solo album, Hourglass.

“It’s an album that deals with my concern about time, being where I am, working from that place. Rather than dwelling on the past, stepping into the future before it’s even come”.

Undoubtedly, Gahan is a serious man with some serious issues on his mind, yet he quickly points out how secure he feels with his present existence. “I feel like I’m in a really good place in my life. I feel very fortunate that I managed to crawl my way out of that hole. It could’ve easily gone another way”. He cites his family as the reason for his current happiness - “without them I wouldn’t be doing this, that’s for sure” – along with New York, where he has resided for the last ten years - “this is the first place that I’ve felt at home”.

With a hybrid mix of Basildon missed consonants and Americanisms such as “like” and “y’know”, the singer is keen to distance himself from the man he used to be. “Life catches up with you. I’ve always tried to avoid actually participating in my life. In the last five years I’ve felt a lot better about who I am”. He summarises, with a hint of mischief, “being able to reflect a lot more on who I am, the way I act, what I do and the trouble it gets me in”.

His problematic past includes an attempted suicide and a period when he would lock himself in a wardrobe for days. In the decade that has since passed Gahan has been entirely clean. Yet only now has he been totally free to write candidly. “It wasn’t possible for me to do that within the roles we laid out for ourselves in Depeche".

In a career spanning 27 years, it wasn’t until DM’s eleventh studio album - 2005’s Playing The Angel - that original Gahan material was first adopted. This, obviously, makes Gahan uncomfortable as evident from the restraint he displays when discussing the matter. “Making the first solo album [Paper Monsters] was definitely a step in the right direction and it enabled me also to come back to Depeche with some ideas which were embraced rather than….kind of….erm.…well.… it wasn’t immediately embraced but after we talked about it a lot I got to record a few songs on that last album”.

Although he worked with DM’s tour drummer, Christian Eigner, and guitarist, Andrew Phillpott, Gahan revelled in the autonomy afforded him on Hourglass. “My band contract with Mute was finished. I was kind of like a free agent. I think that has a lot to do with the way we were working as well. There was no one peering in and listening to what we were doing. With a Depeche record there’s a lot of thought that goes into how we’re going to do it, where we’re going to do it, who we’re going to work with. Demo-ing songs, all that kind of stuff. I knew I didn’t want to do that".

Gahan was adamant about executing a more primal work ethic for Hourglass, such as using his voice “in a more honest way”. This, he claims, is as a result of “years of singing somebody else’s songs and not having to be in that position. Being free to go where the melodies, or the lyrics, take me. If you get too precious about sounds or the direction of a song before you’ve even begun recording it, somewhere something’s lost”. It’s therefore quite clear that the liberty he experienced whilst making this album has helped him expose the fragility of his self-awareness as well as experience a new way of musical thinking.

Duke of Sussex

75 South Parade,
Chiswick W4 5LF

Opinions are divided on life’s many little quandries: are the New Zealand rugby team the world’s greatest underachievers; should we put Britney out of her misery and have her spayed; is the old ‘chicken cross the road’ joke just a poignant metaphor for human existence.

The newly refurbished and totally unrecogniseable Duke Of Sussex in Chiswick is no exception, either. Opinions are sure to waver somewhere between “who is to blame?” and “by Jove, my trousers have fallen off!”.

For the people that don’t know better – namely, all non-Chiswick residents – The Duke of Sussex will be a bit like the planet Mars: populated with alien life forms, a pain in the arse to get to and surprisingly underwhelming when you finally arrive.

To the locals, on the other hand, it’s all about the subtle differences. They’ll be lauding the recent tonal transformation from the gaudy orange and greens of yesteryear to the colour of the future….brown. Although, in the immediacy, this might not seem to fill your heart with glee, the locals will be quick to hail the splendour and the sparkle that accompanies the brown - chandeliers, solid red drapes, the bounty of ornate cherubs circling the dining hall, the grandiose garden bar complete with fairytale trellises and Victorian lamposts – such is the Duke’s new regal character. It’s worth noting at this point that Chiswick is 100% pure grade Posh. Residents have included the likes of Vanessa Redgrave, Patrick Stewart and Felicity Kendall. Sparkling brown is bound to be popular.

The division in opinion continues with the untimely death of Elvis night, leaving fans of The King ‘in the ghetto’. Likewise sports fans should be prepared for a mauling: pool tables, out, dining tables, in; enormous plasmas, out, piddly TV, in; large back room showing Spanish football, out, large back room serving Spanish Fabada, in. This is what happens when a borough’s favourite sport is rowing.

For food lovers, the dining experience will do just enough to ensure you’re utterly confused. Whilst perusing the big rustic Spanish-Brit menu you’ll want to use words such as ‘unusual’, ‘interesting’ and ‘weird’. But then you’ll realise there’s no recognisable difference between starters and mains, be it monkfish, rabbit or ‘red’ themed salad. The prolific use of lentils, fish and black rice will fuddle your muddle completely, but at least the staff can warm your cockles with their courtesy and their “I picked those blackberries myself” banter.

And then there’s the wine lovers. Those championing the Old World order, there’s a carafe full of laughs for you. 375ml servings mean sampling is almost mandatory – Mas la Pierre Muscat Sec, Vega Real Crianza, even a Gloucestershire white. But all you New World lovers with your oversized carbon footprint, sorry, you’ll have to look elsewhere.

As for freelance journalists, they’ll all agree that the addition of free wifi and a tidy sum of interesting beers means they choose to remain opinionless about the Duke of Sussex. 7 out of 10 if you’re local, 6 out of 10 if you’re not from Mars.

Seasick Steve

Strumming on his three-stringed guitar and stamping on his ‘Mississippi Drum Machine’ (ostensibly just a microphone in a box), Seasick Steve sings the blues. He has plenty of experience to inspire him, many of his formative years were spent as an American hobo. His first solo album, Dog House Music, has made him a recent phenomenon: an appearance on Jools Holland’s Hootenanny in 2006; winning the 2007 Mojo magazine Breakthrough Act Award; as well as playing more UK festivals than any other artist. No wonder his catchphrase is “It’s all good”.

Your name. Do you really get seasick?
Oh man I get real seasick. That’s a bad thing for me going on a boat.

Do you always take a plane?
Every once in a while I take a ferry but then I got to take a lot of pills.

Why do you think the people of the UK have taken to your music so well?
That’s a wonderment to me too. I have thought about it lately because a lot of people ask me what I think. There’s two things I’ve come up with: people are a little bit hungry, I thought that when I went to all these festivals, I see it in their eyes that they’re hungry for some primitive music. Everything is so fancy, all the bands come with the amazing equipment and all the roadies and all the fancy this. That’s all good and all that but then some guy just come up there and bang on the floor and take a pick on a guitar. I think there’s a lot of people who have never seen that before. They just seem like hungry for it. I also think that I play songs about things that just happen to me.

Tell me about these instruments you make - the ‘MDM’, the ‘three-stringed trance wonder’, the ‘one-stringed diddley bow’…
I made the drum machine, all it is is a box with a microphone in it. The three-stringed guitar I just got it like that from a friend of mine down in Mississippi. He got it at a junk store and then sold it to me for an extortionate price of $75. I just told him at the time that I was going to take it all over the world to play and tell everyone where I got it, who ripped me off, y’know? It was just a joke at the time. I didn’t think I was going play for anyone, anywhere. So I just started playing it, I brought the three-stringed guitar home and I started playing and my wife, she don’t say too much to me about what I do play, but she just turned to me and said ‘that guitar gunna make you famous’ (LAUGHTER). This is way before I even made the record so I said ‘You’re crazy, woman’, and she was like ‘you can say what you want, but you wait’.

You presently only have one solo album - Dog House Music - but there are some rumours that you are going to be recording again soon.
I have another record that I made three years ago. It’s the same songs, kinda like me, but I had a bassist and a drummer, that record is called ‘Cheap’.

With the Level Devils?
Yeh, yeh. And now I’m going to make a new record probably starting in November.

And is that just a solo project?
Yeh. I might have kinda maybe some drums maybe once in a while. I thought about maybe singing some tunes with maybe or two other people, just a little bit different but still pretty raw.

And are you going to take that similar simplistic approach to recording that you’ve used before?
Yeh, I am. I’m going to try to make a little bit different but it’s still going to be pretty simple. There might be a couple of songs on there that might be a little more complicated but I’m going to stick with the simple thing for the most part.

And what does that entail?
Not getting too busy, y’know? I don’t know yet. I made that last record on a four track tape machine with just two microphones in my kitchen. So I think I’ll do some recording in my kitchen again but if I want to use some drums on a song too I might go somewhere else and record, in a house or something. It’s not totally planned out yet.

So this solo venture of yours, how does it differ in the sound from what you did with The Level Devils?
When I did that record that was kind of a little band so that’s mainly how it’s different. I had a recording studio we did it in and on this record I didn’t even know I was making a record I was just recording in my kitchen because my wife told me to. I didn’t have no plan to put out a record, it happened after I recorded it that people wanted to put it out. She just kind of wanted me to record some songs like I do when I sit around the house and play, y’know?

You’ve had some tough times in your past, to what extent do those experiences creep into your music and your lyrics?
Oh, they don’t creep into it, they stamp all over it. That’s all I sing about is what happened back then. That’s all it is. I just write songs about things that happened to me, good or bad. I try not to make it too horrible every now and then. I just write about stuff. I just write what make me feel good but most of the things I write about are things that happened to me a long time ago. I got a song about my dog that died last year, so sometimes I write songs about things happening now but mostly a long time ago.

You’ve worked with a number of musical heavyweights, as a producer and as a session player, who were the most satisfying in terms of the end product that you made?
Shit, I don’t know. I like recording with all the young bands because they’re so excited about what they do and they think they just invented a new wheel, y’know? There’s a lot of energy. I got tired of it after a while but a lot of them young bands out there in America, it was real fun to see them come up with all their stuff and some of it was real original. It kept me kind of young. So working with these real young kids, even though it was kind of a pain in the ass sometimes, they keep you on your toes.

Is it right you once knew Kurt Cobain?
Yeh, I knew him. He lived in Olympia and he lived in Olympia and pretty much everyone around there knew him. It was no big deal to know him.

Who are you listening to at the moment? Which bands are you into at the moment?
I just listen to old music now. I listen to old Mississippi Delta music a lot like Mississippi Fred McDowell, Charlie Patton, Son House. I listen to that stuff a lot. The older I get the more I want to listen to old music. I like some of the old vocal groups like the Milder Brothers and Inkspot, old Nat King Cole Trio.

So how do you feel about bands such as Jon Spencer, The Black Keys and The White Stripes?
Oh yeh. I really like some of the stuff the Black Keys did. Also when Jon Spencer was doing that stuff with RL (Burnside), that’s what kind of got me going again. RL was doing that stuff with Jon Spencer and then he thought it’d get popular then they asked me to come and open some shows back in 96 and 97. So that sort got me playing again. So through Jon Spencer I kind of got going again. I really like the White Stripes and The Black Keys. I like some of these punk bluegrass bands, like how Black Keys are doing it. I like that stuff a lot, to me that’s the future. A lot of those kids really do understand what that old music is all about. They kind of jumped over all the boring blues that’s been going on for the last 20-30 shithole years. They pick up that raw delta element and then they rock it up into their own thing.

These gigs that you’ve got coming up in London, tell me a bit more about those.
The London ones are just the last ones of my tour. I’m going on a tour starting in Scotland. I was only going to play one at the Scala but it sold out right away so they booked another gig at the Scala and that sold out too.

And you’re playing again at the Astoria in January?
Yeh, maybe then all the people can come that didn’t get to go to them other ones. I’ve got a booking agent and they’re just trying to put me wherever they can put me. It’s just gotten more and more crazy though because the people wanna come so I’m all happy about that getting me a job.

So maybe by next Xmas you’ll be playing at the 02 arena?
(LAUGHTER) It’s funny, I played at a festival over in Holland in front of 85,000 people.

How did that go?
Yeh, it was all good. It doesn’t matter to me if there’s eight people or 85,000. I play the same. It’s just kind of funny to walk out onto a stage that big with that many people there and you’re all by yourself. I’m all good either way. I like kinda playing for a lot of people just because it gets around a lot more quicker. I like playing small places but you’ve got to play an awful lot of small places to get in front of 20 or 30,000 people. The festivals have been real nice like for me to get a lot of people to know about me just over a few months.

Good exposure?
Yeh, yeh, yeh. It’s all good, it’s all good.