A Brisk Oral History of Junk, the UK’s Last Great Club Night

The city of Southend in Essex—the county that separates London from the shores of the North Sea—is a place with a rich subcultural history. After World War II, successive waves of style tribes would meet up on the beaches of Southend to beat each other senseless. After kicking and punching their way through the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s, the Teddy Boys, punks, mods, rockers, skinheads, suedeheads, and bikers who decorated Southend in each other’s blood probably didn’t expect the place to go quiet. But for a while, it did, as the mainstream and its tracksuited practitioners of less choosy violence had the local freaks and Southend’s subcultural reputation in a chokehold.

Then, at the start of the new century, something started to crystallize. The loving undercurrents of psych rock, post-punk,