Sohemians

At 7.00pm on Tuesday 11 August, the delightful, dryly humorous Gary Lachman (a.k.a. Gary Valentine), onetime guitarist with Blondie and flat-mate of Debbie Harry and Chris Stein, will be in conversation with the equally charming pop music historian Matthew Worley. They’ll be chatting about Gary’s youth in Los Angeles and New York, as well as about late 1970s and early 1980s Anglo-American youth culture in general. Matthew’s the author of No Future, the definitive book about the British component of that world – a book that’s been recently reissued with an enthusiastic introduction by Paul Morley.

By the way, at the bottom of the “Future Events” section of the Sohemian Society’s website, you’ll find a very short and fascinating film about Gary Lachman. He’s followd an improbable path that’s taken him from New York rock ’n’ roll to living in London and becoming a writer of literary biographies and books about philosophy.

Our other newly unveiled event is historian Antony Clayton’s repeat of his 2025 sell-out guided tour along the Chelsea riverside associated with the great American émigré painter, James McNeill Whistler. This’ll start at 3.00pm on Sunday 2 August at 3.00pm. Several friends of mine attended the previous walk. They both came away saying how fantastic it was.

Tickets to the Whistler walk and the late 1970s/early 1980s youth culture event can be purchased via the following link: https://www.sohemiansociety.com.

A few tickets are also available to the Robert Elms, Andrew Lownie, and Iain Sinclair events, plus the guided walks that focus on Frank Norman and “Science and Wonder in the Victorian West End”.

Last January, many of you were fortunate enough to be at our packed Q-and-A about the Soho writer Frank Norman. Chaired by Max Décharné, it featured Frank’s widow, Geraldine, and grandson, Joe Daniel, who was behind the successful reissue of Soho Night & Day – the 1960s book featuring text by Frank and striking black-and-white photos by his friend Jeffrey Bernard. Joe has kindly agreed to be the guide for a walk through Frank Norman’s Soho, beginning at 2.30pm on Sunday 26 July.

Tickets to Frank Norman’s Soho can be purchased via the following link: https://www.sohemiansociety.com. This link can also be used to purchase the steadily diminishing number of tickets to the Science & Wonder in the Victorian West End guided walk, as well as the events with Robert Elms, Iain Sinclair, and Andrew Lownie.

Our recording of the Soho Night & Day event is still available for free on Radio Sohemia, the latest edition of which has just gone online. It’s a lively and often funny Q-and-A with Helen Fry about an espionage network that MI6 operated in Belgium during both the First and Second World Wars. To listen to this or any of the other editions of Radio Sohemia, just click on one of the following links:

https://open.spotify.com/show/7v8RaoDrQRjS5HUDxb6Lfz

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/radio-sohemia/id1798432565

Former Wellcome Institute archivist and frequent Sohemian Society compère, Ross MacFarlane, will be hosting another of his understatedly erudite and invariably packed West End tours. At 2.30pm on Sunday 19 July, he’ll be taking a group of fortunate people around the sites of many once famous venues where science met entertainment, where new discoveries were presented with consummate showmanship.

Tickets for Ross’s tour can be booked via the following link: https://www.sohemiansociety.com.

The same link can also be used to snaffle tickets to the events starring Andrew Lownie, Robert Elms, and Iain Sinclair – events that are well on their way to selling out despite being at much larger than normal venues.

We still have tickets available to attend the conversation with Andrew Lownie about the scandal-strewn lives of the former Duke and Duchess of York. Who’d have thought that P. Diddy would end up featuring in a royal biography?

A limited number of tickets are also available to a couple of our other June events. There’s the Q-and-A with Robert Elms about that influential London nightclub, Blitz Club; and there’s Iain Sinclair, who’ll be delivering a specially commissioned talk about the experience of walking – something that’s been integral to his literary output.

Last time I looked, there were only four tickets left to the chat between David McGillivray and Max Décharné about Soho’s long association with s*x.

If you fancy attending any of these events, our website provides more details of the events themselves as well as how to book – https://www.sohemiansociety.com.

P.S. Longstanding Sohemian Society attendees may remember the Q-and-A featuring the now deceased writer Laura del Rivo, author of the 1961 novel, The Furnished Room, which was adapted into the cult British B-movie, West 11. She’s the subject of a recently completed film documentary, the producers of which have launched a Kickstarter campaign to finance its post-production. If you’re interested in contributing, please use the following link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/raw60s/finding-laura-del-rivo

On the afternoon of Saturday 11 July, historian Antony Clayton will be leading a tour through the fin-de-siècle world inhabited by the likes of Oscar Wilde, Arthur Symons, and Aubrey Beardsley. Besides being the author of a book about decadent London, Antony’s recently released a brilliant book charting the literary and cinematic legacy of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher – https://mansionofgloom.com/books-by-antony-clayton

At 7.00pm on Tuesday 14 July, we’ll be hosting another of our staged conversations, this time starring a couple of very droll and amusing Soho veterans – writer/musician Max Décharné and David McGillivray, smutty film-maker turned scriptwriter and director for Julian Clary. The subject of their chat will be Soho’s more than 250-year history of s*xual transgression, s*xual commerce and s*xual slang. Expect the evening to be heavy with innuendo.

To book tickets for either or both these events, please go to https://www.sohemiansociety.com

Several people have asked me whether or not there’s a bar at the Fitzrovia Chapel, venue for the Wednesday 24 June Q-and-A with Andrew Lownie about former Prince Randy Andy. Though the Chapel doesn’t have a booze license, it’s close to a pub. Appropriately enough, the pub in question is the King & Queen…

There are only twenty tickets left for our Q-and-A with Andrew Lownie at the Fitzrovia Chapel. Click on the following link if you’d like to nab one of them: https://wegottickets.com/sohemiansociety

Dressed In Black: Goth Divas From The Dark Side

1941-2025

Compiled by Cathi Unsworth as a companion piece to her hugely acclaimed 2023 book Season Of The Witch: The Book Of Goth

Featuring Siouxsie & The Banshees, Lydia Lunch, The Cramps, Bobbie Gentry, Shirley Collins, Cocteau Twins, Billie Holiday, Karen Dalton, Anna Calvi and many more

Comes with extensive sleevenotes

Available on 2-LP and CD

Out 26 June

Today marks the release of the latest of our free monthly Radio Sohemia podcasts. This new instalment features crime novelists Jake Arnott and Cathi Unsworth chatting about Jake’s career in general and his latest novel in particular. Writing in “The Financial Times”, occasional Sohemian punter and multi-talented writer, Barry Forshaw, describd Arnott’s new novel as a “blistering and ambitious fusing of the literary novel and the tough crime narrative."

If you’d like to hear Jake Arnott and Cathi Unsworth, just click on one of the following links:

https://open.spotify.com/show/7v8RaoDrQRjS5HUDxb6Lfz

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/radio-sohemia/id1798432565

May we ask a favour? Please give the podcast a nice rating, as that’ll increase the chances of Radio Sohemia showing up in other people’s podcast feeds.

In collaboration with Fitzrovia Noir, we’ll be presenting a talk by Iain Sinclair on Sunday 28 June at 2.00pm. He’ll be musing on the experience of walking in the footsteps of Nicholas Hawksmoor, Vincent Van Gogh and others.

By the way, Iain’s talk is being staged at a marvelous venue: the huge pontoon supporting the S.S. Robin, a Victorian steamship moored at Trinity Buoy Wharf, which is close to the East India Dock D.L.R. station. Both the steamship and the wharf itself are worth seeing in their own right.

£10 tickets for this event can be booked via the following link: https://www.sohemiansociety.com/opening-page. In the unlikely event that you have problems with the ticketing link on our website, just go to the We Got Tickets website and key in “Sohemian Society”.

In collaboration with Fitzrovia Noir, we’ll be hosting a Q-and-A between journalist and broadcaster Robert Elms and biographer Keiron Pim on Saturday 27 June at 2.30pm. They’ll be discussing that ultra-trendy early 1980s hangout, the Blitz Club.

To add to the fun, Robert’s talk is being staged in the huge pontoon supporting the S.S. Robin, a Victorian steamship moored at Trinity Buoy Wharf, which is close to the East India Dock D.L.R. station. Both the steamship and the wharf itself are worth seeing in their own right.

£10 tickets for this events can be booked via the following link: https://www.sohemiansociety.com/opening-page. In the unlikely event that you have problems with the ticketing link on our website, just go to the We Got Tickets website and key in “Sohemian Society”.