Rock and Pop: Interview - Jay Sensible
Published: 19 August, 2010
by ROISIN GADELRAB
IT looks like the dream student living room – couches and lamps, arcade machines with Space Invaders, table football, and a bar on one wall.
But how many students get to play host to Mumford and Sons, Laura Marling, Reverend and the Makers and The Drums?
In the 18 months The Flowerpot has been in Kentish Town, it’s become the unofficial social club for Camden musicians, creating a niche for itself quite possibly unrivalled in London – a respected bill of new and established acts every night totally free.
Although it’s known to those who know, in some ways it’s Camden’s best kept secret, just enough off the beaten track to avoid the paparazzi attention given to Proud and The Hawley Arms, yet with the pulling power to attract Madness, Jamie T and Florence and the Machine.
You get the sense they want to keep it that way. The website is as low-key as it gets and getting manager and promoter Jay Sensible to gossip about the acts is tough.
“I’m not really a name-dropper,” he said. “It’s more about looking after bands than promoters.”
Even so, Eliza Doolittle has told us she likes to hang out there, Kate Nash has spun records on a Saturday night and Damien Rice has dropped by for a quick jam.
Born from the disaster that was the great fire of Nambucca, bar staff, musicians and the remnants of those who lived over the fashionable Holloway Road pub clubbed together and moved into Camden.
Jay said: “People were homeless and jobless. We rooted around and got hold of the club.”
The staff live above the bar and do much more than serve drinks.
Jay said: “Seven of us live there. We DJ, book bands and promote it.
“We’ve a wicked back line, we provide guitars, drum kits and amps, so bands can just turn up.”
Their listings boast an ambitious line-up from the newest talent to surprise appearances, after-show gigs and established acts – and the punters never pay.
Most of the staff are in bands or have had some involvement with the music industry.
Jay said: “We try and help out other bands by putting things on for free. All of us have worked with bands in the past and, say we put on early gigs when they were small, now they’re selling records and doing better, they come back and repay the favour.
“We didn’t want to be a standard music venue. People trust that we’re going to put good bands on. We try and make it as welcoming as possible. Our crowd are young, fun, arty...and drunk. They like Jaegerbombs.”
Recently Mumford and Sons, Kill it Kid, and The Joker and the Thief helped transform the venue into a studio for a week-long project writing and recording tracks from start to finish, for a Communion Records compilation.
Jay added: “People had to write the songs here, it was all pretty off the wall. We’ve definitely got some exciting things coming up and New Year at HMV The Forum again with some big bands.”
• US band The Like play a pre Reading and Leeds Festival warm-up gig on Wednesday