Move over Manchester, Shepherd's Bush has been officially proclaimed the rock and roll capital of Britain (based on population). A survey conducted by Guitar RockStar found that the West London neighbourhood with a population of 11,000 proudly boasts one rock star for every 1,222 residents. Shepherd's Bush was the birthplace of three quarters of the Who, two Sex Pistols, and half of the Clash, as well as being the adopted home of Pete Doherty.......

A happy Bank Holiday Monday to you, friends! Can’t bring yourselves to leave the flat and venture out in this stormy weather? Neither can we. But really, we appreciate whatever excuse we can use to dip into the ever-growing pile of books on our bedside table. A look at the week ahead in literary London: Tuesday: Booker-shortlisted author Tim Winton will at the Australian High Commission for the launch of his latest novel, Breath,......

Her Majesty The Queen is now the oldest monarch Britain has ever enjoyed. Hang on, that sounds pervy. Let’s try again. Queen Elizabeth II today becomes the oldest British monarch. That’s better. The AFP, taking no chances that she might die overnight, filed the story thus: Queen Elizabeth II was set Thursday to become Britain's oldest monarch.. She surpasses Queen Vic, who snuffed it aged 81 years and 243 days. But our Liz will......

Whilst the Sex Pistols and The Verve were hawking their wares for the proper reviewers, Londonist was hightailing it down to the Empire for an early start. Since The Broken Family Band cashed in the cool Cambridge climes for our dirty old town, we can now legitimately claim them as our favourite London band (no doubt to howls of protest from the other Londonist writers and possibly the guys themselves). TBFB (for all you......

Whenever Londonist is feeling a tad glum, we have but to turn to Matt Harding and his amazingly silly website to get all cheered up again. Matt Harding is one big internet sensation, albeit a very unlikely one. The former games programmer has made a new career out of dancing badly in front of some of the world’s most recognisable and iconic buildings, and in some of the planet’s remotest terrains. But Londonist has been......

You might have heard - the Spice Girls are reforming for a few concerts. It wasn't very publicised, so you could be excused for missing it. Tickets for the London concert on 15 December at the O2 Centre went on sale on Monday and sold out in thirty eight seconds. That's right. Thirty eight seconds. That means the tickets could have sold out 4.74 times while you listened to an average pop song. Or......

Anarchists, nihilists, thorns in the establishment's side, punks, poets, property developers, reality tv stars, radio show hosts; if nothing else the Sex Pistols are a contrary bunch. So whether the 30th anniversary bollocks celebration/reunion tour is a final nail in the coffin or breath of life to that ephemeral thing they call Punk attitude, only history, possibly as written by the NME, will tell. Either way their initial batch of Brixton dates sold out......

Part 1: Introduction Mods. Rockers. Teds. Punks. Ravers. Swingers. Skinheads. Suedeheads. Hippies. Yuppies. Rudeboys. Indie kids. Emo kids. Beats. Glam kids. Tribes. Subcultures. Neo-tribes. Groups. Bands. Movements. All of the above, and more, have - despite their points of origin - been magnetically attracted to the capital. To attempt to cover all of the ages of London’s youth might seem an exhausting task worthy of Peter Ackroyd who wrote of his biography of London......

Would you like to see the Queen gagged and blindfolded? If monarchy muzzling is one’s thing, one should really get oneself to Barbican Art Gallery. There, in homage to Liz’s Silver Jubilee and the 30th anniversary of the Sex Pistols’ romp down the river playing God Save The Queen, is an exhibition of punk art like never seen before in Britain. Forget bringing a picnic lunch and wading knee-deep through sproglets in the gift......

As if you couldn't get enough of her...now Fred Vermorel, the author of Kate's unofficial biography 'Addicted to Love' is offering up the contents of Kate's discarded underwear. The part-time Kingston University lecturer, and author of biographies of Vivienne Westwood and the Sex Pistols, claims he received the basque from a friend of his. When pressed on what he had done with the no-doubt fashionable little number, he said "I DNA-tested it just to......

This Day In London’s History 1975: The Sex Pistols play their first gig at Saint Martin’s College. After Johnny Rotten joined The Swankers as their new vocalist, the band changed its name to The Sex Pistols under the guidance of its new manager Malcolm McLaren. Shortly afterwards, on this day 31 years ago, they played (or attempted to play) their first gig at Saint Martin’s College. Their debut was not exactly an overwhelming success......

Henry Rollins will be rolling into town again next month for one of his annual spoken word gigs - at least we hope he will, because whether he gets here may well be down to what reading material he decides to bring with him. His choice of in-flight read caused a ridiculous kafuffle when he recently travelled from New Zealand to Australia. It turns out that a fellow passenger objected to Rollins reading Ahmed......

How did we miss the fact that it's National Pub Week? Ok, so CAMRA have a bit of way to go before they lose the beard-stroking, 'I've got my own tankard I have' image but with the onslaught of crappy, generic chain drinkeries we need all the proper pub-lovers we can get, plus the fact that they've just brought out a London Pub Walks book doesn't hurt either. The book is billed as a......

- The Austrailian press is reporting that the explosives seized in a raid in Sydney are the same as those used in the London bombings. It's called, believe it or not, Mother of Satan. - The budget for the Stansted airport renovation is £4 billion. A similar facelift at Luton is going to cost just £1.5bn. - Prince William started his work experience at HSBC's 'charity service division' in the City this week. - Boeing......

Londonist has commented on the 'The Avenue Of The Stars' in Covent Garden before. But, just in case you'd forgotten, let us remind you of our position: this is a complete waste of time. Firstly, ITV is behind it and this makes it inherently rubbish. Secondly, it has no real worth and no discernible benefit for the city. So it is with a heavy heart that we report that the 'Avenue' is due to......

We've already started receiving bits and pieces regarding the London Film Festival later in the year, but between this weekend's FrightFest and October there are a couple of Festivals you'd be mad to miss. First up is one of our favourites: Raindance. Last year we had such a blast watching premieres of Dead Man's Shoes and Old Boy alongside the gay 'comedy' of Paul Hogan, The Onion's spam-tastic Chevy Chase starring unreleased, unloved but......

A rousing chorus of Happy Birthday to us will be heard from the ofices of Uncut magazine this Thursday as they publish their 100th issue. Over the past 8 years Uncut has kept us entertained with its mixture of cult movie writing and focus on classic country and folk oriented rock music. They've introduced us to some great artists (including The Drive By Truckers, Micah P Hinson and Richmond Fonataine) and in doing so......