Tuning in with Sister Midnight and Dash the Henge
Sister Midnight
Sister Midnight is a collective led by three women under the age of 30: co-founders Lenny Watson and Sophie Farrell, and musician Lottie Pendlebury.
The project first started life as a small record shop and grassroots venue in Deptford. Then came the pandemic, and the team rethought their approach, eventually relaunching as a community benefit society and raising around £400,000 in community funding to set up a local music venue in Lewisham. After a fair amount of trials and tribulations, the council granted them a 10-year, rent-free lease on the Brookdale Club, a disused working men’s club in the centre of Catford. The collective also recently launched a community-led radio station called SMFM.
“It’s been tough balancing the online and offline with a mainly digital campaign and no physical space to call home,” says Farrell. “But what’s kept our little music community together has definitely been our regular fundraiser events. It’s been a teaser of what will come when we are back open and programming.”
Plans are still being finalised, but Sister Midnight aim to transform the derelict building into a into a community-owned music venue, bringing a much-needed cultural community hub to the local area.
Dash the Henge
Opened in October 2022, Dash the Henge is a self-described “genre-fluid record and book store” in Camberwell, occupying a space that was formerly home to the legendary Rat Records.
The store has become the focus of a burgeoning DIY micro-community, celebrating music that goes against the grain. As well as new and old vinyl, it stocks books, zines and miscellaneous merch. Live music is an integral element, with regular Saturday performances known as #LIVEATFIVE.
The shop also serves as the HQ of Dash the Henge records, a label focused on championing outsider artists that was founded in 2019 by Nathan Saoudi (Fat White Family) and Tim Harper (FreakFreak). Its roster includes South London’s White Devil Disco and Berlin-based Japanese psych band Jaguar No Me. One reading of the space’s name is as a call to pebbledash the country’s most iconic ancient monument. A slogan that manages to be subversive, celebratory, playful and deadly serious all at the same time. And that’s the ethos in a nutshell.
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