THE Q&A CRAWL: RUSS TANNEN, THE OLD BLUE LAST | News | The Camden Crawl 2012

Allow us to let others do the talking for us: “East London’s most notorious venue” (NME); “The cradle of British music’s future” (The Guardian); “A mecca for Shoreditch’s twentysomething trendies … See the next big thing here before they break” (Time Out); “The Old Blue Last has the awesome power to make any gig into a beer-soaked, freak out, dance party” (Spoonfed).

Brought to you by the good people of Vice,Shoreditch’s very own venue phenomenon was a must-have at this year’s Crawl: not only have they played host to acts as diverse as Simian Mobile Disco, Hot Chip, We Are Scients and Jose Gonsalez; not only are they without peer on London’s new music scene, and not only do they pour a mean pint. They’re also terribly nice chaps. We tempted the Last’s Russ Tannen into our lair. We know that sounds sinister. It really wasn’t.

Who are you and what do you want?

Russ Tannen. A steak burrito.

Fantasy festival time: you can have any one act at CC2012, alive, dead or inbetween. Who is it, and why?

I’d have Michael J Fox fronting Marvin Berry and The Starlighters, a-la the Enchantment Under The Sea Dance.


Favorite tune of the past 12 months?

Active Child – You Are All I See

What else are you up to this summer? Not that it could be as important as us, obviously.

Here at The Old Blue Last we’ll be celebrating the Olympics and the European Cup in style, although almost certainly attending neither in person.

In three words, what are you trying to achieve as a curator at CC2012?

Charles and Eddie. [Would you lie to us, Russ? We’re just checking.]


It’s the after-show. What’s on the stereo?

Toto – Africa

How are we getting on, do you think?

Just fine, just fine. [This was pretty non-committal. We didn’t say anything at the time, but it’s bothered us since.]

24 HOUR COMPETITION OF THE DAY: WIN FREE ENTRY!!!
Courtesy of today’s hosts we have free entry to an OBL event of your choice to give away. TO WIN this awesome prize, simply head to our Facebook page and share the first post on our wall. Once completed take a screen grab and email it to the secret email address listed at the top of our Facebook ‘Fan Only Content’ page, citing ‘OBL COMP’ in the subject line.

Deadline for entries: 9:00 am Thursday, 2nd February. Winners announced on Facebook 10:00am and notified by email.