The Launch of Ecstatic Peace Library and the Bolt Coffee Shop
It had been over a year since I first travelled to Bristol to collect our new La Marzocco coffee machine. Along with the newly refurbished space we were all set to launch the coffee shop yet it took another year before it happened. The truth was that running a coffee shop on top of everything else I do was not really that appealing. You can’t do something well if you’re not fully committed, and rather than settle for less I decided to wait for the right opportunity. In the mean time I simply decided not to make money from the space, to leave it as a blank canvas and enjoy it. Over the course of the year it functioned as a meeting room, dining room, work space, music studio and extended office. We held exhibitions and pop-up markets, cooked paella and hosted a darts club, and most notably we transformed it into the rave cave for the Christmas party. Essentially it had become a clubhouse, or a youth club without the youth as I liked to call it.
I had been on at my good friend Rui to run the coffee shop for ages and then one day out of the blue he came in to tell me he was up for it. We had originally met around seven years before when we both rode Moto Guzzi Eldorados and hung out at the Scooter works garage. After countless miles on many a road trip I knew he would be the perfect to run the café – it is the people behind things that make them what they are. I quickly bought a Mazzer grinder and installed a water purifier before he had chance to change his mind. As luck had it the pub next door was under renovations and we benefited from two huge tables to join the others in the yard. Things were taking shape, we just needed the storms to pass.
I had heard that the musician Thurston Moore lived in Stoke Newington but that didn’t really prepare me for when he walked in last week. I had listened to Sonic Youth throughout my youth, Halloween was my first vinyl album, and it felt surreal to be chatting in the shop. Along with the artist Edwin Pouncey aka Savage Pencil, Zippo records and Soho Music they had launched the Ecstatic Peace Library, an experimental record shop. A few days later they came back around and we had agreed that they would come and move into the old garage along with the coffee shop. Motorcycles, leather jackets, coffee, haircuts and an emporium of rock and roll all together, how could this not be great. The next day an article in the Guardian newspaper asks Thurston why he would open a record shop in today’s commercial climate which he replied “What about artistic profit, creative profit, intellectual profit?”. It fitted perfectly in the room that seemed destined to do more then simply turn a buck.
The Ecstatic Peace Library is a conglomeration of lifetimes spent collecting rock and roll records, zines, posters, prints, clothes and books by a group of acclaimed collectors, musicians and artists. You can see everything from signed prints by, the godfather of psych art - Stanley Mouse, to Martin sharp’s foil prints, Keith Moon’s leather jacket and racks of rare, imported, vintage and collectible records. Every bit of space was soon home to a precious slice of music and art history.
The next morning amongst the news of the impeding corona virus epidemic and the start of London’s measures to shut down the sun shone on through. After weeks of storms the return of sunshine and warmer weather seemed to give everyone a new lease of life. Whilst we always had filter coffee the launch of the coffee shop encouraged people to hang out. Over the day the yard saw a rotation of motorcycles, the aluminium tanks of Tritons & Nortons sat well alongside a restored Mercedes. The Ecstatic Peace Library brought in a constant stream of heads who’d be lost for hours leafing through the racks of vinyl. Different crowds sat around talking about music, motorcycles and clothing. Bobby Gillespie, lead singer of Primal Scream came down and chatted to Thurston, and it felt like the creative community the Ecstatic Peace Library (ESP) set out to create was coming together.
The old Victorian Stables was never going to be a great retail location, snuck away in the Stoke Newington its tries its best to avoid the hustle of the city. It’s barely changed in the past century, a relic of the past, it even feels like time passes at an old pace within its walls. Its been a hub for motorcyclists and youth culture since the 1930’s, and there’s a century of rock and roll to build on.
Bolt, ESP, Cut & Run and the Coffee shop will be open from Wednesday through to Sunday.