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Madame Jojo's has its license revoked, White Heat on "hiatus"

24 November 2014, 11:34 | Written by Laurence Day
(News)

The future of esteemed musical establishments Madame Jojo's and White Heat are currently in disarray.

White Heat have lit the touchpaper on numerous careers, from Adele to Grimes, and Lorde to Wild Beasts, and though have little intention of calling it quits, are no longer able to put on any gigs due to their home-base, Madame Jojo's, having their license revoked due to a "serious disorder that shut the venue down immediately on 28th October". This was initially supposed to be temporary, then extended, then made permanent.

The West End Extra reports that the incident involved the security staff at Madame Jojo's.

The full statement from White Heat reads:

"We know a lot of you have been waiting to hear about what's been going on with White Heat over the past few weeks. About a month ago our home of ten years, Madame Jojo's, was shut down due to a serious incident of disorder outside. Yesterday the council decided to revoke the venue's licence rendering us homeless and its staff, our friends, out of a job.

We've been forced to cancel all of our foreseeable shows at the venue and it's probably going to be impossible to have one last hurrah at Jojo's for old times sake.

In the last year or so we've had some incredible shows, there was Lorde's first ever UK show, Cyril Hahn, Slaves, Yuck, The Orwells, Eliot Sumner, RAC, The Preatures, Chuck Palahniuk(!), Le Youth, Broods, Baio, Spector, Big Deal and Deap Vally to name a few.

Going even further back through our memories of Madame Jojo's we've been lucky enough to have The xx, Adele, Klaxons, The Kills, The Horrors, Factory Floor, Cold Cave, Sleigh Bells, Savages, HTRK, Wild Beasts, Crystal Fighters, Liars, Mystery Jets, Foals, Friendly Fires, Jamie T, Health, Slow Club, Crystal Fighters, Wild Beasts, Joy Formidable, Rolo Tomassi, Chairlift, Vivian Girls, Dum Dum Girls, We Were Promised jetpacks, The Juan Maclean, Zebra Katz, Azari & III, Disclosure, Gold panda, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, Connan Mockasin, Two Door Cinema Club, Breton, Theophilus London, Young Fathers, Anna Calvi, Twin Shadow, Veronica Falls, Vaccines, Shabazz Palaces, Grimes, Chromatics, Purity Ring, Foxes, Say Lou Lou and many many more.

Over the ten years we've been there we've put a lot into how the venue looks and sounds to make it the best live experience possible and to try and be one of the best places to watch new bands in London. So it really is gutting to have to announce that White Heat at Madame Jojo's is no more.

We'd like to thank every single person who's come to a show and/or partied with us late into Tuesday night, the literally thousands of bands we've had play (many of you played three or four times – 9 in one case Young Knives!), all of the agents and managers and tour managers and engineers and door people and flyering people and journalists and everyone who, over the years, has had a hand in making White Heat what it was, including Cilla Black.

For now we're going to weigh up our options and try to work out what we can salvage from this. We've put on a party every week for the past ten years so it's in our blood, don't expect to hear nothing."

The rescheduled Golden Fable, Hugh and All the People show will continue as planned at the Lexington on 26 November, as will the DiD show at Electrowerkz on 2 December.

This is the latest in a growing line of venue closures that includes London's Buffalo Bar, and could soon include Liverpool's Kazimier and Nation venues.

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