In the early 2000s, a member of New York dance-punk band Radio 4 drunkenly jumped from the top of a staircase at London's Columbia Hotel, landing at the feet of Courtney Love and an irate manager. He ended up in hospital and the band was barred for years. But it was not easy to get barred from the Columbia, a Grade II listed Victorian townhouse across from Kensington Gardens that became a legendary rock'n'roll hideout.
Noel Gallagher named a song after the hotel, 'Columbia', based on his escapades when he was a roadie for Inspiral Carpets. 'It was rock'n'roll central,' said Clint Boon of Inspiral Carpets, recalling how Oasis once threw all the bar furniture out of the window at 6am, landing pieces on the manager's Mercedes. 'To see Noddy Holder in the bar was like ... we've arrived.'
The hotel's cheap rooms, flexible bar hours and laissez-faire attitude made it a magnet for musicians from the 1980s onwards. Soft Cell's Marc Almond practically lived there in 1982-83, recalling a 'bohemian gathering' where the breakfast room featured the Human League, Talk Talk and Kajagoogoo 'trying to be more aloof than one another'. The Killers were also regulars, with a bathtub reserved for vomiting.
Not everyone shared the fondness. Miki Berenyi of Lush found it 'a bit dismal', while The Auteurs' Luke Haines wrote a song threatening to 'take the fucking building out, Baader Meinhof style', calling it a 'signifier of boring cliched rock'n'roll behaviour'. Yet for decades, the Columbia remained a buzzy after-hours haunt, with photographer Mick Rock scouting for new bands there.
Music publicist Andy Prevezer summed up its pull: 'The historical importance of that place should not be overlooked. To this day I go past it and feel an almost irresistible urge to go into the building and misbehave.'
