Mountain Grill Cafe, Portobello road, W11

By loonymoon

Mon, 19 Oct 2009
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3 comments
 

It was so good to read the review on The Mountain Grill Cafe .....I was a frequent glugger of coffee and other unmentionable things with rather psychedelic overtones and hues....in the cafe...with other unmentionable hippies back in the seventie's. We used to get a buzz out of the local dosser's sitting in there drooling over thier 2 hour old tea....until we got somewhat bored....and we all know it's not a good scenario when one is bored, so we had to change the rules and decided it was about time we introduced the "PLINK PLINK FIZZ" concept(2 french blues plopped in to thier tea whilst slightly distacting them.......and then just wait for the uplift and woweee....they suddenly burst into great lenthy tales about thier lives and man! the stories were just buzzin...now some people might think this was a shit trick....but they didn't seem to mind and as fact is.....is is as is is.....?????they became more human again....not just some dosser on the street sneakin into The Mountain Grill for a dos and to scrounge some butts out the ashtray's....cos after all they are just like you and me....tryin to find the path again.....maybe we helped them somehow...anyway.....my claim to fame has to be going up to the room above above ( a massive long hall) to watch Hawkwind thrashing out the album "HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN GRILL"..the hall being above the cafe is where they recorded the album ...or something like that....one sometimes loses the jist of the story due to too many big doobies and too much Amphet and Lysergic Tomazapamic and kemedrinic derivatives.......and supping Newcastle Brown Ale in Henekeys Bar/pub....and Finches.....and having Lemmy booting me realy hard in the shin whilst he was playing on the fruit machine in Henekeys pub for trying to sell him some "french blues"......cor the times back there....just sheer radicalism.....and just unforgetable.....The MOUNTAIN GRILL CAFE was always buzzin....in fact i'm still there...never left the place....i'm still there bangin a bongo.....and plink plink fizzin the dossers ...and sometimes the straights who sometimes wandered in after a four hour jaunt down the Portobello.....it was great seeing them react to a couple of blues.....they break out in sweat and start getting paranoid...and suddenly become realy animated and suddenly aware of the realy manic happenings goin on around them and then scarper off like a shot feeling very hot...down the Portobello in a great hurry....buzzin....such fun........it's gotta be the best cafe in London..i have so many great memories of the Montain Grill....miss the place.....but as i say, i'm still there yeah!!!!

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Submitted by Insertponceyfre... on
I enjoyed that - thank you

 

Submitted by chuck on
I enjoyed it too. It reads like it came out with a rush. Portobello Road has sure changed.

Submitted by loonymoon on
Loonymoon Wow......sure is great to get some feedback on the heady times back in the seventies down the Portobello. ...it realy was a buzzin place to be back then....if you wanted to see magic things and buzzin music on every corner, then saturday's on the Portobello was the place to be...a mystic sojourn all day...a total humdrum from dawn till dusk and then some...a multicultural, multicoloured, trancendental total wild experience and no doubt it still is....although as you say very different today than way back then but i bet the magic still exists no matter what form it takes....Portobello is on a ley line that runs from Hyde Park corner and right down the portobello road transversing firstly through the Sun In Splendour at the very top by Notting Hill tube....where it goes in either direction beyond that i still havn't got round to plotting but you can check it out yourselve's...just get yer London map out and see.... maybe that's the reason it's so much of a buzzin place.....energy attracts equal energy....i've not been back there for many years but the Portobello is and will forever be ingrained in my psychy.....once you've been there, and i spent nearly ten years frequenting the place way back there, jammin' buskin' freakin' patyin' gluggin' .....you just never forget.....back there, there was so many things goin' on that it was absolutely mesmerisin...band's playin under the flyover in most of the bays, which i do believe have all been turned into shops and indoor stalls now, buskers everywhere, the rasta's bangin out dub everywhere, the punk's struttin thier stuff in a multicoulered frenzy, and all the cacophony of the whole freakin show that was "Saturday on the Portobello" where people like Nick Turner,Dave Brock,Lemmy,Dik Mik,Simon House,Simon King,Del Detmar,Hugh Lloyd Langton,Harvey Bainbridge,Stacia(never forget Stacia,a Whirlin Dervish of absolute brilliance)and not forgetting my all time hero Mr MICHAEL MOORCOCK,and so many others gave there all bangin out thier all for anyone who just happen to there in some form or fashion cos whoevere you where back there you where there cos that was the place to be on saturday's buzzin on the Bello watching Hawkwind and the Sex Pistols and the Ramones and Blodwyn Pig and all the other bands doin'free gigs in Acclam Hall, in Acclam Road, where the music never stopped till there was no-one left but the last few who were too smashed and bombed by the magic of the whole day and too awestruck by the whole experience of "THE PORTOBELLO" that home was not an option...just keep the music goin'.....more music....and sometimes it just bcame one long festival....for days even.....if you wanted to meet famous musicians then you could guarantee to find them down the Bello..Rick Wakeman, John Lydon, Syd Vicious, Jah Wobble,Kate Bush.....i could go on but the list would be endless....and bands!!!Gong, Sex Pistols,The Incredible String Band, Motorhead, Mady Prior,Here And Now,Blondie(aka Debbie Harry)Peter Gabriel, Eric Clapton, Girlschool, Bazil's Blls Up Band, Charlie Dawes Back Pocket,......everywhere you went in the seventies there was always somthing gion' on that it was hard at times to keep track of it all.......is it any different today???......hey!!! these are my memories of the Bello and they will be with me longtime and i know that there are many millions of people out there that have experienced the Bello,in probably even more magical ways than me that we could probably write several million books about them all .....so get yer fingers goin and i'm sure not only i will be very interested,.......Shallom Loonymoon

Loonymoon