After Sarah
After Sarah ended and we’d cleaned up the mess, Clare worked in the music industry for a couple of years while Matt set up Shinkansen Recordings. Shinkansen released new material by some former Sarah acts (Blueboy, Harvey Williams, East River Pipe and Trembling Blue Stars [Bobby from The Field Mice and Northern Picture Library’s new band]), some who had Sarah connections (Fosca, Cody) and some who were completely untainted by the previous eight years (Monograph, Pacific Radio, Tompot Blenny).
After Shinkansen, Matt joined forces with Jude Rogers to create Smoke: A London Peculiar, a magazine about London. Smoke put out sixteen issues and then became a web-only affair due to the publishing industry being the way it was. There was also a Smoke book, From The Slopes Of Olympus To The Banks Of The Lea, and – unsurprisingly – a board game (Soho!). Smoke is no longer active, but the website is still there.
Clare became an accountant and is interested in walking and the environment. Smoke published a few pieces by her back in the day, and she recently began contributing to Caught By The River, beginning with In Search Of Fox Hill, a piece about following Camille Pissarro’s footsteps through Upper Norwood to try and work out where he stuck his easel. She also provided a chapter (This Is Aimed As Much At Us As At You: My Life In Fanzines) to Ripped, Torn and Cut: Pop, Politics and Punk Fanzines from 1976. She chairs The Ramblers in Inner London, tweeting here, runs the #LoveLondonWalkLondon campaign and contributes London walking news to South East Walker magazine.
Matt’s latest project is Unchartered Streets, a series of books singing the praises of London’s more unsung quarters. The first book, Leyton, appeared in the summer of 2021, and Deptford is on its way. There’s also a related twitter feed, @UncharteredS. Other random bits of writing are collected on the Danger: Void Behind Door website.