Graffiti, nostalgia and the Libertines: A walk down “up the bracket alley”

Halligan, B

Graffiti, nostalgia and the Libertines: A walk down “up the bracket alley”

Halligan, B

Authors

B Halligan

Abstract

This article reflects on a visit to the site of the video shoot for The Libertines’ “Up the Bracket”, ten years after that shoot and in the wake of the disbanding of the group, and the ways in which an unofficial and subcultural heritage is manifest in the graffiti now found there. The article both presents photographic examples of this graffiti, and considers this graffiti to be a live curation of the legacy of the band and its meaning to its fans. The location becomes the site of memories: of the meaning of the band for those now also visiting, and of a recollection of the group’s moment and locale. The contexts for such memories, and their persistence, is related to the criminal past of the area, the seemingly doomed nature of The Libertines, and the flâneur-like role of the tourist in relation to unofficial heritage trails.

Keywords: The Libertines; graffiti; psychogeography; Bethnal Green; memory.