The Book of Eli

From touring with The Pogues and U2, to resurrecting a rotten bar in Margate’s Old Town and starting a soul music festival, Eli Thompson of Olby’s Soul Cafe has a novel’s worth of stories

A sunny day always seems to make things better, doesn’t it? But that blazing ball in the sky is not always to be trusted.

The sunshine can sell you a beer, it can sell you an ice cream, and it can even sell you a run-down bar by the sea.

Eli Thompson, the owner of Olby’s Soul Café, The Dugout and Music Rooms in Margate’s old town was one of those snared by the sandy beach and glistening midsummer waters.

The musician turned club night host turned Thanet champion, has been on our shoreline for 16 years now since his move from the Midlands. And he has developed, what I like to call, the ‘Godfather/ Sopranos complex’ about his adopted town. Just when he thought he was out, Margate pulls him back in.

But to tell his story properly we need to head to Coventry in the 1980s.

As a session trumpet player, Thompson toured with Shane MacGowan’s The Pogues and can even be seen on their live video from the famously raucous Town and Country Club gig on St Patrick’s Day in 1988. Following what must have been a monster mash of Irish folk punk drinking during U2’s Joshua Tree tour (on which The Pogues were in support), Thompson set out on his own with a band managed by the famous Lynval Golding from ska masters The Specials.

His musical abilities eventually led him to the studio where he worked with the likes of Sting and UB40. But his place at the heart of the Midlands’ urban underground was cemented when he took the reins of the Tic Toc Club, offering a stage to the who’s who of burgeoning and established talent. Seriously, Google it.

“I had never managed a club before in my life but I just knew how to put people into spaces, from being in a band,” says Eli.

“We were getting bands who were due to play at Wembley Stadium coming to warm up in the Tic Toc first, we just had a knack for it. It worked.

“I was also involved in one of the first legal indoor rave venues called The Eclipse in Coventry. I ended up putting together, what are now known as some of the first bootleg tapes and CDs. We were the ones sitting in dark corners recording Jumping Jack Frost and Goldie. Getting it back to the studio, mastering it and giving it to the guys to bootleg. It was a crazy time.”

It was around that time (the mid 90s) that Eli decided to move on - and for some reason - relocate to Gillingham (he never told us why, he was mid story, and stopping Eli mid flow would be like stopping a Theresa May with the scent of fox blood in her nostrils - not going to happen).

“I ended up working in a nightclub over there for a couple of years,” he says. He also ran The Crest Club on Sheppey -now called Merlin’s – before Margate beckoned.

“During my time at The Eclipse, I was working with these Garage Nation guys, and back then I thought they all lived in London, but it turned out the geezer I knew was actually from Margate.

“So we got talking again. He asked me about this opportunity at the Escape nightclub on the sea front, which was about to reopen, and he set up a meeting.

“I came down, got off the train, the sun was shining, the sea was blue, the sand was sand, and I couldn’t fucking believe it. I thought ‘This is it!’

“I walked to the front here (The Parade), met my mate for a drink and we started chatting.”

If you don’t believe in fate, what happened next was some mad coincidence. Eli’s meeting with Escape didn’t happen, but his conversation about clubs drew the attention of a renowned local landlord who was desperate to offload the bar and basement now known as The Dugout.

“It was rotten. It stunk of cat's piss. It was all broken,” he recalls. “I came here to see if I could put on a night, not to buy a club!

“But my friend was saying ‘take it, take it’,so I did. I took the keys, and it was a good space. I thought it would easily get 300 people in there no problem. I was used to getting 3,000 people.

“I didn’t realise that Margate was on its friggin’ arse in 2000, and there wasn’t anybody here! And what I saw on that sunny day was a fluke. But I had already taken the keys.”

THE LOVE AFFAIR

“It was tough. But I knew I could do something in this town. I could see it,” he says. “A very small amount of people were interested in what I could offer.”

Regular conversations with locals and his own research led Eli to discover the area’s links with youth culture; mods, rockers and music lovers that were fatefully connected to his own past.

“This town was being told it was rotten and no good, again and again, and people started to believe it. But I didn’t have time for that. But I did know that I had to find the people for events. And if I had to bring people from out of Margate to Margate then that was what I was going to do.”
Of course, his connections in the music business helped, but

Eli went about ploughing his money into booking the likes of HedKandi, Neville Staple from The Specials and many more.

“That’s how I got a reputation for putting my money where my mouth was,” he adds.

“But it had all clicked. We realised that we had to concentrate on the history of the town and what that is... which is skinheads, mods and youth culture.

“We needed to get people embracing it as part of their history rather than complaining about it and bringing up the mods and rockers who used to fight on the beaches and all that.

“We wanted people to come to the town, reconnect with it and have the memories of it again. You can’t knock your past, you’ve got to work with it.”

Eli and his team set about championing those genres so closely aligned to the town, and thus were born the festivals of Skagate, the Mod & 60s Revival, and the international behemoth that is Margate Soul Festival.

“It was all sitting here on our doorstep, mod, ska, soul,” he says, but that’s not the whole story.

Having started off the back of the Margate Carnival (a questionable title for something that was a few floats and the mayor on a cart) with just a grill of jerk chicken and a few brass-led tunes, the festival grew and grew until 2005 when the local authorities wanted to bring it out of Olby’s and onto the newly refurbished piazza.

“I matched the money that they put in, because £2,000 just wasn’t going to be enough. We made it a real party on the piazza, but kept the soul festival thing going on here, too.”
It grew and grew until 2011, when the authorities pulled out again. Not that that made the slightest bit of difference.
“The festival team has stayed together, promoted and reinvested every year in our events and the day looks like it’s coming that we might make some money.

“I am just someone who believes in this town, and if we hit the right note, people will come.”

And now, they flipping well come. In their droves.

The Margate Soul Festival has grown since its humble beginnings in 2002 to a two-day event with thousands of soul heads bopping to international acts and more than 50 DJs with 40 hours of music from Friday at 2pm to Monday at 4am annually in the first weekend of August.

Spread across multiple venues, the likes of Norman Jay MBE, Joey Negro, Gordon Mac, Dr Bob Jones and live acts such as Roy Ayers, Omar, Kenny Thomas have performed while this year Arrested Development, Trevor Nelson and Marc Evans all performed.

It encompasses a number of bars and venues across Margate, where festival-goers show their wristbands for the chance to listen to a legend.

“The wristbands started off at £3 for the whole weekend and some bars were complaining. Then the price went up to a tenner and then up to £60. And no customers are complaining.

“With that progression we went from little local bands to international artists. In my opinion it is now the biggest thing the town has got, because it feeds so many businesses.

“We sell houses with it for god’s sake. We have people coming in here six months later saying ‘we bought a house here because of your festival’.

“We had an estate agent as a sponsor this year because we sell houses! It’s all true.”

This year Skagate witnessed The Clarendonians fly in from Jamaica to make their first appearance in the UK, ever, and the reputation of Eli’s vision continues to grow.

“We have been doing this for more than a decade. But because people are now noticing what the Turner Gallery are doing, what Dreamland are doing and what we are doing, there is a major buzz because all the little dots have joined together.

“The people know now, that if we say we will do something, we will do it, and we won’t just disappear. So they are on board with it.

“It was all just about belief.”

You can out find what Olby’s are doing next at olbyssoulcafe.co.uk