Interview: Cro Cro Land’s Julia Woollams and Angela Martin on the cultural capital that is, CROYDON

We caught up with Angela Martin (Croydon convert) and Julia Woollams (Croydon native) from cult Croydon guide Croydonist to talk about their new festival Cro Cro Land.

Cro Cro Land | 6 April | £26 (including £1 donation to Lives Not Knives)

Oh, and we were inspired by the offbeat Cro Cro Land lineup to create this playlist – so why not listen while you get the lowdown on the sweetest thing to happen to Croydon since the arrival of Nestlé!

Tell us about Cro Cro Land. How did the festival come about?

It’s a one day indie festival in the centre of Croydon at one venue, over three stages with 35+ bands and DJs, on 6 April. It’s both the best in new music and established bands such as Blood Red Shoes, The Lovely Eggs, and Nova Twins.

The festival idea began back in the summer of 2018 after a series of venue closures across the UK and the fight that many were leading to change things in music was quite inspirational. PRS Keychange initiative, the work by the Music Venue Trust and lots of grassroots promoters such as Get In Her Ears, The Zine UK, and Benumu was enough to make us join forces with some of the aforementioned organisations to create a festival with gender parity, support for new music as well as established bands all at an affordable ticket price.

Which acts are you most looking forward to seeing at the festival?

All of them, of course! But certainly some great new discoveries such as Tiger Mimic, Feral Five, Chorusgirl, Weekend Recovery and Kath & the Kicks.

Your line up is gender balanced? How did this policy come about and why do you think this is important in 2019?

Women are still greatly underrepresented across the music industry. So we wanted to create something to address this, and hopefully inspire more people to stand up, create their own events and help make this the norm. When this becomes the norm, we’ll no longer need to talk about female musicians, but simply musicians.

What does Croydon mean to you and what do you hope for its future?

As we run the local cultural blog the Croydonist where we showcase lots of cool and quirky things happening in our borough, we’re obviously massive fans of our hometown. Croydon has had a bad rep in the press over the years so we wanted to highlight the positives. A lot of the great things happen in Croydon today but it also has an awesome history that has been forgotten, such as our fantastic music legacy. Did you know that Ray Davis (Lead singer of the Kinks), Jamie Reid and Malcolm Mclaren (of Sex Pistols fame) all went to Croydon School of Art?

Veering away from the topic of music, even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle penned the adventures of Sherlock Holmes here, and that’s just naming a few. Croydon’s reputation is gradually changing for the better. We are currently undergoing another wave of regeneration which means lots of new people are joining our town and discovering all the fantastic things here first hand. The secret will be out soon we think!

What are your favourite places in Croydon? (to eat, to go out, to be entertained)

Ooo, there’s too many to mention, but here’s a few to start with. The Oval Tavern is in our opinion the borough’s best local, Arancina pizzeria in Boxpark does our favourite pizza in town, Smoothbean for coffee, cake and brunch, Little Bay for a quirky and affordable meal out (occasionally with opera!), The Fox Pub by Happy Valley is great for a Sunday roast and an escape from urban life… we could go on.

Rupert Dannreuther

I am Joint Editor at To Do List. I like free, cheap & offbeat London, especially: cabaret, art, theatre, pop-ups, eating out, quirky films, museums, day trips, social enterprise & much more.

www.omglondon.com