CURTIS MAYFIELD HOUSE INDEPENDENT MULTIRACIAL ARTS VENUE

What’s in a name..?

Curtis Mayfield House on Carliol Square, East Pilgrim Street, is a 6-storey Arts venue in central Newcastle. It is now the permanent home of not just World Headquarters Music Club, but also Mayfield Studio & Bridge & Tunnel Film Company. 

Scroll down to find out the history of our building & also what’s happening on our upper floors, as it continues to evolve, into a truly independent creative & artistic hub for all manner of cool things…

WHQ relocated here in 2003, from its original home on Marlborough Crescent, which was then demolished, after 10 magical years as the City’s smallest & best Club. The full story of all that is told a little deeper in this site (see History & Culture).

When we first found what is now Curtis Mayfield House, it was a derelict warehouse built on the site of the old City Gaol, which dated back to medieval times. The building was then called ‘India House’ & around the corner in the same block is another building called ‘British India House’. It had been left there, standing vacant for years.

We believe there was some kind of connection between these buildings & the rubber trade, from back when India was ruled by Queen Victoria & her oppressive, sadistic chums & colonisation, racism & exploitation were considered really, really cool things.

Rather than help perpetuate any kind of outdated colonial bullshit, we decided to rename the building. Originally our ideas were David Attenborough House, or Aretha Franklin House, but as we wanted to directly challenge the buildings shady history & to mark the fact he had sadly recently passed away, we settled on Curtis Mayfield House.

Curtis Mayfield (1942 - 1999)

Curtis Mayfield was the lead singer of 60s vocal group the Impressions whose hits include ‘People get ready’ ‘Choice of colours’, ‘Keep on pushing’ & ‘We’re a winner’. He then went on to record as a solo artist throughout the 70s & was a pivotal figure in the struggle against segregation & the oppression of black people & other marginalised groups worldwide. Curtis made a real big difference, to millions of lives.

It was around this period that he recorded ‘Move on up’, which is probably his best known tune. Curtis embodied the concept of improving people’s lives & self image through art. He also encouraged positivity, was consistently uplifting & never sold out… That’s why we chose to call our fantastic new home here, Curtis Mayfield House.

Public Funding..?

In 2003 after extensive refurbishment, hassle, sleepless nights, near strangulation of builders, Houdini type negotiation with developers & the type of debt that would bankrupt a small nation, we finally completed the building work & moved World Headquarters Club to Curtis Mayfield House, ensuring its survival against all the odds. The project had taken 19 years to evolve to reach this key point & it was now ‘game on’, for a whole new chapter of the World Headquarters story.

Now in 2012, almost another 10 years later, as time moves on & we lower our debts, we are reinvesting in the building. More & more quality artistic activities, exhibitions & events are now taking place right here, not just in the Club itself, but also on our upper floors too.

To retain our independence we’ve never spun a ‘media darlings’ game, so this had to take time to develop. Unlike other, larger well known artistic venues in the area, i.e. The Sage & The Baltic etc, Curtis Mayfield House was not built on free, public money from the National Lottery or big business sponsorships. We didn’t just arrive like that.

This unique building is the equal & opposite of places like that. Every single penny spent reinventing it simply came over time, from inside the pockets of all the switched on people in the heart of the City, who chose to reject mainstream Newcastle nightlife & instead accept our multiracial stance & party with us, on the dancefloor at World Headquarters.

At World Headquarters our ’sponsors’ have only ever been & still are, the people of Newcastle & beyond. They support all our activites every weekend & believe in helping to move forward, this kind of cosmopolitan & independent, grassroots, positive scene.

Curtis Mayfield House today reflects the history of World HQ as a genuine subclulture. It honours our origins & is all about good times, togetherness & racial harmony. It’s the direct result of a motivated, constantly evolving team & it’s many supporters, bonding & working together, with the best soundtrack anyone could ever imagine…

Curtis Mayfield House is fully disabled accessible & all nationalities are welcomed here.

Mayfield Studio is on one of our upper floors…

Mayfield Studio is a third floor, warehouse style rental space above the Club, which is occupied & independently operated by some of our friends. It’s a cool place for a photo shoot or to host an event or exhibition. They run a whole floor of our building & have state of the art photographic equipment & facilities for hire & you can also commission them to do bespoke, high end photograpic & video projects for you.

Here is what they say about their groove…

‘Our goal is to make you feel as comfortable as possible - to simplify your day & put your clients at ease. We sweat all of the little things, so you can focus on enjoying your shoot or event.

This beautiful, bright, 3500 sq.ft., photo studio enjoys regular rentals for photo shoots, film projects & private events. From professional photographers to amateurs & many students, all kinds of people & organisations have enjoyed the comfortable vibe of shooting in this spacious yet intimate venue’.

‘We are tucked into a corner in the centre of Newcastle Upon tyne. Just 5 mins from Manors, Monument & Central Metro Stations, we are also directly opposite a large car park.

We can supply photographers, make up artists, models, stylists, film crew, production services, catering and assistants, printing services. If you ever need something, just ask, excellent customer service goes without saying’.

Sounds good doesn’t it…? It most certainly does & it looks good too..!

Click below to see their website & get info on hire rates, equipments specs, or to get in touch with them directly. They are a really nice bunch of people, doing a great thing that’s a real asset to our vision for Curtis Mayfield House & we like them a lot.

http://www.mayfieldstudio.co.uk/studio.htm

Bridge & Tunnel Film Company is on another of our upper floors.

We’ll add all the exciting info on them in the next couple of days.

The Globe City Art Gallery (2003-2010)

Prior to Mayfield Studios & Bridge & Tunnel coming to join us, we provided space in CM House for Globe City Art Gallery. 

From Spring 2003 until Spring 2010 on the upper floors of Curtis Mayfield House, this Art Gallery was open 11.30am - 5pm Wednesday to Saturday.

Here cutting edge visuals were the order of the day.  We happily provided some heavily susidised space  for the gallery & they were able to successfully establish, fund, develop & run their own show here because of that. 

It’s important to us that the building represents all kinds of mad art & during the period of our 7 year long hook up with Globe City, they helped us to provide that.

Exhibitions changed regularly &  for more information on what the Globe mob are up to these days, please click here www.globegallery.org to go to their website.

You can also see a load of past exhibitions here & get a really good feel for what got shown. 

Below are some images of some of the art that was displayed in Curtis Mayfield House, during Globe City’s final year here…