Daniel Jeanrenaud is from Marseilles via San Francisco. I first saw him in the back room of a kebab shop on Chalk Farm Road.

As kebab shops go, the Marathon wasn’t a kebab shop, especially after midnight when it metamorphosed into a rock-and-roll joint with classical ambience of weeping walls, impending sex and alluring intimations of danger. Daniel would play from midnight to 4am, six nights a week. Jack White once dropped in to jam. Noel Gallagher a handful of times. And now and then the likes of Robert Plant, Paul Weller, Amy Winehouse…

The Marathon is no more. Closed by order of the council following flimsy complaints over health, safety and the licensing laws. But Daniel is alive and well as can be expected and is right now gigging in Ireland: Friday, 21st, Hot Spot Music Club, Greystones; Saturday, 22nd, Crane Lane Theatre, Cork; Sunday, 23rd, The Spinnaker, Dunmore East.