In the first of a series of regular collaborations with Canary Wharf’s guitar school, Kitchen Jam, we take a look at the history of a track with a local link and deliver some tips on how to play it
Kitchen Jam founder Darryl Powis has created a video tutorial to help Wharfers get their fingers around the riff that drives Rebel Rebel. Simply follow this link to get playing
To play the whole track you’ll need the chords below:
All the chords you’ll need to play Rebel Rebel by David Bowie – image by Wharf Life
looking back on the history of the track and its link to Docklands
BY ZAINAB HASSAN
Picture this – it’s early 1990, and David Bowie has just announced the Sound+Vision tour, a series of gigs where he’d play his biggest hits live for the very last time.
Rather than choose the setlist himself, he handed the decision to his global fanbase through telephone voting.
Dial 1-900-2-BOWIE-90 on your landline, and you were taking your chances at getting your favourite track onto the bill.
As calls flooded in from every corner of the globe, Bowie built the setlist from a mix of UK votes, American votes, and requests from everywhere else in between.
It was a truly global selection, curated to reflect what the world wanted to hear.
echoing on the island
For three nights that March, the tour landed in the capital at the London Arena, an indoor venue on the Isle Of Dogs that held up to 15,000 fans.
Demolished in 2006, the landscape is markedly different to when Bowie’s genre-shifting hits were last played, but the echoes of his riffs still resound in the hands of guitarists to this day.
glam rock swagger
The Sound+Vision tour setlist was shaped with deep cuts standing shoulder to shoulder with Bowie’s biggest hits.
One such song, Rebel Rebel, came early in the setlist. Salvaged from a scrapped Ziggy Stardust musical, it was the lead single for 1974 album Diamond Dogs and was the last of Bowie’s singles to swagger with true glam rock bravado.
Deceptively simple, yet roaring with a Rolling Stones-esque ferocity, the main riff loops around three chords – D, A and E – and an unrelenting descending melody that’s as instantly singable as it is impossible to shake.
the end of two eras
As a swan song to glam rock, Rebel Rebel was the end of an era for Bowie.
The Sound+Vision tour was the end of another, as he retired the hits from his live sets for good.
Two farewells, made decades apart, overlapped for three nights at the London Arena.
But all these memories remain in music. Just listen to that rebellious opening riff – it all comes flooding back.
For those who’d like to know more, east London is also now home to the David Bowie Centre in Stratford.
Based at the V&A East Storehouse, the collection includes more than 90,000 items from the artist’s archive and is free to visit.
key details: Kitchen Jam
Kitchen Jam offers guitar lessons rooted in musical connection and community from its studios in Canary Wharf and Stratford.
“If you’re still looking at your hands, you’re not playing music,” said Darryl Powis, founder of Kitchen Jam.
That sentence may sound a little daunting to rusty players or those who’ve never even tried to strum a guitar, but it needn’t.
The music school Darryl and his wife, Jennifer Barlow, founded more than a decade ago is here to help and it’s opening a second branch in Canary Wharf.
Kitchen Jam is the latest business to launch in Wood Wharf, thanks to a collaboration between Canary Wharf Group and Tower Hamlets Council, offering companies affordable commercial space.
On the food and drink front, Mama Li, Nora, Ong Lai Kopitaim, Cafe Seek, Lockdown, Supershakes and Signorelli are all now trading.
Other openings include floristry from The Flower Club, Wayne Hairdresser Salon, beauty salon Awe London, Pawsome Pet Grooming And Spa, The Island Reformer Pilates Studio and clothing repair business Omnifix.
Kitchen Jam, however, is something truly new for the area – the first time retail premises have been used to offer music tuition in the district.
As a kid, Darryl tried learning the violin and then had some piano lessons aged around 10.
Kitchen Jam’s Wood Wharf school is fully equipped for group lessons – image by Jon Massey / Wharf Life
obsessed with guitar
“My parents had been musicians in a former life – guitar players – so I was around music the whole time,” he said.
“I really got into guitar at the age of 15, as I was banned from computers because I was so addicted to them.
“I taught myself guitar and bass. My piano teacher, who also taught me some clarinet, came back when I was 15 because he could play guitar a bit.
“He’d sit with me for half an hour while I played and he’d talk to me about music. I did music GCSE, but they didn’t really want me, even at A-level.
“You had to study pieces from the 1800s, and I couldn’t read music or chords at that time, although I could play guitar really well.
“I always had a good ear, so I could listen and then play what I’d heard.
“I just knew it was what I wanted to do.
“I played in a couple of bands in my school. Then, aged 17, I became the lead guitarist in my brother’s band.
“He was older than me and at university already.
“That took many different forms and that was my education – getting gigs and playing to very few people.
“I moved to London in 2012 with my band Neon Nurse, determined to make it.
“We thought retro-funk was going to have a resurgence. It didn’t. In fact, I’m not sure there was really a ‘surgence’ in the first place.
“When I came to London, I played in a lot of bands, although it was all by ear.
“I still didn’t really know the notes on the guitar neck, but people would book me for gigs and said what I was doing was great.
“When I first started teaching, I was really fixing my own problems.
“Initially I thought I was going to support my music career, but I ended up falling in love with the actual teaching itself – seeing people grow.”
The school is one of a number of independent businesses now calling Wood Wharf home – image by Jon Massey / Wharf Life
developing a system of tuition
At first, Darryl taught students in the kitchen of the house he was sharing in Leyton.
More traditional methods of tuition follow graded exams as a way to mark progress and provide goals for players, but Kitchen Jam goes its own way.
Darryl said: “All the times I’d made progress as a musician were when I was playing in a band – it gave me something bigger to play for, like a gig coming up.
“So, I was looking for how I could give someone a personalised experience and that took me about six years to figure out.
“Once you get guitarists jamming in a room with others – people you may have thought you’d never spend time with – suddenly you all have something in common.
“It’s a community.
“I’ve been using the method I developed for more than a decade and we’ve had adults who couldn’t play the guitar at all go from that to fronting a band and playing gigs.
“Our approach is quite structured, but it’s intended to feel very fluid and be great fun.
“Everything you learn is in context and these are the milestones that unlock people’s abilities.
“We use a system of levels on the guitar so we can work out where people are before it then branches out into personal musical tastes.
“For example, someone might be able to play chords and some scales but doesn’t know how to solo.
“That’s a typical entry point at Kitchen Jam.”
Kitchen Jam comes complete with amps, guitar and a vintage Triumph motorbike – image by Jon Massey / Wharf Life
from a kitchen table to a school
With a sound philosophy established, the next chapter in the business’ story began with a new location.
“Jen, my then girlfriend, who’s now my wife, couldn’t believe it was actually working, that I was getting people to come for lessons in my horrible house,” said Darryl.
“I was already using a community centre across the road as a venue where I’d invite guitarists from around the world to come and do workshops for my students.
“But she said she would figure out how to get a proper space.
“We looked at loads of places but the first unit we viewed – in Stratford’s East Village – was the one.
“It was closer to the stations and was a safer walk, so we thought we’d get more people. When we started trading it just exploded.”
Having grown and expanded, Kitchen Jam now caters to students of almost any age with sessions for babies as young as four months, guitar and ukelele programmes for younger children, lessons for teenagers and lessons for adults of all levels.
Darryl’s oldest student is in his 80s. It even welcomes bass players.
“This whole thing is about creating the space for what people want to do,” said Darryl.
“It’s about how we can help people fall in love with playing – with trying to do this thing.
“The first session is free and it’s always on a one-to-one basis – people need to know that relationship is going to work before they commit.
“If you’re a complete beginner, we’ll teach you something.
vIf you’re more experienced, you’ll go through an assessment to find out what your skills are, where it is you want to go and then we’ll formulate a plan.
“We also ask people to go away and list 30 songs that they love so we can get a rounder picture of who they are as a musician.
“They might be guitar related or not.
“Mozart, Metallica and Eminem will all help us see where you may be going and what techniques you’re going to need to get there.
“It also helps us refine what we teach – we’re not going to force a student to learn power chords if they have no interest in music that uses them.
“Through this process, we produce a sheet for your teacher and that becomes the plan when you come to your first group lesson.
“Every class is an hour long and they’re themed so the student understands the context – it might be guitar theory, phrasing, soloing and so on.
“These allow players to build confidence by playing real songs and jamming regularly.
“Our monthly rate includes five classes plus a workshop at the end of the month which is a larger, three-hour jam session based around one song.
“We break it down and play it through. Then there’s space to hang out after.”
a different offering to online
Kitchen Jam also organises gigs, open mic nights and facilitates the formation of bands to give students as much real-world experience as possible.
Darryl is passionate about the benefits that playing in a group can bring, partly as an alternative to learning online in isolation.
“Playing with people or in a band on stage is completely different,” he said.
“You might end up learning really impressive things online – because that’s what gets attention – but they don’t always make sense when you’re jamming with a group.
“When you listen to the Beatles, for example, the musicianship is incredible but the individual parts probably wouldn’t get much attention on TikTok or Instagram.
“Real playing is about learning how to fit in with other musicians and understanding how the sounds are created and work together.”
The business’ latest branch feels like the ideal place to facilitate that understanding.
Fully equipped with high-end amps and walls dripping with mics, guitars, basses and even tools to keep the instruments in shape, it’s an impressive addition to the Wood Wharf street scene, not least because of the hefty (working) Triumph motorbike in the window.
With a drum kit that’s always set up, substantial rugs on the floor and walls painted black, it’s just waiting to be filled with the sound of strings strummed.
key details: Kitchen Jam
Kitchen Jam’s Canary Wharf branch is located in Wood Wharf’s East Lane on the ground floor to the rear of 8 Harbord Square.
Initial one-to-one taster sessions are free. Guitarists signing up before April 1, 2026, will also benefit from the Founders discount, with monthly rates at £200 for adults, normally £257.
Three, six and 12 month packages are also available.
