Camden Town has long been a hotbed of music and hedonism. Jimi Hendrix and the Doors played here in the 60s; the Sex Pistols and the Clash in the 70s; Blur and Oasis are rumoured to have begun their rivalry in the Good Mixer pub in the 90s. And in the early to mid-00s the north London neighbourhood became something of an indie rock hub. Regulars and staff from local stores and bars mingled with musicians in the streets and at all-nighters in dingy music venues. The area even got a mention at the Grammy awards in 2008, when Amy Winehouse told an audience in Los Angeles, hours after local celebrity hangout the Hawley Arms was caught in a fire: “Camden Town ain’t burning down!” Everyone knew each other, and everyone was out to have a good time.

I never planned to put on an exhibition – I just always had a camera on me

“We would see Amy out all the time – she lived round the corner from me and DJ’d with our friends at the Dublin Castle,” photographer Robert Lang, who lived in Camden at the time, recalls. “Pete Doherty was always kind of around, so were Razorlight. Me and my friends were going to the Hawley Arms when it was just one floor and they still had a knitting class on. Then the whole scene blew up and they started getting door staff. That’s when we stopped going.”

Lang, 33, originally from South Africa, moved to Camden in 2001 in his late teens because he wanted to “get out and see the world”. During the day he would split his time between working at Offspring, the trainer shop on Camden High Street, and doing fashion reportage photography for a newspaper. His evenings were spent recording his friends on wild nights out, and the collection of photographs now make up Filthy Gorgeous Camden Town, his first UK solo show. “I never planned to put on an exhibition; I just always had a camera on me taking candid photos of all my friends, documenting all of our times. I guess everyone just felt comfortable around me, it was really organic. There were no mobile phones at the time so if you had a camera you were the one taking photos.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘This is Jasmine towards the end of a wild night out. We went to a house party but got booted out because we had a foam fight in their bathroom and in the process Jasmine lost her trousers.’ Photograph: Robert Lang

Lang photographed both boys and girls but, when choosing images for his show, he found the images of the women particularly striking. “The girls were just more wild and carefree, they would really go for it,” he says. “One of the craziest nights I remember started with me and two of my friends, Jemima and Jasmine, going out to the pub as usual. We bumped into a friend who invited us to this house party, but it was boring so we made our own fun.” The trio had a foam fight in the bathroom, completely trashing it, and got thrown out of the house. “My friend in the process lost her trousers, she doesn’t remember how, and then we couldn’t get a taxi and, roaming around the streets, a guy came out of nowhere bleeding all over his face so my friend decided to give him a piggyback ride.” For the finale, they ended up at Jasmine’s house where, out of the blue, the neighbour above threw a big bucket of water on to a friend who was at the door. “We stood there staring at each other like, ‘What the fuck just happened?’ We were just idiots sometimes.”

Lang now works as a photographer in Los Angeles. He last visited Camden a few years ago and found that things, inevitably, had changed. “In our 20s, we all just wanted to go out and have a good time and not really care about the consequences. All my friends have now left, obviously. With the rising costs of rent everyone went east and then down south. There’s not much of a pub scene. A lot of tourists came in.”

Back in LA, Lang does still have the odd wild night out, he says, “but I’m older now, I don’t think you should really live that much in the past.”

As for the girls in the photos? “They’re all grown up now, too. They have careers and children!”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘This is Sarah during a night out at the Hawley Arms. We spent a lot of time there and would bar hop all around Camden, ending up at Marathon for a kebab as it was always the last place open.’ Photograph: Robert Lang

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘This is Loraine, when late one night we ended up at a friend’s house who had been given a lifesize medical skeleton. Naturally we took photos with it.’ Photograph: Robert Lang

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘Jemima loved having her photo taken and she was my favourite to snap. So I took every opportunity - even if it was in the back of a pickup truck.’ Photograph: Robert Lang

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘This is Lou at a friend’s house party where they had a grunge theme. Our houses were always strewn with bottles of alcohol and most of the time would smell like a brewery.’ Photograph: Robert Lang

Filthy Gorgeous Camden Town is at Doomed Gallery, London E8, 14-17 July