London Calling

I was just in London.  Man, what a great city!  Lots to see and do, and the people are friendly and polite.  And they speak English (well, a form of it at least, haha) so it’s very easy to get around and communicate.  We did a lot of touristy stuff, but no live rock ‘n roll.  Say what?  Sad but true.  I checked to see what bands were in town, but didn’t recognize any of them.

But I did see some music shops and other rock-themed items that are fun to share.  Ready?  Let’s go.

First, here is a picture of where I stayed.  A humble abode at the end of the Pall Mall.  Pretty, no?  And a good location to boot.

Waaay back in the day, the BBC refused to play rock music.  True.  Londoners needed European and pirate radio stations to meet the demand of those that wanted to rock.  In 1973, a domestic radio station, Capital Radio, started to play rock.  Here’s a picture of the building, which now sits atop a TGI Fridays restaurant, and a song by the Clash about the sad state of rock on the airwaves in the late 70s in London:

There were music shops around, quite a few actually.  I took a couple of pictures.  The Brits seem like they are still heavily into vinyl and CDs as we saw both being sold on the street (Portobello Market in Notting Hill) and in stores.  I’m old school and like tangible ownership, and this suits me perfectly.

I saw this guitar at St. James’s tube station with a picture of the underground map on it.  It’s cool.

Here’s a few pictures of one of the few live music acts we saw.  They were jamming on the street, BRP did an amazing outdoor dance much to the shock of the proper British, and it was fun.  We also saw street musicians in the tube stations and in outside areas like Trafalgar Square.  Too much Dylan!  But then again, anyone other than Butch Trucks can sing Dylan and have it come out better than the original. 

And a couple of museum photos of rock stars (here’s Amy Winehouse and a link to her rehab song, poor thing):

Rock inspirations (Henry VIII, the original misogynist, and inspiration for the Herman’s Hermits):

And the Rosetta Stone (translating rock lyrics from hieroglyphs to Demotic to Greek, and all done in Memphis):

It’s always fun here at BRP.  Hope you are well.  Be calm and rock on!