Abbey Road
Tonight after work I went to visit Abbey Road. I walked to Moorgate, took the Circle Line to Baker Street (home of Sherlock Holmes), then took the Jubilee Line north one stop to St Johns Wood. This tube station is perhaps the classiest in London. This is the view ascending. I really liked the light fixtures, and I've never seen daylight before whilst riding up a Tube escalator.
From the station it was a short walk to what is perhaps the world's most famous zebra crossing.
Traffic was fairly busy so I couldn't get quite the same angle that The Beatles did on their cover, from the middle of the street. Besides, this crossing isn't even in the same place as it was in 1969 - but it's close.
The crossing is also right by the Abbey Road Studios. Even though I couldn't enter the studio, or even the car park, I wanted to come and see it with my eyes as a music fan, since there's so much musical history here. The Beatles and Pink Floyd recorded most of their albums here, so this is where the sonic experimentation of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and The Dark Side of the Moon took place. Alan Parsons worked as an engineer on albums by both bands and went on to start his Project, which was so highly engineered that it couldn't be played live. The studios have also been the site of many classical recordings and film scores, and has been used by some of my favourite artists including Kate Bush, Radiohead, Depeche Mode, and Massive Attack. This is the studios' main entrance.
The wall in front of the studio is left for fans to leave messages. It's painted over regularly. I didn't write anything.
I returned to the Tube station and took the Jubilee Line south to Bond Street and walked Oxford Street. I know I've written about Oxford Street before, but it is such a shopping destination. I think it's literally miles of shops, and contains flagship stores for many of the UK's biggest shops, including Marks & Spencer, Topshop, John Lewis, and Selfridges. I started heading east, or so I thought, but after maybe a quarter of a mile I realised I was headed the wrong way because I saw I was approaching Marble Arch and Hyde Park. But since the density of shoppers didn't decrease, I assumed I was going the right direction, towards Regent Street. But one nice thing was that I got to take in the display windows at Selfridges, which are quite artistic.
Crossing Regent Street, I was soon at my destination, the HMV music shop. The Oxford Street store is perhaps the largest music store in the UK, and I come here now and then as they stock titles I can't find anywhere else. Not because they're specialists - they're quite bland, and the smaller stores carry only the most popular titles - but their voluminous shelf space lets them keep a huge inventory. Since I had our camera I got some hasty snaps.
One of the titles I got was Abbey Road as I don't have any Beatles recordings past The White Album. I almost balked at the £16 price - it seems Beatles albums never go on sale - but I couldn't pass up this most appropriate of souvenirs.
From the station it was a short walk to what is perhaps the world's most famous zebra crossing.
Traffic was fairly busy so I couldn't get quite the same angle that The Beatles did on their cover, from the middle of the street. Besides, this crossing isn't even in the same place as it was in 1969 - but it's close.
The crossing is also right by the Abbey Road Studios. Even though I couldn't enter the studio, or even the car park, I wanted to come and see it with my eyes as a music fan, since there's so much musical history here. The Beatles and Pink Floyd recorded most of their albums here, so this is where the sonic experimentation of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and The Dark Side of the Moon took place. Alan Parsons worked as an engineer on albums by both bands and went on to start his Project, which was so highly engineered that it couldn't be played live. The studios have also been the site of many classical recordings and film scores, and has been used by some of my favourite artists including Kate Bush, Radiohead, Depeche Mode, and Massive Attack. This is the studios' main entrance.
The wall in front of the studio is left for fans to leave messages. It's painted over regularly. I didn't write anything.
I returned to the Tube station and took the Jubilee Line south to Bond Street and walked Oxford Street. I know I've written about Oxford Street before, but it is such a shopping destination. I think it's literally miles of shops, and contains flagship stores for many of the UK's biggest shops, including Marks & Spencer, Topshop, John Lewis, and Selfridges. I started heading east, or so I thought, but after maybe a quarter of a mile I realised I was headed the wrong way because I saw I was approaching Marble Arch and Hyde Park. But since the density of shoppers didn't decrease, I assumed I was going the right direction, towards Regent Street. But one nice thing was that I got to take in the display windows at Selfridges, which are quite artistic.
Crossing Regent Street, I was soon at my destination, the HMV music shop. The Oxford Street store is perhaps the largest music store in the UK, and I come here now and then as they stock titles I can't find anywhere else. Not because they're specialists - they're quite bland, and the smaller stores carry only the most popular titles - but their voluminous shelf space lets them keep a huge inventory. Since I had our camera I got some hasty snaps.
One of the titles I got was Abbey Road as I don't have any Beatles recordings past The White Album. I almost balked at the £16 price - it seems Beatles albums never go on sale - but I couldn't pass up this most appropriate of souvenirs.
posted by Michael Nelson at 12:44 pm
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