Open House London 2008

Open House held their annual London event this weekend, where buildings that are normally closed to the general public are opened up for all to explore.

I had pre-booked tickets to visit Centrepoint on Saturday, mainly for the views from the top. We were allowed to go to the 25th floor, which provides great views overlooking east and west London.



It has an interesting history, which you can read more about on its Wikipedia page. Personally I find the building quite ugly which kind of makes it fit in rather well in the Tottenham Court Road area sadly. Thankfully there are long overdue plans to completely overhaul this area. Read about them here.

On the way back east we stopped for a brief visit to the beautifully imposing Christ Church Spitalfields.

I began Sunday with an ambitious list of buildings to visit. I started by going to Wellington Arch by Hyde Park Corner. Again, I was able to go to the top and enjoy the views across Hyde Park (see below).


Next, I caught a rare silver Routemaster number 9 bus along to Trafalgar Square and then walked down a traffic-free Whitehall to the Foreign & Commonwealth Office on King Charles Street. Arguably the highlight of my day, it is a beautiful, ornately decorated building. I loved the architecture of it's centrepiece, Durbar Court in particular (see below).


Next, I headed back up Whitehall and towards the Strand, via Embankment. Once on the Strand I headed east hoping to go to see St Mary-le-Strand but found it closed. I continued and came to the second 'island church', St. Clement Danes. After a brief stop I jumped back on a number 15 bus towards Bank. Christopher Wren's St Stephen Walbrook was the next church on my journey, with it's controversial stone altar sitting unusually in the centre of the small church. I continued back along Cheapside to see St Mary-le-Bow before going to see the beautifully restored St Lawrence Jewry, completing a trio of Wren churches. All these churches seemed to share sad histories, being rebuilt after first suffering damage in the Great Fire Of London and then being destroyed in the Blitz. I picked up some literature on The Friends Of The City Churches along the way which I will definitely be investigating further.

I finished off with a visit to the Guildhall, one of London's most historic and architecturally impressive buildings (see below) before heading back home.


See more photographs at my flickr page.

Playlist:

The Week That Was 'The Week That Was'
The Shortwave Set 'Replica Sun Machine'

Kurt Wagner at The Borderline

I went along to The Borderline last night for a Club Uncut event which featured Lambchop frontman Kurt Wagner headlining.

Any visit to The Borderline (arguably London's finest live music venue) is a great occasion but to see an established name (and personal favourite) was to prove particularly special.

The line up was pretty strong, with 12 string guitarist James Blackshaw opening the evening with his ambient, warm, acoustic panoramas and Welsh singer-songwriter (and Neon Neon collaborator) Cate Le Bon, who played an assured, folk-influenced set.

However it was Kurt Wagner who was the star of the evening, delivering a perfect set of new songs from forthcoming new Lambchop album OH (Ohio). He seemed to arrive late, wandering down the steps from the main entrance into The Borderline, carrying his guitar (I love it when artists enter venues in this way, just like any ordinary punter). It wasn't long before he started his set from the bar, walking through the crowd singing 'Give It' his recent collaboration with X-Press 2 in a cappella style, before climbing on stage to huge applause.

He then sauntered into his quietly-intoned, crepescular songs, all exquisitively expressive and seeming never to overlook even the most microscopic of details. Delicately played guitar lines provide the musical backdrop. The way he can extract emotion and meaning from almost every line he sings really is something else, even more so when his vocals can sometimes barely rise above a whisper. Naturally, his trademark baseball cap was worn all evening.


He concentrated (I think) exclusively on songs from the new album, finishing with a truly beautiful cover of 'I Believe In You' by country stalwart Don Williams. It appears to be included on the new record also which is excellent news. After the gig I spotted him at the bar talking to Allan Jones, Uncut editor. The forthcoming Lambchop gigs at the Union Chapel in November should be rather special.

Sometimes words really aren't enough when trying to describe just how brilliant gigs can be......

'Discovering Music' at the BBC Maida Vale Studios

I went along to the BBC Studios at Maida Vale on Saturday to see an episode of ‘Discovering Music’ being recorded.

‘Discovering Music’ is a programme broadcast on Radio 3 that selects a piece of classical music (or occasionally a particular musical theme) and analyses the various aspects of the work, throwing light on structure, historical context, themes, motifs etc.

The featured work on this occasion was Vaughan Williams’ 6^th Symphony, his dramatic evocation of post-war Britain. It was presented by regular host (and my namesake) Stephen Johnson, with Martyn Brabbins conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

Vaughan Williams’s 6^th Symphony is a recent favourite of mine (discovered through the excellent eMusic website) and combines some powerful, dynamic playing with some of his most melodic folk-inspired lines. The opening movement in particular is excellent.

This particular episode will be broadcast on 16^th November.

Before heading up to north-west London I spent a very enjoyable hour or so in the cafe at the Curzon Soho cinema, people-watching on Shaftesbury Avenue whilst listening to 'Basket Of Light' by Pentangle on my iPod.

Big Star at Shepherd's Bush Empire

I went along to to see Big Star at Shepherd's Bush Empire on Thursday with JP & Toby. We had seats in Level 1 which is pretty much one of my favourite places to watch a band.

Before heading over to west London I paid a much overdue visit to the Fopp record store by Cambridge Circus and ended up picking up a few bargains - a couple of Ryan Adams and Pentangle albums. I then made my way to Goldhawk Road tube station and while waiting for JP had a quick listen to the beautiful 'Green Fields' by The Good, The Bad and The Queen on my iPod which includes a nice reference to the said west London street.

Once inside the venue Robyn Hitchcock opened and just about pulled off his set of slightly eccentric English acoustic psychedelia. Next up were Big Star - Alex Chilton & Jody Stephens from the original line up along with Ken Stringfellow and Jon Auer from The Posies. We had seen them around 2001 at the Mean Fiddler but Shepherd's Bush is a far superior venue. I thought Alex looked in good shape, sporting a nice cream/beige suit combo (Toby thought he looked like Dirk Benedict). His voice may not be what it used to be but he still carried the songs well and seemed in positive spirits (I wasn't certain this would be the case).



Starting with 'In The Street' they quickly set about going through their back catalogue. 'The Ballad Of El Goodo' was included early in the set and followed not long later by 'Thirteen' which continues to sound as pretty and affecting as ever.

"Won't you tell me what you're thinking of
Would you be an outlaw for my love?"

'Daisy Glaze', 'Way Out West', 'September Girls' and 'Feel' were other highlights. I find some the of most memorable moments at gigs seem to come from the surprises that you did not envisage - their inclusion of their cover of 'Til The End Of The Day' by The Kinks was one of these moments for me. They also played two more from 'Sister Lovers' - 'Thank You Friends' and 'For You'. The fact that they had raced through all of their "hits" so early on led Toby to speculate on 'Holocaust' being a possible encore. I suggested maybe a medley from 'Sister Lovers' but sadly it wasn't to be. No 'Nightime' or 'Blue Moon' then - two of my favourite Big Star songs which have quite a special emotional resonance for me, going back to 2001 when I first became familiar with the album.

I thought they kind of ran out of steam towards the end of the gig, playing several songs from the last album and then finishing with a fun but slightly superfluous cover of 'Wouldn't It Be Nice'.

Afterwards we headed back to Goldhawk Road and caught the Hammersmith & City line back out east. For some reason, on the rare occasions I take the H & C line it always seems to be full of people who have spent the evening binge drinking which can result in some eventful journeys. Tonight however it wasn't too bad - maybe helped by the fact I had a very pleasant conversation with one of JP's Spanish friends. Can't remember his name but he is from Vigo in Galicia, north-west Spain. I decided if I was to ever pledge allegiance to a Spanish football team it would be Celta Vigo as it seemed quite similar to my own team (Newcastle United) in certain ways (geographical remoteness, lack of recent success etc). Overall then, a great evening.....