London Music Shops: The Search for The Sounds & The Scene

For the past four years I have spent close to every Friday night at my fave local Sydney Australia record shop, Mojo Music.  At Mojo they serve up "The Best of the Fringe and All of the Backbone".

I have written many posts about that joint and why I loved it so much.  It is unlike any retail shop that you will walk into.  Have a read of any of these links below if you haven't been keeping up with the Mojo happenings on The 6149.
Images from the Mojo Scene: 


Now that I moved to London I need a new place to talk, listen and buy music. But where am I going to find a shop that has an owner who cares so much about keeping The Feel alive?  It wasn't just about buying music.  No, it was about experiencing it in the shop with like minded musicheads in a place where you could throw back a dozen beers and that felt like you were in your own living room. Tough...impossible?...act to follow.
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London has a lot to offer in the way of a record shop vibe. Which London record shop has the right combination of Sounds & Scene to fill the Mojo void left behind...? I aim to search high and low to find the right shop for me. 

This list has no room on it for the big chain stores. This list is as much about feel as it is sound. Chain stores don't have The Feel. Independent music stores do. This list is all about the independent shops.

This is a map of suggested independent record shops throughout London (new & used). I'm going to hit the trail and find the right one to make my music nerve centre. If any 6149 readers know of any other London record shops that are not on this list that should be, drop a comment in the box and I will add it on.  Likewise, if you have any firsthand thoughts on any of the shops on the list, hit the box with a few words.

I reckon that the first shop I walk into and has the Bo Diddley beat playing is an automatic winner...

Go to the map in your browser for a closer look. You can get shop info and links to their sites.

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Tagged London maps Mojo pics record shops riffs

It's all one song: Music by Imitation and of Inspiration


(Editor's note: I must admit something. When I was reading the section of the book I talk about in this post, I was at a bar drinking. I like to read at bars. I find it relaxing.  As I was reading and drinking, I was jotting down notes for blog posts.  I had three different angles I wanted to approach with my interpretation of what Ted was saying about "phonograph versus plantation".  This post is a Frankenstein's Monster of beer, book and blues)

"Johnson's version of the blues is more indebted to the phonograph than the plantation" - Ted Gioia

I have been reading Ted Gioia's latest book, "Delta Blues". On page 168, Ted starts to draw out themes of inspiration versus imitation (sorry, Ted if my inspiration/imitation insight is not what you had in mind).  Ted is speaking specifically about Robert Johnson's dedication to learning all he can about the blues of the time via the "phonograph" rather than from the "plantation".  This is to say that Johnson was very aware of...studied...the popular blues records/sounds of the time.  He also goes on to say that Johnson's music "is more a reflection of the commercial tastes than the continuation of the folkloric tradition".  Brilliant.  I got excited as I read this.  

Beware: I'm going to get all philosophical and unfounded in empirical findings on you. 

I interpreted this as the end of music made through inspiration (positive or negative) and the beginning of music made by imitation.  People like Charley Patton were sought out by producers and labels after they had been going around and singing their blues. They sang of the times...in the "folkloric tradition". They didn't start out thinking record sales.  By the time Robert Johnson was on the scene, he was searching out recording opportunities. His music was commercial minded. Johnson made music.  Patton and Son House created music. This is what I think Ted was getting at. 

"I've been plagiarizing all my life. It's called learning" - Hunter S. Thompson

Ted Gioia also uses a quote by Keith Richards in this discussion.  Keith, referring to Johnson, said, "he came out with such compelling themes.  They were actual songs as well as just blues".  Wow. interesting take, Keef.  Songs...not just blues. Songs: what you record and sell. Blues: what you feel and express.  Funny that Ted uses Keef to comment on Johnson.  Keef has been using the same Chuck Berry lick for over 40 years now.

The Stones more than anyone else could be called the "Keepers Coppers of the Flame". Like Robert Johnson, they too learned from their predecessors. They learned the songs and put their stylings on top of it. They did it out of love and of the lure of a buck.  Like Robert Johnson, they imitated their heroes and put their own flavor on the music, almost rthe ailroading unknowing public into thinking it was theirs. Like Robert Johnson, they were hungry ass-kickers who played a souped up version of their heroes own defining sounds. They took the songs and stylings of Bo, Chuck and Muddy and turned them into a raw, seedy, balls-out, riff-heavy sound that said to their contemporaries and fans, "Fuck yeah. This is the blues and R&B...our way. You love it right? Buy it!

"If I could find a white man who had the Negro sound and the Negro feel, I could make a billion dollars" - Sam Phillips

Sam Phillips. He was talking through rose-colored hindsight glasses here. He is referring to Elvis in this quote. Just the same, this is an extension of what Robert Johnson started B.E. (B efore Elvis) and the Stones emulated A.E..  The "negro sound"...the feeling, the expression, the truth...pressed into lacquer and spun into gold on disk jockey's turntables across the land. Charley Patton expressed it.  Paramount recorded it. Robert Johnson interpreted it. Sam Phillips reincarnated it (and sold it).  The Stones learned from them all and imitated it (and SOLD it). 

Sam Phillips wasn't stupid. If he couldn't conjure it, he could cloak it in white and sell it for a billion dollars.  Commercial tastes + folkloric tradition = commercial traditions still in play today.

"It's all one song..." - Neil Young

In 1997 Neil Young and his reverb cronies, Crazy Horse, put out a double live album called, "Year of the Horse". In the beginning of the album the band is just about to stumble into a crooked version of "When You Dance".  Someone yells out from the crowd, "they all sound the same" (referring to the songs they were playing that night).  Neil fires back a quick and sharp comment, 'it's all one song!" Yeah, the songs do sound the same. It's Neil Young and Cray Horse pounding out deep, ugly, glorious grooves.  Cool.

I love that phrase: It's all one song.  It is really, isn't it?  It is a variation on a theme. It is an interpretation of an "already" or "prior" or "familiar". The Neil-shouter is really speaking about the sound being laid on the crowd that night. I think he is spot on...but its something else. Some thing different. Actually, not different, but something same. 

There is a band in London or in Ohio that is in a garage right now doing one of the worst versions of Brown Sugar ever.  It is a group of teens: heads down, arms strumming and fists pumping wildly, the volume growing louder and louder and the smiles and nods at each other getting wider and wider. They are passionate about playing and having fun (the fame and fortune will come later). They are playing their version of the Stones playing their version of Muddy playing his version of Charley Patton who played his version of Son House who created his sound from what heard in the church and from what the church goers hollered out in the fields and what the plantation workers sung while shackled to the hull of the bottom of a boat.

It's all one song. It may be for sale, but at least it keeps getting played and played again.
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NB: I'm sweeping up a lot of generalizations about what Ted Gioia wrote in his book and making some personal assessments of what he said. By no means should my sophomoric attempt at interpreting what Ted was writing replace his obvious skill and grace in how he created these themes.  In other words, I'm not plagiarizing here...just trying to learning a thing or two.  

Here is a mind map where I took my notes while drinking at a bar and reading. You can add it it if you like.  I think this map is the center point on the spectrum of cool and geek. At a bar reading about the Delta Blues, drinking beer and taking notes on a mind mapping application on my iPhone. Loser?  Cool?  Yeah...

Tagged blues books inspiration maps riffs

Leaving Trunk: Where I've been and where I'm going...

Time to leave another place of residency. Cue the music!  

Taj Mahal - "Leaving Trunk"

I went upstairs to pack my leavin' trunk 
I ain't see no blues, whiskey made me sloppy drunk 
I ain't never seen no whiskey, the blues made me sloppy drunk 
I'm going back to Memphis babe, where I'll have much better luck
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Thinking about our move to London and the place that I lived. Lots of time spent on the East Coast of the States (New England & Florida). Going to have to start packing again before we split. The key to packing and picking your life up and toting it around from country to country...downsize! Keep jettisoning the stuff you absolutely do not need.

The stuff you do need and the stuff you are tied to with emotional heartstrings are what you bring along. It gets hard to decipher the stuff need versus the stuff you are tied to. For instance, I have a massive music collection. No chance this doesn't come with me. I also have a very sizable collection of books relating mostly to music, but also to other major interests of mine (Hunter S. Thompson, the U.S. Civil War, business and philosophy books, etc.).

I keep hauling these around with me, because some day I am going to have an office/study (or "The Vault") where I can put these in. Some of these books I may not look through for years, but when I need a fact or to verify some obscure story behind a song...I can run to it.

Here are all of my books: Judd's Library

Chances are I am not getting rid of these books. But, there are many things I will get rid of. For instance, I have the six month and one year rule on clothes. If I haven't worn it those time frames, it could be on the trash heap. Of course there are some items you just don't wear a lot. If it is something I don't wear a lot, but want to have...it stays (I've got this cool embroidered flower shirt I love. Doesn't get a lot of wears, but it is a keeper).


(Me in my cool flower shirt...works best with beer in hand. Venice circa 2002)

Anyhow, I start the keep/don't keep process in two weeks. I am going to be ruthless on the "absolutely do not need" and brutal on the stuff that could fall into that category. I'm going to document that process, too. As always, I make sure to give all of the left over clothes and such to the Salvation Army or some other cause.
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Like I said, I am starting to rack up the global miles on where I have lived. Here is a map with all my old haunts. If you zoom in close enough you may be able to spot all my old Skeletons luring in dark places.

(click on the pins for details)

 

Tagged Books live maps move
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