Monday 2 February 2009

on the train to London
Well, of all the days to choose to nip down to London for a quick session in Abbey Road and dive back home again on the sleeper, I pick the day with the heaviest snowfall in England for about 20 years. Last night I checked the Met Office forecast and realised that expecting any airport runways to still be open this afternoon would be foolish, so I booked myself a seat on a train that would allow me an hour’s walk to Abbey Road, even if it got in 2 hours late and London’s transport system had ground to a halt. Sure enough, all the airports have shut, all London buses are off (!), and most trains and the underground are stuffed too, but this train seems to be running only an hour or so late. So far so good. Although I’ll probably make it the 400 miles from Glasgow, the engineer can’t get to the studio from South London, so he’s sending someone else …

typical view from train window

Ah, we’ve just stopped outside Milton Keynes, which means I can watch these people sledging … I wonder if we’ll get any further.

I’ve been able to put the time to good use so far, transcribing a Maria Kalaniemi tune and making a start on re-reading Adrian Scahill’s PhD thesis about the history of accompaniment in Irish music. 

10.30pm

Euston Station, which at this time of night seems to be populated
largely by Scottish people like me waiting for the sleeper 

When I arrived at Euston this afternoon, there were plenty of people around but it was strangely quiet. That’s because there weren’t any trains.

I made it along Euston Road to the skins office (Euston Road looking rather strange because there weren’t any buses) ...

... and got a sneak preview of a rough cut of Episode 10
from James before we jumped in a car to Abbey Road. 

Bryan and James on that zebra crossing

Our engineers Chris and Andy looked after us, providing efficiency, calm, tea and vintage microphones, while we just got on with it and I tried not to be intimidated by the fact that quite a lot of extremely famous records were made in this room, by people running up and down the stairs to hear playback as I was. 

Bryan at Studio 2's Steinway D, and the stairs to the control room

Listening to the sound of the room while playing could be quite distracting, as (I don't think I’m just imagining this) it’s recognisably the same room that you hear on almost all of those Beatles records. Having said that, the feeling of being on the studio floor was also reminiscent of the old BBC Studio 1 in Glasgow, which was of a similar size and built around the same time. Abbey Road’s Studio 2 piano certainly isn’t ideal for Debussy – but it would sound thrilling being beaten into submission – so I was concentrating very hard to do something that made sense. 

Chris gave us a little tour before we left, including a quick walk around Studio 1, which is a very nice sounding room indeed, and Studio 3 with its ridiculously huge SSL desk.

And now here I am, rather tired, hoping that the sleeper home isn’t going to leave too far behind schedule. All the pubs are shut (no staff) and the First Class lounge is closed for rebuilding so I’m slumming it in the waiting room, but at least there’s no muzak and I still have a flask of tea left. This morning I packed enough supplies for getting snowed in somewhere near Crewe.

on the news screen at Euston - pah, soft Southerners

11.05pm
Hooray, boarded early. Time for a Traquair House Ale from the restaurant car and bed.