The Afterword

Musings on the byways of popular culture

Menu

Navigation

You are here: Home / Forum / Olympic Studios, Glyn Johns, Jimmy Page and The Stones.

Comments

  1. I found a track done by the early session crew that you mentioned at the start, although disappointingly it seems to have been done at Pye, although it does have a Glyn Johns vibe. This must be one Page’s first dates as a leader. Supposedly also includes John McLaughlin.

  2. Another excellent blog Niall. Glyn Johns is one of my producer heroes and his signature drum sound is achieved by a mic setup known globally as “Glyn Johns”. I’ve used it, and got good results, though it very dependent on the quality of the room and the drummer. Don Henley screamed “why can’t you make me sound like John Bonham” at GJ, who shouted back “because you can’t fucking play like John Bonham”.

  7. Never thought to use Joan Armatrading as the example for demonstrating GJ’s chops Niall but I always loved the sound on that record. Now I know why.

    Some depressing stuff in there though, one knocked down for an underground carpark FFS, Olympic done in due to Virgin’s idiocy.

    • Thank you. Yes, the taking of the photos is, on the whole, a pretty depressing task. I took the shots for the two locations for Brittania Row this week. The original site isn’t too bad but the second one, which Nick Mason sold to a developer, is a hideous block of flats, which is currently covered in scaffolding, to remove the dangerous cladding.

      Depressing.

      • Yes, about 20 years ago I attended Britannia Row studios (in Wandsworth) for a demo session. I was expecting Pink Floyd grandeur but found what looked like a fire door in a run-down 1970s comprehensive school.

        I went to the Islington site in the mid-1980s with a French pen friend, which was equally dispiriting. On the same day, we went to see The Westway because it had been mentioned in London’s Burning by The Clash.

        • Crashed in a Sherpa van on the highest, most elevated part of the Westway in pouring rain once. I was hitch-hiking back to Brizzle after visiting my girlfriend in Brixton at the time. We ran into the back of a big Jag. The Jag bumper was slightly dented, but the front of the van was totalled. Bright green coolant all over the place in the rain, and shards of plastic and glass everywhere. I head-butted the van windscreen hard enough to leave a dent and a crack, but thankfully both were in the windscreen, not in my skull. Some very nice policemen closed the road while they towed the van off via a break in the crash barrier. The poor bugger driving had to phone his boss and explain why he was using the van at the weekend, which he wasn’t supposed to do… and it was still pissing down.

Leave a Reply