The last day and a half since our last post has been quite busy. Following Tuesday's post, we took a free walking tour of many of the famous sites to see in London. This was a good use of our first non-jet lagged day, and I would recommend it for anyone going to London. Though it was cold, the two and a half hour tour kind of gives a good overview of London, though it didn't cover everything. In getting there, the two of us stumbled upon many different "regions" of London. There is a huge electronics region near the Theater district, and even a sort of "guitar district" of which we have a few photos. This street was literally JUST guitar shops. So in theory you've got the two perfect complements to make a record, nice technology and nice guitars. In one sense, these districts were not so different than say New York City's light's district or its bargain districts and so forth.
While walking through Green Park near Buckingham Palace, our tour guide shared some interesting history about the English monarchy. Our guide asked us if anyone opposed the current ruling class. Luckily, no one spoke up. This was good, because opposition towards the government (i.e. treason) is still punishable by death nowadays. Essentially, this is the basis for the punk rock scene in the UK. Songs like "God save the Queen," and "Anarchy in the UK" by the Sex Pistols were an outcry against the policies of the monarchy. These songs, of course, were banned from British radio, but the legacy remains. Even across the pond in the U.S., American punk rock is rooted in this opposition against the system—protest songs against corporations, commercialization, war and the government. A very interesting parallel, nonetheless.
Anyhow, following the tour we ventured into our first real pub right next to Westminster Abbey, and had your standard fish 'n' chips along with some lager. The stereotype that the Brits love their fish 'n' chips and mash and bangers is really kind of true. It is literally everywhere.
From there, we took a double decker bus back to Camden Town, and eventually did a pub-crawl to really get a feel for the area. One of the pubs we went to was in an elevated loft type thing, and it was remarkable in the type of music they were playing: mostly American Motown. Yet it wasn't just Motown. Over the course of the night, we heard Dylan, Michael Jackson, Elvis, Johnny Cash, The Stooges, Chuck Berry, Beach Boys, sprinkled in with some British rock music. The American influence here was simply undeniable.
The next morning, we took the train over to Victoria Coach Station, one of the busiest bus terminals in the world, especially around Christmas time. Here we managed to get on a bus to Manchester—a place well known for its own music scene and culture. It took about 5 and a half hours in heavy delayed traffic, but we made it to our hostel in the snow. In the limited walking of Manchester's "Northern Quarter", where our hostel is located, we've seen 3-4 vinyl record stores, and a number of HMV CD/DVD/Video game outlets. HMV seemed to be doing quite well, and resembled a Virgin Megastore prior to its going out of business. The prices on some of the CD's were quite low (brand new albums were around $6), which was a bit surprising. The Northern Quarter is quite interesting and quite known for its bohemian culture, and I am sure that when we do a pub-crawl later tonight we will be in for quite an interesting experience.
That is all for now in terms of summing up these last few days. Too much to do and too little time. More on "madchester" in the next post.
