From skating palace to orchestra HQ and home to The Beatles and Dr Who theme too. Steve Sutherland on the facility that played a unique part in pioneering British music
You can argue all you like over the greatest single ever released. You can trade opinions on the greatest debut album ever made, and dispute the greatest guitar solo ever recorded... You can bandy words over most things. But when it comes to the greatest TV show theme ever, there's only one winner: Dr Who.
This landmark album rewrote the folk rulebook, but that didn't stop the band splintering before it was released. Steve Sutherland hears the recent reissue on 180g vinyl
Way back in the day, I was telling Jerry Garcia of The Grateful Dead about one of those weird cartoons that used to pop up in episodes of Monty Python's Flying Circus on the telly. The particular cartoon in question featured a giant big toe, sliced off at the joint, which had been re-assembled as the tip of the trunk of some kind of prehistoric mammoth – an error in extrapolation which sought to ridicule scientific assumption in a similar vein to the way the Pythons mocked religion and politics, etc.
This facility's clients have ranged from Arctic Monkeys to Nina Simone, and it has also pioneered solar-powered sound. Steve Sutherland on a studio not afraid to innovate
Of all the many weird and wonderful characters who have populated our Inside The Studio feature down through the years, if my memory serves me right we have never ever come across a giant rabbit. Still, there's always a first time...
Four years in the making, this swansong album from the electronic music pioneers swapped samples for session musicians. Steve Sutherland celebrates its brilliance
What if you could reinvent your life and have another go at it, starting somewhere, somewhen else? Me, I'd opt to have been born a decade earlier and I'd have moved to Los Angeles in 1965, aged 17. That way I'd have been hanging around the Sunset Strip in 1967 where, at the Whisky A Go Go alone, I'd have seen Love, The Doors, The Byrds, Jimi Hendrix, Buffalo Springfield, Moby Grape, Spirit, Janis Joplin, and Them with Van Morrison. I might even have hopped a short haul or thumbed a ride to Monterey where the Pop Festival was, as they say, happening.
Used by stars such as Michael Jackson and Alanis Morissette, this facility in Los Angeles was founded by a pioneer in the art of studio design. Steve Sutherland has the story
My first encounter with the Madman was in the Coen Brothers' brilliant 1991 movie about writer's block, Barton Fink. The Madman was a sweaty travelling salesman with a sideline in brutal murders and an unpleasant ear infection. He was played, terrifically, by John Goodman and he was known as Madman Mundt ('Jesus, people can be cruel. If it's not my bulk, it's my personality'.)
This debut record didn't launch the band to stardom, but remains much-loved by fans and the musicians it influenced. Steve Sutherland hears the 180g reissue
A funny thing happens when you get to a certain age and you've had a bit of a past life; people start writing about you. You crop up in their memoirs or they mention your name in interviews and reminiscences. As a rule these things are best avoided, especially if you're thin-skinned about personal criticism, although I can mostly handle the contrary opinions and character assassinations, writing them off as differences of perspective or sour grapes.
From The Righteous Brothers and Ramones to Phil Spector's Wall of Sound, the music made in this LA studio still resonates around the globe. Steve Sutherland has the story
You could say that he was obsessed. Ever since he'd heard that record on his car radio and been so overwhelmed he'd had to pull over to the side of the road, his life had never been the same.
This fifth album by the glam rock/hair metal pioneers from Finland (and Leamington Spa) should have been the start of something beautiful, says Steve Sutherland
Let's say you are walking along Shaftesbury Avenue in London in the general direction of Cambridge Circus. It is the mid 1980s. Maybe you've been to the Shaftesbury Theatre just over the road to see a show. Or maybe you've just been for a dip in the Oasis swimming pool next door. Whatever, you've worked up a bit of a thirst so you duck through the door of the Oporto public house, just on the corner opposite St Mungo's home for the homeless, and take the couple of steps to the bar.
The anger-filled debut from the English punk/reggae group sparked fans far and wide, and a near 30-year search for the original cover art, says Steve Sutherland
Occasionally I get asked who was the most unpleasant rock star I encountered during my decades writing for the music press. That's a toughie, although Robert Palmer and Phil Lynott hover near the top of the pile. Far easier to say who was the scariest. Answer, without doubt: Henry Rollins.
Opened in 1978, this studio is where Kate Bush, The Cranberries and U2 created songs that sold worldwide. Steve Sutherland goes to the heart of the Irish recording industry
It may seem counter-intuitive, perverse even, to begin this account of Windmill Lane Studios by dwelling on one of its early shortcomings, but hey, what the heck? When U2 rocked up in the late summer of 1980 to record their debut LP, Boy, producer Steve Lillywhite was far from impressed with the facilities on offer. The band's recent single, 'A Day Without Me', which Lillywhite had produced, had failed to chart and he'd been beating himself up over the way it sounded, particularly the drums.
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