[kj] Which album did KJ do in Liverpool?

[nicholas fitzpatrick]

Happy New Year all!

I know there's a few Genesis fans on the list, but for all those who love to 
hate Phil Collins, here's another reason - for closing down a landmark 
recording studio in Liverpool. (Killing Joke briefly mentioned in paragraph 
six as having recorded there. Which album, though? Revelations?).

Regards
Nick, who is p***ed off at not being able to download Implosion.


>>>>>Copyright 2005 Times Newspapers Limited
All Rights Reserved
The Times (London)

December 27, 2005, Tuesday

HEADLINE: Liverpool to lose musical landmark

BY: Steve Bird


Phil Collins and his Genesis bandmates are to set to pull the plug on 
studios that spawned the stars, reports Steve Bird

THEY helped to create the Britpop movement and define the music of a 
generation.

Coldplay, Pulp, The Stereophonics and The Charlatans all chose the 19th 
century converted warehouse in Liverpool to record some of Britain's 
most-influential and best-selling albums.

Now Phil Collins, the multimillionaire veteran rock singer, has been accused 
of bringing to an end a vital piece of Liverpool's music heritage as it 
prepares to become the 2008 European City of Culture. Collins, along with 
his fellow Genesis band members, Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks, has applied 
to transform the Parr Street Studio into 41 luxury flats worth millions. The 
three band members would benefit from the property boom sparked when 
Liverpool won its city of culture bid.

For the past 12 years the three-studio complex, the largest in the city and 
the biggest outside London, has also been host to the artistic endeavours of 
Diana Ross, Feeder, The Beautiful South, Teenage Fanclub and Embrace, as 
well as being the launch-pad for successful Merseyside bands including Echo 
and the Bunnymen.

Other artists and groups to have recorded there include Barry Manilow, 
Sleeper, Bjork, Simply Red, Take That, Snow Patrol, Howard Jones, Sophie 
Ellis Bextor, Badly Drawn Boy, Killing Joke, OMD, and Terrorvision.

Ken Nelson, a music producer who has won three Grammy awards during his time 
at Parr Street after working on Coldplay's hit albums Parachutes and A Rush 
of Blood to the Head, said: "To lose the studios would be a great shame. I 
have encouraged bands that I have worked with to come to Liverpool to record 
at Parr Street, people like Coldplay, Feeder and Embrace. If the studios 
close then these great artists and others will have no reason to come to the 
city to record."

Liverpool has seen visitor numbers increase, drawn to the city's musical 
heritage.

Many music fans include the Parr Street Studio on their tour of the city, 
which centres on the Cavern Club where the Beatles found fame. Thomas Laing, 
a singer and producer who made the video that helped the city to win the 
culture bid, said he wanted to meet Collins, who lives in Switzerland, to 
try to persuade him to abandon plans to scrap the studios.

"We don't have the power to stop them selling the building to a developer," 
he said. "There is a huge gulf between us and him and his group, he may not 
even know what is being proposed for the studio."

Laing added: "But we want to speak to Phil Collins as one set of creative 
people to another and discuss the possibility of buying the building 
ourselves to save it."

Warren Bradley, Liverpool City Council's executive member for culture, said: 
"The loss of Parr Street would be desperately sad. In my opinion the city 
centre does not need any more developments of flats. I want these creative 
people to continue to come to Liverpool and if the worst comes to the worst 
we must do our best to help to relocate people."

Another business based at Parr Street, Porcupine Music, a management company 
that looks after Echo and The Bunnymen, is also opposed to the planning 
application.

Peter Byrne, the company's director, said: "It would be a disaster if the 
city was to lose studios of this standard. This in also a genuine piece of 
Liverpool history and people are really angry about it facing closure."

The area around Parr Street is close to the £ 750 million city-centre 
regeneration project being undertaken by the Duke of Westminster. It is at 
the heart of another redevelopment called Ropewalks and its value has 
escalated in the past decade. Speculators have been buying up streets of old 
warehouses near the docks -some still bomb-damaged from the Second World War 
-and sitting on them, waiting for redevelopment to begin.

The planning application has been postponed until councillors have visited 
the site, which could be worth £ 1.5 million. A spokesman for Collins's 
property company, Hit and Run, said it was in disrepair and much of it was 
not used.

www.timesonline.co.uk/music Reviews, weblog and free downloads

FOR THE RECORD - THE BEST OF BRITISH

* The Abbey Road Studios in St John's Wood are the most famous recording 
studios in the world. Beatles fans make the pilgrimage to North London to 
walk over the zebra crossing that features on the Abbey Road album. The 
studios still exist

* The Beatles founded the Apple studios in the basement of their Apple Corps 
headquarters in Savile Row. They closed in the mid 1970s

* The world's first residential studios were Rockfield Studios, near 
Abergavenny, South Wales. Set up in the early 1960s by brothers Charles and 
Kingsley Ward it has used by Queen, Black Sabbath, The Undertones and The 
Manic Street Preachers.

* Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios, a 200-year-old water mill on the edge 
of the village of Box, near Bath, has been used by a host of stars, 
including Kylie Minogue

* Britannia Row was the studio first used by Pink Floyd in London. The group 
bought the building in 1975 and the facility has been used by Westlife, 
Atomic Kitten, James Blunt and Kate Bush

* The Rolling Stones used the Olympic Studios in Barnes, South West London, 
to record six albums between 1966 and 1972. They have also been used by 
Duran Duran, Roxy Music, The Cranberries and Oasis

* The Eden studios in Chiswick, West London, opened in 1967 and continue to 
be used by a range of stars including McFly, George Michael, The Smiths, The 
Kaiser Chiefs and Girls Alound