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Abbey Road looks to a saviour?
With EMI plotting to flog off Abbey Road to stave off collapse for a few more weeks, what will happen to the studios? They're iconic, don't you know?
There's a push coming for the National Trust to buy them.
To be fair, the Trust haven't said no:
A spokesman for the National Trust said: “It’s not often that the public spontaneously suggests that we should acquire a famous building.
“However, Abbey Road recording studios appear to be very dear to the nation’s heart, to the extent that we will take soundings as to whether a campaign is desirable or even feasible.”
There is a bit of a question over how the studios would remain as a going concern under the Trust's ownership - it wouldn't be fair to say the NT pickle their properties in aspic, but it's hard to imagine their approach would allow the necessary updating of kit and studio layout which a working studio would need. And is turning Abbey Road into a heritage/music industry museum a better fate than letting it go?
5 comments:
I always like how Manchester, despite the best efforts of Hook et al, let the Hacienda be demolished along with a few other 'classic' venues, etc. Sure, you can go and have a look but most of the old studios, homes and the rest have now been redeveloped rather than turn into a tourist trap.
Having recently popped over to Liverpool and walked along Matthew Street it seems like a lucky escape.*
*And it doesn't seem that Bunnymen/Teardrop Explodes ever existed...
The Hacienda wasn't demolished, it's been turned into flats but the building is still there.
Matthew Street was extensively rebuilt when they developed the underground rail line I think. Certainly neither of the TWO Cavern Clubs are the original venues from the merseybeat hey day la
Hacienda was demolished...then rebuilt much higher with a similar frontage.
The Cavern Club claims that one of their two clubs is the genuine Cavern, on the grounds it was filled in rather than knocked down. To me, saying "the building to which it was a basement was knocked down and the hole filled in" seems to be the same as "the club was knocked down", but there is a certain logic to their argument.
The NT acquiring Abbey Road would really be Blair's ultimate triumph, apres la lettre. It would also fit with Cameron's strategy. So it will probably happen - at least then it will be harder than ever to ignore what the pop industry has become.
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