Here’s a few shots of Westland Studios, Dublin, with some of Deep South’s best sounding Gitboxes hanging around in their new, temporary housing, on the wall of one of Dublin’s most historic and largest studio complexes. You can view some more pictures I took in the studio at the DS Facebook profiles and on the Westland Studios Facebook too. There will also be more DSvintage / Westland Studio collaborations coming soon… so I’ll keep you posted.

I past some time, (in an after hours lock-in), cranking some dirty old guitars through tubes and 4×12′s, with my old buddy Alwyn Walker – who now manages Westland and continues to produce and engineer all sorts of bands and artists from there. Westland has witnessed many great artists since it opened its doors in 1976. Some of the world’s most renowned musicians have worked on stuff at Westland, including U2, Thin Lizzy, Bob Dylan and Massive Attack to name but a few.

The Live Room is massive and has plenty of options, using sliding glass doors enable the creation of amp rooms and boothes, if you want it to be a little less massive. The control room is dominated by the SSL, the studios main feature and a big part of the Westland sound. Its a piece of 80′s history. When things were made to last. EQ & Dynamics on every channel, along with the classic SSL Bus Compressor deliver that unmistakable studio sound that is unattainable with software, laptops and computers alone.

I also loved the sound of the Baldwin Grand, the second best piano I have ever heard and thats only cause I got to hear the Grand that used to be in the Hit Factory when I was in New York. This baldwin has got a lovely strong tone and plenty of punch beef. Very cool  Hammond and Leslie setup too and a funky Philicorda and something called a Fun Machine hahaha.

Few nice bits of outboard, Urei 1176, AMS Delay & Reverb and Avalon Comp / EQ. Old Skool Otari 2Inch Tape… NICE. Pro Tools HD 10 and your usual Neumann‘s, AKG’s and all sorts of Amps’s and Noise boxes that you can play around with.

If anyone is interested in recording or booking the studio, please get in contact with Alwyn at +353 87 9668333 and he will be happy to give you all the details and a tour or just email westlandstudios@gmail.com.

I brought some of my favourite sounding guitars from the store – the Kapa Challenger, The Sillvertone Amp in Case, my killer Jesus Saves Custom and old Norma, which Alwyn fell in love with after a single note. Norma might become a permanent fixture on the wall at Westland.

We were using an Orange Dark Terror Alwyn had in for review and his lovely sounding old Marshall 4×12. The guitars sounded great with everything cranked; Kapa delivering the hottest signal known to man, Jesus delivering his signature killer bite and Norma delivering that savage, snappy response.

It was great to hear the stuff through a nice big cab, in a nicely treated room where the guitars really feel at home and become powerful tools to create really original sounding records. Thats what these guitars are all about. Hanging round studios delivering unique and original tones that make the end user sound different than the now regular, new buy, or overpriced Strat’s and Les Paul’s.

Today is the anniversary of John Lennon’s untimely death at the gates of The Dakota Building, 72nd Street, Upper West Side in New York City. He was shot by Mark David Chapman on December 8th, 1980; as he returned from a mixing session at the Record Plant, with his wife, Yoko Ono.

Lennon was pronounced DOA at Roosevelt Hospital and it was stated by the ER doctor on-call “that no-one could have survived the injuries he sustained.” Ono asked the hospital not to announce his death until she had a chance to tell her son Sean that his father had been killed. There was however a reporter in the Emergency Room that night and he called Lennon’s death into his bosses at ABC, who apprehensively announced Lennon’s death nationally on their Monday Night Football show and soon after, local news stations reported the shooting and crowds began to gather at the Dakota and at Roosevelt Hospital. Sean was not watching TV that night.

Earlier that day, Annie Leibovitz did a photo shoot at the Lennon’s apartment in the Dakota for Rolling Stone. She later recalled that “nobody wanted Ono on the cover” but Lennon insisted that both he and his wife would be on the cover. The now famous photo, of a naked Lennon embracing Ono, would be used as the cover of Rolling Stone’s commemorative issue in January 1981 and the fact that it was taken on the day of the shooting is a strange but fitting coincidence.

Lennon and Ono left their apartment at 5 o’clock to mix “Walking On Thin Ice”; an Ono song featuring Lennon on guitar, at the Record Plant, 321 West 44th Street. As they walked to the limo they were approached by the customary autograph hunters that were constantly waiting for them outside the Dakota. Chapman was among them and he silently handed Lennon a copy of “Double Fantasy” for him to sign. Lennon signed it and asked him “is that all you want?” to which Chapman nodded and smiled in agreement. Another fan took a picture of their first meeting although Chapman had first come to New York to murder Lennon in October, before the release of “Double Fantasy”, but changed his mind and went back to Honolulu, Hawaii, where he worked as a security guard.

Chapman had become a born-again Christian in 1970 and was incensed by Lennon’s “bigger than Jesus“ comment of 1966 and called it blasphemy. He was further angered by songs like “God” and “Imagine” and sang the later with the alternate lyric: “Imagine John Lennon dead.“

John and Yoko spent several hours mixing at the Record Plant before returning to the Dakota at around ten to elevan. They got out of the limo on 72nd Street and not within the secure courtyard behind the gates of the Dakota’s entrance. Ono walked ahead of Lennon and into the reception area. The Doorman and a nearby taxi driver say they saw Chapman in the shadows of the archway into the Dakota’s courtyard. As Lennon passed, he looked at Chapman briefly and continued on his way. Chapman then took aim at the center of Lennon’s back and fired five bullets at him in rapid succession. The first bullet missed passed over Lennon’s head and hit a window of the Dakota. The next two bullets struck lennon in the left side of his back and were the fatal shot’s, hitting his lung and an artery leaving his heart. the final two bullets struck him in the right shoulder. three of the four bullets passed through his body leaving several gunshot wounds. Lennon staggered up five steps to the reception area and said “I’m shot, I’m shot.“ He then dropped an arm full of cassettes and fell to the floor, bleeding profusely from his wounds.

The Concierge attempted to make a tourniquet but realising the extent of Lennon’s wounds merely laid his uniform jacket over his chest and called the police. The Doorman shook the gun out of Chapman’s hands and kicked it away. He then shouted at Chapman: “do you know what you’ve done?”, to which he replied “Yes, I just shot John Lennon.” When the police arrived, one car brought Lennon to the hospital and the other arrested Chapman who was calmly reading a copy of “The Catcher in the Rye.”

Chapman pleaded guilty, against the advice of his lawyers, who wanted him to plead insanity and in June 1981 he received a life sentence. He has been denied parole hearings every two years since 2000 and remains an inmate at Attica State Prison.

Lennon’s murder was considered an assassination by many because of his beliefs in political activism and pacifism. It triggered an outpouring of grief around the globe. Ono asked the chanting crowd outside the Dakota to re-convene at Central Park the following Sunday as their chanting was keeping Sean and herself from sleeping. On December 14th 1980, millions of people around the world, 30 thousand in Liverpool and nearly a quater of a million people in Central Park observed a 10 minute silence on request of Yoko Ono to remember her husband and his life.

At least two fans killed themselves after Lennon’s murder and prompted Ono to ask people not to give in to despair. Ono released a solo album in 1981 called, “Season Of Glass” which featured a picture of Lennon’s blood-stained glasses, the pair he was wearing the night of the shooting, on a table looking out a window in the Dakota building apartment across Central Park to the Upper East Side skyline and next to a half full glass of water as its cover art. Ono still keeps the apartment to this day and lits a candle in the window every 8th of December.

In 2009, Ono curated a exhibit in NY’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame which included many mementos and personal effects from Lennon’s life as well as the clothes he was wearing on the night of the shooting – still in the brown paper bag she received from Roosevelt Hospital that night.

In 1985, New York City dedicated an area of Central Park, directly across from the Dakota on 72nd Street where Lennon often walked, and called it Strawberry Fields. Countries from around the world donated trees and Naples, Italy donated an Imagine mosaic centerpiece that is said to have some of Lennon’s ashes buried underneath. There was no formal funeral held by Ono and Lennon was cremated on the 10th of December, 1980.

Here’s a few shots of Duke Eillington’s grave, one of the worlds most prolific and important jazz musicians and composers, who now lays in rest at Woodlawn Cemetery – way up on the outer edge of the Bronx in NYC.

The Fillmore East was Bill Graham’s NY companion to his home base at The Fillmore West in San Francisco. The Fillmore West had been open since ‘65 and was an integral part of the psychedelic scene and the counterculture movement of the mid to late 60′s. It closed along with the Fillmore East in 1971.

The Fillmore East was opened in ’68, on Second Avenue near the corner of East 6th Street, in the East Village, Manhattan. It hosted some of the biggest music acts of the period until ’71, when Graham closed the doors because of “Woodstock Syndrome” – a term he coined to describe the inflation of the live music scene from “musicians” playing in small venue’s to ”stockholders in large corporations – only they happen to have long hair and play guitars”. He didn’t like the industries (and its musicians) move towards “gigantic-hall concerts” with “high-priced tickets” and “miserable production quality.”

Graham felt that the “Music Industry” was (even 40 something years ago) destructive to the music and the countercultures it created and supported and he was “not assured that the situation” would “improve in the future.”

“The rock scene in this country was created by a need felt by the people, expressed by the musicians, and, I hope, aided to some degree by the efforts of the Fillmores. But whatever has become of that scene, wherever it turned into the music industry of festivals, 20,000-seat halls, miserable production quality, and second-rate promoters.”

He felt that larger venues lacked intimacy, that his hand was forced to support artists that were more commercially popular than musically valid and that “in the early days of both Fillmore East and West, the level of audience seemed much higher in terms of musical sophistication. Now there are too many screams for “More” with total disregard for whether or not there was any musical quality.”

In ’67 it was called The Village Theater and began to present bands like The Doors, Cream and The Who but when Graham took it over it had fallen into disrepair. It provided Graham an East Coast counterpart to The Fillmore West and became known as “The Church of Rock & Roll”.

The “Joshua Light Show” was an integral part of band performances at the Fillmore and Joshua White’s psychedelic backdrop of liquid light art was a staple at performances in the Fillmore East.

Many amazing Live Albums were recorded at the Fillmore East because of the great acoustic’s that Bill Graham felt was an important part of the presentation of live music. Hendrix’s classic “Band of Gypsys” was recorded at the Fillmore East on New Years Day, 1970. The Allman Brothers Band, (sometimes called the Fillmore East Hose Band because they played there so many times), released “At The Fillmore” in 1971 and Frank Zappa’s Mothers – “Fillmore East” released in 1971.

Many recordings of other Fillmore East performances have been released over the years including Joe Cocker, Miles Davis, Derek and the Dominos, The Grateful Dead, Humble Pie, Jefferson Airplane, King Crisom, Al Kooper & Mike Bloomfield, John Lennon, Taj Mahal, John Mayall, Ten Years After, Johnny Winter and Neil Young & Crazy Horse.

Cafe Wha? opened in ’59 and is on the corner of Macdougal Street between Bleecker and West 3rd Street in the Greenwich Village about two blocks from Washington Square Park in Manhattan.

The club has been home to (and began the careers of) many musicians and comedians including Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, The Velvet Underground, Lenny Bruce, Woody Allen and Richard Pryor.

As a hangout for Ginsberg and the “Beat Generation” it became a stomping ground for many great artists at the start of their careers and known for its support of great talent.

Opened by Manny Roth – the uncle of David Lee Roth, frontman in 80′s Van Halen, the place was referred to by New Yorkers as one of the cities basket-houses - a den for intellectuals, hippies and aspiring folk and rock muso’s – who got paid whatever was chucked in the basket by it’s basket-case patrons.

Dylan’s first ever NY appearance was at Cafe Wha? in ’61 – his very first day in NYC. Roth hired him off the street and put him on as backing for Fred Neil (who later wrote songs for Harry Nilsson). Dylan would also play solo performances for Manny but only in the afternoons, “from twelve to eight,” Dylan recalls, also saying that it was tough to get noticed at Cafe Wha? because of the huge amount of performers that went through there and that it was usually just “tourists looking for beatniks in the Village.”

Jimi Hendrix was most famously discovered by Chas Chandler while playing at Cafe Wha? during the summer of ’66 with his short lived outfit called Jimmy James and The Blue Flames. Chandler (who was ending his time as bass player of The Animals) promptly signed Hendrix and immediately brought him to the UK to form a new outfit called The Jimi Hendrix Experience and get to work recording his debut album “Are You Experienced”.

Hendrix was suggested to Roth by Richie Havens, who also got his start at Cafe Wha?, and Roth hired Jimmy James and The Blue Flames for three months, from May thru till July, to play their psy-funked cover versions of tunes.

During their residency as the Cafe Wha? house band, the band also featured Randy Wolfe who Hendrix dubbed “Randy California” and who would later go on to found Spirit with his step-father drummer, Ed Cassidy. Randy California was only 15!!! at the time he was in The Blue Flame and it niggles me that he didn’t go to England with Hendrix and become part of The Experience, but still, Spirit are amazing, so it’s not all that bad.

A girlfriend of Keith Richards, Linda Keith, befriended Hendrix in New York sometime in ’66 and recommended him to the Stones flamboyant manager – Andrew Loog Oldham – but he wasn’t interested so she later recommended him to Chas Chandler who saw Hendrix at the Cafe Wha? on July 5th and reckoned he could make a killer single out of “Hey Joe”. The rest is history…

Although Hendrix and Dylan were Cafe Wha?’s most famous exponents, they only met once during that time in New York, at another village bar called The Kettle Fish.

Cafe Wha? is open to this day, although it was sold by Manny Roth in 1988, and is still supporting up and coming talent with its open mic nights and open door procedures.

Here’s a few shots of the most famous venue in the America – the Harlem Apollo.

The famous theater – almost exclusively associated with black artists – became renowned for being the launchpad for many important artist’s for over 50 years. It’s Amateur Night is “where stars are born and legends are made.” The Apollo launched the careers of artists such as Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Aretha Franklin, James Brown, Marvin Gaye and the Jackson 5 to name but a few. Hendrix even won first place prize at an Amateur Night in 1964.

It fell into disrepair and closed in the mid 70′s and became a movie theater but re-opened in the mid 80′s as a venue and continues to be one of the most famous landmarks in the world of music and a key part of black history in the USA. It’s situated on 125th Street in the heart of Harlem, one of the most significant colored neighborhoods’ in the US, and from the 30′s thru to the 70′s hosted the likes of Count Basie, Lionel Hampton, Sammy Davis Jr, Johnny Otis, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Thelonius Monk, Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, Stevie Wonder, B.B. King, Bob Marley, Funkadelic and John Lennon. Buddy Holly is thought to be the first white performer to play The Apollo in 1957.