locales of London

[jetpig]

I'm wondering about the specific locales of London that get mentioned in song.

My family is heading to London and I get to tag along. I intend to break off and do some sight seeing of my own and I definitely wanna hit some UW landmarks. The Ship on wardour street, of course, is on the list. Where else should I visit?

[kontakt1968]

You could always try..
Disappearing down the tube hole on farringdon street , although farringdon tube is actually a block from farringdon street
thats not far from soho
crow lane is about 30 mins by train outside the center in Romford , wouldn't recommend the midnight train tho..

[TheBang]

You could do the Edgeland tour:

http://karlhyde.com/map.html

[twicezero]

Sadly you cannot go shopping in europa on Wardour street, it closed down quite a while ago, But you can get into the belly of st pauls.

Also mercer street is a nice walk...

[jetpig]

These are all perfect. I even consider myself hardy enough to manage a midnight train to romford as long as the schedule allows a return trip.

Thanks! I'd intended to make finding locations a listening project, but free time has escaped me of late.

[twicezero]

Sadly you cannot go shopping in europa on Wardour street, it closed down quite a while ago, But you can get into the belly of st pauls.

Also mercer street is a nice walk...

Little story. Listening to Underworld I imaged Europa to be some amazing store. When I first moved to London and realised where i was i was somewhat disappointed. But then I realised my favourite pub just so happened (I hadn't noticed the connection) to be THE Ship, i felt kinda lucky.

[Lx_Nen]

Romford is Underworld's spiritual home. It's a suburb of London, about 30-45 minutes from the middle of town. I used to live there, and almost exactly 10 years ago I wrote a comparison of Romford with "Ringroad" for the Dirties who wanted to know more about the place. You'll find at least one underworld 'locale' there: http://www.lxnen.com/RingRoad.html Looking back 10 years later I'm struck by how bad the original iPhone's camera was, and the fact that one of the locations i photographed actually ended up appearing in the RingRoad video a year or so later.

Only after I moved of Romford out did I find out that I bought my second hand TR909 in a (long gone) music shop about 100 yards from Lemonworld.

If you want to make a pilgrimage, change from Underground to surface rail at Stratford late at night to experience the "Everything's going West, nothing's going East" feeling, and possibly spot both a dark train and blood on a tissue on the floor of a train too.

[jetpig]

Fantastic, thank you, LX. Seeing your photos settled the question of whether or not to bring a skateboard to push around on, I can't think of a better way to explore Romford's ring road.

[BishBash]

The Ship on Wardour street, of course, is on the list.

I got taken to The Ship -before I knew about the Underworld connection- by a couple of friends who said "they play great punk music there". So I had a preconceived idea that it would be a rowdy punk pub. In reality they mostly play indie music on the stereo behind the bar, though if it's busy you may barely notice.

it's a long narrow sort of a pub. Old fashioned, English, not especially roomy. On Thursday and Friday evenings from 5pm onwards it can get really busy as the local workforce/ media types pile out of their offices and into the pub, so you may want to avoid that sort of time. In the summertime there are sometimes more people standing outside it than in it.

I remember reading a Karl interview where he talked about hanging out with creative people in nearby D'arblay Street as well as The Ship and one or two other places in and around Soho in the 90s. Anyone know the interview I'm talking about? I'm not sure why D'Arblay street is mis-spelled as D'Arbly on the STITI reissue. I'm guessing a mistake was made with the spelling at the time and never corrected.

If you're only in London for a short visit you may have more fun trundling around Soho than heading out to the suburbs. Although admittedly there aren't as many cool record shops around Wardour Street as there used to be (but Phonica on Poland Street is the best dance music shop in London). I realise Karl has a knack for seeing the art in things but I can't help wondering if a regular person in Romford might just think: This is suburbia, what am I doing here?

St Paul's Cathederal is worth visiting although the belly isn't my favourite bit, That's the Whispering Galllery in the dome where you can whisper at the wall and the sound will travel around to the other side. Get someone to whisper back to you. You can also continue up from the inside of the dome right on to the top of St Pauls - as long as you're not too scared of heights. Lots of people do it, and you get a great view of London. When you're finished up there you can round off your tour by exiting through the belly (there are some interesting famous tombs down there).

Not underworld related, but Spitalfields market near Liverpool street station is worth a visit. It has a roof but is open to the elements, They sometimes have an "Indie Label market" where lots of independent labels set up stalls promoting their own records. And from there you can venture along to Brick Lane which is packed with Indian restaurants and some hip venues and bars too. Rough Trade East (https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/events/store/rough-trade-east) records can be found just off Brick Lane. They have loads of in-store artist appearances circa 6 or 7 pm. Some pretty big names have popped up there (Radiohead, Blur) - sometimes you need a wristband in advance (obtained by buying the artists new album from the shop), sometimes you don't. It's probably my favourite indie/dance/all-round record shop in London.

Hmm this post is getting long, I'll shut up now.

[jetpig]

All fantastic insight! Thank you!

[stimpee]

They also used to drink at The George on Wardour Street too. its just up from The Ship and across from where the Europa used to be.

"Karl Hyde on Born Slippy: "The lyric was written on a drunken trawl through the streets of Soho. Nights back then started at the George on Wardour Street and this one ended up moving to the Ship just down the road. I came back from the toilet and all my companions had left apart form this girl who was the most blonde I’d ever met. I’m pretty sure she was sat with Bill Bailey at this point. I remember pulling a tenner out of my pocket and saying, “Get a round of drinks in” before wandering off towards the tube."

Karl Hyde on Europa: " “It’s near our office, but I don’t use it that much. I prefer the 7-11 on Oxford Street. It’s open longer. That line, ‘I found you shopping in Europa on Wardour Street, not phoning Packwith’ came to me when I was in there one night and I just scribbled it down. I take a pad with me wherever I go and I’m always writing down stuff I see or hear. Who’s Packwith? One of the ladies you see hanging around on the street corners of Soho. Apparently.”

Darren Emerson and karl Hyde on The George: DARREN: “There was a point when I was getting locked in The George almost every bloody night. I’d get really pissed and end up having to stay there. I’ve calmed down a lot since then, though. I had to. I was fucking wasted all the time. I’m taking it easy now.”
KARL: “And I’ve gone in the other direction. I’ve picked up the burning torch. I’ll carry it into the night and end up shitfaced in some gutter.”
DARREN: “Someone has to do it, don’t they?”