Whitechapel - NEMS bites the dust.

Here are two photographs of the same building, a building that for a time was the centre of Liverpool music business - here 'the most important contract in music history' was signed.

 And 40 years later... demolished for redevelopment.

Photo from PhillipGMayer

It shows the NEMS (standing for North End Music Stores) building on Whitechapel, Liverpool.  


Legend has it that At about three o'clock on October 28th, 1961, a boy called Raymond Jones, walked into 
this NEMS record-store in and asked:


 'There's a record I want. It's "My Bonnie" and it was made in Germany. Have you got it?'

Behind the counter was the store manager, Brian Epstein. 

He shook his head. 'Who is the record by?' he asked. 

'You won't have heard of them,' said Jones. 'It's by a group called The Beatles....'

Whether the story is true or not, it was from this building where Brian began his music empire signing The Beatles and going on to manage some of the biggest bands of Merseybeat.

The building is now gone but i'm sure the legend will live on.

Thanks to Phillip G Mayer, check his photostream of Liverpool photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/44435674@N00/

New Logo

A good friend of ours has made this snazzy headline for the blog.  Now if I can only work out how to get it up on blogger!

The Beat of the Street

This blog aims to be about the more obscure, uncelebrated and forgotten music history of Liverpool.

There is no aspect of music history more forgotten and uncelebrated than the art of busking.  It's one of the oldest types of performance, from the moment a cave man first picked up a bone-flute there was probably a crowd around him throwing brightly coloured stones at his feet.

The sheer amount and quality of buskers in Liverpool at the moment is staggering, from the top of Bold Street to bottom of Lord Street - less than a mile there were about 10 of them.

A musical mile. 17th March 2012. Liverpool

It is claimed by the council that this is too many.  There are plans afoot to start charging buskers for one of 25 slots in the city centre.  Charges should be around £20 per anum.  Is this needed regulation, or simply a cynical money spinner for the cash-strapped council?

My worry is that with only a limited number of pitches there will be very tight competition and newer artists may never get the permit to perform.

Some of the proposed busking spots?  Are there enough?

They've always lived in a strange nether-world between professional and amateur, some buskers make a living through selling high-quality CDs from the pavement, others are barely able to hold a guitar.  Buskers in all their varied mixes give a colour and depth to a street that would otherwise be missing.  Let's hope this charging scheme doesn't affect it too much.

Thank god they're still here!

Clean Bandit

This blog is primarily about music history, the last few posts have been deep into that history. 

As i'm firmly of the opinion that history is merely what's happened today viewed from tomorrow I thought i'd show you that i'm not just stuck in the past.

Let me give you a brief heads up on a band with Liverpool connections that I think deserve a promo.

Clean Bandit, are an up-and-coming London based electro-classical ensemble. 

Yep, you heard, Electro-Classical, smooth electro beats based around a string quartet core.  It's not just a novelty, the band are drenched in classical music knowledge - just check out their single 'Mozart's House'.

Their main man and drummer are from just over the water.  Birkenhead born Jack ("Wandeck") and Luke Patterson are part of the driving force behind the most refreshing sounds i've heard for a while.  

Their latest single, UK Shanty, could be equally set in the coves of Cornwall or on the expansive Seaforth foreshore where seagulls dodge Gormleys in watercolour sunrises.

If the success of their first musical forays are anything to go by, they'll soon be finding their path etched into the flagstones of musical history and perhaps become another band irrepressibly linked to Liverpools dynamic music scene.

Skipping a Beat 1 - Mysterious Ladies and Curly Haired Sailors

Whilst viewing many old black and white documentaries about Liverpool it struck me how often the images were of children playing in the streets, accompanied by songs.

 Skipping games seem to have their own traditional music and tunes.

From one generation to the next, skipping and playground songs seem to sustain themselves.    I imagine if photographers and film-makers were allowed they would find that similar songs are being sung at skipping games nowadays as were being sung 100 years ago.


As a type of tradition music it's overlooked but when analysed gives us a window into class, religion and the concerns and worries of peoples every day lives.


It's widely believed that 'Ring o'Roses' is a song about plague and disease, whilst 'I like an apple and I like a pear' is really a song about the hardships of marriage to a unsuitable husband.

O I like an apple and I like a pear

And I like a sailor with nice curly hair

O gee I love 'im, I can't deny it

I'll be with him wherever he goes

He stands on the corner and whistles me out

He shouts Oo-ey, oo-ey, are you coming out? 

O gee I love 'im, I can't deny it

I'll be with him wherever he goes

He bought me a shawl of red, white and blue 

And when we got married he tore it in two 

O gee I love 'im, I can't deny it

I'll be with him wherever he goes

Many women dreamed of a marriage to a nice sailor!

There are more sinister versions of this song, probably not sung by children but no doubt well known:

Before I got married I wore a black shawl
But now that I'm married I wear bugger-all
Still, I love him, can't deny him
I will be with him where ever he goes

Before I got married I'd sport and I'd play
But now, how the cradle stands in my way
Still, I love him, can't deny him
I will be with him where ever he goes

Another one has a casual mixture of contemporary references and ethnic identity.

Micky mouse is dead

He died last night in bed

He cut his throat

With a ten pound note

And this is what he said

Red white and blue

Me mother was a jew

Me father was an Irishman

And out goe's you

There are a certain number of set tunes or variations of tunes that seem well known right across the world.  It would be impossible for us to tell where songs originally came from but we can assume that the hundreds of children that passed through the 'Gateway of Empire' that was Liverpool brought their own traditions and songs with them.


These songs are not specific to Liverpool, but they were very common here especially songs involving handsome sailors and beautiful maidens. 

Sometimes life was better in the old songs...

 It is telling that in a port city where men would often be absent for weeks on end and women were left to fend for themselves and their families the romantic ideal of a nice sailor coming home with the bounty of the world for his girl would have a strong resonance.


It's no surprise that the innocent girls who sang these songs would later become the tough and hardy matriarchs that seemed to rule Liverpools streets and alleys with iron fists.


Do you have any songs that you remember from childhood?