Kenwood: various views.

Some shots of Kenwood over the years. The first two rather beautiful ones are again by Joe Baiardi. Thanks to him...

Central Park: NYC, 1968 & 2009.

JOHN/PAUL PIC HAS BEEN REMOVED AT REQUEST OF PHOTOGRAPHER. The area around the Conservatory Water seemed to be a magnet for rock stars in 1968 - probably due to its proximity to uptown hotels. On either side of the water are statues of Hans Christian Andersen and Alice In Wonderland. Here are John and Paul, together with Magic Alex and Neil Aspinall, and Jimi Hendrix, photographed by the future Mrs McCartney, plus the same spots in May of this year.

Atiic Recording Studio: June, 1967.

An original, untouched colour John in the attic shot. Plus a couple of comped images which give an indication of that side of the room. What's striking is just how small it appears - note the walls at either side. And my, what enormous speakers he has there. Thanks to Chris Sileo for sending these, and Todd Paoletti for putting the images together.

The Sunroom At Kenwood: YouTube nonsense.

A tribute to a place I have never been, nor, sadly, will ever go.(Who says English grammar is simple?). Chopin chosen as a tip of the Dylan cap to the Unseen Beatles documentary, which is undoubtedy in a similar vein to all this rubbish. Yet again, I must thank Joe Baiardi. He the man. (That's enough arsing around with Movie Maker.)

Drawing room fireplace: 1965, 2006 & 2008.

Obsessively picking away, as is my wont, at this "new" pic...the fireplace was present and correct in 2006, as we have seen. But it is also there in Joe's video, looking very much smaller. (I'm not suggesting it has shrunk - that would be ridiculous.) The grandness of that wall in the '65 and '06 shots is striking, though - the camera, quite possibly, adds 10 feet. Worryingly, for those who would like what's left of John-era Kenwood to be preserved in amber, a new fireplace seems to be sitting there in Joe's video, awaiting installation. (It's labelled "study", however. Maybe it was just there before being taken to another room. The way Kenwood is laid out, it might be strange to re-designate the drawing room as a study. Unlike speculating at vast length about it.) Is the old one still there? If it isn't, did they keep it, or is it smashed to pieces? This blog is turning into the dullest soap opera in the world.

Sunroom: June, 1967.

Two more slight variations on these sunroom shots. The perspective slightly widened to the left in the first; an arm has appeared, presumably either belonging to one of the Fool, present that day painting John's piano, or else Cynthia. Or someone else. UPDATE - it's the French seamstress. See later burblings.
Many thanks to Lizzie Bravo for passing the first one on.

Cavendish Avenue: more rear stairs.

John and Yoko by the rear stairs at Cavendish Avenue, towards the end of the Mad Day Out. Plus two more of Paul in the same location.

Kenwood, Montagu Square & Cavendish Avenue: Sgt Pepper drum heads.

I've comped images from the '68 Kenwood home movie to give a better view of the Fool piano in the sunroom, and the Pepper drum head. John, as we can see, then took his head to Montagu Square. Paul got the prototype. A drum head was sold at Sotheby's a few years ago as the one - did John give it to somebody? Possibly; there are lots of instances where someone complimented something of John's, and he responded by handing it to them. Nice head, Johnny.

Fireplace: ???

...as is usually the way with all this, getting one bit pushes another one out. I'd assumed up to now that the last pic here, with John sporting his Dylan cap, must have been taken at the same time as the pics in the last post, in the drawing room, looking over his shoulder towards the fireplace. But...that doesn't look like the same fireplace. I went back and had a look at the '68 footage to see if that really was the drawing room, and I'm pretty sure it is. Compare the screencap of Yoko with the "new" drawing room pic - that's the same staircase...and the new one definitely is the drawing room - compare the fireplace with the 2006 shot. But where, in that case, is the other fireplace pic from? Kenwood does have 2 or 3 chimneys. So...the dining room? One of the bedrooms? Or maybe it is the same fireplace, but taken at a different time, with different decor. (It's hard, sometimes, to make out details in these pics because the quality of the scans is not very good). I don't know...and I'm going to stop thinking about it now.

Drawing Room: fireplace wall, 1965.

The other side of the drawing room, and a great, if out of focus, view of the fireplace circa 1965. I've reposted some of the other shots here in slightly better quality for perspective. You can see that the room in 2006 HERE was structurally more or less the same, although the decor had, of course, changed (though not that much, oddly. Note the fireplace, and then count the other similarities...) Joe's video, however, appears to show this area ripped to pieces, so how it is now is anyone's guess. Here, again, is how the room was described by the Beatles Book monthly in 1967 - "The next room was very large with three beautiful, soft sofas in it. In one corner was an extraordinary Chinese screen cutting, and next to it the brass statue with the gorilla’s mask on it, and a pipe stuck in its mouth, upside-down. On one side of the fireplace were three turntables. John is very fond of putting on L.P.’s of noises these days, and one played constantly while I was there, broken only by bursts of All You Need Is Love. On the shelves near the record player were arranged several of John’s gold discs, statuettes and certificates. In the centre of the fireplace was a huge colour television." A shot of said gorilla's mask also here. The decor of the room was quite different by the time of the December '68 film and photos. Still, the drawing room is surely now in contention for best documented room...although such a competition doesn't exist...thank God.

Kenwood: drive, December 1968.

Four more from the drive. Intriguingly, I've seen photos from this session labelled as being from the Ballad Of John And Yoko promo film. The two variations in wide circulation certainly don't feature any footage from Kenwood, but there is a rarely seen third version which, apparently, is soley comprised of 1968-era John and Yoko stuff. Anyone out there seen it? Also of interest is the fact that one of the versions available on YouTube has a couple of seconds of mid-1969 John and Yoko leaving Sunny Heights right at the beginning, lending credence to the assertion that they lived there for the first half of that year, before moving in to Tittenhurst.

Drawing Room: December, 1968.

Another colour shot from the drawing room...I wonder when exactly John and Yoko moved out of Kenwood. Most reckon sometime in December, 1968. I suppose Bill Martin would know, as he bought it from John.

Sitting Room/Library: June, 1967.

Where was the library? Pete Shotton refers to it a few times in his book, and says it was on the ground floor, on the other side of the house to the sunroom. It contained a television (natch), and was Cyn's "equivalent" of the sunroom (ie where she hung out). I'm pretty sure it was what the Beatles Book called the small room in its description of Kenwood in 1967, and what was the sitting room by 2006. (Incidentally, I also think this was probably what Pauline Lennon meant by the "study" in her book). Here's another pic.

John at Kenwood: then and now.

Messing about with Movie Maker tonight, I edited bits of Joe Baiardi's 2008 footage together with photos of John taken in the same spots (roughly). I've done a few posts already on this theme, but here it all is in one place, moving about. The soundtrack is some of John's SFF demos recorded, of course, up in the attic. However, when the "film" gets to the attic, I switched it to a charming out-take from Two Virgins - John and Yoko up there having a laugh. It's quite funny. I don't know what I'm doing, but someone who does could make something approaching good out of all this...

Kenwood: garden, December 1968.

Two beautiful shots of John and Yoko out for a stroll in the garden from December 1968 - a bumper time for Kenwood pics. You can see the pool area fence in the first one, and the reason why one was needed.

Kenwood: garden, 1967 & 2008.

The area at the bottom of the garden comes with a number of tales attached, tall or otherwise. Rumour has it that John, gripped by a sudden TM-fuelled desire to renounce the stuff, buried a huge quantity of Owsley acid down here. (Apparently, it had been sitting in a couple of pint bottles on the shelves of the sunroom.) It's still there, somewhere, or so the story goes - John forgot where he had put it. Whilst I very much doubt that one, there is another rather more believable anecdote told by Klaus Voormann concerning a visit he made to Kenwood in 1966. Strolling in the garden, John suddenly started confiding how generally bad he felt, and that he was very unhappy with his lot. As he spoke, he began absent-mindedly ripping a plant to shreds, which earned him a jocular admonishment from the ex-Exi. The outsize boot from Help was down here somewhere too - possibly situated roughly where the elephant is in the comp from Joe's video. Here too, some more splendid shots from the Bryce session on 29 June, 1967. (Once again, apologies for the poor quality patching on one or two of them).

Laudate: Newdigate, Surrey.

By all accounts a prince amongst men, Beatles press officer Derek Taylor leased a house in the middle of nowhere (actually in the middle of Surrey) from Peter Asher for a while in 1968. The Japanese style dwelling overlooked a lake set in 11 acres of grounds, and one much talked about evening Derek invited Neil Aspinall, Pete Shotton and John over to listen to Nilsson's first album and drop acid. Such was the stuff of quiet evenings in...or out. John and Pete spent part of the night rowing on the lake, illuminated by spotlights. At 4 in the morning, during a thunderstorm, the wife of the groundskeeper walked in from the darkness unexpectedly, to everyone's delight, and began improvising a song. John was much impressed. Amusingly, when she left, they all got the fear - paranoia about who else might be lurking in the trees. (As it turned out, the answer to that question was the police - one of the Great Train Robbers, then on the run, had used Laudate as a hideout, and the scuffers were rather hoping he might put in a repeat appearance). Later on, John's ego dissolved, as it does. Derek spent much of the night re-assuring Mr Lennon that he was actually a man of some considerable worth. Anyway, here is Laudate. (Incidentally, or not, Derek Taylor's book As Time Goes By is well worth seeking out, full, as it is, of lines such as "He met the Beatles in the acid summer and that was that and that was that and that was that". And that is that.(Is it just me, or has the house been demolished?)

Hilton Hotel: London - August 24, 1967.

For the princely sum of 35 pence each, payable on the door, 3 of the Beatles, plus wags, attend a lecture by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi on 24 August, 1967. Feeling this might well be "it", without further ado they rush off to Bangor to learn more. Brian dies. The wheels start to come off. The beginning of the end can be traced to this evening. Also here, a 1967 BBC interview with the Tittering Teacher himself.

Attic Recording Studio: demos, 1966/1967.

I should have done this one a long time ago. The authentic sound of the attic - John's demos, and non-demos. There is no doubt John was a properly (in the parlance) heavy dude, who took his art extremely seriously. And yet, there is also no doubt that he liked nothing more than pissing about. The Kenwood attic demos show all, every and neither side o' the man. Any taped compilation of John's "greatest hits", would, in my book, have Pedro The Fisherman as a minimum requirement. In any case, these demos, and the accompanying photos by Leslie Bryce (God bless him)(insert your own God) are another weird example of technology's ability to put you in a time and place where you have no right to be. Chris Sileo (in particular) and I (not particularly) are working to take this concept to extremes...watch this space. By the way, latterly Ringo creeps in, in case you were wondering. A good thing.