RECORD WALKS

 

Once upon a time it was apparently quite easy to design album covers.  You got a photograph of the artist – portrait studio, recording studio, maybe playing live - you did some more or less fancy lettering and there was your album cover.

And then someone came up with the idea – how about we show the artist WALKING?

There are a couple of advantages here obviously, it gives the subjects something to do, and perhaps even more important, it’s a way of asserting they’re men (and in a few cases women) of the people who haven’t lost touch with the street.

When it comes to “most famous walking album cover” it’s probably a toss up between Abbey Road and The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan.  I think Dylan just about edges it because even though we know it’s a setup, he actually does look like he’s walking somewhere, whereas the Beatles look like they’re only walking across the street for the sake of the photoshoot.

The Beatles actually looked a bit more natural on this one:

Of course when it comes to Oasis, it’s hard to know whether we’re dealing with homage or barefaced borrowing.  This picture is taken in Berwick Street, one of my “beating the bounds” streets when I go back to London.  Since there’s some motion blur on the cover you might be tempted to think the two men are the Gallagher brothers, but no, don’t be naïve.  The two men are Sean Rowley, who’s a DJ walking towards the camera, and the album sleeve designer Brian Cannon who’s walking away.  Apparently Owen Morris, the album producer, is lurking in the background.

I also suspect that photograph, borrows from this Duane Michael series, titled "Chance Meeting," but you know, in for a penny in for a pound, it’s all appropriation, innit?

No borrowings or homage here on this Dr Alimantado album cover, largely I think because walking down the middle of the street, wearing shorts with the fly open isn’t a look that really existed before or after, but in this case I’m glad it does.

Walking in the street too tame for you?  Then try the railroad tracks:

Earth too tame for you?  Try outer space.

And you can just about imagine what went on in the mind of Randy Jack Wiggins and his photographer when they made this cover.

“Sure,” said Jack, “I know I’m a boring old coot with a salt and pepper beard and dubious taste in shirts, but if we have a couple of good looking girls, and you know, they needn’t be professional models or anything, well if they walked with me holding hands, then that’d be a bitching album cover, wouldn’t it?  Wouldn’t it?”

 Maybe sometimes it’s better just to walk away from the camera.  If it’s good enough for Johnny Cash and Eminem, it’s probably good enough for you.

PEDESTRIAN MISTAKES - HOLLYWOOD STYLE

OK, so you probably weren’t really thinking of walking around Hollywood in wedge heeled shoes like this:

But if you were, then don’t.  Just don’t. Please.

Of course if somebody's standing at the side of you, watching you walk, the 

message will read Wood Holly at least half the time.  But that's not the main 

reason not to wear them. 

WALKING WITH ESQUIRES

I was leafing through an old copy of Esquire magazine - March 1946 if you’re interested - (that's it above) and there amid the many ads for stylish hats and ready-mixed cocktails were a number of ads for shoes.  By far the best was this one for British Walkers.  Those British types know all about walking, y’know.  And in fact I do own a pair of brogues that look very much like this.

Now I enjoy walking more than many people, but even I think this ad is going a bit far. “Naturally walking’s fun!” it announces in the small print, and the shoes provide “Just the walking joy you’ve always longed for.”  Isn’t this overselling the product just a tad?  Could any pair of shoes actually live up to this hype? 

But whether they could or not you’d surely want them to look their best and fortunately there’s another relevant ad, this one for Hollywood Bootmakers Stain Polish – I think I’d go for the “Redwood.”  Who wouldn’t want the soft glow of richly polished leather?  Those Hollywood types know all about looking good, y’know.

So between Britain and Hollywood, it might seem that these ads were talking directly to me (had I been born in 1946, which I was not).  But then, reading the smaller print I see that British Walkers shoes are made in the USA, by JP Smith of Chicago, and that the Hollywood Polish Company is based in Richmond Hill, New York.  Still working out whether this is shameful fakery, or just the way the world works (or, of course, both).

WALKING ON ROOFTOPS

I’ve been reading and thinking about rooftopping; a highly specialized form of walking, and an essential part of a certain kind of urban exploration.  Like all great ideas it’s essentially very simple, you get up to a high place, usually by some quasi-illegal method, you find some thin girder or ledge or parapet - and then walk along it.  Photography seems always to be involved whether skilled or not: somebody generally takes somebody’s picture up there or maybe somebody takes a selfie.  At their best, the results are equal parts awe-inspiring and terrifying.

It’s a worldwide trend and it can’t be all that recherché given how many references there are to it online.  Still, I’m amazed that there are people who can do this stuff, and just looking at the photographs is enough to give me an attack of vertigo.  Below is a picture Tom Ryaboi, the best rooftopping photographer I’ve seen:

I think the guy in the picture is Vitali Raskalov, and I think the picture is taken in Hong Kong, though I stand to be corrected on both counts. Tom Ryaboi’s flickr page is here:  

https://www.flickr.com/photos/tomms/

Certainly some people die while rooftopping, but when you consider how inherently lethal it seems, the numbers appear surprisingly low. Perhaps it’s a self-limiting group.  If you feel safe walking on rooftops you’re probably going to be safe doing it, if you don’t feel safe walking on rooftops you’re probably not going go up there.  I certainly know where I stand – firmly on the ground whenever possible.  I’m definitely not a rooftopper.

And yet, and yet …  Thinking about this has reminded me of an incident from my generally all too well-spent youth.  I was a student at Caius College, Cambridge, and a group of us had been to the late-night bar.  Drink had definitely been taken but not so much as to lose all reason.  We went back to the room belonging to a Scottish lad named Tony Kidd.  His room was on the top floor, actually in the eaves, of a building on Trinity Street; the third floor if you’re in English, the fourth floor if you’re American. It's the building in the picture below with the street sign on it.

And as you can see, there were a couple of windows that opened out onto the roof, and there was a parapet running along the front of the building.  It was summer, the windows were open and I suddenly got the urge to climb out of one of them.  Once on the roof I began walking back and forth from one end of the parapet to the other.  I wasn’t showing off. I didn’t do any fancy antics like balancing on one leg or dancing around.  It was just something I felt I had to do at the time.  I did a few lengths (nobody took a picture) and then I went back inside again.  I think I may have had one more drink and then went home quietly.

         At the time it didn’t seem I’d done anything very extreme or foolish, and by rooftopping standards I very definitely hadn’t, but by my own standards I’d done something scarily out of character. When I thought about it the next morning, the full surprise and horror hit me. Even as I write about it now I can feel the cold sweat gathering and the tide of vertigo washing in.  It’s not so much a case of “What was I thinking that night?” rather a case of “Who the hell was I that night?”

         I’ve remained pretty much myself ever since, not  completely avoiding high places, but only going to them when I was absolutely able to feel safe there.  And to be fair I felt perfectly safe on the parapet in Cambridge while I was up there.   
            Here’s a picture I took from the roof, or rather where the roof once was, of the Old Hardwick Hall, in Derbyshire. 

The view was great, both of the landscape and of the ruined structure of the building.  I was there on the regular tourist visit, there was a firm platform under my feet and there was a rail to hold onto, but the fact is, I still felt a bit wobbly.

Of course some rooftops are far more walkable than other.  One of my pedestrian quirks is that I like to walk in parking lots.  They’re places not made for walkers, where walkers are not wanted or considered, although of course sooner or later everybody has to walk to their car.

         And the other day I parked up on the top of a parking lot here in Hollywood  - one of only three cars there – (wide open spaces – we got ‘em) and I walked around, looked down, took a few pictures.  A female security guard appeared at the other end of the roof, and I thought she was coming across to ask me what I was up to, but it was a hot day, and I was a long way off, and she apparently couldn’t be bothered to walk all the way over to me.  You can just about see her in the picture below.

         This, of course, is not true rooftopping, though I was certainly on a roof, and when I looked down at the building next door there was another guy walking on a rooftop: a working man going about his business (below), whatever that business was.  I guess rooftopping, true or otherwise, comes in many forms.