The Globe

This post is about a pub. Although it really isn't.

Last month, we found ourselves on a Sunday afternoon in London with some downtime, so we headed to a pub on Marylebone Road called The Globe. This particular pub is located conveniently right across the road from the Baker Street tube station. The fact that we were at the Baker Street station was no accident. We picked The Globe deliberately, without really knowing anything at all about what we would find there.

We thought we got lucky that Sunday afternoon. We managed to walk in just at the beginning of the Watford v. Tottenham Hotspur football game and found some excellent English cask ale to sup (Timothy Taylor's Landlord Pale Ale, if you must know) while we watched our adopted favorite team the Spurs take on the Hornets at Watford just north of the city. 

I should perhaps mention I don't have a whole lot of luck with sports teams and this Sunday was no different. I've been a New York Jets fan for the last 39 years and I've been a Washington Wizards season ticket holder for the last 19. When we decided to head out to see some footy in person for the first time four years ago, we picked a Tottenham game, bought some swag and became fans. Our Spurs lost that day 3-0 to Liverpool. This year we couldn't make it to Wembley to see Harry Kane and Co. play due to timing so we opted to head to south London to see Crystal Palace at home v. Southampton. Again, we outfitted ourselves in the home team's colors and the home team lost again, this time 2-0.

The first half of the game we watched in The Globe that afternoon was a 0-0 deadlock; then 53 minutes in Spurs went up 1-0 and things looked up. It got worse from there, however. Watford scored twice and took the game. Told you I don't have a whole lot of luck with sports teams.

That's a lot of time spent writing about a football game watched on telly. Especially considering this post isn't about football any more than it's about a pub.

The complaint of every sports fan everywhere. Or at least the ones who are losing.

As I mentioned, our choice of drinking establishment that afternoon was deliberate. The reason we picked it was because Gerry Rafferty used to drink there. And that is what this post is about.

There might be some folks out there who think I am unnaturally focused on Gerry Rafferty. This blog is about my travels around the world and this is my 146th post on this blog. Three of those 146 are tagged with Gerry Rafferty's name. That's probably higher than it should be. Those folks might be right about my focus.

Can't quite place the name Gerry Rafferty? How about the song Baker Street? I wrote about my love for that song four years ago on this blog right after I wrote about my first in-person football game. Baker Street is my favorite song of all time by a long shot; I detailed why in that first blog post. If Rafferty had written no other song worth anything, he'd occupy a special place in my heart just for that one tune. That's not the case, however. Gerry has what I believe is a super underrated catalog of work and there are plenty of incredible compositions in his works. Just nothing as good as Baker Street.

The song Baker Street is about Gerry's time in London when he was involved in a lawsuit trying to extricate himself from an unscrupulous recording deal and make a solo record, the album that would end up being City To City, which included Baker Street. The legal proceedings drained him, and his distaste for London (Rafferty was from Scotland) is evident in the darkness in the lyrics. The song gets its name from Rafferty's lodging with a friend right on Baker Street. And when he needed a pint or some other drink, he drank at The Globe.

A pint in memory of Gerry Rafferty. Not sure if he'd appreciate that or tell me to stay off the stuff.

Usually there would be some sort of unbridled joy at doing something like this. I mean here I am doing what one of my idols would be doing about 40 years ago. I imagine if I'd walked into The Globe on a weeknight in 1977 or so (ignoring the fact that I was nine), I might have been sitting next to Rafferty at the bar or at an adjacent back table in what I am sure would have been a super smoky and beer smelling room. How cool would that have been? I got goosebumps standing in Paul McCartney's living room on this same trip but the feeling was little different sitting in The Globe remembering Rafferty.

This experience was a little bittersweet. Gerry Rafferty struggled with alcoholism during his life and ultimately died of liver failure. There have been times in my life where I drank way too much for too many days in a row although I can't pretend to know what Rafferty or anyone else who struggled or struggles with the drink went through during their own battles. Regardless of the fact that alcohol may have hastened Rafferty's death, I found it worthwhile to visit The Globe and spend some time thinking about the author of my favorite song in a very personal way. I'll continue to remember Gerry Rafferty any way I can for as long as I am on this planet.

Before we left The Globe, though, something amazing happened. About a minute into the five minute second half stoppage time of the Tottenham and Watford game, Stuck In The Middle With You, a song Rafferty wrote and recorded with Stealers Wheel in 1973, played over the sound system in the pub. I am not making this up. Is it possible that this was a sign from Gerry from beyond the grave that he appreciated me being there paying respect to his memory? You can take it however you wish but I that's how I'm taking it. I'll raise a glass to Gerry Rafferty anytime. May he continue to rest in peace and be remembered as fondly as I do.

That's all I got here. Back to writing about traveling. Thank you again, Gerry. For Baker Street and so much more.

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How We Did It
The Globe is located at 43-47 Marylebone Road. They are open from 10 am every morning until 11:30 pm on weeknights (Monday through Thursday) and midnight on Friday and Saturday nights. On Sunday, they close early at 10:30 pm. It's a good place to have a few pints on a Sunday afternoon. We didn't eat there so I can't vouch for the food. Need more information? Check their website. 

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Rock You Like A Hurricane

Let's say you are a kind of venture capitalist or something similar to that in the early 1970s. One day someone walks into your office and says they have a great idea for a new business where customers will pay to sing along with musical tracks (minus vocals) with their friends. All that's needed is an entire multi-story building outfitted with private rooms, let's say 10 or 11 stories with about four or five rooms per floor. In other words, a not insignificant capital investment. They swear it will catch on and people will be flocking to this kind of a business for decades to come. You are not going to approve this and finance it, are you? I mean you can't, can you? There's no way this is going to work.

At some point in time in the last fifty years or so, someone came up with the idea outlined in the previous paragraph. Maybe they didn't quite conceive of things the way I wrote it, but eventually they got there over time. And of course what I'm describing is what we know now as karaoke, which of course just like sumo, the katana sword and most great video games (we'll get to those last two later) was invented in Japan, in this case in the city of Kobe in about 1971. And if it wasn't invented in Japan, why would I really be writing about it as part of my Japan trip report?

I get that we have karaoke in the United States and that it's not quite like I described above. Most of the karaoke we could find here at home would be in bars converting to that function for a specific night. I'm sure on any day of the week, but realistically probably just on the weekdays, I could find a bar somewhere in my now hometown of Arlington, VA where I could belt out some tunes at karaoke night in front of my friends and whomever else happened to be there at the bar that night. It would be an entire room affair and the next night at the same place, I doubt I'd find karaoke at the same spot. They would have probably moved on to trivia night or Taco Tuesday or some such thing.

But we don't have karaoke in the United States the way they have it in Japan. At least not at the places I hang out in. Remember that first paragraph I wrote? Sure you do. I mean come on it was only three paragraphs ago. The part about the multi-story building devoted entirely to a seven day a week karaoke joint where each party gets their own private room to serenade just their friends with their favorite ballads or whatever else you choose out of the system? Yeah...that part. THAT's the way it works in Japan and it's amazing to me that it's economically viable. And not just one place either. Within about a five block radius of our hotel in the Shinjuku neighborhood of Tokyo there are five separate karaoke places, some of which are open 24/7. This is not American karaoke, folks.

Now I have never even considered going out for karaoke night at home. I'm quite sure I'm a lousy singer. I don't have any recent proof of this but I did test it out in high school once. I decided one day in senior year that I would see what my singing voice was like. Who knows what I was thinking but I probably decided it would enhance my cool-ness factor or something, although I can't quite fathom how it would do that.

I had a tape player with a microphone input and decided I would sing along with Sting's "Russians" while recording my voice. I picked that song because I'm sure I thought it was an easy one to sing, not having much respect at 17 for Sting's voice I suppose. The playback was embarrassing and I immediately deleted all the evidence and never tried any singing in public or private ever again. Well, except singing along with the radio in the car and maybe the occasional song in the shower. I mean who doesn't do that?

But being in Tokyo with karaoke bars (although I'm not sure that's what they are called) all around me? You bet I'm going karaoke-ing and I'm putting my all into it. So on full day one of my time in Japan after about six hours watching sumo live and a quick meal of yakatori in an alley, we took the plunge and entered a karaoke establishment. A quick rundown of the rates and rules from the guy at the front desk and an order for a few "pitcha"s of beer and it was on!

Tell me this doesn't look like a party on a Sunday night in Tokyo.

We made our way to room 24 which was one flight up from the lobby and down the hall to the right. What we found was a smallish chamber that would have struggled to hold many more than six or seven vocalists but which quite comfortably held our group of four. Table in the middle of the room for our pitchas and the control box; TV at the front of the room just adjacent the door; phone for ordering more beer and other sorts of libations just near the door with a quick "moshi moshi" and some instructions; and some low black leather or more likely vinyl bench couches around the outside of the rest of the room. Welcome to our karaoke palace for the next three hours. No, that's not a typo.

I don't know what it is that makes it difficult to sing in front of your friends but there's clearly something there. Yes, the liquid courage helps but you can't all very well sit around in silence until someone's had enough to drink where they break down and start to make a fool of themselves. Someone has to go first.

I was actually sort of prepared in advance. I had a little bit of a playlist in my head: Styx's "Mr. Roboto", Foreigner's "Juke Box Hero", something by Cheap Trick that they sang on their At Budokan album and Cole Porter's "Don't Fence Me In". Styx because the song has Japanese words in it; "Juke Box Hero" because I practiced in the car and in my infinite wisdom figured I could pull that one off (I'm relegating Lou Gramm to my 17 year old me's opinion of Sting here); Cheap Trick because At Budokan has to be the greatest live album ever recorded in Japan; and "Don't Fence Me In" because they sung it at a karaoke bar in the movie Rising Sun.

Song selections are made via the tablet-like thing that comes in the room. Use the attached stylus to search for your desired song or artist, although don't search for artists by last name first; the Japanese sort by first name. They even use the first name first system in Tower Records, which still exists in Japan. Joan Jett starts with "J", Billy Idol starts with "B", Kanye West starts with "K"...well, you get the point. 

Singer's eye view during "Planet Earth".

First song: D-U-R-A-N D-U-R-A-N yielded a couple or three screens of songs. Let's go with "Planet Earth". Let's start singing.

I admit to some stage fright when it came to singing in front of some of my oldest and dearest friends but to me, it was about impossible to hear the quality of your voice coming back through the speakers and once you got into it, you really got into it. Admittedly the darkness and the sparkling, flashing lights that only came on when someone was singing into one of the two microphones in the room helped tremendously. Whether I knew it or not, I was either a bad singer, or the next Celine Dion (OK, maybe not Celine) or somewhere in between and you know what? It didn't really matter.

It's been almost 32 years since I was a senior in high school and I've learned a thing or two since then. I know I'm no Sting on the vocals. I also know enough to know Lou Gramm has a better voice than me although it might have taken me singing "Urgent" in Tokyo ("Juke Box Hero" was inexplicably not not on the list) to nail home that point this year. But I'm pretty confident I can do a passable Bob Dylan (that's B-O-B...I've covered this already I know), so that's where I started after we were done dueting on "Planet Earth".

If I needed something to get me going, it was a song where I thought I could reasonably pull off the vocal range but also get a little bit of screaming in to get the adrenaline pumping. After that, I'm sure I wouldn't care. And Bobby D's "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" seemed like the perfect song to get me in the karaoke mood. The song has a regular, steady meter to it but you can really belt out the "everybody must get stoned" chorus. After that, it didn't matter. Get me song after song to sing to, along with another pitcha or two of beer here and there. I didn't even care when I knew my voice was cracking on the high notes on Cheap Trick's "Surrender"; I'm for sure no Robin Zander.

Sing it, baby!!!

Eventually everybody got into it even if it took a good number of songs to do so. I cannot definitively say if any of the four of us were regularly off key or butchered song after song or just were not having our best day on the mike. And I wouldn't say if I knew; what happens at karaoke stays at karaoke. I will say that I was impressed by the range of material available; at one point I was threatened with revocation of song selection privileges when I went too far into the prog rock vault for Larry's taste with Emerson, Lake and Palmer's "Karn Evil 9". I don't know what the big deal was; it was just Part 2 of the First Impression and not the entire 29 minute song. Love me some prog!!!

Apparently, by the way, so do the Japanese. I had difficulty finding any Marillion CDs (insert joke here) at Shibuya's Tower Records until I realized there was an entirely separate Progressive Rock section. Cool!

This was a ton of fun. I couldn't imagine going to Japan and NOT going to karaoke and this experience confirmed it. While the night started slow, by the end of our three hour session we had a uniquely Japanese touchpoint in the books and I wouldn't necessarily rule out not doing this again the next time (if there is a next time) in Tokyo. But I will say that I'm not in a hurry to do this in the U.S. if I were even inclined to search for bars where I could do this in front of a room of total strangers.

Singing a few hours worth of songs made me appreciate two things, in addition to what incredible friends I have. First, as a stress reliever (not that I needed it on vacation), I could see this doing the trick. I would imagine that banging out some Scorpions or Guns 'N' Roses over a couple of drinks could really tone down an anxiety filled work day. Second, singing for hours hurts. I mean I guess I knew that (John Lennon allegedly couldn't sing for days after finally capturing "Twist and Shout" on tape) but there's nothing like doing something to drive home the point. My respect meter for the vocalists I love just went up a tiny notch.

We entered room 24 just a bit after 7:30 p.m. and left for the one block walk home to our hotel three hours later, which was super super early by Shinjuku standards even for a Sunday night. In between, I think we assembled a pretty good set list. I got a nod in to my favorite guitar player of all time with Dire Straits' "Sultans of Swing" (there was no Mark Knopfler solo section); we got some Tokyo themed jams in with Billy Idol's "Dancing With Myself" and Blue Öyster Cult's "Godzilla"; and I was extremely happy Gerry Rafferty's "Baker Street" was available. "Baker Street" remains my favorite song of all time but doing it Karaoke style allowed me an opportunity to get some karaoke air guitar in. Hugh Burns' guitar solo in that song is absolutely amazing and I'm pleased I got to jam out on my imaginary axe after taking Rafferty's vocal parts in tribute to one of the most underrated artists I love.

It was a couple of days later that we realized we forgot about "Mr. Roboto". And I know what you are thinking: how could we possibly forget about Mr. Roboto? Oh well. Next time...

Me doing my best Hugh Burns on the air guitar next to a TV with a tree on it.

Baker Street

I am a big believer in lists and rankings. Show me any sort of "best of" list be it ranked or unranked about any subject I am remotely interested in and I'm all over it. Music charts, basketball power rankings, top restaurants, best travel destinations…the list of lists could go on and on. Rolling Stone magazine seems especially adept at making lists that distract me for hours and hours. I still have their 100 Greatest Albums of the 80s issue from November 16, 1989 and their Top 100 Game of Thrones characters list they published last year made me stop working for a while on the day it was published so I could digest the whole thing in detail (I made up the time, I swear). My favorite new (to me) lists may be Eater.com's lists of best 38 or 18 restaurants for cities in the United States and Canada. Essential stuff to find some good grub on the road.

Over the years, I've made my own share of lists. The last two summers I've ranked NBA mascots and team names on my other blog, My Swag Was Phenomenal, which details my life as a Washington Wizards fan. When I was in college at the University of Michigan, my friend Andrew Royster and I used to include a Top 10 albums list (that I am sure were heavily overfilled with Moody Blues albums) in every letter we wrote back and forth to each other (this is when people actually wrote letters on pieces of paper; imagine that!). Even at 46 years of age, I continue to make music lists today; every year I make an unranked list of 50 albums that I would take to a desert island with me as a way of recording my current taste in music.

So considering my obsessions with lists and especially music lists, I have to have a number one song of all time, right? That's correct. I do. My hands down, no question about it, number one song of all time is Gerry Rafferty's "Baker Street". So it seemed appropriate to me to make a quick pass by the real Baker Street in London when I was on the other side of the Atlantic a few weeks ago so I could pen a few words about my favorite song ever.

"Baker Street" wasn't always my favorite song. I remember as a kid really hating the song when it was released, although admittedly most of the reason I disliked it was that it was keeping "The Smurf Song" by (you guessed it) the Smurfs, from the number one position on the English pop charts. I remember sitting with my dad in our car while on vacation in France that summer listening to the announcement of the number one song and being disappointed by the Smurfs still being at number two. My musical taste has matured just a bit since 1978, although I still have my Smurfs 45 rpm single.

Looking south down Baker Street, August 29, 2014.

"Baker Street" is about Rafferty's struggles to extricate himself from a record deal he had signed while a member of Stealer's Wheel, a group that released three albums in the early 1970s. While with Stealer's Wheel, Rafferty wrote and released the song "Stuck in the Middle With You" which might not have been a hit at the time but continues to enjoy plenty of airplay today. When he decided to dissolve Stealer's Wheel and go out on his own, his record company objected, claiming he was under obligation to record for them and blocked any release or recording of a solo album.

So for a three year period during the 1970s, Rafferty was involved in a legal fight to record as a solo artist which required him to travel to London a lot. While in the city, he ended up staying at a friend's place on Baker Street, which is obviously how the song got its name. "Baker Street" is not exactly an uplifting song. It's full of imagery about how depressing the city is and a longing for time in the country living a quieter, less complicated life. The lines "This city desert makes you feel so cold/Its got so many people, but its got no soul" in the middle of the first verse set the tone right away. Along the way to the end of the song, he explains how disillusioned he is with the music industry and describes drinking every night as a means of coping with what he is going through and escaping the personal hell that the city represents.

Despite the depressing nature of the lyrics, I find the song very romantic and it sort of has a happy ending. I love the character who is haunted by meaningless relationships and a love of alcohol as a means of coping (Rafferty struggled with alcohol for most of his life). Musically the song is amazing. It is punctuated at critical points by gorgeous saxophone playing by Raphael Ravenscroft (I actually have his solo album which I assume was recorded off the success of "Baker Street", for what that's worth) and a guitar solo after the last verse which is surely overshadowed by Ravenscroft's playing but which is no less deserving of recognition. It's an odd song to achieve worldwide acclaim; it's not structured as a verse-chorus with a bridge type of song. I guess its popularity is a measure of its brilliance.

I realize this post isn't really about my trip to England, so if you are disappointed in reading this I'm sorry. But I thought Gerry Rafferty deserved this post (he died in 2011 so won't be making any more music). This song has made my life better and I'm glad my stopping by Baker Street in London allowed me to co-opt my own blog for selfish reasons for just one post.

Gerry Rafferty's City to City; "Baker Street" is track number two.