Air Studios in Hampstead is an incredible building. It sits right at the junction of Lyndhurst Rd and Haverstock Hill, on a site with a real estate value that must be just mind-boggling. But what’s even more remarkable than its location, its impressive scale and beautiful interior, is the acoustic. It’s just ridiculously good, for everything from a solo voice up to a 100-piece symphony orchestra.

Sir George Martin—the Beatles producer and all-round collaborator—loved it so much that he bought the whole site in the early 1990s and moved his main studio from Oxford St to Lyndhurst Road, turning it into the amazing recording venue we know today. Air Lyndhurst opened for business in 1992, and is one of the major studios anywhere in the world for film and television soundtrack recordings as well as classical and pop sessions of every description.

AIR (Associated Independent Recording) also used to have a sister studio on the idyllic Caribbean island of Montserrat, created on a whim by Sir George after reading about the island in an in-flight magazine. From 1979 it hosted countless pop superstars and video shoots, but sadly not too many film sessions requiring London-based freelancers like me, so most of us never got to see it in person (is there anyone out there in the music world who went? Please comment below!). The Police recorded their video for Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic there in the early eighties. When it reached Number 1 on Top Of The Pops in 1981 I remember making sure I watched every Thursday night, just to see this video and hear that cool rising G-A-B-C# bassline. What a great track:

Then in 1989 the island was badly hit by Hurricane Hugo and the studio had to close its doors, since when this once-luxury facility has fallen into a tragic and shocking state of disrepair.

If you’d like to know more about this Caribbean branch and the disastrous Hurricane, there’s an interesting 5-minute BBC2 interview with Martin (and a bit of Paul McCartney) about it here:

But back to sunny, chilly London—working at Air Studios this week, I couldn’t resist the chance to have a sort of pop-up book launch there, to promote the arrival of my new travel book Second Breakfast In America. Sadly, the session started at 2pm which meant we couldn’t mark the occasion with one of Rory’s superb slap-up breakfasts upstairs in the Air cafe. Instead, I cycled down to Gospel Oak and met Susie at her new (art) studio in the Undercroft, then went for an Indonesian lunch next door at the Mother Canteen.

Then it was a 3-minute bike ride back up the hill to Air, to put books out on a spare music stand for inspection and place cards on everyone’s seat prior to the start of work.

(GALLERY: click on any pic for a closer look)

My heartfelt thanks to everyone I spoke with for the great response, and all the encouragement! My desk partner Debbie was actually reading the book during breaks in the session, which was a slightly surreal experience. To be told ‘You’re in Maine’ while working in Hampstead is very odd. A special mention too for bassist Paul Kimber, aka RSJ Steel, who was there this week and whose new detective story Le Tour has just come out too! Highly recommended. As fellow bassist Steve Mairs put it, ‘You wait years for a friend to publish a book, then two come along at once!’

Please do feel free, as ever, to add any comments or random thoughts of your own below. It’s one of the nicest things about running a website like this, and always a real pleasure to read and respond! Don’t be shy. Bx

P.S.–if you happen to have already bought and read the book, and (hopefully) enjoyed it, there’s one amazingly helpful thing you could do: a rating (or even a review) on Amazon does wonders for the book’s profile, just like giving videos on YouTube a ‘thumbs-up’. Whatever the algorithm is that does this–I honestly don’t quite understand it–it loves to be liked!

(To get there, just scroll down the Amazon page for the book until you get to ‘Review this product‘ and click on the button ‘Write a customer review‘. Many thanks xx)