Just back after my extended weekend in London. I have not been in London since I was 15. Back then my uncle had an apartment on Regent street (just next to the park). Me and my mother spent the whole summer in London. I'm a big fan of NY, and has had the feeling that London is not that interesting. Boy was I wrong.
London is great. It has it all. We stayed at a hotell next to Charlotte street in Fitzrovia (3 minutes walk to Foyles on Oxford street - and yes that is a great book store). The neighbourhood was super - lots of restaurants, pubs and cocktail bars. Me and my wife has been feasting on great food: dim sum, indian, japanese, thai, italian, afternoon tea at Browns hotel (30 £ per person!) - and bangers and mash with one or two bitters.
Actually we didn't attend any concert. Instead we focused on galleries, museums and restaurants. Tate modern, British museum, National gallery, the Portrait gallery, Natural histrory museum (yes those bones are quite cool!).
I did visit Denmark street. There I checked out some of the Markbass stuff that some has been raving about on this forum. I spent ten minutes or so with a small combo and a fender standard american jazz. I think that it had a good flat sound, interesting controls (there is some kind of tube emulator). Also it does not have that U-curve feel that so many modern amps have today. I believe that it would be a smashing combo with ub.
Unfortunately the british currency is very expensive (paying with swedish kronor), so shopping was not great. I had planned to buy some litterature - but found that I can buy those books back home at the same price or perhaps a little cheaper (!). I did buy a live dvd with taraf the haiduks that I have not seen before.
Thank you all again for your help. I will check out those jazz scenes when I come back. I might be playing in London later this year with one of my bands. Our website (
www.weltklang.se) is unfortunately only in Swedish, and I have not updated those mp3s for a while. But you can listen to our latest stuff here:
www.myspace.com/weltklang
best regards Thomas D
Any cool concerts? 
Any double bass shops that one should not want to miss? 
