Vinyl and Food: Sunday Listening Supper Club: Carole King’s Tapestry

I’ve had a bit of a break, while I’ve been writing books. But I’m easing back with a new regular event called The Sunday Listening Club.
The owner of Walrus Systems, former restaurant blogger Les Wong, will be supplying a top of the range Hi Fi system (worth 150k) and we will listen to classic vinyl while eating and drinking. The food will be loosely themed around the music.

Les says:
As analogies go, vinyl LPs to any digital format (CD, MP3, WAV, FLAC, etc) is akin to what Montgomery’s Cheddar is to Dairylea.
This is because vinyl sounds more sweet, warm and natural. It’s quite clearly organic compared to the processed and compressed crap that comes from digital playback systems.
Now, imagine the emotional power of an LP played on a high-end hi-fi system. You’ll probably be excited or frightened, brought to laughter, or to tears. What’s guaranteed, is that you’ll be tapping your feet to the tunes and the hairs on your arm would have stood up as well! Yes, it’s that emotional.
The album will be played using a five-figure system that’ll be configured to blow the listener away.
The system will be set up and supplied by Walrus Systems of Marble Arch, the country’s number one specialist in vinyl replay systems.

Sunday 25th May: Carole King’s ‘Tapestry’. Book tickets here. 

Tapestry was one of the best selling albums of all time. Originally released in 1971, it encapsulated the seventies. It was feminist, feminine, intimate, informal, liberated. Carole King is on the cover, barefoot with frizzy loose hair, in dull interior light, a hippy in a Vermeer painting. This is not an album about hot sex or teenage love, it’s about relationships, adult friendships. This is from a time when women had cast off restraints: they had pubic hair, didn’t wear bras, didn’t straighten their hair, were natural and proud. It is the musical incarnation of second wave feminism. It’s such an Age of Aquarius album. Carole King is an Aquarian, and friendship is an Aquarian theme. 

Les wanted to do Jackson Browne and Bob Dylan. I wanna do Astral Weeks by Van Morrison, Rumours by Fleetwood Mac, Tea for the Tillerman by Cat Stevens (funny how two of Britain’s best solo singers are Greek, him and George Michael), Every picture tells a story by Rod Stewart. If this event is successful, we’ll do those later. There are loads of classic albums to cover.