Do your research!!

An arc story in several parts

Introduction

I've blogged about Croydon more than any other borough, and I can only apologise to those who have been affected by this. But it's time to blog about Croydon again because of a misstep I made nine months ago.

I blogged about Selhurst Park this year, in fact it was the first piece about London I've written this year, and I made a misstep in my writing - but I only found out about it after recently visiting the Museum of Croydon. There was a music exhibit and I was having a lovely time looking at the jewel cases describing pleasant memories of music in Croydon, before I noticed one display mentioned RMS Studios, located around the corner from Selhurst Park on Clifton Road. You may wonder "so what", but for me this represented a misstep - I mentioned nothing about the studios when I was blogging, yet this could have been a curious thing to describe in a sentence or two. So I set off by bus to look at the studios.

The confusion

Truth be told, I struggled finding them - there was no front or sign saying "here are the studios", but my map was telling me I was in the right place. And it turns out I was - there merely weren't any studios, and if there were, it was mostly rubble. A piece of paper told the "Postie!" to leave letters next door and did at least reaffirm that I was at the place. There was also a phone number which I didn't ring, probably because I wasn't here to do hard hitting investigative journalism - I was here to atone for my misstep. Then again, there was nothing else to see, so I went home.

The Saint Etienne review

Seemingly many acts recorded here - the Damned and Saint Etienne are local names, and the Boomtown Rats apparently did too though I'm not sure what. Articles are a bit scratchy on this, and I'd have thought it would be easy to identify what they recorded. I can be certain though that Saint Etienne recorded their second album, So Tough, here. I'm listening to that album right now and it's slow-paced house, which at times is great - I love the incorporation of samples, and think Avenue is brilliant (but I do prefer Foxbase Alpha, their debut). Yet the important aspect is not whether they recorded at the studios or not, not even whether the album was good or not. Instead, it's that I made a misstep.

The passionate desire to be accepted

On that note - the main aspect of this blogpost isn't a studio, it's that I made a misstep. I didn't research thoroughly enough and thus ended up not writing as great a blogpost as I could have. It happens all the time - I think I did enough research, but it emerges that what I wrote was half-baked, not discussing the content as well as it could have done. 

Obviously I couldn't research everything, and the fact I didn't know about the studios until recently doesn't necessarily mean I'm at fault here. Ultimately, there is history which is likely to soon be gone - there is a "to let" sign too, and as such I wouldn't be surprised if housing takes its place, which would be a shame. Housing is needed, but it shouldn't come at the expense of creativity and the Croydonian music scene.

I will admit I don't research before I go to locations. I go to a place, take loads of photographs, make mental notes about what I see, and then get blogging, making sure I look up the curious buildings. Sometimes it's easy to note what the iconic buildings are - they have their names written out clearly, for example "London Fire Brigade Offices". Other times, they're more questionable, and that's the case for the studios. 

The epilogue

Do your research ahead of blogging - it will make the posts far more interesting!