Album Cover - Be here now - Music Pilgrimages

Oasis - Stocks Hotel and Country Club

Stocks Hotel and Country club was a Golf club located in Aldbury in the region of Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom. The main building of the club is a large Georgian mansion built in 1773. Today the club is in private ownership and not open to the public any longer.

The hotel was a favourite hangout of the Who's drummer Keith Moon, but what really brought this hotel into rock'n roll history was the cover of Oasis 1997 album "Be Here Now". The album cover was shot by Michael Spencer Johns in April 1997, it features the band standing outside the hotel next to the swimming pool surrounded by assorted props, with a Rolls Royce floating in the actual pool. Spencer said the original idea was to take a photo of each band member in a different location in the world, but it was decided that kind of cover would be too expensive, and so the shoot was relocated to Stocks house.

Spencer claims there was no special thought to the props selected and that Noel Gallagher had simply picked items from the BBC props store that he thought would look good in the picture, though it's reasoned in some way those items would have a special meaning to Noel at least. Two of the items that had considered thought in their inclusion were the inflatable globe (intended as a homage to the sleeve of Definitely Maybe) and the Rolls Royce. The release date in each region was commemorated on the calendar pictured on the sleeve.

According to Spencer the shoot "degenerated into chaos", and "by 8 pm, everyone was in the bar, there were schoolkids all over the set, and the lighting crew couldn't start the generator. It was Alice in Wonderland meets Apocalypse Now."

In the eighties several acts used Stocks house to record music videos, 'It must be love' by Madness, 'Summertime' by Fun Boy Three and 'Hang on now' by Kajagoogoo, were all recorded at Stocks house.

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