Archive for May, 2010
They’re With the Brand
Ever since The Rolling Stones first printed their lips-and-tongue logo in 1971, the music world has been rife with super-successful branding, from The Ramones’ American eagle to Motörhead’s armoured skull to Public Enemy’s human target … And yet, with very few exceptions — most prominently Rush — Canadian bands have historically resisted forging a design identity, or simply haven’t been much good at it.
Sharon Jones
Sharon Jones may be the hardest-working woman in the music business today, but despite all of her obligations, her enthusiasm is uncontainable. From a tour stop in Chicago, barely two minutes into our interview, she bursts into song. “I feel God gave me a gift, and this was my calling,” she says. “Like how they said on Singin’ in the Rain: ‘Gotta dance?’ I go-o-o-o-otta sing!’”
Raise Your Glasses to 3D
It’s a Wednesday night, and northwest London’s Haverstock Arms is teeming with soccer fans. Large television screens, perched among eccentric bric-a-brac, show a north London derby match in English football’s Premier League between Tottenham Hotspur and their arch-rivals, Arsenal. As two young fans wearing oversized grey glasses stand up from their table to cheer the Spurs’ second goal, they spill their pints over themselves and their mates. Sheepishly, they blame the specs.
Martin Amis
In a corner of Martin Amis’s living room in London, watched over by elegantly sombre paintings, stands a bright-orange pinball machine called Eye of the Tiger. “It’s a really good one,” says the renowned novelist. “I’m getting worse and worse at it. All that flow of youth is gone.”
Holy Fuck
It’s one of the most versatile words in the English language, but the so-called “f-bomb” remains, for many, one of the most offensive. Not that this was a concern when Toronto’s Graham Walsh and Brian Borcherdt first deployed it in the name of their band — they just figured “Holy fuck,” as an expression of astonishment, was self-deprecating.
