If I were stuck on a desert island, here are a few things I might bring...
The Original House Gangsta DJ Sneak will be returning Coda in Toronto for the nth instalment of his birthday beats tradition on November 8th. While his Soundcloud page lists him in Toronto, I’m confused by the statement as I was told he wasn’t able …
I thought it was pretty damn cool when I got to interview Matisse and Jr. Flow for Spinner way back in 2010 for AOL Spinner at the time and other interactions right here on Shipwrckd back in 2008! I knew they were crazy talented artists …
Shepard Fairey is a designer, political activist and artist best known in the last decade for creating the iconic “Hope” poster for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.
In the late 1980s, he became an underground sensation, traveling across America with his cryptic “Andre the Giant Has a Posse” stencils, and “Obey” imagery lifted from John Carpenter’s cult sci-fi film They Live.
Fairey, 44, was in Toronto this week to unveil two murals. It’s part of a tour sponsored by Hennessy cognac, for which he designed a limited-edition bottle. One mural is located in an alley on Queen St. W. beside the club Tattoo (567 Queen St. W.), where he also performed a DJ set Thursday night. The other is on the back of the Gladstone Hotel(1214 Queen St. W.). Here are a few things we learned about him.
He embraces social media, but craves the human connection
It used to be that as a street artist, the only way to make an impact was through volume and visibility. “You had to be incredibly prolific,” Fairey says. Hence the rampant tagging, stickers and stencils you might see in the city.
Times have changed with blogging and social networks, where artists get hooked on the validation of fans “liking” their art. But while Fairey uses the Internet to promote his work, his favourite part about making street art are the encounters with the passersby. “I’ll hear them after, saying ‘holy crap, I can’t believe this just popped up! What’s the story here?’ The visceral impact is completely different from the buffer that social media interface creates.”
He owes his career partly to Kinko’s
Fairey took the Kinko’s slogan “Your Copy Store” quite literally. He would go in late at night and take over the floors, making it his studio. The 24-hour copy shop also was partly responsible for his red, black and white motif. He managed to MacGyver colour photocopiers with a paperclip to give him free product in those colours. His limited budget also forced him to focus on a style, which essentially became an advantage.
He fears Led Zeppelin fans the most
Fairey is working on posters for The Rolling Stones’ upcoming South America tour, and the band Interpol. But the most memorable rock project was possible when Led Zeppelin approached him to design album packages. “They have a much bigger audience than I do. With that comes the danger of the person who has been a fan for 40 years who says, ‘That’s not right for Led Zeppelin.’ It’s a delicate situation. I think I’d most likely be killed by a sycophantic fan of theirs.”
He succeeds through relentless trial and error
Fairey doesn’t tend to dream up an amazing vision, getting up by candlelight, putting on his beret and painting in his sleep. On the contrary, “it’s blue collar work ethic. Try this, try this, doesn’t work, doesn’t work, ah this works. The same thing applies to my DJing and learning song combinations.”
He operates a successful clothing line
Fairey is creative director of the multi-million-dollar Obey Clothing line where he has a hands-on involvement with all the visual imagery used on t-shirts and apparel. He says that mass-producing defiant shirts was always part of his plan but the street art took off much faster, allowing him to leverage his reputation when the timing was right.
“I’ve always looked at fashion as something potentially awfully shallow, but something that everyone is concerned with. It can be a dark impulse or a creative impulse. It can go either way, but it should be channeled in the best direction possible,” he says.
I write this as I pick over my leftovers/doggy bag from the feast at Cluny Bistro & Boulangerie,wishing I had a flute of Piper champagne to accompany it. Cluny’s is a new French experiential restaurant/boulangerie/patisserie tucked away in the alleys of Toronto’s Distillery. The kitchen …
News dropped last night that Mansion Productions’ much-hyped Foundry music festival (which THUMP has already called “Canada’s Most Interesting Underground Dance Series”) would not be held at the abandoned Tower Automotive building at 158 Sterling Road. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the 416/647, Sterling is a largely industrial strip of Toronto that’s long been contested as a potential spot for new condos—which has generated a collective groan from many people in the surrounding community. Currently, Sterling is full of independent art galleries and recording studios, and as an added bonus, the air smells like chocolate, thanks to the Nestle factory.
Anyway, in what came as unfortunate news for Mansion and electronic music fans alike, City of Toronto officials denied Mansion’s permit at the last minute, due to a zoning bylaw issue, despite months of talks with Building and Fire departments, along with thousands of dollars sank in for engineering consulting costs, and construction efforts (like the addition of new fire escape doors), to accommodate Mansion’s crowds.
It’s important to note that Foundry isn’t a last minute affair thrown together by inexperienced promoters. According to City Councilor Ana Bailao: “It’s really disappointing, the applicants worked really hard. I had a lot of meetings. I tried to help as much as possible. Nothing happens at the Tower Automotive, it would have been great to reuse the space for at least three weekends. They worked hard and spent a lot of energy to make sure that they had a plan.”
While the Sapporo sponsored series featuring talent like Four Tet, Carl Craig, DJ Harvey, Shigeto, Blue Hawaii, and many others, has been saved and relocated to the familiar space of 99 Sudbury. Plainly stated, it’s a huge bummer that the City stepped in to shut down Mansion’s plan to party in the abandoned venue, which would have made the party atmosphere even more exciting.
In light of Toronto’s new Music City: 4479 partnership with Austin, TX—which was supposedly forged to make throwing unique music events much more accessible, among other initiatives—one would think that the City would be more supportive of a three week long music series. Clearly, they have a lot more work to do when it comes to partnering with the promoters who make Toronto’s music scene so awesome.
In an official statement by Nancy Chen, Mansion’s co-founder, the promoters carefully expressed their disappointment regarding the City’s decision: “We, more than anyone, understand how incredibly excited everyone was to be able to experience the incredible line-up of forward-thinking artists at such a unique venue… We hope that one day in the near future, we will be allowed to take greater creative risks in a city that we love so much. For now, we hope that everyone will still support our cause by making this year’s Foundry one of the best dance series yet, and in the meantime move the city one step forward in the right direction for music lovers.”
Jeff Cohen, Chair of Toronto Music Advisory Council, and owner of Collective Concerts, wants to see more action from the city as well. “I’d like to see the city get a proper music office created with a working staff that could fast track music event applications. And tell event organizers perhaps before they ticket an event, if a space is likely to be suitable, not a week before an event is due to take place.” While Jeff’s comments do inspire some sort of confidence, in reality, Mansion found out about their cancelation two days before the festival was set to begin.
THUMP also spoke to Randy McLean, the Commissioner of Film, TV and Digital Media who is taking on an official leadership role with the music program, Music City. He’s currently in SXSW as the only official City delegate pushing Toronto’s music scene in Austin. He provided us with this general statement: “One of the first things they will be tasked is to look at various rules, regulations and permits, and the ways we conduct business to make the city more ‘music and musician friendly.’ Not everything changes that quickly with zoning rules and regulations, but Toronto city council is always behind a good initiative.”
With files from Slava Pastuk.
Jesse Ship is a freelance writer in Toronto and former Junos Juror. You can find him at @Jesse_Ship
Mar 13 2014
Boiler Room touched down on our first frigid Monday night of the season for a surprise show hosted by the inimitable Fritz Helder (Bathurst Bus Route reprezent!) featuring Egyptrixx, Basic Soul Unit, Nautiluss, Kevin McPhee, Bruce Trail and headlined by Martyn going back to back …
This will go down in history…… Police Chief Bill Blair tells the public that they found two video files that are “particularly relevant” and “consistent with that which have been reported on in the media.” EARTHQUAKES.
It’s quite astonishing that The Orb have been crafting groovy ambient tunes for over 25 years and are showing no signs of quitting. Dr. Alex Patterson has been known to tour solo but actual tours of himself with his partner Thomas Fehlman are more sporadic, so this is a very rare opportunity to see them live!
Their last full album, “The Orbserver in the Star House” was written in collaboration with Dub Reggae legend, Lee “Scratch” Perry, and they’ve also recently put out a 3 disc cd and DVD retrospective box set, “The Orb: History of the Future”.
I have two sets of two tickets to give away for Friday’s show on October 25th at The Opera House in Toronto courtesy of Electronic/Nation. To win them, just tell me the year of their first album in an email to jesse @ shipwrckd [dot] com.
Any talk about Toronto nightclubs for EDM must be prefaced by the admission that EDM is a terrible umbrella acronym that encapsulates 30-plus styles of music into a palatable and sugary cereal-like mush of uplifting beats. At least electronica was a better descriptor as the a suffix gives the …