So we’re at this hotel in Salford and Tony starts talking about the Sex Pistols.<\/p>\n
I’d like to tell you I remember the name of the organization, but I don’t.\u00c2\u00a0 A non-profit housing group, with 8,000 units in Salford, across the river, and a tiny river it is, from Manchester.\u00c2\u00a0 The group has paid Tony to give his perspective on the CITY!<\/p>\n
Well, I think it was something like that, but I’m not sure, because after the introduction Tony took off on a whirlwind tour of the region’s history sure to make the most highly educated American feel ignorant.\u00c2\u00a0 References were made back to the industrial revolution.\u00c2\u00a0 To the formation of the state of Israel.\u00c2\u00a0 To the IRA bombing of the city.\u00c2\u00a0 And then music.<\/p>\n
Yes, Tony attributed the renaissance of Manchester to music.\u00c2\u00a0 The punk-influenced acid house music that swept the region after Tony introduced the Sex Pistols on TV.\u00c2\u00a0 Seems that every godforsaken Mancunian with no future suddenly saw an opportunity to express himself and started to PLAY!\u00c2\u00a0 The music didn’t start here, but it GREW here.<\/p>\n
And as Tony’s walking us through the creation of the Hacienda and the girl who O.D.’ed on Extasy on its dance floor it’s like being in a living movie.\u00c2\u00a0 Better than "24 Hour Party People" because this is coming from the horse’s mouth.<\/p>\n
Tony dropped the names of politicos and real estate developers that were foreign to me.\u00c2\u00a0 A town official not knighted because he bucked the system, and a lawyer who believed in Tony and the Hacienda’s mission if Tony would just SHUT UP!<\/p>\n
It suddenly made sense.\u00c2\u00a0 What had happened here.<\/p>\n
Life never got this depressing in the eighties in the U.S.\u00c2\u00a0 We were all MTV happy, getting ours in the Reagan years.\u00c2\u00a0 But in Manchester, people with dead end futures wanted to be happy, wanted to have fun, and Shaun Ryder and Tony and the rest of the troops were the pied pipers, the benevolent dictators, the PROVIDERS!<\/p>\n
Tony had been to New York and felt that he wanted to establish a club like Danceteria in Manchester, for the PEOPLE!\u00c2\u00a0 The MPs hated the Hacienda for the drug use and the proprietors never made any dough, since everybody was fucked up on drugs instead of drinking, but for a while there, that’s where it was HAPPENING!<\/p>\n
And then Tony starts quoting New Order reviews.\u00c2\u00a0 And references the fact that Shaun Ryder STANDING got an ovation just a short while back at a gig.<\/p>\n
And after quoting Shaun’s new album to me, a track about how we’re all fucked up in somebody else’s weather, stating all we need to know about global warming according to Tony, we drove to Bridgewater Hall.<\/p>\n
We parked under the old train station.\u00c2\u00a0 Where there were brick arches akin to something in Roman sewers.\u00c2\u00a0 Positively old wave.\u00c2\u00a0 Jaw-dropping in the dripping history.<\/p>\n
We spoke to a bunch of wannabes about the music business.\u00c2\u00a0 Those who’d taken refuge from the MySpace sponsored auditions upstairs.<\/p>\n
And it’s stunning, Tony still believes.\u00c2\u00a0 In screamo.\u00c2\u00a0 In youth.\u00c2\u00a0 In music’s power to change the world.<\/p>\n
But my perspective is different from an Englishman’s.\u00c2\u00a0 We don’t live in an island nation.\u00c2\u00a0 We’ve got the American dream.\u00c2\u00a0 We’re OPTIMISTIC, whereas Englishmen are PESSIMISTIC!\u00c2\u00a0 Tony felt it was just the reverse.\u00c2\u00a0 And I can see his point.\u00c2\u00a0 Because you get caught up in society over here, there aren’t the wide open spaces, you’re all in it together.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas we’re an iPod nation, riding in our vehicle of choice throughout the countryside.\u00c2\u00a0 We might live in the city, but we lament the traffic.\u00c2\u00a0 We think something can be done about it, to FIX it, whereas in the U.K…they’re following in the footsteps of HISTORY!\u00c2\u00a0 They’re just a footnote.\u00c2\u00a0 So they might as well party and have fun.\u00c2\u00a0 Since the individual is essentially powerless.<\/p>\n
But the individual in the U.S. feels ALL powerful.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, he’s discriminatory, he doesn’t want to be lumped in with the mainstream, then again, neither does the Mancunian.\u00c2\u00a0 But unlike the Mancunian, the American MATTERS!\u00c2\u00a0 At least he thinks so.<\/p>\n
But both are essentially powerless.\u00c2\u00a0 The Mancunian is looking for attention, playing within the rules, handing me his CD, trying to get signed to the major label.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas only the losers do it this way in America.\u00c2\u00a0 The winners want to do it themselves.\u00c2\u00a0 They don’t want to be Clive Davis, they want to be BILL GATES!<\/p>\n
Nerd culture wins in the U.S.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas cool culture still drives the U.K.\u00c2\u00a0 In America it’s about hunkering down and doing something so fucking great that everybody will tell everybody else about it.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas in the U.K. you want PUBLICITY!<\/p>\n
Oh, you think the game is the same in the U.S., but it’s not.\u00c2\u00a0 THAT’S THE STORY!\u00c2\u00a0 How the mainstream isn’t.\u00c2\u00a0 How it’s not a hip-hop nation.\u00c2\u00a0 How only the losers listen to terrestrial radio.\u00c2\u00a0 How the proletariat owns the tools, and IS EMPLOYING them.\u00c2\u00a0 Not only stealing the majors’ wares, but trading the unsigned via IM, and going to see these same bands live, and buying merch, to evidence their identity.<\/p>\n
Something is happening in the U.S.\u00c2\u00a0 And it’s not Fall Out Boy and it’s not Panic! At The Disco.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not about hits.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s about music.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s about scenes, but not sell-out fashion scenes.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas in the U.K. they still believe it’s the same as it’s ever been.\u00c2\u00a0 That there’s an INDUSTRY!<\/p>\n
There’s no industry, there’s chaos.\u00c2\u00a0 And the future will be inherited not by the powers that be, but the innovators.<\/p>\n
This is what I’m going to say tomorrow.\u00c2\u00a0 Along with DON’T GIVE ME YOU’RE FUCKING CD!\u00c2\u00a0 In an age when even Alain Levy says the CD is dead<\/p>\n
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