SUNDAY MORNING POST SUNDAY, AUGUST 19, 2007 Sight&Sound 3 Mad for it – music He’s one of hip hop’s most dynamic forces. and Manchester – But, as Mick Wilson discovered, will.i.am to the very end rom the terrace of his Mediterranean-style has never forgotten where he came from mansion situated in the hills that form the stunning ...... natural backdrop of Los was inspired by this incendiary Paul Morley FAngeles, Will “will.i.am” Adams is performance to react creatively. able to look back on his life in every If you lived in northwest England Many formed bands – Buzzcocks, sense. A few blocks to the south at any time after 1973, it was Magazine, the Fall, the Smiths, he’s able to pick out the apartment impossible to ignore the Simply Red and Joy Division building where the creative seed indefatigable broadcaster, music members were all present. Others that turned into the Black Eyed mogul, social activist, proud became designers, writers or took up Peas during the 1990s took root northerner, football fan, writer roles in the music business. Wilson and flourished. and exhibitionist Tony Wilson, was galvanised by the event, by Further back towards the who died last Saturday aged 57 of a the combination of anarchy and horizon, beyond the shimmering heart attack, after being diagnosed music, philosophy and pop, danger skyscrapers of downtown with cancer earlier this year. and delight, image and protest, lies the gritty East Los Angeles For years, Wilson was known as and it changed his life, as it did neighbourhood where the Black an extremely opinionated, populist Manchester itself. He immediately Eyed Peas’ founding member and Granada television presenter and as invited the Sex Pistols on to the driving force grew up. “When I saw an idiosyncratic Manchester music second and final series of So it Goes, this house I thought, ‘Wow, I’ve got impresario who dedicated his life which was never shown in more to live here because I can see where to making the city internationally than three UK TV regions. Taking the Black Eyed Peas started out from famous for its music, nightlife and pop culture seriously as a social and the balcony’,” Adams says. “I never pop culture. From the moment political force, it was ahead of its felt like doing the whole Beverly he appeared on television, and time. It still would be today. Hills, Bel Air thing. It ain’t me. And especially after he combined his By 1978, still a grinning Granada to be reminded of where you came daily Granada duties with his antics personality, Wilson formally entered from ain’t a bad thing either.” as self-appointed ringleader of the the music business by opening the Not that Adams, 32, ever gives Manchester music business, he was Factory Club to showcase new local the impression of having lost touch someone you loved or hated – or music talent. Factory then became a with his roots – as evidenced by the loved and hated at the same time. record label. Wilson ran it with numerous paintings based on family In the 1990s, typically writing his fellow northern Catholic grammar photos that decorate his home. own history as he went along, he school boys, designer Peter Saville, The setting couldn’t be more made it clear that he preferred to be producer Martin Hannett, actor and appropriate, given that Adams known as Anthony H. Wilson. The manager Alan Erasmus and Joy will next month release a deeply pompous self-publicist part of him, Division manager Rob Gretton. introspective solo album, Songs enjoying the fact that the bigger Inevitably, the label was like no About Girls, that’s also a semi- name sounded grander and would other; deeply northern, stubborn confessional account of his take up more space, announced that and disorganised, it released records relationship history. Each song on this was because he wanted “to wind with a reckless anarcho-capitalist the album has a personal relevance. up all the people in Manchester who verve and an indifference towards Many touch on the painful break- think I’m a flash c***”. The more profit that verged on performance down of a seven-year relationship. reflective Wilson admitted to me art. It became the great Manchester “It’s an album about falling in that: “I never liked Tony. I was label, despite not signing Buzzcocks, love and falling out of love and always Anthony to my mum. I just Magazine, the Smiths, the Fall or all the crazy, destructive things wanted to be Anthony again.” the Stone Roses. What it did have that people in love do to each Wilson was born in Salford, was Wilson, part glib newsreader, other,” he says. “But it’s also about Lancashire. His German grandfather part cultural curator, part exuberant new beginnings.” came there in 1901, and his family nuisance, part revolutionary warrior, It would be wrong to bracket ran three jewellers’ shops before inspiring, or needling, those Adams’ solo work as another moving, when he was five, to the around him. The subversive Factory example of the the feel-my-pain leafier Marple, near Stockport. His Records became the link between emotional exhibitionism beloved mother felt it would be a better Manchester’s reforming radical by celebrities. His first instinct place to bring him up, but he kept past, the Sex Pistols’ legendary was to shy away from making a in contact with the grittier, more performance and the new personal record. darkly romantic Salford. Wilson won modernised Manchester that “I can’t say it’s something I a place at the Catholic boys De La Wilson had in mind. always wanted to do,” he says. Salle grammar school in Salford. He Factory’s best-known group, Joy “Initially, I definitely didn’t want Feel the real developed a love of literature and to do it. I mean, writing about me language after he saw a performance being in love with my new girlfriend of Hamlet at Stratford-upon-Avon. while feeling sorry about my old He felt, as someone who girlfriend, who played such an understood the accelerating important part in my life? It’s just importance of popular culture, not something I wanted to get into.” that he was always in the right Nevertheless, as soon as Adams place at the right time. He was 13 began playing around in the fully “in the school playground when equipped basement studio of his the Beatles happened”, and he was home, the album pretty much he used as sounding boards for Nigeria, Kazakhstan and Mongolia Adams also plans a separate EP studying English at Jesus College, wrote itself. I never felt like doing Songs About Girls. are planned. next year that will be largely made Cambridge, “when the revolution “I just found myself writing songs “Making a solo album wasn’t “After this tour, there won’t be up of politically themed songs. An in drugs happened”. A flirtation about that. They came naturally. I the whole Beverly really any different to making a Peas many places left that we haven’t ardent environmentalist, he made with anarchic politics possibly did try to make songs that weren’t Hills, Bel Air thing. album,” Adams says. “In Peas, we played,” says Adams. “We’ll have to headlines earlier this year when he contributed to his underperforming, about relationships, but in the end all think exactly alike – me, Apl and find a bunch of new places.” announced that he was going to but certainly infected his unique, I just decided to go with the feeling. It ain’t me. And to be Taboo grew up together. And even Adams’ energy is frightening. As blow up his gas-guzzling Hummer. often haywire approach to life, And the feeling took me where it if I’m working solo I still confide in well as recording a solo album and Since then, he has had a change of work, art, music, family and took me.” Fortunately for Adams, reminded of where them. It’s exactly the same process, preparing for a world tour, he has heart, and now plans to destroy the business; the way he would take his partner was sympathetic. “It was only they don’t have to come to found the time to pursue one of vehicle more elaborately. everything ridiculously seriously, therapeutic for me,” he says. “I’d tell you came from ain’t the studio, and I don’t have to ask his other great passions: fashion. A “The political album is going and not seriously at all. Tony Wilson in 1976 as host of the my girlfriend, ‘Hey, I wrote a song a bad thing either anyone what time I need to show graduate of the Los Angeles Fashion to be released on the internet – all After Cambridge, he began short-lived So it Goes for Granada today!’. And she’d say, ‘Oh, really? ...... up to work.” Institute, he’s working on a range viral,” he says. “And in one of the his career in journalism, as a news What was it?’ And I’d have to say, The new Black Eyed Peas album of clothes due out later this year, videos I’m going to put the Hummer reporter for Granada. At that time, Division, became New Order after ‘Er, you know, er, about my ex- our relationship, so I felt our will be recorded on the road. Adams’ plus a solo album of duets. Making in one of those car-compactors. Granada was one of the great the 1980 suicide of singer Ian Curtis. girlfriend’. And she was fine. That I relationship should get a percentage home recording studio can be clothes involves the same processes So you’ll see it being crushed in northern institutions, and he found Wilson fed off even this dark energy, could tell her also showed how far of the profit.” accessed via computer anywhere as making music, he says. slow motion.” a home there, one that could, confirming the views of those I’ve come.” The gesture wasn’t appreciated. in the world, enabling the band to “When you’re starting to think Might there be a risk that the occasionally, indulge his tendency doubting his motives. He blithely A biographical strand has been “She was furious, screaming, ‘What record out of a suitcase. about making a song, you think myriad creative projects will dilute for a naughtiness that in the bland carried on with his great plan. a familiar presence in Adams’ work is this for? I don’t want your money’. “When we made Monkey about what kind of song you want, his energy? “Not at all,” he says. “The context of an afternoon magazine With Joy Division/New Order throughout his career. The Black But I left the money with her and if Business, we were on the road, and then you experiment with opposite, in fact. If I’m not doing show was almost dangerous. With money, Factory “gave back to Eyed Peas hit singles Don’t Lie from she wants it, it’s hers.” and we’ll do the same for the new what you come up with until something I start going crazy. If I’m schoolboy long hair and a hippie/ the community” by opening Monkey Business (2005) and Shut Up Although Songs About Girls album,” Adams says. “I can log you’re happy. But you’re always just left alone with my mind I start glam twist to his newsreading suit, the Hacienda Club in a textile were both influenced by the break- comes hard on the heels of Fergie’s on to my studio from anywhere.” within a framework – whether it’s thinking too much. And then I’ll be he exploited his sweet side and factory turned yacht showroom. up of the relationship that provided solo album, The Dutchess, fans Exactly where Adams and the rock ’n’ roll, blues, hip hop or samba. one of those guys who walks down became a teenybop hit and Beautifully and wittily designed by the grist for Songs About Girls. of the Black Eyed Peas needn’t be Black Eyed Peas might be when they And it’s the same with clothes. There the street obsessed by numbers, you grandma’s favourite. Many in the Ben Kelly, it looked like something Adams says he even tried to concerned that the group is drifting start work on the album is anyone’s are only so many types of clothes you know, those dudes who come up north never forgot when he was a you found only in New York, and give his former lover a hefty royalty apart. They’ll begin work on a new guess. The group have made a habit can wear – whether it’s a tux, a pair to you and say ‘Nine! The number cross between David Cassidy and anticipated a new, bold 21st-century cheque after the success of the album during an upcoming world of playing exotic venues throughout of jeans or a polo shirt. When you’re nine! It’s all about number nine!’ David Frost, when he would be Manchester filled with canal-side singles. “I got a lot of money from tour, and Adams remains close the world in recent years, and the designing, it’s all about the twist What’s that all about?” not so good-naturedly booed as he loft apartments and boutique hotels. those songs, so I gave her some,” friends with fellow band members next tour will be in keeping with that you put on it – the thing that ...... arrived at rock concerts, and this After a shaky few years, by the mid- he says. “The song was about Apl.de.Ap and Taboo, both of whom that. Gigs in Ethiopia, Ghana, identifies it as yours.” Songs About Girls is out on September 25 contributed to suspicions later when 80s it found its function as a dance he pursued more provocative stunts. club importing experimental house Wilson, though, quick to adopt music from Detroit and New York. new personas, and adapt to Factory’s Happy Mondays new circumstances, adored the bound together the exotic new attention, and shrewdly exploited dance rhythms with a groggy his role as local minor celebrity Lancastrian verse, and in the The free man heading our way when it came to what he was really movement known as Madchester interested in – helping Manchester was born the commercialisation to recreate itself as a major city, with of the abstract, agitating spirit of its radical, inventive and progressive Factory, and the spirited post- The big news of the week for jazz Braid, four from Brubeck, and one traditions intact. modern skittishness of Wilson. fans is unquestionably that Ornette Robin Lynam improvisation is credited to both As a now respected mainstream Wilson, as the self-appointed public Coleman (right) will be playing the All That’s Jazz musicians – covering a range of broadcaster, in 1975 he accepted face of the movement, became 2008 Hong Kong Arts Festival. moods and occupying musical a job on the BBC’s Nationwide the tabloids’ Mr Manchester, and One of the most controversial in Manchester, Tennessee. Last to perform with fellow Torontonian territory somewhere between jazz magazine show. He was driving enthusiastically presided as militant figures in jazz in his day, he has year, Coleman released a live and trombonist Darren Sigesmund. and classical music. down to London to a new life marketing mastermind over the outlasted most of his critics and his album recorded in Germany in Twotet/Deuxtet is a two-headed Spirit Dance, another Braid when he had misgivings. A few transformation of the city into a peers, and at 77 is now receiving 2005, featuring a characteristically collaboration between Braid and composition, blends elements of kilometres outside the capital global brand. the sort of tributes reserved for idiosyncratic lineup, with two cellist Matt Brubeck. The cello isn’t folk music from all over the world, he rang his boss at Granada Factory farcically collapsed in elder statesmen of the music. basses – one plucked and one an instrument that crops up much including the mainland where and asked if his old job was 1991 with debts of £2 million. The This year, in particular, has been bowed – played by Tony Falanga in jazz, although Yo-Yo Ma has Braid the pianist has now still open. It was. He turned Hacienda was eventually shut down kind to Coleman. He has received and Gregory Cohen, and drums recorded with a jazz piano trio, toured several times. back. He would never in 1997 by order of the police. the Pulitzer Prize for Music, a by his son and regular sideman, and a number of bassists who It’s difficult music to entertain the idea of leaving Wilson was played by Steve Lifetime Achievement Grammy Denardo. Coleman features on alto double on it have applied it to pigeonhole. Wide-ranging, the north again. Coogan in the 2002 film 24 Hour Award, and was voted Musician of sax, violin and trumpet. the music. exploratory, contemplative The first sign of Wilson’s Party People, which represented his the Year in the 2007 Jazz Journalists Sound Grammar features the Most notable among these is and at times surprisingly interest in the counterculture life as chaotic comedy and him as a Association (JJA) Jazz Awards. first new music from Coleman in a Ray Brown, with his 1960 Verve funky, it is the work of and in radical ideas was when daft Dada daredevil. The new-found esteem in which decade and has clearly rekindled album Jazz Cello. Oscar Pettiford, an interesting duo, and Granada allowed him to present his He lived out his final months the avant garde in jazz is now interest in him. So, booking him Sam Jones, Eberhard Weber and it sounds as though own What’s On section of Granada after having a cancerous kidney held is also reflected in a lifetime at this particularly opportune time Jack Bruce are other examples. they had fun making it. Reports. This covered the local arts removed with typical restlessness, achievement in jazz award from in his career is quite a coup for the Brubeck – one of Dave’s It’s available from and music scene, and in 1976 it curiosity, anger, good humour and the JJA for Andrew Hill, who died Arts Festival, and his performances children – is a cellist who doubles davidbraid.com/ turned into his own pop music fearlessness. His enormous impact earlier this year. He was a year on February 28 and 29 at the on bass from time to time, rather recordings.php. show, So it Goes. His suit replaced by on his beloved Manchester over the younger than Coleman. Cultural Centre Concert Hall will than the other way around, • The death of Max Roach a leather jacket, his hair still heart- past 35 years is undeniable. Age hasn’t slowed down the be eagerly awaited. although there are moments on last Wednesday at the age of throb long, the overeager Wilson He was married twice, to man who gave free jazz its name, Another distinctly unusual this CD when he employs the 83 robs us of one of the few looked out of place, as he did as one Lindsay, and Hilary, who was the although he did spend a brief lineup features on a new CD by smaller instrument with its higher remaining living links to the of the 40 or so people who turned mother of his two children, Oliver spell in hospital in June, after David Braid, a Canadian pianist register in a swinging, distinctly bebop revolution of the 1940s, and up to see the Sex Pistols play at and Isabel, and is also survived by collapsing with heat stroke who appeared here last September upright bass-like manner. of arguably the most influential Manchester’s Lesser Free Trade Hall his partner, Yvette Livesey. during a performance at the with his multi-award-winning There are eight compositions drummer of his generation. A fuller in June 1976...... Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival sextet, and who returns in October featured here – three are from appreciation will appear next week. Everyone in the audience Guardian News & Media