Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Totally art, dude

London Advisory Committee on Heritage chairman Joe O'Neil admits that he was "caught totally off-guard" to find from a 600-member Facebook group that the Brunswick Hotel is "really a grunge rock art incubator," causing him to reverse his previous indifference to the owner's application for a demolition permit and press instead for official heritage designation to preserve the building.

His astonishment would not seem surprising if he is a man of even slightly ordinary tastes — as it seems would be all that is required of tastes, accomplishments or abilities to become an LACH chairman. Grunge rock "art" incubator, no less… so this is what heritage has come to in London that it has more the value of, like, "totally" than it has of the historical values of private property or the dignity of the English language. Awesome!


Honey Pot said...

Why don't those 600 Wickians ask their mothers for an advance in their weekly allowance and buy it.

If they all threw in $10.00, that should do it, and they would have enough money left over to put real toilets, that work, in the joint.

Unfuckingbelievable that the Wick would be considered a treasured London artifact by anyone over the age of 16.

basil said...

The Wick is a far more valuable cultural center in London than all the JLCs, Performing Arts Centres or Market boutiques, Anne Marie, Hume & Co. can wank over. So be it if that culture might have been incubated between your toes.

The JLC does not represent my people!!!

Today the LFP reports that city council wants to save a lopsided antique store on Wellington. Go figure.

Sonny Drysdale said...

On the radio the other day, both Joe and talk-show guy John Wilson expressed surprise at learning that the top "condemned" floors of the Brunswick are currently being rented out as practice spaces to various bands.

Apparently they've never driven by there any evening with the windows down.

Damn kids and their 'grunge' - it's all nothin' but "ya-ya-ya."

That ain't music.

It's about as musical as dancing to architecture.

Liam said...


Sure the Wick is a shit hole. Anyone who's walked into the bathroom after 7 stale beers knows the smell. The upstairs seems to be a jam space for a bunch of metal bands. The place is a stomping ground for death metal & jazz / rock and roll of all sorts. It even manages to stay free of being a scene'ster joint such as the dudes* over at APK (As a former performer, I think I'm just in saying that).

I don't know if the Wick is a great ambassador for London. It sits next to the Greyhound station and is a stones throw away from the train station.

I do know that London is very much 'The Wick', and I'd be sad to see it gone. London's indepdenant art culture/scene is hanging on by a few threads at all times it seems....downing this place for another starbucks/failed pizza joint or cow-boy-whores gone wild bar, won't fix a damned thing.

in my mind anyway

MapMaster said...

Like Sonny, I have to admit to having a bit of a soft spot for the old broad having spent quite a few amiably disheveled and unsophisticated nights there myself (not quite so fond memories of "The Absolute WORSE male washroom I've ever come across" though). But altogether more forgettable is any "independent art/culture scene" that may have leaked into my ears on any of those nights — the presence or absence of the Brunswick won't make any difference to that. London's grunge should learn to walk on its own without a bunch of bureaucrats and politicians coddling it if it wants to become anything.

Still, it's a pretty soft spot that I have indeed, which is all that anyone has ever been offered in the hotel's defense. Is that worth the kind of hard law that's going to be used against the owner? It doesn't seem to be worth any of the soft spot preservationists' own hard cash to try to buy out the owner.

Honey Pot said...

There is enough Wickians for them to form a conglomerate, and buy the place.

The place does have grunge written all over it. The people who are into that should fork over some dough and buy it.

If they are just going to let it sit there and rot, like so many other so called historical treasures, it makes no sense to leave it standing.