I’m a happy camper. I got a tiny dose of Berlin action last week in Montreal. It kicked off on Tuesday for some tech house at Le Salon Daomé, a discreet, easy-to-miss bar on the second floor overlooking trendy avenue Mont-Royal, where hardcore music fans swarmed the dance floor at 1am on a weeknight until the 3am curfew.
On Saturday, I checked out a party held in an empty building 5 km north of the city centre. Booze was cheap, the people were friendly, and the DJ spinned some pretty groovy electro tunes, although I would’ve preferred if he switched halfway to a darker, meaner sound. But I guess that’ll have to wait when I return to Europe in just a few weeks.
So many choices in Montreal last week. Belgians Soulwax who released the hit track NY Lipps, a remix of Funkytown, headlined the I Love Neon party at la SAT. Bristol-based Nick Warren was in town for a smashing gig at Tribe Hyperclub. Finally, the theatre l’Olympia welcomed Paris fashion party extravaganza Don’t Tell My Booker showcasing the latest collection of Hugo Boss’s Red Label and Boy George at the decks.
So which parties did I wreck? None. I pretty much retired at home all week getting the next version of our store and our marketing plan ready. Fun times will have to wait for a few more days.
UK: Friend e-mailed me that Metro, one of the 3 free London dailies, recently reviewed a bunch of T-shirt shops in the UK including Spunky Store and East London’s No-One… House of Holland showcased its in-your-face slogan tees à la Katherine Hamnett during London Fashion Week. The T-shirts, which seem to be from American Apparel, are sold out… Being a good corporate citizen ASDA, owned by Wal-Mart (or Wal-Marde as Québecois call it), pulled out a controversial T-shirt (see photo) from its stores… after selling 15,000 of them!
Elsewhere: LaFraise recently went Dutch… The cool folks at Graniph opened earlier this month a booth at Reed Space. Party shots are available on ASNY. Hope they printed larger sizes… And last but certainly not least, Japanese mega-chain Uniqlo is launching next week UT, its own T-shirt label (via Jean Snow and Gridskipper). At 1500 yen (7 quid, $15), these slick looking T-shirts will go really fast.
Time to play catch up with the blog again. After finishing all the necessary paperwork to apply for a merchant account, we’re now gearing up to for the next release of the site.
There won’t be any earth shattering features on our next iteration; it’s chiefly an upgrade of the current system. We’ll be migrating from PayPal to an in-house payment page, switching servers from Yahoo! Small Business to BlueHost, and fine tuning several little things. Once that’s done, we will finally begin flexing our marketing muscles. Should be tons of fun.
Business Partner and I disagree on the Minimal T-shirt idea. He doesn’t think it has enough pull, while I think it’s print worthy as the word minimal works in so many ways.
It can be a design concept, an approach to life, and of course an addictive style of music. But maybe I’m just spending too much time listening to minimal house that my judgment is impaired. Anyway, since we have bigger projects in the work, we’ll put this one on hold for now.
The night was promising. The venue had an underground vibe, while Tommie Sunshine and Tiga cranked out industrial sounds and electro beats to a crowd that seemed to enjoy every bit of it.
But I had a major fuss. This friggin’ huge strobe light smack in the middle of the room was giving me a fit with its flickering, blinding lights. I called it quits 30 minutes into Tiga’s set. Guess I’ll have to catch him at his next gig in London.
The Frenchies are at it again, adding their touch to the world of electronica. It’s called Tecktonik, a new style of dancing sparked by the electro sounds that permeated in late 2005. I’d describe it as a mishmash of Dance Dance Revolution, hip hop and breakdancing moves.
Confused? Just watch this dude, who goes under the name of Spoke, lick those tunes.
Here’s another great one:
Pretty cool, huh? You’ve heard it here first folks… well at least in English.
Swiftlabel is now registered in Quebec. The most difficult part was figuring out how to sort out the relationship of the new entity with Swiftlabel LLC, the company we first registered (we did so as the LLC, which doesn’t exist in Canada, provides protection for partnerships and skirts corporate taxes so we’re not taxed both on income and dividends).
One possibility was to establish it as a subsidiary of Swiftlabel LLC. But then we’d have to incorporate the business and handle a pile of administrative work.
Instead, we registered Swiftlabel Quebec as a sole proprietorship and formed it as an independent entity whose sole purpose is to process transactions for Swiftlabel LLC for a small fee.
Doing so frees us from the red tape shackles of an inc. business, so we can concentrate on the T-shirt business, and reduces our tax burden, so maybe one day Business Partner can buy a yacht.
