Issue 45

6
Bido Lito! June 2014
On Monday 12th May 2014, Liverpool lost
one of its most inspirational champions.
ALAN WILLS, the enthralling impresario
behind Deltasonic Records, a man who
reinvigorated the city’s music scene, helped
to re-establish its trademark self-confident
swagger and took a crop of young bands
on the most cosmic of adventures, tragically
passed away following a cycling accident.
Bido Lito! founder Craig G Pennington
recounts his first experience of Alan, and
shares the memories of two of Alan’s oldest
and closest friends.
Alan Wills
1962-2014
Photography: Jennifer Pellegrini (taken in May 2010, for the first edition of Bido Lito! Magazine)
Little did I know it at the time but Alan
Wills, through Deltasonic, had a huge impact
on me many years before I sat down to
interview him for the first edition of Bido Lito!
in April 2010. My first involvement with the
music industry was working as a University
Campus Promo Rep for Sony – around 2003-
2004 – and within that promoting the new
records and live shows by Deltasonic groups
The Coral, The Zutons, The Dead 60s, Candie
Payne, The Longcut et al as they came through
the University towns of West Yorkshire.
I adored Deltasonic, the music it
championed, its whole aesthetic. I loved
its true sense of independence – despite
operating within a major label structure – its
unique sonic quip and A&R direction. You
could tell it was fashioned by an individual’s
taste. But mostly, as a young Scouser in exile
in Leeds, it made me fiercely proud of my city.
I loved those few short years working as a
kind of self-proclaimed, satellite champion
for Deltasonic.
When I returned to Liverpool back in early
2010 and started working on what would
become the first edition of Bido Lito!, Alan
was the first person I sought out to interview.
Despite the fact that we had not as yet
published a magazine and he didn’t know
me from Adam, Alan happily spent two hours
on a Tuesday afternoon imparting his wisdom
upon me. His enthusiasm was palpable
and infectious, his opinions forthright and
honest. At the end of our interview, Alan
took me for a drive in his car, playing me the
as-yet-unreleased Butterfly House LP by The
Coral on the stereo, drumming along on the
steering wheel, enthusing that this was the
moment The Coral had become a “truly great
band”.
He encouraged me to get on with the
magazine, that Liverpool needed it, and to
be wary of the “retro bullshit”. He dropped
me back off at Mossley Hill station and I left
enormously inspired. I genuinely believe
the interview took Bido Lito! from a set of
scribbled interviews in a notebook to a living
reality. He also didn’t need to be told where
the magazine’s name came from. Most
people do.
bidolito.co.uk