This post is in remembrance of actor William Finley, most famously known as Winslow Leach aka The Phantom in Brian De Palma’s 1974 movie Phantom of the Paradise. William pasted away passed away suddenly after a brief hospitalization on Saturday, April 14th in New York. His wife Susan and son Dashiell survive him.

I met William Finley and Gerrit Graham at the Phantom of the Paradise convention titled Phantompalooza, which was held April 23^rd 2005 in Winnipeg Manitoba. The road trip itself has a disaster story I care not to share, but at least I got a wee bit of excitement out of the whole thing. The friends I went with and myself were interviewed for a special and I wonder to this day where that footage is, how tired, drunk and foolish we sounded and looked. I did get to ask a question for Gerrit in which he answered at the Q & A earlier in the day. I asked, “I really want to know what that white powder was that you put in your nose in the shower scene.” he answered powdered lactose, dried milk solids. Watch Gerrit answer this question and William talk about his action figure and how the Phantom’s intercom voice box relates to Darth Vader’s in Star Wars. There’s a bit of Star Wars trivia for you.

Here’s my question for Gerrit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXxxtZWz1ec

The following year another convention was held, William and Gerrit came again, and more of the cast showed up including Jessica Harper, Paul Williams, Juicy Fruit for the 2^nd convention which I wish I had been able to attend. Winnipeg to this day still is the capital of Phantom fandom.

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• Here’s a fun little promo for William’s Phantom figure of himself. I’ve had this action figure on my want list for over 10 years, yes over 10 years! Someday I’ll have $250 + dollars to spare.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmMndG8bx_8

• NY Times news about Finley’s death

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/18/movies/william-finley-actor-in-de-palma-films-dies-at-71.html

• Phantom vs Darth Vader article showing similarities

http://www.neatorama.com/2012/04/04/was-darth-vader-actually-created-by-brian-depalma/

Clive Barker has a wonderful imagination. His horror and fantasy work can be described with words like dark, scary, sexual, clever, religious and funny. He is best known for creating Hellraiser and the character Pinhead based from The Hellbound Heart novella. For me his Books of Blood were a fantastic ride and kept me reading his other published works. The Damnation Game was the first book of his that I read and his first published novel. This was around the time of this first photo with me and my pink hair pictured above. That was in the 80’s. He’s written plays (I’ve seen History of the Devil), worked on movies, created beautiful illustrations, made video games, and of course written many short stories and books.    

Clive Barker’s official site

Danny and Gaz from Supergrass. Seen them a few times. Missed them at a small gig at Sneaky Dee’s just before I got into them. That would have been an awesome and intimate venue to see them in. First time I saw them play was at The Opera House in 1997. I remember buying a Japanese import for “Alright” and the store owner trying to convince me not to buy it as it was sooo expensive and I was a regular customer of his. I bought it of course. 

Yes I do in fact. I will put them up next just for you :) I took my son to see them when he was 8 years old and that was his first concert ever in 2006. Nice username ;)

I did work in the music industry for a while, but all of the meetings are personal. I have tons more to post little by little. There’s a wee bit more to read off of my blog http://concertsandfamouspeople.blogspot.com/ Cheers, Wanda

Manchester music legends Ian Brown and John Squire of The Stone Roses. January 30th 1995, Ian and John did an interview on CFNY radio station to promote their ‘Second Coming’ CD and announce they would be touring. They both signed a huge poster I brought with me. They did come back to Toronto and played an unusual venue Thurs May 18th 1995 @ Marine terminal 28 which was the first and only time I saw them play live.

One of my favorite photos with Damon Albarn. I’ve met Damon a few times but this is the only personal photo I have unfortunately. I hung out with Blur and Pulp when they were at the Phoenix in 1994. I had a fun game of pool with Dave too. Gorillaz is one of my favorite bands so it’s great that Damon has continued giving us brilliant music after Blur. What an amazing guy. I’d really like to meet Jamie Hewlett (co-creator of Gorillaz) someday. 

Annie Rice book signing event held at The Atrium on Bay. She usually only signs one book. I had a magazine with an article about her in it, which she gave me an interesting story to (see photo). The photographer lit her bad on purpose for the photo session. She was nice enough to sign that for me as well :)

http://www.annerice.com/

Scott Putesky is a very talent guitar player. After Marilyn Manson days he continued on and at one point played and toured with Jack Off Jill. They had a gig with Psychotica at The Rivoli August 21st 1998. He continues to play music. Check out his history on wikipedia.

First time I met the band in 1994 I had no clue who they were. Marilyn invited me to join them after their show the following day. The concert was for Soundgarden, NIN, Marilyn Manson, Reverend Horton Heat, Pop Will Eat Itself and You Am I. Sat Aug 6, 1994 Molson Park Barrie. I was reading Helter Skelter at the time and I got them to sign that since it was the only thing I had on me. I find that really funny. Was that a coincidence? Pretty much each time he was in town I hung out with the band up to Mechanical Animal days. The last Manson concert I saw was at Massey Hall November 18th 2000 and saw him briefly at The Edge during a signing.