Hello City origin
Pardon me if this story has already been shared on this sub, but here is the backstory for the iconic Hello City song on the Gordon album:
According to Steve in Public Stunts, Private Stories:
>*"...*we played at this bar called The Lower Deck, where they had mostly Celtic music, being as there are mostly sailors in there, drinking. [...] We stayed at this place called The Carlton Hotel, on Barrington Street, which was upstairs from this metal bar called Rosa's. It's no longer there, but it was a total flophouse. [...] The room that Ed and I shared had four beds. One of them was up against the wall and another had a mattress falling through its frame. There was a bathtub with no shower. It was just gross. [...] Halifax on a weekend, you can't go anywhere without seeing somebody bleeding, somewhere. To get to the street from our terrible room, you had to walk down three or four flights of stairs and then step over some bleeding body. We were young, none of us were real drinkers, Ed didn't drink at all, and the whole drink culture of Halifax was just shocking to us. [...] So we were playing at The Lower Deck, this sailor's watering hole, and no one would pay attention. I remember taking a picture from the stage and when I got the pictures back, there was nobody looking at the camera. [...] I remember thinking I hate this place, I hate this place. [...] We've actually had great times there since, but that's because we learned the "when in Rome" axiom. You know the expression, 'do at the Romans do?' So 'when in Halifax,' we learned to 'do as the Haligonians do,' which in this case means drinking and bleeding." ^([1])