All My Heroes Are Weirdos - bedroom disco themed night starts at Retro Bar this Thursday

A new night is starting at Retro Bar on Thursday. Leaning towards the more alternative side of independent music, All My Heroes Are Weirdos, which will take place on the third Thursday of every month, takes its inspiration from bedroom discos and looks set to fill the vacuum left by much missed nights like Dot Dash/ I Could Care Less and previous Retro Bar nights like Killing Fantasy and Fight Club.

The organisers aim to counter what they see as the 'apathy' of Manchester's clubbing scene, and the night will complement the good work of existing discos like Panda Panda (currently sharing a night with Underachievers Please Try Harder at Saki in Rusholme), Underachievers Please Try Harder and Asparagus Next Left (Star and Garter).

All My Heroes Are Weirdos is the brainchild of four disillusioned Manchester clubbers, including Phill Daker who puts gigs on under the name Mushaboom Folk. He's joined by Emma Tillyer, Sean McGurdy and Heather Hewitt.

How are you going to be different to any other indie disco?

We’re all quite bored with the current crop of indie nights going on in Manchester. Most of them seem too concerned with playing what’s ‘fashionable’ … so we decided to start our own night and see how people respond. There are four of us involved in the night, each with our own music tastes, so hopefully we’ll strike a chord with other frustrated clubbers.

Do you think indie discos are generally too 'apathetic'/ 'vacuous', as you say on the All My Heroes Are Weidos facebook page?

I guess we were sick of spending our money on nights that only play new new music, where people go to them to pose and pretend to know all the words to the latest remix of the latest electro band. So yes … We do.

Is there enough diversity in Manchester clubnights?

A little, but not enough. Great clubnights will always exist here. We just want to be part of it…and not sit at home complaining. The DIY ethic is something we all believe in.

You describe a disaffection with 'fashionable clubs' on the facebook page - are you anti-fashion?

We’re definitely anti fashion within music. We’re not influenced by charts or who’s in the NME cool list, we’re just going to play the records we listen to in our own bedrooms.

Why should people venture out on a Thursday night rather then stay at home?

Thursdays are the new Fridays! And Retro Bar is a great venue, supporting Manchester music rather than harming it with high entrance prices… Plus it has drinks offers every night of the week!

You promise mixtapes at the launch - will they be monthly? Will people be encouraged to take their own and swap them?

The mixtapes are just for the launch at the moment, but if they get a good reception we may consider making them a feature of the night.

Will there really be cake and biscuits too? Homemade?

Yes! We like baking…

How did you come up with the idea of an anti-heroes disco?

We’re all fans of outsider music - oddballs, weirdos, geeks, punks, romantics. These are the people we love!

Will you be playing more obscure tracks by bands than might normally be heard at a club - ie. not necessarily the hits?

We can’t deny that the ‘hits’ will get people up and dancing, and singing along with each other, so we’re not going to be all snobby and not play them - we want people to have fun!
But we will be playing obscure tracks, and playing songs by bands you may not have heard of before, because we’re all proud geeks.

The music you're going to play is a lot different to the music you put on with Mushaboom - are you trying to deliberately do something that’s the opposite to your usual folkiness? / Are you hoping to attract the same crowd as at your Mushaboom gigs?

To make the distinction, Mushaboom and All My Heroes are unrelated...
Mushaboom is just me, whereas three other people are doing All My Heroes, each with their own input and music tastes. That’s why our night will stand out from the crowd.

Is your target market disaffected youth - people who might normally be a bit shy at a disco?

Not really thinking market wise: we are friends who are trying to make a night we would all enjoy and hope other people will too. Although we do want people of all dispositions to feel comfortable at our night and not feel like they can’t come and ask us to play a song!

You mention ‘secondhand records’ in the blurb to the night-are you going to be playing vinyl?

There maybe vinyl, CDs, laptops we are taking a DIY approach to the night, learning as we go along not promising the tightest DJ set, just the music we love.

Why did you decide to name your night after the !!! [genre defying California party band] song?

Without looking too deep into it, we all came up with some ideas and agreed on 'All my Heroes'. The name just seemed to represent what we wanted our night to be about. Its a great tune too!

http://www.myspace.com/amaw

All My Heroes are Weirdos launches at Retro Bar, Sackville Street, on Thursday April 30 at 9pm, with drinks offers and cheap doubles all night.

Expect to hear: Radiohead, Blood on the Wall, Sleater Kinney, Wire, Bratmobile, The Thermals, Patti Smith, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Sonic Youth, PJ Harvey, Pavement, The Fall, Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, Alaska in Winter, The Knife, Sufjan Stevens, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!, The Teardrop Explodes, Deerhoof, Deathcab For Cutie, The Magnetic Fields, Vivian Girls, Daniel Johnston, Deerhunter, Neutral Milk Hotel, Scott Walker, Wolf Parade, The Pastels, Talking Heads, The National, The Modern Lovers, The Cramps, Jeffrey Lewis, No Age, The Slits, Cut Copy, My Bloody Valentine, TV on the Radio, The Mae Shi, Electrelane, David Bowie, Kate Bush, Devo, Bikini Kill, Pains of Being Pure at heart, Animal Collective, The Sugercubes, Of Montreal, Can, The Organ, (We Are Performance), Patrick Wolf

Freedom Screech, Marblekrusher, Winter Berries, Jamboree, Retro Bar, Monday February 23

One of the most ramshackle nights in Manchester is the monthly Jamboree, which has moved from the Klondyke in Levenshulme to Retro Bar in town.

As befits a gig named after a Beat Happening song and album, the bands that play are often full of enthusiasm rather than bestowed with musical polish. The Shrieking Violets, Jam on Bread and Judy and the Blumes have all graced the stage in recent months, but February’s Jamboree was musically the most exciting so far.

Andrew, formerly of Cookie Cutter, played his debut gig as Freedom Screech, making tunnels of fuzz, clattering drums and lyrics about staying in eating minestrone soup sound like the scuzzy rock n roll rebellion of Sonic Youth.

Another band making their full debut was Marblekrusher, whose front man Tom Whyman proves it’s possible to be both ramshackle and pop, all over the place and a good performer at the same time. Whyman is a joy to behold, jumping up and down in excitement at being on stage. Marblekrusher start off slowly with keyboard chords, before Whyman bounces off into improvised drumming like a slowed down version of free jazz.

They might not conform much to music making in the traditional sense, but Marblekrusher remind us of something - music’s ability to be fun and irreverent. They start off from the same level as a child exploring melody for the first time, even covering youtube star Olivia, 3,’s sweet little ditty Two of the Beatles are Dead. They sing ‘two of the Beatles have died, two are still alive’, which is very true. However, it can’t sound very sad when they’re singing it over what sounds like a slowed down version of that other young at heart popstar Adam Green’s Bunny Ranch. Other tunes sound like music to old school computer games set in a slightly dystopian future.

Lauren’s trumpet is the magical hook holding Marblekrusher together, and makes you wonder why more bands don’t have trumpets. Marblekrusher are like a circus band, but if they were a pop group, they’d be experimental early Mercury Rev or the party pop of Architecture in Helsinki.

The band plays Whyman out, singing ‘we’ll be gone in five minutes, two mintes’, until he eventually collapses on the floor as if all that musical excitement had tired him out.

Winter Berries finish the night with short, sweet lo-fi folk songs, including the swoonsomly lovely Sundown.

http://www.myspace.com/winterberries
http://www.myspace.com/freedomscreech
http://www.myspace.com/marblekrusher
http://www.myspace.com/jamboreemanchester