Top 10 gigs of 2010 — with tunes

I like music. I hardly ever write about it, however, because a) it's really hard and b) to be honest there are lots of other people who do it better and with far more energy and enthusiasm (Pull Yourself Together and The Pigeon Post are good starting points). Even though I've not been to many gigs this year (having a 9-5 job pretty much destroyed any desire I may once have had to be awake after 10pm), out of the gigs I did go to these are the ones I enjoyed the most:

1. The Blow, supporting Jens Lekman, Deaf Institute, Manchester, August

One of the most intense but engaging performances I had seen for a long time (and now one of my favourite gigs ever, not just of this year). Khaela Maricich spent the gig, dressed in what looked like a cross between a nightie and gym wear, discussing her sexuality and telling a rambling, unlikely story about collaborating with, then getting dumped by, Lindsay Lohan that seemed to leave most of the audience completely bemused. Live, she's a one woman band who makes amazingly catchy, hard to stand still to dance-pop. I've been unable to get True Affection out of my head since the start of August.

http://open.spotify.com/track/16q8DkirGX0ldDxQ2BPVep

2. Trash Kit, supporting Grass Widow, Trof Northern Quarter, Manchester, October

Trash Kit are probably my dream band — a violin playing three piece punk band who make tight, taut, clean pop songs, almost always in under two minutes, where all the parts fit together perfectly with no unnecessary clutter. At their previous Manchester gig, in summer 2009, they were held up on the motorway and frustratingly only got to do a handful of songs, but what I saw gave the impression that they would be my new favourite band, and it was well worth the wait to see them again. I also love headliners Grass Widow, another all-female trio. They were great too, but somehow sounded slightly sprawling after the short, sharp assault of Trash Kit.

http://open.spotify.com/track/0uHnKnzsCjAAlp1K46EPmR

3. The Fall, All Tomorrow's Parties curated by Pavement, Butlins, Minehead, May

Most of my favourite gigs are by either bands I've heard very little of before, or people I love but expect to be terrible live, who then turn out to be the best thing ever (Neil Young epitomises this phenomenon of an artist being better than you could ever have dared to hope). I first saw (heard/jumped up and down to) the Fall in my heavily pregnant mother's womb. Despite having lived in Manchester for the past five years, it took until the eve of my 23rd birthday to repeat the experience, having been waiting for the right occasion for a number of reasons: their gigs are always really expensive, they generally play in horrible venues and they are notoriously bad live. So I would never have expected the Fall to be by far the best band at All Tomorrow's Parties. I thought they'd be obnoxious, noisy and abrasive, but I soon realised THE FALL ARE A BRILLIANT POP BAND, storming through song after song of keyboard hook driven tunes. An unexpectedly amiable Mark E Smith even returned for two encores. The most animated crowd I saw at ATP, and the most fun I had all weekend — dancing and jumping up and down as part of a sweaty mass.

http://open.spotify.com/track/3x8ultUG0S3YUS3Hyv2Z3y

4. Jens Lekman, Sandbar, Manchester, August

Jens Lekman is my favourite pop star in the whole world, and I arranged my summer (which included a pilgrimage to Jens' hometown of Gothenburg, Sweden) so I would be in Manchester to see his unmissable double bill with the Blow at the Deaf Institute. After the gig, Jens decided the audience should join him for a drink, so we headed en masse to Sandbar across the road. The manager initiated a lock-in and promised a free drink each. Jens carried on where he'd left off at the gig and played some of his loveliest songs acoustic in a corner whilst we sat around him and joined in at appropriate moments. Several people lined up for a few moments of conversation with Jens, topics ranging from how nice Sweden is and Jens being notoriously unlucky in love to the merits of maths/physics and fanzines, all of which he took with a smile. I gave him a copy of the food special of The Shrieking Violet as a souvenir of his trip to Manchester and he seemed touched. He examined it, sniffed it because he 'loves the smell of Xerox machines' and said he would treasure it as he loves fanzines but no-one makes them in Sweden anymore.

http://open.spotify.com/track/5uUByQFYLh4RINJ7q3J0SJ

5. La La Vasquez, Trof Northern Quarter, Manchester, March

Another female three piece — there is a theme developing — who make stripped down, rattling punk music for your feet and heart rather than your head. Over the past year and a half, I've discovered I really like Trof NQ as a gig venue, and a high proportion of the best gigs I've been to have been there.

http://open.spotify.com/track/1VwR4Zi9Oq9MmfBaGGYEnA

6. Hotpants Romance, Valentines Day Prom, Islington Mill, Salford, February

There are so many reasons why doing anything to acknowledge Valentines Day is a terrible idea. Apart from the obvious — sexual tension, social awkwardness, pursuing highly unsuitable people etc — it's in February, possibly the most depressing time of the year, when it's cold and dark outside. Punk trio Hotpants Romance, undoubtedly the most fun band in Manchester, gave a reason to leave the house, for a confetti strewn and balloon decorated afternoon prom — what school leaving discos would be like in a dream world. And they played in Hotpants, in February.

http://open.spotify.com/track/2uJs4KYuoiFIvPxe9W4Pm9

7. Pavement, All Tomorrow's Parties curated by Pavement, Butlins, Minehead, May

Given that they're one of my favourite bands, seeing Pavement was always going to be an anti-climax no matter how good they were (apart from the chance to sing along to Shady Lane, loudly and untunefully, obviously). Stephen Malkmus, who's a bit on the smug side onstage, isn't a particularly likeable frontman, but it was touching when Bob Nastanovich's wife joined him onstage for a dance and Steve West invited the crowd to a stonemasonry demonstration. And it was worth being wedged in a crowd so packed it was almost impossible to move when they finished with Debris Slide.

http://open.spotify.com/track/7fJl6k5NBxGjZVcfALqGkE

8. Best Coast, Deaf Institute, Manchester, May

When look back at 2010 and think about music I will think of Best Coast and how they were one of those bands who came along and perfectly summed up all my feelings at that time, specifically the line 'I hate sleeping alone'. By the time of the gig, Best Coast were all I had listened to solidly for months courtesy of a mix tape from my friend Dom. And I can still listen to that tape without getting bored.

http://open.spotify.com/track/2fJmrnpfGr0vdeX6xFZ6ab

9. The Raincoats, All Tomorrow's Parties curated by Pavement, Butlins, Minehead, May

The band who appeared to have the most fun onstage at ATP (despite playing in a nightmarishly claustrophobic, windowless, carpeted room with a low ceiling that may be a bingo hall or casino or something the rest of the year round) — like your cool, violin playing middle aged aunty having a party onstage with her girlfriends. You had to smile.

10. Former Bullies and Boy or Bison, The Kittywake boat, Wigan, August

Between them, Boy or Bison and Former Bullies have played at most of the best gigs I have been to in Manchester this year. When they played together on a boat I thought it would be the perfect chance to fulfil two long-held ambitions: visit Wigan and see the pier, and go on a barge. Unfortunately, I had assumed the barge would be stationary and it hadn't quite clicked that the barge would be moving, on a four hour cruise, and wouldn't be back in Wigan until the last bus and train back to Manchester had long departed. It was a very surreal experience, gently gliding along the Liverpool-Leeds canal keeping half an eye on the scenery outside and half an eye on the bands. The bands carried on playing at the front of the boat whilst it stopped and started, waiting for the water levels to rise as we climbed over locks. I had to get a taxi back to Manchester as it was a week night and I had work the next day, at a cost of £40, making it the most expensive gig I've ever been to. The taxi driver chatted the whole drive back about how much he hated living in Wigan.

Former Bullies aren't on spotify but go on their myspace and listen to the song Planetarium.

Here are all the songs that are on spotify together in one place, like a mixtape: http://open.spotify.com/user/natalieroseviolet/playlist/4Xo2RokVXTZqMr36gdlUZ4

Other gigs I enjoyed include Levenshulme Bicycle Orchestra in the Kings Arms, Salford at Sounds from the Other City and Monkeys in Love and Nuzzle Muzzle at Fuel in Withingon.

Sounds of the Other City - the Salford Music Map

SALFORD and Manchester, two cities next to each other but apart. To the rest of the world, Salford and Manchester are indistinguishable. However, in case you didn’t know, Salford is a different city marked out by the River Irwell towards the west of Manchester.

Until the Industrial Revolution, Salford was more powerful than its more famous neighbour. We stole the Industrial Revolution from them, and now, says a new exhibition and map celebrating 50 years of Salford music, we’re taking credit for their music too. “You wouldn’t get Glasgow and Edinburgh mixed up”, says the Salford Music Map’s researcher, David Nolan, so why Manchester and Salford?

Salfordians tend either to try and escape the city or wear their civic pride as a badge of honour. Being from Salford is sometimes seen as a mixed blessing: think of the 'Salford-Cambridge tones of Anthony H Wilson' (as we're reminded of in Mark Garry's BBC commissioned poem St Anthony, which can be listened to in the exhibition).

Nolan, a music author and lecturer at Salford University decided it was time to “address the balance a bit and clear up a few facts” spread by a Manchester Music Map that was created in the 1990s. He says “nearly all the stuff that was on it was actually in Salford.”

Disappointingly, though, the Salford Music Map isn’t really a map but a line of locations - you won’t be able to use it to find your way around Salford or any of the venues.

The ‘map’ is not drawn to scale; it promotes Salford as a tourist destination for visitors from both the UK and abroad, but you’re probably not going to track down all the sites, which are miles apart. Nolan suggests you “invest in a car or a bus ticket”, but admits the Salford Music Map is “more of a thing to put on your wall”.

Smiths fans already have Phil Gatenby’s books, Morrissey’s Manchester and Panic on the Streets, which contain instructions for foot, car and public transport and make for a fun musical tour around Manchester and Salford.

Some of the stories on the map could do with further exploration in the exhibition. Who are the Kersal Massive, and are they really something Salford should be proud of? I was amused to learn that a successful In The City slot at the Kings Arms, probably the nicest venue in the whole of Manchester, let alone Salford, was responsible for letting histrionic glam rockers the Darkness loose on the world, and Mark E Smith could have had a successful career in shipping was it not for The Fall, but both stories are barely referred to in the exhibition. The German singer Nico, who has a section on the map, is virtually unmentioned.

The 3D map on display in the gallery looks like something primary school children would create, with a big, jagged yellow sun peering over it optimistically. A river made of wool winds its way through cut out bits of paper indicating streets and buildings, some of which have already fallen over.

The exhibition is more substantial than the map, however. There are star shaped sunglasses to dress up in, and a stage set up with instruments for future rock stars. There’s a recreation of a record shop complete with posters, fliers and 7”s, as well work by Ray Lowry - Salford-born cartoonist and creator of the iconic cover of London Calling by the Clash - who died recently. You can pick up a telephone and listen to the fuzzy tones of punk poet John Cooper Clarke.

The exhibition is most interesting when it documents the 'development of a dirty northern city', to quote Mike Garry's poem again, and the changing ways we listen to music. Some sites on the map consisted of long-demolished terraced housing, and artefacts include a 1960s reel to reel cassette recorder, jukeboxes, Walkmen and IPODs.

A timeline relates musical occasions to what was going on elsewhere in the world, and there are films of key players for the different decades, as well as a Salford music fan’s Teddy Boy suit.

Bizarrely for an exhibition celebrating Salford, though, there's a big section on the Hacienda, which despite its various locations was never found in Salford. Perhaps because Salford doesn't have a recognisable city centre, Salford bands made a name for themselves playing in Manchester.

It's not just Salford bands Manchester takes credit for, though: it's associated with lots of music that’s not strictly Mancunian. Doves are a Cheshire band, Badly Drawn Boy is from Bolton, Inspiral Carpets are from Oldham. The Charlatans, who the music map claims as Salford’s own, have tenuous claims to being a Manchester band, let alone Salford. Singer Tim Burgess grew up in Cheshire and now lives in LA.

The map aims to find the future sounds of Salford, following the success of the Ting Tings. Bands like the Beep Seals look back to the sixties for their inspiration and are new, but not particularly futuristic. Nor is jaunty, brass heavy ska band The Mekkits.

Salford's annual new music festival Sounds of the Other City is hardly a collection of Salford sounds, either. Fun and commendable as it is, and successful at bringing people into Salford who wouldn't normally go there, bands at this year’s event included the sublime David Thomas Broughton from Leeds, as well as Rozi Plain from Bristol and even a band from New York, Talibam!. For the real 'new' sounds of Greater Manchester in the 21st century, listen to bands like Cats in Paris, Denis Jones or Voice of the Seven Woods, who sometimes even play at venues in Salford like the lovely Sacred Trinity Church.

However, Nolan hopes the exhibition and map will get “people to cross over the river who normally would have just gone to Manchester”.

Quiffs, Riffs and Tiffs will be at Salford Art Gallery, Peel Park Crescent, until 28 October 2009. The Salford Music Map is free and can be ordered from www.vistsalford.info or picked up at the Salford Tourist Information Centre, the Salford Museum and Art Gallery and several of the venues on the map, including The Lowry, The King’s Arms, Salford Lads Club, Islington Mill and Salford University.