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

An Apathetical Reader

On Wednesday, I went to an open meeting at the Chapel, the newish arts and social space in the old photographic society building in Platt Fields Park, about an exciting new writing project.

Run by Alice White, An Apathetical Reader - which is affiliated with the Chapel Community project - will be an online newspaper dedicated to giving a voice to those in Manchester who feel like they wouldn't normally be heard, or feel isolated from the communities around them.

White describes An Apathetical Reader as "a forum for Manchester's displaced, disheartened and disillusioned individuals that aims to question the meaning of apathy and the effect it has on those around us.

By creating a space for all artists, be it photographers, illustration artists, journalists, writers, poets, musicians, lyric penners, painters, activists, with no specific political charge and no limits on who can enter into the dreamworld of An Apathetical Reader, individuals can be encouraged to realise and release their potential."

She says: "We hope to connect people to create a positive consensus, spread the word of hard work and provide an intelligent zine that encourages every kind of expression."

The site will meld local and national political commentary with features, profiles of inspiring people in the area and arts pieces such as music writing - White, who has a background in music journalism, wants it to be a place for people to go and find music they've never heard about before.

It will also be a forum for people to display their previously unseen work. White says: "It's all about encouragement." The site will show the work of local artists, and also be a place for them to discuss their influences and inspirations, with links to other pages.

Networking will be key to the site, which White describes as a "building process".

An Apathetical Reader is supported by People's Voice Media, an organisation which aims to bring communities closer and encourage independent reporting by members of the community for members of the community.

Like fanzines, the site will be a 'mish mash' of different ideas and themes, but will aim to provide news of what is happening in Manchester.

Inspirations range from music magazine The Stool Pigeon and American counter culture journal Arthur to The Mule, with its mix of analysis and cultural features.

White says: "You can get a news story from anywhere, from council meetings to MPs' surgeries. Try and be probing, anything could come of it."

An Apathetical Reader will feature:

* Quality local journalism on crucial issues that affect the city's people

* Poetry straight from the red-brick hedged canals

* Illustration of every kind

* Photography of you and the building behind you

* Artwork of interest

* Features on Manchester's bright lights

* Music journalism with real content.

To get involved, contact Alice.R.Apathetical@gmail.com or attend one of the meetings at the Chapel to meet likeminded people.

Join the facebook group here.

St Luke's Church - If you're ever in Liverpool, go here

One of the most striking sights on Liverpool's skyline is the shell of St Luke's Church at the top of Bold Street, where Berry Street and Leece Street meet. It's also one of Liverpool's most interesting art spaces, hosting the group Urban Strawberry Lunch and holding open air film screenings (including a 1939 version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame), theatre and gigs.

I first visited during the Liverpool Biennial, when Yoko Ono transformed St Luke's into a growing forest of stepladders, donated by the public as part of her installation Skyladders (when I mentioned this to the woman on the door last week, she said "Don't talk to me about stepladders!") . These added to its derelict building site feel.

St Luke's is a well known local landmark, referred to as the 'bombed out church' or, on Urban Strawberry Lunch's website, rather sweetly, as Bombdie.

The church was bombed in 1941, leaving only the clock tower in tact, with its heavy wooden door. It's still imposing and ornate, even with Liverpool's solid Anglican Cathedral looming in the background. Peer into the corners of its windows and you can still make out stained glass figures, tiny lights adding unexpected colours to the church's bleak frame, muted brickwork and blackened beams. Defiant stone faces still stare sternly from its walls. Weeds grow round its Gothic window frames like something from a fairytale, the church's solemnity muffled by a carpet of grass. It's open to the elements, but also to the residents of the city as a community space.Just behind the main shopping hub, and the dereliction of Duke Street, it's a quiet refuge from which to look out over the city, a walled garden in the middle of a metropolis, a water feature in the centre, like an enclosed park with its own pond. It's a place of reflection, housing a memorial to the victims of the Irish Famine.

On the pleasant Friday afternoon I spent wandering around Liverpool in the sunshine last week, St Luke's was inviting people to take part in Urban Gardening, which takes place every Friday. Inside, last year's bulbs are now blazing with colour, something growing alive out of the ruins.

The church is also delicately decorated with red wool, hanging from twigs and wrapped around doors and stonework. The lady in charge said this was the work of the Chinese community during Chinese New Year celebrations - Chinatown is just across the road, and St Luke's aims to be a space for local communities.

She rolled up her coat sleeve and showed me red wool tied around her wrist like a fragile friendship bracelet, saying they decorated her too and she couldn't take it off as it signifies good luck.

St Luke's definitely needs some good luck - I was also told that, although it's Grade II listed, the group pay rent to the council, who want to knock it down to build flats. Like so many things, it's difficult to secure funding.

So, if you're ever in Liverpool, visit, donate, to keep St Luke's open.

http://www.usl.org.uk/

To find out what's on, visit:
http://www.myspace.com/lunchatstlukes

http://www.finest-hour.net/

Capture Manchester, CUBE

If you could sum up Manchester in a single image, what would it be? And is it possible? An exhibition at CUBE sets out to capture the spirit of Manchester, comprising of hundreds of images - mainly photos - sent in by the public. The postcard size images offer snapshots of Manchester life, from its landmarks to small, neglected corners and alleys most of us walk straight past on a daily basis, with ten winning entries receiving £500 for their shots. There's no single image that, taken in isolation, says Manchester and sums up its essence, but taken as a whole the images give a sense of the chaotic fragments that make up life in the city.

I wasn’t impressed by the judges' choices of winners which, apart from a shot of graffiti boasting 'Gorton girls know all the words to songs by Chaka Chan', seemed a bit predictable. Winning images will be printed as postcards (click here to read Phil Griffin's excellent article about the lack of variety of Manchester postcards).

As you’d expect, Castlefield is well represented in the submissions, including the often seen shot of its two towers - an old, redbrick one rising from the shadow of the Beetham tower that dominates the city skyline. The famous curves of Central Library are returned to over and over again, and it’s good to see B of the Bang commemorated before it goes forever.

Many photos take the architecture of the city as their starting point, often focusing in on quirks like gargoyles. Old and new is a recurring theme, and one of the most effective shots places ornate redbrick turrets against the protruding glass blocks of the new civil justice centre in Spinningfields, a bizarre and extreme juxtaposition. The derelict Department of Employment building, its former purpose just about identifiable from battered letters on the front, takes on a new relevance for our times. Victoria Station deservedly gets a look in, with its map of railway routes, and the destination signs outside, where a tiny Hull is squeezed in between Newcastle and Belgium.

There is a large number of photos of triumphant symbols of the new Manchester like Urbis and the big wheel, many of which are embellished with technical trickery and special effects. The ones which are unplayed with are more effective, though, showing Manchester in its natural state, from the utilitarian street namies of Ancoats - Mangle Street - to a row of boarded up terraces. Pictures close in on doorways and abandoned entrances or the front of an Asian grocer's and an MEN newsagents. A worthy winner would have been the photo taken from the top deck of a Magic Bus, a rival Finglands in the background - what could be more typical of the Manchester experience than a journey along the Wilsmlow Road corridor at peak time?

My favourite photos are the ones that look beyond the glossy image - all shiny glass and big gestures - that's sold to tourists and could be seen in any of the council's promotional literature. The photos are best when they just show what's there already, and make us look at it closer, rather than trying to impress by montaging or photoshopping. For example, the area outside the Thirsty Scholar and the Attic with its spiral staircase is given a new, fairytale magic when framed in black and white that would be missed by the casual observer.

Among my favourites are those which look past Manchester's monuments and architecture, forego grand aerial views to get down to the level of its inhabitants - one photo even crouches down to a goose's eye level.

It's Manchester's inhabitants that make the city what it is, after all. A portrait of a teenager wearing a tshirt asking ‘Do I f***ing look like I’m a people person’ is instantly recognisable to anyone who spends anytime in Cathedral Gardens at the weekend, where teenagers congregate. Canals and woodland are more interesting when they have people silhouetted against them, Piccadilly Gardens more alive when children play in its fountains. The shiny new city of Spinningfields is made more human by a woman waiting by a 'Meet me in Spinningfields' poster -the advertising message becomes literal rather than an empty slogan of redevelopment.

The best photos are those dictated by circumstance, such as sunshine catching on street sculptures in New Islington, a springboard for a burst of sunlight to leap out against a cloudy sky. One of my favourite photos shows the outline of a couple holding hands in the snow, next to the Temple in Heaton Park.

Until April 18.

Incidentally, I'm far too disorganised for submitting anything to any exhibitions. I think this is my favourite Manchester photo, of Plymouth Grove pub in Ardwick, taken well over a year ago. It was the first photo I developed by myself, and wasn't meant to come out so dark, but I thought the darkness suited it perfectly, making its distinctive clock tower (Grade 2 listed) stand out against a moody Mancunian sky. The pub's derelict and boarded up, in an area that's had huge building programmes going on all around it. I don't know if it's still there, but I hope so.

The Would Be's - I'm Hardly Ever Wrong

A few months ago, I rediscovered one of my all time favourite records. It's one of those perfectly composed examples of the three and a half minute artform that seemed to say everything about my life at the time when I first heard it, and can be returned to over and over again, and still sound exactly the same however my life has changed since I last listened.

I first came across I'm Hardly Ever Wrong by Irish band the Would Be's when I recorded it by chance from Steve Lamacq's Evening Session. Growing up in a small town, his daily show on Radio 1 was my only entertainment for a couple of years, and it introduced me to many classic songs, as well as new bands.

I still have the cassette, which is marked Jan-March 2002. I'm Hardly Ever Wrong, a lost indie classic from 1990, takes up even less than the conventional three minutes, nestled in between Hole and a live session by Easyworld. Presumably, my finger, hovered over my stereo, hit the record button soon after the song started, drawn in by the distinctive opening notes of the intro, which trundle into a piece of perfect pop that is as unique as it is timeless. The female singer's slightly husky voice is unforgettable, gliding through lyrics about how seeing a film, reading a book, hearing a song, "changes your life, but only for a day, and a day is not enough". She's almost blase, prematurely worldweary like someone who's been through it all before, the chorus soaring to its conclusion that "i'm hardly ever wrong" with the self-assuredness and world-conquering ambition that's unique to teenagers - or at least, I saw in my 14 year old self.

I'm Hardly Ever Wrong is tinged with regret and melancholy, anchored by slightly mocking horns that follow the floating vocal line like an encroaching conscience or voice of doubt. The arrangements are highly sophisticated. So far, I've only tested it out during bedroom discos, but I'm trying to spead the word so that I'm Hardly Ever Wrong can be played again and come to life on the dancefloor, assuming its rightful place alongisde the establishd indie cannon of Smiths, Stereolab and et al...

Despite its superfluous apostrophe, in my mind The Would Be's is also up there with all time great band names, memorable because of the aura of mystery it creates - 'would be' suggests unattainable dreams, unfulfilled ambition, something elusive and hard to come by, not yet accomplished.

I tried to find out more about the band on the internet, but to no avail - until a few months ago, when I discovered they had finally created a myspace, where two more superb songs can be heard. Unfortunately, it seems the Would Be's were to become Would Have Beens, and disappeared without ever even releasing an album.

I'm Hardly Ever Wrong is one of those songs I wish I could have written, and something my own music aspires towards. I contacted the band with a list of questions, as much to satisfy my curiosity as anything else. I'm fully intending to write their responses up as a proper interview for a fanzine soon, but until then, and to coincide with the 19th anniversary of the release of the song, here are there answers in full, which are brilliant even in their unedited form and discuss subjects close to my heart like the radio, John Peel, teenage spirit, grand dreams and ambitions and even just the experience of being a young band in the music industry.

Who is in the band?

The Would Be's consisted of three Finnegan brothers, Matthew, Eamonn and Paul, assorted guitars. Julie McDonnel singer. Pascal Smith drums. Aideen O'Reilly trombone and saxophone. Eileen Gogan singer who replaced Julie.

How did you meet and get together?

Guitarist Matt was asked to play in a local variety show in which Aideen was involved, Aideen was a friend of singer Julie, so due to a shared interest in good music the Would Be's were born....and of course a secret shared interest in being rich and famous but we didn't talk about that !!!

How did you come up with the name the Would Be’s?

We wanted a name that would suit our down-to-earth unpretentious modest attitude to music and life, plus we had the mistaken belief that we just couldn't be a great band without being part of some elite group of people who were somehow ‘born to greatness' . I did say that we were modest, it's the one thing that we could boast about at that time !! so after some searching in ' Virtues English dictionary' ( Encyclopaedic Edition ) we found '' Would be '' and we liked the sound of it and how it looked in print.How old were you when you released I’m Hardly Ever Wrong?

A mental age of about nine or ten but the band had a physical age of between thirteen and nineteen ish and it's a fact that our thirteen year old rhythm guitarist Paul didn't get to play a certain gig in Dublin because the owner of the venue wouldn't let him in cause he was underage. but hey....that's rock'n'roll...man !

It sounds quite teenage - what did you write songs about?

We tended to write songs about certain deep thoughts that we had from time to time, like for instance, how our 'radio sounded different in the dark ' and how things seemed to be '' funny ha ha and funny peculiar'' at the same time, we tried to get a balance of ' insight into life and a good sense of humour about it all, we'd like to think that we achieved that in our songs....( well we hope so anyway !!! )

Who were your influences?

We were influenced by a wide range of music, famous bands like the Smiths and the Pixies, no so famous band like, Half man Half Biscuit, Bongwater, Freiwillige selbst-kontrolle ( F.S.K. ). I.Ludicrous, Shonen Knife, the Frank Chickens, the Pooh Sticks, Jonathan Richman, Flying Lizards, John Cooper Clarke, and lots more.

How did you come up with the idea of having brass in the band?

Well one day I was walking past the local scrapmetal yard and I saw a big brass bed.......( only jokin ). The trombone and saxophone came about because Aideen was a member of the local brass and reed band, we thought that it added a nice touch to the guitar based pop music that we were playing and as we got more well known we found that people really liked the fact that we sounded different to the other rock and pop bands around at that time. '' Ya cant bet a bit of brass '' as they say...........in brass bands, I suppose !

How did you write one of the catchiest indie songs ever and then just completely disappear?

Well it wasn't easy, it takes a special kinda talent to disappear so quickly after breaking through in a very competitive business, when the single '' I'm hardly ever wrong '' came out, some of the biggest record companies in the world wanted to sign us, the phone was hopping all day every day after the late very great ' JOHN PEEL ' played the song on his bbc radio 1 show, we had A & R people coming from New York and London to hear us playing live in some small out-of-the-way towns in Ireland, sometimes they got lost on the way to the gigs and were never seen or heard of again !!!!!!!!!! maybe....! but in the end we signed to a small independent record company in London because we wanted complete artistic control, we thought that the big companies would tell us what to do, well the small company didn't tell us what to do....... but they also didn't have the money to make the record a hit, so it was a combination of ' naivete, idealism, big headedness and downright stupidity that helped us to disappear from the scene. but we're not bitter......................oh yes we are !.......but only a little......when it's very cold and we haven't much to eat..!

Why is there no information about you on the internet?

We didn't plan it that way but we kinda like the fact that there's not too much information on the internet about us, it adds a bit of mystery in these days of instant knowledge, instant gratification and instant coffee.....it's nice to be anonymous but then again that works against you if you're trying to sell music.............can we have it both ways ??...........no, didn't think so !

Did you never record an album/ why?

We didn't get to record an album, we got a bit distracted at the time and our first singer Julie McDonnel decided to stay at school, we were looking for a new singer for a few months, which is a long time in the music biz, when Eileen Gogan joined the band we recorded four songs with producer '' STEPHEN STREET ' those four songs plus four songs we had recorded with Julie McDonnel have just become availible on itunes as an E.P. '' SILLY SONGS FOR CYNICAL PEOPLE '' the song '' I'M HARDLY EVER WRONG '' is included on it. so that's the nearest thing to an album that we have released.

Did you ever meet John Peel or go on his radio show?

Sadly we didn't get to meet john peel but he did phone us a few times, I think that he was a bit concerned that we might get eaten up by some of the big sharks in the music biz ,and ya know I think he was right, we kinda did !! . John gave us his home phone number which was an honour to have but wouldn't you know it one of the times that we rang him he was in the middle of his sunday dinner, he talked to us anyway and didn't seem to mind, he was a very rare and genuine person in a business that is known to be full of common and false people, we were very saddened to hear of his death, I'm sure he would still be doing his show on radio if he had lived, we didn't get to go on his show live but we did record a four song peel session for his bbc radio 1 show in Maida vale studios London, he broadcast it a few times which was a great experience, we had been big fans of his show for years before he played us, it was a dream come true, so that proves that dreams really do come true...............well, some times.......................if you dream hard enough!

What did he like so much about your song?

The first time that he played it he said he liked the sound of the guitars on the intro and he played the intro part a few times to point that out, he also played the b side that first night and he said that '' I'm hardly ever wrong '' was a wonderful classic pop song and that he hoped that bbc radio 1 would put it on the daytime playist but alas for some strange reason they didn't , maybe because it was a wonderful classic pop song and you cant have that kinda thing on daytime radio now can ya !

You beat Morrissey, the Charlatans and Nick Cave to reach number 12 in John Peel’s 1990 festive 50 - that’s quite an honour! How did you feel about that?

We were very flattered by that as we are big fans of some of the bands we beat, it was a good confidence booster at the time, but maybe it's not a good thing to get too confident when you're young and foolish, there's nothing bigger than a big head.

You have a song called My Radio Sounds Different in the Dark - are/ were you a big fan of the radio?

We have always enjoyed listening to the radio, used to listen to it in bed, in the dark for an hour or two before going asleep, that's where the inspiration for that song came from, music is much more vivid in the dark, much more intense.....man ! and as it happens, I'm listening to the radio at the moment as I write out this interview and you may not believe this but D J Chris Hawkins on BBC 6MUSIC has just said he will be broadcasting the Would Be's John Peel Session on his show, friday 20th.march 2009. now that is what I call a coincidence ! and it does sound different, in the digital audio dark . !!!!

Did you play much in the UK?

I think we did two short tours of the UK . which was very exciting for us at the time, we played in Liverpool, a venue called Planet X , Morrissey was suppose to come along to hear us play at that one but the manager said he always gets mobbed everytime he goes there so I dont think he showed up that night, I think the support band was called '' Barbel ''.

We also played in ''the Mean Fiddler '' '' the L.S.E. '' '' the Boarderline '' and the '' Venue '' new cross London where the support was from a band called the ''Boilweevils '' .We got to stay in that famous rock 'n' roll hotel near Hyde park '' THE COLUMBIA HOTEL ''where all the rock and pop bands used to stay and maybe still do ! New Kids on The Block '' were staying there at the same time as us, ahh well, bad timing there !! but the Inspiral Carpets and Lush and the Greatful Dead were there aswell so it wasn't too bad, a big name D J from Los Angeles '' Rodney Binginhimer '' a d j on KROQ radio came to hear us play in the L.S.E. ( london school of economics ) he took some photos of us and had a chat backstage, very rock'n'roll, He was one of the first d js to play Blondie and the Ramones, he's known as the Mayor of Sunset Strip ' these days. Oh, and a big fan of ours from England, a one '' William Shakespeare '' came up to say hello to us after that gig, now you wouldn't forget a fan with a name like that, wouldest thou !! so hello to William if he happens to see this. We really enjoyed the UK gigs a lot .

Were there any other bands that were doing the same kind of thing as you at the same time?

Not too many that sounded the same with brass instruments and a female singer and of course ' wonderful classic pop songs '. We're still modest !!!

Did I’m Hardly Ever Wrong enter the charts?

The single didn't get playlisted on bbc daytime radio at the time we released it and we were on a small indie record label so we didn't get through to a big commercial audience but it did reach number 5 or 6 in the independent charts, which was nice.

Why aren’t you famous?

Well, why indeed ! maybe we'' just haven't earned it yet baby '' ( as the Smiths once sang ) I think part of the reason is because we didn't make the right decisions at the right time, we got lost in the moment, and what a moment !! but as some wise man once said,( '' if everybody was somebody, then nobody would be anybody '' ). Hope he was right about that ?

Do you feel like your songs should be better known and should be being played at indie discos?

We would like it if people got the chance to hear our songs at indie discos so that they could decide whether or not the songs deserve to be better known, I suppose every band thinks their songs should be better known but ultimately the people shall decide.

How long were you together for and why did you stop making music?

I think we were together for just about two years or so, it was a kind of whirlwind romance with the music biz, not sure why we stopped but as the initial buzz died down I think we lost interest, it must have been a case of '' too much too soon ''.

What do you all do now?

Most of us are still involved in music, Pascal Smith is giving drumming lessons, Julie is an art teacher, Aideen is working in art and fashion, Eilleen is writing and singing songs under the name '' Melba '' us Finnegan brothers are still writing songs and playing music.

When did you last play together?

I think the last gig we played was in 1991, could have been a venue in Limerick city.

Are you going to make any music together soon?

No plans to make music as the Would Be's at the moment but the Finnegan brothers are writing some new songs with a female singer and may release them under a different name sometime if they sound any good.........which of course they will !!!!!!!

We almost got together a few years ago for a John Peel remembrance day show in Dublin along with some other bands but we couldn't get all the members of the would be's together at the time so we didn't get to do it

If you play any gigs soon, will you play some of your old songs? Would that be weird, playing them so long after they were written?

If we ever did play together again we would play the old songs, I dont think it would feel weird, it would be much more fun I'd say because we wouldn't be taking ourselves so seriously as we used to.

Are there any bands you like nowadays?

There are lots of bands that we like at the moment, the Gossip, the Arctic Monkeys, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Richard Hawley, the White Strips, the Kills and many many more, as they say !

Yours musically
Eamonn, Matt, Paul Would Be's
www.myspace.com/thewouldbesofficial
eight track album
''silly songs for cynical people'' available at itunes music store

Victoria Baths - Manchester's Water Palace reopens to visitors this weekend

It’s that time of year again. The days are getting longer, flowers are blooming, the sun is coming out more often - and one of Manchester’s best loved buildings is having a spring clean and reopening to the public.

Victoria Baths’ popular open days, held on the first Sunday of every month, will recommence on April 5, after the building (still in a derelict state and without heating) was closed for the long, cold winter.

There’s more to do than just look around a building - the opening will be marked with a choir performance, and other first Sundays will see table top sales, a Lego workshop and more musical entertainment and performances, as well as the usual café and souvenir stalls.

Even without that entertainment, though, and in its still dilapidated state, a visit to the Baths is a breathtaking experience. In September 2003, 282,018 people voted it the winner of BBC2’s Restoration programme, winning it £3.5million (including £3million from the heritage lottery fund). It was granted a further £450,000 by English Heritage, which has helped to start returning it to its former glory.

Restoration phase 1 was completed in 2008, and work should start this summer on making the Gala pool fit for use again, as well as restoring the Turkish Baths. However, it will cost £20million to fully restore the building, and you can see why when you’re lost inside its grand scale and overwhelmed by its pomp and circumstance - the Baths is from a different age, when public buildings were built with ambition that went far beyond their functionality, and aimed to inspire the public and instill respect and awe. The Baths' future and place in the day to day life of modern Manchester is still uncertain, as it’s owned by a private developer - suggestions include conversion into mixed used space that will incorporate offices.
From the outside, the Grade 2* listed building is imposing, standing like a large mint striped with multicoloured bricks and terracotta. That doesn’t prepare you for the inside, however, and the three huge prism ceilings. You can wander round the balconies and gaze down into the pools.

The attention to detail is incredible, from the cast iron blue swimming cubicles with their candy stripe pink and white curtains and the ornate ironwork of the turnstiles at the front of the building to the mosaics with their fish designs and the panelled ceiling of the Turkish Baths. Light smears the glazed Pilkington tiles that decorate the first class males entrance hall from floor to ceiling like petrol making rainbow colours in puddles of water.

The jewel in Victoria Baths' crown, though, is undoubtedly the stained glass that adorns the building, culminating in the gorgeous Art Deco style Angel of Purity in the Turkish Baths Rest Room. When the building floods with light on a sunny day, the windows cast patterns on the ceiling, walls and floors and it feels like you’re walking into a stained glass window.

Victoria Baths was designed by Manchester’s first city architect, Henry Price, and built between 1903 and 1906, at huge expense. Opened in 1906, Manchester’s Lord Mayor, called it “a water palace of which every citizen of Manchester is proud”. There are sister baths in Withington and Harpurhey (which is similarly derelict, and finally closed to the public in 2001), also designed by Price, but Victoria Baths is undeniably the grandest and most spectacular. Unfortunately, the council did not share the public’s enthusiasm for Victoria Baths, which was becoming more and more expensive to maintain and repair, and the building closed in 1993, despite public opposition and being occupied by protestors.The building almost has a personality of its own, and looks like a film star (which it is). The Baths has featured in various films and TV series over the years including Prime Suspect, Life on Mars, the Barry Gibb film Now Voyager and, most recently, the execrable programme How to Look Good Naked, in which Gok Wan and Mylenne Klass encouraged women to strip naked and hosed them down in the baths.

Even in its emptiness - perhaps because the pools, drained of water, amplify the ghosts of its former users - the Baths seem alive; with memories, such as the sound of children’s laughter at swimming galas, with ambition, with the large personalities that came be associated Victoria Baths, including the strict swimming teachers that are reminisced about at open days over and over again.

Visitors at open days are encouraged to give their memories of the Baths for the Victoria Baths archives. The dances that were held when the floors were tiled over for the winter, sound tracked by popular jazz bands, often feature, and many couples have fond memories of meeting at the baths. Others, children, pupils at local schools at the time, describe visiting the Baths in their lunch hours and spending their pocket money on Bovril and toast from the café.

That’s what must be remembered about the Baths - the role it played in people’s lives. When it opened, the authorities hoped every child in Manchester would be taught to swim, and this was encouraged through the following decades with free swimming passes for children achieving swimming certificates. South Manchester Swimming Club had its home at the Baths, and who wouldn’t be inspired by the magnificence of the building? The Olympic swimmers Zilpha Grant and Dianne Ashton trained in the pool, as well as the Sunny Lowry, the first British woman to swim the channel in 1933, who remained a familiar sight at the Baths until her death at the age of 97 last year.

The Baths go beyond a sporting utility though. Built at a time when much of the surrounding terraced housing didn’t have bathrooms, families had the weekly luxury of a bath in the building. Women visited the Baths to do their laundry and friendships were forged in the Turkish Baths restrooms.

In many ways, the building is very of its time - there are separate entrances for 1st class males, 2nd class and females, and separate pools, but it’s proved adaptable over the years, even hosting Factory Records parties in the years before its closure. The building has been put to imaginative use as an arts venue over the last few years too, including inviting an artist in residence, Ally Wallace, to create a large scale work in response to the building last year.

It’s important a financially sustainable use is found to keep Victoria Baths open to the public, not just as a tribute to beautiful architecture and design. It’s a reminder of the history of the areas around it - Victoria Park, Longsight and Levenshulme, but especially Ardwick, which in recent years has changed beyond all recognition. As well as being a concrete monument to personal history and memories, it’s a fascinating document of the way we were, the way the Victorians thought, and how far we’ve come. It’s also a tribute to the innovations in building and sanitation that found their way into the design, including Victoria Baths having its own well and water supply. The Baths also housed the first public aerotone - a kind of early Jacuzzi - in the country.

Victoria Baths
Hathersage Road
Chorlton on Medlock (just off Oxford Road, behind the Royal Infirmary)
Manchester
M13 OFE

Open days, starting on April 5, take place every first Sunday between 12-4pm and cost £2 for adults, free for children.

Guided tours of the building will take start at 2pm every Wednesday from April 1, and cost £4.

www.victoriabaths.org.uk

One and All at Castlefield Gallery

This evening, I went to the packed out preview of the new exhibition at Castlefield Gallery, which is a collection of work that was installed at various community centres throughout Manchester as part of the project 'I don't know about community networks but I know what I like' in January. The fact the work of the seven artists is now all based in one place is useful for lazy people like me who didn't get round to visiting all the venues, which were spread between Harpurhey, Gorton, Cheetham Hill and Wythenshaw.

The walk to Castlefield Gallery is something I love about Manchester, partly because of the way Edward Walters' Congregational Chapel, one of my favourite buildings, comes into view little by little. Tonight was a perfect spring evening, and its tower gradually struck a silohuette against the pink sky with an unusually large pink-red sun getting lower in the background.

Unfortunately, some of the exhibitions at Castlefield Gallery have gone a bit over my head in the past (although I really enjoyed the Laura White exhibition). I've found them too conceptual for the casual viewer, or been a bit overwhelmed by too much video or technicality and esoteric ideas. One and All works really well though, as there's enough of visual interest but it's also based on a sound concept - that of communities and urban regeneration, and the way we see the city around us, as well as more fundamental ideas of the changing role of the artist.

There's challenging, unconventional work, such as Andrew Wilson's board game based on networks of people, but there's also painting and sculpture.

I have to admit that I only got as far as the installation in the Town Hall earlier this year, called TV. Artist Hafsah Naib posted advertisements asking people who were thinking of getting rid of their television to donate it to her project, and the work TV is a collection of these TVs in a circle. We sit down and watch each of the TVs, on which are playing interviews with their former owners on the subject of television and its role in their lives - when you think about it, getting rid of a TV is saying goodbye to a large part of the fabric of your home for a lot of peope.

Some the interviewees are slightly awkward, and some take naturally to the screen like actors performing a monologue. I was slightly disconcerted when I saw one of my friends unexpectedly on one of the screens the first time round, but I think that's the point - as one of the interviewees says, TV has conventionally been one of those unifying things in our society that's part of nearly everyone's life and everyone is expected to have a view on, from Coronation Street and Eastenders to the X Factor. These people aren't experts in a traditional sense - or maybe TV is something on which everyone is an expert, not least in the way in which we build up relationships with programmes and series over time (as one interviewee says, she always remembers the last ever episodes of programmes like Friends and Frasier as being particularly poignant).

It's like reality TV gone a step further, challenging our notions of who should be on TV and who is worthy of our interest. For an exhibition which portrays the fast-changing world around us, it's interesting to see how the interviewees view television - often with mistrust, seeing it as propaganda, a tool for disseminating advertising and censored knowledge. It's also a reminder of how old fashioned television, a staple of our lives for so long, is becoming, in this age when children grow up with the internet as their main source of information. It starkly illustrates the generation gap: one man talks about a 'TV meter' that measured how much television the family was watching - a form of pay as you go TV, which seems extremely archaic, and another interviewee describes how a friend made the decision to get rid of her television for a couple of years in an incredulous, 'would you believe it' tone even though TV is probably going to be obsolete for the children of the near future.

For some interviewees, TV is a chance to tell their life story, to have an audience for their opinions: "children these days get a better education watching the TV than they do at school".

The individual's tale is also told in Jo Lewington's video Digital Film 15, Cheetham Hill August, which focuses in on the human in a uniform environment. We have a worker's eye view of a textile factory - literally, as the video was filmed by workers wearing head cameras. It's slightly disconcerting having hands appear from nowhere which aren't yours, performing the repetitive routine of a pillow manufacturer.

Grennan & Sperandio offer the closest to conventional 'art', albeit starting from a marginalised viewpoint, with paintings of the type of places and details of Manchester's streets that wouldn't normally make it into a landscape painting, including that funny slither pub in Hulme.

William Titley's dustbins, turned into sculptures housing water fountains and illuminated in bright colours, double as striking examples of recycling, and Jil Moore's large, transparent glass pieces, like vases patinaed with images of the city's transport system, are beautiful. Her sculptures are displayed by the gallery's huge windows, and when I was looking at them the wind suddenly shook some pale pink spring blossom from the trees outside like a snow shower. Somehow this display of nature in such an urban setting complemented Moore's vases, which project robust urban images onto objects based around translucency and light, perfectly.

Unlike some of the other exhibitions of modern art I've been to lately, there's enough to draw you in for a closer look that you'll want to think about the themes behind the art - ie, the role of the individual, and how much space we really have to be individuals in the modern city. As well as giving you things to look at, the exhibition makes you think about the way we view our city and whether it's dictated by outside forces we aren't really aware of.

One and All is at Castlefield Gallery until May 17 (my birthday!)
2 Hewitt Street
Castlefield
Manchester
M15 4GB

www.castlefieldgallery.co.uk
www.one-and-all.org

Abraham Lincoln goes bling

Lincoln Square has turned into an unlikely tourist attraction, with a crowd of people holding their mobile phones up to get a picture of Abraham Lincoln gone bling. The statue that gives the small square on Brazenose Street (incidentally, one of my favourite street names) its name hitherto only stood out for its unusually large head. Now, the head has been accentuated even more by a puffed up 'NY' New York Yankees style hat with red cloth of an indeterminate purpose trailing out of it. A grave looking President Lincoln also sports some hip-hop bling around his neck, including a large gold medallion proclaiming ‘Union’ (as in, the Northern states of the Union versus the secessionist Southern States, back in American history). To top it all off, he’s given a bit of street attitude by large rings almost the size of his hands which tell us he’s a ‘true Yank’. The effect is as comical as you can imagine.

Obviously noone told the MEN, who in today's edition said “mystery surrounds who has given the statue the makeover”, that the stunt wasn't a work of an anonymous graffiti artist. It’s the doing of the American street artist Leon Reid IV and was commissioned by URBIS as part of their exhibition State of the Art: New York, which starts next week and will celebrate the city's vibrant art scene.

An interviewee in the same article - who is clearly completely devoid of a sense of humour - said: "I'm not quite sure what it's supposed to say. It's supposed to be modern art. They've turned it into some kind of African gangster statue. I don't particularly like it. It looks very strange. Apparently they had a crane. I don't like it. It's insulting. I think it looks really daft."

He’s spectacularly missed the point. The African map hanging from his neck is a reference to Lincoln’s work to stop the slade trade during the American Civil War of the 1860s.

Lincoln was supported by Manchester in his opposition to the slave trade - yet another example of Manchester as a politically radical, forward thinking city, which is why there is a statue of Abraham Lincoln in Manchester in the first place.

Or maybe he's choosing not to see the point, seeing as we're also told this at the bottom of the statue, which acknowledges ‘the support that the working people of Manchester gave in the fight for the abolition of slavery during the American civil war'.
The statue was placed in the square in 1986, in a fairly tucked away location (considering Brazenose Street's proximity to the Town Hall and the prominence of the statues in Albert Square).

I, for one, had to do a double take when I went to the Post Office on Brazenose Street this afternoon. It definitely brightened up my grey afternoon as well as, I'm guessing, that of the office workers who eat lunch in the square every day. It's a thought provoking bit of modernisation, and you can't ignore the influence the past has had on our times.

www.urbis.org.uk/page.asp?id=3280

You may also enjoy Jonathan Schofield's article on the history of the statue, which was written to coincide with Barack Obama's election as president.

Additionally, the comments on the MEN website are pure gold, as ever, notably Squirrelito:

"the only link I can see between Lincoln and Hip Hop "culture" is that so many gangsta rappers were also shot dead.

Hip Hop culture?

Judging by the arc that Hip Hop has taken over the last 30 years, are we also to assume that Mr Lincoln started out as charting social conscience and decrying the plight of the black man in America but over the years became more interested in perpetuating the stereotype of the violent, money-obsessed, misogynist homophobe?

Very uplifting
squirrelito,
31/03/2009 at 15:46"

The SHED Gallery, Levenshulme - allotment art this weekend

MANCHESTER’S smallest art gallery will be offering a close-up glimpse at the work of a local artist this weekend. On Saturday and Sunday, the miniscule SHED gallery in Levenshulme - which, as the name suggests, is housed in a garden shed - will allow visitors to peek into the latest sketch book of Longsight based artist Annette Ebanks, entitled Flower Power.

Ebanks will also be showing colourful canvases worked with different drawing techniques, including oil pastel, collage and charcoal, at the unique gallery, which is situated at the Tonbridge Road Allotments in Levenshulme.

Visitors will also be able to flick through Ebanks’ last sketch book, African Masks, which was published by Manchester’s Slap-Dash Books, as well as meet the artist on both days.

Ebanks, who has a history in textile design, exhibited prints in the café at the Whitworth Art Gallery last year.

Her expressive art, based around plants and flowers, will be accompanied by home grown vegetables on Sunday, as the allotments will also be throwing the gates open to the public for their Spring Open Day.

As well as being an opportunity to browse art in the open air at the Gallery’s first show of the year, there will be activities and demonstrations for all the family, provided by The Community Allotment Project.

The exhibition is being held by Pool Arts, a community arts organisation that formed in 1999 to give local people access to the resources and space to make art. Pool Arts is based at St Luke’s Church in Longsight.

Curator Alison Kershaw said: “It will be an intimate exhibition as visitors will actually be able to handle Annette’s books and look through them. Her books are bursting with colour.”

1-4pm, Saturday 4 and Sunday 5 April

The SHED gallery

Tonbridge Road Allotments

Tonbridge Road

Levenshulme

M19 2TQ

http://www.stlukesartproject.org/

www.poolarts.org

The British Landscape, CUBE gallery

I've only recently started going to exhibitions at CUBE (Centre for the Urban Built Environment), following their really interesting Yellow Space show, and I really enjoyed their new exhibition of work by the photographer John Davies.

Taken between 1979 and 2005, John Davies' imposing black and white shots document a changing Britain. They trace the way both its natural landscape and urban centres have been changed forever by the processes of industrialisation and modernisation; the march of motorways across its hills and valleys, rebuilding of cities after the war and spread of 1960s office complexes and tower blocks, similar from town to town and city to city. This all seems to lead up to the exhibition's culminating photo, of the gleaming sprawl of the Trafford Centre and its million or so carparking spaces.

A grubby grey box of a building, once voted among the ugliest in the country, stands awkwardly between ornate nineteenth century buildings in Newcastle, and the layers of Birmingham's New Street Station are depicted as a tangle of concrete.

The way in which we influence our landscape is obvious, as is seen particularly in the shots of Welsh mines, but we’re left to reach our own conclusions about how the environment around us affects our lives. People are strangely absent from most of the photos, which either show the closed structures in which our lives are contained - the offices, multi-storey car parks and tower blocks where everyday events take place - or the traces left behind once these projects are abandoned and places exhausted.

Partly because they're aerial shots, the photos are static and eerily quiet - when humans appear, as in one image where insignificant figures pick blackberries by an abandoned railway line, they’re almost quaint.

From the toy town houses of Hulme, crisscrossed with roads like a town planner’s model, to a Stalybridge skyline dominated by mill towers and a hulking Stockport viaduct (accompanied by the necessary Engels quotes on urban deprivation), the built environment towers forebodingly, way above the level of human life.

In a 1982 photo, the players in a football game are tiny specks in comparison to the massive Agecroft power station in Salford; it's almost as if they're there by accident. Even a horse, incongruously small and lost in the foreground, seems to be staring at it in awe. Four huge monolithic towers, blackened at the top, rise over everything for miles around and spill smoke into the air around them, as if to prove Davies’ point about man’s huge footprint on the world around us.

What is implicit in the often desolate emptiness of Davies’ photos is the way lives have been changed and uprooted to make way for the new, from slum clearance and the demolition of back to back houses to the programme of mine closure undertaken by the Conservative government. We’re shown the remnants of a community that was built up around Easingdon Colliery in County Durham and told, ironically, that the houses which survived featured in the film Billy Elliott and are now regarded as ‘classic’.

Hulme provides another example of how trends in urban living come round again like fashions; housing left over from the Industrial Revolution was knocked down to make way for sixties high rise housing estates, before being rebuilt as traditional low rise houses again in recent decades.

Many of the scenes look old fashioned now, depicting a bygone way of life - for example, a shot of racing pigeon sheds overlooking Sheffield, and many of the buildings pictured, including Agecroft Power Station, are long since demolished.

What links all the photos across the 30 year time span together is that they have an unusual beauty. A few photos of nature’s natural monoliths, the peaks and mountains of the Lake District, show Britain in its pure, unsullied, glory, but Davies’ shots seem to say that it's still majestic even after the intervention of man.

CUBE
113-115 Portland Street
Manchester
M1 6DW
Until April 18.

www.cube.org.uk
www.johndavies.uk.com

"I think it's only fair to tell you I'm absolutely cuckoo"

An additional spring was put in my step yesterday during an already pleasant sun-inflected wander through the back streets of the Northern Quarter. These anonymous, unattributed, words, taken of course from the Magnetic Fields song Absolutely Cuckoo, leapt from a wall in cursive white on black. What better affirmation of the dawn of spring than this sprightly country lament, guitars like new green shoots and electronic effects a-burble over the teasing strums of a ukulele? Absolutely Cuckoo is the opening track on the Magnetic Fields' majestic three album box set 69 Love Songs, an ambitious concept album full of short, sweet, perfectly formed songs of love turned on its head, which is ten years old this year. Stephin Merritt's one-step-away-from-laughing baritone dances through skipping ropes of repeated rhyming couplets, which chase each other round and round like the words to a nursery rhyme. Absolutely Cuckoo also manages to sum up my entire relationship history in one minute and thirty five seconds.

Don't fall in love with me yet
we only recently met
true i'm in love with you but
you might decide i'm a nut
give me a week or two to
go absolutely cuckoo
and when you see your error
then you can flee in terror
like everybody else does
i only tell you this 'cause
i'm easy to get rid of
but not if you fall in love
know now that i'm on the make
and if you make a mistake
my heart wil certainly break
i'll have to jump in a lake
and all my friends will blame you
there's no telling what they'll do
it's only fair to tell you
i'm absolutely cuckoo.

Update: April 27

I've noticed that the graffiti has still been there every time I've been to my favourite fruit and vegetable stall (possibly called Fresh is Best, in the shacks opposite the Arndale Market). I saw today that it finally seems to have been painted over, but it lasted for over a month!

Dave Haslam: From Engels to Elbow: The History of Manchester Being Heard at Manchester Histories Festival Saturday March 21

The highlight of the absurdly overcrowded Manchester Histories Festival at the weekend - apart from being inside the Town Hall, amidst its nooks and crannies, mosaics, stained glass windows and Ford Madox Brown murals - was a talk by the former Hacienda DJ, XFM presenter, lecturer and writer Dave Haslam, based on his book Manchester, England.

I haven’t read the book - which Haslam describes as a “biography” of the city, Manchester in his mind being akin to a person with its own “psyche” and “personality traits” - but I’d like to.

Haslam describes Manchester as a “hybrid city”, its population constantly changing and absorbing immigrants throughout the centuries, from those seeking work and better life during the industrial revolution to the annual influx of students. Haslam himself moved to Manchester relatively late, but exudes a love of the city.

The most important of Manchester’s character traits, says Haslam, is its famed “self-assertiveness”. This can be seen in its history of producing radical thinkers, social movements and, in the latter half of the twentieth century, popular culture that has spoken out as a voice for change.

Perhaps because of its second city status, Haslam suggests Manchester has always attracted the ‘other’, been a "location for the alternative", and it’s this sense of “distance and difference”, its autonomy from London and the fact that it’s a long way from the locus of political power and the media centre, that allows countercultures to thrive. That’s why Manchester has historically had a strong DIY element - you make your own entertainment.

Although the talk is wittily entitled ‘From Engels to Elbow’, this seems to be mainly an alliterative device as Engels is more dwelled upon than Elbow. Haslam has a knack for catchy sound bites, also helpfully reducing the theme of his lecture to the link between "chart hits and Chartists".

For Haslam, "pop culture is a necessity”. The fact the talk takes place in the council chamber of the town hall, underneath the Manchester coat of arms and Concilio et Labore motto, shows how much pop culture has become part of the establishment. Haslam is trying to ensure pop sociology is accorded the same importance as what we normally think of as worthy of inclusion in the history books.

His talk draws the not often made link between Victorian Manchester and the music scene that culminated in Madchester which, it seems, are more similar than you might think. He tells us Victorians “lived their lives on the streets”, debating on street corners, pamphleteering and registering protest through strikes. Victorian Manchester was “awash with ideas”.

Reading out Engels’s description of a hedonistic Saturday night on the streets of Manchester, Haslam notes that the excesses of today’s Saturday nights wouldn’t have been out of place in Victorian times - it seems the Victorians, too, were 24 hour party people. Surprisingly, Haslam considers that the Victorians would have valued nightclubs as a place for “interaction”, as opposed to our society’s “retreat into the private realm”.

Manchester was a birthplace of the punk movement, which Haslam sums up as the “desire to be heard”. We need rebel yells, he says, because “the alternative to being heard is silence”. Haslam isn’t so much claiming that Manchester is an inherently musical city, though, with sounds rising spontaneously from its city fabric, more that the famous art it came to be associated with arose out of its many problems. From the overcrowding of Ancoats to the failed Utopianism of the Hulme crescents, out of alienation came creativity. To Haslam, pop music is so important because it allowed the unlikely alliance of “arty weirdo types and tough kids” .

Often, those whose art has become associated with Manchester and Salford wrote as a criticism, from the authors Anthony Burgess and Elizabeth Gaskell - whose novel Mary Barton is an expose of the conditions of the working classes - to the sparse music of Magazine. Shelagh Delaney’s 1958 play Taste of Honey, which on its release was the subject of front page outrage at its honest depiction of Salford life, is cast as a precursor to punk rock with its "no barriers", “back to basics" depiction of reality.

Some of the audience react with shock when Haslam compares the formation of Factory Records to the foundation of the Anti Corn League, but you can kind of see his point. Tony Wilson is described as “an enablist, a propagandist and a conduit”, and that’s it - Factory records may not have made great political statements, but it was the Manchester music scene and Hacienda that put Manchester back in people’s minds and attracted people to return to the city during the bleak Thatcher years, despite Thatcher's best efforts to marginalise the city.

When asked by a member of the audience what the next big thing might be, Haslam acknowledges the absurdity of a 47 year old presuming to predict the future of pop music. Another listener asks how Haslam thinks the recession will affect the Manchester scene. Haslam is critical of contemporary Manchester, which is “property developed to death” and “neutered by big business”. If the message of the talk is that great art arises from an admission that things are “not perfect”, and the need for something to “rebel against” and “escape from”, it seems likely the next big thing will arise through the cracks of the consumer dream.

www.davehaslam.com

UK DIY: Turnpike Gallery, Leigh

While we’ve been accumulating more and more mass produced possessions and our high streets have become increasingly similar, it seems a quiet revolution has been taking place. Rather than advocating violence or smashing up the system, its weapons are knit bombing and crochet, and a return to traditional crafts. Far from being outdated or old fashioned, though, the UK DIY exhibition at the Turnpike Gallery shows the place so called craftivism has in the modern world. Instead of being made obsolete by our ever more technology driven society, the internet has allowed craft to thrive. Creative projects around the world can connect with each other through blogs, online communities and online shops.

The exhibition, which celebrates the way in which craft is bringing back colour and individuality to the world around us, starts outside the gallery, with Manchester guerilla knitting duo ArtYarn’s tree encasing knitting, which gives trunks the appearance of bumblebees. Inside, artworks climb off the walls, take over the floors and hang from the ceilings of the gallery.

It’s an inverted world, where throwaway consumer culture doesn’t exist. Students from Manchester Metropolitan University put everyday materials to new, innovative uses, from necklaces made from tights to a candelabrum fashioned from mirrors and sink strainers.

Unwanted furniture and glass bottles find new lives, as do aluminium drinks cans turned into flowers. Drinking straw sculptures burst from the walls and hang from the ceiling resembling straw rooves and afros. Recycled skirts become a rag rug, reflecting the fact that 12 million tonnes of textiles are disposed of unethically in the UK every year. The message of the exhibition is waste not, want not.

Seedpod-like knitted balls and spirals hang from the ceiling. Knitted organisms, such as Anita Bruce’s delicate white, orange and purple crochet virus, seem alive and bulblike, about to burst into life.

A knitted landscape subverts expectations of what you’d expect to find in a gallery. Even the architecture is transformed: a plain pillar is clothed in what looks like a huge dog jumper, buttoned at the front, decorated with mosaic like patterns in lurid neon wool.

Craft goes far beyond the beautiful and useful, however. There’s a strong political vein - what artist Rockpool Candy describes as ‘fibre activism’ - running through the work on show, from a film of a tank knitted as a protest against the Iraq war to the reappropriation of cross stitch to convey such slogans as Thug Life. Eva Broadhurst and Lucy Semper’s animated film Making the Most protests about Leigh’s lack of basic amenities like a train station, theatre or cinema.

Faythe Levine’s film Handmade Nation, which we’re invited to watch through red, fluffy headphones, sums up DIY as a “lifestyle choice”, interviewing women who are keeping alive craft traditions and starting up their own businesses. DIY, they explain, offers the chance to “create your own economy”. Aptly for a film based in Olympia in the United States, home of the feminist punk movement Riot Grrl, the women are empowered by DIY as it proves “everything is possible”.

What many of the artists featured in the DIY exhibition have in common is a resistance to globalisation. DIY is a prime example of “people versus the machine”, offering the opportunity to “create your own culture” and “regain control of your life as opposed to having a corporation feed you culture”.

The exhibition isn’t just a celebration of craft, but of the whole DIY aesthetic, notably fanzines. Journalism is in a state of great change, not least in how we get our news and information. With the rise of citizen journalism and blogs, anyone can have a go. UK DIY reminds us, though, that there’s still something magical about the printed page and fanzines that blogs and websites will never replicate.

Right down to the paper on which they’re printed, fanzines are a labour of love, an artistic child onto which is projected all the hopes, interests and ambitions of their creator. Fanzines are often intricately worked - the very opposite of the immediacy of our fast culture, in which news is out of date as soon as it’s published. They range from the professional and book like to traditional typed or handwritten sheets grainy from the photocopier, and take in topics as diverse as the brilliantly titled Zine from the Imagination of a Ladysnail to Leeds zine Scratch that Itch, which recommends eating out of bins as a protest against our throwaway culture.

Some, such as those made by Manchester based New Think Books, are mini works of art. Elizabeth Dunning, from Preston, encloses her zine Any Old How in an embroidered 7” record sleeve, whereas others fold out or pop up. Although some of the zines have online versions, there’s something about the look, smell and touch of the paper, whether shiny or matt, textured or smooth, opaque or tracing paper, that a computer screen is never going to capture. Whether diaries allowing insights into the maker’s life or travel zines, all are born from the passion of whoever made them. The wonderful Don't Forget to Dance music zine typifies the obsessive approach to popular culture that motivates zines, pointing out that in fact it's often fairly niche 'unpopular culture'. Sugar Paper Zine, which details things to make and do, contains a cut out, dress up doll and recipes.

Yes, DIY might be nostalgic, but in a fun and irreverent way. Rachel Wild takes inspiration from 1980s computer games, making space invader brooches out of hama beads. Wildcat Designs also partake in so called techno crafting, knitting 8bit patterns in merino wool. Knit Happens prove that craft and rock n roll don’t have to be mutually exclusive, knitting Johnny Rotten gloves

The exhibition allows anyone to have a go, from tables dedicated to making jewellery and looms from plastic packaging to an invitation to embroider your name on cushions. Pom Pom International provide the instructions and materials to make a pom pom, which can then be hung on a pom pom tree. The pom poms will eventually be put towards the world’s biggest pom pom for peace.

www.ukdiycraft.blogspot.com/
www.wlct.org/arts/turnpike/exhibit.htm
www.flickr.com/groups/yarnbombingukdiy
www.unpopular-culture.com
www.diskant.net
www.mytarpit.com

Turnpike Gallery, Civic Square, Leigh, Gtr. Manchester WN7 1EB
Until 25th April

Buses run from Manchester Shudehill Interchange and Piccadilly Gardens to Leigh every half hour or so, and take about an hour.

Rock n Roll, Library Theatre

The Library Theatre, St Peter's Square, until March 14

Czech born playwright Tom Stoppard’s latest play is a curious mixture of highbrow and popular culture, intellectualism and an unshakeable belief in Rock n Roll. We all know that popular music at its best has been a form of rebellion against the time in which it was made, yet the heavy handed manner with which Stoppard treats the subject in Rock n Roll doesn’t quite work.

Taking place over the course of 22 years, from 1968 to 1990, Rock n Roll charts the friendship of two friends. Graeme Hawley’s Jan, a Czech brought up in England, is studying at Cambridge for the summer and befriends Max (played by Hilton McRae) an ageing academic who was born in the same year as the October Revolution of 1917 and refuses to give up his membership of the British Communist Party.

Although at first they seem similar, the play documents the way Jan and Max’s lives diverge and are shaped by the different events that befall them. We meet Jan, a pop music anorak, as he is just about to return to Prague to ‘save rock n roll’ following the Russian invasion of the city. As far as Max is concerned, given a choice between locking rock musicians up in prison or giving them loads of money, he knows which he’d prefer.

The action takes place between Max’s Cambridge home and Jan’s apartment in Prague. The different cities are flicked between like records in a jukebox, and are accompanied by music from each year, from the sinister snarl of the Velvet Underground to the sunshine pop of the Beach Boys.

Jan’s idea of rebellion is to sit back and do nothing: in his eyes, to grow your hair is to rebel against the dominant norms of the time. Though ostensibly a socialist, his idea of freedom is very different to Max’s. Max’s idea of freedom is for the workers to have the ‘freedom to have a chance’. Jan merely desires ‘freedom to be left alone’. Jan rails against heroism, reasoning heretics merely reaffirm the beliefs of the bearers of the faith. As long as he has his impressive array of American and English records, he’s happy to sit inside whilst freedoms are gradually eroded outside.

Jan’s subversive heroes are the Czech band Plastic People of the Universe, who make ‘socially negative music’ in the eyes of the authorities. The Plastic People, according to Jan, epitomise the rock n roll ideal by biting the head off a chicken, Western rock style.

Jan is contrasted with his friend Ferdinand, modelled on Vaclav Havel, first president of the Czech Republic. Ferdinand is an intellectual who pays Jan regular visits with a never ending supply of petitions against the imprisonment of those who speak out against the system, including members of dissident groups such as Charter 77. To Jan, these are empty gestures.

Of course, it turns out that neither is entirely right. Rock music can subvert the system, or at the very least inspire others to fight for change. Jan is also wrong about being free from state interference. As the high ideals that shape the start of the play give way to pessimism and hardship, Jan describes the police brutality against those who challenge the state by attending rock concerts. When Jan himself is arrested and has his head shaved in prison, it's one of Ferdinand's petitions that gets him out.

The main problem with Rock n Roll is there are too many different ideas to take in, and ideological discussion takes precedence over character. None of the characters quite seem real, more composites of stereotypes: snotty intellectuals and stroppy teenagers sitting round smoking weed. One character even trots out the expression ‘If you can remember the sixties you weren’t really there’.

A satire of the newspaper industry and the way in which the world around us is presented works a little better, though: the real villains of the play are the press hounds who sniff around for the whichever side of the Velvet Revolution will be most unit shifting and pick the carcass of a fallen from grace Syd Barrett. Max’s continued endorsement of press censorship, the idea of curtailing freedom of expression as the people don’t know what’s best for them, is the most revealing admission that he knows his ideological position is insecure.

It’s a shame that the most fully realised characters in the play are the women, yet they fade into the background, playing second fiddle to the men around them. Cate Hamer’s Eleanor, Max’s classicist scholar wife, is killed off by cancer well before the end of the play. A monologue in which she wails “I am not my body, my body is not me”, could be an advertisement for the feminist movement. This says a lot about the failure of Marxism and communism in the modern world - there were other issues to replace it such as feminism and anti-racism. Leila Crerar’s Lenka is another passionate female academic who is the most engaging character in the play, but again she is allowed little chance to develop, used only as a foil to criticise Max.

The play is most poignant as an elegy for Syd Barrett, who died during the London run. It starts with Syd, a young and handsome pop star, playing pipes to Max’s daughter Esme like a modern day Pan, a reference to Pink Floyd's first album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, the only full album Barrett appeared on. By the end of the play Syd, is a balding recluse who has been befriended by Esme’s daughter Alice.

Just as Pink Floyd's music became duller and duller without Barrett, the musical timeline Rock n Roll takes us though gets worse and worse as the play progresses and we move into the eighties bombast of Guns n Roses and U2.

We end in up a consumerist Britain where the masses have become desensitized, and are too numbed to what’s going on around them to want to rebel anymore. When Max reveals he considered voting for Thatcher for a moment it doesn’t come as a real surprise. After all, what could be more conservative than steadfastly clinging to outdated beliefs while the world changes around you?

Everything concludes very cosily with Max and Lenka getting together and Jan and Esme finally realising their long held feelings for each other. It might have been designed as a play about radicalism, but Stoppard reinforces the conservatism of those involved. Rock n Roll ends at a 1990 concert by the Rolling Stones, hardly new or challenging music.

I went to see this play for free with this scheme for under 26 year olds:

http://www.anightlessordinary.org.uk/