Turning Japanese: Cath's Tuesday part 1

It's Tuesday evening and I'm very much feeling the effects of two days' full-on gig-going (with a "chaser" of a post-rock and electronics all-dayer elsewhere on the Saturday followed by a National Express overnighter), in case you were wondering, yes, I do sometimes get tired. And I could really do with not having to go out again. But there are bands to see, and I wouldn't want to miss anything. A couple of hours later as I stumble out of TV21 trying to process what I've just experienced I have completely forgotten about being tired. Welcome to Cath's Day Three, in which I only see six bands but every last one of them is absolutely brilliant. This is why I do this.

BO NINGEN + ASAKUSA JINTA + EZRA BANG AND HOT MACHINE, TV21
MORTON VALENCE, Electric Boogaloo

Right, so there's no official Japanese showcase this year, but I seem to have found the unofficial one. Brilliant! It's brought to us by all-ages promoters XOX (leave your drinks at the door) down at TV21 and, well, there's two Japanese bands in a row followed by one with a Japanese synth player so I suppose it sort of counts.

MM first encountered Bo Ningen at this September at the ultra-hip Offset festival - I'd like to say "saw them" but in reality I could barely poke my head inside the overstuffed tent. This excuses me having thought hyperactive, helium-yelping singer/bassist Taigen was a girl - which here in his skinny bare-chested glory he clearly isn't, although he does have a girl's haircut. Two, in fact, simultaneously - a pretty 60s fringe and bob at the front and luxuriantly long and straight tresses at the back. Guitarists Kohhei and Yuki and drummer Mon-chan have equally long, straight hair and some of them appear to be wearing 1970s pyjamas; they're like four baby Damo Suzukis and the noise they make is every bit as insane. Blisteringly loud guitars do prog, post-rock and metal often within the space of one song, whilst Mon-chan just about steals this year's Animal From The Muppets Award For Drummer Insanity (beating yesterday's Heels Catch Fire into a distant second place) as he appears to be drumming with his head as much as any sticks or accessories. The other three bounce off the amps and pillars and each other as Taigen alternates between Damo-esque rambles and frenzied punk attacks; each track is like a brilliant swirling full-on psychedelic wig-out compressed into a few minutes and with everything turned up to 11. As is often the case with international showcases there's a decent ex-pat contingent down watching them and they're going crazy too, whilst the bloke standing next to me just appears to have his eyes out on stalks for the entire thing. It later transpires he is Ezra Bang whose band's on later and is possibly wondering how the hell they're going to follow this. By the end of the set Taigen is crouching with his legs splayed simulating sex with his bass and Kohhei and Yuki are throwing themselves and their guitars into the drumkit while Mon-chan continues battering it and them, until they all fall over and lie there grinning. Set of the weekend, no contest.

I've long had a theory that there's something about the highly ordered and reguated nature of Japanese society which makes all bands from over there do whatever it is they do about 30 times more intensely than tneir Western counterparts. Japanese punks have the tallest, most colourful Mohicans; indie bands the tightest blackest jeans and most perfect fringes; rappers the biggest gold chains and baggiest sportswear; metallers the most piercings and wildest tattoos... and what happens next makes Bo Ningen look relatively sane.

They're called Asakusa Jinta and there's a raspberry-haired girl blowing a tenor sax whilst pogoing, an older lad with a moustache and a double-neck guitar; others have a trumpet, electric double bass and large curly horn thing respectively (as regular MM readers will know, I've never been any good at identifying brass instruments). In the tiny space in front of the stage there are two tiny Japanese girls trying to start a ska knees-up moshpit. Oh yeah, the music? Just your average everyday mixture of Glenn Miller big band, Bad Manners lunatic ska, a military parade, cartoon punk and soul revue. Proportions of the above vary from one track to the next, although it's hard to keep up as the whole lot is administered at roughly 300 miles an hour. They do something that sounds like "In The Mood" but not quite, and raspberry haired girl is leading the crowd in a sort of one-potato-two-potato hand dance. They do something that vaguely resembles a rocket-powered Can-Can and several of the end up in the audience. And the last of my brain, the bit Bo Ningen didn't melt, holds up a little white flag.

Later I look them up online and discover that "Their base is Asakusa, Tokyo's old downtown, an area reminiscent of traditional Japan. They love this town and people who live there love the band as they are known as a marching band playing on the shopping streets or for weeklong parades." I don't think there's a lot more to be said about this, really. Just try and hold that image.

Oh fuck, there's more.

Ezra Bang And Hot Machine are five extremely cool-looking people variously hailing from New York, London, Berlin and Sapporo, who much like their two predecessors at this event seem to think easily pigeonholed music is for dullards. Ezra raps (mostly) in a sort of Public Enemy stream-of-consciousness style which if he'd decided to plump for a traditional hip-hop style backing would still justify a place in the ones-to-watch list, but where's the fun in doing something there's already loads of? Instead, he's assembled a synth-bass-drums electro band who sound like Soulwax in particularly hedonistic mode. The first track is brutal, euphoric and hilarious all at aonce - the latter largely due to the way synth player Mio Kuromori sings the word "motherfucker" in a really sweet little girl voice between his rap streams. He's all over the front of the stage, fixing people with his eyes, revving them up - but this isn't just party music, there's a politicised side to them as well: "This next song's called 'White Power', er, please take a look at this stage and realise it's meant with a sense of irony..." (Ezra and bassist Sara are black and there's two white lads as well as Mio) - and, it seems, a sense of hard glam-flavoured drumming. Some of which involves a bin lid.

Congraulations to XOX for this triple shot of mayhem.

It's five to nine though and I'd best leave them to it, as the always entertaining Morton Valence are on at ten past at Electric Boogaloo, which used to be... oh god I don't know, some shiny Peter Street identi-bar. There are precisely no taxis on Oldham Street. I run it and arrive just in time. I tell you, if ITC was once a month I'd be fit as an athlete.

Morton Valence are delightfully, wilfully unclassifiable. I've seen them a few times - including In The City 06 - and I'd still struggle to describe them to someone. Suppose I'd better have a go, though, given that that's what I'm here for. At the most very basic level you could call it electropop, but that covers all manner of ills these days. To start with, when most bands make a debut album they collect together their best songs, maybe write a few more and arrange them into an order that works. Morton Valence decided to make an audio romantic novella called "Bob And Veronica Ride Again", with the knowingly Mills and Boon style story also included in a book (released on, um, Bastard Recordings). Some people just have too much imagination. "Sailors", their brilliant early single, is not on it as there are no sailors in the story, but it is a rather excellent piece of skewed and slightly camp thumping electronic pop music which here goes down equally well with the ITC delegates and punters and the after-work drinkers. They're a great visual act, too, with their ironing board keyboard stand and the fascinating are-they-aren't they interaction between the singers Rob Hacker (think: captain of the Yellow Submarine after a long night's raving) and sultry, pouting Anne Gilpin. They're having all manner of technical difficulties so it ends up being a pretty short set but well worth the effort.

http://www.myspace.com/boningen
http://www.myspace.com/asakusajinta
http://www.myspace.com/wearehotmachine
http://www.myspace.com/mortonvalence

- Cath Aubergine. Last blasts of the night and indeed the event are coming soon...

TUESDAY MAY BE WET BUT MANCHESTER IS STILL GIVING OFF SPARKS...

Young Guns
Saving Aimee
Lights Out action
The Mandigans
Young British Artists
Dressed To Kill
Dutch Uncles
The Real Dolls
The Heartbreaks


The final day of In The City and on this even wetter Tuesday night, I’ve decided to stay loyal to the Northern Quarter. The 14+ rock nights at The Roadhouse have been well organised affairs with some great new and very loud bands at play almost every day. YOUNG GUNS not only look good, but they are probably the best band on here tonight. Their songs have a decent complexity, combining their melodies with the kind of fast paced, post grungy attacks of Cave In. I like these a lot – the only problem is that they’re off on tour with Fightstar, which I can’t say is ever a good thing – If Young Guns come back to this town on their own, check them out – in the meantime their “Mirrors EP” is a surefire bet.


SAVING AIMEE are an EMO riddled keyboard heavy rock band who have this weird operatic slant. There are lashings of pop and the all too common post modern sanitised slant on new rock. The high bits sound like The Darkness, which at times obviously gets a bit daft. The beats push the songs that sound like the theme tune to kids TV show iCarly and they have the poppy bounce of a Hagar era Van Halen. Young girls and boys bop at the front and punctuate their excitement with plenty of shrill screams. I’m not exactly bowled over, but it is pretty inoffensive and effective stuff.


LIGHTS OUT ACTION at Dry Bar basement are definitely out on a school night. This is a band playing what could be their first gig (although they have a promising track up on MyFace), but I'm not sure that this is the appropriate time or place for them to be on stage. My ears are filled with well intentioned, but generally ramshackle bubblegum punk pop that’s littered with mistakes and an as yet to be established confidence . Is an international showcase the best place to get this out of your system? I think not. It’s not their fault really and it was a mistake to allow this standard of band to play – it’s damaging to all involved.


Upstairs THE MANDIGANS are revelling in more of their melodic meandering indie cabaret. I've a lot of time for what they're capable of, but at present they are very much a college band who promise more. I hope the come up with it.


The sophistication meter is bouncing into the red at Night + Day, with this season’s latest haircuts – youth music has reinvented its fashions this year and a new dress and barnet code have been in evidence for 2009 and it takes me back to my 80’s youth. I’ve seen two couples this weekend who have oozed cool – a George McFly lookalike at Hope Mill and tonight a young guy who looks like a young Tim Burgess (complete with pudding bowl hair) wearing the dress code from The Firm, complete with a sheepskin jacket - both were exceptional efforts in looking good. So, if you’re still championing the mullet, or the hippy beard whilst playing rock music in Manchester, I’m afraid your time has come and is now gone.

I’m actually here to listen to YOUNG BRITISH ARTISTS and I would have thought that to most listeners, they’d come across as pretty much a disorganised jumble of sound. I like their stuff mainly because of the guitar work and the basic, roughly drawn bass hooks. There’s a hint of the Factory Records art form here, so don’t expect acres of melody. For much of the set, the shimmers and glimmers are masked by muted and slightly distorted vocals. Young British Artists are more about textures and sonic landscapes and are probably more experimental than many will give them credit for. It’s not indie pop, but something altogether more intriguing and far more serious than that.

There’s more venue hopping to be done and back at the Dry Basement, it’s time to venture another gamble – it couldn’t get any worse could it ? Thankfully no, as another college band DRESSED TO KILL (the event’s worst band name, but not by a mile) shout up “Manchester!!!” – ok, a dodgy start as this isn’t exactly the Arena and I don’t think they’re being ironic either. This band have an interesting quote on the webspace; “We're in the process of learning about ourselves as a band, making mistakes but learning from them and discovering what we want our music to give..”. It’s an honest gesture, but once they start playing, I’m pretty convinced that they don’t have that much to worry about. This is a Bloody good dramatic quintet, who have studied hard at the EMO altar. They have the smart guitar work of bands like FFAF and Lost Prophets and whilst the vocals are a little bit yelpy and the songs need a little more work, this is a strong performance with a really tight edge. I’m a bit off balance when they announce that the “next ones a punk song, if you can gather to the front”, which was delivered by a young man who sounded more like the eloquent Sgt Wilson asking his troops to fall in during and episode of Dad’s Army. Good band with a lot of potential.


At Night & Day, DUTCH UNCLES are maybe another contender for this year’s best band. We first came across them on the Across The Pennines Sampler last year and Cath caught them with Holy Fuck in May. The good thing about this band is that they are a proper rock band, combining prog with leftfield mathematical guitar arpeggios, but there’s this whole Ivy league / new romantics outlook too. There’s also this consistent vein of accessibility, through Duncan Paton’s superb vocal deliveries and constant sense of melody. It’s all just a superb sound and atmosphere. Although Dutch Uncles stand up for a different range of sounds and sensibilities, they rank alongside Everything Everything as not only this city’s brightest new hopes, but as one of the most innovative bands of the noughties. I just can’t see how they won’t be massive. Amazing.

Slipping down the backstreets and along Tib Street next with it’s Moho - After seeing THE REAL DOLLS last night in a less than formal setting, it’s been a bit of revelation to see them tonight. They’re seriously on fire, with an expanded line up and brimming with electro soul. I love this band even more though, when they up the tempo and slice in some deep twang sound samples and live work – “Global Warming” has just stuffed itself onto my song of the week list – you should also check out “My Radio”. This is a band who never run out of tunes or energy. They’re awesome, on Switchflicker and you should buy their records . Now.

The final stop of the night is the Ruby Lounge, who have had some equally impressive line ups all weekend. THE HEARTBREAKS are an inspiring collection of young musicians and this place is absolutely rammed! The only problem is that the sound is pretty bad (an exception at this venue), distorted and oppressive, which I think wrecks the performance – the PA is also overwhelmingly loud in contrast to my recent experiences with The Switch and even Kong the other month – both of which offered a top notch aural experience. Regardless, this band’s Mancunian pop remembers The Smiths fondly, whilst giving it the push and power of bands like The Enemy. Their guitarist also has an excellent haircut, this time for those interested, based around a 1950’s James Dean…ones to definitely watch, they’re not short of good songs to boot.



http://www.myspace.com/youngguns
http://www.myspace.com/savingaimee
http://www.myspace.com/lightsoutaction
http://www.myspace.com/themandigans
http://www.myspace.com/youngbritishartists
http://www.myspace.com/wearedressedtokill
http://www.myspace.com/dutchuncles
http://www.myspace.com/therealdolls
http://www.myspace.com/heartbreaksband


Jonathan A

MONDAY - YUP...

Monday Neet in Thee ITC Mancdom

Twin Atlantic
Kids On Bridges
The Vanguards
Brides
The Real Dolls
the Ray Summers
Bicycle Thieves (or not)
Janice Graham

A tramp (on Dale Street)


In The City provides the guarantee of a very long weekend indeed. The bustle of regular punters seems once again to have given way to diehard fans, interested musical voyeurs and a very decent smattering of scouts and fellow hacks.

Monday’s, especially those accompanied by the impending return to GMT, falling leaves and a damp, hacking cough inducing climate, are not at their most inviting. But this is Manchester; October rain is our summer, neon is our limelight and pavements, more often than not, our stages.

I think it’s time to emerge from behind my poetic veil and let you walk with me on this tour of the northern quarter of Manchester, a cultural hub of cultural hubbub.

I find myself once again at the ROADHOUSE sampling another Front Magazine 14+ gig. I am NOT, may I add, sampling the Front Magazine itself, despite two sexily dressed rock Goths trying to foist copies of their 14+ jazz mag upon the two oldest geezers in the joint (see Saturday’s post!). This is well attended too and I’m just in time to see TWIN ATLANTIC, who are picking up the baton from the much touted SHARKS. Now, I’ll be honest; I didn't quite get these guys on record and perhaps unfairly, I thought their tracks were laboured. Live however, the translation improves the experience many fold and it's an attacking, uplifting set. The guitars hit an engaging, explosive unison where sparks fly and slab-heavy rock crescendos irritate the venue’s air molecules to internal organ re-arranging levels. The singer also comes across as a kind of Glaswegian Brian Molko. There's a good following here too and I think eventually the penny's dropped - especially for me.

DRY BAR is next – it’s rather empty and I find KIDS ON BRIDGES, who aren't exactly kids. They certainly encapsulate the fun and sound of lads on BMXs, rather than youths leaning over the railings with a threatening hoist of a paving stone . This chant-a-long electro-funk comes complete with cheeky synths and an unashamed ubder-disco cheese coating. There's something street level about their loosely wrapped, almost rapped, vocals that always delivers some kind of infectious catchy refrain. On one level they’re very clever, but (despite the shades and curly hair) not very visual, despite the err…visuals. Previously recommended, and still well worth your time . This doesn't stop some idiot engineer in the next room, sound checking someone’s drums through the PA at full volume. Stupid.

It’s time to check out MOHO and in the Main Room, I find THE VANGUARDS are dishing out some rather standard indie fodder, washed down with harmonies and some bluesy guitars. It's regular stuff but, admittedly, expertly delivered. I’d find it hard to find some alternative inspiration here. And I do...find it hard.

In the little room, BRIDES just look better, and sound (if this is possible) like someone’s left the afterburners on a jet plane at max, gone to make a brew and then just forgotten about it. Amazing stuff that makes no sense. There’s something about a bunch of kids who probably get their ideas checking out old punk videos , sporting tattoos of the dimensions you would normally find on a seasoned boxers arm. The singer is a stocky, strong, physical ball of energy. The guitarist is playing what looks like a hand painted junior Rickenbacker, whilst the bass player is airborne for much of the set. This all accompanies a hard attack of shouty heavy rock, riddled with bits of Math and jangled doomy, crash bang walloping thrashes. So far the most important band of the night.


I’m not sure what to make of THE REAL DOLLS at Trof. The place smells of Nachos and chickpea products upstairs, but it is a rather well appointed gaff with some well constructed N1/4 charm. The Real Dolls are very interesting. Is this a spoof? Switchflicker and more recently Butler Williams (recipients of a remix) speak highly of them. There’s a definite sense of comedy. The Real Dolls don’t take themselves seriously, but there’s a white NYC vibe about their eclectic underground electronica assembled rap. The samples support the construct; hippy, infectious, lopped segments that seem unfeasibly well written. It would be almost impossible to choreograph this and I leave the venue convinced that this a spontaneously daft, but immensely brilliant display of wacky talent.

Just a skip over the road to the BAYHORSE; THE RAY SUMMERS are in full swing with what is essentially power pop. Think CAST with a hint of the choppy aftermath of The Arctic Monkeys, but really with the sound of chugging melodic indie. It’s another band who can execute a decent sound, but to be honest, it’s not serving up anything new, for me at least.

This is the sprint section, where a quick leg up to RUBY LOUNGE ends up as fruitless exercise as one of The BICYLE THIEVES is ill and they’ll pulled (out). It’s a good chance to catch up with Jay T and Ciaran of the legendary WGF. . Lots of chittering and a chattering, updates and tip swaps later and we’re on our way back to the Bayhorse.

I spotted what transpired to be members of JANICE GRAHAM ( a band not a lady) earlier. I seriously thought some kids had sneaked in. I suppose they had, but in fact they are in fact this next band. Cath A had previously covered this bunch on MM and our good friend Dominic (who kindly put us up this weekend) had been pointing them out almost non-stop. This quartet are something very special indeed. They've concocted a very special brew of jazz and skat. You wouldn't imagine how natural and well defined it is. There’s a skill and a maturity to what they do which means you have to take them absolutely seriously, even if they do bang out a svelte and classy number called “Bitches”. I hope that the essence of what they’ve got here is preserved and not harmed by the attention that this band truly deserve.

That was it ...Oh and I saw a tramp on my way home...


http://www.twinatlantic.com
http://www.myspace.com/kidsonbridges
http://www.thevanguardsuk.com
http://www.myspace.com/bridesmusic
http://www.myspace.com/therealdolls
http://www.myspace.com/theraysummers
http://www.myspace.com/bicyclethievesuk
http://www.myspace.com/janicegrahamband



Jonathan A

Monday night: it's all gone quiet...

HEELS CATCH FIRE, No.1 Club
OU EST LE SWIMMING POOL, Ruby Lounge


It's horribly dead (and absolutely bloody freezing) in the No.1 Club (formerly One Central Street), the bouncer says it has been all night, last night too. Tonight's a Brighton Live showcase, and I'm fairly sure myself and photographer-about-town Shirlaine Forrest are the only people here not from Brighton (and possibly in or with the bands). And I'm largely here because I saw Heels Catch Fire down there recently and they were great; here the obviously demoralising effect of the small crowd coupled with a decidedly ropey sound system sees them a bit under par to start with, but they do pick up. They have an interesting line in edgy angular art-pop: interesting because it doesn't just rely on the post-punk stylings generally associated with such things, but is equally informed by the noisier likes of Sonic Youth and the more recent post-hardcore scene. So there are jerking rhythms alongside crunching noise; gloomy basslines and energetic guitars. The drummer, who's shirtless and looks like a Brazilian footballer from the 80s - is an absolute joy to watch in his own right as he piles his whole body into the kit. It's always good to see a band who take a few well-worn ingredients and create something quite original from them. Even if there aren't too many people sharing the experience.

Walking through near-deserted streets back to Ruby Lounge I'm quite saddened by how quiet the whole thing's been this year. I've seen some brilliant music today but the general atmosphere has been somewhat downbeat. Obviously the recession's taken its toll; there just aren't as many record labels or music magazines as there were five years ago (maybe it's just the rosy tint of nostalgia, but I remember ITC04 - or even as recently as 07 - being like a great throbbing weekend-long party), and those that survive are doing so with greatly reduced staff and budgets. This might also account for the lack of international showcases which I have personally really missed this year; whether it's an Icelandic alt-rock band all dressed in gonad-crunching shiny gold trousers (Skatar, 2007), the delights of listening to someone check microphones by counting to five in Finnish (Boomhauer, 2004) or being completely blown away by a teenage Japanese post-rock orchestra (Siberian Newspaper, 2006) these often provided the unexpected highlights of the weekend. Where are the big buzz spectaculars? The high profile artist special guest slots? I am aware of one well-known "big indie" band, as in top ten album and Mercury nomination level, who were pencilled in for an event but clearly nothing came of it. And no Sunday afternoon delegates' free bar special, either; I've been quite cynical in past years about that and I can't say I personally even noticed its absence until now (for us here at MM it genuinely is all about the music), but it's a telling sign of an event whose budget doesn't strech as far as it once did.

Daytime live music events have been somewhat thin on the ground, too - little on Monday and nothing at all Tuesday, where in previous years you used to get three full days of twelve hour venue-hopping. The relatively recent shift to Sunday-Monday-Tuesday is probably the main reason for this; a shift which has definitely affected the attendance from non-delegate non-music-scene members of the public, too. Your average Joe Punter is just less likely to want to go out from seven til midnight than he would at the weekend. The £20 wristband scheme has turned the public away too: until a couple of years ago most sessions were free entry for all. I guess they looked at the success of events like Brighton's Great Escape and its plethora of offspring, and figured people don't mind paying for those - usually 30 to 40 quid for three days or a tenner or more for the single day ones, so on the surface £20 isn't bad value for money at all, but on the other hand people don't generally like paying for something they didn't used to have to. And even if it doesn't deter the serial gig-goer, plenty of people (my friends, for instance, or myself back in the days before I was writing for MM) would probably pop into two or three gigs and make a night out of it. There were, of course, plenty of gigs this year which were free to all - the No.1 Club session I've just come from, for instance; some other Peter Street events as well as the Bay Horse days and other fringe events, but this wasn't made massively clear to people. This year it feels like In The City passed a lot of Mancunians by.

At the time of writing I've just been interviewed by a media consultant about why In The City is good for Manchester - and as a conference and seminar of course it is. It brings the world's music media to our doorstep, throws a spotlight on our city. But I do feel something needs to be done to bring the public back. Because you read the stories of how in recent years bands got signed on the back of an outstanding performance in a packed venue - and they're not just myths, I actually know some who did - it's not the same for a band just playing to a handful of people with passes around their necks.

Ruby Lounge is once again my final stop of the night, and the reason is simple - back in May at Great Escape me and my mates were intrigued by one of the names on the schedule: Ou Est Le Swimming Pool. We knew absolutely nothing about them but a band with a name like that just had to be seen. Only we forgot to actually go and watch them, and I have managed to not see them at several other festivals since then. We made the same mistake two years earlier with The Airborne Toxic Event and when we eventually discovered they were a great band as well as a great name we all rather regretted it.

Ou Est Le Swimming Pool, however, would have been probably best off left as a comedy name on the schedule: the reality is rather disappointing. Unless you're a fan of rubbish 80s disco pop. The first track sounds like The Scissor Sisters but without any of the charm: instead of flamboyant androgynous New York City club queens we get a bunch of Shoreditch scenesters-by-numbers. The backing tracks - provided by a serious-looking type in a suit and a slightly less serious looking one with a multicoloured scarf wrapped round his head - are decent enough, but the frontmen let the side down: the bleach-haired singer attempts the old high-pitched disco thing but is lacking in any sort of soul, and I can't work out what the other one's even there for. Third track "Better" is, yes, better. A bit Pet Shop Boys, even. Thing is I just can't lose the overriding feeling that I've landed in a suburban Nite Klub circa 1986, possibly called Cinderellas or something. Maybe I'm being a party pooper but no, this is grade one Emperor's New Clothes. They will probably be massive in about three weeks.

http://www.myspace.com/heelscatchfire
http://www.myspace.com/ouestleswimmingpool

Today's another day though - and anything could happen in the next six hours. Time to go out again already? I've still not got a plan, but I seem to have managed OK without one so far...

Cath Aubergine

The Half Way Point: Monday evening venue hopping with Cath

THE LAW, TV21, 6.15pm
TELEGRAPHS, Roadhouse, 6.45pm
COPY HAHO, Bar38, 7.20pm
UNICORN KID, Bar 38, 8.10pm
YOUNG RIVAL, Studio,8.30pm
HOOK AND THE TWIN, Studio, 9.10pm

Monday evening starts in TV21 where I am one of precisely four punters in the basement at 6.14pm, one minute before the first band are due on. Luckily by 6.15 there's another 30. Phew, was worried for a second there. The Law are from Dundee and spent the summer ripping up T In The Park before being crowned XFM Scotland's Breathrough Act 2009, and their set starts with a warning siren, which is always good.

What follows is completely unreconstructed four-chord meat'n'potatoes indie punk rock'n'roll which could have existed at any point in time since Dr. Feelgood first dragged their Transit to the pubs of London. And yeah, it's not a million miles from their good mates The View, and was recently panned in the NME for being unimaginative. Well, yeah, OK, can't say I'd go out and buy one of their records, but that's not the point - this isn't music to sit and listen to in your bedroom or to contemplate the inner depths - it's music to watch live in a sweaty basement. They say unimaginative, I say timeless. Chunky riffs, loads of woah-ohs and Oasis-when-they-were good choruses, I came here expecting to hate them and left thinking about the large gulf between the fickle music press (two years ago NME would have loved them) and what a lot of people actually enjoy. By three songs in there's a sizeable crowd and a few of them are singing along. And yes, if I'm being honest, they're shit - shit but fun.

There's more noisy punk rock'n'roll going on in the Roadhouse - only with more emphasis on the punk, here. Brighton's Telegraphs are reminiscent of early Idlewild - great thrusting choruses and angry riffs - and guitarist Aung Yay clearly isn't wearing that Black Flag T-shirt as a fashion item. They actually seem to get more abrasive as they go on, almost as if they decided not to scare people too early on - it is barely seven o'clock after all. Thing is even at their most aggressive they've still got massive tunes, and the macho edge is tempered slightly by the fact that energetic, monitor-mounting frontman Darcy Harrison shares vocals with bassist Hattie Williams. That said, she plays like Lemmy's secret daughter and looks like she could easily have any of her male bandmates in a fight.

OK, I admit even I can't get from The Roadhouse to Bar38 in ten minutes so I miss the start of the very hotly tipped Copy Haho, but I believe Tristan saw them yesterday so we might have a report somewhere. Blending a bit of grungey alt-rock with air-punching indie anthemics they land in a similar territory to Nine Black Alps. With the side-order of Pavement that's clearly one of this year's must-haves now the indie godfathers have reformed. 2010 is the new 1992, apparently.

It's all been a bit, well, guitar-ish today, hasn't it? Thank heavens then for Unicorn Kid and a much-needed electronic fix. I'm watching him with a fellow Hacienda-generation survivor and we can't believe this 17-year-old kid is channelling the spirit of our own teenage years via the slightly more up-to-date technology of a laptop and some rewired games machines. One track does sound rather like "Hardcore Uproar" for fuck's sake, only faster, and the lad wasn't even born when that came out. It's not just beats, though, there are fantastically loopy mathematical melodies that echo the electropop of even earlier generations like OMD on speed or a raved-up Jean-Michel Jarre. Oh, and he's wearing an animal-head hat. Ace.

"Are these Scousers?" asks my mate. We get the book out - nope, Young Rival are... Canadian. Canadian Scousers? We've gone over the road to Studio and the band onstage is Young Rival. They sound like a garage-punk Beatles. Like The Beatles probably sounded back in Hamburg when they were whizzed up to the eyeballs playing through dirty distorting PA's, only Young Rival's distortion's meant to be there. By the end of the set it's full-on garagey rock'n'roll blues and they do it really well, tight as anything, sweat soaking through the guitarist's moptop fringe. We're still amused by the idea of Canadian Scousers, though.

Hook And The Twin are a bit of a mind-melting experience. They consist of one bloke who records all sorts of demented things (himself singing or occasionally wailing; heavily distorted guitar noise; synth basslines; real basslines; drones; the kitchen sink) into a loop machine - and a drummer who does his best to work out what's going on and stick a beat on it. It doesn't always quite work - one track gets abandoned after the second failed attempt - but when it does it's a thick Krautrock space-groove soup. Unfortunately there are more technical hitches towards the end that leave a lot of people shrugging in bafflement, and a decidedly thinner crowd than when they started which must be pretty demoralising. Lots of good ideas, but some lost in the actual execution.

http://www.myspace.com/upthelaw
http://www.myspace.com/telegraphs
http://www.myspace.com/copyhaho
http://www.myspace.com/unicornkid
http://www.myspace.com/youngrival
http://www.myspace.com/hookandthetwin

Cath Aubergine. More soon.

OIL CITY CONFIDENTIAL: MM Goes To The Movies!

Cath here again. At the end of my last post I had just watched some bands in Night & Day. It's around 3pm Monday afternoon. Time for a break from live music. I'm off to the pictures.

What??! During In The City weekend?

Ah, yes, but this is a film every music fan should see. It's all been a bit last minute; a week or so ago top Manchester promoter Jay Taylor was contacted by the distributors and asked if he could source a screen for the film somewhere in Manchester during this event. Cornerhouse 3 was available, but something's gone wrong with the projectors, so Jay, myself and approximately twenty other people are clustered around the middle few rows in the rather too large Cornerhouse 1; it feels strange, but as the distributor's representative tells us this might be a music documentary but it was made to be seen on the big screen - and this is one of the biggest screens you'll find in the arthouse/independent sector outsde of London. And he was right. There is a lot of music in this film but there's also a lot of landscape, landscape that sets the scene - it'll still be a great film on DVD but you might lose something of that...

+ + + + +

OIL CITY CONFIDENTIAL
a film by Julien Temple, on general release February 2010
Preview screening at The Cornerhouse, Monday 19th October, In The City 2009

A question for you. Who was the first unsigned band to appear on the cover of NME? I'll give you a clue. We're not talking recently. We're talking, well, let's just say their London gigs were often attended by a youngster called John Graham Mellor, who was yet to become Joe Strummer. And, apparently (and very bizarrely) another youngster called Diana Spencer, who was yet to become Princess Di. A band whose infuence is probably somewhere in your record collection, even if you've not got anything of theirs. You've got a Clash album somewhere, right? Or the Sex Pistols, or any of the millions of bands inspired by them? Some Libertines, maybe? Julien Temple has of course already made films about The Sex Pistols ("The Filth And The Fury") and Joe Strummer ("The Future is Unwritten"), and for the final part of his loose trilogy on British music in the 1970s he turns his hand to a band who played a vital role in setting the foundations for punk and all that followed. That band was Dr. Feelgood, and there are probably two things everyone knows about Dr. Feelgood - they invented pub rock, and they came from Canvey Island.

The camera pans across mud, brick and stone, towards the cylindrical walls of an oil refinery; in front of it stands a bald man with a Telecaster and wild, staring eyes - eyes you'll never forget, but eyes with a certain sadness behind them. I visited Canvey Island once and those eyes stared directly into mine; watching British Sea Power at the Monico Hotel, the venue where Dr. Feelgood honed their craft three decades earlier, they introduced a special guest for the encore: Feelgood's legendary guitarist Wilko Johnson himself. Sixty-one years old, he picked up his guitar and slid across the stage as he blasted out the unmistakeable riffs of "She Does It Right", backed by the awestruck band who were not even born when he wrote it in a house just around the corner.

"I was born here, below sea level, and that affects the consciousness profoundly". The opening words of the film from the man with the haunted eyes.

I'll never forget that drive down that winter night. Remembrance Way leads out across the mudflats of the Thames; an oddly bleak and desolate sight at sunset with strange memorials hanging from trees, then suddenly the vista of the Thames bank spreads out ahead of you; the lights of London at one distant end and at the other, Southend and the sea. Welcome to Canvey Island. The venue address was Eastern Esplanade. That means seafront, doesn't it? Follow a sign to the seafront. Through a housing estate, round a corner again and the inky blackness of the estuary laps on the other side of the wall, you think of the people in those houses; how when we hear of severe weather warnings we think mostly of how jammed the M6 might be or the postponement of a sporting event, whilst here people shudder slightly, knowing nature may one day take its course again. Mud, brick and stone, which in 1953 was swept under water as the Thames burst its banks. People in Canvey always talk about things before the flood or after the flood the way others talk about before or after the war, says Wilko, as the screen cuts to archive newsreel footage: families crawling out of upstairs bedrooms just above the water level, dragging their treasured possessions onto rooftops; bedding down in a school hall in Southend. John Wilkinson (the name was reversed on discovering there were too many people called John in Dr. Feelgood) was six years old; his family all survived, but many school friends were less fortunate. Even at six years old those eyes had seen things most of us never will.

After a shared childhood "buggering about in the mud", the four boys who would change the course of rock music in Britain started their musical journeys playing in jug-bands, first separately and eventually together. Clips of jug bands, some footage found and some recreated. The style is classic Temple: sharp cuts between archive, drama and present day. The Monico and the Fantasy Island Amusements arcade across the way flicker between grainy black and white and the 21st century as history unfolds. They all lived just a few streets from one another; in a pub taproom somewhat less updated than most of those on the mainland the white-haired former road manager sticks pins in a map and runs a little model Transit between them. Wilko does a lot of the talking, as behind him footage of the band is projected onto the refinery walls: the Thames Delta, they called it, Oil City. It's not just a film about the band; it's a fascinating insight, at least in the early part, into this strange and unique part of England. The other "star" of the piece, for want of a better word, is the elderly mother of the late Feelgood singer Lee Brilleaux; frail but still sharp, she stands in her living room in front of the gas fire, a woman who only came to Canvey after the flood carries her own sadness: the premature death of her only son. Temple excels at conveying the poignant side of the Dr. Feelgood story alongside the rock'n'roll mayhem.

And what rock'n'roll mayhem it was. Punks before punk, the short-haired, suited Canvey boys rolled into London in a battered Transit against a musical backdrop of the times that was more concerned with the neo-classical excesses of the tail end of progressive rock; the scenes of crowds rushing the stage and jumping around in a hail of flying pint pots will be familiar to anyone who goes to gigs, but in 1974 this must have been something else. The music was primal and the performance incendiary: Wilko skittering across the stage (it was always skittering, the film's participants recall to a man, as if the word was invented for him), holding his guitar like a machine gun in a way that's been copied many times since. A young American called Clem Burke, later of Blondie, took the music home and played it to his friends in the nascent CBGBs scene; his mates The Ramones landed the support when Dr. Feelgood next visited the US. Popular myth often cites these New Yorkers as having "invented" punk rock as we know it, but Burke, looking rather younger for his age than many of the interviewees, sets that straight once and for all.

The life cycle of the band is of course one we've heard a million times, but told well here. Eventually the relentless touring, the excess and the groupies and the drugs and the drink take their toll. The growing gulf between the hard-drinking Lee and the teetotal but amphetamine-crazed Wilko. On 9th April 1977 the NME broke the story that Johnson had quit: the band carried on for a while, in one form or another, right up until Lee Brilleaux died in 1994 - and even afterwards; I recall friends of mine going watching "Dr. Feelgood" in a pub in Glossop around 1996 or 97 but exactly who was in the band at that point is unclear. Wilko Johnson still plays live on a regular basis: his Myspace page (a concept which would have been beyond the wildest imagination of a young band in the early 1970s whose audiences were generally whoever happeend to be in the pub at the time) lists seven gigs between now and the end of November. Couldn't he have retired by now if he wanted to? He's earned the right, after all.

The camera cuts back, in the closing stages, to the sixty-one-year-old man standing at the door of the Monico, the lights of Fantasy Island Amusements reflected in the glass as they did when he was young. Since his wife passed away, he says, playing live is the only thing that makes the pain stop. "I dunno if I wasted my life..." he contemplates, "but probably not".

He didn't. Not at all. After that British Sea Power gig, just a couple of years ago, I was talking to a friend about fifty years old himself who's spent the last three decades watching all manner of bands on tour all over the world, a man who still loves nothing more than the spirit and the energy you get down the front when the bodies are jumping and the beer is flying. A couple of metres away at the side of the stage Wilko Johnson wiped the sweat from his forehead and I watched as my friend cautiously approached his hero. Never usually a man lost for words or given to public displays of emotion, he could only nervously tell him "I got into music because of you; wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you; in 1974 you blew me away and made me realise what live music could feel like". This is a film that anyone who loves live music and feels that energy needs to see.

+ + + + +

The current plan is that when the film sees its general release in February 2010, it will be premiered simultaneously at independent cinemas across the country - and after the closing credits, the screens will switch to a live streaming of Wilko Johnson playing a twenty-minute set. It's an ambitious plan and will be amazing if it comes off, and I'm looking forward to it already.

http://www.myspace.com/wilkojohnson

Cheers again to Jay Taylor for organising this event at such short notice.

- Cath Aubergine

OHH - THIS WAS MY SUNDAY AND CATH'S MADE ME LOOK SLACK AGAIN WITH HER BREAKFAST REPORT...

I have to say I might be getting too old for all of this - I've recovered from both Saturday and Sunday in one morning, but then work have been on the blower all day even though I'm on holiday - damn ! - I'll be dashing out again, but Cath A continues her dispatches from the frontline - mine had to go to HQ via courier ...sorry it's late, but here's what happened !


OLDHAM STREET, NIGHT & DAY – MEANDERING AND LISTENING - ITC SUNDAY


King Vulture
Neil McSweeny
Wu Lyf
Sara Schiralli
Loverman
Wall Street Riots
Feldspar
Butler Williams
The Tides
The 66
Talons
Shapes
The Switch


As in previous years and in particular for 2009, Sunday is the big ITC live day. I think we tried to take it easy last year, but it still is a labour of love tapping in reviews in such a haze. Ye gads, I even turn up too early for Night & Day, who are still putting out their chairs. There’s a band assembling already. King Vulture it seems, have added to their ranks especially for this show. There’s a coffee shop over the road and I’ve noticed an old lady at outside there for the last two days, having regular cups of char and puffing away on what could quite possibly be Woodbines. Oldham Street can be a horrible place at the end that borders Piccadilly Gardens. This city centre end of the street is run down, shabby and a catwalk for a disturbing array of casual street wear and pawn shops. Drug dealers are easy to find (seriously, that’s not actually good) , there’s blatant begging and now, nationalistic demos all seem part and parcel of Manchester’s dead centre. It can’t be that hard to fix. But then there’s this old lady, just sat there. Happy, but insular, going about her business and not troubling anyone, whilst adding a character to a street, that’s probably been missing from here for the last decade. She’s happy and it rubs off on anyone she happens to say hello to.

So there I am just typing up my notes, popping my daily NHS medication and trying to detox, by well, drinking caffeine which isn’t a great idea. Night & Day beckons, with what has become an institutional agenda for the Lord’s day segment of the festival. N&D’s block is the start of the new Oldham Street, the gentrified (some good, some bad) ever de-cluttered highway, leading out of town and our gateway to Ancoats.

In The City establishes the venue’s role as our recharging station and matinee host, with free wireless access granted by just knowing the right name of an old action super hero. The all day veggie breakfast is on order, as is a welcome meet up with Cath A, who probably has the biggest mobile command centre this side of a Gulf war forward station. Basically everything you will have read on this blog by Cath at Night & Day, today, was written AS the bands were playing and posted in almost karmic synchronisation with the last ebbing chord of each performance,

My efforts ran out as my laptop battery gave a final gasp, causing my screen to fade out like the red illuminated eye of a dead Terminator in a James Cameron movie. Technology doesn’t always work and I then have to lug around a block of useless plastic and metal for the rest of the afternoon…


Anyhows…to the days proceedings. Well there’s that breakfast and of course KING VULTURE. They have a refined sound. Immaculate one might say. It’s an eclectic collection of both young people and various degrees of unplugged equipment that’s sort of plugged in. The vocalisations really are the final proof that they can set a good benchmark. Their mixture of soul and folk seems caught between genres which is a good thing, tipping its bohemia into a cocked hot of fresh sub-funk.

Oh yeah, I’m still in Night & Day by the way, but then have to depart for the Crown And Anchor for a writers meeting I’ve organised, but sort of left until the last minute which means not many people know that I’m having one ! I do get to meet a new contributor and possibly something of an inspiration – we get to talking of a good idea about Manchester’s gigging models and what needs to be done. All with the promise of some multi-media platform - let’s throw the idea out there – THE Pay To Play Interview – Could we get the Musicians Union , A P2P Promoter and non-P2P promoter around one table ? And film it…That’s something we’ll be trying to pick up post ITC…


OK – less rambling I hear you say…it’s back to Night & Day and the quite electric sounds of NEIL MCSWEENY. It’s a cross country patchwork of mid-American MOR, tastefully shattered by epic strides of fireworking guitar, whilst backing tracks and a piano ebb below. Then he rocks out, above and beyond that - there' something traditionally classic rock about his music as his semi-acoustic weapon gets charged with distortion and glorious shouty chants, via some bracing signature hooks - it finishes on a delicious tail off of feedback, which is always good.

Night & Day by this time is exceptionally full and quite, quite hot, so we collectively depart for the day’s best afternoon session at the Nexus Art Café. The immensely inspiring Same Teens have teemed up with Artrocker to lay on a 14+ event that lines up some cutting edge bands, who are collectively so underground that they make the Paris Metro look like an airline. This is like a snapshot of 1980 – the time of Haircut 100 and Postcard Records in their heyday – So it’s lop sided post war haircuts with stylised mop tops and plaid shirts, skinny pants and twangy refrains. WU LYF are a Manchester band that not even Manchestermusic can quite keep up with. We have them down as Wu lf Wu lf somewhere else (and before that the brilliantly titled Vagina Wolf – Manchester’s best band name ever ?) – they’re on stage and I’m expecting to see their school uniforms folded up somewhere. There’s a lot of on-stage tuning going on and the bass doesn’t work at first. Within a few short minutes they’re in full stride. The guitar hook echoes like it’s bouncing off the sandstone walls of a cavernous church. The bass and rhythms jerk to a kind of syncopated indie p-funk, written in bold capital crayon letters and sharp unfinished angles. This is raw; more angular than a fishing trip and I have to say one of the best things I’ll see today. I leave Cath, who has sat on the floor, right in the middle of the room, grinning and enjoying every minute, whilst supping a fizzy can of organic fruit juice that has Apples in it, even if they don’t officially do “fizzy apple juice”…it’s a long story... They go on to anger God apparently, on his special day too… (Ms Aubergine has more on her afternoon post).


TEA TIME

There’s a bit of mid-afternoon break. I have a plan, but can’t bring myself to drop into Dry Bar again. I think it nearly killed me yesterday as the lucky dip isn’t always so lucky. Coming up soon though, is a nicely choreographed agenda that will see us zig zag across Manchester.


BAY HORSE COUNTRY CLUB Pt 1

The excellent COUNTRY CLUB is once again in the basement of the Northern Quarter’s Bayhorse and they’ve now put the bands against the long back wall, which works well. It’s needed too for SARA SCHIRALLI. She’s come with a fairly large backing band which also includes the worlds biggest double bass. Most acts are doing line checks, given the rotation of acts but Sara’s not happy. But in a terribly nice way. One song is run through about four times, each time stopping because Sara can’t hear herself. The thing is, it sounds lovely out front. But all is well with the engineer and Sara in the end and I’m impressed about how civil everyone is. Sara Schiralli looks and sounds quite like Clare Grogan, fronting a jazzy, skiffle group. Their songs are informed by bustling rhythms and strong melodies, that skitter playfully between folk and lounge pop. It’s all very nice, but contains an alternative enough twist to certainly grab your attention- and Sara herself is an interesting, confident prospect. Charming.


ROADHOUSE FRONT MAG 14+

I think the biggest (and maybe only) contrast to the Nexus event can be found just around the corner. This is another 14+ event but it’s sponsored by Lads Leaflet Front Magazine – a pamphlet sized publication filled with bare chested teenage girls that possibly borders on the risqué if not errmm..illegal. I have a suspicion that many of the posters and magazines have by now found their way to pre-pubescent boys bedrooms…or worse. Anyhow, with that revelation out of the way there’s time to examine, almost ironically or coincidentally, LOVERMAN. Here at the Roadhouse, the four piece are dressed in black and work with some gargantuan equipment – the bass player has two 4x12 cabs stacked on top of each other – it’s bruising and his clothes look as though they’ve done a whole tour without leaving his back – he looks cool in a kind of Satan’s Hollow bartender meets Mad Max kind of way. The rest of the band are pretty much presented in the same vein, their white shock haired leader also sporting what looks like a bone ripped from a large animal's spinal column as a necklace. I marvel in their sound. It’s a bleak, dirty attacking mix of new rock and blistering, angry punk, thriving, if not almost entirely living, on raw energy alone.

My ears sound like a kid’s been using them as a trampoline and then WALL STREET RIOTS take over – they look more like Top Shop rude boys who have been helping themselves to the Orson singles back catalogue. It’s sprightly enough though , but live, I’m inclined to be less generous than the review I gave them for their last single. Maybe they were just standing in a kind of Jerry-Lee-Lewis-burning-his-piano type of moment.


BAY HORSE COUNTRY CLUB Pt2

I bump into Ged Camera who’s been snapping the action here and we walk over to Nexus as he relays the football results (I’ve not seen a TV or paper for 36 hours). The less said about Merseyside beach balls the better for some, but not us. Ha !

We deposit Ged at Same Teens and carry on back to the Bay Horse where we just catch the end of FELDSPAR, four musicians who formed at RNCM, who specialise in their own beatific renditions of classic folk and the cult of the singer / song writer.

BUTLER-WILLIAMS are the real reason to be here. They have an exciting release in the form of “Save It For Someone Else” on Willow Records and have set off on a 24 date tour. There’s something passionate about the understated BW sound. It’s often hushed, but weighted with these pretty, sometimes astonishing melodies. They save the hooklines for various instruments like glocks, a bass drum, a melodica and of course a whistling Theremin. They have a magical mix of enchanted, whispering songs that dance around your ears like some kind of musical sound track to the northern lights…northern lights …yes, that’s what they are.


MANCHESTER RADIO ONLINE – MOON UNDER THE WATER

Sprint, gentlemen sprint- we have a long jog down the throat of Manchester City Centre – that’s Market Street, a thoroughfare that lost it’s identity after the late 90’s refurb of the area. My shoes seem to uneasily grip on the newly cobbled surface. Some parts of Manchester used to have soul, but I only seem to be able to find it in the city centre when there’s music to be had or nearby. Why would anyone in Britain want Market Street in their town as it stands now?..I hope some mandarin or chap from the council is reading this – you need to do something, because sometimes the more obvious things about our city often get overlooked.

I’ve got it on me haven’t I?…anyhow next is Deansgate, home to footballers bars, drunken Burberry dress codes, orange skin and sports cars. Moon Under the Water is a pretty uncompromising establishment at the best of times, a windowless cave normally rammed with anyone seeking a cheap pint and the rub of the Salford / Manchester border. Three hooded kids are stood around the corner drinking alcopops and it’s raining. Is that an omen? Thankfully no.

So inside, its transformation into a live venue is a revelation, with Manchester Radio Online at the helm – congratulations are in order. I’m here to see The Tides and The 66 – the venue is dressed with official ITC banners and a proper stage and excellent PA rig have been installed, which perform faultlessly, with the whole show apparently streamed live to their listeners too. Impressed? You should be.

Of course I know THE TIDES, but they (as will The 66) are just eating the vibe, They play well within their skins but sound like they’re dancing and jumping outside of them. “Routine Life” and “11:34” are Manchester’s missing melodic anthems; Liam Pennington rides the crest of this bands wave, steering their stadium hooks into sounds that should be celebrated. Yes, they are.

THE 66, I also probably know something approaching equally as well. It’s always a pleasure to listen to or see them and it’s a while since I last caught them live. I just can’t believe that they’ve somehow made themselves better still. I couldn’t find fault before – not a crack or even a hint really, but now they are just revelling in their time on stage and their audience - the event of it all really. New songs are magnificent, the wig out of “Firefly “ is still ever present - their drummer is playing what looks like a basic kit, but is locked into a click and makes it sound ten times bigger. The keyboards exert an effective psychedelic edge and the bass and guitar are, just well, awesome. Singer Danny Rimmer has upped his game – was that ever possible? – it seems yes, and I can’t possibly imagine this band just staying at this level for much longer.

WHAT’S ON THE TV(21)

The next stage in the intercity march is TV21, a weirdly odd Sci-Fi themed bar on the edge of the Northern quarter with just a quick diversion to the Co-Op shop for some pasta salad that’s a quid because the sell by date expires in about 47 minutes. At TV, and in the basement Big Scary Monsters and the Art Of… have my favourite line up today. Hereford’s TALONS have been well covered on MM (courtesy of Pow Wow’s night earlier this year). They even write songs about a breed of chicken. We wrote about it. It was good (MM demo of the week). Here they have both violinists with them too and it’s just, well, magnificent. I don't sound objective do I? - Well, Talons are wildly interesting and have a sound mapped around their acute understanding of the math rock equation. They have cornered the genre, which they have then twisted into their own specific shapes. I was impressed then and I’m impressed still. They apparently have some new material in the pipeline but personally I can’t wait for them to put an album’s worth together.

Midlands band SHAPES are a tight trio, but they take their calculus to extremes. At times I think this is just math rock for the sake of it and given its sheer speed, I’m not sure it’s making sense. On the other hand, the timings are so obscure that it’s creating a welcome challenge to accepted conventions. I’d like them to be even sharper and even more dazzling than this. As they tear at the boundaries between death math rock and jazz, it becomes frayed. Again, I find myself liking it. I think this is a band I need to dissect a bit more – next stop MyFace…


RUBY LOUNGED

A hot tip for this weekend has been THE SWITCH. Some may take a cynical view that this is just a rebadged Ryna, but it’s definitely not. Definitely not. Caroline Sterling still obviously picks up the vocals (strangely dressed like some kind of 60’s native Indian flower child) and former Marion guitarist Anthony Grantham is still present, executing his perfectly rehearsed vertical One O’Clock stare. What is remarkable, is that this sound is blatantly superior and utterly different to anything they’ve done between them so far. Grantham has retired his work to an effected backdrop with everything else covered by two guys duelling their laptops and miniature keyboards amongst themselves. Sterling supplies the mantra and the net effect is not unlike something Geoff Barrow would be sure to endorse, and there even shades of William Orbit in there. They’ve also got some killer songs – one in particular I guarantee, could get them signed.

And with Sunday about to pass, it really is time to sign off – I’ve just missed the last tram and that Taxi driver looks bored…


Jonathan A



http://www.myspace.com/trubluloveyu
http://www.myspace.com/sameteensmanchester
http://www.myspace.com/kingvultureband
http://www.myspace.com/neilmcsweeney
http://www.myspace.com/saraschiralli
http://www.myspace.com/lovermantheband
http://www.myspace.com/wallstreetriots
http://www.myspace.com/thefeldspar
http://www.myspace.com/chrisbutlernoelwilliams
http://www.myspace.com/thetidesinfo
http://www.myspace.com/the66uk
http://www.myspace.com/gotalons
http://www.myspace.com/weareshapes
http://www.myspace.com/theswitchmcr

Monday: Breakfast With Cath (Again)...

A GENUINE FREAKSHOW + TIM AND SAM'S TIM AND THE SAM BAND WITH TIM AND SAM
Night & Day, Monday 1pm

Monday lunchtime, Night & Day, there'll be half an hour's wait for the breakfast apparently. That's OK, I'm not going anywhere. Hannah from Pull Yourself Together / Fugitive Motel has joined me in the online office (table 19, in case you were wondering) to form a sort of Manchester underground media HQ, the coffee's great, and there's wonderful music to be had... breakfast can wait.

Tim And Sam's Tim And The Sam Band With Tim And Sam are exactly how every day should begin, I'm sure the world would be a better place for it. Pump their music into the political parties' conferences and then let's see how many wars they want to start. It's music that can't fail to make you smile, yes, even a miserable sod like me, although Tim himself seems a bit down. They had a crap gig yesterday, apparently. Here, though, everyone's happy to see them. The line-up seems to have stabilised these days - Tim and another guitarist, Becca on keyboards and blowy things, and a drummer, and they're sounding better than they ever have, full of depth. The two guitars wrap around each other into shimmery cascades and the drums give it all a backbone; they've found a lovely little space between post-rock, folk and old-school jangly indie-pop and whether it's their own songs or their brilliant cover of Elbow's "One Day Like This" (with the clarinet on "lead vocals") they have an ear for a bewitching melody that stays with you long after they've left the stage.

A Genuine Freakshow describe themselves as "pop-infused post-rock" and I'm not about to disagree; with guitars, violin, cello and even a trumpet going at it full pelt they excel at those sort of towering instrument pile-ups Hope Of The States used to do so well, but there are also more indie-pop moments led by Timothy Sutcliffe's unashamedly fey - and often falsetto - vocals. In fact he's so quietly spoken between songs, so thin and bookish looking with his thick glasses, he makes the previous band's Tim look like a rock monster in comparison. To be filed somewhere near The Strange Death Of Liberal England in the grand spectrum of intelligent post-pop. I'm also intrigued by the bit on their Myspace where they mention supporting Marillion in Holland, as I'm now trying to imagine how on earth this rather Radiohead-ish and very English (and slightly Icelandic - the sound, that is, not them) leftfield pop went down with a load of sweaty denim-clad Dutch proggers. Fey they might be, but they're fucking brave.

The breakfast was wonderful as ever, too. I don't know how I'd get through ITC without it.


http://www.myspace.com/timandsamstimandthesambandwithtimandsam
http://www.myspace.com/agenuinefreakshow

The rest of Cath's Sunday and why Manchester still matters

AIR CAV + NOMAD JONES - BUSK @ The Garratt
WOLF GANG + EGYPTIAN HIP HOP - NME Radar @ Night & Day
THE BLACK KNIGHTS - Country Club @ The Bay Horse
THE SWITCH - Ruby Lounge

No In The City would be complete without (a) a trip to BUSK @ The Garratt and (b) at least one performance from Nomad Jones. BUSK is, as we say every year, the complete antithesis of the shiny corporate shindigs across town, and therefore absolutely necessary. There is an actual busker onstage when we get there, a grey-haired chap called Frank who's doing a few standards, Johnny Cash tunes and a couple of bawdy ones that we find a lot funnier than we should. This is the great thing about BUSK: they celebrate live music in all its forms.

Nomad Jones is your traditional acoustic guitar-slinging singer-songwriter with a clutch of lovelorn tunes; the only thing marking him out from many others being that his songs are really good. Poignant without being mawkish, delicate without being weedy, and classically melodic. Maybe one day the world will notice - it only took Johnny Bramwell 20-odd years...

The place has filled up a bit for Air Cav who are making their second appearance of the weekend; I'm told last night's Centro gig was one of their best ever and packed out. This is a bit more low-key, but it's still the best thing I've seen all day. It's no secret that I have an involvement with the band so I am not about to pretend otherwise, but there is a good reason for this. Air Cav are (alongside Daniel Land And The Modern Painters - whom I'm told were also outstanding at Centro; and The Longcut - currently missing ITC due to their own tour, and whom I was actually watching in Oxford last night) one of the three best bands in Manchester.

They open with a new one so new it appears on the set list only as "New One" (it always amuses me when bands do this) which sees a shift sideways into a more psychedelic place, whilst retaining the trademark Air Cav balance between the dreamy guitar/violin melodies and the powerhouse rhythm section; meanwhile older single track "Picking At The Bones" is the sort of air-punching anthem that reminds us why audiences have gone absolutely mad for this band in territories such as France and The Netherlands where you don't have to be up the back passage of large media conglomerates to be considered a great band. Best of the bunch though is "Keychain" which carries the Chameleons' blueprint of heart-rending poignancy and powerful foundations. Sadly we're denied a last track by a string snapping, but it's still one of the best sets of the say.

Night & Day is rammed when I get back. Egyptian Hip Hop have already had plenty of press (this is, after all, the NME's Radar showcase), but that's a good enough reason to stop by and see what all the excitement's about. We already know they have incredibly tight jeans and great hair, and their former incarnation as splattergun electropunks Copycats was always an experience... at the ripe old age of 17 they've calmed down a bit. They are, tender years notwithstanding, in some ways a classic Manchester band: a little dour in the voal department but with a party going on elsewhere. Electrobeats and live drums (we're not sure if the drummer's face mask is some sort of statement or something to do with swine flu, but given the heat and humidity in here let's hope it's the former) underpin pealing guitars, whilst the vocals are more teenage Cure than Factory growl. Meanwhile hints of "new rave" inform both their visual and musical style, although not overpoweringly so. Classic Manchester then, but equally bang up to date. I guess (possibly in the "blind man playing darts" sense) the NME does get it right occasionally.

Not sure Wolf Gang are one of their better bets, though. They come with great recommedations and comparisons but what I'm hearing at least on the first couple of tracks is indie punk-funk by numbers. Yes, singer and mainman Max McElligott does sound uncannily like David Byrne, but what the hell is that Arcade Fire reference in the blurb all about? Oh, his voice soars a bit. Right. So it's Clap Your Hands Say Yeah then. Who were (are?) a decent enough band, but not sure we needed another one.

Down to the Bay Horse basement next, which has the same sort of underground atmosphere you usually find at FictionNonFiction, a regular fixture sadly missing from 2009's schedules. At which point we'll take another look back to In The City 2006, where somewhere in the middle of Dry Bar's pile-em-high-regardless-of-quality pic'n'mix a slightly intimidating looking duo from Salford called Deodates were mixing up raucous Northern Soul and Detroit blues. Three years and a name change later The Black Knights are on the official ITC Unsigned list and deservedly so. And the purple-suited, sparkly eyelinered, Satanic goateed Gary L Hope is still one of the scariest frontmen you'll encounter. His vocals are best described as, well, imagine if Prince and Jack White had a child (no, bear with me) only he was born in Salford and fucking pissed off about it. This is backed by dirty great motherfucker riffs, often thrashed out on the bass strings, and drumming that sounds like a fight. They're always good live but they're absolutely on fire tonight, Gary pushing his guitar deep into the amp while Tom Pickford batters seven shades of hell out of his minimal kit. The interaction between the two is compelling; with a tight two-man set-up such as this they fix on each other constantly, with looks that fall somewhere between encouraging and threatening. The Bay Horse of course has no PA, you play through amps, and this is exactly how The Black Knights should be heard, red raw.

They come offstage at 11pm. I'm due at Ruby Lounge at 11pm. Oh good, first sprint of the weekend. Which is bordering on an obstacle course, due to the proliferation of enormous tram-related roadworks in the short stretch between the venues. Run down the stairs just as the band come onstage, adrenaline still pumping from The Black Kinghts' explosive finish. This is as much a part of ITC as the actual bands, that buzz of managing to get somewhere just in time.

This is the first ever live performance by The Switch, although their studio outings have already picked up plaudits from the BBC and XFM and comparisons to Portishead and Massive Attack. That's a hell of a lot to live up to, but amazingly these claims are not overestimated. The backdrop, provided by two large banks of electronics and a guitar, is lush and orchestral with dark undercurrents; bass frequencies so deep the floor trembles and slow, brooding beats. And in Caroline Sterling they have a star-in-the-making up front. She has this beautiful, pure voice, almost fragile sounding; untreated and relatively understated, reminiscent of Sarah from Dubstar back in the day. And she's compelling to watch, too, dressed like some Eastern princess going for a night's raving and absorbed in the sound. It's a short set, but they've done enough to get every radar in the room twitching; the last track "See The Light" is the standout, a gorgeous floating piece of electro psychedelia full of synth wash and guitar delay that sounds like the sunrise after you've stayed up all night.

It's interesting to note that despite ITC's national / international remit, the four best sets I have seen today - Run Toto Run, Air Cav, The Black Knights and The Switch - all came from Manchester. This is not some sort of misplaced civic pride: out in the wider world most of my favourite bands are actually not from round here. And neither is it any attempt to categorise a scene; the four bands have little in common musically. It's just what happened today. I'm kind of glad it's very late by this point, as I'm not sure I'd want to go and watch another indie band after that. I've been out for ten hours after three hours' sleep, and we've got it all to do again tomorrow.

Cath Aubergine, who will be in Night & Day again in about 15 minutes, get the toast on!

http://www.myspace.com/nomadjones
http://www.myspace.com/aircavmusic
http://www.myspace.com/egyptianhiphop
http://www.myspace.com/thisiswolfgang
http://www.myspace.com/almightyblackknights
http://www.myspace.com/theswitchmcr

MM goes to a teenage gig, despite being very much not teenagers any more...

Yep, Cath again. Because my laptop's still got a bit of battery left, and Jon's hasn't. I am currently sitting in The Garratt drinking Red Bull and it's only bloody half six. Anyway, where was I? Yeah, I'd just left Night & Day, and it wasn't too far to the next place...

WILD PALMS + LR ROCKETS + WU YLF
NEXUS ART CAFE, SUNDAY AFTERNOON

It feels a bit wrong going to Same Teens' session when you barely remember being a teenager, but the local underage gig specialists have again come up with a brilliant ITC line-up, this year situated in the rather strange Nexus Art Café which has a bit of a churchy youth-club vibe to it. There's a sort of floral fairy light crucifix in front of the stage everyone's trying to ignore. And MM's Sov Twins and Ged Camera have joined me so I'm only the fourth oldest person here at worst.

As the guidebook helpfully informs us, WU YLF have no Myspace or Facebook page, change their name every few weeks and generally make it quite difficult to keep track of them. A bizarre strategy, but one that worked for The Phantom Band, eventually. We at MM aren't doing too badly - at last year's ITC we surmised that "any band called Vagina Wolf has to be seen, really" and reported "echoes of Interpol, Pixies, Pavement even; pretty good anyway." By January 09 we noted that wu lf wu lf played "abrasive prog-ish alt-rock, like a kind of semi-unravelled Pixies with shades of Day For Airstrikes". They'll probably change it again now they know we're onto them. They might already have done. Anyway these days they've reined in the prog bits and turned up the punk; the Interpol-Pixies-Pavement triangle is still their basic framework with the singer's angry punk scowl sounding more like Frank Black than you'd think possible from one so young and, well, thin. At the end they kick the crucifix over, so they're probably going to Hell which is pretty rock'n'roll. I would recommend them, but all I can really say is look out for a band with a weird name probably containing the letters W, L and F.

LR Rockets make a slightly more traditional punk-post-punk racket, in fact they're so punk rock they've driven all the way from London in a one-litre Datsun. There are flickers of electropop in the keyboards, enough skittering hi-hat and bass bounce to make it danceable (in theory; in actual fact pretty much the whole crowd's sat down - young people these days eh?) but overall it's much more like the angry agit-post-punk than the haircut variety. Which is good. Unfortunately it all gets a bit samey after a while and they drag on for about two more songs than they've actually got, which isn't.

Wild Palms' rhythm section have been at the Factory back catalogue, with a Gang Of Four chaser. Singer Lou Hill meanwhile sounds like a young (as in Teardrops) Julian Cope. It's fascinating how the sounds of 1979-81 continue to have such an influence on young bands; I guess there's the parental record collection factor but I don't remember too many 80s kids getting off on The Hollies. And yes, they're very good at it, much more raw and genuine sounding than your Editors / White Lies major-label packaged angst factor - but I can't work out why loads of very cool teenagers are getting well into this; I'm a thirtysomething at an all-ages party and I expect to hear something I find virulent and incomprehensible, not retreads of what I was listening to at their age. I leave them to it.

http://www.myspace.com/lrrockets

http://www.myspace.com/wearewildpalms

Cath Aubergine

PS Watch out for Jon's "Blog On The Bog" coming soon. I wish I was joking. I'm not.

Night And Day Breakfast Session, Sunday

RUN TOTO RUN, NEIL MCSWEENEY, KING VULTURE
Night & Day, Sunday 1pm ish

Right - have to admit I've done precisely no planning this year. And I've had about three hours' sleep. But as everyone knows, In The City starts with a big dirty fry-up in Night & Day accompanied by whatever music they decide to throw at you. Today they actually seem less organised than me; after a lot of running about they finally get the first band on at about half one...

King Vulture are the perfect start to a hazy Sunday. Apparently they're normally a full band with bass and drums, but unlike some they've clearly put some effort into reworking their material for a more stripped-down format. In that you wouldn't know it wasn't written like this. Three abreast, all with acoustic guitars (having the left-hander centre stage is possibly not the best idea logistically!) initially there's an obvious Simon And Garfunkel comparison to be made, both in the bittersweet folk-fringed pop melodies and the rich three-way harmonies. Later on some mellow acoustic soul flavours start to surface, and by the end of the set it's bordering on funky. A strange one then, leaving us none the wiser as to what they sound like in full-blooded mode.

It was at this very breakfast session three years ago that Rachael Kichenside first caught our attention, and considering her set coincided with the arrival of said fry-up (this year we got the eating bit out of the way before the bands started) this was in itself an impressive achievement. A solo artist in those days she was doing soulful, folky pop that was relatively mainstream; a crowded market where even a voice as stunning as this might just miss the ears of the influential. By last year's event her band Run Toto Run were impressing us with pretty, warm electro-folk; another year and the development is amazing. Run Toto Run have found their own path and sound truly unique - and she's still got one of the most outstanding voices around. For a start, it's a largely electronic set-up these days - two gentlemen with keyboards and samplers providing the foundations for Rachael's excellent collection of cheap and cheerful toybox instruments. Who needs guitars bass and drums when you could have glockenspiel, melodica and recorder? The results are as delightfully unclassifiable as you might expect; Micachu if she had tunes? Four Tet if they weren't so blokey and serious? Then they go and fuck up any remaining preconceptions by chucking in a sort of electro-oompah beat and fairground organs. Talent, individuality, star quality and tunes - ITC might well be an international event but sometimes you don't actually have to look past your own backyard for the stars. There's also something almost precocious about covering a contemporary song, but they do just that with a glockenspiel twinkling, sunshine sparkling version of "Sleepyhead" so perfect Passion Pit should probably just give them custody and wave it off to a happy new life.

Changeover takes a bit longer these days than when it was (entirely) Acoustic Breakfast, but there's time for one more before moving on: Neil McSweeney. More the conventional breakfast session artist, the Sheffield singer-songwriter oddly lists a load of female artists as influences - PJ Harvey, Nina Simone, Kirsty MacColl, Sarabeth Tucek... This might well be some sort of joke, but MacColl is actually a good reference point, along with other old-school punk-inspired (in spirit if not sound) pop troubadours. Passionate and powerful, he leads a full band, organ and accordian included, through a set of big-hearted gritty ballads and darker journeys into Americana.

The venue has, as ever, filled up a lot by this point as delegates and shoppers alike are drawn into what does indeed feel like night in the middle of the day - time to move on, although I'm sure I'll be back tomorrow...

http://www.myspace.com/kingvultureband

http://www.myspace.com/runtotomusic

http://www.myspace.com/neilmcsweeney

Cath Aubergine, who had three hours' sleep on a bus to get back here for this...

SATURDAY....FINDING MY MILLTOWN BROTHERS

Echodeck,My Albatross,Dry Bar, Saturday 17th October 2009


I think someone should let Ben Kelly know that his seminal Factory designs are now covered in gaudy lampshades and Alice In Wonderland stylized mirrors. Lots of them. The basement venue has also been split off and is now accessible via a separate entrance. It’s a bold move, but perhaps an indication that it’s time for the venue to move on. Interesting developments no doubt, are just around the corner.

Inside it’s the fringe fest – bucket loads of bands rotating between stages. It’s worth it, with our first band discharging a thrill of clambering grinding rock with dense riffs supplemented by keys and programmed beats. ECHODECK’S singer struggles to keep the key but sustains his mantra. This however is just a shaky start and they find a magnificent groove with a sturdy Rickenbacker bass driven stomper – there’s loads of space and an adequately immense impact. It's no fluke either as they follow it straight up with a great track which I think is called “She See's Stars. She does indeed, in an acceptable Kasabian-ish fashion..

MY ALBATROSS are next with a tiny acoustic (not a uke but same size) but this isn’t a threat, it’s actually just an impromptu soundcheck. They actually embark on a more mellow sound, as the trio who revert to a more standard bass, drums and guitar. As their set flows it’s a relatively staid but effective dose of melody that maybe isn't quite sharp enough to really seal any kind of deal.

There’s a plan of sorts for tonight and Centro is the potential source of my attention – a swing by finds Air Cav chilling post soundcheck…it’s penciled in…the someone has the bright idea of walking into the heart of Ancoats….



Blowout,Hope Mill

The legendary Blowout have a space at their disposal at Hope Mill. As a group we decide to walk there. We’re in the Northern Quarter , it can’t be far, I mean we’re practically in Ancoats aren’t we ? No. Twenty minutes later, through the retail park, past PitBulls on constitutionals and derelict pubs (The Bank Of England ironically), we actually find our way there.

It’s a great space with some interesting toilets – well one urinal and one trap in the same room with no door. There’s an outdoor food stand and plenty of canned beer to create a musical space from what was once just dereliction.

EASTER are our first act and my first live experience of this outfit is as pleasing as my first listen of their original demo. With a pedigree that includes former Sonar Yen guitarist Tom Long and former Nursing Home players ( a band who are apparently reforming), the sound is also completed by the addition of Tsuji Giri star and adventurous soloist Danny Saul. You would expect mighty things from such a collection, but it possibly surpasses that with retro perspectives that ring true and sound new. Echoey sounds pick up the gothic vocals and progressive guitar loops with the frayed, but eloquently orchestrated sounds of Pavement peppered in the ethereal shadows of Sonic Youth at their most sublime. Elasticated riffs and plunging melodies fall off monotone cliffs like excited 80's musical lovers. Saul is the flamboyant foil to the bass and guitar undertow as the plot stirs itself into a twisted, velvet cacophony of smooth coiled noise .

THE SECOND FLOOR, reformed, rewired and refreshed are still presented within a fog of dry ice and showers of white light. Back with a new line up their spiritual heart is informed by space rock and devilish blues. There's something even more psychedelic and lost about this new sound. It crashes against the strobe lighting like a physics conundrum, humming fizzing with keyboard hooks and rattling roller coaster guitars.

Wandering the floors between bands, I bump into Lucy Papercut, a face from the early days of the local music scene revival from the early part of this decade.

BLACK KNIGHTS are a shimmering duo, racketeering their sound with loose, rivet shaking suggestions of feedback and heavy, clattering rock n roll sentiments – this is like thunder on carnival ride, riddled with the blues and dark addictions . Gary is the black eyed preacher - he has the suit to prove it - stolen from angels and dipped in the blood of his disciples. This is very Archie Bronson and equally as effective.

ARCH NAVVIES (I think) are from Sheffield and/or related to CHIPS. There’s a bearded man in sunglasses, a fishing hat and sunglasses and a game keepers coat. He’s been circulating all night, like a stranger in the run. He's in this band who begin with Randall + Hopkirk sounding themes and crooning leftfield electronica heavily held upp with backing tracks. The sonics hit puking vibration levels - green noise anyone. “Breakdance competition….Is this the hacienda ?” are typical soundbites as the band end up in the audience. They have a lady drummer, adding refinement to the dry laconic electro fuelled by the whippet trainer’s humour. As they finish , a track sounds like Editors - or do editors sound like them ? . An intergalactic quiz all of their won this is. conundrum. The sick inducing frequencies roll on - marvellous work...


Finally and as a suitable pinnacle….it’s THE WITCHES. They now have a keyboard player and they guitar player who is recovering from an accident also joins for some vocal work. It’s changed their sound a little, but added to the invention. There are new wave rumblings, but still the sharp attack of something new and dangerous. They sharpen their sonics and fuse their attacks to attention grabbing bass hooks. As a band they embrace the theatric side of their music, but with a serious landscape of rock and roll sci-fi. It’s quite unlike anything out there and I’ve not quite unraveled their sound as yet. As the last shimmering cascade of their crumbling high EQ fuzz melts into the walls, the intrigue, the innovation, the fascination just builds. The Witches have yet more to reveal I’m sure.


It's a long way back (down) and it's time to round off the evening by tipping into the Roadhouse. Contort Yourself are playing a 30 second loop that seems to go on for two hours and an audience is actually watching the DJ - more people are watching this bloke - and revolving electronic sign that say's "Contort Yourself...open til 4am" - than the attention most four band line ups would garner - it makes you wonder if anyone really does like live music anymore - they're having fun though.

ITC09 - LET'S GET QUIZZICAL!

I'm just putting on my coat for this year's ITC - then Ted from Cloud Sounds comes knocking on the social Networking door, asking me for some comments about the whole ITC thang...more news to follow on Ted's published piece as and when, but here's how I answered some of his questions...

"Hi Jon" - Hi Ted......


* Has ITC changed since 1992? If so, how?

I think the question here, is not how ITC has changed but how Manchester has changed.

Let’s take the city first. 1992 found Manchester drawing the last fumes and vapours of Madchester. After a flurry of industry activity (local Label offices, regional A&R, promoters, designers and a new round of independent music industry businesses), the city was soon stripped of this infrastructure – London binned Manchester, stereoptyped it and abandoned it as a relevant city almost once and for all.

The city (obviously pre-bomb) was a shadow of what it is now – just a few venues (The Roadhouse was just about to open and Night & day was a run down café bar with no proper music facilities) including PJ Bells, The Hacienda (living on borrowed time) and the Boardwalk.

Manchester had a lot to do. But despite this Yvette Livsey and Tony Wilson were the figureheads for an ambitious idea – In The City. To begin with, it established an identity almost immediately and I don’t think it took that long for it get the key players in the industry (at international levels) to pencil it into their calendars.

In those days, the unsigned event was actually a judged competition with formal winners, but today it has become, more sensibly, a decent shop window that includes both the hyped and the completely unknown.

The big difference these days is the landscape of Manchester – refurbished, rejuvenated and still living off the financial boom of the mid-noughties. On the fringe side, there is a new generation of promoters and clubbers – I don’t think the ethics and level of innovation is as good these days and it has all become very money orientated and I think a lot of the young entrepreneurs have lost the sense of collectiveness and self support there used to be. Thankfully it means that the more meaningful movers and shakers are easy to spot - these people invest in the emerging musical infrastructure of Manchester – think Blowout, Red Deer, Friends of Mine, aA, Timbreland, High Voltage, FictionNonFiction, WotGodForgot, TJE, Little Red Rabbit, Humble Soul - With string previous ITC fringe identities (Rich from HV was on this years ITC judging panel), these people care about the things they’re building and they endure – the reason I mention them (and apologies for perhaps missing one or two out) , is that I think they embrace what ITC is all about – being supportive and sustainable, rather than a quick buck.

The digital age – the MyTwitFace generation, have broken down those regional borders. It’s even more important to establish your city as city of music. I think only three have successfully done it. Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds and of course London (although the Capital counts as a county rather than a city).

ITC has changed with the times, embracing digital downloads, ensuring that its conference is at the cutting edge of essential debate. The one thing it did do in more recent years, was to focus its live functions around Peter St, a lifeless, soulless part of the city lined with desperate, expensive abars. The best ITC’s have always been around the northern quarter, the city’s musical saviour – now home to world renowned and established clubs like The Roadhouse and Night & Day, Dry Bar. Moho Live and Ruby Lounge.


* Does ITC inform the music industry or is it the other way round?

My view is that ITC provides the platform for debate and discussion by bringing all the right speakers and players together.

ITC set the agenda and more than often get it right – this, I think is where they excel. The debate on downloads was put on the table years ago at ITC and yet the industry has only just taken its eyes out the headlights.

It seems to me that given the keynote speakers and subject matters, the industry wants to be there – ITC plays a mischievous host but invites the music sector to talk amongst itselves whilst ITC coyly observe whilst throwing in a few hand grenade sized sound bites.


* Is ITC right to claim that it has 'launched the careers' of bands such as Oasis, Suede, Coldplay and the Arctic Monkeys?

That’s a good question. For Suede and Oasis, perhaps yes, although they’d already been scouted and probably signed by then, but what an important platform it was then for shoving them in front of the assembled press, publishers and labels. Coldplay had already been discovered but ITC was definitely a crucial player in their gradual ascent.

Arctic Monkeys however are a product of the new social networking age and I heard about them along with thousands of others via the web - They snowballed very quickly as bands do these days, completing circuits of the UK within the year, hitting places like Night & day just a few times, before exploding. That was definitely a new phenomena – a band who are obviously writing brilliant tunes don’t stay secret for long these days. ITC has a role now for seeking out the bands that are less obvious, but who could possibly change the world. In 1978 no-major in their right mind would have signed Joy Division – ITC is obviously built on that and writes “Ground Breaking” on its T-Shirts rather than “Sell-Out”.


* To what extent would playing ITC Unsigned or ITC Live help / hinder an emerging band?

It used to be a fact that playing ITC and not-getting signed was your death knell – you’d not be invited to play again. These days the fringe events and a more open minded show casing strategy mean that a band can get a good few years out of ITC – Oddly, I think that whilst some acts come and go far too quickly, those with more substance thrive and develop over a few years, using the web to propagate. Good music is good music.

From my experience, most things happen as a result of co-incidence and luck and utilising ITC provides a chance just to be spotted. That’s something you’d never attain, without driving your tour bus through every label’s London office with you playing live in the back.



* In a more general sense, what are your opinions of ITC? Is it groundbreaking? Is it influential? Is it important, or even essential? How does it compare to other local events such as Sounds From The Other City and international ones like SXSW?

Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.

Two good comparisons though. SFTOC is I think Manchester’s (or should I say Salford’s!) best ever unsigned event. It’s eclectic, spontaneous and experimental and is run with only the very best of intentions. I think it stands for everything we should be proud of. It runs over one day and you’ll see and hear more interesting things in non-regular venues than you’ll see all year. It really is the most amazing thing in this town.

SXSW is by contrast massive. It’s hometown has a lot of parallels with Manchester, but it is so big - I think you would have to be very selective and careful, but then there is absolutely something for everyone. It is of course in America which sort of makes it a little pointless for unsigned UK bands, but as a UK music fan it’s basically a brilliant holiday set to 11.

World music is primarily dominated by three markets – America, The Uk and Japan. I think we should always remember that we could argue that our domestic music scene has been (and always will be !) the most innovative…