Some bands are meant to be seen live and W H Lung is right up there. The energy that bounces from stage to crowd and back again is electric, especially with dynamic and expressive front man Jo Evans prowling the stage. For their third album, Every Inch of Earth Pulsates, it’s that live experience that…
Read More
Unseen Vintage Street Photographs Online Exhibition: 24th September – 1st November 2024. The Centre for British Photography is holding a new online exhibition of street photographer Shirley Baker’s images. Taking its name from a recurring motif in Lemn Sissay’s poem Flags, Pavement Cracks unveils previously unseen images captured by Shirley, taken in and around Manchester. The Centre’s…
Read More
Who better to highlight the mess humankind are making of our earthly home than those interplanetary ravers known as HENGE. The multi-genre band (let’s call it a mix of psychedelic-prog-rock-electronica) has a new single out called Get A Wriggle On, and it’s an absolute joy. It comes with a strong eco message, beautifully portrayed in…
Read More
Heading the bill for the bluedot 2022 science programme are astronaut Tim Peake, physicist Jim-Khalili, Monica Grady, Sheena Cuickshank and Professor Chris Lintott. After beating 8000 applicants to be selected as a European Space Agency astronaut, Tim Peake spent several years in intensive training finally joining the crew of the International Space Station in 2015…
Read More
We’re At The Top is the closing track from The Battery Farm’s 2nd EP Dirty Den’s March of Suffering. It is a song about “loneliness and a song about forgotten people”. Unsurprisingly, it’s suffused with melancholy – but so heartfelt and so raw it stopped me in my tracks. It’s a beautifully paced number, commanding…
Read More
A stellar roster of artists awaits those attending Manchester Psych Fest this year. And the organisers are delighted to announce their full lineup for this year’s festival, which takes place on 4th September. Malia’s Tinariwen are co-headliners with Stereolab, plus there’s post-punk outfit Dry Cleaning, afrobeat eight-piece Kokoroko and Japanese psych veterans Kikagaku Moyo. Also on the bill Jadu Heart, Billy Nomates,…
Read More
This is reposted from last year, as the exhibition has just won Best Art Exhibition at Manchester CityLife Awards. The ceremony was hosted at The Deaf Institute. From 19th May, Manchester Art Gallery will show the exhibition Women, Children; and Loitering Men, photographs by Shirley Baker taken primarily in the 1960s. Of Baker’s prolific output, these photographs…
Read More
Outside Piccadilly Records, the crowds are setting up camp for the night to nab their Record Store Day prize vinyl
Read More
One Haçienda devotee and DJ loved the place so much, he bought a bit of the dancefloor. And a flat exactly where the famous Manchester club’s DJ booth was situated. The film Do You Own the Dançefloor? went on release in June 2015. It’s an affectionate, sometimes hilarious, and decidedly good-natured account of the sell-off…
Read More
Shirley Baker is only now being recognised as one of the most important female photographers and social documenters of the last century. The haunting and compelling 2007 documentary of Joy Division, directed by Grant Gee, opens with a montage of images of Manchester in the 70s. It depicts a time of sweeping changes after the post-war streets were systematically cleared…
Read More