The Skinny Northwest April 2015 by The Skinny

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LAIBACH

GIRLFRIEND

TOSELAND

FRIDAY 3RD APRIL

SATURDAY 11TH APRIL

WEDNESDAY 15TH APRIL

APRIL Laibach Friday 3rd The 99 Degree + The Room + Bloom + Sittin Pretty + Guests Friday 3rd Of Mice & Men + The Amity Affliction + Volumes Saturday 4th Dirty Vertebrae + Northern Lights + Cassette Saturday 4th Pretty Ricky + Day 26 + J Holiday – Easter Extravaganza Sunday 5th Rick Ross Monday 6th Everything Everything Friday 10th BriBry with Dodie Clark Friday 10th Roxy Music Tribute: Roxy Musique Saturday 11th The Shires Sunday 12th Stereo Kicks Tuesday 14th Toseland + Rival State Wednesday 15th Finley Quaye Friday 17th Therapy? + Thirty Six Strangers Saturday 18th Slow Readers Club Saturday 18th Lady Pank Saturday 18th Raleigh Ritchie Tuesday 21st The Birthday Massacre + The Red Paintings Wednesday 22nd The Cruxshadows Thursday 23rd The Sex Pissed Dolls Friday 24th Blues Pills + Raveneye And The Pearl Harts Friday 24th For Those About To Rock Lime House Lizzy vs Livewire ACDC Saturday 25th Echosmith Saturday 25th The Smiths LTD + Special Guests Saturday 25th Portico + Snow Ghosts Sunday 26th Theory of a Deadman Monday 27th Wire Wednesday 29th Flying Lotus Thursday 30th

MAY Dub FX Friday 1st CW Stoneking Friday 1st The Legends of Darts Masters Saturday 2nd Letz Zep Saturday 2nd The Sherlocks Saturday 2nd Pentatonix Sunday 3rd Impericon Festival 2015 + Suicide Silence Monday 4th Darlia Tuesday 5th Crazy P Friday 8th Boyz II Men Saturday 9th The Clone Roses + Clint Boon Saturday 9th The Last Carnival Saturday 9th FM + Heroes & Villains Tour + Special Guests Romeo’s Daughter + No Hot Ashes Saturday 9th Tyler, The Creator Wednesday 13th Lucy Spraggan Thursday 14th Sleaford Mods + The Membranes + Special Guest Richard Dawson Friday 15th Cash (The UK’s no.1 Johnny Cash Tribute) Saturday 16th Soul Boutique + Paul Mac Saturday 16th

For full listings visit manchesteracademy.net

FINLEY QUAYE

EVIL BLIZZARD

PORTICO

SATURDAY 18TH APRIL

SUNDAY 26TH APRIL

WIRE

ONLY REAL

LAZY HABITS

FM + ROMEO’S DAUGHTER + NO HOT ASHES

SLEAFORD MODS

OZRIC TENTACLES

BAD MANNERS

JACE EVERETT

JIMMY CLIFF

FRIDAY 17TH APRIL

WEDNESDAY 29TH APRIL

SATURDAY 9TH MAY

SATURDAY 13TH JUNE

SUNDAY 3RD MAY

FRIDAY 15TH MAY

FRIDAY 26TH JUNE

+ SNOW GHOSTS

THURSDAY 7TH MAY

FRIDAY 22ND MAY

SATURDAY 25TH JULY

VOL:2AABIG BIGBIG BIG LOVE... LOVE... VOL:2 MANCHESTER ACADEMY ACADEMY MANCHESTER

Bank Holiday Sat May 23 2015 Sat May 23 2015

THE BLUETONES THE BLUETONES

APRIL 2015 CLUB

COMEDY

LIVE

FILM

FRIDAY 3 APRIL

COURTNEY BARNETT

7PM : SOLD OUT (14+) SATURDAY 4 APRIL : BROOKLYN BREWERY PRESENTS GROUP THERAPY —

ED GAMBLE

7PM : £10 / £8 (18+) SUNDAY 5 APRIL

PARTYNEXTDOOR 7PM : SOLD OUT (14+) TUESDAY 14 APRIL

STEVE HOWE

7:30PM : £22 (14+) WEDNESDAY 15 APRIL

SIGMA

7PM : £11 (14+) THURSDAY 16 APRIL

MATTHEW E. WHITE 7:30PM : £14 (14+) FRIDAY 17 APRIL

THE SKINTS

7PM : £12.50 (14+) SATURDAY 18 APRIL

FINDLAY

7PM: £8 (18+) FRIDAY 24 APRIL

AMPLIFIER

6:30PM : £12 (18+) SATURDAY 25 APRIL

AKALA

7PM : £11 (14+) SUNDAY 26 APRIL

KWABS

7PM : £10 (18+) MONDAY 27 APRIL

THE SMITH STREET BAND/GNARWOLVES 7:30PM : £10 (14+) WEDNESDAY 29 APRIL

AND SO I WATCH YOU FROM AFAR 7:30PM : £12.50 (14+) THURSDAY 2 APRIL : COVERT —

BANK HOLIDAY SPECIAL 11PM — 4AM FRIDAY 3 APRIL : LIVEWIRE —

FREE PARTY

11PM — 4AM : FREE ENTRY SATURDAY APRIL 4 : BEDROCK —

JOHN DIGWEED ( 4 HOUR SET) / PIRATE COPY 10.30PM — 4AM : £15/£18 SUNDAY 5 APRIL : KALUKI —

JACKMASTER ( 3 HOUR SET) + RESIDENTS 10.30PM — 4AM : £15/£18 FRIDAY 10 APRIL

JUICY

11PM — 4AM : £5 SATURDAY 11 APRIL : UNDER PRESENT —

NICK FANCIULLI + UNDER RESIDENTS 11PM — 4AM : £12/£15 FRIDAY 17 APRIL

MUTE v LIVEWIRE FREE PARTY 11PM — 4AM : FREE ENTRY SATURDAY 18 APRIL

GOLD TEETH SPECIAL 11PM — 4AM : £5 FRIDAY 24 APRIL : DESOLAT

GUTI LIVE / HECTOR / PIRATE COPY 11PM — 4AM : £15/£18

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april listings live FRI 03 TURRENTINE JONES £6.50/7PM 18+ SAT 04 ERRORS £10/7:30PM 18+ WED 08 DENAI MOORE £8.50/7:30PM 18+ FRI 10 BALTHAZAR £7/7PM 14+ SAT 11 DUKE GARWOOD £10/7PM 14+ SUN 12 BRETT DENNEN £13.50/7PM 14+ TUE 14 NADINE SHAH £10/7PM 14+ WED 15 ROO PANES £8/7:30PM 14+ FRI 17 MOUNTIES £12.50/7PM 14+ SAT 18 VINYL REVIVAL RECORD STORE DAY SECTION 25 & MORE £10/6:30PM 14+ SUN 19 LUKE FRIEND SOLD OUT/7PM 14+

club listings HU 02 EASTER HOLIDAY SPECIAL TBA £TBC/11PM-3AM FRI 03 FAM* DISCO, FUNK, & PARTY TUNES

£3/11PM-3AM SAT 04 GIRLS ON FILM

’80S ELECTRONIC DANCE POP OF THE HIGHEST ORDER

£4.50/11PM-3AM SUN 05 I AM THE RESURRECTION

EASTER SUNDAY PARTY INDIE, BRITPOP & GRUNGE

£4.50/10PM-3AM FRI 10 HIGHER GROUND

COME AND PARTY TO THE SOUNDS OF THE 60’S

£3/11PM-3AM SAT 11 GOO INDIE, BRITPOP, GRUNGE

£4.50/11PM-3AM FRI 17 ELECTRIC JUG

ROCK N’ROLL, 60s, BRIT POP, PSYCHEDELIA

£3/11PM-3AM

MON 20 THE LEISURE SOCIETY £15/7PM 18+ TUE 21 WILL BUTLER SOLD OUT : 7PM 18+ WED 22 BLAIR DUNLOP & EMMA STEVENS £12.50/7PM 18+ THU 23 THE EARLY NOVEMBER £12/7PM 14+ FRI 24 DAN MANGAN + BLACKSMITH £12.50/7:30PM 18+ SAT 25 REN HARVIEU £17.50/7:30PM 18+ SUN 26 FOUND FOOTAGE FESTIVAL £10/7:30PM 16+ MON 27 THE NORTHERN SESSIONS LIVE £5/£3/7PM 18+ TUE 28 SKINNY LISTER £10/7:30PM 18+ WED 29 THE DISTRICTS £10/7PM 14+ THU 30 UGLY DUCKLING £12.50/7:30PM 14+

A P R I L — J U N E 01.APR

2 0 1 5

THE VACCINES

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03.APR

CARLS COX / EATS EVERYTHING

04.APR

DEFECTED : MASTERS AT WORK / OLIVER DOLLAR

05.APR

ABOVE & BEYOND

10.APR

I AM KLOOT

11.APR

JAMES BAY

16.APR

IN CONVERSATION W/ SKEPTA

17.APR

GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR

24.APR

LAURA MARLING

30.APR

CALEXICO

05.MAY

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06.MAY SAT 18 BARE BONES

MODERN INDIE, ELECTRO, & ROCK N’ ROLL

£4.50/11PM-3AM FRI 24 UPTOWN

DISCO, BOOGIE & WEDDING JAMS

£3/11PM-3AM SAT 25 POP

POP CLASSICS, BOOTY SHAKING SMASHERS

£4.50/11PM-3AM WEEKLY TUESDAYS — GOLD TEETH (FROM JANUARY 20) HIP HOP, GARAGE, HOUSE, DISCO, FUNK, ROCK & ROLL, FRUITY

£4.50/11PM BAR SESSIONS — FRIDAYS SPOTIFRIDAY 5PM – 9PM COYOTE

SURF, ROCK N ROLL, GARAGE, PSYCH ROCK, NUGGETS, FUZZ, ACID, TARANTINO ON CRACK

9PM – CLOSE SATURDAYS HIGHBALLIN

50S/60S RHYTHM & BLUES, SOUL, MODERN & CLASSIC DISCO

8PM – CLOSE

THREE FLOORS OF BEER, MUSIC & GOOD TIMES MANCHESTERS FINEST INDEPENDENT MUSIC VENUE OPENING HOURS MON — SUN : 4PM — LATE BURGERS, CRAFT BEER & COCKTAILS HAPPY HOUR 4PM — 6PM THE DEAF INSTITUTE 35 GROSVENOR STREET. MANCHESTER. M1 7HE TICKETS — WWW.SKIDDLE.CO.UK WWW.THEDEAFISTITUTE.CO.UK

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15.MAY

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CIRCUS : MARCO CAROLA / YOUSEF

23.MAY

RIDE

24.MAY

NILS FRAHM

25.MAY

HOZIER

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10.JUN

GILBERT O’SULLIVAN & HIS BAND

11.JUN

DAMIEN RICE

29.JUN

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Photo: Marathon Artists

P.15 While We're Young

P.40 Sounds from the Other City

P.32 Camille Smithwick - Egg

April 2015

I N D E P E N D E N T

C U LT U R A L

J O U R N A L I S M

Issue 25, April 2015 ÂŠ Radge Media Ltd. Get in touch: E: hiya@theskinny.co.uk T: 0161 833 3124 P: The Skinny, Second Floor, Swan Buildings, 20 Swan Street, Manchester, M4 5JW The Skinny is distributing 22,710 copies across Liverpool and Manchester, a wide range of advertising packages and affordable ways to promote your business are available. Get in touch to find out more.

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Printed by Mortons Print Limited, Horncastle ABC verified Jan â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Dec 2014: 22,710

Editorial Northwest Editor Film & Deputy Editor Events Editor Music Editor Art Editor Books Editor Clubs Editor Comedy Editor Deviance Editor Fashion Editor Food Editor Tech Editor Theatre Editor Travel Editor

Lauren Strain Jamie Dunn Simon Jay Catling Dave Kerr Sacha Waldron Holly Rimmer-Tagoe Daniel Jones John Stansfield Kate Pasola Alexandra Fiddes Jamie Faulkner John Donaghy Alecia Marshall Paul Mitchell

Production Production Manager Designer Sub Editor Editorial Assistant

Amy Minto Thom Isom Kristian Doyle Will Fitzpatrick

Sales Commercial Director Sales & Digital Marketing Analyst Sales Executive

Nicola Taylor Caroline Harleaux Issy Patience

Lead Designer

Sigrid Schmeisser

General Manager

Kyla Hall

Editor-in-Chief Chief Operating Officer Publisher

Rosamund West Lara Moloney Sophie Kyle

Printed on 100% recycled paper

Contents

THE SKINNY

Photo: Alexander Bell

P.12 Courtney Barnett

Contents Up Front

Chat & Opinion: Marvel at the subtleties

06 buried in another Spot the Difference;

gasp at the soothsaying power of those BALLS.; amaze yourself with last-minute essentials in Stop the Presses. Heads Up: Your whole month planned

08 – you’ll never have to spend a night in

watching Gogglebox over frozen pizza again.

Features

Electro swashbucklers Errors took to the hills of Jura to write the bulk of their fifth album Lease of Life – Steev Livingstone and Simon Ward explain how this rural retreat informed the record. Aussie songwriter Courtney Barnett’s iron grip of our airwaves is set to continue with the release of her debut album. The rising star reveals why she finds inspiration in the mundane. Noah Baumbach’s pin-sharp comedy While We're Young proves there’s nothing more embarrassing than a middle aged man wearing skinny jeans and a fedora. We talk to the urbane Brooklynite.

A mysterious fainting epidemic befalls a girls’ school in The Falling. Its writerdirector, Carol Morley, tells us more.

Despite a split from both his bandmate, Chris Walla, and his wife, Zooey Deschanel, Death Cab for Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard says it was business as usual on new record Kintsugi.

A bruised male ego goes under the microscope in Force Majeure, Ruben Östlund’s toe-curling black comedy; and there’s more dark humour from comedian Harriet Dyer, whose new standup night invites comedians to joke about their own mental health on stage.

literary analysis in her new novel Sophie and the Sibyl – she rhapsodises on her book’s hero George Eliot.

From Africa Oyé to End of the Road, we look ahead to a long (and hopefully hot) summer of live music.

Lifestyle 28

Travel: Travelling in a globalised world: or, hurry up and see our planet before it’s completely Starbucked. Deviance: Whiny Twitter Spartans carrying a world of entitlement on their wee white shoulders? That’ll be meninism.

April 2015

Review

MAY 01 CALEXICO

Music: Inspired by the beautiful organised chaos of Sounds from the Other City, we put together a personality test to find out what kind of festival attendee you are – you’re welcome – and it’s a Salford-centric month, as we accept an invite into Gnod’s artistic hive mind. Plus new records from Young Fathers, Sufjan Stevens and East India Youth. Clubs: YouTube at the ready, dance nerds: Detroit techno hero Patrice Scott reveals his must-own albums, while Tyger Dhula of Cobblestone Jazz runs us through his trio’s all-time failsafe tracks.

Film: Roy Andersson delivers another unclassifiable gem with A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence and Keanu Reeves is out to avenge his puppy in slick action movie John Wick.

LEAF

18 MATTHEW E. WHITE

APRIL 02 KALEIDOSCOPE + THE WICKED WHISPERS

Food and Drink: The founders of the Keystone events project reveal their initial plans, and Slow Food pioneer Carlo Petrini fills us in on the politics of food. Plus, Food News and more weird shit from Phagomania.

Art: Cornelia Parker at the revamped Whitworth and Castlefield Gallery’s Superior Goods and Household Gods in review.

In the first of a new series looking back at legendary nightclubs, our Clubs ed sings the praises of Northern Soul stalwart Wigan Casino.

26 Patricia Duncker blurs fiction with

Showcase: Camille Smithwick turns her half-baked confusions into ceramic objects.

Our Art editor meets the founders of Lancashire’s in-situ residency programme. The people behind Graeae have been pulling down barriers in theatre for three decades – they’re heading to Liverpool’s Everyman this month, while in Bolton, the Octagon gets a shot in the arm thanks to new artistic director Elizabeth Newman.

Fashion: Take refuge in the calming shades of photographer Marta Julve’s shoot, styled by her We Are Kin studio co-founder – and past Skinny interviewee – Ciara Clark.

DVD/Comedy: Classics The Offence and Wooden Crosses come to Blu-ray, as does What We Do in the Shadows, aka the funniest film of 2015. Talking of funny, our Comedy Spotlight falls on Tom Little. Cattle beware. Comedy: The Found Footage Festival brings the UK a collection of old VHS tapes saluting life’s weirdos. Founder Nick Prueher regales us with all kinds of ridiculousness. Theatre: Cornish storytellers Kneehigh reimagine Daphne du Maurier’s gothic masterpiece Rebecca and interactivetheatre makers Coney bring their latest slice of genius to Unity Theatre. Competitions: We’ve a pair of weekend passes to Field Day up for grabs, plus tickets to food and drink celebration Farm Feast. Books: Standup poet Tim Clare delivers his debut novel and there’s the latest from Leith bad boy Irvine Welsh; plus your pick of readings and spoken word nights for the month.

Listings: Stuff to do, it never ends. Dig in.

The Last Word: Wu-Tang ledge Raekwon discusses his legacy, his family and the true current state of the Clan.

MAY 28 THE SAINTS

THE KAZIMIER

JUNE 01 EARTH

THE KAZIMIER

LEAF

W/ BAM!BAM!BAM!

30 JAMES HOLDEN (LIVE) THE KAZIMIER W/ EVOL

03 GIANT SAND

ST. GEORGE’S HALL W/ LIVERPOOL PHILHARMONIC

LIVERPOOL PHILHARMONIC HALL

04 MOON DUO THE KAZIMIER

09 TOPS

THE SHIPPING FORECAST W/ I LOVE LIVE EVENTS

17 JAD FAIR & NORMAN BLAKE

05 EINDHOVEN 06 PSYCH LAB

DE EFFENAAR, EINDHOVEN

SEPTEMBER 25 L’POOL INTERNATIONAL 26 FESTIVAL OF PSYCHEDELIA CAMP AND FURNACE

NOVEMBER 26 THIS IS THE KIT

LEAF

TICKETS AVAILABLE ONLINE: SEETICKETS / EVENTIM / TICKETLINE IN PERSON: PROBE RECORDS (SCHOOL LN) & THE BRINK (PARR ST) The Skinny April_2015.qxp_Layout 1 24/03/2015 13:11 Page 1 FOLLOW ON TWITTER: @HARVEST_SUN @LPOOLPSYCHFEST

NEW GIGS

Liverpool Philharmonic April - September

Reginald D Hunter Suzanne Vega Sunday 10 May from £24 –

Magic Of Motown

Thursday 16 June £28.50 –

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Monday 22 June £22.50 St George’s Hall Concert Room –

Tuesday 2 & Wednesday 3 June from £21 –

Monday 22 June £25 EXTRA DATE Tuesday 23 JuneSOLD OUT –

Stewart Lee Giant³ Sand

Wednesday 3 June £16.50 St George’s Hall Concert Room –

Holly Johnson

Thursday 4 June £21.50 –

Heritage Blues Orchestra Friday 5 June from £19.50 –

Kevin Bridges

Mavis Staples Sunday 28 June from £22.50 –

Rufus Wainwright Monday 13 July from £37.50 –

Rosanne Cash Sunday 19 July from £19.50

Elvis Costello Monday 15 June from £37.50

Box Office liverpoolphil.com 0151 709 3789 Image Rufus Wainwright

Contents

Editorial

hough this month’s Travel piece laments the sameness of commercialised cultural experience around the world, there’s enough evidence in these pages of folk trying to do things differently that – hopefully – it’s not time to despair quite yet. The Northwest theatre scene has of late been dominated by conversation around the opening of HOME and the announcement of the programme for the fifth Manchester International Festival, but while these big events are terribly exciting, they shouldn’t overshadow – and indeed wouldn’t be possible without – developments happening on a smaller scale, so it’s great to hear from figures like incoming Bolton Octagon artistic director Elizabeth Newman, with her transformative vision for both the theatre and its hometown, and from the company Graeae, campaigners for accessibility within the arts. Also going their own way this issue are comedian Harriet Dyer, who introduces a new monthly night where acts are encouraged to use the confrontational power of the medium to talk about mental health, and filmmaker Carol Morley, who follows up her deeply upsetting Dreams of a Life with woozy girls-school mystery The Falling, and observes that female writer-directors don’t seem to find themselves labelled ‘auteur’ perhaps as often as they should. Most thrilling lately of course is that THE SUN HAS BEEN OUT A BIT and there is proof of it on our very cover, starring lucky buggers Errors, who got to spend winter 2013 recording their fifth album on the Isle of Jura and continue their communion with nature in this beautiful shoot for The Skinny by Mihaela Bodlovic. All that fresh air has informed a breathy, breezy new record, Lease of Life. Further evidence in this magazine that the sun has been out a bit may be found on page 21, 27 and 40. It’s all very exciting. Someone not unfamiliar with the sun is Melburnian Courtney Barnett, who seems to be taking the recent infinite radio play of current single Pedestrian at Best in her stride, simply “just kinda doing whatever I normally do” and accidentally storming the airwaves in the process: she is her cool, relaxed self on p12, while elsewhere Music is rounded off with words from eternal heartbreak kid Ben Gibbard, Islington Mill dwellers Gnod, and Wu-Tang Clanner Raekwon. Books and Clubs get all ancestral as, in the former, author Patricia Duncker tips her hat to

George Eliot and, in the latter, an assembly of DJs look back on their time at the infamous Wigan Casino and explain why the legendary venue played such an influential part in the nascence of Northern Soul. Comedy brings the visual LOLs as the lads from Found Footage Festival introduce us to some of their favourite characters from several years’-worth of digging through weird old VHS tapes and up-and-coming standup Tom Little finds himself on the wrong side of a raging bull, albeit a cartoon one. In Fashion, Manchester jewellery designer Ciara Clark, who readers may remember from our interview last February, styles a shoot for her We Are Kin studio co-founder and photographer, Marta Julve; Deviance meditates on the moronism of ‘meninism’; Showcase features the detailed and mildly unsettling ceramics of Camille Smithwick; Food is both very serious and utterly ridiculous on one page, and Art just chills right out in Pendle. Last but not least, this issue marks two years of publishing in the Northwest for The Skinny. Whatever it is you do to enrich this funny old life on this strange and beautiful planet – whether you eat books, go to the theatre, get off your face in basements, make art, look at art, travel the world, dream of travelling the world, watch movies, argue about music, invent weird sketch shows with your mates, drink beer, cook badly, cook middlingly, cook well, or just enjoy reading about all these things and more – we hope that in some way this publication is able to contribute something interesting to the conversation. Whether this is the first time you’ve picked it up or you grab a copy every month, thank you for reading The Skinny. [Lauren Strain]

Shot of the Month

Sleater-Kinney, Albert Hall, 24 Mar by Alexander Bell

Spot the Difference

ON THE COVER: Errors by Mihaela Bodlovic Mihaela Bodlovic is an Edinburgh-based photographer specialising in the performing arts, portraiture and events. She is interested in images that capture a moment of action, a glimmer of an expression that lasts barely long enough to leave its mark on the camera and the people around it. She is passionate about live performance, and enjoys theatre that affects its audience. In her work, she strives to capture a connection between the spectator and the performer. aliceboreasphotography.com

Einstein once remarked that "If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would have only four years of life left." Do your bit for their preservation, construct a hive in the back garden, then observe, if you will, these two specimen above. Separated at birth, maybe, but look a bit closer to unveil some subtle differences.

www.jockmooney.com

If you believe you're sufficiently eagle-eyed to scrutinise the finer detail and spot the difference, visit theskinny.co.uk/competitions and tell us specifically what that is. You could win a copy of Things We Have in Common by Tasha Kavanagh from Edinburgh's unimpeachable Canongate publishing house.

Chat

Competition closes midnight Sun 26 Apr. Winners will be notified via email within two working days of closing and will be required to respond within 48 hours or the prize will be offered to another entrant. Full Ts&Cs can be found at theskinny.co.uk/about/terms-and-conditions

BEST IN SHOW: KITTENS V TIGERS Here are just a few of our favourite responses to our March issue's kitten conundrum. If you've some animals you'd like us to spot the difference between, email them to pics@theskinny.co.uk The one on the left has had his cake and ate it, while the two on the right are too busy playing pat a cake to even notice. - MD The one on the left can only dream of the erotic wonder of foot fetishism, while the tigers on the right have it totally nailed. - DF The one on the right has black paws. That's neat that's neat I really love their tiger feet!!!!! - DC One blends into the background the other's don't. Purrrfect. - FH

THE SKINNY

interactive art installations. 2 May, 2pm until late, donation entry until 7pm and ÂŁ5 after that.

Written a kickass book set in the northern counties of England in the last three years? If so, you might want to consider entering the 2015 Portico Prize, which is currently accepting submissions. Previous winners of the prize, which is in its 30th year, include Anthony Burgess, Sarah Hall and Val McDermid. The latter will host the ceremony in November, where prizes of ÂŁ10,000 will be given to the best fiction book (or poetry collection) and best work of non fiction. Submissions close 31 Jul. See theportico.org.uk/prizes for full details. Fancy helping a good cause while also taking part in an all day party? The mighty Between the Borders â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a community of people with and without citizenship in the UK who are producing a series of diverse publications to contribute to an informed debate on contemporary asylum and migration â&#x20AC;&#x201C; are throwing a fundraiser at 24 Kitchen Street. Expect live music, spoken word, Persian barbecue and buffet, dancing and

Beat-Herder turns ten this year and the cult Lancashire festival is doing so in style, with another slew of names added to existing headliners Basement Jaxx, Martha Reeves & The Vandellas and Andrew Weatherall. Highlights among the second wave of artists announced include the prog-tropicalia of Zun Zun Egui, Phantasy Sound protege Ghost Culture and Warp veterans Nightmares on Wax. 17-19 Jul, Ribble Valley; full lineup at beatherder.co.uk. For those who went to Maine Road one summer night in 1996 and have intrinsically linked the warmer months with the Gallaghers ever since, thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a chance to rekindle that nostalgia as Noel Gallagherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s High Flying Birds top the bill at this yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Summer in the City series at Castlefield Bowl. Gallagher plays on 11 Jul, with other chances to turn the clock back coming in the form of Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott on the 2nd, and The Charlatans on the 4th. Tickets are on sale now at gigsandtours.com.

Andy McKeownâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Kaleidoscopic Disturbance 175

this month, with a preview event featuring composer Tamer Abu Gazaleh on 17 Apr at the Kazimier. For more: arabartsfestival.com

Liverpool Arab Arts Festival returns 6-14 Jun, the highlight of the events announced so far looking to be Reem Kelani, whose voice is described as combining â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;the poignancy of Billie Holiday with the glass-busting power of Aretha Franklinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. You can get a taste of what to expect

Liverpoolâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s one-night arts festival LightNight returns to illuminate the city on 15 May. Under the theme â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Looking to the New World,â&#x20AC;&#x2122; arts and culture organisations joins forces to put on a spectacular show for all ages, including mass

Online Only

BALLS.

Eyes to the website

with Mystic Mark ARIES entering my meditation tent, Upon you must first remove any distracting items such as wallets, purses or phones and place them inside the gold container, then I want you to sit down, relax, and chant the mantra of your PIN number. Drift deeper now. Like the whole world around you is gradually disappearing, dismantling, and my voice gets further and further away...

Neon Waltz

Neon Waltz let Music in on how they secured a major record deal despite being together less than a year and hailing from one of the most remote parts of Europe; plus, catch up on all our coverage from SXSW, including a Twilight Sad session, live footage of Viet Cong in action and a mini documentary we shot with LuckyMe in Austin, Texas, this March. theskinny.co.uk/music Film talks to Ron Mann about paying tribute to one of cinemaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s great innovators with doc Altman and Eskil Vogt explains why Al Pacino's Oscarwinning turn in Scent of a Woman is the epitome of bad blind acting ahead of the release of his cliche-free debut Blind. theskinny.co.uk/film Tensnake answers five of our questions. FIVE. theskinny.co.uk/clubs Those funny folk in the Comedy section find out if music and comedy mobilise voters by tracking down Paddy Gervers from Jonny and the Baptists, â&#x20AC;&#x153;musical comedyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s answer to the

April 2015

coalition government.â&#x20AC;? Plus, Nick Prueher from Found Footage Festival (interviewed p52 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; ITâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S VERY FUNNY) selects three of the internetâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s weirdest videos he didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t find, but wishes he had. PLUS MARK TWO! We get a lesson in online etiquette from Fred Fletch and three porn stars. theskinny.co.uk/comedy Theatre reports from SICK! Festivalâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first foray into Manchester. theskinny.co.uk/theatre Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve a chat with bestselling author Karin Altenberg about her new book Breaking Light, and landscapes lost and found over at theskinny.co.uk/books Tech investigates a near future where we'll be streaming the internet from LED light bulbs: theskinny.co.uk/tech Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s probably some other stuff too. The Skinny dot coh dot you kay!

Photo: John Graham

TAURUS Your taste for extreme sports comes to its thrilling conclusion this weekend when you decide to go noose bungee jumping. GEMINI Forever unlucky, in April you get both your arms ripped off in the gears of a machine at the prosthetic leg factory.

CANCER Your four year old asks how babies are made. You kindly explain that mummies and daddies can usually bash one out in the lab in a single afternoon, often splicing genes from rats and worms into the mix just to see what happens. Then, after giving each other a kiss on the lips they shove the egg up a chimp and wait for it to hatch. LEO to the sex offender According register thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a pervert living in your house. Heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s also callously adopted your name and had reconstructive surgery to look just like you. VIRGO You view the traditional April showers in a new light when it begins shitting it down this month. A band of low, brown pressure makes its way over the west of Europe and there are reports of a local weatherman taking his own life as the forecast is confirmed. But nothing can stop the nut-brown cloud rolling

dance workshops, light installations and walking tours. A particular highlight looks to be artist Andy McKeownâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Kaleidoscopic Disturbance 175, an engaging light projection high up under the Tower Vault of Liverpool Anglican Cathedral, which sees fragments of the cathedralâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s stained glass seemingly forming and reforming live, in endless hypnotic motion. See the full list of events at lightnightliverpool.co.uk.

in from the Atlantic, settling ominously over the city. Heading to work, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re glad to have your umbrella, as the first rumbles of thunder crack out from the swirling, tempestuous cloud. A shart of lightning tears the sky in two and it starts spitting, a few flecks landing lightly on your face. The pavement begins to darken as you manically open your umbrella before the full onslaught hits, hammering against the fabric, crushing it like a paper cup as you slide blindly into a doorway for shelter, your glasses thick with â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;rainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;.

LIBRA I believe in you. I believe you exist.

SCORPIO This time of year is perfect for plant ing the seeds of hatred in the fertile soil of your heart.

SAGITTARIUS Nobody ever stipulated which entrance to your body the five fruit and veg had to go through each day.

CAPRICORN Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t bother getting a mortgage. Just wait 15 years for the fall of Western civilisation and youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll be able to claim a house for next to nothing.

AQUARIUS On your way to play at the wedding you forget your violin on the bus and have to improvise as best you can, playing your armpit as the bride makes her way down the aisle with her tearful father.

PISCES Stop blaming God for everything. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not His fault He doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t exist.

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Chat

Heads Up Compiled by: Simon Jay Catling

Jesus was a pretty right-on dude, and we reckon he’d have dug the amount of musical experimentation on offer this April, not that he’ll have resurrected himself in time for Samuel Kerridge. Shame. At least he’ll be around for some cider and pie in Leeds.

Tue 31 Mar

Wed 1 Apr

Celebrating 5000 years of Chinese history and culture, the visual feast that is Shen Yun comes to The Lowry with a dazzling display of dance and orchestra, and an array of backdrops that depict some of the biggest moments in the country's long history. The Lowry, Salford, until 1 Apr, from £40

Popular hangout Common unveil their ambitious new refit, resplendent with an incredible indoor rollercoaster that runs across their vast new basement space. There's also a new exhibition by ceramicist Joe Hartley, while morning TV star Keith Chegwin drops in for a DJ set and Chicago MC Common is in town especially for the official big-scissored-redveil-opening. Common, Manchester, 6pm, Free

Shen Yun

The Commoncoaster

Mon 6 Apr

Tue 7 Apr

Resurrection? Chocolate eggs? Nah mate, Jesus was all about pie and cider, which is (probably not) why Belgrave Music Hall are holding a Pie & Cider Festival on Easter Sunday, with 30 ciders, 20 ales and 50 different varieties of pie on offer. Belgrave Music Hall, Leeds, 11am, Free

While many of his chillwave bros have fallen foul of the fickle wheel of fashion, Toro y Moi has carried on doing just fine, continually adapting and evolving his blurred beats and cloudburst atmospherics with each release – his latest, What For?, coinciding with this very tour. Sound Control, Manchester, 8pm, £12

One of those singers with a delivery that suggests a wisdom beyond their years, Los Angeles-born Jessica Pratt comes to the UK to show off the divine storytelling that makes up her latest record, On Your Own Love Again. Support comes from local favourite Jo Rose. Night & Day, Manchester, 8pm, £9

Toro y Moi

Belgrave Pie & Cider Festival

Photo: Andrew Paynter

Sun 5 Apr

Jessica Pratt

Sat 11 Apr

Sun 12 Apr

With a thunderous triple album on the way, Gnod are the obvious standout of the first Other Worlds festival in Blackpool this week; but there's a feast of leftfield music to explore, from Evil Blizzard to Herb Diamante. Various venues, Blackpool, until 12 Apr, prices vary

Winner of the seventh annual Liverpool Art Prize, Tabitha Jussa presents her newest exhibition Memorandum of Understanding, which commentates on the pace of architectural – and consequently social – change in two regions: the Mersey, and Wusong in China. The Bluecoat, Liverpool, until 5 Jul, Free

Be reminded of how a shades-wearing Jean-Luc Godard shook up the film world with his effortlessly cool debut. Shot for peanuts on the streets of Paris, Breathless is endlessly inventive, with its iconoclastic director creating a whole new cinema language while simultaneously paying tribute to the Hollywood B-movies he adored as an adolescent. FACT, Liverpool, 6pm, £10

Gnod

Photo: Alexander Bell

Fri 10 Apr

Tabitha Jussa - Victoria Clock Tower

Breathless

Thu 16 Apr

Fri 17 Apr

Sat 18 Apr

Cardboard Citizens' latest piece of forum theatre, Benefit, allows the audience to change the course of the play through their own interaction with the story, which explores our everyday struggles, both mental and financial, with the systems we live inside. Lantern Theatre, Liverpool, until 17 Apr, £11 (£8.50)

Some art exhibitions are deeply considered affairs, while others are snapshots of an immediately silly idea. And we mean silly in the best possible way. No Homers Club is one such show, providing a multi-disciplinary display of, you guessed it, Simpsons-inspired artwork. Constellations, Liverpool, until 19 Apr, £4

Although major labels have largely ruined Record Store Day as a social experience, it does lead to a lot of good spin-off gigs. Manchester promoters are bossing it this year: Bernard + Edith top Soup Kitchen's bill, while Sways and Fat Out are among those curating an 'alternative' RSD at Islington Mill. Various venues, Manchester, times and prices vary

Tom Leggett - Milhouse

Benefit

Composer and sound designer Tim Shaw and computer engineer Sébastien Piquemal present Fields, an interactive sound performance piece that allows the audience to join in the pair's sonic explorations with just their mobile phones – turning them into speakers. Islington Mill, Salford, 7.30pm, £5

Post-punk legends Wire continue to thrive nearly 40 years since forming, thanks to a resolute attitude in progression. Evidence of their refusal to sit back and rest on their past was 2013's Change Becomes Us – one of their best LPs to date. The Kazimier, Liverpool, 7.30pm, £18

Chat

Photo: Chris Scott

Thu 23 Apr

Wire

Photo: Stewart Fullerton

Fri 24 Apr

Wed 22 Apr

Fields

Bernard + Edith

Following his knockout allnight set at Soup Kitchen in 2013, Night Slugs' Jack Latham aka Jam City returns to the basement for an evening stint, showcasing the enticing pop curvatures of his luscious new album, Dream a Garden. Soup Kitchen, Manchester, 7pm, from £7

Jam City

THE SKINNY

Sat 4 Apr

With new record Always Offended Never Ashamed marking the first release on his own Contort label, Samuel Kerridge comes to Liverpool at the peak of his industrial techno powers. An eager experimenter, nothing's ever straightforward with Kerridge, but his bludgeoning cuts are always primed for the dancefloor. 24 Kitchen Street, Liverpool, 8pm, £5

With their lineup featuring most of the ascendant names in Manchester's current hip-hop scene, getting Levelz all in the same club together isn't easy. But the collective are making the short trip south to Stoke tonight, for a righteous blast of their quick-witted, high-energy rhymes. The Underground, Stoke-on-Trent, 10pm, £10

Glaswegian trio Errors decamped to Jura (y'know, where George Orwell wrote 1984) to record new album Lease of Life, and they certainly seem to have found one while out there. Expect sun-kissed kosmische jams and Afrobeat inflections from the reliably excellent group. The Deaf Institute, Manchester, 7.30pm, £10

Levelz

Samuel Kerridge

Thu 9 Apr

Formed in the late 90s, experimental drone unit Vibracathedral Orchestra are the sort of group whose legend has gone on to influence so many others, even in their own absence. However, the group have recently started showing signs of life again, and this oneoff hometown show is set to be something quite beguiling indeed. Wharf Chambers, Leeds, 8pm, £5

A multi-sensory evening at FACT awaits as the splintered industrial wanderings of London's Gazelle Twin, whose second album, Unflesh, was a real stunner, meets lauded visual artist Carla MacKinnon. The pair are supported by a series of short films and animations contributed by local film makers. FACT, Liverpool, 8.30pm, Free

Gazelle Twin

Tue 14 Apr

Wed 15 Apr

Drawing comparisons to Doug Stanhope (who you'll know from Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe), Canadian comedian Bobby Mair similarly enjoys what we'd politely call "going off on one." There's humour to his diatribes, though, tending to focus on fury around the everyday occurrences that push us too far. The Railway, Manchester, 7.30pm, £5

With an act so laid-back it's almost vertical, Jay Foreman cuts a pleasant contrast from many on the comedy circuit at the moment, his thoughts often giving way to whimsy and meandering stories of the surreal. You can be sure to expect a song or two as well. XS Malarkey, Manchester, 7.30pm, £5 (£3)

In a special lecture to accompany the existing György Kepes exhibition at Tate Liverpool, Stanford University's John R. Blakinger explores the inter-disciplinary dimensions of Kepes's work as artist, designer and visual theorist, in order to unearth more about the groundbreaking photographer. Tate Liverpool, 4pm, Free

Bobby Mair Greg Wilson

Jay Foreman

Photo: Off Westend

Mon 13 Apr

György Kepes - Bas Relief with Circles c.1939–40

Mon 20 Apr

Tue 21 Apr

Something a little different at Soup Kitchen today, as Cheesus Crust Records host a free screening of Kickstarter-led US drama The Outs. Following the trials and tribulations of a series of gay relationships in New York, the script is by turns earnest, beautiful and sharp. Soup Kitchen, Manchester, 7pm, Free

Showcasing the odds and ends of VHS videos found in charity shops, the hugely popular Found Footage Festival comes to Leeds, with The Onion's Joe Pickett and Letterman's Nick Prueher leading a celebration of the unsung hero of the VHS era: the weirdo. Belgrave Music Hall, Leeds, 8pm, £10

Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting 2013 winner The Rolling Stone comes to the Royal Exchange – a tense, emotive play about a gay couple's relationship in Uganda, amidst a society that is vehemently against same-sex relations; particularly the family of Dembe, whose brother preaches against it every Sunday. The Royal Exchange, Manchester, until 1 May, £12 (£10)

The Outs

Found Footage Festival

Sun 26 Apr

Mon 27 Apr

You're supposed to get presents on your birthday but Abandon Silence have been giving them out for their fifth anniversary celebrations. Tonight marks the fifth and final birthday event, and, although the lineup's TBA, with previous ones having included Levon Vincent and Motor City Drum Ensemble you know it'll be killer. The Kazimier, Liverpool, 10pm, from £12

Springtime means the return of the independent markets to Constellations, and Capstan's Bazaar is one of its finest. Celebrating independent businesses and artisans, the Bazaar promises an array of food, crafts and clothing to get you set up for the warmer months. Constellations, Liverpool, 11am, Free

As part of Manchester Met's Humanities in Public festival, visiting professors Sally Alexander and Alun Howkins present a fascinating intersection of people's history and our archiving of it – and discuss whether documenting everyday struggles is able to bring about the change it once did. Geoffrey Manton Theatre, Manchester, 5.30pm, Free

Abandon Silence 5.5

April 2015

Capstan's Bazaar

Photo: Adam Vaughan

Sat 25 Apr

Photo: Eric Ljung

Sun 19 Apr

The Rolling Stone

The History of People’s History: Ideals, Meanings and Legacies

Chat

Photo: Ade Hunter

Vibracathedral Orchestra

Photo: David Hopkinson

Wed 8 Apr

Errors

Photo: Euan Robertson

Fri 3 Apr

Photo: Alex Morgan

Thu 2 Apr

Into the Wild Steev Livingstone and Simon Ward of Glaswegian electronic mainstays Errors discuss their winter retreat to the Isle of Jura and how it informed expansive fifth record, Lease of Life

Interview: Simon Jay Catling Photography: Mihaela Bodlovic

Most famously, Salford painter L.S. Lowry drew inspiration from the seafront, where he could sit and reflect on his own isolation. Errors’ own perspective on isolation appears to be positive, though; in an ongoing process that’s continued over their four previous full length albums, space has opened up between the elements. Their early records, It’s Not Something But It Is Like Whatever and Come Down With Me were trussed up with the exuberant ebb and flow of Glasgow’s club scene of the late 00s; but nearly five years later and the syncopated Afrobeat-inspired rhythms that have always been a hallmark of the trio feel like less like straightup encouragement to visit the dancefloor, and more like frameworks from which the group can then expand upon – be that the glorious, almost choral-like echo of Livingstone’s vocal on the title track atop an oscillating synth whirl, or Dull Peak’s brittle percussive claps giving off amorphous clouds like dust off a chalkboard cleaner. “We didn’t have lots of different sounds and instruments that could’ve clashed with one another. We kind of kept things the same,” says Ward. “I think it’s also a slight realisation that most people’s albums use very similar sounds on recording, so it’s ok to do that,” chimes in Livingstone. “If you look at our previous records you’ll find a different drum sound or use a different drum machine on every track, and that hasn’t always worked.”

“Sometimes what you’re releasing feels like it’s the least important thing nowadays” Steev Livingstone

hen George Orwell travelled to Jura in 1946 to write what would become his seminal, eerily prescient tome 1984 he didn’t do it by halves. Despite being in an already frail state, brought on by a heavy onset of TB, Orwell didn’t settle for the isle’s coastline where he landed, opting to live in a solitary farmhouse named Barnhill, in the centre of nowhere. “We tried to go to where he stayed one day but it was too far away,” Errors’ Steev Livingstone admits to The Skinny, sat next to bandmate Simon Ward in Glasgow’s Mono, the pixelated webcam picture giving the impression of words simply coming from the wildly plundering beard that you suspect has been there since his own creative pilgrimage to the Inner Hebrides. “In order to get to his house, you drive as far as you can go on the road and then that just stops. Then you have to walk another ten miles across fuck all.”

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Attempting it on a short November day in 2013, the pair promptly got lost. “It would’ve been nice to see it… but then that’s not the reason why we went to Jura.” Livingstone and Ward both play down the influence of Orwell on their decision to write and record the bulk of Errors very recently released fifth album Lease of Life in Jura, but there are parallels to be drawn. Both sought the solitude of the countryside and the subsequent space to truly maintain a clarity of thought during their process; whereby Orwell turned the idyllic countryside into a juxtaposition, using the surroundings to create something claustrophobic, tense and as far as away from natural feeling as possible, Errors immersed themselves in the open terrain, Lease of Life bearing the hallmarks of a group reinvigorated following a break from the urban sprawl.

The break was also timely for Livingstone in particular, who’d started to grow tired of much of the music scene. “I’d pretty much stopped listening to music,” he admits. “I was fed up with everything, I was getting annoyed with everything that was getting hyped.” Going out to Jura was a perfect chance to elongate the shut-off period, the pair able to ignore the tides of influence and instead stick to their own intuition. “It’s probably not what you wanted to hear is it?” he laughs. “We listen to no music, we just listen to Radio 4 or podcasts. This American Life is a bigger influence Devoid of internet or phone signal, and turn- than any band on this last record.” ing a cottage a friend of theirs happened to own Unlike many peers of a similar standing, into a makeshift studio, the pair spent a lot of Errors have rarely felt the pressure of needing time enjoying the lack of distraction, spending to remain visible, always spitting out something hours hill walking when not working, and genernew, always out on the road. Since first emerging ally pressing a pause button on the rest of life. in 2006, each of their five albums has been done, “I’d still struggle to tell you how the surroundings dropped and left to gestate, the group retreataffected the record, but I’d like to think they did,” ing and regrouping before considering their next says Livingstone. “It sounds daft when I tell peostatement – so it was with their latest LP, nearly ple about going up there though, like it sounds as three years on from mini-album New Relics. “I though we did nothing when we were there, but think there is a pressure to be quite present all I spent a lot of time just looking out my window. the time,” Livingstone says. “I struggle with social We had a really good view across the sea and so media stuff like people having a cup of coffee and spent a lot of time just watching things subtly and then thinking that needs to go up online so evedramatically change, and I like to think that had ryone can know about it. And as a band it’s just an effect. There was a patience that I’ve never weird that thinking about your online presence is really had in the city; that time to just sit and ob- almost as important as the music you’re releasserve things like that, you just don’t really get to ing. Sometimes what you’re releasing feels like appreciate a different environment.” it’s the least important thing nowadays.”

MUSIC

THE SKINNY

“There was a patience on Jura that I’ve never really had in the city; that time to just sit and observe” Steev Livingstone

Thankfully for Errors it remains important to them, the band using Lease of Life to notably push themselves out of their comfort zone on two specific instances. Firstly, there’s the ongoing development of Livingstone’s vocals – first trialled on 2012’s Have Some Faith in Magic – and

April 2015

on this record they’re delivered with a clarity hitherto unseen, echoing the resonant, almost spiritually evocative tones that first appeared on that record’s Magna Encarta. They reach a pitch on the album’s final track, the 13-minute Through the Knowledge of Those Who Observe Us which marks the second notable for the band, in the use of a local Glaswegian community choir. Even for a non-believer, there’s nothing to force the mind into considering a higher sense of purpose quite like the sight of the planet uninterrupted. Ward and Livingstone certainly didn’t go out to Jura with the intention of writing an ode to nature – Ward comments that “the palette of sounds came together there” but that ideas had already been set in motion by the time they got there – and the record doesn’t come across as such. However the final track gloriously releases all those underlying feelings and subtle influences of their time away, the familiar skewed disco that’s come to hallmark their sound gradually becoming overgrown with a rootsy, traditional sense of songwriting. “It was definitely the song most affected by our trip to Jura,” Livingstone admits. “I think when you’re in a place like that you think about time a lot more,

you see the effects of hundreds of thousands of years on things.” The spiritual bent is intentional too, from the title, adapted from the passage of the second epistle of Peter 1:3 “through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence,” to the more obvious effect of the choir. There’s always been, deep down, a sense of soul music to Errors’ sound and the pair confess a love of old gospel. “There’s something in those grand overflowing statements I find very interesting,” Livingstone says. “I’m not religious, but it’s a thing I’d like to go and see a lot more of. It’s kind of amazing when you see that kind of Baptist church singing that goes on there, and the kind of crazy behaviour that you get. I think if you were in the midst of it it’d be pretty easy to get caught up in.” In addition to vocal contributions elsewhere from friends Magic Eye and Cecilia Stamp, the decision to go through with using the choir, something long talked about, marks a further evolution of confidence within the group, with Livingstone not just gaining confidence in his own lyric writing, but also in being able to give them away to others – even if they were 20 people he’d

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never met before. “They were great,” he enthuses. “They totally got into it, did one rehearsal and then recorded it. I was way more stressed out about it than I have been a lot of things, but we’ve realised no one else is going to do this for us.” Not that they always know what this is. “Believe it or not we still don’t really know what we’re doing,” Livingstone confides. “We know how to turn machines on and use a computer and that, but we don’t really think about the effect of having vocals that are starting to sound like Justin Timberlake on our record.” It is, though, those happy accidents – those errors, you might say – that often create moments of true excellence within their music, and so it is that while the Glasgow group may not have intended for Jura to become the bedrock that their fifth album would be hoisted upon, there’s no denying that it’s truly led to a reinvigoration, a new purpose, a new lease of life. Lease of Life is out now via Rock Action. Errors play Manchester Deaf Institute on 4 Apr and Tramlines Festival, Sheffield, on 25 Jul weareerrors.com

Feature

Photo: Marathon Artists

Cut the Slack With her profile rising rapidly, Courtney Barnett’s debut album has finally seen the light of day. She tells us about finding fascination in the plain ol’ ordinary...

ongwriting does not come easily to everyone. That much is obvious, or else we’d all be at it, but the notion bears repeating: we should never underestimate the simple act of assembling words and melody, especially when that combination presents itself in the manner of an invisible finger, gently squeezing our emotional triggers. There are, however, certain individuals who not only pull this off with aplomb, but also manage to make it sound like the most natural thing in the world; as effortless as breathing and logically straightforward. Some might call it genius, we’d just disingenuously say, ‘lucky bastards,’ while secretly swooning in awe. But you get the point. Courtney Barnett is one such talent. Two years on from A Sea of Split Peas, the EP compilation that quietly announced her arrival on a global scale, the 27-year-old Melburnian has finally released her debut album. Its hefty title – Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit – is essentially her approach in microcosm: laid-back, thoughtfully funny and keenly understated. As we speak to her over the phone, immediately post-soundcheck ahead of a secret hometown show, it swiftly becomes apparent that this approach isn’t an artistic device, or even a public face. It’s simply a way of life. “Most of it’s spot on,” she says cheerfully, when discussing the real-life narratives at the heart of her songwriting. “Obviously told in a story-telling way, but most of it is from experience.” As a songwriter who’s quite happy to open a song with lines like ‘I masturbated to the songs you wrote / Resuscitated all my hopes,’ she’s typically frank. No shrouded meanings, no allegorical distance, just honesty. So does she decide which subjects merit songs? “If something has some kind of small meaning or importance… or enough to write it down, or think about it for longer than two seconds, then I assume it’s worth something,” she explains, clearly trying not to overthink the process. “As a songwriter, it’s kind of hard to tell what’s interesting or not.”

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Interview: Will Fitzpatrick

But there’s such fascination with the minutiae of everyday life – the banalities, even – that it seems as though everything is interesting to her. Standout track Depreston, for instance, deals with the tedious affair of house-hunting in a dull town, as an estate agent talks up ‘a garage for two cars to park in / Or a lot of room for storage if you’ve just got one.’ Perhaps it’s the languorous beauty of the chord progression, perhaps it’s just Barnett’s warmly conversational delivery… either way, the line prompts more than just a wry grin. There’s a philosophical universality at play here, placing unexpected importance on the trivial; a knack which, we suggest, is central to her art.

“I just kinda do whatever I normally do, and then sometimes songs happen” Courtney Barnett

“I think so,” she agrees. “Stuff like that seems so unimportant, but it’s funny that everyone knows exactly what I’m talking about, even though it might not be the first thing that you’d think to sing about. Everybody knows that real estate-y, making-something-sound-more-thanit-is kind of lingo. You don’t really think about it, you just kind of recognise it when it’s in front of you. I think I’m just highlighting stuff that you would otherwise ignore.” This may also explain the charm at the heart of her songs – the authority in her voice comes from first-hand experience rather than contrivance. There have been no situations thus far where Barnett has deliberately wandered into tricky circumstances for inspiration’s sake:

“I don’t really try to look for any crazy shit. I’m pretty safe and boring, I feel, most of the time. I just kinda do whatever I normally do, and then sometimes songs happen.” Hold up, that’s an interesting choice of phrase. Her songs are not written. Like forces of nature, they simply happen. Perhaps it’s this attitude that’s lent credence to the lazy ‘slacker’ tag that’s been applied to her work too often, implying there’s no graft to the craft. “I don’t really get it,” goes her noncommittal rejection of the phrase, and rightly so. “I grew up listening to a lot of 90s indie rock, but I don’t really know exactly what ‘slacker’ is. My musical knowledge is not pinpoint, I just listen to stuff I like.” If the sound of the album is anything to go by, what Barnett likes is a healthy diet of literate singer-songwriters, classic alt-pop (indeed, she’s often cited the Lemonheads as an influence) and the rickety rhythms of Lou Reed’s purple patch. When we discuss other musicians, however, she spends a while pondering her favourites before eventually naming Jonathan Richman and Stephen Malkmus – another noteworthy point, we observe. Surely the latter’s lyrics have always been obliquely enigmatic, despite moments of clarity, whereas hers are generally more straightforward…? “Like, they’re narrative-driven or something?” Well, yes, but chiefly they’re easier to understand and identify with than the erstwhile Pavement frontman’s mysterious word sandwiches. “When I listen to him, I hear… not so much subject matter, but wordplay. It’s constantly jumping out. I think I do that a lot, but maybe sometimes it’s not as obvious, so the story sounds like it’s one solid narrative.” One particularly notable aspect of Sometimes I Sit and Think… is the sense of cohesion; the album’s 11 tracks all flow together much more smoothly than those that composed the EPs – perhaps as a result of being written with a regular group of musicians (Bones Sloane on bass, drummer Dave Mudie and guitarist Dan Luscombe), as opposed to transposing solo tracks to full-band arrangements.

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“The EPs weren’t really written with a band, but they probably had a bit more time to… you know, marinade. With the album, I only showed the boys the songs about a week before we recorded it.” Was this a factor in the upbeat pacing of the album? “I think it was just the mood that I was in – that kinda frantic energy from drinking lots of coffee and being excited, so some of the stuff came out faster.” That’s not to say the process was entirely stress-free: “You get in a groove, but you also get that kind of tunnel vision where you start second-guessing what you’re hearing – I had moments where I’d just think, ‘Oh my god, all these songs are shit. We need to get rid.’ Then the next day I’d listen after I’d slept and be like, ‘Wow, this stuff’s great!’ You just get confused.” As a final thought, it only seems right to mention one of the stand-out moments of Barnett’s 2014, when an appearance on Australian TV show RocKwiz saw her cover The Velvet Underground’s Sunday Morning alongside a visibly delighted Billy Bragg. A charming performance ensued, with the two singers repeatedly shooting excited grins at each other – clearly enjoying themselves far more than your average just-for-the-cameras collaboration tends to suggest. She laughs when we bring it up. “We’d just been on tour around Australia with him and his band, and we just kind of talked about what would be good to do as a duet – it’s not so much duet-y, but we both thought it would work quite nicely as a downbeat song. We’d only practised it once or twice, so that’s why we were giggling when we did it. He’s great, I really admire his songwriting.” Is there anyone else she’d like to perform with? “Yeah, probably, but not wildly. I’m not obsessed with anyone.” Ironic, perhaps. Plenty of avid listeners are going to be utterly besotted with Courtney Barnett. Playing Manchester Gorilla on 3 Apr courtneybarnett.com.au

THE SKINNY

DOT TO DOT 10TH BIRTHDAY! BANK HOLIDAY WEEKEND WEDS 1 APR 7PM £11 ADV

WARD THOMAS

THURS 2 APR 11PM 18+ PAY ON DOOR

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ALL THE 2000’S HIP HOP, POP AND R&B YOU COULD ASK FOR

SUN 5 APR 10PM 18+

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MON 6 APR 7PM £12.50 ADV

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April 2015

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THE SKINNY

Hipster Takedown While We’re Young, the wise and witty new comedy from Noah Baumbach, throws a Gen X couple into Brooklyn’s twenty-something hipster milieu. The Frances Ha director explains why young people both thrill and terrify him

Interview: Jamie Dunn

ow would you describe a Noah Baumbach film? The answer to this question would’ve been easier to articulate in 2012. Back then, Baumbach had a clear MO. He was known for a trio of films so caustic that they had to be watch through splayed fingers. There’s The Squid and the Whale, a tragicomic account of a couple’s divorce as seen through their teenage son’s eyes; Margot at the Wedding, a hilarious but painful to watch reunion between estranged sisters; and Greenberg, an acerbic character study following a 40-year-old carpenter who’s so misanthropic he makes Larry David look avuncular. These are brilliant, devastating movies, emotionally pitched between anguished sobs and bitter laughter. We figured Baumbach was a glass-halfempty type of guy. With his last two films, however, he’s thrown a couple of curveballs. Frances Ha, from 2012, trades in the same comedy of awkwardness as those earlier films, but it contains none of their venom. Instead it’s an effervescent love letter to its feckless title character, a 27-year-old dancer (joyously played by Greta Gerwig) with an uncertain future but a spring in her step; Baumbach’s comedy tends to make audiences toes curl, but with Frances Ha he made them tap. Also tuned to C major is his latest film, While We’re Young, a razor-sharp comedy pitching Gen X against Gen Y that delivers one-liners and sight gags at a velocity that would make the Marx Brothers dizzy. “I’m just trying to keep it interesting,” says Baumbach, his voice gentle and quiet over the phone when we ask about his recent films’ shift in tone. “When I was writing While We’re Young it was very much structured like a classic screwball comedy – like a comedy of marriage and remarriage. I felt a responsibility to follow that structure.” Like Frances Ha, While We’re Young examines the world of twenty-something Brooklynites. But while the former was Baumbach’s ode to a hipster, While We’re Young is his evisceration of today’s retro-appropriating youth. If you’re the kind of person who rides a fixed-gear bike, makes your own organic ice cream and fetishises analogue technology (vinyl, VHS, typewriters) while also owning all of the latest Apple products, then this film will cut deep. We follow documentary filmmaker Josh and producer Cornelia, a couple in their 40s who are winningly played by Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts. Unlike all of their friends, including Marina and

April 2015

Fletcher (Maria Dizzia and Adam Horovitz), they’re resigned to not having kids. Despite the relative freedom this gives them, however, they’re stuck in a rut. They struggle to remember the last time they took a holiday, while a wild night for them has become an evening in with a bottle of wine binge-watching HBO shows on Netflix. That’s why meeting Jamie and Darby (Adam Driver and Amanda Seyfried), a pair of twenty-something hipsters who are spontaneous, wear rollerblades and attend hallucinogenfuelled cleansing ceremonies, feels like such a tonic. The couples become fast friends and before long Josh is wearing skinny jeans instead of chinos and Cornelia is swapping pilates for hip-hop dance classes. “It’s all about the thrill of being around young people,” says Baumbach. “And the sinking dread.” Baumbach himself knows a thing or two about cross-generational friendships. The 45-year-old is currently in a relationship with Frances Ha’s lead Greta Gerwig, who’s 31 and the very epitome of hip. Did this new romance and the making of Frances Ha, which is set in the same Brooklyn hipster milieu from which Jamie and Darby hail, help inform his latest film? Baumbach doesn’t see much correlation: “A lot of these ideas are things I’ve had for a while,” he explains. “I’ve been wanting to figure out a way

to write about couples and about marriage and about the interaction of couples and the projection that couples can place on one another. It’s finally found its way into this story. I was thinking of doing it right after Squid, but I just couldn’t figure it out, so in some ways I don’t feel quite in control of the timing of things. I feel like they kind of come when they come.”

“It’s all about the thrill of being around young people. And the sinking dread” Noah Baumbach

Given the autobiographical nature of some of his movies, particularly The Squid and the Whale, which found him dissecting his own parents’ breakup and dressing its lead, Jeff Daniels, in his father’s clothes, it’s tempting to see his move to a more upbeat register as a reflection of his own personal life. Baumbach isn’t having any of it, though: “I don’t want it to remain entirely mysterious, it’s natural that people might look over the last few years and make judgements about the mood I was in when I made one or the other, but I guess I don’t look at it that way. I feel like over a long career I might veer one way or the other. These ones have gone in the direction of the more openly comic – I guess that’s what people are responding to.” One aspect of his personal life that Baumbach does concede to having informed his approach to While We’re Young is that he became a father in 2010. “Before I had a kid I had friends who had kids, and, you know, it’s... well... impossible to get as excited about other people’s kids as it is your own,” he says with a laugh. Like Josh and Cornelia, he felt abandoned by his close friends who were off starting families. “It’s a funny feeling as a grown person, to feel like you’re kind of being replaced by someone’s kid, and I wanted to show that in the movie. And then of course I’ve been on the other side of it too, having a child I’ve been transformed.”

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A running theme in Baumbach’s films has been antagonistic relationships between parents and children. There’s a father figure in While We’re Young too: Charles Grodin (The Heartbreak Kid, Midnight Run) plays Josh’s father-in-law, Leslie, a respected documentarian who mentored Josh early in his career. Unlike previous parental figures in Baumbach’s movies, however, Leslie is the most clued-up person on screen. When Josh shows Leslie the film he’s been toiling on for the best part of a decade, he says “you’ve made a six-and-a-half hour film that’s about seven hours too long.” He’s the movie’s voice of reason. Has becoming a dad softened his perspective on his own parents too? “Maybe the best way to say it is that when you have clear memories of your parents at ages that are either the same or younger than you are now, there’s a definite shift,” Baumbach explains. “You can no longer think of them as omnipotent, almighty people. You start to identify with the humanity of what it means to be a parent and also what it must have meant for them. You can have more empathy for them for that reason. You realise, What could they have known? You can’t help but reflect on that.” Grodin’s wry presence calls to mind the era of films While We’re Young most evokes: the comedies of the 70s and 80s. “When I was an adolescent, people like James L Brooks and Mike Nichols and Sidney Pollack were making Broadcast News and Working Girl and Tootsie. Those films were meaningful to me when I was first starting to discover movies beyond kids’ movies.” These were comedies made within the studio system that were trying to say something significant about society and relationships. They were hilarious, but they were more than simply gag-delivery machines. “They’re really adult comedies, which were character-based and very funny; they could be broad but could also be serious. I wanted to do my version of that.” With While We’re Young he succeeds. It’s packed with wit and vigour. It’s the kind of finely observed comedy Woody Allen might have made at the peak of his powers if he ever left his Upper East Side apartment and took the C-line across the East River. The satire is so potent, in fact, that the film could single-handedly kill off the fedora hat. Here’s hoping. While We’re Young is released 3 Apr by Icon

Feature

School Daze A fainting epidemic befalls a strict girls’ school in 60s Britain in The Falling. Director Carol Morley invites you into this balmy world of teenage secrets and mass hysteria

t’s 8.30am on a bright February morning in Glasgow. The Falling, a heady tale of teenage friendship and mass hysteria, played to a full house at the city’s film festival the night before. Its director, Carol Morley, was out toasting the film’s Scottish premiere with a few drams after the screening. So it’s a surprise to find her so chipper as she sips on a coffee in her hotel’s bar. “I’ll probably be quite slow on the uptake,” Morley says as I sit down. She’s anything but. Talking at a clip, the 49-year-old Stopfordian is full of anecdotes and digressions as we dig into her strange and seductive new movie. Set in 1969, it follows the fallout of an unexplained fainting epidemic at an all-girls secondary school. The seed of The Falling’s story was planted in Morley’s head over ten years ago by a friend who told her about a medieval village whose residents couldn’t stop laughing. This led her down a rabbit hole of research into mass hysteria – or to use its medical term, mass psychological illness. “I think what fascinated me most is that they are still a mystery,” Morley explains. “Even although [psychologists] can detect the pattern of it, they don’t really know why they occur.” What makes mass hysteria such a juicy subject for a filmmaker is that the condition appears to be some sort of collective response to the concerns of the day. “Nowadays when they happen they’re often around anxiety about toxic things, or maybe terrorism or food poisoning, or something like that. In the 50s they seemed to be about atomic stuff. A lot of the ones I read about in the 60s seem to have an underlying anxiety about sex and sexuality, and changing morality about sex.” Despite setting it in 1969, one thing Morley didn’t want to do was evoke the Swinging 60s (“you know, because only about 600 people on the King’s Road had that”). But she did like the notion that this was a period of great change. “I like to think of it as a time when young people where kind of getting infected by ideas,” she says. “And I really like the idea of the 60s as an adolescent age, in a way. It was on the cusp of something. It just felt like a time when a lot of philosophical ideas were circulating.”

Feature

Interview: Jamie Dunn

Using a girls’ school as a backdrop for this study of psychological contagion seemed full of possibilities too. “[Mass hysterias] always happen in closed institutions,” she explains. “A lot of them happen in schools, and a lot of them happen to women as well.” Morley’s theory for the condition’s gender imbalance is that female relationships are more intimate: “I think teenage girls talk more and so communicate their symptoms more, which is why they might get a mass hysteria – so I was sort of fascinated by that. Plus I think female friendships can be very intense and you’re constantly struggling with who you are at that age. People go in different directions. Things become unstable, I guess. And your whole body is kind of being a traitor to you in a way as you enter that mysterious adult world.”

“I really like the idea of the 60s as an adolescent age. It was on the cusp of something” Carol Morley

The Falling centres on one particular friendship, between Abbie (impressive first-timer Florence Pugh) and Lydia (Game of Thrones’ Maisie Williams). At the start of the film the relationship is practically sapphic, with Lydia clearly infatuated with her luminous best friend. “I felt that Abbie had to be somebody that the whole school wanted to be,” says Morley. “In fact, the look I was going after, because I have annuals from the time, was one of the girls on those teen magazine covers: blonde, blue eyes, glamorous.” The friendship seems to sour, however, when Abbie reveals she’s lost her virginity. In fact, she suspects she’s pregnant. The setting makes this

teen pregnancy all the more significant. “In 1969, the Abortion Act has just come in to make them legal, but they were still only really available to married women in certain circumstances. So you wouldn’t be that age and go to your doctor, you just wouldn’t.” Abbie is the first to faint, perhaps caused by her pregnancy. But soon half the school is at it. And not just fainting. In one extraordinary scene during an assembly the girls’ condition manifests as a kind of seductive dance, a woozy revery. Some of the teachers succumb to the contagion too. Even the school’s no-nonsense head mistress (Monica Dolan), who’s convinced the whole thing is an elaborate prank thought up by the rebellious Lydia, feels her knees start to buckle. Morley creates a balmy atmosphere for this strange and lurid tale to play out in. The school setting is claustrophobic, but the exterior shots of the unspecified bucolic countryside, shot in vivid colour, are equally stifling. “I’d always had this idea of the Renaissance, so you have the greens, the blue, the gold, so that’s the school uniform, but the production designer used it throughout the whole film.” On camera duty was one of the best cinematographers in the business: Claire Denis’s regular lenser Agnès Godard. “I remember saying to her that I wanted it to feel like we just found the film,” Morley explains. “I don’t know why I said that but she got really into the idea. Although Agnès has worked on all these amazing films, she genuinely approaches something like it’s her first time. It’s really exciting.” The film’s trump card is Williams. Best known as Arya Stark, Game of Thrones’ pintsized bruiser, she brings a similar intensity to Lydia. Remarkably Morley hadn’t, and still hasn’t, seen the show. “We looked at a lot of girls. I knew what Lydia had to be like and I wasn’t finding her. When the casting director suggested Maisie I went online and looked at her giving interviews and I was like ‘Oh my God, I love her already.’” To pull off the central conceit, it was vital to find an actor of Williams’ charisma. “In a mass hysteria there’s always a central person. There might be a trigger, but the central person is always someone you admire, so it was very important

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that both Maisie’s character Lydia and Florence’s character Abbie were people that you could admire. And as soon as I met Maisie I knew she’s the kind of girl I’d want to be my friend at that age, and I’d want to follow.” Following the critical success of Morley’s 2011 documentary Dreams of a Life, The Falling represents an impressive advance into narrative filmmaking. After two decades of toiling at the coalface of the British film industry, it’s a well-deserved achievement. “For any filmmaker it’s difficult, and you just have to keep pushing at it. So for me it’s getting easier, hopefully, because you’ve got more to show, and people go, ‘Oh, I get you now.’” When I ask about the opportunities for female filmmakers in general, however, she’s less optimistic: “I was doing a talk once and I pointed out that only 7% of [feature film] directors are women, which is the same as when cinema began. And someone came up to me afterwards and corrected me, saying, ‘Actually, at the beginning of cinema there were more women directors’ – so numbers show it’s not getting any easier.” It’s a depressing statistic. I suggest that the quality of British filmmakers who are female perhaps papers over some of the vast inequalities in the industry. “What I find quite fascinating in Britain is that if you look at Lynne Ramsay, Clio Barnard, Joanna Hogg, Andrea Arnold, they all write their own stuff: they are writer-directors. And if you think of the guys who have come up at the same time, somebody like Ben Wheatley or Michael Winterbottom, they don’t write [all of] their own films, but they’re still seen as auteurs. Of course they’re really involved and are brilliant, but [female filmmakers] don’t seem to get that opportunity. I can’t imagine directing something I haven’t written. And I think there’s probably a link as to why that is: I think it’s that we’re trying to generate stuff that we want to see. My feeling is that everyone wants more diverse stories. For that you want it so that you’ve all kinds of people making films.” The Falling is released 24 Apr by Metrodome

THE SKINNY

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April 2015

26/03/2015

Whisky in the Water Death Cab for Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard talks about surviving breaks and staying publicly personal for the band’s eighth album

Interview: Katie Hawthorne

en Gibbard, singer, songwriter and founder of professional heartstring-tuggers Death Cab for Cutie, is recovering from a badly broken wrist. Tripping on a footbridge while running on Seattle’s Orcas Island has left the chairman of emotional indie rock with screws and plates reconnecting his bones, but he’s still in buoyant spirits. Joking, he describes himself as a “method actor:” “It’s not enough to have all these other fissures in my life, and name an album Kintsugi – I’ve gotta take it to the next level and break my own wrist?” The quip holds because Kintsugi – the title and concept behind the band’s eighth record – is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery; using gold lacquer to piece together the shards, the delicate practice treats the putting-backtogether process with philosophical respect for life’s bumps and bruises. Obviously ripe symbolic ground for a band as openly heart-onsleeve as Death Cab for Cutie, it’s no surprise that the group has had a rough ride in recent times. Since their last album, Codes and Keys (2011), pivotal member and producer Chris Walla announced his departure after 17 years with the band. And if that’s not enough of an upheaval, Gibbard has gone through a public divorce from New Girl star Zooey Deschanel. Yet, with the title as it is, the record seems to be inviting a whole host of intrusive questions and conjectures. Was there not a temptation to try and avoid headlines of Kintsugi: Death Cab are Back and Stronger Than Ever? Gibbard concedes, “Yeah, a lot of people have been making the assumption that the title is meant to refer to the fractures in the band. But what resonated with me about that word, when Nick [Harmer, bass] brought it to us, is that metaphorically it’s what I’ve always been trying to do as a songwriter. You try to recreate something, and you’re trying to highlight the point of breakages. A lot of these songs are about how to make something beautiful out of something really, really horrible.” As a songwriter, Gibbard has always been intensely confessional. But surely once your private life and band dynamic are being eagerly dissected across the internet’s gossip forums, it’s bound to impact upon the writing of a record? Completely preempting this question, he volunteers, “You know, when I was first writing songs for what would be Kintsugi, I was struggling with how… um… not even how open I was going to be, but just the perceptions of how open I was, when the record came out. If that makes sense?” After a pause, he continues, “Because… after going through a divorce with A Well-Known Person, I could write songs about pole vaulting and people would figure out a way to tie it back to the divorce. But, you know, you don’t hold back. Don’t change how you are, don’t change how you write for fear of what people are going to think. ”Spiritedly debating whether his attitude is “fearless” or “foolish,” he argues that “you don’t have to worry about protecting yourself.” As he puts it, “those pieces, those editorials, they are for the fans to discuss and argue… but I’m not going to enter that dialogue. That’s not to say that dialogue doesn’t have merit, but I’ve never read a piece of criticism that’s made me secondguess a creative decision. For better, or worse.” Preferring instead to rely on fan feedback at shows, he references the album’s lead single, Black Sun, saying “people aren’t getting into it because they think – correctly or incorrectly – it’s about a famous person. A song is only as successful as how deeply a person can integrate it into their own lives.” He’s probably just put a finger on what’s made Death Cab for Cutie a

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special band to so many people for so long – the ability to write lyrics that feel both intimate and broadly applicable, in a far more direct, impactful manner than the ‘it’s a love story’ vagueness of other chart-toppers.

“I could write songs about pole vaulting and people would figure out a way to tie it back to the divorce” Ben Gibbard

Yet, as the first track released from a longawaited album, Black Sun quickly circulated the internet under the interpretation of a ‘break-up’ song, although the video – and lyrics – certainly aren’t explicit in that department. In actuality, it puts the concept of Kintsugi into focus and sounds more an unpicking of creative practices… but does that interpretation hold up, either? Gibbard is quick to weigh in. “That’s my point. Frankly I’m much more interested in your take on [the song] than I am my own. There are times when I’m asked a very direct question: ‘what’s this song about?’ And it’s like, well look, that’s not only a lazy question... but it doesn’t matter what it’s about to me. It matters what it’s about

to you.” So with Gibbard happy to endorse whatever your personal interpretation of its lyrical content may be, Kintsugi is grand and sweeping in classical Death Cab form. Opener and recent single No Room In Frame trips along, jauntily deceptive, whilst Gibbard’s distinctive vocals detail a story of a partnership derailing – no answers on postcards, please. Almost elegiac in its treatment of memory and nostalgia, haunted by ghosts and caught up in second-guesses, it’s a record written for long roads and starry nights. Warming and readily empathetic, it’s not as naturally anthemic as the big hitters from Transatlanticism, for example, but mid-record gem Hold No Guns is a bare-bones ballad that’s atmospheric storytelling at its finest. In essence, and despite the turmoil, it sounds just like the Death Cab for Cutie we know. But if Kintsugi feels more of a marker-stone than a drastic change in direction, it’s still an indicator of the shape of things to come. Although it’s the first Death Cab album to feature an ‘outsider’ in the producer’s seat, Walla “fired himself” from the role and the band invited Rich Costey (Sigur Rós, Frank Turner) to take the reins, although Walla still worked on the album in its entirety. But since his official departure, two new members have joined Gibbard, Harmer and Jason McGerr (drums) for the band’s long tour this year – Dave Depper and Zac Rae – with Gibbard intimating that they could be on board for the long haul. He enthuses that they’ve brought “new energy… not only to the live show, but all the minutiae of being in a band” and admits that, over the years, “Chris, as brilliant and important as he’s been to the band, he was the guy who didn’t like to go on tour. He was the guy who did his own thing. The three of us would go to dinner and Chris’d go off on his own trip. It wasn’t a source of animosity by any stretch of

MUSIC

the imagination, but it’s something I think we really needed... To feel like a gang again.” Ultimately Walla’s departure created a crossroads for the band – one that they’ve survived with Kintsugi as proof, and one that will see a newly refreshed group take steps towards an uncertain but reinvigorated future. Gibbard describes the shake-up as more than necessary: “As a career band it’s very difficult not to paint yourselves into a corner. You have to be very vigilant about quality control and not allow… like… ‘Oh, Death Cab for Cutie are getting together to make a record. That’s good enough! I’m sure it’ll be great because they’ve made these other records we like. I’m sure it’ll be fine!’ No. It’s not as simple as that. Being a band as long as we have, it just becomes more and more difficult because you have this body of work that precedes you into a room.” It’s undeniably true, too. With a back catalogue as beloved as theirs, one that’s soundtracked innumerable slammed doors of teenage angst, mid-twenties existential crises and emotional film montages – how on earth do you manage the pressure? But so far, fractures and all, Death Cab for Cutie have survived the ride and are stronger for it (sorry; it’s true, though). After this talk of the future, and before the clock fully runs out on the conversation, Gibbard muses about the nature of influences and perspectives. He’s already namechecked REM and Teenage Fanclub, but does he think that Death Cab now have a legacy of their own? “I don’t know… I never pick up on those things,” he laughs. “I never heard a young band like ‘Ooooh my god, those guys totally listened to us.’ I still feel like we’re a Built to Spill cover band.” Kintsugi is released on 30 Mar via Atlantic Records deathcabforcutie.com

THE SKINNY

Masculinity in Crisis A perfect bourgeois family is rocked to its core in relationship-in-crisis drama Force Majeure. Director Ruben Östlund describes how his pin-sharp black comedy dissects perceptions of masculinity with laser-like precision Interview: Patrick Gamble

“O

ne of the goals of the film is to increase the number of divorces in society,” says Force Majeure’s director, Ruben Östlund. The 40-year-old Swede isn’t anti-marriage, however. His latest film is more concerned with the wider forces that guide human instinct. You could call it a sociological experiment. “When I present the film to an audience I always say you can use it as a relationship test, so instead of spending ten or 20 years together maybe first watch this film.” The pivotal scene in Östlund’s sardonic relationship drama occurs early on. From a distance we observe a picture-book family enjoying lunch on the patio of a restaurant in the French Alps. In the distance they spot what they believe to be a controlled avalanche. But when the snow threatens to engulf the diners, the father, Tomas (Johannes Bah Kuhnke), turns and runs, abandoning his wife, Ebba (Lisa Loven Kongsli), and young children. The inspiration for this scene came to Östlund while viewing a YouTube clip. “It was a video of a family watching an avalanche as it came down the mountain side,” he explains. “They were sharing the experience on

their phones and the next moment they were screaming and panicking, and I thought it was so interesting to have those two different moods so close to each other, and they were so ashamed when they had to go back to their seats. I was thinking of following a family from that restaurant and a friend of mine said, ‘OK, but what if only the father runs away?’” Östlund employs a detached perspective throughout, observing events from afar, forcing the audience to question the larger social expectations that dictate how these characters react. “It’s the gender expectations that makes Tomas start lying about what he’s done,” he says. Östlund makes no qualms about his fascination with society’s rigid conformity to archaic ideas of masculinity and his film looks to question the state of modern manhood. “How come men have the ability to act instinctively and abandon their kids when it comes to a crisis? Is there a culture difference that causes this kind of behaviour or is it something about the core of our basic survival instinct?” For Östlund the avalanche is merely the catalyst for a larger investigation into

gender expectations: “I’m trying to identify a situation where I can say ‘Wow, I might have done the same thing here,’ and I have to ask myself the question of who I am?” Östlund might paint a troubling portrait of masculinity but it comes from a place of hope. “In Sweden we have this feminist movement that’s been going very strong and we’ve been talking about gender roles a lot, which certainly affected the way I approach masculinity in the film.” Force Majeure is at times very critical towards its male protagonist, who in one comical scene resorts to crying in the hotel corridor while screaming “I’m a victim of instincts!” But would Östlund go as far as labelling himself a feminist? His answer is quick and ardent: “Of course, yes. I think a lot of people mix up what feminist means, but a feminist is someone who believes women deserve equal rights to men and it’s absurd that even though we are working on the same things women are still getting less and for some reason we still think that is acceptable!”

Östlund may jest that he’s pushing for higher divorce rates, yet the findings of his probing study into human weakness aren’t wholly cynical. Östlund discusses the film’s grand scene of redemption, where Tomas gets the opportunity to assert his masculinity when Ebba seemingly needs rescuing while skiing down the mountain: “For me that is kind of a group-therapy ski run where the mother is leading for Tomas to become the strong male leader of the group again. I was interested that she was faking this accident and he had to carry her like in An Officer and a Gentleman, all strong carrying this ‘weak’ woman in his arms. Then he puts her down on the snow and hugs his family and says ‘we made it.’ In a conventional movie this is where it would cut. However, if you wait around for 30 seconds longer they have to deal with everyday life. She has to go back and grab her skis, they have to brush off the snow and pack their things. It’s so painful when you realise the life won’t have an ending when we get our dignity back.”

though Dyer worries that comedy may also have the opposite effect: “It can be thought-provoking but perhaps without the audience even realising at the time, as they’re too busy chuckling.” Comedians have always spread messages through their routines; they are passionate orators, so if a particular problem is something they feel can be tackled through humour, then why not use the stage as a soapbox? “So many comedians struggle with mental health issues and as a comedian your material tends to be about what you know in life or what you’re currently experiencing,” Dyer states. Be it Bill Hicks’ rallies against the Bush era (though it was Senior’s reign when Hicks started, his act was alarmingly accurate for Dubya’s tenure too), Dave Chappelle speaking to white people about the injustices faced by black Americans, or even more recently Aziz Ansari shedding light on the appalling treatment of women throughout the world, comedians will speak honestly about anything.

As one of the last taboos of both society and standup, mental illness is something that needs to be pushed to the forefront. Once we can laugh at something, we take away its power – and can discuss it honestly without fear or prejudice. Having suffered herself, Dyer knows how important it is to share: “I’m not beyond my post, or think I’m on this crusade to shatter the stigma that currently waddles around arm-inarm with mental health, but I think there’s no harm in trying to raise awareness as it seems to be cathartic to everyone involved.” It’s good to talk about things. It’s even better to laugh about them.

Force Majeure is released 10 Apr by Curzon Film World

Barking at Scars Comedian Harriet Dyer explains the inspiration behind her new night, Barking Tales, which gives fellow comics a platform to speak openly about mental health issues – with humour Interview: John Stansfield

hen the tragic news broke that Robin Williams had taken his own life it was met with consternation, as people struggled to come to terms with the idea that a man who had been responsible for so much joy had been unable to replicate that in his own life. The tears of a clown are not a new thing, and as the world begins to understand more about the terrors of depression, we can see that no one is immune to its dark grasp. To shed more light on the subject, Harriet Dyer has set up Barking Tales, a night for comedians to speak candidly about mental health issues while still being funny. “It’s fairly recently that I’ve realised that I suffer with mental health issues,” she writes. “Previously I thought it was normal to regularly feel like you’re plummeting down a dark vortex of despair. Apparently this is not the case.” All too aware that sincerity can put a knife through comedy, Dyer stumbled upon the idea for the night while doing a show at the Fringe about mental health entitled Barking at Aeroplanes. “I didn’t set out to hammer home a message or anything like that, it was just an obvious choice because there was so much material I could do on it, as people have questioned the state of my mental health my whole life. I

April 2015

thought they were the mad ones. I was bowled over by the amount of people that said my show had helped them, even by just talking about it openly, never in an awkward ‘woe is me’ manner, as that’s definitely not what it needs.” Talking about depression in comedy is still a risky business. Dyer often splits the room into those who were moved by her stories of attempted suicide by drinking fabric softener, and those who either didn’t think depression was real, or that killing yourself was disrespectful to God. “I just thought, ‘What the Dickens are you on about you absolute plonkers, I obviously didn’t even kill myself seeing as I’ve just stood in front of you chatting for an hour!’” Seems fabric softener is not the way to go. The show itself became more and more about raising awareness as it was about being funny – a difficult balancing act that Dyer approached with her usual verve. “I’m very aware that if you want to cover something that, as a topic, is considered a lot ‘deeper’ than the usual jollies, it has to be even funnier to fly. There’s no point going, ‘Yes, but I’ve got a message so that shall prevail.’ If people want that, they’ll go to a sermon. Although if you do master the funny to go with it, I think that’s quite a beautiful thing.” Lessons through laughter is the key,

FILM / COMEDY

Barking Tales is at Joshua Brooks, Manchester, on 2 Apr, 7pm, and every first Thursday of the month from then on harrietdyer.co.uk @dyerlinquent @BarkingTales

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When Will We Three... As six new artists are announced for Pendle’s in-situ residency, The Skinny travels to Brierfield to catch up with the founders and find out what’s next for the organisation

rierfield feels very far away. I was in London the day before so it has, in fact, taken me eleven hours to get to the East Lancashire town; an overnight Megabus, a chilly chain-smoking wait outside the coach station and a winding two-hour bus journey on the Witch Way from Manchester through foreign lands: Strangeways, Prestwich, Burnley. I’m excited to visit Pendle, famous of course for the witch trials, and an area once described (albeit in the 16th century) as “fabled for its theft, violence and sexual laxity, where the church was honoured without much understanding of its doctrines by the common people.” The theft, violence and sexual laxity are, however, not the only reasons I have made this journey. Brierfield is home to the ‘in-situ’ residency programme which annually invites artists to work on projects around Pendle and functions as a conversation platform for artists and makers to share ideas and experience. The programme was set up in 2002 and is the brainchild of three artists, arts administrators and friends: Paul Hartley, William Titley and Kerry Morrison. Each brings particular skills to the in-situ mix; Hartley has extensive experience of working as a cultural arts coordinator in this area of Lancashire, Titley is a practicing artist and lecturer at UCLan and Morrison has been working as an artist and ecologist for many years on projects from Liverpool Biennial and Grizedale to Korea and Japan. Why in-situ exists is simple. “We want,” the three state on their website, “to find out more about how art and culture works for people and the place it has, and could have, in their lives. Through this experience, we as artists want to deepen our understanding of art practice in the natural and built environment and how we live our lives to create socially engaging art of the highest calibre.” The context of Pendle and East Lancashire has been key. This is an area not known for its contemporary art; it’s “a bit of a cold spot for the arts council,” says Hartley, and an area still suffering the effects of the UK’s failed Housing Market Renewal Initiative. I’ve gone into the details of this in previous Skinny articles, so I won’t bang on about it too much, but, for the uninitiated, this is how it goes: the Labour government deems some areas in the UK too shit and poor, decides to knock everything down and start again (better houses, more rent, higher house prices, better tenants), starts bulldozing, the scheme runs out of money and a new government arrives anyway. The result is half-empty, half-built neighbourhoods and entire communities destroyed. Unfortunately the situation is

April 2015

Interview: Sacha Waldron

so rubbish we have to adopt an Adam Curtis approach and just say, ‘Oh dear.’ If you want to see for yourself and engage in some disaster tourism head to Anfield in Liverpool. “We had all worked together at different points over the last ten years,” says Hartley, “in areas that we’re subject to this kind of Housing Market Renewal and regeneration. I was working in Accrington, one of the towns that was affected, and Kerry has done a lot of work around the environment in Liverpool which seemed, to me, a very different way of working as an artist. It opened up this other world of socially engaged practice and of artists who were approaching their work in a very different way. Not just in a community arts way, or participatory arts way. That, for me, was a bit of a journey as I got more into that kind of approach to making work.”

“I really believe in the difference of the artist and what artists can bring and do” Kerry Morrison

The three, who now all live in the area, were also frustrated by the type of art and work that was being supported and commissioned. “Commissions were set up very much on a fixed short-term basis,” Hartley tells me, “and also the commissioner would generally have something in mind that they wanted from the artist. It had got to the point where we all just wanted to take back some control.” Support came in the form of another Paul. Paul Kelly had previously worked on the public art programmes and partnerships developed by Liverpool Biennial including projects such as artist Jeanne van Heeswijk’s Anfield Homebaked. Now he had moved to Lancashire and was working for the council as a senior arts development manager and had both vision and, crucially, some money. “Paul put some money on the table from LCC as seed funding,” says Hartley, “and we knew we could really do something with this.” And so they did. With a bit of match funding from the Arts Council, in-situ began to formulate what it was and how it would operate. “We wanted to think about something that could be long-term and embedded,” says Hartley, “not just

jumping from one project to another.” The trio took inspiration from other artists and projects that were happening of a similar nature all over the world. “Early on,” he says, “we made a trip to Amsterdam to see some talks that were happening there and one of the speakers was Rick Lowe from Project Row House based in the Third Ward of Houston, USA. That was a real inspiration.” Project Row Houses, for those that have not come across it, is a community-based arts and culture organisation established in 1993 by artist and community activist Rick Lowe and a small group of his friends and collaborators. Based in one of the oldest African American communities in Houston, the project initially bought and renovated 22 abandoned houses and transformed them into sites of cultural activity and community events, as well as artists’ spaces. “We already knew about the project,” says Hartley, “but not really in detail. After the talk, we started chatting to Rick about what we were trying to do in Brierfield and he said, Well why don’t you just come over to Houston and see? We managed to get some funding and ended up spending a week there. We took a few members of the community, a couple of local teachers and youth workers and our team. I think, in the end, ten of us went. It was an active example of what we were trying to describe about the kind of work we wanted to do long-term. It was all about being artist-led and putting art into the mix of the community, of art being part of everyday life really.” In-situ built from there and the international links the organisation have made are impressive. Rick Lowe (one of Obama’s ten lead cultural advisors) ended up coming to speak at the symposium organised by in-situ held between Brierfield and UCLan in 2014, and an artist working with Project Row Houses, Autumn Knight, has already travelled to Brierfield for a residency. The talks and ‘in-conversations’ that in-situ organise operate beyond, or parallel to, the residency programme and are a good opportunity to connect with the general ethos and activities of in-situ. Prior to my visit, Suzanne Lacy, artist and author of the seminal book Mapping the Terrain, has just been to visit. “In-situ,” says Hartley, “is really about connecting, and Suzanne really pioneered this particular way of working. She did a talk and spent three days here with us.”

ART

In-situ’s residencies, however, are central to the organisation and have been attracting applicants from all over the world. The package they offer is attractive. Residents receive £3000 and a small material budget for their time either here at Brierfield library – the base of in-situ, which functions as part studio, part office and part exhibition space – or at their satellite shop space in Nelson. Non-brief applications are invited in March each year and this idea – that the artist’s practice should lead the residency rather than a distinct proposal – is important and also fairly unique. “When you have an open brief,” says Morrison, “it’s amazing how people don’t know how to respond to that. The amount of applicants we get that say, for example, they are planning this and that they want to do a workshop and we’ve never asked for a workshop… We want artists to apply because they are artists. Not because they feel like they are applying for a job and that they have to deliver certain things. I really believe in the difference of the artist and what artists can bring and do. Artists should be passionate about their art, about the work they make. We don’t want anything formulaic here.” This non-brief structure also keeps it interesting; unexpected outcomes are an important part of the process. Artists, whether recent graduates or established, arrive with a fresh page and with everything possible. Past residencies have included projects touring visitors to Pendle by way of sound, powering clocks by water wheels and poetry performances linking Pendle to Blackpool by rail. As we go to print the six new residents have just been announced. In Brierfield you will find Lahore-based artist Zoya Siddiqui, who works in video and sculpture; Lydia Heath, who works with ideas of imagined or dystopian futures; and photographer and researcher Ingrid Pollard. In Nelson you might come across Reet So, a group of designers who create unique experiences in the public realm; performer and artist Lydia Cotterall; and letterpress print-maker David Armes. You heard it here first. The Skinny will also be catching up with all the artists during their residency, finding out what it means to be in-situ. in-situ.org.uk

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Access All Areas Champions of accessibility within the arts, Graeae Theatre Company make their way to Liverpool’s Everyman Interview: Chris High

ccessibility is a necessity in public performance today and never more is it in evidence than at the newly developed Everyman Theatre in Liverpool, which is set to welcome Graeae (pronounced Grey Eye) and their fresh, innovative production of Federico García Lorca’s Blood Wedding. Directed by Graeae’s artistic director, Jenny Sealey, this new version has been rewritten by David Ireland, who relocates the great play of reckless passion and terrible revenge to an unnamed British city in the present day. “Graeae was founded in 1980 to address the lack of opportunity for deaf and disabled people in the performing arts,” Sealey explains. “It is a company founded on the desire to combat social injustice and is fuelled by a passion for inclusion and the need to campaign for artistic, practical and functional access within the arts. There is still so much to learn about artistic access and there is still so much to be done to challenge and change the general perception of who has the right to be a performer, writer or director. Our mission statement is ‘to boldly place deaf and disabled artists centre-stage’ and until there is an equal playing field Graeae will continue to advocate this mission.” This view is very much shared by the Everyman’s artistic director, Gemma Bodinetz,

whose team placed accessibility at the forefront of the design for the new theatre from the outset. “When the old Everyman staged Lizzie Nunnery’s Intemperance in 2007, there was a part in it for an elderly man that we’d initially offered to an actor who’d recently had a stroke and who wasn’t fully mobile,” Bodinetz recalls. “He could take it on, though, because it mainly involved him delivering lines lying prone in a bed. Then it quickly dawned on us that we couldn’t accommodate a disabled – even partially disabled – actor on stage, because of the safety aspects of escape and the steep steps leading to the stage. We realised then that things had to change when designing the new Everyman. “Accessibility for our audiences, actors and creatives alike is a major priority in our vision and now everybody can enjoy our striking, state-of-the-art, brand new theatre and become involved on all levels. Hopefully we have got it right and, on the back of that, we invited Graeae here as soon as we possibly could. We are all such huge fans of their work and it is beautiful that we are now able to accommodate them and other production companies with a similar ethos and vision.” “I want Blood Wedding to provoke questions within the audience; for them to go away thinking about what love means and the complexities

Blood Wedding

of human nature,” Sealey adds. “I’d like them to think about how we communicate with each other and how we judge and are judged. I love Lorca and this is the second time I have directed Blood Wedding; the first occasion being in Tokyo with Japanese deaf and disabled actors, which was the first time the play had ever been shown

at Setagaya Public Theatre. It was an extraordinary experience and strengthened my belief that the themes of Lorca’s play can exist in any time, in any place and in any language.” Blood Wedding by Federico García Lorca, rewritten by David Ireland, runs at the Everyman Theatre, Liverpool, 21-25 Apr

Reshaping the Octagon Young, talented and ambitious, the recently appointed artistic director of the Bolton Octagon, Elizabeth Newman, discusses her plans to revitalise the town’s theatre scene Interview: Andrew Anderson

Elizabeth Newman

collective sigh of relief was breathed by many on hearing the news that Elizabeth Newman had been appointed artistic director of the Bolton Octagon. While David Thacker has done an excellent job, the idea of a young, female AD was just too exciting a prospect. But these labels don’t begin to cover the qualities Newman can bring to Bolton. Newman is one of those infuriating types: talented and successful to the umpteenth degree. A graduate of the Regional Theatre Young Director Scheme, this is her third artistic directorship, having led Southwark Playhouse and Shared Property Theatre Company. Her productions while associate director at the Octagon – Alice in Wonderland, Love Story, Duet for One and Separation – were stylish, seductive and open-hearted; and all were up for a Manchester Theatre Award this year. She isn’t yet 30. Worse still, when I meet her she turns out to be charming, too. I follow her up to the Octagon’s rehearsal space, along a weaving web

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of narrow breezeblock corridors that betrays its 60s origins. The space is strewn with clothing, and on the walls are pinned the designs for Newman’s current production: Noël Coward’s Private Lives, which opened on 26 March. While it might be an older play, Newman still sees a chance to do something refreshing. “Often it is done with a lot older actors, whereas actually the characters are meant to be in their 20s,” she explains. “I think we’re getting back to what was originally intended by casting younger.” The idea of casting younger seems apt given Newman’s appointment, which has received attention in part due to her age. “Growing up is the thing we all have in common, and I imagine the people commenting on it are thinking about themselves when they were my age,” she says. “But I believe that the work I have done here in Bolton, and the work I did before I came here, has given me a good set of skills and capabilities... I trust the judgement of the people who appointed me.”

Whoever the artistic director, the main challenge facing a small theatre remains the same: reaching an audience. “We have an amazing core audience who are really avid supporters of the Octagon,” says Newman, “but the Octagon isn’t managing to seduce the Asian communities who have been here for years, or the new communities in Bolton – like refugees. There are lots of people that don’t know about the theatre and are incredibly artistic, who don’t have a vehicle to explore their art or express themselves. We want to change that.” To do this, Newman is setting up focus groups within the town. She is also planning to put on productions outside of the building and bring in new artists and production companies to work within it. “I am looking forward to seeing the Octagon combust with life, becoming a big creative hub,” she enthuses. Unsurprisingly, given the number of wonderful children’s productions she has directed, it is the younger audience she is most

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passionate about. “We need to break the cycle of children only going to the theatre through school – because when they leave school they stop coming,” she explains. “Children must engage with art away from education – it needs to become part of their everyday life. I believe the arts make us better, healthier, happier people.” To encourage this engagement, the Octagon will develop its online presence, so that characters and storylines exist beyond the confines of the theatre space itself – something Newman hopes will appeal to all age groups. Newman takes up the role in July, and it will be interesting to see what becomes of her plans. “For me it is giving back to the people of Bolton, acknowledging we are only here because of them,” she says. “We’re here, we listen and no one is anonymous to us.” octagonbolton.co.uk

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April 2015

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A Brief History of... Wigan Casino Welcome to a new series taking a cheeky look at the most influential clubs throughout the ages. Where better to start than with a Northern Soul mecca? Interview: Daniel Jones Illustration: Alex T. Frazer

wo AM, 23rd September, 1973. Station Road, Wigan. The double doors of a grand ballroom – once known as The Empress – swing open in the Sunday morning mist. From inside, the thump of The Sherrys’ Put Your Arms Around Me guides a stream of bodies, 600 or so, up a narrow flight of steps. An old dear called Mrs Woods mans the battlements at the top of the stairs, taxing 75p a head and pointing up another staircase, through another set of doors onto a gleaming maple-sprung dancefloor. Welcome to the Wigan Casino Soul Club. Many of the folks on that first night came clad in badges from the Twisted Wheel, Blackpool Mecca and the Torch all-nighter, which had recently shut in Tunstall after a precious 13-month lifespan. Even still, the scene at that time was evolving: nights at Va Va’s in Bolton, the Catacombs in Wolverhampton and dayers like the Top Rank in Hanley flew their flags high, while Colin Curtis and Ian Levine had sealed their spots at the Mecca’s Highland Room. Step forward Mike Walker and Russ Winstanley. Walker, manager of the club, hatched the idea for a new all-nighter in Wigan and brought in Winstanley’s from his sets at Central Park rugby club as head DJ. Their aim was to fill the niche left by the Torch and put Wigan on the map for a reason other than rugby league. Winstanley had already stocked an impressive arsenal of US imports thanks to his uncle and contacts at Selectadisc. His music policy proved to be as strict as it was simple: keep playing the mid-60s rarities, stompers and classic oldies. He soon enlisted the help of Kev Roberts, Martyn Ellis and, slightly later, Richard Searling to rival the Mecca’s established lineup. Ian Levine – son of a casino owner in Blackpool – was feeding the Mecca’s playlist more than anybody at that time, at the turn of 1974; so where were the unknown Wigan DJs getting their records from in the early days? Kev Roberts was one of Winstanley’s earliest recruits, and it’s interesting to hear him describe the relationship he developed with an infamous character named Simon Soussan – a relationship that turned out to be of inestimable value during Wigan’s formative years. “I actually played the second ever all-nighter on Sep 30, 1973,” explains Roberts. “Simon was a contact I had in LA. He was a real good record-finder, French-Moroccan, but he’d spent some time in the UK which is where I met him – in a Nottingham club called the Brit, actually. He was a face on the scene, a bit of a character, business-minded, but also had an unbelievable ear for these records. “Russ [Winstanley] had a record stall at the time and got in touch with Simon too, so a lot of the Wigan rarities in the first few years were sourced through him. We were hungry to get these records through and constantly on the phone to find out what each other had lined up to play next Saturday. There were quite a lot of parcels coming to my mother’s door.” Key tracks between 1973-74 included World Without Sunshine by Sandra Phillips, I’ve Gotta Find Me Somebody by The Velvelettes and I’ll Always Need You by Dean Courtney. Then, moving into 75-76, you’d likely hear the sounds of Dana Valery, Bunny Sigler and Lou Pride ringing round the main hall.

April 2015

Soussan, also a serial bootlegger, was ultimately responsible for sourcing many of Wigan gems in the early days and beyond, and even had a hand to play in the story of Frank Wilson’s ultra-rare Do I Love You (Indeed I Do) a few years later. Legend has it that he borrowed one of only two known original copies from Tom DePierro, a Motown exec, in 1977 before pressing 2,000 bootlegs on In Records under the name Eddie Foster; Soussan and others claim he bought the record from DePierro fair and square. Either way, the disc ended up in Winstanley’s hands in 1978 ready for the Casino floor. The Casino stage also played host to an impressive alumni of live acts, and artists like Edwin Starr and Jackie Wilson were noted for their powerful performances. There’s even the story of James Brown, who rocked up to the venue one night on the premise of a hefty booking fee, and peered down at dancefloor from the upstairs balcony, before eventually refusing Winstanley’s invitation to play. Presumably Brown was just too damn funky for his own good.

“The Casino had its own identity, its own uniform, and it was generally in the right place at the right time” Kev Roberts

“The thing about Wigan, though,” Roberts continues, “is that it left a huge legacy in its own right and I’d say that’s because it was open for eight years – much longer than any of the other allnighters going previously at the Wheel or the Torch. When the Torch closed the music really was top-draw in Tunstall and that had a really positive effect on the opening of the Casino, no doubt about it, with tracks like Here I Go Again and Love on a Mountain Top. The list goes on. “The Casino had its own identity, its own uniform, and it was generally in the right place at the right time. It picked up where the Torch left off, and I’d say that when the TV cameras turned up in 1977, that was the final milestone in the progression of the original Northern scene. Of course, the scene is bigger now than it ever was. The 10,000 people who were originally part of that movement can’t still be going out, so the music must have been passed down through friends, family and the modern-day wonders of technology. I’m proud to say it’s a treasure chest that my generation discovered.” Another former Wigan DJ who, like Kev Roberts, has done his fair share of recordhounding over the years is Richard Searling, who filled the spot as Russ Winstanley’s co-DJ following Roberts’s tenure. Searling clearly impressed during his residency at Va Va’s in Bolton and is, in fact, the guy who unearthed Gloria Jones’s Tainted Love.

“I found that record on the floor of a warehouse in Philadelphia,” says Searling. “It looked good as I had heard of Gloria and the producer Ed Cobb. When I got it home and dropped the needle I couldn’t believe the power and the urgency coming back out of the speakers. It was immediately a huge hit on the dancefloors and probably got me the gig at Wigan.” Soft Cell know who to thank, then. Searling soon built a dedicated following and worked towards a more mid-tempo sound with tunes like Jackey Beavers’ I Need My Baby and Carol Anderson’s Sad Girl. Meanwhile, the Mecca gradually mixed in the sounds of The Carstairs’ It Really Hurts Me Girl and Gil Scott-Heron’s The Bottle. “Blackpool was indeed our main competitor,” admits Searling, “but it was never personal. They had a great following and so did we, and a lot of people made the trip between the two towns every weekend.” If the rivalry was never personal then it certainly was based on differences in tempo, style and fashion, and those differences spurred the progression of the scene for years to come. That said, although the Mecca regulars – a typically Paul Smith-styled clan – turned their nose up at the iconic baggy-panted look favoured by the Wigan dancers, there were countless convoys between the two towns with the Mecca running 8pm to 2am just in time for the start of the Casino. The Northern scene has always been a nomadic fraternity, after all.

CLUBS

Wigan also had Mr M’s: a second room named after club owner Gerry Marshall and dedicated to playing forgotten oldies often heard at the Twisted Wheel and, later, the Torch – stuff like Ritchie Adams’s I Can’t Escape From You and The Incredibles’ There’s Nothing Else To Say. These records were generally more available than those heard in the main room. “It formed part of a two-pronged attack,” remembers Roberts. “The beauty of the second room was that the music reached the average bloke on the street as well as the die-hard soulie searching for rarities. That proved to be a bit of a masterstroke and added to the reputation.” By the early 80s, although new discoveries were being made, the magic was on the wane. The council wanted the building back, the scene had peaked and the true spirit of the Casino had changed. Still, every allnighter culminated with the same three songs, the Three Before Eight: Tobi Legend, Jimmy Radcliffe and Dean Parrish. This idea was coined by DJ Dave Evison, although Martyn Ellis used to finish with Dean Parrish anyway. On the final night in December 1981, these three tracks were played three times consecutively; and have no doubt that they will continue to be played in bars, bathrooms and kitchens, on radios, hi-fis and newfangled android devices long after the end of that final night. Catch Kev Roberts’ Signal Soul every Saturday from 6pm on Signal 2, 1170am & DAB Richard Searling also has a new weekly Northern Soul show on BBC Radio Manchester starting at 10pm on 10 Apr

Feature

Living Memory The appetite for Victoriana is endless; it seems we can’t get enough of corsets and bonnets. As Patricia Duncker releases a new novel, she talks to us about the neoVictorian tale, her fascination with George Eliot and the nature of literary celebrity

“G

eorge Eliot doesn’t compromise,” asserts Patricia Duncker, recalling the first time that she read Eliot as a teenager. “If you don’t understand it, that’s your problem. You have to make the effort and actually that’s very flattering for a young reader.” As she says this, it strikes me that Duncker could in fact be describing herself. It would be easy to feel alienated by someone who makes casual references to 18th-century adventure literature and can recite fragments of early 19th-century patriotic poetry at the drop of a hat – Duncker is Professor of Contemporary Literature at the University of Manchester and the author of five well-received novels – but her warmth, coupled with her passion and vast knowledge of literature, somehow makes you feel like the intelligent, interesting one. As we meet at Contact, the home of experimental and innovative theatre in Manchester, to talk about her latest novel Sophie and the Sibyl, Duncker has just received the final printed edition of her text. We both admire the shiny prettiness of the book (and maybe spend too long stroking the cover), agreeing that publishers are now using the materiality of books to override the rise of the e-book. Readers have to want the book as a beautiful object. Duncker states that she would never publish solely in e-book form. “There are several reasons for that,” she says. “One is because I do believe in the book as object and as beautiful object, but the further reason is technology is moving so fast that already there are some electronic records that I have on floppy disk that I cannot read with my present computer. So the e-book is in the process of making itself redundant and vanishing and there will be some manuscripts that, if they exist only on e-book, will be illegible – not in 20 years’ time, but next year. It’s going to be that fast. I think it’s a good idea to stick with pen and paper, possibly even with parchment and papyrus. You have to be sensible about technology, you have to judge whether it’s going to be useful or not.” Sophie and the Sibyl is a neo-Victorian book that is a hybrid in every sense of the word. Biography is blurred with fiction, literary analysis meets historical depiction and George Eliot’s

Feature

characters become entangled with Duncker’s imaginative creations. At the novel’s centre is the renowned literary figure of Eliot – the Sybil of the title – whose masterpiece Middlemarch (an interwoven narrative set in the context of the Great Reform Act of 1832) is considered by some as the greatest English novel and who, in Duncker’s work, is at the height of her powers.

“There is no writer who is not jealous of another writer whom they see as their master” Patricia Duncker

re-reading Adam Bede, or The Mill on the Floss. I went round the museum and I was thinking about her visits to Berlin. The original idea and inspiration came from the fact that her publishers had my name [publisher brothers Max and Wolfgang share with Patricia the surname Duncker]. That was the seed of it. I thought; why don’t I become her publisher? So that the character I was closest to in the novel was Max. I adored Max. He’s a bit more feckless than I am; I’m not given to gambling.” While the notion of a literary celebrity may seem like a recent occurrence, with writers like J.K. Rowling and Lena Dunham commanding the attention of millions of followers on social media and embarking on seemingly endless worldwide book tours, the celebrity author is not a new phenomenon. “It’s always been there,” says Duncker. “Think about Byron – Byron was one of our huge celebrity authors. It’s whether the writer wants to perform that role, or not. Some writers absolutely won’t perform it.

Interview: Holly Rimmer-Tagoe Illustration: Beth Walrond [J. D. Salinger] wouldn’t, he went and lived up a track and sat there with a gun. There are some writers like that who guard their privacy ferociously. Now there’s a danger with doing that, I think, which is that it makes people think you’re more interesting than you are. Probably they’re only hiding their own banality. It’s very difficult because you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t.” In her case, Duncker says, “I think it is simple curiosity. If [I] love the work, I’d quite like to meet the author. That’s the situation I found myself in with Sophie and the Sibyl. Sophie wanted to meet her heroine.” The novel implicitly interrogates ideas about female reading and writing, cultural portrayals of femininity (the abandoned Ariadne versus the eroticism of Cleopatra), and social conventions of gender – Eliot is rejected by English society for her unusual relationship with the married George Henry Lewes, yet is courted by the liberal elite of Berlin. Duncker describes the role of gender in the novel as “passionate.” “What were the expectations for a woman born in 1819 and for a woman born in 1854?” Duncker wonders. “There are such vast changes in the 19th century, in transport, communications and industrialisation which changes the face of the countryside in England. I thought, if I invent a narrator who is in the 21st century looking at the 19th century, what will happen? The interesting thing was that while I was imagining my narrator, I felt the distance between her and I lengthen.” It seems a strange anomaly that the pseudonym George Eliot is still ascribed to Marian Evans Lewes; it would be absurd to continue referring to Charlotte Brontë as Currer Bell or Sylvia Plath as Victoria Lucas. Duncker is interested in the division between the celebrity persona of Eliot and the figure of Lewes: “I always think of George Eliot as the real person and Marian Evans Lewes as the sort of shadow behind it. I thought it would be interesting to look at the relationship between the shadow and the writer. It’s exploring all the connections I had with Eliot and the jealousies and resentments. There is no writer who is not jealous of another writer whom they see as their master.” Sophie and the Sibyl is out 9 Apr, published by Bloomsbury

“I think what first strikes you when you read George Eliot is this monstrous intelligence,” says Duncker. “The first one I read was Middlemarch, the second one was Daniel Deronda, and the third one was Romola. I read all the big ones first because I love reading very long novels; you get more value out of the book. I never read any children’s books. We didn’t have any because I was brought up in the West Indies and I read my parents’ books. So, as far as I was concerned, a book for children was something like Oliver Twist, or Great Expectations. Though I have to admit straight away, I was scared shitless by both. Especially Great Expectations – it’s gothic; it’s all about being haunted. Oliver Twist is even more frightening, when he sees Sikes and Fagin at the window. This horror world is always there and it can come into the bourgeois world of respectability. It just appears as faces at the windows.” The idea for the novel occurred during a trip to Berlin in 2007. “I visited the Bode Museum, which is one of the museums on Museum Island right at the heart of Berlin,” Duncker recalls. “I was sitting in the museum and I had been thinking about George Eliot because I’d been

BOOKS

THE SKINNY

Outdoor UK Festivals 2015 Fancy basking in the (definitely not spoiler alert) glorious UK sunshine while watching a load of bands this summer? Permit us to give you the lowdown on ten of 2015’s best...

24-26 Jul ARCTANGENT

Indietracks

Twee? TWEE?!? Whatever you do, don’t use the T-word here: Indietracks may be a celebration of jangle-pop at a heritage railway museum in Derbyshire, but so lovingly curated is this very DIY affair that it’d miss the point to reduce the whole thing to genre signifiers. As relaxed and friendly as they come, 2015 sees their usual array of international underground wonders (Cinerama, Bunnygrunt, former Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci frontman Euros Childs) joined by the neon-bright electro-pop of The Go! Team – still, we’d advise that steam train rides and a visit to the sensational Gopal’s Curry Shack are as much a part of the experience as the music. Weekend tickets £75, day tickets £39: indietracks.co.uk

ELECTRIC FIELDS

Though something of a nipper on the festival circuit at just eight years old, Field Day still knows how to put together a helluva bill. Viet Cong, Ex Hex and Mac DeMarco are all on board, while the headline slots are taken up by electronic psychedelicist Caribou and reformed shoegazers Ride. Are we getting a bit hung up on the bill here? Possibly. Still, as nice as the location is, in London’s picturesque Victoria Park, it’s pretty hard to contain our unmitigated joy at the fact that punk-poet and generally excellent human being Patti Smith will be playing her 1975 album Horses in full. What’s not to like? Weekend tickets £83, day tickets £38.50-£54.50: fielddayfestivals.com

Arctangent

Festival N° 6

Go on then: was Portmeirion on your travel schedule this year? P’raps it should be – described as a potential rival town to Montreux as ‘the most sophisticated in Europe,’ the picturesque tourist village is also home to Festival N° 6, an ever-more-impressive gathering right here in North Wales. Music highlights include Glasgow’s jangle stalwarts Belle & Sebastian and the iconic enigma that is Grace Jones (!), with the award-winning DJ Harvey (WE SAID DEE JAY) and genre-defying Andrew Weatherall among those manning the decks. There’s an impressive range of food, markets, comedy and book/poetry readings too, but we’d advise boning up on the truly beautiful setting: few sites or venues have anything as celestially lovely as FN6’s Estuary Stage. You can stay in a yurt too, if you like. If. Earlybird tickets £170, concessions available: festivalnumber6.com

MUSIC

Photo: Michael Sheerin

20-23 Aug

Green Man

It’s not every festival that offers all-night bonfires as one of its bonus comforts – frankly, enough of them are patrolled by irate stewards with fire extinguishers – but Green Man is the sort of place that really wants you to feel at home. Pointedly non-corporate, its Brecon Beacons site is almost enough to distract you from the music, with miniature waterfalls here and yet another cèilidh in full flow over there… still, the returning Super Furry Animals and always-effervescent Hot Chip should remind you that there’s a party going on, with Television, Courtney Barnett and mysterious psych collective Goat also on hand for all your celebratory needs. Weekend tickets £165, concessions available: greenman.net

END OF THE ROAD

3-6 Sep

Electric Fields

April 2015

GREEN MAN

Post-rock connoisseur? Vague fondness for prog? Can’t hear a stonkingly loud riff without thinking ‘I know what this is missing, and it’s maths’? Friend, come closer: this one is for you. Now in its third year, headliners like metallic tech-heads The Dillinger Escape Plan may make Bristol-based ArcTanGent look like something of a niche affair, but boy, what a niche. Deafheaven and Deerhoof are also up there with the lineup’s unmissables, although for our money you’re best to throw yourself headlong into the plethora of bands plucked from the UK scene: Axes, Cleft, Alpha Male Tea Party, That Fucking Tank… the brain-crushing riffs never stop. Get involved. Weekend tickets £95-£145, two-day tickets £75: arctangent.co.uk

29 Aug FESTIVAL N° 6

This much we know to be true: not enough bands play in castles. OK, Galloway-based all-dayer Electric Fields is technically set in the grounds of Drumlanrig Castle rather than the 17th-century structure itself, but y’know. Near enough. As something of a budget festival, the bill’s more geared towards those on the up than those already at the top, and bien sûr, the great and good emerging musicians from Scotland (and beyond!) can be found here – Chemikal Underground eclecticists The Phantom Band, fuzzed-out pop-punkers PAWS and righteous Rutherglen rappers Hector Bizerk, for instance. One for more curious thrill-seekers, certainly, but also one with a good-time guarantee. We’re proud to say that lil’ old us will also be curating a stage with a few familiar faces from both The Skinny's Scottish and Northwest editions. Tickets £43.20 with camping, £32.40 without, concessions available: electricfieldsfestival.com

The UK’s largest African music festival, and all in the splendid surroundings of Liverpool’s Sefton Park. It’s also free, which is one of the many reasons Africa Oyé has been taken so firmly into the hearts of locals and visitors alike. A strong programme helps, ranging from Malian traditionalists BKO Quintet to UK soul star Omar, while the ceaselessly convivial atmosphere adds to the warmth regardless of whether the sun comes out to play. Extra tip: the various stalls, offering everything from Caribbean cuisine to dance workshops. Plus, the family-friendly mood tends to keep inebriated bellendry to a minimum. A surefire winner. Free entry: africaoye.com

20-22 Aug

Photo: BobStuart

INDIETRACKS

Africa Oyé

Photo: Rita Azevedo

Originally conceived as the Mad Ferret festival, increased demand saw this weekender relocate from Rusholme to its current home in Heaton Park back in 2012. Having established itself as a staple of the UK’s dance music calendar – due in no small part to organisers The Warehouse Project and their very specific brand of know-how – Parklife never fails to attract the big guns. This year sees garage-inflected superstars Disclosure topping the bill, with more established names like Grace Jones bringing glamour and star quality. There’s also the small matter of hip-hop legend Nas performing classic album Illmatic in its entirety – you never know, it just might qualify as a reason to get excited. Weekend tickets £89.50–£145, day tickets £54.50-£85: parklife.uk.com

20-21 Jun

Field Day

Photo: John Graham.jpg

Parklife

AFRICA OYÉ

6-7 Jun

4-6 Sep

End of the Road

Drawing a close to the traditional summer festival season, in previous years End of the Road has marked its territory by focusing on the worlds of alt country, indie rock and general Americana – sounds not otherwise associated with its base in Wiltshire. This year, they’ve gone all out, capturing some of the biggest names on the circuit: the increasingly chameleonic Sufjan Stevens is an eye-catching capture, while Tame Impala, The War on Drugs and Future Islands have all set the internet alight with their sterling performances in recent years. Still associate September with the grimness of the back-to-school blues? Here’s your solution. Weekend tickets £195, concessions available: endoftheroadfestival.com

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Photo: Richard Gray

6-7 Jun FIELD DAY

Photo: Daniel Watson

PARKLIFE

Words: Will Fitzpatrick

Just Like Home Our Travel Writing Competition winner Damien Cifelli urges us to seek out the unique, before the world becomes a buffet where everything’s the same flavour

he air is misty inside Ta Prohm, king of Cambodia’s jungle temples. I struggle for grip, scrambling over the smooth bark of buttress roots and trunks that strangle crumbling stone. Once home to 12,000 people, it is now a ghost town, gradually merging with the jungle. The dislodged vertebrae of corridors buckle beneath the strong hands of nature. Within them shadows move, their diffused contours forming and fading. The giant silk-cotton tree’s deciduous fingers push into every crack, its horticultural hands cleaving stone to reveal its innards. I duck under archways overflowing with bulbous limbs, my breath afraid to disturb the silence. After a while, the mist burns off into the heat of the morning and a small light appears, birthed through the retreating haze. I continue onward. It grows bigger and brighter. “Hey Boyzone!” A middle-aged man in a counterfeit Ralph Lauren polo shirt waves from the distance. He leans from the ludicrous vehicle that got me here, a souped-up tuk-tuk whose design, save for the name ‘Mr Heng’ on the back, is split in two. One half is a Man United crest, the other devoted to the New York Yankees. And on the back shelf sits Paul Scholes. (A photo, the real one wouldn’t last a second in this heat.) The speaker system, far more technically advanced than the vehicle, pumps Prince’s Purple Rain into the sultry jungle. “Chop chop! Next temple OK!” All aboard the travelling museum of confusing international references! With a horn blast and a jolt, we speed off through the undergrowth. “We will go past my brother’s shop first, OK?” When there is no answer he turns to face me. “Hey, all you have to do is look,” he says with a wink. Welcome to the globalised world. The joy of travel exists at an atomic level. Those minuscule everyday happenings that are familiar, yet entirely individual and exclusive to their place. The way people talk, the music that they listen to, the way street signs are a different colour, even how the toilets have a button

Lifestyle

that shoots a jet of water at your netherlands. Something is revealed when these unique elements combine. Described by those enthusiastic travellers the Romans as the genius loci, it’s the individual fingerprint of a country that exists beyond the physical. It is the spirit of a place that makes us travel. But this spirit of travel has begun to dilute, and the catalyst of it is globalisation. A new homogeneous culture has slowly permeated the furthest reaches of the earth, trickling upwards through the soil and emerging through televisions and headphones in faraway places, absorbing local culture and replacing it with its own. It is not uncommon to fly half the circumference of the earth to be confronted with what seems like the place you have just left. Only you can’t get bacon on your cheeseburger. And it’s a bit hotter. As you might have been told in a hostel by a man in harem pants through a haze of incense, it is harder to find an authentic experience these days. Which is true. As more people gravitate to tourist centres, the tourist industry grows. The bigger the tourist industry, the harder it is to involve yourself in local customs and culture. It becomes a vicious cycle of party hostels and fake Rolexes. But it is worth the effort to seek out the unique and original. I don’t mean crossing the Mongolian steppe on foot, seeking out stray yaks for milk and loving companionship. Instead you could just not go to KFC. (Unless you’re in Kentucky, maybe.) My tuk-tuk entrepreneur friend ‘Mr Heng’ serves foreign visitors by adapting to embrace their needs. In doing so he sacrifices his own culture for the benefit of tourism, diminishing the immersive power of travel. We are constantly awoken from our foreign dreams by doppelgangers of home, be it a Tesco in Bangkok or a fake Apple store in China. How are we supposed to reach enlightenment under the Bodhi Tree when next door Starbucks is giving free samples to a coachload of elderly Germans? “Bang nov cham sneh.”

This time the words are Cambodian. The song, as the driver points out, is not. A Khmer cover of House of the Rising Sun. Two days after my tuk-tuk jungle experience I have acquired upgraded transportation. This time it is a beige Mercedes taxi that, probably somewhere in the mid 80s, became more duct tape than car. The gap where my window should be provides great relief against the Sundayleague shin pad smell of the cab as we tear through thick forests and winding cliff edges towards the Vietnamese border. To pass the time the driver exhibits a unique ability to name at least two international footballers from every country.

“There are still places with the ability to shock and surprise. If we allow it, the world will reveal things that will make us contemplate the cosmos or at least just go ‘Huh, that’s weird’” “James McFadden, Kenny Dalglish, yes?” It’s the personal touch that counts. So what’s the harm? If it’s just some eccentrics and entrepreneurs hustling their way through a globalised world, where’s the problem? Well there is a dark side. In the extreme, this homogenisation can bulldoze the original identity and values that

TRAVEL

made a destination popular. What might the elderly Buddhist monk of Vang Vieng think as a river that’s probably 40% proof and consisting mainly of urine passes his front garden? Does he marvel at the engagement with local culture as half-naked teenagers in rubber rings are delivered downstream, vomiting on sandbanks to the sound of Tiesto? The travelling experience here becomes merely a transaction. An agreement that says “Let us desecrate your natural beauty and, in return, we’ll pay you to pretend you don’t hate us.” Both visitor and host become commodities making the experience cheap and meaningless. The infrastructure created to attract tourists swallows the place in time. It cannibalises itself in servitude to a fickle industry. This new ‘global culture’ is not just the influence of one place but a confluence point of global ideas. And while the sharing and adoption of ideas is undoubtedly a positive thing (no one wants to be North Korea) the problem stems from the source of these ideas. The power to change a whole society comes from places such as multinational businesses selling junk food or global corporations altering traditional cultures for financial gain. The world by its very nature is unpredictable but the new uniform society makes us far more predictable and receptive to selling on a global scale. Who does a homogenised society benefit more than those whose motivations are… you guessed it, money! We live in a new world order of total brand recognition. From a tourist’s point of view, global recognition isn’t totally negative. In countries like Japan there is a certain visual similarity brought about by a mutual global influence. Yet these similarities are only surface and are underpinned by fundamental differences. Similarly, the little tweaks and alterations they give adopted ideas has enhanced the travel experience. An entertaining afternoon can be spent comparing the subtle differences between your local newsagent and a seemingly identical Japanese one. Instead of Quavers and KitKats they have curried eggs and seaweed in bags. In place of tabloids and gossip magazines there are infinite manga comics being read by neat queues of bespectacled businessmen. Of course, there is still the possibility of a backlash against the monotone world, borne through a revival of the local. For example, in Scotland there has been a large increase in Gaelic-speaking schools and Irn Bru routinely challenges Coca Cola for sales. The eternal human need to feel unique may cause a revived interest in a more distinctive aspect of a person’s background. When a culture is under threat we begin to cling to it more strongly. Like a near-death experience, we value most what we almost lose. There are still places with the ability to shock and surprise. Places that can confront prejudice, and have the power to change it. If we allow it, the world will reveal things that will make us contemplate the cosmos or at least just go “Huh, that’s weird.” Our disparate, irregular world has not yet been smoothed by global anonymity. As famous weirdo Kurt Vonnegut said, “Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God.” And while I have no idea what that means, the world is still full of peculiar places. After all, it is the kind of place you can see mystical ruins to the sounds of disco-funk or buy a brand new iPhone in the middle of the jungle. “All you have to do is look.”

THE SKINNY

Behold the Meninists

Words: Samantha King Illustration: Jayde Perkin

Meninism: just like feminism, except really shit

f you’ve been anywhere near Twitter in the past couple of months, you’ll have probably come across the hashtag ‘meninism.’ Although originally used as a platform to oppose and mock feminism, the infamous movement has since bred a subcategory of activists using #meninism to campaign for men’s rights too. Which would be alright – if only their complaints addressed anything beyond fabled friendzones and lamentations of that one time the patriarchy forced them into buying their date’s Nando’s (who, by the way, didn’t even put out afterwards). But, sadly, that’s not the case – so we’ve got some constructive criticism to share. Incidentally, meninists, when women are granted equal pay, we’ll happily sub your next peri peri chicken. But more importantly, if it’s equality you’re campaigning for, meninist discourse seems a pretty destructive way of going about it. Instead of pointing out the hundreds of important and valid ways in which equality campaigning could benefit all men, meninism comes across as basic backlash against feminism, and results only in making its advocates sound like whiny Twitter Spartans carrying a world of entitlement on their wee white shoulders. With the notion of feminism having been conceived over 100 years ago, you’d hope that

April 2015

everyone would be on board with equality by now. But, alas, the cloud of negative stigma surrounding the F word still won’t evaporate. People of all genders continue to reject feminism due to the misconception that female empowerment is synonymous with belittling men, overlooking the fact that feminism simply seeks equality, regardless of gender. Because of this lack of understanding, feminists continue find themselves demonised (see: ‘feminazi’), or the butt of a joke, or both. The odd thing about ‘meninism’ supposedly being used to bring light to men’s rights is that feminism already does so, only feminism prioritises issues slightly more urgent than Nice Guys feeling inadequate because their ex called their beard patchy. Joking aside, the pressure of the patriarchy can have grave consequences for men. It contributes to domestic violence, undiagnosed depression, and the underreporting of rape and sexual abuse by male victims. Masculinity complexes, repressed sexualities, gender dysphoria – the list unravels. Given that feminism is a tool specifically for fighting the patriarchy and its consequences, surely any man who claims to care about gender equality should call himself a feminist – without question or having to change the first syllable?

“Advocates sound like whiny Twitter Spartans carrying a world of entitlement on their wee white shoulders” Unfortunately, there’s a huge misconception that the only way to engage men with feminism is to shift the focus onto them – proven mostly to be untrue by the wealth of male feminists already participating in regular feminist discourse. Emma Watson’s UN speech which inspired the #HeForShe movement is a perfect example of that fatal error: it’s one of the most popular speeches on feminism of late, yet spends so much time reframing feminism

DEVIANCE

for the consumption of men that it neglects to discuss issues affecting non-male-identifying LGBTQ people, women of colour, women who are disabled, and so forth. Another popular tactic is the reminding of men that it could be their sisters, mothers or girlfriends who are potential subjects of catcalling and assault. Granted, this is an attempt to contextualise such issues to drum up a little empathy, but it comes across as a refocusing onto the men indirectly affected, rather than the actual victims of harassment. Perhaps it’s encouraging that meninists, in some strange way, are striving to engage in a debate about the patriarchy rather than remaining neutral. It may be a step in some direction which leads us away from UniLad, from death threats to feminists on Twitter, from tits on page three – but the male-centric and the meninist methods to date are problematic and trivialise the plight of women that feminism fights. Agreed, the patriarchy is a bummer for men too – and we get what you’re trying to do, meninists. But we’d like to extend a formal invitation: why don’t you join us in trying to finish what we started with feminism first?

Lifestyle

Girls Manchester-based photographer Marta Julve and stylist Ciara Clark share their vision of sports inspired minimalism

Shoot Credits Photography and Editing: Marta Julve martajulve.com Set and Styling: Ciara Clark facebook.com/CIARAXCLARK Makeup Artist: Vicki Royle vickiroyle.co.uk/portfolio Hair Styling: Toni Southern Models: Phoebe Reuben & Amy Hallam // Jâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;adore Models Location: WE ARE KIN Studio wearekin.net

Garments Using a selection of pieces from Topshop, Asos, Nike, Monki and Vintage Left: Skirt - Topshop Top - Topshop Right: Shoes - Asos Cap - Nike Skirt and top - Topshop Far right: Dress - Monki Shoes - Asos

Lifestyle

THE SKINNY

April 2015

FASHION

Lifestyle

Camille Smithwick

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// I am a waitress based in Manchester ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// Half-baked confusions become ceramic objects ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// My work is informed by sitting and listening, lying down, looking ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// Look here: cammys.co.uk ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// And there: sistercam.tumblr.com Ruffle

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Kintaro

April 2015

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THE SKINNY

Arch Pioneers We meet the folk behind street food company GRUB and Shebeen Events, who have pooled their many talents into a new venture, Keystone

Interview: Jamie Faulkner Illustration: Heather Minto What is going to be happening at Shebeen festival that you can talk about at this stage? JB: We’ve got some amazing guys called So Flute who brought a real world-music focus to the Roadhouse. We’ll also have an exhibition from Draw Northwest, which will be focused on 12 different artists’ impressions of a shebeen. Wait, what exactly is a shebeen? JH: An illicit bar that you would find in South Africa; a place of real social importance during periods of South Africa’s history. A place where food, music, art and drink – albeit illegal drink – came together. JB: It boils down to: if you’re not welcome somewhere else you go and create your own space. Sounds a lot like Keystone? JH: Absolutely, and it’s all to do with making something out of nothing and bringing all these different elements and partners together. What else is going on? JB: Shebeen will be programming two of the stages. The one at Blackjack will be playing blues, psych, weird stuff and more chilled R’n’B and soul. You’ll see a lot of the guys you’ve seen at Blackjack’s previous event. JH: At Blackjack’s distribution hub, there will be more of a live setup, with an eclectic lineup. JB: We want to bring Paddy Steer back after his performance at the Winter Beer festival. Hopefully more than just playing this time, curating and collaborating as well. And [promoters] Hey! Manchester will be bringing some great acts.

t’s early March and I’m sitting in the new-look POD in Levenshulme talking to two very happy, if ever so slightly apprehensive, men. Jason Bailey and Jon Hartley have just had a Kickstarter campaign backed for their Keystone project, which will see – if all goes to plan – the founding of a permanent events space in a Green Quarter railway arch, which will combine the best of food, drink, music and other cultural phenomena from the Northwest and beyond. The Skinny: So you’re part way there, having just had your Kickstarter funded. How does it feel? Jason Bailey: It’s the dual feeling of relief – you know, the ‘that’s amazing!’ part – coupled with the creeping realisation that you’ve got to do lots and lots of work! And deliver all the things we said we would do. Kickstarter was always less about the money and more ‘proof of concept’ so we’re really happy people have given us a stamp of approval. Jon Hartley: The idea of doing something like Keystone has been thought of before but it seemed like a mad idea. So this makes me feel normal!

What is it that attracted you guys to the Green Quarter? JH: It was really because I was working in a cold, damp brewery in an area that was overlooked and thought this could be better. That’s when I started looking into those archways and seeing the potential. And then I met Bailey and we had some more ideas and decided to put them together under one archway and the result is Keystone. It seems like plain-ish sailing so far; what’s the biggest priority on Keystone’s agenda now? JH: The first priority is definitely Shebeen festival

April 2015

[2 May], which we want to capture a snapshot of how incredible Keystone could be. It’s almost like the second proof of concept for us. The biggest obstacle as such for Keystone is dealing with the owners of the archway: Network Rail. They’ve got a big redevelopment plan for the area but that will take a long time.

“Doing something like Keystone has been thought of before but it seemed like a mad idea” Jon Hartley

Lunya and Reserve Wines were big backers of your Kickstarter campaign; what are they bringing to this, apart from money? JB: It’s not been finalised yet but they will have a presence at the festival. We’re hoping we’re going to see a collaboration between the two, matched flights of wines with a selection of tapas. JH: It’s exciting to have Reserve Wines because at a lot of food and drink events, wine seems to fall by the wayside. We want it to be a feature, an attraction. JB: I think that ties into our whole principle, which it seems people have bought into: leave no man behind. There’s not one element where we want to go, ‘that’ll do.’

Food News Chickens, black cats and the promise of lobsters – it’s a menagerie of a month in Liverpool and Manchester Words: Jamie Faulkner

ow that British Summer Time has officially started, it seems appropriate to say that the Northwest’s food scene is growing as voraciously as Simon Rogan’s microherb allotment. Chef Simon Shaw has confirmed that El Gato Negro, the award-winning Spanish restaurant from Ripponden, has found a new home at 52 King Street in Manchester. Their decade of perfecting authentic tapas dishes surely must have the likes of Ibérica and La Bandera quaking in their boots. Who’s afraid of the big black cat? Opens summer 2015. @ElGatoNegroFood Liverpool’s Epicured has popped up on our radar recently. At first glance it looks like it’s doing the same old sarnies but, upon closer inspection, things appear more interesting: caramelised olives, maple syrup-glazed duck eggs, pistachio-coated marshmallows. They’re making a big deal of their charcuterie blocks and brunch menu. Oh, and they brand their tables with an actual bloody branding iron! @epicuredL1

It seems to me there aren’t that many events or spaces that manage to combine all those elements well? JB: There’s no full-time space but there are some pop up spaces that do some of those elements. Camp & Furnace in Liverpool is probably the closest to what we want to achieve but even they aren’t that event-led – we’re taking it to the extreme. Between Shebeen, GRUB and Blackjack we’ve got most of our bases covered. And for the rest we’ll work with promoters we trust and who have the same ideas. It’s about not trying to do it all and shouting out other people. Anything else before we go? What about the food traders? JB: Sham Bodie will be curating and bringing their own comedians. Now Then will also be providing some musical delight. The GRUB food fair has a ‘never before seen in Manchester’ theme: we’ve got Siam Like It Hot doing their first street food event and a debut from the Manchester Dough Company. We’ll have Honest Crust and Fil Fil Falafel both doing something special for the event. Lunya will be doing their thing and Busan BBQ and Colonel Tom coming up London will be there. JH: There’ll also be more than a beer festival’s worth of taps – about 40 we reckon – a wine bar, a rum bar and maybe a gin bar. Not a single mild in sight unless someone does a bretted, chipotle mild. And we’re hoping to have specially brewed beer for the festival: She-Beer Mark II. JB: We hope Keystone will be like a permanent extension of all this, a space for us, local food and drink traders, artists and musicians and promoters in Manchester. Shebeen festival, Green Quarter, Manchester, 2 May keystonemcr.com Read the full interview at the skinny.co.uk/food-and-drink

FOOD AND DRINK

Epicured

Just around the corner and following not so hotly on the heels of Yardbird is Pattersons Bar (tagline ‘chicken and tunes’). They’re taking fried chicken very seriously – there’s fancy talk of cider and sweet tea brining – and it seems to be paying off. Ordering is done by weight and at £15.50 a kilo it’s not going to rival chicken shop prices. @pattersonsbar Back to Manchester: something called the Urban Cookhouse has opened on Princess Street. With its New York loft theme – exposed lights, plastic chairs, purple/silver colour scheme – it’s more urbane than urban. Food-wise, it’s fusing British and American food with some Asian influences, which sounds good in theory but we’re a little sceptical. @CookhouseMCR Lastly, if you like lobster and crab rolls, there’s word on the grapevine that Claws & Tails (@ClawsTails) will be doing just that in Manchester. Here’s hoping we won’t have to wait too long!

Lifestyle

The Politics of Food Slow Food founder Carlo Petrini offers The Skinny some insight into the movement’s many international branches

“N

ever has food been as central to world politics as it is today.” So says Slow Food founder and much-lauded international campaigner Carlo Petrini, in Scotland on a flying visit to launch the newly devolved Slow Food Scotland, confer with the Holyrood government on agricultural policy, meet some cheesemakers and deliver lectures to the nation’s youth on sustainability, provenance and biodiversity. Slow Food was founded in 1986 to protest the opening of a McDonald’s near Rome’s Spanish Steps, and it promotes food that is locally produced, sustainable, artisanal – but don’t be fooled by the ‘Guardian Lifestyle section’ associations that this may conjure up. The movement is deeply political, internationally focused and left-leaning. It aims to combat fundamental issues of supply, demand and waste that are facing the world’s nations today. Petrini is emphatic that the current paradigm of industrial food supply is unsustainable: “You use more energy to produce the food than the food creates. This is the problem of the world – the resources are finite. And to solve this issue of entropy in the world’s food supply, you need to create new paradigms. Because we are now producing food for 12 billion people, but there are just over 7 billion of us. So 40% of food is just thrown away. We are producing 40% more than we need – in Europe, 30% of organic produce becomes compost.” This issue is linked both to industrial regulations (such as the old EU-standards gripe of the misshapen carrot) and consumer preference. People at some point stopped accepting food that was dirty, or off-colour, or a weird shape. Says Petrini, “Nowadays food is just being sold through television with people cooking, following recipes. This is not all of gastronomy. A holistic vision of food is very important for the change.” He elaborates: “Food is not just food, it is not just something you eat – it is agriculture, fishing, craft food manufacture. Food is biology, genetics. And from a humanistic point of view it is also anthropology, history, politics – that’s why it is a holistic vision of food. [The consumer] has to buy raw materials somewhere. And if they buy a genetically modified product, that is a political choice.” ‘The change’ is the aim of Slow Food – to create a world where the focus moves from large-scale production which damages community, environment and individual health, back to smaller scale, more localised production based around the movement’s core tenets of Good, Clean and Fair. This is a belief backed by the UN, says Petrini: “The FAO [Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations] initially thought that famine could be eradicated through

Lifestyle

Interview: Rosamund West Illustration: Heather More

industrial agriculture, but they have since changed their mind.” Slow Food is now present in 175 countries around the world, each nation representing a different iteration of the concept and responding to their own local issues uniquely. Says Petrini, “Each country has its own history and its own culture and its own way of experiencing its relationship with food.” They’ve recently launched a programme in 43 nations across Africa called 10,000 Gardens, which aims to promote local agriculture and community development. Petrini explains some of the impetus for the programme: “In many countries of Africa there is a big issue now concerning land grabbing, regarding people being expropriated of their land by either multinationals or their government. China, for example, is striving for mines, places they can extract raw materials. [Then] in Mozambique for example, or Madagascar, they are grabbing land where they can raise crops for the short term, and then the land is no longer usable.” The fight against these big corporations is not being carried out by direct confrontation with authorities, rather by more grassroots, flexible means. Says Petrini, “It’s more getting around it – it’s a lengthy process. We are investing in programmes supporting leadership in African youth.” This focus on local leadership is one of the key tenets of current thinking on responsible international development. He continues, “I don’t believe in missionaries, or in NGOs either. There must be an African solution. It is local people who have created these 10,000 gardens in Africa – we are investing in local resources, in humans… It gives prominence to women, because intensive industrial farming sets women aside from the labour. This is a big problem in Africa, because they are the pillar of local agriculture. And the solution to problems in Africa goes through local agriculture, not industrial agriculture. That’s very important.” Back in Scotland, the climate looks ripe for a paradigm shift. Petrini is full of positivity for the local attitude. “There’s been a greater understanding towards slow food of late,” says Petrini. “Ten years ago it wasn’t like this… The change is going to take place in Scotland at a much quicker pace than in the rest of the UK. All the conditions are there for a very rapid development. People are becoming increasingly sensitive towards the issue – this is not just the case in Scotland, it is a worldwide phenomenon.” Slow Food is at Expo 2015, Milan, 1 May-31 Oct Terra Madre Youth conference will take place there 3-6 Oct slowfood.com

Phagomania: When the Moon Hits Your Eye Mozzarella madness or works of art? Cast your eye over the pizza art of chef Domenico Crolla

o you consider your food a work of art? No, not in terms of how it tastes – although we can verify that these pizzas are very tasty – but as a visual work of art? Well, these creations by Domenico Crolla have certainly won approval for their artistry. The Glasgow-born Italian has been going viral (in the good, modern sense) and gathering a bit of a cult following with his pizza portraits. “Curiosity for my pizza art has allowed me to travel to cities as far flung as New York, Dubai, Miami and London to display my edible art,” states Domenico. He’s even been a judge in the Pizza Olympics in Italy. Not bad for something that is a day’s work in his Glasgow restaurant, Bella Napoli. “Unlike other food art that is created in a studio,” says Domenico, “my pieces are made from fresh mozzarella on a real pizza base and photographed straight from the oven. They are

FOOD & DRINK

Words: Lewis MacDonald edible. I’ve eaten parts of Dita Von Teese!” Mmm, tasty, and not without praise from the subjects of these pizza portraits. Domenico claims to have received thanks from Dita as well as the likes of Rihanna, Sophia Loren and… Ant and Dec. It all started a few years ago when Domenico was en route to a culinary demo in Hong Kong and realised he didn’t have anything to rival the Chinese art of vegetable sculptures. Wanting to pay tribute to the typical carvings of dragons or flowers from carrots and peppers, he turned to pizza. His first experiment, a dragon, was an instant hit. “I immediately knew I was onto something,” Domenico reflects. Unwilling to give away his secrets on drawing with cheese, the only thing to do is pay a visit, see if he’ll take your request, and then eat your face. Or Ant and/ or Dec’s. Now that’s amore. theskinny.co.uk/food/phagomania

THE SKINNY

ADVERTISING FEATURE

Northern Greats: B.EAT STREET Organising weekly street food parties with a reputation, B.EAT STREET are the latest residents of Manchester’s Great Northern Warehouse to tell us about their plans for the space

ven among Manchester’s hugely competitive street food scene, B.EAT STREET stand apart. Initially running the ten-week pop up food party Friday Food Fight last year, which saw eight vendors pitch up to feed 500 hungry punters each week, their success then snowballed into the sizzling summer series, Up In Your Grill. Announcing in January this year that they’d be joining the Great Northern’s ongoing renaissance permanently, taking over a space on the first floor of the warehouse, B.EAT STREET are making their mark thanks to a stance that sees beyond reputation and invites vendors along purely because of the quality of their food. Plus, they’ve a keen ear, enabling them to team delicious grub with delectable music from some of the best DJs in the city. The Skinny: It’s been quite a journey from the first Friday Food Fights and last summer’s Up In Your Grill series to where you are now. What was the initial inspiration behind getting involved in the street food game? B.EAT STREET: We were inspired by some great events happening in London, Europe and the States. It was a natural progression for us to

move up to Manchester from London, and we wanted to get on the front of it. As you’ve grown, how has the ethos behind B.EAT STREET changed? We haven’t really changed anything. We’re still a turbo-charged food court, always high tempo and vibrant. We call ourselves a food rave sometimes – and we were called a ‘farmers market on acid’ once, which we’re not sure how to feel about. Our DJs are drawn from the best nights in the city and we’ll always try to keep things animated and fresh. We’re one of the only street food events who invite food traders along whether they’re startups or existing restaurants. It allows the new guys to learn from some seasoned operators. We’ve helped start quite a few new businesses, which is very rewarding. Among the DJs you’ve booked, who’ve been the highlights? There’ve been so many. Horse Meat Disco were great at Up In Your Grill – once they’d overcome the ladder up to the crow’s nest DJ booth...!

What was the thinking behind moving in to the Great Northern Warehouse? They’re very flexible and innovative in terms of the events they put on. When we were shown the space with its warehouse feel and high, brick barrelled ceilings, we knew it could work for us. We were looking for somewhere central where we could put on events for a decent amount of time, so it all sort of stacked up. Manchester’s street food scene is thriving at the moment. Why do you think that is? Food is the new rock and roll, people can’t eat a pack of crisps without Instagramming it. Manchester has moved on a lot in the last three to four years, mainly due to innovative independents in the city who’ve raised the game and caught the attention of the rest of the UK.

Red Bull Music Academy are bringing Todd Terry, PRhyme and Jazzy Jeff to us in April, and then we’ve got Cocktails in the City joining us in May; loads more lined up, too. OK, your time’s up: you’ve been summoned to the great street food party in the sky. What’s your last meal? Haha, not sure. Probably more likely to grab a couple of cocktails and a shot on the way up/ down... #FRIDAYFOODFIGHT, every Friday from 5.30pm-11pm, First Floor, Great Northern Warehouse, Deansgate, Manchester. Find B.EAT STREET on Twitter at @beatstreetmcr beatstreetmcr.co.uk thegreatnorthern.com | @gnwarehouse

What do you have coming up at the Great Northern? As well as the Friday Food Fight events, we’ve got a load of interesting stuff coming to the venue.

ADVERTISING FEATURE

Making a Mark W

alking through Manchester’s Spinningfields you may have noticed that one of its largest sites has been undergoing a rather dramatic transformation. That’s Tattu – a new restaurant that plans to put a distinct spin on the dining experience as we know it. If anything describes Tattu’s story so far it’s the mystery surrounding it. Four brightly coloured question marks are emblazoned on its front exterior and its owners aren’t being any less enigmatic on social media either. Tattu’s current Twitter name is a cryptic ‘????’ and their tweets have been slowly drip-feeding intricate details that conceal the bigger picture. They’ve been keeping us guessing for months – but here’s what we do know. More than just a meal Tattu Restaurant & Bar was born out of brothers Drew and Adam Jones’ desire to make a “permanently unique” mark on Manchester’s food and drink industry; to create something different to anything else in the UK. They found their inspiration on the west coast of America, where many successful restaurants are built around a concept; where it’s not just about the food, but about following a story. For their concept, Drew and Adam say they wanted something premium; something highly

April 2015

fashionable, but something that wouldn’t be considered a trend. They wanted style as well as longevity. So, they chose body art – a form of fashion that lasts forever, and which would accurately reflect the kind of mark they wanted to make on the city. Visit Tattu’s website, take a look at the artwork outside their premises on Gartside Street and you’ll see the influence of body art is already everywhere – even the name of the restaurant comes from the Samoan word ‘tatau’ meaning ‘to mark something.’ Developing the concept The project has been in development for the past four years and will culminate in a visually intriguing dining location with three separate areas split over two floors. It’s been designed to stimulate all the senses, not just the tastebuds, and different styles of body art have inspired the various finishes and textures you’ll see around the restaurant. Brought to life by designer Edwin Pickett, each area will have its own identity, and sneak peeks on social media of furniture customdesigned in New York have revealed Tattu’s conscious effort to be (in their own words) “timeless, yet distinctively modern.”

Photo: Jody Hartley

Anticipation is building for the opening of a new Chinese restaurant in Spinningfields, Tattu, but its founders haven’t been giving much away. Until now...

For the love of dim sum As far as the menu goes, Drew and Adam stress that it always had to be Chinese. “With the Orient having such a large influence on the progression of body art, it was clear we needed to look to this area of the world to build our menu,” the brothers explain. “Our favourite food has always been Chinese and in particular we have a passion for dim sum,” they add. “It is an art form in itself and its creation and presentation can only be delivered by highly skilled, well-trained chefs who study their craft for many years.” Renowned chef Andrew Lassetter, who’s worked in some of London’s top restaurants, has designed the menu, which aims to deliver a modern twist on classic Chinese dishes – while a customised cocktail list completes the offering.

Would you like to be among the first to try Tattu? Follow them on Twitter (@tattumcr) and register online at www.tattu.co.uk to be one of a select number of customers to dine there during their soft opening. This takes place 27 April – 6 May and includes a 50% discount off all food. Tattu Restaurant & Bar officially opens its doors on Saturday 9 May. Keep an eye on upcoming issues, where Tattu’s team will be sharing recipes and Chinese cuisine tips Instagram and Twitter: @tattumcr tattu.co.uk

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THE SKINNY

Gig Highlights Overdraft, prepare to take another hit, ’cause there’s a load of essential gigs coming our way in April, from cover stars Errors to rising star Låpsley, via the thunderous Primitive Man and some Record Store Day happenings

Festival Watch

Words: William Gunn

The avant-garde invade Blackpool, Manchester goes punk, and we get set for a busy bank holiday in early May

Words: William Gunn and Laura Swift

Joanna Gruesome

local promoters including Interstellar Overdrive, Fat Out Till You Pass Out, Grey Lantern and more hand-picking the bill, alongside DJs and local labels. Soup Kitchen are getting in on the RSD action this year again too, Bernard + Edith topping their typically super cool selection of Manchester’s latest and greatest. Long respected within Liverpool but now starting to gain recognition beyond the banks of the Mersey, there’s a chance to catch the local off-kilter stylings of the androgyne Esa Shields at the Kazimier on 10 Apr; while, talking of those starting to get some seriously hearty props beyond their hometown, recent blow-up, nextbig-thing, one-to-watch, star-in-the-making (you get the drift) Låpsley plays a homecoming show at Leaf on 17 Apr, having signed to XL Recordings last year. The bluster around her’s entirely justified, the teenager balancing a texturally explorative open-mind with some right banging hooks. Another act making hometown headlining waves this month are Hartheim, a surly troupe of young men whose mixture of big cinematic soundscapes coupled with a heart-on-sleeve delivery and poetic sense of tragedy tip toe a thrilling tightrope between grandeur and calamity – head to Soup Kitchen on 8 Apr to find out which.

And since we’re still on local ‘uns, do head to First Chop Brewery on 24 Apr for the latest stage in Stealing Sheep’s evolution through their mesmerising kaleidoscopic pop (although if you prefer your pop enormo-dome-filling and chock full of anacondas, then there is Nicki Minaj at the Echo Arena on 6 Apr). A couple of oldies but goodies visit the Northwest this month too. The ever-enterprising, relentlessly forward-thinking post-punk powerhouse Wire play the Kazimier (23 Apr); on to their 14th studio album and as intense live as they ever were. Two days beforehand at the Arts Club, Sir (he’s not really a Sir, we don’t think anyway) Adam Ant is thankfully back in good health after a tough few years, and approaching something close to his outlandish best, currently focusing live on 1979 debut LP Dirk Wears White Sox. It’s easy to imagine that the dandy highwayman was an influence on Of Montreal, giving us a convenient segway to Kevin Barnes and co’s Kazimier show on 21 Apr. All-a-this and we’ve not even mentioned our Northwest cover stars Errors who basically kick off the whole shebang on 4 Apr at Manchester’s Deaf Institute. Shitting hell, May, you better be planning to go easy on us.

Do Not Miss Gazelle Twin FACT, Liverpool, 9 Apr, 8.30pm, Free

ne of the more intriguing live acts on February’s FutureEverything bill, solo London artist Gazelle Twin’s 2014-released second album Unflesh was visceral in its bludgeoning use of industrialism, softened by a vocal performance that both burrowed around underneath the seething mass of sound she’d created and flew high overhead. Startlingly futuristic and yet also deeply personal, it told a tale of the artist’s — real name Elizabeth Bernholz — struggles with body image and wider issues with societal

perceptions of the female body as a whole. A truly unique presence, Bernholz has been reticent in some interviews to predict quite how long the project will continue, suggesting that she may leave the music element of it behind altogether eventually. That gives each performance a sense of finality even on its own, each an occasion without the stunning visual work by Carla MacKinnon that she’ll be reacting against at FACT this evening. [William Gunn]

Photo: Elinor Jones

f you thought March was pretty great, then you’ve seen nothing yet as we hurtle helplessly towards ApBRILL (anyone?). Better get some big wallets, bigger trouser pockets for said huge wallets, and better jobs to be able to afford to fill those goddamn gargantuan wallets, because there’s so much going on this month that you and I, friends, will be homeless, or at least working out how to explain to our landlords that we’ve spent all our wonga on sexy, sexy live music. Weirdly enough though, The Skinny’s April starts on, err, 31 March. I know, I know, try not to fret too much about the quirks of our deadline system — we certainly don’t — and instead get thee to the Zanzibar Club for probably the loudest gig of both last month and this. Primitive Man’s latest record Home Is Where the Hatred Is is an utterly thunderous granite slab of blackened doom, and the Colorado metallers are always a dozen or so times louder in a live setting; so if you’re going to this one you probably don’t need to read on from here. Your ears are done for the month, pal. For those of you still able and willing, April gets going in earnest at Gullivers in Manchester, and the terminally underrated Enablers (2 Apr). Sprawling art-rock that draws influence from the likes of Slint, Sonic Youth and Fugazi, the Californians base their brooding structures around the poetry of vocalist Pete Simonelli; their latest LP The Rightful Pivot would be in the running for one of 2015’s albums of the year so far but, alas! Remember that whole underratedness thing I just wrote. In shockingly unsurprising news, things get pretty psychedelic at Salford’s Islington Mill this month. First up: the searing repeato-rock of Moon Duo on 8 Apr, as Ripley Johnson and Sanae Yamada launch latest record Shadow of the Sun. Then on the following night it’s the turn of LA-based space rockers White Hills to fry minds with choice cuts from their newie, Walks for Motorists; support comes from mates Gnod, the Mill residents enjoying the added bonus of a mere 30 second commute to get there. Cushy! After a quiet winter — outwardly at least — the Mill’s springing back into action as a venue space this month with abandon. There’s extra ear fun courtesy of the, err, uniquely named Fat Bastard Cock Fest on 3 Apr, which features veteran post-punkers Minny Pops, Hackney rockers Bad Guys’ filthy licks and the local might of Ill, among others. On 17 Apr, meanwhile, the ebullient pop-punk of Joanna Gruesome pays a visit, the five-piece riding high on the simple brilliance of latest record Peanut Butter. And then there’s Record Store Day on 18 Apr, with

lackpool’s a lovely place to visit at this time of year. Y’know, the Pleasure Beach, the sun starting to shine across the promenade, the neoimpressionistic ambient compositions and fieldrecording led drone soundscapes. Hang on… Between 10 and 12 April, a couple of dozen artists all pushing the boundaries of their respective genres – or, more often than not, totally managing to skip between the whole idea of genre at all – descend across several of the seaside town’s venues in a three-day celebration of outsider sounds. It’s an admirably bold move by promoters Must Die Records in an area that isn’t hugely known for its receptiveness to sound art and avant-garde musical ponderings; but if anything’s going to change that then it’s Other Worlds’ carefully curated lineup, which sees everything from mutated strands of noise rock (Evil Blizzard, Sly & The Family Drone) to industrial and psychedelic malevolence (Gnod, Devi/Devas), multi-instrumental weird-pop (Thomas Truax) and everything else that falls through the cracks. Among our favourite discoveries on a lineup with much to explore is Halifax-based Isnaj Dui, who coerces sparsely linked yet rich tapestries of sound from flutes, home-made dulcimers and electronics. Also catching our eye this month is the presence of That Fucking Tank on the bill for Manchester Punk Festival: not because of their name (though it does remain one of the best out there), but because the baritone guitar/ drums twosome have been incinerating audiences on the Leeds circuit and beyond for years; 12 of them, in fact. If you haven’t previously enjoyed a tarring from their potent slurry you may have encountered Andy Abbott as one of Nope, a Leeds supergroup made up of members of Hookworms and Mucky Sailor. With 40-plus bands at Sound Control over a weekend – including The Murderburgers, who you’ll be relieved to know are a pop-punk band from Scotland, not an option from the menu of a new bar on the NQ/ Ancoats border – all for 15 quid, there should be something for even the hardest to please of hardcore heads. A couple of heads ups for early May: you’ll want to book in advance for the 11th Sounds from the Other City festival, which will be storming Salford on Bank Holiday Sunday (3 May) with its usual madcap concoction of odd, uncompromising indie and electronic music from the UK and beyond – courtesy of the Northwest’s finest DIY promoters – plus visual art happenings and one-off conceptual stunts (see promoters Bad Uncle’s attempt to host a festival within a festival and Deep Hedonia’s ominous-sounding ‘Human Entertainment System’). If that’s not enough for you, then a sturdy showing of local heroes (Dutch Uncles, Hookworms), radio darlings (Emmy the Great, Lucy Rose), retired heartthrobs (Carl Barat, Gaz Coombes) and spiky eccentrics (LoneLady, Joanna Gruesome) on 2 May for Live at Leeds mean you can do both in one weekend with nobbut a short train journey in between. Other Worlds Festival of Experimental Music and Sound Art, Blackpool, 10-12 Apr, weekend ticket £25 (locals £20), day tickets £10/£15 Sat (locals £8/£12 Sat), otherworldsfestival.co.uk Manchester Punk Festival, Sound Control, Manchester, 17-18 Apr, £15, manchesterpunkfestival.co.uk

Gazelle Twin

Sounds from the Other City, Salford, 3 May, £20, soundsfromtheothercity.co.uk Live at Leeds, 2 May, £27.50, liveatleeds.com

April 2015

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Preview

Choose Your Own Adventure Oddball pub crawl/music marathon Sounds from the Other City returns for its 11th year this May Bank Holiday. But with so many possible routes through the festival, what kind of day will you have? Find out by totting up your answers in our ingenious quiz

A) Rocket out of bed, heralding the morning with a triumphant, rallying cry: “It’s Sounds from the Other City day!” You have never felt readier for approximately 100 musical acts and art interventions, listening to weird electronica in pubs and encountering people in full costume on the streets of Salford. B) Groan beneath the covers for the rest of the weekend. There’s always next year. C) Have a lie-in. You practically live in Islington Mill anyway. The festival will come to you.

A) Cold Pumas. They sound like they could be your spirit animal. B) Sex Hands. You’ve always believed that the hands can reveal a lot about a person. C) Tense Men. This describes most of the friends you are here with today.

It’s 9am on Sunday 3 May, a full 64 hours since you overenthusiastically accepted the Annual May Bank Holiday Weekend Endurance Challenge. Do you:

Having made it to wristband exchange, you consult the festival programme. Dammit! All three of your favourite acts are playing within minutes of each other at opposite ends of the M3 postcode. You react by:

A) Strapping on the roller skates you stowed in your backpack for precisely this situation. B) Hopelessly traipsing back and forth, arriving at venues too late for everything and finally dissolving your tears in a redemptively cheap pint. C) Accepting fate and, instead, taking the opportunity to register for one of the two special, limited-capacity performances from Ex-Easter Island Head with BBC Philharmonic musicians. You are one of life’s winners.

Your lightly pickled mind is drawn to the fact that most of the artists playing the Now Wave stage appear to be anagrams of each other. You go and watch two of them to check that they aren’t, in fact, all made up of the same people. Which combination do you opt for? A) R Seiliog and Real Lies. Welsh guitar pastorals and hazy, cityscape synths sound pretty sweet right now. B) Real Lies and LA Priest. You’ve always wondered what happened to that member of Late of the Pier. C) Gengahr and R Seiliog. There is just something rad about that.

Words: Laura Swift Photography: Alexander Bell

Meanwhile over at The Angel Centre, Grey Lantern have programmed a series of descriptive pronouns. Which one most appeals to your senses?

It is time to take it incredibly easy. What do you do?

A) Find a gig in a church. If there’s one thing you’re into, it’s a gig in a church. Conveniently, Hey! Manchester are running St Philip’s. Jane Weaver is on! B) Have a lovely, lovely pint, then head to First Chop Brewing Arm, where the DJs of Wet Play, El Diablo’s Social Club and Red Laser Records are tinkering with the time-space continuum. You enter a wormhole, and do not re-emerge for some time. C) Browse the record fair at The Deli Lama, then kick back in Bexley Square. You are so chill, even a sudden frenzy of shamanistic activity in the street – initiated by a coven of mysterious figures identifying themselves only as the Faux Queens – cannot trouble you.

Observing that the festival has introduced to its programme this year a spot of standup comedy – courtesy of variety show Sham Bodie – you pop along to The New Oxford. However, when you arrive, none of the billed acts are performing. Instead, the host, Ben Tonge, is patrolling the stage performing an accurate imitation of a gorilla. This is: A) Unremarkable. You head off in search of more musical talent. B) Oddly bewitching. Is it the booze? C) Normal. You have been to Sham Bodie before.

You overhear that, in one of the New Bailey arches, promoters Bad Uncle are hosting SFTOC: Inception – a festival within the festival. Are you in a state to cope with this?

Golden Teacher at Sounds from the Other City 2014

A) Yes. You have to go deeper. B) No. You feel sick. C) It’s hard to say, so much of today has already felt like a dream within a dream, within a dream.

It wouldn’t be Sounds from the Other City without coming into contact with something extremely heavy. Of the various textures on offer on the Fat God stage at The Old Pint Pot, which do you find most attractive? A) Shit & Shine. It is time for a damn good thrashing. B) Denim & Leather. Those are both nice fabrics. C) Lake of Snakes. Featuring members of Gnod, Horrid, Skulldozer, the Tombed Visions record label and some excoriating saxophone, this adds up to sonic heaven.

Sadly, all good things must come to an end, and it is time to select an afterparty. Given the day you’ve had, you are most likely to: A) Flip out in the middle of Deep Hedonia’s souped-up dancefloor to the hyperreal J-pop sounds of PC Music pal Onika. B) Wander home with your pals through an

eerie Salford dawn, contemplating the nature of infinity. C) See things through ’til morning in the corner of a dark room, while industrial techno peddlers Gesamtkunstwerk, Faktion and the Annex Agency bore a hole ever deeper into the abyss. How did you do? Mostly As: Possibly a Sounds from the Other City newbie, you are outstanding in your commitment to the clashfinder. Your energy is both admirable and, if you haven’t crashed and burned by 9pm, quite frankly an insult to us all. Mostly Bs: Are you even at this festival? It’s debatable. Mostly Cs: You, friend, are the high priest or priestess of Sounds from the Other City. Secretly combining quiet, diligent study of the timetable with an outward aspect of nonchalance, you manage to enjoy a host of revelatory new experiences while appearing to do almost nothing at all. Hats off. Sounds from the Other City: Salford’s celebration of new art and music, various venues, Salford, Sunday 3 May, £20 soundsfromtheothercity.com #sftocskinny

Volkov Commanders at SFTOC 2014

Preview

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THE SKINNY

From Here to Infinity Killing off psych rock, Gnod have returned with their boldest statement to date. The Skinny taps into the infinity machine

Interview: Simon Jay Catling Photography: Alexander Bell

t would’ve been hard to guess amidst 1000 or so revellers trading off slivers of their cerebrum at the altar of Gnod last September at Liverpool Psych Fest, but on the stage at least, a funeral was taking place. Joined by White Hills’ Dave W on guitar, the Salford collective tore through four cuts from their 2009 collaboration with the LA psych-rockers for what was to be the last time. “We agreed that this would be the last time we’d do it. It was a lot of fun, really cathartic,” says Paddy Shine, coming to after a late night in Merseyside as part of This Heat drummer Charles Hayward’s Anonymous Bash live band. “But it felt like the end of a chapter for us.” Along with Gnod co-founder Chris Haslam, we’re in Shine’s living space-cum-workshop for Gnod label Tesla Tapes, deep inside Salford venue and studio space Islington Mill. Records are stacked high behind us, analogue odds and ends scattered around the furniture, while a cat scuttles around the bare pipework; our conversation is punctuated by the hum of a fish tank and the outré jazz entanglements of Rocket Recordings labelmates Shit & Shine’s latest record. The Victorian-era Mill, with its Situationistinspired aim to create an open-source environment for artists to practice away from conventional spaces, has recently held more influence over Gnod than anything else. “You just become part of the place,” Shine says. “We can invite whoever we want to come and stay, and 90% of the time these people will put some work on here or collaborate with an artist. It’s inspiring.” Some bands will suddenly stamp their impact on a city; Gnod are of the other ilk, a presence lurking in the background for as long as anyone can remember. Their love affair with the Mill began towards the end of last decade; shows around the time drawing a pretty distinct heritage from the free travellers parties of the late 80s and early 90s, a free-for-all of looped riffs, spaced-out rhythmic passages and – depending on who turned up – demented vocal preachings. First Drop Out (with NYC space rockers White Hills) and then 2011’s Chaudelande saw critics edge them towards the burgeoning neopsych revival. Even as demand rose though, new live audiences found a group already done with bonged-out guitar repetition, instead making forays into asphyxiating industrial beats, which would end up birthing not just a new direction, but also their own label and a club night at the Mill, Gesamtkunstwerk. “For me personally it felt like we’d hit a bit of a brick wall,” says Shine. “We’d met some

April 2015

great people, but it probably peaked when we played Roadburn Festival in 2012. After that it felt a bit flat. And then we came across these little nano synths and started pissing around on them.” Haslam had the idea of getting an MPC to become the focal point (“this fucking brain we could run all of these machines from”) and it evolved into the group working with friends to build their own sound system, enabling them to tour Europe off the beaten track. “The idea was to bypass the more traditional venues,” says Haslam, “because they’ve become more restrictive over the past few years, and the atmosphere on that circuit has generally deteriorated a little bit. So we just started looking for spaces where you wouldn’t get noise complaints and you didn’t have to worry about licensing so much… something a bit more guerrilla style, away from convention.” Gnod have hitherto existed to document snapshots of their existence, a cursory glimpse at their Discogs profile alone revealing a litany of split singles, cassettes and CD-R releases between 2008 and 2012, and suggesting an insatiable thirst for self-exploration and experimentation. Yet three years on from their last full album release, new record Infinity Machines marks a sharp change in gear; sprawled across

three slabs of vinyl, it’s a record that, maybe for the first time in their career, doesn’t feel hashed out in the heat of the moment, instead set out as a series of collages that work to twist the mind inside out methodically. Control Systems sets a template of sorts, allowing darkly meditative layers to build before snatching them away just as the listener’s head space is able to accommodate them. Sections collapse and give way to something new that often slithers off in a totally new direction.

“The intention is always to get away from what’s expected of us” Paddy Shine

It’s an undeniable ‘kitchen sink’ record, everything thrown at the canvas from scorched space rock (Breaking The Hex) to bludgeoning industrial revolutions (Desire), along with spoken word intersections, passages of ambient uncertainty and – with the addition of Dave McLean on saxophone – a more freeform, brooding jazz-orientated sound, partly influenced by the mighty Bohren & der Club of Gore. It’s the finalisation of a line in the sand they began drawing at Psych Fest. “The intention is always to get away from what’s expected of us. For ourselves too. We want to keep people on their toes,” says Shine. “Rocket said they wanted our Master of Puppets, and we spent ten days in the Mill’s live space and gave them it. Things like Dave’s involvement are just part of a desire for a different sound. There’s no guitar on the record, instead there’s things we’ve never used before, like a Rhodes piano or a sax.” And it all comes back to the Mill. Gnod never meant to become ingrained in its existence, but what started out simply as an offer of a rehearsal space, following some post-gig beers with the owners, has become the hive of their everyday existence. The four core members (Marlene Ribeiro and Alex Macarte

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complete the line-up) all live in and assist the upkeep of the space, “temporary custodians,” as Paddy puts it, of a place that is in constant flux. Swans’ Michael Gira became a fan of the place after staying overnight, and a plethora of local promoters, labels, designers and illustrators are based there. Infinity Machines, though, is also a snapshot of the tensions felt within the space, the optimism of a recent Arts Council Capital grant balanced out by noise complaints that have threatened the Mill’s future. It’s a record that shoulders the increasing burden of responsibility that Gnod have taken on in the ceaseless fight for survival. Escapist jams have given way to confrontational soundscapes. “The trials and tribulations of the Mill and seeing what our friends have to go through to keep a place like this running has shown us that you have to voice your opinions and stand up for what you believe in,” Shine agrees. “There’s an awareness of how important people are, maybe a slice of Gnod saying ‘you are not your fucking screen in your hand, you are not your screen on your tablet. You are an infinity machine.’” To that end, collaborations on the album come entirely from those within the Mill, notably Tesla artist Michael O’Neill, who wrote lyrics about Shine for him to sing on Desire, while visual artist Maurice Carlin ruminates on ideas of privacy, surveillance and governance at the album’s opening. “We’re the government, we’re all responsible,” he utters at one point. “They just sit there as these hate figures for those who’ve no faith in politics.” Haslam sees some truth in this statement. “It’s realising that it’s not good to focus hate on something, to not just think ‘everything’s fucked’ and instead realising ‘yeah it is fucked, but the only way you’re going to get away from that is to work with other people, talking, changing others’ perspectives.’” From other mouths such sentiment could come across as preaching, but for Gnod it’s merely an extension of their own continual re-evaluation. Infinity Machines opens up more avenues to explore for this group, for whom the possibilities feel endless. Gnod play Islington Mill, Salford, with White Hills on 9 Apr. Infinity Machines is released via Rocket Recordings on 20 Apr ingnodwetrust.tumblr.com

Preview

Album of the Month Young Fathers

White Men Are Black Men Too [Big Dada, 6 Apr]

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Young Fathers’ White Men Are Black Men Too is a gargantuan, fearless record. It's a celebration, a rebuttal, a call to action; a dance party that won't for a single minute let you rest. After last year's surprise Mercury Prize win for album DEAD, you might expect the band to have suffered follow-up anxiety. Not Young Fathers. This album is both more and less of everything; vicious and vital quasihip-hop, but tempered with a new-found softness. WMABMT sees the band grip the reins a little firmer and their patience is rewarded. The hits hit harder, more precisely targeted. Though the Edinburgh-based three-piece has never been a band for genre box-ticking, they've never shied from claiming pop influence

either. Try tracks like Dare Me, or 27 – you can almost imagine the trio perched on bar-stools, stepping down for a key-change to conduct a screaming crowd through a chorus that's a million miles more ‘Fuck You’ than some clapped-out crooners. Soulful, warming and full of warnings too, there are more ideas in a single bridge than most songwriters could come up with after tripping for a week at Burning Man. It's a devastating task trying to pick a highlight. [Katie Hawthorne] young-fathers.com

The Soft Moon

Death Cab for Cutie

White Hills

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Deeper [Captured Tracks, 30 Mar] Once looking like an heir apparent to Trent Reznor's seething world of industrial dystopia, Luis Vasquez sadly finds himself starting to tread water on his third LP under the Soft Moon moniker. Reznor took a good five years to shake off his enthrallment with early 80s English new wave, and from the OMD-recalling swallow dives of Wasting, to Inward's notably abrasive nods to the likes of Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire (see also: the angst-ridden fizz and sputter of Wrong), Vasquez hasn't yet achieved the same. Although this is certainly a tasteful palette to magpie from, nothing on Deeper suggests that Vasquez is doing any more than wallowing in these easily overpowering tropes. Worse still, whereas debut The Soft Moon and 2012’s Zeroes were capable of exhilarating jolts to the senses, Deeper does away with much of the high energy stuff, focusing more on slow-burning self-exploration that, though honourably intended, can sound like an artist in danger of being eclipsed. [Simon Jay Catling] thesoftmoon.com

Kintsugi [Atlantic Records, 30 Mar] “You've haunted me all my life,” runs Ben Gibbard's refrain near the midpoint of Death Cab For Cutie's latest; given the ubiquity of the band's turn-ofthe-century output (not to mention the recent reemergence of Gibbard side-project The Postal Service), the feeling's mutual. The band's eighth full-length record and the last to feature founding guitarist Chris Walla, Kintsugi is, for the most part, exactly what you'd expect from a band at Death Cab's career juncture. Their indie-emo hybrid is well-polished and ably marshalled by producer Rich Costey, and its component parts – appealingly lovelorn lyrics, bittersweet hooks, charming-to-twee electronic flourishes – are all here in full view. So it comes as a welcome surprise that Kintsugi's strongest moments see the band swap the melancholy and understatement for forays into more uptempo territory. The Ghosts of Beverley Drive injects some creepy atmosphere and thumping drums into proceedings, and the stand-out Good Help (Is Hard to Find) shows that Death Cab aren't beyond filling the dancefloor at the indie disco just yet. [Peter Simpson]

Walks for Motorists [Thrill Jockey, 6 Apr]

The eighth studio album from an underground psych-rock band doesn't sound like the most approachable prospect on paper, but Walks for Motorists surprises by being a playful, inviting record that doesn't take itself too seriously (its title is the first clue). More interested in churning out grooves than contriving a specific persona or message, White Hills incorporate disparate styles and instruments with an open mind. The result is a collection of compulsive head-nodders that keep listeners guessing despite their cyclical patterns and limited melodic palette. “We are what you see,” Dave W sings before the band gear up for two minutes of wah pedal flame-throwing, but just when you've got them clocked as a more technically proficient simulacra of early Stooges, they dive cheekily into Automated City, a drum machine-lead homage to Kraftwerk with wryly robotic one-note guitar parts and plenty of oscillator twiddling. Equal parts bracing and whimsical, Motorists is just plain fun. [Andrew Gordon] whitehillsmusic.tumblr.com

deathcabforcutie.com

Sufjan Stevens

Polar Bear

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The oft-Mercury-nominated avant-jazz experimentalists return with a shimmeringly beautiful 55 minutes of measured breathing and humanity; the musical equivalent of someone stroking your hair and suggesting that they put on the kettle. In a world of gobbling musical consumption, Polar Bear invite you to pull up a foot rest: even the transitions between tracks feel more like considered pauses for contemplation. The album opens with a rich spoken-word passage from Asar Mikael emphasising a mantra of “life, love and light”; just give in to it. The First Steps showcases bandleader Sebastian Rochford's unbelievable drumming; filling from rainmachine chill to a luscious, sax filled party. The whole record feels propelled by an essence raw and leafy, and Unrelenting Unconditional passes by in a softened blur of minimal beats and twinkling rhythm. The only disturbance is the vocal lead on Don't Let the Feeling Go – a brief interruption in an otherwise vitally warming, organic force. [Katie Hawthorne]

Benoît Pioulard

Carrie & Lowell [Asthmatic Kitty, 30 Mar]

Same As You [The Leaf Label, 30 Mar]

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If 2010’s The Age Of Adz was Sufjan Stevens’ bombastic all-action space opera, then this is his intimate, soul-baring one-man show. Inspired by the death of his mother, Stevens’ seventh album sees the Detroit native pair a daring sparseness with unrelentingly morbid subject matter. Stevens pares his neo-folk sound back to an ex-tent not seen since Seven Swans over a decade ago, with precious few orchestral or electronic flourishes, and no drums. At all. Instead he and his trusty banjo are backed by a cocktail of hotel room white noise, haunting soundscapes and multi-layered backing vocals. That ethereal canvas provides the background for a prime batch of plaintive, simple melodies and ruminations on mortality. Lyrically it's uncompromising, dark and surprisingly direct – mentions of blood, death and ghosts are plastered all over its 11 tracks – but there's a real beauty to Carrie & Lowell that shines through the darkness. [Peter Simpson] music.sufjan.com

polarbearmusic.com

Sonnet [Kranky, 30 Mar]

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Submerging into a white-wash of distilled ambience from the outset, yes, we've still got the same Benoît Pioulard. But this time we're offered a more organic goodness: he uses just analogue tape and guitar pedals to curate layers of field recordings (that's washing machines/industrial air conditioners) that in turn inspire the rest of the instrumental contributions. It resonates with electronic gurus such as Fennesz but in a more commercially digestible arrangement. He claims several of the harmonies were composed in his dreams – em, why aren't our dreams this heavenly? The title of previous release Hymnal is definitely more relevant here. Glassy strings engrave onto busily glitching vibrations and tracks often synthesise into each other through heavy delay and distortion. Vague motifs levitate in and out of thick frequencies giving clues to the album's progression and make it impossible to pause midway. Schedule this in, find a comfy, lonely spot – hire a surround sound if you need to. [Luisa Brown] pioulard.com

Personal Best

Nadine Shah

Garden of Elks

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Fast Food [Apollo/R&S Records, 6 Apr]

Arnos Vale [Specialist Subject, 30 Mar] Positivity's a risky business. Even 20 years on from the angst-drenched 90s – when not only pop but also irony has eaten and regurgitated itself, only to chow down on the bilious remains – it still draws suspicion, and Personal Best are nothing if not positive. The flipside? They're also quite brilliant. Occupying the common ground between Tiger Trap's winsome hooks and the buzzing volume of Sugar, stunners like Beauty Is Terror nod understandingly at timid hearts where yer average powerpop trio might simply take the easy route of breaking ‘em. This Is What We Look Like, meanwhile, first nicks and then runs with Joan Jett's knack for making simple ballads rock the hardest. Indeed, it's testament to Arnos Vale's immersive pop-punk that it makes PMA sound like the only reasonable course of action. “All of my pain has got to be worth something,” sings Katie Gatt during the opening seconds, and you know what? She's right. [Will Fitzpatrick] personalbest.bandcamp.com

Nadine Shah's follow up to 2013’s Love Your Dum and Mad (applause for the title alone) confirms a vision that her debut could only hint at. That opening shot was notable not only for her hot-blooded and much-lauded vocals but its arresting lyrical candour. And while Fast Food confirms her as a singer with few rivals, it's shadowy narratives (“Go ahead and call her, memorise her silhouette” – Washed Up) supply gravitas and emotional pull. Lesser artists might have responded to second album expectation with showy arrangements and ADHD playfulness, crafting a ‘look at me!’ style piece. But Shah is so much cannier than the herd. Fast Food reduces her template to a tribal thrum; little more than bass, drums and guitar. It gives that voice the room it needs to breathe and while its sound board is lo-fi, its ambition is high stakes all the way. Place your bets now: the odds on Shah troubling the mainstream are shortening all the time. [Gary Kaill] nadineshah.co.uk

A Distorted Sigh [Song, By Toad, 6 Apr]

‘Thrash-pop,’ they call it, although Scotland's Garden of Elks favour something a little more subtle than Kerry King-style shredding. Drawing from the so-called ‘alternative’ rock of the 90s, pacy numbers like Mountain Dew emit vague aromas of Sonic Youth and Slowdive, albeit with a pleasing tendency to riff on a somewhat grungier level. Niall Strachan flits between a careworn drawl and impassioned yelps, while guitars jangle esoterically before surging towards the stratosphere; catharsis on top of catharsis, only much more fun than that looks on paper. There's a vague hint of Wire's catchy dissonance to the excellent Wings, particularly in bassist Ryan Drever (he of the PAWS parish)’s jerking contributions – by the time Tomorrow's juddering atmospherics roll around, it dawns on us just how much action is packed into these 28 minutes. Garden of Elks are not the heaviest of rockers, nor (on this record, at least) the noisiest. Instead, they offer ideas and hooks in abundance: admirable traits indeed. [Will Fitzpatrick] garden-of-elks.tumblr.com

Review

RECORDS

THE SKINNY

Toro y Moi

K-X-P

Wire

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What For? [Carpark, 7 Apr]

III: Part I [Svart, 30 Mar]

Wire [Pink Flag, 13 Apr]

Is Chazwick Bundick – aka Toro y Moi – going back in time? His 2010 debut Causers of This, a key milestone in the risibly-named ‘chillwave’ movement, seemed sent from the future: a thoughtful assemblage of glitches and gut feelings, emotional electronica for the end of a party. But since then, he seems to be regressing through genres. The laptop now fully unplugged, Bundick arrives squarely in retroland for this fourth album, which is, in essence, pure psychedelic rock. The spirit of his earlier sound remains: a little spacey, a little funky, the sincerity of his singing never in doubt. Yet, in common with much psychedelia, repetition quickly sets in over these ten tracks, which blend into an amorphous blob of reverb and fuzzboxes. Perhaps Bundick doesn't wish to bum out your trip with anything too jive, but a little of the incongruity and inventiveness that characterised his earlier efforts wouldn't go amiss. [John Nugent]

Falling somewhere between krautrock and techno, while also incorporating elements of free jazz and psychedelic rock, the beguiling output of Finland's K-X-P is probably best filed under high-fantasy. Dark, other-worldly and unabashedly epic in its ambition, their music sounds as suited to some mythical saga from their home nation's rich folklore as does filling a dancefloor. Their third album can be every bit as goofy as that sounds, featuring synth choirs, shamanistic chanting and atmospheric wind noises, throwing in the occasional eastern-flavoured vocal sample in case things didn't sound mystical enough. But on two of these six tracks – the LCD Soundsystem stomp of Obsolete and Beyond and deliciously funky Descend to Eternal – the fusion ignites spectacularly, producing a sweeping, dramatic kind of body music that transports the listener to another realm entirely, and is probably tremendous live. [Andrew Gordon]

Their 40th anniversary might be fast approaching but the post-punk paragons show little sign of slowing down. And, on this evidence, the artistic well is far from dry. The core trio of founder Colin Newman, Graham Lewis and Robert (Gotobed) Grey are not so foolish as to step too far away from the pulsing grooves that have come to typify their sound over 13 albums, but the addition of new guitarist Matthew Simms adds welcome colour. Wire is solid throughout, but its high spots come mid-point and in closing, where Sleep-Walking and Harpooned both play out over eight minutes, making for dramatic counterpoint to the snappy blueprint. Wire's influence on the UK's up and down indie scene is perhaps still best typified by Elastica's lifting of the band's Three Girl Rhumba for their 1995 hit Connection. If only more of the current crop had the guile to steal so smartly. [Gary Kaill]

toroymoi.com

fi-fi.facebook.com/kxp.official

pinkflag.com

Ufomammut

Blur

Lapalux

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Ecate [Neurot Recordings, 30 Mar]

The Magic Whip [Parlophone, 27 Apr]

Lustmore [Brainfeeder, 6 Apr]

Italian psych-sludgemeisters Ufomammut titled their seventh album after an ancient Greek goddess who mediates between both mortal and divine realms; a theme borne out by their crushingly powerful music, which constantly moves between slow-burning brutality and moments of ethereal otherness. Occasionally this all builds to something of truly Olympus-like proportions, particularly when epic closer Daemons bursts into a melodious climax as it hits the six-minute mark – the closest thing to beauty on a record that's dominated by portentous heaviness and desolate rumbles. In fact, as ludicrous genre tags go, ‘doom’ sounds about right. Ecate is never actively fun to listen to, and never opts to conjure a grin when it could simply leave you dizzied by sheer force of volume (Plouton), or pull the rug out from under you with unexpected flutters of tripped-out electronic burbling (Revelation). Here, Ufomammut offer something solemnly forceful – an album that grinds you into the earth, even as its arms stretch out to the heavens. [Will Fitzpatrick]

Whither now the Britpop refugee? It’s been eleven years and at least two reconciliations since Blur last released a record. In a world where ‘90s reunions are less of a headline-grabbing surprise than a nodding inevitability, do they resemble their own tribute act or stake new ground? Is this the Blur of Pyramid Stage encores or Moroccanflavoured introspection? The Magic Whip, it seems, lies somewhere in-between the Blur of old and new. Crucially, Graham Coxon’s reinstatement ensures that full-bodied, unambiguous guitar riffs rub vigorously against Damon Albarn’s electronic bells and whistles. Lonesome Street, the best example of this new blend, opens the album in rambunctious, confident fashion. That auspicious early promise of summery singalongs doesn’t quite materialise; tracks like Pyongyang or album closer Mirrorball are enigmatic, but downbeat. It’s when the riffs seem plucked straight from the annals of 1997 – such as with Ong Ong, a gloriously unfussy three-chord anthem so simple your nan could play it – that Blur seem to remember how to have fun. [John Nugent]

Inspired by hypnagogia – the hallucinationprone state of semi-consciousness between sleep and wakefulness – Lustmore finds Stuart Howard exploring territory similar to that charted by his label chief Flying Lotus on Until the Quiet Comes, lulling listeners into a blissful daze via fluid, disorienting arrangements conjured from undulating pedal notes, angelic R&B vocals and wandering percussion figures. Howard's brand of narcosis is more volatile, however, liable to erupt suddenly into a tide of caustic synths, as on Closure (featuring Szjerdene) or Don't Mean a Thing, before receding just as quickly back to sultry finger clicks or rain samples. By sculpting these serene, atmospheric textures only to puncture them moments later (like when prettiest cut 1004 is swiftly obliterated by abrasive, comparatively cynical follow-up Make Money), Lustmore palpably captures technology's wearying effect on the psyche – promising to facilitate but ultimately disrupting the conditions for that much needed late night reflection. Challenging stuff. [Andrew Gordon]

ufomammut.com

blur.co.uk

lapalux.com

Föllakzoid

The Mountain Goats

Villagers

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Beat the Champ [Merge, 6 Apr]

III [Sacred Bones, 30 Mar] Masters of the mantric Krautrock groove, III sees Chilean ‘cosmic music’ trio Föllakzoid infusing their subtly shifting minimalism with mystical South American influences. Album opener Electric sees them setting up the spacious soundworld of the next 45 minutes, relentlessly looping a thumping bass groove that is gradually cracked open by reverberating guitar peals. Earth's clanking guitar would make for a nifty soundtrack to a construction project over centuries, while Piure's tinkling bells and a remarkably disciplined tribal drumbeat evoke the extreme effort of trekking the Andes. It's on final track Feuerzeug that the band show their influences most clearly as German techno maestro Atom TM imbues the track with the sizzling space-landing sounds of the Korg synthesiser used on tour by Kraftwerk in the 1980s. Like their progenitors, Föllakzoid's unwavering sense of purpose on III is admirable. [Chris Ogden]

Fifteen albums in, and The Mountain Goats have lost none of their hoof. The homemade cassettein-a-record-shop ethos may be behind him, but John Darnielle still possesses a unique flair for spinning a twinkly yarn or two. Selfassured indeed is the songwriter who can centre an entire album around the subject of Mexican wrestling and not seem trivial. There's obvious sardonic humour in Darnielle's lyrics – “I will personally stab you in the eye with a foreign object,” he earnestly chirps in one song – but this is no novelty record. Witness the sarcastic chuckle that comes with “you've found my breaking point... congratulations” in Heel Turn 2 and you realise there is a resonance to these songs beyond the wrestling ring. It's indie of a ‘90s flavour, certainly; echoes of Pavement and Elliott Smith abound. But Beat the Champ's breadth and scope of songwriting give plenty to chew on, after repeated listens. A treat. [John Nugent]

follakzoid.bandcamp.com

mountain-goats.com

Waxahatchee

East India Youth

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Ivy Tripp [Merge, 6 Apr]

Culture of Volume [XL, 6 Apr]

It takes considerable talent to pull off sincere, confessional songwriting as favourably as Waxahatchee's Katie Crutchfield. Pairing raw anecdotes with sparse musicianship, the beauty of her adroit compositions is that they hinge upon an immediacy seemingly within the grasp of any narcissistic self-mythologiser who can strum a few chords, articulating feelings so precisely and with such familiarity that they have the air of universal truths. Yet it's not anyone who could surmise the coldness of a waning relationship as succinctly (“We just pretend to be strangers lamenting a means to an end,” she sings on Air) or spin La Loose's two-note piano riff into such a subtly sophisticated earworm. Things get a bit too simple on undercooked piano ditty Grey Hair and cloying nostalgia trip Summer of Love but these are outliers on an otherwise endearing and memorable third album from Crutchfield. Her most polished effort yet. [Andrew Gordon]

East India Youth – aka William Doyle – does it again. 2014’s Mercury triumphant Total Strife Forever saw Doyle lead the pack of hotly-tipped technoinfused experimentalists; Culture of Volume won't do any damage to that reputation. In fact, the record is a determined, forwardlooking evolution from last year's largely instrumental success. The initial QI-claxon deserving response is that it's got a load more singing but, more importantly, Culture of Volume is self-aware, ambitious and hugely broad in reach. Opener The Juddering does exactly as it promises – a boneshaking, intrusive introduction. Tracks like Beaming White see Doyle flirt with showbiz glamour, while Entirety is a roaring, anxious, forgetyour-own-name monument to the Gods of techno. Carousel shows off a softness of touch; serene vocals drift in a flood of gently choral synth. Culture of Volume charts a full spectrum of East India Youth in a manner wholly super-sized. [Katie Hawthorne]

waxahatcheemusic.com

eastindiayouth.co.uk

April 2015

RECORDS

Darling Arithmetic [Domino, 13 Apr] Even the briefest scan of Conor O'Brien's upcoming tour schedule screams – sorry, whispers – ‘intimate venues’ and sure enough, his third album under the name Villagers fits the bill for quieter occasions. Villagers’ two previous albums have managed to combine O'Brien's polished songwriting and rich vocals with considerable bombast, so removing one of those elements leaves a sizeable hole in Darling Arithmetic. There's some filler too. Within seconds of Dawning On Me and So Naïve closing you'll forget they ever existed, but the Dubliner weaves in enough memorable melodies elsewhere to lift the album above the pedestrian. Little Bigot is a rare moment of volume and all the better for it; opener Courage is a pleasant meander and Hot Scary Summer overcomes clunky lyrics to become a high point. Darling Arithmetic may not be the loudest album in Villagers’ discography but it's a useful addition to their output. [Stu Lewis] wearevillagers.com

The Top Five 1 2 3 4 5

Young Fathers

White Men Are Black Men Too

East India Youth

Culture of Volume

Sufjan Stevens

Carrie & Lowell

Föllakzoid

III

Lapalux

Lustmore

Review

worriedaboutsatan Gullivers, 19 Mar

Scouts

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The biggest problem with Liverpool fourpiece Scouts’ set tonight is the lack of a sound engineer, and it’s a real shame. Their hugely impressive latest EP, Bloom, fell somewhere in between post-hardcore and borderline grunge: Stay weighs in with a frenzied, impactful guitar line that has shades of Alexisonfire’s Old Crows about it; Hourglass is another colossus, waves of guitar and bouts of percussion intertwining with one another to reach a fever of energy. The EP boasted a clean-cut approach that was hugely refreshing, and tonight the band have no issue with giving everything they have to put on a show for those gathered in the back room of Maguire’s Pizza Bar – however, the correlation between effort and quality gets lost as the

levels of vocals and instruments seem to collapse on top of each other. Scouts are an outfit that would thrive off audience participation and excitement but they have little of either tonight, which, sadly, irrefutably damages the atmosphere. (The lack of movement is visibly unsettling to frontman Paul Barrow and mid-set conversation is more of a murmured two-way chat between vocalist and drummer.) On the other hand, the situation illustrates that this is a band that could flourish in a venue of 200-plus sweaty faced teens soaking up the energy these songs undeniably have the power to deliver. There’s no dispute that Scouts have the riffs, the presence and the quality to captivate an audience – it’s just a shame that tonight’s circumstances don’t give the band a fair platform to showcase that. [Matthew Cooper]

Jane Weaver

The Deaf Institute, 21 Mar

The Well, Koreless and Emmanuel Biard, FutureEverything 2015

FutureEverything: Koreless & Emmanuel Biard present The Well Royal Northern College of Music, 25 Feb

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Even for a producer who revels in fracturing recognisable electronic tropes into loosely connected flotsam, the addition of both Daedeluscollaborating visual artist Emmanuel Biard and the four-piece Intrada Choir from Moscow has the potential to blast Lewis Roberts’ already often teetering compositional structures as Koreless into smithereens. FutureEverything doesn’t exist to simply allow artists to parade what they already have, and so it proves that The Well, premiered at FutureEverything Moscow last year, pushes the Young Turks man beyond even his broad comfort zone. Material largely drawn from 2013 EP Yugen is given a sharp counterpoint to its cloud-break synth shimmers and pattering melodic droplets by the bassy exhales of the male choir stood behind the producer, the decision

Review

to allow the most human element of the performance to take precedence in the low-end over any form of programmed sub-bass an atypical fascination in itself. It’s the four men standing in the shadows behind the beaming circular illuminations of Biard’s laser mirrors who perhaps impress the most tonight. They add a richness and density to Koreless’s usually more spatially-minded pieces, and ebb and flow between taking flight above the rest of the music, or settling back into a faint, but brooding, amorphous hum. At times it feels like Roberts hasn’t fully worked out how to embed this contrastive element into his own more glottal production, pieces stopping and starting, great pauses taking place inbetween and there being an overriding sense of disjointedness looser than perhaps even his own intentions, which means that the end — when it comes — has the feel of cutting a tape reel mid-spin, bringing an abrupt end to an ambitious if slightly unfulfilling experiment. [Simon Jay Catling]

Photo: Sebastian Matthes

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To mark a celebratory evening at The Deaf Institute, Jane Weaver is dressed to impress. “Has anyone else got a Lorax onesie on tonight?” she jokes, showing off the lone Truffula Tree pinned to the centre of her chest. The Dr. Seuss reference illustrates this cult folk icon’s wonderful weirdness as she delivers an ingenuous set in honour of her sixth album, The Silver Globe – which won Piccadilly Records’ Album of the Year 2014. The Silver Globe’s opening gambit, Argent, sounds great, Weaver’s ethereal hums competing with revving krautrock guitar to speed their way to a cascading synth solo. As she stares at the ceiling, though, she looks diffident, surprised at the interest the accolade has brought her – and this translates to the sold-out crowd in

the early stages. Luckily, by the time The Electric Mountain’s classic rock riffs come in, Weaver begins to settle, following it up with the hypnotic, cavernous Arrows. Playful single Don’t Take My Soul gets the best reception, the room bopping in recognition at its oompah bass and infectious keyboard loop, led by Weaver’s falsetto coos and sizzling tambourine beat. After the psychedelic Euro-disco trip of Mission Desire, Weaver proves at her best when at her ballad-est. The sparseness of Cells suits her perfectly – and, despite whipping out three unwieldy lyric sheets for new song I Need a Connection, Weaver ends the night on a high with the rolling waltz of Your Time in This Life Is Just Temporary, her voice reaching up above squealing solo madness. If Weaver seems unworldly, it’s only because she’s started aiming for the stars. [Chris Ogden]

Jane Weaver

MUSIC

Photo: Priti Shikotra

Maguire’s Pizza Bar, 22 Mar

As worriedaboutsatan, Gavin Miller and Tom Ragsdale found their feet as one of the most productive and enduring partnerships in Manchester’s musical community. After six years away from performing under the name, they now return to it. Their hiatus has been a busy one, however, including performing together as Ghosting Season, Ragsdale’s own output as Winter Son, Miller’s solo performances and the running of label This Is It Forever Records – as well as making a sizeable amount of music for film and television. Tonight’s set sees the duo debut material from their new album, Even Temper – which could have been composed specifically for Géla Babluani’s film 13 Tzameti, projected behind the band throughout. The excruciating tension of the film’s series of Russian roulette contests is

THE SKINNY

Photo: Priti Shikotra

Scouts

Photo: Lisa Stirling

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matched perfectly by the pair’s uneasy, dreamlike passages, which rise up to satisfying drops; each thump and crack as crisp and menacing as the accompanying projection. It’s clear that, in pursuing their extracurricular activities, Miller and Ragsdale have been able to take their time honing their craft and return to worriedaboutsatan with a renewed zeal. Though they sit firmly within the minimal techno aesthetic, there’s a strong sense of individual identity, with their synth lines and ghostly vocal loops – plus the coherent inclusion of post-rock inspired guitar parts – sounding better than ever. Following all this existential horror, some light drum breaks and a shift to major tonality create a sense of optimism, soundtracking an ambiguous getaway. Though the high-stakes drama of the film’s narrative occasionally threatens to detract from the music, tonight worriedaboutsatan demonstrate that they stand among the best in their field. [Edward Bottomley]

tic kets a re ava ila ble fro M

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April 2015

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Jane Weaver John Talabot Kindness Leon Vynehall Mac DeMarco Madlib Marc Riley My Brightest Diamond Nina Kraviz Outfit Owen Pallett Pale Patti Smith & band perform HORSES Philip Selway Phil Taggart Rae Morris Ratking Ride Run the Jewels Savages Shanti Celeste Shura SOPHIE Spector Sylvan Esso Tei Shi Ten Walls Todd Terje & the Olsens Tom Ravenscroft Toumani & Sidiki Diabaté Tune-Yards Viet Cong Volte-Face We Are Shining Yung Gud and more

Tickets from Piccadilly Records or ticketline.co.uk

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AG Cook Allah-Las Astronomyy Awesome Tapes from Africa Bad Breeding Bad Vibrations Baxter Dury Ben Klock b2b Marcel Dettmann Beyond the Wizard’s Sleeve Bok Bok Caribou Cashmere Cat Chet Faker Clarence Clarity Clark Daniel Avery b2b Andrew Weatherall Danny L Harle DIIV DJ Barely Legal Django Django Ducktails Eagulls Elijah & Skilliam Ex Hex Farnborough Concert Band FKA twigs Floating Points Fryars Future Brown Gaz Coombes Georgie Rogers Ghost Culture Gulf Hackney Colliery Band Hælos Hailu Mergia with Tony Buck & Mike Majkowski HONNE Hookworms Hudson Mohawke Huw Stephens Jack Garratt Jagaara

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THE SKINNY

Clubbing Highlights Balearic boat parties, plus visits from NTS residents and some techno heavyweights attempt to bring that speck of summer on the horizon a little closer

Words: Alec Herron Illustration: Alessandra Genualdo

his month, in hope, or determination, Manchester and Liverpool’s clubnight coordinators are bringing the sunshine to us through some soleil-inspired events in clubs, secret warehouse locations... and boats. El Diablo’s Social Club begin the suncharming on 2 Apr by inviting Balearic duo Down to the Sea and Back to Soup Kitchen. They’ll show us why summer is king, as demonstrated on their mixtape series named Piccadilly Records’ Compilation of the Year in 2014 and a testament to combining sing-along classics and rare B-sides (£8+, only 20 tickets remaining available on the door on the night). Of course, it wouldn’t be Down to the Sea and Back without a boat party. Leaving 7.30pm from Drybarge on the Bridgewater Canal, for those lucky enough to already have a ticket the Balearic boys will warm up the spring evening by cruising the waters of Manchester ahead of their headline set later on dry land. Anyone who followed the Bristol dubstep scene at the end of the last decade remembers a time when Joker was dropping a new city anthem every month. Some years on and the work on his new album, Mainframe, has matured beyond that heard on 2011’s The Vision. He’ll be spinning tracks from it at Mint Lounge on 2 Apr (£5). The next night, Liverpool welcomes the ‘Godfather of Warp Records,’ a true music legend, Nightmares on Wax, who'll be taking over 24 Kitchen Street to put into motion the final throes of the Adriatic’s much-loved Garden Festival, before it bows out this summer (£10). The generous souls at ThirdEye are giving us all a big birthday treat with free entry on 5 Apr, as they prepare to celebrate the success of their fledgling year. Local lad and Kaluki resident Flux Groove pushes us through Sunday night and into the bank holiday morning at Joshua Brooks. With a whole day ahead to recover, you’ve no excuse for not letting it all go. After another short working week (YES!), Dutch disco and house trio Kraak & Smaak pick things back up on 10 Apr, bringing internationally approved feel good tracks to Constellations as Discoteca Poca announces its return to the scene (£7). It was sorely missed. Kicking off a series of events based around musical eclecticism, Meine Nacht: Eins brings Radio 1 and NTS Radio resident Moxie to a jungle-themed launch night at 24 Kitchen Street on 17 Apr. The former In New DJs We Trust starlet has been flourishing into a renowned headliner over the last few years and her stock continues to rise as praise is piled on her cross-genre setlists. On a very special night, house, disco, grime and hip-hop are promised to be as intertwined as the forest itself (£8, almost sold out). From forest frolicking to industrial stromping,

April 2015

Kraak Gallery hosts the ever-popular Black Bee Soul Club on the same night. Sallie Reynolds and Richard Penrith stomp us through tracks that inspired the up-tempo, gritty soul clubs of the late 60s and 70s. No holds barred, this is a night to leave covered in sweat or else full of regret (£3). Everybody loves a surprise, especially one that includes loud music, an intimate warehouse setting and the minds behind one of the best record labels around. Limited to just 300 tickets, Selective Hearing & Project 13 will be keeping the whereabouts of their 18 Apr party secret until the last minute. But what we can be sure of is Ron Morelli celebrating five years of his Long Island Electrical Systems record label. He’s joined by UK bass/techno don Randomer, as well as LA rising star Delroy Edwards, in what promises to be a very special night in a Manchester location we can’t wait to be unveiled (£15). The following Friday (24 April), Selective Hearing continue to keep us guessing as they scout another secret MCR warehouse location, this time to host Detroit techno legend Robert Hood. As a man that knows a thing or two about playing warehouse venues in one of the world’s most creative cities, Hood will bring his Motor City-inspired tracks and a whole heap of new stuff, proving why he remains on the forefront of the scene after all these years after inventing minimal techno alongside the likes of Jeff Mills (£15). Don’t think you’ve gone a bit overboard on your choice of inebriation at South on 24 Apr; those guys you’ve been watching on the hugely popular tech house YouTube channel Mia Mendi really are there in front of you making their club night debut. To celebrate the step from the digital world to physical dancefloor, they have invited internationally renowned London multiresident Alexis Raphael and deep house don DeMarzo to drag the Mia Mendi party from your laptop screen to within touching distance (£8). In another first, Mike Skinner plays his first DJ set in Liverpool on the same night at the Arts Club. Anyone who heard the former Streets man’s recent 6 Music playlist will know that no genre of music should be unexpected (£12). As we move towards the end of April, the coming summer sun may start to peek its head out from behind those grey clouds. Abandon Silence host a day-and-night finale to their fifth birthday series, on 25 Apr, with a lineup to be announced shortly. Starting in the Kazimier Garden at 2pm (tickets on the door only) and moving into the Kazimier interior at 10pm (£12), this is one day that is sure to round the month off with a huge bang. Whether you make the most of a stellar April of clubbing or save all your energy for Abandon Silence, you really can’t afford to miss this.

CLUBS

Preview

Guest Selector: Patrice Scott The Detroit veteran settles on eight prize LPs in honour of his debut full-length album, Euphonium

A Tribe Called Quest – Midnight Marauders [Jive] One of my favourite hip-hop groups of all time. This classic jazz rap album, in my opinion, made a statement for the simple fact that it was real music and told stories of everyday life events. The samples that were used to create the music on each track were brilliant. It is not complex but it is creative. They took beats and rhythms that a lot of people don’t use. Abstract hip-hop is what I call it. Herbie Hancock – Secrets [Columbia] I love this album for its abstract and intense selections. It was evenly divided between

up-tempo and laidback tracks. Also, I am impressed how Herbie took advantage of, at this time, the new poly synths that had just become available. This record took his music to another level. Moodymann – Mahogany Brown [Peacefrog] The first time I heard this I was speechless. KDJ is the ultimate at hybrid modes of recording and performance. The collaboration of samples, real instruments, live vocals and digital media on this album, as in most of his projects, was really well done. In my opinion it’s still the best album he has ever made. Eric B and Rakim – Paid in Full [4th & B’way] In my opinion, this album served as the template for future rappers. These guys were ahead of their time when they produced this music. Known as the Thelonious Monk of rap, Rakim conveyed a style that separated him from other rappers during this time. His rhymes were smooth and complex which deviated from the basic rap of that time. Eric B’s beats were gritty, heavy and dark.

Photo: Marie Staggat

Stevie Wonder – Songs in the Key of Life [Motown] My dad purchased this album for me when I was very young. At that time in my life I really didn’t understand music but I knew what was good to my ears. Every track on this album made a statement about what was going on at this time in the lives of American people. I still listen to this album from time to time in its entirety and it still sounds as fresh as it did back then. Truly timeless music.

Marvin Gaye – What’s Going On [Tamla] This is my favourite Marvin Gaye album because he made it as a political statement. Introspective lyrics and socially conscious themes were the focus of this project. He was not afraid to talk about drug abuse, poverty and the Vietnam War; all heavy subjects in America during this time. This was one of the greatest albums ever made, in my opinion. Ramsey Lewis – Sun Goddess [Columbia] One of my many influences and one of my favourite jazz artists collaborates with Earth, Wind

& Fire, arguably one of the greatest funk bands of all time. This creation of a timeless art still sounds fresh today. Mr Fingers – Amnesia [Jack Trax] Larry Heard, as we all know, is one of the pioneers of house. Although this album is a compilation of his early 12” releases, it is still one of my all-time favourites. Larry moved away from the common sound of house at that time and went closer to the lush, soulful sounds which we now call deep house. Euphonium is out 27 Apr via Sistrum

DJ Chart: Cobblestone Jazz Tyger Dhula runs us through his cerebral live outfit’s all-time choice tracks

Jeff Mills – A1 Untitled [Something in the Sky 11] Really any of Jeff Mills’ productions could be on this list, but we’ve chosen this one. I remember one of our collective best memories on tour as a group was perching behind Mr Mills at the UAF festival in Weisen, Austria after we had finished our set. ‘Innovator’ is a dangerous title, but I can think of no more deserving artist than Jeff Mills. His ability to play with time, swing and signatures transforms machine music into the realm of nature, and the organic feel that results is thoroughly inspirational. Terekke – Damn EP [L.I.E.S.] Smoked-out goodness. A good example of how some of the best electronic music lives outside of the peak times and large throngs. Cinematic, lo-fi and about as far away from overbearing as can be. The kind of music that makes you listen

Preview

harder to it, and normally in that case there is enough in the layers that it seems as though you hear different elements every pass. Linkwood – Nectarine [Prime Numbers] Super cool diverse album [System], with enough redeeming qualities to warrant a selection on this list. A bit all over the place, but that’s not a bad thing at all and shows the different sides to this project. Always a bold move, but refreshing when enough of the tunes hit you in the gut. Nectarine, in particular, is an extremely musical synth groove, void of drums and driven only by the keys. I’ve always liked music where you have to strain to hear the kick, but better yet when you can pick out the groove in the envelopes on their own. Heiko Laux – Dedicated 2 All Believers [Kanzleramt/Yoshitoshi] Probably my favourite techno record of all time, although, if pressed, I would find it impossible to commit to that statement. The kind of record where you put on the headphones, close your eyes and 11 minutes later open them feeling as if you spent half an hour at the spa on a massage table. The subtle textures and layers create a meditative and expansive soundscape to enjoy in a number of environments.

Photo: Stephanie Rae

Nuages – No Work Today [F Communications] Soulful French techno/house from the early 90s. This is one of the early incarnations of Ludovic Navarre and, along with Shazz, this record still stands the test of time. Warped grooviness wrapped in soulful strings and pads, it hits all the right notes, and to be fair most all of the music coming out of France in the early 90s was a huge inspiration. Merci, Monsieur Garnier.

Benjamin Wild – Kronberg [Kompakt] Not so many bells and whistles here, just a damn solid groove that keeps reaching forward and churning. Small subtle percussive sounds creating interesting patterns, and a harmonic element that gives it just enough to keep your mind wandering. It achieves the purpose of dancing, while not shoving it down your throat, and that is an important quality in mature dance music. Nu Era – Marz 2010 [Archive] Soulful techno at its finest. Pounding drums and synths, yet somehow the overall first impression is beauty, and not the driving and tough-as-nails basis beneath it. That kind of audio deception is where the most beautiful music lives. Contrast and balance blur to become an unwavering certainty that won’t let you not appreciate it! As a Mark Mac production, another thank you has to go out to his 4Hero project, whose diverse output has inspired us all.

CLUBS

Osunlade – Beloved (Paradigm LP Version) [Soul Jazz] Probably my favourite house record of all time, another bold statement though. The soul, truth and honesty just ooze out of this recording, but to be fair the whole album is wonderful, particularly Beloved and 2thousandcowries. Organic and musical, and pretty much impossible not to love. Tranquility Bass – They Came in Peace [Exist Dance] West Coast is as West Coast does. This was a staple at the numerous outdoor parties on the West Coast. I’m pretty sure, as a band, we have all listened to this in the wilderness of British Columbia, and the nature soundscapes along with the gorgeous stand up bassline make this a classic. Cobblestone Jazz release new 12’’ Northern Lights on 27 Apr

THE SKINNY

Cornelia Parker

Superior Goods and Household Gods

Whitworth Art Gallery

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April 2015

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Superior Goods and Household Gods is part of Wonder Women 2015, Manchester’s annual feminist festival, under the banner of which fall exhibitions, events and activities throughout the Cornelia Parker city in March. The work on display at Castlefield Gallery seeks to respond to dominant ideologies becomes an enlightening one as small images of and their effect on our desires, and the exhibibeauty leak through the surfaces. tion challenges the visitor to question preconFurther on into the exhibition comes a series ceptions of sex, sexuality and the imagery used to of Parker’s larger installation works, including the represent women. one she is, perhaps, most famous for: Cold Dark Striking throughout is a sense of contrast Matter: An Exploded View (1991). The astonishing and disorientation. The initial installation, Palm slow-motion implosion of sorts decorates an en- Springs (2015) by Hannah Farrell, submerges both tire room in the floating aftermath of disintegra- the viewer and the artist’s subject in a disjointed, tion. Opposite this work we find a new commispartially mirrored world, exploring in a fantassion, War Room (2015), a punishing, remarkable tical way how women have been presented in piece wherein the walls and ceiling of a single advertising. This theme is echoed in two collages room are layered with red poppy cutouts – waste by Sarah Hardacre which unsettlingly mix erotic material from the Royal British Legion’s Poppy images from vintage magazines with harsh, black Appeal. The experience is significant, the room and white images of women in urban environseeming to both swoon and be still, the pointillist ments from times gone by. Hardacre’s third work echo of colour playing out as an angry womb. daringly crosses a ballerina with the label from These larger installations have certainly a bondage video. Seeing these contrasts really been the most advertised and discussed in gives one pause for thought about the difference relation to the show, but do not just be taken in between a sexualised or idealised view of women by these grand motions. It is the earlier, more and the truth of ‘real life.’ muted sculptures, experiments and works on Arnold Pollock’s Castlefield Gallery paper that deserve the most attention. Here the Posedown (2015) is a video record of the exhibirich imagination of the artist plays out with none tion’s preview. The event starts as anyone might of the equipment, posing questions in true, esexpect but then becomes quite surreal as Pollock sential ways. [Tom Kwei] and an international female bodybuilder face off among the visitors. The looks of anticipation and Runs until 31 May surprise, coupled with a tentative wolf-whistle whitworth.manchester.ac.uk from a bystander, very clearly show the level of uncomfortable nonchalance in a typical exhibition-opening crowd. Adham Faramawy’s Total Flex Photo: David Levene

Upon entering the newly revitalised Whitworth, it can initially be unclear where Cornelia Parker’s retrospective is actually located. There is just so much to see. Exhibitions taken from the Whitworth’s portraiture collections, new acquisitions and examples from the gallery’s textile archive are all on display on the building’s lower level, and Parker’s show exists among them. The first groups of pieces focus on Parker’s paper-based and smaller sculptural work. Embryo Firearms (1995) is a disturbing, engrossing piece of reductionism. Two Colt 45 guns are displayed in their earliest form of production accompanied by Precipitated Gun (2015), a suggestively cocaine-like line of powder. This is, in fact, the remnants of a gun that has been pulverised for the exhibition. Throughout, weapons and ammunition crop up with menacing regularity, achieving an odd abstraction through their use as a medium in drawing and painting (for example, the drawings made with melted lead bullets). Although a variety of techniques is employed, one constant remains: a focus on the fundamental parts that contribute to the whole, and how an engagement with such constituents can engender a deeper, more profound understanding of the thing. This notion reaches its apotheosis with the installation Room for Margins (1998), which consists of a group of canvas linings taken from paintings by Turner during their conservation. The canvases are browned, and show compelling indentation of the proto-impressionist delights once above them. The gesture is a bold one. Initially these works are confusing and obtuse – we question their veracity – but the process

Castlefield Gallery

ART

Adham Faramawy - Total Flex (2012)

(2012) is a nine-minute (approx.) loop of a man exercising to a disco beat, naked but for a bondage harness. The man continues a range of movement, but is curiously desexualised. The third audiovisual work comes from Suzanne Posthumus, with Butter Wouldn’t Melt (2014). Incredibly hypnotic, the work circulates through a series of partly censored pornographic images. In the manner of subliminal advertising, the visuals are backed by a soundtrack that is apparently ever-rising in tone, asking the viewer to consider how and why sex is sold. This one might be best avoided by those who are prone to migraines or epileptic fits, as the cycle of images flashes past very quickly. One not-to-be-missed work is He’s Only a Bunny Boy But He’s Quite Nice Really (2011) by Margaret Harrison, who founded the London Women’s Liberation Art Group in 1970. The drawing is a reconstruction of a previous work which vanished from a 1971 London show, which in turn was closed down by the police after just one day on the grounds of indecency. It is both stunning and extremely disconcerting to see Hugh Hefner depicted in the famous Playboy Bunny ‘suit’ worn by waitresses and hostesses in Hefner’s Playboy Clubs all over the world to this day. [Neil Dymond-Green] Runs until 19 Apr castlefieldgallery.co.uk

Review

April Film Events Your cinema screens are awash with classics this month, from Nouvelle Vague touchstone Breathless to comedy classic Some Like It Hot and David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, which brings Cornerhouse to a close in grand style Force Majeure

A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence

Director: Roy Andersson Starring: Holger Andersson, Nils Westblom, Viktor Gyllenberg, Lotti Törnros, Jonas Gerholm, Ola Stensson, Oscar Salmonsson Released: 24 Apr Certificate: 12A

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Following Songs from the Second Floor and You, the Living, Swedish auteur Roy Andersson here concludes his absurdist trilogy of human nature. It’s an intoxicating collection of very odd vignettes, loosely linked by sad-sack salesmen Jonathan (Andersson) and Sam (Westblom) as they try to peddle appalling novelty tat in an effort “to help people have fun” – one of several repeated refrains that become increasingly hilarious in conjunction with the quirky existential melancholy. Each scene is gorgeously constructed in single, static medium shot, with Andersson making full use of the depth of frame to position an assortment of oddballs in his deliberately mundane colour palette of greys and browns. Profound but never oppressive, his thought-provoking and ostensibly dark thesis is of civilisation trundling along in perennial fug. So, to present that with the lightness of touch Andersson has is something of a miracle, particularly in its more sinister moments when alluding to crimes of imperialism and exploitation. A brilliantly funny and funnily brilliant effort. [Chris Fyvie]

Altman

While We’re Young

Director: Noah Baumbach Starring: Ben Stiller, Naomi Watts, Adam Driver Released: 3 Apr Certificate: 15

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“For the first time, I didn’t feel like a child imitating an adult.” With While We’re Young, writer-director Noah Baumbach bridges the gap between his recent portraits of middle-aged malaise (Greenberg ) and twenty-something troubles (Frances Ha). Forty-something married couple Josh and Cornelia (Stiller and Watts), both involved in the documentary filmmaking world, see their lives upturned when a disarming young couple (Driver and Seyfried) enter their lives, one of whom is an aspiring documentarian. Josh, in particular, is invigorated by Driver’s Jamie and his loose lifestyle, but intergenerational tension eventually rears its insecure head. Baumbach’s cast are all on great form, with Watts showing an unexpected knack for physical comedy, but special mention must be given to Beastie Boy Adam Horovitz as one half of a new parent couple, troubled by Josh and Cornelia’s new friends. This is Baumbach’s broadest comedy to date and some of its sillier tangents don’t always hit, but when fully firing, its barbed one-liners are often spectacular. And, with any luck, it might kill off the fedora. [Josh Slater-Williams]

Force Majeure

Director: Ron Mann Starring: Robert Altman, Julianne Moore, Robin Williams Released: 3 Apr Certificate: 15

Director: Ruben Östlund Starring: Johannes Bah Kuhnke, Lisa Loven Kongsli Released: 10 Apr Certificate: 15

The career-portrait documentary is a tricky beast to pull off. A director will be inclined to do the artist’s body of work complete justice while also offering a fresh look at the individual behind the curtain. With cooperation from its subject’s widow, Ron Mann’s Altman, a bio-doc about one of America’s greatest filmmakers, succeeds somewhat on the latter front, thanks to various home movies and rare behind-the-scenes and interview footage. It is with Robert Altman’s actual films that the documentary flounders. Roughly nine works of a 39-film career get anything close to decent screentime, and some of those get maybe two minutes. Over half his filmography appears only in the form of on-screen titles or a single promo image, with nary an explanation of what the films even are, as the voiceover discusses another topic. For a tribute to a man it describes as highly influential (see all the famous faces popping up to define ‘Altmanesque’), Mann’s ultimately fluffy film is irritatingly uninterested in the breadth of Altman’s art. [Josh Slater-Williams]

A Swedish family are on a ski holiday in the French Alps. Everything seems to be going great for Tomas (Kuhnke), Ebba (Kongsli) and their two kids. That is, until one fateful day when an avalanche strikes during lunch. The mountainside restaurant seems to be right in its path, and everyone around them is screaming at the terror about to unfold. Except, as his previous film (tricksy race relations drama Play) proved, things in writer-director Ruben Östlund’s films never go down the route you might presume. The exact nature of how the avalanche aftermath unfolds will remain unspoiled here, but let’s just say that Mansplaining on Ice could work as a plausible alternative title for the film. In a formally playful fashion and manner largely free of didacticism, Östlund skewers the hollowness of many notions of gender roles and offers a pitch-black comedy that’s simultaneously full of raw emotion (Kongsli is absolutely fantastic) and as tense as many a great horror movie. A blizzard of discomfort and ambiguities. [Josh Slater-Williams]

John Wick

The Falling

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Director: Chad Stahelski Starring: Keanu Reeves, Michael Nyqvist, Alfie Allen Released: 10 Apr Certificate: 15 The name John Wick seems to send shivers down the spine of anyone who utters it in Chad Stahelski’s impressively lean and wry thriller, and it’s not long before we see why. A grieving ex-hitman brought out of retirement by the triple loss of his wife, his car and his new puppy, Wick is a killing machine who takes a no-nonsense approach to despatching his assailants, and he’s a perfect role for Keanu Reeves, whose deadpan delivery makes the most of the surprisingly amusing script. At heart, John Wick is a standard revenge narrative, but some key artistic choices elevate and distinguish the film from what might have been dully familiar fare. The clean, composed camerawork and sharp editing maximises the impact of the skilfully choreographed action, but the most striking aspect of John Wick is how the filmmakers vividly and wittily create a whole underworld for Wick to operate in. That underworld includes a nightclub called The Red Circle, and Jean-Pierre Melville would surely have approved of this film’s stripped-down yet elegant style. [Philip Concannon]

Review

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Director: Carol Morley Starring: Maisie Williams, Maxine Peake, Monica Dolan Released: 24 Apr Certificate: 15 Carol Morley’s woozy, eerie, 1969-set girls’ school mystery has proved divisive on the festival circuit – at London Film Festival, where it premiered, it was hailed as a masterpiece by a few, walked out on by many. After establishing a dreamy, nakedly emotional, sexualised and menstrual milieu, the film segues into tragedy and then charts a strange fainting epidemic that takes over the pupils and some of the teachers. Borrowing freely from Nicolas Roeg (and produced by his son Luc), as well as making reference to pagan folklore, The Falling invites us to wonder whether something supernatural is afoot, or the mass-blackouts are merely a psychosomatic rebellion. Without spoiling anything, we can say that the film promises to resolve much but moves on to other themes, and we found it evocative but unsatisfactory. Still, Morley offers much to ponder, and it may be that this is a work that plays better with age – in hindsight, perhaps it can be appreciated for all that it puts on the table rather than for what it answers. [Ian Mantgani]

FILM

Words: Simon Bland

pring is here. It’s a time for rebirth, something that Manchester’s beloved Cornerhouse will be experiencing in the coming weeks as they relocate to their newfangled HOME residence. In the meantime, though, it’d be a crime to miss the venue’s final two screenings. That’s a Wrap marks the last ever season at their iconic Oxford Road location, with Nicolas Roeg’s 1971 coming-of-age drama Walkabout (1 Apr) and David Lynch’s 1986 surreal crime tale Blue Velvet (2 Apr) providing the perfect alternative cinema send-off. This pair of modern classics should be more than enough to keep you going until the fun begins at HOME. In Liverpool, a host of fan favourites make a welcome return to the big screen. Head to FACT and you’ll find Jean-Luc Godard’s ballsy and influential debut, Breathless (12 Apr), a film that heralded French New Wave cinema and caught the attention of Tarantino years later. Speaking of influences, Hal Ashby’s odd-couple black comedy Harold and Maude (19 Apr) also gets the re-run treatment at FACT. If you wanted to know where Wes Anderson got his twee quirks from, look no further. Oh, and before we forget, Michel Gondry’s ace sci-fi-in-disguise Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind also makes an appearance at the venue (29 Apr) – thought-provoking, bittersweet and beautifully shot, it’s definitely not to be missed.

Blue Velvet

Marilyn Monroe drops by Liverpool this month too, when Billy Wilder’s cross-dressing comedy classic Some Like It Hot screens at Liverpool Philharmonic (16 Apr). As if catching Monroe, Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis in their prime wasn’t enough, the Philharmonic will even throw breakfast or lunch into the bargain to sweeten the deal. However, those with kids may want to get down to Liverpool’s Nook and Cranny. They’ll be hosting a very special Easter screening of Aardman’s ace animation Chicken Run (1 Apr) complete with milk and cookies for the kiddies. Oh, who are we kidding? Adults too. Too cheery for your tastes? Don’t worry, those Grimm guys are back to add some scares to your spring. Have your business cards at the ready because American Psycho pays a visit to Manchester Central Library (2 Apr) as part of Grimm Up North’s latest film season based on the works of contemporary authors. The team then round out the month with their Stephen King Season at The Dancehouse, with horror anthology Creepshow (9 Apr) and cautionary tale Pet Sematary (30 Apr). Perfect for a scary spring.

THE SKINNY

What We Do in the Shadows

Wooden Crosses

Rollerball

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Director: Jermaine Clement, Taika Waititi Starring: Jermaine Clement, Taika Waititi Released: 13 Apr Certificate: 15

A documentary crew follows the lives of four vampires living in Wellington. The key word here is ‘vampires.’ Exchange it for ‘rockstars,’ and we’re in Spinal Tap territory. Which is exactly how ...Shadows operates: scuttling between genres, sucking in references from Nosferatu to Twilight, and spraying out comedic lifeblood by way of fully-realised characters. Most laughs come from the petty sparring between its quartet. There’s dandified Viago sadist Vlad, and louche Deacon. Petyr (Ben Fransham), the eldest, lurks in the basement, munching on spinal columns and serving up Orlokian presence as foil to his endearing roomies. Exhuming anything fresh from the well-decimated vaults of horror comedy is no mean feat. However, flinging fistfuls of workaday charm like holy water over the premise, Waititi and Clement pry open the coffin lid and unleash a fang-sharp comedy that goes straight for the jugular. [Kirsty Leckie-Palmer]

Director: Raymond Bernard Starring: Pierre Blanchar, Gabriel Gabrio Released: Out now Certificate: PG Countless films declare ‘war is hell,’ but few do so with as much bitter veracity as Wooden Crosses. Adapted from Roland Dorgelès’ autobiographical novel, it follows a group of soldiers through the trenches and battlefields of WW1 France, their ranks ever-dwindling and their outlook increasingly disillusioned. Though it now lives in All Quiet on the Western Front’s shadow, Wooden Crosses is arguably the more affecting work. Its horrors feel grimly authentic, lent weight by an excellent cast comprised entirely of veterans, as well as director Bernard’s decision to shoot on actual battle sites. The film’s standout scenes eschew both softness and sentimentality, with infantry piling endlessly onwards, soldiers dying alone in no-man’s land, and ghostly battalions marching with head markers in hand. Appropriately enough considering its ‘in memoriam’ epigraph, Wooden Crosses proves hard to forget. [Chris Buckle]

Director: Norman Jewison Starring: James Caan, John Houseman Released: Out now Certificate: 15 Forty years on from its release, there’s no doubt that Rollerball feels like a prescient film. It’s set in a world run by corporations and its use of a violent spectacle to simultaneously entertain and subdue the masses has a clear resonance in today’s wildly popular Hunger Games series. Jewison’s film plays with a lot of smart ideas, but over the course of its generous running time that’s about all the film does with them. With its sluggish pacing, Rollerball gradually loses momentum between its slickly constructed game sequences, which still possess a bruising impact and remain oddly mesmerising even as the sport’s rules are totally bewildering. Shave off 20-odd minutes and put someone like Paul Verhoeven at the helm, and it’s easy to imagine Rollerball being a masterpiece of violent, outrageous satire. As it is, this solemn picture is an example of interesting ideas crying out for sharper execution. [Philip Concannon]

The Offence

Coffy

The Samurai

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Director: Sidney Lumet Starring: Sean Connery, Derek Newark Released: 20 Apr Certificate: 15 Over a career spanning five decades, Sidney Lumet specialised in taut, claustrophobic human dramas. But while the director’s early works such as 12 Angry Men and Fail Safe were characterised by a decidedly theatrical aesthetic, the 70s saw him undertake a more expansive approach to filmmaking. Adapted by John Hopkins from his stage play This Story of Yours, The Offence is one of Lumet’s most uneven offerings, awkwardly bridging the two phases of his career. It presents audiences with an overwhelmingly bleak rumination on evil, as Sean Connery’s hard-boiled police detective beats a suspected child molester to death and is forced to confront his own inner darkness. Scenes in which the star’s obsessive, bruised machismo is shown languishing within an austere vision of Britain are hugely effective, but lengthy dialogues with Trevor Howard and Vivian Merchant lack naturalism. Bordering on stagey melodrama, they distract from what’s otherwise an ambiguous delight. [Lewis Porteous]

Director: Jack Hill Starring: Pam Grier, Booker Bradshaw Released: 6 Apr Certificate: 18

Coffy sees director Jack Hill (The Big Doll House) at the top of his game, and the legendary Pam Grier justifying her fearless reputation as a vigilante out for revenge against the drug dealers destroying her community. There’s plenty of over-the-top violence, nudity and humour, as expected from the blaxploitation genre, but there’s some more subversive elements working under the surface too. The script is surprisingly nuanced and grounded, and Coffy isn’t merely a two-dimensional action character. On top of being handy with a shotgun, she’s a capable nurse who’s been driven to violence and remains unsure of herself. Grier’s fine-grained, vulnerable performance seals the deal. Coffy is essential viewing for anyone with an interest in the genre, or who wants to see Pam Grier at her very best. This Arrow release includes commentary from Jack Hill, interviews and a specially commissioned feature on the history of blaxploitation. [Scott McKellar]

Director: Till Kleinert Starring: Michel Dierks, Pit Bukowski Released: 13 Apr Certificate: 18 Werewolf films tend to deal with the physical, and thus psychosexual, painful metamorphosis of a coming-of-age protagonist, from Ginger Snaps to Teen Wolf. Till Kleinert’s feature debut, The Samurai, is an intoxicatingly queer take on the werewolf motif, bending genre (gothic horror, fairytale, giallo, slasher, black comedy) as freely and expertly as gender. Repressed policeman Jakob (Michel Dierks) patrols a provincial German village, feeding a wolf that’s bothering the locals, a parapraxis that summons the titular Samurai (Pit Burkowski). Burkowski is instantly iconic as the Samurai/werewolf: bestial and graceful, as beautiful as he is menacing, his wiry muscular body hirsute in a white gown, katana in hand. Jakob, at once Red Riding Hood, the Woodsman and a lone wolf, follows the Samurai into the woods. Doppelgangers, blood and gothic allusions abound; the film impressionistically unfurls into a lucid haze of sex and violence, compellingly offbeat and irrevocably Other. [Rachel Bowles]

Spotlight: Tom Little Sharing a Wikipedia page with Johnny Vegas and with a bottle of Prosecco to prove it, it’s the Leicester Mercury Comedian of the Year, everyone Interview: John Stansfield Illustration: The Genius Bureau (Michael Morrell)

e’s only been performing for just under two years, but there aren’t many new acts having a bettertimethanTomLittle.Afinalistatthestartofthis year in the coveted BBC New Comedy Award, he recently won the title of Leicester Mercury Comedian of the Year and has firmly cemented his billing as ‘rising star.’ His awkward, shouty demeanour is levelled by his sing-song Cumbrian accent, and his delivery and dissection of even the most simple jokes mark him out as one to watch.

very next night in a pub to eight people and went better. The lesson is ‘Start small.’”

First gig: “My first gig was at Beat the Frog in Manchester. It went terribly. I didn’t feel nervous at all until I stood on stage and suddenly felt completely aware of being stared at. I mumbled the first bit of material and waited for the massive laugh I’d imagined it would get. It got silence, and rightly so because my material was weak. I mumbled a bit more and got more silence. I wished I’d never got up, said ‘God. This is horrible,’ and was finally gonged off after an excruciatingly long 30 seconds. Normally gong nights can feel a bit mean but that night it would have been more cruel to make me stay on stage. My second gig was the

Favourite venue: “XS Malarkey’s obviously great. For entirely different reasons, I’m still fond of The Worst Comedy Night in Salford, at the King’s Arms. There are normally about ten people in. Seven are the same seven acts who are there every fortnight, one is the one new act who only came because he thought the name ‘The Worst Comedy Night in Salford’ was going to be ironic, and the other two are the ‘audience’ who came in by mistake then leave in the first interval because it’s horrible. It’s still a good night though, or if not a good night, then an interesting one A lot of my earliest gigs were there because you can just turn up and get

April 2015

Best gig: “My best was last month when I won the Leicester Mercury Comedian of the Year. Johnny Vegas won it in 1997 meaning that, if nothing else, I’ve got my name and his name on the same Wikipedia page without having to edit it myself. Also, I won a bottle of Prosecco.”

a spot on the night. A lot of other open mics seem to be booked months in advance so when you’re just starting out that’s really helpful. I hope it runs forever.” What would you be doing if you weren’t doing standup? “I used to work as a support worker in a children’s home so if I didn’t do standup I’d still probably be doing that.” If you were on death row, what would your last meal be? And why are you on death row? “Chicken Madras. I’m on death row because I saw someone drop litter and had an argument with them about why they shouldn’t, then the argument got completely out of hand and in the heat of the moment I murdered them. I reckon I’ll be at least 50 before that happens though. At present, whenever I see someone litter I just think ‘I have to let this go. I have too much to live for right now. But one day, when I’ve got nothing left to lose…’”

DVD / COMEDY

What’s the largest animal you think you could beat in a fight? No weapons. “I could be entirely wrong but I imagine it’s relatively easy to break a cow’s leg if you bend it the wrong way. A bull will maul you to death but I can’t imagine a cow even being able to turn around quick enough to bite you if you’re punching its side. So yeah, a cow. I still wouldn’t want to though.” If you lived in medieval times what would you do for a living? “Probably just a turnip farmer or something like that. I’ve no interest in turnips and don’t think I’m especially suited to farming but I just accept that there were less opportunities back then.” Question from past Spotlighter Jack Evans: Which video game is your life most like? “Tetris. It just goes on and on for no reason.” See Tom at Golborne Sports Club, Wigan, 24 Apr; Hot Water Comedy at the Holiday Inn, Lime St, Liverpool, 2 May; and The King’s Arms, Salford, 4 May

Review

Lost and Found As the Found Footage Festival washes up on our shores once again, we speak to festival founder Nick Prueher about Jeremy Beadle, whelping and weirdos

Interview: John Stansfield

ick Prueher and Joe Pickett have been friends since they were ten years old, bonding over a television show called Small Wonder, about a little girl who is secretly a robot. Prueher says, “All our classmates loved the show but Joe and I appreciated it on a whole different level. We did not excel at anything in school but we definitely had an advanced sense of irony at an early age. Luckily, we found each other.” This shared love for curios and oddities led the US duo to finding and collecting VHS tapes which they’ve been doing now for 24 years. The live show Found Footage Festival followed 13 years later, and after amassing some 6000 tapes between them, they now bring their collection of weirdos to the British Isles for a full tour. We spoke to Prueher about the art of found footage. The Skinny: What’s the process for the videos you choose? Nick Prueher: You never really know until you watch a tape but we’ve identified a few promising characteristics of good videos over the years. First of all, if there’s a C-list celebrity on the cover we will pick it up. It’s usually an exercise video or a health product they’re endorsing – can’tmiss videos for us. Religious puppets are always a winner, and you’d be surprised by how many of those tapes we found in the South. Apart from singling out misguided graphic design and misspellings on hand-labelled videos, we also look for anything where people who have no business rapping are rapping. There’s an alarming amount of misguided rapping in late-80s training videos. Is there a particular theme to this upcoming tour? Or is it just new things you’ve found? We’re calling this show Found Footage Festival’s Salute to Weirdos. As you know, weirdos are America’s number one cultural export, so we’ll be serving up the oddest characters we’ve ever found on VHS. They include Pretty Boy Floyd, a billiards instructor who talks more about sandwiches than pool; exercise video weirdos like Angela Lansbury, Traci Lords, and a bearded hippie named Zar; a supremely creepy Arnold Schwarzenegger in a 1983 travel video for Brazil; and a woman who makes her rabbit play the piano. If that doesn’t sell some tickets I don’t know what will. Are there any videos that you have disagreed upon or certain ones that you thought weren’t great but have captured the audience? Joe and I disagree about little things all the time. I remember we had an instructional video for

Bargain Bernie - The Lost Tapes

something called the ‘Caverject’ that was basically a hypodermic needle you inserted into your penis to give you an instant erection. This was in the days before Viagra. Anyway, we were editing the video as part of a montage and Joe thought we should show the needle going all the way into the wiener. I thought we should show some restraint and cut away from it before the needle goes in. We tried it both ways and it turned out I was right in this instance – audiences don’t want to see hypodermic needles poked all the way into penises. The funny part to me is that there was never a disagreement about whether or not to show a video like this; it was a given that the penis injection video was going into the show. Is there anywhere in UK that you have found to be a treasure trove of found footage? Maybe we are looking in the wrong places but all the charity shops we’ve been to in the UK are sort of fancy with designer clothes in the windows. It’s hard to find a VHS tape anywhere apart from the odd cricket bloopers video. We did turn up a few gems at a video store in Brighton last year – Topless Darts and Cliff Richard’s Heathcliff – and some friends in Manchester

Dee Gruenig and The Magical Rainbow Sponge

Preview

donated a pretty great prank video by Jeremy Beadle. The weird UK footage exists – we just haven’t found a lot of it yet.

“Religious puppets are always a winner” Nick Prueher

Have any DVDs made it into the collection, or is that against company rules? We are not proud of this but we have admitted a few DVDs into the collection over the last few years. The first exception to our ‘VHS only’ rule was made at a thrift store in Memphis, Tennessee, called Amvets. This place claimed to be the world’s largest thrift store and it certainly was huge. Crammed in amongst the hundreds of VHS tapes was a DVD from 2004 called How to Sing Like the King – a training video for Elvis impersonators. How can you say no to something like that? One of the benefits of being around so long is that we’ve become a magnet for other video collectors out there. About once a week I’ll get a box in the mail full of tapes from Portland, Oregon, or Anchorage, Alaska, or Madison, Wisconsin. It’s like Christmas morning every time! However, it can be a double-edged sword because video collectors tend to be an odd lot, and now they have our cell phone numbers. Do you have any favourites? A few years ago in Denver, a local oddball named Andrew came up to us after a show and asked if we’d like to come to his house and watch some of his VHS finds. He could have been a serial killer but we decided it was worth the risk. Turns out he was the best kind of weirdo, a lovable eccentric with a great video collection. He lives in a pink house filled with clown paintings, pictures of meat on barbecue grills, Barbie Dolls and jars of dust from the bottom of breakfast cereal bags, plus a white Chihuahua named Tiny Coconut. Now we are great friends

COMEDY

and hang out every time we’re in Denver. He hasn’t murdered us yet. Have you ever met any of your heroes from the videos? Yes, we always try to track down the people that fascinate us from our favourite videos. A few years ago we found two episodes of a public access TV show out of Los Angeles called Dancing with Frank Pacholski. In it, this balding man with a lot of body hair is clad in nothing but an American-flag Speedo and a Lone Ranger mask, and he’s dancing suggestively to John Philip Sousa marches. But the best part is that the audience for his prancing is a group of eight elderly people who look like they don’t want to be there. We had so many questions about this footage and this man that we hired a private detective to find him. The results of our quest to meet Frank Pacholski will be part of our UK tour. Is there a case for not judging a VHS by its cover? For example, Gary Coleman: For Safety’s Sake looks amazing, but does it live up to that wonderful cover? It happens all the time, which is why there are no shortcuts for us. We have to watch every single video. I remember finding a tape in the dumpster in my apartment building that was handlabelled in pencil, ‘Bonion Sergery.’ This person had somehow managed to misspell both ‘bunion’ and ‘surgery.’ I couldn’t even do that if I tried! It looked promising – perhaps homemade bunion surgery on video? – but it turned out to be a science show taped off TV. On the other hand, we found a really boring-looking tape on Long Island last year called Special Delivery: A Practical Guide to Whelping. It didn’t seem like much but we found out ‘whelping’ is the practice of aiding the birth of puppies. More importantly, canine mothers are referred to casually as ‘bitches.’ Over and over again, they talk about how ‘bitches should not be overweight’ and how you should ‘shave your bitch down.’ That’s pay dirt when you’re running a lowbrow found-video show. Found Footage Festival’s Salute to Weirdos comes to Belgrave Music Hall, Leeds, 20 Apr; Liverpool Small Cinema, 24 Apr; Leadmill, Sheffield, 25 Apr; and The Deaf Institute, Manchester, 26 Apr foundfootagefest.com

THE SKINNY

ADVERTISING FEATURE

Culture at Cervantes Your guide to this month’s highlights at the Cervantes Institute

Early Days (of a better nation)

Early Days (of a better nation) Unity Theatre

The war is over and the nation lies in ruins. You and your fellow survivors must build the beginnings of a new country. What are the rules you’re going to live by? And can you avoid the mistakes of the past? In the wake of the general election, renowned interactive-theatre makers Coney bring their latest slice of genius to Liverpool’s Unity Theatre. Weaving together theatre and game design to create dynamic shows and experiences, Coney interrogate the possibilities of contemporary theatre practice – and strive to move it forward. Early Days (of a better nation) presents a dystopian future in which its audience must become the player, challenged with the task of reframing contemporary society. Is democracy necessary or can everybody’s voice be heard? What would this look like if so – and who has the right to decide? Coney ask the questions – you

must provide the answer. Inspired by the 2011 UK riots, the Arab spring, Iceland’s crowd-sourced constitution and the rise (and fall) of Occupy, Early Days stimulates a unique discourse, rigorously developed in partnership with a number of academic institutions and arts organisations. Guided by principles of loveliness, curiosity and adventure, Coney’s work is driven by collaboration and dialogue. Intelligent and supple, Early Days is shaped by the imagination of the audience, making for a truly exciting, startlingly unique theatrical experience. What makes Coney so distinctive is their dedication to playfulness and audience – a dedication that places them at the forefront of British theatre and makes them one of the most enigmatic companies around. They deserve all of the superlatives a 300-word preview allows. [Alecia Marshall] Part of the U-Decide week of political performance at Unity Theatre. 8 May, 7pm, £12 (£10)

Rebecca

The Lowry If you were fortunate enough to catch Dead Dog in a Suitcase last year, you will be familiar with the work of Cornish storytellers Kneehigh. Missed out? It is time to get yourself acquainted. A British theatre company with an international profile, Kneehigh’s multi-disciplinary performances are characterised by their vigour, presenting popular and challenging theatre with a joyful anarchy true to their name. Embarking on a UK tour with a 21st-century retelling of Daphne du Maurier’s gothic masterpiece, Rebecca, Kneehigh inject their usual charisma into a dusty classic. We all know the story: following the mysterious death of his first wife, Maxim de Winter returns to Manderley with his new young bride. Surrounded by memories of the glamorous Rebecca, the new Mrs De Winter is consumed

April 2015

by jealousy. Setting out to uncover the secrets of the house – fiercely guarded by the sinister housekeeper, Mrs Danvers – our nameless heroine finds all is not as it appears… The subject of numerous adaptations, including the 1940 Hitchcock/Olivier psychological thriller of the same name, Rebecca is a story that continues to entice; and Emma Rice’s production (Rice both adapts and directs) promises Cornish romance and theatrical magic. The narrative may seem a little dark for such a playful company, but generous helpings of humour and gleeful physicality provide an interesting contemporary aesthetic. Quoted as pinpointing sex, secrets and complex female characters as her inspiration for adaptation, Rice is clearly a woman to be trusted. There is also talk of a badly behaved puppet dog. I can’t say more than that. [Alecia Marshall] Runs 7-11 Apr, from £10.50

hen you think of the Cervantes Institute, you might think guiltily of those language lessons you haven’t booked yet. What you might not realise is that the stately building at the end of Deansgate is also a hub of cultural activity of all kinds connected to the Spanish-speaking world. We took a look at April’s calendar and found activities to stimulate quite literally all of the senses – yes, even smell...! First up, the month offers plenty for those who’ve been on a literary kick in anticipation of World Book Night. Mexico-based poet Pedro Serrano will be appearing on 29 Apr in support of his new book Peatlands, a collection that aims to provoke ‘a sense of chaos from which ultimately grows a unification of all things,’ while World Book Night itself (23 Apr) is celebrated with a tribute to the man who gave the institute his name, Miguel de Cervantes; more specifically, to his famous 17th-century novel, y’know, the best book of all time. If it’s glowered down at you from library shelves since you were only twice its size, then now might be a good time to tackle Don Quixote, what with Cervantes back in the news due to the recent discovery of a casket marked ‘M.C.’ beneath a convent in Madrid. (Let’s hope the poor guy doesn’t have to go the televised reburial route of Richard III.) If reading it is still too daunting, then at least enjoy an evening of music from RNCM students and free sangria in tribute to the author. If you’re after an unusual date night or just a little taste – well, whiff – of luxury after work, a suitably aromatic spring evening looks set to be had mid-month, when experts from luxury Madrid brand Loewe will be exploring the world of scent. The design house first started making fragrances in 1972 and believe that ‘luxury, passion, sensuality and magic are what makes a perfume’ – though we reckon the resins, musks and spices they use must also have something to do with it. Head perfumer Emilio Valeros has been with the company for over two decades, and a recent teaming with young London designer Jonathan Anderson has heralded a new chapter for the label. Join Eduardo Zorzano and Zahara Manchado from the team on 16 Apr to find out what’s in store. There’s more besides – but if all this is making you want to get stuck in rather than spectate, you could finally enrol on that Spanish course (spring term kicks off 13 Apr), drop into a conversation club, or try your hand (well, feet) at flamenco or tango. Most events start at 6.30pm and are free

Want to know more about our new-look Zap? Talk to us about advertising in our weekly top ten events e-letter for timely, targeted exposure Audience network of 75,000+ every Thursday To find out more contact us on the sales team on 0161 831 9590 or sales@theskinny.co.uk

@TheSkinnyNW /TheSkinnyMag

I N D E P E N D E N T

C U LT U R A L

J O U R N A L I S M

Illustration: www.verbals-picks.com

Instituto Cervantes, 326-330 Deansgate, Manchester manchester.cervantes.es/en

THEATRE

Preview

Win Four Tickets to Farm Feast!

Photo: Carolina Faruolo

Win a Pair of Weekend Tickets to Field Day!

Field Day returns to London’s Victoria Park on 6 and 7 June. Expect a jam-packed lineup across the weekend of the best new bands, DJs and music from the likes of Caribou, Ride, Patti Smith, Mac DeMarco, FKA twigs, Hudson Mohawke, DIIV, Hookworms, Toumani Diabaté, Run the Jewels, Awesome Tapes from Africa and many more. Alongside this, Field Day brings the village mentality back to London with traditional fete games, stalls, fairground rides, delicious street food and independent brewers. For your chance to win a pair of weekend tickets, simply head along to theskinny.co.uk/ competitions and correctly answer the following question:

Preview

What unusual competition could be found at Field Day 2014? a) Nettle eating b) Sand-castle building c) Pasty making Competition closes midnight Sunday 26 April. Entrants must be 18 or over. Winners will be notified via email within two working days of closing and will be required to respond within 48 hours or the prize will be offered to another entrant. The names of the winner will be on the guest list. Our Ts&Cs can be found at www.theskinny.co.uk/about/ terms-and-conditions fielddayfestivals.com

In the idyllic rolling fields of Wirral's Claremont Farm, come and meet Farm Feast. On Saturday 13 and Sunday 14 June we celebrate everything that's homegrown and locally sourced in a twoday festival of food, drink and music. We have two stages of music: the main stage, and within the historic courtyard you can sample sounds from some of the best local and regional acts programmed by Bido Lito!, Mellowtone and Dovedale Social. For food and drink we’ve invited the finest food producers from the region. We believe in great food and drink that makes you happy, that's why we handpick the best food producers to come and showcase their wares at the festival. Festival favourites include The Ship & Mitre beer tent, the Beer & Cider Festival, Little Feasters, Good Life Marquee, a chefs’ demo stage, international street food, the sheep show and Vintage Village. This year we'll be joined by chef and baker John Whaite, CBeebies’ Katy Ashworth and Mowgli's Nisha Katona.

COMPETITIONS

For your chance to win four tickets to Farm Feast, simply head along to theskinny.co.uk/ competitions and correctly answer the following question: Where can you find Nisha Katona's Indian Street Food restaurant Mowgli? a) Bold Street, Liverpool b) Manchester’s Northern Quarter c) Old Clatterbridge Road, Wirral Competition closes midnight Sunday 26 April. Winners will be notified via email within two working days of closing and will be required to respond within 48 hours or the prize will be offered to another entrant. The names of the winner will be on the guest list. Our Ts&Cs can be found at www.theskinny.co.uk/about/terms-and-conditions farmfeast.co.uk

THE SKINNY

Book Highlights A brand new poetry series launches in Liverpool this month, while non fiction and spoken word nights continue to thrive in Manchester Words: Alice Horne Illustration: Georgina Tee

iverpool University Press’s new poetry series, Pavilion Poetry, bursts onto the Northwest’s literary scene this month with two events in the region’s biggest cities. Aiming to publish daring contemporary poetry with an international reach, Pavilion Poetry launches with readings from its three new titles, all broadly connected by the theme of the body. Mona Arshi will read from her debut collection, Small Hands, which centres on the grief that accompanies the loss of a sibling. Sarah Corbett’s verse novel And She Was experiments with multiple voices and poetic forms to tell one story of love and loss, while Liverpool-based Eleanor Rees explores landscapes of self and city in her third full-length collection, Blood Child. Experience it first at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation in Manchester on 20 Apr, or catch it at Liverpool University’s School of the Arts library on 27 Apr.

BOOK OF THE MONTH Black Mass

By Dick Lehr and Gerard O’Neill

Manchester’s newest non fiction reading night returns to Gullivers for its second live event on 22 Apr. Hosted by local writer Kate Feld and radio producer Nija Dalal, The Real Story will feature readings from a selection of non fiction writers, headlined by BBC Radio 6 Music presenter Stuart Maconie. Maconie has written a number of bestselling titles, including the travel book Adventures on the High Teas and a tour of social history through pop music, The People’s Songs: The Story of Modern Britain in 50 Records. It looks set to be another popular evening, so head down early if you want a seat. Spoken word has been rising to prominence in the Northwest for a while, but if you still haven’t fallen for the hype, two regular events this month might just whet your appetite. Bad Language is among Manchester’s most wellknown open mic literature nights and has played host to the likes of Roy Macfarlane, Jo Bell and

Alison Moore in its five-year history. Find them this month at their usual haunt of The Castle Hotel on 29 Apr. If you’re sad to see the end of Manchester’s annual feminist festival Wonder Women, you can head to the Three Minute Theatre for Stirred Poetry’s pro-women poetry night on 27 Apr. Guests, including performance poet Geneviève L. Walsh and punk poet Toria Garbutt, will be responding to the theme of the artist Tracey Emin. Expect any preconceptions about poetry and gender to be challenged. Finally, fantasy, horror and science fiction publisher Tor brings two of its promising debut authors to Liverpool. A clinical classifications specialist doubling as fantasy author, Genevieve Cogman will be speaking about the first instalment of her new adventure series, The Invisible Library, which follows a professional spy through a mysterious world of secret societies,

The Discreet Hero

Pavilion Poetry: International Anthony Burgess Foundation, Manchester, Mon 20 Apr, 6.30pm, free, manchester.ac.uk; and the School of the Arts library, Liverpool, Mon 27 Apr, 5pm, free (booking required), liv.ac.uk The Real Story, Gullivers, Manchester, Wed 22 Apr, 7.30pm, free (donation suggested), therealstory.org Bad Language, The Castle Hotel, Manchester, Wed 29 Apr, 7.30pm, free, badlanguagemcr.com Stirred Poetry, Three Minute Theatre, Manchester, Mon 27 Apr, 7.30pm, free (£1-£2 donation suggested), stirredpoetry.wordpress.com Tor New Voices Evening, Waterstones Liverpool One, Wed 29 Apr, 6pm, £3 (£2), waterstones.com

A Decent Ride

The Honours

rrrrr

By Irvine Welsh

By Mario Vargas Llosa

alternative realities and stolen books. Cogman will be joined by Lucy Hounsom, whose first novel, Starborn, is out this month – think ancient tradition, powerful magic and one girl’s fate caught in the balance. Both are in discussion with Glyn Morgan, editor of the critical journal of the British Science Fiction Association, at Waterstones Liverpool One on 29 Apr.

By Tim Clare

rrrrr

This true-crime classic reveals Scorsese’s The Departed as slight exaggeration rather than fullblown fabrication. His Frank Costello was, if anything, a more palatable version of Whitey Bulger, the Irish-American gangster he was based upon, who wore FBI protection like a coat of armour during his bloody 80s heyday. This period saw his criminal enterprise flourish as the rival Italian Mafia withered, in no small part down to the Federal attack dogs Bulger targeted upon them. Black Mass is the true tale of these times, expertly constructed by two Boston Globe reporters and originally published in 2000. Canongate top and tail this new edition with intro and epilogue in time for the Johnny Depp film adaptation later this year. It’s not an opportunistic move, it’s a laudable one. This perfectly measured journalistic work constructs a thrilling factual timeline which bleeds and shocks, while avoiding the tabloid hyperbole of certain true-crime wastes of paper pulp, stacked high in airport bookshops. It explores an ugly interdependency between the foxes and hounds on Boston’s South Side – a chilling symmetry. Bulger is painted as a Machiavellian sociopath – the dark Prince of Southie, rising within his criminal court. He handles his FBI handlers with ease, men ultimately bought cheap with flattery and pocket change. Black Mass exposes the dilapidated soul of American justice at a moment when corruption seeped into the foundations of its integrity. [Alan Bett]

The latest novel from this Nobel Prize-winning writer examines a web of corruption that extends from the world of business to the heart of family life. There are two storylines: a small-business owner in the northern town of Piura who refuses to pay protection fees, and the owner of a successful insurance company who needs to disinherit his two lazy, murderous sons. The novel balances on the point at which someone becomes a hero: these two men are not leaders of an agitating counter-culture but they each refuse to accept a predetermined life set out by the status quo. While we might expect the younger generation to be the revolutionaries, it’s the older ones who stick most closely to their ideals. It’s refreshing to find the stereotype of ageing conservatism so thoroughly overturned – with humour, pathos, and quite a lot of sex. The prose is thick with detail, which works well in conjuring contemporary Peru, but in places it gets in the way of the plot. Edith Grossman’s translation deals with this as best it can, but there is a tendency to over-explain the details at the point where the narrative needs them least, which is deflating. Nevertheless, it is an intriguing exploration of the relationship between fathers and sons. [Galen O’Hanlon] Out 2 Apr, published by Faber & Faber, RRP £20.00

By the end of the first chapter of Irvine Welsh’s new book, Edinburgh cab driver ‘Juice’ Terry Lawson, has managed to secure himself a ten grand driving gig for a reality TV star, and revealed to a mourning family that his friend has killed himself by choking on his own vomit and then accidently freezing his own head in a fridge freezer. He mistook it for an oven apparently. Terry has also fucked every female he has so far encountered, using his cab as a mobile love hotel for unsuspecting Festival tourists, drunken late-night revellers and the odd suicidal playwright. A dozen pages in, I thought I was going to hate this book. The plot is ridiculous and gratuitous – several characters, especially the American, are so stupid you want to squash them out of the pages with your thumb. We witness a hurricane, $100,000 bottles of whisky, necrophilia, incest and heart attacks. Despite this, A Decent Ride ends up sucking you indecently in. Terry, with his ‘Auld Faithful’ cock, is a charming and loveable cartoon character and Welsh’s customary use of distinctive dialect and full-on language is, as ever, immersive and weirdly enjoyable. The book leaves you feeling satisfyingly grimy, like the meaty brown-paper bag aftertaste of a McDonald’s cheeseburger, eaten shamefully alone in the night drizzle of a deserted street corner. [Sacha Waldron] Out 16 Apr, published by Vintage, RRP £12.99

Tim Clare is a stand-up poet and the author of award-winning memoir We Can’t All Be Astronauts. His debut novel, The Honours, is a tightly plotted fantasy told through the eyes of a rebellious, rifle-toting and combat-obsessed 13-year-old named Delphine. When Delphine’s parents move her to Alderberen Hall, having joined its mysterious society, she sets out to uncover its secrets after overhearing a suspicious conversation. Soon the daring and ingenious heroine has discovered a network of secret passages, enabling her to spy on the house guests. Unfortunately for the reader, the guests are a cast of clichéd eccentrics, including an elderly reclusive lord, a bossy housekeeper and a dark stranger from the east with alleged mystical powers. The failure of these characters to come alive makes it difficult to emotionally engage with the novel as the plot progresses. Clare can certainly write and has a boundless imagination coupled with an ability to fully inhabit and convey his fantasy world. However, the actionpacked and intensely detailed plot often struggles to deliver a genuine sense of intrigue. The short sections of the book that take place away from Alderberen Hall are actually more atmospheric and enjoyable, with Delphine’s character given a little space to breathe within the narrative. Although a pacy and richly described read, Clare’s debut is not as engaging as anticipated. [Lucy Christopher] Out 2 Apr, published by Canongate, RRP £12.99

Out now, published by Canongate, RRP £12.99

April 2015

BOOKS

Preview

Manchester Music Tue 31 Mar XERATH

ROADHOUSE, 19:30–22:30, £6

One of the prominent new voices in British heavy metal, Xerath tour with a brand new line-up. LEE SCRATCH PERRY

BAND ON THE WALL, 20:00–23:00, £22.50 EARLYBIRD (£24.50 THEREAFTER)

Hugely influential reggae and dub producer who was behind Bob Marley’s early studio output. DEVIN TOWNSEND PROJECT

MANCHESTER ACADEMY, 19:00–23:00, £18

Canadian musician and producer Devin Townsend takes to the road with his live band of players. SWIM DEEP

THE DEAF INSTITUTE, 19:00–22:30, £SOLD OUT

Bright indie hopefuls making sun-kissed dross-pop in their hometown of Birmingham, then touring it to a venue near you. RATCLIFFE, MARTIN & WOOD

MATT AND PHRED’S JAZZ CLUB, 21:00–00:00, FREE

A group who came together to recreate the sounds of the 1960s West coast lounge scene.

NIGHT & DAY’S LOCAL SHOWCASE (LAST HORIZON + FLAME ON + TIRADE + WAKING SIRENA) NIGHT AND DAY CAFE, 20:00–23:00, £5

Live music showcase, giving a stage to local up-and-coming performers.

BBC HORIZONS TOUR (GABRIELLE MURPHY + HOUDINI SAX + SEAZOO)

SOUND CONTROL, 19:00–22:00, FREE

Some of the finest talent in Wales, according to BBC Wales, goes out on tour. CHARLI XCX

MANCHESTER ACADEMY 2, 19:30–23:00, £SOLD OUT

The much-hyped singer/ songwriter delivers intricate, post-apocalyptic pop in her own multi-layered performance style. PETER DONOHUE

BRIDGEWATER HALL, 19:30–22:00, FROM £12

As part of the Ravel and Rachmaninov season, the pianist plays selections from the two greats.

Wed 01 Apr PRIMITIVE MAN

ROADHOUSE, 19:00–22:30, £8

The Colorado lot unleash their usual filthy maelstrom of blackened doom, playing tracks from their debut LP, Scorn. THE DAVE LUVIN GROUP

MATT AND PHRED’S JAZZ CLUB, 21:00–00:00, FREE

The Kansas City transplant presents his reflection of living in Salford for four years, in collaboration with three Salford University music graduates. OSCAR

SOUP KITCHEN, 19:30–22:15, £6

Off-kilter pop musings disappointingly not from the Chelsea footballer of the same name.

NIGHT & DAY’S LOCAL SHOWCASE (BAD MOLLY + MIDNIGHT SUNS + THEIVES + ASYLUM + BLOOM) NIGHT AND DAY CAFE, 20:00–23:00, £5

Live music showcase, giving a stage to local up-and-coming performers. HIDDEN IN PLAIN VIEW

SOUND CONTROL, 18:30–22:00, £12.50

New Jersey post-hardcore bunch who’ve formed, disbanded and reformed in their 15-odd years.

PICCADILLY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

ROYAL NORTHERN COLLEGE OF MUSIC, 19:00–22:00, £12

The Symphony, set up to give aspiring musicians a chance to perform, takes on Turnage, Ginastera and Mahler. VINTAGE TROUBLE

MANCHESTER ACADEMY 2, 19:00–23:00, £17.50

R’n’B and soul project of Canadian duo Ty Taylor and Nalle Colt, brought to life in their basic home studio in Venice Beach. THE VACCINES

ALBERT HALL, 19:00–23:00, £SOLD OUT

London-based indie-rockers of dubious musical merit.

THE VIEW

COURTNEY BARNETT

MANCHESTER CLUB ACADEMY, 19:00–23:00, £14

GORILLA, 19:00–22:00, £SOLD OUT

The Dundee indie-pop scamps get back on the road, if anyone’s still bothered?

Thu 02 Apr NELSON CAN (LIINES)

ROADHOUSE, 19:30–22:30, £4

The Danish trio come to the UK.

SLEEPING WITH SIRENS VS PIERCE THE VEIL

MANCHESTER ACADEMY, 19:00–23:00, £SOLD OUT

The Florida post-hardcore fiends go up against the punk trio. In all likelihood they’ll just play one after the other. WHITE BOY

THE DEAF INSTITUTE, 19:30–23:00, £10

Ex-Janice Graham Band frontman Joe Jones returns with his new group. TOM HARRISON QUARTET

MATT AND PHRED’S JAZZ CLUB, 21:00–00:00, FREE

The award-winning saxophonist brings his quartet to Matt and Phred’s. LOTTE MULLAN + JAZZ MORLEY

THE CASTLE HOTEL, 19:30–23:00, £10

Tender pop singer/songwriter originally from the fields of Suffolk, who, asides from music, claims to enjoy bike rides, real ale and cowboys. Don’t we all. FRANCE (JACK EDWARDS + JOE DUNNE)

NIGHT AND DAY CAFE, 20:00–23:00, FREE

The three-piece rock country (not the entire nation) celebrate the release of their debut EP. STEEL PULSE

THE RITZ, 18:30–22:30, £22.50

The Grammy Award-winning reggae band return to the UK. SAMOANS

SOUND CONTROL, 19:00–22:00, £6

Cardiff four-piece citing Reuben, Maps & Atlases and Deftones as influences. GRETCHEN PETERS

ROYAL NORTHERN COLLEGE OF MUSIC, 20:00–22:30, £22

The honey-toned American singer/ songwriter does her countrified folk thing, playing tracks from her new LP, Blackbirds. KATHRYN ROBERTS AND SETH LAKEMAN

THE MET, 20:00–22:30, £14 (£12)

The folk rock couple return with a new album, Hidden People. ENABLERS

GULLIVERS, 19:30–23:00, £7

San Francisco indie rockers featuring the poetry/spoken word of Pete Simonelli. ANDY FAIRWEATHER LOW AND THE LOW RIDERS

WATERSIDE ARTS CENTRE, 19:30–22:30, £20

The vocalist of Amen Corner and Eric Clapton and George Harrison collaborator takes his current band on tour.

Fri 03 Apr

THE CASSETTES (CHRIS WISE + THE HIDDEN REVOLUTION + JIMI RAINE + COLLECTOR’S CLUB)

ROADHOUSE, 19:00–22:30, £6

Film launch for Hackney’s Finest with the bands on the soundtrack playing live. RIVAL JOY

THE RUBY LOUNGE, 19:00–22:00, £5

Local pop rock trio from Manchester celebrate their new release. KOKOMO

BAND ON THE WALL, 19:00–22:30, £16

Sharp and funky 10-piece from the 1970s get back on the road. TURRENTINE JONES

THE DEAF INSTITUTE, 19:00–22:30, £5

Organ-embellished rock ‘n’ roll trio headed by Australian guitarist Julian Neville. MR WILSON’S SECOND LINERS

MATT AND PHRED’S JAZZ CLUB, 21:30–01:00, £5

A New Orleans style brass band, blending jazz with 90s club classics.

FAT BASTARD COCK FEST (MINNY POPS + BAD GUYS + ILL + LUMINOUS BODIES + MORE)

ISLINGTON MILL, 15:30–02:00, £6

A mighty all dayer featuring a host of weird and party starting strands of punk and experimental music.

Listings

The Australian singer-songwriter comes to the UK with her debut LP set to send her stratospheric. LOST DIALS

SOUND CONTROL, 19:00–22:00, £7

Riverjuke signings tour with a second EP on the way. LAIBACH

MANCHESTER ACADEMY 2, 19:00–23:00, £17.50

Slovenian avant-garde outfit in re-invented form, touring latest LP, Spectre. BLUE

O2 APOLLO, 19:00–23:00, £25

Lee Ryan et al get back on the road for a spring tour. Nobody cares. JAYWALKERS WITH LITTLE RICH

THE MET, 20:00–22:30, £12 (£10)

Former BBC Young Folk Award finalists return with cuts from their third studio album. BARS AND MELODY

MANCHESTER ACADEMY 3, 19:30–23:00, £SOLD OUT

They only ruddy went and made the Britain’s Got Talent final.

Sat 04 Apr OF MICE & MEN

MANCHESTER ACADEMY, 19:00–23:00, £SOLD OUT

Californian metalcore outfit on’t road touring their new LP, Restoring Force. ERRORS

THE DEAF INSTITUTE, 19:30–22:30, £10

The Glasgow electronic indie rockers air tracks from their more organic-sounding new LP, Lease of Life, which finds them complementing their trademark liberal use of vocals with pleasingly straight-cut melodies. CUBA VIDA

MATT AND PHRED’S JAZZ CLUB, 21:30–01:00, £5

A mixture of Latin, jazz, funk, reggae and salsa. BOX OF LIGHT

SOUP KITCHEN, 19:00–22:15, £6

Nostalgic melty-beach pop from the young trio.

PRESIDENT RAY-GUN (HAPI +ANTIDOTES + FRIEND OF A FRIEND) THE CASTLE HOTEL, 19:30–23:00, £5

Lo-fi alt rockers hailing from all four corners of the UK. MARIKA HACKMAN

NIGHT AND DAY CAFE, 20:00–23:00, £8

Sweet-voiced young folk singer/ songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. FALLING RED

SOUND CONTROL, 18:00–22:00, £5

UK rock mob whose sleazy anthems are unleashed in a speeding flood of catchy riffs and hooks. NICKI MINAJ

MANCHESTER ARENA, 18:00–23:00, FROM £39.50

The American rapstress takes her latest LP on the road, hopefully bedecked in a feather headdress. WHAT’S THE ALTERNATIVE?...THIS IS! (THE ELECTRIC STARS + THE SPEED OF SOUND)

THE KING’S ARMS, 21:00–00:00, £7 (£4)

The latest WTA? Night, which promises to reject corporate pop and revel in true independence.

Sun 05 Apr

PRETTY RICKY + DAY 26 + J HOLIDAY

MANCHESTER ACADEMY, 19:00–23:00, £SOLD OUT

Pop triple header. THE GELATOS

MATT AND PHRED’S JAZZ CLUB, 20:00–23:30, FREE

High energy trio traversing the 40s and 50s with their blend of piano, double bass, sax, clarinet and vocals. PARTYNEXTDOOR

GORILLA, 19:00–23:00, £SOLD OUT

Canadian singer who decided he was bored with the EDM thing and is now delivering slick R’n’B. NIGHT & DAY’S LOCAL SHOWCASE

NIGHT AND DAY CAFE, 20:00–23:00, £5

Live music showcase, giving a stage to local up-and-coming performers. A PLACE TO BURY STRANGERS

SOUND CONTROL, 19:00–22:00, £9

The Brooklyn psych-rockers flex their fine musical chops in a live setting.

ABOVE AND BEYOND

J-BEAR AND THE GIANTS

ALBERT HALL, 21:00–04:00, £SOLD OUT

MATT AND PHRED’S JAZZ CLUB, 21:00–00:00, FREE

Melodic trance trio made up of Jono Grant, Tony McGuinness and Paavo Siljamaki, who also own record label Anjunabeats.

Mon 06 Apr RICK ROSS

MANCHESTER ACADEMY, 19:00–23:00, £35

The Miami rapper continues to ride the wave of last year’s duo of (distinctly different) LPs: Mastermind and Hood Billionaire. TORO Y MOI

SOUND CONTROL, 19:30–23:00, £12

Chazwick Bradley Bundick (aka Toro y Moi) brings the epic chillwave, playing tracks off his latest album, Anything in Return. IN HINDSIGHT

MANCHESTER ACADEMY 2, 19:00–23:00, £SOLD OUT

Three blues rock tale-telling songs of swamp and swagger apparently! Expect some strutting? WHITE HILLS (GNOD)

ISLINGTON MILL, 19:30–23:00, £5

Expect more psychedelia grooves, otherworldly bleeps and huge chunks of gnarly formless noise from the fuzzed-out New York rockers. OSCA + THE NIGHT IV

SOUP KITCHEN, 19:30–22:30, £7

Co-headline tour between the two alternative pop newbies. NIGHT & DAY’S LOCAL SHOWCASE

NIGHT AND DAY CAFE, 20:00–23:00, £5

Live music showcase, giving a stage to local up-and-coming performers. MEGHAN TRAINOR

Pop-meets-rock outfit with brothers Michael Newcombe (lead vocals and bass) and Daniel Newcombe (drums) at the helm.

American singer/songwriter and record producer who began warbling at the age of 6.

Tue 07 Apr

THE MET, 20:00–22:30, £10 (£8)

STUART MCCALLUM RESIDENCY

MATT AND PHRED’S JAZZ CLUB, 21:00–00:00, FREE

Cinematic Orchestra guitarist trying out new material in the realm of beats, electronica, classical orchestration and jazz. JESSICA PRATT (JO ROSE)

NIGHT AND DAY CAFE, 20:00–23:00, £9

The San Francisco-hailing freakfolk singer continues her graduation from four-track bedroom recordings to actual performances in front of actual audiences. She brings her second album On Your Own Love Again to a live setting. SATYRICON

SOUND CONTROL, 19:00–22:30, £15.50

THE RITZ, 19:00–22:30, £SOLD OUT

RANT

Collective of four Scottish fiddle players, two from the Shetland Islands and two from the Highlands: Bethany Reid, Jenna Reid, Sarah-Jane Summers and Lauren MacColl. THOMAS TRUAX

GULLIVERS, 19:30–23:00, £6

Multi-instrumental indie-pop stalwart.

Fri 10 Apr MAMA’S GUN

THE RUBY LOUNGE, 19:00–22:00, £12.50

Soul and funk-infused pop from London.

ANY DARK NIGHT (RIVET CITY + THE BUSKERS SONS + JONNY OATES BAND + POMONA)

Back metal duo hailing from Norway, touring the hell out of their latest self-titled studio album.

Local showcase.

Wed 08 Apr

THE DEAF INSTITUTE, 19:00–22:30, £7

BAND ON THE WALL, 19:30–22:30, £6

BALTHAZAR

ROADHOUSE, 19:30–22:30, £9

Belgian pop outfit infusing their sound with rock, electro and hiphop influences.

DENAI MOORE

MATT AND PHRED’S JAZZ CLUB, 21:30–01:00, £5

RETOX (WARSAWASRAW + BODY HOUND + DENIM & LEATHER)

The Southern Californian quartet tour their latest LP, YPLL. THE DEAF INSTITUTE, 19:30–22:30, £8.50

London-hailing singer/songwriter known for her captivating blend of folk and soul, touring with her latest EP, The Lake.

DEMILLE BAND

Five-piece band from Liverpool loving rock and roll in its most vintage form. TIGERCATS

THE CASTLE HOTEL, 19:30–23:00, £6

Newly formed three-piece instrumental funk outfit.

Making music that apparently stems from the weird collision point between Half Japanese, Daniel Johnston, Hefner, Prince and Orange Juice.

ISLINGTON MILL, 20:00–23:00, £10

NIGHT AND DAY CAFE, 20:00–23:00, £5

THE DIRTY BOMB

MATT AND PHRED’S JAZZ CLUB, 21:00–00:00, FREE

MOON DUO

San Franciscan duo (aka Ripley Johnson and Sanae Yamada) built on lazily advancing solos and eccentric organ meanderings of loveliness. HARTHEIM

SOUP KITCHEN, 19:30–23:00, £4

Manchester’s most exciting dark pop provocateurs take the plunge with their biggest headlining show to-date, praise from Mary-Anne Hobbs and, well, us ringing in their ears. AMATORSKI (RACE TO THE SEA + CAOILFHIONN ROSE)

NIGHT AND DAY CAFE, 20:00–23:00, £5

Fidgety post-rock group who performed the theme song for The Missing dontchaknow. SILVERSTEIN

SOUND CONTROL, 18:30–22:00, £14

The melodic punk group with over one million album sales to their name return to the UK. JONATHAN SCOTT

BRIDGEWATER HALL, 13:10–14:00, FREE

Associate Artist Jonathan Scott returns for a new season of his ever popular lunchtime organ concerts.

Thu 09 Apr THE SUMS

ROADHOUSE, 19:30–22:30, £5

Formerly Smaller with Digsy, The Sums are a new Manchester four-piece.

NIGHT & DAY’S LOCAL SHOWCASE

Live music showcase, giving a stage to local up-and-coming performers.

BASEMENT AVALANCHE (ROSCO + THE DIRTY PLAINS + KARL WALSH AND THE HAPPY FUTURE + EASY KILL + MORE)

THE RITZ, 18:00–23:00, £4

Cult pioneers of their own unique dub/dance crossover sound, Zion Train take to the road. DUKE GARWOOD

THE DEAF INSTITUTE, 19:00–22:30, £10

London-based multi-instrumentalist of the distinctly bluesy persuasion. DANA ALI BAND

MATT AND PHRED’S JAZZ CLUB, 21:30–00:30, £5

Neo-soul group formed by husband and wife duo Dave Hewitt and Dana Ali. BLACK YAYA

SOUP KITCHEN, 19:00–22:15, £7.50

Herman Dune frontman and writer David Ivar plays under his Black Yaya moniker, delivering simple guitar songs with occasional effects and harmonica. SKELETONWITCH

SOUND CONTROL, 18:00–22:00, £13

Unpigeonholeable metalheads boasting a vicious live show and blue-collar work ethic. RAF GALA CONCERT

ROYAL NORTHERN COLLEGE OF MUSIC, 19:00–22:00, £6

With Wing Commander Duncan Stubbs as conductor and Simone Rebello on percussion. GAURAV MAZUMDAR

BRIDGEWATER HALL, 13:00–15:00, £12 (£10)

The sitar virtuoso tutored by Pandit Ravi Shankar comes to the UK accompanied by Kousic Sen on tabla. THE HALLÉ: SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN

BRIDGEWATER HALL, 19:30–22:00, FROM £17

Musical staples galore performed by The Hallé. SEASICK STEVE

O2 APOLLO, 19:00–23:00, FROM £22.50

The storytelling country-rockin’ bluesman showcases his new album, Sonic Soul Surfer, rich with his raspy vocals and personalised guitar. KING PLEASURE AND THE BISCUIT BOYS

THE MET, 20:00–22:30, £15 (£12)

The much-loved swing band call into town. CURVED AIR

WATERSIDE ARTS CENTRE, 19:30–22:30, £16

The vintage 70s rockers get their prog on once again for their latest tour. JAMES BAY

ALBERT HALL, 19:00–23:00, £SOLD OUT

Long-haired British singer/songwriter currently having his merry way with the pop/rock template. HORSEBEACH (BAMBI DAVIDSON)

ROADHOUSE, 21:00–03:00, £8

Sun 12 Apr

MODERN LIFE IS WAY

EVERYTHING EVERYTHING

MANCHESTER ACADEMY 2, 19:00–23:00, £SOLD OUT

Manchester residing indie-rock quartet still riding high off the release of their early 2013 LP, Arc, and cropping up everywhere everywhere.

ROYAL PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA (BEETHOVEN + ELGAR) BRIDGEWATER HALL, 19:30–22:00, FROM £15

The Royal Philharmonic are helmed by Israeli violinist and conductor Pinchas Zukerman. SIMPLE MINDS

O2 APOLLO, 19:00–23:00, FROM £39.50

The Jim Kerr-led classic rock outfit return as part of their new UK/ European tour. MAD DOG MCREA

THE MET, 20:00–22:30, £14 (£10)

THE WOMBATS

MANCHESTER ACADEMY, 19:00–23:00, £17

ZION TRAIN

BAND ON THE WALL, 20:00–23:00, £12

SOUND CONTROL, 18:30–22:00, £12

The stalwart punk rockers head back out on the road.

MANCHESTER ACADEMY 3, 19:30–23:00, £10

The Liverpudlian indie-rock scamps return bigger, brighter, and with their new album in tow.

THE RUBY LOUNGE, 19:00–22:30, £6.50

Wild Beasts-inspired Manc ensemble, draping subtle lyrical musings over a dreamy pop backdrop.

Aficionado present a night of lo-fi dreaminess and woozy grooves.

BAND ON THE WALL, 19:00–22:30, £SOLD OUT

The veteran songwriter tours the UK for a career-spanning show.

GIRL FRIEND

A host of ascendant rock bands come to The Ritz basement.

Raggle taggle folk ensemble blending a unique mixture of rock, pop, gypsy jazz and bluegrass into their mix.

JIMMY WEBB + DEBORAH ROSE

Sat 11 Apr

BRIBRY WITH DODIE CLARK

Irish singer/songwriter (known to his mammy as Brian O’Reilly), out on tour with harmonic songstress Dodie Clark.

TOMBS (BLACK ANVIL)

ROADHOUSE, 19:30–22:30, £11

The experimental metallers come to Manchester. NATHAN SYKES

THE RUBY LOUNGE, 19:00–22:30, £SOLD OUT

Him out of The Wanted goes solo. STEFAN GROSSMAN

BAND ON THE WALL, 19:00–22:30, FROM £13

Acoustic blues guitar wizard, apt with fingerpicking technique. BRETT DENNEN

THE DEAF INSTITUTE, 19:30–23:00, £13.50

North Californian folk-meets-pop singer/songwriter, who likes to paint while he tours.

ALY BAIN AND PHIL CUNNINGHAM WATERSIDE ARTS CENTRE, 20:00–22:30, £15 (£7.50)

Folk rock duo made of up singer/ songwriters Jamie Thompson and James Walbourne.

THE PLAZA STOCKPORT, 19:30–22:00, £21.45

THE DEAF INSTITUTE, 19:30–23:00, £8

DOMINIC KIRWAN + MARY DUFF

The two popular Irish entertainers take to the stage together.

Mon 13 Apr THE MOUSE OUTFIT

SOUND CONTROL, 19:30–23:00, £8

Nine-piece Manc hip-hop juggernaut led by MCs Dr Syntax and Sparkz, fusing funk, soul and jazz into their mix. DAVID SANBORN BAND

ROYAL NORTHERN COLLEGE OF MUSIC, 19:30–22:00, FROM £20

The James Brown and David Bowie collaborator pitches up in the UK with a brand new album and plenty more soulful sax vibes to give. PAUL SIMON + STING

MANCHESTER ARENA, 18:00–23:00, FROM £45

The long-time friends take to the stage together, encompassing 30+ hits both together and apart.

Tue 14 Apr

HYPNOTIC BRASS ENSEMBLE

BAND ON THE WALL, 19:30–22:30, FROM £16.50

Youthful jazz renegades and band of brothers; pretty much as authentic as you can get, without Sun Ra trumpeter Phil Cohran actually being their father. Oh wait, he is. NADINE SHAH

THE DEAF INSTITUTE, 19:00–22:30, £10

British born, by way of Norwegian and Pakistani parentage, vocalist and pianist – building her sound on her trademark gently tremulous textures and unique smoky intensity. MICHAEL CRETU TRIO

MATT AND PHRED’S JAZZ CLUB, 21:00–00:00, FREE

Known for weaving together contemporary, classical, folk and jazz styles, the internationally acclaimed musician and composer, Michael Cretu plays a special show as a trio. BEN KHAN

SOUP KITCHEN, 19:00–22:15, £SOLD OUT

Young London-based chappie making bold, modern pop with an elusive edge. STEVE HOWE

GORILLA, 19:30–23:00, £20

The legendary guitarist from seminal prog rockers Yes embarks on a special solo tour that will feature plenty of the band’s classics old and new. PLANES

NIGHT AND DAY CAFE, 20:00–23:00, £7

Steve Forrest, drummer of Placebo, pulls together various London pals for his solo collective outing, touring a selection of tunes from their new LP. ANAAL NATHRAKH

SOUND CONTROL, 18:30–22:00, £12.50

Extreme metal outfit fusing black metal, grindcore, death metal and industrial. Aye, it’s ferocious. CHRISTIAN BLACKSHAW PIANO RECITAL

ROYAL NORTHERN COLLEGE OF MUSIC, 19:30–22:00, £18

The British pianist performs works by Mozart, Schubert, Liszt and Chopin. LOWER THAN ATLANTIS

MANCHESTER ACADEMY 2, 19:30–23:00, £SOLD OUT

Hard-rockin’ foursome hailing from Hertfordshire.

MANCHESTER CAMERATA: A NIGHT AT THE MOVIES

BRIDGEWATER HALL, 19:30–22:00, FROM £24.50

An evening of live cabaret entertainment.

MANCHESTER ACADEMY 2, 19:00–23:00, £12

MANCHESTER CLUB ACADEMY, 19:30–23:00, £12.50

THE SHIRES

Hertfordshire and Bedfordshirehailing duo riding the wave of country music’s recent success. ORQUESTA BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB

BRIDGEWATER HALL, 19:30–22:00, £37.50

After 16 years thrilling audiences around the world, the Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club bid ‘Adios’ with a farewell world tour.

BAND ON THE WALL, 19:45–22:30, £12

Traditional Scots fiddle and accordion duo now nearing their 30th year of touring together.

The Camerata are joined by David Arnold as they rock (or whatever the classical alternative is) through some of the biggest scores in film history.

CHERIE BABE’S BURLESQUE REVUE

MATT AND PHRED’S JAZZ CLUB, 19:00–00:00, £8

THE RAILS + BIRD TO BEAST + LUCY & VIRGINIA

STEREO KICKS

X Factor Arena Tourists on their steady descent back to nowhere.

Wed 15 Apr

SASHA MCVEIGH (SONIA LEIGH + GARY QUINN + LUKE & MEL)

ROADHOUSE, 19:30–22:00, £7

Duo of country songstresses out on their joint tour.

ROO PANES

Classical folk/pop outfit hailing from that there London town. SVARC HANLEY LONGHAWN

MATT AND PHRED’S JAZZ CLUB, 21:00–00:00, FREE

New jazz collective from around these parts. SIGMA

GORILLA, 19:00–22:30, £11

British drum ‘n’ bass duo who topped the UK singles charts recently apparently. LAKE KOMO

THE CASTLE HOTEL, 19:30–23:00, £6.50

Lancaster based soft-rockers.

NIGHT & DAY’S LOCAL SHOWCASE

NIGHT AND DAY CAFE, 20:00–23:00, £5

Live music showcase, giving a stage to local up-and-coming performers. THE AIRBORNE TOXIC EVENT

SOUND CONTROL, 19:00–22:30, £16

Californian quintet trading in solid indie-rock anthems MANCHESTER MID-DAY CONCERTS SOCIETY (JOO YEON SIR + IRINA ANDRIEVSKY)

BRIDGEWATER HALL, 13:10–14:00, FREE

The latest in the Mid-Morning concert schedule.

GRAHAM PARKER AND BRINSLEY SCHWARZ

WATERSIDE ARTS CENTRE, 20:00–22:30, £20

Lead singer of Graham Parker and The Rumour hits the road with Brinsley Schwarz, who was the guitarist in the band named after him. BANDERSNATCH

RAMSBOTTOM CRICKET CLUB, 20:00–22:30, £8

The Ramsbottom Folk Club present their regular showcase. TOSELAND

MANCHESTER ACADEMY 3, 19:30–23:00, £10

The Ex-superbike champion continues to go it solo after parting with his band, Crash.

Thu 16 Apr

COLORAMA (NEV COTTEE)

ROADHOUSE, 19:30–22:30, £6

Indie pop project of multiinstrumentalist singer/songwriter Carwyn Ellis, formed in Liverpool and now based in Wales.

DIZRAELI + REEPS ONE + BELLATRIX + REX DOMINO BAND ON THE WALL, 19:00–22:30, FROM £10.50

Bristol, Brighton and Londonstraddling hip-hop ensemble fusing harmony singing, turntablism, heavy beats and delicate instrumentation in one fresh whole. JAMIE BROWNFIELD QUARTET

MATT AND PHRED’S JAZZ CLUB, 21:00–00:30, FREE

A mix of bebop, mainstream swing and New Orlean’s funk from British Jazz Award up-and-comer, Jamie Brownfield. SLUG (TROJAN HORSE)

SOUP KITCHEN, 19:30–22:15, £6

New project of Ian Black, a merrily disruptive influence on the North East music scene for more than a decade. MATTHEW E WHITE

GORILLA, 19:30–23:00, £14

Gospel-influenced singer/songwriter and producer hailing from Virginia Beach, VA – with enviable hair genes. NIGHT & DAY’S LOCAL SHOWCASE

NIGHT AND DAY CAFE, 20:00–23:00, £5

Live music showcase, giving a stage to local up-and-coming performers. JULIAN COPE

SOUND CONTROL, 19:30–23:00, £22.50

The Teardrop Explodes frontman and psychedelic wanderer plays a live set of tunes, y’know, in between being an author, activist, poet and whatnot. THE HALLÉ (BRAHMS + HOLST + O’REGAN)

BRIDGEWATER HALL, 19:30–22:00, FROM £11

The Hallé’s spring schedule sees the renowned orchestra go through some of the finest pieces of the classical canon.

THE SKINNY

DUKE SPECIAL THE MET, 20:00–22:30, £12.50

Belfast piano-based folk songwriter with a distinctly accented voice and some even more distinctive dreadlocks. WALTER CARROLL LUNCHTIME SERIES (DANIEL MARTYN LEWIS)

MARTIN HARRIS CENTRE FOR MUSIC AND DRAMA, 13:10–14:00, FREE

The latest in the Martin Harris Centre lunchtime series, which sees students and guests take on the classical canon from past to contemporary.

FRNKIERO AND THE CELLABRATION

MANCHESTER ACADEMY 3, 19:00–23:00, £SOLD OUT

Solo project of Frank Iero, touring new LP, Stomachaches. FINLEY QUAYE

MANCHESTER ACADEMY 3, 19:30–23:00, £12.50

The Even After All singer continues to tour, even after all these years (see what we did there.)

Fri 17 Apr

SONIC JESUS + THE UNDERGROUND YOUTH

ROADHOUSE, 21:00–02:00, £8

The Italian psychheads come to Manchester as part of The Late Sessions. THE MONOCHROME SET

BAND ON THE WALL, 19:30–22:30, FROM £10.50

Longstanding indie-pop outfit, marked by songwriter Bid’s laconic vocals and intelligent wit. LAUREN HOUSLEY

MATT AND PHRED’S JAZZ CLUB, 21:30–01:00, £5

Singer Lauren Housley belts out the classics, taking in Bonnie Raitt, Dusty Springfield and tracks from her debut album, One Step Closer. JOANNA GRUESOME

ISLINGTON MILL, 19:30–23:00, £8

The Fortuna PoP! signed indie-pop group rip through Islington Mill as part of their latest tour. THE SKINTS

GORILLA, 19:00–22:00, £12.50

London quartet whose rock sound takes in reggae, dub, ska, pop and roots as it goes. JOHN MCCULLAGH & THE ESCORTS

NIGHT AND DAY CAFE, 20:00–23:00, £6

Folk-meets-rock singer/songwriter John McCullagh heads out on the road with his new live band, The Escorts. BIPOLAR SUNSHINE

THE RITZ, 18:30–22:00, £10

Sat 18 Apr

NATIONAL YOUTH BRASS BAND CHAMPIONSHIPS OF GREAT BRITAIN

ROADHOUSE, 19:00–22:30, £8

ROYAL NORTHERN COLLEGE OF MUSIC, 09:00–18:00, £10

DELS

London hip-hop artist building his tunes on a bed of unique musical innovation and surreal lyrics. EVIL BLIZZARD

THE RUBY LOUNGE, 19:30–23:00, £5

Four bass players and a singer drummer make up this Preston/ Birmingham-hailing sonic assault on your eardrums. VINYL REVIVAL PRESENTS FOR RECORD STORE DAY (CRISPY AMBULANCE)

THE DEAF INSTITUTE, 18:30–22:30, £10

Crispy Ambulance – incredibly still going – head up this RSD celebration.

THE AFTER HOURS RAUCHESTRA

MATT AND PHRED’S JAZZ CLUB, 21:30–01:00, £5

Hot-jazz enthusiasts originally founded as a duo.

RECORD STORE DAY AT ISLINGTON MILL (GIANT SWAN + PETRELS + BRAHMA LOKA + KYOGEN + MORE)

ISLINGTON MILL, 19:00–02:00, £5

Grey Lantern, Fat Out Till You Pass Out, Interstellar Overdrive, Bad Uncle and more come together for an alternative RSD, with each promoter picking an act to play each. RECORD STORE DAY LIVE 2015 (BERNARD + EDITH + HORRID + FRANCIS LUNG + ALDOUS RH + MORE) SOUP KITCHEN, 16:00–22:00, £3

Soup Kitchen gets into the Record Store Day spirit with a host of local artists coming together in the venue’s basement. MIGHTY & THE MOON (DOM MAJOR + MADDY STORM)

THE CASTLE HOTEL, 19:30–23:00, £4

Hull based folk rockers cross the Pennines. CIRCA WAVES (SPRING KING + RAT BOY)

THE RITZ, 18:30–22:00, £SOLD OUT

Liverpool garage-pop quartet taking their cue from the early-00s indie scene. MANCHESTER PUNK FESTIVAL (THE FILAMENTS + THE STUPIDS + THE RESTARTS + APOLOGIES I HAVE NONE + THAT FUCKING TANK + MORE) SOUND CONTROL, 12:00–22:00, £15

Ten hour punkathon across two stages. TAIKO MEANTIME WITH CHIEKO KOJIMA

ROYAL NORTHERN COLLEGE OF MUSIC, 19:30–22:00, £15

Solo project of Manchester-based musician Adio Marchant (formerly of Kid British fame), still riding the wave of his newly-released EP, Aesthetics.

Taiko drumming spectacular that tells the tale of Japanese legend Dojoji.

SOUND CONTROL, 18:00–22:00, £15

Alternative metal outfit hailing from Northern Ireland, still touring some two decades on.

CREEPER

Recent Funeral For A Friend supports play their first Manchester headline show. POLAR BEAR

ROYAL NORTHERN COLLEGE OF MUSIC, 19:30–22:30, £15

The Mercury Prize-nomintated five-piece led by drummer, Sebastian Rochford tour their most recent release, Same As You. ADAM ANT

MANCHESTER ACADEMY 2, 19:30–23:00, £SOLD OUT

The frontman of new wave popsters Adam and the Ants takes to the road solo. BBC PHILHARMONIC (HK GRUBER PRESENTS)

BRIDGEWATER HALL, 19:30–22:00, FROM £10

The BBC Philharmonic’s spring schedule sees Auntie’s finest orchestra explore classical mainstays and more leftfield compositions. BOB FOX

THE MET, 20:00–22:30, £14 (£12)

The War Horse Songman of the past three years performs material from the play and his own repertoire. FIDELIO TRIO

WATERSIDE ARTS CENTRE, 19:30–22:30, £14 (£7)

BBC Radio 3-endorsed three-piece play Beethoven and Ravel. GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR

ALBERT HALL, 19:00–23:00, £SOLD OUT

The elusive Canadian post-rock collective return to a live setting in celebration of their new LP, Asunder, Sweet And Other Distress. CANTALOUPE

EAGLE INN, 19:30–23:00, £4

Electronic grooves and style influenced by the 1970s and 80s wave of krautrock and synth pop.

April 2015

THERAPY?

Over 40 leading brass bands compete for one of the four national titles. NORIKO OGAWA

BRIDGEWATER HALL, 19:30–22:00, FROM £12

Ogawa plays as part of the Ravel and Rachmaninov season. THE HOLLIES

THE LOWRY: LYRIC THEATRE, 19:30–22:00, FROM £26

The Manchester-formed rockers celebrate some 50+ years on the circuit, tight pop harmonies as present as ever.

Mon 20 Apr

SUBURBAN LEGENDS + MC LARS

ROADHOUSE, 19:30–22:30, £TBC

Six-piece ska outfit hailing from Orange County, California. LABRASSBANDA

BAND ON THE WALL, 19:30–22:30, FROM £12.50

The Bavarian brass band return to the UK bringing their mix of brass, reggae, punk, jazz and techno with them. THE LEISURE SOCIETY

THE DEAF INSTITUTE, 19:00–23:00, £15

Lovely folk-pop lot lead by Nick Hemming – of early 90s indie fame with former group She Talks To Angels – drawing comparisons to the Fleet Foxes, which is hardly a bad thing. THE NIGHT SHIFT

SOUP KITCHEN, 19:30–22:15, £9

The Broadway and West End star returns to the stage in his music guise. THE SLOW READERS CLUB

MANCHESTER ACADEMY 3, 19:30–23:00, £SOLD OUT

Electro/indie outfit from Manchester, churning out everything from catchy upbeat indie tunes to introspective ballads. LADY PANK

MANCHESTER CLUB ACADEMY, 19:30–23:00, £28

Polish rockers embark on a UK tour.

Sun 19 Apr LUKE FRIEND

THE DEAF INSTITUTE, 19:00–22:30, £12.50

The X-Factor reject heads out on a UK tour. Best look busy. F.L.O.B MUSIC SHOWCASE

MATT AND PHRED’S JAZZ CLUB, 19:00–00:00, £5

Fresh Loaf of Bread present another host of home-grown talent. UFO

THE RITZ, 19:30–23:00, £22.50

The longtime hard rock mainstays show the kids how it’s done, now some 20-odd albums in. YOUNG KATO

SOUND CONTROL, 19:00–23:00, £8

Breakthrough indie-pop lot hailing from Cheltenham and Birmingham.

THE DEAF INSTITUTE, 19:00–22:30, £12.50

Folk musician and actor Blair Dunlop takes to the road with English singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Emma Stevens.

STUART MCCALLUM RESIDENCY

MATT AND PHRED’S JAZZ CLUB, 21:00–00:00, FREE

Cinematic Orchestra guitarist trying out new material in the realm of beats, electronica, classical orchestration and jazz. FIELDS

ISLINGTON MILL, 19:30–23:00, £5

Tim Shaw and Sebastien Piquemal explore the limits of mobile technology with this interactive performance. NAI HARVEST

SOUP KITCHEN, 19:30–22:15, £7

Sheffield-based emo lot, perhaps best known for being nominated as Brit 2012’s most handsome band. FYI, they lost. GEORGE CLINTON AND PARLIAMENT FUNKADELIC

THE RITZ, 19:00–23:00, FROM £22.50

The Godafther of funk – er, that’d be George Clinton – takes to Glasgow with ParliamentFunkadelic (aka P-Funk). THE SWELLERS

SOUND CONTROL, 19:00–22:00, £10

ROYAL NORTHERN COLLEGE OF MUSIC, 19:30–22:00, FREE

VILLAGERS

Conor O’Brien-fronted folk outfit that began life as a nameless collection of musical poems (penned by O’Brien).

LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA + ALISON BALSOM BRIDGEWATER HALL, 19:30–22:00, £15

Classic FM Award winner Alison Balsom joins the LPO for a night of Berstein, Bramwell Tovey and Dvorak. TEXAS

THE LOWRY: LYRIC THEATRE, 19:00–22:00, FROM £28.50

Sharleen Spiteri and co. do their rock-pop thing, working the template since 1986.

Tue 21 Apr SCREAMING FEMALES

ROADHOUSE, 19:30–22:30, £7

MANCHESTER CAMERATA (BRITTEN + BARBER + BEETHOVEN + CHOPIN)

MICHAEL BALL

BLAIR DUNLOP + EMMA STEVENS

ROYAL NORTHERN COLLEGE OF MUSIC, 19:30–22:30, £14

The flop-haired Arcade Fire chappie takes to the road for his first solo tour, with his first solo LP in tow.

BRIDGEWATER HALL, 19:30–22:00, £40

ROADHOUSE, 19:30–22:30, £5

Manchester based singer-songwriter playing an acoustic ode to friendship, life, death and love.

Michigan foursome spreading their punk-rock joy where e’er they go.

New Jersey-hailing punk rockers with – shock horror – only one female in their midst.

Giving the classical canon a modern twist.

MAT SKINNER (I AM YOUR AUTOPILOT + MATT WOLFF BAND)

Classical music minus the rules, with Beethoven, Haydn and Mozart all visited.

MANCHESTER ACADEMY 2, 19:30–23:00, £17.50

BRIDGEWATER HALL, 19:30–22:00, FROM £12

Wed 22 Apr

WILL BUTLER

THE DEAF INSTITUTE, 19:00–22:30, £16

BLIND MONK TRIO

MATT AND PHRED’S JAZZ CLUB, 21:00–00:00, FREE

RNCM BRAND NEW ORCHESTRA

RNCM composers perform their latest work.

THE HALLÉ (BOCCHERINI + BERIO + MENDELSSOHN + MAHLER)

BRIDGEWATER HALL, 14:15–16:45, FROM £11

The Hallé’s spring schedule sees the renowned orchestra go through some of the finest pieces of the classical canon. LYNYRD SKYNYRD

O2 APOLLO, 19:00–23:00, FROM £38.50

The Jacksonville rockers bring their southern charm to the UK, triple-lead guitar well and truly in place. OLLY MURS

MANCHESTER ARENA, 18:00–23:00, £29.50

The fresh-faced X-Factor almostwas (as in, he lost), proves that winning the thing means nothing (so long as you join up with a super powerful management and label team regardless.) THE BIRTHDAY MASSACRE

MANCHESTER ACADEMY 3, 19:30–23:00, £15

The London-formed, Canadabased synth-rock outfit return in their latest guise. RUBY TURNER

THE LOWRY: QUAYS THEATRE, 20:00–22:00, £20

Three Northwest musicians putting a fresh spin on the classic, chordless jazz trio format.

The prolific songwriter and powerfully-lunged singer heads out on tour.

NIGHT AND DAY CAFE, 20:00–23:00, £5

Thu 23 Apr

NIGHT & DAY’S LOCAL SHOWCASE

Live music showcase, giving a stage to local up-and-coming performers. FIVE

THE RITZ, 19:00–23:00, £27.50

Those five bad boys with the power to rock you return to a live setting. STORMZY

SOUND CONTROL, 19:00–22:30, £SOLD OUT

South London rapper championed by Radio 1Xtra and, um, Jools Holland. A CONCERT TO CELEBRATE THE OPENING OF THE IDA CARROLL WALKWAY

ROYAL NORTHERN COLLEGE OF MUSIC, 11:30–12:30, FREE

We all love a good walkway, so we don’t blame the RNCM for hosting a concert in aid of their newie one bit. RALEIGH RITCHIE

MANCHESTER ACADEMY 3, 19:30–23:00, £10

The Plan B-collaborating Columbia artist hits the road.

DESMADRADOS SOLDADOS DE VENTURA (YERBA MANSA + BIRCHALL/CHEETHAM/WILL/ WEBSTER QUARTET)

ROADHOUSE, 19:30–23:00, £1

We’re not sure where they’ve been exactly, but the Manchesterbased drone rock collective play a ‘homecoming show’.

NEW FACES TOUR (CHARLOTTE OC + FRANCES + FREDDIE DICKSON + TENTERHOOK) THE RUBY LOUNGE, 19:00–22:30, £9

Communion present their annual New Faces tour, with a litany of acts leaning towards the folk genre. EDWARD II

BAND ON THE WALL, 19:00–22:30, FROM £13

NIGHT & DAY’S JAZZ SHOWCASE NIGHT AND DAY CAFE, 20:00–23:00, £5

THE RITZ, 18:30–23:00, £15

ROYAL NORTHERN COLLEGE OF MUSIC, 18:30–22:00, £14

WHILE SHE SLEEPS + CANCER BATS (HUNDREDTH + OATHBREAKER)

Co-headline set from Sheffield metalcore troops While She Sleeps and all-ragin’ Toronto rock’n’rollers Cancer Bats. BLUE ROSE CODE

INTERNATIONAL ANTHONY BURGESS FOUNDATION, 19:30–22:30, £12.50

London-based folk group, fronted by Dan Heptinstall and Lorna Thomas, delivering a reliably foot stomping show. IMPERIAL LEISURE

SOUND CONTROL, 20:00–23:00, £8.50

The ska, punk and rap straddling Londoners take to a live setting. RNCM PERCUSSION ENSEMBLE

ROYAL NORTHERN COLLEGE OF MUSIC, 19:30–22:00, £7

13 percussionists perform Varese’s Ionisation among other choices by Cage and Hesketh. PETER DONOHOE + NORIKO OGAWA

BRIDGEWATER HALL, 13:10–14:00, FROM £5

As part of the Ravel and Rachmaninov season, the pianists play selections from the two greats. THE HALLÉ (BOCCHERINI + BERIO + MENDELSSOHN + MAHLER)

BRIDGEWATER HALL, 19:30–22:00, FROM £11

The Hallé’s spring schedule sees the renowned orchestra go through some of the finest pieces of the classical canon.

Yorkshire-based contemporary jazz.

Known as the Ukrainian Bjork in her home country, Mariana Sadovska comes to the UK with some otherworldly sounds in tow.

The three renowned bluegrass artists combine for a unique tour.

BRIDGEWATER HALL, 19:30–22:00, FROM £12

Acoustic-driven British pop unit led by singer Brad Simpson.

BBC PHILHARMONIC (HK GRUBER PRESENTS)

The BBC Philharmonic’s spring schedule sees Auntie’s finest orchestra explore classical mainstays and more leftfield compositions. OLLY MURS

MANCHESTER ARENA, 18:00–23:00, £29.50

MARTIN HARRIS CENTRE FOR MUSIC AND DRAMA, 13:10–14:00, FREE

Rory Dowse and Greg Reid present an exploration of the intricacies and intensity of Beethoven (the composer, not the film.)

QUATUOR DANEL EVENING CONCERT (DAVID FANNING + RICHARD WHALLEY) MARTIN HARRIS CENTRE FOR MUSIC AND DRAMA, 19:30–21:30, FROM £3

THE MET, 20:00–22:30, £SOLD OUT

THE VAMPS

MANCHESTER ARENA, 18:00–23:00, FROM £9.50

SYMMETRY

MANCHESTER ACADEMY 3, 19:00–23:00, £8

Los Angeles alt rockers hit the UK. The UK shrugs back. ECHOSMITH

MANCHESTER CLUB ACADEMY, 19:00–23:00, £SOLD OUT

LA-based indie popsters composed of four siblings: Graham, Sydney, Noah and Jamie Sierota.

Sun 26 Apr KWABS

GORILLA, 19:00–23:00, £10

London-based singer songwriter best know for his hit Walk. MULL HISTORICAL SOCIETY

NIGHT AND DAY CAFE, 19:30–23:00, £13

Multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and producer Colin MacIntyre re-embraces both the urban and his former alias, Mull Historical Society, as he re-visits Loss. ME VS HERO

ROYAL NORTHERN COLLEGE OF MUSIC, 13:15–22:00, PRICES VARY

OLLY MURS

Sitar player and disciple of renowned tutor and performer, Dharambir Singh.

MANCHESTER ACADEMY 3, 19:00–23:00, £12.50

THE HALLÉ (BOCCHERINI + BERIO + MENDELSSOHN + MAHLER)

KRIS DREVER AND BOO HEWERDINE

Talented Orcadian folk guitarist Kris Drever performs live as a duo with English songwriter Boo Hewerdine. MANCHESTER ARENA, 18:00–23:00, £29.50

MARTIN HARRIS CENTRE FOR MUSIC AND DRAMA, 13:10–14:00, FREE

The latest in the Martin Harris Centre lunchtime series, which sees students and guests take on the classical canon from past to contemporary. THE CRÜXSHADOWS

MANCHESTER ACADEMY 3, 19:30–23:00, £15

Florida-based darkwave ensemble delivering their musical message via synth pop hooks and dark electronics.

Fri 24 Apr

JOSH ROUSE (TIM KEEGAN)

THE RUBY LOUNGE, 19:00–22:30, £17.50

American folky pop singer/songwriter, originally from Nebraska, before starting his recording career in Nashville, then relocating to Spain. STEALING SHEEP

BAND ON THE WALL, 19:00–22:30, £10

Three otherworldly Liverpudlian lasses mixing organic and electronic sounds, all medieval synths, hypnotic beats, spiraling whammy guitars, and apocalyptic thunder drones. DAN MANGAN + BLACKSMITH

THE DEAF INSTITUTE, 19:30–22:30, £12.50

Canadian singer/songwriter of the alternative folk meets occasional brass fanfares kinda thing, touring with his live band Blacksmith. FRANNY EUBANK’S THE BLUES

MATT AND PHRED’S JAZZ CLUB, 21:30–01:00, £5

A one-man blues explosion, Franny plays harmonica and sings the original Chicago blues. JAM CITY

SOUP KITCHEN, 19:00–22:15, FROM £7

GORILLA, 18:30–22:00, £12.50

FIREBIRD QUARTET

SARA WATKINS, SARAH JAROSZ AND AOIFE O’DONOVAN

THE MET, 20:00–22:30, £14

THE DEAF INSTITUTE, 19:00–23:00, £12

MATT AND PHRED’S JAZZ CLUB, 21:00–00:00, FREE

MARIANA SADOVSKA

The Soft Cell mainman tours solo in celebration of his new LP, The Velvet Trail, performing a selection of tracks new and old.

David Fanning and Richard Whalley join the Quatuor Danel to take on Brahms, among others.

English roots band trending Caribbean rhythms with traditional songs from the British Isles. New Jersey rock ensemble formed way back in 1999.

MARC ALMOND BRIDGEWATER HALL, 19:00–22:00, FROM £19.50

Ambient-influenced progressive metal band, which sounds like an oxymoron to us but there you have it.

Jack Latham, aka Jam City, returns to Soup Kitchen, the scene of a triumphant all-nighter in 2013, for an early evening show.

THE EARLY NOVEMBER

DEVIL SOLD HIS SOUL SOUND CONTROL, 18:30–22:00, £10

Live music showcase, giving a stage to local up-and-coming performers.

AMPLIFIER

Manc progressive rock outfit rich with a sound that draws as much from post-rock’s modernity as it does from classic space-rock grooves of yesteryear.

ROOPA PANESAR AND KOUSIC SEN

OCTAGON THEATRE, 19:30–22:00, £12 (£10)

PORTICO

London-based (formerly Quartet) known for their distinct and inimitable sound, drawing on influences as wide-reaching as Mount Kimbie and Bon Iver – also known for their use of the hang, a UFO like percussion instrument. BLUES PILLS

MANCHESTER CLUB ACADEMY, 19:00–23:00, £12

Swedish blues rock troupe who supported Rival Sons last Autumn.

Sat 25 Apr

ANNEKE VAN GIERSBERGEN

ROADHOUSE, 19:30–23:00, £15

Dutch singer/songwriter and former frontwoman of progressive rockers The Gathering, touring her recent solo release. MERRY HELL

THE RUBY LOUNGE, 19:00–22:30, £8

Northwest eight-piece folk types formed from the embers of The Tansads. REN HARVIEU

THE DEAF INSTITUTE, 19:30–22:30, £17.50

Manc songstress in possession of an impressive set of vocal chords, returns home. DONA OXFORD

MATT AND PHRED’S JAZZ CLUB, 21:30–01:00, £5

Soulful singer songwriter drawing on the old school of soul singing. AKALA

GORILLA, 19:00–22:00, £11

Award-winning hip-hop artist and younger brother of rapper, Ms. Dynamite, currently carving out his own path with his rap, rock and electro influences. THIS FEELING (CLAY)

NIGHT AND DAY CAFE, 20:00–03:00, £5

The London rock’n’roll night takes a trip north with a selection of live bands taking to the stage. OUR LAST NIGHT

SOUND CONTROL, 18:30–22:00, £10

Post-hardcore bunch hailing from Hollis, New Hampshire, touring their latest release, Oak Island. ANDY IRVINE

ROYAL NORTHERN COLLEGE OF MUSIC, 19:00–22:00, £15

The traditional Irish folk singer/ songwriter and multi-instrumentalist plays a set plucked from his hefty repertoire. ALTRINCHAM CHORAL SOCIETY

ROYAL NORTHERN COLLEGE OF MUSIC, 19:30–22:00, £12.50

The Choral Society perform Handel’s Messiah.

SOUND CONTROL, 19:30–23:00, £8

Pop punk group tour an album that front man Sam Thompson claimed nearly ended them. RNCM DAY OF SONG

A series of events in homage to cabaret. BRIDGEWATER HALL, 19:30–22:00, FROM £11

The Hallé’s spring schedule sees the renowned orchestra go through some of the finest pieces of the classical canon. THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER CHORUS

MARTIN HARRIS CENTRE FOR MUSIC AND DRAMA, 19:30–22:00, FROM £3

The Chorus close their 79th season with daughter choir The Cosmo Singers and the MUMS Symphony Orchestra, to take on Mendelssohn’s St. Paul. NOAH STEWART

THE LOWRY: QUAYS THEATRE, 20:00–22:00, £30

The dashing young Harlem tenor his the UK following a special guest tour with The John Wilson Orchestra.

Mon 27 Apr

THE NORTHERN SESSIONS LIVE

THE DEAF INSTITUTE, 19:00–23:00, £5

Local showcase. SHAWN SMITH

SOUND CONTROL, 19:30–22:30, £16

Seattle-based singer/songwriter who’s also a member of Brad, Satchel, Pigeonhead, Malfunkshun, and The Twilight Singers. Busy chap. 270415

ROYAL NORTHERN COLLEGE OF MUSIC, 19:30–22:00, £6

Liverpool Music Tue 31 Mar

PRIMITIVE MAN (SEA BASTARD + SLOTH HAMMER + DEATH TRIP)

THE ZANZIBAR CLUB , 19:30–23:00, £10

The Colorado lot unleash their usual filthy maelstrom of blackened doom, playing tracks from their debut LP, Scorn. MCBUSTED

ECHO ARENA, 19:30–23:00, £41.50

You know that nightmare you had about Busted and McFly touring as one? Well it was real. Run for the hills!

DEMOB HAPPY (PURPLE + OHMNS + SEVERED LIPS)

ARTS CLUB, 19:00–23:00, £6

The garage rockers return for a second taste of UK life after a hyped autumn tour last year.

Wed 01 Apr THE SECRET CIRCUS

STUDIO 2, 19:00–23:45, FREE

Poetry, performance art, dance, music, and Burlesque! Don’t forget your feathers and top-hats. WARD THOMAS

ARTS CLUB, 19:00–23:00, £11

The folk duo return for a headlining tour of their own, after sharing billing with The Shires in 2014. DUBL HANDI

THE ATKINSON, 19:30–22:00, £8

Appalachain old-time string band playing, KATHRYN ROBERTS AND SETH LAKEMAN

THE BRINDLEY, 20:00–22:30, £12.50

The folk rock couple return with a new album, Hidden People.

Thu 02 Apr BIPOLAR SUNSHINE

THE KAZIMIER, 19:30–23:00, £10

Solo project of Manchester-based musician Adio Marchant (formerly of Kid British fame), still riding the wave of his newly-released EP, Aesthetics. SIMPLE MINDS

LIVERPOOL EMPIRE, 20:00–23:00, FROM £44.40

The Jim Kerr-led classic rock outfit return as part of their new UK/ European tour. KALEIDOSCOPE

LEAF, 20:00–23:00, £12.50

London-based psych rockers on Fontana Records. KALEIDOSCOPE

LEAF 20:00 – 23.00PM, £12.50

London-based psych rockers on Fontana Records. SETH LAKEMAN

LIVERPOOL PHILHARMONIC HALL, 19:30–22:30, FROM £19.50

The Devon folk singer/songwriter and virtuoso fiddler does his damned impressive live thing, shredding strings as he goes. BLUE

LIVERPOOL PHILHARMONIC HALL, 19:30–22:30, FROM £25

Lee Ryan et al get back on the road for a spring tour. Nobody cares. CONNIE LUSH

STUDIO 2, 20:00–23:45, £15

British blues songstress who’s won Best Female Vocalist UK no less than five times. BEACH BEACH

CONSTELLATIONS, 20:00–04:00, £5

ddmmyy return to the RNCM featuring new works by Michael Finnissy, Aaron Parker and Luciano Berio.

The guitar-soaked Spanish popsters tour the UK, playing tracks from their new LP, The Sea.

MANCHESTER ACADEMY 2, 19:30–23:00, £14

THE ISRIGHTS + WHO BOUGHT THE BEAR? (ELEPHANT AND CASTLE + PYRO + MORE)

THEORY OF A DEADMAN

The Canadian rockers make a headline return to the UK, with support from Roadrunner label mates and pals, Black Stone Cherry. SUNWOLF

GULLIVERS, 19:30–23:00, £TBC

Leeds-based group touching the heavier sides of doom, post-rock and drone references.

Fri 03 Apr

O2 ACADEMY, 18:30–23:00, £6

Local showcase. GHOSTPOET

THE KAZIMIER, 19:30–23:00, £13

The experimental hip-hop producer plays a unique intimate show of new material. DUNE RATS

THE SHIPPING FORECAST, 20:00–23:00, £5

The Aussie stoner pop ensemble take to the road to help welcome their debut LP into the world. THE MIDNIGHT RAMBLE

STUDIO 2, 19:00–02:00, £5

They’ve supported everyone from Martha Reeves and The Vandellas and the James Taylor Quartet to Big Country, now the soft rock six-piece get to headline one of their own.

Listings

Liverpool Music STARA RZEKA THE KAZIMIER GARDEN, 20:00–23:00, £3

One-man ambient folk mixed with doom drone and kraut wave from Poland. Diverse.

NIGHTMARES ON WAX (NO FAKIN + MR PAUL + STE HODGE + MR JONZE + AD-NICE.) 24 KITCHEN STREET, 20:00–04:00, £10

A DJ set from Warp’s longestserving artist.

Sat 04 Apr

THE SONGBOOK SESSIONS (CAL RUDDY + MIDAS AND THE GOLDSTREAM + THE SPITTING PIPS + SCAREDYCATS + MORE) THE ZANZIBAR CLUB , 19:30–23:00, £4

A showcase event for new and upcoming songwriters in Liverpool and the surrounding areas. THE VIEW

O2 ACADEMY, 19:00–23:00, £14

SUPER LUXURY (MOTHERS + STILS + LA BETE BLOOMS)

ORQUESTA BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB

MAGUIRE’S PIZZA BAR, 20:00–23:00, £3

LIVERPOOL PHILHARMONIC HALL, 19:30–22:30, FROM £37.50

Leeds-based noise rock bunch, known for their out of control live shows. CATFISH AND THE BOTTLEMEN

LIVERPOOL GUILD OF STUDENTS, 19:00–23:00, £SOLD OUT

Indie rock’n’roll quintet full of guitars and songs about love an’ that.

Mon 06 Apr

AN EASTER SPECIAL (THE BASEMENT EFFECT + ACCEPTING APRIL + THE FRONT LINERS + THE ALBION + MORE)

THE ZANZIBAR CLUB , 13:30–23:00, £5

Local showcase.

FUSION (THE FRIGHT LINERS + ACCEPTING APRIL)

THE ZANZIBAR CLUB , 19:30–23:00, £5

The Dundee indie-pop scamps get back on the road, if anyone’s still bothered?

An all-dayer featuring a host of regionally-drawn talent.

STUDIO 2, 19:00–23:45, £7

The American rapstress takes her latest LP on the road, hopefully bedecked in a feather headdress.

MILK TEETH + BRAWLERS

Double garage punk action featuring Londoners Milk Teeth and Brawlers. BEHOLDER

THE KRAZY HOUSE, 19:00–22:00, £6

NICKI MINAJ

ECHO ARENA, 19:30–23:00, FROM £39.50

SHALAMAR

LIVERPOOL PHILHARMONIC HALL, 20:00–22:30, FROM £25

The dynamic heavy metallers take to the road in tour of their new album.

70s and 80s-hailing disco-driven American ensemble, out riding the wave of their twilight years.

THE BRINDLEY, 19:30–22:30, £24

ARTS CLUB, 19:00–23:00, £12.50

CHARLIE LANDSBOROUGH

Singer/songwriter known for his easy listening ballads and country blues that has earned him a spot in the British Country Music Hall of Fame.

Sun 05 Apr

BANK HOLIDAY BEAT REVUE (THE STAMP + THE SKY + WATCHTOWER + STE WEEVIL)

STUDIO 2, 19:00–00:00, £5

Jimmy and The Revolvers present an Easter special of new beat music.

YOUNG GUNS

London-based rock five-piece headered by the mighty Gustav Wood. L’ORCHESTRA DELL ‘ARTE

THE ATKINSON, 13:00–14:00, £10

As part of their Cake and Classical series, The Atkinson host L’Orchestra dell ‘Arte, who’ll be playing some Debussy.

Tue 07 Apr BARS AND MELODY

O2 ACADEMY, 19:00–23:00, £20

They only ruddy went and made the Britain’s Got Talent final.

After 16 years thrilling audiences around the world, the Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club bid ‘Adios’ with a farewell world tour. TIZ MCNAMARA

STUDIO 2, 19:00–23:45, £TBC

She’s had her music featured on Hollyoaks but don’t let that put you off. Or maybe do.

Wed 08 Apr

THE FRANK & ELLA SHOW

LIVERPOOL PHILHARMONIC HALL, 19:30–22:30, FROM £20

Todd Gordon and Jacqui Dankworth team up to present a tribute to Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald.

Thu 09 Apr GAZELLE TWIN

FACT, 20:30–22:00, FREE

The industrial-pop auteur headlines this special free show with visual accompaniment by Carla Mackinnon. ALY BAIN AND PHIL CUNNINGHAM

ST GEORGE’S HALL, 19:30–22:30, £16

Traditional Scots fiddle and accordion duo now nearing their 30th year of touring together. MIKE AND THE MECHANICS

LIVERPOOL PHILHARMONIC HALL, 19:30–22:30, FROM £30

OVERTHROW (ESA SHIELDS + TEAR TALK + SEAWITCHES + MIRROR MOVES DJ) THE KAZIMIER, 20:30–02:00, £3

SeaWitches present a night of forward-thinking music, lights and dancing. ROOM FOR RENT

ARTS CLUB, 19:00–22:00, £6

Liverpool-based indie-rock four-piece.

ROB HERON AND THE TEA PAD ORCHESTRA

THE ATKINSON, 19:30–22:30, £10

Six-piece jazz band.

Sat 11 Apr

RIVER COOL RECORDS LAUNCH NIGHT (THE LEVONS + SPRINGTIME + ANCHORAGE + EDGAR SUMMERTYME + MORE) THE ZANZIBAR CLUB , 19:30–23:00, £2

The new Liverpool label present their inaugural showcase. CIRCA WAVES

O2 ACADEMY, 19:00–23:00, £10

Liverpool garage-pop quartet taking their cue from the early-00s indie scene. BELOVED BRAHMS

LIVERPOOL PHILHARMONIC HALL, 19:30–22:30, FROM £13

Pianist Anna Vinnitskaya leads the Philharmonic through Brahms Symphony No. 2. PETE BENTHAM AND THE DINNER LADIES

MAGUIRE’S PIZZA BAR, 20:00–23:00, £TBC

Liverpool-based ska/punk.

JAMES GRANT (STEVE NIMMO)

THE ATKINSON, 19:30–22:30, £16

Genesis founding member Mike Rutherford and his new generation of ‘The Mechanics’ take to the road to play the hits.

The Love & Money frontman performs an all-acoustic set cherrypicked from his acclaimed solo albums, alongside a smattering of old favourites.

ARTS CLUB, 19:00–23:00, £16

Sun 12 Apr

HAPPYSAD

Punk meets reggae. Everyone scratches their heads.

Fri 10 Apr

RIVAL BONES (ZOOMORPHIC)

THE ZANZIBAR CLUB , 19:30–23:00, £4

Local four-piece rock. UPSURGE!

O2 ACADEMY, 19:00–23:00, £9

Local unsigned showcase.

THE BLOW MONKEYS (SHAMONA)

O2 ACADEMY, 19:00–23:00, £15

Mid-80s pop ensemble led by Robert Howard (known to his fans by his Beatles-inspired stage name, Dr. Robert).

SEASICK STEVE

DIRT

LIVERPOOL PHILHARMONIC HALL, 19:30–22:30, FROM £22.50

THE KRAZY HOUSE, 18:30–22:00, £6

The storytelling country-rockin’ bluesman showcases his new album, Sonic Soul Surfer, rich with his raspy vocals and personalised guitar.

Mon 13 Apr BENIGHTED

THE MAGNET , 19:00–22:00, £7

The French death metal mob alight in the UK. BEN HOWARD

ECHO ARENA, 19:30–23:00, £27.50

Devon-based folk rocker using his guitar to build percussive beats around his melancholic ditties.

Tue 14 Apr TURBOWOLF

Dirt head out on their headline tour for latest album Mirrors. EZIO

THE ATKINSON, 19:30–22:30, £8

Five-piece folk outfit hailing from Cambridge, led by singer and composer Ezio Lunedei – deft at crafting deeply honest and emotional music. JENNY COLQUITT

THE BRINDLEY, 20:00–22:30, £10

Local acoustic singer songwriter who takes influence from Eva Cassidy and Alanis Morissette.

Sat 18 Apr

THE SONGBOOK SESSIONS (COBOLT + THE DRIFTING CLASSROOM)

THE ZANZIBAR CLUB , 19:30–23:00, £4

O2 ACADEMY, 19:00–23:00, £9

A showcase event for new and upcoming songwriters in Liverpool and the surrounding areas.

BELLATRIX (WHITECLIFF)

O2 ACADEMY, 19:00–23:00, £SOLD OUT

Bristol-based psychic noisemakers on guitars, drums and bass. CAMP AND FURNACE, 19:30–23:00, £6

Fundraiser raising money for Clatterbridge Cancer Centre & Shelter Homelessness Charity.

Wed 15 Apr STEREO KICKS

O2 ACADEMY, 19:00–23:00, £12.50

X Factor Arena Tourists on their steady descent back to nowhere. DRENGE

THE KAZIMIER, 19:30–23:00, £12

Sheffield-based brothers Eoin and Rory Loveless provide the guitars and drums-built soundscapes. BLUE ROSE CODE

LEAF, 20:00–23:00, £12

London-based folk group, fronted by Dan Heptinstall and Lorna Thomas, delivering a reliably foot stomping show. PICTURES FROM AN EXHIBITION

LIVERPOOL PHILHARMONIC HALL, 19:30–22:30, FROM £13

Mussorgsky’s all-time classic revisited by the Philharmonic. VALES

ARTS CLUB, 19:00–23:00, £6

The screamo troupe hit the road. CANTALOUPE

THE KAZIMIER GARDEN, 19:30–23:00, FREE

Electronic grooves and style influenced by the 1970s and 80s wave of krautrock and synth pop. STEVE HOWE

THE BRINDLEY, 19:30–21:30, £20

The legendary guitarist from seminal prog rockers Yes embarks on a special solo tour that will feature plenty of the band’s classics old and new.

Thu 16 Apr MOUNTIES

THE SHIPPING FORECAST, 19:30–23:00, £12.50

Musical collective of Canadian psychonaut explorers led by singer/ songwriter Hawksley Workman, well-kent for his own solo work. PICTURES FROM AN EXHIBITION

LIVERPOOL PHILHARMONIC HALL, 19:30–22:30, FROM £13

Mussorgsky’s all-time classic revisited by the Philharmonic.

AN EVENING WITH ALAN BURKE

STUDIO 2, 19:00–00:00, £8.50

The Rambling Boys of Pleasure man steps out alone.

THE WOMBATS

The Liverpudlian indie-rock scamps return bigger, brighter, and with their new album in tow. GIRL FRIEND

THE SHIPPING FORECAST, 20:00–23:00, £6

Wild Beasts-inspired Manc ensemble, draping subtle lyrical musings over a dreamy pop backdrop. MATTHEW E WHITE

LEAF, 20:00–23:00, £14

Gospel-influenced singer/songwriter and producer hailing from Virginia Beach, VA – with enviable hair genes. BEN OTTEWELL

THE MAGNET , 19:30–23:00, £12

The Gomez singer and lead guitarist plays it solo, that unmistakable voice and talent for blistering guitar solos all well and in place. GIOVANNI SOLLIMA AND MONIKA LESKOVAR

ST GEORGE’S HALL, 19:30–22:30, £25

Sollima is joined by fellow cellist Monika Leskovar for a night of original and classical compositions. THE HOLLIES

LIVERPOOL PHILHARMONIC HALL, 19:30–22:30, FROM £23.50

The Manchester-formed rockers celebrate some 50+ years on the circuit, tight pop harmonies as present as ever. ADAM ANT

ARTS CLUB, 18:30–22:30, £22.50

The frontman of new wave popsters Adam and the Ants takes to the road solo.

The Liverpool electronic pop starlet – recently signed to XL Recordings – heads out on her biggest tour to-date. HEXMEN

STUDIO 2, 21:00–23:45, £4

Liverpool-based high octane pub rock/blues led by the harmonica and vocals of George Hexmen. MARK MORRISS

ARTS CLUB, 19:00–22:00, £12.50

The Bluetones frontman takes to the road lonesome, now firmly a solo entity following the band’s split (and farewell tour) at the end of 2011.

OF MONTREAL

THE KAZIMIER, 19:30–23:00, £14

The unpredictable and ofttheatrical Kevin Barnes and his Of Montreal crew return to the UK to promote their latest album, Lousy with Sylvianbriar. DAVID ARNOLD

LIVERPOOL PHILHARMONIC HALL, 19:30–22:30, FROM £24.50

THE BRINDLEY, 19:30–22:00, £10

The Highfield Male Voice Choir host their Spring Sing concert with theatre group CODYS.

Sun 19 Apr HUE AND CRY

O2 ACADEMY, 19:00–23:00, £20

PRONG

O2 ACADEMY, 19:00–23:00, £15

American metal band formed by ex-CBGB’s sound man, Tommy Victor. FIVE

O2 ACADEMY, 19:00–23:00, £27.50

Those five bad boys with the power to rock you return to a live setting. GWILYM SIMCOCK

THE CAPSTONE, 19:30–22:00, £11.50 (£6.50)

The former Mercury Award nominee and jazz pianist heads out on tour.

Thu 23 Apr WIRE

THE KAZIMIER, 19:30–23:00, £18

Experimental post-punk mainstays formed way back in 1976 by Colin Newman. ROSENBLUME

LEAF, 20:00–23:00, £6

To celebrate the launch of his debut EP, the folk local performs with an eight-piece backing band. SOUTH OF THE BORDER

LIVERPOOL PHILHARMONIC HALL, 19:30–22:30, FROM £13

Ravel, Sollima, De Falla and more are visited in this South American odyssey. LABRASSBANDA

CONSTELLATIONS, 20:00–01:00, £10

MARC O’REILLY

THE ATKINSON, 20:00–22:30, £8

ECHO ARENA, 19:30–23:00, £40

The Broadway and West End star returns to the stage in his music guise.

Mon 20 Apr YOUNG KATO

STUDIO 2, 19:00–23:45, £8

Breakthrough indie-pop lot hailing from Cheltenham and Birmingham.

Birkenhead & Formby Choral Societies and Merchant Taylor’s School for a sing song around the old joanna (and probably a load of other instruments too.)

Sun 26 Apr COLIN VEARNCOMBE

THE ZANZIBAR CLUB , 19:30–23:00, £12.50

BOLERO

Ravel and De Falla are visited tonight in a steamy, passionate evening of classical music.

BRIGHOUSE AND RASTRICK BAND

THE BRINDLEY, 15:00–17:00, £18

The renowned brass band come to the Brindley.

Mon 27 Apr PORTICO

THE KAZIMIER, 19:30–23:00, £10

ARTS CLUB, 19:00–23:00, £8

Double headlining rock bill.

Manchester Clubs Tue 31 Mar GOLD TEETH

THE DEAF INSTITUTE, 22:00–03:00, £4.50

Legendary weekly mixed-bag night, often invites use of the term ‘carnage’. STUDENT HOUSE

SOUTH, 23:00–04:00, £3

The weekly student house and techno night returns to South, keeping you on the dancefloor till the early hours. DOUBLE DROP

SOUND CONTROL, 23:00–04:00, £5

Fri 24 Apr

The regular clubnight returns with everything from 90s, classics, dance and EDM.

THE ZANZIBAR CLUB , 19:30–23:00, £4

Thu 02 Apr

AMBER RUN

SOUND CONTROL, 23:00–04:00, £10

PADDY CLEGG (SKYLIGHTS)

The local singer-songwriter headlines one of his favourite haunts. O2 ACADEMY, 19:00–23:00, £8

THE CAPSTONE, 19:30–22:00, £11.50

MICHAEL BALL

CHORAL SPECTACULAR

LIVERPOOL PHILHARMONIC HALL, 19:30–22:30, FROM £10

Wed 22 Apr

THE KAZIMIER, 19:30–23:00, £15

EPSTEIN THEATRE, 19:30–22:30, £14.50

YUVA RATNA AWARD SHOWCASE

THE CAPSTONE, 13:00–17:00, FREE

Indian music and dance showcase.

LIVERPOOL PHILHARMONIC HALL, 19:30–22:30, FROM £13

The Coatbridge duo take to a live setting for a career spanning set.

VILLAGERS

Ska and 2-Tone indebted four piece touring in support of last year’s debut LP.

Liverpudlian singer/songwriter – active on the music scene since 1981 and best known for the 80s classic Wonderful Life.

Rising young Nottingham quintet of the soft folk-rock variety.

POLAR BEAR

THE INTERRUPTERS O2 ACADEMY, 19:00–23:00, £14

The British composer with more awards than, well, someone who has quite a lot of an awards, plays alongside the 70-piece Manchester Camerata.

HIGHFIELD MALE VOICE CHOIR AND CODYS

LAPSLEY

LEAF, 19:30–23:00, £8

Tue 21 Apr

Irish singer/songwriter whose unique sound encompasses folk and blues with African percussive rhythms.

Hailing from New Orleans, this tin pan alley three piece bring the sounds of the turn of the 20thcentury to the Northwest.

Conor O’Brien-fronted folk outfit that began life as a nameless collection of musical poems (penned by O’Brien).

A newcomer to the European jazz scene, Norwegian saxophonist and composer Marius Neset has been making waves since the release of his debut album Golden Xplosion.

Communion present their annual New Faces tour, with a litany of acts leaning towards the folk genre.

THE KAZIMIER GARDEN, 19:00–22:00, FREE

SPEAKEASY BOOTLEG BAND

THE CAPSTONE, 19:30–22:00, £11.50

MARIUS NESET

ARTS CLUB, 19:00–23:00, £9

The Bavarian brass band return to the UK bringing their mix of brass, reggae, punk, jazz and techno with them.

The Mercury Prize-nomintated five-piece led by drummer, Sebastian Rochford tour their most recent release, Same As You.

Fri 17 Apr

NEW FACES TOUR (FRANCES + TENTERHOOK + CHARLOTTE OC + FREDDIE DICKSON)

VEIN

Swiss jazz trio return to the UK. BELLOWHEAD

LIVERPOOL PHILHARMONIC HALL, 19:30–22:30, FROM £22.50

Beast of a contemporary English folk ensemble (there’s 11 of ‘em) fusing folk, funk, rock, world, jazz, music hall and classical music into their mix. KAZIK NA ZYWO

ARTS CLUB, 19:00–22:00, £25

Polish rapcore ensemble on the go since 1991. SIDELINE

ARTS CLUB, 19:00–22:00, £6

Local rockers.

THE TANNAHILL WEAVERS

THE ATKINSON, 19:30–22:30, £12

The Scottish roots band head out on tour.

Sat 25 Apr

COCHISE (SMOKING HOT)

THE ZANZIBAR CLUB , 19:00–23:00, £TBC

Polish rock band fronted by actor Pawel Malazynski.

LOWDOWN (HYBRID + MUMBAI SCIENCE)

More Lowdown fun, this time with Hybrid and Mumbai Science manning the decks. ELECTRIC JUG

THE DEAF INSTITUTE, 23:00–03:00, £3

Serving up the best of the 60s, ranging from psych and ska to britpop and funk. F//CK

FACTORY 251, 22:30–05:00, 99P BEFORE MIDNIGHT (£5 AFTER)

Student Thursday-nighter, with resident DJs Steve Davies, Bill Murray’s Rock n Soul club, and Nicola Bear serving up anything from retro classics to electro mash ups across three rooms. EL DIABLOS SOCIAL CLUB VS DOWN TO THE SEA AND BACK (BALEARIC MIKE + KELVIN ANDREWS)

SOUP KITCHEN, 23:00–04:00, £SOLD OUT

El Diablos team up with Down To The Sea and Back for a night of balearic bliss. KIERAN SHARPLES

BLACK DOG BALLROOM NWS, 22:00–04:00, FREE

Expect motown, hip hop, indie and some old skool classics thrown in for good measure.

Fri 03 Apr HI KU

XOLO, 22:00–04:00, FROM £8

Horse Meat Disco top the latest Hi Ku bill. DEADBOLT (PARTY OLYMPICS)

SOUND CONTROL, 23:00–04:00, £4

A whole night of alternative revelry with a soundtrack of hardcore, pop punk and metal.

Listings

THE SKINNY

Manchester Clubs FRI251

ALL ABOUT THE HITS

FACTORY 251, 22:30–04:00, 99P BEFORE MIDNIGHT

SOUND CONTROL, 23:00–04:00, FREE

Student Friday-nighter, with mashups in room one, indie, funk and Motown in room two, and electro house in room three. TRIBAL SESSIONS (DARIUS SYROSSIAN + HECTOR COUTO + MVSON COLLECTIVE + JOZEF K + MORE)

SANKEYS, 22:30–05:00

The legendary Tribal Sessions are back, featuring the usual selection of world-renowned spinners across all genres. JACOB COID

BLACK DOG BALLROOM NWS, 22:00–04:00, FREE

Black Dog Ballroom’s latest resident. VOODOO ROCK

THE RUBY LOUNGE, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£4)

Alternative rock and metal night that’s been seen at Download and Sonisphere. FAM*

THE DEAF INSTITUTE, 23:00–03:00, £3

Disco, funk, 80s and 90s. LIVE WIRE

GORILLA, 23:00–04:00, FREE BEFORE 11.45PM (£10 THEREAFTER)

The Live Wire residents join Kaluki’s Pirate Copy for a mammoth free party (before midnight that is). CARL COX AND FRIENDS

ALBERT HALL, 21:00–04:00, £25

The acid house and techno veteran drops in with a load of pals (we presume they’re going to be fairly famous ones.) JUBILEE CLUB MANCHESTER (ROB HOLLIDAY DJ)

THE RITZ, 23:00–04:00, £5

Indie rock n roll and hard rock club night. RHYTHM THEORY (JEROME SYDENHAM)

SOUP KITCHEN, 23:00–04:00, £8

The Ibidan Records man headlines, boasting past work with En Vogue and Ten City among others.

Sat 04 Apr REMAKE REMODEL

THE RUBY LOUNGE, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

A night of alternative rock’n’roll shenanigans. GIRLS ON FILM

THE DEAF INSTITUTE, 23:00–03:00, £4.50

Nothing but the biggest hits of all time (the ones that’ll make you dance at any rate).

DEFECTED IN THE HOUSE: MASTERS AT WORK

ALBERT HALL, 21:00–04:00, £25

Showcase evening from respected house music label, Defected Records. SUBTERAN FEAT MATT EVERSON

ROADHOUSE, 23:00–04:00, £5

The first instalment of Subteran comes to Manchester featuring resident Matt Everson as headliner. HACIENDA (TODD TERRY + GRAEME PARK + MIKE PICKERING + 808 STATE (DJ SET))

SANKEYS, 22:30–05:00

Similarly to JC, Messrs Terry, Park, Pickering and more continue to escape their own tomb with another Hacienda throwback night.

Sun 05 Apr ABOVE AND BEYOND

ALBERT HALL, 21:00–04:00, £SOLD OUT

Melodic trance trio made up of Jono Grant, Tony McGuinness and Paavo Siljamaki, who also own record label Anjunabeats. JACKMASTER

GORILLA, 23:00–04:00, £15

SANKEYS (APOLLONIA + DJEBALI + PIERS CROZIER + AJ CHRISTOU + MORE) SANKEYS, 22:30–05:00

Some of the biggest DJs around dropping to the long-running club for a spin.

THE DEAF INSTITUTE, 23:00–03:00, £4.50

Monthly club night tribute to 90s indie – expect Pulp, Nirvana, Suede, Smashing Pumpkins, Pixies and more. FUNKADEMIA

MINT LOUNGE, 22:30–04:00, £5

Mancunian nightclub institution, delivering a chronological history of soul on a weekly basis, courtesy of their DJ collective. FACTORY SATURDAYS

FACTORY 251, 22:30–04:00, £2 BEFORE MIDNIGHT

Three rooms of commercial dance, indie and deep house, powered by funktion one sound. ANTICS (SULK)

NIGHT AND DAY CAFE, 20:00–03:00, £6

Stone Roses-likened Sulk headline the latest Antics shenanigans. STUART RICHARDS

BLACK DOG BALLROOM NWS, 22:00–04:00, FREE

New residency from the guys that brought you Rehab, Pout and Dyslexic.

SOUND CONTROL, 23:00–04:00, £TBC

Sound Control’s own unholy trinity come together for the Easter weekend.

MAGNA CARTA (DJ SNEAK + LEFTWING AND KODY + CITIZENN + MAX CHAPMAN)

SANKEYS, 22:30–05:00

Massive Easter party with Best British Breakthrough DJ at the Best of British DJ Mag Award winner Lefwing and Cody headlining. DEEPER SOUNDS FUNHOUSE

XOLO, 22:00–04:00, FROM £3

LIGHT BOXX

THE RITZ, 22:30–03:30, £4

NB AUDIO X LEFTISM (CERN + MARK XTC B2B PETE CANNON + RED EYE HI FI & MC FOX + NIAN DUB B2B SEMIOTIX + MORE)

SOUND CONTROL, 23:00–04:00, £5

Hard and heavy drum’n’ bass night featuring a host of up and coming names.

SOUNDHOUSE 1ST BIRTHDAY (ADAM COTIER + RIAZ DIHANANI)

SOUND CONTROL, 23:00–04:00, £8

The travelling clubnight returns home for their first birthday.

WAZE & ODYSSEY & COVERT (WAZE AND ODYSSEY + JEREMY UNDERGROUND + QUELL + ANGUS JEFFORD + MORE) SANKEYS, 22:30–05:00

Pink lady cocktails, disco balls, glitz and glamour – a monthly club night where you’re free to let your inner 80s child loose.

Expect the finest deep tech and techno including N.A.N.C.Y, Kirby Halliday B2B Nic JD, Louis Hunt and Martin Smith.

Waze and Odyssey team up with Covert for an almighty tripleheader.

MINT LOUNGE, 22:30–04:00, £5

Thu 09 Apr

GOLD TEETH

FUNKADEMIA

Mancunian nightclub institution, delivering a chronological history of soul on a weekly basis, courtesy of their DJ collective. MR SCRUFF KEEP IT UNREAL

BAND ON THE WALL, 22:00–03:00, £12

DJ set from the musical mastermind, known for mixing a junkshop bag of sounds and bringing his beats to life with squiggly, scribbled animations. FACTORY SATURDAYS

FACTORY 251, 22:30–04:00, £2 BEFORE MIDNIGHT

Three rooms of commercial dance, indie and deep house, powered by funktion one sound. BEDROCK (JOHN DIGWEED)

GORILLA, 22:30–04:00, £15

Electonic music pioneer and head honcho at Bedrock curates the night, taking in cinematic soundscapes and tech growlers. STUART RICHARDS

BLACK DOG BALLROOM NWS, 22:00–04:00, FREE

High Jinx resident Stuart Richards brings his trademark style to the bar every Thursday, offering a night of disco, funk and house. EYES DOWN

SOUP KITCHEN, 23:00–04:00, £5

Following the success of last Autumn’s ‘one-off’ comeback, the Eyes Down crew give their records another dusting off. WITCH*UNT

KRAAK, 23:00–04:00, £5

Female fronted Hip Hop, House + Electro club night LIGHT BOXX

THE RITZ, 22:30–03:30, £4

New residency from the guys that brought you Rehab, Pout and Dyslexic.

April 2015

F//CK

FACTORY 251, 22:30–05:00, 99P BEFORE MIDNIGHT (£5 AFTER)

BLACK DOG BALLROOM NWS, 22:00–04:00, FREE

Expect motown, hip hop, indie and some old skool classics thrown in for good measure.

Fri 10 Apr JUICY

GORILLA, 23:00–04:00, £TBC

All party, no bullshit night of everything from classic hip-hop to disco and funk. FRI251

FACTORY 251, 22:30–04:00, 99P BEFORE MIDNIGHT

Student Friday-nighter, with mashups in room one, indie, funk and Motown in room two, and electro house in room three. HIGHER GROUND

THE DEAF INSTITUTE, 23:00–03:00, £3

The sounds of the 60’s from Motown to rock ‘n’ roll. JACOB COID

BLACK DOG BALLROOM NWS, 22:00–04:00, FREE

Black Dog Ballroom’s latest resident. BREAK STUFF

THE RUBY LOUNGE, 23:00–03:00, £3

Playing exactly the sort of music you’d expect from a night named after a Limp Bizkit song.

Black Dog Ballroom’s latest resident.

SOUP KITCHEN, 23:00–04:00, £10

GOO

THE DEAF INSTITUTE, 23:00–03:00, £4.50

DEADBOLT X ILLMATIC X CHERRY

JACOB COID

BLACK DOG BALLROOM NWS, 22:00–04:00, FREE

Sat 11 Apr

High Jinx resident Stuart Richards brings his trademark style to the bar every Thursday, offering a night of disco, funk and house.

Deaf mark the Easter weekend by, ahem, resurrecting all those old school indie classics, throwing in some britpop and shoegaze for good measure.

Student Friday-nighter, with mashups in room one, indie, funk and Motown in room two, and electro house in room three.

RED BULL MUSIC ACADEMY TOUR (MOUNT KIMBIE + SYNKRO + BRAIDEN)

The Numbers co-founder drops by, playing his usual far-reaching set of 80s jams alongside rare Detroit classics and straight-up house and techno. I AM THE RESURRECTION

FRI251 FACTORY 251, 22:30–04:00, 99P BEFORE MIDNIGHT

Tue 14 Apr THE DEAF INSTITUTE, 22:00–03:00, £4.50

Legendary weekly mixed-bag night, often invites use of the term ‘carnage’.

Thu 16 Apr

CODED RHYTHM (JIMMY EDGAR)

XOLO, 22:00–04:00, £8

Coded Rhythm returns with the mighty Jimmy Edgar topping the bill. F//CK

FACTORY 251, 22:30–05:00, 99P BEFORE MIDNIGHT (£5 AFTER)

Student Thursday-nighter, with resident DJs Steve Davies, Bill Murray’s Rock n Soul club, and Nicola Bear serving up anything from retro classics to electro mash ups across three rooms.

A Mount Kimbie DJ set tops the RBMA’s stopover at Soup.

RED BULL MUSIC ACADEMY (DERRICK MAY + SURGEON + HAPPA + ACRE)

SANKEYS, 22:30–05:00

The RBMA returns to Manchester with a host of renowned producers and artists in tow. RED BULL MUSIC ACADEMY: DEEP SOUTH

SOUTH, 23:00–04:00, £10

The RBMA takeover South with their headliner none other than Detroit legend Omar S.

Sat 18 Apr FUNKADEMIA

MINT LOUNGE, 22:30–04:00, £5

Mancunian nightclub institution, delivering a chronological history of soul on a weekly basis, courtesy of their DJ collective. FACTORY SATURDAYS

FACTORY 251, 22:30–04:00, £2 BEFORE MIDNIGHT

Three rooms of commercial dance, indie and deep house, powered by funktion one sound. BARE BONES

THE DEAF INSTITUTE, 23:00–03:00, £4.50

Three floor club night touting indie/electro, classic rock’n’roll and punk/rock. STUART RICHARDS

BLACK DOG BALLROOM NWS, 22:00–04:00, FREE

High Jinx resident Stuart Richards brings his trademark style to the bar every Thursday, offering a night of disco, funk and house. SOUL GARDEN (GILES THORPE + OWEN D + WARREN JOHNSON)

BAND ON THE WALL, 23:00–03:00, £8

New residency from the guys that brought you Rehab, Pout and Dyslexic. MASTERS OF DNB VS RELAPSE (DJ HYPE + EMPEROR + NORTH BASE + PETE CANNON + MORE)

SOUND CONTROL, 23:00–04:00, £12

DnB royalty DJ Hype is among the host of names dropping in for the latest Masters party. MUK KLUB 002 (STORMS)

NIGHT AND DAY CAFE, 20:00–23:00, £5

MUK Records take their label live with a mix of new artists and those on their current roster.

Tue 21 Apr GOLD TEETH

THE DEAF INSTITUTE, 22:00–03:00, £4.50

Legendary weekly mixed-bag night, often invites use of the term ‘carnage’.

Thu 23 Apr F//CK

FACTORY 251, 22:30–05:00, 99P BEFORE MIDNIGHT (£5 AFTER)

KIERAN SHARPLES

Expect motown, hip hop, indie and some old skool classics thrown in for good measure.

Fri 17 Apr

Fri 24 Apr

THE RITZ, 22:30–03:30, £8

Club night sweeping the nation, offering up nothing but power ballads. It’s like one big communal karaoke night.

Monthly rock’n’roll club night hosted by Two Weeks Running. TRANSMISSION FUNK (URULU)

JOSHUA BROOKS, 23:00–04:00, FROM £3

House, techno and bass from the Transmission Funk residents and a host of special guests. JACOB COID

BLACK DOG BALLROOM NWS, 22:00–04:00, FREE

Black Dog Ballroom’s latest resident.

A DESOLAT MANCHESTER (GUTI + HECTOR)

GORILLA, 23:00–04:00, £15

The techno night returns with a live set from the jazz-influenced Guti and Kaluki's Hector. FOREVER 1ST BIRTHDAY

SOUND CONTROL, 23:00–03:30, £3

Club night celebrating Manchester’s icons, of the past, present and future – expect The Smiths, Happy Mondays and James to name but a few. BUGGED OUT! (TOTALLY ENORMOUS EXTINCT DINOSAURS DJ + JONAS RATHSMAN)

CHERRY

SOUND CONTROL, 23:00–04:00, £4

Celebrating all things naughty from the noughties, with a music policy that spans 2000’s pop and houseparty anthems. JAM CITY

SOUP KITCHEN, 19:00–22:15, FROM £7

Jack Latham, aka Jam City, returns to Soup Kitchen, the scene of a triumphant all-nighter in 2013, for an early evening show.

Liverpool Clubs Tue 31 Mar

Tue 07 Apr

BUMPER, 22:00–04:00, FREE BEFORE 11PM (FROM £3 AFTER)

Thu 02 Apr

CONSTELLATIONS, 06:30–10:30, FROM £8

DIRTY ANTICS

Messy Tuesday-nighter, bring your dirty shoes. JEROME SYDENHAM

THE MAGNET , 22:00–07:00, £5

The Ibidan Records man headlines, boasting past work with En Vogue and Ten City among others. SUPER RAD THURSDAYS

BUMPER, 22:00–04:00, £TBC

Student night playing hip-hop, crunk, indie, disco and funk. NOTORIOUS

ARTS CLUB, 23:00–04:00, £3

All the 2000s hip hop, pop and R&B you could ask for. TIME SQUARE

THE KRAZY HOUSE, 22:00–04:00, £2

Staple student night with a mix of music across the three floors (think: rock, indie, alternative, dance and a sprinkling of cheese). BEACH BEACH

CONSTELLATIONS, 20:00–04:00, £5

The guitar-soaked Spanish popsters tour the UK, playing tracks from their new LP, The Sea.

SAMUEL KERRIDGE (DROHNE X VEED + BODIES ON EVEREST + TOMASU + MORE)

24 KITCHEN STREET, 20:00–04:00, £5

TEED headlines the latest Bugged Out! Fun.

The blistering industrial techno of Samuel Kerridge comes to 24 Kitchen Street courtesy of futurist explorers Deep Hedonia.

SOUP KITCHEN, 23:00–04:00, FROM £5

CAMEL CLUB, 21:00–04:00, £TBC

SANKEYS, 22:30–05:00

DANCERS WANTED FOR JACK J (GNORK + RUF DUG)

Soulful chords and dreamy ambience from start to finish with this trio of delirious electronica enthusiasts. MIA MENDI (ALEXIS RAPHAEL + DEMARZO)

VIBE THURSDAYS

R’n’b, hip-hop and urban floorfillers.

Fri 03 Apr AMBUSH!

THE KRAZY HOUSE, 22:30–04:00, £TBC

A night of pulsing tech house.

SOUTH, 22:00–04:00, £8

Friday night capers at Liverpool’s gnarliest rock club.

Sat 25 Apr

CHAMELEON BAR, 19:00–03:30, FREE

THIS FEELING (CLAY)

NIGHT AND DAY CAFE, 20:00–03:00, £5

The biggest hits from the last 40 years of popular music.

LIGHT BOXX

BLACK DOG BALLROOM NWS, 22:00–04:00, FREE

ULTIMATE POWER

PACEMAKER

NIGHT AND DAY CAFE, 23:00–03:00, FREE

THE RITZ, 22:30–03:30, £4

BLACK DOG BALLROOM NWS, 22:00–04:00, FREE

KIERAN SHARPLES

Student Friday-nighter, with mashups in room one, indie, funk and Motown in room two, and electro house in room three.

The London rock’n’roll night takes a trip north with a selection of live bands taking to the stage.

A Mount Kimbie DJ set tops the RBMA’s stopover at Soup.

THE RITZ, 22:00–03:00, £15

FRI251

FACTORY 251, 22:30–04:00, 99P BEFORE MIDNIGHT

New skool soul night playing modern soul and contemporary RnB with a splash of reggae and some soul classics too.

Student Thursday-nighter, with resident DJs Steve Davies, Bill Murray’s Rock n Soul club, and Nicola Bear serving up anything from retro classics to electro mash ups across three rooms.

RED BULL MUSIC ACADEMY TOUR (TROPICAL + JME + SKEPTA + PEDITAH + MORE)

UPTOWN THE DEAF INSTITUTE, 23:00–03:00, £3

The best in disco, funk, boogie and party classics.

POP

THE DEAF INSTITUTE, 23:00–03:00, £4.50

FUNKADEMIA

MINT LOUNGE, 22:30–04:00, £5

CHAMELEON FRIDAYS

Get your weekend started with Chameleon’s host of resident and guest DJs. TREND FRIDAYS

CAMEL CLUB, 21:00–04:00, £2 (£3 AFTER 12:30AM)

Everything from R ‘n’ B to old skool garage, hip-hop and deep house.

Sat 04 Apr RAGE

Mancunian nightclub institution, delivering a chronological history of soul on a weekly basis, courtesy of their DJ collective.

Mixed-bag night spread out over all three floors, serving up indie, rock, alternative and dance tunes.

BAND ON THE WALL, 21:00–03:00, FROM £14

Chameleon’s host of guest and resident DJs drop a diverse selection of tunery.

CRAIG CHARLES FUNK AND SOUL CLUB (THE MIGHTY MOCAMBOS)

DJ and actor Craig Charles will be manning the decks until 3am, playing his picks of funk and soul, with an array of guest spinners and live acts joining him.

VIVA WARRIORS (STEVE LAWLER + ROBERT DIETZ + DETLEF + OLI FURNESS + MORE) SANKEYS, 22:30–05:00

Veteran DJ Steve Lawler brings his ViVA Warriors session back to Sankeys for another rave. FACTORY SATURDAYS

FACTORY 251, 22:30–04:00, £2 BEFORE MIDNIGHT

Three rooms of commercial dance, indie and deep house, powered by funktion one sound. STUART RICHARDS

BLACK DOG BALLROOM NWS, 22:00–04:00, FREE

High Jinx resident Stuart Richards brings his trademark style to the bar every Thursday, offering a night of disco, funk and house. LIGHT BOXX

THE RITZ, 22:30–03:30, £4

New residency from the guys that brought you Rehab, Pout and Dyslexic.

THE KRAZY HOUSE, 22:00–06:00, £3

CHAMELEON SATURDAYS

CHAMELEON BAR, 19:00–03:30, FREE

DÉBRUIT

CONSTELLATIONS, 21:00–03:00, £5

The far-reaching producer and DJ comes to Constellations. PURE SATURDAYS

CAMEL CLUB, 21:00–04:00, £TBC

Smoonth RnB and urban floor fillers.

Sun 05 Apr THE BALTIC ALL STARS

CAMP AND FURNACE, 21:00–02:00, £6

Josh Murphy (Meatmarket,) Jacques Malchance (LOCK:IN) plus Waxxxs Mr Paul present a dancey (not too serious) type affair til the early hours of Monday morning. NORMAN JAY MBE

THE MAGNET , 22:00–05:00, £13

The inimitable Sir Norman Jay returns to play for Hustle. Arise, revellers.

CIRCUS (YOUSEF B2B EATS EVERYTHING + DJ TENNIS + KOLSCH + BUTCH AND MATADOR + MORE) ARTS CLUB, 22:00–04:00, £20

Circus resident Yousef is joined by Eats Everything and more for the latest installation of the staple club night.

Mon 06 Apr UNIBAR MONDAYS

CAMEL CLUB, 21:00–04:00, £TBC

The self-proclaimed longest running student night in Liverpool.

DIRTY ANTICS

Messy Tuesday-nighter, bring your dirty shoes. MORNING GLORYVILLE #5

Rave your way into the day because why should you have to stay up late party? A variety of yoga and massage classes, juice and coffee bars await to get your day off to the best start - or you can just head straight back to the dancefloor. Dress to sweat.

Thu 09 Apr SUPER RAD THURSDAYS

BUMPER, 22:00–04:00, £TBC

Student night playing hip-hop, crunk, indie, disco and funk. TIME SQUARE

THE KRAZY HOUSE, 22:00–04:00, £2

Staple student night with a mix of music across the three floors (think: rock, indie, alternative, dance and a sprinkling of cheese). VIBE THURSDAYS

CAMEL CLUB, 21:00–04:00, £TBC

R’n’b, hip-hop and urban floorfillers.

Fri 10 Apr

SESSIONS FACTION X 100TH MONKEY FREE HAUS (AMOSS + XANADU + DALEMA & VENTURE + ANDEE J + MORE)

CAMP AND FURNACE, 22:00–04:00, FREE BEFORE 11PM (FROM £4 THEREAFTER)

100th Monkey and Session Faction team up for a night filled with genres of bass music as well as 100th Monkey’s expertise in drum and bass. AMBUSH!

THE KRAZY HOUSE, 22:30–04:00, £TBC

Friday night capers at Liverpool’s gnarliest rock club. CHAMELEON FRIDAYS

CHAMELEON BAR, 19:00–03:30, FREE

Get your weekend started with Chameleon’s host of resident and guest DJs.

DISCOTECA POCA RE-LAUNCH (KRAAK AND SMAAK) CONSTELLATIONS, 21:00–04:00, £7

Kraak and Smaak help Discoteca Poca re-launch their night of twisted disco. TREND FRIDAYS

CAMEL CLUB, 21:00–04:00, £2 (£3 AFTER 12:30AM)

Everything from R ‘n’ B to old skool garage, hip-hop and deep house.

Sat 11 Apr

MODU:LAR (EVAN BAGGS + MOLLY + NERRAM + D.E.B)

THE MAGNET , 22:00–08:00, FROM £8

The house and techno blending clubnight hurtle into their second year in existence with another huge party. RAGE

THE KRAZY HOUSE, 22:00–06:00, £3

TIME SQUARE THE KRAZY HOUSE, 22:00–04:00, £2

Staple student night with a mix of music across the three floors (think: rock, indie, alternative, dance and a sprinkling of cheese).

AMITYMALAWI FUNDRAISER (HAZEL MAK + BLAKSEED + DJ GWYNZ + THE SOUL RAYS)

CONSTELLATIONS, 19:00–02:00, FROM £5

A fundraiser for Malawi following the devastating flooding in the country. VIBE THURSDAYS

CAMEL CLUB, 21:00–04:00, £TBC

R’n’b, hip-hop and urban floorfillers.

Fri 17 Apr AMBUSH!

THE KRAZY HOUSE, 22:30–04:00, £TBC

Friday night capers at Liverpool’s gnarliest rock club. CHAMELEON FRIDAYS

CHAMELEON BAR, 19:00–03:30, FREE

Get your weekend started with Chameleon’s host of resident and guest DJs. MEINE NACHT (MOXIE)

24 KITCHEN STREET, 20:00–04:00, £8

Moxie brings his hip-hop and grime cuts and disco edits to 24 Kitchen Street for the first Meine Nacht party. TREND FRIDAYS

CAMEL CLUB, 21:00–04:00, £2 (£3 AFTER 12:30AM)

Everything from R ‘n’ B to old skool garage, hip-hop and deep house.

Sat 18 Apr HUSTLE (KARIZMA)

THE MAGNET , 23:00–08:00, £10

The latest Hustle fun sees the club promoters team up with Jolt to bring Karizma to The Magnet. RAGE

THE KRAZY HOUSE, 22:00–06:00, £3

Mixed-bag night spread out over all three floors, serving up indie, rock, alternative and dance tunes. CHAMELEON SATURDAYS

CHAMELEON BAR, 19:00–03:30, FREE

Chameleon’s host of guest and resident DJs drop a diverse selection of tunery. HOT PLATE (KANO)

24 KITCHEN STREET, 21:00–02:00, FROM £10

The regular 24 Kitchen Street night comes up trumps with grime mainstay Kano headlining their latest shenanigans. PURE SATURDAYS

CAMEL CLUB, 21:00–04:00, £TBC

Smoonth RnB and urban floor fillers.

Mon 20 Apr UNIBAR MONDAYS

CAMEL CLUB, 21:00–04:00, £TBC

The self-proclaimed longest running student night in Liverpool.

Tue 21 Apr DIRTY ANTICS

Mixed-bag night spread out over all three floors, serving up indie, rock, alternative and dance tunes.

BUMPER, 22:00–04:00, FREE BEFORE 11PM (FROM £3 AFTER)

CHAMELEON BAR, 19:00–03:30, FREE

Thu 23 Apr

CHAMELEON SATURDAYS

Chameleon’s host of guest and resident DJs drop a diverse selection of tunery. PURE SATURDAYS

CAMEL CLUB, 21:00–04:00, £TBC

Smoonth RnB and urban floor fillers.

Mon 13 Apr UNIBAR MONDAYS

CAMEL CLUB, 21:00–04:00, £TBC

The self-proclaimed longest running student night in Liverpool.

Tue 14 Apr DIRTY ANTICS

BUMPER, 22:00–04:00, FREE BEFORE 11PM (FROM £3 AFTER)

Messy Tuesday-nighter, bring your dirty shoes.

Thu 16 Apr

SUPER RAD THURSDAYS

BUMPER, 22:00–04:00, £TBC

Messy Tuesday-nighter, bring your dirty shoes. SUPER RAD THURSDAYS

BUMPER, 22:00–04:00, £TBC

Student night playing hip-hop, crunk, indie, disco and funk. TIME SQUARE

THE KRAZY HOUSE, 22:00–04:00, £2

Staple student night with a mix of music across the three floors (think: rock, indie, alternative, dance and a sprinkling of cheese). VIBE THURSDAYS

CAMEL CLUB, 21:00–04:00, £TBC

R’n’b, hip-hop and urban floorfillers.

Fri 24 Apr

DOT. (MIKE SKINNER DJ)

ARTS CLUB, 23:00–04:00, £12

Former Streets man Mike Skinner is on the ones and twos for the latest Dot. Party. AMBUSH!

THE KRAZY HOUSE, 22:30–04:00, £TBC

Student night playing hip-hop, crunk, indie, disco and funk.

Friday night capers at Liverpool’s gnarliest rock club.

ARTS CLUB, 23:00–04:00, £3 BEFORE MIDNIGHT (£4 THEREAFTER)

CHAMELEON BAR, 19:00–03:30, FREE

RAWKUS

Liverpool’s biggest pop-punk, hardcore and alternative party.

CHAMELEON FRIDAYS

Get your weekend started with Chameleon’s host of resident and guest DJs.

Listings

Liverpool Clubs TREND FRIDAYS CAMEL CLUB, 21:00–04:00, £2 (£3 AFTER 12:30AM)

Everything from R ‘n’ B to old skool garage, hip-hop and deep house.

Sat 25 Apr

DUBABUSE FEAT. ZION TRAIN

ARTS CLUB, 23:00–04:00, £10

Dub, reggae and roots night. RAGE

Theatre Manchester

Contact

MUSICAL CHITCHAT

14 APR, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, £9 (£5)

An innovative and contemporary concert exploring the voice as an instrument. Part of Palaver 2015. DER AUFHALTSAME AUFSTIEG DES ARTURO UI

16–18 APR, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, £9 (£5)

THE KRAZY HOUSE, 22:00–06:00, £3

Mixed-bag night spread out over all three floors, serving up indie, rock, alternative and dance tunes. CHAMELEON SATURDAYS

CHAMELEON BAR, 19:00–03:30, FREE

Chameleon’s host of guest and resident DJs drop a diverse selection of tunery. DJ PIERRE (X-PRESS 2)

CONSTELLATIONS, 15:00–04:00, £10

The dance music legend heads up the decks, with the veteran X-Press 2 in tow. PURE SATURDAYS

CAMEL CLUB, 21:00–04:00, £TBC

Smoonth RnB and urban floor fillers.

Sun 26 Apr FORRO DA ALEGRIA

ARTS CLUB, 20:30–00:00, FREE

Liverpool’s only Brazilian music club night returns!

Mon 27 Apr UNIBAR MONDAYS

CAMEL CLUB, 21:00–04:00, £TBC

The self-proclaimed longest running student night in Liverpool.

An update on Bertolt Bercht’s satire on Adolf Hitler’s rise to power. Part of Palaver 2015. THE SPALDING SUITE

23–25 APR, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, £15 (£10)

New physical theatre inspired by basketball apparently, with new poetry meeting movement and choreography.

THE KING’S SPEECH 30 MAR- APR, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, FROM £6.90

Stage production of the rousing period drama, based on a true story, with Jason-bleedingDonovan taking the role of Australian speech therapist Lionel Logue. Matinee performances also available. IMAGICIAN

18–19 APR, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, FROM £11.90

Jamie Allan brings his brand new show of sorcery to the UK after ten years touring around the world.

Palace Theatre JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR

13-18 APR, TIMES VARY, PRICES VARY

Manchester Arena

Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s legendary rock classic returns to the stage. Matinee performances also available.

7–11 APR, TIMES VARY, FROM £22.50

27 APR, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, FROM £19.90

MRS BROWNS’ BOYS: HOW NOW BROWN COW

A new tour from the awardwinning TV comedy.

Octagon Theatre PRIVATE LIVES

31 MAR – 18 APR, TIMES VARY, FROM £10

All-new reworking of Noël Coward’s 1933 play, in which divorced couple Elyot and Amanda, while honeymooning with their new spouses, discover that they are staying in adjacent rooms at the same hotel. Matinee performances also available.

Opera House ANYTHING GOES

7-18 APR, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, FROM £15.90

Classic Broadway musical telling the story of an evangelist turned nightclub singer Reno Sweeney as she boards a cruise liner for song, dance and romance. Matinee performances available.

THE CARPENTERS STORY

A musical dedicated to the life and times of The Carpenters. DREAMBOATS AND MINISKIRTS

20–25 APR, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, FROM £7.90

60s-set musical singalong which finds two young musicians competing for the love of a certain lady. Matinee performances also available (Wed & Sat, 2.30pm). THE CHICAGO BLUES BROTHERS

11 APR, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, FROM £24.90

All your favourite Blues Brothers classics.

Royal Exchange Theatre ANNA KARENINA

31 MAR – 2 MAY, NOT SUNDAYS, TIMES VARY, FROM £15

A fresh take on the Tolstoy novel of love and betrayal in St. Petersburg, with two characters plotting their own doomed paths after news of Karenina’s affair breaks out.

THE ROLLING STONE

THE RISE & FALL OF LITTLE VOICE

BURLESQUE AT THE LOWRY

21 APR – 1 MAY, NOT 25 APR, 26 APR, 27 APR, 30 APR, TIMES VARY, £12 (£10)

15–26 APR, 7:30PM – 9:30PM, £12 (£10)

4 APR, 8:00PM – 10:00PM, FROM £7

The Lowry Studio

21 APR, TIMES VARY, FROM £9

A Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting winner in 2013, The Rolling Stone focuses on a secret gay relationship in Uganda, with two boys terrified what might happen to them if their society finds out.

Royal Northern College of Music CANDIDE

1-2 APR, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, £8

Featuring a legendary score by Leonard Bernstein. Part sophisticated operetta, part wacky screwball comedy with shades of Monty Python, this funny irreverent satire is a musical expression of Voltaire’s tongue in cheek sendup of optimistic philosophies. ON THE TOWN

23–25 APR, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, £12

Award-winning musical about the adventures of three sailors in New York, the city that never sleeps.

The Edge Theatre & Arts Centre THE BOY WHO BIT PICASSO

14 APR, TIMES VARY, £8 (£6)

Play inspired by the book by Antony Penrose.

The King’s Arms LET’S SEE WHAT HAPPENS

4 APR, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, £3

Improv from the members of CszUK – using audience suggestions a comedian will tell a story based on this, followed by improvised sketches from a troupe of actors. MAYOR’S CHARITY AND YOUNG CARERS

3 APR, 8:00PM – 10:00PM, £5

Local line-up of musical talent. BORDER LINE

7–8 APR, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, £8

New work focusing on main protagonist Claire and her battle to overcome introversion in order to keep her life on track.

A fairy tale of despair, love and hope and a winner of the Evening Standard Award for Best Comedy play.

RAPUNZEL

26 APR, TIMES VARY, £8.50

A family-friendly dance show presenting a re-telling of the Grimm Brother’s classic tale, Rapunzel, built up on collaborations with Carol Ann Duffy and Game of Thrones costume designer, Michele Clayton. ABLUTIONS

4 APR, 8:00PM – 10:00PM, £12

A dark, boozy tale from the sodden depths of the LA underworld, blending a live soundtrack, mime and heart-wrenching humour. SECRET DIARIES

2 APR, TIMES VARY, £12

SWANHUNTER

25 APR, 7:00PM – 9:00PM, FROM £13

Chamber opera based on a gripping tale from the Finnish folk epic the Kalevala.

The Met

PLASTIC FIGURINES

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 8 APR AND 25 APR, TIMES VARY, PRICES VARY

The Box of Tricks theatre company present a play that explores the relationship between siblings with very different views on the world.

The Plaza Stockport

3 APR, 8:00PM – 10:00PM, £12

10 APR, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, FROM £19.50

PENELOPE RETOLD

Join Olivier Award nominee and Stage Best Solo Performer, Caroline Horton as she presents this tale of love, loneliness and the need to be free. MEETING MR BOOM

12 APR, TIMES VARY, £8.50

A inflatable set and an abstract music and dance show for all the family in this choreographed piece. DUCK IN THE TRUCK

19 APR, TIMES VARY, £8.50

ESSENCE OF IRELAND

A story of love and separation as the two main protagonists are split from each other and their beloved Ireland. BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

4 APR, TIMES VARY, FROM £17.88

Lee Latchford-Evans (y’know, from Steps) plays The Beast, which sounds scarcely believable. Did you see The Beast in Disney’s version? Dude was stacked. SEX IN SUBURBIA

Ducks really shouldn’t be allowed to drive on the road, but for the sake of his family play they seem to be able to. What kind of message is that sending our kids?

9 APR, TIMES VARY, PRICES VARY

22–24 APR, 8:00PM – 10:00PM, £12

17 APR, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, FROM £18

SHOOTING WITH LIGHT

A dance show about a young German refugee who discovers the genius of photography after fleeing to Paris. LORRAINE AND ALAN

25 APR, 8:00PM – 10:00PM, FROM £10

A play about co-dependency and how those we love shape who we are.

Claire Sweeney stars in and co-writes in a new comedy about dating, men and finding Mr Right. Riveting, we’re sure. 69 SHADES OF BLACK

Starring Faye from Steps as Christina Black, in this subversion of the popular 50 Shades of Grey.

Liverpool Theatre

The Lowry: Lyric Theatre

Epstein Theatre

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 31 MAR AND 25 APR, TIMES VARY, PRICES VARY

2–12 APR, NOT 7, TIMES VARY, £16.50 (£14.50)

Vincent Simone and Flavia of Strictly Come Dancing fame return with their second live show, if any of you, y’know, give the slightest bugger. REBECCA

7-11 APR, TIMES VARY, FROM £10.50

Daphne du Maurier’s tale of desire, obsession and treachery retold by a vibrant young cast. SHEN YUN

31 MAR – 1 APR, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, FROM £40

Classic dance, a full orchestra, costumes and backdrops celebrate the history and heritage of China. CIRQUE SURREAL

2–6 APR, TIMES VARY, FROM £11

A fusion of circus, dance, drama and comedy that draws from talent the world over. Clowns, trapeze artists, that sort of thing we presume. THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS

15–18 APR, TIMES VARY, FROM £15

Based on the best-selling novel by John Boyne, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas follows two boys on a journey of unlikely friendship amidst World War II conflict.

The Lowry: Quays Theatre BEAUTIFUL THING

13-18 APR, TIMES VARY, FROM £13

The award-winning play written 20 years ago by Liverpool’s Jonathan Harvey – when he was just 24-years-old, no less – an urban love story about two young men coming to terms with their sexuality. ROOM ON THE BROOM

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 7-12 APR, TIMES VARY, £13

Songs, laughs and scary fun for children, based on the awardwinning picture book by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler.

Listings

VARMINTS

The poignant tale of one small creature’s struggle to preserve a world in danger of being lost forever in a play highlighting the loss of the world’s bees.

Family drama set amidst the fall of both the Iron Curtain and Iron Lady at the end of the 80’s.

DANCE ‘TIL DAWN

Join Lesbian Vampire queen Rosie Lugosi for a night of fun and frivolity.

LHK PRODUCTIONS: BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

Continuing the recent trend for washed up pop stars playing The Beast (hey, Lee Latchford-Evans), 5ive’s Ritchie Neville is the man trapped in a big thwacking great hairy lad’s body. WAITING FOR GATEAUX

22 APR – 2 MAY, TIMES VARY, FROM £12.50

Pauline Daniels directs and stars in this comedy about ‘the worst health and fitness club in the country’. Matinee performances also available.

Everyman Theatre BIRDSONG

14–25 APR, NOT 19, 20, TIMES VARY, PRICES VARY

Theatre Liverpool

CROUCH, TOUCH, PAUSE, ENGAGE 21–25 APR, TIMES VARY, FROM £12.50

Theatre production based on the life of former Welsh rugby union and league player Gareth Thomas, who remains the only player to have come out as gay while still playing professionally. Matinee performances also available. PLASTIC FIGURINES

8-11 APR, 7:45PM-9:00PM, PRICES VARY

Based on the best-selling novel by John Boyne, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is a heart-wrenching tale of an unlikely friendship between two innocent boys. A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

31 MAR, NOT 3 APR, 6 APR, TIMES VARY, FROM £12

An inviting riot of mischief and wonder awaits as Associate Director Nick Bagnall delves deep into the darkness of the Bard’s classic take on the delirium of love.

Helen Forrester's famous tale returns as a straight play, following a successful run as a musical. Matinees also available.

Studio 2

THE SECRET CIRCUS

The Atkinson

THE LIVERPOOL PASSION PLAYS

31 MAR, 1 APR, 4 APR, 6:30PM – 7:30PM, £TBC

Using spaces of the cathedral, The Liverpool Passion Plays re-enact the events of the Holy Week, which contained far fewer chocolate eggs than recent years would have us believe.

Liverpool Empire DIRTY DANCING

7–25 APR, NOT SUNDAYS, TIMES VARY, FROM £10

The cult 80s film revamped for the stage – cue Baby and Johnny, sexy dancing and a good dose of hungry eyes. Matinee performances also available. ELLEN KENT’S MADAMA BUTTERFLY

4 APR, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, PRICES VARY

Ellen Kent’s take on Puccini’s classic Italian opera, as lavishlycostumed as ever. ELLEN KENT’S LA TRAVIATA

3 APR, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, PRICES VARY

Verdi’s interpretation of one of the most popular love stories of the 19th century is given a modern reworking by Ellen Kent. SEX IN SUBURBIA

31 MAR, 7:30PM-10:00PM, PRICES VARY

Claire Sweeney stars in and co-writes in a new comedy about dating, men and finding Mr Right. Riveting, we're sure.

Royal Court Theatre SHED

10 APR – 9 MAY, NOT SUNDAYS, 8:00PM – 10:00PM, PRICES VARY

Paul Broughton and Michael Starke have written and star in this great new bittersweet comedy about friendships, secrets and sheds. Matinees also available.

Southport Theatre ROBIN HOOD

13 APR, 7:00PM – 9:00PM, £15.90

Robin Hood steals from the rich and gives to the poor, in an exact opposite of what’s happening in 2015. Matinee also available. IMAGICIAN

Claire Sweeney stars in and co-writes in a new comedy about dating, men and finding Mr Right. Riveting, we're sure.

THE BOY STRIPPED IN PYJAMAS

TWOPENCE TO CROSS THE MERSEY

14-16 APR, 7:30PM-10:00PM, £20

Liverpool Cathedral

21-25 APR, TIMES VARY, PRICES VARY

30 MAR – 4 APR, NOT 3 APR, TIMES VARY, FROM £12.50

The Vienna Festival Ballet celebrate 35 years of limb-defying dancing.

1 APR, 7:00PM – 11:45PM, FREE

18–19 APR, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, FROM £11.90

David Ireland’s new take on Federico Garcia Lorca’s Spanish classic, refueling the story with a contemporary twist. Matinee performances also available.

19 APR, 5:00PM – 9:00PM, £19 (£17)

The Box of Tricks theatre company present a play that explores the relationship between siblings with very different views on the world.

Sebastian Faulks’ story of love, courage and sacrifice during wartime is brought to the stage in a new adaptation marking the 100th anniversary of the start of WWI. Matinee performances also available. BLOOD WEDDING

35TH ANNIVERSARY GALA

Jamie Allan brings his brand new show of sorcery to the UK after ten years touring around the world. SEX IN SUBURBIA

1 APR, 7:30PM-10:00PM, PRICES VARY

TWOPENCE TO CROSS THE MERSEY

9-11 APR, 7:30PM-10:00PM, £16.90

Helen Forrester's famous tale returns as a straight play, following a successful run as a musical. Matinees also available.

St Helens Theatre Royal SLEEPING BEAUTY

3–12 APR, NOT 7, 8, 1:00PM – 3:00PM, £12 (£11.50)

Wicked fairy meets beautiful princess: pantomime hilarity ensues. 5pm shows also available.

Poetry, performance art, dance, music, and Burlesque! Don’t forget your feathers and top-hats. THE WIZ

9-11 APR, 7:30PM – 9:30PM, PRICES VARY

A souped-up version of the Wizard of Oz, told through brassy musical numbers with a rock, gospel and soul twang. Matinees also available. ALADDIN

4 APR, 7:00PM-9:00PM, £15

UK Ballet’s take on the pauper who becomes a prince thanks to a lamp and a bit of elbow grease PLASTIC FIGURINES

25 APR, 7:30PM-8:45PM, PRICES VARY

The Box of Tricks theatre company present a play that explores the relationship between siblings with very different views on the world.

The Bluecoat ELEMENTS OF VOGUE

11 APR, 8:00PM – 9:00PM, £10

The House of Suarez present a fierce choreography piece, influenced by styles of Vogue culture.

The Brindley THE DREAMBOYS

2 APR, 7:30PM – 10:30PM, £22.50

Glamour show courtesy of loads of oiled-up blokes possessing the most chiselled abs since we last looked round The Skinny office. Ahem. THE PICTURE OF DOREEN GRAY

21-22 APR, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, £10

The renowned Lip Service bring their latest smash to the Northwest, with Doreen Gray hitting 50 and finding her career as a drivetime radio show host and lifestyle programme TV presenter doesn’t mean as much to her bosses as her age. MIS LES

31 MAR, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, £10

az and Britney, stars of Scottie Road The Musical, take on Les Mis with rainbow flags hoisted high about their heads as they journey from the barricades to... who knows? ALADDIN

11 APR, 7:00PM-9:00PM, £15

UK Ballet’s take on the pauper who becomes a prince thanks to a lamp and a bit of elbow grease” HER BENNY

9–12 APR, TIMES VARY, £16

The International Quest for New Musicals award winner comes to The Brindley, with a tale surrounding urchin Benny and his little sister Nell. Matinees also available. ON THE FLIP SIDE

23–24 APR, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, £10.50

Students of Glenda Hill Theatreworks present a showcase.

The Capstone THE CIGGIE RUN

9–11 APR, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, £10 (£8)

A group of hapless entrepreneurial wannabees head to Spain to cash in on some tobacco, but things don’t go as smoothly as they should.

The Lantern Theatre BENEFIT

16–17 APR, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, £11 (£8.50)

Three people and their everyday struggles with their sense of self in this story about lives, loves, victories, and the social systems we depend upon.

GOOSED - THE BRADSHAWS

18 APR, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, £16

Family comedy as the Bradshaw family hoodwink, lie and generally put each other in a right old pickle.

THE SKINNY

THE BASTARD QUEEN 4–5 APR, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, £10.50 (£8.50)

Pitch-black comedy set two years after the end of the world in a post-apocalyptic Britain, following the survival of the last five people left on earth. Well we did say it was black. SWEATS

2–3 APR, 7:45PM – 10:00PM, £10.50 (£8.50)

Grin Theatre Company, Liverpool’s very own LGBT theatre company, bring back the Queertet smash hit. NO SECOND BITE

21–26 APR, 7:15PM – 9:30PM, £10.50 (£8.50)

Premiere performance of a play about two female flatmates who fear that the chance of motherhood is passing them by. Matinee performances also available.

Unity Theatre MEDEA

25 APR, 8:00PM – 9:45PM, £10 (£8)

Modern adaptation of the classic Greek tragedy exploring the private fury bubbling under public behaviour. MOVING DANCE FORWARD

31 MAR, 8:00PM – 10:00PM, £10 (£8)

An evening of contemporary dance as part of LEAP 2015. CALL MR ROBESON

1 APR, 8:00PM – 10:00PM, £12 (£10)

A journey through the life of the legendary singer and actor Paul Robeson and his downfall. MY CLOCKWORK HEART

16–18 APR, 8:00PM – 10:00PM, £12 (£10)

A new piece about personal freedom, telling the story of Trenchant, a miraculous mechanical who now sits forgotten in a glass case by his makers. Matinees also available. TICK, TICK. BOOM!

21–23 APR, 8:00PM – 10:00PM, £10 (£8)

Struggling New York composer Jon faces giving up on his dream of musical as he approaches his 30th birthday.

STELLA, A STORY OF WOMEN, THEIR MEN AND ASTRONOMY

24 APR, 8:00PM – 10:00PM, £12 (£10)

A story of time, space, curiousity and passion, as two women try to find their place in the world.

Manchester Comedy Tue 31 Mar

XS MALARKEY (ROBERT WHITE + ALFIE BROWN + JAMALI MADDIX + GARETH COOPER + MC TOBY HADOKE) PUB/ZOO, 19:00–22:00, £5 (£3)

The rather ace comedy night continues with the usual Tuesday night shenanigans. THE WORST COMEDY NIGHT IN SALFORD

THE KING’S ARMS, 20:00–23:00, FREE

Keeping expectations low with this night of open mic stand up, opening up the stage to anyone willing to give it go.

Wed 01 Apr COMEDY BALLOON

APE AND APPLE, 20:30–23:00, FREE

Manchester’s oldest underground comedy club returns with a bang, continuing their quest to put fresh comedic talent in the spotlight.

Thu 02 Apr

Comedy

Manchester GINA YASHERE CONTACT, 20:00–22:30, £15 (£10)

The UK comedian embarks on her biggest tour to-date, discussing being diagnosed with sleep apnoea and travels to the Far East.

FIRST THURSDAY COMEDY CLUB (JAMIE SUTHERLAND + PAUL SAVAGE + KEITH CARTER PRESENTS NIGE + WIZZY JANEW) THE MET, 20:30–22:30, £10 (£8)

A four-strong comedy line-up ready to test your funny bone in the first week of every month.

Fri 03 Apr

BARREL OF LAUGHS (BREN RILEY + ROBERT THOMAS + JUNIOR SIMPSON + MC JIM SMALLMAN) THE FROG AND BUCKET COMEDY CLUB, 19:00–22:30, £16 (£8)

Three top-notch comics, a sprinkling of Frog compere funnies and a late night disco courtesy of the resident DJ.

THE BEST IN STAND UP (DANNY MCLOUGHLIN + PHIL NICHOL + MICK FERRY + JUSTIN MOORHOUSE + MC ROGER MONKHOUSE)

THE COMEDY STORE, 20:00–22:00, £18

Regular night of stand up with a line-up of five top circuit comedians. ALL STARS OF COMEDY

THE LOWRY: QUAYS THEATRE, 20:00–22:00, FROM £17.50

Stars of 90’s comedy sketch show The Real McCoy, including Richard Blackwood, Rudi Lickwood and John Simmit return for another round of quick-fire laughs.

Sat 04 Apr

BARREL OF LAUGHS (BREN RILEY + ROBERT THOMAS + JUNIOR SIMPSON + MC JIM SMALLMAN) THE FROG AND BUCKET COMEDY CLUB, 19:00–22:30, £17 (£10)

Three top-notch comics, a sprinkling of Frog compere funnies and a late night disco courtesy of the resident DJ.

THE BEST IN STAND UP (PHIL NICHOL + GEOFF NORCOTT + ROGER MONKHOUSE + DANNY MCLOUGHLIN + MC ROB ROUSE) THE COMEDY STORE, 19:00–21:00, £22

Regular night of stand up with a line-up of five top circuit comedians.

THE BEST IN STAND UP (PHIL NICHOL + GEOFF NORCOTT + ROGER MONKHOUSE + MICK FERRY + MC DANNY MCLOUGHLIN)

THE COMEDY STORE, 21:30–23:30, £22

Regular night of stand up with a line-up of five top circuit comedians.

GROUP THERAPY COMEDY CLUB (ED GAMBLE + NISH KUMAR)

GORILLA, 19:00–22:00, £10 (£8)

Another brilliant double bill from the Group Therapy team. BEST OF BUZZ COMEDY (DANNY WARD)

WATERSIDE ARTS CENTRE, 20:00–22:00, £12 (£10)

The Waterside’s regular comedy night, featuring one of the UK comedy circuit’s up and coming stars. LET’S SEE WHAT HAPPENS

THE KING’S ARMS, 19:30–22:00, £3

Improv from the members of CszUK – using audience suggestions a comedian will tell a story based on this, followed by improvised sketches from a troupe of actors.

Sun 05 Apr

KING GONG (MC MICK FERRY)

THE COMEDY STORE, 19:30–22:00, £6

THURSDAY NIGHT LIVE (ROBERT WHITE + DAN NICHOLAS + LIAM BOLTON + JUNIOR SIMPSON + MC JIM SMALLMAN)

A night of stand-up from some fresh-faced comics trying to break on to the circuit – be nice.

THE FROG AND BUCKET COMEDY CLUB, 19:00–22:30, £10 (£7)

Mon 06 Apr

Start your weekend early at the Frog and Bucket with a host of top notch comedians. STAND UP THURSDAY (PHIL NICHOL + MICK FERRY + MC DANNY MCLOUGHLIN)

THE COMEDY STORE, 20:00–22:00, £12

Cheat life and get that Friday feeling one day early with a night of comedic delight from some circuit funny folk. SHAM BODIE

KRAAK, 19:30–22:30, £5

Sham Bodie returns with another rib-tickling evening of music and sketch show comedy.

April 2015

BEAT THE FROG (MC DAN NIGHTINGALE)

THE FROG AND BUCKET COMEDY CLUB, 19:00–22:30, £3 (£3)

A ten-act long heckle-fest inviting a handful of amateurs to take to the stage and try to Beat the Frog, and the audience decides who stays – brutal!

GEIN’S FAMILY GIFTSHOP’S BARGAIN BASEMENT

THE KING’S ARMS, 20:00–23:00, FREE

New sketches and material drawing inspiration from misery and human suffering.

Tue 07 Apr

XS MALARKEY (NISH KUMAR + GERRITT MILLERICK + DOTTY WINTERS + MC TOBY HADOKE)

PUB/ZOO, 19:00–22:00, £5 (£3)

The rather ace comedy night continues with the usual Tuesday night shenanigans.

Wed 08 Apr COMEDY BALLOON

APE AND APPLE, 20:30–23:00, FREE

Manchester’s oldest underground comedy club returns with a bang, continuing their quest to put fresh comedic talent in the spotlight.

Thu 09 Apr

THURSDAY NIGHT LIVE (GEOFF NORCOTT + AARON TWITCHEN + JELLYBEAN MARTINEZ + CHRIS MCCAUSLAND + MC MIKE WILKINSON) THE FROG AND BUCKET COMEDY CLUB, 19:00–22:30, £10 (£7)

Start your weekend early at the Frog and Bucket with a host of top notch comedians. STAND UP THURSDAY (PAUL TONKINSON + STEVE SHANYASKI + MC BEN NORRIS)

THE COMEDY STORE, 20:00–22:00, £12

Cheat life and get that Friday feeling one day early with a night of comedic delight from some circuit funny folk. THE LADY’S NOT FOR WALKING LIKE AN EGYPTIAN

ROYAL EXCHANGE STUDIO, 19:30–22:00, £12 (£10)

See what they’ve done with the title there? Genius. Rachel Mars and Nat Tarrab try to understand pop culture, politics, the power of love and what the 80s ever did for us.

Fri 10 Apr

BARREL OF LAUGHS (GEOFF NORCOTT + JONNY PELHAM + CHRIS MCCAUSLAND + MC MIKE WILKINSON)

THE FROG AND BUCKET COMEDY CLUB, 19:00–22:30, £16 (£8)

Three top-notch comics, a sprinkling of Frog compere funnies and a late night disco courtesy of the resident DJ. THE BEST IN STAND UP (PAUL TONKINSON + STEVE SHANYASKI + NATHAN CATON + MATT REES + MC BEN NORRIS)

THE COMEDY STORE, 20:00–22:00, £18

Regular night of stand up with a line-up of five top circuit comedians.

THE LADY’S NOT FOR WALKING LIKE AN EGYPTIAN

ROYAL EXCHANGE STUDIO, 19:30–22:00, £12 (£10)

See what they’ve done with the title there? Genius. Rachel Mars and Nat Tarrab try to understand pop culture, politics, the power of love and what the 80s ever did for us. SEAN WALSH

THE LOWRY: QUAYS THEATRE, 20:00–22:00, £15

The Jill Edwards’ Comedy workshop graduate does his sharp, observational thing.

Sat 11 Apr

BARREL OF LAUGHS (GEOFF NORCOTT + JONNY PELHAM + CHRIS MCCAUSLAND + MC MIKE WILKINSON)

THE FROG AND BUCKET COMEDY CLUB, 19:00–22:30, £17 (£10)

THE COMEDY STORE, 19:00–21:00, £22

Regular night of stand up with a line-up of five top circuit comedians.

THE BEST IN STAND UP (PAUL TONKINSON + STEVE SHANYASKI + NATHAN CATON + MATT REES + MC BEN NORRIS)

THE COMEDY STORE, 21:30–23:30, £22

Regular night of stand up with a line-up of five top circuit comedians.

COMEDYSPORTZ WATERSIDE ARTS CENTRE, 18:30–21:00, £7 (£5)

Comedy improv show with two teams battling it out for the biggest laughs, serving up sketches, songs and scenes with audience participation playing a key role in the development. DAVE SPIKEY

THE PLAZA STOCKPORT, 19:30–22:00, FROM £16.50

Multi award-winning comic and 8 out of 10 Cats team captain serves up a night of observational comedy. THE LADY’S NOT FOR WALKING LIKE AN EGYPTIAN

ROYAL EXCHANGE STUDIO, 19:30–22:00, £12 (£10)

See what they’ve done with the title there? Genius. Rachel Mars and Nat Tarrab try to understand pop culture, politics, the power of love and what the 80s ever did for us. SHAPPI KHORSANDI

THE LOWRY: QUAYS THEATRE, 20:00–22:00, £16

As a girl, Shappi dreamed impossibly romantic dreams. She still does. But a love affair with a rock star? What on earth was she doing, thinking, in heaven’s name wearing?

Sun 12 Apr

CLEAN AS POSSIBLE COMEDY (PHIL BUTLER + WES ZAHARUK + MC TONY VINO)

THE FROG AND BUCKET COMEDY CLUB, 19:00–22:30, £TBC

A night of clean comedy suitable for ages twelve and over. NEW STUFF (MC TOBY HADOKE)

THE COMEDY STORE, 19:30–22:00, £4

A night of stand-up from some new and established names trying out new material – be nice. GRUMPY OLD WOMEN

THE LOWRY: LYRIC THEATRE, 19:30–22:00, £23.50

Popular grumpy ladies Jenny Eclair, Susie Blake and Kate Robbins air their gripes, complete with a free nagging masterclass and a brief Zumba demonstration.

Mon 13 Apr

BEAT THE FROG (MC JONATHON MAYOR)

THE FROG AND BUCKET COMEDY CLUB, 19:00–22:30, £3 (£3)

A ten-act long heckle-fest inviting a handful of amateurs to take to the stage and try to Beat the Frog, and the audience decides who stays – brutal!

Tue 14 Apr

XS MALARKEY (JAY FOREMAN + ARCHIE MADDOCKS + LIAM PICKFORD + LIAM HALE + MC TOBY HADOKE) PUB/ZOO, 19:00–22:00, £5 (£3)

The rather ace comedy night continues with the usual Tuesday night shenanigans. CAITLIN MORAN

THE LOWRY: LYRIC THEATRE, 19:30–22:00, £26

Caitlin Moran brings her How to Build a Girl tour to Salford, promising anecdotes about Benedict Cumberbatch, vagina over-sharing, feminism and the revolution. THE WORST COMEDY NIGHT IN SALFORD

THE KING’S ARMS, 20:00–23:00, FREE

Keeping expectations low with this night of open mic stand up, opening up the stage to anyone willing to give it go.

Wed 15 Apr COMEDY BALLOON

APE AND APPLE, 20:30–23:00, FREE

Manchester’s oldest underground comedy club returns with a bang, continuing their quest to put fresh comedic talent in the spotlight.

Thu 16 Apr

THURSDAY NIGHT LIVE (MICK FERRY + DAVE GREEN + ARCHIE MADDOCKS + STEVE GRIBBON + MC MICKEY D) THE FROG AND BUCKET COMEDY CLUB, 19:00–22:30, £10 (£7)

Start your weekend early at the Frog and Bucket with a host of top notch comedians.

STAND UP THURSDAY (MICK FERRY + JEFF INNOCENT + MC MANDY KNIGHT) THE COMEDY STORE, 20:00–22:00, £12

Cheat life and get that Friday feeling one day early with a night of comedic delight from some circuit funny folk.

Fri 17 Apr

BARREL OF LAUGHS (MICK FERRY + PETER BRUSH + STEVE GRIBBON + MC MICKEY D)

THE FROG AND BUCKET COMEDY CLUB, 19:00–22:30, £16 (£8)

Three top-notch comics, a sprinkling of Frog compere funnies and a late night disco courtesy of the resident DJ.

THE BEST IN STAND UP (MICK FERRY + JEFF INNOCENT + JOHN MOLONEY + JARLATH REAGAN + MC MANDY KNIGHT)

Fri 24 Apr

BARREL OF LAUGHS (JUSTIN MOORHOUSE + ALISTAIR GREEN + JEFF INNOCENT + MC DAVID LONGLEY) THE FROG AND BUCKET COMEDY CLUB, 19:00–22:30, £16 (£8)

Three top-notch comics, a sprinkling of Frog compere funnies and a late night disco courtesy of the resident DJ.

THE COMEDY STORE, 20:00–22:00, £18

THE BEST IN STAND UP (DAVE FULTON + JASON COOK + CHRISTIAN REILLY + PRINCE ABDI + MC SEAN MEO)

JIMMY CARR

Regular night of stand up with a line-up of five top circuit comedians.

Regular night of stand up with a line-up of five top circuit comedians. O2 APOLLO, 19:00–22:00, £25

The hardworking comic tours his latest solo show, packed with oneliners, stories and incisive musings on the human condition.

Sat 18 Apr

BARREL OF LAUGHS (MICK FERRY + PETER BRUSH + STEVE GRIBBON + MC MICKEY D)

THE FROG AND BUCKET COMEDY CLUB, 19:00–22:30, £17 (£10)

Three top-notch comics, a sprinkling of Frog compere funnies and a late night disco courtesy of the resident DJ.

THE BEST IN STAND UP (MICK FERRY + JEFF INNOCENT + JOHN MOLONEY + JARLATH REAGAN + MC MANDY KNIGHT) THE COMEDY STORE, 19:00–21:00, £22

Regular night of stand up with a line-up of five top circuit comedians.

THE BEST IN STAND UP (MICK FERRY + JEFF INNOCENT + JOHN MOLONEY + JARLATH REAGAN + MC MANDY KNIGHT) THE COMEDY STORE, 21:30–23:30, £22

Regular night of stand up with a line-up of five top circuit comedians.

LIVE FROM THE AIRING CUPBOARD

THE DANCEHOUSE, 19:15–22:30, £8

A politics special with the general election looming, special guest Mitch Benn joins regular performers including Thick Richard for a night of political satire. KEN DODD

THE PLAZA STOCKPORT, 19:00–22:00, £22.55

The venerable comic goes back on tour again.

Sun 19 Apr

NEW COMEDIANS (MC ALEX BOARDMAN)

THE COMEDY STORE, 19:30–22:30, £4

Up and comers trying out their stuff before hitting the circuit.

Mon 20 Apr BEAT THE FROG (MC DAN NIGHTINGALE)

THE FROG AND BUCKET COMEDY CLUB, 19:00–22:30, £3 (£3)

A ten-act long heckle-fest inviting a handful of amateurs to take to the stage and try to Beat the Frog, and the audience decides who stays – brutal!

Tue 21 Apr

XS MALARKEY (MATT FORDE + PETE OTWAY + JED SALISBURY + MC TOBY HADOKE)

PUB/ZOO, 19:00–22:00, £5 (£3)

The rather ace comedy night continues with the usual Tuesday night shenanigans.

Wed 22 Apr COMEDY BALLOON

APE AND APPLE, 20:30–23:00, FREE

Manchester’s oldest underground comedy club returns with a bang, continuing their quest to put fresh comedic talent in the spotlight.

Thu 23 Apr

THURSDAY NIGHT LIVE (JUSTIN MOORHOUSE + BISHA K ALI + JAMALI MADDIX + JEFF INNOCENT + MC DAVID LONGLEY)

THE FROG AND BUCKET COMEDY CLUB, 19:00–22:30, £10 (£7)

Start your weekend early at the Frog and Bucket with a host of top notch comedians.

STAND UP THURSDAY (DAVE FULTON + JASON COOK + MC SEAN MEO) THE COMEDY STORE, 20:00–22:00, £12

Cheat life and get that Friday feeling one day early with a night of comedic delight from some circuit funny folk. TIM VINE

THE LOWRY: QUAYS THEATRE, 20:00–22:00, £SOLD OUT

THE COMEDY STORE, 20:00–22:00, £18

JOHN HEGLEY

THE MET, 20:00–22:00, £14 (£8)

The veteran musical comedian returns with meditations on family, celery and happier Daleks. JONNY AND THE BAPTISTS

THE MET, 20:00–22:00, £10 (£5)

The musical comedians return with a brand new show, taking on Nigel Farage’s bunch of loonies ahead of the European Elections. TIM VINE

THE LOWRY: QUAYS THEATRE, 20:00–22:00, £SOLD OUT

The renowned punslinger returns with his first tour in four years.

Sat 25 Apr

BARREL OF LAUGHS (JUSTIN MOORHOUSE + ALISTAIR GREEN + JEFF INNOCENT + MC DAVID LONGLEY) THE FROG AND BUCKET COMEDY CLUB, 19:00–22:30, £17 (£10)

Three top-notch comics, a sprinkling of Frog compere funnies and a late night disco courtesy of the resident DJ.

THE BEST IN STAND UP (DAVE FULTON + JASON COOK + CHRISTIAN REILLY + PRINCE ABDI + MC SEAN MEO)

THE COMEDY STORE, 19:00–21:00, £22

Regular night of stand up with a line-up of five top circuit comedians.

THE BEST IN STAND UP (DAVE FULTON + JASON COOK + CHRISTIAN REILLY + PRINCE ABDI + MC SEAN MEO)

THE COMEDY STORE, 21:30–23:30, £22

Regular night of stand up with a line-up of five top circuit comedians. JOSEPHINE TEWSON

THE PLAZA STOCKPORT, 19:30–22:00, FROM £15.40

Comedy Liverpool Wed 01 Apr THE LAUGHTER FACTOR

THE SLAUGHTERHOUSE, 20:00–22:00, £5 (£3)

A monthly event giving comics the chance to try out new material before the weekend shows – it helps if you think of yourself as a comedic guinea pig.

Thu 02 Apr

CAREY MARX (KAI HUMPHRIES + STEPHANIE LAING + MC MIKE WILKINSON) COMEDY CENTRAL AT BABY BLUE, 18:00–22:00, £15

Triple-headlining bill set to test your funny bone.

LIVERPOOL COMEDY CELLAR (SULLY O’SULLIVAN + RICHARD MORTON + KAREN BAYLEY)

LIVERPOOL COMEDY CELLAR, 19:30–22:30, £12

The Liverpool Comedy Cellar brings you the cream of stand up from the international comedy circuit every Saturday.

Fri 03 Apr

CAREY MARX (KAI HUMPHRIES + ROBERT WHITE + MC MIKE WILKINSON) COMEDY CENTRAL AT BABY BLUE, 18:00–22:00, £15

Triple-headlining bill set to test your funny bone.

PHIL NICHOL (MICK FERRY + BARRY DODDS + MC NEIL FITZMAURICE)

THE SLAUGHTERHOUSE, 20:00–22:00, £15

Triple headline show with a delightfully hilarious line-up of circuit funny-folk.

BOILING POINT (JAMES ALDERSON + PETER BRUSH + JAMIE SUTHERLAND + MC PAUL SMITH) HOT WATER COMEDY CLUB, 19:00–22:00, £10 (£5)

New and established comics take to the stage (found upstairs at Holiday Inn, Lime Street), for an evening of chuckles with their resident compere leading the way. LIVERPOOL COMEDY CELLAR (RICHARD MORTON + GARY DELANEY + KAREN BAYLEY)

LIVERPOOL COMEDY CELLAR, 19:30–22:30, £12

Wed 08 Apr

MATCHBOX COMEDY CLUB (LIAM PICKFORD + LEGION OF DOOM + ADAM STAUNTON + JAYNE EDWARDS + MC ALASTAIR CLARK) THE LANTERN THEATRE, 20:00–22:30, £3

A new monthly comedy night at the Lantern Theatre showcasing the finest talent in the Northwest.

Thu 09 Apr

GEOFF NORCOTT (JOHN WARBURTON + RACHEL FAIRBURN + MC JONATHON MAYOR)

COMEDY CENTRAL AT BABY BLUE, 18:00–22:00, £15

Triple-headlining bill set to test your funny bone.

Fri 10 Apr

JOHN WARBURTON (STEVE BUGJEA + MC ANDREW RYAN + MORE) COMEDY CENTRAL AT BABY BLUE, 18:00–22:00, £15

Triple-headlining bill set to test your funny bone.

PAUL TONKINSON (NICK DIXON + JOHN FOTHERGILL + MC CHRIS CAIRNS)

THE SLAUGHTERHOUSE, 20:00–22:00, £15

Triple headline show with a delightfully hilarious line-up of circuit funny-folk.

BOILING POINT (SAM AVERY + JAY HAMPSON + PHIL CHAPMAN + MC PAUL SMITH)

HOT WATER COMEDY CLUB, 19:00–22:00, £10 (£5)

New and established comics take to the stage (found upstairs at Holiday Inn, Lime Street), for an evening of chuckles with their resident compere leading the way.

LIVERPOOL COMEDY CELLAR (PHIL WALKER + NEIL DOUGAN + BRENDAY RILEY)

LIVERPOOL COMEDY CELLAR, 19:30–22:30, £12

The Liverpool Comedy Cellar brings you the cream of stand up from the international comedy circuit every weekend.

Sat 11 Apr

JOHN WARBURTON (STEVE BUGJEA + MC ANDREW RYAN + MORE) COMEDY CENTRAL AT BABY BLUE, 18:00–22:00, £18

The Liverpool Comedy Cellar brings you the cream of stand up from the international comedy circuit every weekend.

Triple-headlining bill set to test your funny bone.

Sun 26 Apr

Sat 04 Apr

THE SLAUGHTERHOUSE, 20:00–22:00, £17.50

THE FROG AND BUCKET COMEDY CLUB, 19:00–22:30, £7

COMEDY CENTRAL AT BABY BLUE, 18:00–22:00, £18

One of the stars of Keeping Up Appearances brings her one woman show to Stockport. LAUGHING COWS (BETHANY BLACK + JOY CARTER + KATE TRACEY + MC KERRY LAUGH)

All-female line-up of comics from the Laughing Cow bunch; a group that has helped the likes of Sarah Milllican and Jo Brand launch their careers. NEW STUFF (MC TOBY HADOKE)

THE COMEDY STORE, 19:30–22:00, £4

A night of stand-up from some new and established names trying out new material – be nice.

BLACK COMEDY NIGHT — LAFF TIL’ YA FART (LOVDEV BARPAGA + WILL E ROBO + MC TREVOR DWYERLYNCH)

THE COMEDY STORE, 00:00–00:00, £5

Trevor Lynch presents the latest in a series of comedy nights, aptly titled Laff ‘til Ya Fart. MILTON JONES

THE LOWRY: LYRIC THEATRE, 20:00–22:00, £25

CAREY MARX (KAI HUMPHRIES + ROBERT WHITE + MC MIKE WILKINSON)

Triple-headlining bill set to test your funny bone.

MICK FERRY (PHIL NICOL + BARRY DODDS + MC NEIL FITZMAURICE)

THE SLAUGHTERHOUSE, 20:00–22:00, £17.50

Triple headline show with a delightfully hilarious line-up of circuit funny-folk.

LAUGH OUT LOUD COMEDY CLUB (PETER WHITE + LLOYD GRIFFITH + PAUL RICKETTS) THE ATKINSON, 20:00–22:30, £12.50

A triple-header of comedy descends on the Laugh Out Loud Comedy Club.

BOILING POINT (JAMES ALDERSON + COKEY FALKOW + MARTIN MOR + MC PAUL SMITH) HOT WATER COMEDY CLUB, 19:00–22:00, £10 (£5)

The neurotic English comic takes to the road with another tour, rich with one-liners, and some pictures wot he drew specially.

New and established comics take to the stage (found upstairs at Holiday Inn, Lime Street), for an evening of chuckles with their resident compere leading the way.

THE LOWRY STUDIO, 20:00–22:00, £12

Sun 05 Apr

TONY JAMESON

Tony Jameson recalls how the game Football Manager ruined his life. We’ve all been there.

Mon 27 Apr

BEAT THE FROG (MC PETE OTWAY)

THE FROG AND BUCKET COMEDY CLUB, 19:00–22:30, £3 (£3)

A ten-act long heckle-fest inviting a handful of amateurs to take to the stage and try to Beat the Frog, and the audience decides who stays – brutal!

TESTING THE WATER (MC PAUL SMITH)

HOT WATER COMEDY CLUB, 19:00–22:00, £3 (£1.50)

Showcase night for up-andcomers and undiscovered stars, offering a great value night out if you don’t mind being a comedy guinea pig.

JOHN FOTHERGILL (PAUL TONKINSON + NICK DIXON + MC NEIL FITZMAURICE)

Triple headline show with a delightfully hilarious line-up of circuit funny-folk.

BOILING POINT (SAM AVERY + SAL STEVENS + ANTHONY KING + MC PAUL SMITH )

HOT WATER COMEDY CLUB, 19:00–22:00, £10 (£5)

New and established comics take to the stage (found upstairs at Holiday Inn, Lime Street), for an evening of chuckles with their resident compere leading the way.

Sun 12 Apr

TESTING THE WATER (MC PAUL SMITH)

HOT WATER COMEDY CLUB, 19:00–22:00, £3 (£1.50)

Showcase night for up-andcomers and undiscovered stars, offering a great value night out if you don’t mind being a comedy guinea pig.

Thu 16 Apr

PHILBERTO (FIN TAYLOR + SOFIE HAGEN + MC WILL DUGGAN)

COMEDY CENTRAL AT BABY BLUE, 18:00–22:00, £15

Triple-headlining bill set to test your funny bone.

Fri 17 Apr

PHILBERTO (FIN TAYLOR + MIKE NEWALL + MC STEFFEN PEDDIE)

COMEDY CENTRAL AT BABY BLUE, 18:00–22:00, £15

Triple-headlining bill set to test your funny bone.

KEITH CARTER AS NIGE (MARTIN MORE + KAREN BAYLEY + MC NEIL FITZMAURICE)

THE SLAUGHTERHOUSE, 20:00–22:00, £15

Triple headline show with a delightfully hilarious line-up of circuit funny-folk.

The renowned punslinger returns with his first tour in four years.

Listings

Liverpool Comedy THE CASA SOLIDARITY SHOW (JOHN BISHOP + RICKY TOMLINSON + MARK STEEL + NEIL FITZMAURICE + MORE) LIVERPOOL PHILHARMONIC HALL, 20:00–22:30, £SOLD OUT

Some of Merseyside’s most famous comedians come together to raise funds for radical meeting place The Casa. BOILING POINT (SAM GORE + ROSS BRIERLEY + DUNCAN OAKLEY + MC PAUL SMITH)

HOT WATER COMEDY CLUB, 19:00–22:00, £10 (£5)

New and established comics take to the stage (found upstairs at Holiday Inn, Lime Street), for an evening of chuckles with their resident compere leading the way.

LIVERPOOL COMEDY CELLAR (GERRY K + ADAM ROWE + BRENDAN RILEY)

LIVERPOOL COMEDY CELLAR, 19:30–22:30, £12

The Liverpool Comedy Cellar brings you the cream of stand up from the international comedy circuit every weekend.

Sat 18 Apr

PHILBERTO (FIN TAYLOR + MIKE NEWALL + MC STEFFEN PEDDIE)

COMEDY CENTRAL AT BABY BLUE, 18:00–22:00, £18

Triple-headlining bill set to test your funny bone. MARTIN MOR (KEITH CARTER AS NIGE + KAREN BAYLEY + MC NEIL FITZMAURICE)

THE SLAUGHTERHOUSE, 20:00–22:00, £17.50

Triple headline show with a delightfully hilarious line-up of circuit funny-folk.

BOILING POINT (MONTY BURNS + TONY CARROLL + ANDREW RYAN + MC PAUL SMITH )

HOT WATER COMEDY CLUB, 19:00–22:00, £10 (£5)

New and established comics take to the stage (found upstairs at Holiday Inn, Lime Street), for an evening of chuckles with their resident compere leading the way.

Sun 19 Apr

TESTING THE WATER (MC PAUL SMITH)

HOT WATER COMEDY CLUB, 19:00–22:00, £3 (£1.50)

Showcase night for up-andcomers and undiscovered stars, offering a great value night out if you don’t mind being a comedy guinea pig.

Thu 23 Apr

JUSTIN MOORHOUSE (JEFF INNOCENT + TOM SHORT + MC ADAM ROWER)

COMEDY CENTRAL AT BABY BLUE, 18:00–22:00, £15

Triple-headlining bill set to test your funny bone. JASON COOK (MICKEY D + KEVIN DEWSBURY + MC CHRIS CAIRNS)

THE SLAUGHTERHOUSE, 20:00–22:00, £15

Triple headline show with a delightfully hilarious line-up of circuit funny-folk. SINK OR SWIM - BEAT THE GONG

LIVERPOOL GUILD OF STUDENTS, 19:00–22:00, FROM £2.30

A host of local comedians test their wits against the crowd, hoping to complete their set before the gong rings.

Fri 24 Apr

JUSTIN MOORHOUSE (JEFF INNOCENT + ADAM ROWE + MC SULLY O’SULLIVAN)

COMEDY CENTRAL AT BABY BLUE, 18:00–22:00, £15

Triple-headlining bill set to test your funny bone.

MICKEY D (KEVIN DEWSBURY + JASON COOK + MC CHRIS CAIRNS)

THE SLAUGHTERHOUSE, 20:00–22:00, £17.50

Triple headline show with a delightfully hilarious line-up of circuit funny-folk.

Listings

BOILING POINT (DANNY SUTCLIFFE + JAMES COOK + CARL HUTCHINSON + MC PAUL SMITH) HOT WATER COMEDY CLUB, 19:00–22:00, £10 (£5)

New and established comics take to the stage (found upstairs at Holiday Inn, Lime Street), for an evening of chuckles with their resident compere leading the way.

LIVERPOOL COMEDY CELLAR (BENNY BOOT + ANDREW BIRD + STEVE PORTER)

LIVERPOOL COMEDY CELLAR, 19:30–22:30, £12

The Liverpool Comedy Cellar brings you the cream of stand up from the international comedy circuit every Saturday.

Sat 25 Apr

JUSTIN MOORHOUSE (JEFF INNOCENT + ADAM ROWE + MC SULLY O’SULLIVAN)

COMEDY CENTRAL AT BABY BLUE, 18:00–22:00, £18

Triple-headlining bill set to test your funny bone. JEREMY HARDY

THE ATKINSON, 20:00–22:00, £14 (£5)

The former Perrier Comedy award winner and Radio 4 stalwart does his stand-up thing, hopefully touching on his adventures in tracing his family history as he goes. PATRICK MONAHAN

THE BRINDLEY, 20:00–22:00, £12

High-energy gags of the funnyman’s Irish/Iranian/Teeside heritage.

BOILING POINT (MONTY BURNS + TONY CARROLL + ANDREW RYAN + MC PAUL SMITH )

HOT WATER COMEDY CLUB, 19:00–22:00, £10 (£5)

New and established comics take to the stage (found upstairs at Holiday Inn, Lime Street), for an evening of chuckles with their resident compere leading the way.

Sun 26 Apr

TESTING THE WATER (MC PAUL SMITH)

HOT WATER COMEDY CLUB, 19:00–22:00, £3 (£1.50)

Showcase night for up-andcomers and undiscovered stars, offering a great value night out if you don’t mind being a comedy guinea pig.

Manchester Art

Art Manchester Contact

THE SPILL TAROT

UNTIL 17 APR, WEEKDAYS ONLY, 10:00AM – 11:00PM, FREE

Inspired by the imagery of the tarot, The Spill Tarot is a vividly staged series of collaborations between photographer Manuel Vason and artists working in radical performance. Feat. Ron Athey, Harminder Singh Judge, Marisa Carnesky, Franko B and more. PACITTI COMPANY: THE SPILL TAROT

WEEKDAYS ONLY, 10:00AM – 11:00PM, FREE

SUPERIOR GOODS AND HOUSEHOLD GODS

UNTIL 19 APR, 1:00PM – 6:00PM, FREE

Responding to the pervasive nature of dominant ideologies and their effects on our desire, Sarah Hardacre’s co-curated group show offers a series of sculpture, collage, performance and video pieces.

Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art CLEMENS WILHELM

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 15 APR AND 6 JUN, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

The visual artist’s video Simulacra which was shot in Chinese amusement park Window of the World and observes the actions of Chinese tourists. LI BINYUAN

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 10 APR AND 30 MAY, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

Binyuan presents Social Behaviours, an exciting collection of solo works that range from sculpture to video-art to live-action pieces, expressed and performed through a number of public disturbances on Beijing’s social life.

PAPER #21: GENERATION LOSS

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 18 APR AND 30 MAY, 11:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

A new exhibition by Phil Hopkins and James Moore.

Salford Museum and Art Gallery SALFORD ARTS CLUB ANNUAL EXHIBITION 2015

UNTIL 26 APR, TIMES VARY, FREE

The annual Salford Art Club exhibition returns, presenting a mixture of landscapes, portrait and still life paintings from its members.

Art

Liverpool UNTIL 31 MAY, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, £8 (£6)

UNTIL 18 APR, NOT SUNDAYS, TIMES VARY, FREE

The largest display of work to date by the Turner Prize nominated artist, the Tate bring together more than a decade of Wilkes’ acclaimed work. GYÖRGY KEPES

UNTIL 31 MAY, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

This is the first solo exhibition of the ground-breaking photography of artist, designer and educator György Kepes’ work in the UK. LEONORA CARRINGTON

UNTIL 31 MAY, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, £8 (£6)

Cornerhouse

The Holden Gallery

UNTIL 26 APR, TIMES VARY, FREE

UNTIL 2 APR, TIMES VARY, FREE

UNTIL 8 MAY, WEEKDAYS ONLY, 10:00AM – 4:00PM, FREE

CORNERHOUSE PROJECTS: FULL STOP

The final Cornerhouse Projects display sees the walls of the cafe handed over to the building’s invigalotors, a series of artists and creative who will presents a mixed medium interpretation of the building and its 30 year history.

Imperial War Museum North

FROM STREET TO TRENCH: A WORLD WAR THAT SHAPED A REGION

UNTIL 1 MAY, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

An exhibition of over 200 objects, photographs, diaries, letters and artworks from the First World War, revealing the lives shaped by the conflict. Marking the centenary of WWI. WITHDRAW

UNTIL 6 SEP, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

New works by leading reportage illustrator George Butler explore the impact of British and US armed forces leaving Afghanistan. Butler’s past work has featured in media outlets across the world.

Manchester Art Gallery COTTON COUTURE

A collection of designer dresses and suits donated by the Cotton Board, a Manchester-based organisation tasked with increasing the use of cotton in couture to bump up cotton exports.

NATURAL FORCES: ROMANTICISM & NATURE

MADE IN ECCLES

UNTIL 19 APR, TIMES VARY, FREE

TRIAL / ERROR / ART

New group exhibition looking at the process of trial and error and the risks involved in attempting to create new things.

The International 3 THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 18 APR AND 29 MAY, 12:00PM – 5:00PM, FREE

A group exhibition that celebrates the power of the modest gesture to communicate complex narratives about our relationships to ourselves, to one another and to the natural world.

Manchester Museum

DANCE OF THE BUTTERFLIES

UNTIL 31 DEC, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

New art work by one of Africa’s foremost contemporary artists Romuald Hazoumè. It features swarms of multicoloured ‘butterflies’ which will take over the Museum’s Living Worlds gallery.

Paper Gallery

THE FUNCTIONALITY OF THOUGHT

UNTIL 25 APR, 11:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

The latest group exhibition from the Paper Gallery, featuring the work of Allan Bech, Jenny Core, Aly Helyer, Shinbo Hiroshi, Paraic Leahy, Sharon Leahy- Clark, Richard Meaghan, Hannah Wooll and Wen Wu.

The Bluecoat TRICIA PORTER: LIVERPOOL PHOTOGRAPHS 1972-74

5 APR – 5 JUL, 10:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

Capturing the life and times of Liverpool in the mid-70s.

TABITHA JUSSA: MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING

11 APR – 5 JUL, 10:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

The winner of the seventh annual Liverpool Art Prize presents her latest exhibition.

A Hayward Touring exhibition which presents an original portfolio of 40 Karl Blossfeldt photogravures from 1932, entitled ‘Wundergarten der Natur’, edited by the artist and published in the year of his death.

The Reader Gallery

CALIDAD’S SPRING EXHIBITION

31 MAR – 5 APR, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

Mike of Calidad Canvas is a Liverpool artist who captures local landmarks and landscapes in watercolour, acrylic and oils.

The Royal Standard

THE AUDOBON GALLERY

UNTIL 19 DEC, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

Permanent gallery of wildlife artist and naturalist John James Audubon. BRITISH ART

UNTIL 30 JUN, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

Permanent collection including work by Joseph Wright of Derby.

Walker Art Gallery ONLY IN ENGLAND

UNTIL 7 JUN, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

An exhibition exploring the lasting influence of the British photographer Tony Ray-Jones on the development of British photography from the 1970s to the present day. NICOLAS POUSSIN’S ‘EXTREME UNCTION’

UNTIL 7 JUN, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

An opportunity to see a masterpiece by one of the prominent French painters of the 17th century.

EXTERNAL MACHINES

UNTIL 3 MAY, 12:00PM – 5:00PM, FREE

An investigation into the tension between ideas of constriction and relief, whether they be theoretical, physical, self-imposed or out of necessity.

A swarm of giant ants invade the gallery walls in this extraordinary installation by Colombian artist Rafael Gómezbarros from the Saatchi Gallery, London.

Liverpool Art Constellations NO HOMERS CLUB

17–19 APR, TIMES VARY, £4

A weekend of Simpsons inspired art! What could be better!?

FACT

Manchester Jewish Museum The first retrospective on Manchester-based artist, teacher and writer Emmanuel Levy for 30 years, highlighting his Northern heritage.

An exhibition that explores every age and culture’s perceptions of beauty through history.

ART FORMS IN NATURE

25 APR – 30 MAY, NOT SUNDAYS, TIMES VARY, FREE

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 22 APR AND 29 AUG, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

An exhibition of drypoint prints by 19th century Merseyside etcher and painter, James Hamilton Hay, documenting his travels throughout the UK with his striking landscape prints.

CASA TOMADA

Originating from FACT’s extensive work within mental health and wellbeing, the exhibition explores the complex relationship between technology, society, and mental health.

MADE IN MANCHESTER

THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER

A new solo exhibition by the visual artist Michael Takeo Magruder that explores the creation of evolving virtual/physical artworks which are generated from the ubiquitous artefacts of the digital domain.

NORTH WEST AND BEYOND: JAMES HAMILTON HAY

UNTIL 26 APR, TIMES VARY, FREE

GROUP THERAPY: MENTAL DISTRESS IN A DIGITAL AGE

UNTIL 29 MAY, TIMES VARY, £4.50 (£3.50)

The Atkinson

LIVING DATA

Victoria Gallery and Museum

The Lowry

UNTIL 12 JUL, TIMES VARY, FREE

A collection of early 1800s Romantic works focused on the idea of nature as a force.

The first major solo exhibition in the UK by Barcelona-born photographer Xavier Ribas, which charts the history of nitrate extraction in the Chilean Atacama Desert.

The Brindley

CATHY WILKES

Photography students from Eccles Sixth Form Centre muse on the theme A Sense of Place.

Inspired by the imagery of the tarot, this vividly staged series of collaborations sees photographer Manuel Vason work this radical performance artists including Ron Athey, Harminder Singh Judge, Marisa Carnesky and more.

XAVIER RIBAS: NITRATE 11 APR – 5 JUL, 10:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

Tate Liverpool

The exhibition explores the famous 20th century surrealist’s diverse creative practice, taking a selection of key paintings made throughout her career as its starting point.

UNTIL 14 JUN, TIMES VARY, FREE

Castlefield Gallery

PAPER #20: TOTALLER UNTIL 30 MAY, 11:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

Exhibition 15” Deep Pan Stuffed Crust Portuguese Man O’ War (Totaller’s Studio) takes Le Mur de l’Atelier d’André Breton as its point of departure, reconstructing the Surrealist work through collage.

UNTIL 17 MAY, TIMES VARY, FREE

International Slavery Museum LIBERTY BOUND

UNTIL 5 APR, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

An exhibition of artifacts from one of the most important archaeological finds of recent years, unveiling a recently discovered burial ground fro ‘liberated’ African’s in Rupert’s Valley, St Helena.

Open Eye Gallery

METAMORPHOSIS OF JAPAN AFTER THE WAR

UNTIL 26 APR, 10:30AM – 5:30PM, FREE

An exhibition focusing on the creative resurgence of Japan in the wake of the second World War, featuring over 100 photographs 11 post-war photographers including Yasuhiro Ishimoto, Shomei Tomatsu, Eikoh Hosoe and Ken Domon.

THE SKINNY

The Last Word: Raekwon The Wu-Tang legend shares his thoughts on family, religion, his new record, the 20th anniversary of Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, and the controversial duo of new Clan records

ate last year, Wu-Tang Clan released their first full-length in eight years, A Better Tomorrow. The fact that it dropped in December would already have been enough to help it slip under the radar, even if it hadn’t been put firmly in the shade by the surprise release of D’Angelo’s Black Messiah a fortnight later, but in truth, the album had already been overshadowed by its turbulent gestation process. The Clan’s de facto leader, RZA, had a very public difference of opinion about the record’s direction with Raekwon, who only contributed verses at the last minute after months of disagreements. On the day A Better Tomorrow was released, The Chef clearly had other things on his mind; he made no mention of it on social media and declined to appear on David Letterman to promote it, instead spreading the word about his long-overdue new solo effort, Fly International Luxurious Art. It’ll finally be released as Raekwon makes plans to mark the 20th anniversary of his seminal debut LP, Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, and it finds him, ironically, a long way from the mafioso trappings of his classic work, instead aiming for hip-hop universality with a slew of high-profile features. On a trip to London that saw him share a stage with Kanye West at KOKO, the rap icon took time to discuss his legacy, his family and the true current state of the Clan.

On Fly International Luxurious Art... When you think of Raekwon, you think, ‘he’s internationally known, he’s respected in the game, and he makes luxury art on wax.’ The title just fit perfectly to where I’m at in my life right now, twenty years on from Only Built 4 Cuban Linx. I feel like I’m at my best again; it’s like you’re dealing with a new Chef, from yesterday to today. If I was a piece of art, you know I’d be an expensive piece, put it that way. It was a rough road to stay consistent, but I’m in the zone again, I’ve rediscovered my passion, and you can hear that on Fly International Luxurious Art. On the 20th anniversary of Only Built 4 Cuban Linx... I look back and think about that album, and I realise how important I am to this music business, and how much respect that I got. It’s just an honour that people are still recognising that record; there’s a lot of love for it, all around the world. I wanted to make sure I celebrated it this year, which is why we’re giving the fans an indepth documentary, The Purple Tape Files – we get to go down memory lane and give you a visual idea of how that record was created, of how it all went down. I’ve got a lot of anniversary shows lined up, too, and you’re going to start seeing other things, through my social network pages, that pertain to the celebration of that classic record. We’re definitely going to pay homage, and on top of that, you get a dope album from me this year, Fly International Luxurious Art.

On A Better Tomorrow... I wasn’t pleased with it. I thought it could have been a lot better, but at the end of the day, I could only really do so much, because it was RZA’s creation, and they were his thoughts going into the concept of it. I think the record is decent, but I know it could have been a whole lot better. I didn’t really want us to put something out if I didn’t feel like we’d knocked it out of the park. Like, when I think about the idea of coming together to work on a Wu-Tang project with the rest of my brothers, all I see is fire, you know? And that’s what we didn’t give, because we didn’t really communicate together as a team. I believe in doing things that way, in doing them collectively, but everybody was following RZA’s lead.

“When you think of Raekwon, you think, ‘He’s internationally known, he’s respected in the game, and he makes luxury art on wax’” Raekwon

On internal relations within the Clan... I recorded those verses on A Better Tomorrow so that I wouldn’t let the fans down. I didn’t want to have that on my fucking sleeve. I didn’t want people to be thinking, ‘oh, Chef is on some cocky shit.’ First and foremost, I’m about my business. I’m 45 years old, and I have a family back home

that I have to be father and a provider to. You can’t play with a grown man’s money, and the business side of that record was tacky. A lot of times, people think there’s issues with us as a crew, but that’s not true. I don’t have no problems with none of my brothers – I love them to death, and they love me. We go back and forth, we argue, but a lot of the beef wasn’t even based on us. It was based on dealing with management. They had a wacky way of doing shit sometimes, and we all had to go back to them to let them know, ‘don’t fucking play, man, because I’m too old for this shit.’ The fans always think it’s just us, but it’s a little bit more than us. Shit gets misconstrued because people think Wu-Tang is dysfunctional, but the things that frustrate us come from outside the group. On the plan to prevent the buyer of Once Upon a Time in Shaolin from making it publicly available for 88 years... I don’t like that. There should be a reasonable time limit, because who the fuck is going to wait 88 years to hear the album? None of us are actually gonna be around to hear it! I understand the thinking behind it; it’s to make sure that whoever the buyer is understands the importance of what he’s getting. Whoever gets it needs to treat it like a Mona Lisa. On the flip side, it wouldn’t have been right if the buyer had just thrown it out there straight away, either. That’s not what we felt was part of the plan. A project like this puts us at a certain level of greatness, so a lot of this shit is less to do with our own thoughts as WuTang Clan – it’s about the fact that we’ve created something that’s going to be an important part of our legacy. The buyer is buying it the same way you’d buy an expensive painting at auction, and whoever gets it, good for them. On a new generation of fans... It’s inspiring for us, but also, you want to feel as if the kids are coming to us for inspiration, you know? We were trendsetters, and now we represent a certain era of hip-hop. I think a lot of them are just wanting to follow in the same footprints

Interview: Joe Goggins we gave them, and they can, too; they can bring their crew and follow the same blueprint and end up doing it even better than we ever did, just as long as they put in the work. On the Wu-Tang UK dates lined up for June... I won’t be there. I’m already scheduled to do some other stuff, and being honest, I wasn’t fully informed of everything that was going on, from a Wu-Tang perspective. I’m celebrating the Cuban Linx anniversary this year, as well as promoting Fly International Luxurious Art, so I’ll be doing a lot of touring of my own. I wish them success, but I’ve got contractual agreements that are set in stone. I went and worked on A Better Tomorrow, just to show that I’m still involved with the Clan, but I’ve got to do my own business, too. On the Clan’s notoriously poor record of full attendance at live shows... Like I said, I didn’t know anything about this run that the management put together. This has always been a problem, and it has nothing to do with the artist – it’s down to the management. I hate that the fans might think I’m coming to somewhere and I don’t show up. Even if I’ve got a show, and I fuck around and miss it, I go home feeling fucked up about that, because it’s like, ‘damn, I feel like I let my people down.’ One thing I’m never going to do is lie to you all, and I didn’t have a clue what the fuck was going on with a Wu-Tang tour. Nobody has called me, or my staff, to see if we were going to be involved or not. You can’t come at me last minute; that’s like if I called you tomorrow and said, ‘yo, Friday, we out!’ and you’re like, ‘hold up! I didn’t even know about this!’ You can’t do that to grown men – we’re not children no more. That’s not to take a shot at nobody, and it’s got nothing to do with my brothers. It’s just me giving you the facts. Fly International Luxurious Art is available on 26 Apr via Ice H2O. Wu-Tang Clan (sans Raekwon) play Parklife Festival, Heaton Park, Manchester on 6 Jun, and Tramlines Festival, Sheffield, 26 Jul raekwonchronicles.com

April 2015

Photo: Dave Kerr

On his creative relationship with Ghostface Killah... Me and Ghost, we’re like The Odd Couple; we were meant for each other, but we have a different way of doing things. We’re inseparable because of our styles – they complement each other perfectly. Ghost is a part of the family; he had a lot to do with Cuban Linx. Even though it was my album, I always thought of it in a collective sense – that it was our album. When we were making it, we were also making Ironman, and that’s why those two records really share a moment in both of our lives. That was when we both started to realise that we sound great together, which is another reason to pay homage to that time.

MUSIC

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