A Beginner's Guide To Manchester

The Hacienda.

World-renowned meat-packing-factory-cum-niteclub type venue funded by the money New Order made when Hooky shaved off his beard for charity. The 12” Blue Monday allegedly also played a part. The ‘Doof, doof, dud-u-dud-u-dud-u-dud-u-dud-u Doof Doof’, kick drum sound was inspired by the bailiffs knocking at Barney’s door when he ‘accidentally forgot’ to pay the £24.99 for the Argos drum machine he’d got ‘on tick’ from Big Tony Shuttleworth in The British Protection pub, Salford.

Infamous for the ‘Hot’ nights which occurred on a Tuesday evening. Health and safety officers clearly not consulted due to the large paddling pool taking up half the dance floor. Cue lots of slipping, mild electrocutions and verrucas. Bouncers dressed as lifeguards, dancers dressed as Manchuria Desperados, and if you laid from end to end everyone who claimed to have been there on those amazing nights they’d reach the fookin’ stars baby!

Many believe the Hacienda to have been the best nightclub ever. They are in fact wrong.
It was better than that.

Chorlton-cum-Hardy

If you’ve ever wondered where Danger Mouse got his insouciant swagger and why Chorlton from Chorlton and the Wheelies was able to say to the evil witch, “The past was yours but the future’s mine little old lady.” you need look no further than Cosgrove Hall, home to the animation company where John Squire worked for a time. Penfold – quite clearly a gay black man in a gasfitter’s body - was voiced by Terry, from Terry and June possibly a sly dig at cockneys.

The Boardwalk

Many a world conquering band played their first gigs here. Northside, Paris Angels and Ken Barlow’s Knob.

Central Library.

Lots of Books here. Also famous for the infamous ‘Stone Roses’ graffiti incident where the band’s name was scrawled across the building’s white stone masonry visible for all to see. They endeared themselves to rebels everywhere but unfortunately Ian Brown’s Book, ‘Banksy, My Part In His Downfall’ will never be held on the shelves or microfiche in here. 

Football

There are two football clubs in Greater Manchester. Manchester City and Stockport County.

Afflecks Palace

A vast car boot fair housed within a dark satanic Victorian mill. ‘And did those feet in ancient times walk upon badly varnished floorboards in search of chunky knitted Arran cardigans with buttons like Walnut Whips?’ Famous for the ‘Identity’ T-shirt Company bearing the logos, ‘And on the Sixth Day God Created Manchester’ and ‘Ey up Bollocks Our Kid Giz a Toot on Yer Tizer Bokkle.’ Afflecks has over the years been home to the Joy Mac Division, the Gladioli Smiths Miserablists and the Day-glo Flappy Kek Brigade. Now a favoured hang out of Rainy Goth Spawn who swap grave digging tips over a cup of milky splosh and the odd blood capsule.

The Fall

“Manchester? Fook off, we’re from Salford!”

Dry Bar

Another New Order venture paid for this time when Gillian grew a beard for charity. Telegraph poles, slate flooring, card, and shabby velvet curtains gave this place a feel of a tramp’s hostel, especially when The Happy Mondays and their entourage were in the place. Once upon a time it was ‘the’ place to be seen. Now it is ‘the’ place to be seen if Ladbrookes is closed.

G-Mex

Former Central Station and former dank central car park becomes Manchester’s gig and trade fair central. Cooped up for far too long indoors, G-Mex is haunted by the ghosts of nightmarish Car park attendants with built up feet and Daily Mail bigotry. They ruthlessly sweep from the rafters dispatching truckloads of tickets to 808 State In Yer Face Turbo ravers on a weekly basis.
James played G-Mex once and everybody sat down. “BAAAAAAAA!”

Burnage

Home to Noel and ‘our kid’ until fame spirited them away. Famous for Sifters Records as in ‘Mr Sifter sold me songs when I was just sixteen, now he stops at traffic liiiiights but only when they’re greeeeeen’. Clearly Mr Sifter’s copy of The Highway Code is buried underneath his ‘two for one pound bargain bucket’.

Paradise Factory

Seminal club in former Factory Records office block. Homosexuality is really gay according to moronic Tabloid readers but not at the Paradise Factory where it was de rigueur. Straight men were known to snog each other openly in order to prove to the door whore that they deserved, ahem ‘entry’. Bordering ‘The Village’ a popular area for middle aged married men who enjoy nothing better at the weekend than dressing as Rambo or Scarlet O’Hara and singing along drunkenly to 'Heiraten'. Wags would often steal the letter ‘C’ from the Canal Street road sign.

The Arndale Centre

Constructed by sadistic aliens from the planet Lego Brick this soulless hell hole is best avoided. The ceaseless mendacity of consumerism, the unforgiving plastic interior, the ruthless lighting and the herd like mentality of the shoppers is said to have sent Bez mad when he worked here. Employed as a professional scallywag by Manchester City Council to provide rougish local colour, he would wander the complex looking like he was swimming through invisible glue. He would approach American and Japanese tourists and say, ‘Top one nice one get sorted’ and ‘No I’m not from Easter Island’ before retiring to his Little Hulton palatial squat for a squirrel Pot Noodle.

Eastern Bloc

Once the coolest record shop on the planet with the best in House, Hip hop, Balearic, Soul, and Funk. Pete Waterman owns it now so expect, Mel and Kim, Rick Astley and Angry Anderson in the racks.

Rushholme

Full of ruffians and the ‘Curry-door’ a mile long strip of the finest eating establishments this side of Matlock Bath and (cherry) Bakewell (tart). Fantastic array of restaurants illuminated like a Blackpool tram, full of students on ‘Eat As Much As You Can Tuesday Morning’ (7-7.15am).

Joe Bloggs 

Shami Ahmed (The ‘Mr Big Keks’ of Baggy) was a child prodigy who could translate Thucydides on sight. This however didn’t stop him opening a market stall with voluminous trousers for sale. He eventually pushed the envelope out a little too far with the thirty inch flare. The wearer would shuffle around with fetid tendrils of cotton fabric flapping around their ankle whilst soaking up every puddle in sight like a sponge bob flared pants.

Palatine Road

Road out of town to studentsville and Cheshire. If you’ve not been on the 2am ‘battle bus’ towards Wilmslow Road you ain’t never lived.

**Please note. If any other cities would like one million sunsets to review them please step up. All that is required to be provided is a return flight ticket, food drinks and accommodation for the week. New York, Paris and Sydney we await your call.**

10 Reasons Why Records Are Better Than Pets

We inherited a cat on Record Store Day and ironically it reminded me of this -

Ten Reasons Why Records Are Better Than Pets.

10.) The tedium of having to clean out goldfishfish bowls and white-frog glass tanks is well documented. Cleaning vinyl is just a quick wipe with an isopropranol-impregnated cloth and a cheeky toot if youre feeling game. Watching a goldfish go round and round is dull as dishwater; watching a record go round and round is a fookin' spiritual experience maaaaaaan!

9.) Budgies, parrots and Macaws witter on incessantly about whose a pretty boy then and pieces of eight. At least vinyl junkies witter on incessantly about unwanted creases in Impulse cardboard sleeves. Far more interesting.

8.) If you owned a pet whale you would have a nightmare finding storage space for it. Whereas if you collect vinyl you would have a nightmare finding storage sp.....actually, wait a minute!!

7.) You dont have to walk your vinyl around on a daily basis like a dog, unless of course you are a DJ. Where you then have to walk your vinyl around on a nightly basis. But at least you don't have to stand near a lamppost whilst your copy of Tarzan by Roy Ayres takes a leak or wait around whilst your Growers of Mushroom Booty sniffs the arse of someone elses Rings of Saturn album.

6.) Tesco sells cheap cans, packets and boxes of pet food. 32p for a tin of Katkins Chunks seems reasonable enough you may say to yourself but add all those cans, packets and boxes up over say a year and youre looking at a hefty sum of money. A hefty sum of money you may be tempted to spend on cheap Tescos CDs instead. Before you know it, you are prostituting yourself as a cheap supermarket CD whore whilst foregoing your beloved vinyl collection. All due to cats!

5.) Kingsnakes are noted for their Catholic tastes. They eat all manner of animals from frogs and salamanders to small birds and small mammals. Vinyl Junkies are also noted for their Catholic tastes but they eat Kebabs, cheese and Coconut Magnums.

4.) Some exotic pets are illegal in this country. Bootlegs of Soil and Pimp are also illegal in this country but a cracked copy of The Pimpmaster doesnt get stress-related problems stomach ulcers, nervous tics and aggression like Macaques do.

3.) You dont have a thriving colony of vinyl living deep within the bowels of the New York City sewer system do you? Colonies of unwanted alligators you do! Two boys shovelling snow into a manhole discovered a 6-foot 'gator trying to make his escape from the sewer. The boys lassoed the sickly saurian with a clothesline and dragged him up to street level. The alligator gnarled them both to death. That would have never happened with a Gnarls Barkely record.

2.) Records dont bite your lips like deadly tarantulas do. A friend of a friend was so badly bitten by a tarantula that she had to have her lips amputated and she can never kiss again. She wishes she'd bought Kiss by Prince instead of the deadly arachnid but it is all too late now for Mrs Lauder.

1.) Records dont piss on your carpets. Simple.

Record Store Day 2012

GO OUT AND BUY SOME RECORDS!

App Record Shop Employee (ARSE)

Do you miss the reality of record shops? Do you still hanker for the tactile beauty of vinyl? Do you long for those halcyon days spent flicking through racks of dusty records without a care in the world? Do you find buying music online a souless empty lonely experience these days? More importantly, do you miss the foreboding humiliation and patronising nature of the record shop employee? That self-righteous, smug, character who stood behind his counter - and it always was a male – waiting to denigrate your choices, to destroy any hope you had of leaving the shop with any ounce of dignity and credibility, because he knew best and he would let you and all around know that. Do you still hanker for that masochistic 'whack' administered to the very depths of your record buying soul?

If you answered yes to any of the previous questions, fear not! The ‘App Record Shop Employee’ or ‘ARSE’ for short, is just the thing for you. Just in time for ‘Record Store Day’ this digital Audio workstation App is an electronic system designed solely or primarily for playing back a digital audio voice track along with your online record shop purchases. The microprocessor-based system will run various audio interfaces as you browse and make your various vinyl, cd or digital choices online. Compatible with computer, laptop or smart phone, the ARSE comprises of a basic collection of regional voices to choose from – surly Manc, aggressive Cockney, aloof scouser, or patronising Brummie – which you upload to your app.

The audio interface works as you scroll your curser over various website musical products and gradually modifies as the browsing experience develops. For example, you may rest your cursor over the new Puffy Fetlock EP ‘Kwashiorkor v Morpungo’, and a voice will pipe up, ‘What you thinking of buying that for you fucking student?’ You may be interested in the recent 12” by The Baleen Plates - ‘Krill Bill’; were you to hover over the artwork icon, you may hear, ‘Ha ha ha, you Wurzel Twat! Don't even think about it!’  

The patronising humiliation ratchets up a level should you actually listen to a sound clip. For example over the top of said sound clip, you may hear, ‘For Fuck’s sake, you better leave this shop now you sad tosser and get yourself down to Our Price!’

 Orobator’s ‘Rejecting the Frottage’ may be playing in your headphones and you might get, ‘Ha ha ha, you cloth eared dickhead,you want to come back when you’ve got better taste in tunes mate!’
The merciless humiliation reaches its zenith if you actually commit to buying anything by placing it in your checkout basket, and woe be tide anyone who has the audacity to actually  purchase anything. Click and insert your card payment details and you’ll get ruthlessly barracked in the following manner, ‘Ha ha ha, what a bag of shite mate, my dog’s got better taste in music than you and he’s deaf’. Or you may get, ‘You’re just buying that ‘cos Craig Charles told you to!’

Further analog audio tracks you may randomly get are, ‘That’s proper shite that mate!’, ‘Ha ha ha ha!’, ‘Great choices pal (sarcastically)’, ‘Hey Dave, we’ve got Peel’s record buyer in here today (shouts sarcastically), ‘You cloth eared hipster twat!’ and ‘Fuck off out of my online shop!’

So if you truly do yearn for those smug, self-righteous put downs from record shop employees from ‘Back-in-the-day’ the App Record Shop Employee is the app for you. Available from today from all reputable outlets.

Album of the month

Wicca Artichoke – ‘Behind You’

Inimitable genre-bending crossover potential from this Oregon Duo. Wicca Artichoke demonstrate how much ingenuity still fuels the ‘Haunted House’ genre. Sometimes referred to as ‘Ghost Train’, or 'Jag', the Haunted House genre has been gradually gaining ground on all the ‘right’ Blogs recently.

‘Shoelaces’, ‘Grimmace’ and ‘Pig Tits’ have all been championing the sound since last Tuesday.
The mix of laid-back slowed-down Nineties’ trance music, asymmetrical jazz funk grooves, flatulent electronica and dog whistles has been hypnotising laptop hipsters in underground club land for weeks now, and it’s now the chance for us mere mortals to get in on the act today.

Sounding as contemporary as subconscious intuition, sexual abandon, mortal dread, ecological anxiety and beaver fracking, Wicca Artichoke show all the metaphorical associations of the deep but without the life-threatening Bends. Like a beautifully terrifying Burlesque show held in a frozen chimp house, Wicca Artichoke will certainly go viral with this magnificent collection of tunes bottled from what seems like the interiors of dictator’s jets.

Out Now!

Archive Flyers # 2

Impasse

Two DJs have just finished their sets for the night and leave their respective nightclubs simultaneously through the back door, each stepping into the same rubbish strewn alleyway. Both carry two large flight cases and as they make their way down the passage they’re whistling and dreaming of sunnier climes.

Both come to an abrupt halt. They’re facing each other. The sodium lit alley is too narrow for either to pass successfully without one having to reverse. Their whistling ceases and their flight cases are slowly placed to the ground.

‘Alright?’ nods the first after a few moments, eyeing up the second DJ with suspicion.
‘Alright?’ nods the second with equal suspicion holding the first’s stare.
Clearly both are aware of the implications the situation holds for them and neither is in the mood to back down and reverse.
‘Think you’re gonna have to let me get past you mate’ says the first with some commitment, ‘which means you’re going to have to back down the alleyway’.
‘Ha!’ snorts the second in a derisive manner, ‘was thinking exactly the same thing about you mate!’
‘Well we’ve got a bit of situation here then haven’t we?’ counters the first.
‘Indeed we do mate, indeed we do.’ glowering at the second. After a brief pause he continues, ‘Listen, I’m far to important to be standing here all night debating this with you, I’ve got things to do people to see you know the score, just do us a favour and back up will you?’
‘Too important! Ha!’ snorts the first with some contempt, ‘If anyone’s important, it’s me. I’ve just rocked a club of at least 100 people all night.’
‘One hundred?! Pah!, small fry mate! I’ve just played to at least 250!’
‘Yeah well, I’m sure you did, Mr Corporate Superstar DJ’ he says voice dripping with sarcasm, ‘It’s all about keeping it real for the underground pal, not selling out to the Ritzy cheese and cash’
‘What are you talking about? I’ve never played any cheese in my whole life! In fact my tune of the night was, Bambaataa’s Planet Rock! Whole place went off!’
‘Planet Rock!! Jeez, how original! Really pushing the envelope there aren’t we eh?’
‘Well if you’re so credible what did you drop tonight?’
‘Charly by the Prodigy.’
‘Ahahahahahahahaha’
‘What you laughing at? Proper old school breaks in there, inspired all the jungalist and rave massive back in the day!’
‘I bet they waved their glow sticks in the air like they just didn’t care, eh?’
‘When I played at The Junior Boys Own Party in East Grinstead in 88 they all waved their hands and that was enough.’
‘Bet you didn’t rave with Flowered Up at Blackheath mansion? I got a Weekender acetate that night?’
‘Better than that, I supported Graeme Park at the Hac in 88!!
‘Ha well I played the first night at Amnesia in 89!’
‘I dropped Techno for the travellers at Castlemorton for free in 92 so back up!’
‘I supported the last night Slam played at The Arches in Glasgow in 98, so you back the Frock up!’
‘Listen mate! I played on stage with Orbital at Glastonbury in 94, so you better back up or there’ll be trouble!’
‘Trouble! Ha! You and whose army? I invented the Acid House smiley logo!!’
‘I built the Bass Clef club with Norman Jay!’
‘I invented Dingwalls and the very concept of Gilles Peterson!!’
‘Right! That’s it! You’re dead if you don’t move NOW!!!’

He doesn’t

They both fly at each other, nostrils blazing. A horrendous fight ensues, the like not seen since Ali fought Forman only worse. After several minutes the dust clears.
‘Excuse me sir are you all right?’
‘Eh? Whassat?’ Groans the first DJ prostrate on the floor, and painfully opens a bruised eye, ‘Who’s that?’
‘It’s officer 808 sir. I heard a commotion up the alley and so I came running. What exactly happened here and how did you get into such a mess?’
‘Well you better ask him over there!’ he says pointing into the middle distance.
‘Who sir?’
‘That pompous idiot who wouldn’t let me walk down this alley. Ask him!’
‘Er, there isn’t anyone else here sir.’
‘What are you talking about man? He came from down that alleyway earlier on’.
‘That’s just not possible sir’.
‘Why not?’
‘Because it’s a dead end sir, there’s nothing down that alley but a brick wall, there’s definitely no one else here sir. No one at all. Now do you want to explain how you got yourself into such a mess sir?’