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Ex-Manchester journalist Jon Ronson wrote The Men Who Stare At Goats… That should ring a bell, because the film of the book stars George Clooney, and even if…
In January 1984, the second issue of City Life proclaimed the four great hopes of the Manchester music scene to be Carmel, The Smiths, The Fall and New…
This month Word Of Warning flags up a series of small-scale performances called Domestic staged in an obscure local arts venue, Cooper House. “Sounds familiar” I thought when…
Barry Gibb visited my kids’ primary school yesterday… Oswald Road in Chorlton. He’s an ex-pupil. I’ve got 3 kids at the school but I only heard about the…
Breakout has got to be one of the most perfect pop records to come out of Manchester… but because Swing Out Sister didn’t gig, I had no idea…
Manchester International Festival (MIF) is like a bluebottle which lands on a cow’s head and poos before buzzing off across the field. The cow (the city) may have…
The Smiths meant a great deal to me in 1983 for some reason… But what were they on about? What were they telling us thirty years ago? ‘This…
The Tamworth Estate tower blocks lie within the borough of Trafford, even though they share the east side of Chorlton Road (B5218) with Manchester’s Hulme, M15. Their ‘brutalist’…
I bought this ticket on a friend’s recommendation in 2012, but have since realised that I don’t like Alt-J. Not only is their sound very contrived, but their…
When Sankey Soap opened in the mid-90s there was general excitement about this brave new venue popping up in Ancoats’ industrial hinterland. I was really impressed with the…
I first met Goths in 1982, although I probably thought they were “Punks” at the time… and maybe they did too. Their appearance was dramatic: pale faces, black…
Throughout the 1980s, I admired second-hand fake “leopard-skin” coats very much but I never could find one which passed muster. There was always something not quite right; a…