About Mancky

It’s about Manchester music and culture from a personal point of view.

In 2011 there were two of us writing… me and Geraldine… but now it’s usually just me (although anyone is welcome to contribute.) I’m a housewife with 4 kids. I live in Whalley Range and I grew up in Chorlton so this site is mainly about south Manchester because that’s what I know.

Manchester is fairly grim; let’s be honest! But grimness can have an up-side: if Manchester was beautiful maybe the people wouldn’t care so much about music, clubs and clothes? (And drugs and alcohol… and football…)

We live forwards but understand backwards - Soren Kierkegaard

So far, writing for this site has opened my eyes to a few things:

The male domination of this culture is shocking; I’ve grown up with it and just never noticed how bad it is. (The big football clubs should be shamed into financing women’s football much more to redress the balance at least a bit.)

The scars of 19th century exploitation still persist in our grim stoical small-minded cynicism, the vicious humour which thrives here and rife reverse class snobbery. You have to be deeply arrogant - or deranged - to attempt to do anything creative in this city.

“Madchester” was a disaster. The city’s musical and football cultures got mixed together and then got stuck.

Salford and Manchester share the same city centre which is in Manchester - that’s weird! The BBC’s presence will hopefully make up for years of neglect of Salford’s national and international profile. If only Manchester United had called themselves Salford instead.

Did you know that Emmeline Pankhurst was born in Moss Side? Moss Side doesn’t seem to know.

* * * * * * * *

That period before “Madchester” was an exciting time which I was lucky to experience. I’m hopeful that the tweaked Kondratiev cycle theory means that something like it may happen again…
…round about now…

Contact us at [email protected] and [email protected].

14 thoughts on “About Mancky”

  1. Anna Ackah on
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    Spyra Gyra got me jazz funking on my toes, Rafters got me completely jazz funked up!

    Manchester was cool then and has gotten cooler since

    Memory tunes come alive once more at the Hilton Soul weekender…keep on moving

    • urs on
      Reply ↓

      Hi Greg - I haven’t done a single post on Legend because I didn’t go there often enough to write one with confidence but the club features in the posts about Danny Henry, Happy Mondays and the New Pecking Order (WFL video) and Manchester Clubland circa 1984.
      Thanks for the link to your article, which is really interesting,
      Best wishes, Urs

  3. Mary Begley on
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    Hi Ursula,

    I disagree that Manchester’s grim!! What a sad epithet! I think that with the caveats ‘despite everything’ and ‘relatively speaking’, Manchester can be vibrant and friendly. As for beauty, we’ve got good and bad just like every other city, haven’t we? It’s the attitude of the people who live here that matters!

    Mary

  4. Amy on
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    I’m doing my dissertation on the Manchester music scene from ’86-’96 and this website saved my life, thank you!! There’s so much good stuff on here, keep up the good work, rave on! :)

  5. ged foley on
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    just been reading about that book which shown some picky s about pips,i have 2 say i never ever remembered a roxy room and a bowie room ,especially separated by an arch .There was the roxy room which played in year 79/80… 3 tracks of bowie , 3 tracks of roxy and then 3 tracks of other stuff like devo -krafwerk-human-league lou-iggy-numan etc.as far as the warm leatherette track it was the normal s version that would be played and not grace jones version in fact private life would be if anything would of been played ..i know i worked as a dj there and know a few of the faces in the photos .

  6. Shono Junzo on
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    As somebody that supplied the oil that kept the wheels turning (make of that what you will) allow me to correct a detail in the Roger Eagle book review. On the Eight Day was set up by Brian Livingstone and Ray Jay, Penny Henry and C.P.Leee worked there, as did many others. Penny also worked at Factory too, and I, think Dry.
    And no, the name isn’t real. I left M/cr 20 years ago because there were just too many rumours about me that were not true. But then that’s Manchester for you.
    A useful site you could check out is “Manchester beat”. It might provide you with a great deal more information.

    • urs on
      Reply ↓

      thanks for the information - i know the ‘manchester beat’ site, although it’s all before my time, best wishes, urs.

    • urs on
      Reply ↓

      hi matt - i’ve lived in manchester since i was 6 - how clever of you to guess i wasn’t born here. geraldine was born in manchester.
      best wishes, urs.

  8. sascha on
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    Dear manchester people, I am a student from germany and i am about to write my bachelor thesis about the hacienda and the shift of authenticity when acid house got really big in there. right now i am looking for material and first-hand accounts from regular clubbers at the hacienda. now i found out that you added some of these voices to your collection a couple of years back in time. http://www.mosi.org.uk/about-us/news/clubbers-go-down-in-hacienda-history.aspx is it somehow possible to get some transcripts of these notes. this would be so helpful for me to write a good thesis. maybe you have an idea how to get these notes. thank you so much. i want to tell the people what a great affect the hacienda and the manchester club culture on the later clublife had. hopefully you can help me with that.
    all the best.
    sascha lehmann