Can't Get Gerry and the Holograms Out of My Head

A musical gift dropped into the Fuc51 inbox earlier today. In the words of its creator, 'they fitted together like greased cogs'. Fantastic.

Coming soon to the FAC251 dancefloor.

Can't get gerry and the holograms out of my head by Fuc51

(Thanks to D from Club Panda)

Goon Army *UPDATED*

"You could say that Manchester has been hungover on hazy memories of the Hacienda, Morrissey, the Gallaghers and the like for too long... but let’s face it where Mad-chester left, Bland-chester took over. It’s little wonder that we clutch onto the memory and there’s no better place to do that than at South nightclub."

"[Clint Boon]'s completely in his element and it shows with every record that he plays. As he stands bopping in the box, each tune is delivered with love. Love for music. Love for real music- whatever the era. From the Stone Roses and Joy Division to the Happy Mondays, Oasis, New Order, Candi Staton and the Smiths - he works his way through the wonder years."

Lynda Moyo should be strung up and shot at.

Read the idiocy here

*UPDATE*

As someone in the comments rightly points out, the offending article has been removed by Manchester Inconsequential. Is that a victory for FUC51 we can smell?

*ANOTHER UPDATE*

And it seems to be back again, albeit it in an edited form. For fuck's sake. We've clearly touched a nerve.

In praise of Manchester

Staggering.

Here's an article on Manchester that heaps praise on the city and doesn't once mention You Know What and You Know Who. Not a FAC number in sight!

Click here to read.

Make Up Yer Own Minds

This landed in the FUC51 inbox:

"25 mins in. Hooky talking about the club and Haslam having a go at nostalgia and "old men telling young people what to do is the complete opposite of what pop music should be about" or something."

Click here to listen (iPlayer link)

Chump

"Chimp Magazine is what Manchester's readers, advertisers, activists and artists have all been waiting for"

Apparently.

Only 10 issues old and they're already playing the '89 card. Seriously. It breaks down like this, issue by issue:

#1 Talking 808 State's Graham Massey
#2 Talking to Doves, formerly Sub Sub
#3 Stephen Morris on the cover
#4 Again, talking to Massey
#5 A reprieve
#6 Talking to Johnny Marr
#7 Hooky on the cover
#8 Bernard Sumner on the cover
#9 Poor ol' Delphic on the cover
#10 Ian Brown on the cover

It feels like it's only a matter of time before Shaun Ryder or Bez makes an appearance doesn't it? Having flicked through the mag, they're clearly not Madchester casualties, but it says a lot about the view of the city that one of their main hooks to get people buying the rag is to lean heavily on a scene that died many moons ago.

Click here to visit their website

Yet another resurrection

More column inches saying, well, nothing at all. Play 'Manchester music bingo' with the piece and fill your card in a paragraph.
Freelance music journalists have to pitch for work. And Manchester's full of them - many with something genuinely positive to say about the city. Many of them probably find it a little irritating that another dull feature retreading the same old ground is going to be what the majority of outsiders see as going on here in 2010. This is over, well, the other 95% that's going on that's actually worthwhile.

(thanks to Andrew)

"You don't need to be Madchester to work here - but it helps"

A quick link before bedtime: Danny McFadden's piece on 'Has Manchester Had Its Day?'

Who the Fuc?

There are a lot of people asking who we are and where we're from.

Who FUC51 is isn't of importance. There is 'someone' behind the blog, but here at FUC51, we've also had hundreds of submissions from all manner of sources - people you've heard of and people you haven't. Attaching a single name doesn't seem right.

All you need to know is that FUC51 is based in Manchester.

Just what we all needed...

We love Manchester. We really do. However, it's hard to feel the love when you see things like this. It's just what we needed wasn't it? Yet another Madchester night.

The idiots throwing this night say "Roll up, roll up. We're throwing a party in our basement, and you're all invited, bonzai! We've the lovely GARETH BROOKS (a man with a MySpace page with pictures of Ian Curtis and Ian Brown) supplying your ears with tunes, all things Indie, Electro, Classic."

What they should have said was "Take one step forward... then, lazily stumble backwards until you hit somewhere around 1989."

And on the 8th Day...

The other day there was a big Manchester flareup on the popular gossip site Popbitch, some of it not far off what’s been said on FUC51. Amongst the usual maelstrom of expletives, poster ‘billy_squier’ made a few good points, which we reproduce below. Fuc51 for the most part agrees.

Here's a funny thing about Mancs, and this is completely without malice, believe it or not. For most of the 70s and 80s, Mancs used to enjoy sneering at Liverpudlians because of our supposed unwillingness to crawl out from under the shadow of the Beatles (well, they couldn't sneer about the football in those days, could they?) or our eagerness to turn Liverpool into a Beatles theme park. We'd never sell our city out like that, they'd say, conveniently overlooking the fact that, in order to "sell out", you need to have something people want to buy into. Which Manchester never really did. At least, not until it became ‘Madchester’. They'll never admit this, but it's true. That much-vaunted Mancunian civic pride manifested itself in all those ridiculously self-regarding "...And God Created Manchester" t-shirts, and for a short while the whole world seemed to revolve around the place in the way plenty of Mancs believe it still does.

Now, just because a few new bands are pissed off that they keep being asked questions about Joy Division (who were, relatively speaking, all but forgotten ten years ago), this supposedly represents a cushion held over the face of Manchester's cultural well-being? Congratulations, Mancs - you've finally caught up with Liverpool in 1981. The trick now is how to come to terms with the fact that, no matter how wonderful you think your city is, the only thing most outsiders will ever be interested in - apart from the football - is Madchester and its attendant peripherals. As is so often the case, Liverpool has already been there and done that. Plenty of Liverpudlians realised years ago that it may as well be them making money off the Beatles, just as Hooky is now grabbing the opportunity to finally make a few quid off the Hacienda. Anything good that emerges apart and away from all that in the meantime will surely rise - that's if it is any good. Personally, I'm just wondering if this perpetual 80s revival will ever fucking end.

The good usually DOES rise – in fact, one of Manchester’s last high hopes we remember were for Nine Black Alps, The Longcut and Polytechnic. They even shared a stage one giddy sell-out night at The Academy a few or more years ago. 3 Manchester guitar bands who didn’t sound like Oasis, who were at times genuinely exciting. We remember one hack trying to unsuccessfully shoehorn a New Order reference into a Longcut live review, but for the most part they were safe . Could this be it? (OK, NBA were grunge for those who were too young to remember, but bear with us here) – alas, no. A combination of terrible A+R decisions, amateur management ('go for the biggest advance you can, lads - I'm pretty sure you don't have to pay it back’) and just rotten bad luck mean that all three bands are presently a bit off-radar in the eyes of the outside world.

Where we’re at now – well, time to retreat back into the comfort zone. Joy Division ARE a cushion over the face, insomuch as The Whip and Delphic are comparatively easy to write about, if you chuck their name in the mix. Both bands filled the ‘can we get something New Ordery on here?’ slot on Kitsune comps and both will obligingly churn out something vaguely dancefloor-friendly whilst not presenting too much of a challenge to the ear. It’s almost impossible not to mention the 'J-word'. The PRs representing any band lucky enough to get to that stage of a career where they can afford a PR in a first place – well, PRs are not known for being great thinkers anyway - but if there’s a path of least resistance when they’re pitching a band, they’ll find it. ‘A bit Joy Division’ down the phone is always going to win over anything too polysyllabic. Thank fuck this crop of bands don’t need much explaining.

New bands? 'Well, with all this FAC251 stuff and 'Doubt' kicking around, our music pages are a bit full mate. I'm not going out on a fucking Tuesday either. Thanks for asking though'.

We disagree on ‘finally making a few quid off the Hacienda’ though. 20 years and counting.

Manchester Inconsequential

Like reading drossfests that say "This happened, then this happened, then this happened, then I saw my old buddy and old pal and this happened! Then that happened! Then this happened as well! Backslapping! This happened after that happened!"

Ladies and gents, the Manchester Confidential write up of the opening night of FAC251! [here]

You'll love it. Seriously.

Thanks to 'Disappointed of M1' who spotted it.

From Hooky with love

Someone claiming to be our Hooky sent us a message to the FUC51 inbox. Yessum, with a video as well. It's a trailer for FAC251 and we reckon he might be having a little joke with us seeing as it features music from the dark side... but wait! What's this? A punchline?

If it is who it claims to be and by which we mean, he's reading this blog, then do us all a favour sunshine and drop the whole Russian oligarch schtick. Dress like one by all means... but y'know?

"I used to be in a band"

A lot of Fuc51's bilious rage has been directed at Mr Peter Hook, and he certainly has a lot to answer for when it comes to clinging onto those last few hours of time in the sun. 'Keyboard terrorists' we may be, but there it is in print - he admits that if you go to watch him DJ, you are guaranteed that around 50% of the records he plays will be 'that old ****'. (Nice tabloid-style starring out there, City Life - can your readers not handle swearing?)

Don't get us wrong, the problem doesn't begin and end with him, though in terms of fist-in-mouth cringe-inducing moments he is unequalled. Here he is on a 'walkabout' around Manchester with a Guardian sycophant in tow, informing a couple of young girls that he 'used to be in a band' (0:48). Watch it through your fingers. Watch it again. And again. Incredible. You can imagine him prowling the Northern Quarter in the early hours of a Sunday morning, telling anyone who'll listen.

Here he is musing on the opening of FAC251 in the Oldham Advertiser. Ignoring the usual 'We, as the Hacienda' remarks, he also opines "I'd like to think Tony would approve of what we're doing here". It's like Bush's divine justifaction for invading Iraq. If you can convince yourself Tony would have approved, you can open whatever poorly-thought-out revivalist temple of the mediocre you like.

With all due respect for Tony Wilson, towards the end he was releasing records by the likes of these Collyhurst scamps (Sample lyric: 'We're the Young Offenders / Working class pretenders / Always out on benders') - no, they were not a 'comedy' band - it could be said that his quality control was a little out. Whether he'd have approved or not is irrelevant. Peter, go on another walkabout of the Northern Quarter and do a quick straw poll of young people you meet (after dropping into conversation that you used to be in a band, of course) - ask them if they approve. They couldn't care less.

(Thanks to David and Phill for the submissions)

It's Fac-ing time to dust off your twat threads!

TONIGHT! IT'S ALL GOING TO GO OFF! LIKE THIS! FAC251 IS GO!

Overheard

This landed in the FUC51 inbox:

Overheard last night outside Jabez Clegg, spoken by one of those girls with an annoying Southern accent and a speech inflection whereby everything sounds like a question...

"I'm going to Fac251 on Friday? Its like this club yeah? The Hacienda? But like it shut down yeah because nobody bought any of their drugs?"

I don't know what they are teaching them at University these days.

I picked up a flyer for Fac251 as well, looks like Mani has got a weekly Djing residency there. Who could have seen that one coming?

Lumping 'em all in.

The Guardian. They're a real bunch of idiots sometimes. More than any other newspaper, they're happy to keep parping on about half a dozen bands from Manchester because, clearly, when dealing with a new artist from/living in the city, the easiest thing to do in the world is to toss a coin and say They Sound Like Joy Division/They Sound Like The Stone Roses.

With new act LoneLady, who has made a really rather brilliant debut LP called 'Nerve Up', they are at it again. Now, to anyone with ears, one listen to 'Nerve Up' and you walk away thinking "what a great pop album!" It's direct and has massive choruses. There's no getting away from it. It's definitely a pop album.

Granted, LoneLady makes the kind of racket that sounds like Siouxsie Sioux has teamed up with Tina Weymouth and XTC under the remit of trying to make a proper pop album, and brilliantly, succeeding against all the odds.

However, the Guardian's profile [here] has gone straight to the filing cabinet marked 'Manchestoh' and stated giddily "...She comes from Manchester, only the Manchester of Ian Curtis not Ian Brown, the dark, dour, post-punk Manchester of shadowplay and doubts-even-here, not the bright, Day-Glo Madchester version of the city. She's signed to Warp, a great label, but she would have fitted in quite nicely – nervously – on Factory, and she's got the darkly lit artily monochrome press shots to prove it," before adding "Martin Hannett would have done wonders with her itchy, scratchy guitar pop".

Okay. We get it. WE GET IT. Here's to hoping for a time when people look at an act from Manchester and finally cast their glances around an entire world of influences that the people of Manchester actually listen to. I wonder if people who have never stepped a foot in Manchester think that all our record shops are filled with only releases from Madchester bands and Factory-approved outfits?

You could be forgiven if you thought that every single fucking time you read about a new act in the city.

[With thanks to James who brought this to FUC51's attention]

Manchester Music Museum

A FUC51 reader sent us a link to the inbox about a Facebook group called Let's build the MANCHESTER MUSIC MUSEUM - the time is right ! [here]

Only a fool would deny Manchester's rich musical heritage... whoever, the main reason that a Manchester Music Museum wouldn't work is because, by and large, the city is already a boring museum exhibit dedicated to Madchester. Walk around the Northern Quarter and look at your feet and there, you'll see tribute to a small handful of bands in the paving stones who either knew or worked for Tony Wilson.

It seems that, when the Sex Pistols played the Free Trade Hall and accidentally kick-started a musical 'revolution' in Manchester, the message that really resonated with Those That Were There was the line "no future, no future for you, no future for me...".

A waste of FUC-ing oxygen

Look what slopped into the FUC51 inbox this morning.

Of course it's naive to suggest that none of the triumvirate of cunts with a hand in the new FAC251 venture would be unable to call the odd favour in from a mate over at the Evening News, but seriously - a churnalistic, unquestioning article on the most ripe-for-pisstake venture in Manchester's living memory?

Let's pass the mic to uncle Peter.

"As an older musician now, I feel I do have a responsibility to propagate the new bands, to keep things going in Manchester.

"We, as the Hacienda, get a lot of criticism for trading on the past, but with this place it's all about the future, giving young kids the chances to perform."

Is that right? Ignoring the Factory catalogue number on the front door, here's the opening night's lineup, featuring an 'exclusive' performance by no other than:

"...Peter Hook, former Stone Roses bass player Mani and ex-Happy Monday Rowetta".

So that's 2 bass players, and the backing singer from the Happy Mondays. Together. At last. There's a particular chamber of hell where you can listen to 7 bass players and the rest of the Happy Mondays, in perpetuity. All on whizz. It's free in as well down there, instead of £22.50.

To badly paraphrase Orwell: "if there's hope, it lies in our badly-paid regional journalists" - next time you're dished up such an easy target, consider giving shorter shrift to such a tired idea. Despite all its flaws, the now-defunct City Life occasionally managed it.

While you're thinking about it, why not find another way to write about new music from the city without lazily consulting the same 3 bands as reference point. The city will thank you for it.