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."