After Hours Athletes @ Deaf Institute

Bit of a wet dream this, two of the best nights in Manchester, Clique and Gold Teeth, having a play-off under the roof of the best bar in Manchester, The Deaf Institute, all supervised by The House of Hot Breath ('we put the 'care' in 'karaoke').

For a night of 'games, music and booze', get signed up here.

The games, in case you're wondering, include: Handbag Heavyweights, Pizzaface Challenge and Simaese Twin Pool. What could possibly go wrong??

Info here.

Get in.

The Deaf Institute, 30 November, 8pm - 12pm

Disco Bingo Pogo Radio

I can’t really remember what order any of the following happens, but at some point we make a fleeting visit to DISCO BABYLON, aka Pumping Iron at Common. This night needs a dancefloor, the music is amazing. Got a venue? Enquire within! Then it’s Off The Hook 3, the best of the Hooks to date where I play the ‘gig’ of my ‘career’. Ha. No seriously, I’m dead pleased with myself, I am now resident DJ along with Mr Anthony Crank, the crowd are amazing and totally up for it. Here’s some of what got played. At some point I play a special birthday mini-set for Polly Esther’s birthday spesh at Trash-O-Rama too, who are squatting like lovable new wave rugrats in the basement of the monthly Bollox at Legends. Performance! Punk! Pissy lager! Party people! At some point I take a serious hangover to Mother’s Ruin Bingo Night at the Green Room, hosted by Timberlina and Mrs Barbara Nice. Complete laugh. I win TWICE (multi-pack of Cadburys fudge, pair of stencilled knickers in a jar). The night finishes, as so many do these days, at The Eagle, where myself and my friends behave deplorably. I mean, they ought to take the vote away from us, and if I’d stuck to my original intention to keep this blog anonymous, I could tell all. As it is, you’ll have to wait for court transcripts.

Bingo!

I attend the Rambert Dance Company’s 'Awakenings' at The Lowry, my first contemporary dance experience, and it’s fantastic. I take part in a writing workshop about it where I write a very short story on the spot which I’m quite pleased with. A couple waiting for a train become dancers on a stage, the train tracks become the orchestra pit, the rumble of the oncoming train is the orchestra tuning up. I The wonderful Dave Haslam takes me to see The Vaselines who are terrific, part humble indie, part stand-up comedy routine. New album Sex With An X is a gem, ‘I Hate The 80s’ is riding high on my songs of the year. We go backstage and talk about Butthole Surfers. Eugene gives me a beer. I am quietly starstruck. My parents have been married for twenty-five years! Silver Wedding Anniversary! We have a party which is great fun. I appear on the radio for the first time, doing a queer arts rundown on Crank’s Gaydio show. Amazing month. Stay tuned for more ...

The Vaselines @ Deaf Institute

'Every day in every way I'm getting better and better …' Adventures Part 2

An actual summer's day. Ma gets the train over from Blackpool and we sit on Canal Street drinking cider with ice and having a proper chinwag and a laugh. It’s the loveliest thing we’ve done together for ages, my Mum is amazing. Around 8 pm I pour her back on the train and she gives me a wad of sweaty fun money to spend, as if I’m a teenager, bless her. I head down to Club Brenda at the Deaf Institute to liaise with my lovelies and to watch the wonderful David Hoyle introduce a lady who pulls a handkerchief out of her ladyparts. Normal Saturday night, in other words. Late, wreckless, brilliant.

The Bridgewater Hall, Manchester

A gruelling but productive week at work. (I do have a job too, who do you think pays for all this? Apart from Ma, obviously.) A few days of work tedium is rewarded by dinner at Strada with Dee, Matthew, Marie and Jonathan, followed by a spectacular Mahler’s Ninth at the Bridgewater Hall which pulls me right out of myself but also makes me feel inexplicably lonesome. Well, not completely inexplicable I guess. Next night is a hit and miss Bourgeois & Maurice for Queer Up North at the gorgeous Spiegeltent. When they are good they are very very good and when they are bad they are torrid. Fun night though.

Frank Spencer

Saturday it’s up early and dry-mouthed for a trip to London with Shauny. Ohmygodfuntimes. The weekend is a heady mix of Camden falafels, the theme tune to Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em, lager and vodka tonics, an interminable walk up Kingsland Road for drinkies with Malc and Craig at Dalston Superstore, and a trek to the Eagle in Vauxhall for Carpet Burn. On the tube platform I bump into my friend Jonathan, make a new friend called Harry, also on his way to Vauxhall, meet another new friend, lovely Martyn, in the Eagle, then at the bar there bump into Phil of Worrapolava fame, my longstanding-but-never-met-in-real-life internet buddy of mine, right there in the impeccable flesh. London is officially tiny and crammed full of friends.

Saatchi Gallery, Chelsea

Sunday is another hot day. I tube it to Victoria and walk the full length of the King’s Road, Chelsea, watching all the money laze about. Quick stop at the new Saatchi gallery where I admire some large crazy graffiti-collage-cartoon canvases which are kind of hypnotic and very POP. The artist turns out to be sixteen which means he is precisely half as old and twice as cool as yours truly. Fail.

Not a sniff of the King’s Road of the swinging sixties left, or of Viv and Malc’s punks. I find out after that I’ve been spitting distance from the house where Judy Garland died. In the window of one fancy Chelsea boutique is a mirror. A handsome young homeless guy with his arm in a sling is standing in front of it looking at himself. I walk close enough to hear him saying, ‘I’m very clean for a homeless person.’ It puts such a terrible lump in my throat.

The Black Cap, Camden

I keep walking down to the river, cross Battersea Bridge, walk through the beautiful park along the river, past the power station, mostly under wraps, past the dog’s home where they all yap like mad things, then tube back to Soho for lunch and coffee and people watching. I buy Mrs Dalloway and read it in the last of the sunshine in Soho Square. Shauny meets me and we have a drink before retiring back to Chalk Farm. We attempt to stay in but of course we’re unable to. Instead we’re lucky enough to catch the semi-final of Britain’s Got Drag Talent, or Drag Idol, or maybe it was Drag Factor? Whatever, it takes place at the rough and rowdy Black Cap in Camden and it’s shamazing. Okay it’s naff, but we stay ages and drink our hangovers away and are completely superior and un-ironic and gauche. Lots of smashed glasses and scraps and rough trade. Not us, of course. Shaun and I are from seaside towns though, so it’s like home for us. Shaun falls up the stairs at one point, which is just my favourite comedy move of all time.

Back to Manchester, yuck, short week at work, yay, then back to London again quick-sharp to see the Pixies play the Troxy out on the wilds of Commercial Road with Matthew and the Geordie. It’s a complete wet dream set list, take a look. I couldn’t have asked for better, honest to God. ‘River Euphrates’, ‘Sad Punk‘, ‘Gigantic’, ‘Broken Face‘, ‘Bone Machine’, ‘Caribou’, ‘Dig For Fire‘, ‘Alec Eiffel’ for Christ’s sake! Fuck it, they’re the greatest band of all time. I want a Pixies tattoo.

The Troxy

Next day it’s a complete scorcher. We pick our lovely Helen up at Kings Cross and travel out to spend the day at Kew Gardens which costs a fortune to get into it but really is worth it. Picnic by the lake, breathless Victorian greenhouses, gorgeous birds, cool grass. The highlight is the tree-top walkways, not just for the gorgeous views but for the pleasure of watching Matthew white-knuckle his way around the entire thing while it rocks back and forward ominously.

After Kew it’s back to the city for Pimms and Lemonade by the river outside the Royal Festival Hall until the sun goes down. Bliss was it that night to be alive, but to be young(ish) was very heaven. Helen gets her train home and we head on to The Enterprise pub at Chalk Farm which is rammed and sweaty and brilliant. Britpop and Madness and utterly sozzled punters cooling off in the rain and our last night there and oh I love you London.




Soundtrack: Shipbuilding, Dirty Old Town, If She Knew What She Wants, When Your Life Was Low, Sleeping Satellite, Schoolin', The Best Of The Proclaimers, loads of Joni Mitchell, Edith Piaf, Pixies, Mahler and Schubert

Girls played at the Deaf Institute in Manchester in March 2010

He is about the same size, shape and weight as his bleached-wood Rickenbacker. He wears bright orange flares with pale green Doc Martens and a hugely oversized patterned woollen jumper. His hair is an outrage. Even though Girls is his baby, Christopher Owens occasionally looks to bassist Chet White for some kind of reassurance, but White plays with his eyes closed. When Christopher looks at me I smile. He smiles too but at his fretboard.

I’m wriggling with anticipation over ‘Lust For Life’, my song of 2009, but just as much for ‘Morning Light’, which is more or less how My Bloody Valentine would interpret Sonic Youth’s ‘Mote’. It can only have been curtailed when it was committed to the album, it is hard and lurid and psychedelic. ‘Lust For Life’ is such a touching piece of music, live it is grimier and lovelier than the record. At this point I want to buy Christopher a whiskey. Christopher drinks whiskey for his throat. Last time he was in Manchester he drank too much whiskey and then too much of everything. He met Mike Joyce and was deeply excited. Lucky Mike Joyce.


‘Morning Light’ goes right under my ribs and stays there, it is the loudest, densest, wooziest thing you can experience that hasn’t anything to do with techno and ketamine. I consider it amongst the finest things humanity can do with electric guitars.




Here is the set list:

More Than A Feeling

… Slaughtered with Celebs Part 2: this time the charming Guy Garvey and lovely Marc Riley at Deaf Institute with various marvellous people talking about novels and Morrissey and shit and Everything Everything who were also in partial attendance (minor clang?). Great night which somehow ended with fearsome attack of the miseries on my part. Blub. At midnight it was my birthday and for some reason it bit like a bugger. Something to do with me being an habitual underachiever. I forget now …

… Leading to lovely but emotional birthday lunch next day with Dee at Golden Rice Bowl (Manchester’s oldest Chinese restaurant by the way). I looked terrible. One has been trying to work out whether one is happy of late but I suppose it’s a bit like being in love isn’t it? If you have to ask … Anyway, lovely food and good old chat with Dee which always helps and got a fantastic DAB radio for my birthday which has been my faithful bedroom companion ever since. Have promised self and dozen friends I WILL start listening to Radio 4 this year. Sigh …

… Excellent beery sesh for some reason or other with cracking company at student cum cycle courier hangout Sandbar. It seems I’m drinking/smoking again. Pah …

… Disappointing Club Brenda at Deaf Institute (not working, sorry) leading to best night in Poptastic EVER, no joke, Soul Wax remixes in the indie room (!!!) and massively cool overspill from simultaneously failed night up at Islington Mill. Brilliant times …

… Driven to the sticks (in fact all the way to Lancashire!) for lovely Evan’s 1st birthday party. Where has that year gone? Great fun pretending to be Katie’s husband / young Eddie’s Dad. Soon rumbled though. I think I must have said ‘fabulous’. Damn it. Brilliant fun, best party for ages. I ate too much veggie lasagne and cake and got hyperactive and cross and had to be taken home early without so much as a balloon …

… Joined new gym but to date have spent almost all my time in pool/sauna/jacuzzi. Looking great on it though if I do say so. The men are WAY too ripped and beautiful, I'll have to go in the dead of night when they're all at Essential …

… Dinner at Cocotoo with lovely company but less said about the food and MUSIC the better (Elton John hits played on a Moog, no joke) …

… Little Boots plays Night & Day. I love a couple of her tracks but I wish she was writing them for Kylie or The Aloud. Teeny tiny lady with not bad stage presence but massive comedown for me after the superb Everything Everything tear the place apart. Well, tear me and Katie apart anyway. Said it before, best band in Britain, so fuck you. Read my ancient but ground-breaking review here! …



… Rejection letters begin to roll in for The Novel. One in particular gives a spark of hope though with good suggestions for a restructuring to give the book more cohesion. Similar advice comes from the ever-wise Katie and the possibly even wiser, and terribly kind, Nicholas Royle (clang) so a restructure is under way as we speak. I was hoping to have it DONE before New York but I can’t stop trying on New York outfits and dancing around to the Pet Shop Boys long enough to knuckle down to it. Fail …

… Party to defy the recession and celebrate Pam Ayers’ birthday (not). Marvellous fun, got dressed up and everything. David Hoyle (clang) rolled in at some point, I do love him …



… Disappointing Howling Bells gig. Absolutely blown away by The Joy Formidable though who are ACE …



… Scrummy dinner at Tampopo followed by Macbeth at the Royal Exchange which I liked but some people really didn’t. They foregrounded a whole war-torn military vibe at the expense of the more supernatural pull of the play, which I agree is partly what makes it great. Still, wonderfully violent and sexual with a disturbing portrayal of the weird sisters by three very young girls, children actually, as possibly dead and in one case certainly raped displaced war children. Great performances by those three, the weakest player in fact was Macbeth himself. Lady M couldn’t stop ACTING in the first half but pulled it out of the bag magnificently for her mad scene which took place attached to a drip and behind glass. Great stuff. The scene where the little boy is drowned to a soundtrack of his mother’s screaming and a thunderously loud ‘That’s Not My Name’ by The Ting Tings was brilliant I thought. Macbeth got his cock out too. It’s art baby …

New favourite band

Hello? Anybody home?


I know, it’s been a while hasn’t it? I’ve had important reasons for staying away though, and important ones for returning too. Here they are:

A while ago I was recommended to listen to a track called ‘Suffragette Suffragette’ by Manchester-based band Everything Everything. Yes, things do seem to happen twice in their world. The song kinda washed over me at first, then as I was dusting my knick-knacks later in the week it came back into my head and so I re-played it, video and all. Thank goodness I did. Listen to it at once and be glad:

The hilarious yet somehow touching closing refrain notwithstanding I think this band represent a ‘bright new talent’ ™. Some sparky journo has written that ‘This band incorporate the best bits of Foals and British Sea Power but possibly with Peter Gabriel somewhere at the helm forcing them into weirder territory than either plain old indie or math rock will allow.’ I’d say amen to that.

Went to see them live at Deaf Institute, where I now live it would seem, to see if they are worth their salt. They manage to pull the whole thing off live with magnificent panache, acute harmonies and the best drumming I’ve seen since the Wire gig . . . and it’s only a year since they first played together. I’m pinning great hopes on the album when it arrives. ‘Suffragette …’ (sorry I simply haven’t time) is their first single, out December 1st. A couple of the lads are working in caffs and pizza restaurants at the minute and it's no place for them. Listen to the last minute of 'Weights' (on their myspace) and tell me that something sublime isn't happening. This stuff should be Arts Council funded. More please.

Music, Vermouth, Sex and Poetry

Speaking of music, a fine gig was thrown by Coraline in the sumptuous upstairs room at Deaf Institute to celebrate the release of their fantastic first EP. I am determined to throw a party in that room, it is officially my favourite space in Manchester. Gutted I couldn’t stretch to the Holy Fuck show there following their stint supporting Foals at the Academy. Seeing them twice in one night on a Wednesday though, even I have limits. Foals themselves were quite quite brilliant. Very exciting prolonged intro with massive shadows of the band cast the full length of the venue walls. Spine tingling. The songs are just something else entirely played live, fuelled I suspect by the power emitted from Yannis’ now enormous hairdo. The kids loved ‘em, I’ve never seen so many stylish and mashed children on a week night. They knew all the moves. Better than a cup a soup in front of Desperate Housewives. Don’t like the new Academy bar though, yuck. The bouncers were monsters too, sniffing people’s drinks and ID-ing all and sundry. Mind your own business and watch the band.



Forgot to mention my transplendently splendiferous Sex and The City party. I had a grand screening of the movie at my gaff and a right old knees-up it was. No attention to detail was spared. I had a playlist assembled featuring songs from the series (Cheryl Lynn, The Source feat. Candi Staton, ‘Moonriver’, ‘Are You Gonna Go My Way?’) culminating in the series and movie theme tunes for added excitement. God what an anorak I am. I screened two carefully selected episodes as pre-movie trailers (the one where she breaks up with Aidan by the fountain, the one where Big leaves for California and Miranda has the baby) to an even more carefully-selected audience of appreciative girls and gay boys. Dear Paul even dragged himself out of his sick bed to attend and proved himself a sterling mixologist making Martinis, clean and dirty, and Cosmopolitans till his perfectly-toned arms ached. Fun fun fun.



In other news I recently got myself a nice eight quid, austere, to-the-bone haircut as a kind of baptism into my new life and to celebrate our current wartime penury. My god I was freezing. Check out my skull.


After the partying described passim, the madness came to a crashing halt, as these things do. I went to the Warehouse Party’s Eat Your Own Ears shindig and could only withstand three songs from Late Of The Pier before I had to retreat home trembling. The night before had been unbelievably sticky, finishing at 8 am with bruises, Noilly Prat all over the carpet and a trashed flat. Honestly, at my age. Lesson learnt.

More cerebral and low-key adventures are now in order. To that end I did this. And I am also reviewing the Manchester Poetry Prize Gala on Thursday night. Exciting stuff. Looking forward to seeing Carol Ann Duffy again, whom I adore, especially since the drunken night when she held my head in her hands and said, ‘You look like a poet. Are you? You look like David’s Michelangelo.’ A memory I will take with me to the grave.

Lastly, and most importantly of all, I sat down and worked on The Novel for the first time in weeks, rattling off an entire chapter in one evening. This means I have three chapters to go and the writing is DONE. Then comes the edit. I am geared up for it now more than ever. Watch this space.

Speed Diary 1

Here’s how I spend my time and your money …

To Odder with Matthew for a gottle o’ geer and a GORGEOUS pizza (better than Cornerhouse even), all for a crisp fiver, how good is that? Quick pint at Cord, very empty, then on to Nexus for a night of music and album launching. Nexus is a nifty little basement café cum gallery and performance space at the corner of Oldham and Dale Street. It started life as a safe-space-late-night-café affiliated with the local church so that mashed clubbers could wait for cabs out of the way of danger. How sweet. It explains the incongruity between wall graffiti (‘I hope your kids explode!’) and overheard conversations (’I haven’t seen you since your baptism!’).

The main event is the launch of third album, The Kansas Sessions, from Kirsty McGee and her Hobopop collective. First up however is The Bee’s Niece, pseudonym of singer-songwriter Ragnhild Zeigler, and very lovely she is too, delicate, plucky songs with a wry and funny underside. Alas she couldn’t compete for long with the noise from the percolator and smoothie maker so we retire somewhere with a license to wait for something a bit louder. Matt and Phred’s was a melancholy scene, two bored and beautiful barmaids, us three supping Guinness by the open window looking onto the rainy back street, and a lone pianist practising his sad jazz down the back. I am so going back there for a proper night soon, haven’t been for far too long.

Back to Nexus then to hear Kirsty MCgee’s up-beat, foot-stomping, rockabilly ‘n’ country tunes. All good fun and some fantastic lyrics but not my cup of Earl Grey especially. Excellent musicians though and any live music is better than a night in front of the telly. And all for free!

Later in the week and Are Friends Eclectic? comes around again at Retro. This usually studenty pub had THE most amazing clientele upstairs out of term time, I was transfixed. A gaggle of old-school seventies clone queens manhandling the jukebox in one corner, a slab of gorgeous Manc rough trade in the other, metal hair freaks round the bar, rough diamond Gorton sports dyke serving, and right in the window a straight couple gettin’ it on in the most spectacularly public fashion. Get a room people! Love it.

Guinness and black for me please. Drank it all night and woke up feeling like a cough sweet. This month’s AFE was Manchester themed, with a particular bent towards Moz/Smiths. Sparsely populated though, which was a shame. Where else can you hear Slaughter and the Dogs and The Wedding Present of a Thursday? The lovely Phil Gatenby did a turn on the decks and we persuaded him to whip out his new Smiths tattoo (and his very hairy arms also).

Next day it’s off down Whalley Range to celebrate the lovely Maria’s tenth year in Manchester. I had a similar idea to celebrate my own anniversary a while back (I think I went on holiday instead) where everybody would have to dress as themselves ten years ago. I still might do it. Depressingly though, I might only look slightly different. I bet I even have my old glasses. Utterly wrecked and up till 5 am, relocating to Chorlton along the way. My attempt to force everyone to listen to this at 4 in the morning went down like the proverbial, but I still believe!

Party again the next night, this time to celebrate Emma and James shacking up. Hooray! Feeling very fragile by this point but lovely to see friendly faces from Charlotte, Kate, Pete, Dee, John, my brudder and his lovely g-friend Charlie. All next day is spent on the couch at Dee’s watching The Green Wing which I have come to regard as semi-genius.

I take a spontaneous half-day off later in the week and eat my favourite thing in the world which is the falafel burger with spicy fries at the Deaf Institute then me and Char go off to the Great Northern Warehouse to watch The Dark Knight, about which nothing more needs to be said, other than 1) Christian Bale isn’t trying, and 2) it’s a fitting swan song for poor Heath. A framed picture of Heath adorns my CD tower and makes me think daily about the irresistible tragedy of somebody so beautiful that dies young. I still miss River Phoenix. God love ‘em both.

Talent

There’s a lot of it about so I’m whoring some of it out to you lucky people …

Coraline

First up are the literally fantastic Coraline. Rae’s ethereal, witty and alluring songs have as much in common with Angela Carter and the Brothers Grimm as with any of the multiple genres they effortlessly hopscotch between. ‘Oz’ from the new EP is a funny, spiralling retell of The Wizard of Oz. Having gone to London to give the music a new audience, a record contract has deservedly come their way. To celebrate the release of The Little Freedoms EP the band are having a series of launches and a Northern fix can be had at either The Met, Bury on September 26 or, very excitingly, at the Deaf Institute right here in town on October 9. I have been wowed in concert several times, highly recommended.

(c) Ranulph Redlin

Next up is photographer Ranulph Redlin. Red has just added to an accomplished portfolio with an excellent series entitled Sex, Fries and Battered Hake, a visual tale of a modern mermaid sunk in moral corruption. Sexy urban magic realism and colours you can eat. Keep your eyes peeled round Manchester for forthcoming exhibitions of his work.

From Sex, Fries and Battered Hake (c) Ranulph Redlin

Finally, if like me you think Ed Harcourt is our greatest living songwriter, we might just have found a successor in Manchester-based Ben McGarvey. Start by listening to the brilliant ‘Disjointed’ then ‘Too Busy Framing’ from the LP of the same name, then just give in.

Ben McGarvey, in crayon form

there’s no point in not being friends with someone if you want to be friends with them

Being a writer and all (nope, don’t feel comfortable saying that yet) I know I should get out there and get my voice heard and absorb inspiration and encouragement from fellow scribes but I find I’m too shy and unsure of myself, still, at thirty. In addition, my cringe tolerance is extremely low and if I find myself trapped in some art café listening to ‘sensitive’ souls reading rubbish poetry about broken hearts (if you really had a broken heart you’d be at home, eating cake on the floor in front of the fridge, watching Sex and the City and crying every ten minutes) then I know I’ll just end up turning bright red and grinding my teeth with embarrassment until I’m asked to leave.

It is with trepidation then that I attend there’s no point in not being friends with someone if you want to be friends with them in the basement of the Deaf Institute. (I don’t know what the name of the night is a reference to, anyone?). The lovely Emma Unsworth is reading from her novel tonight and our mutual friend Katie has invited us along to show support and so here we are. And goddamit if it isn’t all a lovely surprise. There is nothing mortifying at all, in fact nothing even approaching mediocre, my molars remain unground for the entire evening. What a talented bunch of writers.

The night is put on by Sally Cook and Chris Killen. Chris is a Waterstones employee, author of Day of Moustaches, and forthcoming novel, The Bird Room. I had heard of him prior to this night after reading a short piece in my favourite publication in the world ever, The South Manchester Reporter, which described how Chris met Steven Hall, author of The Raw Shark Texts, in the Deansgate Waterstones where he works (and which features, circuitously enough, in Hall’s novel) and persuaded him to read the manuscript of The Bird Room. Apparently a lovely guy, Hall did just that and this act of kindness has resulted in Mr Killen getting a book deal with Canongate, a story which is both inspiring and depressing, but a success I’m certain is well-deserved. I’m very much looking forward to reading it.

Anyway, the readings. Emma’s opening chapter was intriguing, atmospheric, funny and put me in mind of Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges are not the only fruit in the way it keeps your eyes at a child’s level with just a few deft touches of detail. Some wonderful short stories, plenty of breaks for wine and cigs, and two particular highlights for me. The first being the excellent (and published, thankyou very much) poet Annie Clarkson, a Lancastrian turned Mancunian, just like me. She read a selection of absolutely wonderful poems in a voice you could happily live in. My favourite one is luckily featured in the link above and is one of the sexiest and most disarming pieces of poetry I’ve read in ages. Gave me shivers of a most unnecessary kind. I had to go and congratulate her afterwards. The other highlight was the stand-up slot filled by Ben Davis and his brother. Really funny, dry and unexpected humour delivered in a subtle and confident way that I truly believe means this guy is headed for stardom. See him in tiny venues while you still can.

Next month’s promises to relocate from the awfully hot and overfilled basement to a bigger better venue somewhere, as it deserves. Will I, should I, can I make myself read something there? Gosh darnit, courage, where are you?

Saturday night and Sunday morning, 14th – 15th June

My sister’s ace mate Michelle up from London for the weekend so Saturday evening sees us bar-hopping up Oxford Road. Gorgeous sunny evening so it’s outside Kro 2 to begin where I natter about the wedding and Michelle tells us about her sister who used to be a kitten-heeled dolly-bird and is now marrying an Australian farmer for a life of outback dust and toilet spiders. Love eh? In attendance besides us are James (Emma’s boyf), Joffrey, Stuart, Dean and Christine, who I haven’t seen for ages since they moved north to the ‘burbs (Swinton), and Kate and Pete, fresh from seeing Rufus Wainwright, Devo and others in Barcelona. Extremely jealous.

Kate has been simply bursting to tell me an amazing anecdote and when she does my jaw hits the floor. She’s an extra in the new Ken Loach movie, Looking For Eric, which is being filmed around Manchester. It’s apparently the brainchild of Eric Cantona himself who is both starring in the film and co-producing it. Obviously Kate’s a dear dear friend of ‘Kenny’ by now but has yet to see the bearded French beauty himself, but she will. The whole thing is so surreal and brilliant. Filming in Chorlton and Old Trafford, a cast of local stand-up comedians, Eric holed up in The Lowry learning to jive, apparently, and all this directed by the man responsible for Cathy Come Home, Poor Cow, Up the Junction, Kes for Christ’s sake! He’s 71, can you believe it? The film is apparently about football fandom, rather than a biopic of Eric himself as was originally reported. It will probably be the first and last football movie I ever sit through. Coming Summer 2009.

A stiff(er) drink is in order so it’s down to The Deaf Institute to hog a large table and proceed in earnest to get langered. Great music from the Chips night upstairs (oh the memories, and lack of, from Chips With Everything at Night and Day, wherein I had officially my greatest ever Manchester night out, maybe I’ll blog it one day …) and generally a great bar I’ve decided with beautiful people, us included natch. At some point we decide we want somewhere with even nicer wallpaper so we pinball up the road to Odder and manage against all odds (ha!) to get seats there too. This suits us, especially as we’ve realised that amongst us there is only one person still in their twenties. I won’t tell you who, it would just mean far too much to her. How decrepit we must seem!

Still, we’re not dead yet so I persuade the hordes they MUST dance and we head to Charlie’s for Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing (named after a Margaret Atwood poem), my second girl-music night in as many weeks. I love any excuse to go to Charlie’s, it’s kitsch, pokey, brilliant and allegedly owned by Triads. The remit of the night is dead simple: good music from any genre or decade, so long as it’s by women and it’s bloody good, so we have The Breeders, Madonna, Ting Tings, Elastica, Gossip, and possibly CSS and L7 too (or did I dream it? My brain was fairly starched by this point …) The place isn’t heaving but the crowd are lovely (my new friend Sian is here, hello!) and the dancefloor rarely empties. No bar queues either! Lots of lovely girls, gay and straight, plus boys of course. Us lot were the best dancers though. Fact. Back to mine afterwards for the usual late night dredging of youtube for craptacular pop nonsense and eventually zzzzzzz …

(Almost forgot! I did not smoke a single cigarette the entire evening. Am quietly very proud of myself. I long for a life without cigarettes after being an on-off smoker for longer than I care to admit).

Sunday is SUNNY so it’s shades and shorts and up the road to Sackville Park for chilled picnic loveliness with Kirsty, Keith, Amy, Thom, Sian and the monkey. Yummy hangover grub plus fruity cider to take the edge off last night’s boozy ghosts. The park itself is pretty quiet (intermittent clouds keep the hardcore sunbathers at home) but any chance of peace is utterly destroyed by the four hour line-dancing fiesta outside The Rembrandt, courtesy of Manchester Prairie Dogs. God love ‘em, me and Joff were moved to tears watching them one year at Pride (loooong weekend) but trilogies of shrill Irish folk music, pounding handbag travesties and sequence dancing to ‘Vogue’ on a Sunday afternoon? Police!

A few rounds of Truth or Dare on the picnic blanket reveal us to be a bunch of thieves, drunks, vandals and sexual deviants, which pleases me no end. I top up my holiday tan and end up slightly tipsy in the sunshine which is very nearly my favourite thing in the world. Kirsty introduces us to the delights of peanut butter pancakes from Wong Wong’s bakery. SO good. We have those for tea and the weekend draws to a close. I go to sleep feeling pretty lucky to have all these great people in my life, and the monkey most of all. (And Manchester too).

Soundtrack:
OutKast – Aquemini (need to get entire back catalogue pronto)
Pop Levi – The Return to Form Black Magick Party (totally T-Rex, am especially hooked on ‘Skip Ghetto’ still, Pop keeps a little Marc in his heart …)