Pride Alternatives and Alternative Pride

Last year, for the first time in ages, I bought a wristband for the Gay Village over Pride weekend. I wanted to go to Pumping Iron (which was brilliant) and I wanted to see Kelis (but we couldn’t get into the enclosure). This year I don’t have many reasons to brave the fences that shoot up in my neighbourhood overnight. I had to Google ‘Pixie Lott’ (nope, not ringing any bells) and ‘Alexandra Burke’ too (shocking isn’t it? … I run an RnB night too …) My favourite thing about Pride weekend is the feeling that for one long weekend we own the city. I need to be able to see the city to get that feeling so no fences for me this year.

Besides, this year’s official Pride Fringe events, which either take place on dates before The Big Weekend or in venues outside the Village, or both, are varied and impressive and can be found listed in a handy PDF guide HERE.

Aside from all of that you could do a lot worse than camp out at Kraak for three days. Recently name-checked in the Guardian as one of the best crossover venues in the country, Kraak, off Stevenson Square in the Northern Quarter, boats a devoted studio/gallery space and, just across the tiny alleyway, a club/gig venue to boot.

Art-wise, Kraak Gallery will be home to the ‘Queer Kraak Art Show’ kicking off the long weekend on Thursday 25^th with a morphing roster of visual art, performance, music and discussion. Think of it as ground-zero for meeting the most creative queers in the city for the whole weekend. Eyes peeled too for rumoured renegade guerrilla art happenings on late Thursday afternoon down Canal Street itself before the gates are erected … Queer Kraak Art Show runs until September 1st and whatever your taste in art (or sex for that matter) remember that venues like this one are an asset to the city, go and find out why.

Friday 26^th is my very own party, Off The Hook, taking all the butch/femme/queer dancefloor appeal of RnB culture and dishing it up to our friendly and frankly gorgeous punters. Our last party at Kraak was our best yet, it’s a venue that makes everyone feel at home and we did. We play RnB, hip-hop, Motown, reggae, soul, disco and straight up shameless pop, 10 pm till 4 am. Don’t ask me for funky house you’ll only make me cry, Canal Street is thatta way … ‘She-rapper she-rapper wicked ‘n’ mean ….’

Saturday 27th is the inspirationally-named ‘Tranarchy’, presenting their special ‘Showgirls’ Party. The remit: ‘celebrating the best and most outrageous in Manchester's drag and alt queer cultures!’ These kids pulled off the legendary Vogue Brawl so this will be epic. Early doors at 8 pm if you want to get inspired by the appallingly good movie itself. The Blige Sisters and Pumping Iron DJs are amongst the array of post-movie entertainment.

Sunday 28th and no Pride Weekend would be complete without Club Brenda and Manchester’s Queer Patron Saint David Hoyle providing a moral corrective to your lavish mainstream leanings. Brandish your wristbands in glorious shame! (if you’ve got ‘em ...) David will be joined by Twat Boutique DJs and Organ Freeman, both of which are a pleasure simply to TYPE. Party starts 9 pm.

Whatever you’re doing for Pride, whatever your gender and your affiliation, whatever your taste in music, have a lovely time.

DJ Profile

Look at me, going all legit. This piece appeared in the 'City Life' supplement of the Manchester Evening News last week. Big thanks to Nathan for taking all the nerves out of it for me (and the eye bags too), it was actually FUN in the end ...

'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

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 …

Brenda: Part 2

Sunday is Club Brenda at the Ruby Lounge and very nearly every gay friend I’ve had in Manchester is in attendance somewhere which is the loveliest thing, and not a one of them wearing a Pride wristband pass for the Village. Thank god for Brenda and the like giving us an alternative to 3 days of monotonous house music in the rain to ‘celebrate’ our diversity. And only six quid!

The mighty Hidden Cameras

The Hidden Cameras play a glorious set, us down the front in this tiniest of venues and just SO exciting and sweaty with a little mosh pit in front of beautiful Joel Gibb and his lovely music. Dozens of sweaty queers shouting ‘Ban Marriage!’ is the highlight of my Pride weekend. We meet the band afterwards and they’re the sweetest, fun people, Joel is fawned over by everyone but remains modest and unassuming even when Thom tells him that he saw a bit of his cock and balls in the Attitude Sex issue.

Joel Gibb and me

The night takes a bad turn for me when, lured drunkenly into the Invest in Property DJ lounge to wig out, I think, God forgive me, to ‘Sussudio’, I have to thereafter repeatedly kick myself for missing David Hoyle. I know! Bloody Phil Collins. I’m absolutely furious with myself. I did get to see David MC a little though, looking amazing in fright wig and floral print frock, and he also took the stage to play tambourine with the Cameras. My disappointment was curbed a little when we went to his dressing room after and I had a lovely chat with him, we’re both Blackpool boys and it turns out he only lives down the road from Neil in Longsight. Such a wit, such a gentlemen and so full of the kind of free gay spirit that I love and that is sorely missing from Pride. God bless him. I’m going to get Neil to cook him a lovely dinner now that he has a dining table so at least one of my fantasy dinner party guests may actually come to pass in my lifetime.

Me, Sir David Hoyle, Neil

Soundtrack: Belle & Sebastian, Hidden Cameras, Babybird, ‘Wired for Sound’, Connie Francis

If I only had a brain, a heart, the nerve …

You get nothing for ages then a flurry of blogging activity all at once. What gives? Well first off it matters not because my compadre Thom has been doing some top notch blogging of late, including typically spot-on musical recommendations, check it out at once. And secondly my silence here is testament to the large amounts of work I’ve been doing on The Novel, at the expense of work, sleep, play, rest, fun, friends, food (well, no, not food) and Manhattanchester. I’ve made some pleasing inroads into the writing and have less than 10 short chapters to complete before I get stuck into editing proper. Unfortunately I’ve gone a bit mad doing it, in fact for the time being at least I seem to have lost my bottle entirely. In short, I’m no longer sure I can pull it off.

To get reassurances or at the very least, the blunt truth, I’ve sent chapters to various loved ones, none of whom are duty-bound to say nice things of course, and the responses have included the following:

“I was impressed”

“I read this last night and I want more! The characters are so well observed and the writing is tight, witty and involving. I haven't honestly read anything this good in ages …”

“I love her but I hate her too! I want to find out what happens …”

It is these precious words that will sustain me through completion of the wretched thing. It’s not even a 300 page opus or anything, it’ll only be about fifty thousand words all told, but when you have to commit yourself to it around the nine to five it can seem insurmountable.

So, I’m having a few days break from words and am off home to Blackpool to attend my lovely Nana’s 80th birthday. I’ve bought her a lovely lavender towelling dressing gown with a floral motif down the front. BHS, you just can’t fail can you? Then it’s back to Manc on Sunday in time for Club Brenda featuring David Hoyle and The Hidden Cameras. I’m more excited by this than I’ve been about anything for ages. It will be my only outing over the Pride weekend, about which I’m obviously feeling horribly cynical, though I’m glad it’s there too in a funny way, but there must always be room for dissent. I hate feeling like a target market and I feel about Pride the way I feel about capitalism in general, that if I didn’t have the money to spend I would be gladly left to die in the street. Aren’t I a killjoy? Lefty, can’t be helped. Somebody has written elsewhere that if one person contracts HIV over the drink and drug and unsafe sex addled weekend the amount of money raised by the whole event will sustain their care for abut 5 years. See? Some people are even more cynical than I am.

Anyway, as I planned to do months ago I intend to scour the writer’s blogs and see how fellow scribes deal with the pitfalls of fiction. I will report back with my findings. The Manchester Blog Awards are on the horizon too so I shall be on the lookout for nominees while I’m about it.