Sounds from the Other City 2010

Mayday... mayday. Sounds from the Other City is this Sunday. I will not be there as SFTOC involves standing around in hot, crowded rooms and watching other people get drunk, both profoundly un-fun ways to spend your time if you happen to be a pregnant woman. But you should go, of course. If you're looking for a rundown of the music on offer, head over to Creative Tourist, where Matthew Britton did us an excellent preview. This year, however, the homegrown Salford music festival has expanded its focus to include art and literature.

Box Office is an art installation at Salford Central station, a phantom ticket booth which will offer tickets to an intriguing assortment of one-off gigs, events and performances taking place across the city in a range of overlooked and under-loved spaces between 26th April and 2^nd May. It launches tonight with a little opening shindig from 5-7:45.

Paradox is a mash-up of live literature readings and music featuring the likes of Socrates Adams Flourou, Chris Killen, Thick Richard, Jackie Hagan and Frank Sidebottom. Watch out though, they might try to give you a flower if you go in there.

And take a gander at the SFTOC souvenir programme from the folks responsible for the Shrieking Violet zine (that's the cover up there). Pretty neat.

Party in the library

If you've been reading this blog for a while you may have picked up on the fact that I'm kind of a library geek. I worked in libraries on and off for years (oh, I can shelve books all right), and my mom was one of those righteous activist librarians they seem to have lots of in the states and not enough of over here. So one of the first things I do on moving to a new place is check out the library. And when I visited Central Library for the first time I was not disappointed. It's pretty wonderful.

Unfortunately we're saying hasta la vista to our library for a while; it is closing to be renovated until 2013. During that time we'll have to make do with a scaled-down temporary library on Deansgate. I hope that the things I love about it don't get messed with too much in the renovation (the spectacular Great Hall, the language & lit library) and the things I don't like are going to be all sorted out (the outdated cafe, the tiny general readers library, the lack of a good space for children's books and reading activities). We shall see.

The library's getting a proper literary and musical send-off tomorrow night with Manchester Central Library: A Celebration. Sean O'Brien will read from a collection of short stories written entirely about a city library, The Silence Room, and Jane Rogers will read 'Lucky' set largely in the library. Other readers include Nicholas Royle and Mike Garry - and they're going to have a klezmer band too. It starts at 6:30 and it's free and open to all.

There's another interesting bookish event on the radar in Salford: Reading for Reading's Sake, a 4-day event aimed at exploring reading as a practice. "Unlike a regular reading group, this event aims to unfold the activity of reading, the situations in which we read, reading as a shared event, a private passion, concentration, interpretation, sound and voice, the symbolic and emotional value of the act."

It takes place Thursday April 8 - Sunday April 11 at Islington Mill, and includes a whole host of reading-related activities, workshops and evening performances. Booking required, places limited. Full details here.

(Manchester Central Library photo by Flickr user brightonsinger)

Reading Capital

This just in... A fortnightly reading group dedicated to reading Karl Marx’s Capital Vol. 1: A Critique of Political Economy will begin on 6 October 2008 at The Salford Restoration Office.

Individuals are invited to join the group to read Marx’s Capital Vol. 1 in conjunction with David Harvey’s online lectures. Harvey, a respected academic and writer, has been teaching open classes on the book for 40 years, and the current set of lectures given at the City University of New York have been filmed and made available on-line. The lectures are accessible to all at anytime but the fortnightly sessions at The Salford Restoration Office will create a structured environment in which to read and discuss this
pivotal text.

Reading Capital is open to all who wish to attend and participate. Sessions are free of charge, but space is limited so please contact us using the email address here if you would like to participate. Meeting every other Monday from 6 October between 6.30pm and 8.30pm, the sessions will run until 1 December 2008, and begin again on 19 January until summer 2009.

For more information or to contact the organizers visit http://www.thesalfordrestorationoffice.org/

Manchester spring festivals

Yep, it's spring, and you know what that means... the Manc festival frenzy is officially beginning and it won't end until late Autumn. Here's your tear-and-save guide:


Moves08
22-26 April
venues around Manc, and a bit in Lancaster too.

Moves celebrates movement on screen via a shitload of experimental short films, award-winning animation and enough talks n' workshops to keep all the flickheads and aspiring filmmakers in Manchester happy. The biggest event is probably the UK Premiere of the animated short film "I met the Walrus" which was nominated for an Oscar (pictured). But it's really all good. There should be some screenings outdoors, too, so if you walk by the big screen in Exchange Square and it's showing something more interesting than usual, that's probably what's going on. For a taster, check out these "ArtCast" podcasts that Folly has cooked up with Moves, featuring some of the best of the fest.


Futuresonic
1-5 May

This year the theme of our technogeek extravaganza is social networking. In fact, Futuresonic promise us "a city centre overrun with 'unplugged' social networking." So, that's a city full of people talking to each other in the flesh? Hmmm. Not sure about that one. Seriously, though, some of these art projects are kind of cool, conceptually at least. On the music side we've got hip hop with RZA of Wu Tang Clan, old art-punkers Wire, mind-bending electroweirdlet Luke Vibert aka Wagon Christ, and a whole bunch of artists of the electronic persuasion that I'm probably not hip enough to have heard of.


Sounds From the Other City
Sunday May 4
venues around Salford, the Brooklyn of Manchester

The fourth chapter of this one-day blowout sees local bands descend on Salford Rock City, playing churches, random places, and some freaky old man pubs you'd never otherwise enter. Having each venue booked by a different promoter ensures a really bewildering mix of stuff, and this year the venue count has grown to 8. I like the sound of Hey! Manchester's gigs at the Salford Arms, and the eclectic lineup in the arty environs of Salford Restoration Office. Oh, and local heroes Performance and Lonelady are playing at Egerton Arms. But, really, it's best to just pick a venue that sounds good, park there for a while, and then maybe stumble over to another one, and then another one, in an increasingly beer-fuddled haze. You'll see some good bands, you'll see some bad bands. That's how it goes.

Queer up North
9-25 May, venues around Manc

Yeah, remember that whole fiasco this winter in which the Arts Council almost axed Queer up North's funding? But it was saved by a heartswelling groundswell of support and general outcry from the good people of Manchester, who said it was essential to the city's cultural well being? Well now's the time to put your money where your mouth is and book some tickets. We have: the slightly scary Sandra Bernhard revisiting her superfamous one-woman show, Without You I'm Nothing. Marisa Carnesky and Ivo Dimchev bringing the performance art, Justin Bond of Kiki and Herb, the awesome Club Brenda, Lesbian Pulp Fiction, a Scottish jazz singer and a film about a zombie named Otto. And that's just a sample...

Independents Day

I'm going to be taking part in a discussion about alternative publishing at the MLF's Independents' Day event, a one-day conference for non-mainstream publishers, editors, writers, readers and their ilk at the Lowry on Saturday 6th October, 11am – 7pm. So I'd be remiss if I didn't tell you that MLF has just announced a special two-for-one deal on advance tickets (full prices are £8/6).

Here's all the wondrous details from festival HQ:

Independents Day is a great networking event for all budding writers, publishers and
fans of cutting-edge contemporary literature, with opportunities to:

MEET the editors of some of the UK's most innovative small presses and magazines,
including representatives of Comma, Route, Templar and Suitcase.

DISCOVER hot-off-the-press talent with performances by Elizabeth Baines, Ian Clayton,
Shamshad Khan, Janet McDermott, Chloe Poems, Jane Weir, Chris Woods
and contributors to Rain Dog (Pat Winslow), Match Box (James Davies & Alex
Middleton) and Libertine magazines.

CREATE your own publication in our DIY Workshop facilitated by 'zine queen Michelle
Green, yes SHE IS AWESOME - sorry, that was me interrupting the press release. I'll stop. (Please note there is a limited capacity for this workshop so please reserve a space at the time of booking).

GEN UP on imaginative and viable ways to publish and disseminate work in our
Alternative Publishing Seminar chaired by Ra Page. Speakers include Ian Daley
(Route), Kate Feld (Manchizzle and Manchester Blog Awards) and Paul Williams
(Lightning Source).

JOIN the Inpress Debate about the future of independent publishing, chaired by the
writer and critic, DJ Taylor. Speakers include Simon Thirsk (Bloodaxe) and Jeremy
Page (Frogmore Papers).

DISCUSS the role of MA writing courses in the nurturing of new writers and editors in our Out of School presentation featuring representatives of Transmission, Matter and
Textyle magazines.

BROWSE our Indie book market and sample the best in independent literature
production from around the region and beyond.

For further information please visit: www.manchesterliteraturefestival.co.uk
To book tickets please tel: 0870 4280785 and quote 'Indie Day 241'.

(Provocative illustration courtesy of Being lady lucy.)

Follow the Star

The new edition of the Salford Star, our homegrown bastion of butt-kicking investigative reporting, is out now. It looks to be packed with all manner of Christmas goodies, but the story I'm really itching to read is the long promised MediaPity:UK, a 7-page "study in hypocrisy"concerning the BBC's beleaguered plan to move a chunk of their workforce to the proposed MediaCity: UK complex at Salford Quays.

There's been a lot of speculation lately about whether that move will ever happen. As the BBC looks likely to get less dosh than it's asking the government for, many have predicted that the Beeb will use the funding issue as an excuse to wriggle out of a move that seems to be wildly unpopular amongst the southern majority of its workforce. They're still hemming and hawing.
But the government is making no secret of its support of the plan.

The story is not up on their website, but I can only hope they'll put it up soon, since I could have a hard time getting hold of a copy here in Vermont, where I have arrived for Yuletide