2010 06 05 The Guardian Guide - Factory

FACTORY FLAW

THIS FRIDAY. IAN BROWN PLAYS MANCHESTER WITH SUPPORT FROM ALL CORNERS OF THE MANC MUSICAL HERITAGE INDUSTRY. BUT, ASKS MADCHESTER DENIERS' BLOG FUC51. ISN’T IT TIME THE CITY GOT OVER ITSELF?

When people say “Manchester”’, many immediately think of its musical legacy: a romantic, wistful notion of slate grey skies pelting down with rain, melancholic romantics in trenchcoats listening to Unknown Pleasures for the 51st time that day. And if it’s not these imagined industrial dreamers, then the other Manchester image that dominates is one of Oasis-esque thick-skulled lads bowling about in loose-fit jeans, out on the scam and skinning up cheap hash.

Of course, such stereotypes are not true of a place as diverse and great as Manchester. However, Manchester can be its own worst enemy and this is how our blog FUC51 was bom. By sheer fluke, we rolled it out just as Peter Hook opened a temple to Manc revivalism in the old Factory offices. The nightclub, Fac25l, is ostensibly a “new project”, except it’s an idea that Peter Hook had years ago and even wrote a book about called How Not To Run A Club. For at least half the week it’s full of blokes the wrong side of 30 swaggering about, shaking invisible maracas and sucking in their sagging cheeks in while the likes of Mani (ex-Stone Roses) plays his old band’s records over the in-house PA.

Manchester has always been a great city for music, mainly for what it imported: from the 1964 rhythm and blues festival in Chorlton that featured Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Muddy Waters, to the US soul 45s spun at The Jigsaw and Twisted Wheel that gave birth to the northern soul scene, to the Italian and US 12-inches imported by DJs which paved way for the Hacienda.

It’s obvious that Tony Wilson et al did a great thing here, but it’s become an albatross around the city’s neck; those of us behind the Fuc51 blog finally decided we had to try and do something... anything. The past shouldn’t be destroyed, because rock’n’roll is pretty much a walking museum in all pockets of the world. No one is interested in the Stooges playing new stuff, right? Everyone wants the Stones to play Satisfaction. However, things get silly when you see bits of the Hacienda bar being sold off. It was a bloody nightclub, not the Berlin wall, as one commentator put it.

So then, to 2010: one of the biggest outdoor events in the city is on this Friday, and it’s the epitome of the “Mancliche” - bloke-led, fortysomething appreciation of music from 20 years ago. All worshipping the holy quadumvirate of Factory/Roses/ New Order/Hacienda, in a celebration of that one last comedown - before Sunday mornings became more about shuffling around tile showrooms with the wife than a saucer-eyed sunrise over Deansgate.

Let’s see how Friday’s huge gig at Platt Fields measures up: We’ve got former Stone Roses frontman Ian Brown (CHECK!), Bernard Sumner, formerly of Joy Division and New Order (CHECK!, CHECK!), playing with his band Bad Lieutenant; Peter Hook of the same bands and recently opened revivalist nightclub (CHECK!); Mike “M-People” Pickering of Hacienda fame (CHECK!); Factory Records’ A Certain Ratio (CHECK!) - and the Whip - aka “the Kitsune compilation New Order”.

Buried at the bottom are some genuinely interesting Manchester DJs like the Unabombers and El Diablo’s Social Club, but the whole day screams “just you try and get a childminder in south Manchester on 11 June” and an army of pink faces in faded Stone Island, braying at the night.

Thanks to some bad city planning that left central Manchester with little open space, there’s a severe lack of festivals. Not too long ago, we had the long-running D:Percussion, and festivals in the Northern Quarter. Then flats for young professionals popped up, and everyone started complaining about the noise.

However, the Mad Ferret festival started putting shows on in Platt Fields with a real mix-up of genres, opening the door for The Warehouse Project to do something there this year. TWP made their mark on the city a few years ago by booking acts we rarely got up here and putting them on in a venue underneath Piccadilly train station. The lineups were consistently strong and innovative; but now we’re back to this, a cynical exercise in cash-generation, playing to the lowest common denominator, propagating the same tired RoManctic music cliches. It’s a black mark on an otherwise welcome new addition.

If you are going, don’t forget to make up your own alternative lyrics for the Monkey Man’s song FEAR (perhaps “Formulaic Egocentric Ape Rocker; Fellating Everyone After Reading 96”?) And take sun cream.

Which leaves us at the most commonly asked question: so, what’s good now in Manchester, then? It isn’t really for us to say. There are more places to hear live music than there’s been in years: from venues like the Deaf Institute to the newly reopened Band On The Wall, and clubs from Akoustik Anarkhy to Naive Melody. There’s a shedload of ace things going on in Manchester, as there always has been, all just waiting for someone to pin a tenuous Joy Division/Stone Roses link to them

fuc51.blogspot.com; Ian Brown plays Platt Field Park, Fri, thewarehouseproject. com/ianbrown