Louder Than Words Festival in partnership with Omnibus Press
14 15 16
NOVEMBER
The genre-based literary Festival celebrating words – oral, written and published - associated with the music industry. Authors, artists, poets, performers, lyrics and lyricists, journalists, DJs, bloggers and publishers of music and popular culture
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www.louderthanwordsfest.com
Welcome Earlier this week, Pink Floyd released their first new album in 20 years. The only track on the album to have lyrics is ‘Louder Than Words’. Although we like to think this is a great coup on our part (!), that’s where the parallel ends. Unlike Pink Floyd, it’s only taken us a year to bring ‘Louder Than Words 2014’ to our audiences, we’ve diversified in style and genres since our last output and, while delivered by the same core team line-up, unlike Dave Gilmour’s predictions for Pink Floyd, we certainly don’t see this Festival as the end or the last thing we’ll release! And it’s great to be back and to be back at The Palace Hotel! Our words are certainly not confined to a single track or in this context, a single room. We’ve grown in content and variety, learning lessons from last time and maintaining momentum in our ambitions and commitment to bringing high quality arts activities and events to new and established audiences. Our 2014 programme brings together some of the greatest established names in the business alongside new, inspired and inspiring writers and performers. Our setting and programme give all involved opportunities to listen, hear and contribute – whether in conversation, debate, discussion or performance supporting our aim to provide audiences with entertaining opportunities for engagement in something special. And hot off the press for 2014, we’re delighted and proud to announce Omnibus Press – the world’s largest specialist publisher of music-related books – as our title sponsor. Needless to say we’re excited and determined to develop this complementary and exciting partnership through our Festival and related activities. It’s also a privilege to welcome our friends The Quietus as new Festival partners, delivering a range of interactive sessions, discussions, workshops and our newly established Louder Lectures. Likewise, it’s wonderful to welcome back Rock’s Back Pages and Bloomsbury Press and to extend sincere thanks for their support for our now annual Wilko Johnson Writing Award. And it would certainly be remiss of us here not to give a massive shout-out to the great man himself – here’s to Wilko Johnson! As ever, to go through and give thanks to each and every individual or organisation in this welcome would take this brochure way over our own word limit, but special thanks must go to The Arts Council England for their continued interest, trust, support and encouragement and on behalf of the wider Louder Than Words Team – John Robb, Simon Warner, Simon Morrison, Ella Byford and our legal partners Shoosmiths Solicitors – I’d like to thank everyone who’s reading this introduction, everyone who’s supported us and contributed to getting us here and everyone who’s already thinking of joining us in 2015! Here’s to a great weekend!
Dr Jill Adam Festival Director Creator and Curator of Louder Than Words.
W
hen Jill originally approached Omnibus Press about sponsoring Louder Than Words, we instantly wondered why we hadn’t thought of talking to her first! It seems such an obvious fit, as along with Jill, John Robb and the LTW team we have a passion for music writing that is second to none. We are incredibly proud that, over the course of thirty years, Omnibus has become Europe’s largest publisher of music books and we still love searching for the next classic memoir or biography to publish. So we immediately felt that we’d found the perfect partner to help celebrate the amazing quality and breadth of music writing in 2014. On checking out this year’s programme, I was instantly struck by a dilemma: Edwyn Collins on at the same time as Don Powell! You might think that they are artists with little in common, but they have both experienced an amazing journey, which is captured in two wonderful books.
Again, should I catch Viv Albertine or Kevin Cummins? Do I want to listen to a genuine punk icon discuss a pivotal period in music or hear one of our finest music photographers talk about why Manchester has so much to answer for? Hard decisions, but ones that highlight the variety and excellence of recent music writing, which is showcased in all its glory at Louder Than Words. Most importantly, I hope that visitors to this year’s festival discover something different, read or see something which they weren’t expecting and recapture the excitement they experienced on first hearing their favourite record. For all these reasons, we are delighted to be part of the festival, and are proud to be in it for the long haul. I am sure this year’s Louder Than Words will be a major success.
ARE PROUD TO SPONSOR
WE ARE DELIGHTED THAT OUR CELEBRATED AUTHORS ARE HERE AT THIS YEAR’S FESTIVAL
ZOË HOWE NATASHA SCHARF DON POWELL JIM McCARTHY DARYL EASLEA KEITH CAMERON SPENCER LEIGH MICK MIDDLES MICK O’SHEA NINA ANTONIA www.omnibuspress.com www.twitter.com/OmnibusPress www.facebook.com/OmnibusPress www.audioboo.fm/Omnibus
Matt Bourne Omnibus Press Sales Director
VIV ALBERTINE Songwriter and musician Viv Albertine was the guitarist in the hugely influential female punk band The Slits. A confidante of the Sex Pistols and the Clash, Viv was a key player in British punk culture. Alongside The Slits, she collaborated with numerous musicians, including Adrian Sherwood, before marking out a career in television and film production. After a hiatus of twentyfive years, Viv’s first solo album, The Vermillion Border, was released in 2012 to great critical acclaim. Her memoir ‘Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys’ was published to universal acclaim in 2014.
NINA ANTONIA Born in Liverpool in the year of who knows when, Nina Antonia made her literary debut in 1987, writing the authorised biography of Johnny Thunders. Still in print after 27 years, ‘Johnny Thunders – In Cold Blood’ is currently being adapted as a feature film. Nina’s forte has been in chronicling the lives of the fatally famous. As well as penning critically claimed biographies of the New York Dolls and Peter Perrett, and a Glam rock memoir entitled ‘The Prettiest Star’, she has also contributed to Mojo, Uncut & Classic Rock. Ms Antonia has lectured at the Tate Liverpool, enjoyed a retrospective
at the Barbican and appeared in two documentaries, ‘New York Doll’ and ‘Looking for Johnny’. In 2013, Nina edited and transcribed Peter Doherty’s diaries which are now available from Thin Man Press as ‘From Albion to Shangri-La.’
PETE ASTOR Pete Astor is Senior Lecturer in musicology and performance at the University of Westminster. He has worked for over twenty years as a musician, lecturer, researcher, writer, composer and music industry consultant. His career spans genredefining releases with his bands The Loft and The Weather Prophets on Creation Records and Warner Brothers, as well as releases on labels such as Matador, Heavenly, EMI, Peace Frog and Warp. For several years he was A&R manager in the publishing arm of the Beggars Group. His most recent releases are solo album, Songbox on the Second Language label and Regions by his duo with David Sheppard, Ellis Island Sound. As a writer, he began his career working for the New Musical Express, later going on to write for Mojo. He has published academic research in the Cambridge Journal of Popular Music and has chapters in Routledge’s Music Industry Handbook and Ashgate’s Essays in Honour of Simon Frith. He has recently published a study of Richard Hell and the Voidoids’ Blank Generation as part of Bloomsbury’s 33 1/3 series.
TOM ATTAH “Tom Attah is a Ph.D. research student and Associate Lecturer at the University of Salford. His thesis examines the effects of technology on blues music and blues culture. Tom’s teaching and blues advocacy includes workshops, seminars, lectures and recitals delivered to learning institutions in the United Kingdom and mainland Europe. As a guitarist and singer, Tom performs solo, with an acoustic duo and as part of two electric bands. Tom’s solo acoustic work includes his own original Blues compositions and has led to performances at major music festivals around Europe, including major stages at the Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts, the Great British Rhythm & Blues Festival, and Blues Autour Du Zinc. Tom’s multiple national radio appearances include performances and documentaries for BBC Radio 4. Tom’s journalistic writing is regularly featured in specialist music publications, including Blues In Britain magazine, and his original research papers and book reviews are published in several international peer-reviewed journals.”
DAVID BARKER David Barker has worked in book publishing since 1996, in both London and New York. In 2003, he created the
33 1/3 series of books at Continuum – publishing writers ranging from Geeta Dayal and Douglas Wolk to Colin Meloy and Joe Pernice. He is currently Publishing Director of Bloomsbury Academic in London.
PETER BERBEGEL Peter Bebergal is the author of Season of the Witch: How the Occult Saved Rock and Roll, Too Much to Dream: A Psychedelic American Boyhood and The Faith between Us: A Jew and a Catholic Search for the Meaning of God (with Scott Korb). He writes widely on music and books, with special emphasis on the speculative and slightly fringe. His recent essays and reviews have appeared in The Times Literary Supplement, The Quietus, BoingBoing, and The Believer. Bebergal studied religion and culture at Harvard Divinity School, and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
NICHOLAS BLINCOE Nicholas Blincoe is a novelist and screenwriter. His novel Manchester Slingback, winner of the Crime Writer’s Silver Dagger, drew upon his memories of Manchester’s nightclubs and the music scene. Nicholas was briefly signed to Factory records in the 1980s, which gave him an inside view of the Madchester years. He earned a PhD at Warwick University, and started work as a freelance critic for the Modern Review, a magazine that
declared it was high brows interested in the low brow. He has since worked for the Guardian, the Telegraph, the New Statesman, and the London Review of Books, among others. He has divided his life between the UK and the middle east, living for many years in Bethlehem. He is currently working on his second feature film, The Dope Priest, adapted from his own novel. The film will be based in Palestine, and directed by Annemarie Jacir. He also wrote the call centre comedy, 8 Minutes Idle. His play, Cue Deadly, was the winner of the inaugural Samuel Beckett Award.
LLOYD BRADLEY Lloyd Bradley is one of the UK’s leading experts on modern black music from Great Britain and Jamaica. He has written extensively on health & fitness and is an accomplished speaker, lecturer and broadcaster. With a background of over 30 years as a music journalist and a CV including Mojo, Blues & Soul, the Independent, Nylon, the Observer, Q Magazine, Esquire, Smash Hits, Music Week and the NME, Lloyd has specialized in black music made in the UK or Jamaica. He was among the UK’s first black pirate radio crew on the iconic Dread Broadcast Corporation; has written the world’s best-selling book ever on reggae music, Bass Culture: When Reggae Was King; was
Associate Producer of BBC2’s award winning series Reggae: The Story of Jamaican Music; and is author of the only book to trace the unique history of Britain’s black music and the people who made it, Sounds Like London: 100 Years of Black Music in the Capital. He has compiled and written sleeve-notes for numerous soul, funk and reggae albums and has spoken and lectured on black music and its socio-cultural connection all over the UK, the US and Jamaica. Lloyd has lectured in journalism and magazine theory and presentation in the UK and the US, devising and delivering courses for media studies and journalism students. He has lectured and spoken on music and its cultural resonances in Britain and Jamaica, most recently addressing the 2013 International Women’s Forum Cornerstone Conference in Montego Bay, on Music: An Instrument for Change.
TIM BURGESS Charlatans frontman, musician, singer-songwriter and author, Tim Burgess joins author and The Times’ chief rock and pop critic, Will Hodgkinson in an entertaining conversation exploring the craft of writing memoirs - drawing on personal experiences Tim and Will’s anecdotes and insights will provide a reference point for what’s involved in the process, how different it is from being a musician or a rock-writer, the highs, the lows and the practicalities,
plus a little advice on what to say and what to leave out! Tim joins the Louder Than Words line-up on Friday 14th November.
JOHN BRAMWELL Recognised as one of the UK’s most talented lyricists, John Bramwell is an accomplished and respected singersongwriter, performer and raconteur. He has released solo material as Johnny Dangerously and as John Bramwell and is the front-man to respected Manchester three piece band ‘I am Kloot’.
KEITH CAMERON A journalist and broadcaster since 1988, Keith Cameron has worked for three of the most successful and influential British music publications. From 1988 he was a freelance contributor for Sounds, where he quickly became a sub-editor then Reviews Editor. It was while at Sounds that Keith first interviewed Mudhoney and Nirvana, and his proximity to the impending Seattle rock revolution saw him headhunted by the New Musical Express following the closure of Sounds in April 1991. Since 2001 he has worked for MOJO, the world’s most respected rock’n’roll magazine, first as Reviews Editor, then as a writer and sub-editor, and is currently Contributing Editor. His work has also appeared in The Guardian, The Times, The Sunday Times, Scotland
On Sunday, Kerrang! and Q. Over the years, Keith’s writing has become synonymous for irreverence, candour and passion: the many and varied list of artists he has interviewed includes AC/DC, Steve Albini, Arcade Fire, Arctic Monkeys, Kate Bush, Nick Cave, Echo & The Bunnymen, Foo Fighters, PJ Harvey, Lydia Lunch, John Lydon, Jeff Lynne, Manic Street Preachers, Paul McCartney, Metallica, Kylie Minogue, Morrissey, Oasis, Pixies, Robert Plant, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, R.E.M., Henry Rollins, Shaun Ryder, Simple Minds, Sonic Youth, Bruce Springsteen, The Stone Roses, The Stooges, The Stranglers, U2, Paul Weller and Neil Young. He is the author of Mudhoney: The Sound And The Fury From Seattle, published in 2013 by Omnibus Press. Prior to his career in journalism, in 1987 Keith graduated from Edinburgh University with an MA in Politics & Modern History. He lives in southeast London with his wife Jenny and their son Hamish.
SARAH CHAMPION Growing up in Manchester, Sarah Champion fell in love with the city’s music scene young and began writing about it from the age of 14. She documented the subcultures of Madchester, acid house and global club culture as a music journalist in the 1990s for the likes of NME, Melody Maker and Mix Mag. Feeling that prose only told a fraction of the story, she edited a series of fiction
anthologies including Disco Biscuits and Disco 2000 aimed at better capturing her “chemical generation”. She is now endeavouring to lead a quiet life.
CHRIS CHARLESWORTH Chris Charlesworth began writing about music in 1968 in a pop column for the Bradford Telegraph & Argus. Two years later he became a full time music writer on the staff of Melody Maker, first as their News Editor and, in 1973, as their US Editor, based in New York. In almost eight years on MM he interviewed and/or wrote about just about every rock icon of the era and his sole regret is never seeing Elvis. After a spell working for a management company in New York and at RCA in London, he began writing books, including biographies of The Who, David Bowie, Deep Purple, Slade and Cat Stevens. In 1983 he succeeded Barry Miles as Editor at Omnibus Press, whose editorial fortunes he has guided ever since. He has now commissioned and edited over 800 rock and pop books, probably far more than anyone else in the world. Outside of Omnibus, Chris’ long association with The Who resulted in his compiling and co-producing their 30 Years Of Maximum R&B box set, released in 1995, and subsequently overseeing the wholesale upgrade of their back catalogue on remastered CDs.
Encouraged by his daughter, at the beginning of 2014 Chris launched a blog, Just Backdated (http:// justbackdated.blogspot.co.uk/), on which he posts examples of his MM and other work, brand new writings about music, and extracts from Omnibus books. Says Chris: “It really all kicked off for me on December 21, 1963, when my dad took me to see The Beatles at Bradford Gaumont. Something happened to the wiring in my brain that night and ever since I’ve never stopped thinking about guitars and drums and what a fantastic noise they make.”
TERRY CHIMES Terry Chimes started out as a musician. He was a founder member of The Clash, later playing with Billy Idol, Black Sabbath and many others. In 2003 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. After 15 years he left the music business to pursue a career in alternative medicine and became a doctor of chiropractic and also an acupuncturist. He has studied in the UK, with a spell of clinical practice in Nanjing, China and developed a chain of chiropractic clinics. Terry then turned his hand to training others in how to be successful. He currently spends time lecturing and leading seminars all over Europe and the USA on a wide variety of topics. Terry is actively involved in charity
work with a special interest in youth. He was chairman of the board for the YMCA of East London FROM 2002 UNTIL 2010. He then went on to be an ambassador for the Scout Association.
JAHEDA CHOUDHURY-POTTER High femme, multilingual and passionate Jaheda Choudhury-Potter’s Bangla/ English lyrical mix adds a unique layer of rhythm that complements and enhances Hip Hop rhythms. Jaheda is one of 5 fierce women in Manchester band Ajah UK and one of the vocalists in Beating Wing. Her politics and emotions lead her lyrical content and her rhythms are dictated by the words and languages she uses, Jaheda’s performance is visually mesmerizing and she has never and will never take for granted the privilege and power of standing on a stage in front of an audience and changing their perspective on what a woman is.
EDWYN COLLINS Edwyn’s thirty-something year career spans the creation of the Glasgow label which broke the mold, Postcard Records of Scotland, through the years of fronting Orange Juice, whose influence has long out-weighed their commercial mis-fortunes, and eight solo albums recorded between 1989 and 2013.
Edwyn has had only two major hit records in his long career, ‘Rip it Up’ with Orange Juice in 1983 and the global behemoth ‘A Girl Like You’ in 1995. Despite this, and in spite of a serious brain injury in 2005 which almost robbed him of his powers, he carries the respect of his peers and of commentators and fans old and new as a innovator, a determined and focused artist, and most of all, as a songwriter worth listening to.
KEVIN CUMMINS Kevin Cummins was born in Manchester. He started photographing rock bands in the mid-1970s and had a 25-year association with the NME, including 10 years as their chief photographer. Kevin has photographed numerous bands and musicians including Joy Division, Manic Street Preachers, The Clash, Sex Pistols, R.E.M., U2, Patti Smith, Marc Bolan, The Smiths, Roisin Murphy, The Stone Roses and Buzzcocks. Kevin was instrumental in establishing City Life, Manchester’s what’s on guide and was a founding contributor to The Face, the influential style magazine where he won an award for Magazine Cover of the Year. His photographs have been used extensively in cinema and TV documentaries including Grant Gee’s Joy Division and John Dower’s Live Forever: The Rise and Fall of Brit Pop. In November 2009, Kevin was awarded an Outstanding Contribution to Music Photography
award by the music industry website: Record of the Day. Kevin worked extensively for the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester when it opened in the late 1970s through to mid-1980s and he shoots regularly for the National Theatre in London as well as The Times, The Guardian and others.
MATT DAVIES Matt plays bass guitar in the Salfordbased electronic duo Factory Acts and is Senior Lecturer in English Language at the University of Chester. Ever since he heard The Fall’s Rowche Rumble on John Peel’s Festive 50 in 1979, he has had a bit of a crush on the band, his Fall vinyl collection being locked away in a secret vault somewhere under Ordsall. Matt is delighted to be sharing a panel with former Fall stalwarts Steve Hanley and Si Wolstencroft, especially as he rates Steve’s opening section of the Peel session of Athlete Cured in his top five opening basslines in modern music. The anxiety that he feels about admitting that he has a ‘top five opening basslines’ list is matched only by the fear that he has been invited to discuss his corpus linguistic study on the lyrics of Mark E Smith, with Steve and Si on the panel. And, in front of an audience which will no doubt consist of several contributors of 23 posts a day to The Fall fan website, on the nature of the lyrics of the Spectre Versus Rector chorus. As Factory Acts performed at Mick
Middles 50th birthday party recently, Matt is expecting Mick to return the favour by diverting any awkward questions about lyrics to Daryl Easlea who probably knows what he is talking about.
BOB DICKINSON Bob Dickinson is a freelance journalist and broadcaster, based in Manchester. He produces documentary programmes for BBC Radio 4. In recent years his productions have included programmes about the club promoter, Roger Eagle, the 60s rock singer Vince Taylor, and the pop artist David Vaughan. In the past he worked for Radio One where he produced a weekly arts programme, The Guest List, presented by Mark Radcliffe. Prior to this he worked for Granada Television where he produced the youth programme Express, copresented by John Bramwell of I Am Kloot, plus many in-concert specials, including James at G-Mex, the Inspiral Carpets at G-Mex, and the La’s at Manchester Academy. Bob’s background in journalism started in the 1970s, writing for the alternative press, including the events magazine New Manchester Review and the fanzine, City Fun. He also wrote for New Musical Express, the Guardian, the Observer, Blues and Soul and Black Echoes. In the mid-1990s he published the book, Imprinting The Sticks, a history of the alternative press in the north west of
England. He is a regular contributor to the magazine Art Monthly.
SI DENBIGH Si Denbigh has spent the last thirty-odd years trying to avoid the corporate nonsense of the music business. Mainly performing, writing and producing music but also working in most roles from roadying to recording to running record labels. His first ‘proper’ band, The March Violets, were one of the earliest adopters of programmable drum machines, and a rare example of equally important male and female vocalists fronting a band. Partially blamed for creating the Post Punk ‘Gothic’ scene, The Violets imploded in 1985 and Si rode off into a swampy sunset with a new rockier band called Batfish, then did an album featuring Brian May for a games company. He developed a weird midi controller, did some trip hop and live electronic jamming in Germany for Harvest, and joined the Sisters of Mercy in the nineties for a 16 year stint as Drum Machine wrangler. The March Violets reformed in 2007 and have since recorded and just released their ‘difficult’ first album proper. They occasionally play out. Si is currently constructing a book of his lyrics and artwork from across the centuries.
DARYL EASLEA When Daryl Easlea worked full-time at Record Collector magazine, he was deemed a ‘generalist’ by the team, a fact borne out by his grounding, working in record shops since a young teen. Writing professionally since 1999, Easlea has since written over 300 sleevenotes including his 30 favourite, for the Fall’s catalogue; he also compiled and annotated the landmark 2004 release 50,000 Fall Fans Can’t Be Wrong. DJ, compere, and consultant to record companies, his books explore his favourite loves; great pop eccentrics, populist African-American music and prog rock. His writing can be found in Mojo, Record Collector, bbc.co.uk and lots of other places, too.
JOHN DORAN John Doran is the co-founder and editor of The Quietus website. He lives in Hackney, London, with his girlfriend and three year old son and has written for the BBC, The Guardian, the WIRE, Metal Hammer, The Stool Pigeon, VICE, the Word, NME, Drowned In Sound, Louder Than War and Careless Talk Costs Lives. He co-runs the Quietus Phonographic Corporation record label - which he helped set up to promote the music of East India Youth and Grumbling Fur - and the Quietus Lithographic Corporation publishing venture. He is also an occasional broadcaster for NOISEY
and BBC TV and radio. His first book Jolly Lad is being published by Strange Attractor Press this Winter. He is currently working on a spoken word album in conjunction with musicians from Manic Street Preachers, British Sea Power, Factory Floor, Eccentronic Research Council, GNOD, Heterotic, Gazelle Twin and more.
MARK ELLEN Award-winning writer and broadcaster Mark Ellen was born at the wrong time. Five years older and he would have seen The Beatles and The Byrds; five years younger and he’d have been plunged into punk rock. He spent his teenage years sitting at the feet of bands like Hookfoot, Wishbone Ash and Brewers Droop – the half-baked rearguard of underground rock – and he knew no better than to admire them. Mark went on to write for Record Mirror and New Musical Express, edited Smash Hits, Q and Select, and helped to launch MOJO. He stood in for John Peel on his late-night show, broadcast regularly at Radio One and then joined the Old Grey Whistle Test, becoming one of the TV presenters of Live Aid in 1985. For ten years from 2002, he edited the much-missed music publication, The Word. He now writes for a wide variety of newspapers and magazines – among them scuba-diving and cycling titles – and is a familiar voice on BBC Radios 2, 4 and 6Music. He
has two children and lives with his wife in West London.
ROSIE GARLAND Born in London to a runaway teenager, Rosie has always been a cuckoo in the nest. Novelist, poet and singer in post-punk band The March Violets, her award-winning poetry has been widely published. Her latest solo collection is ‘Everything Must Go’ (Holland Park Press), based on her experience of throat cancer. Her debut novel ‘The Palace of Curiosities’ was published by HarperCollins in March 2013 and second novel, ‘Vixen’ is out July 2014.
GUY GARVEY Guy Garvey, singer, songwriter, lyricist, radio producer, raconteur and general all round good bloke has been the lead singer with the five men that make up elbow for over twenty years. Formed whilst at college in Bury, elbow famously took over ten years to find a record deal and then promptly lost it following the Universal take-over of Island. The band found a new home at Richard Branson’s V2 Records and went on to release the Mercury Award nominated ‘Asleep In The Back’ (2001) alongside picking up a nomination at the Brits for Best New Band. Second album, ‘Cast Of Thousands’ (2003) secured the band another Mercury Award nomination and further
critical and commercial success whilst third album ‘Leaders Of The Free World’ cemented elbow’s position as one of the UK’s most thoughtful and innovative acts. Following a move to Fiction/Polydor Records, the release in 2008 of ‘The Seldom Seen Kid’, critical appreciation collided with massive breakthrough success, selling over a million copies in the UK and winning The Mercury Music Prize, landing the band the BRIT for Best British Band and two Ivor Novello Awards for the singles ‘Grounds For Divorce’ and ‘One Day Like This’, the latter becoming a landmark piece of universally recognised music. Subsequent albums ‘build a rocket boys!’ (2011) and ‘The Take Off and Landing of Everything’ (2014) have cemented the band’s position as one of the UK’s most loved and admired bands, the latter securing elbow their first ever UK Number One album. A series of arena tours and high profile festival appearances at Glastonbury and Latitude alongside outdoor headline shows at Jodrell Bank and The Eden Project have added to the band’s reputation as innovators, reconfiguring the logistics of large spaces to create intimate and engaging large scale performances. Throughout elbow’s career Guy Garvey has always identified himself within the context of the band, introducing himself on his much admired 6 Music Sunday afternoon radio show as ‘the lead singer with elbow’. Modesty aside, Guy’s CV encompasses that radio show, production credits for I Am Kloot and Editors, guest vocal appearances with a clutch of artists
such as Massive Attack, writing for musicals, a position as patron of the Manchester Craft and Design Centre, a front and centre role in the promotion of the refurbished Manchester Central Library, a new EP label under the banner of Snug Platters about to release their debut EP and, in a personal highlight, his very own Desert Island Discs appearance, a show on which elbow’s music has featured heavily in recent years. Guy Garvey is currently in the studio working on his first solo project. elbow tour Australia and New Zealand throughout October and November 2014 and play theatre residencies in Manchester and London in February of 2015.
GUY CALLED GERALD An iconic name in dance music, A Guy Called Gerald stands out for consistent innovation, excellence and refusal to compromise. A Guy Called Gerald kick started Europe’s acid house frenzy with his ’88 classic ‘Voodoo Ray’ and ‘Pacific State’ (as part of 808 State) and went on to lay down the blueprint for jungle / drum n bass. Nine albums and 25 years of independence later, he continues to push the boundaries of electronic dance music touring worldwide bringing his “true school” flavour to a world overloaded with pop pap. Although his remixes are relatively enviable including the likes of David Bowie, Cabaret Voltaire, Black Uhuru,
Finley Quaye, Lamb, Tricky and The Stone Roses, it is Gerald’s own productions and refusal to plough anyone’s furrow but his own which has marked him out. A Guy Called Gerald is responsible for the birth of British dance music as you know it today and continues to explore what is possible both in the studio and in the club with his “Live in Session” performances.
STEVE HANLEY Steve is a legendary bass player best known for his time with iconic Manchester band The Fall, a band he was recruited into at the age of nineteen. His distinctive and original sound has seen him acknowledged as one of Britain’s foremost bassists. His book The Big Midweek: Life Inside The Fall recounts his nineteen years in the band.
JOHN HIGGS British alternative rockers Everything Everything formed in 2007. They have since released two critically acclaimed albums: Mercury nominated ‘Man Alive’ in 2010 and ‘Arc’ in 2013. Jon Higgs joins Louder Than words on Sunday 16th November, 4.15pm, for our panel discussion celebrating Greater Manchester song lyricism, past and present.
MARY ANNE HOBBS Mary Anne hosts the Weekend Breakfast Show on BBC Radio 6 Music and the new specialist music showcase ‘6 Music Recommends’. She left school at 16 and went to work in an egg packing factory for the princely sum of £39 per week. At 18 she ran away to London and lived on a bus in a carpark for a year with a rock band called Heretic, and published her own fanzine. At 19, she was hired as a freelance writer for Sounds music paper, and promptly bought a ticket to Hollywood where she lived in a garden shed for a year writing about the dark underbelly of the West Coast rock scene. On her return to the UK, NME invited Mary Anne to work for them as News Editor where she also wrote major features including Nirvana’s first cover story. Mary Anne was part of the team that originally established XFM in London, before joining BBC Radio 1, where she spent 14 years, hosting the Breezeblock (which became BBC Radio1 Experimental), the Rock Show, and documentaries about David Bowie and The Sex Pistols. She worked on sound design for Darren Aronofsky and Clint Mansell on their Oscar winning film Black Swan, and the soundtrack was nominated for a Grammy. Mary Anne toured the world as a live DJ for 7 years, playing to her biggest crowd of 15,000 people at Sonar
festival in Barcelona, one of the many international festivals at which she has also curated. She worked for the academic year of 2010/11 as Media Development Coordinator at Sheffield University, mentoring 700 students involved with the Student Union’s Forge Media, reconfiguring their Radio, TV, Online and Press department. She has also worked on a myriad of TV shows, including the global biker-culture series for the BBC ‘Mary Anne’s Bikes’. Mary Anne can ride any motorcycle you care to park in front of her.
BARNEY HOSKYNS Barney is one of the UK’s most authoritative rock historians and an acclaimed biographer. A one-time NME writer and later Mojo’s US editor, he is now editorial director of Rock’s Backpages, a remarkable web archive that gathers almost 20,000 articles from the transatlantic music press online. With a sequence of major books to his name – on San Francicso and the LA music scene, Calfornian singer-songwriters, the Band and Tom Waits – his latest volume focuses on the story of an extraordinary British rock act: Trampled Under Foot: The Power and Excess of Led Zeppelin.
WILL HODGKINSON Will Hodgkinson is the author of The House Is Full Of Yogis (2014), a painfully funny childhood memoir on what happened when his family went from conventional suburbanites to meditating freaks after his father ate a salmonella-laced chicken risotto, had a Damascene revelation, and joined an Indian spiritual group run by women called the Brahma Kumaris. Currently chief rock & pop critic for The Times, he is a regular contributor to Mojo and Vogue, presenter of the Sky Arts series Songbook, and the author of Guitar Man (2006), Song Man (2007) and The Ballad Of Britain (2009). He lives in Peckham, southeast London with his wife and two children.
ZOE HOWE Zoë Howe is a music author with seven published rock and pop books under her belt, including Barbed Wire Kisses – The Jesus and Mary Chain Story, Typical Girls? The Story Of The Slits, Wilko Johnson – Looking Back At Me and Florence + The Machine – An Almighty Sound. (Stevie Nicks – Visions, Dreams And Rumours will be published by Omnibus in October 2014). In addition to writing books and articles about music (for NME, BBC Music, Company and The Quietus amongst other outlets), Zoë has made music radio series for Resonance FM and has appeared as a talking head on E4, Planet Rock, Absolute Radio, BBC London, BBC 5 Live and BBC 6 Music. She also writes a music
therapy column (under the guise of the character ‘Dr Pop’) for the charity CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably), and is currently working on the biography of Dr Feelgood frontman Lee Brilleaux (Unbound). More details can be found here: www.zoehowe.com
STEVE IGNORANT Steve Ignorant is a singer/songwriter and artist. He co-founded the anarcho-punk band Crass with Penny Rimbaud in 1977. After Crass stopped performing in 1984, he worked with other groups including Conflict, Schwartzeneggar, Stratford Mercenaries, Current 93, and US punk band Thought Crime, as well as occasional solo performances. Steve is also a sculptor and volunteer on the Sea Palling Independent Lifeboat, has written his autobiography –All The Rest Is Propaganda- and has worked as a traditional Punch and Judy performer using the name Professor Ignorant. On 24 and 25 November 2007 he performed Crass’s entire Feeding of the 5000 album live at the Shepherds Bush Empire in London, backed by a band of selected guests. Throughout 2010 and 2011 he presented a tour called ‘The Last Supper’ worldwide, performing a selection of Crass songs, again backed by a group of friends. The final show of the tour took place on 19 November 2011 at London’s Shepherd’s Bush Empire.
After that Steve and Paranoid Visions decided to record an album. The result is ‘When…?’, a hybrid of styles, all with a nod to early 80’s anarchopunk. They now perform live on special occasions. At the moment Steve is still writing songs and performing with his new band Slice Of Life. A far cry from the aggression of Crass, nevertheless compelling with powerful songs in an acoustic style delivered with exciting visuals and spoken word between songs.
PHILIP JOHN Phil John has spent the last 30 years dealing in vintage luggage and sporting goods for display use in the fashion industry, but back in the late 60’s early 70’s he spent his youth as a freelance ‘roadie’ working for numerous bands of the day. From early beginnings with soul bands like Horatio Soul to the anti – establishment posturing of the Deviants and the prog rock of Aardvark and Argent and finally landing a full time gig with Mott the Hoople who he remained with until their break up in Europe in 1974. During that fateful tour he kept a day to day diary, recently published and entitled ‘You Rocked, We Rolled’. He has since got together with former crew member Richard Anderson to form Mott Road Crew Live a loosely based collective who present a
spoken word show from the view point of the crew and enhanced by the use of period film clips, a power point photo montage and guest musicians, based on their shared experiences back in the period that many consider to be the golden age of rock ‘n’ roll.
GRAHAM JONES After leaving school he worked in numerous dead end jobs before getting his break in the music industry thanks to a colleague’s comical failed suicide attempt. He then went on to manage cult Liverpool band The Cherry Boys a band that made Spinal Tap look mundane. He eventually found his vocation travelling around the country selling records, tapes and CDs to independent record shops which he has done for the last 25 years. As one of the founders of Proper Music Distribution and should be in the Guinness book of records for visiting more record shops than any other person. Following hundreds of record shop closures and worried that record shops would go the way of stamp shops, coin shops and candlestickmakers he toured the UK to interview 50 record shops and document their tales for a book ‘Last Shop Standing(Whatever Happened to Record Shops?) The true story of his time spent working in and around the world of independent record retailing is every bit as colourful, funny, strange, and occasionally sad as any fictional yarn.
In Last Shop Standing he amassed many extraordinary tales of the best shops he has done business with over the years and hilarious accounts of the worst. In 2012 Blue Hippo made a documentary film based on his book. Over the years he has collected a vast number of funny stories and anecdotes. He relates the best of them in his hysterical second book ‘Strange Requests and Comic Tales from Record Shops’. This hilarious new collection of “I’llhum-it-have-you-got-it?” and similar stories is an engrossing memorial to an increasingly bygone age. In April 2014 an updated 6th version of LSS is released featuring interviews with 16 new record shops that have opened in the last two years. Graham lives in Odiham Hampshire.
CP LEE CP Lee appears irregularly on TV and radio but to many he remains the one Bert who can still captivate an audience with his ukulele rendition of ‘Kill’, from the legendary ‘Snuff Rock’ suite by his iconiclastic band Alberto Y Lost Trios Paranoias. For over fifty years, CP has been playing, talking, writing about music and carrying the torch for the hip semantic Jazz philosopher Lord Buckley. Manchester Music runs through CP like a stick of rock and if it wasn’t for his anarchic comedy streak he might
have taken himself seriously but he did write a book about Manchester Music and other stuff.
SPENCER LEIGH Spencer Leigh was born in Liverpool in 1945. He presents music programmes for BBC Radio Merseyside and has written several books, often based around Liverpool and/or the Beatles. His recent Omnibus series, The Beatles In Hamburg, The Beatles In Liverpool and The Beatles In America have done well. He also writes obituaries for The Independent and he sometimes feels that he should offer musicians the full package – a radio interview, a magazine feature and then the obituary.
CARL LOBEN Carl Loben is one of the most respected and well-known dance music journalists in the world. An early raver, he started off writing for music weekly Melody Maker in the early ‘90s, gradually specialising more and more in electronic music as the decade progressed. At The Maker he documented the growth of the drum & bass scene and other dance styles, as well as writing about the Britpop, agit-rock and Riot Grrrl scenes. Carl left Melody Maker for DJ Magazine just before the Millennium, where he has remained ever since
— off and on. He is currently Deputy Editor at the monthly dance mag, where he divides his time between writing, editing and filming documentaries for his Game Changers series. Over the years, Carl has interviewed practically all of the main players in electronic music. In 2003 he wrote the Dance section for the Billboard Music Encyclopaedia. Aside from his main publications, Carl has also written for Guardian Unlimited, MOJO, the Big Issue, FACT, Attitude, Music Week, Muzik, Wax and Generator, as well as blogs such as Louder Than War. As well as writing, Carl also co-runs a record label with Barry Ashworth from the Dub Pistols — Westway, named in homage to The Clash — and DJs at clubs and festivals. He has appeared on numerous TV and radio shows — from Newsnight to Newsround — and spoken at a number of conferences. He also has experience of music production, A&R, promotion, band management and lecturing, and is currently sketching out plans for more music documentaries and books. Carl Loben currently lives in Brighton.
JOANNE MASSEY Joanne has published on a number of subjects including young people, moral panic, urban space and gentrification. She is currently carrying out research into social capital and young people working with the police
and Police Community Support Officers in Ardwick, Manchester. Publications include; Young People, Policing and Urban Space: A Case Study of the Manchester Millennium Quarter in Safer Communities: A Journal of Practice, Opinion, Policy and Research, Vol. 7, Issue 4 (2008) and Young People and the ‘Right’ to the City in International Journal of Diversity in Organisations and Communities and Nations, Vol 7 (2007).
GRACE MAXWELL Grace Maxwell was born and grew up in a quality working class home in industrial North Lanarkshire in 1958. She studied English Literature and Sociology at Glasgow University and afterwards began a career in theatre administration, beginning at the famous Citizens Theatre in Glasgow’s Gorbals. She moved to London in 1980, and became House Manager at The Arts Theatre in the West End. Grace became friends with Edwyn Collins in 1980, when his fledgling label Postcard Records and band Orange Juice were just taking off. In 1984 she became the band’s manager and subsequently has managed Edwyn’s solo career for thirty years. The two have been a couple for almost as long as this. In 2005 following
Edwyn had a stroke, two devastating brain
haemorrhages. In 2009, Grace wrote a book, called ‘Falling and Laughing,’ about his life, his illness and their path to recovery. Grace Maxwell and Edwyn Collins currently live in Helmsdale, Sutherland, where they are constructing a recording studio.
JIM MCCARTHY Jim is a UK based writer, graphic novelist and illustrator/artist. He produces artwork for many publishing houses in London amongst them 2000AD; for whom he created comic characters Bad Company, Bix Barton, The GrudgeFather, Kid Cyborg and worked on Judge Dredd. Jim has immersed himself in American music forms and culture and this resulted in his first book being published by Hal Leonard in the USA called Voices Of Latin Rock. It is the first book to examine in depth, Santana, Latin Rock culture and the Mission District from where this nascent political and musical art form emerged. This innovative book resulted in a series of on-going shows in San Francisco promoting Autism Awareness and was been given further credence by appearances by Carlos Santana, the original Santana band, Taj Mahal, Malo, Los Lobos, Sheila E, the political activist Dolores Huerta, Azteca, War, Sly Stone, George Clinton and many others. Jim is also engaged in producing insightful, contemporary published graphic novels, linked to music
subjects. The most recent is Metallica: Nothing Else Matters just published in April 2014. He has also written on The Ramones, Neverland- The Life And Death of Michael Jackson. Other graphic books have included Kurt Cobain, Tupac Shakur, Eminem, The Sex Pistols and Bob Marley. Further books on Guns And Roses and MODS are in the production pipeline for a 2015 release date.
DAVID MCWILLIAM David is an Associate Lecturer at Lancaster University and MMU who is in the final year of his doctoral studies at Lancaster. His principal research interests are Gothic crime and the politics of monstrosity in contemporary Anglo-American culture and politics, such as the neo-Victorian underpinnings of neoliberalism and the ways in which neoconservatism transforms its enemies into monsters. David’s thesis looks at humanizing representations of those who commit extreme crime in contemporary American texts. Of particular interest to this panel discussion is his research on the scapegoating of Goths for the Columbine High School Massacre. David is also the co-founder of the award-nominated horror reading series, Twisted Tales, and the editor of the supporting blog.
MICK MIDDLES Mick Middles has been writing about – mainly – Manchester music since the advent of punk. He was the Manchester correspondent for Sounds and his work has featured in a wide array of publications including The Face, Classic Rock, Zigzag, Jamming, The Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Mail on Sunday, The Express, Independent on Sunday and many more. He was a columnist on the Manchester Evening News for 14 years. He is the author of 24 books including ‘The Factory Story’, ‘Torn Apart, The Life of Ian Curtis’, ‘The Fall’, ‘Breaking into Heaven, The Stone Roses’, ‘Red Mick’, the story of Mick Hucknall and ‘Hitting Across the Line’, the biography of West Indian cricket legend, Viv Richards. He currently presents the ‘Middles’ Show’ on fabradiointernational.com. His biography on Chris Sievey / Frank Sidebottom, ‘Out of his Head’ is published in November 2014.
DR KATIE MILESTONE Katie is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at MMU. Katie’s research career began on gaining a PhD scholarship at the MMU Manchester Institute for Popular Culture (MIPC). Katie’s
PhD examined the role of pop and youth culture in transforming the area of Manchester now known as the Northern Quarter. Whilst at the MIPC she worked with colleagues on a number of projects focusing on Manchester’s youth culture including projects on club culture, music, youth employment and young women in creative industries. Her research has predominantly been connected with music and popular culture including research on the Northern Soul scene and Manchester’s transformation via youth and popular culture. Publications include; 2014 (forthcoming) Discothèque: The Revolutions of Dance Music Culture. (with Simon Morrison), Reaktion books and ‘Urban Myths: Popular Culture, the city and identity’ in Sociology Compass, Volume 2, 2008.
TREVOR MILLER Trevor Miller is a writer/director, author and playwright who Record Mirror suggested “is hailed by some as the voice of a generation.” His plays include HEART OF SATURDAY NIGHT and THE FLESH TRADER both of which debuted at The London New Play Festival. His first novel, Trip City, was published in 1989 by Brian Aldiss’ Avernus Press; and dubbed by The Evening Standard as “An On The Road for Acid House.” More recently, Miller has lived in Los Angeles working on screenplays and films with a diverse roster of actors including Sylvester Stallone, Laurence Fishburne and Kevin Spacey.
SIMON MORRISON Over the last two decades, Simon A. Morrison has written for everyone from The Guardian to Loaded, with his collected DJmag columns published as ‘Discombobulated’ by Headpress. Simon lived in Ibiza for two summers, editing Ministry of Sound’s Ibiza magazine and presenting TV and radio. Currently Senior Lecturer in Music Journalism at Chester University, he will chair a panel of club culture writers at Louder Than Words and lead and coordinate the Louder Than Words PR and Marketing campaign via his company, Pad Communications.
ALEX NIVEN Alex Niven is a writer and editor from Northumberland. He has written for The Guardian, The Quietus, and the LA Review of Books, and his first book Folk Opposition was published in 2011. He is currently an editor at New Left Review, and his 33 1/3 book Definitely Maybe was published by Bloomsbury in July.
PAUL DU NOYER Paul Du Noyer began his writing career as a freelancer for the New Musical Express, after replying to its ad for “hip young gunslingers”. Soon he joined the NME full time and became the paper’s Assistant Editor. In 1986 he joined Mark Ellen and
David Hepworth for the launch of Q Magazine, again becoming Assistant Editor and eventually the editor. It was in this period that helped to devise and co-present the Q Awards. Also during his time he developed an idea for a new magazine and thus became the launch editor of Mojo magazine. In the mid-1990s he returned to freelancing and in 1997 wrote his first book, We All Shine On, about the solo music of John Lennon. He was asked back by Q and Mojo’s publishers, EMAP, to help launch an entertainment weekly which became Heat magazine, where he spent two years building the reviews section. The company then appointed him editorial director of its new range of websites, including Smash Hits, Kerrang! and Kiss. He left in 2002 to write his next book, a history of his home town’s music scene called Liverpool: Wondrous Place. Since then he’s written In The City, a history of London’s popular music, and a biography of Deaf School, the legends of Liverpool art rock. He joined Ellen and Hepworth once more to launch The Word magazine and remained the magazine’s associate editor throughout its nineyear existence. During his career in music journalism his interviewees included Madonna, Bowie, Jagger and Springsteen. He has also edited various reference books and served as an editorial consultant to Paul McCartney. Nowadays he divides his time between Liverpool and London and is preparing to write a new book.
LUCY O’BRIEN Lucy O’Brien is the author of She Bop: The Definitive History of Women in Popular Music (which was published in its Third Edition by Jawbone in 2013). She also published Madonna: Like and Icon (now published into 13 languages), plus in-depth biographies of Dusty Springfield and Annie Lennox. Lucy has worked for the music press since the 1980s, starting on NME and has contributed to a range of titles including Q, MOJO, The Sunday Times and The Guardian. She co-produced Righteous Babes, the 1998 Channel 4 film about rock and new feminism, and back in the early 80s she was in allgirl punk band The Catholic Girls. She is currently course leader for Music Journalism at UCA Epsom.
MARCUS O’DAIR Marcus O’Dair is a Lecturer in Popular Music at Middlesex University. He has written for the Guardian, the Independent, the Financial Times and Jazzwise, among numerous other publications, and is a regular studio guest on the Freakzone (BBC 6 Music) and Jazz On 3 (BBC Radio 3). As one half of Grasscut, he has also released two acclaimed albums on Ninja Tune. Different Every Time, his authorised biography of Robert Wyatt, will be published by Serpent’s Tail in October 2014.
MICK O’SHEA
RICHARD OSBORNE
Mick O’Shea is an author with thirteen books published to date. Though Mick is happy writing about any subject, he mainly focuses on music-related subjects which stems from his life-long passion for all things rock’n’roll. Indeed, having played in several bands in his youth, he often jokes that he’s a failed rock star trapped inside an author’s body. He first started writing on a casual basis in 1999, writing articles for magazines such as Amped, Wired, and Record Collector while working within the financial sector, before making the switch from numbers to letters on a full-time basis in 2008.
Richard Osborne is the programme leader for the Popular Music degree at Middlesex University. His book ‘Vinyl: A History of the Analogue Record’ was first published by Ashgate in 2012 (the paperback edition followed in 2014). Prior to becoming a lecturer he worked in record shops, held various posts at PRS for Music and co-managed a pub. He has performed in bands based in Evesham, Cheltenham and London. His written work encompasses minstrelsy, the Fall, alarms, silence and Eurovision, and has been published in both the mainstream and academic press.
His first book ‘Only Anarchists Are Pretty, a semi-fictional account of the Sex Pistols early career, was published by Helter Skelter in 2004 and garnered positive reviews, while his latest offering, ‘Stayin’ In Tune’, an unauthorised biography of the Clash’s Mick Jones is set for publication by Eleusinian Press in September 2014. He has also appeared in several documentaries including Rebel Truce: the History of The Clash, and Never Mind the Sex Pistols, an Alternative History, and was the researcher on Alan G. Parker’s 2009 film Who Killed Nancy. He has also turned his hand to film scripts, his first, a Sixties crimecaper called ‘The Wonderland Gang’, is currently doing the rounds.
GRAEME PARK Over 25 years on the decks, more than 15 years on the radio. The story of DJ Graeme Park really mirrors the story of the evolution of dance music and club culture itself. Graeme found himself working in a Nottingham record shop called Selectadisc in the early 1980s, when the very first house records began to filter through from Chicago, Detroit and New York. When the shop’s owner also opened a nightclub, it was only natural he should turn to Graeme to select the discs. Determined to showcase this new style of music, his reputation as a house pioneer soon brought him to the attention of Mike Pickering at the Haçienda in Manchester, who asked him to cover
for him whilst he went on holiday in 1988. Simply put, there was no-one else in the country who could do the job. The Summer of Love followed, and Parky quickly became one of the biggest names on the emerging dance scene. Aside from his eightyear residency at The Haç, he was one of the first British DJs to play places like Australia, South America, the USA, Asia and beyond as well as producing and remixing tracks for the dancefloor. As far as Graeme’s concerned, things are as fab as ever and as well as eeping ahead of the game, Graeme has also his own official app for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch and you can download it from the iTunes Store for free. It keeps you up to date with what he’s playing and where while you’re on the move, you can listen to his weekly radio show too and not surprisingly it’s proving extremely popular since its launch in March 2010.
(2014) and “Beyond capital, towards myth: EDM fandom and dance practice”. In: M.Duffett (ed.) Popular Music Fandom: Identities, Roles ad Practices. London: Routledge (2014).
OLIVIA PIEKARSKI Olivia Piekarski is a writer with a passion for contemporary fiction and music. She has worked abroad and in the UK as a teacher, an actor and in radio. She lives in Manchester.
MARK PILKINGTON Mark Pilkington is the author of ‘Mirage Men’ and ‘Far Out: 101 Strange Tales from Science’s Outer Edge’ and has written for The Guardian, The Wire, Frieze and The Quietus amongst others. He founded and runs Strange Attractor Press and regularly gives presentations on esoteric cultures. www.strangeattractor.co.uk
BEATE PETER As a clubber both in Berlin and Manchester, Beate has a longstanding interest in popular music including research for her 2009 PhD titled ‘Jung on the Dance Floor. The Phenomenology of Dancing and Clubbing’. Beate has researched and published widely in the area of electronic dance music and recent publications include: “Breaching the divide: techno city Berlin”. In: G. Stahl (ed.) Poor but Sexy: Reflections on Berlin Scenes. New York: Peter Lang,
STEVE POTTINGER “Steve Pottinger writes the kind of poetry he’d like to hear, and hopes you enjoy it. Cheltenham Poetry Festival called him ‘a rising star’. Comedienne Susan Murray says he’s ‘Brilliant. And I hate poetry.’ Earlier this year, his letter to Caffè Nero went viral. His work has been published in several compilations, the Morning Star, and on the Poetry 24 website. He’s confident it’s unlikely to be
championed by the Daily Mail. Or Caffè Nero.”
DON POWELL Don Powell was born in Bilston, just outside of Wolverhampton, West Midlands on 10 September 1946. He became interested in playing drums whilst in the Boy Scouts. In 1963 Don joined his first band. They were The Vendors. In this band he was later joined by Dave Hill. Eventually Don and Dave formed a band called the ‘N Betweens in 1964. They then recruited Jim Lea and finally Noddy Holder – and thus created the band that went on to be called Slade. Slade had their first hit single in 1971, it was called ‘Get Down and Get With It’. In October that year they hit No1 in the UK with ‘Coz I Luv You’. In the space of the following four years Slade had string of hits that included six No1 singles, three No2 singles and two that made No3. In the mid 1970’s the band emigrated to the United States for two years. They later returned to the UK to have further hits in the 1980’s, which included ‘My Oh My’ and ‘Run Runaway’. In 1992 Noddy Holder and Jim Lea decided to leave the band. However, Don and Dave Hill have continued touring as Slade – and still play successful gigs, not only in the UK, but all over Europe, Poland and Russia.
PAUL REES Paul began writing about music as a whey-faced Black Country lad fresh out of college in 1990, penning reviews for Kerrang! magazine of many – on reflection – awful heavy metal gigs at local clubs. From there he graduated to a staff job at the Birmingham music monthly Brum Beat. In 1991, he moved to London and began writing for the now defunct rock fortnightly RAW, soon becoming its Reviews Editor. He moved to Kerrang! in 1993 as first News Editor and then respectively Features Editor, Deputy Editor and eventually Editor in 1999, a position he held for three years. He left Kerrang! in 2002 to become Editor of Q, remaining in that post for 10 years. During that time he interviewed everyone from Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen and Noel Gallagher to Take That, Adele and Madonna. Adele made him a cup of tea and Madonna called him an ‘asshole’. Since leaving Q he has contributed to such publications as Sunday Times Culture, the Telegraph and Classic Rock and written two books: Robert Plant: A Life and The Three Degrees: the Men Who Changed British Football Forever.
PENNY RIMBAUD CRASS founding member Penny Rimbaud has been writing poetry, song lyrics, philosophy and memoirs
for over 50 years. A drummer, performance artist, environmental activist and philosopher, he claims “breadmaker” as his most prevailing occupation. Rimbaud and Crass’s lasting influence on youth culture are a testament to the original importance of their words and deeds. Having formed a collective in 1967 to live outside of the status quo, Rimbaud continues to influence and inspire new generations of artistic rebels. Penny Rimbaud is one of England’s great rebel poets. Prolific author, founding member of Crass and fearless explorer of possibilities in life and art, Rimbaud has never been one to wallow in nostalgia. Over the three decades since Crass disbanded he has been involved with myriad arts projects, published over 14 books, and released music ranging from the free form jazz/spoken word agitations of The Last Amendment [now L’Académie des Vanités] to last years ‘symphonic punk’ collaboration with The New Banalists [and Italian techno maestros The Bloody Beetroots]. The Quietus
JOHN ROBB John Robb is the award winning indie music mainstay, frontman of punk rock band Goldblade, music author of best selling books including the Stone Roses And The Resurrection Of British Pop and and Punk Rock- An oral History.
Journalist, TV presenter, regular TV and radio pundit as well the boss of one of the UK’s top 5 music culture website louderthanwar.com, He was the first person to interview Nirvana and the Stone Roses and invented the term Britpop.
CHRIS SALEWICZ Chris Salewicz has documented popular culture for more than three decades, in print and on television and radio. He was a senior features writer for NME from 1975 to 1981. Subsequently Salewicz has written for numerous publications, including The Sunday Times, the Independent, the Daily Telegraph, Q, MOJO, and Conde Nast Traveller, and a myriad newspapers and magazines across the globe. Chris Salewicz is the author of sixteen books, including the acclaimed Rude Boy: Once Upon a Time in Jamaica; Redemption Song: the Definitive Biography of Joe Strummer, an exhaustive, epic biography of the Clash frontman, a best-seller; and Bob Marley: the Untold Story, another best-seller. His most recent book is The 27 Club, an analysis of the deaths of seven 27-year-old musical maestros, to be published in 2015. Chris Salewicz has had a longstanding relationship with the island of Jamaica. Whilst living there in the mid-1990s he wrote the screenplay for Third World Cop, the most successful film ever in the Caribbean. In autumn 2014 he
presented a BBC Radio 4 series about the making of the film The Harder They Come, and its social consequences. Chris Salewicz lives in south London.
NATASHA SCHARF Natasha Scharf is an author, broadcaster and journalist who specialises in gothic and alternative genres. She was the founding editor of the UK’s best-selling gothic magazine ‘meltdown’ and has written for music publications including ‘Metal Hammer’, ‘Terrorizer’, ‘Classic Rock’ and ’Artrocker’. She co-produced a documentary on the gothic subculture for BBC Radio 1 called ‘Beyond The Pale’ and has been interviewed many times on television and radio. She has also styled gothic photo shoots and regularly djs at gothic nightclubs. Frequently quoted in books, blogs and magazine articles, her first book ‘Worldwide Gothic’ was published by Independent Music Press in June 2011. A Czech language version was released in autumn 2012 through Volvox Globator. Her second book, ‘The Art of Gothic’, will be published by Omnibus Press (UK) and Backbeat Books (US) in autumn 2014.
LAURA SNAPES Laura Snapes is features editor of the NME, her second position at the magazine since starting as assistant
reviews editor in 2010. In between holding those two positions she was associate editor of Pitchfork. She also writes or has written for Uncut, The Guardian and The Observer among others. Her only musical talent is an unimpeachable but increasingly irrelevant Dido impression.
MICHAEL SPENCER-JONES Michael Spencer Jones is one of the UK’s most influential rock photographers responsible for creating some of the most iconic sleeve art in recent British rock history. Michael became interested in photography from an early age and developed a strong passion for the art whilst studying the great American portrait photographers of the 20th century, photographers such as Alfred Steiglitz, Edward Steichen and Paul Outerbridge. He also became fascinated with surrealism and the work of Angus Mcbean and the ’pop art’ album covers of Hipgnosis, and these influences are evident in the imagery he created for Oasis and The Verve during the Britpop era. Michael was accepted into Bournemouth & Poole college of Art to study photography & film, and during his time there frequently travelled to London to assist the accomplished advertising photographer Stak, in his Mayfair studio. It was here where he learned much of his craft. He also became acquainted with Stak’s close friend, fashion photographer Terence
Donovan, who encouraged him to pursue a career in photography.
Creative Co-op, and also helps to run Manchester’s False Idol Records.
After graduating from Bournemouth with a distinction, Michael moved to Manchester where he soon became involved in the ‘Madchester’ music scene. His first professional commission was to photograph the Stone Roses at Spike Island. He met with Oasis in 1993 after Noel Gallagher had seen his photographs appear on the covers to the English rock band The Verve.
Established in 2008, Un-Convention is a UK based global music network and development agency. The events and projects bring together artists and practitioners to share knowledge and expertise. Through this Jeff has helped to develop a number of new and innovative approaches to building sustainable careers and alternative models for the music industries. His current work includes a long term music project working with young people in Wythenshawe, the development of a number of music co-operatives in Africa, and a revolutionary new UK based touring model called Off Axis.
As well as working within the music industry, Michael has captured many famous faces with his simple and emotive style of portraiture often using natural or available light to create an intimacy between the subject and viewer. It was using this style of portraiture that Michael produced his series of acclaimed portraits for the permanent exhibition ‘Children in War’ at the Imperial War Museum North. More recently Michael has been working with the band The Horrors and is currently working on a 20th anniversary portfolio collection of Definitely Maybe which will be released in late November 2014. The collection will include a large hardbound book of previously unseen photographs of Oasis, in the studio recording their classic album.
JEFF THOMPSON Jeff is co-founder of Un-Convention, chair of The Future Artists Live
He is fortunate enough to spend much of his time working with musicians, filmmakers, designers, illustrators, writers, directors, actors, dancers, animators and numerous other talented and innovative people.
CHRIS T-T Active since the late 90s, Chris T-T has made nine studio albums and is one of the UK’s most consistently acclaimed underground songwriters. Since 2007 he’s been signed to London rock label Xtra Mile Recordings and his most recent LP is The Bear. Chris has written for Dark Mountain, Louder Than War, Huffington Post and others. For four years he wrote a weekly arts column for The Morning Star. He has spoken at TEDx, Boring
Conference, Great Escape, SOAS, University of Falmouth and many others. He has composed music on commission for the World Health Organisation, Natural History Museum and Halloween Society. In 2013 Chris was the inaugural ArtistIn-Residence (Popular Music) at Leeds Metropolitan University, then spent six months as Writer In Residence at Brighton’s Royal Pavilion & Museums. This year Chris has launched The Midnight Campfire, a weekly radio show on Brighton’s Juice 107.2 and TotallyRadio. He is also hosting Folk In A Box on tour around the UK for Battersea Arts Centre, is Official Storyteller for TEDxBrighton 2014 and is working on his 10th album.
ALWYN TURNER Alwyn W. Turner is a writer and lecturer on cultural history, whose most recent books include Glam Rock: Dandies in the Underworld and A Classless Society: Britain in the 1990s, the latter completing a trilogy on the making of modern Britain. Other books include works on some of the great icons of popular culture - Biba, the Daleks, Portmeirion and the Last Post bugle call – as well as collections of imagery from the first decades of British rock and roll. He finds himself in agreement with the Denim lyric: ‘I’m against the Eighties. I’m for the Seventies, ooh and the Nineties too.’
LUKE TURNER Luke Turner is co-founder and coeditor of leading online music and arts magazine The Quietus, and also contributes, and has contributed, to Q, Mojo, The Guardian, NME, Vice, WonderingSound, Dazed & Confused, The Stool Pigeon, RBMA, the BBC and Caught By The River. When not enjoying extremely loud music in diabolical basements he appreciates the wilds of nature and decaying fortifications.
ABIGAIL WARD Abigail Ward is a freelance curator, writer, DJ and project manager with over twelve years’ experience in the music industry. Her clients include Drake Music, Red Bull Music Academy, Sabotage Times, Piccadilly Records and Auteur Labels. In 2013 she co-curated ‘Defining Me – Musical Adventures in Manchester’- a major exhibition at The Lowry. She continues to develop ‘Queer Noise – the Hidden History of Manchester’s LGBT music culture’ – an ever-growing online exhibition for Manchester District Music Archive. As a writer/curator, Abigail is particularly interested in the theme of music as a refuge from, and a response to, oppression.
SIMON WARNER Simon Warner is a writer, lecturer and broadcaster who teaches Popular Music Studies at the University of Leeds. A former live rock reviewer for The Guardian, he has penned a number of books with popular music themes including his latest title, Text and Drugs and Rock’n’Roll: The Beats and Rock Culture, published by Bloomsbury in 2013, a volume that considers the links between the US novelists and poets Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs and the rock generations that have followed.
ROSIE WILBY Rosie Wilby is a former musician and Time Out music journalist turned broadcaster and award winning comedian. Her writing has been published in The Independent, The Sunday Times, The Guardian and in the Accent Press anthology Its Ok To Be Gay. She presents weekly magazine show Out In South London on Resonance FM and Sunday Night Live on BBC Sussex and Surrey. She has appeared at Glastonbury, Green Man, Latitude, Larmer Tree and more. In her 2011 / 2012 show How (not) to make it in Britpop she turned her old 1990s diary columns in the now defunct Making Music Magazine into a poignant comedy and storytelling show, combining archive photographs, acoustic renditions
of her old songs and performance poetry readings of her most cringeinducing pompous lyrics with the true life story of her flat and belongings literally going up in smoke just days before her big album launch at Camden Monarch. All she had left to wear was an old Brownie uniform. Yet music got her through. And that’s what counts. She is currently writing a memoir based on that period of her life.
JAH WOBBLE Jah Wobble is an English bass guitarist, singer, poet, composer and author. Probably best known as the original bass player in Public Image Ltd (PiL), Wobble has since successfully pursued a solo career and enjoyed acclaimed success with his band Jah Wobble and the Modern Jazz Ensemble as well as collaborations with Marconi Union and Bill Sharpe (founding member of Shakatak). Jah Wobble joins us for a diverse ‘in conversation’ that promises to span topics from the Nature of Mind, Ancient Greece, through to Post Modernism, by way of Matter Transference and the indignity of being a member of the Cockney Diaspora. Oh and as if that wasn’t enough to whet your appetites, we’ll also explore Jah’s most recent Invaders of the Heart activities and the pending release of the 6CD box set ‘Re-Dux’ celebrating his 36 year career in music.
SI WOLSTENCROFT Simon “Funky Si” Wolstencroft began drumming in The Patrol with schoolmates Ian Brown and John Squire. He left the band that would become the Stone Roses and also turned down The Smiths before joining The Fall for 11 years. He later re-united with Ian Brown during his solo career. He is currently drumming with the band Big Unit and has written a memoir entitled You Can Drum But You Can’t Hide.
Pioneering Partnerships www.levelpartnerships.com
TIMING IS EVERYTHING Among the many near-mythical figures of the Manchester music scene, he’s known as the nearly man. - Yes, he parted ways before The Patrol became The Stone Roses. - Yes, he turned down The Smiths. -Yes, Noel Gallagher asked if he fancied joining his band. You’d expect a drummer to have better timing. Right place, right time, wrong choices? But after 11 years in The Fall and world tours with old mate Ian Brown, ‘Funky Si’ has tasted the nectar. isbn: 9780957369078
Taking you from the warehouses of Manchester and the beaches of Rio de Janeiro to the high rises of Tokyo, this book hands you a backstage pass to an evocative age that restored pride to the city of Manchester.
“Manchester. Music. Mayhem. A top story! Si tells it as it was. Well worth reading” - Ian Brown -
With humour and detail. Si’s memoir recounts a fascinating tale of drumming and drugs, friendships and fall outs, but, above all, a love of music. Read his story.
Out now in paperback and ebook www.stratabooks.co.uk
C e l e b r at i n g 1 0 y e a r s 33 1/3 is a series of short books about popular music, focusing on individual albums by a variety of artists. the series publishes its 100th book in its 10th year in 2014 and has been widely acclaimed and loved by fans, musicians and scholars alike.
new in 2014
new in 2014
new in 2014
9781623566319 £8.99
9781623568924 £8.99
9781623566609 £9.95
9780826416902 £8.99
9780826427885 £8.99
9781441192806 £8.99
9781441148889 £8.99
9781441194497 £8.99
9781441121004 £8.99
www.bloomsbury.com
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http://333sound.com
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@333books
SPONSORS FOR 2014: LOUDER THAN WORDS FESTIVAL
We would like to acknowledge all those who work with us to ensure the success of Louder Than Words, especially our sponsors and partners who believe in what we are doing, our vibe and our ethos.
IN TUNE WITH YOUR LEGAL NEEDS Whether you are a musician, producer, label, publisher, festival or music manager, the Shoosmiths Creative Industries team is tuned in to you. Being immersed in the creative industries sector enables us to have a unique understanding of the legal issues you face as you progress in the music industry and to provide advice which is in tune with your requirements. Whether you need help in protecting or enforcing your rights or assistance with a contract, you can be sure that our team of expert lawyers will hit the right note.
For more information please contact:
Shoosmiths is proud to sponsor this year’s Lounder Than Words festival.
Laura Harper Partner T: 03700 865881 E: laura.harper@shoosmiths.co.uk Carol Isherwood Associate T: 03700 865882 E: carol.isherwood@shoosmiths.co.uk
LHarper-Shoosmiths-Oct2014.indd 1
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PARTNERSHIP AND SPONSORSHIP Promotion and marketing of Louder Than Words connects and draws on networks and contacts of industry professionals, our database of dedicated music and music literature fans, and engages the support of local businesses and institutions including universities, colleges, media partners, legal partners, retailers and aficionados. Louder Than Words is also promoted through social media, including direct on-line contact with over 24,000 individuals. All partners of Louder Than Words will gain from:
Our targeting of a discerning audience and associated networks Being associated with a distinctive Festival with national recognition Louder Than Words’ commitment to high quality programming and contributors Contact with related industry associations and relevant cross-sector supporters Branding in and on all Festival copy and print Links and logos on Louder Than Words web presence Complimentary tickets to sponsored events Tailored hospitality opportunities at the venue hotel
THE PALACE HOTEL, MANCHESTER
14
FRI
PROGRAMME: DIRECTORS SUITE 4pm
ARRIVAL AND CHECK-IN FOR RESIDENTIAL GUESTS
6.30pm
FESTIVAL OPENS - all Weekend Pass, Friday Pass and Friday ticket holders are invited to join us for the formal opening of Louder Than Words Festival 2014
7 - 8.15pm
Mary-Anne Hobbs in conversation with John Robb DJ Mary Anne Hobbs in conversation with Louder’s John Robb. From 16 year old factory girl, to 18 year old runaway, then journalist, DJ, sound designer, and mentor, not forgetting her passions for motorcycles, Mary Anne Hobbs has a captivating story to tell about her multi dimensional career rooted in music and words - a compelling opening session to our 2014 Festival guaranteed.
8.30 - 9.15pm
Tim Burgess & Will Hodgkinson in conversation Front-man, musician, singer-songwriter and author, Tim Burgess joins author and The Times’ chief rock and pop critic, Will Hodgkinson in an entertaining conversation exploring the craft of writing memoirs - drawing on personal experiences Tim and Will’s anecdotes and insights will provide a reference point for what’s involved in the process, how different it is from being a musician or a rock-writer, the highs, the lows and the practicalities, plus a little advice on what to say and what to leave out!
9.30 - 10pm
Tom Attah: The Living Bluesman acoustic set (1) A treat in store for sure! An acoustic set to entertain our ears courtesy of the Living Bluesman, Tom Attah. Combining the raw power of Son House with the dense hypnotic rhythms of Howlin’ Wolf and the barrel-chested roar of the old blues shouters, Tom’s live shows take audiences on a journey from the Delta to the Download with 21st century intensity...
10 - 11pm
Michael Spencer Jones in conversation Michael Spencer Jones is one of the UK’s most influential rock photographers responsible for creating some of the most iconic sleeve art in recent British rock history. After graduating from Bournemouth with a distinction, Michael moved to Manchester where he soon became involved in the Madchester’ music scene, meeting Tony Wilson of Factory Records and photographing the Happy Mondays and Stone
Roses amongst others. He met with Oasis in 1993 after Noel Gallagher had seen his photographs appear on the covers to the English rock band The Verve. In addition to this special in conversation with Louder’s John Robb, Michael will have a number of his iconic images on exhibition across the Festval weekend.
11 - 11.30pm
Tom Attah: The Living Bluesman acoustic set (2)
11.30pm
John Robb’s late night music quiz 62 years to the day since the launch of the first NME chart, join us for some rock, pop and chart based quiz fun, chaired by Louder’s own quiz master, John Robb. Informality, good fun and prizes guaranteed!
Midnight
Director’s Suite Closes
PROGRAMME:
THE PALACE HOTEL, MANCHESTER 10 - 11.15am
15
SAT
Contesting Youth Culture panel THE KEITH LEVENE ROOM During this session, researchers from Manchester Metropolitan University will discuss youth culture through the lens of their diverse research interests which include popular music, club culture and ‘deviant’ youth lifestyles. Panel Convener and Chair: Dr Katie Milestone – Department of Sociology and Criminology. Panel Members: Dr Joanne Massey – Department of Sociology & Criminology, Dr Beate Peter – Department of Languages, Linguistics & TESOL, Rob Ralph – Department of Sociology - See more at: www.louderthanwordsfestcom/2014 programme/#sthash.6zamKiWF.dpuf
10.30 - 12pm The Louder Lectures 2014 with The Quietus BUCKINGHAM SUITE A terrific addition to our 2014 programme: The Louder Lectures 2014 with our Festival partners The Quietus. An ideal opportunity for new, early phase and early career writers, authors, journalists and those with an interested ear for advice to hear directly from those in the know. Both lectures are included in this session. 1. How to write about music and not starve to death in the process 2. How to interview rock stars and avoid cliche like the plague. 11 - 12pm
Personality Crisis: Nina Antonia in conversation with Bob Dickinson DIRECTORS SUITE Author, journalist and acclaimed biographer Nina Antonia joins
THE PALACE HOTEL, MANCHESTER
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15
PROGRAMME:
journalist and broadcaster Bob Dickinson in conversation on the life and works of Johnny Thunders & Peter Doherty in a literary context. From L.A.M.F to Albion Nina and Bob will sail the stormy seas of damaged yet glorious aspiration.
12.15 - 1.30pm The Strange Case of Dr Terry & Mr Chimes BUCKINGHAM SUITE Best-selling author and friend of The Clash, Chris Salewicz hosts this special in conversation session with original Clash drummer Terry Chimes. Together, Chris and Terry will explore The Strange Case of Dr Terry and Mr Chimes - a conversation spanning Terry’s life and his transition from being the original drummer of The Clash and a succession of punk and heavy metal rock bands (Generation X, Hanoi Rocks and Black Sabbath) to being a highly successful chiropractor and alternative medicine practitioner. Enthralling, engaging and entertaining - a session for seasoned Clash fans and aficionados as well as those with a taste for a great story! 12.15 - 1.30pm Zoë Howe in conversation with Mark Ellen DIRECTORS SUITE Author Zoë Howe joins us in conversation, celebrating her new book ‘Stevie Nicks - Visions, Dreams and Rumours’ as well as treating us to readings and insights from ‘Barbed Wire Kisses’ her The Jesus And Mary Chain book and no doubt references and anecdotes from her other six (yes, six!) music books and invaluable experience as a writer. 12.15 - 12.45pm Book Signings Nina Antonia | Mick O’Shea
POST ROOM
12 - 2.30pm
Jolly Lad - John Doran THE KEITH LEVENE ROOM In this session we’re treated to a reading from John Doran’s new book Jolly Lad, which is due out early 2015 on Strange Attractor Press, followed by the author in conversation with Luke Turner. The book deals with a lifetime of alcoholism, substance abuse and mental health problems and discusses how music journalism eventually saved his life and prepared him for fatherhood.
1 - 1.15pm
Performance Poet: Steve Pottinger POST ROOM
1.30 - 2pm
Book Signings POST ROOM Terry Chimes | Chris Salewicz | Zoe Howe
THE PALACE HOTEL, MANCHESTER
15
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PROGRAMME:
1.45 - 3pm Penny Rimbaud in conversation with John Robb BUCKINGHAM SUITE Writer, poet, philosopher, painter, musician and activist Penny Rimbaud joins Louder’s John Robb in conversation. During this session Penny and John will explore the recent rewrite of the classic Crass album ‘Yes. Sir, I Will’ which Penny gives the piece a more Taoist angle than its former anarchist stance. 1.45 - 3pm Season of the Witch: Peter Bebergal and Mark Pilkington DIRECTORS SUITE Bebergal and Pilkington discuss how rock, more than any other art form of the modern age has captured the mythic imagination: from the influence of 19th century British occultism’s origins on popular music to the “death of Paul” to rumors of Kanye West being a member of a nefarious secret society. Album covers have been littered with occult, mythic, and fantasy imagery, lyrics name check everyone thing from JRR Tolkien to Jewish Kabbalah. What has emerged are stories that glow with transcendence, ripple with mystery, honk with absurdity and are all too often shadowed by tragedy. 2.30 - 2.45pm Performance Poet: Steve Pottinger POST ROOM 3.15 - 4.45pm
The Possibilities are Endless: BUCKINGHAM SUITE Edwyn Collins & Grace Maxwell in conversation Edwyn Collins and his wife Grace Maxwell join Louder’s John Robb in conversation. Edwyn’s thirty-something year career spans the creation of the Glasgow label which broke the mould, Postcard Records of Scotland, through the years of fronting Orange Juice, whose influence has long out-weighed their commercial mis-fortunes, and eight solo albums recorded between 1989 and 2013.
Edwyn has had only two major hit records in his long career, ‘Rip it Up’ with Orange Juice in 1983 and the global behemoth ‘A Girl Like You’ in 1995. Despite this, and in spite of a serious brain injury in 2005 which almost robbed him of his powers, he carries the respect of his peers and of commentators and fans old and new as an innovator, a determined and focused artist, and most of all, as a songwriter worth listening to. Possibilities are indeed endless...
THE PALACE HOTEL, MANCHESTER
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PROGRAMME: 3.15 - 4.45pm
Look Wot I Dun: DIRECTORS SUITE Don Powell in conversation with Alwyn Turner Don Powell, drummer of Slade, joins us in conversation with Alwyn Turner to ‘Look Wot I Dun’ a life story that spans his boy scout roots as a drummer, his early life as a musician, the majic line-up, Glitter, glam and No1 hits, his terrible car-crash and the after-shocks, a sojourn in America, his return to the UK and more latterly his continued touring with Dave Hill as Slade.
3.15 - 3.45pm
Book Signings POST ROOM Peter Bebergal | Mark Pilkington | Penny Rimbaud
4 - 4.15pm
Performance Poet: Steve Pottinger POST ROOM
3.15 - 4.45pm Laura Snapes of the NME presents ‘There is no Golden Age’ THE KEITH LEVENE ROOM Laura Snapes of the NME presents this provacative and pertinent panel discussion exploring why the music press of old wasn’t always all it’s cracked up to be, and why mainstream media looking back through rose-tinted spectacles wilfully ignores the wealth of innovative, diverse music media on offer today. 5 - 6.15pm Viv Albertine in conversation with John Robb BUCKINGHAM SUITE Songwriter and musician Viv Albertine was the guitarist in the hugely influential female punk band The Slits. A confidante of the Sex Pistols and the Clash, Viv was a key player in British punk culture. Alongside The Slits, she collaborated with numerous musicians, including Adrian Sherwood, before marking out a career in television and film production. After a hiatus of twenty-five years, Viv’s first solo album, The Vermillion Border, was released in 2012 to great critical acclaim. Her memoir ‘Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys’ was published to universal acclaim in 2014. Viv joins Louder Than Words’ John Robb in conversation, exploring a thrilling life through punk, post-punk, film, IVF, illness, divorce and her much welcomed return to music. 5 - 6.15pm Kevin Cummins in conversation with John Doran DIRECTORS SUITE Kevin Cummins was photographer on the NME for two decades. He now takes pictures for The Times, Guardian, and others.
THE PALACE HOTEL, MANCHESTER
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15
PROGRAMME:
Revered worldwide as one of the finest music photographers of our time, he is the author of the acclaimed book of Joy Division photographs, Juvenes, and We’re Not Really Here: Manchester City’s Final Season at Maine Road. His latest book ‘Assassinated Beauty’ is a unique record of the Manic Street Preachers’ mission to reclaim rock ‘n roll through literature, image and thrilling guitar pop. Kevin’s book - published by Faber just a week before our Festival - is a revealing mix of studio shots and never-seen-before behind the scenes photographs and the ultimate portrait of one of the last great British rock n roll bands.
5 - 5.30pm
Book Signings POST ROOM Edwyn Collins | Grace Maxwell | Don Powell
5 - 6.15pm
Poetry & lyrics workshop with Rosie Garland and Si Denbigh THE KEITH LEVENE ROOM What is the synergy between poetry and lyrics? Can one form feed and inform the other?
This workshop features practical exercises to get words on the page, plus time for discussion with writers Rosie Garland and Si Denbigh. Please feel free to bring your own lyrics / poetry to play with!
6.15 - 7pm
Book Signings Viv Albertine | Kev Cummins
POST ROOM
6.30 - 7.45pm 33 1/3, Fan Culture and Canonical Thinking DIRECTORS SUITE ‘If you put all the 33 1/3 books in one bookcase, you get something like a canon of rock ‘n’ roll, or rather pop, rock, rap, funk, folk-rock, and soul…’ Slate, September 2014
Join series creator David Barker and two series authors, Pete Astor and Alex Niven, to discuss why people read books about music, how market forces shape music writing, and whether the creation of a canon of “greatest albums” or “greatest songs” is desirable, or avoidable.
Chaired by Simon Warner, Louder Than Words co-curator and author of Bloomsbury title Text and Drugs and Rock’n’Roll: The Beats and Rock Culture.
THE PALACE HOTEL, MANCHESTER 6.30 - 7pm
Book Signings Si Denbigh | Rosie Garland
SAT
15
PROGRAMME:
POST ROOM
6.30 - 7.45pm Rock Stars Stole My Life: BUCKINGHAM SUITE Mark Ellen & Paul du Noyer in conversation Paul will be talking to his old friend and colleague Mark Ellen, whose book is Rock Stars Stole My Life!: A Big Bad Love Affair With Rock Music.
Paul and Mark first met as young freelancers for the NME, then worked closely together for many years at Q, Mojo and The Word. The “Mark Ellen Anecdote” has become a thing of hilarity and legend, and we anticipate a great tales and insights from rock’n’roll’s front-line, from playing in a college band with Tony Blair, to presenting Live Aid, editing Smash Hits and negotiating with some of the largest egos on the planet.
6.30 - 7.45pm Phil John: Life on the Road THE KEITH LEVENE ROOM Phil John has spent the last 30 years dealing in vintage luggage and sporting goods for display use in the fashion industry, but back in the late 60’s early 70’s he spent his youth as a freelance ‘roadie’ working for numerous bands of the day.
From early beginnings with soul bands like Horatio Soul to the anti - establishment posturing of the Deviants and the Prog Rock of Aardvark and Argent and finally landing a full time gig with Mott the Hoople who he remained with until their break up in Europe in 1974. During that fateful tour he kept a day to day diary, recently published and entitled ‘You Rocked, We Rolled.
In this session, Phil presents a spoken word insight to life on the road from the view point of the crew...
8 - 8.30pm
Book Signings POST ROOM Mark Ellen | Phil John | David Barker | Pete astor Alex Niven | Simon Warner
8 - 9.30pm War Stories: 20 years of close encounters with rock stars DIRECTORS SUITE Lucy O’Brien, Paul Rees, Paul du Noyer, Keith Cameron and Chris Charlesworth join Barney Hoskyns in a panel of highs, lows, insights and revelations! A very special treat instore from those on the front line!
THE PALACE HOTEL, MANCHESTER
15
SAT
PROGRAMME:
8 - 9.30pm John Bramwell in conversation with John Robb BUCKINGHAM SUITE Recognised as one of the UK’s most talented lyricists, John Bramwell is an accomplished and respected singer-songwriter, performer and raconteur. He has released solo material as Johnny Dangerously and as John Bramwell and is the front-man to respected Manchester three piece band ‘I am Kloot’.
John’s lamentable lyrics take listeners through journeys of angst, regret and passion. In contrast, his droll humour and worldly observations balance his performances with love and laughter – oh and a guaranteed promise of a drinks interval! John will be in conversation with Louder’s John Robb – an exchange not to be missed and with a few surprises for those who join us…
8 - 9.30pm
Bob Marley: Author Chris Salewicz and Graphic Novelist Jim McCarthy in conversation THE KEITH LEVENE ROOM Globally, Bob Marley is the most popular musician there is. You can go to China and you won’t hear a Bruce Springsteen song. But you will hear Bob Marley. As you will in the tiniest African or South American jungle hamlet.
Chris Salewicz, Marley biographer, and Jim McCarthy, Marley graphic novelist author consider the legacy of the Tuff Gong and approaches to writing Marley’s life.
9.30 - 10pm
Book Signings POST ROOM John Bramwell | Paul Rees | Barney Hoskyns | Paul du Noyer Keith Cameron | Jim McCarthy | Chris Salewicz | Lucy O’Brien
9.45 - 11pm
Steve Ignorant in conversation THE KEITH LEVENE ROOM With Book Signing*** Steve Ignorant, co-founder of anarcho-punk band CRASS joins Louder Than Words Festival line-up, sharing a Slice of Life that includes being a writer, wood sculptor, volunteer lifeboat man and a bit of Punch and Judy. Quite frankly, The Rest is Propaganda!
THE PALACE HOTEL, MANCHESTER
15
SAT
PROGRAMME:
9.45 - 10.45pm Rosie Wilby: Nineties Woman - some Louder words of comedy DIRECTORS SUITE Nineties Woman is Rosie Wilby’s reflections of her time spent at York University in the early 1990s when she worked on the women’s newspaper Matrix.
Having stumbled upon some old copies of Matrix last year, Rosie Wilby then set out to find out what had happened to not only the paper but also the other women with whom she had worked on it. A renowned comedian, radio presenter and writer, Wilby utilises all of these talents to great effect in this hour long show as she stitches together an engaging and most appealing narrative from those times.
Through a combination of her own natural storytelling and a multimedia accompaniment Wilby takes the audience on a comedic, often poignant journey back in time as she explores both her own personal development and that of the feminist cause.
A leitmotif of music runs through the show with references to the long since, and sadly gone York independent music shop Red Rhino Records; the bands Nirvana, Primal Scream and Indigo Girls and even features some of Wilby’s own original recordings from that period of her life, including one when she sang some Tracy Chapman songs at a student demo.
9.45 - 11pm
Discotext - Reporting The Rave BUCKINGHAM SUITE Louder Than Words moves to an electronic beat, with this session interrogating the club scene. In the late 1980s Manchester was caught up in the rave revolution, which transformed the city into MADCHESTER, with the Haçienda its informal HQ. Tracing those developments with be panel chair and convener - Simon A. Morrison - a music writer with almost two decades experience reporting on music around the world, now Programme Leader for the Music Journalism degree at the University of Chester. He will be joined by Graeme Park, a key DJ at the Hac through those early years. The panel will consider both the scene itself, and the way in which it was reported, including the worlds of journalism, with Carl Loben, current Deputy Editor of DJ magazine, but also in terms of fiction, with author Nicholas Blincoe and Sarah Champion, the celebrate editor of the short story collection, Disco Biscuits. See you on the dance floor...
THE PALACE HOTEL, MANCHESTER
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PROGRAMME:
10 - 11.30am Thank You For The Music - The Art Of Songwriting DIRECTORS SUITE We live in a world where music is more abundant than ever. It seems like there’s a show on every corner, and we can access whatever we want, whenever we want; perhaps there’s even a danger we might take it all for granted – but how often do we consider how it all comes into being?
Whether it’s the most spellbinding melody, or the dirtiest bass line, it all starts with a blank page, or at best, half an idea scrawled on a bus ticket that someday might just send dance floors around the globe into euphoria, or have thousands of people in a field sing their hearts out.
In this panel, our Festival partners UnConvention talk to songwriters from a variety of genres about what it means to ‘be creative’ – comparing and contrasting methods, inspiration, serendipity; the actual process of getting the words on the page even. This is an insight into the endless note books, the illusive rhymes, cutting up newspapers and humming melodies to answering machines; sitting in the dark, standing on a hill, or dreaming a hit, only to realise the next morning that it was actually written by Stevie Wonder 40 years previously.
A real look behind the curtain, this is a rare opportunity to hear artists talk frankly about their creative process – from the harmonies to the drop, this is how the magic happens.
10.30 - 11.30am Bit of a Barney! BUCKINGHAM SUITE Rock journalism legend Barney Hoskyns, author of acclaimed biographies of Led Zeppelin, Prince and Tom Waits alongside numerous key histories of American music, talks to Louder Than Words co-curator Simon Warner about writing, the universe and everything. Hoskyns will discuss Rock’s Backpages, his remarkable online archive of the best criticism, interviews and features, Stop Working for Free, his campaign to ensure that writers and other creative workers get paid, and his forthcoming book on the musical community of Woodstock. Warner, whose well-received volume Text and Drugs and Rock’n’Roll: The Beats and Rock Culture came out in paperback recently, has just written the chapter on the popular music press for the forthcoming Sage Companion to Popular Music.
THE PALACE HOTEL, MANCHESTER 10.30 - 12pm
SUN
16
PROGRAMME:
Different Every Time: Marcus O’Dair in conversation on Robert Wyatt THE KEITH LEVENE ROOM Marcus O’Dair’s authorised biography of Robert Wyatt, is published by Serpent’s Tail in October 2014, alongside an accompanying compilation from Domino Records. Here Marcus talks about the experience of writing the book, as well as the importance of jazz to Robert, his attitude to politics and protest music, and the often neglected role of Robert’s wife and creative partner Alfie (manager, co-lyricist and artist responsible for all his front covers since 1974’s Rock Bottom). He will also be playing key tunes from across Robert’s career, from Soft Machine to the present day via Shipbuilding, written for Robert by Elvis Costello and Clive Langer and a top 40 hit in the wake of the Falklands War. He will also be showing photos, many from Robert and Alfie’s personal archive and previously unseen. Marcus is hosted In Conversation by one of the UK’s most consistently acclaimed underground songwriters, Chris T-T.
11.45 - 12.15pm Book Signings Barney Hoskyns
POST ROOM
11.45 - 1pm
London Is The Place For Me! BUCKINGHAM SUITE Authors Lloyd Bradley (Sounds Like London) and Paul Du Noyer (In The City) will talk about 100 years of the capital city’s popular music – from music hall and mods to calypso, punk and grime.
11.45 - 1pm
Out of His Head: DIRECTORS SUITE Mick Middles in conversation with CP Lee on Frank Sidebottom Oh Blimey... You’d have to be out of your head to miss this one: Louder’s friend Mick Middles joins us for an 11.45am start but please do come along for 11.37. Joined by CP Lee, Mick will be in conversation on Frank Sidebottom. Oh you know he is, he really is...
12 - 12.30pm
Book Signings Marcus O’Dair
You can expect this conversation to namecheck anyone from Vera Lynn to Dizzee Rascal, by way of Noel Coward, The Clash and Lloyd Coxsone – as sprawling as London itself, with as many underground connections as a Tube map.
POST ROOM
THE PALACE HOTEL, MANCHESTER
16
SUN
PROGRAMME: 12 - 2.30pm
The Quietus at Laisure Films THE KEITH LEVENE ROOM Over the past two years, Quietus co-editor Luke Turner and director Ethan Reid have wandered the UK making a series of films about the non-musical habits and hobbies of some of The Quietus’ favourite cult musicians. Three of these will be shown at Louder Than Words. We love these musicians for their art, but what do these people get up to in their spare time, and what can we learn about them from it? Steve Ignorant needs no introduction: a righteous son of Dagenham, he was the voice of Crass for years, and with new band Paranoid Visions continues to fly the flag for no compromise punk rock. It’s an attitude that extends to every area of his life - now living in North Norfolk, Steve has managed to find himself on the crew of an autonomous, non-RNLI lifeboat, we take to the grey waters of the North Sea with Steve and find out what would have happened if he’d found Margaret Thatcher drowning. Stephen Morris (Joy Division and New Order) demonstrates and discusses some of his collection of military vehicles, and the unusual Beltring military festival, where policemen like to dress as Nazis. In the third film, Tim Burgess of The Charlatans tells us about his work importing fair trade coffee for the Tim Peaks Diner, which also fundraises for the David Lynch foundation, and recommends some music to go with an especially strong brew.
Over the past two years, Quietus co-editor Luke Turner and director Ethan Reid have wandered the UK making a series of films about the non-musical habits and hobbies of some of The Quietus’ favourite cult musicians. Three of these will be shown at Louder Than Words. We love these musicians for their art, but what do these people get up to in their spare time, and what can we learn about them from it? Steve Ignorant needs no introduction: a righteous son of Dagenham, he was the voice of Crass for years, and with new band Paranoid Visions continues to fly the flag for no compromise punk rock. It’s an attitude that extends to every area of his life - now living in North Norfolk, Steve has managed to find himself on the crew of an autonomous, non-RNLI lifeboat, we take to the grey waters of the North Sea with Steve and find out what would have happened if he’d found Margaret Thatcher drowning. Stephen Morris (Joy Division and New Order) demonstrates and discusses some of his collection of military vehicles, and the unusual Beltring military festival, where policemen like to dress as Nazis. In the third film, Tim Burgess of The Charlatans tells us about his work importing fair trade coffee for the Tim Peaks
THE PALACE HOTEL, MANCHESTER
SUN
16
PROGRAMME:
Diner, which also fundraises for the David Lynch foundation, and recommends some music to go with an especially strong brew.
1 - 1.45pm
Wilko Johnson Writing Award
DIRECTORS SUITE
12.30 - 12.45pm Performance Poet: Steve Pottinger POST ROOM 1 - 2.30pm
Graham Jones: BUCKINGHAM SUITE Last Shop Standing hosted by Richard Osborne Graham Jones is the author of ‘Last Shop Standing: Whatever Happened to Record Shops?’ and ‘Strange Requests and Comic Tales from Record Shops’.
He has worked at the heart of record retailing since the golden era of the 1980’s and witnessed the tragic decline of a business blighted by corruption and corporate greed.
Expect an insider’s view with lots of tales of chart hyping and the shenanigans the record companies got up to manipulating the charts. You are guaranteed lots of music industry merriment as he will tell hilarious anecdotes from the crazy world of record retailing from both here in Manchester and in the UK as a whole.
1.15 - 2pm
Book Signings POST ROOM Lloyd Bradley | Paul du Noyer | Mick Middles
2.15 - 2.45pm
Performance Poet: Chris Jam
2.30 - 4pm
Goth Sub Culture Panel THE KEITH LEVENE ROOM John Robb hosts this special addition to our 2014 line-up. Author, broadcaster and journalist Natasha Scharf; Musician, writer and producer Si Denbigh; Novelist, poet, singer and performer Rosie Garland and academic/researcher David McWilliam join Louder’s John Robb to explore the realities and mis-conceptions of this most intriguing and visual of genres.
POST ROOM
2.45 - 4pm A literary and literal celebration of the legendary Fall BUCKINGHAM SUITE Join Steve Hanley & Olivia Piekarski (The Big Midweek), Funky Si Wolstencroft (You Can Drum But You Can’t Hide), Daryl Easlea (author of 30 sleevenotes for The Fall’s Catalogue; compiler and annotator of 50,000 Fall Fans Can’t Be Wrong),
Matt Davies (music fanatic and academic - researching the use of corpus software using the lyrics of Mark E Smith) all brought together and co-ordinated in conversation by author, journalist, DJ and Louder’s mate, Mick Middles. A real treat in store!
2.45 - 4pm
Return to Trip City DIRECTORS SUITE In 1989 when Trevor Miller’s TRIP CITY was originally published in the UK - packaged with a Soundtrack of FIVE ACID HOUSE ‘Singles’ by A GUY CALLED GERALD - the idea of a multi-media work was something brand new. British Club Culture and Dance Music was having some influence in New York and Los Angeles - but was a rare and unfathomable phenomena to most US 20somethings - unless you were there (or maybe Detroit)... Flash forward 25 years and E-D-M is a dominant force in youth culture, particularly in the United States... To many collector’s and purists - TRIP CITY is a visionary work that unknowingly was tailored to the global explosion of Dance Music and the British Nightclub Culture that has been exported in its’ wake.
In this VERY special session, Louder’s Simon Morrison brings a Guy Called Gerald and Trevor Miller back together to recreate that special collaboration and create a unique opportunity to witness first-hand what happens when words and beats collide.
2.45 - 3.15pm
Book Signings Graham Jones
POST ROOM
3.30 - 3.45pm Performance Poet: Steve Pottinger POST ROOM 4 - 4.15pm
Performance Poet: Chris Jam
POST ROOM
4.15 - 4.45pm
Book Signings POST ROOM Si Wolstencroft | Steve Hanley & Olivia Piekarski | Trevor Miller Natasha Scharf | Si Denbigh | Rosie Garland | Guy Called Gerald
4.15 - 5.30pm
Odds, Sods and Epilogues: BUCKINGHAM SUITE Jah Wobble in conversation + book signing Louder’s friend Jah Wobble joins us for a diverse ‘in conversation’ that promises to span topics from the Nature of Mind, Ancient Greece, through to Post Modernism, by way of Matter Transference and the indignity of being a member of the Cockney Diaspora. Oh and as if that wasn’t enough to whet your appetites, we’ll also explore Jah’s most recent Invaders of the Heart activities and the pending release of the 6CD box set ‘Re-Dux’ celebrating his 36 year career in music.
4.15 - 5.30pm ‘Hear my voice in your head and think of me kindly’ DIRECTORS SUITE Louder’s friends and Festival Partners Manchester District Music Archives present this very special panel ‘Hear my voice in your head and think of me kindly’ - a panel discussion celebrating Greater Manchester song lyricism, past and present. Panellists: Guy Garvey (Elbow, BBC 6 Music) Jaheda Choudhury-Potter (Ajah UK) Jon Higgs (Everything Everything) Hosted by Abigail Ward 4.15 - 5.30pm
With the Beatles: THE KEITH LEVENE ROOM Merseybeat, Manchester and the rise of the Fab Four Beatles expert Spencer Leigh, broadcaster and music writer talks to Louder Than Words co-curator Simon Warner about the rise of Merseybeat, the Cavern, Hamburg, rivalries with Manchester, and the global spread of the Lennon-McCartney gospel. Leigh has presented shows on BBC Radio Merseyside for many years and has penned recent Omnibus titles on The Beatles in Hamburg (2011), The Beatles in Liverpool (2012) and The Beatles in America (2013). Warner, who teaches Popular Music Studies at Leeds University, has written about Liverpool and Manchester’s long and intense musical and sporting competition for Soccer and Society.
5.30pm
Festival Closing Words:
Manchester District Music Archive is an online community archive established in 2003 to celebrate Greater Manchester music and its social history. We are a not-for-profit organisation run by volunteers. Our archive contains thousands of artefacts such as flyers, posters, photos, press articles and videos uploaded by the general public. We also curate temporary physical exhibitions in pop-up spaces and well-known venues. We host events, provide information and training, and promote the unsung stories of Manchester music through community outreach work. If you have any Manchester music artefacts you’d like to share, please visit:
@citywesthousing
www.mdmarchive.co.uk
/citywesthousing
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08/11/2013 11:23