Pull Yourself Together Zine Issue 15

PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER

DECEMBER 2010 - JANUARY 2011 *FREE*

THE DIVINE COMEDY - GLASGOW - ALBUMS OF THE YEAR - STEVE LAMACQ CHRISTMAS MARKETS - WINTER BEACHES

HELLO

LETTERS FROM INDEPENDENT

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ON THE PYT STEREO

Since last we spoke a LOT has happened for PYT. First up was our In The City show, which was so busy whilst Patterns were on that some of the ITC bigwigs couldn’t get into Common - ace stuff. We were delighted with all three bands who played for us, and indeed ITC in general this year, which was possibly the best since either of us have been going. From ITC we headed down to Cardiff for Swn which was incredible! Loads of great bands, and we were delighted to make our DJ debut in a city we love so much, complete with Steve Lamacq and Huw Stephens both popping in to say hello! Reviews of both festivals are up on our website now, head there to find our top tips for next year.

The Orchids Orange Juice Mitchell Museum The Felt Tips Milky Wimpshake John Mouse Micktravis Patterns

This issue’s artwork comes from the rather brilliant Matt Saunders, whose work is right up our street!

We’re particularly enjoying his wintry offerings, including his excellent ‘we’re smitten in our mittens’ Christmas cards which you can buy from his website, rabbitportal.com. Matt will also be the next artist to decorate the walls of Common, look out for details of the launch party coming up on 3rd February!

Design: teacakedesign.com HELLO

Photograph: Patterns at PYT, In The City, Common, 13/10/10. By James Sutton, Bolton Uni

So what’s in issue 15?

P3 - We’re off to Glasgow this time round, with a Q&A session from The Felt Tips who have let us know all of the best things to see and do.

P4 - You may have seen on the PYT website that we managed to grab none other than Steve Lamacq for a chat during his visit to In The City.

Here’s the outcome of that meeting!

P6 - We had a great time at Cardiff’s Swn Festival in October, and co-founder John Rostron is here to let us know how it all went.

P8 - PYT have been fans of The Divine Comedy for rather a long time, so it was incredibly exciting to be able to chat to Neil Hannon as he made his way up to Manchester for a special solo show!

P10 - It’s already getting pretty chilly outside, and one of the nicest things to do at this time of year is to wrap up warm and head to the beach - or so says Hannah at least!

P12 - Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without a best of the year list now, would it? Besides, 2010’s been a good’un...

P16 - To get you feeling festive we’ve got Sam from the excellent mightaswell blog to give you her take on Manchester’s Christmas Markets!

PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER

When asked to write something about Glasgow for PYT, I was especially delighted and honoured as Manchester was like my second home growing up. I then got to thinking that although I am the only ‘Felt Tip’ originally from Glasgow, I am the one who has had the most recent induction into indiepop related things! Therefore, to do the article justice I spoke with our singer Andrew who is not originally from the city, but also lived here long enough give a good perspective from both an outsider and insider point of view.

Kevin: Okay Andrew - why come to Glasgow?

Andrew: People come to Glasgow for the very reason that it is great for music. Just ask our guitar player Miguel, who moved here from Spain 5 years ago in order to get involved in the music scene!

K: Where are the best places to see a band?

A: There is a plethora of excellent venues ranging from the intimate Captain’s Rest in the West End, the better known King Tut’s in town, to the world famous Barrowlands East of the city centre. Glasgow is a must stop for touring bands, although there is always a really good local band playing as well.

K: So which local bands would be good to catch in Glasgow at the moment?

A: Bands we have enjoyed recently include The Just Joans, Wake the President, Popup, The Hardy Boys and The Orchids. Other bands making a name for themselves include Butcher Boy, Peter Parker, Zoey van Goey and Maple Leaves. The indie scene here has great promoters such as Bubblegum Records, clubs such as Half My Heart Beats and, of course, all the (sometimes overly) friendly locals who attend the gigs and make Glasgow the place it is!

DECEMBER 2010 - JANUARY 2011

K: What can you do in Glasgow before/after seeing bands?

A: Although Glasgow is renowned for its high street shopping, there are also really good retro clothes shops such as Watermelon, Glasgow Vintage Co. (both West End), Mr Benn’s (Merchant City), and the superb vintage fair Granny Would be Proud (West End) on every 2nd Sunday. Great Western Road is where some of the most quirky independent shops can be found.

Glasgow is famous for restaurants and bars, but try the innovative vegan sister cafes Mono (Merchant City), Stereo (City Centre) and 78 (West End), all cheap, tasty and conveniently located you might catch a local band playing as well. The Flying Duck club usually has an indie night of some description of a weekend, and a shot of the juke box in Nice N Sleazy (City Centre) is a must. If you prefer not to start on the alcohol too early, seek out the Tchai Ovna tea house in Otago Lane, where there are also some old record and book shops.

Also, Glasgow’s many Parks, Museums and Art Galleries are also free – though it’s always nice to give a donation!

Kevin and Andrew are both members of The Felt Tips, who have just released their debut album, Living and Growing on Plastilina Records. For more tips on what to do and see in Glasgow, check the PYT website to see some advice from the folks at Half My Heart Beats.

GLASGOW

pull yourself together zine.co.uk

Winter coat - check. Bigger scarf than you’ve been wearing for the past two months check. Big stick for getting Christmas shoppers out of your way - check. Ho Ho Ho. Bah Humbug. Christmas Time Is Here Again. Seriously, what happened to 2010? This year has absolutely flown by, but here we go - time to celebrate the end of a great year and look forward to a month of warm booze, mince pies, overindulgence, the Doctor Who special and Sufjan Steven’s Songs for Christmas boxset. As usual there is loads of great seasonal stuff going on, including our Christmas gift to you, MJ Hibbett’s Dinosaur Planet! Check out the listings section for all the details...

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LETTERS FROM INDEPENDENT GLASGOW

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THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING INDIE

Photo credits: haydnrydings.co.uk & simonbowcock.com

In October PYT were lucky enough to have a chat with a man who really shaped our understanding of independent and alternative music. In this internet age of instant access to almost any kind of music some may find it strange to rate radio DJs so highly. It’s easy to forget that it’s not that long since the radio (and fairly limited radio at that) was one of the only methods of finding new music, and also easy to underestimate how important the support of radio DJs still is to upcoming bands.

Growing up in the ‘90s we were lucky to have some great radio shows on offer, and before we were old enough to start hiding the radio under the covers to listen to John Peel, Lamacq’s Evening Session played a hugely important part in shaping our tastes.

Even in the heady days of Britpop, where indie music was fairly popularised, I felt like a bit of an outcast for my music tastes. For me - and the small number of like-minded school friends - Lamacq acted as a friend across the radio waves, proving to us that we weren’t alone and giving us all-important talking points. It’s so encouraging that over a decade on, he’s still doing so much to champion new music, and also that he’s happy to talk to the likes of us!

“What do you make of all these blogs?” Before we’ve even sat down properly, Steve Lamacq is off and running. Here’s a true music fan, who genuinely wants to know the opinion of other people. “I’m worried that people are focusing too much on daily updates and not enough on the quality of the bands they write about. They’re like krill, taking in all these single tracks/demos and then never really entering the food chain properly. The ones that are just a bunch of Souncloud links are the worst, they don’t offer you anything at all.”

GOING DEAF FOR A LIVING - STEVE LAMACQ As for the live Roundtable for ITC, is it a case of the same old voices? “With things like this it’s sometimes hard getting people all together at the same time, but we’ve got three of the biggest voices in Manchester. Hooky obviously, and Jon Robb’s got the loudest gob in the world – he’s unstoppable. A friend of mine used to work for Sounds as a sub-editor, and he once got a piece from Jon Robb that had no full stops in it at all, and that’s how he talks – he talks without full stops. I think what we were trying to do is find balance for different voices through our In The City coverage; we’re putting out a little package this afternoon that’s got some Manchester bands talking about what it’s like being a band from Manchester (The Heartbreaks, Driver Drive Faster), and we’ve got Young British Artists and Dutch Uncles playing live tomorrow.

It’s a case of a lot of people who listen to 6Music would like to listen to your Hooky’s and people like that, and you can get more anecdotal shrapnel from them. You can also ask them what it’s like when three or four days a year a bunch of numpties from London come up and walk around their town, wearing these ludicrous laminates, thinking they’re important!”

Not only was Steve hosting his show, he also took to the streets to experience In The City properly. “We’re going to get out there tonight and try to record some on the hoof reviews, try and give people who aren’t here a real sense of what In The City is, and what Manchester is like.” We can confirm that this happened, having seen Steve stood on the corner of Thomas and Oldham Street recording links for his show the next day! “I really want to see Brown Brogues, but I think they are going to be that one band that I won’t get to see because of timings, and they’ll probably be the ones I would have enjoyed most as a result.”

Five years on from his move to 6Music, and Lamacq is in Manchester for In The City, where he is hosting a live edition of this show, complete with a Roundtable featuring Peter Hook, Guy Garvey and Jon Robb. “It’s a little bit nerve-racking, because you never know, when you’ve got a microphone in your hands and you go into the audience, you’ve got to make an instant judgement of ‘is this man going to swear live on air?’ I really enjoy it, because you can actually see what people think; with a live audience people like some things, and don’t like certain things; sometimes you don’t get that from the feedback from the internet or Twitter. I’ve never emailed a radio show in my life, I love

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING INDIE: GOING DEAF FOR A LIVING - STEVE LAMACQ

the people that do and it’s great to have that communication with the audience. But I’m sure that there are some people who quite like the show who have never texted in, and they’re the kind of people you meet when you come out and do something like this.”

Not having emailed a radio show doesn’t mean a lack of involvement though; “Why do people point their finger at the radio? I do that. I’ve shaken my fist at the radio before. John Peel used to tell me that there was a particular show on Radio 2, I won’t say which one it is, that he sometimes listened to when he was driving home, and he’d sometimes shout, and often be driving with one hand, shaking his fist at his car radio with the other.”

PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER

That Lamacq is up in Manchester again shows that he feels that ITC does still have a role to play in the ever shifting world of music. “Something like In The City is still relevant, definitely. In my position it is all about finding filters who you can rely on. These guys have filtered down hundreds of demos into the list of people who are playing, who I can then go through and sift out the ones who I want to check out. It isn’t very often these days that I get the chance to see 4 or 5 bands in a night, something I used to do all the time in my NME days. You just can’t do that as easily now, unless you are in say East London, and the less of that the better. In The City gives me a chance to run around and see lots of stuff.”

Things aren’t all sweetness and light though. Steve has told us in the past that PYT is one of few proper zines he receives these days, and the decline is just as evident in the world of music magazines too. “It’s shocking that print media has seen such a decline in recent years. A weak NME doesn’t do anybody any good. Then again, maybe part of the problem is that there isn’t that much music out there that has enough to say, which they magazines can then talk about? The problem is that there aren’t any bands you can believe in, no-one is out there as a voice saying something interesting or inspiring.” What is he looking for then? Who are the voices who need to be emulated? “There’s nothing like the first Smiths album that makes you want to sit down and learn all the words. This current trend for 80s style minimal electro just isn’t that interesting is it? I mean, Mystery Jets are drawing on ABC and Orange Juice, but they are bands who had more to say and were more salient. Beyond that there is nothing that makes you really listen. Arctic Monkeys are one of the only DECEMBER 2010 - JANUARY 2011

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recent bands who’ve made you really sit up and listen to the lyrics; that first album was so different, and When The Sun Goes Down still stands up as a track that just makes you stop. I guess Bloc Party were doing something similar lyrically too.”

Moving on from the state of bands, Steve also had something to say on the worrying re-emergence of Pay2Play, and the Musicians Union’s change of stance to suggest that in some circumstances it may be acceptable to artists. “I’m genuinely shocked by that, where has that even come from? Last time around when those kind of shows existed was the darkest days of music. As soon as you say it’s ok, when does it stop?

Bands need support to exist, not someone taking money off them. I’m just starting to put on my own gigs again, and I’m doing it because I want to highlight these bands. I’m proud to say that I don’t, and never will, operate any kind of flyer deal.”

And with bands needing support to exist, we’re all lucky that the likes of Lamacq are still here, still going and still championing what they believe in.

Steve Lamacq’s BBC Radio 6 Music show goes out every week day from 4-7pm. He also has a terrific music blog (not full of daily tracks) at goingdeafforaliving.com, which is also the title of his book about life as a DJ.

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING INDIE: GOING DEAF FOR A LIVING - STEVE LAMACQ

HOW SWN IS NOW

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HOW SWN IS NOW

Just beyond the midpoint of the Octobercoaster we found ourselves DJing at SWN Festival in Cardiff. As far as we were concerned, organisers John Rostron and Huw Stephens did a fantastic job, so here’s a rundown from John Rostron!

SWN is pronounced ‘Soon’ and is Welsh for ‘noise’. SWN is also Wales’s now annual 3-day festival of music. It takes place in Cardiff across a dozen or more venues with around 150 bands playing. It’s frantic, un-packed, exciting, joyous and brilliant.

I know all this because I’m in the middle of it as one of the organisers.

We’ve just seen off the fourth SWN and it was the best yet. Way too many highlights to pack into this article – how about Beach Fossils and Happy Birthday playing their first ever UK shows? Or The Vaccines playing just their seventh? Y Niwl storming two shows in one afternoon. Melys reforming, Racehorses destroying Clwb Ifor Bach or demand for Islet being so high that people broke in to the back of the venue through the fire escape.

Newcomers like Truckers of Husk and Brandyman packed out venues as did Dutch legends The Ex. Legendary Welsh folk singer Meic Stevens even bought a crowd to tears. To see him play a late afternoon set in such a fragile state was remarkable.

The North Pole Bar has returned to Cathedral Gardens this year with a bang. Drop into our winter wonderland, wrap your icy fingers around our famous hot cocktails and prepare for winter Asian food from Tampopo, a calendar of unmissable events and an atmosphere that will warm your soul.

Open from 12pm daily until Sunday 19th December

his set was a must for her, but she also stumbled in to see Dry The River and The Evening Chorus and has declared both the new loves of her life.

That, to me, is what makes a great festival.

Packed out shows for new bands who might never be able to pull those numbers on a regular gig. They get to play to a larger audience, made up of many people who’ve probably never heard of them before, let alone actually heard them.

Enthused by good sound, great venues and an up for it crowd they deliver great sets, and they leave with a whole new bunch of fans and friends and warm memories of SWN, of Cardiff and of Wales.

These latter points have become important as we look to the future. This year we began promoting other shows in Cardiff throughout the year. It’s been great to bring bands who have played the festival back to Wales, contributing, I hope, to their growth. Bands like Pulled Apart By Horses or Yeasayer or Marina And the Diamonds.

It’s been great to offer bands from Wales more shows too – like Islet, Cate Le Bon, Sweet Baboo and the Joy Formidable. We’ve discovered SWN SWN makes special gigs out of every gig that has a role all year round – helping to promote the happens over the three days. It is, in part, what bands we love in Cardiff and in Wales, and also makes it such a delight. Like all good festivals taking bands from Wales out to other peoples’ SWN is incredibly intense and we always festivals. It was never our intention, but we’re hope the quality is high. As a consequence it’s delighted to be here, shouting about the bands exhilarating – running from one show where we love and discovering new bands we’re about hopefully we’ve blown your mind to another to fall in love with. which does the same – we want people to revel in the euphoria that comes from seeing a great show by your favourite band or to see For more information about SWN, head to swnfest.com The 2011 schedule is already someone who’ll become your new favourite band. It works too – my girlfriend was already shaping up nicely, with February shows from smitten with the Perfume Genius album and so Jonny and Efterklang amongst others.

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IN WHICH PYT INTERROGATE NEIL HANNON

It’s not just Lamacq that we’ve been chatting with recently; we were also delighted to be able to put some questions to The Divine Comedy’s Neil Hannon. In some ways this was a scary prospect, The Divine Comedy are a band who have been in our lives for about as long as (good) music itself has been, a band with a back catalogue nothing short of stunning, a band who mean a lot to both of us. We were very pleased to find Hannon to be charming, funny and engaging, as he let us know about latest album Bang Goes The Knighthood and England’s Ashes chances.

Hi Neil, thanks for chatting to us. How’s the tour going? We’re just en route from Cardiff to Manchester and it’s sort of miserable. Manchester won’t be as cold as Stockholm was a couple of weeks ago though, it was positively arctic there.

As far as the gigs are concerned it’s probably the most successful tour I’ve ever done, really really good every night. There is something about playing by yourself, and when you’ve got as much back catalogue as I have, it all seems to be a sort of cosy atmosphere between the audience and yourself.

Have you thought about moving into writing novels yourself? I’ve pondered it, but I really don’t think its for me. Its funny, I’m not really a very good conversationalist, I don’t litter my conversations with hilarious anecdotes, because I’m actually really bad at telling a story in speech.

But for some reason in the song format, when I’ve got time to think about it and craft it, yeah, I’m pretty good at it, if I say so myself. If I started writing novels, I’d be starting from scratch, basically I’d be starting a new career. I’m not sure I have the wherewithal or moral courage to start that kind of shenanigans. And anyway there are so many musical avenues that I’m investigating that I’ve got plenty to be getting on with really without writing books, not least of course the musical that I’ve written, that’s coming to the stage of the Bristol Old Vic on December 1st!

Bang goes the Knighthood seems to us like it was written more as a solo LP. Was it created for this tour? It was certainly in my mind. Funny because I wanted it both ways. Because the whole thing has been pretty much written on piano, I wanted to retain that feel, but then again I didn’t want that to stop me being creative in the studio either, so it was a bit of a balancing act. It came out alright!

You’ve always written orchestral pop songs; does it surprise you that nobody else has really taken up in this vein? Monstrosities I like to call them! No, because it’s a pain in the arse! I kind of had to do the whole orchestral thing as most of the music I adored was like that. I don’t think you’d do it on a whim, as it’s quite difficult and expensive. I think I’d have been a lot richer if I’d liked 3 chord rock’n’roll... sorry, my tour manager wants an orange... The influences are coming from several different angles. There’s the 60s balladeers – Scott Walker, Dusty Springfield, and then the earlier stuff I like like Cole Porter, Noël Coward and Kurt Weill, and then your sort of French chansons stuff - Jacques Brel and Edith Piaf. You mix that all together with a soupçon of ELO and you’ve sort of got there. But I don’t want to give people the impression that the orchestral thing is the only thing I do or listen to, because it’s not. My tastes and wide and eclectic, from synthpop to indie to classical.

What have you been listening to on the tour bus then? What tends to happen is that I’m too tired to read, and once you’ve played a show and done soundcheck the last thing you want to hear is music. So I end up downloading audiobooks and listening to them. The best thing I got recently was this 1950s radio version of Sherlock Holmes from America starring John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson and it’s amazing. I think he’s definitely my favourite Sherlock Holmes.

IN WHICH PYT INTERROGATE NEIL HANNON

These things always cross your mind when you’re writing songs, it’s just as much about being careful that you don’t do something horrible and obvious like a parody of a popsong. What I wanted to do was create a little image in your mind, and take people back there. There is an element of nostalgia to it, as I gather there’s not an awful many of them left, or so people tell me. Perhaps it’s just that ‘ooh it’s not like the old days’ feeling.

I never went to indie discos though, there weren’t any in Fermanagh! I’ve always felt that writers get to make stuff up - they’ve not lived every moment of their novels - so I certainly can as well!

With The Complete Banker you’re one of the first pop singers to tackle the financial crisis head on; are there any other topics that get you fired up like this? It’s kind of a rarity for me, because I’m quite passive. Strangely enough the things that really get to me are greed and unnecessary injustice. The current crisis is an indirect result of lots of greedy people being unnecessarily unjust, by trying to be too clever and playing everything like it’s a casino, screwing the whole thing up for everyone. So that’s made me a bit mad…

On the other hand, At The Indie Disco is so upbeat it stands out from the rest of the album.

Did you think it would become one of those songs at the disco? Its funny, because I think every time I do a record it flings between different poles. Indie Disco is at one end of that, but then again there is a lot in between that and something like Down In The Streets Below, the completely orchestral end of it. I don’t feel it stands out, and was recorded in the same time at the same way.

The only difference was that I had to do about 15 different bloody versions of it before I got it how I wanted it. It just refused to sit. SIT. It was a rebellious little number.

PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER

It’s an adaptation of the 1920 children’s novel Swallows and Amazons, by Arthur Ransom. I got approached by the National Theatre in London, primarily Tom Morris who was commissioning director or something, and he kept turning up and gigs and saying you should write a musical.

Eventually we had a meeting, and it took a couple of years until I found the right thing to do. I didn’t want to start my first, or possibly my last, on a terribly heavy, adult, arty subject. I tried to approach it like I thought Cole Porter would have done. He’d have sat down at a piano and started knocking it out. I tried not to ‘arrange’ any of it the way I usually do with records. I found it difficult, but incredibly satisfying; I’ve always been one for puzzles, and it is sort of a puzzle, taking part of a story, turning it into a song, hitting marks to get from one end of the plot line to the other – it’s cool. I enjoyed it a lot, and hope to do another one sometime.

You have been taking part in some interesting collaborations though, we’re big fans of your collaboration with Stuart Murdoch on God Help The Girl’s Perfection As A Hipster. How did that come about? Stuart and I met for the first time properly when we were both doing the same festival in Spain. I think our teams had both done the same deal in order to get us to do it, they’d put us up in this fancy hotel. So we ended up sitting for three days round the pool, playing Scrabble, drinking occasionally and getting incredibly sunburnt. It was lovely and we’ve been firm friends ever since. He was kind enough to ask me to sing DECEMBER 2010 - JANUARY 2011

the song, and I liked the song, so of course I was going to sing it!

How do you see England’s Ashes chances? Will the Duckworth Lewis Method get another run out if they do well? England’s chances are scarily good, that’s the problem. It’s only the worrying that makes them screw up, so they’ve got to be confident that they’re the better side – and on paper they are. So we’ll see. I think England will win, but I think it’ll be 3-2. We don’t know about Duckworth Lewis. We still go to the pub, we still talk about silly ideas, so something will happen, we just don’t know when!

Is there anything else interesting on the horizon for you? Hmmm… erm, well yes there are some interesting things, but I don’t think I’m allowed to tell you! The best thing is that I’ll stop touring in the new year and get to be at home for a while. It’s been really full on since March, the record came out and I haven’t had any time off since. But it has been a really good and successful year. I’m going to try and do these solo, piano shows again next year – if they are back by popular demand that would be fantastic!

England’s chances are scarily good, that’s the problem. It’s only the worrying that makes them screw up, so they’ve got to be confident that they’re the better side.

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And finally, we have to ask what you think of the latest ‘90s reunion - Pulp! Is that happening then?

Are they actually going to do it? Brilliant. Well I’ll be there to see them. They were just about my favourite band of the 90s, don’t miss them!

Bang Goes The Knighthood is out now. Check thedivinecomedy.com for European tour dates; Neil is currently on a solo tour, the Manchester leg of which was simply beautiful.

IN WHICH PYT INTERROGATE NEIL HANNON

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WALK OUT TO WINTER All seasons have their walking merits, but as far as I’m concerned Winter is the best of times to celebrate Britain’s beaches. This may seem unseasonal, even downright bizarre, but there’s something incredibly special about our coastline in the depths of Winter.

The Summer crowds are long gone, and a particular sense of calm descends on the beaches, silent apart from the crash of the waves and the call of the gulls. In the same way that a walk in the forest sums up Autumn, it’s the beach that can make you feel particularly close to Winter - all the more so if you’re wrapped up tightly against the elements! So next time you’re planning a wintry walk, don’t discount our beaches; they provide a fantastic retreat from the stresses of everyday life by blowing away those cobwebs and giving a real visual treat.

There are plenty of great examples of coastal delights, but here are a few that I’m particularly fond of.

WALK OUT TO WINTER

West Wittering, West Sussex This one is a bit of childhood nostalgia for me, although as a youngster any trips to Wittering were usually during the summer holidays, trying to find a tight spot for your beach towel amongst the holiday-makers on the shingle. The fondest memories are more recent, and they’re all Winter-based. On chilly, clear days between November and January the beach, which runs along a spit of land south of Chichester, is deserted, leaving you to stand tall, buffeted by the wind, and listen to the inimitable sound of waves rippling over pebbles.

Formby Beach, Merseyside Formby provides a double dose of Wintry delights, as before you reach the beach itself you’ve got the chance to explore the conifer forest, home to many of England’s increasingly rare red squirrels (Formby marked my first ever red squirrel sighting, an exciting day indeed!). Emerging from the forest, however, you’re greeted with quite a sight: the beach here seems to stretch forever. The broad sands are marked beautifully by the tides, and the wind farm silhouetted in the distance only adds to the feeling of serenity this part of the coast provides as the sun begins to set.

Minehead Beach, Somerset Standing apart from the other choices, Minehead is not a stretch of coastline that suggests peace and tranquility. This is not to say that it is without merit; on the contrary, Minehead is perfectly charming - particularly in Winter. I’m surely not the only one with a soft spot for a bit of faded seaside glamour, and as far as I’m concerned this is at its best on brisk, cold days as you clutch your fish and chips for warmth as you perch on the sea wall. From the arcades that are semi-shut up to beat the biting wind to the sight of the Butlins Big Top at the Easterly end of the beach cutting a lonely figure on the horizon, it’s perfect for some much needed reflection.

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ALBUMS OF THE YEAR 2010

And a load of albums that just missed out on the top 10...

Every year we struggle to rank our top albums of the year here at PYT Towers. This year the task has been made even more difficult than usual, with a massive number of albums we see as nigh-on perfect. The main thing making our decisions so difficult has been the huge abundance of indiepop albums; yes, many of our favourite releases this year don’t fall into this category but 2010 seems to have been the year that indiepop has begun to make its mark again. So without further ado, here are our best of the best!

The Cavalcade - Many Moons (Pebble)

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Pagan Wanderer Lu - European Monsoon (Brainlove) The Divine Comedy - Bang Goes The Knighthood (Divine Comedy Records) Joanna Newsom - Have One On Me (Drag City) The School - Loveless Unbeliever (Elefant) The Art Museums - Rough Frame (Woodsist) Rural Alberta Advantage - Hometowns (Saddle Creek) Los Campesinos! - Romance Is Boring (Wichita) Frightened Rabbit - The Winter of Mixed Drinks (Fat Cat) Hexicon - The Blossom Sighs (Haircut Records)

1 A llo Darlin’ - Allo Darlin’ (Fortuna Pop!) If you have read this zine for any period of time, or seen the PYT website, you will have known for a long time that this was always going to be our album of the year. Quite simply, Elizabeth and co. have produced an LP of confident, uplifting, triumphant, self-degradating, terrifically fun popsongs. One of the best parts about this record is that the more you listen to it, the more attached you grow to the songs, the stories, and the band. My current favourite song is My Heart Is A Drummer - a clarion cry for flawed happiness which also fills dancefloors. Very close to pop perfection.

2 S tandard Fare - The Noyelle Beat (Thee SPC/Melodic) In many ways this is a case of ‘see above’ - it’s been no secret that we’ve spent much of the year absorbing ourselves in Standard Fare’s debut album and falling deeper and deeper in love with it. Much like Allo Darlin’s debut, The Noyelle Beat is glorious in its apparent simplicity and its unabashed honesty. It’s an honesty which can make for uncomfortable listening - like you’re being let in on rather a private conversation - but more often than not it inspires a deep affection for this Sheffield three-piece as they share there most human of experiences, all tied up in perfect pop nuggets.

3 N apoleon IIIrd - Christiania (Brainlove) You know that point when that band you’ve been supporting for ages just steps things up a gear? Christiania is the sound of just that happening for Napoleon IIIrd. He’s always made these fantastic, angry but ridiculously interesting electronicnoisy constructs, but on this record it all becomes something far more, well, great. Tracks like Leaving Copenhagen, This Town and That Town prove just how exceptional this album is, and it flows together as a whole effortless entity. Were it not for two collections of pop hits this would certainly top our chart - a faultless LP. 4 Edwyn Collins - Losing Sleep (Heavenly) In the same year that the whole Orange Juice back catalogue has been re-released, Edwyn Collins has come back with what I think is possibly his best solo record to date. This is a collection of soul-tinged-pop as good as anything else released this year, with the title track every bit as good as A Girl Like You, Flesh Of My Flesh or Rip It Up. To think that this man has had to teach himself how to draw and write again over the past few years makes this even more impressive. A true legend, back to his best.

5 S hrag - Life! Death! Prizes! (Where It’s At Is Where You Are) By the time Shrag’s second album was released in October we were starting to gawp in disbelief at how many great indiepop releases there had been this year. Was there room for another in the high flyers list? Oh yes there was, because Life! Death! Prizes! is a perfectly crafted collection of tracks that make you dance around your living room with wanton abandon. It’s an album where favourites are hard to choose, where almost any track could be a single, but the one thing that’s certain is that you’ll want to play it again and again.

6 Darren Hayman - Essex Arms (Fortuna Pop!)

Tender Trap - Dansette Dansette (Fortuna Pop!) Sufjan Stevens - The Age of Adz (Asthmatic Kitty Records) Dangermouse and Sparklehorse - Dark Night of the Soul (Capitol) Mitchell Museum - Peters Port Memorial Service (Electra French Records) The Radio Dept - Clinging to a Scheme (Labrador) Race Horses - Goodbye Falkenberg (Fantastic Plastic) Teenage Fanclub - Shadows (PEMA) Perfume Genius - Learning (Turnstile) Cours Lapin - Cours Lapin (Fake Diamond)

It’s not just albums that have made 2010 a great year for us though, so here are a few more of of our favourite picks.

Label of the Year: Fortuna Pop! Fortuna Pop! Have been hitting high for a while, particularly as they snapped up the Pains of being Pure at Heart back in 2008, but 2010 has seen Sean Price and co. really hit their stride. For starters, this is the label behind Allo Darlin’s debut album, which is almost certainly our top record since the Pains’ debut came out in January 2009. It’s not just Allo Darlin’ though. Throughout the year Fortuna Pop! have released the likes of Milky Wimpshake’s My Funny Social Crime, Darren Hayman’s excellent Essex Arms and Tender Trap’s Dansette Dansette, making them our number one indiepop label of 2010!

Moment of the Year: The Rural Alberta Advantage at Sounds From The Other City Having a Postcards From Manchester stage at this year’s Sounds was a huge amount of fun, but we never could have expected the scenes during the RAA’s set (their first in the UK). Not only did the band play brilliantly, but the crowd went wild. Yep, that is the most appropriate phrase - it took two Postcards members to hold onto the PA to stop the surging crowds from bringing it crashing to the floor. Wonderful stuff!

Gig of the Year: An Astronomical Evening with Darren Hayman at Godlee Observatory Unsurprisingly it’s always been an ambition of ours to put Darren on, and our chance came this year in the form of a collaboration with Chris at Hey! Manchester. The result was better than we could have hoped for, with two incredibly intimate shows at the Godlee Observatory, home to the Manchester Astronomical Society. What made it particularly special is that not only did the two crowds (30 a piece) seem to enjoy it, Darren did too, inviting everyone for a drink and a natter in the pub afterwards.

7 The National - High Violet (4AD) 8 Errors - Come Down With Me (Rock Action) 9 Beach House - Teen Dream (Bella Union) 10 Kisses - The Heart of the Nightlife (This Is Music)

ALBUMS OF THE YEAR 2010

Broken Social Scene - Forgiveness Rock Record (City Slang)

PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER

DECEMBER 2010 - JANUARY 2011

ALBUMS OF THE YEAR 2010

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THE LISTINGS

DEC 10 - JAN 11

Belle & Sebastian - Apollo + Echo & the Bunnymen - The Ritz, Tuesday 7th December What a night. Two of the finest songwriters that the UK has produced, in town on the same night.

Stuart Murdoch’s Belle & Sebastian have just released their first album in over four years, and as far as we’re concerned it doesn’t disappoint, with soul influences often coming to the fore. Their Apollo show will be complemented by a full orchestra, providing quite a treat! If B&S aren’t your thing you may want to be over at the Ritz for some other stalwarts of British alternative music, as Echo and the Bunnymen take to the stage.

7th Carefully Planned All-Dayer - The Castle, Saturday 15th January Carefully Planned is not your normal kind of night, and Matthew who holds it all together is not your normal kind of promoter.

He’s been pulling together selections of DIY artists for a while now, and this outing at The Castle is a great example of how he does things. Beat The Radar will provide Cribs-cum-Stone Roses pop songs, Christopher Eatough will continue to prove that he is this best songwriter in this city, and Haiku Salut (former members of The Deirdres) will bring the popsongs. A great day for finding all the bands you love but haven’t heard of yet.

Royal Theatre Live, Hamlet Cornerhouse, Thursday 9th December This looks like a really interesting prospect. The Royal Theatre are live broadcasting a selection of their productions to arts venues across the country - with Cornerhouse showing them in Manchester. First up is Hamlet, starting Rory Kinnear as the Danish Prince. Keep an eye out in the future for Danny Boyle’s Frankenstein which is also to be shown live.

Josie Long - Night + Day, Thursday 9th December Keep your fingers and toes crossed for this one, as we don’t want another of Josie’s shows to be postponed! Her latest show, Be Honorable, promises a call to arms to us all to become better people.

Ordinarily this may not sound appealing, but with Josie at the helm topics like this are bound to not only be littered with all sorts of other intriguing subjects, but also bound to be, by turns, emotive, endearing, charming and incredibly affecting.

Wooden Shjips + Moon Duo - St Phillips Church & Islington Mill, Friday 10th December As part of Sounds From The Other City’s new venture, Sounds Like Another Christmas, Wooden Shjips are back in this part of the world. They’ve specifically asked Now Wave to put them on in a church, so St Phil’s will be the venue for their spaced out drone, before Ripley Johnson runs across the road as soon as they finish to play a Moon Duo gig too. Incredible stuff, two great bands in the same night.

Red Deer Club + Cloud Sounds’ Christmas Party - Fuel, Friday 10th December This one looks like quite a feat to pull off, with eight bands across two floors in the cosy confines of Fuel. From long-time PYT favourites Young British Artists to relative newcomers like The Louche FC and THE band that everyone was talking about at this year’s Swn festival, Y Niwl, this is set to be a rather marvellous party.

Arcade Fire - Manchester Central, Saturday 11th December For those of you not trooping off to Minehead for ATP’s Bowlie 2, surely you should be spending this evening in the company of Arcade Fire. The Canadians have partially reinvented themselves for third album, The Suburbs, and it will certainly be interesting to see how these more stripped back tracks will sound alongside earlier sprawling orchestral offerings.

Whatever happens, they are likely to remain one of the best live bands around.

Idlewild play 100 Broken Windows Academy 3, Monday 13th December If you missed last year’s chance to head to Glasgow for Idlewild’s week of album retrospective shows, here’s your chance to see them at their best. 2000’s 100 Broken Windows saw the band reign in some of the more punk elements from Captain and Hope Is Important to create an album similarly urgent but vastly more moving. Now, 10 years on, there’s a special edition re-issue and a handful of shows which should be very special indeed.

Saint Etienne + The Radio Dept. - The Ritz, Friday 17th December Oh. My. Word. Does pop music come any better than this lineup? Saint Etienne were one of the most interesting bands of the Brit Pop-era, producing what has been lazily labelled as ‘indiedance’ but owes far more to 60s girl groups, later-Aztec Camera and early Pet Shop Boys than Meanswe@r and Gene. With support from Labrador Records’ top picks The Radio Dept. this is a sure fire hit of a night.

Sonic Youth - Academy 1, Thursday 30th December A fun game to play at any music festival you go to - how many different Sonic Youth t-shirts can you spot. Thurston Moore and co are quite possibly the American noise band, and have been inventing new ways to battered a guitar around a stage since the 1981. There isn’t room here to go into just how great they are, or how much they have influenced bands over the past 30 (thirty!) years. Expect a show to remember, especially with a newly-reformed The Pop Group in the support slot.

PYT @ Common - Wednesday 8th December, Wednesday 22nd December, Wednesday 12th January, Wednesday 26th January It’s business as usual over at Common, and you can join us every second and fourth Wednesday for all your indiepop needs. The 8th December will feature a special guest set from the folks at Shake It!, art poppers extraordinaire whilst we’ll be going all festive on the 22nd December ready for the arrival of the big man himself on the 25th - Sandy Claws himself!

THE LISTINGS

PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER

The Walkmen - Central Methodist Hall, Monday 20th January Now Wave don’t stop do they? Manchester’s hottest ticket continues as they bring The Walkmen back to play in the brilliant surrounds of Central Hall on Oldham Street. Recent LP Lisbon has been going down a treat, and The Walkmen’s live show is always captivating. Sure to be a January highlight.

CUBE Open - CUBE, until Wednesday 22nd January CUBE’s open competition for artists, architects and designers from around the globe offers a chance to reflect current trends and debates surrounding space and place, highlighting the urban environment.

Hambug based Julia Münz & Annika Utenburg’s interventions in public space top this year’s bill as CUBEOpen enters it’s fourth year.

The Land Between Us - Whitworth Art Gallery, until Thursday 23rd January Closing at the end of January, the current exhibition at the Whitworth looks at the imagery of landscape, the places it depicts, the cultural and political power invested in the land and how meaning is found between art and the viewer.

Highlights include Turner watercolours and Olafur Elliason’s installation of a forest within the gallery.

Friends of Manchester Festival Kro + Jabez Clegg, 29th January Friends of Manchester 2010 had an enviable line-up including firm PYT favourites Allo Darlin’, Standard Fare and Dutch Uncles, and 2011’s effort looks set to do the same with stages curated by Friends of Mine, Blowout, Lost & Found and For Folk’s Sake. So far the line-up includes some of Manchester’s best new bands, including Golden Glow and Plank!.

Death and the Working Class - People’s History Museum, until May 2011 Ever since this exhibition was announced when the PHM re-opened I’ve been waiting for it. A friend of mine is something of an expert in death and funerals (no really, he knows loads about it!) and has slowly been building my interest in the subject. This exhibition explores changing perceptions of death, funerals and the ephemera around the big send off, as well as providing a guide to Manchester’s unknown burial sites!

EVENT

OF

ISSUTEHE

ATP presents Bowlie 2 curated

by Belle & Sebastian, Butlins Minehead, 10th 12th December

Yes, there will be plenty of talk about how it’s not the same as the original Bowlie Weekender, where B&S essentially created the ATP festival format, but there are plenty of us who never had the chance to go in 1999, and this is looking like it may be the best ATP line-up we’ve had the pleasure of experiencing.

At the time of writing there are still a few chalets available, so snap up a ticket and join us in chilly coastal Somerset where we’ll be warming our cockles with the likes of Frightened Rabbit, Those Dancing Days, Teenage Fanclub and Zoey Van Goey. The line-up is a perfect mix of upcoming acts and old favourites - including performances from Saint Etienne and The Vaselines alongside much talked about newcomers like Best Coast, and we can think of no better way to chase away those winter blues! As always, in addition to the bands you’ll have the chance to relive the childhood joys of arcade games and bowling alleys, and the oft overlooked delight of eating fish and chips on a windswept Winter beach (because we all know that British beaches are at their best in Winter!) - Tickets from atpfestival.com

PYT Presents - Dinosaur Planet + Fenist the Falcon - The Kings Arms, Wednesday 8th December We are very happy to be hosting MJ Hibbett’s Dinosaur Planet as a part of Sounds Like Another Christmas over in Salford. A musical about the dinosaurs’ return from space and the ultimate destruction of Peterborough, you can expect many a weird and wonderful tale from Hibbett.

Additionally we’ve got Liz Green’s shadow puppetry take on traditional Russian folklore, Fenist the Falcon.

DECEMBER 2010 - JANUARY 2011

THE LISTINGS

16

HAVE YOURSELF A BOOZY LITTLE CHRISTMAS It’s that time of the year again: a giant red and white glowing beast with big black eyes has climbed Manchester’s Town Hall and found itself a comfy place on the rooftop, watching over Albert Square like the protective patron saint of, well, all glowing beasts in this world. Lo and behold!

Christmas is near, and it is heralded by an armada of wooden huts, fairy lights, cotton wool snow, water proof tents and oversized barbecues laying itself over Manchester’s city centre, shaping the innumerable Christmas markets that will fill our stomachs and empty our wallets in the next four weeks.

I remember Christmas Markets with a fondness that is unlike almost anything I have experienced in my life. From a very young age the annual trip to the “Weihnachtsmarkt” marked the beginning of all pre-Christmas festivities, first with my primary school to sell charity postcards, then with my parents to buy “Räucherstäbchenhalter” and later to “test the Glühwein” with my friends. How happy I was to hear there was a German Christmas market in Manchester!

And - how disappointed I was to find that the “German” Christmas market was more like Germany’s unfulfilled colonial dreams: Dutch pancakes and Danish hot dog sausages, lined up next to French crepes and Swiss cheeses, tucked in between stalls selling bric-abrac that hardly managed to disguise its “Made in China” stamp on the back. Well, I guess the general geographic direction was correct.

Glühwein, as opposed to the cold beer Mancunians enjoy at their Christmas markets, is a beverage that demonstrates German efficiency at its finest. Hot red wine, mixed with a little orange juice and spices, serves as a convenient hand warmer, keeping you snuggly on the inside and getting you very “angetüdelt” very quickly.

Rants and nostalgia aside; the biggest joy about the Christmas Markets in Manchester is how thrilled everyone gets when you mention it. “Have you been to the Christmas Markets yet?”, asked with eyes wide open, sparkling in anticipation (eyes, not people), is about as omnipresent a question in the weeks leading up to the Holy Night as “What are you doing on New Year’s?” starting approximately mid-September. With the first Christmas market in the UK only opening in the 1980s, this medieval German tradition still bears more exoticism than Far Eastern sushi, and the excitement about it is worth squeezing through masses of people, spilling Glühwein all over your coat and overdosing on sugary sweets. One year, on receiving complimentary “Lebkuchenherzen” (chocolate covered gingerbread hearts, filled with jam) with our Glühwein, my Mancunian companions couldn’t stop gushing in wonder over these l ittle delicacies - and I couldn’t help but feel warmth and genuine excitement about Christmas in my icy little heart. *Not to mention the post-Glühwein “Kater” that’s as certain as it is majestic.

Samantha Bail writes mightaswell.co.uk, winner of Best Personal Blog at the 2010 Manchester Blog Awards

HAVE YOURSELF A BOOZY LITTLE CHRISTMAS

PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER