.CO.UK
THE SKINNY HANDBOOK 2014–2015
INDEPENDENT
CULT U R A L
J O U R N A L I S M
Contents
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Mark up your calendar with some of the year ahead’s key events thanks to our handy little planner
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Welcome to your new home! How exciting and terrifying in equal measure
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Gigs in churches and underground parties are all part of the music scene – we meander through its past, present and future, from A-Z
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Purveyors of some of Liverpool and Manchester’s best clubnights tell us where it all began
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Fancy yourself as the next Stewart Lee? Here are the best places to fail miserably (or just see some comedy)
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There are more ways to get into theatre than just bagging the cheap seats – our section ed rounds up some cool opps
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The Northwest has a healthy live literature scene – everyone’s getting up and grabbing the mic. Why not give it a go?
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If a fluffy grey poodle called Francis watching you cook doesn’t encourage you to try out the kitchen, we don’t know what will
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Skip lectures for three years* and take our short course in the history of film instead
STUDENT HANDBOOK
THE SKINNY
30 Sex! Whether you’ve had it or not, try not
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Like tinkering with gadgets and making stuff? Tech explores the resources and groups available to join in the Northwest
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A Showcase of work from some of our favourite grads from the region’s art schools
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Being an art student is thrilling and kind of ridiculous. Here’s one nostalgic Art editor on how to make the most of it
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As well as our art Showcase, we often show the work of some of the area’s most exciting fashion grads. Here are a couple of our picks from the last year
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Up a creek, quite literally without a paddle – a backpacker remembers an eventful trip to Thailand
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From gig and club venues to museums, galleries and cafes, let our city guides be your, er, guide to Liverpool, Manchester and Preston
T EMA EL. 0161 VISIT IL. CE 661 4 . WW NMA 201 W.M N@C ANC ERV HEST ANT ER.C ES.ES ERVA NTES .ES
to stress about it. Our Deviance editor has some tips
62 Resident agony uncle Fred Fletch has some unique advice for freshers. You’re welcome *not recommended 2014–2015
STUDENT HANDBOOK
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Editorial
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elcome to The Skinny Student Handbook, which hasn’t been put together by the characters above, but please imagine it was. We hope it’ll prove an entertaining guide to the cities you have found yourselves in – and university life therein. University life! Where have all the years gone eh, said everyone older than you all summer, patting you on the head. What else was it they said? Oh yeah, that these are the best days of your life. “THEY’RE THE BEST DAYS OF YOUR LIFE!” they said, chasing you out of the countryside and quickly repainting your room. It’s maybe more accurate that your uni days are the only ones in which you will live in a sort of human-sized hamster run where all your immediate needs and desires are located between one and four metres away. Friends! They are either in the same house or on the same street as you. Lovers! They are either in the same house or on the same street as you, though really you would be advised against the former. Parties! They are either in the same house or on the same street as you; sometimes it’s more that the house is in the party. Intellectual stimulation! It is in the library. Sure, you should probably work hard (and you will); but the real thrill is that you are in this specific place, with these particular people, at this exact time. Seize it. Join a society, run in an election, put on a show. Unless you’re a medic. Medics will be hanging out with other medics, having medic sleepovers and running medic festivals, and generally just tearing things up in a way nonmedics will never know how to and will forever envy, long and deep into adulthood. But before all that: dive in! From tips on where to find free comedy to the tale of a gapyear trek; from the history of film to a 20-page venue directory, we hope we’ve got you covered. Now go explore. And best of luck. [Lauren Strain]
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Editor: Lauren Strain Designer: Thom Isom Production Manager: Amy Minto Contributors: Jon Davies (Liverpool Venues editor); Chloe Atkinson, Alan Bett, Natasha Bissett, Jamie Dunn, Simon Jay Catling, Jamie Faulkner, Fred Fletch, Izzy Gray, Daniel Jones, Tasha Lee, Natasha Linford, Debs Marsden, Alecia Marshall, John Stansfield, Laura Swift, John Thorp, Anna Tully, Sacha Waldron Sales Executives: Caroline Harleaux, Issy Patience, John Stansfield Illustrator: Louise Lockhart Maps: © OpenStreetMap contributors, CC-BY-SA (openstreetmap.org) THE SKINNY Editor-in-Chief: Rosamund West Lead Designer: Maeve Redmond Commercial Director: Nicola Taylor Sales Director: Lara Moloney Company PA: Kyla Hall Publisher: Sophie Kyle Get in touch: E: hiya@theskinny.co.uk T: 0161 833 3124 P: The Skinny, Second Floor, Swan Buildings, 20 Swan Street, Manchester, M4 5JW The Skinny is the Northwest's largest independent entertainment & listings magazine, and offers a wide range of advertising packages and affordable ways to promote your business.
E: sales@theskinny.co.uk All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part without the explicit permission of the publisher. The views and opinions expressed within this publication do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the printer or the publisher.
STUDENT HANDBOOK
THE SKINNY
THE INTERNATIONAL ANTHONY BURGESS FOUNDATION
24 hour arty people
What’s it going to be then, eh? Visit the UK’s only venue devoted to the life and work of Anthony Burgess Meet, read and work off the beaten track in our CAFÉ & BOOKSHOP Discover more in our EXHIBITION SPACE Immerse yourself in 20th century literature in our READING ROOM Enjoy unique and engaging events all year round in our VENUE Cafe open Mon - Fri, 10am - 2pm 10% student discount available
Galleries / Cinema / Bar / Cafe 88 Wood Street, Liverpool, L1 4DQ fact.co.uk / @FACT_liverpool
WWW.ANTHONYBURGESS.ORG I A B F
International Anthony Burgess Foundation Engine House, Chorlton Mill 3 Cambridge Street, Manchester, M1 5BY
2014–2015
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Heads Up Compiled by: Laura Swift
SEPTEMBER
You’ve accidentally enrolled on a unit in Fluid Mechanics, fallen in and out of love 11 times in two weeks and been fined for throwing up in a taxi while dressed as a pirate. Fortunately for you, for a bit of light relief there’s the Liverpool Comedy Festival (23 Sep-5 Oct; and why not come see ten emerging comics in a showcase of talent put together by, er, The Skinny, on 30 Sep at The Kazimier?)
Liverpool ONE Ice Festival
DECEMBER
People go properly apeshit for winter markets in the Northwest; clasp your achey laptop fingers around warming mugs of various spiced alcohols and peruse the little log cabins of Liverpool ONE, central Manchester and Spinningfields, and Preston’s winter wonderland, historically at the Flag Market. Don’t miss the massive vintage and crafts fair that is the Winter Arts Market at Liverpool’s St. George’s Hall, either.
Cornelia Parker - Whitworth Art Gallery reopening season
Photo: Hugo Glendinning
JANUARY
In an ordinarily quiet month with everyone broke, broken and marinaded in distant relatives’ antique brandy, the Library Theatre’s annual re:play festival (12-24 Jan), held at HOME, gathers together the best of the previous year’s fringe theatre for a re-run, so you can catch what you missed the first time around.
It’s a month of beginnings and endings in the art world: as the Whitworth Art Gallery reopens on 25 Oct, Liverpool Biennial comes to an end on the 26th. You can also feed your mind at Manchester Literature Festival (6-19 Oct) and Lancaster LitFest (16-20 Oct), and scare yourself shitless at the North’s biggest horror cinema festival, GrimmFest (2-5 Oct).
NOVEMBER
To the backdrop of screaming rockets and concerned parents, why not get into the winter spirit by boozing it up at Cheshire Beer Festival (14-15 Nov) or catching the end of Blackpool Illuminations (9 Nov)? Meanwhile, there’s theatre and international dance at Homotopia in Liverpool (until 20 Nov), and it’s the final month of the Asia Triennial (ends 23 Nov). 8
Liverpool Biennial - A Needle Walks into a Haystack - La colline de l’art (2014)
FEBRUARY
Redirect any misplaced Valentine’s Day affections to the Liverpool Everyman Theatre, which celebrates one year since it reopened this month; meanwhile, Manchester’s annual Queer Contact festival runs 5-15 Feb at Contact theatre as part of LGBT History Month, with music, spoken word and more.
THE SKINNY
Photo: Tate Liverpool
OCTOBER
Koreless at FutureEverything 2014
Photo: Gary Brown and Manox Media
JUNE
MARCH
Liverpool’s DIY multi-arts festival Threshold, the Cornerhouse’s reliable ¡Viva! Spanish and Latin American Film Festival and the trailblazing FutureEverything – an annual festival of adventurous music, tech and future thinking – tend to make March an enjoyable ballache for both diaries and finances.
Liverpool’s annual Africa Oyé festival in Sefton Park (dates tbc, but usually towards the back-end of June) is the UK’s biggest free celebration of African music and culture; you’d struggle to beat it locally for atmosphere, and the food is usually incredible too.
JULY
The biennial Manchester International Festival (2-19 Jul) returns for its fifth instalment – the 18day series of ambitious shows, all of them world premieres, gives the city a real buzz (and also a place to actually sit outside in the sun: make Festival Square aka the town hall square your nightly haunt).
APRIL
If you aren’t sick to the back teeth of books (yay books!), World Book Night inspires readings, late-opening libraries and mini festivals; while the closing flashmob performance of Cornerhouse’s final season in its current Oxford Road home, The Storming, promises mayhem on 4 Apr.
Salford Degree Show 2014 - Rika Jones
Abdul Tee-Jay’s Rokoto at Africa Oyé 2014
Photo: Michael Sheerin
AUGUST
The region’s major Pride festivals take over the bank holiday weekends; everyone decamps to Skipton in the North Yorkshire hills for Beacons festival (6-9 Aug), and at some point towards the end of the month you’ll return to that weird, blurry universe where all your pals live within a one-mile radius and the best ones bring you tea at 3am.
This month, people terrifyingly close to graduating from the institution you are in will be running around it doing last-minute soldering and racking up massive bills on the photocopier. Go and support your final year chums as they present their degree shows (Liverpool School of Art & Design usually end May; Manchester School of Art, Create Salford festival and UCLan typically mid-June). 2014-2015
Jon Hopkins at Beacons Festival 2014
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Photo: Sam Huddleston
MAY
Living in the Sprawl Alright la? ’Ay up cocker! Now that you’ve learned how to say hey, you’ll want to acclimatise yourself to this land of superlambananas and superlative arts scenes. Ultimately, though, we recommend you just crack on
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elcome to the Northwest, where everything happens in a mill. Mills are really cool. No seriously, ventilation was really key in many of the processes of the Industrial Rev-... okay, okay. But if you can bear to carry on reading, it’s true that you will probably find yourself at an art exhibition in an old warehouse, being chased through some underground irrigation system as part of an immersive ‘promenade’ theatre performance, or out of your mind on the third storey of a disused factory at some point before 2018. Liverpool, Manchester and Preston are part of a wider arts and music scene in the North that has, over the last few years, seen a huge surge in ambition and daring on the part of curators, promoters and people who are just generally doing stuff.
“If there’s one thing these cities do have in common, it’s that they want you to come along and shake things up” Of course, that pioneering spirit has always been part of the fabric of the Northwest – the birthplace of the aforementioned Industrial Revolution; a region with a history of strongly left-leaning political sentiment; the ideological 2014-2015
Words: Laura Swift Illustration: Louise Lockhart
breeding ground for some of the greatest thinkers of times past and present... It’s just that perhaps now more than ever, it feels like there are a ton of ways to get involved – and we hope the proceeding pages will help inspire you to do so, whatever your forte, whether you want to get up on stage and read a poem or brew up the next gamechanging invention or start a clubnight. Or y’know, just go out a lot. Some practical tips: Liverpool’s Baltic Triangle isn’t really a Triangle. Manchester you will think is laid out in a rigid grid shape for at least three years before finally understanding it’s not. This will have a revolutionary impact on both your sense of geographical prowess and your ability to meet friends at designated points at stated times. Preston has the biggest, most beautiful Brutalist bus station in pretty much the world, which recently triumphed over demolition plans; go and give it some love. Despite Liverpool and Manchester’s famed rivalry (something to do with... football?), the two cities enjoy lots of fruitful cultural connections, which will hopefully one day be matched by the, uh, trains. But listen, it’s impossible to describe the character of a place without making vast generalisations, falling into stereotype or just getting pointless– Liverpool is less obsessed with the dirty burger than Manchester? Preston has more... leafy green bits? (In it, not in its burgers.) What’s more important – and exhilarating! – than someone trying to define it before you’ve even got stuck in is that your new home will mean something different to each and every one o’ yer. We’ll concede: if there’s one thing these cities do have in common, it’s that they want you to come along and shake things up. Hey look! You’re right on time.
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Hit the North This is the kind of place where techno legends play in the ruins of 19th-century churches, whole weekends are lost to worshipping at the altar of psych, and classical music students are the coolest. Here’s a lil’ taster
Words: John Thorp and Simon Jay Catling
MiSTOA POLTSA
A is for all dayers! Embrace the full force of community spirit, and the bar, by attending one. Often featuring dozens of bands over numerous venues, they provide a great snapshot of a scene at a reasonable price. Look out for Carefully Planned events in Manchester, and FestEVOL in Liverpool. B is for Bunker, once Sways Records’ Strangeways-shadowed warehouse HQ in Salford – the growing legacy of which lives on through the label itself, having helped the word of MONEY’s poetic dream-pop, Kult Country and Bernard + Edith to spread beyond the M60. C is for churches: some of the most feted names in indie, from St. Vincent to Elbow, have taken to the altar at Manchester’s Cathedral over the past few years, while in Liverpool, St. Luke’s, or the ‘Bombed Out Church’ as it’s better known, provides one of the more unusual rave spots in the city for promoters freeze. D is for DIY and the artists and promoters doing things independently. In Liverpool, screamos We Came Out Like Tigers are a fierce, politically active four-piece, while there are a load of gear-swapping, bill-sharing garage rock bands in 12
Manchester – check out Sex Hands and MiSTOA POLTSA. E is for the Echo Arena. Liverpool finally got its own arena mega space to rival Manchester’s Phones4u Arena with ‘the Echo,’ debuting as part of the city’s tenure in 2008 as European Capital of Culture. It may not be a sketchy basement party, but sometimes all you want is Beyonce. F is for futurism: it’s not all parkas and fishing hats y’know. From the recently launched Syndrome Sessions at Liverpool’s 24 Kitchen Street to new collaborative ensemble Immix’s work with fellow forward-thinking Merseyside artists – or Manchester’s FutureEverything festival – the Northwest is full of people looking to advance music across all forms. G is for galleries. Naturally, some of the best music emerges from dedicated arts and creative spaces. Great examples are Liverpool’s Static Gallery, home to A/V collective Deep Hedonia, and Salford’s Islington Mill, where the resident bands include noise merchants Horrid and Gnod, whose Gesamtkunstwerk clubnight blows minds and ears on the regular.
MUSIC
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The Martin Harris Centre for Music and Drama
Š Mike Fudge
Live performances at the heart of The University of Manchester. A diverse and exciting programme including music, drama, literature, comedy and dance. The Martin Harris Centre for Music and Drama The University of Manchester, Bridgeford Street, off Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL
MHCentre
www.manchester.ac.uk/martinharriscentre
1064_MHC_Skinny_quarter_page_advert_59-5mmx92mm.indd 0 15/08/2014 16:01
2014-2015
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just £3* you can hear the Hallé perform extraordinary music in a fantastic concert hall. Experience world famous symphonies and breathtaking concertos as well as ground-breaking world premieres, performed by some of the world’s greatest artists.
* From
* These
tickets are available in the stalls for the majority of the Hallé’s concerts. Events may be added throughout the year so visit www.halle.co.uk/student-offers to check for full details. purchase tickets, come to The Bridgewater Hall, visit www.halle.co.uk or call the Box Office on 0161 907 9000.
* To
* THE
SMALL PRINT: The Bridgewater Hall applies a booking fee of £2 per ticket to telephone and online transactions. Tickets bought in person at the Box Office using a debit card or credit card are subject to a 2% booking fee. Fees do not apply to tickets bought in person and paid for by cash or cheque.
* This
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offer is subject to availability. You will be asked to show appropriate identification.
THE SKINNY
Novella at Liverpool Psych Fest 2013
H is for the Haçienda: probably some of the nicest apartments to be found off the Oxford Road corridor, the popularity of their design is such that you can regularly expect to see tourists excitedly having their photo taken outside them, while older locals often fondly recall some of the many great nights they spent staying in their comfortable and surprisingly spacious interiors.
M is for metal. The ominously titled Satan’s Hollow remains Manchester’s purest spot for metal and alternative clubbing, a sweaty moshpit haven on the edge of Chinatown. Grand Central on Oxford Road has a constant stream of live bands, almost always for free. In Liverpool, the notorious Krazyhouse is true to its name, and The Swan Inn provides real ale and a rock-centric jukebox.
I is for indie – both Liverpool and Manchester share a grand legacy of guitar music, but if laddish, anthem-centric clubnights prove unappealing, try alternatives like Manchester’s Dots & Loops for a more varied sound you can still get a little lairy with.
N is for nostalgia. Names like The Beatles, Joy Division and The Stone Roses are possibly what drew you to this part of the country, and the Cavern Club, Beatles Story museum, FAC251 and their ilk still exist as a reminder of these supposed golden eras – you can even get a Manchester Music tour by an Inspiral Carpet if you so wish.
J is for journey, because there’s plenty going on outside the major cities. The jaw-dropping Lovell telescope dish has overlooked outdoor shows by Sigur Rós and The Flaming Lips at Jodrell Bank, and Beat-Herder festival throws one of the year’s most fevered parties up in the Lancashire hills. K is for The Kazimer, perhaps the most exciting venue in Liverpool. The faded glamour of its theatre setting is juxtaposed against a constantly forward thinking schedule of live music and DJs. In the summer, its garden hosts special DJ sets, film screenings and various ‘intoxicating masterclasses.’ L is for LIPA, the Paul McCartney-founded Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, which has been at least partly responsible for a resurgence of the city's music scene in recent years and counts among its alumni Ninetails, Natalie McCool and the slick kraut-pop of Outfit. 2014-2015
O is for the perennially thriving open mic scene. We can’t guarantee a total lack of toe-curling, but Fuel in Withington is a good bet every Wednesday; Liverpool’s Leaf welcomes original songs at Out of the Bedroom on Tuesdays, and Preston’s Korova has Nu Folk Sessions every second Friday. P is for psych, and the two-day trip into opening the third eye that is the annual Liverpool Psych Fest. There’s plenty of opportunity to loosen the mind in Manchester too – look out for promoters Interstellar Overdrive, The Beauty Witch and Wotgodforgot among others. Q is for quartets, quintets, or even symphonies. The feted Royal Northern College of Music is home to some of the finest contemporary classical music in the world. Upcoming concerts include Black Swan composer Clint Mansell, and Nils Frahm.
MUSIC
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Photo: Stuart Moulding
Photo: Andrew Ellis
Natalie McCool
R is for record labels. Factory et al may have long since gone, but dig deep and you’ll find avid enthusiasts putting out all types of the weird and the wonderful. Melodic are a must for leftfield guitar pop and compositional electronica; house and techno imprint Scenery boast releases by hard-hitting producer John Heckle, while Finders Keepers traverse everything from psychedelia to folk and jazz.
crate diggers will find satisfaction in Dig Vinyl and Vinyl Exchange. W is for The Warehouse Project, which has become something of a national institution. Prior to mysterious but mega plans for its tenth anniversary in 2015, this year the club behemoth returns for one year only to its former, more intimate Store Street home. From Richie Hawtin to Caribou, there’s something for all fans of electronic music… or at least those lucky enough to get a ticket.
S is for sub-bass. Those who like their nights out to really rumble (acoustically) should descend into the basement of Manchester’s Joshua Brooks. The popular venue has just installed the only X is for, um, eXperimentalism. From Liverpool permanent Void sound system outside of London. trio Ex-Easter Island Head laying their guitars flat Phwoof. and playing them with mallets, to the a.P.A.t.T. Orchestra’s mixed-ability scratch ensemble – and T is for Trof, a local chain of venues that started Video Jam’s marriage of improvised scores and out as a cafe in Fallowfield and has since exmoving image – the Northwest’s creative scene panded to become a main player on Manchester’s consistently strives to break free from the norm. music scene. As well as intimate Victorian music hall The Deaf Institute, Trof also own the versaY is for Yuletide and the vast array of shows and tile Gorilla and the beautifully renovated Grade II clubnights that adorn the season. In Liverpool listed Albert Hall, which has recently welcomed you can normally count on a band or two popping Wild Beasts and Bonobo. up with their own Christmas special – Stealing Sheep’s mythology-themed do at the Kazimier U is for underground parties: of course, the mo- being last year’s highlight – while the Warehouse ment we publish details of an underground party Project promise a massive Boxing Day event in in our monthly mag, the point is lost. But trust Manchester. us, keep your eye out… For a literal underground party, Liverpool promoters Freeze have grown Z is for Zugwang, one of the finer tracks from accustomed to throwing them in the Williamson Dutch Uncles’ third LP, Out of Touch in the Wild. The five-piece are among a collection of artTunnels: past guests have included techno legfully skewed pop bands who’ve broken out of ends Andrew Weatherall and Slam. the region in recent years, with the electronic V is for vinyl. Remember buying music physically? eccentricities of Everything Everything and the kaIt actually does pretty well here, thanks to several leidoscopic Stealing Sheep also making it into the national consciousness. fine record shops at either end of the Ship Canal. Probe in Liverpool and Piccadilly Records in Want to find out more about the regional scene? Manchester are well worth your time for the Visit theskinny.co.uk/music/new_blood for our series latest indie releases and club edits; second-hand of features profiling emerging local bands and artists 16
MUSIC
THE SKINNY
Photo: Nick Bojdo
Wild Beasts at Albert Hall
Sat 27th Sept • £16 adv
The Pierces
Sat 4th Oct • £18 adv 9pm - 5am • over 18s only
AFFL CKS E
Goodgreef Xtra Hard - 10 Year Celebration
ft. Darren Styles + Re-Style + Alex Kidd + Andy Whitby + Mark EG
Fri 10th Oct • £14 adv
Kids In Glass Houses Sat 11th Oct • £15 adv
ICW (Insane Championship Wrestling): I Am The Walrus
Thurs 16th Oct • £15 adv
Clean Bandit + Years & Years Fri 17th Oct • £16 adv Mon - Fri 10:30am - 6:00pm Sat 10:00am - 6:00pm Sun 11:00am - 5:00pm.
52 Church St, Manchester M4 1PW
Maverick Sabre Thurs 30th Oct • £16.50 adv
Wild Beasts
Mon 3rd Nov • £14 adv
SikTh + Heart Of A Coward + Idiom Tues 4th Nov • £16.50 adv
The War On Drugs + Steve Gunn Weds 5th Nov • £17.50 adv
Band Of Skulls + Bo Ningen Mon 17th Nov • £17.50 adv
Lit
Thurs 20th Nov • £18.50 adv 6pm
Pop Punks Not Dead ft. New Found Glory + The Story So Far + State Champs + Candy Hearts + Only Rivals
Mon 1st Dec • £18.50 adv
Rescheduled show • original tickets valid
Professor Green Sat 6th Dec • £20 adv
The Enemy & The Twang Sat 13th Dec • £10 adv
Catfish And The Bottlemen
2014-2015
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Into the Night Interview: Daniel Jones
Hoya:Hoya
Hustle What? A weekly house and disco night taking place all over Liverpool, merging the old school with the new to play the very best of past, present and future sounds. Who? Past guests include Marcel Vogel, Rahaan, Atjazz and Delano Smith. Why? “When I was at uni, the club scene in Liverpool was quite vibrant at first. I remember coming over to this side of the water from Belfast and stumbling across Liverpool night Cookie Dough, which was playing some great US house music. Circus was still on that West Coast house tip, which I quite liked, but from my perspective the popular sounds went much more minimal after that and a lot of the soulful influences were stripped out of the wider dance scene. The first night I hosted in Liverpool back in 2007 was with one of my all-time favourite DJs, Louie Vega of Masters at Work. I got the bug from there. “Hustle has been running for some two years now. Our DJs are chosen on their selection skills first and foremost. However, most important, I feel, is the people the night has been attracting, I have yet to go to a friendlier party in this city 18
or perhaps many others; it’s a real attitude-free zone. We have the second instalment of our birthday coming up, with San Soda and Lovebirds at The Magnet. Also, a new weekly 100-capacity free entry Saturday after-hours (also at The Magnet), where Hustle residents play alongside a handful of special guests… as well as a night with Wolf Music in October!” [James Morgan] Hoya:Hoya What? Last Saturday of every month at the The Roadhouse. A crew consisting of Chunky, Eclair Fifi, Fox, Illum Sphere, Jon K, Jonny Dub, Krystal Klear, Lone and Emmanuel Biard on visuals come together with the odd unannounced guest. Who? Four Tet, Pariah, Ben UFO have all been secret guests. Why? “When we were teenagers at the turn of the millennium, there were a lot less nights than today, as well as a lot fewer clubs putting on good music. Parties like Friends & Family, Electric Chair, Eyes Down and Keep It Unreal managed to grow and thrive for many years, ultimately inspiring a lot about what we brought to Hoya. The main thing that inspired us to set up the night was that
CLUBS
THE SKINNY
Photo: Gary Brown
Welcome to one of the best clubs scenes going. But how did it get this good? We asked the guys behind a bunch of our fave nights to reflect on what inspired them to put on their own parties
we wanted to do our own thing, and to be able to play what we wanted in a space that we could make our own. “Hoya brings a good party, a sense of community through clubbing, and continues the tradition of exploring as many flavours of the musical palate [as possible] to bring new sounds and old into the club environment. Plans for the future are more parties, more focus on the label side of things, and more work to build ourselves as artists and as a collective.” [Jonny Dub] Less Effect What? A fledgling Liverpool night at 24 Kitchen Street, with a focus on providing Merseyside debuts for a plethora of bass heavy artists and local talent. Who? Past guests: Objekt, Rich Furness. Why? “Liverpool has always had a really strong club scene and nights such as Chibuku, Abandon Silence, Eat Your Greens and Waxxx have brought a diverse range of artists to the city over the years. We met at uni, and share a love of spending time listening to music in dark rooms at the weekends. It kind of felt like Liverpool’s scene was playing things safe and there weren’t many nights playing the mix of stuff we wanted to hear. “It’s all about quality of sound, too. In our opinion too many nights don’t put enough effort into their sound when it’s arguably the most important factor, so we like to make sure our choice of system represents the music we play. We’re really looking forward to our birthday night with Om Unit and Alex Coulton making their Liverpool debuts. We’re also really excited about another date we’re planning, which we can’t tell you about yet…” [Matt Pidgeon] 2014-2015
So Flute What? A self-proclaimed melting pot of worldwide music that focuses on bringing a strong, soulful undercurrent to Manchester. Steadily growing to become a stalwart of the city’s Friday night calendar. Who? Andres, Gilles Peterson, Floating Points and DJ Spinna have all played. Why? “At uni, we often went to smaller clubnights such as Sex with Robots, Now Wave and Hoya:Hoya, but we’d also occasionally spot a lineup at The Warehouse Project that we’d be down for. When we could all afford it, we’d go to Keep It Unreal. There are many more clubnights aimed at the student demographic nowadays, though the quality is often questionable. “We had a desire to play music that wasn’t just house music, and prove that there was a great party to be had by having an eclectic music policy that kept the dancefloor on its toes. We didn’t feel that many nights were doing this, especially the nights run by younger people. We have a fantastic core crowd that consistently spreads happy, relaxed vibes throughout the club. This coupled with the soulful, eclectic music that we play makes for a really nice atmosphere. We have a really big show lined up in September that features a Detroit don, as well as a guy signed to Theo Parrish’s Sound Signature label.” [Dan Flynn] Hustle: @HustleLiverpool Hoya:Hoya: hoyahoya.co.uk, @hoya_hoya Less Effect: @Less_Effect So Flute: @So_Flute
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Photo: Nick Bojdo
Floating Points
Humanities in Public Festival 2014 – 15
The Humanities in Public Festival is year-long series of events from Manchester Metropolitan University’s Faculty of Humanities, Languages and Social Science. Offering talks, fairs, music, food and film screenings, all events are fully open to the public and many are completely free to attend. This year’s strands are: Animal Worlds : October 2014 Looking at animal rights, welfare, veganism and vegetarianism. Including a Vegan/Vegetarian and animal rights fair with special guest speakers. Gothic Manchester II : October 2014 The return of this very popular celebration of the darker side of culture! Offering a packed four day programme of fabulous gothic events across the city. Contesting Youth : November 2014 Challenging popular preconceptions about youth and young people. Including presentations from Camila Batmanghelidjh CBE and Manchester’s own Dave Haslam.
Human Trouble : January–February 2015 Questioning notions about what the concepts ‘disability’ and ‘ability’ mean for us humans. Featuring a special night of thought provoking comedy headlined by top comedian Laurence Clark. Multi-lingual Life : March 2015 Considering the multitude of languages used in our contemporary globalised society. Including a one day multi-lingual film festival, ‘Beyond Babel’. Future Histories : May 2015 Bringing oral and local history into focus as a force for social cohesion and change. Including exhibitions from several local history groups.
To find out more visit www.hssr.mmu.ac.uk/hip or Follow us on Twitter: @mmu_hssr
Wits and Giggles Dave from down your corridor’s Gervais impressions stopped being funny nine hours into freshers’ week. Here’s where to try your hand at standup, or at the very least watch it
Words: John Stansfield and Debs Marsden
(lanterntheatreliverpool.co.uk). This gig doesn’t give you the chance to bound onstage with little to no plan, but it does operate on a bucket system, where you donate what you feel fair (theoretically free, if you’re a dreadful person). Dead Cat Comedy
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here’s an old saying about your student days that we just made up, “The one thing you truly learn, is who you are.” Unfortunately the thing most young student comics learn is that they’re a loud, obnoxious douche. So pack that in, and study at the feet of some of the region’s top comics (or just go and see some great dirt cheap/free comedy).
Liverpool On Fridays and Saturdays at The Holiday Inn (Lime Street), Hot Water (hotwater.co.uk) present some of the finest circuit acts on well-constructed bills – ideal for studying the craft you’re about to turn upside down. On Sundays (£1.50 for NUS), they throw their doors wide: both to professional acts trying new material, and to those just entering the fiery pit of self-torment and failure that is the life of a budding comedian. They’re also kind enough to run a comedy course, should you be wise enough to seek guidance from professionals before diving in face first. Once you’re up and running as an Open Spot (this is what you are now. Accept your position on the lowest rung. Get comfortable. You’ll be sat there a while, swinging your little legs), you’ll be on the hunt for gigs that operate within the catchment area of local buses. Another Comedy Night (facebook.com/AnotherComedyNight), every third Monday at Maguire’s on Renshaw Street, is a wonderfully haphazard melting pot where opportunities to test your mettle gladly abound. It’s free, and you could even win pizza. Quite the draw if you’re doing the ‘biscuits and tears’ diet. Finally, first Wednesday of the month, Shiny New Comedy is an intimate night in the Lantern Theatre 2014-2015
Manchester Every Tuesday a wonderful comedy night defies the odds by, well, still continuing to be on. Some 16 years since it first took on the big guns, XS Malarkey (xsmalarkey.com) remains, nomadic though it may be – currently pitching up at The Pub/Zoo and offering a mix of well-weathered veterans and bright eyed newbies with their t-shirts and haircuts. All for only £3. Learn and dream. Red Redmond is slowly taking over every bar in the city with his Dead Cat Comedy stable (deadcatcomedy.co.uk). Variety is key; he offers a sketch night and a comedy crèche, as well as nights for more established acts. On John Dalton Street, The Ape and Apple’s Comedy Balloon is Manchester’s longest running free open mic night: a great chance to perform your first set in front of a group of peers (comedyballoon. wordpress.com). Preston Lancashire has quite the history of churning out top comedians, many getting their first chance at Preston’s Frog & Bucket – sadly, the Frog have announced they’re closing, but young, eager comics may make the short train ride to Manchester to compete in that venue’s Beat the Frog comp – a friendly gig with cheap drinks and up to ten acts competing for the prestigious award of, yes, beating The Frog (frogandbucket.com/manchester). So it’s up to Preston’s Korova Arts to pick up the slack; it’s a fantastic little cafe-bar performance space, hosting sporadic comedy events that make up for their spontaneity with great lineups – search ‘KorovaKomedy’ on Facebook. Read reviews, rants and interviews with rising talent at www.theskinny.co.uk/comedy
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The Play’s the Thing If there’s one thing you should know about the Northwest it’s this: it has a cracking theatre scene that is both affordable and inclusive – whether you’re just looking to fill an empty Thursday evening, or are an aspiring Maxine Peake
Words: Alecia Marshall
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aturally, university drama societies are a great place to start if you’re looking to get involved in theatre. The University of Liverpool is home to the award-winning LUDS (Liverpool University Drama Society), whose dedication to delivering excellent student theatre has ensured sell-out performances on both home turf and at Edinburgh Fringe, while Manchester Metropolitan’s School of Theatre runs the successful Capitol Theatre, a designated space for undergraduate performance. But there is more! For those seeking credible, recognised experience within the arts, our biggest regional theatres offer a variety of programmes targeted specifically at aspiring young creatives. Although often ill advertised and little known, the programmes are of extreme merit, providing invaluable contacts and real work opportunity. Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre is home to a variety of exciting projects. Each year the theatre recruits 12 people aged 16-21 to partake in their Young Leaders Programme, a training and development scheme for aspiring creative producers, event managers and trainee practitioners. Mentored by Royal Exchange staff, the leaders are invited to curate, produce and access work at the theatre over a year-long period. The Royal Exchange also offers a recently launched programme titled Young Company. Divided into four areas – communicators, design technicians, performers and writers – the Young Company members (aged 14-21) work alongside industry professionals and contribute their ideas to the running of the theatre. Meanwhile, Contact theatre offers a Young Actors Company (CYAC, open to ages 15-25), as well as I:Con, an apprenticeship that develops skills in arts marketing from PR, design and social media to blogging, media relations and creating video promos. Lantern Theatre Liverpool runs an Ambassadors scheme, inviting participants to
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Scene Change - Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse
work closely with both the artistic director and marketing manager to augment existing knowledge and develop practice. Handing over the theatre to their Ambassadors on a regular basis, the Lantern also encourage their protégées to produce and perform independently. Liverpool’s Everyman and Playhouse is home to YEP (Young Everyman and Playhouse, with an upper age limit of 25), six all-encompassing strands of theatrical experience. With mentoring available for aspiring producers, actors, communicators, technicians, writers and directors, there is ample opportunity for all. If you’re more of a spectator than a partaker, the majority of theatres offer a discounted concessions ticket – though there is more money to be saved for savvy students in the know (and you’re one of those by now, right?). The Royal Exchange release £6 tickets to their Friday performances for anybody under the age of 26, and as a member of YEP you can see any production at any time for just £5 – cheaper than a cinema ticket. Ridiculous. What are you waiting for? LUDS: liverpooldrama.co.uk MMU School of Theatre: theatre.mmu.ac.uk The Royal Exchange: royalexchange.co.uk Contact: contactmcr.com Lantern Theatre Liverpool: lanterntheatreliverpool.co.uk Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse: everymanplayhouse.com
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Language, Live! Interview: Alan Bett Illustration: Louise Lockhart
Budding poet, writer or performer? Grab the bull by the horns
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t seems unusual, when we’re so bound to the screen and the limit of 140-character soundbites, that poetry and spoken word are blooming. There are vibrant scenes currently flourishing across the country, from the punk-edged bohemia of Neu! Reekie! in Edinburgh to London’s Bang Said the Gun – and the Northwest scene is just as vital and accessible for both aspiring writers and those already with a successful track record. Anneliese Mackintosh is one of the latter: the Manchester-dwelling author of excellent short story collection Any Other Mouth describes the city’s writing community as “extremely lively, and really welcoming with new people. The performance poetry scene is very active.” “Reading work onstage at events is very important for my writing,” she says. “It helps me understand which parts are working. I wouldn’t be the writer I am now if I hadn’t started performing my work.” Highlighted events are Bad Language (badlanguagemcr.wordpress.com) – a monthly night of spoken word, fiction and poetry in the Northern Quarter’s Castle Hotel, every last Wednesday – and, also at this venue, the bimonthly cabaret night First Draft (firstdraftmcr. wordpress.com), offering a supportive audience for fresh work and writers of drama, fiction and poetry. Salford has Evidently (facebook.com/ evidentlysalford), performing stand-up poetry every second Monday at The Eagle Inn. Liverpool has a rich history of poetry, going back to the Mersey Poets of the 60s, born from
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the influence of the earlier Beat scene. Many years ago Tony Kehoe stumbled upon a night that made him feel at home, avoiding the pretension and revisionism that, in some minds, plagued the scene. This is Come Strut Your Stuff (comestrutyourstuff.co.uk), and Tony – now event host – tells us that “The only criteria was just to be who you were.” All nights here challenge the recent comments from Jeremy Paxman that poetry has “connived at its own irrelevance.” Come Strut Your Stuff runs every first Monday in the Egg Cafe, striving to look past stereotypes – and even those of Liverpool itself, made tangible in institutions such as The Museum of Liverpool Life (which closed in 2006), to which Tony tells his fellow Liverpudlians, “Look, they’ve opened a museum in homage to you and you’re not even dead yet.” The name of The Dead Good Poets Society also rings out, meeting at the Garden Cafe of Blackburne House, Hope Street, on the first and third Wednesday of every month – a night that strives to open poetry up to new audiences and performers. In Preston, keep an eye on Lancashire Writing Hub (lancashirewritinghub.co.uk), which has info on upcoming events and other writerfriendly resources; meanwhile, the Lancaster Lit Festival takes place 16-20 Oct (litfest.org). Hopefully, this burgeoning scene will be strengthened by you there, reading this piece. Bookworms may find author interviews, local festival news and more at theskinny.co.uk/books
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YouTube Dinners In between splurging your student loan on cheesy chips and living the life of an instant-noodle ascetic, you might actually want to do some cooking at uni. YouTube is a hotbed of culinary inspiration – and LOLs
Words: Jamie Faulkner
Bruno Albouze This eccentric French private chef sells himself as “THE REAL DEAL.” Part Van Damme, part Raymond Blanc, he’s buff, with a farcical accent that’s as distracting as his Colgate smile. Watch his croissant video and you’ll see what we mean. He also does weird cowboy impressions and things with pepper grinders. His cooking doesn’t suffer, though – he trained under the legendary Alain Ducasse in Paris – and for cheap and easy-toprepare recipes his ‘Rustic French Loaf’ is pretty much foolproof, as is the ratatouille; if you can handle something a bit more involved, his burger and macaroni cheese recipes are winners. Cooking with Dog If you like your cooking to have more of a, um, canine flavour, Cooking with Dog is the dog’s... yeah, you get the idea. This YouTube channel plays on the cute pet heartstrings with a miniature grey poodle called Francis hosting, and a mysterious unnamed chef knocking up (mainly) Japanese grub. It’s been going since 2007 and there are now 150 plus recipes, a lot of which may be unfamiliar – but you’ll want to check out the steamed pork buns, gyoza (fried dumplings), Katsu curry, and any of the rice bowl recipes. An abundance of good Asian supermarkets in the Northwest means any specialist ingredients shouldn’t be hard to come by. Helen Rennie On first viewing you expect Helen Rennie’s recipes to be pure piss-takes (in fact her video ‘YouTube Personalities’ is a pop at the different types of foodie vloggers), but she is in fact a bona fide cooking teacher from Boston. She’s a self-deprecating YouTuber who acknowledges that her personality on camera is divisive; but though she gives occasionally strange advice (“monolithic hockey puck,” “if the worms are moving the fish are fresh”), we think she’s damn watchable. Her 2014-2015
youtube.com/cookingwithdog
grilled chicken marinated in yoghurt and her noknead pizza dough are both practical and great additions to your repertoire, and her videos on how to slice vegetables, season to taste and sharpen a knife will teach you much-needed skills with a good dose of humour. ChefSteps This is one for disciples of Blumenthal, Adrià, Keller, and Achatz. If those surnames mean nothing to you, ChefSteps will seem a bit alien. It’s predominantly modernist cooking from a Seattlebased company founded by Chris Young, former development chef at The Fat Duck. Think precision: thermal probes, unusual chemicals, and sous vide machines are rife. However, the recipes are step-by-step with great photography and detailed instructions – most recipes do require expensive kit but, whether you’re making pastrami or roasting a chicken, the tips are adaptable and invaluable. Enter the strange world of Phagomania at theskinny.co.uk/food
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3 FLOORS, 6 ROOMS & THE COOLEST URBAN BAR & RESTAURANT CONCEPT IN THE HUGE OUTDOOR COURTYARD LEVELNIGHTCLUB.CO.UK
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LEVELNIGHTCLUBLIVERPOOL
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blackrabbitshotco Fleet St, Liverpool, L1 4AR
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Life through a Lens Are you an incredibly lazy film student? If so, get the gist of the whole of film history by watching the quintessential movies from each decade of cinema’s short existence
Words: Jamie Dunn
The Big Sleep
1890s: It took cinema years to realise it was an art form. The initial thrill of the movies was their novelty, and this is no more evident than in the reaction that reportedly met the Lumière Brothers’ Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat. To modern eyes, this 50 second documentary of a train pulling into a station is pretty humdrum. But in 1895, so the legend goes, the image of the projected locomotive rushing toward the audience sent those in attendance into such a tizzy, that they leaped from their seats believing it was going to burst from the screen. 1900s: While the camera movements were nonexistent and synced sound was still decades off, filmmakers like Georges Méliès were beginning to utilise cinema’s ability to transport us to dream worlds. A Trip to the Moon, which employed every sleight of hand cinema had to offer at the start of the century, is the perfect example of a medium starting to understand its potential. 1910s: The most influential film of the 1910s – perhaps ever – was D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance. Four stories set in four different time periods are 28
edited together to create a jaw-dropping spectacle. Nowadays a computer whizz could knock up some of Griffith’s mammoth set-pieces in an hour or two, but they’ll never have the visceral power that comes from knowing those sets and those hundreds of extras are for real. 1920s: Silent film began to reach a kind of perfection towards the late 20s. Rather than simply resembling filmed plays, cinema had developed its own language of expression. This synergy of image, movement and performance reached is zenith in F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise, in which the German filmmaker utilises the technical power of the American studio to turn a simple tale into a heartbreaking love story that’s as elegant as it is epic. 1930s: As well as reaching its artistic peak in 1927, cinema also experienced a significant technical innovation: sound was introduced. It took filmmakers a while to work out how use this new technology creatively, however. One of the first to understand the power of sound was Jean Renoir – and his freewheeling tragicomic masterpiece The
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Rules of the Game made poetic use of its overlapping dialogue. To paraphrase Robert Altman: Renoir taught future filmmakers the rules of the game. 1940s: American cinema during and immediately after WWII came in two distinct shades: the light screwball comedies and the dark film noirs. Draw a Venn diagram of those two genres and you’ll find one overlap: Howard Hawks’s The Big Sleep. The noir is obvious: based on Raymond Chandler’s pulp classic and starring Humphrey Bogart as the wisecracking Philip Marlowe, it’s the genre’s template, but Bogart and co-star Lauren Bacall’s verbal sparring and electric chemistry give it the same fizz we associate with Hawks’ romantic comedies. 1950s: The studio system was dying in the 50s. But, oh, what a death rattle, with stalwarts like Hitchcock, Welles and Ford spitting out their masterpieces. The filmmaker who best summed up this lush but elegiac period in American cinema was Douglas Sirk, whose florid women’s pictures set the Technicolor look of the decade. His heartbreaking melodrama Imitation of Life, from 1959, was a fittingly melancholic end to the era. 1960s: With Hollywood in crisis, cinema in Europe was going through a purple patch. Names like Fellini, Godard and Buñuel were packing out art-house cinemas. But for a prize 60s cinematic artefact, particularly from a British perspective, it’s got to be Antonioni’s erotic thriller Blow-Up, which not only typifies the avant-garde stylings (and sometimes infuriating pretensions) of the decade’s art-house cinema, it also acts as an exotic document of the groovy decade.
Aguirre, the Wrath of God
1970s: The 70s saw a Hollywood renaissance, and its chief theme was of crumbling male psyches. Almost all of the classics of the era dealt with 2014-2015
it, but it wasn’t just the US’s concern. Japan, Australia, Senegal and, in particular, Germany were also on a cinematic high and dealing with this subject. From the latter, the image of Klaus Kinski’s bug-eyed usurper in Werner Herzog’s blistering Aguirre, the Wrath of God sums up this unique decade, in which artistic ambition and commercial success collided.
Jaws
1980s: The 80s was the decade of the teenager. Since the monumental success of Jaws and Star Wars, movies were now aimed at teens – and they tended to star in them too. It wasn’t all clawing coming-of-age tales, though. In the decade’s quintessential film, Blue Velvet, its teen protagonist is plunged into a twisted underworld a million miles away from the cosy classrooms of John Hughes. 1990s: Love him or hate him, no filmmaker put his stamp on the 90s like Quentin Tarantino. James Cameron ruled the box office, the likes of Wong Kar-Wai and Abbas Kiarostami wowed the critics, but it was Tarantino’s cineliterate cinema that seared itself onto the public’s consciousness. Which of his three 90s features to choose, though? Let’s go with his best: Jackie Brown. 2000s: The shadow of the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent ‘War on Terror’ loomed over 2000s cinema. Filmmakers like Paul Greengrass and Kathryn Bigelow tackled it head on, while others took a more allegorical approach. Even comic books got in on the action. The best of these mood-of-the-planet movies was Alfonso Cuarón’s bleak but hopeful Children of Men, which imagined, in a compelling and believable fashion, the human race’s slow apocalypse. 2010s: Ask us in ten years… For reviews of classic re-releases and to keep up to date with what’s happening in contemporary cinema, head across to theskinny.co.uk/film
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How to Have Good Sex So, you’ve arrived at university and you’re surrounded by hundreds of students who you’d quite like to have carnal relations with. But how?
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igher education may be the first time you’ve ever had your own room, your own lock or the ability to take someone home without inviting a world of grief. It might be your first chance to realistically have a sexual relationship. But with sex education classes providing little to no information about how to actually do ‘it,’ confusion and misinformation abound. How can you have good sex? Masturbate. Sexual partners wouldn’t automatically know what you do and don’t like done to your genitals (and other parts of your body). Don’t just focus on what gets you off fastest, but how you like to be loved. Are your ears particularly sensitive? Do you like to finger your anal passage? First year of university is where thousands of horny young students are crammed into identikit apartments – it’s expected that you’ll masturbate. So do. Secondly, learn how to communicate your desires to your sexual partners without pressurising them. People tend to have a sliding scale of sexual preferences; so don’t be afraid to bring up fetishes. It might be that you’ve always wanted to spank someone. The more open you are with sexual partners, the more likely you are to find someone who wants to be spanked.
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Words: Tasha Lee Illustration: Louise Lockhart
The other side of that is to be sympathetic to the fetishes of others, while retaining a clear idea of what you’d like to do, what might be interesting, what you’d rather not do, and what you absolutely won’t do. The relative promiscuity of students and people in their late teens and early twenties means if you’re not into the fetish of your current sexual partner, it doesn’t mean they’ll never get to do that thing. They just won’t get to do it with you. So, what is a fetish? Loosely defined, it’s anything you didn’t get taught about in sex education, which is nevertheless legal for consenting adults to do in the privacy of their own beds. For instance: licking feet, pissing on someone, using bondage rope, cross-dressing… or on a more ‘vanilla’ level, some people aren’t into oral sex, while others are really into dry humping. Most importantly, know that it’s okay to stop if it’s not working for you. Actually it’s much, much better to stop if there’s any doubt that you or your sexual partner are having a good time. Overall, sex should be pleasurable and fun. Don’t stress too much about it. Read more on sex and the body at theskinny.co.uk/deviance
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Digital Dreams If you’re heading to uni with dreams of start-ups, games, gadgets and coding, the Northwest offers loads of ace opportunities for tinkerers of all stripes, as well as a community of familiar faces Making and doing From software and app design to the actual fabrication of physical products, there are two great opportunities in Liverpool and Manchester. DoES Liverpool and Fab Lab offer a space for people to bring their ideas and designs to life in a cheap, accessible and collaborative way, using tools such as 3D printers, vinyl cutters (for decals), and embroidery machines. Fab Lab welcomes visitors to use their machines (after safety induction) free of charge on Fridays and Saturdays, where you pay only for the cost of materials. DoES Liverpool has regular Maker Night and Maker Day events, also free. You can rent the workshop machines at both for a fee; meanwhile, Fab Lab offers a bespoke prototype fabrication service, allowing you to have a prototype created based on your own designs.
MadLab
Networking and developing The Manchester Digital Laboratory, or MadLab, is Manchester’s premier networking space; director Rachael Turner describes it as “a village hall in the middle of the city.” There’s a variety of geek-culture groups available, such as for tabletop games and comic books, but for those more interested in digital development some of the offerings include North West Playtesters, who invite local 2014-2015
Words: Natasha Bissett
developers and interested gamers to playtest each other’s creations (video game and tabletop), collaborate and have a good time; the Manchester Space Programme, which brings together people interested in space or space technology; and dedicated platform and tool groups like the North West Drupal User Group and the Manchester Unity User Group. TechHub is another site for collaborative start-ups, and, as it is located around the UK and internationally, including in Bangalore and Riga, membership offers access to a wide network of start-ups and creative types to work with or alongside. As with MadLab, TechHub’s calendar should be a first stop when looking for events and networking circles to join – events include the monthly TechHub Startup 101, and the Geek Pride lead-up to the annual Manchester Pride Parade. Meet-ups and socials Finally, there is a great range of meet-ups and events in both Liverpool and Manchester. For game developers, look out for GameDevNorth from Liverpool (but active across the Northwest), Game Hub for the Northwest, and Manchester Indie Games Group. As well as events, these groups often have regular social catch-ups at local pubs. You might also like to check out Liverpool Girl Geeks and Gay Gamers Manchester, who get involved in the local geek and gamer/developer scenes. Elsewhere, Niche Nights promotes geeky gigs across Manchester with quizzes, cosplay contests and gaming competitions. It’s guaranteed that once you get your foot in the social door, a whole world of online and offline networking and events will become available to you. So get out there! DoES Liverpool: doesliverpool.com Fab Lab: fablabmanchester.org MadLab: madlab.org.uk TechHub: manchester.techhub.com
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SKINNY Tel. 0161THE 8392701
The Skinny Showcase Each month The Skinny devotes the centre of the mag to the work of early-career artists – and over the summer we aim to select at least one favourite from the region’s graduating classes. Here are our picks from 2014 – could you be in these pages in 2015?
Jade Collin graduated from Liverpool School of Art and Design in 2014 with a BA (Hons) in Fine Art
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Emily Tilzey graduated from Manchester School of Art in 2014 with a BA (Hons) in Illustration with Animation
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SHOWCASE
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Inga Lineviciute graduated from the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) in 2014 with a BA (Hons) in Fine Art This is a still from her video, ‘3’
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Lewis Loughman graduated from the University of Salford in 2014 with a BA (Hons) in Graphic Design
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SHOWCASE
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Paint the Town Red, Yellow and Blue Or, how to be an art student
Words: Sacha Waldron
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Make your studio your home, nest in it. Remember this is probably the nicest studio you’ll have for a while. In three years you will be freezing in a derelict building, having your sculptures eaten by mice or, if in London, sub-letting half a cupboard that’s only available on Tuesdays between 5-8pm. Make your studio the centre of the universe, make it comfy, make it social – a place where your fellows want to bring their beer and Pringles and cook up ideas for shows, trips, magazines, websites, whatever.
A studio! (OWT creative)
Look around you. The Northwest is blessed with museums and galleries that are pretty much all free, including the biggies – The Harris, Manchester Art Gallery, the Whitworth, Cornerhouse, FACT, the Bluecoat and most of Tate Liverpool. Lucky you! There are, however, some memberships worth the bother: FACT’s £10 membership will get you money off cinema tickets and invites to the previews (previews = wine), and Tate’s £62/year gets you free entry to all the UK Tate special exhibitions, normally £7.50 a pop. Oh and you get a magazine. Which is okay actually. Be connected. Sign yourself up to every mailing list going, especially the less obvious ones: The Grundy in Blackpool, Bury Sculpture Centre in, er, Bury, the Marburae Art Gallery in Cheshire. Go to their private views (did we mention previews = wine), see what’s what and who’s who. Register with e-flux for worldwide stuff, and Artsadmin’s E-Digest for opportunities from 2014-2015
all over the UK. Keep an eye on Res Artis and Residency Unlimited for those horizon-broadening and fairly jammy art opportunities. You might want to escape for your Christmas holidays to a frozen lagoon in Lithuania and paint moose. A completely legitimate thing to do. Beware the bullshit and chill the fuck out. It’s just art and the art world can be ridiculous. There will be times when those around you may describe something as ‘relational aesthetics’ when they are talking about eating dinner, or drinking a pint. Hanging a painting slightly off centre and two inches to the left of a pot plant is sometimes described as ‘curating.’ You will have times of despair when everything you produce is rot. This is normal and necessary. Don’t panic. You don’t work for the UN. Go dancing, do something else. When you’re an artist you can be a philosopher, writer, craftsman, scientist, musician, cook, anthropologist or spy; your practice could be lorry-driving or taxidermy. Try them all, we say. Onward and forward! www.theskinny.co.uk/art, of course
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Photo: Alec Dudson
our folks weren’t too keen on your decision; your friends are mildly jealous that you’re the ‘creative one,’ but secretly smug about their career track. The more practical among you will have gone for graphic or web design but you, my friend, are a fine art student. Never fear – The Skinny is here to give you some pointers on the whole crazy experience/psychological experiment.
New Threads
Charlotte Conning (Liverpool School of Art and Design)
Jessica Campbell (Manchester School of Art)
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FASHION
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Photo: Nuala Swan Styling: Alexandra Fiddes Make Up & Hair: Kimberley Dewar Model: Kaitlin @Colours Agency
Get to know a fashion student; they might make you some awesome clothes. A couple of our favourite looks on the graduate catwalk this year came from Charlotte Conning and Jessica Campbell
Thailand, without a Paddle Thailand is a favourite stop on the student and graduate itinerary – here’s one traveller’s tale of urban grit, beautiful nature, and sinking into everything-infested waters
Words: Izzy Gray
S
ummer 2011 marked the start of my tempestuous relationship with Thailand. I had travelled there with my friend Ciara in the midst of our honours years, and after spending a couple of weeks teaching English in the rural province of Wiset Chai Chan, felt sufficiently acclimatised to take on the infamous backpacking circuit. Nothing, however, could have prepared me for what was to come – a whirlwind of bizarre and terrifying experiences, the pinnacle of which came during an ill-fated rafting experience in the Chiang Mai jungle. The silence that followed my “Where are we?” sent a chill across my skin, despite the heat of the sun. I searched the faces of my companions. Beneath us, the water swelled and spat menacingly. I scanned the canopies above, as though hoping to find an answer. Before us, the Thai Highlands stood cloaked in a protective haze; the perfume hung in the air from the exotic fruits all around, and above us, birds swooped lazily through the sky. My moment’s meditation was pierced by the sudden eruption of profanities from the German man at the front of the raft. It didn’t take long to find out the cause of his distress; within seconds, it was lobbed in my direction. All eight legs of it. Suddenly aware that we could be sharing the water with any number of aquatic beasties, the scene began to reflect my inner panic. All four passengers sprang into the air like a flock of pigeons dodging the eager grasp of an unsupervised toddler. The more we flailed, the more fragile our vessel became, until eventually sense prevailed and we froze, as though competing in an unsteady game of musical statues. By now, the water had absorbed the frame completely. Erratically, we looked from one to another, each set of eyes asking the same question; how had this group of strangers ended up stuck on a raft, alone and adrift, in the middle of the Thai jungle? The day had begun on a bad note. It was 7am and a ferocious banging filled my ears. Dismissing
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Chiang Mai Province
the noise as a side effect of last night’s cocktails, I groaned and buried my head under the pillow. Still it persisted. It took several minutes to establish that this was not actually blood pounding through my temples but a fist hammering upon our door. The penny dropped. “Get up! We’ve slept in!” We flew into life, berating ourselves for challenging the fact that early mornings and copious amounts of alcohol do not mix. After apologising profusely to the (evidently cross) driver, we clambered aboard the awaiting songthaew, or shared taxi, ready to begin our day trip into the Thai mountains. The two hour journey felt significantly longer, as we perched uncomfortably and tried to avoid eye contact with the burly Israeli man sat opposite in unfortunately tight shorts. Already feeling nauseous, we nodded at each other in silent agreement; clearly, this was going to be one of those moments that would have to go into the ‘One Day We’ll Look Back at This and Laugh’
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box. Unfortunately that box seemed to be getting rather full. We had experienced the sinking feeling of having misjudged our bus stop by 100km, and had learned the hard way never to trust mysterious, half-cooked sausages. We’d fended off giant rats and three-legged dogs and survived the markets of Khao San Road, and yet still it seemed that trouble was never too far behind.
“It didn’t take long to find out the cause of the screaming; within seconds, it was lobbed in my direction. All eight legs of it” The unsettled feeling in the pit of our stomachs did not ease upon meeting our guides, three men who seemed to have as little sense of direction as we did. These men, we had been promised when booking our trip, were ‘extremely knowledgeable’ locals, and yet their continual squabbling and routine swigging of whisky made me wonder if perhaps this time our bargaining skills had come at a cost. Eventually, we reached the bank of a surprisingly wide and fast-flowing river and were somewhat relieved to see a stack of lifejackets and helmets waiting for us in the foreground of some snazzy-looking dinghies. Making a beeline for the nearest boat, we were stopped by a guide, who shook his head and laughed. He pointed a little further downstream, to a collection of loosely-bound logs. The words ‘Traditional Rafting Experience’ drifted back in to my consciousness, and the sinking feeling in my gut began to grow. We were led away from the relative safety of the lifejackets. “But… the rapids!” exclaimed a member of our group, gesticulating towards the water, which looked about as inviting as a Rottweiler’s tea party. 40
The guide’s reassuring response: “No, no, no. Be cool. Be cool.” Reluctantly, my sidekick and I followed the German onto the most secure looking raft – and were joined by the lovely but large Israeli man with his tiny shorts. After much wobbling and bilingual debate, we settled on an order of lightest at the front, heaviest at the back. Our raft may have resembled a clog, but at least it was buoyant – for now. By this point we were the last to set off, and had lost sight of the others in our group. “Which way?” we asked the guide, as he pushed us off from the bank. “Be cool,” he grinned, the smell of Sang Som thick on his breath. And with that, he was gone. An hour and several unmentioned forks in the river later we were well and truly lost. With our raft grumbling and groaning beneath us, it was only a matter of time before we succumbed to the water. And yet, despite the situation, it was hard not to be consoled by the beauty of our surroundings. That’s the thing about Thailand – no matter how hard it tries to test your patience, there’s always something waiting to restore your faith, like the gold peak of a temple through the dirty, grey skyscrapers of Bangkok or the smell of incense trickling through the busy markets. It’s a land of extremes and contradictions. There were certainly moments during our trip where I had felt more afraid and more uncomfortable than I had ever done before, and yet there were moments when I felt the happiest; watching the sunset on Koh Lanta, learning tai chi from the local children, walking through the gardens of the many beautiful temples that we had stumbled upon by accident. For every bad experience we had shared, we were given equal opportunity for hope. As our raft began to dissipate and our heads bobbed upon the surface of the water like corks, I could only hope that this would be one of those moments. Ahead, the water stretched on for what seemed like an eternity. All was disturbingly calm. Then, as if from nowhere, we came upon a fisherman, his waders on and net out. He looked at us, his expression changing from perplexed to amused, and uttered the four words I will never forget, and which will forever find home in the ‘One Day We’ll Look Back at This and Laugh’ box: “Well hello, log submarine!” Izzy Gray survived her jungle ordeal, and has a degree in English Literature. She plans to teach English as a foreign language in Tanzania later in 2014
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Venues Here’s our comprehensive guide to Liverpool, Manchester and Preston – where to eat, drink, be entertained and go partying, as well as handy maps to help you find everything
2014-2015
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Illustrations: Louise Lockhart
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Liverpool Docks and Baltic Triangle 42
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Baltic Triangle, Ropewalks and Hope Street 2014-2015
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Liverpool
FOOD & DRINK
drawing, electrified yoga, and knitting, book and pudding clubs.
1. Maray
91 Bold St @MarayLiverpool Having opened over summer, Maray thankfully has yet to be filled with laptops and business lunches and is instead a warm, welcoming environment of salvaged furniture, cocktails and small plates. Their menu goes against the grain of gluttony burger joints, and their falafel options are adventurous without losing Mediterranean authenticity.
5. Kasbah
2. Brooklyn Mixer
41 Slater St @santachupitos One for the cocktail connoisseur, Santa Chupitos is the city’s go-to place to try a host of adventurous mixes. With a revolving drinks menu it’s worth revisiting and trying something you haven’t before, as well as visiting their underground tequileria El Bandito.
78 Seel St @BrooklynMixer One of the few mainstream bars with a top playlist, Brooklyn Mixer is a guiltless pleasure for many. Every weekend it’s rammed – but with top beers and cocktails on offer, as well as a downstairs club styled like R Kelly’s dreams, you’d to be a killjoy to not enjoy yourself.
3. Bakchich
54 Bold St @Bakchich_Boldst The proliferation of Lebanese street food has been a bonus to Bold Street, and Bakchich provides a pretty mean shawarma that tops the lot. On top of a great menu of small plates, mains and sweets, it serves up some of Liverpool’s tastiest teas and freshly mixed juices.
4. Leaf
65-67 Bold St @leafteashop Leaf is a tea-lover’s haven, with walls showcasing a variety of unique tea flavours as well as a kitchen dishing up hand-crafted food. Leaf also works with the local community to offer up a variety of events and sessions, including life 44
72 Bold St @Kasbah_BoldSt With tagines and fezs, the Kasbah is one of the most charming places in Liverpool, mixing together a lively atmosphere, friendly service and a plethora of aromas from the open kitchen – and the food is full-bodied and warming for the soul.
6. Santa Chupitos
7. The Egg Cafe
Top Floor, 16-18 Newington @TheEggCafe A favourite of Liverpool’s bohemian crowd serving up fresh, delicious vegetarian food, The Egg is a great place to meet in the day, while in the evening the cafe turns into a romantic hideaway looking out over the city. You can grab a three course meal with wine for under £12.
8. Maguire’s Pizza Bar
77 Renshaw St @MaguiresPizza Where pizza meets punk rock, this bar is one of the most original venues in Liverpool. It may look a little weird with its teenage bedroom decor but when you can get a slice and a beer at a scuzzy DIY gig, who’s complaining?
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9. The Caledonia
22 Caledonia St @thecaledonia With its homely, traditional feel, the Cali is host to some of Liverpool’s finest real ales. Venture down any night and you’ll be treated to some top entertainment from jazz nights to pub quizzes; it also provides residency for the Loose Moose String Band.
10. Etsu
25 The Strand @EtsuRestaurant Sometimes you need to go the extra mile to impress: serving up authentic Japanese cuisine, Etsu is a wonderful spot for those looking for something special. The fish mains are second to none and should be your tip for when your parents visit and offer to treat you to a meal out.
11. Bold Street Coffee
89 Bold St @boldstcoffee Liverpool’s finest coffee shop by a long distance, Bold Street Coffee attracts many walks of life and is a fantastic place to bump into your mates. Along with its famous filter selection and flat white, BSC has a range of handmade sandwiches, and hosts some intimate gigs.
12. East Avenue Bakehouse
112 Bold St @EABakehouse A social eatery and bakehouse serving up light lunches and more hearty fare – all freshly made with locally sourced ingredients – East Avenue Bakehouse is great for a casual catch-up with friends. A range of freshly baked bread is also sold daily at the shop.
13. Sound Food and Drink
15. Host
31 Hope St Central @HOST_Liverpool Host offers pan-Asian cuisine at affordable prices and is a great option for social restaurant eating. The menu is an inventive mix of modern western food with exotic ingredients, complimented with a range of wines and Japanese sake.
16. Ye Cracke
13 Rice St One of Liverpool’s worst kept secrets, Ye Cracke acts as a great meeting point for old men in waiting and is a top setting to get stuck into the city’s heritage. The pub is intimate enough to get away from mainstream student hangouts and is a favourite among those in the know.
17. Mary Mary
Pilch Ln @MaryMary_CC Centred around cycling culture and a tasty cup of coffee, Mary Mary is probably Liverpool’s best off-the-beaten-track spot that’s going places. Idiosyncratic style is the name of the game, with a shop with bikes, books and apparel on sale and a great vegetarian menu to accompany your coffee.
18. Neon Jamon
12 Smithdown Pl @neonjamon Centred around exquisite tapas plates, Neon Jamon, located outside of town in Smithdown, comes as a serious recommendation from foodies. It’s worth forking out those extra quids for their meats. Those on a study day should take advantage of their discounted lunch offers.
19. Raggas
52 Duke St @SoundFoodnDrink Sound is a popular haunt for indie kids and rockers alike, with each night offering live music or a pre-club DJ slot as well as a host of American beers in the fridge. The bar is super friendly and unfussy, and is known to serve up a hearty posthangover breakfast for the morning after.
26 Lark Ln @RaggasCafe Any city worth its salt has an outstanding Jamaican food spot, and Liverpool’s answer is Raggas. With two restaurants – one on Smithdown Road, the other on Lark Lane – Raggas’ jerk chicken, curried goat and ackee and saltfish are all joys if you’re looking for something tastier than a dirty burger.
14. The Quarter
20. Greendays Cafe
10 Falkner St @TheQuarterLivpl Tucked into the Georgian Quarter, The Quarter is a hop away from the University campus, a perfect setting to get to know your new mates and pretend for a night that you have some class. Specialising in Italian pasta and pizza, it also has a quality deli, with a wide range of global groceries. 2014-2015
13a Lark Ln As a staple of Liverpool’s boho-riche retreat Lark Lane, Greendays cafe offers unpretentious vegan food and fresh coffee and juices. If you’re looking for a super healthy meal, perhaps for some downtime or just feel a bit homesick, Greendays is the place to be.
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cafe, a bar and a four screen cinema, all housed in one futuristic fish bowl-esque style building, it is conveniently located, just off Bold Street.
Everyman
CULTURE 21. Liverpool Philharmonic Hall
36 Hope St @liverpoolphil Reopening in November 2014, the Philharmonic Hall is home to one of the world’s most famous orchestras. With the exciting addition of a new venue for 2015 hosting intimate contemporary classical, folk and jazz, the Phil is repositioning itself for a whole new audience.
22. Everyman and Playhouse
Photo: Steve Aland
25. The Bluecoat
School Ln @theBluecoat The oldest surviving building in central Liverpool, the Bluecoat showcases innovative work ranging from visual art, music and dance to live art and literature. The downstairs cafe and courtyard gardens provide a relaxing environment to settle down with a good book – unless of course there’s an art happening causing a commotion.
26. Walker Art Gallery
William Brown St @walkergallery The Walker has one of the finest collections in Europe, and is one of the must-visit galleries in the UK. Home to many prized Pre-Raphaelite and Victorian paintings, it also holds more contemporary works from the likes of Hockney and Freud, and stages internationally renowned touring exhibitions regularly.
27. The Slaughterhouse
13-15 Fenwick St @Laughter_house The Laughterhouse Comedy Club at the Slaughterhouse is a fixture on every up-andcoming comedian’s tour route before the telly waters them down – so if you’re looking to leave in stitches at the end of the night, you wouldn’t go far wrong checking in on this much-loved club.
5-11 Hope St (Everyman) @LivEveryPlay Recently reopened after a long refurbishment, the Everyman was sorely missed among Liverpool’s cultural geography. Now with a new season in tandem with the ever present Playhouse theatre (on Williamson Square), it presents highly 28. Open Eye Gallery 19 Mann Island @OpenEyeGallery sought after arthouse and mainstream plays, as An independent, not-for-profit gallery and one of well as in-house productions. the UK’s leading photography spaces, the Open 23. Unity Theatre Eye showcases consistently challenging and 1 Hope Pl @unitytheatre politically charged exhibitions from upcoming An intimate theatre near Hope Street, the Unity and prominent contemporary photographers. is a little gem offering contemporary drama, Situated on the Waterfront, the Open Eye is music, comedy and community based workshops. architecturally an eye-opener, too. The programming encourages participation and 29. Tate Liverpool promotion of local talent and is a great place Albert Dock @tateliverpool to check out potential future stars of stage and The Liverpool branch of the Tate family resides screen. in a converted warehouse on the historic and 24. FACT iconic Albert Docks. The gallery displays works 88 Wood St @FACT_Liverpool from the Tate Collection, which includes British The Foundation for Art and Creative Technology art from 1500 to the present day, and is also host (or FACT), as the name suggests, is a multi-arts to temporary exhibitions and an active events venue focusing on the intersection between art programme. and technology. Comprising three galleries, a 46
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30. The Royal Standard
Unit 3, Vauxhall Business Centre, 131 Vauxhall Rd @Royal_Standard For those in the know, The Royal Standard has built a reputation for delivering Liverpool’s most dynamic exhibitions. A small walk from town, but with its eye cast over the new, it caters to those looking for exciting contemporary works, and is also home to the intriguing Cactus project space.
31. Metal at Edge Hill
Edge Hill Railway Station @MetalLiverpool Stuck between platforms 1 and 2 of Edge Hill station, Metal is a far-too-often overlooked gallery due to its strange location. Best known for hosting the Liverpool Art Prize, its curatorial outlook is constantly fresh. Metal also stages a number of talks and workshops throughout the year.
32. The Capstone Theatre
Shaw St @capstonetheatre Located out at Hope University, the Capstone is a theatre well worth visiting, with fantastic programming for those into experimental music and jazz – it includes the Liverpool Jazz Festival and various spoken word events. A lovely highbrow alternative to the city’s nighttime culture.
CLUB & GIG VENUES 33. Constellations
35-39 Greenland St @ConstellationsL Taking over from infamous party space HAUS, Constellations is the grownup version, as if the warehouse graduated and bought sensible clothes. Though summer has focused on the beer garden, as it gets chillier the indoor space will begin hosting exciting events and act as a co-work canteen for young entrepreneurs.
35. District
61 Jordan St @picketliverpool Recently occupied by creative design team Milk, District has reached out further than house and techno to cater for gigs, multi-arts happenings and film screenings. Found deep in the Baltic Quarter, the venue is looking to present a strong programme in the coming months.
36. The Shipping Forecast
15 Slater St @ship_forecast Nestled among the madness of town, this live music venue, restaurant and bar offers an alternative, American diner-inspired vibe. The underground gig venue, The Hold, is one of Liverpool’s top spots for catching a DJ or band due to its intimate size and exposed brick walls - don’t miss local club stalwarts Abandon Silence.
37. The Kazimier
4-5 Wolstenholme Sq @thekazimier Having opened years ago in a shroud of mystery, The Kazimier is now Liverpool’s cultural crowning jewel. The resident collective’s events weave together art, music, performance and poetry, making the venue the focal point of Liverpool’s bohemian art scene. You’ll be visiting the Kaz often.
38. East Village Arts Club
90 Seel St @ArtsClubHQ Situated in the heart of the city, the East Village Arts Club has quickly established itself as one of Liverpool’s top nightspots. The main venue, comprising two main stages, five bars and a VIP balcony, uses original features with red and gold décor, giving an impression of retro decadence for touring artists and big local clubnights like Chibuku alike.
34. 24 Kitchen Street
24 Kitchen St @24KitchenStreet Channelling the DIY spirit, 24 Kitchen Street is one of Liverpool’s most exciting new venues. Still in its infancy but perfectly positioned between town and the Baltic Quarter, the venue has already hosted some fantastic clubnights, poetry workshops and performance art events, giving an idea of good things to expect in the near future. The Kazimier Garden
2014-2015
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its feet again on the city’s clubbing and gigs map. It’s home to some of Liverpool’s top residents, including Chicago house aficionados Hustle, and a plethora of classic funk and soul events in keeping with the venue’s heritage.
SHOPS 44. News from Nowhere Camp & Furnace
39. Camp & Furnace
67 Greenland St @CampandFurnace Comprising three warehouses and a coach shed, this vast venue is one of Liverpool’s most cuttingedge spaces. Located in the Baltic Triangle, Camp & Furnace hosts festivals like Liverpool Psych Fest and Summercamp, large social events, vintage fairs, and comedy and club nights.
40. MelloMello
40-42 Slater St @MelloMelloCafe MelloMello is a locally minded, independently owned cafe serving the creative folks of Merseyside. With its rustic interior you immediately feel at ease; expect to find an event going on most days of the week, ranging from free rock‘n’roll to their jazz supper club. They’ll be moving at the end of 2014 – keep your ear to the ground.
41. Camel Club
18-22 Wood St @camel_club As the only club listed here that doesn’t stage big name DJs or musicians, Camel Club is something special for those into R&B and hip-hop. Decked out like a Saharan smoking lounge, its DJs are prone to throw in classic tunes as much as the latest trap and dancehall hits.
42. O2 Academy
11-13 Hotham St @O2AcademyLpool Part of the national venue group that also looks after Manchester Apollo, O2 Academy offers big and mid-sized touring names as well as unsigned talent across its two stages. Look out for Clean Bandit and The War on Drugs toward the end of the year – and Chas & Dave in the new one!
43. The Magnet
45 Hardman St @magnetliverpool Reopened over the summer, The Magnet is finding 48
96 Bold St @newsfromnowhere If Liverpool’s lefty history attracted you here, then News from Nowhere should be your first point of interest. Stocking an impressive amount of feminist, LGBT, socialist and progressive political literature, the bookshop also acts as a meeting place for many of the city’s brightest upstarts.
45. Probe Records
Unit 1 School Ln @ProbeRecords Probe’s renaissance since moving to the Bluecoat has also come about at the same time as the rising popularity of psych-rock – and the record shop is full to the brim of superb jazz, cosmic and garage reissues that fuel the Liverpool music scene’s bands and fans alike.
46. Lost Art
3, 5 Slater St @lostartshop Lost Art is the first point of call for skaters but it’s also a popular destination for those into smart street fashion. The Lost Art brand is worn like a badge of honour beyond Liverpool, and its rails always have a range of fantastic t-shirt designs.
47. 69A Renshaw
75 Renshaw St @69aliverpool Although Liverpool has a whole host of vintage and charity shops worth perusing, none are more individual than 69A. From clothes and vinyl to intriguing trinkets and antiques, it’ll help you decorate your digs with one-of-a-kind homeware.
48. Henry Bohn Books
12 London Rd Henry Bohn is arguably Liverpool’s best kept secret. It’s a stone’s throw from Lime Street Station, and provides a great way to pass the time trawling through its fascinating collection of second hand books and classical music CDs. A must for literature and music aficionados.
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More than just a room Visit www.sanctuary-students.com Call 0870 600 4777 @SancStudents
Student
accommodation in great locations
Preston
Manchester Liverpool 2014-2015
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KILO SALE 80/90s VINTAGE & Retro
CLOTHING MEN Tues 16th Sept WOMEN Weds 17th Sept 11am-8pm
FREE ENTRY
St Ann's Square, Mcr The KILLER Vintage KILO Sale Event
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2014-2015
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Manchester City Centre and Salford
Manchester Oxford Road 52
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Manchester
FOOD & DRINK 1. Koffee Pot
21 Hilton St @thekoffeepot Known for its liver-rejuvenating, shame-vanishing, slap-up breakfasts, Koffee Pot is a proper caff with just the right amount of Northern Quarter cool – and grub so good you’ll easily distract yourself from flashbacks. Rid the pain with the best kind of Full English or avocado and poached eggs.
2. Matt & Phred’s
64 Tib St @MattandPhreds A somewhat legendary jazz cafe, Matt & Phred’s keeps under its hat some of the best deals on entertainment and nosh in town. Entry’s free Monday to Thursday and usually around a fiver at weekends, and there are happy hour deals in the week (buy two drinks, and, er, get a pizza free!).
3. Pancho’s Burritos
Arndale Market, High Street @PANCHOSBURRITO Gigantic burritos with the hottest habanero sauce you’ll find in the city are the speciality of Pancho’s Burritos’ two carts in the Arndale Market. There is almost too much choice – spinach tortilla? Tomato tortilla? Plain?! – and you’ll never have Mexican without cactus strips again.
4. Home Sweet Home
49-51 Edge St @HomeSweetHomeNQ Part traditional English countryside cafe, part American diner, Home Sweet Home is the place for a sweet date: blow your weekly calorie intake 2014-2015
in one go with a PB’n’J milkshake and cakes smothered in gummy bears, Lucky Charms and unicorn hair. Srs.
5. Bonbon Chocolate Workshop
John St @Bonbon_NQ Because, in any self-respecting city, it’s really important that there is a place to sit and drink several flavours of real hot chocolate, Bonbon Chocolate Workshop exists. If you can get past the initial aromatic waft without expiring of ecstasy, this is a unique little cubbyhole for mid-girly shop stop-offs.
6. V Revolution
88 Oldham St @vrevolutionyeah A quietly powerful lil’ cafe finally answering the need for more vegan-friendly outlets in the city centre, V Revolution is a hub of both chatter and chill-outs, with a sort of rockabilly aesthetic combining scratchy gig posters with strawberry-red, diner-style booths.
7. The Fruit Exchange
103 Deansgate @thefruitxchange Fruit! It’s this stuff that you put in you when lately it’s mainly been shots and chips. The Fruit Exchange will do you fruit in all kinds of ways so long as it’s blended. And no, you can’t swap the sweaty banana in your rucksack for a pear.
8. Caffeine & Co.
11 St James’s Sq @caffeineandco It’s not just the quality of Caffeine & Co.’s bean (Square Mile) that guarantees a good cup of Joe; the staff are incredibly friendly. All bakes, cakes, stews and soups are made at the
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independent chain’s Longford Park site, and the focaccia is delish.
bar has an intimate feel, and is host to a variety of live music and spoken word nights. Be sure to grab some delicious Italian stone baked pizza too.
9. Deli Lama
220 Chapel St, Salford @DeliLamaCafeBar A dinky cafe with a proper community feel ideal for a quick lunch or longer hangout, serving up Mediterranean and Caribbean-style fare with a focus on veggie. It’s got an arty vibe and has even doubled as a venue at DIY music festival Sounds from the Other City.
10. The King’s Arms
15. Kukoos
Measham Mews @KukoosbyZouk Jazzing up the Oxford Road corridor, Kukoos – the offspring of the delicious Zouk curry house – does a sweet line in grabbable wraps and salads with Moroccan-Indian-Lebanese-fusion leanings. Fiver meal deals plus tasty mango lassis equals affordable and healthy fast food.
11 Bloom St, Salford @kingssalford The King’s Arms is a proper boozer – upstairs you’ll find performance spaces with a calendar of comedy, theatre and live music, while the downstairs bar boasts six hand pumps offering a rotating selection of cask ales. The kitchen’s open Friday-Sunday dishing up pub classics, and there’s a knitting group!
16. Richmond Tea Rooms
11. Pop Up Bikes
17. Mughli
Arch 5, Corporation St @PopupBikes A cycle cafe in an old railway arch, Pop Up Bikes will fix your wheels while you sit with a brew – you can also park your bike there weekdays and Saturdays (Sundays ‘are for riding’), and meet likeminded cyclists.
12. Dog Bowl
57 Whitworth St West @BlackDogBowl Riding high on the ‘let’s revamp stuff we did as kids’ train, Dog Bowl’s booze, burgers and bowling alley offers a more grown-up experience. It’s open late and has a full cocktail menu, so you can practice the art of balancing a Martini glass in one hand and a bowling ball in the other.
15 Richmond St @richmondtearoom If taking friends and family who’re visiting for the weekend for a slightly hallucinatory afternoon tea is your thing, then Richmond Tea Rooms are at your service. Tumble down the rabbit hole and scoff miniature cream-quaffed fancies in this decadent – but affordable – parlour in the Village. 30 Wilmslow Rd @mughli A good ‘un on the ever busy ‘Curry Mile’ (though you’ll probably try them all), Mughli’s cuisine takes inspiration from roadside cafes, railway carts and the street food of Gawalmandi, Lahore. They’ve a large selection of tried and tested curries updated with a modern Mughli touch.
18. Fallow Cafe
2A Landcross Rd @fallowcafe As the ‘little sister’ to live venue the Ruby Lounge, Fallow Cafe offers a roster of suitably alternative musicians alongside American hangover pancakes, an extensive milkshake menu and a great value cocktail list in the heart of Fallowfield.
13. Big Hands
296 Oxford Rd @BigHandsBar Handily (gerrit?) close to the Universities, the Academy and Contact theatre, Big Hands – whose owners also run famed public toilet-turnedbasement-bar Temple – proffers drinks cheaper than in nearby venues, and you can expect to spot some musical types post-gig hiding in the back.
14. Sandbar
120 Grosvenor St @sandbar_mcr An independent drinking hole popular among students, academics and locals, Sandbar offers speciality beers and friendly conversation. The 54
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19. Wählbar
cafe and events space, which combines a sense of Scandinavian style with an unadulterated love of yeast. Yum. There’s a breakfast menu, massive sandwiches, and homemade pizzas served at weekends.
310 Wilmslow Rd @thewahlbar Wählbar might be small but it has bags of personality, equally capable of hosting lazy afternoon cocktail drinking, packed weekend DJ sessions and a variety of DIY live promoters who frequent its basement space. This relatively new bar can be something different every day of the week.
24. Kim by the Sea
49 Old Birley St Hulme’s best-kept secret – sorry, Hulme, we’ve gone an’ done it – Kim by the Sea manages to feel like a beachtown shorefront cafe despite being on a concrete verge near Asda. The portions are huge, the fish dishes are amazing and everything tastes the best kind of homecooked.
20. Fuel
448 Wilmslow Rd @fuelcafebar For lovers of hearty vegetarian cuisine, Withington’s Fuel has a subtle charm that attract a loyal clientele – from music geeks to some of the areas ‘local characters’. It’s a higgledy-piggledy picture of contentment with a decent selection of ales, free gigs and quiz nights.
CULTURE 25. Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art
21. The Art of Tea
47 Barlow Moor Rd @ArtOfTeaUK A coffee shop cum brooding bar cum book cavern, The Art of Tea is more than just a pretty hangout for Didsburyites. Sandwiches, hot specials, the beer selection and loose leaf tea don’t disappoint, and though the literary collection may be hotchpotch, it sure is charming.
Market Buildings, Thomas St @CFCCA_UK The Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art promotes, showcases and supports Chinese artists through its in-house exhibitions, community outreach work, residencies and educational creative workshops. The gift shop contains an array of beautiful greetings cards and stationery – and there are flowering teas in the Tea House.
22. Proof
30A Manchester Rd @ProofChorlton You’ll struggle to find a classier cocktail in leafy suburban Chorlton than in Proof. Offering table service whatever the hour, the Proof bartenders are expert mixers, making classics like mojitos and daiquiris to their own signature inventions – we recommend the fruit-filled amaretto, sambuca and Stoli vodka-infused Currant Affair.
26. Contact
Oxford Rd @ContactMcr Outrageous energy and creativity = Contact theatre, a charitable space that prides itself on diversity and hosts projects such as Contacting the World, a biannual theatre exchange festival for young people. Expect to see poets such as Kate Tempest, modern literary greats like Jackie Kay and just generally genre-defying performances.
23. Trove
1032 Stockport Rd @trovefoods If you find yourself living in Levy (Levenshulme), familiarise yourself with Trove: a demure bakery,
2014-2015
Photo: Steve Alandg
Whitworth Art Gallery
27. Martin Harris Centre for Music & Drama
The University of Manchester, Bridgeford St, off Oxford Rd @MHCentre A set of two intimate concert spaces and an electroacoustic music studio on the University of Manchester campus, the Martin Harris Centre for Music & Drama is where you can often catch recitals from musicians and artists working at the edge of avant-garde, as well as readings and theatre.
28. RNCM
124 Oxford Rd @RNCMvoice A world-class conservatoire training the next 55
generation of contemporary classical musicians, the Royal Northern College of Music has an astonishing concert programme; The Skinny has seen everyone from Philip Glass to Owen Pallett and Norwegian percussionist Terje Isungset playing an ice trumpet in its auditorium-style theatre and concert hall.
29. Manchester Museum
The University of Manchester, Oxford Rd @McrMuseum Cool thing: the Museum’s vivarium re-opened in 2013, boasting a large collection of wild amphibians to go alongside their stuffed animals, ancient relics and herbarium. There are monthly Urban Naturalists meetings (advice: don’t get this confused with naturist), plus regular talks and afterhours events.
30. Whitworth Art Gallery
Oxford Rd @WhitworthArt Congrats! You have arrived in Manchester just as the Whitworth Art Gallery reopens after a £15million spruce-up. Don’t make the mistake of rushing past the admired building to and from lectures for three years – a major solo show from Cornelia Parker and wallpapers from Sarah Lucas are among the reopening season highlights.
31. Castlefield Gallery
2 Hewitt St @CastlefieldGall An exhibition space and artist development agency, Castlefield Gallery hosts around eight exhibitions a year, nurturing talent both local and from further afield. While the two floors in Castlefield are the gallery’s home, it regularly curates shows in pop-up spaces around the city, recently opening a secondary base in Federation House.
32. Bridgewater Hall
Lower Mosley St @BridgewaterHall This stunning glass edifice plays host to one of the country’s finest orchestras, the Hallé – and fulltime students can grab tickets to see many of the Mark Elder-conducted symphony’s performances for just three quid. The cream of contemporary experimental musicians and lofty names in folk, roots and jazz also appear.
33. Cornerhouse | HOME
70 Oxford St @CornerhouseMcr | @HOME_mcr Cornerhouse is dead, long live Cornerhouse! The 56
Islington Mill
beloved indie cinema, art gallery, cafe and restaurant will move to its new location of Number One, First Street, in spring 2015, as part of lavish new arts complex HOME – which will also house the Library Theatre in the biggest multi-artform organisation outside of London.
34. Instituto Cervantes
326-330 Deansgate @CervantesMcr Promoting the language and culture of Spain, the Instituto Cervantes doesn’t just offer courses – it hosts exhibitions, concerts, readings, debates and other events, many free of charge. You can even sign up to flamenco, tango or salsa classes should you fancy a workout.
35. International Anthony Burgess Foundation
Chorlton Mill, 3 Cambridge St @misterenderby A unique literary, exhibition and performance space founded in the name of the Manchesterborn author of A Clockwork Orange, the Burgess Foundation is a cool little environment for thinking, reading, and sharing ideas, and tends to play an integral role in Manchester Literature Festival.
36. Royal Exchange Theatre
St Ann’s Sq @rxtheatre The Royal Exchange Theatre’s glass-walled auditorium, suspended in mid-air, encases a threetiered circular seating structure allowing the audience a 360° perspective of the actors – who are never more than nine metres away. Oh yeah, and the programming is good too.
CLUB & GIG VENUES 37. Islington Mill
1 James St, Salford @islingtonmill Though it’s just a small part of the Mill’s empire of creativity, their gig space has boasted
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appearances from Everything Everything, Beach House and Hot Chip, hosts regular deep, dark clubnights like Bohemian Grove, and is home to Sounds from the Other City festival – and who hasn’t wanted to party in an art gallery?
gigging bill, with the main venue staging legions of ‘of-the-moment’ artists and Academies 2, 3 and Club hosting up-and-comers and box-fresh talent. Good luck sticking to studying dutifully.
38. The Deaf Institute
54-56 Whitworth St @thisisgorilla Having provided a stage to the likes of Jon Hopkins, clubnights like Homoelectric, and class comedy acts like Adam Buxton over the last couple of years, Gorilla is one of the most fun, versatile entertainment venues in town – if that wasn’t enough, they do the best kind of slap-ups and gin cocktails.
135 Grosvenor St @DeafInstitute A quirky-sexy grub’n’club venue split over three floors, with most of the fun happening upstairs in the converted theatrical ballroom, The Deaf Institute is hugely popular with the indie-electro crowd thanks to its corresponding range of clubnights, but it also has a gig calendar stuffed with national and international artists.
39. Joshua Brooks
106 Princess St @JoshuaBrooksMCR A permanent fixture on Manchester’s clubbing scene, Joshua Brooks’ student-friendly weeknights range house, hip-hop and techno – happily though, the drinks remain wallet-friendly at the weekends. They're ramping things up with a new autumn/winter programme – look out for the likes of Roman Flügel, Ron Morelli and Jus' Now.
40. Albert Hall
22 Peter St @Alberthallmcr Formerly a discount-drink nightclub in the 90s, following a Trof refit the Grade II listed Albert Hall now boasts a stellar schedule of DJs and musicians, with everything from techno to orchestras and indie-folk. If music ain’t your bag, it’s worth a trip to gawp at the decorative ceilings and stained-glass windows.
41. Manchester Academy
Oxford Rd @MancAcademy Sitting in the centre of Manchester University campus, the Academy has a constantly bristling
42. Gorilla
43. The Ritz
Whitworth St West @ritzmanchester Hosting a healthy mix of live music and club nights, The Ritz is a great place to catch a touring band before they make it stadium-big (think Snow Patrol, CHVRCHES and Arctic Monkeys). It also hosts some big club nights, including Social Beat, making use of the weirdly springy dancefloor – and there’s even a rollerdisco.
44. Frog and Bucket
102 Oldham St @frogandbucket A home-grown comedy classic, the Frog and Bucket has ushered in stand-up stalwarts from Peter Kay to Steve Coogan since starting life as a city centre pub in 1993. Now housed in a bigger venue at the end of Oldham Road, it continues to draw big names as well as nurture up-and-coming local talents at its weekly Beat the Frog nights.
45. Kraak
11 Stevenson Sq @kraakspace Split into two – one side a spacious art gallery, the other an offbeat live music and club venue – Kraak impresses with its eclectic programming and atmospheric, low-maintenance space strewn with chairs and camouflage mesh. Found via a shady back alley, it’s a hidden gem even in the hugely popular Northern Quarter.
46. The Bay Horse
Kraak
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35-37 Thomas St @TheBayHorsePub With regular live music (and affordable venue hire for those keen to be a bit more active in their new scene), The Bay Horse has grown from being one of the original Northern Quarter pubs to a respected gig venue – though their reasonablypriced roasts and pub fare is worth a look too.
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international megastars, sure, but also major sporting events and the odd circus; and while you might hang out in grimy basements most of the year, we don’t believe you when you say you don’t wanna be Row B for Taylor Swift.
SHOPS 52. Manchester Craft and Design Centre
17 Oak St @ManchesterCraft A hub of local makers working across embroidery, ceramics, leatherwork, fine jewellery, you name 47. Soup Kitchen it, the Craft and Design Centre, snugly tucked 31-33 Spear St @SoupKitchen_Mcr away in the Northern Quarter, is the destination Arguably Manchester’s best dedicated club space, for the odd personal treat and Christmas gifts for the basement of Soup Kitchen is the place to the fam. descend into for some of the city’s heaviest but 53. Retro Rehab most intelligent nights, from meandyou to Swing Ting and the occasional Wet Play. The gig calendar 91 Oldham St @Retro_Rehab You’ll discover a bunch of great vintage shops is solid too. around town, but the panache and tailoring of 48. The Castle Retro Rehab’s pieces make ‘em stand out from 66 Oldham St @thecastlehotel the crowd. Look out for their legendary bargain The back room of this much-loved pub has a rails, which have been known to go as low as £1 well-populated gig calendar, with local bands and per item. bigger ones playing special one-off dates booked 54. Travelling Man by the likes of promoters Now Wave and Hey! 4 Dale St @TravellingManUK Manchester (for which the tickets fly out). It also Fabled as one of the country’s best stockists of hosts popular spoken word night Bad Language. comics and games, Travelling Man, just around 49. Band on the Wall the corner from Forbidden Planet, is a haven for 25 Swan St @bandonthewall collectors, nerdists and cosplayers, with friendly With a swanky soundsystem, carpets (!) and staff and occasional instore events. pleasant pre-gig bar, the famous Band on the Wall 55. Afflecks is the spot for the more discerning music fan, often playing host to funk and soul legends, the odd 52 Church St @affleckspalace This multistorey grotto is the stuff of Manchester leftfield gig, and steady club favourites like Craig lore – everyone will talk about it, but your eyes Charles and Mr Scruff. will still boggle when you enter for the first time. 50. South Specialist clothing stalls rub shoulders with sweet 4A South King St @SouthNightClub shops and paint supplies for graff artists – and You’ll find South tucked away behind Deansgate, the fancy dress emporium on the top floor. with just a dark and dingy black door to guide 56. Piccadilly Records you. It’s a basement club as – let’s be honest – all 53 Oldham St @PiccadillyRecs the best venues are; and most clubnights offer Piccadilly Records is the rainy city’s font of all at least a couple of special drinks offers. Expect vinyl knowledge – and as with any indie store well-Manc DJs such as Clint Boon as well as speworth its salt, the staff lovingly label their recomcialist house and techno. mended releases (their end of year lists consist51. Manchester Phones4u Arena ently help define the musical taste of the region). Trinity Way @Phones4uArena Tip: check under the shop fittings for the Beast of an arena with 21,000 seats. You’ve your occasional free poster. Manchester Craft and Design Centre
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Preston City Centre
Preston
FOOD & DRINK 1. Winckleys Winckley St @Winckleys Tucked away off leafy Winckley Square, Winckleys sandwich and coffee bar looks humble but does extremely good fare, from handmade pizzas to artisan coffee, all down to staff who really know their stuff. It’s also possibly the cosiest spot around Christmastime, and a little sun trap in the summer. 2. Glovers Bar 43 Glovers Ct @Gloversbar If you’re gonna drink from a fishbowl (let’s face it, you are), you may as well make it a Glovers fishbowl. It’s house, deep house and tech house on Fridays, and house… – and disco! – on Saturdays at this party bar. 3. Mystery Tea House 23 Cannon St After some pre-exam headspace? The intriguingly named Mystery Tea House is, as you might expect, a good place for zenning out over a loose leaf
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blend or blooming tea and a book. From oolong to yerba mate, there’s something for most moods. 4. Moka 85A Fishergate A cafe-bar by day and tapas spot by night, the chilled and affordable Moka cafe is a trusted spot for getting the evening going, or just cleansing the palate after a beer-and-burger-fuelled weekend. 5. Coco’s Soul Food 88 Friargate Blink past the eye-popping exterior, and Coco’s Soul Food offers flavoursome and filling portions of Mediterranean dishes, enchiladas and tacos on a student budget, and is an ideal shelter from winter conditions; chow down, warm up, and try the jungle sauce. 6. Roper Hall Friargate @TheRoperHall Eat, drink, party is Roper Hall’s tagline – sometimes it’s as simple as that, and this popular student pub will see you right with straight-up bar food, live sports, open mics on Sundays and a Tuesday quiz, at which a free butty can be obtained(!). 7. The Ginger Baker 22 Berry Ln, Longridge @TheGingerBaker Specialising in gluten and wheat free breads and cakes, the recently opened Ginger Baker is a – literally – sweet little tearoom a half-hour trundle out of Preston that also supplies Winckleys cafe. Astound your friends with dietary requirements by actually knowing where to take them.
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CULTURE 8. The Continental South Meadow Ln @newcontinental A characterful pub on the banks of the Ribble, The Continental’s adjacent arts space is arguably the hub of Preston’s alt/fringe cultural activity, with a calendar programmed by local social enterprise/ arts collective They Eat Culture. It hosts GeekUp meets, book and creative writing clubs, dance classes and burlesque alongside an eclectic, inspiring music programme that ranges from farout kosmische to up close and personal folk. 9. Harris Museum & Gallery Market Pl @HarrisPreston The gorgeous, Grade I-listed neoclassical Harris building houses a vast art collection and offers strong contemporary programming, having recently provided one of the stop-offs for Bruce Nauman’s ARTIST ROOMS series. It prides itself on a strong interaction with the community – make it a haunt. 10. Guild Hall & Charter Theatre Lancaster Rd @prestguildhall The two theatre venues of the Guild Hall and Charter Theatre welcome popular names in comedy who stop off mid-countrywide tour, visits from the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, and – should you have a pantomime quota you’re looking to fill – a generous amount of musical theatre and family entertainment. 11. Korova Arts Charnley St @KorovaArts A little hive of activity in the heart of the city, Korova Arts’ fantastic cafe-bar performance space hosts sporadic comedy events that make up for their spontaneity with great lineups – search ‘KorovaKomedy’ on Facebook – and it even has its own mini ‘K-Stock’ festival, with live music and other entertainment. Tuesdays are open mic night, while every second Friday is Nu Folk Sessions. 12. Chorley Little Theatre Dole Ln, Chorley @ChorleyTheatre Okay so it’s not in Preston, it’s half an hour down the road, but Chorley Little Theatre has of late reinvented itself as a comedy fan’s paradise, booking acts that might not even appear in Liverpool or Manchester into a theatre with a 236 capacity 2014-2015
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simply because they like to play there – John Bishop and Richard Herring are among its fans, and it held Edinburgh previews for the first time this year. CLUB & GIG VENUES 13. 53 Degrees Brook St @53degrees With a gig calendar taking in up-and-coming and established touring names (check out Liverpool’s Dan Croll in October) and regular good-time clubnights spanning funk and Northern Soul, 53 Degrees is Preston’s premier live music venue – and participates in the UCLan Freshers’ Pass deal. 14. The Ferret 55 Fylde Rd @themadferret With a fuss-free manifesto of ‘art, film, indie, psychedelic, rock’, The Ferret does exactly what it says on the tin – and is perhaps Preston’s bestloved music venue, having seen the likes of Alt-J and Frightened Rabbit through its doors when they were on the up. Check out fresh talent after some nosh from the recently introduced smokehouse and a craft ale or two. 15. The Adelphi 43 Fylde St @The_Adelphi In a band? The Adelphi pub, slap bang in the middle of the UCLan campus, could be a good shout for your first gig – drop off a demo and they’ll endeavour to hook you up with a promoter. Or you could just get up and try out the open mic after sourcing some Dutch courage from the regular drinks offers. 16. The Warehouse 50 St John’s Pl @thewarehouseuk The more alternative of the mainstream nightclubs, the Warehouse offers indie, rock and emo, hip-hop and pop punk over three floors on Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays and has been running, like, forever – Joy Division played there in 1980 dontcha know.
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Ask Fred Illustration: Zhang Liang
So you’re a student now; whether you’re in further education for personal development, or simply to put three years between yourself and the crushing inevitability of having to earn a living, Fred Fletch is here to help
D
ear Fred, I’ve just elected to study a degree in Art History, but my parents say that’s a waste of time and I’ll never get a job at the end of it. It’s not too late to try something else. What should I do?
P
icking the right degree to pursue is a balance between ‘studying something you love’ and ‘studying something that will actually make you semi-employable at the end of it.’ From school you’re led to believe that you can be whatever you want to be when you grow up, but if this were true, we’d all be living in a world populated entirely by cowboys, Thundercats, Ghostbusters or Lynda Carter’s vagina-testers. ‘Your only limit is your imagination’ and ‘follow your dreams’ is the kind of fruity bullshit reserved for mysterious kung fu masters. But by all means, pick some fucking nonsense that makes you happy. Study the shit out of it. Edinburgh University once offered a degree in 'Introduction to Astrobiology and the Search for Extraterrestrial Life', which was effectively five weeks of watching Farscape episodes then receiving a certificate printed on the back of a list of fast-food vacancies. Meanwhile it’s a statistical fact that around 80% of students who successfully study Dentistry, Sciences or Animal Husbandry at university will find gainful employment in the career of their speciality. Sure, a dentist may not hold a degree in knowing which hole you should fuck a Chewbacca through, but that’s exactly why I’m happy to let them near my mouth. The cold, hard truth is that waiting for you at the end of your two-to-four years of toga parties and drug overdoses is a shitty Thunderdome of responsibilities, bills and obligations. It’s up to 62
you as to how you choose to enter it; with nothing but a cowboy hat and a smile, or with the confident tools to make that world a little bit less shitty. Study whatever you like, be happy, but probably aim to be long-term happy. If you’re smart enough (and driven enough) to get on the course you wanted, then you’ll find personal value and reward in your efforts. Life ain’t the nine-to-five bit where you steal stationery and masturbate in the toilets, it’s the everything else that isn’t that.
D
ear Fred, I’ve got a lot of essays due, and there’s an exam worth 50% of my mark in eight weeks. I work part-time and I’m tempted to buy a completed essay from the internet, or just copy an old one. Is this a good plan?
L
ecturers and Exam Assessors didn’t get where they are today by being unable to identify an essay that is 98% cut and pasted from Wikipedia. Education isn’t just regurgitating someone else’s words – it’s about learning those words, reflecting on them and then adding your own intelligent insight into them (or at the very least, changing them enough so they don’t notice the words are copied from Yahoo! Answers). Take the learning of others and put it to practical use. Earn your degree and make it mean something... and remember, Wikipedia cannot be trusted. It once went three weeks before someone corrected the fact that Heath Ledger DIDN’T die from “an ass filled with jam." That kind of mistake could be all that stands between you and a degree in Dentistry.
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