Competition: Win Tickets To Mr Scruff's 17th Birthday @ Old Granada Studios

Back in 1999, Mr Scruff couldn't have known the reach and longevity of his sophomore studio effort, Keep It Unreal, in particular its foot-tapping wonders like 'Get A Move On'. 17 years on, the Stockport native is a household name for anyone with a mind open to jazz, soul and funk DJing. His crate digging has introduced many a hip shaker to long-forgotten records, providing the soundtrack to countless revellers' nights out.

 

For his 17th birthday jive at Old Granada Studios, he's joined behind the turntables by house and disco tune-peddler Francois K, and between them the former Corrie corridors will be alive with shoulder-jutting grooves. Refreshingly, it's billed as a non-mobile disco, so put that phone away and enjoy.

 

The show isn't a solitary one for the Old Granada Studios venue, with DJ Yoda and the Craig Charles Funk & Soul Club with Candi Staton lined up for later in June.

We've teamed up with Old Granada Studios to offer a pair of tickets for Mr Scruff's 17th Birthday gig on Friday 3 June to a lucky winner. To be win with a chance of winning, simply email ian at nowthenmagazine dot com with your favourite Scruff song, as well as your full name. The competition closes at 3pm on Thursday 2 June and the winner will be notified later that day.



Words: Ian Pennington

9pm-3am on Friday 3 June, 2016 Old Granada Studios.
Tickets are available from oldgranadamcr.nutickets.com

COMPETITION: Fear of Men @ The Castle Hotel

Brighton trio Fear of Men make the trip up to Manchester's Oldham Street on Sunday 28 September on a wave of melodic indie pop.

With debut album Loom still hot off the press earlier this year, this show finds them in the intimate climes of the Castle Hotel's back room. Following a spate of 7" singles and EPs, the band now has a body of recorded repertoire fitting with their headlining billing and subsequent European tour.

We’ve teamed up with Northern Noise to give away a pair of tickets to their show at The Castle Hotel on Sunday 28 September. All you need to do to enter is like and share the image at the other end of this link (making sure it’s set to ‘public’ so we can see that you’ve entered).

We'll announce the winner on Friday 26 September.

Good luck!

COMPETITION: Silverclub EP Launch gig

Manchester electronic band Silverclub may have slipped from the radar of sonic adventures lately, but their next recorded output is imminent, in the form of an EP and launch show this month.

The lead single, 'Back to the Start' is a chugging train of minimalism indicating their wheels are firmly back on the tracks, while sating your deepest desire for more cow bell with your synths.

We’ve teamed up with Deaf Institute to give away a pair of tickets to their EP launch show on Friday 26 September. All you need to do to enter is like and share the image at the other end of this link (making sure it’s set to ‘public’ so we can see that you’ve entered).

We'll announce the winner on Wednesday 24 September.

Good luck!

COMPETITION: Sugarhill Gang & Grandmaster Flash

Summer might be a time to take stock or head out to a nearby field to watch your favourite musicians in oversized gazebos, but the folks at Trof haven't rested on their laurels just because the sun's out. Instead they've set about bringing two icons of hip hop to their Gorilla venue for a pair of shows taking place over the next month: Sugarhill Gang and Grandmaster Flash.

First up there's Sugarhill Gang's show on Thursday 17 July. Best known for 'Rapper's Delight', a chart hit that sampled the break from Chic's 'Good Times' and capitalised on the growing hip hop movement, the New Jersey trio returned in the late '90s with Jump On It, a rap album for children.

Manchester's Fingathing bring their leftfield live hip hop to support.

Then on Saturday 2 August the clocks are set to clubnight as Grandmaster Flash takes centre stage on the ones and twos. Along with The Furious Five MCs, he is a man whose CV is decorated with the accolade of being in the first hip hop group to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, having cut popular tracks such as 'The Message'.

The Juicy DJs are on hand to fill your ears with their record collection at that one.

We’ve teamed up with Trof and Gorilla to give away a pair of tickets to each show. All you need to do to enter is like and share the image at the other end of this link (making sure it’s set to ‘public’ so we can see that you’ve entered). Finally, please comment on the original image with which one of the two events you’d like to attend.

We'll announce the winner of the Sugarhill Gang competition on Tuesday 15 July, then the Grandmaster Flash competition winner on Thursday 31 July.

Good luck!

Words: Ian Pennington
Images: courtesy of Trof

For more information and tickets, click here for Sugarhill Gang and here for Grandmaster Flash.

COMPETITION: Beat Herder 2014

This year’s Beat Herder is just around the corner now – due to welcome revellers within its gates from 18-20 July. Outside of the headline grabbers of 2ManyDJs, Happy Mondays and Vitalic, they always have room to showcase lesser known artists from the North West , a policy that has been retained from its very first outing back in 2006.

This year their line-up features a host of acts representing Manchester’s shores. On the bands front, there’s a return for indie pop rockers The Loungs after a three-year hiatus and we also recommend Debt Records signees Snow Apple, indie shoegazers Patterns, acoustic hip hopper with a grin Gideon Conn and of course the beanie wearing Chorltonite Badly Drawn Boy.

Looking at the electronic music on the bill, Beat Herder favourite Vieka and avant-garde drumming animal Paddy Steer both join the fun, while on the bigger soundsystems they have Dub Smugglers, Dub Phizix & Strategy, unreal Stockport DJ Mr Scruff and a live set for Herbal Sessions and Gnod cohort Raikes Parade. Add to the list a full band show for hip hop wordsmith Skittles and reggae stalwarts Nucleus Roots and it’s a sizeable Manchester contingent.

Of our other picks, jazz duo Colman Brothers visit on the back of a debut album via the excellent Wah Wah 45s label and our issue 7 interviewees The Orb are lining up a live show for the Sunday.

Try squeezing all that into your weekend.

We’ve teamed up with Beat Herder to secure a pair of tickets to give away to one lucky Now Then Manchester reader. All you have to do to enter the competition is to like and share the image via this link (making sure it’s set to ‘public’ so we can see that you’ve entered).

We’ll notify the winner on Friday 11 July. Good luck!

Words: Ian Pennington

Images: courtesy of Beat Herder

For more information on the line-up and tickets, visit the Beat Herder website.

COMPETITION: Werkha EP Launch @ Band On The Wall

We first encountered Werkha’s Tom Leah as one half of Bug & Leaf, an ambient electronic duo in the Mount Kimbie mould formed with his fellow University of Salford music student Rick Hartley, who now performs under the moniker of (murmur). But his first real taste of musical recognition arrived when Gilles Peterson picked up Cube & Puzzle, Leah's debut EP as Werkha, to play two of its exquisite tracks on his BBC Radio 6Music show towards the end of 2012.

Since then things have moved quickly for Werkha. Peterson asked him to feature a track on the tenth edition of the DJ’s Brownswood label compilation series, and on the live front he recently joined Bonobo on the mainland European legs of his tour as well as DJing at popular club nights such as Hit&Run and So Flute.

Now signed to the Brighton-based Tru Thoughts label – home of Quantic, Alice Russell and Hidden Orchestra – Werkha is set to perform at Band On The Wall on 17 April to mark the launch of his first EP on the imprint, named Beacons. On 5 May this will be available on wax, but for the time being we’d advise you to listen here and read the review in our latest magazine (online here if you haven't picked up your copy yet).


The video for 'Lapwing' by Werkha, taken from the Beacons EP.

At the Band On The Wall show, Leah will perform his compositions live with a cellist and vocalist – Alan Keary, who also performs with Shunya, and Bryony Jarman-Pinto respectively.

In support on the night will be Werkha’s label mate Harleighblu performing her soulful songs live, as well as Gonwana Records founder Matthew Halsall spinning jazzy numbers on the ones and twos. Further tune selections will be provided by Mind On Fire Collective and Tru Thoughts.

We’ve teamed up with Mind On Fire and Band On The Wall to secure a pair of tickets to give away to one lucky Now Then Manchester reader. All you have to do to enter the competition is like and share the image via this link (making sure it’s set to ‘public’ so we can see that you’ve entered).

We’ll notify the winner on Wednesday 16 April. Good luck!

Sessions Part Two: Denis Jones

Manchester MIDI School’s Sessions series is to stage its second ever workshop and has invited Manchester folkie-turned-electronic music experimenter Denis Jones to share his experiences and skills as an independent musician specialising in modern production and electronic music.

Denis Jones has released two critically acclaimed albums via the formerly Manchester-based independent label Humble Soul. Over the past couple of years, he has been collaborating with various musicians across Europe and has most recently recorded with Stockport DJ, artist and tea connoisseur Mr Scruff ahead of Scruff’s new album, Friendly Bacteria, due out via Ninja Tune on 18 May.



Central to Denis’s equipment throughout his development as a musician is the Boss RC-50 looping pedal, but since embracing electronic music, his gigging luggage has expanded to include enough blinking LEDs to resemble a miniature scale city. All this hardware is the antithesis of many modern electronic music producers, who are left scratching their heads and asking the question central to Sessions #2: ‘How can you perform electronic music without a laptop?’

The chance the learn about the performing and recording practices of someone so tuned into new and abstract production methods without the help of laptop software doesn’t arrive too often, but the MIDI School on Bexley Square is offering the opportunity for free.

Sessions returns after a successful debut last November, when the deep house producer and DJ Ben Pearce fronted a class and Q&A on his production techniques and life as an independent musician. The Sessions series at Manchester MIDI School aims to inspire, educate and encourage participants to pursue a career in the music industry, proving the relevant skills to follow this path.

As with the Ben Pearce Sessions workshop, places will be free. But they are also limited, so will be allocated via a competition. To join the Denis Jones Sessions event on Friday 18 April, just follow this link. The closing date for entry is 10 April.

Competition: Project Mooncircle label showcase @ Soup Kitchen

The Project Mooncircle label has been making waves beyond its Berlin basecamp for a while now and has gained keen admirers in the shape of Manchester's Mind On Fire Collective, whose previous bookings include Shigeto, fLako, Fingathing and Mount Kimbie.

So, given the chance by FutureEverything festival to put on a show synchronous with its avant garde vision for music arts and technology, Mind On Fire wasted no time in contacting PMC label boss Gordon Gieseking to assemble some of the label's finest producers of deftly structured electronica and abstract hip hop.

Headlining the resulting show at Soup Kitchen is KRTS, whose knack for finding melodies in medleys of samples and minimally layered clicks, clacks and shimmers is no mean feat. His latest EP, The Foreigner, bridges tubular bells with percussive stoicism and synthesised ambient progressions to tell the conceptual story of a newly landed alien's view of earth.

In support, London-based beatsmith submerse brings his carefully crafted digital soundscapes up north, while Rain Dog returns to perform tracks from his new album Two Words, following a debut Manchester show at last year's Sounds From The Other City.

We have a pair of tickets to give away to one lucky Now Then Manchester reader. All you have to do is like and share the image via this link (making sure it's set to 'public' so that we can see that you've entered).

We'll notify the winner on Saturday 29 March. Good luck!

Competition: Fingathing @ Sound Control

Combining an MPC and turntables with live double bass and unique cartoon visuals, Peter Parker, Sneaky and Chris Drury have built up a strong reputation within the field of leftfield live hip hop under the banner of Fingathing.

They bring their legendary live show to Manchester's Sound Control this Saturday 22 March as part of a spring tour of the UK.

Support comes from local drum and bass band Red Sky Noise and Hoya:Hoya resident Jonny Dub.



We've teamed up with Sound Control to offer Now Then Manchester readers a pair of tickets to the show, so for your chance to see some astoundingly dexterous live hip hop, like and share the image via this link (making sure it's public).

We will notify the winners on the evening of Friday 21 March. Good luck!

Competition: Win tickets to Band On The Wall

Now Then have teamed up with the revered leftfield venue Band On The Wall to offer the prize of a pair of tickets to one of two upcoming events on their hallowed stage. You can choose between Apollo Brown on Thursday 6 March and Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba on Tuesday 11 March.

The Detroit hip hop beatsmith Apollo Brown makes his Manchester debut on Thursday 6 March with his Ugly Heroes crew. Having worked with the likes of Danny Brown, Guilty Simpson and Ghostface, Apollo Brown is one of the leading lights in a new breed of US hip hop producers. He released Ugly Heroes’ eponymous LP with fellow members Red Pill and Verbal Kent in May 2013 on the Mello Music Group imprint.



Support comes from Union Blak and Manchester's very own Jonny Dub from the Hoya:Hoya family.

Then on Tuesday 11 March, the esteemed Malian Bassekou Kouyate will visit Band On The Wall with his backing band, Ngoni ba. He has been described as a visionary for reinventing the Ngoni, an ancient West African stringed instrument, and popularising its sound with a contemporary audience. After a debut album, Segu Blue, in 2007 via Out Here Records, Kouyate received a pair of awards at the BBC3 Awards for World Music.



His third and most recent album, Jama ko, was recorded during the 2012 coup d’état in Mali, which ushered in a period of uncertainty for the country’s musicians. But, even if performing in their home nation is more precarious, Kouyate and his band continue to perform to large audiences across the globe.

For your chance to win a pair of tickets to either show, just like and share the Facebook photo at the other end of this link, remembering also to leave a comment underneath the original photo stating your preferred show.

For the Apollo Brown show, we’ll draw a winner out of the hat on Wednesday 5 March, so make sure you enter the competition by midnight on Tuesday 4 March if that’s your choice of gig.

Then, for the Bassekou Kouyate show, we’ll draw a winner out of that hat on Monday 10 March, so make sure you enter the competition by midnight on Sunday 9 March.

Good luck!