A walk around Victoria Baths

Prior to last weekend’s local history fair, volunteers at Victoria Baths received the portrait of one of Longsight’s most famous sons – an Olympic swimmer who learnt his strokes in the Edwardian pools. Michael Pooler went along for viewing and took a tour around a building steeped in local history and sociological significance.


Last wednesday saw the arrival – or rather the long-awaited return – of Rob Derbyshire to Victoria Baths, in the form of a portrait painted in 1948. Rob was the son of the first ever superintendent of the baths and won an Olympic gold medal as part of the GB water polo team in 1900, as well as later on taking them to the 1936 Games as trainer. Depicted proudly in a swimming suit bearing the insignia of Great Britain the portrait is a fitting tribute to a man who was once a feted star in this part of Manchester.

My volunteer tour guide, Barry Johnson, tells me that the seated balconies which encircle the principal pool would be teeming full of supporters at water polo matches – back then a hugely popular sport.

“In those days Rob Derbyshire would have been a local hero, like Premier League stars today.”

The first part of the tour consists of visiting the basement archives which house hundreds of documents and objects related to the baths such as trophies, swimming costumes and minute-books of association meetings. It also boasts a large audiovisual collection with interviews from older local residents recounting their memories of the baths. Much of the archives relate to ordinary peoples’ experiences and Barry is keen to impress the importance of this aspect of social history, with particular emphasis on maintaining the oral tradition of passing history from one generation to another by spoken word.

“Whereas most organisations involved in the preservation of sports facilities focus only on the records and achievements of celebrated sportsmen and women, we are interested in ordinary people and their experiences.”

“In this respect the baths are fascinating as they are rich in social and political history.”

Upon walking through the main entrance of the baths you are struck immediately by its magnificence: brilliant emerald green tiles fired in Salford adorn the walls; floors covered by mosaic patterns; and luxurious fully ceramic banisters lead upstairs. It is little wonder that the building is Grade II listed. So it remains a matter of some mystery why to this day it has only been partially restored. Built in 1906 by the Council, it was the main swimming pool in Manchester for 86 years until its closure in 1993 when it was considered too expensive to keep running. Since then a dedicated group of volunteers – the Friends of Victoria Baths – have worked towards its restoration.


As we talk about the origins of the baths, my guide puts to rest oft-repeated myths which portray Public Baths as a benevolent gift from philanthropists of the period. While this was a factor in their creation, there was also a degree of self-interest – namely, concerns of public health and hygiene.

“In Manchester at the turn of the 20th Century the working and middle classes lived in greater proximity to one another. The wealthy were worried about diseases spreading from the lower class areas to their own and so the baths were built as part of a public health programme.”

The baths originally consisted of three pools: men’s first class, men’s second class and the ladies’ pool. While it is easy to attribute the gender separation to prevailing social cultural norms of the era, the distinction of quality – based upon the ability to pay – is revealing of social attitudes and how class played a defining role in society.

For even the engineering of the swimming pools tells uneasy truths about social stratification of the day and sheds light on the treatment of lower social classes – especially women. The pools were fed with water for many years by a nearby Artesian well, dug deep into the ground. Water would be pumped into the first class pool and, on entering its filtration system, would then be recycled first into the men’s second class and finally the ladies’. What this meant was men who could not afford the most expensive tariff would swim in increasingly dirty water while women were effectively treated as sub-citizens, permitted only to bathe in the muck of others. This is echoed in the decoration: while the first class entrance is one of breathtaking Edwardian elegance, the others are far less ornate and more functional.


Such an arrangement would of course be unthinkable nowadays in our society where equality and eliminating discrimination are sacrosanct. But it requires no more than a quick examination of private member gyms’ facilities compared with decrepit public leisure centres to see how new forms of social division manifest and justify themselves.

From this perspective the building is a case study in how the manipulation of public spaces has a subtle – but extremely powerful – effect of social control and segregation. The easing of gender segregation began a gradual process from 1914 onwards, however my guide tells me of how there is a growing demand for women only swims nowadays in particular from the Muslim community.

The bathing habits of users is another factor indicative of prevailing living conditions of the early 20th century Manchester. On the day before the weekly change of the water, so-called 'Dirty Day' due to the rank state of the water, entrance was cheaper. These days were far busier, highlighting the paucity of disposable income of Mancunians and where priorities lay. Before the introduction of chlorine in water for reasons of hygiene, breakouts of infectious diseases caused the baths to be closed for reasons of public health.


Equally, the existence of slum houses without basic wash facilities across Manchester accounts for the continuing use of individual cubicles with bathtubs until the early 1970s. Barry tells me an anecdote of a young man from the west coast of Ireland, a region marked by indigence, who had come to work as a labourer in England. He was thrilled by the facilities, commenting “you get your own bathtub; there’s a towel and everything!”

This aptly illustrates how the two-fold nature of the function of the baths was played out along socio-economic lines. While the middle and upper classes – who largely had access to baths at home – used the baths as a source of leisure and recreation, for many families during industrial times it was a necessary amenity for hygiene.

That the baths hosted a broad spectrum of Manchester society from working class families to the upper echelons of business and even the criminal fraternity is symbolised by the once-lavish Turkish baths. Local legend has it that well-known gangsters would seal their deals in the hot dry heat, reserved for those who could afford the expense.


The establishment was also pioneering in the domain of hydrotherapy, being the first municipal baths in Britain to have installed an ‘Aerotone’ in 1952. This device, consisting of a steel tank sunk into the floor in which springs of hot water were pumped, is similar to a modern-day Jacuzzi. It was used to rehabilitate and treat injuries; among its users at one point were the players and physio staff of football clubs Manchester United and Manchester City, many years before the explosion of revenues in football meant they could afford their own facilities.

The ultimate goal of the Friends of the Baths is to restore the building to its former functional glory. A massive step was taken in this direction when it became the first project to win the BBC2 Restoration series which saw funding to the tune of £3.5m in 2003. It currently receives support from the Lottery, English Heritage and Manchester City Council.


Nowadays the building is home to various activities: from exhibitions of up and coming artists, a performance space for secondary school amateur dramatics and the local history fair to being used as a scene for shooting of TV drama Life on Mars.

So what does the future hold? As of today there is still no national swimming museum in Britain and the grandeur and history of the baths justifies its consideration as a potential site. But the existence of other, more modern swimming pools and the increasing popularity of private membership gyms pose an obstacle to funding.

“We are working with the Council to decide on a future use for the Baths, as well as improving access for the community. It is a fantastic building, rich in history, that deserves to be preserved and restored,” says Neil Bonner, the project manager.

Until then, volunteers will continue to service a grand building which offers a penetrating and stirring snap-shot of Mancunian society across a broad time-span.

Words: Michael Pooler
Images: Courtesy of Friends of Victoria Baths

Silver Apples @ Deaf Institute, Wednesday 28th July

It’s a shame that this Now Wave / WOTGODFORGOT show falls during the sleepy summer gig months. The crowd is healthy enough and Silver Apples co-founder Simeon Coxe (often known simply as Simeon) is clearly appreciative of all the plaudits he receives, but, as innovators so ahead of their time in the late '60s, Silver Apples perhaps deserve greater recognition than from the fanatical few.

The journey begins, though, with a musician more than capable of filling Simeon’s sonic shoes, Denis Jones. Although the gathered few are sparse for his set, Denis enraptures attentions towards a blend of cacophonous crescendos through forthcoming album Red+Yellow=’s ‘Rage’, ‘Clap Hands’ and ‘Sometimes’, while the old favourite, debut album closer ‘Beginning’ is greeted by a knowing hush of anticipation; immaculately uplifting.


The short film, Play Twice Before Listening, sets the scene. Silver Apples originally recorded music in the late 1960s and disappeared for years due to the demise of the record label, KAPP, that had released their first two records. KAPP's sale and eventual absorption into MCA Records was shepherded along following an attempt to defend itself in a legal wrangling against major airline Pan Am, who took offence to the Apples’ second album cover and its depiction of a flight crash scene.

If that image was to prove prescient, it also symbolised the relevance of Silver Apples in an era defined by social change, political protest, technological advancement and, most importantly, the purported moon landing. Looking back, Simeon’s adaptation of vintage 1940s oscillating electricity machines into a primitive dance music arsenal renders a fitting soundtrack to such a phenomenon.

This is not a pension tour, though. The rekindling of the flame in the mid-1990s must have felt more like unfinished business. Although short-lived in one respect, with original drummer Danny Taylor passing away soon after in 1998, his death also led to the rediscovery of undamaged recordings for the third album, entitled The Garden, which was proposed for 1970 but waited nearly 30 years for release.

So, when Simeon, alone, takes the stage at Deaf Institute it feels like the continuation of something that has not yet reached completion. Kicking into a canned boom-chk undercurrent to cosmic wobbles, the fedora-clad innovator is noticeably grateful for his second chance.

Not bogged down by reliance upon too many hits in the back catalogue, Simeon is free to experiment; swooshing, floating, warping through many a musical galaxy; orbiting the SONAR-esque ‘I Don’t Know’ and the almost poppy ‘I Don’t Care What The People Say’.

Following the spiralling sonic lure of ‘Oscillations’, Simeon doffs his hat to salute raucous applause; ahead of its time in the '60s and still unique enough to merit recognition.

Words & Pictures: Ian Pennington

Arts & Music Preview, September 2010

It’s easy to associate September with a new influx of freshers, who line the streets with the flyers they’re bombarded with, blissfully unaware that they are the catalyst for numerous clubnights all clamouring for student loan pennies. But it’s not only wide-eyed freshers who appreciate somebody to separate the wheat from the chaff (and if you happen to be a student then the following preview will hopefully save you the unholy process of taking a mere three strides down Oxford Road before dismissing the umpteenth glossy A6-sized welcome to Manchester).

Very much some of the wheat in that analogy, The Warehouse Project inevitably returns for another stint in the spotlight. Kieran Hebden curates what looks to be the pick of the bunch in November. As for September, you’ve got Maximo Park, Joy Orbison or Basement Jaxx vying for the attentions of the sweaty swarm in that hive of activity below Piccadilly station on various nights.


In the arts, Blank Media’s upcoming exhibition – A New Sense of Emptiness – is at greenroom, where Italian illustrator Mario Sughi’s vibrantly coloured yet minimal scenes will be located for your perusal, from Thursday 9th’s public preview evening through until mid October. Currently adorning the Mooch walls, and continuing through September, will be The Beautiful and the Damned, which showcases Gemma Compton’s striking street art, Ben Slow’s mysterious portraits and Danny O’Connor’s multi-layered montages. When you’ve had your fill of those then there’s Whitworth Art Gallery, whose themed collation is scheduled for an autumn-long stay under the title of The Land Between Us: place, power and dislocation. Multifariously created but hinging on the uses of landscape, both natural and human, expect to see watercolours, creativity borne from conflict and political comment through images.

Local loop-laying electro-acoustic hybrid Denis Jones precedes his October LP, Red + Yellow = (released through Humble Soul and to be reviewed here in due course), with a limited, Piccadilly Records-only EP for album opener ‘Clap Hands’, including remixes by fellow Manc dwellers Graham Massey and Paddy Steer. And while we’re on the subject of recorded output, Melodic have lined-up south Manchester cacophony controllers Working For A Nuclear Free City’s latest, the double-disked Jojo Burger Tempest, for an early-September arrival. Both worth a trip to your local record store.

Gigs-wise: Pineapple Folk’s standouts for the month are fuzzy psyche types Black Mountain and the angsty folkster Deer Tick (15th and 30th, respectively), while Now Wave have PVT playing at the Deaf Institute on 28th. Elsewhere, Hey! Manchester welcome Horse Feathers to The Kings Arms’ cosy confines on Tuesday 14th and OH Productions bring Joanna Newsom to the Palace Theatre on Saturday 18th. The Band on the Wall pick has to be Nancy Elizabeth, Homelife and Denis Jones sharing the bill on Thursday 9th, with The Raghu Dixit Project on Sunday 19th a worthy contender for that crown.

If two of your favourite things are indie-folk bands and seeing your entry fee go to a charity then Sound Control on Sunday 19th is where you should gravitate. The all-dayer will see The Travelling Band, Louis Barabbas & The Bedlam Six, The Lovely Eggs and plenty of others, all supporting Didsbury’s Francis House Children’s Hospice.

Chorlton plays host to much of Mind on Fire’s innovation this month; Thursday 16th at Nook looks a great bet at the low entry fee of £0 – Manchester/Barcelona duo The Electronic Exchange, newly signed to Concrete Moniker’s ‘net label, will perform their self-proclaimed “toolshed dub” live. Otherwise, check out MoF's affiliated DJing slots; last Sunday of every month at Nook or the monthly record selection at Argyles.


Looking slightly beyond the realm of September, independent music conference Un-Convention returns to its motherland, Salford. And, to indulge in a little self-promotion, Now Then Manchester will be curating a stage as part of the event on Saturday 2nd October. We have King Capisce, Louis Barabbas & The Bedlam Six, Paul Green and Veí all lined up with their various instruments, while caro snatch and Joe Kriss will punctuate proceedings with spoken word performances. You can also catch the aforementioned Denis Jones performing on a barge.

Finally, if you’re looking for some cheap, post-Bank Holiday entertainment tonight, there’s the free entry show at An Outlet, to launch Red Tides' new EP, with Jo Rose also performing.

Words: Ian Pennington
Image 1: Girls and the City by Mario Sughi
Image 2: Courtesy of Un-Convention

Danny Perez & Animal Collective present: ODDSAC

In Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange music is wrongly considered by Alex’s captors to be nothing more than “a useful emotional heightener.” During the experimental Ludovico Technique, the soundtrack to the disturbing images that they show Alex in conjunction with their cocktail of passion-numbing drugs is a mere afterthought. Testament to the power of audio-visual synchronicity, however, is the consequent sickness Alex feels towards the soundtrack’s 'Ludwig van', whom he previously worships. In short, the point is that film and music are inextricably linked.

The difference is that, seated in the Mint Lounge back in May, there’s never the suggestion that OH Productions have coerced the gathered audience into attending, nor are they using (or do they require) arcane tools to keep eyes fixated on the screen. And it’s not a given that pictures should fit snugly with the sound (or silence) of the same moment, but music can certainly conjure emotions and images in the mind’s eye. Add swirling, hypnotic visuals and you have an idea of elements of ODDSAC, a collaborative project between filmmaker Danny Perez and the New York-based buzz band Animal Collective, whose 2009 album Merriweather Post Pavilion has been gazed upon by an approving public eye; affording them considerably more attention than a previously cult following.


But the project might not have happened at all if it weren’t for the rapport between Perez and the band, who’re still as camera-shy as ever but were looking for a way to incorporate their music into film without falling into the trap of predictability and mild, watered-down enlightenment that can be the rockumentary. Animal Collective’s Dave Portner (aka Avey Tare) elaborates: “as a band we’re not very comfortable having cameras around, but we’re comfortable hanging out with Danny and we’d done some videos with him, and we liked the stuff he’d done with Black Dice. So we just started throwing around ideas, such as, um, a vampire rowing on water...! Like what we talk about when we’re writing music – everything kind of comes from mutual ideas anyway, so it’s just nice to take that into a further realm.”

There’s the clear succinctness of shared listening and viewing habits, with Animal Collective providing the score to suit a film specialising in moments of surreal peril. Indeed it is the often improvised acting and abstract storyboard that sets the tempo, as Avey Tare explains, “we didn’t write any of the music until we’d watched the footage, so it was all kind of inspired by the live action stuff at first, then some of the more effective stuff came after that.”

Persuading actors to take on challenging, conceptual roles that range from ‘woman struggling to fend off a tarry wall’ to ‘family choking on expanding marshmallows’ and ‘cultish face-painted pelican people’ isn’t necessarily the easiest of tasks. But the loose, improvised vibe allows for individual interpretation, and there are even select cameo appearances from the US independent music scene, with Animal Collective’s own Noah ‘Panda Bear’ Lennox and Tickley Feather’s Annie Sachs testing their theatricality.

Danny Perez: “Annie Sachs, yeah this is a little bit of ODDSAC’s trivia – she’s a friend of ours in Philadelphia. There were four girls but you’ll notice that one of them I virtually cut out... It’s like, really – I couldn’t work with her; her performance is too bad! You just see her arms every now and then – there were four people and you hardly ever see the fourth person’s face... but two of them were actors and two of them were just friends from our neighbourhood and that woman [Annie Sachs], who I didn’t know too well at the time actually. I thought she had a good look, I thought she had a natural, dancing girl type of quality...”

Perez laughs off the alienation his techniques may bring and puts any differences down to experience: “it was difficult, it was really bottom of the barrel as far as the talent, I mean I’m happy with the performances, but the audition process was really ridiculous, like, ‘you want me to do what with the marshmallow?!’ So, I’d say... two thirds of the people I work with who’re put in ridiculous scenarios stay in touch and the other third never talk to me again!”


The film has had an effect through early viewings, one way or another. There are a couple of shock-inducing edits, exaggerated by added sharpness to the score and the presence of menacing characters, the influence for which is pinpointed by Danny Perez: “we had talks about the vampire. At one point they wanted me to go for the more traditional, widow’s peak type vampire and I wanted to go for a more Nosferatu, Herzog style vampire. His robes are like the religious robes that the clergy wear, but I think there’s a lot of influences – I was certainly influenced by a lot of old German expressionist films. There was definitely a nod to that...”

Portner adds that, “there was one fan who said they had nightmares for a week after!”

“There was one girl in Chicago who told me she was diagnosed as a lucid dreamer when she was younger,” Perez reveals. “She said it brought back a lot of the things that had, like, entered her brain... I mean, yeah, the way it moves, the way it’s formatted – it sort of follows a dream logic and that was certainly intentional.”

There’s a painstaking precision to much of the score, and Portner cites influences such as John Carpenter and Frank Zappa’s Burnt Weeny Sandwich film when composing, but the soundtrack remains undeniably Animal Collective in its strata of feedback, distorted harmonies and psychedelic operatics.

“Well, for the more abstract stuff, we pretty much had to watch the footage as we cut it,” Portner recalls. “Like the long ambient one before the kaleidoscope thing – we actually took a long time with Danny in the studio to just watch it and make some changes; take that there, pull that there because the sounds really get messed up, you know? It was a lot about letting the structure and the scenes shape the way the songs are formed – even the more song-y ones, like the first song was kind of structured that way around the visuals because the way I wrote the original melody it was way too long, you know, we didn’t want it to go on for that long so we ended up cutting all these different parts together in the studio rather than a song that we would normally play together live... None of it was played live – it was all completed in the studio.”


It is a project that’s been four years in the pipeline, but will still be one met with a raised eyebrow by a post-Merriweather fanbase. There are moments of the more palatable chorals synonymous with that latest LP, but it would be more surprising for Animal Collective to ride on the wave of their newfound mainstream recognition, than to continue with their own unique vision as seems to be the case. Reminders of the older, sketchier feedback distortions are frequent, and will likely remain so for the foreseeable. Whatever the response to ODDSAC, they’re certainly not following the Ludovico Technique’s lead by coercing an audience into the auditorium. There may be more than a fair share of disturbing scenes and tension-building music to match, but nobody’s stopping you from hiding behind your sofa, and the side-effects that A Clockwork Orange’s Alex (and the lucid-dreaming girl from Chicago) faced are hardly representative of an engaging end product.

Portner is certainly comfortable with their sound, even if others haven’t been over the years: “well I think we’re pretty used to it by now, we’ve been dealing with it for 10 years or so! It’s, um, difficult in terms of our own tastes and different people’s taste, but I enjoy a lot of feedback and all the sounds you can get from that really leap out and get into your ears. With one of our records in particular, we took it to a label and they were like ‘this record’s broken, man! There’s this loud piercing sound on the first track with these dogs running around the room...’ and we were like, ‘really, it’s kinda supposed to sound like that!’”

Avey Tare does see it as a one-off for the band, though, and lowers expectations of future additions to their live repertoire: “we like playing live because of the freedom and I think we’d have to listen too intently to each track; we’d have too many cues because someone would be synced up and it just wouldn’t be very fun for us! It is what it is – we created it to be this thing and not to play along live to it, so I don’t think there’s any point really for us. But that’s not to say we wouldn’t play the songs live...”

ODDSAC is released on DVD in the UK on 16th August.

Words: Ian Pennington
Pictures: Courtesy of In House Press

The Co-operative Quarter

Fundamentally, both the Council and the Co-op believe that a partnership approach will deliver this next great piece of urban development in the UK… through the pursuit of a common goal of high quality, socially inclusive, sustainable and economically successful urban regeneration… For the Council, the common goals reflect the regeneration objectives that will keep Manchester at the forefront of economic and social change.

The shiny new Co-op Quarter in the north of the city centre presents us with a microcosm of future Manchester – partnership-led regeneration to pioneer the low-carbon economy and spur new investment in our supposedly green and sustainable tomorrow. Problem is, that model is the same that’s been used for the past 20 years, and it hasn’t exactly brought about the perpetually promised prosperity and inclusion for the majority in Manchester.

Manchester City Council (MCC) recently handed over £20 million to the Co-operative Group for the redevelopment of the so-called ‘Northern Gateway’ into the city centre. The Co-op Quarter is set to cover 3.5 million square feet of land behind the M.E.N. Arena when it’s done, centred around a brand new head office on Miller Street. According to the Co-op the 15-storey HQ – which should be completed by 2012 at a cost of £100 million – will be “one of the most sustainable in Europe.”

The funding was endorsed in principle back in May 2008, and after the approval of the Co-op’s Strategic Regeneration Initiative (SRI) in May 2009 and subsequent consultation and planning permission, it was finally confirmed by the Council Executive last month.

The Council will “contribute £12m towards the development of public spaces which will be focused on creating a sense of place and world-class environment… by delivering the highest quality of public realm, improved pedestrian linkages and new high quality open spaces over the first phase and subsequent phases” while a cap of £8 million “will be allocated to a contribution towards infrastructure work, primarily focused on the narrowing of Miller Street.” The rest, expected to be in the region of £120-£150 million, will be put up by the Co-op.


People may argue that MCC could be putting taxpayer money in worse places. After all, the Co-op does ‘ethical investment’ doesn’t it? But maybe that’s not the right question.

The Co-op makes “profit for a purpose”, and partly due to what now seems like prudent investment policies after the global economic crisis, it’s been doing very well at that recently. While numerous banks, property developers and companies in similarly high-risk sectors have crumbled around it, the Co-op has been posting huge profits and growth. Last month it paid out record dividends of over £50 million to its shareholders, while sales last year were approaching £14 billion.

Why then does the Council think it needs taxpayers’ money, especially at a time when swingeing cuts are supposedly necessary everywhere else? Why doesn’t the Co-op pay for all of it? Profit’s “for a purpose” after all. Because the fact that it treats its staff a bit better than Wal-Mart and doesn’t shovel cash into the Burmese military junta doesn’t mean it doesn’t act like any other business, a huge and powerful one at that.

There were suggestions before the Co-op announced in late 2008 its intention to stay in the City Centre that the Group was considering moving out of town to either Oldham or Rochdale. MCC certainly didn’t want to lose one of the city’s most recognisable icons. In our post-industrial, globalised city, we’re told image counts for a lot when it comes to the all-encompassing end-game of attracting investors. The City Council recognises it has to “create world-class destinations and provide the conditions to attract further investment” and generate “the right conditions and attractive environment” for that to happen. If making the city nice for developers means throwing a load of money at the project then so be it.

The Co-op of course has deep roots in Manchester, as does the Labour Party, which has controlled the City Council it seems for time immemorial. The two are also intricately bound up with one another. This was obvious for all to see at the Executive meeting in May 2009. When the Co-op Quarter item came up councillors streamed out of the room, unable to participate in the discussion due to conflicts of interest regarding the project. The meeting only just had enough members remaining to proceed.


The Council was desperate to enter another ‘local partnership’. Public-private partnerships (PPP) have been the mainstay of local development policy for over 20 years now. In 1987, after another shocking national defeat to Thatcher’s Conservatives, the Labour Council, led by the current Blackley and Broughton MP Graham Stringer, became proto-New-Labour, “modernising” and giving up on the idea of ‘Municipal Socialism’ – though it wasn’t something they were exactly putting into practice. They embarked upon the brave new world of entrepreneurialism and PPP. It’s something they became very good at.

The new mantra was geared towards winning funding for projects embarked upon with private sector partners. Mega development schemes functioned this way throughout the ’90s and ’00s – think Hulme regeneration, the redevelopment of the city centre after the IRA bomb in 1996, the Commonwealth Games and New East Manchester. While the city elite celebrated the so-called urban renaissance as investment flooded in, the cold reality saw public money effectively pouring into the coffers of private developers.

Prosperity and jobs were always the promised outcomes of incoming capital, but what was really being fuelled were gentrification, a property boom and an increasingly exclusive city where enclaves of poverty and inequality persisted and grew. At the same time every bit of this city’s proud cultural past became bastardised and commodified, allowing the likes of Urban Splash’s Tom Bloxham (MBE) and Ian Simpson to become icons of the ostensibly ‘creative city’.

Meanwhile, as quangos and local partnerships blossomed – where lines between democratic decision-making and private profit-seeking were becoming increasingly blurred – those operating at the top of the public-private sphere became ever more powerful. Out of the ranks of the so-called ‘Manchester Mafia’ came the rise and rise of MCC Chief Executive Sir Howard Bernstein and new Council Leader Sir Richard Leese.

A couple of years before his death Tony Wilson was talking in Liverpool and said that their city was “fucked” because they didn’t have an enlightened despot like Manchester had Bernstein. For Urbis co-founder Justin O’Connor this “set a seal on the increasing moral and political bankruptcy of the post-rave urban growth coalition which had taken over Manchester post-1996.”

Of course Wilson meant this as a compliment to Sir Howard, but despite the former Factory Records man’s questionable judgement it highlighted the pre-eminence of the Council’s seemingly omnipresent chief exec. Returning to the Co-op Quarter we find none other than Bernstein on the Project Board, “comprising the City Council’s Chief Executive and senior representatives from the Co-op,” who “meet regularly to oversee the project, the regeneration objectives and to take forward priority actions.”


This supposedly “community-led” scheme works within the very narrow parameters of traditional PPP. The public consultation, which lasted less than a month, managed to elicit a staggering 14 responses.

The Co-op’s plans for a ‘green’ HQ do look genuinely exciting and innovative, and could act as a catalyst for wider changes needed in the city. But beyond that it’s the tired slogans of “creating identity” and “laying foundations for investments.” There’s more to urban sustainability than how energy and water are sourced and how much waste and carbon is produced each day.

So what exactly is meant by the Co-op’s corporate-speaking masterplan when it talks of “adding value for local communities?” Or the third contribution to the Community Strategy identified by the Council, the mind-blowingly vacuous phrase “individual and collective self esteem – mutual respect?”

The fourth, “Neighbourhoods of Choice,” is specifically about attracting people with ‘aspiration’ to the area, young people coming to live and work in the ‘knowledge economy’ while consuming the ‘service economy’. Others see it as code for yuppie flats. But it’s supposed to be a regeneration project, about creating opportunities for those who really need it in the surrounding and affected areas of Cheetham, Ancoats, Clayton and the City Centre.


Over the next 15-20 years it’s said that 15,000 jobs will potentially be created by the whole project. These estimates often fall way short, but even if it turns out true that’s only 750 to 1,000 jobs per year, without specifying what the jobs might be. In what almost seems like the Town Hall document equivalent of a Freudian slip, the reports don’t even refer to any impact on poverty reduction, one of the criteria such proposals are assessed by. The new Co-operative Academy set to open in Blackley in September is all well and good – well, if you believe in private interests, in this case a multi-billion pound corporate entity, setting curriculums.

There are chinks of light here and there. Take the SRI section titled “Jobs and community”, and under ‘Working together’ what could happen:

Renewable energy systems may generate surplus heat which could be connected to neighbourhood systems to address fuel poverty. The public open space could facilitate community markets, supported by urban farming and community allotment initiatives.

But it’s no more than a glimpse. In the end we see the same old policies, coming from the same old ‘leaders’. Bereft of ideas, they pursue that which has manifestly failed to address issues of poverty, inequality and exclusion in Manchester, or anywhere else for that matter. Maybe that’s exactly why they pursue them, or it’s the only way they know how to keep the unquestionable wheels of growth and profit turning.

Don’t let the shiny brochures fool you. Just because it’s the Co-op and it’s low-energy doesn’t mean this development is somehow different. In the end it’s just another market opportunity to create and exploit. That’s a system they’re all desperate to sustain, whatever the cost.

Words: Andy Lockhart
Pictures: Ian Pennington

Working For A Nuclear Free City @ Sound Control, 02.07.10

Whatever else they’ve been working for, Working for a Nuclear Free City’s live shows in the UK have been infrequent at best over the past couple of years. An ambient eponymous debut, follow-up Rocket EP and the compilation of both entitled Businessmen & Ghosts; recorded output all dates back to 2006/2007 as well.

The fallout has been minor metamorphosis. Formerly a foursome, they’ve added an extra guitar; to tour the US with Fujiya & Miyagi and more recently to contribute to their latest album, Jojo Burger Tempest, due out later this year. In a step mirroring recent examples of track-length audacity by Oneida and Endless Boogie, JBT will comprise two discs with the latter consisting of one track in all-out looping jam mode.

The result is more post-rock ear-benders than previous mellowed chillwave; more up than down on the tempo front. The obvious difference is thickened sonic grunge, along with more off-kilter Battles-esque edginess, and an unrepentant desire to forcibly thwack the aural hammer against anvil.

Silverclub precede with pulsating drums and bass-led grooves (instigated by Chris McGrath, also of Sirconical and Magic Arm), catchily danceable hooks and icing on the top through scratch DJing.

The WFANFC showing is an odd one. For starters it’s only synth and production whiz Phil Kay on Sound Control's upstairs stage for a solo set, so another taster of the aforementioned shift in style will have to wait. It does mean that the electronic sampling and gadgetry synonymous with the more memorable moments of the debut album are again commonplace for the evening.

There’s much to appreciate in a seemingly unplanned fill-in for another band member’s holiday departure. Even if it’s a little disjointed on the mixing front, as audio assaults arrest abruptly and rhythms jump less than seamlessly. Melody-ridden electronica akin to Nathan Fake’s ‘The Sky was Pink’ dives into floor-shaking arena bouncers fluently enough, but it’s the comedown that’s elusive; it feels like you’re inside a TV set while someone channel-hops.

As ‘Troubled Son’ is dropped in later on it hardly matters and this, of course, can’t be considered representative of what to expect from WFANFC in any case.

Words: Ian Pennington

Arts & Music Preview, July 2010

The World Cup’s nearly over and, if it’s been on your radar, you’ll soon have an extra-round Jabulani football-shaped void to fill. It seems appropriate timing, then, for another glance into the Now Then crystal ball of entertainment.

To kick off, a few of the many arts displays worthy of your time. Independent gallery Mooch N4 is exhibiting for the first time from Thursday 8th, promising contemporary painting and street art from Rocket01 and Faunagraphic for the foreseeable. On the walls at Nexus Art Café for the next month or so will be a look at urbanisation, environmental utopia and childhood imagination under the moniker of The View From Here; it culminates in a free film night there on Friday 6th August. Otherwise, time is slipping away on your chance to view Manchester Art Gallery’s Dorothy Bohm exhibition (with work spanning six decades), but, never fear, from Wednesday 4th August the ever-dependable Blank Media Collective take up the photographic mantle with their Angle of Refraction curation at Greenroom depicting uses of light through abstract images.

You’ve just missed July’s instalment of An Outlet’s premier live music showcase, Some Drum I Would Never Hear, but as long as you’re there on the first Saturday of any coming month then you’ll not go far wrong when previous bills have included Borland, Waiters and Illum Sphere. Early word is that SDIWNH resident Eleanor Lou (think PJ Harvey or The Kills) will be joined by glitch whiz Vei and Gold Blood on Saturday 7th August for the next one. And speaking of Waiters, they’re down to support New York’s 80s revivalists Silk Flowers under Comfortable on a Tightrope’s promotion on Wednesday 21st.

Trip-hop, experimental beats, dubstep and electronica specialists This City Is Ours return with The Glitch Mob headlining a show with From the Kites of San Quentin and Jonny Dub in support, visuals from Fata Morgana and OneFiveEight’s eye-catching live art. All happening under Sound Control’s roof on Friday 9th.

If you’re into psychedelic monotony then Wooden Shjips offshoot Moon Duo are worth a look on Sunday 25th, courtesy of Now Wave’s stubborn insistence to stage buzz bands in this city before others have the chance to see them. The Sacred Trinty Church should be a great setting for that as well. The Now Wavers are teaming up with WOTGODFORGOT for an even bigger one; Silver Apples founder Simeon strides straight out of the 60s and into your ears on Wednesday 28th, ably supported by Denis Jones, but if you prefer your noiseniks less noodley than the irresistibly catchy ‘I Don’t Care What the People Say’, for instance, then the second half of WOTGOTFORGOT’s divided attention that night is at The Corner in the form of younger electronic types These Are Powers, who likely owe a debt to the pioneering of Silver Apples themselves.

A Micron / Contort Yourself collaboration looks a safe bet where tech house is concerned. They’ve booked Saytek to bring his drum machines, synths and effects gadgetry to The Roadhouse on Saturday 17th.

Then looking a little further ahead you may have to toss a coin on 3rd August to choose between Wu-Tang Clan’s much-anticipated return, staged by Now Wave, One Inch Badge and OH Productions, and Pantha Du Prince; Ruby Lounge, put on by WOTGODFORGOT.

Words: Ian Pennington

Bike Week 2010

Today sees the start of the Team Green Britain Bike Week 2010.


The simplest way to get involved is to cycle to and from your workplace at some point during the next nine days – a feat that won’t require any second thoughts to those who already do so. For those who don't, Cycle GM Commute Challenge has devised a little added incentive for those who might not usually consider it. But will the novelty last for the fair weather cyclists? And will there even be enough fair weather for the fair weather cyclists?

So far, the answer to the latter question, as I glance out of my window, is yes. The former poser is one with as much uncertainty as ever.


Manchester Friends of the Earth associates Love Your Bike are involved with Manchester City Council and the aforementioned Cycle GM for this year’s festivities, who’ve planned a schedule befitting some of the likely reactions to any suggestion of ditching the gas guzzler in favour of the cyclepaths.

On top of Cycle GM’s week-long challenge, the first brakes should be applied on arrival at Maintenance Monday; a worthwhile visit to those of you put off by the speed of your tyre’s deflation.


Now roadworthy, cycling to work should be a given. Bike to Work Day on Albert Square will find related activities, relevant for two-wheelers both new and experienced.

By the time the working week ends, and when cycling to work has whet your appetite for a pedal through the city, Bike Friday is offering (as is the case with every last Friday of the month) some ideas for where to go via their ‘led rides’ from Bury, Manchester, Salford and Trafford.


Finally, if after all that you don’t think you have the right helmet, high-vis jacket or ankle clips for your cycle chic, there’ll be some tips at the Bike Fabulous biking fashion showcase, on Saturday in the Arndale, where various catwalks (or catcycles?) will be punctuated by more on how to maintain your bike.

Words & Pictures: Ian Pennington

The Natural Marketplace

The parks and green spaces of Manchester seem to be gaining an increasingly prominent status within the city as a place where community and environmental action mingles with open space and good old fashioned peace and bloody quiet. But is it that easy? What pressures are put on them by their location and their function? And what is one park, Platt Fields Park in Fallowfield and Rusholme (now halfway through its centenary year), doing to try and thrive in this 21st Century where the twitter on your i-phone is more anticipated than the twitter of a sparrow (LOL)?


There has been a new project launched by the UK Government to try and place a monetary value on the Natural World, the UK National Ecosystem Assessment. Its aim, and I quote, is to be “the first analysis of the UK’s natural environment in terms of the benefits it provides to society and continuing economic prosperity” (http://uknea.unep-wcmc.org). Basically, they decide how much the Natural World is worth to us in pounds and pence. A piece of woodland? That'll be a fiver to you sir. A marshland with a peat underlayer that might act as a potential store for excess carbon? Fifty quid and a wink. Easy.


But the real issue here is the commodification of the Natural World around us. This comes in two ways – first, there is the placing of monetary value onto ecosystems and green spaces. This, according to some, will allow us to appreciate the true value of such things, and, actually, remove them from the marketplace by ascribing value designed to protect it. However, there is the reverse argument that it simply draws the Natural World into the marketplace, opening it up to be used as a 'thing' to be traded or exchanged based on its current value.


Second, is the idea that green spaces must compete with other resources for funding, preservation and a right to exist. They must prove their value for money by making repeated funding requests and proving what they do for the community, or be damned. There is no longer an idea of inherent usefulness in having green spaces.

Also, this has the effect of making us 'consumers' of green spaces to the extent that we expect things from them, as they are paid for by our money. We therefore expect value for that money. “This is our park, I paid for it with my ruddy council tax," etc, much the same argument we would use to justify bin collections every week or roads with no potholes.


So how does Platt Fields Park in particular survive and adapt to this paradigm shift in the thinking about green spaces?

In an interview with Anne Tucker from the Friends of Platt Fields Park, she explained that the park has many different interests to accommodate and to fend off. “Juggling different people’s needs from the park is the trickiest thing,” she says. “Problems are noise levels vs peace and quiet; dog lovers vs dog haters; fireworks (popular vs effects on wildlife); lake uses (fishing vs boating vs leave it alone); duck feeding vs excess of Canada geese; pathways v grass...” It seems that so many groups use these spaces that it is hard to get the balance right, as everyone has an expectation of what their local park should offer them. This expectation increases with the increased function and use value that parks must have to compete for limited Council resources.


Other interests want simply to change the use of the park altogether, or at least parts of it. “Over the years, there have been some attempts to encroach on the park by developers – most notably the gradual taking over of more of the park by Manchester City FC Sports Complex. There was a big fuss over this so another attempt in 2004 to make a temporary car park for hospital employees to park in and be bussed to the hospital while the MRI/St Mary’s were being rebuilt – it got cancelled with a huge campaign.”

On the up side though, Anne comments that, “nowadays if anyone wants anything like that, Manchester Leisure says ‘no’ immediately!”


When you go to Platt Fields Park, as I was lucky enough to do during the Easter Holidays, there certainly is a lot going on, and a lot of different communities using the park. Joggers, young families, groups of young people on the skate park, old men and their dogs, cyclists, people just going from A to B, and students, all seem to get something out of the park. There are cycling workshops, art days, guerilla gardening, community festivals and loads more stuff to try and get people involved in a productive, local way. And yet, all around, there are signs of the city still present, leaning over as if waiting for Nature to let its guard down. Student Accommodation looms up on one side, the MCFC Sports Complex on the other. The noise of traffic on Wilmslow Road is never far away.


All in all, despite the new pressures Platt Fields Park finds itself under, it tries its best to compete (yes, ‘compete’) for attention in our busy city where space is at a premium. I would have to say that its value lies not in its monetary worth, or its usefulness to various interested parties, but simply as an antidote to the dusty, glum routines we find ourselves swept along by if we don't keep our wits about us.

Words: Andy Rees
Pictures: Ian Pennington

Now Then Readership Survey

Hi all, we'd be very grateful if you could take a couple of minutes (really, it doesn't take long) to complete our readership survey: http://www.nowthensurvey.co.uk

Basically, we're trying to find out a bit more about you, what you're interested in and whether there's anything else you'd like us to be doing or featuring in the magazine and on the blogs that fall under the expansive 'Now Then' umbrella.

Manchester people: there are a couple of questions that are Sheffield-specific, but we'd still really appreciate your input.

Completing the survey will also enter you into a competition; five lucky people will be picked out at random to receive one of a range of exciting prizes (details on the top of the survey form).

Closing date for entry into the competition is 12.00pm, Monday 5 July, but we will still accept completed surveys after that date. Thanks in advance!