Now Then Broken Bubble: Event Photography (Thursday 14th July @ Dulcimer, Chorlton)

The recent collaboration between Now Then Manchester and the Broken Bubble netlabel in the cosy confines of Chorlton's Dulcimer bar elucidated first hand the melodic malleability of 'dubfunk'.



Sharing the limelight were a trio of DJs mixing some of the less constrained electronic music; a free-flowing reign of beats subjugated by individual tweaks, tangles and technological transfusions from the hearts of Duskky, Hurtdeer and Cogidubnus.



A visual summary has been compiled by Gary Brown.


Words: Ian Pennington
Images: Gary Brown

Interview: Broken Bubble

Dance music is a lexical maze these days. The roots of the genre family tree are more intricately twisted than the soundwaves pounding your eardrums.

Not that there’s anything wrong with niches so long as music is constantly shifting and progressing, as Broken Bubble netlabel founder Guy Thompson would attest: “The reason there’s so many [names] is that genres tend to stagnate after a while so if you can look at things afresh then it’s a good thing. The group mentality means that everyone ends up taking too many similar elements to each other and so when something new springs out it’s one of the great things about the evolution of music. Now people can go from house to dubstep to techno to drum’n’bass to house to acid to anywhere else so it’s great if you can find a way to bring that all together in a meaningful experience...”

The development of dance music since dubstep nodded its head into a bass hungry public eye has served to further blur genre boundaries, so the dance family tree is more a forest and the resultant mixes make for varied listening. Those dabbling in post-dubstep have dipped into anything from reggae to jazz via funk and ambient IDM. If you ask any individual, they’ll label their sound differently. Broken Bubble artists Hurtdeer and Duskky call their output ‘dubfunk’, which Thompson agrees with, but the only certainty is that dubstep’s successors have presented a fork in the road.

“Some people still try to claim that dubstep’s a single genre but I think it’s blatantly split into at least two distinct styles. The very mid-range heavy stuff – I don’t really want to mention artists, but that kind of sound doesn’t connect with me on an emotional level at all. Then a lot of people are pushing the deeper sounds; that’s where names like future garage have come from. Duskky and Hurtdeer are calling their stuff ‘dubfunk’, which is quite a good catch-all term for the kind of sound they’re pushing. You could call some of the stuff my labelmates are making post-techno-funky-wonkstep, etc, etc and that still wouldn’t adequately describe the sound of the track.”

While Broken Bubble as a label opens its arms to a plethora of genres, there is a distinct sound emerging – one that owes a debt to the likes of Hotflush, Hyperdub, Echodub, Acroplane and Planet Mu, both in terms of forcing wide the mainstream gates for forward thinking and inspiration: “Burial’s albums obviously, Boxcutter’s Glyphic and Benga’s Diary of an Afrowarrior – they were all big inspirations that got me back into mixing tunes rather than just being a listener. From then it just seemed like I had a rare surge of motivation and decided that to get something going I might as well do it myself. Right now FaltyDL, Floating Points and Ital Tek are producers I look up to – he’s got his sound absolutely nailed on at the moment.”

From that surge, Sicknote was born. Thompson put his own decade’s worth of experience with DJing in deep house, prog house and broken beats into the fresh post-dubstep template of the late 2000s. Then, unafraid to stick to his guns with regular residents, including xxxy and From The Kites Of San Quentin’s Phil ‘Blood Boy’ Bretnall, he also gambled by bringing in the occasional imported non-Manc to headline.

“I’d met xxxy at a night called Offbeat Suburbia and got him on to do the first one, then had him as a resident for a while. Now things have gone extremely well for him; he’s headlining shows all over the place. I tried to focus on people who were away from the trends of the genres I suppose. The first one we did at the Corner in Fallowfield we brought Phaeleh up from Bristol for his Manchester debut and packed the place out – it was a really buzzing atmosphere. Again, he’s another one who’s gone on to have a huge amount of success.”

During a brief hiatus in Sicknote promotions, the Broken Bubble label has taken shape with the help of links with London-based Mothers Against Noise collective and the rapidly improving technologies accessible to anyone who puts the time into learning about them. Bandcamp is one of the online platforms that can help with music distribution by cutting out the middle man and collating similar sounds under one virtual roof.

“I think seeing people selling music that way showed that it was the thing to do. There’s a big trend for giving music away... for an artist the most important thing is to be heard as widely as possible, but at the same time there’s so much free music out there that people can perceive that it doesn’t have as much value as the stuff that’s being sold, so I’m trying to strike a balance with that. And there’s a lot of good music set ups now – I think Soundcloud really helps as a platform as well; helping like-minded producers to hear each other’s stuff – it’s been a major factor in getting such a good roster of artists together for the label.”

The roster has grown almost exponentially since Thompson’s DJing alter ego Cogidubnus launched the label in February with an EP entitled The Pan-Galactic Memory Bank. Others have followed and Duskky’s second digital album Rascality, released this week, is the eighth through Broken Bubble when including the superb 14-track mutual remixing compilation We Can Build You, which displays the kinship and respect shared between a group of producers whose shades of melody and rhythm can fuse harmoniously but equally command praise individually.

“Having been in contact with Duskky and Hurtdeer for a bit and swapping tunes with them, I realised we had all the wherewithal to do it ourselves, so I’ve been doing the artwork and distribution, whilst Sandy (aka Duskky) and Max (aka Hurtdeer) have been doing the mastering. They’ve been instrumental in helping me set up the label in the first place, adding a lot of ideas with all aspects of the process and it’s the same with a couple of the other guys.”

“Duskky tends to take quite a break-beat science approach to his tunes. He likes pulling apart drum breaks and working a real rhythm with a lot of reggae and funk influences. Hurtdeer brings in influences from techno, breakcore and videogame music and explores different time signatures with a lot of tunes in 7/4 instead of 4/4, which makes them difficult to mix from for other people, but it sounds great when he does it!”

The roster isn’t limited to that core trio. Second Line has so far appeared on the compilation and has an EP pencilled in for September, while Macka’s eclectic combination of dubstep beats, freestyle melodics and the occasional Shakespearian quote gives his Piano Works digital record some of the standout Broken Bubble moments.

Beyond those are a couple of newcomers in Broke’nFolk (“he’s done a really cool EP made out of funk, jazzy drum breaks and a lot of interesting synth work as well”) and Gravious (“he had an early release on Hotflush and has had a quiet few years, but he’s back with a vengeance pushing a very fresh sound”) who promise to add yet more sonic colour to an already luminous palette.

Although there’s a scientific approach to making the synthesis, selected samples often originate from science fiction. Cogidubnus in particular is partial to building on ideas from sci-fi literature and soundtracks: “Pan-Galactic Memory Bank is named after a novel by Kilgore Trout, who’s a character in Kurt Vonnegut’s novels. I’d been reading his Breakfast of Champions book just before I made that track... Then there are a few samples from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and, yeah, it’s always interesting to explore your influences by sampling.”

Cogidubnus brings those influences with him to Chorlton’s Dulcimer bar on Thursday 14th July, where he, Duskky and Hurtdeer will share the limelight for what will be a Broken Bubble live showcase. Thompson’s latest foray into live mixing prior to this was at the Total Garage night at Joshua Brooks; a more diverse line-up in a sense, but Thompson profited from an open-minded audience: “I think it [Total Garage] went well. The crowd was open to exploring the possibilities of what garage could be, I was able to play a lot of the minimal, 2-step stuff that comes under the ‘future garage’ umbrella. It’s an area that has a lot of creativity with producers like Roof Light, Sorrow and Fedbymachines all making great sounds.”

“I think at the Now Then Manchester night we’re probably going to alternate; we’ve got about four hours or so and I think we’ll rotate with half an hour each and gradually build it up. Max (Hurtdeer) and Sandy (Duskky) have been working on stuff at 200bpm – one of the things about dubstep when it started was getting a good change of vibe from switching tempo between 70 and 40bpm, so they’re trying that with 100 and 200bpm.”

Words: Ian Pennington
Images: Courtesy of Broken Bubble & This City Is Ours

A taster of Cogidubnus' mixing vibes can be heard here.

Arts, Music & Events Preview July 2011 (Part One)

So, onwards to the latter half of the year. July, the delta of a month when MIF docks at Manchester’s shores, overflows into multifarious distributaries as fringe events seek to swim in its big fish slipstream.

Enough nautical nonsense, though. Tonight (Friday 1st) is a night split by a couple of worthy shouts from contrasting shades of the musical spectrum. Firstly, Cogidubnus is among the DJs for the Total Garage night; unfortunately not actually at a Total Garage fuel dispenser, instead at Joshua Brooks where you’ll hear future garage, dubstep, 2-step and associated genres. If you dig that scene then why not also shuffle down to the Dulcimer in Chorlton on Thursday 14th for the second of Now Then Manchester’s stint, a showcase of Cogidubnus’s label Broken Bubble.

On the topic of Dulcimer, the second option for tonight has to be Wooden Wand; lured across the pond by Golden Lab Recordings for a performance of alt-folky psychedelics.

Saturday 2nd beckons in more of the aforementioned fringe events. Lass O’Gowrie pub’s own Lass Fest hosts the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre. There’s not a lot I can add to that, other than it sounds like something you won’t see very often – so check it out this time around! Elsewhere, there’s more from Not Part Of Fest that day, including the Manchester Art Crawl launch party at Islington Mill.

The annually anticipated Beech Road Festival is set for Sunday 3rd. The road renowned for its independent boutiques will welcome stalls and arty attractions aplenty.

If Lass Fest’s sock puppets sound like a niche market then ‘chap hop’ must be a genre whose purveyors can be counted on one hand. Mr B The Gentleman Rhymer Monday 4th performance will answer any inevitable questions about what to expect.

[More to follow after the weekend...]

Words: Ian Pennington

Interview: Doodlebug

“All right Barney?” enquires another of the passersby on a sunny, yet blustery, afternoon outside Beech Road’s On The Corner cafe in Chorlton. The bespectacled man sat before me is the Barney in question. Multi-talented arts instigator Michael Anthony Barnes-Wynters is recognisable not only as a resident of Manchester suburbs since moving up from Bristol in 1989, but also for his work supporting independent arts within the city.

“I’d come from Bristol and one of the guys who lived in our household was from Manchester and in the house we had a band, which I used to do all the artwork, stage visuals and promotions for. We came up to Band on the Wall to play, so that was my first trip to Manchester back in the early 80s. It was amazing; it all stayed with me. And also knowing this guy called Charlie Clarke, who used to go on about Wigan Casino; he was a Northern Soul head. It lead to a kind of soft spot so in 1989 I moved – came up to Madchester and got straight involved with what was going on. My next door neighbour was Steve Williams who was a main DJ for the Haçienda and the Blackburn parties. So straight away I got to do flyers for the Haç and that.”

Barnes-Wynters may have arrived during Madchester, but his own experiences weren’t directly dependent upon the Wilson-oriented media buzz. Instead Barney started up his own regular Sunday night slot at a nascent Dry Bar under the moniker Hoochie Coochie. “I walked into Dry Bar, which had just opened, and approached Leroy – Leroy, by the way, ran it then and also now runs Gulliver’s. It’s quite interesting, actually I think it’s brilliant, looking now at how Dry (201) started bar culture, frankly, with the whole design aspect and it kicked off bar culture in ’89, so I walked into that sort of scenario.”

The night saw many names en route to local and national acclaim, one of the more notable being DJ, illustrator and tea connoisseur Mr Scruff. “Andy [Carthy, aka Mr Scruff] had approached me to DJ, so we would DJ side by side together, one deck each at Dry (201). He later approached me and gave me a tape and said, “Have a listen to that.” So I’m thinking, “Okay, I’ll take it into Rob (Gretton)...” Rob’s reaction was, great, as long as we cover costs, you can come in, use the [production] desk and do it – and so, from that, the relationship between myself and Andy started there and the rest you know; the story, which is brilliant.”

Barney has much to say on the subject of stories, which ones are told and which ones remain largely or entirely untold. “’Madchester’, Manchester, Haçienda, music – all that stuff – it was interesting having a spokesperson like Tony Wilson around, because you needed that intellect, that articulate person who could actually focus it all. Now looking on back to it, it’s just the churning out of that same story – ‘the story, the story...’ 24 Hour Party People was brilliant, I thought, but there are many stories here, which haven’t been touched and which, hopefully, will be touched. I always remember a time years ago when Manchester always used to take the piss out of the Beatles story but, you know, it’s become the same thing here; actually, worse.”

Where the present-day stories are concerned, Barnes-Wynters is always striving to unearth the next artistic gems – the reason behind which he attributes to his upbringing in Bristol. “It’s a core of my ingredient, you know. I grew up in the ‘70s in Bristol and my street was like Sesame Street, you just had all these characters; all these different flavours from all over the world on one street. It was amazing! Terraced houses, two up/two downs; we had the Adams family across the road – they were this kooky, mad family – brilliant. A Teddy Boy and girl family plus the hippy house, where I used to hang out, they were in their early 20s. Meanwhile I’ve got this music, which, you know, I couldn’t understand the lyrics... because it was Serge Gainsbourg. I was listening to L’Histoire de Melody [Nelson] aged 10... Then listening to Gil Scott Heron – God rest his soul – and Pentangle; all sorts of stuff. So what drives me? I just feel lucky enough to have been brought up where and when I grew up. Because now I flex, you know, it’s easy... I never let go of analogue, meanwhile I embrace any new...”

Barney’s gratitude extends to his fundamental ability to be able to enjoy the world in all its glory. “Bottom line is that I appreciate that fact that I have all my senses – as a kid growing up in my school we had a deaf unit and I used to hang with the deaf kids. For some reason I tend to attract... what’s the word?! Oddballs, let’s say! Introverted, definitely. I tend to hang with the underdog; I always have.”

“The deaf kids would get taunted and I always used to just stick up for them... And so, I’ve got this thing about appreciation of my senses so I tend to explore by any medium necessary, so with Doodlebug and the whole thing with International Doodlebug Day, which I set up in Manchester, London and Tokyo on the same day, at the same time for the first 3 years and then we did it ’98 to 2006 where we invited different artists... basically, bedroom artists, doodlers literally, but it was also to do with doodling with sound – it wasn’t just pen to paper, it wasn’t just mark making.”

“It never goes away because someone is always reminding me or asking me, ‘when is the next one?!’”

Indeed, the legacy of the annual tri-city triumph remains in Manchester. Sketch City met at one of the events (“Those guys got the bug by coming along to International Doodlebug Day – on my site there’s still photos of the first time they got together”) and now embody the Hoya:Hoya experimental electronic clubnights. Internationally recognised artists, such as Alex One and Boris Hoppek, joined the party (“It was very much about bringing in International artists to design collaboratively with local artists”) and as a result Barnes-Wynters was involved with curating the UK’s first street art exhibition at URBIS in 2003.

“There are pieces up in the Northern Quarter which are still there from 2006.”

“Bearing in mind my background from Bristol was very street-based in terms of visual art, so there was the thing with Banksy obviously – there was that connection because Doodlebug used to work with Arc Gallery Store (RIP), which was a clothing/accessories shop with a gallery on Oldham Street opposite Magma and basically brought Banksy to drop stuff here.”

As for taking International Doodlebug Day into double figures, Barney is happy to speculate: “I stopped at nine, because I felt it needed to stop ad breathe. Indeed, there’s plan of a number ten – I think it would be... it’s going to be a 21st century DIY flex in cahoots with Madlab to really take it beyond the page and back to Doodlebug’s original 1998 manifesto of the synergy of art and science, beyond just marking – so it’d be a very wonky Madlab / Doodlebug scenario.”

Castlefield Gallery and greenroom were amongst those to recently lose Arts Council funding, but, aside from enthusing about Madlab, Barney remains confident that the arts in Manchester have enough platforms to survive and thrive. “greenroom is gone, but artists are still here. Contact [Theatre], which is where I’m based and have been since it opened, still remains – with a spearhead of Baba Israel who is a brilliant artistic director for that place. But also in particular Islington Mill and Blank Media Collective.”

“It was always Doodlebug presents… and you couldn’t pigeonhole it, but is was described as a 21st century Old Grey Whistle Test, which is a compliment because only a couple of days ago I noticed with Old Grey Whistle Test there are people paying its homage,” says Barney. That Old Grey Whistle Test set-up is the vibe for the first of a trio of summer Now Then Manchester shows at Dulcimer in Chorlton. As host for the event on Wednesday 29th June, Barney elaborates on a few of his choices to join him onstage. “There’s liveness from Rioghnach Connolly from Honeyfeet and Your Orange Coat: German Techno Lesbians. I am speaking with Naomi Kashiwagi in the mix as well as Howard Walmsley – film maker (808 State), Biting Tongues frontman, working with MC Tunes and Ed Barton. Lotte Karlson, Norwegian designer, glass blower who I collaborate with on Alexandra Arts. And Thick Richard I think is without doubt the dog’s bollocks performance poet, end of story plus David Boultbee and Kate Moran of Bread Art Collective and artist Kerry Howarth.”

“Really with next week, we’re just going to flex and feel how it goes. It’s that thing of mindfood, which is what I’ve always put Doodlebug as. Sharing ideas and inspirations, so conversations are good to engage with whoever’s there because I think it is an experiment, so it’s not going to be, right, this DJ’s on then and this is going to be here, no – I think we’ve just got to feel it. But we’ll be prepared for whatever audience is there. I like to engage with the audience rather than just throw things at them.”

Words: Ian Pennington
Image #1: Poster design by Louie Mitchell; photography by Simon Bray.
Images #2, #3 & #4: Courtesy of Doodlebug.
Image #5: Courtesy of Opus Independents.

Doodlebug Nuggets fortnightly show on ALL FM 96.9 starts Sunday 3rd July: 7-9pm
Doodlebug Nuggets screening of Howard Walmsley’s ‘Nish, Clish, Bangin’: The MC Tunes Tapes at Islington Mill on Thursday 7th July, 7.30pm

Tom Vek @ Ruby Lounge, Monday 13th June 2011

There is, at the same time, everything and nothing to say about Tom Vek. His rise and rise of 2005 yielded great plaudits, but that instant has long since perished. The now and the next should be anticipated very differently. More than six years separates full-lengths We Have Sound and Leisure Seizure and the sparks of the former remain in a realm of music history now wholly separate from the ever-shifting electronic progressions of today.

But such is Tom Vek’s allure that many would cite him as an influence on their music. In this context, support act Breton appear almost to be a tribute band, as if Vek’s last five years or so since touring have been spent training up another vocalist in his image. It’s that same deadpan delivery, but instead the accompanying notes are also drained of melody en route to anticipant eardrums. As a unit, Breton can be pinned to the same board as fellow synth/sampler-friendly hoodies D/R/U/G/S and Fixers.

It doesn’t take long into his Ruby Lounge set to realise that it’s the same slender art scholar with his same monotone vocal, same passion for suave bassline slides; all the same in fact, apart from somewhere along the line he’s given the feathers a trim. Potential Sterling Cooper employee or post-adolescent scruff – it matters not.

Vek fires the first cylinders with an oldie in ‘C-C (You Set The Fire In Me)’, highlighting his penchant for funky bass twangs with a dual 4-stringed attack, before newbies ‘World Of Doubt’ and ‘We Do Nothing’ sink in with contrasting staccato highs and drolly submerged glistens. Further familiar grooves ‘If You Want’, ‘Nothing But Green Lights’ and ‘I Ain’t Saying My Goodbyes’ are unsurprisingly received more favourably than any newcomers yet to make an impact, but leave it another six years and it might be a different story.

The distinction is that Vek’s lyrical lethargy hasn’t had time to settle; the depth to his rhyming satire as yet undiscovered below the po-faced wall of his David Byrne-ish narrative. Every time this outing is in danger of stagnating, bogged down by the similarity of that detached vocal ennui, it is a tune of the prolonged digestion period that reasserts a freshness of groove.

That’s not to say the newer songs wash over completely. The bouncing conga rhythms of ‘Aroused’ match the energetic beats of ‘Hold Your Hand’ and set-closer ‘A-P-O-L-O-G-Y’ is a suitably uptempo sign-off with its echoes of Digitalism. Just don’t underestimate the power of an extended hiatus to pale any slow-burning stragglers by comparison with the return of long-awaited floor-fillers.

Words: Ian Pennington
Images: Paul Green

Arts, Music & Events Preview June 2011 (Part Two)

My assertion earlier this month that Parklife always attracts the best weather proved to be only half true on this occasion, leaving in its wake a sludgy trail of well-trodden mush. Fortunately for today’s (Saturday 18th) Envirolution, they’ll be drawing punters to a different part of Platt Fields park.

The event ties in with both Team Green Britain’s Bike Week and International Day of Action to Stop Tar Sands; the former offers incentives for cycling and the opportunity to ‘pimp your bike’; the latter will be instigated by Manchester Friends of the Earth as a gesture against the Canadian oil depository labelled by Greenpeace as “a literal hell on earth”.

Elsewhere today there’s a worthy line-up at Islington Mill for Portals. Comic book DJ Fingathing and Denis Jones’ project with The Pickpocket Network are musical picks; all the while supported by a multitude of artists’ interpretations of ‘portals’, including Elle Brotherhood, Used Pencil and plenty more.

Onwards to Tuesday 21st when a couple of politically edged bookings vie for attention. Firstly, at the Shakespeare pub, Manchester Salon’s Valuing the Arts in an Age of Austerity is one to whet the appetite of debate, given this government’s disdain towards artistic institutions often proven to not only culturally satiate, but also economically recoup. One such example is the UK Film Council, abolished last year in an early sign of Tory intent. And on the topic of film, Manchester Film Co-operative’s latest selection also screens on that Tuesday, The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum. It fits with their current ‘surveillance’ theme and takes place upstairs at The Kings Arms in Salford.

The following weekend is a busy one, ushered in by Content on Friday 24th. The tech house promoter have Octave One secured for a Joshua Brooks show. Apparently there’s another festival happening this weekend on the telly; not as far as Islington Mill are concerned. Their Alternative Glastonbury weekend may not have quite the same available acres, but it does flex its variety muscles with one69A’s t-shirt prints, Salford Zine Library, arts & crafts stalls and Shangaan Electro on Sunday 26th. Preceded by an Eastern Bloc vinyl DJing takeover on Saturday 25th, which clashes with more within the twisted electronic brains of Hoya:Hoya; Machine Drum's funky sampledelica at Roadhouse.

Woodpigeon top a Tuesday 28th bill at the Dulcimer that includes Eagleowl and Rob St John (both of Song, By Toad Records).

You want more? Well there is the small matter of the rearranged Now Then Doodlebug Nuggets event, also at Dulcimer bar in Chorlton. Mark down Wednesday 29th for that one. Plenty more to say on that one very soon, but here’s a little taster:

Expect dabblings with the esoteric: leftfield music, live conversations with local arts personalities, spoken word, audience participation; a multi-arts mélange under the curative eyes of host M A Barnes-Wynters.

It’s free entry as well. And if you like what you see in the various midweek entertainment showcase then dipping into your pockets to the tune of £3 would be much appreciated to support performers and ensure the future unearthing of similar gems.

Before the month ends, on Thursday 30th there's also the launch of half-month long performance palette Not Part Of Festival, which originally began as a more inclusive balance to the heavily funded and commissioned Manchester International Festival. Interwoven betwixt and between will be Lassfest at the Lass O'Gowrie, but more on both next month...

Words: Ian Pennington

Interview: Caulbearers

This week sees Caulbearers, one of Manchester’s most progressive music outfits, release their much anticipated debut EP. Manchester MULE's Tim Hunt meets their front man Damien Mahoney to find out all about it.

“Sorry I’ll be five minutes late,” reads the text from Caulbearers' frontman Damien Mahoney a minute before we had agreed to meet. My heart sinks, this usually means 20 minutes (at least) and I have to get back to work, but luckily he arrives just three over time. A record.

On arrival he looks clearly stressed out. The Caulbearers’ debut EP launch night is on Friday and “there’s loads of spanners in the works, you forget you have to do some music.” The latest problem is that the bass player has broken two fingers on his left hand. “It’s a bit of a fucker,” says Damien, which with a gig on Friday seems a bit of an understatement.

“We rehearsed last night but with a totally different line up, it wasn’t the one that will be playing on Friday,” he explains. “The drummer is on tour with Magic Hat Ensemble, he is so difficult to track down, Dan’s not around as he lives in London but now he’s bust his finger anyway, Matt (guitarist) couldn’t make it… It’s like that at the moment. Having eight members is difficult to work between you.”

Luckily the Caulbearers use the “squad rotation system” as Damien calls it, a pool of musicians that can play all the songs (and learn new ones quickly). And this squad has a bit of everything: “We have drummers who are multi-instrumentalists and can read music like a book. Then there’s me who can’t play a chord and that’s an interesting mix in Caulbearers.”

But the system is born out of necessity and does have its problems. “It’s the only way,” says Damien, “otherwise the band wouldn’t survive. We’ve had to cancel gigs anyway. Once because three drummers can’t do it and another because Julie (vocals) can’t do it because her tour manager [from her other band] with Shaun Ryder has asked her to fly out somewhere a day early. But there is nothing you can do about it. It’s really frustrating.”

Today these problems seem to be causing him some concern and he looks as if he’s carrying the weight of the world (or at least the band) on his shoulders. I ask him if he’s the manager as well as the lead singer. “I’m the Daddy,” he says with an air of resignation, “but I’d rather be the Daddy to a small child than a group of musicians.” Others of course chip in that the recent mini-tour of Ireland was organised by Gavin (percussion), which Damien says was great, adding, “I could enjoy it more.”

But Friday’s gig at Islington Mill is down to him. The night will see the launch of the band’s long-awaited first EP, entitled More Lie Deep. “It’s our first proper release, proper in a DIY sense.” It’s DIY, for Damien at least, because he has produced the whole thing himself. “I’m pleased with it,” he says with an air of real pride, “because there were times I felt up against it.”

“We did the drums and bass at the Blueprint studio in Salford, all the other recording has been done in the Redbricks [a housing estate] in Hulme, in my flat. We sound proofed up a room using whatever we could and used the living room as a control room, and we just edited it all there.”

The final mixes were done at Moolah Rouge Studios in Stockport with producer Seadna McPhail, who’s worked with several big Manchester artists including Badly Drawn Boy. The first track on the new EP has quite a light sound not dissimilar to that of Mr Gough. “This,” says Damien, “is quite different from other Caulbearers tracks.”

I ask him if this change in sound from one track to another is a conscious decision or something that’s just happened organically. “The thing that unites them is more where they are coming from lyrically. Some Caulbearers stuff is quite outward looking and angry, looking at society and things that are going on, and political. Not that it’s rammed down your throat,” he adds quickly, “it’s more poetic. It’s not like a Billy Brag track where there is a really obvious narrative. But the tracks on this EP are a lot more introspective, about trying to deal with yourself and your psyche and that’s what links them together more than the sound.”

The other songs on the EP lurch from deep funk to brighter pop, with a whole range of sounds and influences all neatly mixed together. “There’s this thing that it’s funk or soul or this that and the other,” complains Damien, “and it always feels uncomfortable, a lot of the strings don’t fit within that and vocals don’t fit within that.”

The EP is available from Bandcamp. He says this tag makes it sound “‘slick’. But it isn’t like that. We’re trying to pull lots of things together and the EP is an expression of [different] influences with other textures.”

And those influences are widely varied. “It comes from a background of New Order and Joy Division and The Smiths and The Specials being really big influences and reggae and African music,” adding, “we’ve got space for a big variety of those things.”

This eclecticism is really what marks Caulbearers, yet all spins around the centrifugal force of Damien. As well as singing, producing and being Daddy, Damien also writes most of the songs. “I come up with the basics of a track,” he tells me, “I’ll get a demo together and send that out to the band. Then we bring it to a rehearsal and it gets jammed out and changes made and the song develops.”

‘Sinking’, the first track on the EP, was done in that fashion. “It’s pretty much as the first demo with the same parts,” while other songs he says “change radically. People add parts and change parts, so people are massively involved in the writing process but the initial germ of it tends to come from me.”

However, this has started to change. Julie, Will (sax / keyboards) and Dan have started to write more. “You could feel usurped,” he says, but instead feels “like a Dad, full of blushing pride.” Let’s hope the tracks that the other band members give birth to are just as interesting and enjoyable as those their Dad has created on the new EP, which comes with a handmade cover (very DIY) and is well worth a listen.

Words: Tim Hunt

The band’s launch night is 8pm-2am this Friday, 10th June at Islington Mill, Salford M3 5HW.

There will be support from the Mind on Fire Band & Ben Mellor and DJs: King Spinna; Joe Sope & Defunkles.

Tickets are £5 on the door.

[This article originally appeared on the Manchester MULE website]

Arts, Music & Events Preview, June 2011 (Part One)

Beyond another Bank Holiday, we’re now knocking on the door to summer. And in Manchester’s own meteorological way, its showers and sunshine indecisiveness is making us all well aware of this. Don your water proofs, shorts, flip-flops and/or Wellies for a stroll through the next fortnight or so of events.

First up for any calendar month is the 1st so the Chicago noiseniks Disappears’ gig on Wednesday 1st seems as good a place to start as any. The psyche-drone supergroup comprises the drumming dexterity of Sonic Youth’s Steve Shelley, a tangled web of reverb and the Gulliver’s stage for the evening.

Skip a day to Friday 3rd for a selection in the suburbs. Wilmslow Roaders might favour Fuel Café’s rock oriented line-up of Day For Airstrikes, Easter and Emperor Zero, hosted by the ever inventive independent music vloggers Manchester Scenewipe. Alternatively, the Blowout promoters’ latest Chorlton’s Irish Club captures include warped 80s electro throwbacks Water Signs.

Caribou and Battles headlining the same show is quite a tussle for attention, but at least Now Wave have allowed them enough space to do so with it taking place at the Apollo on Saturday 4th. Support is too long to list, but think Hoya:Hoya vibes and you’re in the right ball park.

Put your thinking cap on for the latest First Tuesday discussion and debate courtesy of Manchester Salon; the topic to brush up on is The struggle for democracy in the Middle East and Africa. Head to the Shakespeare pub on Tuesday 7th if you think you have more of a solution than major politicians or their mouthpieces in the mainstream media.

After that mind-melter you might need something to relax the senses, so take advantage of the arts students who’re now nearing their long summer holiday and feel ready to showcase their work. The first of two in this preview is on Wednesday 8th at Kraak Gallery, where adorning the walls will be The Manchester College’s Parallax photography exhibition

If you’ve been pencilling the other events in then get the permanent marker out for this next one. Hot on the trail of our last Now Then Manchester show (...ish) is another venture into the realm of live music and spoken word, this time in collaboration with the leftfield arts taste-makers at Doodlebug. Performances for the first of a monthly Thursday slot are sitting in the TBC column, but think along the lines of esoteric music punctuated by spoken word; Dulcimer in Chorlton on Thursday 9th. [NB: We've postponed this to a later date, hopefully within the month of June, but otherwise we'll be starting the stint with a Broken Bubble label showcase on 14th July. Watch this space...]

Catch your breath and steer towards Fuel again on Friday 10th for the monthly Debt Records acoustic dabbling, before a weekend rubbing shoulders with excitable revellers amidst the tents, sideshows and empty pint pots strewn across Platt Fields for the 48 hours of Parklife Weekender. Expect Beardyman, DJ Shadow, Mount Kimbie, Kode9, James Holden and Grandmaster Flash to prove highlights of a festival that never fails to bring sunshine with it, even including the Madferret days.

One more who might’ve tipped that line-up over the edge and into a spectacular abyss is Tom Vek, who’ll make a reappearance even longer overdue than Now Then Manchester events. Instead he’ll be at the Ruby Lounge on Monday 13th, which is a date shared by Merril Garbus and her wildly capitalised alter ego tUnE-YaRdS’ trip to the Deaf Institute.

Part two of the aforementioned student arts displays is one by University of Cumbria MA scholars at CUBE on Tuesday 14th. Born from interpretations of philosophical texts, this one’s another photographic assortment under the title of Touching Space. Or, if you’re more into preserving natural environments than seeing snaps of them, there’s always CityCamp, which is launching itself to those who shares their ideals ahead of a Manchester sustainability festival in September; Northern Quarter’s Noho bar.

Closing in on the month’s halfway mark is the recently renamed ad rehoused Imploding Inevitable’s choice of live music for Dulcimer bar’s Wednesday 15th; alternatively for town dwellers, there's another helping of Soul Sessions headed up by Beggar Joe, which has also rehoused to Oxford Road's Revolution bar. Then Thursday 16th is one for Little Red Rabbit’s Fuzzy Lights who entertain at Salford’s Sacred Trinity Church, with Red Tides lending support.

Words: Ian Pennington

Chorlton Arts Festival: Dislocation Dance @ St Clement's Church, Monday 23rd May 2011

I love pop music. I have always loved pop music, even before I understood what it meant or where it came from. When I was a teenager, I loved the dominant sound of the day – britpop. The first album I ever bought was Moseley Shoals by Ocean Colour Scene. I listened to The Longpigs, to Oasis, to Blur, (take a breath), to The Bluetones, Echobelly, Cast. When I was a little bit older, I began to listen to their antecedents – Paul Weller, The Jam, The Beatles. The fucking Beatles. To make it to the Beatles, I had to battle through, past or around Space, Menswear and fucking Suede. Well, it was worth it when I got there.

Unlike many people who are interested in pop music, the house in which I grew up was not particularly musical, or at least it was not soaked in the sounds of Western pop. My parents listened to Bollywood playback singers, more so in the car than in the house. My father’s favourites were, and still are, people like Mohammed Rafi, while my mother preferred the female singers, such as Lata Mangeshkar. So it was only much later on that I heard Ocean Rain by Echo and the Bunnymen, and began to trace historical influences less obvious than the simple Beatles – Smiths – Stone Roses – Oasis trajectory.

It was at that point that I began to get into post-punk, listening to the bands that had been emerging around the same time as Factory; associated with it, influenced by it or subsequently influencing it. I was attracted to the darkness, the misery, the exposition of a beaten post-industrial landscape created by Ted Heath and Margaret Thatcher. Of course, this misery was often clothed in upbeat melodies, and many of the songs were love songs. But they were not flippant, they did not ignore where they came from, they were mired in it. There was no attempt to escape it, nor to festishise it through explicit reference. It simply was. You could hear it in the reverberations of the singing, in the strained guitars, in the muffled - not quite defeated, not quite defiant - anger. Songs like Hand in Glove by the Smiths and, of course, Love Will Tear Us Apart by Joy Division are perfect examples.

I had never heard of Dislocation Dance before reading through the programme for the Chorlton Arts Festival. It bills them as experimental jazz punk, and describes them as having been initially signed on the same label as Buzzcocks, before signing for Rough Trade at the same time as The Smiths. A bit of further research has informed me that they were friends with the Factory crowd. They were once flown back from a tour of the USA by one Anthony H. Wilson, after a mishap with their original tickets left them stranded there. This has all built up a picture of something really quite exciting. So I’m excited.

I arrive in the hallway of St Clement’s Church, with the partition doors still closed while the band sets up. We can hear them sound checking, and they sound a little more conventional than I had imagined, a little more bubblegum. But that’s OK. It’s quite possible to be happy and heartfelt, or saccharine and ironic, or for the soundcheck songs not to be representative of the whole set. There’s any number of explanations, so I don’t think too much about it. I look around me and see a crowd that makes me quite happy to live in Manchester. Not a group of hipsters eager to impress, but mostly people over the age of thirty. I wonder if some of them remember the band from the 80s, or if some of them actually know or knew the band personally. There are also a couple of children under the age of ten, whose parents I assume are here too.

So the doors open, and we file into the church. St Clement’s is a beautiful building, dimly lit tonight to create a lovely warmth. The band is set up in what I think is known as the chancel, in front of the altar. The evening sun shines through a stained glass window above, showering them in shimmering blues and reds. We sit in the crossing, surrounded by shadows.

Ian Runacres tells us they will start with softer tunes before getting on to the heavier stuff. So they kick off, with Phil Lukes singing the first three songs, while also playing ukelele. He has a deep, rich voice that fills the church and seems to work well in the absence of the bass guitar for these songs. Jon Board plays trumpet and (I think) French horn to add some texture. This is enjoyable pop, with a touch of the wistful, and reminds me of Teenage Fanclub.

For the next few songs, Ian Runacres takes over on vocals and Lukes replaces his ukelele with a bass. This creates a real change in the sound, as Runacres’ voice is higher-pitched and his range a little narrower. The songs lose that wistful touch and seem to vacillate between self-indulgent and glib. Some are both. A song called Shinjuku Junction has the lyrics, “Shinjuku Junction / East meets West / We see the best of all around us / The best meets the rest.” I begin to see where certain aspects of britpop came from. His voice is not unlike Ian Broudie’s and some of these tunes remind me of The Lightning Seeds. I fucking hate the Lightning Seeds.

I begin to contemplate what it is that I love in pop. Whatever it is, this is not it. When Lukes takes over singing again, I begin to wake up a little. His voice has a greater resonance that seems to penetrate real feelings, whereas Runacres’ seems to bounce off them. He introduces one song, “Like most of my songs, it’s about my misspent youth.” Misspent how? Why? I don’t feel that this music is attempting to breach the superficiality of the imagined experiences of our youth. And pop music can do that. I know it can do that, I have seen it do that. I came here tonight expecting to hear these guys do that.

Not all pop music analyses, not all pop music describes, not all pop music is about pain, or is qualified by pain. But it does have to engage. At least make me dance, make me tap my feet. Tonight I’m not engaged, I’m floundering. Runacres seems to be enjoying himself, which I’m heartened by. But this seems to be a reminiscence of something for him and his band. It sounds pleasant enough, but it is ultimately unedifying for those of us who do not share a history with him. It is tame. While Lukes seems to mean it more, his ultimate lack of conviction is belied by his introduction to The Ruins of Manchester: “It’s not my fault, it’s just a song.”

This is not angry, nor is it impassioned. It is certainly not experimental. It is a kind of plodding pop that carries no meaning for me. One review I found of their work in the 80s described it as “background music for the foreground.”

Pop music can do more than this.

Words & Images: Piyush Pushkar (Piyush also writes the Doctor Magiot blog)

Chorlton Arts Festival Launch featuring Badly Drawn Boy, Thursday 19th May 2011

Congratulatory backslapping is rarely a spectator sport, but the oratory build-up creates a swelling of pride in the precinct's populace, who're later led through Chorlton Arts Festival's newly opened metaphorical doors by the subsequent strums of an elevated Damon Gough, aka Badly Drawn Boy.

Gough initially completes a Chorlton FM radio slot before volunteers, contributors and organisers are thanked in various short speeches. And onto the night's performers. First, a schoolgirl dance troupe's R'n'B dance mix tests the soundsystem, which in turn awakens the decent-sized early evening audience.

Despite operating under a thinly veiled disguise of ‘special guest’ until the morning of the event, Badly Drawn Boy, one of the three patrons of the festival (the others are John Thomson and Carol Ann Duffy, since you ask) is an obvious choice to draw in the crowds. His warm, homely reflections know how to twang on the heartstrings of reminisce, although his lofty presence intermittently loses audience attention.

For the man himself, it must be surreal; standing mid-balcony overpass – acoustic guitar in hand, microphone afore – faces glaring upwards almost in celestial worship. Positioned below, the amplification rises up to him. The sensation must be one of flying atop the soundwaves to tour the rooftops of his hometown. Or perhaps it just affords him an alternate view of the chipped lurid green precinct decor.

Regardless, the Chorlton resident talks us through a tour, of sorts, stopping off between songs to indicate locations relevant to the occasional ditty. Chorlton Cafe is evoked by ‘Journey From A To B’ and Born In The UK’s title track due to the album’s cover photo, while ‘Is There Nothing We Could Do?’ was written in response to Gough's own soundtracking of The Fattest Man In Britain, which features an amble down Wilbraham Road. There isn't a 'local landmark only' policy in set-list selection though, as 'You Were Right', 'This Electric' and 'The Time Of Times' also resonate past the shop windows.

He’s keen to state the reason behind his bird’s eye view. {this way:UP} is the National Lottery and Arts Council funded answer. The project also explains why you’ll see artwork in high places through the town until the end of the month, although as far as I can tell only Gough himself warrants a skyward glance at this particular precinct positioned point of the festival.

Words & Images: Ian Pennington