Next 2012 tours: Fri 20 Jan, Fri 17 Feb, Fri 2 Mar, Fri 16 Mar, Fri 30 Mar, Fri 13 Apr, Fri 27 Apr, Fri 25 May, Fri 8 Jun, Fri 22 Jun.
Meet: Visitor Centre, Piccadilly Plaza, 1pm.
Guide: It could be Steve Bourne (former roadie at the Free Trade Hall, who’s on speaking terms with Damo Suzuki), Elton-like pianist John Alker, or Ed Glinert, co-author of the Fodor “Rock ‘n’ Roll Traveller” series and one time production editor of Mojo magazine.
End: Maybe somewhere near Deansgate’s Knott Bar with the best Manchester music jukebox in town.
Forget Memphis and Merseybeat, Manchester is music city, a venue to rank alongside New Orleans or Notting Hill, a factory of superior song-making and stirring soundscapes courtesy of Joy Division, the Fall, New Order, Buzzcocks, Happy Mondays, John Cooper Clarke, the Stone Roses, 808 State and, of course, the Smiths spinning around the legend of the Hacienda, the world’s hippest nightclub, chicer than the Copacabana, sexier than Studio 54, cooler than the Cavern or Cream.
At the centre of the city’s beat was Factory Records, a record label to rival Motown and Chess with a business model that could be compared only to British Leyland or the South Sea Bubble. But it’s not about Mammon or the man, it’s about the music, the songs, and what songs! – “Dead Souls”, “William, It was Really Nothing”, “Rowche Rumble”, “Time Goes By So Slow” – the list, like the road, goes on forever. (Jon the Postman’s versions of “Louie Louie” certainly did).
On the Manchester Music Tour we take you to the places where Manchester music history was made: to Piccadilly Gardens where Buzzcocks had their photo taken for the cover of the first do-it-yourself punk record, “Spiral Scratch” and where in the film 24 Hour Party People the young Happy Mondays try to feed the pigeons crack cocaine, to Dry Bar, the Hacienda, the Free Trade Hall, the Ritz, the Boardwalk and the basement record shop where Morrissey had a job – yes! – for five minutes, resulting in a depression that inspired those great opening lines from “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now”.
Manchester, so much to answer for.
