CityLife

Pulsating power-pop, S’il Vous Plait

FRENCH FANCY: S’il Vous Plait

THE 2008/09 season has been a good one for new indie night launches.

September saw the arrival of Now Wave at The Deaf Institute, while a month later, Barely Legal turned up at Joshua Brooks with more swagger than Liam Gallagher on horse drugs.

The success of the latter (each night so far has been a sell-out) has been attributed to its status as a carefree free-for-all, conceived with only one concern: making people dance.

Now, the folks behind Barely Legal have teamed up with erstwhile cat about town Sam Swaffield to bring us S’il Vous Plait, a night of “Alternative pop music to make you dance and move.”

We spoke to Sam about dancing, moving, guitar solos and disrobing at the Trafford Centre...

Hello. Why did you start S’il Vous Plait?
So that we could play some of the wondrous synth-flecked pop music that peppers our lives. It makes us feel oddly happy.

What is the main ideology (CLANG) behind the night?
We're selling our turntables and buying guitars; we're selling our guitars and buying turntables.

What sort of music will you be playing?
Well, we're currently arguing about the merits of Paul Young's cover of Love Will Tear Us Apart... What is definite and real is our red hot box of spectacular power pop. We're encouraging the crowd to start a sweepstake of guitar solos.

What colour is Tuesday?
Strangely, there's more than one - pastel green and pastel yellow.

Do you feel part of a Manchester clubbing ‘scene’?
A seal-clubbing scene? No. Even if little Canadian seal pups did slip-slop around the streets of the Northern Quarter, we wouldn't touch them because of THAT clip in Michael Jackson's Earth Song video.

Why should people miss the new Gok Wan and Shameless to come to SVP?
Well, we just caught a trailer for Shameless and it implies that Karen and Debbie become ‘friendly’ with each other, and to be honest we can't compete with that sort of drama. But Gok Wan, the man owes Mancunians big time. I can't enjoy fast food in the Trafford Centre any more because of the horrendous flashbacks I get of middle aged naked women flopping their bits out on that pony cat walk.

Flabby midriffs aside, is there anything else bothering you?
Yeah. That Frankie from The Saturdays, formerly of S Club Juniors. She's not necessarily bothering us but there's still something kind of wrong about fancying her. How old is she now?

S’il Vous Plait takes places every other Tuesday at Night & Day, Oldham Street. Entry is free (!).