CityLife

Ale and Arty: In search of Manchester's musical friends

Silverclub

FOR 30 years Stuart Brennan has believed that "culture" means "beer and football". The chances of him changing now are much, much slimmer than his waistline, but we at CityLife have set the M.E.N. sports writer a task - not to find the new man but to at least discover the new Manchester.

This week he headed for Jabez Clegg and the Friends of Manchester Festival:

HAVING already missed three Manchester music revolutions, I decided to get in nice 'n' early for the next one.

The problem with such melodious uprisings is that you can never quite tell where and when the next big thing is coming from.

But a word to the wise from a few music types of my vague acquaintance gave me the nod that the next group to hit the big time may well come from the massed ranks of bands playing the Friends of Manchester Festival at Jabez Clegg on Saturday night.

I loved the concept, right from the off. It all started with a group of student types who decided to hold a gig in the kitchen of their modest semi-detached house in Oak Road, Withington, back in 2004.

They finagled four bands to set up in the kitchen, and 300 people crammed in and around the house to partake. Much to the boundless joy of their unsuspecting neighbours.

Since then, promoters Sam Gardner and Pierre Hall have formed their anarchic idea into a movement, the Friends of Mine, which has become a staple of Manchester music culture - and is now exporting the best of raw, young Mancunian music to London and Paris.

The annual Friends of Manchester Festival is a wildly ambitious project, with 50 acts playing over 13 hours, on five stages.

The Courteeners owe a deal to the FoM folks for a leg-up in their career, after playing a gig in 2006 which has, I am reliably informed, become part of Manchester music folklore.

Stirred by such promise, I made arrangements to take the missus down to Portsmouth Street on a foul night - Manchester weather for a Manchester music festival.

One colleague accused me of trying to "get down with the kids", so we armed ourselves with a couple of cover stories - we were either A. picking up our daughter or B. R and R people from EMI.

Our colleague's remarks were justified. Jabez Clegg was rammed with fresh-faced students and swaggering musical Mancs, all intent on being in on the start of something.

But there was no marathon session of music, malingering and Marston's Pedigree for us.

After a day at work, sorting out a baby-sitter and wending our weary way to town, the party was well underway - and several "possibles" on our search for the next big thing of 2009 had already played, and were now wandering around the venue, weighing up the opposition.

We made for the main stage, as the schedule said we would be just in time to see Silverclub.

Only the schedule was running an hour late, and we rolled up to see a scruffy bunch of oiks called Ten Bears warming up.

Were we glad we were late. Hard-driving rock 'n' roll will always stand the test of time, and these boys gave it some welly, even though the lead singer looked not a day over 16.

In my youth, the death of the guitar was being confidently predicted as synthesisers and all kinds of electronic gadgets took a firm grip of popular music.

How heartening it is to discover that more guitars are now sold in the UK than ever before, and that guitar bands are thriving.

Ten Bears even chucked in a ukulele - Talking Heads if they had linked up with George Formby.

Silverclub were next up, but a trip to the less crowded downstairs bar, chronically under-staffed, meant they had been and gone by the time I got back with a couple of bottles of Dog.

The missus said they were pretty good, a little like the Stones at times, but she WAS being distracted by being chatted up by two students young enough to be sons.

We got talking to a lively young chap who called himself United Ady from Kersal, who urged us to stick around for Kid British.

"The best thing since the Specials," he said, before quickly running us through the entire Special catalogue, and a couple of Kid British numbers to boot.

We had every intention, but all that standing around, and the fact that the missus was starting to feel unwell, put paid to that one.

Kid British wowed the crowd at last year's FoM Festival, and after arriving home I checked them out online - and they look the mutt's nuts.

The kids were still getting down as we slunk off home, to relieve the besieged baby-sitter and sort out the cocoa and slippers.

What bliss it would be in that dawn to be alive - if only we were 20 years younger …

Next week, a change of gear as Brennan goes all Dick van Dyke and checks out the Palace Theatre production of Mary Poppins.