Possibly because we are coming up to punks 50 year anniversary next year, there seemed to be a lot of punk and post punk stuff on the bill this time around and I would expect that to be the case next year too.
I skipped Friday because of work and travel logistics so I didn't get to use my weekend pass until Saturday lunchtime when I travelled into Stockport on a pretty empty 383 and continued onto Manchester on a fairly empty but noisy 192.
Debsey Wykes was on the bill on Saturday lunchtime talking about her book Teenage Daydream. Both she and the guy interviewing her were funny and self depreciating, and I particularly enjoyed the description of Dolly Mixture's appearance on Tiswas as being"Three hours of utter hell". Someone asked her at the end why she thought it was that Dolly Mixture got so much flack from female journalists and she gave a thoughtful response to this which included the observation that many of the female journalists in question had their own tough times and battles to fight on the papers they were writing for. She also talked a lot about the bands collaborations with Captain Sensible and how John Peel had given them a break early on. It was a very entertaining and engaging conversation, which has really encouraged me to read her book.
I missed Clare Grogan because I was in the restaurant downstairs getting food and talking to Helen McCookerybook, Russ Bestley and Mike Dines ahead of their appearance on the punk panel later.
After that I tried to get upstairs to find the loos and to watch Helen's set ahead of Justin Currie in conversation, only they weren't letting people upstairs yet. I ended up going up in the lift with some people going up to the third floor, getting off at the first floor, using the loos and then narrowly avoiding being flattened in the corridor by a stampede of Depeche Mode fans, who had just been let upstairs. This is not the first time I've been standing out on the corridor at the wrong time at LTW... only this time Jill spotted me and forewarned me that I was about to be flattened.
I stood at the back for Helen's set as the room was filling up fast and I wanted to be able to get back out again before the talk started. Helen played a series of 15 minute mini sets ahead of various talks over the weekend, and tailored her songs according to the talk in question. Before Justin Currie she played songs from her new album (which I reviewed earlier this year), specifically 'Three Cheers For Toytown', 'The Ginger Line' and 'Reaching For Hope'. Which all seemed to go down well with those paying attention.
Afterwards she introduced me to a US academic, Shelina Brown, who has recently done work on Lene Lovich and we all went to Dave Barbarossa's talk, where he talked about his musical past in Adam & The Ants and Bow Wow Wow as well as reading an extract from his novel, Mute, which was intriguing.
At 6:15pm I attended the punk panel with Shelina, only we arrived separately and ended up sat several rows apart. I could have moved but, in the end, it's probably best I didn't as I was at the back of the room and this came in useful later when my phone started ringing and I had to flee the room to answer it, nearly flattening some poor woman on the back wall in the process (I did try and find her afterwards to apologise but she left before I got the chance). The punk panel itself was lively and often inspiring, but it was a mass of contradictions, which is what I had expected really. Carol, who performs with Steve Ignorant, and Helen probably interested me the most.
I went home after as I was tired and the buses get increasingly sparse as the evening wears on. The walk from Whitworth Street to Piccadilly was uneventful, save for some very loud drunk students towards the end of the route, but the 192 was marred by the antics of a family of Tik Tok aficionados and their video playlists and loud conversations, leading me to reflect that I actually preferred the late night top deck bhangra and happy hardcore sessions we used to get on the 192 in the noughties. Anything is better than listening to someone playing a video of someone saying "shit" five different ways over and over again.
The 383 arrived on time and zipped along nicely so I was home for about 9:30m in the end.
On Sunday I had the previously unknown pleasure of catching the 385 to Stockport. Obviously (as readers of The Bus Chronicles will be well aware) I catch it most days (when it turns up...) but this was the first time I'd caught it on a Sunday. There was no one on it when I got on at 10am, and I did wonder for a bit if it was going to be like that time during the 192 Bus Wars in 2006 when I'd been out after work on a Thursday night and caught a UK North 192 from Piccadilly to Hazel Grove at 2am... and no one else got on it At All. But people started getting on further down the road and it began to feel a bit more normal/less weird then.
I did stay on until Stockport Interchange because I wanted to see the bottle top mural that's just been installed, only I think it must be down the other end to where the 385 stops as I didn't see it. Stockport town centre still seemed very much asleep when I walked out of the Interchange but there was an overturned shopping trolley on the front of Merseyway next to an ambulance, suggesting a poignant aftermath to... well, something anyway.
It was only 11:10am when I got to Jack Rosenthal Street so I headed for HOME and got a coffee, reflecting as I did so that a latte on top of two bowls of what is essentially vegan sugar puffs for breakfast perhaps wasn't the best start to the day, food wise. A full veggie/vegan breakfast would have been much, much better, or else porridge but I was too busy this morning with clothes washing, cats, writing and organising things. I perused the menu at HOME and vowed to return for dinner later.
On my way to Innhouse I realised that I'd just passed a decommissioned statue of Friedrich Engels, which had originally been installed in Ukraine. From what I read on the explanatory plaque, the statue was removed and re-homed after the annexation of Crimea but pre the all out invasion of Ukraine. Given the statue now lives on Jack Rosenthal Street, I found myself pondering as to whether Jack would have approved of Fred returning to Manchester, albeit symbolically. I suspect he would have done.
The first talk of the day was Russ Bestley talking about punk graphic design, which was both intricate and interesting from a technical and technological point of view as well as from a socio political view. I had a long chat with Helen and Shelina afterwards, which we decided to continue over dinner at HOME. It turned out to be a day for noticing things as I later spotted that the old site of the Hacienda is immediately opposite the entrance to Innhouse, which I'd never clocked before.
Around 4pm ish I found myself wandering into John Harris' room ahead of his talk, under the mistaken impression that people were being let in. It came as a surprise then when the doors were closed, leaving me alone in the audience with John. I was going to leave but he said I could stay and we passed the time before the audience was let in properly by chatting about punk compilations purchased at service stations, why I stopped reading the NME (because in late 1994 they had switched to full on Britpop coverage so weren't writing about bands I liked anymore), and other things. I had picked this talk not really knowing what to expect but, in the end, I actually feel as though it was the most interesting talk of the weekend for me. It might have been that I needed a break from punk by then, but also the concept behind his latest book, Maybe I'm Amazed, is such an unusual one. It revolves around the ten songs his son, who has autism, has been obsessed with during his young life so far and it appears to tell the story of the families journey raising an autistic child while also telling the story of his son through his love of music, a love that appears to have begun when the 18 month old child found and managed to operate one of Harris' old iPods. I talked to him a bit about my day job afterwards and promised that I would read the book. If I'd have remembered, I would have referred him to the interview I did with Ashley Stein and Gillian Morrison in 2023 which, while largely concerned with women and music, did also touch on the issue of gender and neurodivergence in the music industry. But I only remembered this once I'd got home.
The final talk of the day (for me at least) was Budgie, who is on a book tour promoting his memoir The Absence. He was charmingly meandering and frequently very funny and he gave vivid and positive accounts of each of his bands, but especially of Big In Japan and The Slits. His account of the internal dynamics of the Slits, and Ari's creative process, was particularly interesting to me.
Helen had already gone so I said goodbye to Shelina after Budgie's talk and left to catch the bus. The 192 was uneventful on the way home, save for the man next to me almost falling asleep on my shoulder. The 358 was late, which was a worry as there are far less buses on a Sunday, but I am very thankful that TfGM have arranged it that even though the 383 and 358 are only once a hour after about 7pm, they've arranged the timetables in such a way as to ensure that there's a bus every 30 minutes. When they turn up on time that is.
All in all, a very satisfying and stimulating, albeit exhausting, weekend.
