Good news for the city's readers: if all goes according to plan, we'll get two independent bookstores in Manchester this spring. Weird, huh? We haven't had one since forever, and now, suddenly, we're getting two. It's kind of like those two new cereal cafes we're getting, but without the business concept that makes you want to stab yourself in the eye repeatedly with a spoon.
Chapter One Books
The first of the two is already being installed in the Northern Quarter. Sister-owners Christine Cafun (above) and Lyndsy Kirkman come to the book trade from the beauty industry and the NHS respectively. They've taken that long-vacant storefront on the corner of Dale and Lever Street, fronted by a pocket park with a few benches, and are completely overhauling the place. Cafun says they're lobbying the city to let them keep the large trees currently throwing shade there, which are due to be chopped down (guess they decided the Northern Quarter was leafy enough with all those mature trees around. Mmmhmm.)
Inside, there'll be nearly 5,000 feet of bookstore for people of all ages, including a cafe and a 50-capacity event space that the owners hope will be used for book launches and readings as well as more offbeat live lit shenangigans. Also, maybe some typewriters. I'm kinda excited about the typewriters. They're aiming to be open around April 1. You can follow them on Twitter @chapter1, and if you have a good idea for the shop or several boxes of unused typewriter ribbon to donate to the cause email them on somethingnew @ chapteronebooks.co.uk.
Aspidistra Books
Aspiwhatnow? As-pi-di-stra. It's a plant. The name comes from the Orwell novel Keep the Aspidistra Flying, which was partly inspired by working in a bookshop. It's also a book about throwing off the shackles of the nine-to-five, which is exactly what proprietor Joseph Parkinson is doing: after years in the charity sector, he's following his bookstore-owning dream.
As the Orwell connection suggests this will be a shop with a political and literary bent, and according to Parkinson, a strong interest in LGBT literature. Parkinson also likes the idea of hosting readings alongside casual literary-themed events like 'speed dating with Hemingway' {insert joke about Hemingway's love life here.} He's currently looking for a premises, probably in the Northern Quarter or the Village, and hopes to be open by May. Parkinson wants us to tell him what we want in a bookshop. Get in touch via Facebook or Twitter (@AspidstraBooks), or help by filling in this survey.
Independent bookstores are great, aren't they? We definitely want some around. You know how we get to keep these, and maybe get some more? By actually buying books from them. That's how.
Don Marquis was a journalist in New York, apparently minding his own business, when a cockroach and cat invaded his column in the Evening Sun. The pair had been friends in their former lives - archy the cockroach had been a free verse poet and continued to write in his reincarnated state by jumping on a typewriter, which accounts for the lack of capitals and punctuation. Bohemian alley cat mehitabel reflected on her many misadventures, remaining "always a lady in spite of h dash double l." Marquis featured the characters in a hugely popular series of comics and writings beginning in 1916, eventually illustrated by Krazy Kat creator George Herriman. They continued on through the 20s and 30s, staking out a strange territory between comic verse, serious poetry, commentary and cartoon.
I was looking around for archy and mehitabel on the internet the other day and I found SpokenVerse, a YouTube channel dating back a few years ago. All of the 400+ videos feature a man's voice reading poetry under the name Tom O'Bedlam. The poems are well chosen, the voice extraordinary. But no one has any idea who did it, or why he did it, or why he stopped.
Tom O'Bedlam liked Don Marquis though. He recorded three of his poems: mehitabel dances with boreas, the lesson of the moth and archy's autobiography (below). If you're a writer who just had to pay their tax bill, you'll probably relate.
I like gigs. More accurately, I like making plans to go to gigs. I get to roughly 25 percent of the gigs I fully intend to go to. Because, you know, my life is complicated. Also, sometimes I find out that my new favourite band was in Manchester last week, oh no, you weren't there? Best gig ever! Ah, too bad they're not coming back for another year... or four. This makes me sad. So I sat myself down and made a formal plan to get more live music in 2015, and this post is the manifestation of it. If you see me at any of these, I'll probably be looking very happy. If you don't see me, I'll be at home, resenting the hell out of you.
February
Matthew Halsall with The Gondwana Orchestra, GoGo Penguin, and Mammal Hands at RNCM, 7 February
I've been known to bitch about the fact that the jazz scene in Manchester is kind of lame, and then a concert like this comes along and makes me realise how completely full of shit I am. Three jazz acts, each Manchester-based, each good enough in their own right to warrant a trip down to the venue with the best acoustics in the city. But together - trumpeter; composer Matthew Halsall's new outfit the Gondwana Orchestra (with vocals from special guest Josephine Oniyama), Mercury Prize-nominated GoGo Penguin and the slick Mammal Hands - they make for an unmissable lineup.
I'm not so into February. You know what's good in February? An all-woman power pop band fronted by fount of musical awesomeness Mary Timony. Iwant Ex Hex hanging on my wall in a box with a little sign that says: IN CASE OF FEBRUARY, BREAK GLASS. Their Rips was one of my favourite records of 2014: a storming succession of short and punchy riffed-up songs that will make you slam dance around your kitchen. Or Soup Kitchen.
Sneakily dropped on us like a stealth soul bomb in December, the long-awaited Black Messiah is an intensely textured and timely album, and features the work of the exquisitely-named bass genius Pino Palladino. Pino, Pino, Pino...
He was the drummer in the Fleet Foxes and recorded a bunch of moany songs as J. Tillman before re-inventing himself as the glorious Father John Misty after some psychedelic vision in a tree. His new album I Love You Honeybear, produced by Laurel Canyon music god Jonathan
Wilson, is out on 9 February and to say I'm looking forward to hearing
it is kind of an understatement. I actually don't even know where to start with this guy. Maybe just read this. And listen to this:
Appearing as part of FutureEverything (25-28 Feb), Icelandic composer Olafur Arnalds has recently become better known here on account of his excellent film and TV scores, most recently for Broadchurch. It's good stuff for long winter evenings: spare, minimalist electronically-inflected classical music that exudes warmth and emotional resonance. Should be mesmerising live.
Another gig that's part of the FutureEverything programme, Ariel Pink. With the Haunted Graffiti he made some good lo-fi psych pop, with appealing melodies and growly singing. On his newest release, pom pom, he's performing as a solo artist. Oh, and he likes to say daft things. He's a kind of professional weirdo at this point. Honestly worth going down just to see what he does. And wears.
All We Are are from Liverpool and I've been listening to their eponymous new album for a couple of days now but I still don't know how to describe it. Hmm. Can't really better their own description: "The Bee Gees on diazepam". No? Oh, okay, it's kind of stripped down electronic post-rock, with a dreamy, shoegazey wash of guitars and boy-girl vocals but sunnier and poppier than, say, the xx.Good tip from the clued-up folk at our friendly local record store, Piccadilly Records.
The husband and wife duo of Brett and Rennie Sparks make a cinematic kind of alt-country that reminds me a little bit of Nick Cave and, actually, Calexcio (see April). They've been performing together for 20 years, which makes their gigs feel like real family affairs.
Australian singer-songwriter Courtney Barnett's debut album is yet to come out, but her double EP A Sea of Split Peas is full of songs that are raw and messy and delivered in a deadpan shout. If you're as tired of twee, safe, overly-produced lady singer-songwriters as I am, you might like her. Her lyrics are always excellent, as in the cuttingly Dylanesque Out of The Woodwork. But her just-released single is faster and even edgier. She clearly hasn't calmed down any. Good.
Ah Calexico, you stayed away for too long, hiding out in some Mexicali boxcar making music full of tumbleweeds and long nights and mysterious strangers with itchy trigger fingers. But we'll forgive you because you're coming back to us, and in the fantastic surroundings of the Albert Hall, too, with solid support from The Barr Brothers.
