Cool Manchester

Organisers of Manchester Pride are calling for submissions to their Pride Fringe Grant Scheme and are seeking innovative, creative projects to form part of Pride Fringe 2012.

Open to local lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) organisations, promoters and individuals, the scheme gives applicants the opportunity to apply for up to £500, to assist with staging of events.
Applications from community and voluntary sector organisations, registered charities and individuals wishing to organise events for the festival are particularly welcome and funding can be used for a variety of expenses, such as performer or speaker fees, marketing, technical equipment and venue hire.

John Stewart, Chief Executive of Manchester Pride, said “Following the overwhelming success in previous years, we are delighted to continue the grant scheme for events taking place in 2012.

We are always looking for new and innovative projects that increase the creativity and diversity of our festival and hope to see a variety of events from arts and cultural activities to campaigning and political debate. It’s also great to get the chance to support individuals and organisations and help ensure their event is a success.”

Planned events must take place between Friday 17- Thursday 23 August 2012. The closing date for applications is Friday 23 March 2012. Enquiries should be directed to Darren Adams, Deputy Chief Executive on 0161 831 7700.

For more information visit: www.manchesterpride.com

You can follow Manchester Pride on Twitter @manchesterpride

Review By Andrew Barclay

Hacienda Records first release of 2012 comes in the form of this debut EP by 'Super White Assassin', a spacey sounding disco duo, comprising of Tuey on vocals, and Argentinean born producer DieGodzilla providing the beat and ambience. It's a five track EP, and start's off with 'Russian Doll', a kind of latter day Roxy Music sounding track, which strongly features Tuey's ethereal vocals, over a light, but consistently engaging musical back ground. Strong on melody, and certainly unique, you can see why Hacienda Records snapped this duo up.

Next comes the darker edged 'White Noise'.  Tuey's eerie vocals actually gave me goose bumps on my arms, the spooky atmosphere works for them here and on repeat listens this song just gets better and better.

'Jupiter Storm' again showcases some wonderful vocals from Tuey, and DieGodzilla's tasteful backing really brings out the subtle but strong melodic hooks that are abundant throughout this song.

'Out Of The Snow' is another gem, the strange, ghostly vocals again take the listener on a haunting journey, and one that you'll be wanting to take over and over again.

That leaves the KC Radio mix of 'Russian Doll'. Although I must say I prefer the original version, within the context of this EP it works well, and is a nice closer to what is overall, a superb debut from an act that I think you'll be hearing much more from in the future.

5/5

You can get hold of the “Dark Teenage Fantasy” EP now from

http://www.fac51thehacienda.com/hacienda-records

For the vast majority of 1998 I was living In France, but I still followed the UK Top 40 on this new thing called the internet, so every Sunday evening I went to the local internet cafe at the Dijon train station and made sure I knew what was going on [that sounds a bit sad now!]

So here is the top 40 from this week in 1998:

1 Aqua Doctor Jones
2 Usher You Make Me Wanna
3 Will Smith Gettin' Jiggy Wit It
4 All Saints Never Ever
5 The Lighthouse Family High
6 Robbie Williams Angels
7 Backstreet Boys All I Have To Give
8 Catatonia Mulder And Scully
9 Janet Jackson Together Again
10 Cleopatra Cleopatra's Theme
11 Aaron Carter Crazy Little Party Girl
12 Bamboo Bamboogie
13 Wildchild Renegade Master '98
14 Oasis All Around The World
15 Ce Ce Peniston Somebody Else's Guy
16 Various Artists Perfect Day
17 Saint Etienne Sylvie
18 Chumbawamba Amnesia
19 Steps 5, 6, 7, 8
20 Lutricia McNeal Ain't That Just The Way
21 OTT The Story Of Love
22 Natalie Imbruglia Torn
23 Green Day Time Of Your Life (Good Riddance)
24 Puff Daddy & The Family It's All About The Benjamins
25 Wes Alane
26 Encore Le Disc Jockey
27 Freestylers featuring Tenor Fly B-Boy Stance
28 Jay-Z featuring Gwen Dickey Wishing On A Star
29 Da Hool Meet Her At The Love Parade
30 Byron Stingily You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)
31 Boyzone Baby Can I Hold You / Shooting Star
32 Carleen Anderson Maybe I'm Amazed
33 Elton John Recover Your Soul
34 Aqua Barbie Girl
35 The Rolling Stones Saint Of Me
36 Hot Chocolate featuring Errol Brown It Started With A Kiss
37 Ian Brown My Star
38 Space Avenging Angels
39 Juliet Roberts So Good / Free Love 98
40 BBE Desire

Its not a bad top 40, there are plenty if singers and groups that I've heard of, just not many songs by them seem memorable. Will Chumbawamba be remembered for Amnesia? [geddit??]

Best song on there has to be Perfect Day by lots of people! The worst I think is Boyzone's dreadful cover of Tracey Chapman's Baby Can I Hold You. I'm also wondering why a Hot Chocolate song was there. Was the UK still under the spell of that overrated Full Monty movie?

So what were your memories of the time? Please let me know. I wasn't there....

Mr Heart just may be one of the finest bands I've heard in a long long while. Fronted by the hugely enigmatic Tamsin Middleton, this all women three piece rock harder than most teenage guys do these days.

'The Hide' is a generous 6 track EP, and it's like thunder all the way, with some exciting and unexpected moments. 'Boredom's Device' rip's into action, not sounding at all unlike their recent tour companions The Fall. It's a blistering start, and wets the appetite for more.

'Dynamo' is almost grungy, with Nirvana springing to mind more than once. 'Mr Heart', whilst again having that grunge chord progression, starts off lightly, before the band again smash out a loud, intoxicating brash rock song that 'The Slits' have never achieved. Never. Not even close.

'Stones', again starts out with a searching bass line that rumbles along, but again, is light at first, before emerging like a flaming comet directly into your ears. Nice.

'The Hide' which is by far my own favorite track is just pure bliss, and it's here I realise just how brilliant his band really are, with the comparisons already made to the Seattle movement, all I'm going to say is it rages into a glorious ending of some magnitude.

'Twisted Lamp', whilst not bad, just doesn't reach the heights easily attained earlier in the EP.

If you haven't caught this band live yet, I suggest you do, as 2012 could very well be the year for Mr Heart. 5/5

http://www.mrheart.co.uk/

We reviewed this band's latest single in the last edition of the music reviews for 2011, and they are back with this free EP release.

It's been touched upon that Gabrielles Wish don't do the normal run of the mill things you expect from band's these days, and this EP is no change from that trend. Essentially an EP made up of four improvised tracks, named by the way only by the number in which they appear - it's not exactly easy listening.

The first song, 'No.1' crackles into gear with a low, anxiety inducing bass line, and flourishes of keyboards, provided by ex member of The Fall, Karen Leatham. The song doesn't go anywhere, and never promises too, and Gabrielles Wish clearly don't care if we feel let down by the journey.

'No.2' is even more isolating than the first song. Drummer Bo Walsh show's us why he's considered one of the best drummer's of his era, infact musically, this track is really going places, but the average music fan who might, and not unreasonably expect some song structure, will be let down. This is free form post punk jazz. I know, I've never heard of that genre either.

'No.3' is perhaps the best cut on this EP, with a middle eatern sounding riff motif, that's covered by both the guitars and the bass, with a haunting vocal by frontman Robert Corless.

'No.4' ends the experiment, in what is actually quite a slight, but enjoyable instrumental.

Perhaps only recommended for staunch fans, I wouldnt suggest this be the first thing you hear by the band if you haven't heard them before. 3/5

Gabrielles Wish

At Manchester Airport, local MP and Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne was there to officially launch a new development called Airport City.

They are going to develop land between the airport and Wythenshawe as a huge international business park designed at pulling in new businesses from around the world. It will take about 15 years to finish, £650,000,000 will be spent and it will be office and hotel space, restaurants and leisure facilities all designed to tempt more international business to the city. They plan to double the number of people travelling through the airport from 20,000,000 to 40,000,000.

Although today was the official launch, building work has already started and 60 businesses are interested in moving in. Once it’s up and running that can only grow. It’s hoped that it will provide 21,000 new jobs for the city. Some companies have already arrived here and set up in temporary offices in the city including some from mainland China which is seen a s a good thing and direct flights from Manchester to Beijing will start later this year.
The Chinese community in the city have been lobbying for this for a while now. They hope that the development will also attract flights in from other places as well, India, Brazil and the like. And Sheik Mansour is moving some of his European airline businesses to the city