My opening gig of the year was on the 9th of February at Manchester Yes Pink Room, where I attended a novel event. The band playing was Mull Historical Society who are the brainchild of singer and songwriter Colin MacIntyre who was born on the island. He has recorded five albums under that band name, one of them on the Blanco y Negro record label which released possibly my favourite ever album, Jesus and Mary Chain’s ‘Psychocandy’, which is now somewhat astonishingly 40 years old, but in my view remains a timeless recording.
It was declared as an early show as he was undertaking two sets, and he proceeded to rattle through his plethora of folk tunes. Outside his musical pursuits he is also a novelist and published his debut tome ‘The Letters of Ivor Punch’ in 2015 which is unsurprisingly set on Mull. Therefore, it made a degree of sense when he brought the prolific Scottish crime fiction writer Val McDiermid onto the stage.
Mull Historical Society record flyer. Image Credit mullhistoricalsociety.com
She has created many different series and personas in her books, two of which have been dramatised for television, namely Wire in the Blood and Karen Pirie, the latter I have been watching recently and thoroughly enjoying. She has been badged in a sub-genre rather lazily described as ‘Tartan Noir’.
Mr Macintyre had recently created an album called ‘In my Mind There’s a Room’ where he approached many authors including Ian Rankin, Nick Hornby and Jacqueline Wilson to pen articles describing a past or present space that has had a significant impact on their life. He then devised music to complement these personal words and scribing’s that had been kindly donated to him.
Val was chosen for the Manchester date as she used to reside in the city and has used it as a backdrop for several of her novels. She was also the Manchester Evening News crime reviewer for four years. Her contribution on the night was to read a couple of passages pertaining to the room where she writes her books.
I had one further attendance there later in the year to see Chubby and the Gang. The band derived from members of the British hardcore punk scene that was in place at the start of the century. They had previously been in groups such as Violent Reaction, Arms Race and Gutter Knife. The driving force throughout has been a chap called Charlie ‘Chubby’ Manning-Walker. You could certainly see the spirit of Ramones in their sound and approach, and I enjoyed their short but spiky set.
One advantage of the Yes venue is that there are two music locations within the same building and with some chicanery and schmoozing you can sometimes smuggle yourself into the other venue after your particular gig has finished. Thus, on the night I saw Mull Historical Society I managed to catch the last three songs of Hayden Pedigo’s performance in Manchester Yes Basement.
Hayden Pedigo. Image Credit The Fader.
Hayden was raised in Amarillo in Texas, and he had guitar lessons from an early age and subsequently sent in a video of him playing in an abandoned school into Maramara Records label. This resulted in him being signed up and releasing his first album ‘Sevens Years Late’ in 2013, at the tender age of 19.
He launched an unsuccessful campaign in 2018 to run for a local council seat, but his quirky and sometimes surreal approach garnered national attention. He has also runway modelled alongside other musicians including St Vincent at Gucci’s 100th anniversary fashion show.
I believe he was undertaking his first ever British tour, and his music was in the folky acoustic nit-picking guitar instrumental domain. He reminded me mostly of John Fahey and you could literally hear a pin drop in the venue.
On a weekend in the middle of September we undertook a double header with Ride on the Friday following by a gig at Manchester Bridgewater Hall on the Saturday. It was a late summer type of evening, so the show was preceded by a couple of scoops in the Rain Bar beer garden.
Upon entry to the venue, we encountered a very civilised circular queue at the bar, which is somewhat synonymous with the establishment in general. We had a fine seat right above the stage and the act that night was the old troubadour Marc Almond who I was seeing for the first time.
Marc Almond on stage at Bridgewater Hall. Image Credit weshootmusic.com
He was born down the road in Southport and has been performing for around 50 years and initially came to prominence in Soft Cell in the early 1980’s. He had a horrendous motorbike crash in 2004 resulting in being a coma for a month. In 2018 he received an OBE for his services to arts and culture.
When he arrived on stage, he did outline that he had nearly cancelled the gig as he had a sore throat, but like the trooper he is, he carried on and you really could not notice that he had an ailment as he had a fine set of pipes for a 67-year-old. He was premiering a covers album and was playing no original tracks thus us a result he did not play my favourite track ‘Say Hello Wave Goodbye’.