ABOUT US:
We put on folk, indie, experimental and Americana gigs in Manchester. We're independent and we strive to offer something different to Manchester gig-goers.
UPCOMING GIGS:
MARK EITZEL (AMERICAN MUSIC CLUB)
When: 7.30pm on Thursday 5 November 2009
Where: St Margaret's Church, Rufford Road, Whalley Range, Manchester M16 8AE
We're excited to announce a rare piano performance from Mark Eitzel, plus special guest Franz Nicolay.
Mark Eitzel is best known as lead singer of the San Francisco band American Music Club. He was voted Rolling Stone’s Songwriter of the Year in 1991.
Eitzel’s first solo album was the (now elusive) cassette-only ‘Mean Mark Eitzel Gets Fat’ (1982), which pre-dates his AMC work. He released a solo live album, Songs Of Love Live in 1991, featuring raw and emotional acoustic versions of his best AMC songs. His first solo album proper was 1996’s 60 Watt Silver Lining, a highly personal, jazz-inflected work which many consider his best outing.
He went on to release albums of varying styles, including another difficult-to-find effort in Lover’s Leap USA, produced as a tour-only CD and notable for including two songs that Eitzel’s own sleeve notes instruct the listener to skip past. This was followed by 1997’s West, a collaboration with REM’s Peter Buck, and the stark and harrowing Caught in a Trap and I Can’t Back Out ‘Cause I Love You Too Much, Baby in 1998. 2001 saw him take a new electronic direction with The Invisible Man, followed in 2002 by two covers projects: Music for Courage & Confidence and The Ugly American, which included re-interpretations of American Music Club songs by Eitzel and a traditional Greek band.
American Music Club reformed in 2003, and released an album, Love Songs for Patriots, as well as touring the United States and Europe. Eitzel released new solo material in 2005, Candy Ass, which saw a return to the electronic experimentation of The Invisible Man. A new AMC record, The Golden Age was released in February 2008.
For this short three-date UK tour, he's joined by Franz Nicolay, the Brooklyn-based multi-instrumentalist best known for playing keyboards in the Hold Steady. Franz's favourite brand of moustache wax is Cowboy Stache Wax, from Montana.
Local mainstay Aidan Smith opens this intimate show. St Margaret's Church is in Whalley Range in south Manchester - you'll want to get the 86 from the city centre and university, or the 46 from Fallowfield. We recommend using the GMPTE Travel Planner to find the best route.
This is a co-promotion with Humble Soul.
Tickets available from Ticketline.co.uk and on 0161 832 1111.
GROUPER AND JASPER TX
When: 7.30pm on Friday 6 November 2009
Where: Nexus Art Cafe, Dale Street, Manchester M1 1JW
Grouper is the artist name of Elizabeth (Liz) Harris from Portland, Oregon. She has put out three album, with her latest – Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill – on Type Records. She has also been involved in collaborative releases, contributing a track to Xiu Xiu’s Remixed & Covered and four tracks to a split release with Inca Ore. Liz’s other contemporaries are Belong, Growing, Tim Hecker, Windy & Carl and Atlas Sound. Earlier this year, she supported Animal Collective on their US tour.
The word ‘grouper’ actually comes from the name of a fish found on warm and tropical seas – Garoupa, in the Russian dialect of the Enchained Forest region of Siberia, and not from the English word group.
This bill also features Jasper TX, aka Sweden’s Dag Rosenqvist. The former double bass student discovered recording through a borrowed four-track cassette recorder, and Jasper TX (also a small Texan town) was born. His music is mainly-guitar driven but when a layer of drums, voices, organs, toy pianos, field recordings and effects are added it becomes something quite special and unique. His music can be compared to artists such as Fennesz, Sigur Ros, múm and Tape.
Leeds’ Fieldhead play too. Under this guise P Elam produces ambient/electronic music that delights in tape hiss, geography, bleak landscapes and decaying analogue loops. He is also a full time member of The Declining Winter and a part-time member of Glissando’s Fleeting Glimpse Ensemble.
Manchester’s own Danny Saul completes the bill. The former Tsuji Girl guitarist sometimes collaborates with Greg Haines (as Liondialer) and has performed live with Type Records’ Xela too.
This will be our first show at Nexus Art Cafe, a regular haunt of ours opposite Vinyl Exchange. The staff are great, they have great music taste, and make excellent tea and cakes.
This all-ages show is a co-promotion with Room Tones.
Tickets from WeGotTickets.com, Ticketline.co.uk, SeeTickets.com, Piccadilly Records on Oldham Street, Ticketline Box Office in St John’s Centre, Liverpool, and on 0161 832 1111.
WILLIAM FITZSIMMONS
When: 7.30pm on Friday 13 November 2009
Where: Nexus Art Cafe, Dale Street, Manchester M1 1JW
After his successful Manchester debut at the Night & Day Cafe in August, we’re pleased to welcome back William Fitzsimmons. This time his album The Sparrow and the Crow will be out, so he’ll be playing with his full band at our favourite art cafe, Nexus.
Born the youngest child of two blind parents, William Fitzsimmons was raised in the outskirts of the steel city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. William’s childhood home was filled with myriad sounds to replace what eyes could not see. The house was suffused with pianos, guitars, trombones, talking birds, classical records, family sing-alongs, bedtime stories, and the bellowing of a pipe organ, which his father built into the house. When his father’s orchestral records were not resonating through the walls, his mother would educate him on the folk stylings of James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan and Simon & Garfunkel.
William draws from those early influences of his mother’s music, and the embellished instrumentation of his father’s. He is often compared to contemporaries Sufjan Stevens, Iron & Wine and the late Elliott Smith, not only for his unique style and skill in writing and proclivity to deal with substantive and evocative subject matter, but also for his use of organic and colourful melodies and arrangements. His first two records were completely self-produced and his new album, The Sparrow And The Crow, is his first studio recorded work. While his lyricism deals often with darker undertones (his most recent album is said to have been written following his own divorce), a measure of hopefulness is always carefully blended in.
It’s a shame Bon Iver got in there first, at least in the UK, otherwise Fitzsimmons would be this year’s fashionable heartbreak kid
Goodnight is one hell of an album
One of the first five-star albums of the year
A work of stark beauty
Main support comes from Bristol’s Jon Sinnott, who infuses 60s and 70s pop with elements of alternative country, folk and southern rock to produce his own slant on Americana. His evocative vocals have already drawn comparisons with the likes of James Taylor, Van Morrison and Adam Duritz.
Tour support is provided by Laura Jansen, a Californian who is being compared to the Tori Amos, Fiona Apple and Regina Spektor – although a dash of reggae and a touch of gospel set her apart from the rest.
This will be at Nexus Art Cafe, a regular haunt of ours opposite Vinyl Exchange. The staff are great, they have great music taste, and make excellent tea and cakes.
Tickets available from the cafe, Piccadilly Records, Ticketline.co.uk and on 0161 832 1111.
HORSE FEATHERS
When: 7.30pm on Wednesday 9 December 2009
Where: Dulcimer, 567 Wilbraham Road, Chorlton, Manchester M21 0AE
Hey! Manchester is pleased to be bringing back Portland, Oregon's Horse Feathers. This lovely bunch of musicians made their Manchester debut in March this year and are coming back for what will hopefully be another successful evening.
Justin Ringle moved to Portland in 2004 and began to play regularly under the moniker Horse Feathers. In 2005 Peter Broderick - himself a solo artist and part-time Efterklang multi-instrumentalist - heard two songs that Justin had recorded in a friend’s basement, and proceeded to track him down via the internet. Shortly after that, the two started playing music together. For the most part, Justin writes the songs and then Peter helps to arrange them.
Supports to be confirmed closer to the time.
This show takes place at Dulcimer, Manchester's celebrated 'folk bar' in central Chorlton. Regular buses (85 and 86) run to Chorlton from the city centre, plus the 23 and 23A from Didsbury and West Didsbury and the 168 from Fallowfield. We recommend using GMPTE's Journey Planner to arrange your trip.
Tickets available from Ticketline.co.uk and on 0161 832 1111.
FRUIT BATS
When: 7.00pm on Thursday 17 December 2009
Where: The Roadhouse, 8 Newton Street, Manchester M1 2AN
We’re delighted to introduce Manchester music fans to Fruit Bats!
Fruit Bats are led by guitarist, pianist and singer Eric D Johnson, the band’s main songwriter and only constant member. Originally part of short-lived Chicago group I Rowboat, Johnson and two of his fellow Rowboat members, guitarist Dan Strack and drummer Brian Belval, created Fruit Bats as a side-project.
When I Rowboat split up, Fruit Bats became Johnson’s main focus. Spurred on by Califone/Perishable Records honchos Tim Rutili and Ben Massarella, the group recorded their first album, Echolocation, released in 2001.
After tours with Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, Modest Mouse and the Shins (of whom Johnson is also a member), Fruit Bats signed with Sub Pop in late summer 2002, recording their second album, 2003’s Mouthfuls. The group released their third album, Spelled in Bones, in 2005, and their latest, The Ruminant Band, this year.
We’ve secured the services of very special guest Piney Gir. Piney Gir (pronounced as in ‘girl’; real name Angela Penhaligon) was born in Kansas and is now based in London.
Her latest album, The Yearling, combines delicate heartbreak folk with straight to the bop pop, while plying her way with a campfire narrative and all of it dipped in the gal’s never less than pin-sharp eye for a great story about the wanderings of the heart. Its production takes a nod from German electronica, spanning its way to warm 70s FM radio with a loving how-do-you-do to musique concrète. She’s been a star of the bill at Glastonbury, Big Chill, Bestival, Truck and too many more festivals to mention.
Tour support comes from the Isle of Wight’s Puzzle Muteson – a member of the esteemed Bedroom Community.
Tickets are available from the venue, Piccadilly Records, www.ticketline.co.uk and on 0161 832 1111.
TICKETS:
We sell
ticketlessly so you don't have to pay a ridiculous handling/postage fee. Just search
WeGotTickets.com for whichever band above you want tickets for.
If you want to pay in cash, however, Piccadilly Records on Oldham Street usually has a handful of tickets for each show (10% booking fee), or try
Ticketline Box Office in St John’s Centre if you're based in Liverpool. You can also book on
0161 832 1111 or via
Ticketline.co.uk and SeeTickets.com.
BANDS:
If you think your music is suitable for a Hey! Manchester night, send a message or leave a comment - make sure to mention any relevant influences etc. We get several gig requests a day so we can't always reply and if you play punk/hardcore/r'n'b/trance/hip hop/metal/dadrock, chances are it won't fit.
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