How do you write a theatre show? #SevenInch vlog 4

How the heck do you write a theatre show? I've come up with an amazing hack. Here's how to write a one-person theatre production instantly, with as little effort as possible.

Ahem.

This is a roundabout way of saying my two-date Week 53 festival run at The Lowry is now a four date run. Pilter some lovely new Fat Roland: Seven Inch tickets here.

Tick tick tick tick bleep

Electronic is out today. That means it's time to rattle the windows of WHSmith until they let you slither across their floor to drool on their magazines.

The above photo shows my column header in all its papery glory. The inset photograph on the right, with the tick, shows the magazine in the largest WHSmith in Manchester. The other photo, with the cross, shows the magazine my local newsagent mistakenly ordered in. It's about circuitry.

Please buy the magazine about circuitry. I feel awfully bad they've bought it in. Two copies and all. I would spend my money but the last time I connected a circuit board, Pluto downgraded from being a planet. If I tried again, the moon could become a pebble and all the werewolves will die.

Oh and you should buy Electronic mag too, I suppose. Heh. I was having a leaf through today and it's so refreshing to have a magazine that seems to be aimed at me and my bleepy world, from Kraftwerk to Carl Craig, from A Guy Called Gerald to Underworld. Other dance music magazines seem so caught up in club culture, they can be a bit like having Zane Lowe implants in your brain.

I mean, Electronic even has a general section called 'Scanner' which sent a slightly irrelevant frisson of Spore-related nostalgia up my spine tubes. Seriously, if your newsagent hasn't got this magazine in, ask them for it.

Last month an author. This week a columnist. Next week, I release an album. Tick, tick, tick - and only the occasional cross.

Further Fats: Hounds Of Hulme website

Fat Roland Bangs On... as an Electronic columnist

Music was invented in 1942 when Aphex Twin made didgeridoos out of energy and all the other musicians looked blank as they continued hitting rocks with sticks.

Since then, Yazz got to number one and therefore created an inherent song title irony at the highest position in the charts, Men At Work invented the Village People, and Leonard Cohen won the X Factor.

This is the kind of keen music knowledge that has won me a new gig: I am now a columnist.

'Columnist' sounds like a put-down for people who worship pillars, but for those people too modern to appreciate opinion pieces beyond Kim Kardashian telling Twitter that she's watching herself on telly, a columnist is someone who puts words in a publication for people to read. Like Melanie Phillips or Matthew Parris or Marjorie Proops or anyone with the initials MP.

The magazine twisted enough to publish my rants is the all-new Electronic, a publication for bleepy music fans by the kings of print Future Publishing. The first edition (buy it here) puts Underworld, Human League and the whole of Detroit techno under the spotlight... and it also has my column, called Fat Roland Bangs On.

I am so excited about this, I am dribbling from every orifice. I've bought Future publications for years - in fact, I'm tapping these very keys just yards from dozens of back issues of Future Music. Which may be handy for mopping if my excitement gets too much. Electronic is less techy: no dull gear reviews, just lots of passion about great bands.

What am I banging on about in my debut Bangs On? You'll have to buy the mag when it comes out on July 20. Like the Facebook page for more. Those with a keen eye may spot my trails of wordsludge elsewhere in the magazine... but I'll leave you to figure that out for yourself.

Here's to issue one of Electronic! Bleeps away!

Further Fats: Best electronica of 2011

The Fat Roland fiction anthology

Here's a new thing. I've plopped out an anthology of short fiction.

Adropiean Galactic Lego Set Blues contains 20 of my stories, including the first UK printing of a piece that was commended in the 2011 Manchester Fiction Prize. It also contains dozens of photographs and illustrations.

The idea had wandered around my noggleblock ever since James Henry self-published a children's fantasy novel and Steven Baxter mused about a monkey. Then Bad Language asked if I had anything to sell at their Manchester Independent Book Market stall and I turned myself into a one-man publishing house.

It does mean I've spent the last million days hiding from this blog so I can make sure all the pages are made of paper and not of penguins, and that the text is made of letters and not of lycra.

I haven't gone through a self-publishing service nor a proper publisher: it's all my own work, my own money, my own imprint - even though a small publisher did offer to publish it for me (thank you kind publisher, you know who you are!).

And messy work it was too: I had pages and pages of scribbled and half-scribbled illustrations, some of which you can see in the picture below. Apart from the cover to Quickies, I'm not exactly known as an illustrator, so I feel quite nervous about having my pencil scribblings out there.

The Manchester writing scene is full of people pimping their anthologies: many of the books are excellent. I hope mine furrows its own wrinkle among the others. Adropiean is, hopefully, dark and funny, bemusing and absurd, a little adult and a little childish.

I think it would be a nice thing to own. You can order it through my fiction writing site Italic Eyeball.

You never know. I may well get back to writing about Squarepusher and Autechre and James Blunt soon....

Tsssch. New things. They get in the way sometimes.

Further Fats: The Italic Eyeball site

And you do stop: Adam Yauch, writing and the toffs

It has been one of those weeks where I've been tempted to tape up my hopes and dreams inside a bin liner and brick them to the bottom of the Mersey.

Firstly, there was the tossbag of political moisture that was local election day. I've always been politically astute: I cried when John Smith died, I proudly voted against Blair Blue-Balls in 1997 and I've attended several counts in musty old town halls.

However, because Nick Clegg broke the entire of politics in 2010 by saying he was the progressive alternative then putting a bunch of Eton toffs in power with my vote, I don't believe in our system anymore*.

This picture shows pretty much how I felt about walking into a pointless polling station and being given pointless bits of paper. Still, my favourite (and mad) new Twitter feed, Manchester's drunk mayor, is giving me hope.

Secondly, the Hounds Of Hulme album has reached tug-o-war phase. I can't tell if a track is good anymore. I might as well dip my head into the washing-up and listen to the forks piercing my eyes. It's nearly finished, though, and you should like the band's Facebook page for news**.

This has brought on a wider malaise where I can't string one creative idea onto another. I'm performing 20 minutes of idiot fiction at Sounds From The Other City tomorrow (I'm not on the bill but honestly I am performing), but I've so little faith in the paltry new material I have***, I think I may request everyone sits in silence, crying. With forks in their eyes.

I know, I've still enough gumption to be able to plug my stuff here, but seriously... I'm bringing forks****.

And finally, the death of Adam Yauch. I used to be a pretty neat vinyl beatmatcher before the universe went digital, and I'd spin back beats to create new ones because that's what the Beastie Boys did. "Don't you tell me to smi.. Don... Don... Don't you tell me to smile..." 

The Beastie Boys (pictured, top) didn't just inform my musical world: they defined the universe in which I operate. This "Fat Roland" creature I foist upon an innocent world wouldn't exist without them.

In summary, I need a plan. And here it is. If I turn up at Sounds From The Other City tomorrow and find my slot replaced by the Beastie Boys featuring guest rapper Nick Clegg, I'm changing my name to Dorothy and moving to the Shetlands.


There. I said it. You can shorten it to Dot if you want.


* Why did I ever believe in the Liberal Democrats as a left-leaning force in politics? I'm such an idiot.

** Seriously, you should. The more likes I get, the less I'll bang on about it. Even I find this self-promotion tiresome, so goodness knows what it's like for you, you poor reader, you.

*** beware false modesty. I'm going to blaze it tomorrow.

**** I'm bloody not, because if I do, I'll lose them and I won't be able to eat pies.

Further Fats: "It's not funny"... the Beastie Boys cancer announcement in 2009

Getting jabby with it and by 'it' I mean 'writing stuff'

The writing life consists of jabbing your pen into your eyes until you wee the shape of a complete sentence onto the floor.

As a result of the painful solitude of the writer, a job that is clearly way harder than being a soldier, a fire fighter or a martyr, I like to get out and meet people. And sometimes when I get out and meet people, I faff about reading my own stuff into people's faces.

Upcoming faffings about include:

- Faffing about at Word Soup this Thursday, March 29th with my writing posse. Preston here I come!

- Faffing about all around Manchester reading pop-up stories for Flash Fiction Day in May. This is going to be a bit silly and mental.

- Faffing about for Chorlton Arts Festival and asking you to enter our amazing writing competition. It's open to everyone who can string 500 words or less together in a way that doesn't make us vomit.

I'm going to be posting less about my fiction scribbling activities on this site from now on, so to keep up-to-date, follow Italic Eyeball. Meanwhile, my dear succulent reader, I have some jabbing to do...

Literary piddle!

Further Fats: Screwed-up and useless: my fiction alter ego

Hounds Of Hulme: Midnite EP (final promo video 3)

Edit: The Midnite EP can now be bought here: only a quid! Oh and this, incidentally, is the 600th post on Fat Roland On Electronica.

Street teams have been walking every avenue of the country promoting the inevitable number one single from Hounds Of Hulme, posting flyers through doors, shouting the track names through loudhailers and spray-painting the band logo on children's faces.

Of course, that's not true. There's no street team. When one of your band members is a horse (see the band line-up on the Bandcamp page), you spend most of your time clearing the poo-droppings from the mixing desk. At least, we would if we had a mixing desk. Or a shovel. We use our hands. In fact, we have fashioned all the horse manure into a big brown pretend mixing desk.

All I have is my final promotional video, which is pretty similar to the others. And this is how I'm describing the EP:

"3 tracks of glitchy techno packaged with artwork, a hilarious two-page PDF survival guide to one of the tracks and a bonus bad quality video... all for only a quid."

The video is really bad, although it's fun. At one point I was recording moving pictures of my own wallpaper. The promo videos here are only a screenshot from one frame. If you want to see the full three minutes, you'll have to buy the EP, obviously.

I've released a few Hounds Of Hulme tracks over the past few months. Yes, I kept it quiet. One of them was the backing track for this advert for Quickies: Short Stories For Adults, while another track was described as a "sparse and minimalist mechanoid meltdown glitch funk groove" and compared to EMF, Eskimos in Egypt, Jesus Jones and Wagon Christ. Which was perceptive because I own records by all four bands on vinyl or on tape or on wax cylinder.

Hardly anyone will take notice of the Hounds so if the Midnite EP sells more than a handful, I'll crack open the champagne / Toblerone. Roll on Monday... watch out for the pre-order appearing on Bandcamp later this week.

Edit: This was the 600th post on this blog, so I've plopped in a bit of artwork to celebrate the fact. If you like the artwork, it will be available as a permanent tattoo on Etsy in the next few minutes.

Hounds Of Hulme: Midnite EP (promo video 2)

Edit: The Midnite EP can now be bought here: only a quid! 


Following on from the promo video yesterday for my debut single as Hounds Of Hulme, here is an ever-so-slightly different promo video.

The great news is that the Midnite EP is now a "package". So it's not just three tracks of techno noodling, and it's not just that one of them has a bad quality video, and it's not just artwork bundled with the tracks, but you now get a two-page PDF survival guide designed to help you listen to the the longest track on the EP and not die before you get to the end.

Here's a glimpse of the survival guide (below), complete with track timings. If you want the whole thing, you'll have to buy the EP, which goes on pre-sale later this week in advance of its official release on January 9th.

In the words of forgotten mid-noughties r'n'b sensation Ciara, "Looking for the goodies? Keep on looking coz they stay in the jar... unless you give me a quid on Bandcamp, in which case you can download the advertised product."

Hounds Of Hulme: Midnite EP (promo video 1)

Edit: The Midnite EP can now be bought here: only a quid! 


Expect a few days of relentless self-promotion as I catapult into the world what appears to be my debut single.

I've avoided the restrictions of getting a record deal, having a producer, using a recording studio, getting any promotion or employing any form of quality control. Instead, it's just me and my bandmates in Hounds Of Hulme, one of which is a horse.

I'm quite glad to finally announce this as I've kept it under my hat for a few weeks: I kind of wanted it to be a New Year thing. This promotional video may explain more. Or not. The Midnite EP is released on Monday. It will be available for pre-ordering on Bandcamp later this week.

Richard Whiteley: off my anus

My computer exploded.

Imagine the 1996 Manchester bomb, but smaller and inside a power unit.

You may think that is an insensitive comparison, but there were 15 handsome badgers working the innards of that machine. Now my writing room is wallpapered with animal brains and wiry black and white hair.

The hair may have been there before.

I'm hoping the Nice Computer Man can save my machine. As long as he stays away from the folder marked Compromising Photographs Of Denuded Biscuits, I should be okay.

The worst thing about this calamatous event is how much I'm missing my music. Someone played me a bit of Laughable Butane Bob today and I nearly orgasmed into his cappuccino. The only thing I have left on CD are Echobelly's Greatest Hits, that collaboration between The Kooks and Kraftwerk, and Tina Turner tribute band The Nutbush City Mimicks.

I'm not sure if those CDs even exist. I'm not sure of anything any more.

The positive side of being computerless is I got off my anus yesterday and had a lovely Sunday lunch. From now on, this blog will be dedicated to lovely Sunday lunches. Cooked by Wetherspoons. In exchange for £6.99, or £8.49 if you want inexplicable cauliflower cheese with it.

I went for the cauliflower cheese. This is my new life. My new computer-less life.

(PS - if you want to see me read an interative story about Richard Whiteley, come to a night called Exhibit C tomorrow. I may do three stories, each obsessed with the idea of celebrity.)

Bezerking automaton: ReTale happens this Thursday

Six writers. Six stories. One shop.

Next up in the wonderful world of Fat Roland Making It Up As He Goes Along is a unique site-specific story evening called ReTale.

This Thursday, November `17th, my good self and five of m'colleagues will perform six brand new stories in the Triangle shopping centre, or more specifically, in the ladies clothing shop Jigsaw.

With ReTale, we hope to bring a little bit of theatrical nous to the imprecise art of live fiction performance. My fellow performers are the irrepressible Bad Language gang, my Flashtag cohort Dave Hartley and mumblin' Nick Garrard.

My story will contain this line:

“He wants to remove her empty skull above its equator, sit inside  the recess then ride her around like some bezerking automaton.”

It starts at 7.30pm sharp and there will be drinkies. Grab your tickets now, or risk it and pay on the door.

And if you don't like our stories, you could always pick up yourself a little silk ballet dress. Red. Off the shoulder. It'll look nice on you.

Fat Roland at Blank Space, November 13th 2011

As a tribute to the contents of my head, the name "Blank Space" seems a suitable place for a Fat Roland performance.

So join me tomorrow at Blank Media Collective's fifth birthday celebrations where I will be spewing 20 minutes of my half-brewed pot of fiction stew. It all kicks off from 4pm on Sunday at Blank Space in Hulme.

They're aiming for a speak-easy vibe, with spoken word, poetry and music courtesy of any old sops that turn up to the open mic. Why not be a sop yourself and come and take to the stage? Some time before 7pm, I will headline proceedings along with performance poet and installation artist Rebecca Joy Sharp.

I'm billed as "spoken word", which is an anodyne phrase which is a bit like saying "sounds like Coldplay". Then again, I dislike the phrase "flash fiction", but if it's a wording I've got to wear to persuade you to turn up and listen, then pass me the tattooist needle.

It's my first proper fiction set. From me, you can expect comedy, horror, sadness and my first ever performance with a guitar. It's all hosted by the lovely Blank Pages, who were kind enough to publish my scribblings recently.

Quickies: Short Stories For Adults

Purple tins and Co-op: where the hell is Fat Roland?

The time has finally come to nudge me off my bloggy throne back into the pits of well-deserved obscurity, for the Manchester Blog Awards are now open for nominations.

Last year's accolade, in which I shared a couple of gongs alongside some truly smashing blogs, astronauted me scream-first into the spaceosphere: people suddenly wanted me to *do* stuff. I'. sure, once I can no longer call myself "blogger of the year", it'll be back to the purple tins and sitting outside the Co-op.

But I have been busy. For example, I will perform my umpteenth fiction reading at Manchester's leading literary shindig Bad Language this Wednesday, August 31st. I'm hugely grateful for Bad Language's support: they have been the driving force behind my newly-discovered love of short story writing.

And don't forget the wonderfully-named Bad Shoes Festival on September 25th in Chorlton. Bad Shoes is a joint mission between Bad Language and that temple of gorgeousness, Shoestring Magazine. At the festival, I'll join the Flashtag Writers for a fiction reading of sorts. Ah, the Flashtag gang. It seems like an eternity since we congealed our efforts around this stupendously stupid blog post last November.

Oh, that reminds me. We're doing a book. We're doing a disgusting book of smutty stories for Didsbury Arts Festival. Quickes: Stories For Adults in in the editing / typesetting phase and features work by us, by specially commissioned writers and by general submissions. We're going to launch it on September 28th, and it would be great if you could come-- er-- be there.

What else? I'm bound to miss something. I've resurrected by photograph microfiction thingy blog Fatotograf. Me and a few Sanctus 1 chums will be giving out fish this weekend in a new short story experiment. I ran a fun blog workshop for Full Circle Arts and Blank Media. My coming out story is the subject of an Art With Heat project for Manchester Pride (yes, I'm in that video!). You can find me DJing on Saturday and Monday nights at the Greenbelt Arts Festival. There's stuff going on with Manchester Science Festival, but it's not quite announceable yet. And I am currently uploading a few 100-character stories over at Italic Eyeball.

Oh and to take my mind off all of the above, I just wrote this. Like I said. Astronaut. Screams. Spaceosphere.

Four massive things that don't go bleep: open mics, exhibition, two competitions

You may know me as an electronic music guru made from silicone, cryogenically frozen Moog synths and deep fried Orbital loops. But I have four more strings to my bow lyre*.

The first string is my umpteenth reading for the Bad Language open mic night at one of Manchester's pubbiest pubs, The Castle on Oldham Street. At past readings, I have imitated Yorkshire men imitating American schoolgirls, talked about the gutting of dead tooth fairies and peeled the text of a story off my reddened chest. What gimmick shall I masquerade as serious literature at the next Bad Language? Come along and see, on Wednesday March 23rd.

And while I'm twanging that first string, you'll also find me performing at the Manchester Twestival at NoHo on March 24th. The Manchester Twestival is a localised version of a much bigger global mission to raise cash for charity through social media. I'll be at what's called a 'pop up literary salon', which sounds like a hairdresser made from cardboard but it is not. If you do buy a ticket, you can raise money for the Wood Street Mission too.

My second string is coming up very shortly, and that's an art exhibition starting tonight. Surgery of Dreams is an otherwise-respectable composer and musician Michael Mayhew scalpelling out the innards of antique books and replacing their guts with found objects, such as shotgun cardtridges, skulls (check the amazing skull on the website) and, gulp, the cast of a vagina. Which I poked with my finger the other day. Gently. The launch is in my bookshop tonight, it will be hosted by me and you should definitely come. The exhibition runs until April 20th.

My third string (hurrah, we have a chord!) is a short story competition I have cobbled together with the original protagonists of the so-called Beatoff Generation. Except now, we are respectable because this is part of the Chorlton Arts Festival. The Flash Mob Writing Competition (see here the Twitter page) is asking for stories of 500 words or less by April 29th, which is otherwise known as That Bloody Royal Wedding Day. All the rules and requirements can be found on our funky red Flash Mob website. This is the Festival's first ever flash fiction competition and all shortlisted entrants will get to read their tales at a special reading and awards night on May 26th with little old me and my chums.

My fourth string has somewhat snapped, only because it naturally sounds of sadness and failure. The F1 Losers League is back once again this year. It's a unique competition which flips the usual fantasy league formula to celebration of the stragglers and also-rans in the world's most high-tech sport. The F1 Losers League will close to entries in the early hours of March 26th, at the beginning of qualifying in Australia. So to take part, you need to get your entry in pretty sharp-ish.

So then. Exhibition launch tomorrow night, Bad Language on Wednesday 23rd. Manchester Twestival on the 24th. F1 Losers League entries before March 26th (winner announced December 1st). Flash Mob Writing Competition now and until April 29th, with the main event on May 26th.

*altered due to comment, below

Is Fat Roland my real father? Norwegian woof. *click*

I thought I would like February more than I liked January. However, if January was a rat-infested tin house in a forest full of dead baboons, then February is the lice-ridden mulch underneath the festering welcome mat of the rat-infested tin house in the forest full of dead baboons.

And so, to lift me a few measly iota above this interminable funk I seem to be in (I can't even get excited about Cool Runnings being on iPlayer), I thought I'd do a quick update on my whereabouts.

Firstly, you can hear me read one of my short stories if you're in Manchester tomorrow night. If you heard me read at Waterstone's rather eccentric open mic night at the end of last year, you'd have heard tomorrow's story before. Otherwise, come listen to my fairy story at the Bad Language open mic night, at the Castle Hotel on Oldham Street. There will be many other writers, so I only have four minutes in which to impress you.

Secondly, my presenting partner Lee and I will reunite in a public performance for the first time since the well-documented Refresh FM debacle. We'll be running the next Special Guessed pub quiz at the somewhat super King's Arms pub in Salford on March 1st (8.30pm). I'd love it if we got a decent crowd to this: it would certainly mean a lot to me. We'll fill your pants with so much trivia, you'll be shaking it out of your trouser ends like the UNCLE guy in the Great Escape.

And finally, there's always my F1 Losers League, which I have banged on about before, but which now has an extended entry deadline of March 26th. Visit the website for more.

Yes, this blog is meant to be about electronic music. Pfffrt. If you want consistency of content, go and read The Pigeon Post.  I have been a bit shoddy recently, but there'll be more music witterings soon, honest. Meanwhile, here is a list of search terms that haven't resulted in recent hits on my blog:

- junglist Richard Madeley
- Norwegian wool
- a cacophony of roses
- the holy trinity of Rudy's Rare Records, Cool Runnings and Rastamouse
- Justin Biepbipe
- is Fat Roland my real father
- turnpike Birmingham rocking chair crew
- Norwegian woof
- cheap supermarket toothpaste
- Venetian Snarls

Kammer time: Mayming in London this week

If you're klammering for something kuriously different, then kop a load of Kammer Klang.

Kammer Kang features my wonderful friend Seaming To. She will weave you loops of infinity as one half of  Mayming, with her equally wonderful friend, the cellist Semay Wu.

Along with Mayming, you'll get some of the best contemporary electronica and classical music. Avant-garde composer Luigi Nono's piece will capture the sound of the lagoons and bells of Venice. Expect the harsh and haunting sounds of Xenakis, and Cornelius Cardew's work will be accompanied by Mao Tse Tung's poetry.

Even more intriguing will be the beguiling Peter Ablinger, who makes his piano sound like a spaced-out voice doppelgänger. Expect performances from Mother Theresa and Billie Holiday... yes, you read right.
 
It's happening at Cafe Oto in Dalston, London, on Tuesday June 30th at 7.30pm. It costs a fiver, which I think gives you a lot of kwality for your kash.

Brian Cox, U R the best thing (apart from the universe-slurping cat, which is even besterer than U)

While I have my computer humped by monkeys dressed in little helicopter hats (the bloke in the computer repair shop said it had worked for him, so I'm giving it a try), I might as well plug something totally unrelated to anything on this blog.

I'm running a book launch for Brian Cox, the telly physicist who does all them programmes about big bang machines. It's happening in the Museum Of Science And Industry on July 7th and you should come along.

I last met Brian when he was in D:Ream, before that song became New Labour's anthem. He already had one foot in the physics camp, and we had some lovely pictures of him posing outside Jodrell Bank looking really, well, sciencey.

He's co-written a book with a very clever physicist called Jeff Forshaw. The book explains why E equals MC². It's called Why Does E=MC²? (And Why Should We Care?) and it has a brilliant picture on the front of a cat lapping up a puddle-shaped universe.

If you come to the book launch, you get to meet me. And Brian Cox the telly physicist. And the very clever Jeff Forshaw. The woman on the desk at the Museum Of Science And Industry told me Bill Bailey and Neil Sedaka had been in recently, so you might get to meet them too, but only if they buy a ticket.

To buy your ticket (only one quid) and for more information, pop over to this page here.

Susan! Put the monitor down, you'll break it! Sorry, reader - I have called all the monkeys Susan, for no reason other than to provide a way of ending this blog post by referring back to the opening sentence, thereby engendering a sense of closure in the blog reading experience.

Scary girls frighten me more than blood-filled elevators

I can't stand adverts that splice together video bits to create a "cut 'n' paste" music track.  I can't stand the way I just typed "cut 'n' paste".  They should wire up keyboards so that depressing those letters in that order delivers a debilitating electric shock to the fingers.

I also can't stand little girls who are possessed by something dark and dangerous, especially the ones near the lifts in the Overlook Hotel.  However, I'm willing to make an exception for this cute-as-buttons Aphex Twin protégé because:

(a) They've bothered to write an actual track. Or at least half an actual track.

(b) It builds nicely into a tune I would probably buy if it was made from real synthesisers and that.

(c) Don't tell anyone, but I think evil girls are sweetly endearing in a Roald Dahl worm-eating kind of way.

On the subject of childish things, my friend wrote a book about finding your place in primary school.  You should probably buy it.

Lovely bleepy goodness from Mind On Fire

Manchester music collective Mind On Fire are stoking their flames of success by launching a brand spanking new web label.

The label (http://www.mindonfire.co.uk/) will burn a trail for the hottest Manchester artists (you do realise the fire synonyms are just going to get worse, don't you?) regardless of style, genre or dress sense.

And they're sparking it all off with three launch events later this week, the details of which are at the end of this post.

Mind On Fire have scorched a trail throughout Manchester, burning up dancefloors in places like Po Na Na, Music Box and Mint Lounge.  I actually started a fire once in Po Na Na, which seems prescient considering this blog post, but that's a different story.

They subscribe to the John Peel school of DJing, which says if something smoulders with goodness, the genre doesn't matter.  Hence the web label.  Set your ears alight with the excellent tracks on their MySpace page (and tremble in awe at their brazen use of the word "brap!").  There's some lovely bleepy goodness in them thar hills.

Here are the gigs:

- Thursday 22nd January at the Deaf Institute, Manchester city centre, from 8pm.  Making Faces, Go Lebanon, Neko Neko playing live, and The Natural Curriculum.  Plus visual gubbins, lovely art and free stuff.

- Friday 23rd January at the Ram 'n' Shackle, Fallowfield, 9pm - 2am.  Mind On Fire DJs, natch, plus Indigo and the cream of the crop from Indigo's label mates on Mindset Recordings.

- Saturday 24th January. It's off to Chorlton's The Nook, from 6pm, with the bluesy Denis Jones, and support from LA77 and Kane Testrack.