Sounds from the Merry City
Salford’s
best-kept secret festival get’s seasonal as Sounds
From the Other City celebrates six years of life by throwing a Christmas
Party.
Tim Harvey reports
Six years
ago a small group of people, based in Islington Mill in Salford, had an idea
for a grass-roots festival. They would book unknown bands from around the
country to play in the humdrum venues around Salford, culminating in one final
blow-out at the Mill. The only provisos were that it had to be fun and it had to
be a party. The first problem they encountered, as organiser Mark Carlin tells
me, was: “We just couldn’t fucking name it.”
This summer Sounds from the Other City, as it came
to be, attracted two thousand revellers and staged gigs in a string of venues with
bands coming from as far afield as Brooklyn and San Francisco to play.
And now the
organisers of this independent festival are planning to extend the party by
tapping into the festive mood and putting on a very special series of gigs and
stage shows.
Sounds from the Other City has taken a long time to reach this
point, and the organisers will never forget the steps they took to get to where
they are. Starting with that arduous
naming process.
Carlin
recalls the moment when, back in 2004, they finally nailed what would become an
iconic name for their festival-to-be. “A friend came up with it actually, on
the bus. He said it and I knew straight away, I said ‘That’s perfect!’”
And now, six
years on, they have created a one-day carnival the likes of which Salford has
never seen. And the name resonates just
as much now as ever before, itself symbolic of a whole city’s inferiority complex,
cultivated within the massive shadow cast by the Manchester music scene.
It becomes
quickly apparent that it is no coincidence that Sounds from the Other City sounds so self-effacing, as Carlin
describes the festival from his perspective. “I still feel it’s pretty low-key,
it’s just a series of gigs that people come along to.
“We set out
to have a fun day out, and the minute we try and have anything other than that
then there’s something wrong.”
He does
admit though, that the naming of the festival was a slight at Manchester’s own In the City music soiree. “I guess it
was a bit of a riposte to In the City. There’s no doubt we remain massively in their
shadow.”
In light of
the sensational reviews the festival garnered this year (The MEN described it
as ‘the best thing to happen to Salford in a very long time’) it would seem
that SFTOC has become a bigger deal
than Carlin is willing to let on.
Pressure to
improve on this year’s event must inevitably come from glowing reviews, but
Carlin prefers to bask in the praise for the time being. “It’s certainly nice
to be recognised in the media. I don’t see it as adding pressure though, it
would be much harder if they had said it was a load of shit!”
For a
festival that provided the launch-pad for the Ting Tings back in 2007, and only
this year saw Egyptian Hip Hop fill the Old Pint Pot to bursting point, before
going on to be hailed as NME’s next big thing, where are the boundaries for the
festival organisers who started and continue to act so modestly?
“I have no
idea where the boundaries are” Carlin says. “I don’t think it’s necessarily
about getting more people to come. Obviously more people means more money and
then you can be more ambitious, but I can’t see us accommodating three, four or
even five thousand people without outdoor stages. It’s not possible, for now.”
The Ting
Tings played their first gigs at Islington Mill, and, if you believe Wikipedia,
Katie White actually worked the bar while they were trying to get signed.
Carlin laughs this off though, saying: “Back in those days I don’t think anyone
really ‘worked’ on the bar. For one thing, we didn’t have tills back then. And
it was such a dingy place, we didn’t get anywhere near the crowds we do now.”
Dingy is
certainly a word that could be applied to a number of the venues that SFTOC incorporates, with pubs such as
The Old Pint Pot and The Crescent figuring prominently in the line-up. So how
do you turn pokey old watering-holes into vibrant venues, capable of
accommodating some of the loudest and quirkiest bands around?
“The thing
is our event benefits from these venues not being used every day” Carlin says.
“People don’t realise what incredible places pubs like the Old Pint Pot can
become with the right music and people.
“And the
view from the top floor in there is spectacular anyway, looking out across the
meadows and with the University in the background. It’s an amazing setting.”
The jewel in
the crown of the SFTOC organisers
though remains the place where it all started out, Islington Mill. It has been transformed from the decrepit and
often ramshackle scene it once was, into a sheikh and trendy setting that is
still where the party inevitably ends up.
Carlin
agrees the setting is important: “I think half the enjoyment is where it’s
taking place. I’ll be honest I think
three quarters of the audience haven’t got a clue who the bands are, they’re
just taking a punt. I’d like to think that most people go away from the event
having discovered at least two or three bands they never would have.”
A glance at
the line-up for this year’s SFTOC
would appear to corroborate Carlin’s point, with bands such as Chrome Hoof, Wu
Lyf and The Legend of The Seven Black Tentacles oozing obscurity and intrigue.
“I love it”
says Carlin. “You can be sitting in the church with people reverentially
watching Jesca Hoop one minute, and then next door in the Angel Centre you’ve
got Talk Normal, from Brooklyn, crashing through their set.
“My favourite
memory from this year though has to be going back to the Mill and barely being
able to get in because Chrome Hoof had ten people rampaging round the stage, and
the crowd were going mad for it.”
So then,
what better way to celebrate six years of outrageous gigs and legendary parties
than with a special Christmas do?
Sounds like another Christmas is SFTOC’s first attempt to stage a series of gigs over a few
different days. From the 8th of December to the 12th,
familiar venues such as The Kings Arms and The Black Lion will be devoted to
the diverse and kooky bands that have become the trademark of SFTOC.
“Chrome Hoof had ten people
rampaging around the
set
and people were going
mad for it”
And not just
bands, as Carlin explains: “We wanted to really push the boat out with Sounds like another Christmas. We wanted
to book a really bizarre series of acts, and believe me when you see Dinosaur
Planet, you’ll see what I mean.”
Dinosaur
Planet’s website promises ‘Dinosaurs, Robots and the outright destruction of
Peterborough’, which sounds like common fare for the eccentric and indeed
eclectic tastes of a large part of the SFTOC
clientele.
More
orthodox festival fare will also be catered for, with the likes of Howlin’ Rain
returning to rock a festival they first played two years ago.
So, how much
does Mark Carlin get involved in the booking of the bands? How much does he see
of them before they play?
“Honestly,
there’s a lot of stuff booked in we haven’t got a clue about. We place a lot of
trust in promoters we think have been bringing the best music to the city.
“The Pull
Yourself Together duo are one of our best promoters, for example.
“I like to
be involved as much as possible but, as with any party where you’re the host it
can be hard to get as much out of it as the punters.
“I just want
people to say ‘Ah, you remember that party – it was great!’, just like any
other host.”
Is there a
danger that a festival that has seen its attendance exponentially rise from 350
people in the first year might sell-out and become commercialised?
“I don’t
give a shit about selling out”, says Carlin. “Bollocks to it, we’re not draping
Kopparberg or Becks banners over everything, so people can think what they
want. I know the way people perceive what we do would change if we did
that. We like our grass-roots image but
it’s difficult to sustain it.
“We don’t do
as much advertising as we should do perhaps, but then, again, it’s part of the
beauty of something like this. People like to discover it by themselves.”
‘Sounds like another Christmas’
starts at 8pm at The Kings Arms on Chapel Street, and continues through till
the 12th of December. Prices vary from £6 to £10.
More details at
www.soundsfromtheothercity.com
