Manchester Music Scene
“Article Photo taken by Gary Brown at The Warehouse Project – Tropical Show 03.10.15”
Madchester has defined the Manchester music scene for many years, particularly in the 80s and 90s. In Manchester we still see its living legacy to this day, living on through the music but also through many Manchester venues.
Factory nightclub, opened by Factory Records in the 80s is still going strong as a popular nightclub, especially with the cities students and as a live music venue. The grungy and coincidently factory style nightclub is known for its cheap drinks, array of genres and live acts – what’s not to love?
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Factory has had the likes of grime MC Tempa T performing over the past month and will be welcoming pop-rock Altered Sky and Manchester psychedelic rock band Bad Molly. The Madchester scene is known for its alternative rock music but also prides itself on bringing together alternative rock music with dance and house music, an art that Factory still masters today through their choice of DJ’s and live acts. But, the diversity of genres hosted by the iconic nightclub represents how Manchester’s musical identity has developed over the years with Factory still catering to their rock, indie and house party go-ers but now also branching out to r’n’b, hip hop and grime fans.
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The Warehouse Project, first launched in 2006 and has become one of Manchester’s biggest attractions for house music fans across the country. Sacha Lord who founded the popular night which runs yearly between September to January is rumoured to have had his first experience working in the nightclub industry in the Hacienda. Tributes are paid to the Madchester era through the Warehouse Project still hosting Hacienda themed nights with global house acts such as David Morales and Marshall Jefferson who headlined last year’s WHP Hacienda night. Although the line up across each Warehouse Project season is predominantly house with big names such as the Martinez Brothers, MK and Seth Troxler the WHP also welcome garage and grime acts with this year’s line up seeing Skepta and DJ EZ who headlined two events each – which sold out in minutes.
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The point is that the Madchester era and Hacienda nightclub has left an influential aroma around Manchester’s music scene and we can still smell it to this day. Bez may have moved on to politics but the Happy Mondays and the rest of the Factory Records gang are still here and proving that you can’t take the Madchester out of Manchester. Clint Boon from the Inspiral Carpet’s DJ’s on Manchester’s rock radio station Radio X and hosts weekly club nights at South nightclub another nightclub inspired by the Hacienda and redesigned by the designer of the Hacienda Ben Kelly. The Stone Roses will be playing at the Ethiad Stadium next summer. Although there is a never-ending love for the iconic phase in the history of Manchester the shift in genres in the city today is evident.
Grime music originally evolved from London from the likes of Boy Better Know and Dizzee Rascal over the last 20 years and has built an ongoing popularity. This has been adopted by the Manchester music scene not only through club night venues but by our very own Bugzy Malone literally putting ‘Manny on the map’ in the grime world. The 0161 star’s success has come off the back of his emotional story telling freestyles which gained millions of views on Youtube which shot him into the limelight. Bugzy has since managed to reach number 8 in the album charts with his debut ‘Walk with me’ and collab with fellow grime artists Stormzy and Tinie Tempah.
Manchester just keeps pulling these influential artists out of the bag. We will be forever known for the Madchester, but what will be next?
Tune into Unity Radio on 92.8FM on DAB and online for the latest house and urban music, the real sound of the city.
Written by Zeta Stephenson
