There were a host of interesting people to meet at Unconvention Factory, and not all of them were roly-poly unlikely pop stars having plaster of Paris smeared all over their face.
Manchester has a vacuum. It’s this: strangely, there is no high-profile online hub to give coherency to Manchester’s burgeoning new music scene.
This oversight has been spotted, and, as with all newly discovered niches, is in the process of being quickly filled with as many bad ideas as good ideas.
One of the people I slurred towards at the end of the night was Toby. He had a video camera welded to his arm, was kind enough to appease me with the same hesitant concern that I too reserve for drunken idiots, and was filming the event for Manchester Scenewipe.
They film bands in Manchester. Simple, huh? Anyone who has seen their brilliant video of former ANBAD alumnus Lissie – filmed singing as wonderfully as ever beneath, er, a T-Rex skeleton – will tell y0u that this is one of the Good Ideas.
If anything, the success of Manchester Scenewipe confirms two things: that the old equation of hard work + passion + talent = UNQUALIFIED SUCCESS, even in supposedly gloomy music biz times, and that there is a potential New Music/Palaeontological crossover market that was hitherto untapped.
Regardless of your opinion on such super-niche band markets, for most of us it is undoubtedly an exciting time. Not that Sir Yes Sir would be moved in such ways.
The wryly named Not Excited is the best treble-heavy, laconic-vocalled buzz-rock song I’ve heard for, ooh, months. Layers of fuzz are slathered on top of one another, the rich murk of the buzzsaw guitars offset by vocals that sit in a separate corner, writing forlorn poetry.
There’s passion here, too – it’s not Generation by Fucked Up, but hey, what is? Bluntly, Sir Yes Sir are as inventive, balanced and prickly band as you’ll hear all year. FACT.
www.myspace.com/siryessiryessir
Photography by jackbarnes.co.uk