A two day international conference
19th-20th June 2025
Manchester Metropolitan University
Cities tell stories about themselves. Manchester likes to tell a story about itself that’s often summed up in the alleged words of Tony Wilson, founder of post-punk label Factory Records: ‘We do things differently here’…But do we really?
Recent research (Rose, 2024) suggests that Manchester might not be as much an exception as it is an illustration of broader urban trends. The city’s vibrant cultural legacy has played an important role in shaping its identity and has been used as a form of ‘place marketing,’ celebrating its creative spirit and contributing to its growth. Popular music and subculture have been key elements of this narrative. Yet in this process, popular music and subcultures often suffer. Certain people get to tell their stories; others don’t. Certain stories are told and retold and others forgotten. Even the stories we do hear become homogenised, easily digested clichés of friendly Northerners and historical firsts. When some stories dominate, others may fade or remain untold. Even the narratives we celebrate are often simplified and mythologised, focusing on familiar themes and collective historical milestones.
This conference asks: what do we find when we critically examine the dominant stories of Manchester music, or when we shift our focus to those stories less often told?
The conference invites academic papers, practice-based research and creative submissions/performances related to (but not limited to) the following themes:
- Subcultures, scenes, bands, people, nightlife etc. that fall outside or complicate dominant narratives about Manchester’s cultural past and present (we are keen to avoid a ‘tokenistic’ approach here that perpetuates existing myths while making them appear more ‘inclusive’).
- Reclaiming ‘the popular’ e.g. nightclubs, cabaret clubs, ‘fun pubs’.
- The effects of neoliberal urbanism on cultural production and consumption in the city.
- The popular/subcultural culture(s) of Greater Manchester and its peripheries.
- Post-Punk and beyond – How post-punk influences have shaped the city’s identity and its impact on current musical and subcultural expressions.
- From ‘Madchester’ to present-day scenes – The “Madchester” era to contemporary musical movements.
- The role of DIY and independent labels – How independent labels and DIY practices have fostered alternative musical communities in Manchester.
- Exploring the intersection of visual arts, performance, and music in shaping Manchester’s subcultural identities.
- Music and activism – Examining how music and subcultures in Manchester have intersected with political activism and social change.
- Global influences and local adaptations – Investigating how global music trends (and migration flows) influence Manchester’s scenes and how these musics are adapted locally.
- Heritage and memory in music scenes – The role of memory in preserving, celebrating, or distorting Manchester’s musical histories.
- Who gets to speak, who/what is funded, and how – Critical examinations of heritage projects and practices, and the funding processes (public and private) that make these possible.
- Community, spaces, and venues – The significance of and threats to physical spaces in shaping subcultural communities, past and present.
- Musical and subcultural northernness within and beyond Manchester – Critical examinations of dominant notions of northernness and alternate understandings of The North.
- Engaging with The Second City – Exploring sub/cultural engagements with and rejections of Manchester.
SCHEDULE
Thursday 19th June
9:30am – 10:00am – registration and refreshments
10:00am – 10:30am – welcome, opening remarks and housekeeping from the conference committee + The Subcultures Network
10.30am – 12:00pm – parallel panel session 1
Excavating Cultures of Resistance 1
Isaac Rose – Buried Modernity: Understanding Contemporary Manchester Through the Lens of Historical Defeat
Lucy Robinson and Chris Warne – Prisons, Riots, Carnival: Uniforms as Sites of Control and (Subcultural) Protest in Strangeways Prison
Beyond Mythchester 1
Kamila Rymajdo – Breaking the Boys Club: Ageism and Sexism in Manchester’s Club Culture
Phil Thornton – Mythchester
Shaping Communities
Rebecca Parnell – Putting the Orchestra In Its Place: What Role Does Location Play in Artistic Output?
Izaak David – Musical Communities and Gentrification in Levenshulme
Jack O’Connor – Hulme, Manchester in the Long 1980s: In Search of Culture and Community
12:00pm – 1:00pm – lunch break
1:00pm – 2:30pm – parallel panel session 2
Creating Place Differently
Connor Seed – Neo-Folkloric Myths of the Unreal in the Red Rose County
Pete Mercer and George Francis Lee (STAT Magazine) – Should We Abolish Manchester?
Kenneth Longden – Manchester, Esoterica: Music Maps and Psychogeography
Cultural Industries and Technologies
Richard Kelly – 20 Years of Party People
Rhys Jones – Camouflaged? Chris Sievey and the Intersection of Home Computing and Creative Industry
Liam Maloney – Studio Outtakes: Questioning the Role of Manchester’s Historic Recording Studios and the Absence of Recording Heritage in the Second City
Buried Histories 1
Chris D’Bray – Camp Sensibility and Gay License in the Mainstream: Greater Manchester Fun Pubs 1973-1993
Ieuan Franklin – Greater Manchester’s Great Lost Band: Colours Out of Time, Marginality and the Post-Punk Psychedelic Revival
Danny Cookney – Sweet Not Swagger: A Manchester Music Antithesis Called ‘Flowers’
2:30pm – 3:00pm – refreshment break
3:00pm – 4:30pm – parallel panel session 3
Manchester Now
Tanith Mab – Stepping Out of the Shadow: Emerging Artists in Manchester
Markus Hetheier – Queer Resistance: DIY Culture in Manchester’s Contemporary Electronic Music Scene
Global Manchester
Jean-Louis Vaxelaire – Manchester, Palestine
Rob Levy – My Middle America and Manchester
Excavating Cultures of Resistance 2
Kieran Bott – I Want You, Autonomy: The Rock Against Racism Northern Carnival and Rock Against Racism in Manchester
Louise Alderman – Manchester Musicians’ Collective Before and Beyond
4:30pm – 6:00pm – break
6:00pm – 8:00pm – drinks reception and DⱯRK Research Group performance
Friday 20th June
8:30am – 9:00am – registration and refreshments
9:00am – 10:30am – parallel panel session 4
From Berlins (and Elsewhere) to Madchester (and Beyond): Towards a Timeline for Manchester’s Club Culture, 1983 – 1986
Self-organised panel featuring Aniff Akinola, Mat Bancroft, Sophie Everest, Karen Gabay, Roddy Hawkins
Beyond Mythchester 2
Pete Dale – ‘Fucking Scum’: Querying Tony Wilson’s Ideas About the Working Class
Giacomo Botta – ‘Dirty Old Town is Anywhere’: Challenging Manchester’s Exceptionalism Through the ‘Industrial Continuum’
Paul Hollins – Magazine and Assorted Images (title and abstract tbc)
Buried Histories 2
Beate Peter – All That Jazz: Manchester’s Black Popular Music Heritage
Arthur Dickinson – Manchester’s Street Soul Scene
Alex Timwell – Junglist Generation: Manchester’s Hidden Musical Inheritance
10:30am – 11:00am – refreshment break
11:00am – 12:00pm – Plenary: Pitched Black – DJ Irfan Rainy of ‘Do One’ club night on Manchester’s Black Musical History – in conversation with Isaac Rose, with audience Q+A
Buses to Jodrell Bank
2:00pm – 2:45pm – registration/tea/coffee
2:45pm – Attendees ushered to take their seats in the FLP/Space Dome
3-3:05pm – Welcome by Teresa Anderson
3:05 – 3:10pm – Opening address John McAuliffe / Introduction to Plenaries
3:10 – 4:10pm – Plenary 1: An Insider’s Perspective: The Other Side of Strawberry Studios and Yellow Studios. Manchester District Music Archive (Karen Gabay and Alison Surtees), with guests
4:10 – 4:25pm comfort break/refreshments
4:25-5:00pm – Plenary 2: Tim O’Brien – The Scientific Artist: Bouncing Kraftwerk off the Moon
5:00pm -6:00pm – Plenary 3: The Science and Politics of Togetherness in Music Cultures
6:00 – 6:05pm – Closing words from the conference committee and intro to the evening from John McAuliffe
6:05pm-7:00pm – food break
7:00pm – Attendees ushered to take their seats in the Space Dome
7:15pm – 8:15pm – In conversation with David Olusoga and Jazzie B
8:15 – 8:30pm comfort break
8:30pm – 10:00pm: Jazzie B DJ set
Buses return to Manchester
