Sound barrier. Music and the Mill.

Luke Bainbridge visits Manchester’s sister city, Salford, and finds an ‘other city’ remarkable for its new music and outsider art ethic. Images by Alexandra Wolkowicz.

In the mid 1990s, the nocturnal sound from the other city was mostly the sound of silence. Chapel Street was a largely forgotten thoroughfare; of the thousands who used it as a daytime route into Manchester, few ever stopped once dusk fell. At night the roads calmed, the traffic reduced to boisterous Salfordians on their way back home from boozy nights out ‘in town’.

It wasn’t always this way. As architectural journalist Phil Griffin wrote: ‘Chapel Street used to be Salford’s smile, then somebody gave it a Salford kiss and knocked out most of its teeth. Chapel Street is a black and broken mouth, a gap-toothed grin in urgent need of radical remedial dentistry.’ While such extensive surgery has yet to materialise, Chapel Street, that architectural spine pinned together by a mile-long cluster of Victorian pubs, university buildings and churches, is beginning to change. First came Santiago Calatrava’s Trinity Bridge in 1995, a striking suspension bridge that ferries pedestrians from one side of The Irwell to the other. Then came the pubs, the cornerstones of Chapel Street that survived the wilderness years – places such as The Kings Arms and The Crescent. Tony Wilson and In The City were once wooed across The Irwell, but that turned out to be a passing flirtation rather than the start of a grand affair. But it is perhaps Islington Mill that tells the real story of Chapel Street’s slow rebirth, a warehouse-turned-arts centre whose DIY ethic is bringing music, art and attention back to this corner of Salford.

Originally a former cotton spinning mill, Islington Mill was saved from the wrecking ball by Bill Campbell; he ‘saved, begged and borrowed’ enough money to buy the derelict warehouse in 2001. It has grown gradually since and now houses 50 artists’ studios, two galleries and, more recently, a recording studio and nightclub. Brothers Maurice and Mark Carlin have been involved with the mill since its early days and realised not only its possibilities as a creative hub but the untapped potential of surrounding venues, especially Chapel Street’s pubs. This realisation led to the birth of the Sounds from the Other City music festival back in 2005. ‘We started at the lower end of the street,’ said Mark, ‘using four old pubs on the corners of streets. Since then it’s morphed each year, getting a little bigger and using different venues. This year we added a community centre and St Philip’s Church.’ Now six years old, the festival can lay claim to being the site of early seminal shows by bands such as The Tings Tings and Marina and the Diamonds.

The 2010 festival kicked off on a cold, blustery Sunday, the lampposts seemingly grateful for the knitted adornments used to brighten up the main festival routes. Our first stop was The Kings Arms to check out Levenshulme Bicycle Orchestra. They were still sound checking as we arrived; a tap of spokes followed by ‘can you take a bit of the treble out?’ After ten minutes it was clear that they were pedalling their own musical route and we headed back over to the mill to catch the fierce duo Breaking Colts. ‘It’s been 18 months since we played live,’ announced bassist and vocalist JoJo, although you’d think it was about 18 minutes listening to their dirty fuzz bass, propelled by pounding percussion.

Next up was one of the new venues, St Philip’s Church, a building designed in the early 1820s by Sir Robert Smirke (who also designed the British Museum) and is now presided over by visionary vicar Andy Salmon. ‘He thinks a church is something to be used by the local community, and it doesn’t really matter if they come for music or for prayer,’ said Mark Carlin of the vicar. We missed Jesca Hoop but caught the Tim and Sam Band, looking appropriately evangelical in matching powder blue shirts. ‘We spent last week locked in a room surviving on cheese toasties,’ explained Tim, or possibly Sam, ‘and this is the result, it’s a new song called Close Your Eyes.’

Running alongside the festival was art project Box Office, run by Maurice Carlin – who co-founded the free, self-organised art school, Islington Mill Art Academy, in 2006 – and Pippa Koszerek. For the week leading up to SFTOC, Box Office issued tickets for a range of events in spaces around Chapel Street, including a performance at Salford Central Station where a girl would get off a train, wait on the platform while a message was read out over the tannoy, and then get on the next train when it pulled up, using the platform as her stage.

On the day itself, punters entered a raffle to win the chance to be the sole audience for one of a succession of performances based in a phone box on Chapel Street by artists including Dan Deacon and Andrew WK. The artists would ring at a set time, from wherever they were in the world, and play a mini exclusive gig down the phone. ‘The idea is that the only person who can tell you about it is the person who was there in the phone box,’ explained production manager Duncan Sime. ‘It’s not recorded or filmed, so only that person can relay to you what happened.’

Elliott Dobbs was one such winner, and was presented with a pint of Guinness and orange that Andrew WK wanted him to drink during the ‘gig’. ‘We talked about music, and he gave me some life guidance,’ Elliott said afterwards, ‘then he wrote a song on the piano about me and my DJ set later that night.’ What guidance does Andrew WK dispense through Salford phone boxes on Sunday afternoons? ‘He told me to remember that sometimes we think life is like watching a movie,’ explained Elliot, ‘but actually we’re the actors and the directors, and we can write the script if we want to.’

Our script directed us back to the mill for The Pharmacy, a psychedelic rock ’n roll band from New Orleans, then on to The New Oxford to see Frank Sidebottom. Unfortunately, the latter was so over-subscribed a small crowd clustered round the back door of the pub, craning to see the back of the great man’s great papier mâché head as he whipped through his inimitable versions of ‘How I Wrote Elastic Man’ by The Fall, ‘Every Day Is Like Sunday’ by Morrissey and ‘There Is A Light That Never Goes Out’ by The Smiths. We made one last trip back to the mill for the silver caped experimental orchestra Chrome Hoof (so full it was one in, one out) before catching Fraser King outside The New Oxford, the band opting for the Salford night air rather than the back room they were billed to play in.

And then it was time for home, popping our heads into a couple of club nights on the way, including Bollox vs Bad Dancer at The Black Lion, where the party carried on way past the other side of midnight. It may have taken a big step up this year, selling 2,000 tickets, but Sounds from the Other City – and Islington Mill itself – has retained the spirit of defiant invention and personality that has often been lacking in the gentrified bigger city just down the road. ‘It’s crazy how many people who live in Manchester have never been into Salford like this, and it’s only five minutes away,’ Mark Carlin said earlier in the day. ‘It’s not distance, everything is in their head.’

Luke Bainbridge is a freelance writer, former Associate Editor of Observer Music Monthly and ex-Editor of City Life. Alexandra Wolkowicz is a Polish German photographer now resident in Liverpool.

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