ladyfest manchester: the review

As Ladyfest Manchester week at Wears The Trousers towers comes to a close, here’s our full review of last weekend’s entertainments. We’ll shut up about it now. Except you can still enter the competition until November 30th.

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Ladyfest Manchester: Day 1 
by Maree Morris

Wedged between a premier off licence and a modern office building, the Zion Arts Centre’s sheer architectural beauty seems somewhat anachronistic. Arriving late, having finally located the grand stone building amongst the labyrinthine mesh of back streets that is Hulme, I hurry past a huddle of smoking Bohemians and a small girl with dreads struggling up the stairs with a keyboard and head inside.

Instantly, I feel that I’ve been brought into a truly creative space at an important time. Partly, that’s the effect of the building – a maze of high ceilinged caverns on split levels, each with their own personality. But it’s also the work of the collective who’ve put this Ladyfest together, clearly having spent some hours decorating the various performance spaces and now populating the echoing hallways with colourful characters in outlandish dresses, wigs and stompy boots.

I am first directed upstairs where, after I locate the bar, I find “the door with the feather boa” and enter the ‘Cabaret Room’. Since I’m pretty late, the night’s entertainment has already started but, I am informed, thanks to a band pulling out last minute it hasn’t been going long. The room houses a good crowd of people, seated on sofas, around large decorated tables or simply on the ground around the walls. Yet it is almost totally silent, except for the woman on stage, who quietly strums a ukulele whilst singing earnestly. She seems nervous, but the crowd are attentive and the set passes pleasantly.

The stage is then woken by the presence of the evening’s compere Rosi Lugosi, a 954 year old vampire lesbian queen in a stunning costume complete with bustle, corset and fangs. Aided by her poor suffering French maid, she is charismatic, entertaining and managed to (literally) whip the audience into a frenzy. Linking together this very eclectic evening into a discernable whole is no small task, but she manages it with an admirable effortlessness.

Following a number of entertaining burlesque performances and a cross dressing, stripping dance routine from the members of Ultra Violet Violence, she announces a 15 minute break before the headlining performance. It is only then that I realise I’ve been leaning against the same bit of wall for several hours. Time had flown. I decide to use the down time to check out the exhibition of international artists in the gallery space downstairs. Though the exhibit is technically closed when I arrive, the two girls working to put the finishing touches to the display let me in for a quick look around.

 

Art photos by Catherine Redfern

Sadly, the artists’ nameplates were yet to be put up so I can’t report on the individuals involved. I can say, however, that a number of the pieces there were fascinating. So much so, in fact, that by the time the two workers kick me out of the gallery space, I have missed the headine acts on both stages. Despite this, I am very happy with my first Ladyfest experience and look forward to the rest of the weekend.

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Ladyfest Manchester: Day 2 
by Alan Pedder

Chris and I aren’t that great with early mornings. Previous ventures outside of the sprawling metropolis we call home have been known to result in missed trains, grumps and compulsive eating, but with feminist fire in our bellies and the obscene price we’d have to pay for replacement rail tickets to Manchester lurking threateningly in the back of our minds somehow we managed to make it and spent the next 3 hours loudly lamenting Virgin’s broken coffee machine. Come on people, that’s just cruel. Having located our hotel it was a race against time to make it to Hulme in time for the two o’clock debate, which we eventually managed by taxi after finding ourselves dumbstruck by the local bus network (or perhaps the profoundly distressing lack of caffeine in our bloodstream). What a beautiful building the Zion Arts Centre is, and full of amazing spaces. Nice work Ladyfest.

I’ve covered the debate already in great detail so I’ll skip that here. Suffice to say I loved it, and had plenty of questions for Amelia Fletcher who graciously gave us a brilliant interview upstairs in the quiet. New album on the way from her. Excellent. She had to dash to go and look after her kids so we wandered around for a while taking in the stands and especially the zines table. We judiciously skipped the sex toys workshop (I’m prone to intense bouts of blushing) and sexual health for teens discussion (I’m six months shy of 30) and opted to visit the café for tasty cakes and that long, long, long awaited coffee instead.

After a brief look around the gallery, which the others have talked about more, we managed to track down one of the Ladyfest organisation team, Siobhan Fahey (no, not that one!), for a wee chat. A lovely bubbly lady, she was clearly very excited and happy and pretty much delivered the following as monologue. Over to you, Siobhan.

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It was immensely easy to organise actually. A lot of work but very very easy. It wasn’t pulled together by me, it was pulled together by a girl called Anna and Rachel Neiman from Cherryade Records. And I think it was Rachel’s original idea to put one on in Manchester because there was one here about four years ago, but it was Anna who put the initial Facebook and Myspace ads out. The first meeting we had there was about 20 people in a really noisy pub. Nobody could hear! But since then we’ve met probably once every two weeks. Well, once a month at the beginning and then up to once a week towards the end. A couple of people were old friends but mostly none of the group knew each other at all beforehand, which I think helped because it meant that we were completely uncliquey and we didn’t mind other people joining in. Nobody knew what each other’s skills were but it turned out we had people who were promoters, people like Rachel from the record label, Jen who runs Bi Community News and is one of the main bisexual activists in the country…so we all had our own skills.

I’ve been doing the sort of nonglamorous bits like the funding applications and the volunteers and that sort of thing. The only glamorous bit I’m doing is the cabaret on the Saturday night, which is going really well. Vic’s done a lot of the booking of the acts – and there’s some amazing acts we got. The compere on tonight, Clare Mooney, was saying “god, where on earth did you find such amazing bands and such interesting performers?”. For instance, we just had The Muffia on with their outrageously edgy humour. I almost thought some people would walk out. It was very feminist but very brave, making jokes about Obama’s granny and all sorts. Brilliantly funny, and nobody left and everybody laughed. It really just shows how people who come to Ladyfests are pretty open minded.

For instance, the Zion is traditionally an Afro-Caribbean community centre and the management are, you know, quite traditional. So we had lots of problems about whether or not we could have a sex toy workshop but in fact it’s been our most heavily oversubscribed workshop of the weekend. Of course, we’ve had to be quite strict about no under 18s but that’s really to fit the building. Our age was going to be over 16. I mean, if you can have sex you can buy a dildo, right? So yeah, we seem to be a really open minded group of people all wanting the same thing. About half the group are men, but we all want exactly the same. To put interesting female arts out there.

Jenny organised the burlesque dancers and we’ve got a film festival going on. And the art’s another amazing thing about Ladyfest. People have just gone off and said, well, we’ll take care of the art, we’ll do the film, and so on, and they’ve maybe come to one or two meetings and having their own subgroup meetings. They’ve just got on with it and curated, to my mind, a pretty stunning art exhibition [dubbed 'Charmeuse']. My favourite is the exploded typewriter. The artist took a 1930s typewriter apart and wrapped every single little bit up in cardboard and put it on a desk to symbolise, you know, secretaries…stereotypical women’s role. It’s really high quality, and that’s the same with all of the performers. We’ve had people say to us, oh, I’ve never heard of any of the performers, and I say back, well, they might not be famous but they’re all really good. If you come later to the cabaret the last act on is a real favourite of mine, Madam Laycock & Her Dabeno Pleasures, which is like a Weimar oom pah pah band. So unusual.

So actually, putting on a Ladyfest has been fairly easy. We’ve done lots of fundraisers and raised over £1500 I think. And those fundraisers have been good because we’ve built up our skills, got contacts and advertised the main event. And really, it was incredibly easy to get the bands to play for free. Bands want to play. Ladyfest is a great thing to have on your musical CV. And people have really travelled to be here. I mean, Suicide Birds, who are on at the moment in the cabaret room, have come over from Holland. We’ve got bands from Glasgow and Brighton. A band arrived earlier from London and they actually took the Megabus to save us money! Because we pay their expenses they chose to travel up for £1 each, which is just more than sweet. So, yeah, almost all the bands have got the right ethos. Our main expenses have been all the things to make it equal for everyone. For instance we’ve got an evening crèche babysitting service from 7 ‘til midnight, which in this day and age has to be very professional and Ofsted approved. So that cost us a lot of money, but worth it.

My advice is to just do it if you want to organise a Ladyfest. It’s easier than you think. It’ll take time but you’ll have fun doing it. Our first meeting was in February I think, and as it’s got closer it’s taken up more and more of our lives. But worth every minute.

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Useful advice, I think. Sadly we didn’t really get time to check out the cabaret as it all kicked off in the music room (after an hour and a half delay). First up were Penny Broadhurst & The Maffickers, who were recently inducted into our Voices On The Verge hall of fame (here). I’d been waiting ages to see Penny live and she didn’t disappoint. Full of lo-fi DIY charm, she’s absolutely an antidote to the ProTools-crazed pitch-shifted pop mainstream while still being recognisably pop and loving it. They may not have been a going concern as a band for very long but there were plenty of smiling faces up there. ‘Fun Pub’ was the highlight, as I had been foretold. Great start.

Next up were Kids Love Lies, fronted by ra-ra-skirted vocal powerhouse Ellen. Described as a “hotly-tipped post-punk band who combine fuzzy, angular guitars with loud, in-your-face vocals” in the programme, that’s pretty much what we got for the first song before we had to nip out to interview Manda Rin (read). We were, however, very entertained by Leigh, Matt and Raf (drunkenly?) wrestling each other on the auditorium floor during soundcheck. Their self-released debut single ‘Switch Off’ is getting lots of radio support from influential bods like Huw Stephens and Tom Robinson at the BBC, and you can hear it here.

Glasgow’s Miss The Occupier already had a home in my record collection prior to Ladyfest. Last year’s External Male EP is a four-song brace of addictively spiky indie punk filtered through a fuzz pedal haze. With her bright pink bob and apparently effortless glamour, Roz Davies looked every inch the British rock heroine we always seem to complain we don’t have enough of. Chris thinks their songs sound a bit like Sonic Youth’s, and we both agree that’s a good thing. As it happens, Miss The Occupier’s debut album Recovery Position was released digitally on Monday (CD to follow in December). Invest.

The Duloks may have been missing their regular organist Mina but that didn’t stop them injecting a serious amount of bizarre, deranged fun and inappropriate humour into proceedings with a set that relied more on goading the audience than on actual musicality. What vocalist Mira Dulok lacks in tuning she definitely makes up for in personality with plenty of tact-sparing jokes that bordered on bad taste. The songs, however, were brilliantly rough diamonds. ‘Bad Vegetarian’ (”I saw you eat the fish / it was your Christmas dish”) and ‘Gonna Follow Your Star Trail’ were particular highlights. Hear them here.

I must confess to not having stayed to watch all of Shrag’s set. The two songs I did catch were pleasant enough but we wanted to soak up some atmosphere elsewhere for a while. When we returned Manda Rin and her band, The Rinettes, were just setting up for the final set and the anticipation for certain members of the crowd was electric. Having only heard a smattering of Bis tracks (i.e. two) prior to the show and only half a listen to her solo album, My DNA, before I left home, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. Had I been more informed I would have anticipated the following: much, much dancing; infectious melodies all over the place; and Manda as a skipping, twirling, hiccuping dynamo. I would not have anticipated the joyous cover of The Ronettes’ ‘Be My Baby’ – if Manda hadn’t already let the surprise slip – or the synchronised guitar shapes The Rinettes were pulling. Best set of the night and a perfect precursor to the indie disco that kept certain Ladyfesters up until the early hours. Not us, though, we had an early train to catch and sleep was urgently required.

I think I’ve written enough about Ladyfest this week to give you some idea of how I feel about the whole idea of the event and its ongoing legacy. As I said to Amelia Fletcher, it’s almost like the ultimate free cultural franchise: anyone can organise a Ladyfest in their area and give it their own stamp of individuality. Every Ladyfest is different and none are perfect but the sheer amount of love and effort that goes into these events is amazing and inspiring. It’s a shame that attendance wasn’t higher but I think everyone who did go got as much out of it as one could possibly expect from a grass roots festival. So well done Ladyfest Manchester. Here’s to the next one.

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I took some photos:

 

Penny Broadhurst & The Maffickers

Kids Love Lies

Miss The Occupier

The Duloks

 

Shrag

 

Manda Rin

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Ladyfest Manchester: Day 3 
by Charlotte Richardson Andrews

The last night of Manchester Ladyfest was definitely one to remember. It was simply impossible to sample everything that was happening – art classes for children, DIY workshops, seminars on pornography and sexuality, and the screening of female-centric documentaries such as ‘Girls Rock!: The Movie’, which had more then one audience member teary eyed and positively reaffirming her feminist beliefs; but the parts that I did get to be involved in were amazing. A spacious gallery of art, from high resolution snapshots of gender-bending beauties to large-scale charcoal nudes, stalls for a wonderful variety of zines, graphic novels and flyers involving upcoming DIY events, and of course, the bands. Grime artist MC Envy with her high octane lyrics, the wonderful Bobby McGees with their Star Wars ballads and toy instruments, Lancastrian couple The Lovely Eggs surrounded by pumpkin lanterns, post-punk noise from Vile Vile Creatures working the crowd into a storm with guitar shredding antics, and crowning the whole weekend, the legendary Ari Up playing with original members of The Slits, a spectacular performance that had everybody rocking out and singing along with their time-testifying dub/punk grooves.

Slits photos by biostuart

Ladyfest is a not-for-profit organisation. While these events always attract volunteers in great numbers, and dedicated organisers who put in an incredible amount of love and energy, they only really survive through audience participation. So while they are undoubtedly fun-filled events, they are also incredibly important to a number of society’s often marginalised subsections: queer and/or female artists and musicians who won’t compromise themselves by signing away their rights to corporate suits. Ladyfest is designed to provide a supportive platform for these performers, who are often overlooked and intentionally neglected by an industry that either sees them as a threat or cannot capitalise and profit from them and therefore does its best to keep them on the fringe. It is also a great place to join a community built on the ideas of love, equality and feminism, and meet friends, collaborators and like-minded individuals. Ladyfest events happen nationwide throughout the year. So support your local Ladyfest – it could change your life.

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Ladyfest Manchester week was brought to you by Alan Pedder, Charlotte Richardson Andrews, Chris Catchpole and Maree Morris

• Feminism and counterculture: the Saturday debate
• interview with Penny Broadhurst
• interview with Amelia Fletcher
• interview with Manda Rin
• interview with Vile Vile Creatures
• interview with The Lovely Eggs

For more things Ladyfest Manchester, visit the official website and the official Flickr gallery. That’s all folks.

Written by: Wears The Trousers magazine

Tags: alan pedder, amelia fletcher, ari up, bis, charlotte richardson andrews, chris catchpole, kids love lies, ladyfest manchester, manda rin, maree morris, mc envy, miss the occupier, penny broadhurst, shrag, the bobby mcgees, the duloks, the lovely eggs, the slits, vile vile creatures

This entry was posted on Friday, November 14th, 2008 at 4:31 pm and is filed under feature, live reviews, reviews, special features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.