We Heart; Lifestyle & Design Magazine » Manchester

The Weekend Edit; 29.12.11

James Davidson — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 16:31:49 +0000

Like it or not, the most hotly debated night out of the year is upon us, as is the passing of another 12 months of inspirational design, architecture, lifestyle, fashion and more. It’s been a good one, especially here at We Heart towers, where we’ve gone from strength to strength, had a complete redesign and published some truly amazing content. We’ve got plans for so much more in 2012, but until then, here’s our final Weekend Edit of the year. So, here’s to 17 hour raves, old-skool hip-hop (and Hollywood) and a whole host of enlightening ways to spend your last night of 2011; have a devilishly smashing time guys, you’ve deserved it…

Until 15 January

The Boombox Project by Lyle Owerko

The award-winning photographer, behind internationally acclaimed images such as TIME Magazine’s September 11 2001 cover, is showing a decidedly more lighthearted side to his portfolio at this joint show with London’s XOYO and The Whisper Gallery. Lyle Owerko‘s obsession with hip-hop’s most desirable accessory went into overdrive after chancing upon a mint late-seventies Victor JVC at an outdoor market in Tokyo; and his fanatical hunt for the most rare and obscure ‘boomboxes’ on the planet is now the subject of this curious exhibition…

XOYO and The Whisper Gallery present The Boombox Project by Lyle Owerko: Open 10-6 weekdays until 15th January 2012 at XOYO, 32-37 Cowper Street, London, EC2A 4AP and The Whisper Gallery, 27/28 Eastcastle Street London W1W 8DH

Photograph by Sebastian Matthes

1 January

Warehouse Project, New Year’s Day

It sold out moons ago, but if you can beg, steal or borrow (that probably won’t work) a ticket, then the final day and night ever at the Warehouse Project’s iconic Store Street Car Park location is sure to be absolute chaos. If you’re superhuman enough to stomach a 17-hour rave in a car park on New Year’s Day then you’ll be rewarded with legends Laurent Garnier and Derrick Carter joining the likes of upstarts Space Dimension Controller and Joy Orbison for the UK’s biggest party. If you’ve got (or get) a ticket and are brave (or stupid) enough to see this one through; we salute you…

1st January 12.00 Noon – 5.00am, Warehouse Project; Store Street, Manchester

Photograph by Douglas Lyle Thompson

31 December

New Year’s Eve at Ace Hotel New York

Ever-stylish, and ever the place for a good time in Midtown; New York’s Ace Hotel celebrate the year of Armageddon with resident DJ Huggy Bear being joined by none other than The Smiths’ bassist Andy Rourke; whilst a very-special surprise DJ “keeps the party going in the pre-dawn hours of 2012″. There’s an assortment of dining delights still available to book too, and of course, you get to spend time gawking at ex-Hollywood set designers Roman and Williams’ lush interiors…

New Year’s Eve at Ace Hotel New York, Midtown Manhattan; 31st December 8:00pm in either Lobby, Breslin or John Dory.
Groups dining at the Breslin are invited to continue their evening with 50% knocked off the price of a table reservation in the lobby

Until 15 January

Steal Banksy

Want to get your hands on one of just a handful of signed and authenticated Banksy originals available in Australia? Why not just steal one? Celebrating art’s long-standing history of theft and heist, Melbourne art-hotel chain Art Series Hotels have been moving a pair of Bristol’s finest around their hotels; the first of which being stolen from right under their noses on 19th December…

The final Banksy, still not yet stolen, will be moved between the three hotels, The Cullen, The Olsen and The Blackman until 15th January.

Photograph by Sin Bozkurt

31 December

Die Freche Muse New Year’s Eve Spectacular

East London’s most decadent NYE party is sure to be Baron Von Sanderson’s Die Freche Muse; a traditional cocktail of “exotic burlesque, Dixieland jazz, chanteur and dancing till dawn”. Throw on your best 1920s – 1940s garb, descend upon their lavish 15th Century tavern and Georgian theatre space, cast aside your inhibitions and enjoy one of the country’s most splendid New Year’s soirees…

Die Freche Muse New Year’s Eve Spectacular: Saturday 31st December, 9pm – dawn at The George Tavern, 373 Commercial Road, London E1 0LA

31 December

The Library @ The Redbury, New Year’s Eve 2012

If you’re looking for a little bit of old fashioned glamour this New Year’s, there’s surely no better place than Hollywood? Sure, it’s a little more hipster than Hepburn round the streets of West Hollywood these days, but super-cool hotel The Redbury @ Hollywood and Vine is offering an “Old Hollywood” experience in their equally super-cool indoor/outdoor bar…

The Library @ The Redbury; 1717 Vine Street Los Angeles, CA 90028

31 December

Disappearing Dining Club, New Year’s Eve – All Night Dinner Dance

Having been throwing secret supperclub parties for some time, in an array of the capital’s most charming and intriguing empty warehouses, forgotten rooftops, hidden basements, secret galleries and private gardens; Disappearing Dining Club have unearthed another gem for their New Year’s Eve all-night dinner dance. Nestled in between Shoreditch’s Liverpool Street and Old Street stations, Factory 7 is a huge multi-media arts and music venue that will play host to decadent dining delights (think Ballotine of Devon Lobster & Calve’s Sweetbread and Red Ruby Beef Wellington), cocktails and DJs across 2 rooms in the industrial space…

Disappearing Dining Club, New Year’s Eve – All Night Dinner Dance is on at Factory 7, 13 Hearn Street, London, EC2A 3NN; Music and dancing until 6am

WU LYF; We Bros Video

James Davidson — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 11:49:00 +0000

Keen followers of our Twitter feed – and my personal even more so – will tell you I’m more than a little obsessed with a certain young quartet from Manchester. Well – with the help of young East London director Sam Pilling – they’ve only gone and cut a video for their reworked single version of We Bros and, of course, it’s absolutely stupendous. Those same keen followers will be eager at this point to highlight the fact that brilliant or baloney I’d have the same opinion, but, like everything they do; it lives up to any hyperbole that idiots like me slaver upon it. One of the 10 best songs on their 10-track debut album, We Bros has become somewhat of a live favourite and, following their triumphant Shepherds Bush Empire gig, the difficult foursome are back out on tour spreading their gospel internationally. With a Christmas-shaped hole in their schedule, we’re holding our breath for a low-key homecoming, but until then, there’s this…

North Pole Bar, Manchester

James Davidson — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 16:36:19 +0000

As the weather begins to take a real grip and attentions begin to stray away from deadlines to Christmas shopping, and more importantly – parties, there’s nothing better than submerging yourselves into a little bit of kitsch, winter nostalgia, and there’s very few better places in Britain that do it better than Manchester. Packed to the brim with pop-up bars, skating rinks and one of the UK’s largest Christmas markets – Manchester certainly adopts a splendid European festival vibe for the best part of December. An early starter in the silly season of over indulgence is Cathedral Gardens’ North Pole Bar, a pop-up bar boasting über-kitsch faux fur throws, Swiss chalet rugs, warm winter cocktails and, erm, an Asian noodle bar. Glossing over the mismatched commercial partnership, Manchester’s North Pole Bar is as good an example of an unpretentious, simple slice of plain old winter fun, and if you’re looking to tie in your Christmas shopping with a bit of a knees up – and why not? – then this is a good a place as any to do just that…

Photography: Haydn Rydings

Tony Wilson Memorial, Peter Saville and Ben Kelly

James Davidson — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 22:32:09 +0000

Well, it goes without saying that a headstone was, quite possibly, the least likely thing that we’d ever feature on We Heart, but – upon finding these beautiful images of Peter Saville and Ben Kelly’s memorial to their friend and colleague – we realised that nothing’s a given. Undoubtedly one of the most influential figures in British, if not world, music of the last 30 years, Anthony H Wilson was nothing short of a northern hero – as much maligned as he was celebrated, the forthright Mancunian would have had it no other way. Coming 3 years after Wilson’s untimely death – Saville is famous for missing deadlines, Tony would’ve understood – the headstone looks every bit the iconic Factory records cover, and carries a quote, chosen by Wilson’s family, from Mrs. G.L. Banks’s 1876 novel, The Manchester Man. Gone, but never ever forgotten, this poignant memorial is a reminder that Tony Wilson never could, and never would, do things just like everybody else…

Photography: Jan Chlebik

Wu Lyf

James Davidson — Wed, 26 May 2010 22:23:33 +0000

Working music bloggers, journalists and A&R men into somewhat of a sticky mess at the moment are a young pop band with more than a knowing knack for causing a stir, with their refusal to commit to interviews, photoshoots of them as a gang of balaclava clad revolutionaries and tales of winding up London’s preying record labels by supplying misinformation to their chief A&R scouts. Their method of releasing music has also been somewhat unconventional – a sabotaged MySpace page had previously redirected to their World Unite page, which until recently was a labyrinth of propaganda imagery with hidden downloads, and their debut EP, released in a hand-made edition of 14, retailed – to the exploited few – at an astonishing £50.

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The name too appears to deliberately mislead – pronounced ‘Woo Life’ it has obvious connotations of Wu-Tang influence, particularly given they have previously gone by the monikers of Tu-Wang Gang, Wu Lf Wu Lf and Wu Def to name but a few… Wu Lyf, however, is an acronym for ‘World Unite/Lucifer Youth Foundation’…. a deceleration of their “statement of intent” – again, all part of the mystique, the drama….

It’s confusion, it would seem, that Wu Lyf revel in… misinformation, misleading imagery – the truth is there are only four in the band – and a challenging approach to the modern could lead some (many?) to the cynical conclusion that the music just doesn’t stand up…. but, by Christ, it does. Whilst the enigma certainly adds massively to the package – those who suggest image hasn’t forever been intertwined in rock music should leave now – the brutally brilliant onslaught of droning psychedelic chamber-pop over which frontman Ellery Roberts delivers his drawling, marginally possessed vocals – a kind of fusion of The Birthday Party era Nick Cave, Tom Waits and Richard Ashcroft meeting up with Robert Johnson’s devil at the crossroads – is reminiscent of Kevin Shields attempting to cover a Phil Spector produced Sigur Ros, with members of Godspeed You! Black Emperor….. whilst thoroughly stoned.

Whilst initial recordings are difficult – and bordering upon unhinged – a quick listen to Vagina Wolf (most likely an early incarnation of the band – remember, they don’t give anything away) and it’s strong Pixies influence should give indication of where they’ve come from, and the foundations their sonic assault is built upon. Anyway, enough of listening to our bullshit over-analysis, crank up your speakers and listen to the future for yourself, and if you – like us – simply can’t get enough, be sure to head down to one of their regular outings at their manager’s An Outlet in Piccadilly, Manchester – the next being this Saturday, 29th May……

Wu Lyf: Heavy Pop

Wu Lyf: Concrete Gold

Wu Lyf: Such A Sad Puppy Dog

Vagina Wolf: Nic Cave

LoneLady

James Davidson — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 11:55:47 +0000

Self styled, flame haired, penchant for sounds of days gone by…. inevitable La Roux comparisons out of the way, and with no disrespect to the wonderful Elly Jackson – and of course Ben Langmaid, LoneLady, is an altogether different beast. Julie Campbell, a Manchester based singer, songwriter and guitarist, harks back to a slightly different 1980s to that of Heaven 17 or Yazoo… LoneLady’s inspiration is clearly a darker, jerkier, tighter and altogether more Factory Records 80s, with more than a hint of the Bunnymen from just down the East Lancs. Produced in an abandoned mill on the outskirts of town in just a few weeks with Breeders, My Bloody Valentine and Stereolab producer Guy Fixen, we’re sure you’ve an already an idea of how Campbell’s nervous, awkward debut will sound…. well you’re wrong, it’s even better than that. An early rival for These New Puritan’s hold on record of the year, ‘Nerve Up’ is a truly brilliant record… we’re positive you’ll be hearing more from this unique talent.

We Shall See, Chris Gray

James Davidson — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 17:00:54 +0000

We’re loving the sharp graphic portfolio of Manchester based freelancer Chris Gray, his crisp, distinctive style having a charming retro tinge that we just can’t get enough of. Having worked for the likes of Nike, Umbro and Freitag and had work featured in publications such as Creative Review and idN, Chris is carving somewhat of a name for himself and the international illustration circuit… a forthcoming collaborative exhibition on the 26th of this month in Berlin’s trendy UNDPLUS won’t do that ascendancy any harm either.

Barburrito

James Davidson — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 23:05:38 +0000

Following in similar footsteps to those of Nando’s, Manchester, and now Liverpool, based Barburrito is a refreshing alternative to the dirge of modern high-streets, the ‘Fast Food’ outlet. There’s times we all need a quick on-the-go bite to eat, but so often the choices are repulsive enough to leave us going hungry, that’s why we’re so excited about Morgan Davies and Paul Kilpatrick’s delicious brainchild, a no frills, stylish homage to classic Mexican street food. Listed in the Guardian’s top 50 healthy fast food establishments and winner of a rapidly increasing number of awards, Barburrito is a brand that we think you’ll be seeing a lot more of in the near future, and our stomach’s for one are relishing that thought.

‘Chips’, New Islington, Manchester

James Davidson — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 03:52:05 +0000

Call us old cynics (go on, we like it), but to us, the phrase ‘Urban Design’ is as overused an oxymoron as Friendly Fires or Civil Servants. The landscape of post-war Britain is more ‘Civic Sprawl’ than anything remotely following a design aesthetic. So it’s refreshing to see Will Alsop‘s big, fat rebuke to all those me-too urban loft developments choking up our great cities. Piled up like a tower of chunky chips in a swanky gastropub, these colourful apartments are clad in newspaper print, echoing the area’s industrial heritage. But, crucially, Alsop’s pulled off the tricky task of creating high density housing with a lightness of touch: with all residents grabbing a view, and access to, the new canal link. Alsop’s an architect with joy in his soul: and that’s something even Prince Charles would approve of. Wouldn’t he?

Oi Polloi’s ‘Rig Out’ Zine

James Davidson — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 05:17:09 +0000

Started in 2002 as ‘a reaction to the mass of bland, uninspiring men’s fashion stores lining the UK’s high streets’, Steve Sanderson’s Oi Polloi in Manchester is a pioneer in the revival of traditional British gentleman-type garb with names like Barbour, Belstaff and Nigel Cabourn sitting alongside equally blokey international labels such as Atelier LaDurance, A.P.C. and Lee. Currently being given away in a limited edition with all orders, ‘Rig Out’, a naval term, is a small and well written fanzine produced by the boys at Oi Polloi, with some brilliant design and photography, that gives their customers an insight into their interests, sensibilities and buying policy.