By now, we’re all well aware of the impacts of COVID-19 on our music scene. But what can us fans do to ease the pain?
We’ve compiled a list of simple things we can all do to support artists and venues until we get our old normal back.
Whenever that may be.
1. Buy their music
Image: Drew Litowitz
This sounds very obvious. But too many of us (me included) are guilty of streaming music from the big players like Spotify.
Gone are the days of the iconic Sony Walkman and mp3 players. But even so, there are still plenty of reasons why you should buy your music directly.
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Major streaming services like Spotify pay artists very little per stream. So, unless you’re Liam Gallagher and getting millions of streams a month, it’s harder for smaller artists to generate an income from.
Agreed: Spotify is great for playlists and discovering new music. But consider buying your favourite songs outright on another service at the same time. You can do this on Bandcamp, Beatport, Amazon or iTunes. What’s more, the first Friday of every month is Bandcamp Friday where they waive their revenue share. This means more than 90% of your money goes straight to the artist.
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FYI, the next one is February 5.
2. Visit their online stores for merch
Larkins online store
Well because who doesn’t love a tote bag? Or perhaps a baggy tour T-shirt stolen from your other half?
Plus, what’s one step further than purchasing music from the above-mentioned music services? Answer: buying an album straight from an artist’s online store. Again, this means even more of the money you pay reaches the people who deserve it.
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If you’re lucky, you might even be able to get your hands on a limited edition signed copy this way. No excuses, now.
3. Keep hold of rescheduled gig and festival tickets
Image: Diego Sulivan
Learning that your upcoming gigs were getting cancelled one by one last year was a devastating state of affairs. But at times you’d probably rather choose a refund, opting to keep your tickets for a rescheduled show could really help organisers and artists out.
Think of it as an investment into your future self’s social life.
4. Support livestreams
Hacienda House Party Livestream. Image by Katie Hall/United We Stream GM
Throughout lockdown we’ve been inundated with livestreams and online gigs. They are the next best thing to live music, after all. More often than not they raise a tonne of money for charity, too.
Some have been ticketed, like the virtual reality Blossoms and Liam Gallagher gigs before Christmas. Whilst others have been free, like the Hacienda House Party. But either way, they brought music to our living rooms in the most 2020 way. With who knows how many more lockdowns we’re yet to endure, long live the livestream.
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5. Follow their social media
Unsplash
This sounds like another obvious one. Yet I bet there are loads of artists in your top 10 that you don’t actually follow on social media.
Liking, sharing and commenting on their content and subscribing to their YouTube channels will work wonders for their growth whilst they’re unable to play. Besides, it means you can stay even more up to date with them and any new music out soon. Oh, and it also costs you nothing.
6. Support the venues too
Socially distanced event at the Progress Centre
Let’s not forget our beloved music venues and clubs that have been forced to close as well. Some of them have been able to diversify to put on socially distanced and seated events. Social Avenue and the Progress Centre provided us with some delightful lineups to keep us occupied in the summer.
Granted, our current lockdown situation won’t allow it now. Best believe when these events are up and running though, I’ll be first in the queue.
Other venues and clubs took a different approach and simply offered takeaway pints. And to be honest, I’ve grown fond of drinking beer from milk bottles, anyway.
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Whatever your local venue has done to stay afloat, get behind it.
7. Donate money to charities and Crowdfunders
Image: 42s/Rocks Off coffee
We’ve mentioned a number of ways that you can donate to save venues and artists and support the struggling music scene in the past. The WeMakeEvents campaign painted the world red to raise awareness earlier this year. But local to Manchester, community led projects, schemes and even a limited-edition crowdfunding coffee have raised money for charities to help keep the music playing.
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Posters around Manchester city centre spark serious rumours Charli XCX is set to headline Parklife 2025
Danny Jones
Some pretty big, green posters are popping up around town and, not to get ahead of ourselves, but it looks like they’re hinting at Charli XCX headlining Parklife 2025…
Feel free to lose your bratting minds.
A number of tall, let’s call it ‘apple’ green posters have been sighted in various places across Manchester city centre this Friday, 22 November and the last time we saw this slightly low-resolution, plain black Arial font and colour combo we got a reworked version of Charli XCX’s brat album.
Listen, all we can tell you is that this is almost exactly the same marketing and the letters on the poster simply read, “PL25”. Come on… you do the math(s).
Spotting at least two of the posters for ourselves around both Newton and Thomas Street in and around the Northern Quarter, plenty of people have been double-taking at the simple but bold and undeniably eye-catching portrait posters.
Trust us, we weren’t the only ones stopping to take a picture and frantically send them to half of our phonebook either.
Charli herself hasn’t given us any other clues on social media thus far – to be fair, this one feels fairly obvious to us – but it’s well worth keeping your eyes peeled on her stories as she did plenty of teasing before dropping Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat.
Still can’t get over that actually being the title, by the way.
It’s also worth noting that Parklife themselves recently confirmed that festival fans can expect to find out their headliners and the full 2025 lineup very soon. Check out that colour…
Oh, who are we kidding? That’s not apple green it’s straight-up BRAT green, b*tch. We’re fully getting carried away and you’ll just have to deal with it.
Even if it somehow turns out she’s not headlining it’s certainly looking like she’s going to be there and it wouldn’t be the first time.
Better yet, fans of the pop sensation won’t have to wait too long to see her right here in Greater Manchester because Charli is bringing her already smash-hit tour to Co-op Live next Wednesday, 27 November and in case you couldn’t tell by all the shouting in capitals, we’re very excited.
Roll on ‘PL25’. Other than Charli XCX, who else would you like to see as your Parklife headliners next summer?
Bez and Shaun Ryder are starring in a new gangster movie – nope, not kidding
Danny Jones
No, you didn’t misread the headline and you’re not on acid: Manchester music legends Bez and Shaun Ryder are set to feature in a brand-new gangster film.
Yes, the ones from the Happy Mondays – why are you having such trouble processing this?
Seriously though, we did a little double-take ourselves when we came across this news, but the familiar Manc faces look to be among the ensemble of a brand-new gangster movie by Irish writer, actor, producer and filmmaker, Ciaron Davies.
And this is just a little leak or rumour that may have been blown out of proportion: you can take it from the horse’s mouth as Happy Mondays frontman, Ryder, recently shared the news on social media.
As you can see, the new film is called Geezers and is billed as a “British crime caper” written and directed by Davies, featuring Shaun as hard-man Robbie and Bez as ‘Monk’. If you saw Ryder shaking off that snake biting his hand like it was nothing then you already know he’s hard as nails.
Although it’s not strictly listed as a comedy per se, ‘caper’ would suggest plenty of humour and light-heartedness, so we’re thinking more like The Gentleman, Italian Job, or maybe even Four Lions, rather than a serious crime thriller.
Now, while we’ve seen both of the Salfordians on screen before not only in the likes of music videos, interviews, panel shows and even as two of the funniest guests to ever go on Celebrity Gogglebox, this latest venture will serve as their respective acting debuts.
According to the IMDb page, the synopsis of the film is as follows: “Crime caper about a stolen bag of money. Caught in the crossfire are ‘The Geezers’ a bunch of wannabe criminals who have bitten off more than they can chew. With 24 hours to grab the cash, London may just go up in smoke tonight.”
Shame it’s not set on the mean streets of Manchester, or better yet Salford, but you’ve still very much caught our interest.
You can see the first promotional poster for the film down below.
As for Davies, he has been involved with a number of small-budget TV film projects, as well as appearing in shorts and even video games, so it’s fair to say that getting 62-year-old Ryder and his ever-energetic hype man, 60, involved is quite the coup for his movie-making career.
Although the film has no release date just yet, we know that filming locations having included parts of Warrington and Pinewood Studios, will be produced by Loose Gripp Films and distributed by publishers High Fliers.
Given the high-octane nature of Geezers and its genre, the feature will involve lots of action, stunts, violence and even martial arts – though how much kung-fu these two will have learned for the project remains to be seen…
All we know is that the film is supposedly “coming soon” and if you don’t want to see Bez and Shaun Ryder doing their best impression of a Guy Ritchie gangster movie then you’re lying to yourself. Praying for a Rowetta cameo to put the cherry on top.
Hannah Starkie -
4th January 2021 
