When you think of Joy Division you might think of Ian Curtis, The Hacienda, or Factory Records – but one thing that will certainly spring to mind is that insanely iconic ‘Unknown Pleasures’ album artwork.
Well earlier this year, the Music Declares Emergency campaign group teamed up with Peter Saville and Joy Division to reimagine the classic artwork as part of their campaign “NO MUSIC ON A DEAD PLANET”.
Now, it’s has been recreated again – only this time, it’s the size of a house.
The original artwork, designed by Peter Saville in 1979, depicts a series of lines which represent the radio waves emitted from a rotating pulsar (or a star to you and I) as it turns.
Over the years, the artwork has become one of the most recognisable of all time – but now, it has been given a much more impactful meaning by the Music Declares Emergency organisation.
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The iconic artwork has been redesigned with flat lines / Credit: Withington Walls
As part of their “NO MUSIC ON A DEAD PLANET” campaign – which is bringing music into the fight against climate change – they have reimagined the original piece. The previous lines that represented the radio waves have been reworked as flat lines to symbolise the death of a planet and the silence that follows.
This week, the poignant new artwork was unveiled as a giant mural on the side of a house on Moorfield Street in Withington.
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It’s been painted by hand by artist Tom Jackson – a founding member of London muralist collective Wood Street Walls – and given that the mural has popped up in Withington, you might have guessed that it’s collaboration with Withington Walls – a local organisation who have been setting up mural projects across the town to celebrate some of the famous people from the area.
These are the people behind the Marcus Rashford and Tony Wilson murals that you might recognise.
This Joy Division one is the latest one to add to their collection.
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Fitting, as the band’s record label, Factory Records, was founded in a flat just down the road from where the mural sits.
The original artwork remains one of the most recognisable album artworks of all time.
Music Declares Emergency is encouraging the entire music industry to join forces in the fight against climate change.
A whole host of musicians, DJ, producers and more have already got involved worldwide. Famous names like Annie Mac, Enter Shikari, Editors, Sam Fender, The Cribs, and more are all on board. They’re calling on governments and media institutions for immediate action and to paint a more truthful picture of environmental issues.
So, to find out more about Music Declares Emergency and the campaign, check out the organisation’s website.
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To read more about music in Manchester, check out our music page here. And don’t forget to follow The Manc Audio for all your Manchester music and events needs.
Featured Image – Withington Walls
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Lead singer of Aussie band blasts mystery Manc café for rude and ‘aggressive’ treatment by staff member
Danny Jones
The lead singer of Australian indie and alternative band, The Buoys, has come out to criticise a mystery Manchester café after receiving rude and ‘aggressive’ treatment from a member of staff.
Lead vocalist and rhythm guitar player, Zoe Catterall, hopped on the band’s TikTok account to vent and indirectly inform others about the as-yet-unnamed coffee shop ahead of the group’s show at Gorilla in the city centre this week.
Noting that much of her family originates from Manchester and she usually gets “excited” by the “sense of home” away from home whenever she comes here on tour, her visit this time around was sadly marred somewhat by the treatment by one unknown member of staff.
As Catterall details in the video, despite going out of her way to be polite and familiarise herself with a new city centre spot as a tourist, she was unfortunately met by the purportedly blunt female worker, who “rolled her eyes” at a simple question and a general rude demeanour. Here’s how she says it went down:
Admitting she “was not expecting the response that I got”, she goes on to detail the woman finger-pointing and exhibiting just a generally rude tone.
Initially suspecting that she might be holding up a queue or irking the staff in some other way, she eventually goes on to describe her behaviour as “being an arsehole for no reason” and reiterating that you “don’t have to be that mean”.
Adding that she was welling up and feeling overwhelmed by the whole incident after a jet-lagged morning without any breakfast or caffeine in her system yet, she eventually felt so uncomfortable that she decided to grab her coffee and go decompress elsewhere.
Moreover, after explaining that she ended up going on to the café’s Google reviews out of curiosity, it turned out that the Manchester spot had racked up quite a few people who also had negative experiences and rude or ‘aggressive’ treatment by staff.
We’re not going to join in on the speculation but the comments have some ideas.
To Zoe and anyone else who may have unfortunately been on the receiving end of this rude individual’s service, we’re sorry you had to put up with that and we assure you it doesn’t represent the majority of Manchester hospitality.
And for those trying to help get to the bottom of who the mystery Manc coffee shop/employee was, we hope it serves as a kick up the backside for whoever it may be and a reminder that it takes virtually nothing to be nice.
All that being said, we can’t think of any better way of helping Zoe and co. shrug it off besides plugging their gig supporting fellow Aussie alt-rockers Vacations at one of our favourite venues on Thursday night.
If you fancy going along you can grab a ticket HERE. Oh, and if you think you know which Manchester café might be, don’t go and be rude to anyone yourself – we’re better than that. We’re sure they’ll come across it themselves soon enough, don’t worry.
Take That shine at the AO Arena in an over-the-top spectacle of a show that we’ll never forget
Danny Jones
Iconic 90s boy band and homegrown heroes Take That played the first of their five-night run at the AO Arena this Tuesday night and boy do these lads know how to put on a show.
I’m going to start this off by admitting I wasn’t necessarily the biggest Take That fan going in – the hordes of huns, mums and tipsy grans firmly won that – but I did walk out with my headphones full blast listening back to all the greatest hits I’d just had brought to life in front of me in glorious technicolour.
At one point, it looked like they might not get to play their truly massive Manc arena shows after the drama with Co-op Live’s ‘opening’ fortnight was derailed but, fortunately, the AO Arena were there to rescue this week’s performances and put together the frankly barmy production in just a few days.
So, first of all, big props have to go to them and they rightly did on the night; the venue helped keep lots of people’s dream gig alive, with both the headliners themselves and support act Olly Murs encouraging a huge round of applause from the packed-out 23,000 cap arena.
Take That first night at Manchester’s AO Arena was pretty special, can’t lie.
‘Olly olly’ opening (yes, he did chant get the entire crowd to chant that)
Speaking of Olly, again, I can’t pretend to be the biggest Murs fan but two things are true, I knew most of the words to his biggest hits as he played a medley of his career from start to finish and the man has bundles of energy.
He cut a George Michael and almost Harry Styles-esque figure at times (even if a few years older, sure), sprinting from one side of the stage to another, cycling through the whole roster of dance moves and giving the crowd exactly what they wanted: that cheeky chappy vibe that got him where he is.
While the 2010s UK chart-topper was a deeply unserious performer for the most part, simply having fun and pratting about as he wished – he even had a fun little stunt where people could call his number on stage – we’re not mad at it because make no mistake, he showed everyone a good time.
And it wasn’t all just playing forgotten pop tunes to his main and admittedly adoring demographic, he he paid a touching tribute to his late friend Caroline Flack with a slower ballad and gave plaudits to his live band who helped bring plenty more. And then these three other lads emerged through the fog…
Olly Murs opens for Take That at the AO ArenaIt was never going to be just an ordinary show…Credit: The Manc Audio
Non-stop shenanigans and we loved every second of it
Quite literally, we mean: Take That’s entrance felt like some kind of weird second coming and, to be fair, it looked to be a biblical experience for the die-hards who began to scream at pitches we’ve rarely heard as they walked out to ‘Keep Your Head Up’, the opener from their last year’s album.
An obvious way to start their Manc tour dates off, we had some idea of the shenanigans about to happen after spotting a few videos on social media but in no way we’re prepared for the thematic whiplash that was about to take place. Or how much we were going to enjoy it.
We’re not joking when we say we lost track of how many costume changes there were, how many times the set design shifted from a set of stairs (think of a Vegas-style cabaret show, only at one point they were on fire) to a walkway descending from the ceiling and so much more madness.
The overarching narrative, in short, was a slightly sardonic twist on a Take That TV show, with Gary, Mark and Howard introducing and flicking through all the big moments down the years. It reminded us of The 1975 stage production at times, only a little less artsy and a bit more wink-wink, nudge-nudge.
If we had to give you a top-line summary of the show overall, it’s intentionally camp, over-the-top and often silly by design, but all with plenty of self-awareness underpinned by the lads who, just like Olly did beforehand, did nothing but have a laugh on stage. Oh, and yes, Gary did ‘the thing’, don’t you worry.
Be it marching up and down stairs in synchronicity before running out of breath when they remember they’re 50, to delivering dance routines galore and getting the rest of the band to come and sway side-to-side with everyone sitting round a sofa, they pull out of the stops when it comes to pageantry.
It also has to be said that no matter how big a Take That fan you are, hearing a full AO Arena belting out ‘Patience’, ‘The Greatest Day’, ‘Never Forget’; ‘Rule The World’, ‘Back For Good’, ‘Relight My Fire’ and oh my they really do have a shed load of absolute bangers, don’t they?…
I mean, just look at this:
Probably the best moment of the night – even if they were wearing strange, Daft Punk-type space helmets.
To cut a long story short, while Take That obviously wished “all the best” to the Co-op Live for when it hopefully opens next week, it felt rather fitting for them to return once again to the venue that first started playing decades ago and still how the record for having played the most shows at.
Better still, the whole bells and whistle spectacle did add something to the experience and it wasn’t as gratuitous as it perhaps looks in some of the clips that have been memed up online. Still daft, don’t get us wrong, but they know it is and it made moments when the vocals were front and centre memorable.
It doesn’t matter how many years on they are, Take That’s latest show proves exactly why your mum, grandma, auntie and probably your uncle loved them in their heyday, why it was such a big deal when they came back in the noughties and why they’re still selling out arenas to this day.
They’ve been doing this for years and they’re absolute pros – we don’t see them going away again any time soon. Roll on the next few nights!
Hannah Starkie -
15th October 2021 
