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Day: 21 October 2014

Club: Stevie Wonderland presents John Morales

Written by Ben Allan on . Posted in Music.

16th October

Roadhouse

8.5/10

You could be mistaken for thinking that Stevie Wonderland has been around for 5+ years considering the following they command in their spot as Manchester’s finest purveyors of disco. They’ve enjoyed a number of successful shows in recent times at Gorilla, but decided to downsize to the much more intimate Roadhouse tonight. However, this certainly did not mean a lapse in the quality of their bookings, as they welcomed John Morales to the smaller venue for a much anticipated 3 hour set.

New York legend Morales is one of the most prolific artists in disco with more productions to his name than most people have had hot dinners. Both on his own and as one half of famed duo M&M, Morales has produced for such royalty as The Fantastic Aleems, Jocelyn Brown and The Temptations.

The night started well with the high standard of the residents shining through. Hits such as JV’s ‘Edit Channel XXX’ and Donna Summer’s ‘I Feel Love’ warmed the crowd up nicely before the master took to the decks. Opening with Prince – ‘Wanna Be Your Lover (Dimitri from Paris Re-Edit)’, Morales never looked back and delivered a set that combined classics with more modern hits perfectly. Records such as Terrence Parker’s ‘Your Love’ and ‘Never Too Much’ by ‘Luther Vandross’ kept the punters moving all night long and had many wondering where the last three hours had got to when the last song ran its course and the lights came on.

Stevie Wonderland always provides a refreshing chance to dance to something a little different from the usual offering in Manchester and this night was no different as they once again confirmed their status as one of Manchester’s most enjoyable nights out.

Club: Ape vs Ram Jam @ Warehouse Project

Written by Gaby Baxter on . Posted in Music.

11th October

Store Street

7.5/10

This week’s Warehouse Project offering was certainly not for the fainthearted. Boasting arguably one of the best line-ups of the season, revellers descended on the new/old Store Street venue ready for a night of debauchery and drum and bass.

Opening with sets from Rich Reason, Dismantle and Chimpo, the night was in full swing by the time David Rodigan took to the stage in a packed out Room 1. Despite playing the same predictable set, there’s no arguing that Rodigan’s blend of jungle, dancehall and reggae classics is always loved by the crowd. Now well into his 60s, the radio broadcasting legend still manages to bring the heat in all his towel whirling glory with massive tunes such as ‘Incredible’ and ‘Jah No Partial’—and, of course, the tune no Rodigan set would be complete without: ‘Welcome to Jamrock’.

DJ EZ delivered the more melodic tunes of the evening, smashing out old-school favourites such as Daniel Beddingfield’s ‘Gotta Get Thru This’, and even Chic’s ‘Le Freak’, proving that the most hardcore of punters still go fucking nuts for disco. Ending on Benga’s massive dubstep classic ‘Night’, EZ’s set appealed to the diverse crowd of past their prime ravers and freshly corrupted students.

DJ EZ

From then on the night took a ferocious turn, the next few hours a blur of flashing strobes and thumping bass. Andy C’s raucous set was the clear pinnacle of the evening, bringing an hour of high-energy tunes to an army of gurning faces. Dropping banger after sweat-inducing banger, the undisputed king of drum and bass finished on his infamous remix of Major Lazer’s ‘Get Free’. Wilkinson polished off the evening with hits such as ‘Take You Higher’ and chart topping ‘Afterglow’. As the crowd began to thin out, only the true nutters with enough stamina (or class As) remained, skanking away well into the wee hours of the morning.

The return to the famous arches under Piccadilly certainly did not disappoint. The smaller crowd is a welcome change from the battery farm packed Victoria Warehouse, and this week the WHP team certainly provided a satisfyingly wild evening leaving you needing a week of sleep and a cuddle from your mum.

Changing the Way Feminism Is Defined

Written by Roberta Rofman on . Posted in Features.

Over the years, feminism has received a lot of negative attention. Universities particularly hold a strong feminist movement. The imagery of angry, unattractive women who can’t get a man still springs to a lot of people’s minds when the word feminism is brought up, and despite the time we’re in, people still seem to define the ‘f’ word as such. Many people deny being a feminist just from the negative publicity that the word gets. So the question is whether how feminism is defined should be changed to appeal more to the public?

There are numerous negative connotations that feminism holds. A lot of people confuse the core of feminism with the values of being ‘male haters’ and female superiority. First thing to clear up is that feminism has nothing to do with hating the male gender, rather the heart of it is about equality between men and women.

While studying my A-levels, I remember discussing feminism and our teacher asked us what it was. A guy put his hand up and said it was nothing more than hating the male gender. This surprised me as I didn’t realise that even at that stage, people were still completely wrong about a word that has been around for so long.

A lot of people still don’t identify with being a feminist due to the negative connotations that it has, both men and women. Saying you’re a feminist to some people instantly puts them off and gives them a certain view of you. Some people still identify being a feminist with outdated views, seeing old women who have become bitter with time and picturing the suffragette movement. While it helped significantly, a lot of people see it as too extreme, especially for the modern age. So has the term been overused and dragged through the mud too much for it to be seen for what it really is?

The Guardian published an article by a student blogger who discussed the problem of feminism within universities and why it is an issue that should possibly be relabeled. Lad culture is a staple to a lot of people’s lives at university. Lad culture praises the degradation of women, getting drunk as much as possible and generally supports sexist attitudes towards the opposite sex.

Due to this surge of ‘lad culture’ at universities, it can make it more difficult for men to call themselves feminists. The focus is on ‘feminine’, giving it the connotations of being related solely to females, rather than a matter of equality and missing the point that feminism includes male rights of equality too.

Feminists themselves can give the label a bad name. Through history there has been a mixed batch of feminist approaches. From standpoint feminism which believes that feminism is about understanding a woman’s experience through her eyes so the only people who can be true feminists are women, to liberal feminism which believes in equality and anti-discrimination.

There have been numerous suggestions for changing what feminism is called. From ‘genderism’ to ‘humanist’, which is advocated by Susan Sarandon who says that the term feminist is a label that is too stigmatised to be taken seriously so it shouldn’t be used anymore.

In 2013, The Huffington Post did a poll on their website which found that only 20 per cent of Americans considered themselves as feminists, 23 per cent of which were female and 12 per cent male. Despite this, 82 per cent believed in equality between males and females in the polls. So is pushing a term that so many people don’t like counterproductive? It seems that people continue to believe the stereotype of the typical feminist being an angry man hater who solely seeks female superiority among the male population, and it doesn’t seem to be changing.

Netmums.com, in 2012, conducted a similar study where they surveyed 1300 women and found that only one in seven of those women called themselves feminists. They also found that younger women were less likely to accept the term in identifying themselves.

So why not get rid of the term and exchange it for many of the other suggested substitutes such as ‘humanist’? Feminism can be seen to scare off non-feminists and since the younger population aren’t keen on adopting the word, it seems it’s futile in trying to get back what it stood for.

Yet, feminism is a word with such a strong connotation, despite being seen as bad to some, it holds a fiery past and by getting rid of it, you would lose so much of the history and almost forget all those who fought for the true meaning of the word. What we should be doing instead is focussing on teaching people more about the core of the meaning and stop being afraid of being seen as one.

Things you didn’t know about Fallowfield

Written by Haider Saleem on . Posted in Features.

Fallowfield is a big love of a lot of Manchester students. Being, arguably, the hub of student life in Manchester, ‘facts’ have accumulated over the years, making Fallowfield a really interesting place to live in. Having everything you could possibly want, it’s assumed that here isn’t anything that is unknown in Fallowfield. But here are some things that you may not have heard before.

 

One for the football fans, Fallowfield was the host of the 1893 FA Cup final.

The 1893 FA Cup final between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Everton was hosted in the old Fallowfield Stadium (now Richmond Park), with just one goal scored by Wolverhampton making them the winners.

Having a capacity of 15000, the attendance of 45000 meant the majority of spectators had no view of the match. In addition, the stadium also hosted the 1899 FA Cup semi-final between Sheffield United and Liverpool. The match had to be abandoned due to a crush in the crowd.

 

The Chemical Brothers’ first gig was also at BOP.

Until its closure in January 2013, BOP was known for cheesy music and, apparently, being the ‘easiest place to pull in Manchester’, but it once was so much more than that. With free entry, cheap drinks and a good location, BOP was once the most popular student night at the University—quite a shock seeing how it’s seen by a lot of students today.

Held in Owens Park tower ballroom every Friday, it is widely rumoured that the Chemical Brothers who met whilst studying history here in Manchester, played their first gig at this notorious night. Coming back to Manchester for Warehouse Project will probably be a nice change.

 

The tower is also a place that has held a lot of notoriety always held a lot of notoriety. From the tower challenge to grimy rooms and scary lifts, one that is less well known is the tale that someone let off every alarm in the Tower.

All 18 floors were set off and the perpetrator someone managed to avoid getting caught as there aren’t cameras there. So they could have been a student or a wanderer of the street, or a gang of vigilantes, we’ll never know and the mystery lives on.

After talking to some people who didn’t stay in Fallowfield in first year but moved there later on, I was surprised to hear that they were not aware of who the Magic Bus Lady was. Appearing out of nowhere, very few people every really see her move. She is usually surrounded by many suitcases and plastic bags full of mysterious objects, and hands out flyers containing her life stories and generally what’s on her mind. No one really knows what she is ranting about.

There are probably loads more that are not yet known, still there are plenty of years to create new facts.

University of Manchester Rumours

Written by Mancunion on . Posted in Features.

Rumours are inevitable in a university as big as Manchester—quite a few have floated around, and with freshers entering the university every year, they never seem to die out.

One that is most likely to believed is based in the heart of student living, Fallowfield. Walking into the massive supermarket for the first time, my flatmates said “Did you know that this Sainsbury’s is the most expensive in the country?'”

Having limited knowledge about Manchester, it made sense and is still believed by students. The supermarket has a large student customer base and is located in a very convenient location for students who do live in Fallowfield, is huge, and sells everything and anything a student could ever need. There are many discount stores like Lidl and Aldi dotted around the place that can save you quite a bit of money, but effort is something a lot of people think about first, so even if Fallowfield’s Sainsbury’s is the most expensive in the country, it’s not going to scare off customers, especially students. The idea of paying £1 for an ice cream doesn’t seem that horrible when you compare it to taking a ten minute bus journey to Lidl.

Fortunately for Fallowfield residents, this is false. Legality is probably to thank due to national pricing policies, where the same price has to be enforced nationwide. So, having the same price everywhere else bar one store located in a student area is more than a little bit dodgy. In 2011, Tesco also faced controversy when they were accused of selling some products for less in Scotland than everywhere else. In 2012, The Mancunion found that, on the contrary, Fallowfield’s Sainsbury’s wasn’t even the most expensive supermarket in the area, with Tesco reaching a slightly higher overall price total. Furthermore, The Mancunion bought Sainsbury’s goods online and compared them to the Fallowfield store, finding that the price was in fact the same. Rumour busted.

There’s also the rumour that Oxford/Wilmslow Road corridor is the busiest bus route in Europe. This can easily be believed, as the wait for a bus isn’t usually that long, and when a bus does turn up, it’s leading a line of four more buses, resulting in a road that’s rarely empty.

On occasion, bus drivers with just-about-empty buses don’t even bother stopping for a muddled line of students as they probably realise that another bus will turn up in 15 seconds. Despite all this making the rumour believable, it is something that, most likely, can’t be proved.

The initial issue is that there isn’t really any way of comparing the bus frequency on different routes throughout Europe. The number of buses going down a road change depending on the time of day and while the wait for a bus is often not that long, with one usually turning up every minute, on some occasions it can frustratingly long. Also, buses at night time are far less frequent than those during the day.

However, the fact the Manchester runs night buses may give it an edge. The Parliamentary Select Committee on Transport in 2006 described Wilmslow Road corridor as “chaos” and “overcrowded to the point of congestion” due to the competitiveness of the two main bus companies, Stagecoach and First. While it’s not the most farfetched rumour, there’s no way of really confirming it.

The medical building, Stopford, has also been in the spotlight of university gossip. It’s a slightly more doubtful rumour but still exists. The fourth floor of Stopford harbours a lot of mystery. Restricted to staff, a big sign displaying such a warning rests on the walls of the stairs leading up to the forbidden corridor.

After asking some medical students, a Starbucks is apparently located on the fourth floor, but no-one is ever able to get up there—not the best business strategy. But that’s not too exciting, hardly a rumour that’s going to spread around campus like wildfire.

The real gossip comes from word that animals occupy the fourth floor and have made quite a comfortable home up there. Not solely lab-type animals like rats and frogs but even monkeys. After asking staff at the front desk, we were told that as fun as this would be, the fourth floor does not have an array of animals that would put the African plains to shame; although apparently an ostrich did overstay his welcome there once.

There has also been the rumour that the buildings on the northern campus of he university are haunted. After asking some people, while this is believed to be true by some, this is not a common rumour. On whether this is true, the issue of ghosts is still a mystery so this one remains unsolved.

The McDonalds in Fallowfield is also always talked about as being the first drive-thru restaurant in the UK. But did one of the biggest corporations in the world really open their first drive-thru in the heart of South Manchester? A quick search online is filled with the same stories, but nothing official confirming it. However, we reached out to McDonalds and they did confirm to us that the Fallowfield restaurant on Wilmslow Road opened on 15th September 1986 and was their first drive-thru restaurant in the UK. History right in the heart of Fallowfield.