Music fans needed to look no further than Deansgate for November’s most exciting event. Louder Than Words, the music-themed literary festival, returned to the INNside Hotel in Manchester on the weekend of 10-12th November to provide an impressive schedule of talks about all things music and books. The annual festival includes talks by prolific music journalists, talented music writers, and legendary musicians.
This year’s line-up included talks from members of bands such as The Specials, Spandau Ballet, Simple Minds, Pulp, and Sex Pistols, among an array of other fascinating guests. Louder Than Words 2023 turned an otherwise grey, rainy weekend in Manchester into an unforgettable three days for music fans and musicians alike.
Slade‘s drummer Don Powell kicked off the festival on Friday, with a charming, thoughtful talk setting the tone for the weekend. It was effortlessly done – Powell is a semi-annual visitor of the festival and, despite his rockstar status, spent time mingling with volunteers and guests before and after his talk (as though he hasn’t sold tens of millions of records worldwide). Powell even went on to release his very own ‘diary entry’ of his time at the festival. On Friday evening, he was joined on the line-up by “the man who invented the eighties,” producer Trevor Horn, responsible for ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’ and hits by YES and ABC.
Bob Stanley, of the indie-dance band and Mercury Prize nominee Saint Etienne fame, gave a fascinating talk discussing his book on none other than the Bee Gees. Particularly interesting was the discussion of their time spent in Greater Manchester’s own Chorlton, where they grew up for a time and where they even made their debut.
Friday also saw Horace Panter of The Specials in conversation with author Daniel Rachel, on Rachel’s book about iconic ska label 2 Tone Records (which signed bands such as The Specials and Madness), as well as Douglas Macintyre’s talk on Scottish independent label Fast Product. The festival’s first day indicated a successful weekend ahead.
As audiences returned to Louder on Saturday, the festival once again included a broad range of talks, from Ian Broudie of Lightning Seeds to The Fall’s Paul Hanley discussing Buzzcocks. This was all alongside a music journalism workshop. In the afternoon, Simple Minds’ bassist Derek Forbes delivered a hilarious, yet sincere, talk, with stories of life in rock and roll and tender personal anecdotes. He discussed the death of his close friend ex-Spider-From-Mars Mick Ronson, as well as his experiences of touring with bands such as Eurythmics, The Pretenders, and Talking Heads.
In the evening, Louder welcomed Echo & the Bunnymen guitarist Will Sergeant, promoting his memoir Echoes. He spoke of the Bunnymen legacy, as well as their beginnings in the Liverpool post-punk scene – iconic venue Eric’s Club, which catalysed their success, was recalled fondly. “It felt special that you were in a band,” Sergeant said. “All of a sudden you were getting into Eric’s for free.” Sergeant also opened up about Echo and the Bunnymen’s late drummer Pete de Freitas, who was in the band until his untimely death in 1989.
The star of Saturday, however, was punk icon Pauline Murray, lead singer of Penetration. Murray arrived fabulously dressed in a hot-pink blazer and beret, and was interviewed on the legacy of punk classic ‘Don’t Dictate’, and the image of a female punk singer in the 1970s.
Growing up in County Durham, Murray commented on the unity of Northern musicians as a rival music scene to the epicentre of London. “It was easier to get to Manchester in three hours than it was to get to London in seven,” she remarked. There was solidarity between emerging punk and post-punk bands, Murray said; indeed, Joy Division’s first-ever gig was as support for Penetration at Electric Circus.
The final day of the festival on Sunday opened with a talk from John Robb, co-founder of Louder Than Words, music writer, and member of post-punk band The Membranes. Robb delivered a fascinating talk on “goth” music in promotion of his book The Art of Darkness: The History of Goth. The difficulty, he said, was in labelling music as “goth” when “most of the musicians in the book would reject the term.” Robb, who himself interviews many guests over the weekend, declared “there would be no goth without the influence of Jim Morrison.”
After Robb’s interview with music critic Simon Price on his new biography of The Cure (Curepedia: An A-Z of The Cure), came one of the high points of the entire weekend, in the form of Pulp’s drummer Nick Banks. Banks had the audience in stitches while taking them through the journey of finding Pulp through The Leadmill, their slow start, and eventual breakthrough via a John Peel session.
He also discussed that Jarvis Cocker/Michael Jackson incident at the 1996 Brits, which saw him nationally vilified (and arrested) for mooning the audience and allegedly assaulting Jackson’s stage extras. According to Banks, the entire band had had “too much free red wine” and Jarvis ran onstage “as a dare.”
Banks also revealed that it was none other than David Bowie who rescued Jarvis from significant trouble with the police and rehabilitated his media reputation (Bowie’s camera crew happened to capture Jarvis’ stage invasion, revealing it only to be the miming of a fart). Banks spoke fondly of the band’s recent sold-out tour and reuniting with bandmates, and remarked “Jarvis couldn’t fight his way out of a paper bag.”
Louder Than Words ended on Sunday evening with a final interview with Sex Pistols bassist Glen Matlock – who, in true punk fashion, arrived 20 minutes before his talk after flying in from Sicily, where he had played the previous night with Blondie (as you do). Matlock recounted working in Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood’s London shop SEX in the 70s, and how this eventually got him recruited by McLaren into the Pistols, along with Johnny “Rotten” Lydon.
Matlock’s new book, Triggers, tells his biography via songs that have defined his life, one of which is surprisingly ABBA’s ‘S.O.S.’. While ABBA and Sex Pistols may seem a strange combination, Matlock revealed that the song actually inspired the guitar riff in Never Mind The Bollocks track ‘Pretty Vacant’.
As 2023’s Louder Than Words drew to a close, this year’s festival once again proved to be a captivating, brilliant celebration of music and writing in all its forms. No other event quite creates such a community of music fans and artists in such close proximity. Entering the 11th year of a festival dedicated to the arts is a huge feat. Louder Than Words will undoubtedly return to Manchester next year with another stellar line-up.
