YES YES YES, MATES FEST ’99 at Threshold Festival is nigh. We’ve booked all of our favourite bands including super mates Sweet Deals on Surgery, they played Krystians bloody stag do for Petes sake. We got to speak to them about their live show and future plans
With an album and EP under your belt and new material in the works is it becoming hard to decide which tracks get into your set?
It is a bit now yeah. For ages (like a year) we didn't rehearse any new material as we were playing loads/being lazy. Also Tim going to America for 6 weeks put a stop to rehearsals for a bit. I wrote about 2 albums worth of stuff/ideas whilst he was away, which we're starting to rehearse now. I think we have 5 or 6 new ones done. We played 12 songs at our Manchester album Launch last month!
What is your favourite song to play live?
I really like playing ‘Quarterly Bill’. It's definitely a favourite of ours. Also ‘Take My Hand Punch Me In The Face’ is great to play.
Both tracks can be heard on Sweet Deals’ debut album below:
THE SNAKE AND THE SNOOZER
You guys are based in Manchester and Preston. What do those cities have to offer by way of gigs and festivals for grassroots artists?
There's so much music going on in both those places. It really overwhelms me sometimes actually. Especially Manchester. When I first moved to Manchester in the late '90s there were only a handful of smaller venues, The Night And Day Cafe and The Roadhouse being the key players, and the only festival I remember was In The City that Tony Wilson started in the mid '90s. Now there is at least one venue on every street and like 3 or 4 festivals every year! My favourite venue is probably The Castle in town. Love the sound in there. Gulliver's is great now too. There are so many promoters that put on great gigs. Matt BG who does all the Carefully Planned shows and festival being a major one. There's also Russ from 'Turn It Out' who puts on great gigs and Jay Taylor who runs Classic Slum and is now back in charge of Night And Day Cafe after ten years! A few more are Grey Lantern, UFU, Scruff Of The Neck and Party Hard. Also I want to give Fred's Ale House a shout out in Levenshulme as we played a great show there last month that I put on for our belated Manchester album launch with Pet Crow, Peaks and The Empty Page. I'm going to be putting on a very special gig there in August so watch this space!
In Preston you've got our Timmy who runs the Ferret which is pretty much the only good small venue I can think of. I've seen a lot of great shows there. They put on Glastonferret which used to be an alternative to Glastonbury (on the same weekend) and has now morphed into something much bigger so they put it on at the start of July instead! The Continental is a brilliant bigger venue too. We've supported The Lovely Eggs, The Nightingales and played a tribute concert for Tim Smith of Cardiacs there. Great venue! It's gigs are run by Rob Talbot of They Eat Culture promotions.
Follow ACPF who make the most of all of Manchester underground musical treasures:
A CAREFULLY PLANNED FESTIVAL
It is a bit now yeah. For ages (like a year) we didn't rehearse any new material as we were playing loads/being lazy. Also Tim going to America for 6 weeks put a stop to rehearsals for a bit. I wrote about 2 albums worth of stuff/ideas whilst he was away, which we're starting to rehearse now. I think we have 5 or 6 new ones done. We played 12 songs at our Manchester album Launch last month!
What is your favourite song to play live?
I really like playing ‘Quarterly Bill’. It's definitely a favourite of ours. Also ‘Take My Hand Punch Me In The Face’ is great to play.
Both tracks can be heard on Sweet Deals’ debut album below:
THE SNAKE AND THE SNOOZER
You guys are based in Manchester and Preston. What do those cities have to offer by way of gigs and festivals for grassroots artists?
There's so much music going on in both those places. It really overwhelms me sometimes actually. Especially Manchester. When I first moved to Manchester in the late '90s there were only a handful of smaller venues, The Night And Day Cafe and The Roadhouse being the key players, and the only festival I remember was In The City that Tony Wilson started in the mid '90s. Now there is at least one venue on every street and like 3 or 4 festivals every year! My favourite venue is probably The Castle in town. Love the sound in there. Gulliver's is great now too. There are so many promoters that put on great gigs. Matt BG who does all the Carefully Planned shows and festival being a major one. There's also Russ from 'Turn It Out' who puts on great gigs and Jay Taylor who runs Classic Slum and is now back in charge of Night And Day Cafe after ten years! A few more are Grey Lantern, UFU, Scruff Of The Neck and Party Hard. Also I want to give Fred's Ale House a shout out in Levenshulme as we played a great show there last month that I put on for our belated Manchester album launch with Pet Crow, Peaks and The Empty Page. I'm going to be putting on a very special gig there in August so watch this space!
In Preston you've got our Timmy who runs the Ferret which is pretty much the only good small venue I can think of. I've seen a lot of great shows there. They put on Glastonferret which used to be an alternative to Glastonbury (on the same weekend) and has now morphed into something much bigger so they put it on at the start of July instead! The Continental is a brilliant bigger venue too. We've supported The Lovely Eggs, The Nightingales and played a tribute concert for Tim Smith of Cardiacs there. Great venue! It's gigs are run by Rob Talbot of They Eat Culture promotions.
Follow ACPF who make the most of all of Manchester underground musical treasures:
A CAREFULLY PLANNED FESTIVAL
What plans have you got in the pipeline post Threshold?
We're going to start recording new songs. One of which will hopefully end up on a special 7 inch nearer the end of the year. I want to get at least another E.P released and rehearse loads more
MATES FEST ’99 takes place on March 31st at Unit 55 (Unit 51), Baltic Triangle as part of Threshold Festival. Tickets can be purchased from the following link:
TICKETS
We're going to start recording new songs. One of which will hopefully end up on a special 7 inch nearer the end of the year. I want to get at least another E.P released and rehearse loads more
MATES FEST ’99 takes place on March 31st at Unit 55 (Unit 51), Baltic Triangle as part of Threshold Festival. Tickets can be purchased from the following link:
TICKETS