The idea is a simple one – get the best bands who happen to be in the area to perform a one off song whilst you tape them doing it. There are many who’ve done similar things elsewhere – Black Cab Sessions and la Blogtheque being two more well recognised outlets that record local and touring bands playing a tune and put the recording up online – but few have done it with the magnificence that Manchester Scenewipe have consistently achieved. The key difference is that, whilst there are many thousands of self shot videos of bands playing in darken rooms on youtube already, the videos on manchesterscenewipe.co.uk put almost an equal importance on the location as the artist, making for some truly special moments. There’s no other website who’ve had Yoni Wolf of WHY? covering The Smiths in a vegan café, no-one who’s managed to get Lissie in with a scale replica of a T-Rex, few who’d have thought to break in to the board room of FAC251 to give Slow Club a chance to debut new material, giving the room it’s first taste of innovative, exciting music in decades.
As time has gone by, the sites notoriety has grown, as has it’s library of videos. With international stars, emerging acts and the cream of local talent all available for viewing, there are few who have done so much to help document the area’s burgeoning scene in such a short space of time as the Scenewipe team have and, to celebrate the fact that they’re soon to be shooting there 100th video, they’re putting on a gig. Finishing off the century will be performances from the excellent With that Knife, purveyors of glistening jaunty pop Cats in Paris and Denis Jones, who’s already had his melodic musings bizarrely captured by the team whilst taking a spin in the Manchester Wheel, as you can see below:
The celebration is being held at The Deaf Institute on August 12th, whilst tickets for the event are £6 advance, and you can get them from the venue as well as ticketline, though you can risk it and pay £8 on the door instead if you wish. There’s even going to be a giveaway for the first 100 people to make their way down as Manchester Mix Tape celebrates it’s launch. Attendance is highly recommended – think of how sick you’d be watching the video of Cats in Paris playing ‘The One’ and not seeing your smiling little face in the crowd. Heartbreaking.
Cats in Paris – The One [download]
