Many of Manchester’s most popular events happen when several local promoters band together – Salford’s Sounds From The Other City, which we’ll write about soon, and the recent Friends of Music, to name two.

Another example looks set to be Hungry Pigeon, a Northern Quarter-based festival that will take place in May. It follows last year’s MAPS festival – the difference this time being the collaboration between local promoters Stu Avery, Alex McCann, Andy Fletcher, Vuz Kapur – and also the quality of artists. Here’s who’s confirmed so far:

NINE BLACK ALPS
WAVE MACHINES
MISTY’S BIG ADVENTURE
THE TRAVELLING BAND
THE VORTEX
THE MAYBES
KARIMA FRANCIS
WHISKY CATS
THE JESSIE ROSE TRIP
FRAZER KING
CASIO KID
GIDEON CONN

The event, which is supported by Manchester City Council, will take place at 16 venues around the Northern Quarter including an intriguing ‘5,000-capacity outdoor stage in a secret location’. There will be 200 bands confirmed by May, plus other art forms will be represented.

Hungry Pigeon takes place from 22-25 May, with tickets (priced £23.50 for the weekend or £12 per day) now on sale from Ticketline.co.uk.

Oh and ‘PLEASE NOTE: ANYONE CLAIMING TO BE PUTTING ON A FESTIVAL CALLED MAPS THIS YEAR IS NOTHING TO DO WITH US, AND IS ATTEMPTING TO TRADE ON OUR SUCCESS FROM LAST YEAR…. PLEASE BE ASSURED THAT HUNGRY PIGEON IS THE RE-INCARNATION OF LAST YEAR’S EVENT AND WE ARE TAKING LEGAL ACTION AGAINST THOSE RESPONSIBLE!!!’

Another light-weight week for gigs again!

Tonight, The Boy Least Likely To play at Night & Day with support from Cardiff’s The School (a more interesting prospect in our opinion).

Then on Friday, there’s a potentially interesting collaboration between British folktronic band Tunng and veteran Sarahan rebels Tinariwen at Academy 3. Pulled Apart By Horses were due to play at Islington Mill too, but that’s been cancelled now.

And at Saki on Saturday, fellow Manchester music blog New Ears promotes its first show, featuring psychedelic post-punkers O. Children, Citizens, May 68, Egyptian Hip Hop and Sir Yes Sir. Best of luck to them! More info.

Hey! Manchester first got to know Starless and Bible Black during our first year of promoting. They were main support for our sixth ever gig – Espers at Levenshulme’s Klondyke Club – and we invited them to play again at Vetiver’s sold-out Roadhouse show. They’re one of Manchester’s best bands so we only ask them to be main support for some of our bigger gigs.

Pete and Raz from the band got together to fill us in on their current activities, and they also provided us with a sneak peak from recent recordings.

How busy are things in the Starless universe right now?

Getting busier for lazy folk like us. We had a relatively quiet time in 2008 in terms of live shows but spent much of it working on two albums. The first album was finished earlier this year and is now due out in September. The second one is all home recordings on our eight-track tape machine and is coming together slowly and is about half done. Not sure when that will be released.

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So the fourth member of Trof’s happy bar family opens this week. It’s called The Corner:

Taking inspiration from the disused warehouses of Manchester’s industrial past and the filthy little parties that rock the city every weekend, the club will be grubby little dive with a sound system forged in the pits of hell and a music selection to match.

The venue, owned by Trof, is being run by a collective of promoters, musicians and scenesters who have banded together to bring a torrent of delights for the opening month.

The Corner sits within spitting distance of the original Trof, where Landcross Road meets Wilmslow Road. The launch party on Friday starts at 8pm and the place is off to a flyer with the following promoters/bands already signed up:

Hit & Run •• Riot Jazz •• Sex with Robots •• Hoya:Hoya •• Cirque •• Norvun Devolution •• Format •• Shiftwork •• Jupiter Rooms •• Micron •• Groovement •• Global Beats •• Fuse FM •• Ernies Rhythm Section •• Hot Club •• Comedy Sluts •• Growl •• Cool Runnings •• Chess Club •• Growl •• Ten Bears •• The Mouse Outfit

Check out this month’s timetable, which also includes various drinks offers to keep Manchester’s students permanently inebriated. There’s also a new blog (with stealthy grey-on-black colouring) at www.cornercollective.co.uk.

An illness-delayed update this week, but thankfully there were no good gigs tonight anyway. And in fact there isn’t much happening this week generally…

Tomorrow the Answering Machine, who we profiled last month, play a homecoming show at Ruby Lounge. If you’re going please make sure you get there early enough to catch Norway’s Casiokids (pictured above) as they impressed quite a few people supporting Of Montreal in January. This is a Lost & Found Club night.

Then on Thursday, two good gigs to choose from: Long Beach’s Crystal Antlers play a WOTGODFORGOT/Up the Racket night at the delightfully dingy Retro Bar. Tickets.

Or back at Ruby Lounge, Damo Suzuki from Krautrockers Can will be joined by ‘the Sound Carriers’, who are Martin Archer (effects), Steve Dinsdale (drums), Jack Hardicker (percussion), Phil Kay (guitar), Gary Mclure (keys), Jay Taylor (bass) and Andrew Wright (guitar). Damo says ‘You will have ORGANIC, SUPER NATURAL performance anyway… we’ll see what will happen.’

And that’s your lot for this week! Isn’t March rubbish?