Sounds From The Other City, Salford’s celebration of new music, returns on Sunday 2 May – and this year it’s expanding. If you’re lucky enough to bag one of the £15 passes, you may well find yourself watching space rock in Islington Mill, a bike orchestra in The Salvation Army, ex-shoegazers in St Phil’s Church, and even poetry in the excellent ale pub The New Oxford. Here’s the one-day festival’s first daytime (3pm-11pm) announcements:

Lamb and Wolf at Islington Mill (club space)
Chrome Hoof
Bo Ningen
Divorce
Breaking Colts
Klaus Kinski

Mind On Fire vs. Wotgodforgot at The Salvation Army
Seaming
The Laze
The Legend Of The Seven Black Tentacles
Levenshulme Bicycle Orchestra

SWN vs. Hey! Manchester at St Phil’s Church
Damon & Naomi
Jesca Hoop (solo)
Y Niwl

Room Tones at Islington Mill (engine room)
The Boats
Danny Norbury
Dean McPhee

Ya Mamas Cooking at The Crescent
Liz Green
Serious Sam Barrett & David Broad
Elvis In Disguise
Zacc Rogers
‘Rockabilly Bingo’

Paradox at The New Oxford
Neil Bell
Mike Garry
Neil Campbell
Chris Killen

Bring On The Dancing Horses at The Old Pint Pot (upstairs)
Egyptian Hip Hop
Wu Lyf

Postcards From Manchester at The Old Pint Pot (downstairs)
The Rural Alberta Advantage
Islet
Help Stamp Out Loneliness

Comfortable On A Tightrope at The Angel Centre
Talk Normal
Pheremoans
Levert
Way Through
Sex Hands
Dinner Party
Waiters

And rather than just an over-crowded Islington Mill, SFTOC will be offering three different options by night:

The Old Pint Pot
Upstairs – Bring On The Dancing Horse vs. Now Wave
Downstairs – Under Achievers Please Try Harder vs. Pull Yourself Together

The Kings Arms
Upstairs – Mind On Fire, Herbal Sessions, This City Is Ours & Drum Music
Downstairs – Naive Melody vs. Stop Making Sense

The Black Lion
Upstairs – Contort Yourself residents party
Downstairs – Bollox vs. Bad Dancer

There’s also a Mount Pleasant Exhibition at the Gallery Space in Islington Mill, plus a ‘Box Office’ artist project to be announced. To stay up to date, join the Facebook group and follow SFTOC on Twitter. Tickets are available from Piccadilly Records, Islington Mill and Quaytickets.com.

It’s the first Bank Holiday weekend in May, which means Sounds From The Other City is happening tomorrow, Sunday, along Salford’s Chapel Street. Each of its previous four years have sold out – and 2009 looks to be no different. Here’s a note from one of the organisers:

Just a quick message to say that the last 40 Sounds From the Other City tickets went in Piccadilly Records on Firiday afternoon. Quay tickets is sold out now so this is your last chance to get hold of one.

There’s no guestlist and there won’t be any tickets available on the day. Stage times for the event, which kicks off at 3pm, are up on the SFTOC Facebook group.

Salford’s only new music festival is back! Or is it in fact Salford’s only music festival? Either way, Sounds From The Other City returns for its fifth outing on Bank Holiday Sunday, 3 May. We’ll be there supporting what is one of (Greater) Manchester’s best one-day events – assuming we can get tickets before it inevitably sells.

This year there are 10 promoters involved, with Terrorist, Hoya:Hoya, Your Mama’s Cookin, Bad Uncle and Huw Stephens among them. Here’s how their various stages are lining up…

LAMB AND WOLF @ THE KINGS ARMS

Sleeping States
Chops
Mazes
Wulf Wulf
Banjo or Freakout
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YOUR MAMA’S COOKIN @ THE SALFORD ARMS

Earnie’s Rhythm Section
Vinny and The Curse
JD Smith
Tom Attah
Zacc Rogers
Jack Pudding & Hans Abattoir

+ Rockabilly Bingo, Doo Wop Raffle, Jump-blues Bake-off, Vintage Stalls and more…

+++++++++++

MIND ON FIRE & HOYA:HOYA @ THE MARK ADDY

Live artwork by SKETCH CITY artists
Focused Lights Installation by VJ CYCLOPTIC
YouTube AV set by NORVUN DEVOLUTION
Illum Sphere (Fat City / Hoya:Hoya)
LA77 (live – Timbreland / Mind on Fire)
Mind on Fire House Band (live)

Resident DJs from Mind on Fire & Hoya:Hoya
JONNY DUB / RYAN HUNN / WOLI WOLS / LOGA / ZOIR

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BAD UNCLE @ UNITED REFORMED CHURCH

Fonik (Performing to Ghosts)
Gnod (Performing to The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda)
Sam and the Plants (live improvisation to animation)
A Middle Sex (performing live to Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘The Lodger)
SoPhIeS pIgEoNS (live set)
David A Jaycock

+++++++++++

COMFORTABLE ON A TIGHTROPE @ SALFORD RESTORATION OFFICE

Lexie Mountain Boys
Former Bullies
Sir Yes Sir

+++++++++++

GOLDEN LAB @ FROM SPACE

The Skaters
OAWRE
Bridget Hayden
Serfs

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BRING ON THE DANCING HORSES @ ROVERS RETURN

Plugs
Cats in Paris
The Invisible
Young British Artists
Hot Knives
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SWN @ SACRED TRINITY CHURCH

Marina and the Diamonds
Gallops!
Peggy Sue
Sweet Baboo
The Tombots
Nia Morgan

Jakokoyak DJ set
Huw Stephens DJ set

+++++++++++

TERRORIST UPSTAIRS @ BLACK LION

Legowelt
Digitonal
Dorian Wood
Troubleshooter
Mark Jones
English Electric
GordonTinnitus

Our picks from the lineup so far are Sleeping States, Mazes, Young British Artists, Banjo or Freakout, Sam and the Plant, Gnod, Cats in Paris and Former Bullies.

The day runs from 3pm until late and tickets are just £12.50 from QuayTickets.com and Piccadilly Records on Oldham Street.

Hey! Manchester first caught Alan Wilkes – aka Vinny Peculiar – playing solo at the Star and Garter in 2004. He was orchestrating technical problems to panic the sound man. The Smiths’ Andy Rourke was DJing (terribly) that night. Later, he and fellow Smithsonian Mike Joyce became Vinny’s backing band, while Bonehead, ex-Oasis, also played with him, somewhat bizarrely.

We’ve put Vinny on three times: for our first ever gig, with Jens Lekman at the Kings Arms; at our monthly night at Kro bar (he was ill but soldiered on); and at the Salford Arms as part of last year’s Sounds From The Other City. He always impresses the audience.

As part of a regular new series, we’ve asked Vinny to give us an unreleased track – a live performance of Everlasting Teenage Bedroom in this instance – and answer a few questions…

Reviews have included various comparisons from Bowie to Magnetic Field’s Stephin Merritt. But which artists have particularly inspired you?

Well I do really like Stephin Merrit; 69 Love Songs is just wonderful. I’m inspired by those who do what they do without overtly pandering to the forces of commercialisation, those who create stuff because they have to, it’s who they are. Working with Bill Drummond helped me to get some kind of perspective on art for arts sake. He is an inspiration for sure. Bowie of course goes way back, it’s a teenage glam generation affiliation thing… I mean, the 60’s had the Beatles, the 70’s belonged to Bowie – end of. Of the modernists I like Fleet Foxes… amazing singing. And I love people like David Byrne, Stephen Jones, Luke Haines; Joni Mitchell’s Blue is my all time favourite album… well it is today.

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