Route is delighted to announce the acquisition of Paul Hanley’s new book, Sixteen Again: How Pete Shelley & Buzzcocks Changed Manchester Music (and me). It’s a love letter from Paul to his favourite band and his favourite city. Read more about the aquisition here.
SIGNED COPIES: Steve Pringle signing copies of You Must Get Them All in The Red Lion, Prestwich. The eagle-eyed amongst you will notice that these are the lesser spotted hardbacks. Some of which are numbered editions, but are slightly imperfect so they're generally only available on our book stall where they can be seen before purchased. If you want one though, message us. Steve also signed some paperbacks, they're now for sale here.
NEW TITLE: The Old Oak, the official book of the major motion picture, The Old Oak is the third in a trilogy of films set in the northeast of England that includes the Palme d’Or winning I, Daniel Blake and Sorry We Missed You.
The Old Oak is a special place. Not only is it the last pub standing, it is the only remaining public space where people can meet in a once thriving mining community. The landlord, TJ Ballantyne, is hanging on to The Old Oak by his fingertips, and his hold is endangered even more when the pub becomes contested territory after the arrival of Syrian refugees into the village. In an unlikely friendship, TJ encounters a young Syrian, Yara. Can they find a way for the two communities to understand each other? So unfolds a deeply moving drama about loss, fear and the difficulty of finding hope.
Features original screenplay, photos from the film and production notes from cast and crew, including Paul Laverty, Ken Loach and Rebecca O’Brien.
Pre-order now to be amongst the first to read it. And give yourself the privilege of reading the film before watching it. Books start shipping mid-September.
The Old Oak won the The Prix du Public at the Locarno film festival. This is the festival audience vote. And quite an audience it is too. The films are screened to 8000 people, outside, on a screen four stories high. Paul Laverty told us that during the screening of The Old Oak, he watched the audience. No one got up to leave, no fidgeting, no looking at phones. And then they voted it to win The Prix du Public! Click here for details on the award.
Steve Hanley lists his favourite basslines in an article for The Wire. Read that here. Steve has organised a special concert with HOUSE Of ALL at Liverpool to raise funds for a cause close to his heart. It's for Sarcoma UK, a rare form of cancer. The gig takes place at Jimmy's, Liverpool on 30th June. Tickets can be bought here. If you can't make the gig, but would like to donate, you can do so here.
Route is delighted to announce the acquisition of Mark Hoyle’s memoir, Swerve – an evocative insider’s account of post-punk Manchester. Mark was the front man for the group Dub Sex. The memoir recounts how the Manchester music community became his surrogate parent after he escaped social care at the age of 16 following a turbulent childhood, and how he carved out a place in that world for himself. It's a full and rich exploration of everything that fed into Dub Sex and is packed with stories of the familiar and not-so familiar faces and places that made Manchester such a hotbed of musical activity from the early days of punk to the arrival of Madchester in the early 1990s. Read more on the acquisition here.
Steve Pringle has interview the members of HOUSE Of ALL for the Quietus. They talk about their formation, the recording of the album, some of the songs and their shared history of being in The Fall. As is pointed out in the interview, 'four of the six people around the table (your interviewer included) have published a book about The Fall (all via Route Publishing)'. Read the interview here. And you can read more about the books Route have published on The Fall here.
We have been working on Volume 2 of Clinton Heylin's Double Life of Bob Dylan biography. Editing only, Penguin Random House are publishing in the UK. When Clinton first visited the Bob Dylan Archive in Tulsa, and looked through the substantial new material that had become available, he declared that it changed his understanding of Bob Dylan. This is the volume where that new material really kicks in, starting after Bob's motorcycle accident in 1966 and running up to 2022 (the majority of the archive is post-1967). Read Clinton's Open Letter about the publishing process of the book here.
Congratualtions to Helen O'Hara. What's She Like for making the long list for the Penderyn Music Book of the Year Award. Congratualtions to the winner of the prize, Bob Stanley, for his book on the pre-history of pop music, Let's Do It. In December, Helen was interviewed by Duncan Seaman for a feature in the Yorkshire Post.
Iain Matthews features in an Americana UK American Bedrock series with a career overview and appreciation piece by Rick Bayles, positioning Iain as 'one of the principal architects of what has become a British americana sound'. In December, Iain and Andy Roberts came to The CAT Club in Pontefract to play a Plainsong set. It was part of a UK tour to mark 50 years since the original Plainsong incarnation, and in celebration of Ian Clayton's In Search of Plainsong book and a new box set release. There's a series of videos from the show on YouTube: Reinventing Amelia is four songs from the classic Amelia Earhart album with new arrangements, House Un-American Blues Activity Dream is raucous take on the Richard Fariña song they played back in the day, and an encore of I Don't Want To Talk About It, a song they first played in the last performance by the original Plainsong in December 1972.
Records
Steve Hanley, Paul Hanley and Simon Wolstencroft have joined up with fellow ex-Fall members Martin Bramah and Pete Greenway to form a new band, HOUSE Of ALL. They went into a recording studio with no material and created their debut album on the spot over a few days. Martin later added lyrics and vocals. You can read some context to the story in this Guardian piece and see the band in the studio in this short video. The eponymous debut album was released in April 2023. Details here.
Bay City Pistols. Quick on the heels of their debut album, HOUSE Of ALL have released a limited edition CD that includes live recording from the 2nd Salford show of their debut tour at The White Hotel recorded by Grant Showbiz, plus a handful of remixes of tracks from the debut album by guest artists. Click here for details and grab one while you still can.
Live
Clinton Heylin will be presenting Far Away From Myself at the following events:
5th October 2023 The CAT Club, The Robin Hood, Pontefract. Launch event, 7pm. Tickets sold out.
6th October 2023, Badlands, Smokey Joes, Cheltenham, 7pm. Click here for tickets
Podcasts
Our friends at The Cat Club (Classic Album Thursdays) have launched their own podcast series. They run a monthly album club in Pontefract, with very special guests invited to talk about the selected albums. They have been recording the events and are now releasing them. The podcast can be found wherever you get your podcasts. Here's a link to the Spotify page, and the Apple Podcasts page. Have a browse, there'll unbdoubtedly be an album special to you. Learn more about The CAT Club here.
Helen O'Hara is a guest on The Strange Brew Podcast. Hosted by Jason Barnard, The Strange Brew is a mixture of interview and music. There's a long list of distiguished guests in the archive. You can listen to Helen's show here. Also featured on the The Strange Brew are Iain Matthews & Ian Clayton talking about Iain's career, Michael Gray talking Bob Dylan and Tom Clayton talking about the time when quiet was the new loud.
Oh! Brother
Paul and Steve Hanley host this podcast about The Fall. Available on the usual platforms. Find all episodes here.
Funky Si's A-Z of Manchester
Funky Simon Wolstencroft and Jackie O'Malley podcast series about Manchester. Original 26 episodes take it one letter at a time, plus some specials. Available on the usual platforms. Find all episodes here.