twangorama

 thats it, thats the post

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 hello, hello. i am the ghost in the machine.....

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Dear friends

apologies for cross posting but i'm really excited and want to invite everyone to the party. Plus I'm somewhat befuddled by technology....

I'm delighted to present a really special gig as a pre-festival un psychogeographic but very splendid treat. NYCs finest Chris Mills plays the Britons Protection this Friday, 23rd May, 8pm. Support comes from the wonderful Liam Dullegan and Case Hardin... that's three top notch artists for just £5 AND there will of course be cake.

The 28th May heralds the start of Manchesters Second Accidental International Festival of Psychogeography, curated by The LRM.

For a month we will be invading The Royal Exchange and spaces all over Manchester to cause a spectacle, have fun, tell stories, redraw maps, ignite debates, go for walks, uncover treasure and loiter with intent to make Manchester wonderful.

Attached is a printable version of our programme, we're working on getting a readable version online, it will appear on our new website www.nowhere-fest.blogspot.com and in the meantime you can get in touch by emailing loiterSQUIGGLEAThepzombie.co.uk, calling 07974929589 or you can find us on facebook or myspace/the_lrm.

I really hope to see you Friday and if not very soon indeed - there's some ace treats coming up

Glittery love

Morag
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much excitement in search of the social... fine music tonight (friday) and a real world multi sensory extravaganza of a walk tomorrow, followed by films and more fab tunes. the lrm are proud to have been collaborating on this - we hope to see you 1.30 tomorrow at the bridgewater hall pebble. there will, of course, be cake.

http://www.singlecell.co.uk/

http://www.futuresonic.com/08/art/singlecell/

becuase the walk tomorrow is so fabulous first sunday is sleeping this month.

next week there will be news of the nowhere fest
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The LRM are delighted to announce Manchester’s second international psychogeography festival this May and June – and we’d like you to get involved….

We need loiterers and urban explorers, artists of all kinds, walkers, talkers, map makers, historians, situationists, space invaders, dreamers, mischief makers and more – anyone who is interested in looking at Manchester in a different way is welcome to join us.

We are planning a programme of events including visual art and urban interventions so we’re looking for people who want to create a spectacle, lead an exploration, go for a wander, play a game, make art, start a debate or have fun getting lost in the city.

Please come with us on our mission to remap Manchester. Our city is for more than shopping; we want to take psychogeography onto the streets and have some fun. Help us reclaim Manchester for those who love the place and want to loiter here.

The LRM (Loiterers Resistance Movement) is an open collective of artists and activists who can’t really agree on what psychogeography means but we like DIY maps and plants growing out of the side of buildings. Gentrification makes us sad but we believe our city is wonderful. We’ve been involved in various shenanigans and every first Sunday of the month we go for some sort of walk.

The Royal Exchange Theatre will be hosting our exhibition from 26th May – 28th June and there will be miscellaneous activities across the city. The LRM have some (limited) resources and practical support to help you make your idea a reality. The festival is affiliated to the TRIP (Territories Reimagined: International Perspectives) conference to be held at Manchester Metropolitan University from 19th – 22nd June 2008. See http://www.trip2008.wordpress.com for more details.

To get involved please email loiter@hepzombie.co.uk or contact The LRM on 07974929589 as soon as possible and definitely before April 1st.

PS If you’re curious about the LRM or just fancy a natter and a stroll please join us for our March derive, we’ll be meeting at 2pm downstairs at Café Pop, Oldham Street on Sunday 2nd March. It would be splendid to see you! xx

Please forward this message to anyone who might be interested and accept our apologies for any cross posting
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The 2nd Annual Manchester Epiphany Games*

This year 12th Night falls on first Sunday and so the LRM (Loiterers Resistance Movement) will be taking to the streets of Manchester for urban exploration and subversive silliness.

January 6th is a day for revelations, celebrations, divinations, profane wisdom, divine tomfoolery, starstruck pilgrimage… and a stroll in convivial company

We warmly welcome all to join us as we banish those hungoverdrawn post yuletide blues and

O Connect the birthday dots linking Joan of Arc to Syd Barrett (2 major and marvelous LRM inspirations)
O Spot the difference between 3 wise men and a bacchanalian feast of fools
O Hunt for hidden treasure – somewhere beneath the sky lurks a perpetual motion machine; what will you discover?

We’ll be meeting 2pm this Sunday (January 6th) at the café in John Rylands Library on Deansgate. If you’re new to the game, need more information or feeling lost look for the short lass with pink hair or call the LRM hotline

Please pass the invitation on and forgive any cross or inappropriate posting, we are having some difficulties traversing cyberspace at the moment

Glittery love and slightly belated wishes for a wonderful new year

The LRM xx

*last year we discovered magi in Manchester , turned the world upside down in the Medieval fashion and bewitched traffic with faery power.
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The LRM recently thought about celebrating our first birthday but we decided to build a space rocket and play our melodica instead. It didn't feel like a birthday because we're still not quite sure we exist. But it's a year since the Accidental International Festival of Psychogeography, which is when we were given a name and started the first Sunday shenanigans (how long does something have to go on before it's a tradition?)

Our manifesto is disgracefully over due; we keep getting distracted by the beauty of flowers growing out of the side of buildings and the tragedy of commercialisation. It will appear one day, when you least expect it, but generally we like chaos more than rules.

We are becoming afraid that some people think psychogoegraphy is just for first Sundays or special occasions and one must be taught how to drift or heed expert directions. This is anathema to the LRM. Don't listen to us! We like DIY (but we're scared of power tools) and we never, ever want people to think we are custodians of some secret knowledge.

Symbols, maps and anniversaries matter because we invest them with power. The solstices have always been an important time for the LRM; we like to melt time and blur the boundaries between the worlds of myth and materialism. Last year we collaborated with The Shaping to dematerialise the gruesome Beetham Tower which for us represents much that is rotten within our glorious city but we won't dwell on past glories.

This solstice practicalities mean many LRM collaborators are spreading magick and mischief outside Mancunia but still we wanted to join together to celebrate both the sacred and profane so we politely ask you, whoever, whatever and wherever you are, to join us in a great experiment and help answer the eternal question 'but what is psychogeography?'

We invite you to play a game with us at a time and place of your choosing on 22nd December 2007. These are the rules for you to ignore:

1 Stop what you're doing and tap your heels together. Spin around if you feel like it. (the LRM accept no liability for any accidents that may occur due to over zealous spinning so please take care)

2 Head off in whichever direction takes your fancy and wander at will until you want to stop.

3 As you traverse, aim to discover something new and marvellous and look for something you have never seen, felt or listened to before (we bet there will be something)

4 Repeat as desired at intervals through out the day

5 Or don't. If you think this is pointless you may be right. But we think it will be fun and we can create something beautiful from it.

6 If you do have a solstice adventure please send us a few notes, observations, random words or pictures. We will weave them together into a virtual derive, and thus create a psychogeographical dot-to-dot linking freelance flanauers into a unique and amazing work of art (trust us, we will)

Friends and comrades, this Solstice reclaim your footsteps, invent your environment and discover your own psychogeography. We don't know what it is.

With glittery love and golden apples from

The Loiterers Resistance Movement

PS The LRM would like to thank everyone who has inspired, frustrated, bumped into, walked, talked and raised a glass with us this year, whether you consider yourself a loiterer or not. You have changed our course and bought new ideas, joy and mischief. We thank you all whole heartedly for this and hope to get lost with you again in the new year

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By the time my head gets to phoenix

Sunday July 22nd 2-10pm (bands from 3pm) somewhere in manchester

A very special festival featuring the uks finest americana / alt.country musicians coming together in aid of the basement rescue fund

This is the rather wonderful line up so far: quiet loner, liam dullagan, (nee havenot) stuart warburton, sparkwood & 21, kait devoy and the reaper man

Plus there will be scrummy free food, cowboy art, between band entertainment and a few surprises.... and at least 3 more ace bands tbc…

Suggested donation on the door is £10 but please give what you can.

Tickets are limited due to the exclusive venue; please reserve your space at what promises to be top notch event (and get details of the location) by emailing twangorama@yahoo.co.uk

The day is a benefit for the basement, manchester ’s not-for-profit social centre and community hub. It was severely damaged during the recent northern quarter fire and the volunteer collective are raising funds to help us reopen as soon as possible.

The basement latest: www.thebasement.clearerchannel.org/new
For more details of the kind of music we like see www.americana-uk.com
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i don't play round here very much anymore, as you've probably noticed. Somewhere else I've just been told psychogeography is pretentious intellectual codswollop and i should go and wash cars instead. It's hard to disagree with such a potent critique.

I wanted to post a few people festival programmes but i don;t have any left so i'm reprinting the introduction here:




View subject to change but this is what we can see now. It’s a few hours before the festival starts so please excuse our poor grammar and giddy bewilderment

When I first heard the word psychogeography I had a wonderful turnaround moment of clarity, a little epiphany. It encompasses lots of things I’m fascinated by but I still find the best way to explain it to you is with a picture.

Names have such power – they give life and strength and meaning although that’s something different to everybody of course. But they limit too and it’s the same with maps – its hard not to be seduced by boundaries, Perhaps I like making maps because I’m useless at following them, A straight a-z misses out all the splendid wonkiness of life. If you asked 20 people to draw a map of the basement they would all make something different and I bet none of them would resemble the ordinance survey or a fire plan.

I’ve always loved aimless wandering and exploring, my favourite pastimes include catching random trains and finding secret passages across town and (best of all) watching urban wildlife… but hey! I’m not just an idler, I’m a flaneur and this is a derive… disorientation as experiment, play as an artistic statement…

The Loiterers Resistance Movement is about this and more. We got our name from Phaedra who was lamenting the lack of uncommercial public space in Manchester; she said having fun in Brisbane gives you a suntan but in Manchester all you get is as ASBO.

Sometimes it feels like its all about money and power in our post bomb nirvana. Every space has an advert on it and why is Canal Street the way it is? Why aren’t there any nurseries or greengrocers or haberdashers in the village? Who made gay a business opportunity? How does that make you feel and what if it’s meant to be your space but you don’t feel welcome? But there’s still magick too if you want to find it.

Did you know the grass mounds by Urbis are designed to make you want to play – but are deliberately to small to hide behind? I like that bit of town, all the kids making it their own territory. Legend has it there’s a medieval street somewhere underneath the triangle – its where the great Elizabethan alchemist John Dee lived when he was sort of banished to Manchester. I imagine his ghost finds the museums shiny glass surface an excellent scrying stone. (You can see the arse mark of a devil conjured by Mr Dee on a chair in Chethams but that is another story)

Anyway, I was thinking about all this on Sunday. We were taking pictures for the launch night quiz. The autumn light was glorious, everything was glowing and a friend and I were rushing about showing each other favourite haunts before the sun set… I’d love to tell you what we saw but then you’ll know all the answers and the quiz will be no fun… there’s some great prizes by the way, all treasure I’ve found on the city’s pavement… its amazing what you can find when you’re looking but I really ought to stop. Too much stuff is suffocating.

We walked home through the park, eating falafel and laughing at how beautiful it was and how peaceful – mostly because everyone’s too scared to go there at night. I would be too if I was on my own (that’s another map I want to draw, a collaborative one about street harassment but I can’t quite figure out how to make it work, what do you think?) It felt like the only place in town the modern panoptican couldn’t see us – cameras everywhere these days and don’t get me started about the beetham tower, there’s not room. We discovered new constellations amongst the stars whilst a fox watched us trespass on his land. Back on the street halogen glowed and litter blew around us as we passed the old factory and a roadside shrine. There was some barbed wire on the kerb – a morag trap – I fell and cut my leg.

As above, so below

I hope you like the exhibition (mmm.maps are sexy) and enjoy the accidental festival. It should evolve over time, there’s some great work coming to us soon from 56a via Italy that I’m very excited about, plus reports from the various expeditions and explorations. Please add your own embellishments, stories, maps and musings. The LRM are planning further actions and some point soon we might even publish our manifesto.

Its central tenet will probably be that we like flowers growing out of the side of buildings and yuppification makes us sad.

Glittery love and golden apples
The Loiterers Resistance Movement, December 2006 xxx
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