Various venues, Manchester city centre, October 18th-20th, 2009 OK, so what do Noah and the Whale, Coldplay, Little Boots, The Noisettes, Daft Punk and Arctic Monkeys have in common, aside from standing proud atop the pop pile? Well, they all went big after playing at In The City. Time for a nosy at the very [...]

Over the years, ITC panels have often captured the tense, yet symbiotic, relationship between ‘music’ and ‘business’ – one suspects no-one knows whether this happens intentionally or unintentionally.

14.15: It’s time for the most hotly-anticipated keynote of the conference – Jarvis Cocker’s lesson in the good, bad and ugly of lyricism. I walk in to find a particularly hirsute Jarvis brandishing a pointer like a high school teacher, talking about how David Bowie’s seminal Heroes is the complete lyrical package (“As Frank Carson [...]

13.30: Today’s big talk is themed around The Importance of Being Idols, or “celebrity versus creativity”. Chaired by the inimitable Tom Robinson, a particularly vocal panel includes Peter Hook, Jon McLure of Reverend and the Makers, Clint Boon, drummer Steve White and Steve Chandra Savale of Asian Dub Foundation. There’s a part of me that [...]

12.30: It’s the first (official) day of both In The City and Un-Convention, and Motel Towers’ laptop is about to blow up trying to download vital software. This is not a good state of affairs. KG 13.20: Thankfully, today’s programme at Studio is running a tiny tiny bit behind schedule, so we catch the last [...]

15.00: Go to the Midland to collect our passes and various goodies – it’s all rather quiet so far. Then we remember that the conference doesn’t officially start until tomorrow. In the absence of any panels or live music in the immediate vicinity, the Motel delegation decides it is thoroughly impressed with the robustness of [...]

Deadly Brotherhood of the Gun Tiger Lounge, Saturday October 4th, 18.40 Whilst everybody else is aping the 80s, or even the early 90s, Deadly Brotherhood of the Gun refuse to indulge in such ten-a-penny genre bending, doing instead what they do best – moody, positively beastly rock’n’roll. Rumours are about that a disgruntled Jack White [...]

Kate Goodacre, “23, T-minus a fortnight”, MCR Occupation: pluggerrrrrrrrrr Musical discoveries of In The City: The New 1920s. They’re immense live, so charismatic. You must see them if you’ve not already. Parka were really good fun at The Roadhouse on Friday night, and The Witch and the Robot were absolutely fucking terrifying, but brilliant at [...]

12.15: Yet another lazy start to the morning at Motel Towers, but it’s now time to head off to the Midland and make the most of these passes by attending some of the talks. The Bat For Lashes case study proves very interesting indeed; it’s certainly refreshing to hear someone speak of the time, care [...]

13:00: The annual North-Eastern noisefest that is the Spearhead Showcase takes place on Sunday morning in Studio on Peter Street. The Chapman Family, a band recently featured on Dance To The Radio’s Out Of The Woods And Trees compilation and controversially named in tribute to Lennon’s assassin, alloy the heavy metallic mentalism of Frank Black [...]