21st July 2011 – PYT Special
Hello.
It comes with great pleasure and honour to be announcing a newsletter take over from Dan Feeney and Hannah Bayfield, AKA Pull Yourself Together.
If you didn’t know, they DJ every fortnight at Common, produce an excellent fanzine and put on live shows around Manchester. With supreme sadness they are moving to Sheffield in August, so next Wednesday 27 July will be the last ever Pull Yourself Together! Boo!
For the first time in Common history we have given the FULL newsletter to someone else, read on.
Bests.
The Web Badger.
PYT vs NEWS
No Hacking Here
“And it looks like we might have made it, looks like we’ve made it to the end”
It is with heavy hearts that Team PYT are readying ourselves for our final night at Common on Wednesday 27th July. Three years ago we wandered into this humble little bar, before it became the bustling new media metropolis it is now, with an idea to play some pop records and write a few words about it. Quite unexpectedly they said yes, and thus Pull Yourself Together was born. Well, actually Painting and Kissing was born, but we soon realised that PYT was probably a better name.
We have really grown attached to this place, it has very much become a second home. We dread to think how many meatball sandwiches, bowls of chilli, bottles of Bundaberg Ginger Beer and pints of Flowers we’ve consumed over the years as a result of spending our time here. We’d like to say a massive thank you to everyone who has been to a PYT night at Common, from our birthday parties where we tried the implausible idea of live music, through our sometimes overblown Christmas nights (I believe that Leo had heard just one too many Beach Boys song in 2010…) to everyone who has joined us for an evening of indiepop and fanzines every other Wednesday. You guys seriously made it all worthwhile.
Equal if not greater thanks goes to everyone from Common who has supported us. Duncan will forever be the unofficial third member and occasional dictator of PYT, and has been both an inspiration and a massive help. Leo, Will, Ffion, Paul, Iwan, Damon and all the rest of the Common Family over the years have made us feel like we belonged in the place, and it has been a pleasure to work alongside them all. We may be running off for a new adventure, but we’ll never truly be able to leave this place…
Support Your Local Brewer
Drink Some
Ale is important. Supporting the fine work of your local brewer is even more important. There are many things that we are going to miss about Manchester, but one of the main ones is the excellent beer produced by the chaps down at the Marble Brewery. Probably for the best that they are just as popular on the other side of them hills as they are here then, and we’ve already got a list of ale houses where they make a guest appearance. The fine folks at Marble strike a marvellous balance, with complex and occasionally challenging beers (Dan’s favourites) sitting alongside the more refreshing and thirst quenching ones like Ginger Marble (Hannah’s favourite).
That they have opened 57 Thomas Street in the past 12 months is testament to their success, and also their ambition – perhaps you shouldn’t be able to fit kegs of ale, a vast selection of continental beers (and an unbeatable cheese selection) into the tiny sliver of a premises, but manage it they do. Weeknight evenings at the Marble Arch, Sunday afternoons at 57 Thomas Street, many pints supped at many beer festivals… the Marble is quite firmly a part of our lives. It should be part of your lives too.
All Aboard, All Aboard
The Indie Train
We may never have been exclusively an indiepop night, but it has nevertheless remained at the heart of what we do. And at the heart of the UK indiepop scene is Indietracks – if Common is our second home, this little festival in Derbyshire is our holiday cottage, a weekend of indiepop bands from all over the world, steam trains, good beer and even better people. This coming together of like-minded (though by no means soundalike) bands from Europe, the US and beyond always provides the temptation to host an Indietracks gig, especially the chance to put on bands from further afield than we could do under normal circumstances.
This year’s no exception, and on Tuesday 26th July (the night before our Final Hurrah at Common) we will be taking over The Castle Hotel to showcase four bands who we feel show the breadth that indiepop has to offer. We’ve got the pop perfection of Seattle’s Math and Physics Club, swooning Chicago sounds from Very Truly Yours, latest PYT Records signings and shouty young men Moustache of Insanity and Sheffield’s finest spiky pop-sters The Sweet Nothings – it’s going to be ace. And it’s only £4, which is dead cheap. It would be lovely to see some friendly faces there for our final gig in the city. Did we mention there will be cake…
THIS week at Common
Thursday 21st // Stop Making Sense
9pm until 2am – free
Friday 22nd // Freitags with Craig Campbell
9pm until 2am – free before 10pm / £2 after
Saturday 23rd // Friends In Common with Eclair Fifi (Lucky Me)
9pm until 2am – free before 10pm / £2 after
NEXT week at Common
Wednesday 27th // Pull Yourself Together – (the last one!)
8pm until midnight – free
Thursday 28th // Stop Making Sense
9pm until 2am – free
Friday 29th // Freitags with Cosmic Disco
9pm until 2am – free before 10pm / £2 after
Saturday 30th // Friends In Common with Neil Atkins
9pm until 2am – free before 10pm / £2 after
Remember to use your ‘shiny orange members card’ to get 10% off food and drink all day every day (t&c apply) – lost your card? drop us an email with your name and address – thanks