GUY MANKOWSKI

'And the world outside this room has also assumed a familiar shape / The same events shuffled in a slightly different order / Each day /  Just like a modern shopping centre' I was surprised today to see that Pulp’s Different Class was about to turn twenty. Surprised, because it marked for me my entry into music. Since discovering that album I haven’t just found music a refuge. I’ve written music, reviewed it, and most recently have written about it, and this album, with its shabby mysticism and splenetic eviscerations of other peoples lives, was the start of all that. People talk of the glamorous, alien quality of Ziggy Stardust, and I think the most seductive visions in art are ones which we recognise, when we squint. The cover of Ziggy is part of its appeal because its recognisable- it could be the local town hall. It entrances us because we think that with the right attitude and makeup this album could usher us into a utopia for the night. We open the album and...

When my novel, How I Left The National Grid, was accepted for publication a scene that I considered important didn't make it into the book for contractual reasons. In it, the journalist Sam walks from the Hulme Estate, along the side of the motorway and into the heart of Manchester. It’s a perilous journey that I took myself on a wet Manchester afternoon to research this chapter. Two characters, both trying to ‘find’ the vanished singer Robert Wardner in their different ways, undertake a journey that takes them past the historical layers of the city. Their conversation covers topics as diverse as A Clockwork Orange,  Margaret  Thatcher, Brutalist architecture, the history of the synth and New Order. I’ve mentioned this scene in a few talks and lectures, and having had very kind feedback for it from some of the post-punk musicians I interviewed whilst working on the book I thought this might be the place for it- 13 The morning sky was the kind that Sam could im...

In February 2015, on the release of my recent novel about post-punk  ‘ How I Left The National Grid ’  I had an extended conversation with Kingsley Chapman on this nebulous and multi-pronged subject. At the time he was not speaking  publicly  about forming a new band following the split of The Chapman Family, though interestingly this issue is dangled towards the end of the conversation. It was soon after that I asked Kingsley if he would play at the launch party of the book, and he agreed. In my novel the main character, Robert Wardner, strangles himself with a mike lead onstage and there was some discussion at the time about the fact that Kingsley used to do this too- a connection I hadn't quite made. On the night of the launch Kingsley resurrected that act during his set- which left me with conflicted feelings that him and I kicked about backstage afterwards. Happily, his band, ‘Kingsley Chapman and The Murder’ have since recorded an excellent first sing...