A Musical Tour of a Lost City
An excerpt from my forthcoming book, Booze, Blood and Noise: A Personal History of Manchester Punk. Originally published in the Manchester Mill on July 23, 2020.
Collyhurst, 1978. Photo by Jon Savage.
“Cheap rents and abandoned spaces, along with generous welfare benefits, were the economic factors that made Manchester punk and post-punk viable. Decades of urban blight produced Joy Division, Buzzcocks and the Fall. In a city where rents are beginning to catch up with London, where will the new Ian Curtis or Morrissey come from?”
Manchester’s lost music scene wasn’t just about creativity, but economics