A Very English Manifesto - St George's Day at The Retro Bar

Yes we're back again for another 'one-off' special. This time we're returning to the night that inspired us to kick-off Manifesto a couple of years ago, St George's Day.

Taking place at the Retro Bar from 8pm to 11pm closing, A Very English Manifesto will be a celebration of all those artists that only England could produce - not just English artists in a geographical sense, but artists whose music is very much a product of their environment, who couldn't possibly come from anywhere else.

Those who've been to our nights before will know what sort of thing to expect by now, but if not, take a scroll back through the blog and have a look at the setlists (note - these were what we ended up playing on the night and noted down, not pre-planned!).

I can guarantee you The Kinks, The Fall and Max Bygraves but what DJ Bid-Up will play is anyones guess!

As ever, there'll be suitably themed big screen visuals and retro goodies for all.

Hope to see you there - Friday 23rd April - from 8pm.

The Retro Bar is at 2 George Court, just off Charing Cross end of The Strand - HERE

An American Tale - Manifesto Goes West (End)

Yes, we're back ... Manifesto returns with a new home, The Retro Bar, in what is hopefully the first in a series of one-off specials, starting with The Thanksgiving Day Manifesto ...

DJ Bid-Up and Another Guy Called Gerald use the excuse of Thanksgiving Day to celebrate the best of all things U.S. of A.

From the Beastie Boys to Bruce, Interpol to Irene Cara, Missy Elliot to Marilyn Manson, Prince to the Pixies ... you get the idea

There'll also be big screen visuals, sweet treats and maybe even one of our famous picture quizzes.

Proceedings start at 8pm til 11pm closing ... hope to see you down there. Bring your American friends, and anyone else you can muster, to help kick off our life in a new home with a bang!

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=326092595143

The Summer Festivals Manifesto - setlist

It's been nearly five months since our last night at the Vauxhall Griffin and my memories of The Summer Festivals Manifesto, held on Glastonbury weekend, were somewhat vague even the next day. So there's not much I can tell you about the night apart from what we played, from notes made at the time ...

DJ Bid-Up kicked off festival proceedings with ...

Neil Young - Long May You Run
Bruce Springsteen - Your Own Worst Enemy
Beth Orton - Someone's Daughter
Bat For Lashes - Prescilla
The Pretenders - Talk Of The Town
Snow Patrol - You're All I Have
Doves - There Goes The Fear
Elbow - Grounds For Divorce
Oasis - Rock'n'Roll Star
Howling Bells - Low Happening
TV on the Radio - Halfway Home
Foals - Mathletics
Vampire Weekend - Track 5
Yo La Tengo - Mr Tough
Little Ones - Face The Facts
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Get Ready For Love
Interpol - Obstacle

Another Guy Called Gerald then stepped up proceedings with ...

Status Quo - Down Down (!)
Art Brut - Demons Out!
The Horrors - Who Can Say
The Noisettes - Don't Upset The Rhythm
Ebony Bones - The Music
Little Boots - Stuck On Repeat
Florence & The Machine - You've Got The Love
Emmy The Great - Where Is My Mind
The Maccabees - Love You Better
Jamie T - Sheila (live)
Blur - Parklife
NERD - Rockstar
Jack Penate - Dub Be Good To Me
Bruce Springsteen - Blinded By The Light

DJ Bid-Up carried on the party with ...

Prodigy - Everybody In The Place
Basement Jaxx - Jump'n'Shout
Groove Armada - I See You Baby
The Streets - Has It Come To This
Massive Attack - Unfinished Symphony
Kraftwerk - Aerodynamic (Kling Klang edit)
Yoko Ono - Walking On Thin Ice (PSB edit)
Simple Minds - I Travel
Franz Ferdinand - No You Girls
Black Kids - I'm Not Going To Teach .....
Duran Duran - Girls On Film
The Specials - Gangsters
Orbital - Doctor ? (? That's what it says)
Echo & The Bunnymen - Back of Love
MGMT - Time To Pretend

And Another Guy Called Gerald brought our time at the Vauxhall Griffin to a stunning climax with ...

Franz Ferdinand - Do You Want To
British Sea Power - Waving Flags
Bloc Party - Helicopter
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Date With The Night
Klaxons - Golden Skans
Ting Tings - Great DJ
Timo Maas - What Goes Around
Dan Black - Yours
Ladyhawke - Paris Is Burning
Reverend & The Makers - Could Have Been A Contender
Tony Christie - Avenues & Alleyways
Rumble Strips - Back To Black
The Specials - Gangsters (oops - how did that happen)
Bruce Springsteen - Born To Run
Blur - This Is A Low

And that was that!

Watch this space!

We hope to have some 'exciting' news for you soon!

Plus I'm going to finally get round to typing up the setlists from our final night at the Vauxhall Griffin back in June.

Manifesto Presents - The Summer Festivals Manifesto - Saturday 27th June

We're back at The Vauxhall Griffin on Saturday 27th June from 8pm for The Summer Festivals Manifesto ... please join us for music, cider but no mud ...

The Alternative Eurovision Manifesto - Setlist

Thanks to all of you who forwent the joys of the seaside to join us over the Bank Holiday weekend for our Alternative Eurovision Manifesto. Genuine, high quality (for once) Apple Schnapps and Chocolate Euros hopefully compensated for a slight fail on the big screen front, which should be back up and running for next month’s Summer Festivals Manifesto.

DJ Bid-Up pushed the theme to it’s limits with Welsh & Scottish entries included in a wonderfully varied set, whilst Another Guy Called Gerald kept it mostly indie with some esoterica/nonsense thrown in.

Manifesto returns to the Vauxhall Griffin on Saturday 27th June, Glastonbury weekend, to pay homage to the great British Summer Festival without the unpredictability of the great British Summer. With monsoons predicted for Glastonbury, join us instead as we attempt to recreate the entire Glastonbury experience from the Jazz World Stage via the John Peel Stage to the Pyramid Stage headliners, all within the confines of the Vauxhall Griffin … minus the mud … but including the cider.

So back to Saturday 27th May … excuse any typos this month … some of these band names are tricky and we’d had a few apple schnapps when we wrote them down!

DJ Bid-Up started with …

Belle & Sebastian – Funny Little Frog
Dimitri from Paris – Sacre Francais
Vitalic – My Friend Dario
DAF – Sex Unter Wasser
Colder – Crazy Love
The Names - Nightshift
Schneider TM – The Light 3000
Super Furry Animals – Play It Cool
Microdisney – Horse Overboard
Isabelle Antena – Serpent A Plumes
Stina Nordenstam – Something Nice
Bernt Holer – Mysujour (I think!)
Clan of Xymox – Cry In The Wind
Peter, Bjorn & John – Young Folks
Santa Esmarelda – Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood
Firefly – Love Is Gonna Be On Your Side
Boney M – Daddy Cool

Another Guy Called Gerald then took to the decks with …

Yello – The Race
Stakka Bo – Here We Go
Lordi – Hard Rock Hallelujah
Annie – Chewing Gum
Lykki Li – Breaking It Up
Justice – D.A.N.C.E.
Junior Senior – Move Your Feet
Leningrad Cowboys – Happy Together
Gogol Bordello – Immigrant Punk
Regina Spektor – Fidelity
Sugarcubes – Regina
The Concretes – On The Radio
The Knife – Heartbeats
The Teenagers – Scarlett Johansson
Love City Groove – Love City Groove

DJ Bid-Up then attempted to follow the mighty Love City Groove with …

Baccara – Parlez-Vous Francais?
Sheila and B. Devotion – Spacer
Patrick Juvet – Got A Feeling
Jam & Spoon – Ride In The Night
49’ers – Touch Me
Black Box – Ride on Time
Martin Circus – Disco Circus
Telex – Moskow Disko
Simple Minds – I Travel
Shop Assistants – Safety Net
Undertones – (She’s A) Runaround
Shout Out Louds – Please, Please, Please
Jesus & Mary Chain – I Love Rock’n’Roll
Air – Kelly Watch The Stars
Silver Convention – Telegram
Teach-In - Ding-a-Dong

Another Guy Called Gerald saw things through to a conclusion with …

Soundtrack Of Our Lives – Infra Riot
Lyla Syster – Umbrella
I’m From Barcelona – We’re From Barcelona
The Rasmus – In The Shadows
Placebo – You Don’t Care About Us
Raveonettes – Attack Of The Ghost Riders
Datarock – Fa-Fa-Fa
Cardigans – My Favourite Game
MC Miker G & DJ Sven – Holiday Rap
Tatu – How Soon Is Now?
Ida Maria – I Like You So Much Better When You’re Naked
Plastic Bertrand – Ca Plane Pour Moi
Sebastien Tellier - Divine
Shocking Blue – Venus
Hothouse Flowers – Don’t Go
Aphrodites Child – The Four Horsemen
Opus – Live is Life
Nena – 99 Luftballons

The Dinner Party Manifesto Part I - Politics - Setlist

So another month another Manifesto and the end of the triptychs ... April saw us take on Part I of the Dinner Party Manifesto - Politics (with Religion to follow in July).

To a Vauxhall Griffin crowd mainly free of Roller-Disco interlopers, who have now moved on elsewhere, DJ Bid-Up and Another Guy Called Gerald played two rather different sets with a shared (loose) theme, whilst chocolate Manifesto Maundy money was shared out amongst the credit-crunch victims amongst us ...

DJ Bid-Up played ...

Warren Zevon - Lawyers, Guns and Money
Parliment - Chocolate City
The O'Jays - For The Love of Money
Gary Byrd - Are You Ready for Black Power?
Edwin Starr - War
Scott Walker - The Old Man's Back Again (Tribute to the Neo-Stalinist Regime)
The Smiths - Shoplifters Of The World
Fun Boy Three - The Lunatics Have Taken Over The Asylum
Aretha Franklin - Young, Gifted and Black
Voices of East Harlem - Simple Song of Freedom
The Chi-Lites - For God's Sake Give More Power to the People
Outkast - Rosa Parks
Prince - Sign of the Times
Marvin Gaye - Inner City Blues (Makes me want to Holler)
Mama Jean - Women's Liberation
Brother D with Collective Effort - How We Gonna Make The Black Nation Rise?
Smith Connection - I'm Buggin' Your Phone

Another Guy Called Gerald then took to the decks with ...

Super Furry Animals - The Man Don't Give A F***
The The - The Beat(en) Generation
Get Cape, Wear Cape, Fly - The Children are the Consumers of the Future
Baader Meinhof - Baader Meinhof
James - Government Walls
Black Grape - Shake Yr Money
Eminem - Mosh
Fischerspooner - We Need A War
Dandy Warhols - All The Money or The Simple Life Honey
The Boomtown Rats - Banana Republic
The Special - Rat Race
Oui 3 - For What It's Worth
Gary Clail & The On-U Sound System - Human Nature
Chumbawamba - Enough is Enough
Act - Poverty & Decay

DJ Bid-Up then came back with ..

The Chills - Dole Drums
Bow Wow Wow - W.O.R.K. (No No My Daddy Don't)
The Jam - Eton Rifles
UB40 - King
Jimmy Cliff - Vietnam
Junior Murvin - Police & Thieves
Arcadia - Election Day
Gang of Four - Republic
The Higsons - Conspiracy
Yeah Yeah Noh - Bias Binding
Goldie - Inner City Life
The Beat - Stand Down Margaret
The Imposter - Pills & Soap
Peter Gabriel - Biko

Then Another Guy Called Gerald saw things to a conclusion with ...

Kate Bush - Ken
The Style Council - Walls Come Tumbling Down
Billy Bragg - Waiting For The Great Leap Forward
The Clash - English Civil War
Manic Street Preachers - Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayit'sworldwouldfallapart
Asian Dub Foundation - Real Great Britain
The Fall - Dog Is Life/Jerusalem
Johnny Boy - You Are The Generation That Bought More Shoes & You Get What You Deserve
Rage Against The Machine - Killing In The Name Of
Bruce Springsteen - Born in the USA
Chumbawamba - Give The Anarchist A Cigarette
Sex Pistols - God Save The Queen
S*M*A*S*H - I Want To Kill Somebody
Jarvis Cocker - C*nts Are Still Ruling The World
Billy Bragg - Waiting For The Great Leap Forward (reprise)


We're back on Saturday 23rd April with our own Alternative Eurovision Manifesto - a song for Europe done from a very Manifesto perspective with minimal actual Eurovision (expect Sebastian Tellier, Lordi and maybe Love City Groove).

See our Facebook page for full details - http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=23341850285

Next month ...

The Sexy Southern Manifeso - Setlist

Apologies for the delay in getting last months setlist up - there's been some serious Mac fail going on in Manifesto Towers.

Well March saw us return for the final part of our Very English Manifesto - The Sexy South. Visuals came courtesy of Brighton Rock and the wonderful Wish You Were Here, and some not particularly themed shots and retro sweeties were liberally dispersed around the Vauxhall Griffin. As for the the music - personally speaking this turned out to be my favourite of the three months - the setlist is below so you can be the judge.

We're back on Saturday 25th April with the first part our our Dinner Party Manifesto - Politics (Religion will follow in July) - this is one of those nights like Paris/Munich that we didn't fully think through at the planning stage but is shaping up to be musically one of our best nights yet. Expect Politics, Capitalism and a good dose of Credit Crunch - and if you behave we promise NOT to play "Things Can Only Get Better"! Hope to see you there. Now for that setlist ...

DJ Bid-Up kicked off the night with

Massive Attack - Inertia Creeps
Orbital - Satan (Live)
Beats International - Dub Be Good To Me
Tricky - Overcome
Kate Bush - Babooshka
Depeche Mode - It's No Good
Sundays - Can't Be Sure
Razorcuts - I'll Still Be There
Modern English - I Melt With You
Adverts - Bored Teenagers
The Damned - New Rose
The Slits - Instant Hit
Janet Kay - Silly Games
Artful Dodger - Rewind
Linx - Intuition
Bomb The Bass - Beat Dis
Peter Gabriel - Shock The Monkey

Another Guy Called Gerald then played ....

The Cure - Lets Go To Bed (12")
The Stranglers - Duchess
Jona Lewie - You'll Always Find Me In The Kitchen At Parties
Bananarama - Cruel Summer
The Pipettes - Pull Shapes
Rumblestrips - Back To Black
The Bees - No Atmosphere
Gary Clail & The On-U Sound System - Emotional Hooligan
The Jam - Pity Poor Alfie/Fever
The Ordinary Boys - Boys Will Be Boys
Petula Clark - Downtown
Billy Bragg - A13 - Trunk Road To The Sea
Mystery Jets - One Love
Black Box Recorder - Lord Lucan Is Missing
Aphex Twin - Windowlicker
Hot Chip - Hold On
The Go! Team - Huddle Formation
Electralene - I Want To Be The President

DJ Bid-Up then returned with ...

Goldfrapp - Ooh La La La
The Cure - Primary
Pigbag - Papa's Got A Brand New Pigbag
EMF - Unbelievable
The Higsons - I Don't Want To Live With Monkeys
PJ Harvey - Sheela Na Gig
Joe Jackson - Is She Really Going Out With Him?
Heatwave - The Grooveline
Siouxsie & The Banshees - Kiss Them For Me
Nick Lowe - I Love The Sound Of Breaking Glass
Eighties B-Line Matchbox Disaster - I Could Be An Angel
The Flatmates - Shimmer
Electric Soft Parade - Silent To The Dark
Feeder - Buck Rogers
XTC - Life Begins At The Hop
The Regents - 7Teen

And Another Guy Called Gerald rounded off things with ...

The Horrors - Sea Within A Sea
Bat For Lashes - What's A Girl To Do
St Ettienne - Like A Motorway
Metronomy - Heartbreaker
Get Cape, Wear Cape, Fly - D.A.N.C.E.
Sham 69 - Hersham Boys
Luke Haines - The Walton Hop
Brian Eno - Baby's On Fire
Bananarama & Lananeeneenanoo - Help!
Levellers - One Way
The Pop Group - She Is Beyond Good & Evil
Blur - MOR
Muse - Supermassive Black Hole
Underworld - Born Slippy Nuxx (Short)
Genesis - Follow You, Follow Me

The Middle England Manifesto - Setlist

Manifesto was back on Saturday 28th February for possibly not the busiest but certainly the most manic Manifesto yet. The avant garde, the unaware and the roller-disco overspill came together to enjoy part II of our Very English Manifesto, The Middle England Manifesto.

Meg Richardson and Amy Turtle watched on as the Crossroads Motel burnt down, the pig from Pipkins looked like it was doing something rather rude indeed by the canal and Slade were 'in flame' as people enjoyed the Cadbury's selection, downed the Sourz shots and enjoyed our selection of Middle England tunes ...

DJ Bid-Up played:

Spiritualized - Think I'm In Love
Syd Barrett - Baby Lemonade
Special AKA - What I Like Most About You is your Girlfriend
Late of the Pier - Bears are Coming
Broadcast - Corporeal
Nick Drake - One of These Things First
Fairport Convention - It's Alright Ma, It's Only Witchcraft
Mott The Hoople - All The Young Dudes
Felt - Penelope Tree
I Was a Cub Scout - Our Smallest Adventures
Tom Robinson Band - Up Against The Wall
King Adora - Bionic
The Flys - Love & A Molotov Cocktail
The Move - California Man
Carl Wayne - You're A Star
Toyah - I Want To Be Free
Musical Youth - Pass the Dutchie

Another Guy Called Gerald followed up with:

The Streets - Turn The Page
The Selecter - Three Minute Hero
Foals - Balloons
The Wonderstuff - Size of a Cow
Pop Will Eat Itself - Def Con One
Janice Nichols - I'll Give It Five
Duran Duran - View To A Kill
Slade - Cuz I Love You
Dexys Midnight Runners - Tell Me When The Light Turns Green
Fashion - Something In Your Picture
Late of the Pier - Bathroom Gurgle
Judas Priest - Hell Bent For Leather
Ozzy Osbourne - Crazy Train
Specials - Gangsters
King - Love & Pride
Kasabian - Shoot The Runner
The Young Knives - Terra Firma
Traffic - Hole In My Shoe
ELO - Roll Over Beethoven

DJ Bid-Up returned with:

Wizzard - See My Baby Jive
UB40 - Food For Thought
Duran Duran - Notorious
Stephen 'Tin Tin' Duffy - Kiss Me
Pop Will Eat Itself - Beaver Patrol
The Primitives - Really Stupid
Editors - Munich
Mighty Lemonade - Like An Angel
Yeah Yeah Noh - Superimposed Man
Kasabian - Reason is Treason
Hazel O'Connor - Decadent Days
Bauhaus - Kick In the Eye
The Beat - Mirror in the Bathroom
Apache Indian - Boom-Shak-A-Lak
Cornershop - Brimful of Asha (Fatboy Slim remix)
Altern-8 - Evapor-8

Another Guy Called Gerald finished off with:

The Streets - Lets Push Things Forward
Steel Pulse - Worth His Weight in Gold
The Beat - Whine & Grine/Stand Down Margaret
The Enemy - We'll Live & Die In These Towns
Duran Duran - Wild Boys
T'Pau - Heart & Soul
The Young Knives - She's Attracted To Me
Slade - Cum On Feel The Noize
Hazel O'Connor - Will You
ELO - Mr Blue Sky
Felt - Primitive Painters
Showaddywaddy - Sweet Little Rock'n'Roller

Manifesto returns on Saturday 28th March with the Sexy Southern Manifesto!