Manchester Musicians Collective
The Manchester Musicians Collective was formed in April 1977, inspired in part by musician Dick Witts and his involvement with musicians of the London Musicians Collective and Composer Trevor Wishart, who was then the Composer in Residence for Northwest Arts. The founding membership included Trevor Wishart and members of Dick Witts’ NorMedia group, Louise Alderman and Chris Griffin.
They were joined by Mark E. Smith of The Fall and Frank Ewart from The Manchester Mekon. The Fall played their first gig at a collective meeting in the North West Arts basement in King Street West, where the original MMC meetings were held (recorded by Frank Ewart).
As membership grew, the collective secured a few trial Sundays at The Band on the Wall
https://bandonthewall.org/history/20th-century-history/the-1970s/70s-programme-manchester-musicians-collective/#:~:text=At%20Band%20on%20t
which became a permanent fixture.
With a motto of “Keeping Control,” everything was organized by the Collective: members, with an unofficial HQ set up at Burton Rd. in Didsbury. Where Frank Ewart made demos for members and the design and printing for publicity was organised by David Pimlott, also of the Manchester Mekon. As Dick Witts and Trevor Wishart moved on to other projects, Louise Alderman became the central figure, organiser and main contact for all collective activities. She now keeps their archive.
A year on, Steve Solamar, of Spherical Objects, who owned Object Music released ‘A Manchester Collection’ in 1979, a compilation of collective bands.
The second, ‘Unzipping the Abstract’ a year later in 1980, was released by the collective themselves.
Collective Bands
Accident on the East Lanc, Action Holliday, A Certain Ratio, Bathroom Renovations, Bee Vamp, Belladonna, Cajun Cutie, Crispy Ambulance, The Diagram Brothers, Dislocation Dance, The Durutti Column, The Enigma, Fast Cars, Fireplace, Frantic Elevators, Freidan Slip, FT Index, Gods Gift, Grow Up, Hard Lines, Helter Skelter, The Hoax, IQ Zero, Jerking in Braille, Joy Division see Warsaw, Kita, The Liggers, Flame, Mousie Hoot and the Cocktail Party, Mud Hutters, Manchester Mekon, Mediators, The Not Sensibles, The Odd, Outer Edge, Passage, Performance, Picture Chords, Plastic Void, The Play, Property of …, The Set, Slight Seconds, The Spurts, The Still, Swinging Lampshades, Undercover Men, The Vibrant Thigh, Warsaw (Joy Division).
Some of the collective band recordings have been rereleased on various record labels as compilations
LTM https://www.ltmrecordings.com/auteur_labels_object_music_ltmcd2527.html
Further links
https://www.mdmarchive.co.uk/biography/4998/Manchester_Musicians_Collective
https://www.mdmarchive.co.uk/exhibition/135/manchester-musicians-collective
https://punkmusiccatalogue.wordpress.com/manchester-musicians-collective/
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