Shock City

20/02/2023

LAST ORDERS! This is Shock City's final callout, seeking submissions on the theme COSMICITY! think lunarcity, meteorites, musical mischief, moon landings & more! get in touch for submission details via [email protected]

17/01/2023

heres a new idea!! lets get things growing in manchester in 2023, in a positive not destructive way....most sundays, get involved, experienced or not....

13/01/2023

something for shock citizens to get their teeth into whilst we are between editions..

Shock Citizens, read your Toxicity issue cover to cover, inconsolable with the wait for our next edition? Fear not, we wrote a little paean to the municipal era and its cradle to grave everyday infrastructure for which we are pleased as punch is now included in the latest issue of the modernist magazine!

No 45, Titled Municipal, it features brilliant articles and ideas from some superb researchers and devotees of the unsung beauty and glories of our everyday public realm! For details of all contributors & how to get your copy visit the modernist-
https://the-modernist.org/.../copy-of-the-modernist...

Highly recommended, you can purchase one directly from the modernist website or at their Shop/gallery HQ in Northern Quarter, on Port St. Just do it, you know you want to....!

03/01/2023

So as another year starts (and bejaysus what a year that was) and our toxicity print-run dwindles, most now handed out and posted to our small but like minded band of shock citizens, let's embrace the year to come, reclaim the intrinsic fauxthenticity and creeping poison in manipulative corporate-speak, like 'embrace change' and 'resilience' so often used to persuade us to get tough or ship out....let 2023 be the year of Resistance not Resilience, fair play not precarity, community not consumerism. Let's question the cliched mantras of 'progress, innovation and change' and always ask who is it for? What will it bring and who will it benefit. Time to take a deep breath, slow it all down and get back to simple sustainable and sociable.

Shock city humbly and sincerely thanks you for your interest your attention & articles, your enthusiasm comments and reactions. Why not wear your badges and spot each other in the streets to continue the conversation and feel connected. And why not purchase the set of 5 directly from Jade Magenta Williams, our toxicity artist in residence!! well worth a purchase, all of which supports jade, one of our next generation of critical thinkers and creators!

Edition Toxicity - turns out the poison was also the antidote, discovered and delivered by the ideas and projects of our collaborators and contributors. SCHQ salutes them and forever owes them. And the amazing social media campaign by comrade in brutopia Julie Campbell, endlessly and tirelessly supportive even in the midst of her biggest tour for her album Former things. Proof if proof were needed that we are nothing without each other and only together can we really achieve something - however puny!! LoneLady

Next stop and our grande finale edition is Cosmicity - look to the stars. all aboard....details soon!!!

01/01/2023

As Salford and Manchester continue their respective transformations of our local environments and economies into a barren wasteland of isolated citadels and megacity developments with another huge land grab along the irk valley currently taking shape along their borders, Versos new book, 'Owning the Future', a timely and crucial examination of property, power and profit, inevitably caught our eye at SCHQ, a study which echoes and expands globally on our own north west experience of what the authors call 'the extraordinary growth of asset manager capitalism and the explosive concentration of wealth within the hands of the super-rich. This new oligarchy controls every part of our social and economic lives.'
Sian Hills personal testimony to some of the untold consequences of living in the eye of this global storm, where 'home' is a precarious commodity, and community a curated billboard dreamscape, is a blistering read and damning indictment, where we come full circle to the themes explored in issue 1, the fauxthenticity edition - darker now and coming for our living room. Equally personal and thought provoking is Dominic Sagars article on his part in the history of pre or proto northern quarter and how a rag tag bunch of young architects artists makers and creatives became a diy community and tried to create a new kind of neighbourhood before the planners and corporate developers moved in. Between these two perspectives is a case study and a warning on how to challenge this explosion of asset manager capitalism and find alternatives for the local the small scale and the sustainable. Is it even possible toxicity asks? Together we must surely try....

18/12/2022

Toxicity news! In issue two our self-appointed ‘dandelion awards’ paid homage to a few of the grass-roots projects blossoming around our city, from community growers and food hubs to battles for saving fields, improving parks and preserving rare patches of urban wildernesses - a snapshot of all the humble champions making a more verdant biodiverse Manchester than the one we are habitually offered. Today we highlight yet more of the spirit of Winstanley’s radical Diggers, the original green manifesto proclaiming that the ‘earth be a common treasury for all’, where the land should be available to every person to dig and sow, so that everyone, rich or poor, could live, grow and eat by the sweat of their own brows.

Friends of Medlock Way is a burgeoning neighbourhood project taking on the pollution of the past and the neglect of present day planning regimes which too often prioritise investment portfolios over the local and self-organised. They, like so many micro communities whose needs and wishes get overlooked in the big plans, are simply no longer waiting but are determined to actively reclaim a cleaner greener future from a polluted industrial past by doing it themselves. Read all about the increased threats to our waterways and urban green spaces that’s a neighbourhood and environmental scandal, follow them on social media, take part in their regular community activities and help be the change this city needs to see. 'River of Lights', a festive winter walk and community get together is this Sunday, 18 December - the perfect chance to find out more about this green treasure on our doorstep. You’re sure of a warm welcome…! Friends of Medlock Way, valley

09/12/2022

Twitter, trolls, & technocrats - set against the recent twitterstorm, free speech and who and how we control it, is an epoch defining battle for data, digitality and democracy, in a decade dominated by social media, surveillance, personal and national security, Adrian Slatcher astutely considers the emergence of a toxic mess and creeping virus in the unregulated Wild West world of social media - not 'out there' but firmly embedded in our feeds, our pockets and our living rooms.

Read his very topical take on our TOXICITY theme in the latest issue of Shock City. grab a copy whilst we still have some left...

27/11/2022

Our Toxicity badge Economic Inactivity boldly declares doing absolutely nowt as the way to go! This weekend we are inspired by the amazing Stitched up to join the growing alternative movement to the ‘spend spend spend’ mantra tempting and luring us to always buy more stuff. Our Cottonopolis article explores all things toxic, throwaway and exploitative in the fashion industry and highlights just a few of the local charities, organizations, and creative designers offering superb ways to save our pockets and the planet….like Stitchedupuk, based in chorlton and stretford mall. Here's their practical suggestions for forgetting black Friday altogether by repairing, recycling or swapping this weekend... And as we are hurled into the excessive season, consider some of the brilliant ways to either not spend at all, or spend thoughtfully….

18/11/2022

Listen up Shock Citizens...what they are saying about our latest issue, the Toxicity edition. Get yours pronto whilst stocks last...!!

First, from Laura, aged 78, our Shock Citizen in Cologne;
'dearest friend, I’ve read your poem and was deeply impressed and moved. The poem has a great drive, almost like a Rap…the text by Sian Hill is equally appreciated as I have seen in Liverpool what social cleansing has done.'

Then do make sure to tune in to OG OR MAN, EPISODE 83 – Toxicity , for a sonic interpretation of Vitriol Vale and our 'love song, not love song' to the dirty city...!!
This week’s show celebrates the third edition of Manchester underground magazine – Toxicity, which explores themes of myth and everyday experience of living in Manchester and Salford. And an irksome vitriol fuelled 'not a love song' pouring out from the beating heart of the Manchester underground.

Come and explore the uncanny valley ON Mixcloud NOW.
www.mixcloud.com/og_or_man

18/11/2022

13/11/2022

Tonight, listen up!!! A fantastic surprise…TONIGHT from 6pm, tune in to OG OR MAN, EPISODE 83 – Toxicity.

This week’s show celebrates the third edition of Manchester underground magazine – Toxicity, which explores themes of myth and everyday experience of living in Manchester and Salford.

Come and explore the uncanny valley live at 6pm today and Mixcloud later.
www.mixcloud.com/og_or_man

Shocking the unsuspecting with, inter alia: bleepy bloopy electronica, angry punks, sardonic post-punks, confused psychedelics and enigmatic Goth-folk.

And an irksome vitriol fuelled 'not a love song' pouring out from the beating heart of the Manchester underground.

inspired to read more!?? Toxicity is available now of course, to READ and to WEAR, whilst stocks last. Grab one free from us this coming Monday and Wednesday in HOME between 4.30-6pm. We will be easily spotted in the café drowning in a sea of gloriously Toxic Fanzines. Or we can pop a copy in the mail for £2.50 to cover post and packaging costs, via paypal as usual, to [email protected]

Calling Shock Citizens! A fantastic surprise…TONIGHT from 6pm, tune in to OG OR MAN, EPISODE 83 – Toxicity.

This week’s show celebrates the third edition of Manchester underground magazine – Toxicity, which explores themes of myth and everyday experience of living in Manchester and Salford.

Come and explore the uncanny valley live at 6pm today and Mixcloud later.
www.mixcloud.com/og_or_man

Shocking the unsuspecting with, inter alia: bleepy bloopy electronica, angry punks, sardonic post-punks, confused psychedelics and enigmatic Goth-folk.

And an irksome vitriol fuelled 'not a love song' pouring out from the beating heart of the Manchester underground.

inspired to read more!?? Toxicity is available now of course, to READ and to WEAR, whilst stocks last. Grab one free from us this coming Monday and Wednesday in HOME between 4.30-6pm. We will be easily spotted in the café drowning in a sea of gloriously Toxic Fanzines. Or we can pop a copy in the mail for £2.50 to cover post and packaging costs, via paypal as usual, to [email protected]

13/11/2022

Calling Shock Citizens! A fantastic surprise…TONIGHT from 6pm, tune in to OG OR MAN, EPISODE 83 – Toxicity.

This week’s show celebrates the third edition of Manchester underground magazine – Toxicity, which explores themes of myth and everyday experience of living in Manchester and Salford.

Come and explore the uncanny valley live at 6pm today and Mixcloud later.
www.mixcloud.com/og_or_man

Shocking the unsuspecting with, inter alia: bleepy bloopy electronica, angry punks, sardonic post-punks, confused psychedelics and enigmatic Goth-folk.

And an irksome vitriol fuelled 'not a love song' pouring out from the beating heart of the Manchester underground.

inspired to read more!?? Toxicity is available now of course, to READ and to WEAR, whilst stocks last. Grab one free from us this coming Monday and Wednesday in HOME between 4.30-6pm. We will be easily spotted in the café drowning in a sea of gloriously Toxic Fanzines. Or we can pop a copy in the mail for £2.50 to cover post and packaging costs, via paypal as usual, to [email protected]

06/11/2022

Issue 3, Toxicity, is out NOW....did we mention every copy has one of these specially commissioned button badges, by , attached to the front cover, for your visual pleasure??? Well they do, and you can grab a copy from us in real life for free, or via paypal for £2.50 to cover p&p.... get your PayPal requests in right now....via [email protected]. We are ready to READ and ready to WEAR...whilst stocks last. Free up your minds and your lapels shock citizens...!

20/09/2022

Toxicity Edition......Or, how to finish a little printed zine wth all its wrappings and diy extras, over a bank holiday...ready to hit the streets. It’s only taken a bloody year.....!

21/07/2022

Thanks to the divine ms Pauline for sending shock city headquarters this today.....never been a better time for our latest issue the Toxicity edition to hit the streets. We seem to have hit the zeitgeist though it gives us no pleasure at all to say it....copies available soon!!! They are going to behot hot hot though, so Handle with care...

Manchester’s Labour council let Sheikh Mansour buy up acres of public land for seemingly a fraction of its worth, says Guardian columnist Aditya Chakrabortty

07/07/2022

It's been a long slow edition in the making but after a plethora of thoughtful beautiful contributions a stand alone toxicity issue is finally forthcoming...here to whet your appetites if you haven't died of boredom already is Lisa Harrison's latest cover design ideas!

25/06/2022

Shock city’s co editor, core member of the brutopian Brunswick berserker corps has penned a homage to some of the symbolism of loneladys former things world....come by TONIGHT and immerse yourself! Happening in Peste, our home from home, this is gonna be Special ...

Tonight Saturday at Peste, Manchester:

I celebrate a year since Former Things was released with an evening of 'Cave Music' and a mini installation feat. the banner from the album cover.

+
LoneLady DJ Set
Cave Cava & Cave-related books
A mini publication on Former Things by Maureen Ward X Peste

7pm - 11pm. Free. Come on down and get your caveman/woman on!

Tomorrow! Saturday at Peste, Manchester:

I celebrate a year since Former Things was released with an evening of 'Cave Music' and a mini installation feat. the banner from the album cover.

+
LoneLady DJ Set
Cave Cava & Cave-related books
A mini publication on Former Things by Maureen Ward X Peste

7pm - 11pm. Free. Come on down and get your caveman/woman on!

16/05/2022

The last word in Cosmicity .....this is going to be ICONIC....shock city would like to especially thank LoneLady for all our recent twitter and insta stories. Touring recording AND being a social media heroine. We are forever indebted...

23rd July at Bluedot Festival - I play the Main Stage beneath the iconic Lovell Telescope! 💫
Tickets >> www.discoverthebluedot.com/profile/lonelady/

15/05/2022

And this is why here at Shock City HQ we dedicated the inaugural SC dandelion awards to all our beautiful grassroots projects, championing change one seedling at a time....! Featured in Issue 2 the Mundanicity edition a whole year ago.

Meanwhile our latest Toxicity issue is taking shape now. What shape and form will it take....keeps your eyes peeled for sneak previews and publication!!

Here are some interesting facts about the dandelion flower:

The dandelion is the only flower that represents the 3 celestial bodies of the sun, moon and stars. ☀️ 🌙 ⭐️. The yellow flower resembles the sun, the puff ball resembles the moon and the dispersing seeds resemble the stars.

The dandelion flower opens to greet the morning and closes in the evening to go to sleep. 😴

Every part of the dandelion is useful: root, leaves, flower. It can be used for food, medicine and dye for coloring.

Up until the 1800s people would pull grass out of their lawns to make room for dandelions and other useful “weeds” like chickweed, malva, and chamomile.

The name dandelion is taken from the French word “dent de lion” meaning lion’s tooth, referring to the coarsely-toothed leaves. 🦁

Dandelions have one of the longest flowering seasons of any plant.

Dandelion seeds are often transported away by a gust of wind and they travel like tiny parachutes. Seeds are often carried as many as 5 miles from their origin!

Animals such as birds, insects and butterflies consume nectar or seed of dandelion.🐦 🐛 🐜 🦋 🐝.

Dandelion flowers do not need to be pollinated to form seed.

Dandelion can be used in the production of wine and root beer. Root of dandelion can be used as a substitute for coffee. 🍷 🍺

Dandelions have sunk their roots deep into history. They were well known to ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, and have been used in Chinese traditional medicine for over a thousand years.

Dandelion is used in folk medicine to treat infections and liver disorders. Tea made of dandelion act as diuretic.

If you mow dandelions, they’ll grow shorter stalks to spite you.

Dandelions are, quite possibly, the most successful plants that exist, masters of survival worldwide. 💪

A not so fun fact: Every year countries spend millions on lawn pesticides to have uniform lawns of non-native grasses, and we use 30% of the country’s water supply to keep them green.

Bee Happy Gardens 🐝

Read more: http://bit.ly/3Lseaoa

02/05/2022

Boffinistas, cosmic-sistas, fictionistas in the cosmic city.....forgotten females in the suffragette city....

Despite her blue plaque at Manchester University, right by the famous Rutherford physics laboratory, Alison Uttley is now mostly known for being the author of a series of tales about animals, including little Grey Rabbit. But this plucky pioneer of women in science and education has more to her story…

A Derbyshire girl, Uttley won a scholarship to Manchester University to read Physics, becoming the second ever female honours graduate of the university, and one of the pioneer boarders at Ashburne Hall, founded only 6 years before as an all-female residence- only 25 boffinistas in total, they were a serious, earnest coterie, fearful that “the Ashburne Experiment” as the University Magazine called the new hall of residence, would be ridiculed.

The Ashburne archives contain the first copies of their own student magazine, including regular contributions & drawings of our young Uttley – especially her many inventions for improving the modern woman’s life, including a pneumatic tunnel to whisk them all down to Owens College, her idea for little heated boots on wheels, and her early warning tea pot. Alison was evidently tired of coming back, cold and wet after a long session in her lab, only to find the Ashburne afternoon tea almost over.

Afterwards though, this would be trailblazer and inventor of splendid things, became a physics teacher rather than an experimental physicist. Through living and teaching in Lonodn however, she became interested in socialism and was active in the women's suffrage movement. Through her political involvement, she met Ramsay Macdonald, who would later become prime minister as head of the Labour Party. Then in 1911, she married engineer James Uttley, quit her teaching job, and started a family.

Her husband’s mental health never recovered from his service in the first World War, and to make ends meet as the main breadwinner, she turned to her old student talent for writing; her children’s books took off, and her place as a pioneer science student became forgotten.

A prolific writer, recognised as such later on by her alma mater, we at shock city remain intrigued at what has often been called her best novel, a time travelling historical work – an early example of speculative fiction and altered worlds, with slippages in and out of the time space continuum - later ideas to be found in other cosmic Mancunian citizens like alan garner, jeff noon and janette winterson. Once a physicist always a physicist....!! We salute thee Alison Uttley, you were out of this world...

24/04/2022

COSMIC CITY CALLING...If Ian Brown hadn’t formed the Stone Roses, would he have become our most famous physicist, instead of that other famous musician cm stargazer Brian Cox?? After all, Brown's solo hits are littered with cosmic references – My Star, Stellify, Stardust…

Unlikely, far-fetched? Bear with us – in 1969 the UK received 16 samples of the lunar soil gathered from the Sea Of Tranquility by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin during the Apollo landing, a portion of which came to Manchester university and UMIST. A little of this moon dust went to the Museum for display in the ‘public interest’ – and it proved to be one of its most successful exhibitions to date – over 5 days receiving more than 24,000 visitors.

So, if the 7-year-old Brown's junior school made a day trip to see close up the Moon rock collected from the most exciting televised event of the century, then we have our answer…

'Same DNA as stardust

Carbon dated to last

Same DNA as stardust

From a time that has past

I'm made from Stardust

Same DNA as Stardust...'

From the Sea of Tranquility to Manchester..do these cosmic connections spark any thoughts? Send your submissions on the theme COSMICITY to: [email protected] ⚡

21/04/2022

For shock city HQ, the dream of a global cashless society is yet another epitome of toxicity ....

07/04/2022

Shock CIty loves a live in-person zine fest. And here’s the brilliant Over Here team organising their first since covid spoilt all our print based fondling for a couple of years. Here’s their call out for stallholders. Deadline for applications on 27th May, so if you've got any questions at all or need help with the form, give them a shout...

“Over Here Zine Fest, showcasing POC / Black / Asian zine makers, is back! And really excited about having a face-to-face event, finally! It's happening at the People's History Museum in Manchester on Saturday 20th August 2022 and we're opening up applications for stallholders....”

📣APPLICATIONS ARE OPEN📣
If you are a Black / Asian / POC zine maker and would like to apply to table at Over Here Zine Fest, apply now!

Over Here will take place on 20th August 2022. You can be a seasoned zine maker or first-timer. Apply for a full table (£10) or half table (£5). DEADLINE for applications is 27th May 2022.
If you need help with the form, send us a message.

Click here to apply:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfdxUuma7hChbzAkh2mvM8n7I1ks-pn7l8Z50hRY6how9NSVA/viewform

And tell all your friends!

27/03/2022

Submissions open for our FINAL shock city zine, now brewing nicely! Calling shock citizens malcontents disillusioned dreamers and all. If our toxicity theme didn't grab you why not try your luck with our adjacent call out?

Cosmicity, a metropolis rising from a decaying millscape, where science and invention, research and industry sparked the popular imagination; a colliding constellation of ever expanding influence and inspiration in arcane and everyday circles alike, a mash up of scientific Manchester with visionary, alternative Manchesters, spliced into that of Tocqueville’s bleak assessment, ‘where the sun was merely a disc without rays’.

Help us plot a stellar course from Alan Garner to blue dot festival, Jodrell bank to Brian Cox, Newton Heath factory workers to the moon landing and Kubrick’s 2001; a city so rooted in science-fact that it became part of our DNA, spawning a musical, lyrical literary lingua manca filled with fluid universes, hybrid species, splices in time. Think cosmic rays to voodoo rays, think nuclear-free doves in an atomic city, space cadets and glitter babies, star dust and Ian brown, alchemical elements and the chemical brothers, parallel worlds and altered states…

18/02/2022

Shock City teaser alert....after a pause and a veritable clamour of enquiries about our next edition (yes, 5 of you... you know who you are!) keep yer eyes peeled here and for details of our Final Bumper Edition...

this time its double trouble in Toxicity and Cosmicity, exploring the contradictions, perils and pain in this always tumultuous City of Progress. submissions / call out deets for expressions of interest and ideas for contributions imminent...