Manchester Unspun: Pop, Property and Power in the Original Modern City: How a City Got High on Music

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You've got to buy a copy of this book, it's a great read... It really embraces the Manchester we see out of our windows today. The stories in it are just fantastic.' I had a similar experience as a result of an article in this publication. BD did a special feature on Manchester in the early 2000s interviewing various architects and other professionals like myself. I gave, what I thought at the time, was a pretty balanced account, lots of positives but also a few negatives. Manchester unspun sorts the truth from the spin of the city’s stories to reveal a remarkable journey, describing the hubris, scandal, money and politics which played out during its remarkable reinvention.

Manchester unspun is an account from punk to the pandemic of how the 1982 opening of the Hacienda gave the kiss of life to a dying city centre, and of the chain reaction it began leading to today’s dynamic international city. It’s also a memoir of my experiences working with the famous personalities in music, football, business and politics who made Manchester the most headline grabbing city in the UK.”

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What a great read! At last someone who was there and knows, telling a fascinating story of a city's rebirth. Wonderfully written too. I couldn't put it down once I'd started.' The other talking point was Andy Spinoza’s recent book Manchester unspun. Andy is a journalist and PR guru who has written a warts-and-all exposéof the city’s recent renaissance. He is someone who not only had a seat at the table throughout most of the events he recounts, but was responsible for writing the press release.

Andy Spinoza arrived in Manchester in 1979, as did I. He moved to the city as a student from the south, while I came from Birmingham, both of us falling in love with the place and becoming adopted Northerners. He was one of the people who set up City Life, Manchester’s slightly edgier version of Time Out magazine. This is a fabulous, compelling book with a cast of larger-than-life characters. First as observer, then as participant, Andy has enjoyed a ring-side seat in the renaissance and development of Britain's most exciting city.' Overall, Spinoza's memoir is very well written and he offers an antidote to the deficient journalism we have suffered over the popular music history of Manchester and its story as Britain's "second city".' Bookshop.org Manchester Unspun: Pop, Property and Power in the Original Modern City a book by Andy Spinoza. (bookshop.org) After establishing his own PR firm, he became involved in some of the city’s major building projects, and witnessed overblown design disasters such as the ill-conceived Urbis building play out at first-hand. In one of many memorable encounters recounted in the book, he is summarily dismissed by that quintessential modern Manchester man Gary Neville after a disagreement over PR strategy for a proposed luxury hotel. A sympathetic property consultant tells him: “Gary very much values the views of his consultants – as long as they agree with his own.”

It was an intensive, beer-driven, networking opportunity and one in which many of the architects present were unable to resist a few disparaging comments about OMA’s Factory International Building (everyone agreed not to call it the Aviva Arena) that loomed over us. The strength of the book is its immediacy. I think he also considers it a book not just about Mancunians but for them too. It is a love letter to his adopted city.'

Spinoza recounts such tales with wry relish. As a teenager he went north inspired by the history of Manchester’s political radicalism and the work of music writers such as Paul Morley and Jon Savage. He then found himself occupying a front-row seat for the epic regeneration story that played out over the next four decades. Coolly analytical, exceptionally well-informed and hugely entertaining, Manchester Unspun does justice to it. He was launching his book the Reluctant Engineer and other Manchester Stories but talked slightly too freely, managing to upset the city’s leadership.On returning to Manchester his practice found itself frozen out of work in the city. He would leave the practice not long after, and his fellow directors, Stephen O’Malley, Julian Broster and Paul Morris rebranded as Civic Engineers. Manchester Unspun is a remarkable record of the city’s emergence from industrial decline over the past fifty years. Author Andy Spinoza, a fly on the wall for the majority of that period, explores every nook and cranny of the journey, gamely citing the creative and cultural forces behind Factory Records/The Hacienda as a catalyst. It’s a good angle, but the true thrust of the book is provided by the title: Pop, Property and Power in the Original Modern City. As Spinoza recounts, there was a lot more going on behind the scenes, and a multitude of significant figures forging the city’s future; in this book he explores exactly how these often diverse influences intersected in a unique way. As books about Manchester go, there are plenty to choose from, but there are few as well sourced, well written and expansive as this one.'

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The claim might be slightly overstated. Leese, interviewed at length in the book, thinks so. But as an impeccably connected and longstanding adopted Mancunian, Spinoza is uniquely well-placed to prosecute it. After university, he founded the arts and listings magazine City Life, before becoming a hyperactively connected diary editor for the Manchester Evening News. Last week I attended a 10th anniversary reception for Civic Engineers, a national engineering consultancy that started out in Manchester. The event was in a tent in the newly opened Festival Square, as part the Manchester International Festival.