Demo Tapes brought together newly-digitised sound archives and music groups around the north west region to create new works around the theme of protest.

Musicians Pops Roberts and Phillip Howley led workshops with young people at More Music in Morecambe, Collective Encounters in Liverpool and Brighter Sound in Manchester in May and June 2021. The groups listened to sound archives relating to protest and politics and created new works in response to them.

You can listen to their new tracks and the archive audio that inspired them here:

New music – track list

More Music

Baybeat Streetband – Some People Think There Is No End 00:03:00
Baybeat Streetband – It’s Not Your Song It’s Our Song 00:06:14
More Media Collective – Last Chance To Dance 00:08:54
More Media Collective – We Had The Magic 00:13:58
[Archive] Peter Cookson on growing up in the 1980s without positive gay role models, 2014 (Archives+ LGBT CENTRE/6) 00:18:42

Collective Encounters

Collective Encounters – Role Models 00:21:40
[Archive] Joe and Peter perform The Leaving of Liverpool at Jacqui and Bridie’s Club in Liverpool (Archives+ MASON/59) 00:26:41
Collective Encounters – Why Blame Me? 00:31:02
Collective Encounters – We Are People Too 00:34:37

Pops Roberts & Phillip Howley

[Archive] Millie Bobker on her introduction to 1930s anti-fascism, 1978 (Tameside Local Studies & Archives 1103/763-1) 00:38:58
[Archive] Female reads a song about giving, 1981 (Bolton History Centre BOLTONOH/50) 00:42:01
Pops Roberts & Phillip Howley – Give Yourself 00:42:39
[Archive] Mill hooter & miners riding a loco on their way to the coal face at Bickershaw Colliery, Leigh, 1991 (Archives+ SOUNDS/80 &115) 00:46:51

Brighter Sound

Brighter Sound – The Train 00:48:32
[Archive] Mary Johnson remembers the local community’s fear after the 1957 Windscale fire, 2010 (Whitehaven Archive Centre SS/25) 00:50:41
Brighter Sound – Spilled Milk 00:52:44
[Archive] Colin Wilkie and Shirley Hart sing ‘You won’t get me down your mine’ (Archives+ GRANEY/15) 00:56:39
Brighter Sound – We Ain’t Loving It 00:59:50
[Archive] Raymond Ahern describes the community spirit on the Moston miner’s estate, 2015 (Archives+ BRADFORD PIT/19) 01:04:07
Brighter Sound – Before We Blink 01:05:43
[Archive] Luchia Fitzgerald on going to the Union Hotel for the first time in the early 1960s, 2016 (Archives+ OH/4314) 01:11:19
Brighter Sound – Untitled 01:13:12
[Archive] Mike Nixon on changing weather patterns, 2011 (Carlisle Archive Centre DSO 313/37) 01:17:45
Brighter Sound – Slow Down It’s Not Time Yet 01:18:31
Brighter Sound – Black Lives Matter 01:22:35

Rioghnach Connolly

Rioghnach Connolly – A Stór Mo Chroí (Treasure Of My Heart) 01:27:22
Rioghnach Connolly – The Story Of Cotton 01:32:27

[Archive] Paul Graney introduces Marie Little’s version of The Story Of Cotton (Archives+ GRANEY/443) 01:38:58

[Archive] American hobo sings his train song (Archives+ RMAN/1146) 01:46:13
[Archive] Ivan Fryman sings the Bradford Pit song (Archives+ MISCEL/994) 01:47:21
[Archive] My father was a docker (Archives+ MASON/59) 01:48:25
[Archive] The ballad of the tunnel (Archives+ MASON/85) 01:50:58
[Archive] The Black Diamond Folk Group perform Oh Freedom at the Howff club, 1965 (Archives+ MASON/85) 01:53:55
[Archive] The Hooters perform We Shall Overcome at the Hooters club, Birkenhead, 1965 (Archives+ MASON/18) 01:56:22

Listen to sound archives

The blogs listed below give introductions to some of the recordings we have digitised recently which might inspire you, including stories of political involvement, queer creative response, anti-nuclear protest, climate change, industrial protest and mass trespass. Where possible we have included download links in case you would like to sample the clips.

You can also find a playlist for each North West collection digitised by Unlocking Our Sound Heritage over at our Listen page. You might also want to have a listen to the Archives+ Soundcloud which holds all kinds of clips from the sound archives held at Manchester Central Library.