Frantic Elevators

From Buzzcocks to Britpop, Manchester North Of England is the ultimate tribute to the independent output of that most important and iconic of musical cities, with 146 tracks across seven CDs in a deluxe box set.

WHITE DOPES ON PUNK is a manifesto on the punk rock ethos. Over 50 songs the collection pulls from both the best and the worst, representing the genre's true DIY aesthetic. The Damned, the Averts, the Nosebleeds, and the Water Pistols, are only a few of the artists on board.You can argue the world needs another punk compilation like you need a Doc Marten kicking a hole in your head, but White Dopes on Punk is a cut above the average, focusing solely on the U.K. scene of the mid-to-late '70s but forgoing most of the usual suspects (i.e. the Sex Pistols and the Clash) to create an atypically warts-and-all snapshot of a singular moment in time.

In the wake of punk, musicians in the UK found themselves suddenly liberated artistically and free to think in new terms commercially. The outcome was the independent label boom, and beyond that a certain Do It Yourself aesthetic. Overnight, the possibility arose of recording your own music and releasing your own record, or, if you weren’t musical yourself, setting up your own label to release records by people who were.

A 76 track celebration of all things Manchester from 1977 to 1981.
A comprehensive look at the city’s sounds featuring Buzzcocks, Joy Division, New Order, The Fall, John Cooper Clark, Durutti Column, A Certain Ratio, The Freshies, Slaughter & The Dogs, Magazine and many more. Includes tracks featuring many future stars of the Manchester music scene, such as Mick Hucknall (Simply Red), Martin Coogan (The Mock Turtles), Graham Massey (808 State), Mike Joyce (The Smiths) and Chris Sievey (Frank Sidebottom). Back in 2017, Cherry Red unveiled a mammoth 7-CD compendium entitled ‘Manchester North Of England’, which attempted to document the city’s vibrant music scene from punk to Britpop. Six years on, ‘Keeping Control’ is the sequel, a modest triple-disc retrospective concentrating on music from the punk and post-punk years.