An Evening with Mike Pickering

From The Hacienda to the Happy Mondays to M-People…

Join us as we find out more about a life of music, madness and moving on up with Mike Pickering, a major figure in UK music, whose story has not been told before.

Manchester Must Dance is a new book, written with mercurial storyteller Paul Morley and covers a golden age of British popular music and culture, from the 1960s onwards, all seen through the perspective of someone who was in the thick of it, as a musician, DJ and A&R executive.

Manchester Must Dance features contributions as well as forewords from music titans Noel Gallagher, Martin Fry, Johnny Marr and Calvin Harris, and gives a unique insider’s perspective on the Madchester story, from the 1970s to 1990s.

About the Book

From Manchester’s backstreets to global dancefloors – this is the untold story of a musical pioneer. Beginning on the night in November 1963, when his mum took him to see the Beatles live at Manchester’s ABC Cinema, Mike Pickering takes the reader through sixty years of clubs, clothes, gigs, record labels, football matches and politics.

Pickering has lived through decades of rapid change in popular music. As an influential DJ he introduced house music into the legendary Haçienda. He signed Happy Mondays and James to Factory Records before working with Kasabian, Gossip and Calvin Harris at Sony. His Mercury Prize-winning, multi-million-selling group M People transformed the music industry’s attitude to dance music.