(We Are) Performance

(We are) Performance. Crucially, we are not diamond wankers. We’re musicians. We met in Manchester three years ago. We wrote our album in Ancoats, East Manchester, in an old cotton mill. Out the window, the new Manchester got closer and closer to us. We watched as the reflective architecture, the penthouses and the sickly bars, began to surround us. We have played our instruments and we have made young sounds. (We are) Performance. We are two boys and two girls. School-friends Joe Cross and Joe Stretch came to Manchester to talk politics but ended up just fucked, talking too loudly about the power of pop music. Meanwhile, having shared a womb, sisters Laura and Hilary Marsden had learnt to play a dozen instruments and were throwing parties round Manchester, putting on bands, causing others to dance. (We are) Performance. Two years followed. These years contained many tense, dangerous, wet eyed gigs. There is fun in the north of England. Creativity in Manchester. These years contained numerous addictions and illnesses.. We had sex with each other too much. That might be unfair. (We are) Performance. We believe in pop and in spectacle. We don’t really. Joe Stretch wrote a novel, it’s getting published next year. Laura publishes a sexually hostile fanzine called Too Much Information. Joe Cross is Manchester’s greatest re-mixer, re-working fellow Mancunians The Whip, The KBC, Daggers. Fun is for others. (We are) Performance. We write catchy songs about depression. We are shit at enjoyment but nevertheless we encourage you to dance. We like Fad Gadget, Leonard Cohen, Chris Waddle, Anais Nin, Bruce Springsteen, John Banville, New Order, The Sound, Michael Jackson and loads of other stuff. Like others, we like others. Our album is finished. We should have called it ‘Young Sounds and Dead Sounds’. But I don’t think we did. No matter. The complication of human beings is unjustified. We’re hypocrites. We’re a band. What a fate. (We are) Performance. Enjoy. Red Brick Heart is out now! weareperformance.co.uk http://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/red-brick-heart/id389759257