Featured image: Slack City

A new radio broadcast series is launching at The Salutation Pub this summer in collaboration with radio platform, Slack City MCR.

Slack City is a digital radio station broadcasting online and on air across four UK cities. They have a live radio show in Brighton called the Slack City Social, described as a “Loose Ends on Acid” which is run through the Brighton Festival and also hosted from a famous city centre pub and venue.

The Sally Sessions will reimagine this idea for Slack City MCR, taking place in a similarly iconic Manchester pub, The Salutation on Manchester Met’s All Saints Campus.

The new show is the first step to setting up a live programme as part of the Slack City MCR schedule and will offer a platform for student musicians, poets, and artists to broadcast their work.

The first live show will take place in the university pub on Saturday 8th June, hosted by Mancunian musician and writer John Robb and DJ and broadcaster Hannah O’Gorman.

The pair will be in conversation with “an OG figure from the city’s deep music tradition – paired with someone destined to be a future icon”.

The show, fondly named ‘Sally Sessions’, has been created in collaboration with Slack City Radio Brighton and musician and record producer Colin Newman, best known as the primary vocalist and songwriter in the post-punk band, Wire.

Radio producer and Slack City co-founder, Daniel Nathan, said: “Slack City is stoked to have the support of MMU, its students and the mighty Salutation pub in the production of ‘The Sally Sessions’ – Slack City MCR’s first live event – and looking forward to developing and extending the formula with the University into the next academic year and beyond.”

Manchester Met students will make up the production crew, working alongside the Slack City team to deliver the show, as well as SODA students (based next door to the venue) running the tech.

Slack City was born in Brighton, and is a self-professed place for “eclectic music selectors, maverick storytellers and bone collectors, hosting live sessions, free-ranging conversation, happenings, podcasts, a cool dog and damn fine beer”. The Sal can certainly provide the beer, but we’re not sure about the dog!

The Sally Sessions are part of a broader aim to set up an “alternative specialist” live radio set up in Manchester, expanding from their initial base in Brighton.

Special guests on the bill include performing artist Test Card Girl, Co-founder of GOMID LINTD, and record producer and musician Graham Massey.

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There’s never a dull day at the Sal, which has become a location for filmmakers, as well as hosting regular gigs, book launches, poetry performances, and more.

The pub also regularly hosts exhibitions by Manchester School of Art students, as well as the university’s popular Bunker Talks series curated by the Performance Research Group at Manchester School of Theatre.

Slack City MCR is part of a new community focused digital radio ‘multiplex’ consortium – using technology that the team pioneered in Brighton several years ago. 

Slack City MCR are in good company in our city, which is also home to other great Manchester community broadcasters and organisations and co-founders of the DAB project including Reform Radio, Gaydio, AllFM, Legacy 901, North Manchester Community Radio, and Salford City Radio.

The first edition of The Sally Sessions at The Salutation Pub will take place on Saturday 8th June, 2024. Doors open at 6:30pm. Show starts at 7pm. Book your free tickets here.

For more from The Sally Sessions follow @thesalmcr.