"SOMETIMES the best ideas can come out of chaos!", laughs John Robb as we find ourselves debating the slightly... erm... 'flexible' nature of this weekend's Tony Wilson Experience.

John, who will (probably) be chairing several sessions as well as leading his own, is vocalist with punk rock band Goldblade and frequently appears as a journalist and commentator on music and other matters.

"The important thing is that it's not a matter of a it being a bunch of 'stars' on the stage delivering their so-called wisdom but that it really should be a conversation - a pretty long one, admittedly - in which all the participants are equals," he asserts.

"You know how people always come up with these great ideas when they're just sitting around in a pub but then nothing concrete actually happens?

"This shouldn't be like that because the people involved are committed to making something happen even if we're not exactly sure yet about what that might be!

"That's what always seemed to me to be inspiring about Tony, the way he actually got things done. He would set up a situation in which things could happen, sometimes by just putting people in a room together. The idea certainly isn't to turn out 200 little versions of Tony Wilson, though."

Blackpool-born Robb was inspired by the DIY ethic of punk to form The Membranes who released several albums in the 1980s.

He then went on to write for the music paper Sounds and has been credited with being the man who invented the term 'Britpop'.

Work ethic

His ferocious work ethic means that he is simultaneously finishing off an oral history of the Manchester music scene, similar to his Oral History of Punk, a new album from Goldblade, called Mutiny, and a book called Death To Trad Rock - Adventures In The British Post Post Punk Scene.

The latter, he says, has been: "a fascinating journey into the mid-eighties underground that with The Membranes I was very much part of. There was a discernable scene of bands who were attached by a noisy attitude and circuit of venues and fanzines.

"There was lots of discordant DIY noise and wild times. Invariably championed by John Peel and the music press, the bands took the energy of punk rock and, instead of infusing it with the spirit of the Velvet Underground, they mainly went for the twisted genius of Captain Beefheart, King Tubby, krautrock, underground noise, agit funk, the Pop Group, no wave old blues, garage rock and punk rock.

"The scene was political but with a neat surrealist satirical edge. Many of the bands played benefits for the miners during the Miners' Strike but very few of them wrote a direct political anthem.

"They assumed the audience were smart enough to know which side they were on as they satirised British culture in the post-punk fallout. The bands floated round in that space between punk, post punk, the new pop of The Smiths and the nascent Goth scene but on their own terms, in their own frenetic world.

"Like American post hardcore this was a breaking away from the rules and conventions of music into a brave new world. Gigs were noisy and wild affairs. The audience was made up from refugees from all these scenes - a collection of rough-hewn hair, Doc Martens, black drainpipes and sawn-off paisley shirts."

Tony would have been proud!

John Robb will be hosting events throughout the day.

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