The 22 singles released by The Beatles between 1962-1970 – as well as the nineties, Anthology-era double A-side Free As A Bird/Real Love – have been boxed up for a vinyl compilation release on November 22nd.
A book featuring essays from Beatles historian Kevin Howlett will be included with the 180-gram 7″ singles, taking the Fab Four’s story away from the classic albums which have dominated recent reissues and on to some of the greatest slices of 3-minute pop ever recorded.
The Beatles: The Singles Collection tracklist:
1962 [sleeve art: U.S.] A: Love Me Do B: P. S. I Love You
1963 [sleeve art: Italy] A: Please Please Me B: Ask Me Why
1963 [sleeve art: Norway] A: From Me To You B: Thank You Girl
1963 [sleeve art: Greece] A: She Loves You B: I’ll Get You
1963 [sleeve art: Chile] A: I Want To Hold Your Hand B: This Boy
1964 [sleeve art: Austria] A: Can’t Buy Me Love B: You Can’t Do That
1964 [sleeve art: Holland] A: A Hard Day’s Night B: Things We Said Today
1964 [sleeve art: Sweden] A: I Feel Fine B: She’s A Woman
1965 [sleeve art: Spain] A: Ticket To Ride
B: Yes It Is
1965 [sleeve art: Belgium] A: Help! B: I’m Down
1965 [double A-side / sleeve art: France] A: We Can Work It Out A: Day Tripper
Kelly Jones of Stereophonics performs live on stage during Day 1 of Tramlines Festival 2018 at Hillsborough Park on July 20, 2018 in Sheffield, England Credit: Joseph Okpako/WireImage
“The tour is about overcoming things and moving on from obstacles and building strength from that”
Kelly Jones is heading out on tour again in his solo guise.
Fans are promised a set filled with 22 years’ of Stereophonics music as well as Jones’ solo material.
Jones said: “I’ll be performing some old songs, lots of songs I don’t normally do, some new songs, songs that have inspired me and stories that have inspired me. The tour is about overcoming things and moving on from obstacles and building strength from that. I am looking forward to performing with some new musicians and creating some beautiful moments.”
Tickets go on sale from 10am this Friday, 29 March.
Kelly Jones tour dates 2019:
JUNE
1 – Usher Hall, Edinburgh 8 – St David’s Hall, Cardiff 10 – Brighton Dome 16 – Eventim Apollo, London
JULY
1– Birmingham Symphony Hall 3 – Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham
Jones hasn’t released a solo album in more than a decade. His last record with Stereophonics 2017’s ‘Scream Above the Sounds’.
The Aussie outfit are set to visit the UK this April. Find out where they’re headed and if you can still buy tickets.
DMA’s have gathered a pretty big following, with favourable comparisons to the likes of Oasis and The Stone Roses.
If that wasn’t enough to help them gain a loyal fanbase in the UK, two acclaimed albums, memorable performances at Reading & Leeds Festival, endorsements from Liam Gallagher himself, a supporting slot at his 2018 Finsbury Park gig and their own dates at the end of last year all left UK audiences hungry for more.
With two albums in Hills End (2016) and For Now (2018) released so far, the Aussie outfit will no doubt be playing everything from The End to Step Up The Morphine and their breakout track Delete.
See a setlist from their recent headline gig at the O2 Academy, Sheffield:
HUNDREDS of artists have come together to release exclusive vinyl for Record Store Day 2019.
With so many records on offer – and for such a limited time – you’ll have to be really lucky to get your hands on these vinyls.
The Prodigy are releasing special vinyl for Record Store Day 2019Music from Aretha Franklin will also be releasedIggy Pop will be releasing special vinyl as he celebrates his birthday on Record Store Day 2019
From Aretha Franklin to The Prodigy – here’s what is up for grabs.
Who is releasing special records for Record Store Day 2019?
Iggy Pop will be releasing special vinyl as he celebrates his birthday on Record Store Day 2019
He told Record Store Day: “In my life, music has been a balm for loneliness. It was in the cheap ass little record store that I found a way to connect with other people. I was 18. It was a theatre, a glimpse at the world of commerce, and a cultural library; and my experiences as a teenage clerk were full of humour, and curiously warm.
“The modern approach, which is fine, still needs nourishment from this template. Everywhere on earth I go, there are freaks minding a record store. It’s a good hang – daylight vs. dimly lit, clear eyed vs. stoned, and social vs. savage. So that’s why I like ’em.”
0fficial Record Store Day releases 2019
A-HA: Hunting High And Low / The Early Alternate Mixes
Aretha Franklin: The Atlantic Singles Collection 1967
Bob Dylan: Blood On The Tracks – Original New York Test Pressing
David Bowie: Pin UpsDavid Bowie: The World Of David BowieDavid Bowie / Marlene Dietrich: Revolutionary Song / Just A Gigolo
Duran Duran: As The Lights Go Down (Live ‘84)
Elvis Presley: Live At The International Hotel, Las Vegas, 1969
Europe: Walk The Earth Limited Edition 7” Single
Fatboy Slim: Right Here Right Now – yellow vinyl, die-cut sleeve
The Flaming Lips: King’s Mouth – Gold Vinyl
Gorillaz: The Fall
Honeyblood: The Third Degree / She’s A Nightmare
IDLES: MEAT EP / META EP
Iggy Pop: The Villagers / Pain & Suffering
John Lennon: Imagine (Raw Studio Mixes)
Madness: One Step Beyond
Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds: Wait And Return EP
Paloma Faith: The Zeitgeist EP
Pink Floyd: Saucerful Of Secrets
The Prodigy: Fight Fire with Fire / Champions of London
Ramones: Live At The Palladium, New York, NY (12/31/79)
The Rolling Stones: Through The Past, Darkly (Big Hits Vol.2The Rolling Stones: High Tide Green Grass (Big Hits Vol. 1)The Rolling Stones: She’s A Rainbow (Live)
Glastonbury Festival has announced the dates for the resale of tickets to this year’s event.
Those who missed out on tickets in the original sale last year have the chance to attend by purchasing returned coach packages on Thursday April 25 or general admission tickets on Sunday April 28.
Ed Sheeran performs headlining the Pyramid stage on day 4 of the Glastonbury Festival 2017 at Worthy Farm, Pilton on June 25, 2017 in Glastonbury, England
Liam Gallagher is famously a massive Umbro fan (Image: Umbro/M.E.N.)
Global fashion brand Umbro is celebrating its 95th anniversary this year.
But it is little known that the company, which has produced clothing and footwear for some of the world’s biggest sporting stars, came from humble beginnings – right here in Manchester.
It’s still based here today, with global headquarters on Dale Street in the Northern Quarter. For years, the firm had a base in Wythenshawe.
Here, the Manchester Evening News looks back at 95 years of Umbro and what the future holds for a local brand which has grown into a international icon.
Humble beginnings
Umbro was started by Harold Humphreys who was born in Mobberley, Cheshire, in 1902.
Harold left school aged 13 for his first job at a textile firm in Manchester, where his first task was to dust and polish the bannisters on a staircase seven-stories high; quickly working his way up the ranks to the haberdashery department.
The Humphreys Brothers – Wallace (left) and Harold (right) (Image: Umbro)
After the depression hit, Harold found himself briefly out of work, before securing a new position as a salesman at Stockport sportswear brand Messrs Bucks – later known as Bukta.
At this point, the country was falling back in love with football, following the end of the Great War.
The Bull’s Head in Mobberley today
It 1922, Harold launched his own sportswear retail business, initially trading out of a cupboard in the back room of his parents’ pub, the Bull’s Head Hotel in Mobberley – which still operates today as a gastro-pub.
With the help of his brother Wallace, Harold formed Humphreys Brothers Ltd in 1924.
The name was abbreviated to Umbro – taking the ‘um’ from Humphreys and the ‘bro’ from brothers.
Umbro established their first factory in 1930 in Wilmslow (Image: manchester evening news)
Growing sales saw the first Umbro factory established in 1930, Umbro Works on Water Lane in Wilmslow, and the firm became the first to offer a 48-hour delivery service.
The Water Lane factory would be the company’s administrative and manufacturing base for the next 80 years.
For years, the firm had a base in Wythenshawe, before moving to nearby Cheadle.
‘The Dior of the football world’
In nearly a century of business, Umbro has provided kits to some of the world’s biggest teams.
Once referred to as the ‘Dior of the football world’, the brand has been associated with some of the most iconic moments in sporting history.
Manchester’s first major football kit was made for Manchester City, who won the FA Cup match in 1934 against Portsmouth – both of the teams were wearing Umbro.
Seventy-seven years later, in 2011, City won the FA Cup again, followed by the league title in 2012; with the team still dressed in Umbro kit.
The England team wore Umbro kits from 1954 to 2012, including the title-winning 1966 World Cup.
England win World Cup final wearing Umbro – July 30, 1966 (Image: manchester evening news)
Ahead of that year’s competition, Wallace Humphreys visited each of the countries to meet the teams.
Of the 16 teams that competed that year, 15 wore Umbro; due to a last minute decision, the USSR were the only team not wearing the brand.
The growing sports brand began outfitting international teams in 1958 – when Brazil won the World Cup that year, they were kitted out in their clothing.
In 1959, Manchester United manager, Matt Busby collaborated with Umbro to help design a winter sportswear range called ‘Styled by Matt Busby – the choice of champions’.
That same year, Umbro was the first to produce junior kits, so that children could wear the same team strips as their footballing heroes.
And in 1960, Manchester United player Denis Law became the first footballer to be sponsored by the firm, when he signed an exclusive deal with the brand.
Although best known for their football kits, Umbro doesn’t just produce gear for the beautiful game.
During the Second World War, Umbro made uniforms for the Lancaster bombers.
Umbro Aid the War Effort by creating uniform for the Lancaster Bombers (Image: manchester evening news)
This decision to contribute to the war effort may in fact have saved the company from closure.
The factories would have been at risk of shutting down with no men to work there and the production of sportswear wouldn’t have been deemed necessary for female workers to take over during wartime.
Post-war Umbro continued to produce clothing for a range of sports.
At the Helsinki Summer Olympics in 1952, the British team wore their kits and in 1954, Roger Bannister was the first man to break the four minute mile whilst wearing the clothing.
Roger Bannister becomes the first person to break the four-minute mile wearing Umbro (Image: manchester evening news)
Ironically they also helped Adidas to get a foothold in the UK market after Harold Humphreys met Adi Dassler in 1959.
At the time, Umbro didn’t manufacture footwear and they became the sole distributors of Adidas shoes in the UK, which were promoted as part of the full sporting outfit.
This partnership lasted for many years until Harold and Adi died, in 1974 and 1978 respectively.
Their sons, who took over the businesses, did not have the same relationship that their fathers did. After they fell out, the partnership ended – Umbro started to make footwear and Adidas started to make clothing.
One of the most well-known shoes created by the brand is the Speciali football boots, worn by Michael Owen when he scored the famous goal for England against Argentina in the 1998, aged just 18.
They were re-released in 2018 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Owen’s career-changing moment.
Another interesting story took place on April 13, 1996 when Sir Alex Ferguson famously made the Manchester United team change their grey kits as he claimed that the players couldn’t see each other.
Ryan Giggs in the infamous grey kit at the Southampton v Manchester United match (Image: Getty Images)
Down 3-0 to Southampton at half-time, United emerged for the second half in a completely new blue and white striped kit.
They did pull the game back slightly, scoring one goal to make it 3-1 at full time, but not all players were convinced that the kit was to blame.
Lee Sharpe later told The Guardian: “I’m not sure if any of the players mentioned the kit. Personally I felt that we were playing really poorly, and that we couldn’t really blame anything or anyone but ourselves.”
And it’s not only sporting stars. Music legends that have famously worn the double diamond, with Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher wearing the famous Umbro drill top at their Maine Road concert in 1996.
Liam Gallagher wears Umbro drill top for Oasis concert at Maine Road in 1996 (Image: manchester evening news)
The latest trends
Although production no longer takes place in Manchester, and is produced in various countries through a licensee network, most of the design work for the brand is still done at the Northern Quarter HQ.
Umbro still has a hand in local teams, currently sponsoring the Manchester Fustal League, whose senior team currently sits in sixth place in the FA’s National Super League.
Futsal is a growing sport in the UK – it’s like five-a-side, played indoors but with a smaller ball. Famous players who started their career in Futsal include Lionel Messi, Javier Hernandez and Neymar.
In October 2018, Umbro created the world’s first leather laceless football boot – the Medusa 3 Elite. It is the brand’s lightest ever leather boot, weighing just 170 grams.
The first laceless leather boots
Also last year, the company collaborated with British designer Christoper Raeburn to create a Spring/Summer collection inspired by Umbro’s footballing heritage.
The project deconstructs iconic Umbro shirts worn from 1996 to 2010, crafting them into a six-piece range of garments.
Since launching in 1924, the brand Umbro has been a thread running through some of the most memorable moments in recent football and sporting history.
It’s certainly come a long way from a cupboard in a back room of a pub – while retaining its Mancunian roots.
This spring, Umbro will unveil a new 10 foot piece of street art in Manchester and they are asking Mancunians ‘What does football mean to you?’.
The best messages will appear in the mural which will be located on the edge of the Northern Quarter, will be unveiled in April.
To enter, head to Twitter and tweet what football means to you with the hashtag #UmbroManchester or click here .
Donato Dozzy has a new album on the way for Tresor, titled Astro.
Marking the Italian artist’s second full-length release of 2026, after his collaborative LP with Batu, Exhale, came out in June, this new LP takes in seven tracks. It’s said to be inspired by Jumbo Machinders cartoons, which were based around Japanese robot action figures and were popular in Italy during Dozzy’s childhood.
Every episode of the cartoon was dubbed into Italian, and had its own specially written Italian theme song, which was pressed onto 7-inch vinyl. Last year, Dozzy took a sample from the first of the themes he ever owned, Astro Robot Contatto Ypsylon, and it appears on Astro’s…
The ninth edition of the festival platforming punks of colour takes place in North London next month
Hang Linton, photo by Spence Hackett
Decolonise Fest has finalised the lineup for its ninth edition, which takes place at Signature Brew Blackhorse Road in London next month.
Running across 3 and 4 October, the festival’s stated aim is to celebrate punks of colour, which will be done via live performances, talks and workshops.
Piroshka and former Lush member Miki Berenyi, cult Scottish outfit Sacred Paws and fast-rising alternative rap trio Frozemode lead the musical lineup, which also includes Third Kulture, Baby Said, Uninvited, Mashaal, Hang Linton, Silver Tabby, Tmdistant, Eatboys. and Dygora.
Newly announced today is a lineup of workshops, panels and creative activity. On Saturday 3,…
Now that the dust has settled on the 2026 World Cup of soccer, Wayne Rooney assists JR Moores with his rock content
Dinosaur Jr., photo by Jeff Fowler
“I like a lot of them artists, but I thought it was crap.” Those aren’t my words. Those are the words of the BBC’s last surviving music critic, Wayne Rooney. Fingers crossed the ex-Man U. forward will replace Jools Holland or host next year’s Glastonbury coverage. That ought to curb excess use of the word “iconic”. Rooney was talking about the World Cup final’s halftime show, an event less welcome than two hydration breaks and a career-jeopardising knee injury. The climax with Coldplay has been hailed in some quarters as a heartwarming touch of “genius”. They…
James Johnston picked up a paintbrush while on tour with PJ Harvey ten years ago and never put it down again. This is what the practice has taught him. Words and candid photography by Wesley Doyle
Guildford-born James F. Johnston has spent most of his life known as a musician: founder of Gallon Drunk, a former member of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Faust, and Big Sexy Noise with Lydia Lunch, he’s played on records by Barry Adamson, Dot Allison and PJ Harvey. It was while on tour with the latter that a way of killing time turned into a daily practice, then a livelihood, and is now – by Johnston’s own reckoning – his primary identity.
King Ayisoba’s seventh album was cut live in a single sitting. Everything else was built around it afterwards
Pure Confusion by King Ayisoba
The most useful thing to know about Pure Confusion is how it was made. King Ayisoba flew to England in November 2024, sat down in Adrian Sherwood’s studio in Ramsgate, and played the whole record in one afternoon. He says the songs were already finished in his head. Nothing about his performance was altered after the fact. The bass, the cello, the saxophone, the harmonica, the dub processing on the desk: all of it was added later, to a recording of a man who was alone in a room with a two-string lute made from a calabash…
In an extract from the new book International Freak, author M. Syd Rosen describes a doomed attempt in 1970 to ignite a revolution with rock & roll
White Panthers EP by Robin Farquharson & The White Panthers
Born in 1930 into a privileged South African family, Robin Farquharson was part of a new wave of intellectuals who tasked themselves with reimagining society in the wake of World War II until everything fell apart. Watched by the secret police and hampered by mounting paranoia, Farquharson fled to 1960s London and tried to reinvent himself as a countercultural guru.
In 1970 the writer and would-be revolutionary recorded a single dedicated to the Palestinian hijacker Leila Khaled, then being held in Ealing Prison. Farquharson said the song…
Marc Almond meets Patrick Clarke in Soho to discuss the death of Dave Ball, the final Soft Cell album Danceteria, his career as a shapeshifter, and why a tribute to the decadence of 80s New York marks a full circle moment
Photo by Mike Owen
I meet Marc Almond a few minutes’ walk from the Brewer Street flat in which he lived in the early 1980s. There is a longstanding urban myth that a pet boa constrictor once escaped from it and slithered into the Soho sewers where it slithers to this day, although Almond clarifies that it only got as far as terrorising the neighbours. “I think it got out through the piping and came out through their toilet. I got…
New Carmen Villain shares its slow-burning intensity with the Apichatpong Weerasethakul film it shares a title with
Memoria by Carmen Villain
Carmen Villain’s fifth album, Memoria begins in familiar territory: flute tones stretch out across an enormous, reverberant field, the same patient sound that defined her last record. It doesn’t stay there long. Within a couple of minutes the ground shifts, and the record makes its real statement: this is not music built for casual listening. Sharing its title with Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s languorous 2021 film, this is a record made for the kind of slow, attentive surrender that lets its details bloom.
Where 2022’s Only Love from Now On found Villain working in a spectral, dub-inflected haze, Memoria pushes that language somewhere…
An extract from Rodge Glass’ new biography of the second half of Suede’s existence reveals how the band recently wrote a score and songs for a ballet, in part inspired by The Fall’s work with Michael Clark
Band reformations frequently offer thin creative gruel. Even if new material is made, it’s often scattered apologetically at the start of gigs before the price-gouged audience get a dose of nostalgia, a shot in the arm to take them fleetingly back to the heady hormonal years of teenagerhood. Suede were at such a low ebb when they split in 2003 that their return had to be done differently, and done right – avoiding what Brett Anderson describes as “the living death of playing exclusively old songs,…
In an exclusive extract from his new book, A Right to Housing, Samuel Stein argues that the struggle for affordable housing is an inseparable element of the class struggle
Photo by Jonathan Billinger. Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0.
When most people think of a right to housing, they are conceiving of a right to a home – a city, nation, or world where no one is pushed into homelessness, and where no one is evicted because of tenant poverty or landlord avarice.
A right to a home means ensuring there is always enough housing for everyone, regardless of market conditions. It is not a right to real estate, or an entitlement to for-profit homeownership – a recipe for the kind of “predatory inclusion”…
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