Alex James: The Great Escape

I spent the weekend in Manchester. Manchester's got posher since the last time I stayed there. What's going on? Are you really supposed to eat a burger with a knife and fork? I'll never be able to, it's like trying to eat a lollipop with a spoon, it's just wrong. The waiters were giving me the beady eye as I tucked in, two-handed. I felt that to ask for ketchup would meet with further disapproval.

After my posh beefburger, I went to Night and Day to catch a couple of unsigned bands. Outside of the nursery at home, it's a while since I've been in a sticky, noisy room with a jostling crowd. It was suddenly blissful. The music was too loud, the lights were too bright and the girls were too pretty.

Whereas the restaurant had an air of sophistication and failed to deliver anything remotely chic, the venue was very much spit and sawdust, and yet, I felt, this was where those knowledgeable in the ways of the world were to be found.

It always astonishes me how good the unsigned bands that play in these kinds of places are. The competition for slots at the popular venues in big cities are so hotly contested that you're not really taking much of a risk when you invest your £5 at the door. There's something good and unique about every headlining band. And I'm not being generous. There are hundreds of crap bands in Manchester, too, but there are probably 30 that are seriously good. That's quite a lot of good bands without record deals, especially when you start to consider that it's probably the same in Liverpool, Birmingham, Leeds and so on. Polytechnic, Dear Eskimo, Snowfight in the City Centre and Permissive Society, who I spent Sunday with, all unsigned, all told me things I didn't know, all lived in their music as a monk lives in his faith.

Record companies may well be all blown out as business models, but I'm not sure that the world would be worse off without them. Of course, I'd probably be worse off without one, but if there were never a bean to be made from being in a band, I'd have done it anyway. When footballers didn't get paid much, they still thought they had the best job in the world. It's possible that the injection of cash has improved the quality of the game, but all you really need to be the greatest footballer ever is a football. All you need to be a pop star is a haircut, a guitar and an idea, and I'm not sure if the spectre of money has anything but a negative impact.

Money is about the last thing people in bands think about, until they start getting loads of it. Money addiction is probably a bigger obstacle to quality of life than drugs are for musicians. Look at the Rolling Stones, all still addicted to the stuff, old men on a global cash binge when they could be at home singing songs to their grandchildren.

I've decided to start an obscure local band with the village record producer. We're going to rehearse in the village hall on Saturdays and try not to make hit records. It's the way forward. Music feels better than money.

a.james@independent.co.uk