Michael James Pollard

24/01/2025

Mark E Smith | 5 March 1957 – 24 January 2018

22/12/2024

Great seeing our daughter Eilidh (violin/vocals) and son Alex (bass/harmonium) performing with Dom Lo as The Local at the Blossoms in Stockport
A lovely pub and venue and a really nice supportive crowd

05/12/2024

Back in touch with the wonderful Carmel and band after seeing a post by Dave Haslam
As was the norm back in the early eighties, I would knock about with various bands, doing a bit of photography, a bit of sound engineering, driving vans and recording and filming gigs. I've just unearthed some, but not all yet, of the negs that I shot of Carmel, Jim and Gerry. This is the first one that I've scanned. Shot in the photographic studio at Manchester Polytechnic, where I was studying at the time.

01/12/2024

I'm very lucky to spend time in art galleries photographing collections and exhibitions. As far as I'm aware, I've never been an actual exhibit, until now! In the background is a 3 metre high picture of me, aged 14yrs and jumping over my drum kit, in a recent exhibition 'Dancing Through Time' at the Quad, in Derby. I shall leave the story of this for another time but thanks to Ocean Farini for the photo. Original polaroid photo here also.

27/11/2024

'Make Hay' from The Local streaming now. With our Alex on bass and Eilidh on violin and backing vocals

15/10/2024

It was really nice to get to talk to Dave Haslam and to contribute, in a very small way, to this lovely piece on Marcel King and Sweet Sensation.

A Manchester music story.

21/08/2024

May 1982. Dislocation Dance founder member, singer and saxophonist, Kathryn Way, getting on to the front cover of the independent music industries magazine, MasterBag. Dislocation Dance were, at this point, signed to Manchester indie label New Hormones but would sign with Rough Trade soon after for the release of their classic album 'Midnight Shift'. I should add that my first shoot after leaving Mcr Poly was with Dislocation Dance at this particular time. I was very shy and very nervous, particularly when Kathryn first walked in to the room. And Kathryn and I are still together and recording and releasing new music under the name Port. https://michaeljamespollard.bandcamp.com/album/so-far-away

31/07/2024

In 1985 I was introduced to Yargo by their manager. And so began 3 years of shooting the band, filming and recording gigs, doing layout and design of album and single sleeves and generally being their biggest fan! In return I got paid a bit but more importantly got free records and cassettes of demos whenever they were working on new songs. I still have all of this stuff and more! And during that time some of what I produced got left unused, such as these portraits. Portraits, in order, of Paddy Steer, Basil Clarke, Phil Kirby and Tony Burnside.

24/07/2024

3 images from a re-discovered and previously unpublished shoot with Marcel King. The negs, dated 19th March 1984, state 'reel 1' which means there must be a reel 2 somewhere. Taken at 13 Salisbury Road in Chorlton, Manchester, a house owned by Paul Emmerson from Dislocation Dance, where I was renting a room and on the dole. This shoot coincided with the release of 'Reach For Love' on Factory Records which should have been a huge hit. Backing on the track by Donald Johnson from A Certain Ratio and Bernard Sumner from New Order. Marcel was previously the lead singer on Sweet Sensation's one and only hit 'Sad Sweet Dreamer'.

17/02/2024

One thing I didn't expect to see on our trip to Iceland was the eruption.....and on our way to the airport too!

12/02/2024

Calling all vinyl addicts! I have just 5 copies left now of my 7” single ‘Too Confusing’. It comes in a rather lovely cardboard picture sleeve with equally lovely picture labels! If you’d like to buy a copy then just send me a message. £7.50 incl p&p. Listen before you buy on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/album/407xv3fw5v4eWMORZAwWjE...
And read all about it below.
Emotional Rescue returns to early 1980s Manchester with the previously unreleased music of Michael James Pollard and his beautiful distillation of indie pop in Too Confusing and bedsit cover version of Ashford and Simpson’s Surrender.
While studying photography at Manchester Polytechnic, (MJ) Pollard lived and played in a band in a ramshackle house in Whalley Range. In the cellar studio he would write and record his own songs using their guitars, fretless bass and keys, as well as his own Casio VL-Tone VL-1 and Simmons Clap Trap to augment his drums onto a 4 track TEAC.
By 1983, and now solo, he was recording out of Dislocation Dance’s studio, had secured a Peel Session and via Factory Records’ Lindsay Reade, was discussing with Fundação Atlântica about releasing an album.
Working with singer Sioux Goddard as a duo, they put down 8 songs in 2 weeks in summer ‘84. However, Fundação Atlântica’s financial difficulties and soon closure meant the songs were lost until now.
Recovered off the original tapes and lovingly restored, Too Confusing captures the optimism of the sessions, a summer love melody of forlorn youth. Surrender accompanies, recorded back in that cellar in ’81, with friend Stephanie Danziger on vocals, its lo-fi simplicity is a perfect take on an all-time classic, making this a newly prized gem of British indie pop history.