Manchester Music Mooch explores music culture in the Oxford Road Corridor.

It's not just a bus-spotters dream...

Oxford Road Corridor (recently branded as the knowledge quarter) is historically steeped in music and counter-culture, and contains good stuff at every corner: The Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester Museum, Manchester Poetry Library, and with various venues, bars, shops and theatres dotted along the stretch of road from Rusholme to Central Library, it's almost a city within a city.

In fact, there's so much culture here, they even made a website for it all... oxfordroadcorridor.com/culture

Early concert in RNCM, 1974
Credit: RNCM / MDMArchive

Led Zeppelin at Mcr University (Academy), 1971
Credit: Tracks/ MDMArchive

Oxford Road Show ticket, 1984
Credit: JSZ / MDMArchive

First LGBTQ+ national youth radio, BBC, 1993
Credit: Marko / MDMArchive

The excellent Special Collections Museum at the MMU has a fantastic collection of objects, including Mcr Poly (now MMU) alumni and renowned graphic designer Professor Malcom Garrett's superb collection of British and American popular culture and fashion objects, such as original Vivienne Westwood punk clothing and a ton of Gerry Anderson toys. Check out their website to see if they have one of their small but perfectly formed exhibitions.

Inside Central Library you can find the Henry Watson Music Library, which houses not only printed sheet music and music-related books, but also DJ equipment, computers with music-creation software and even instruments you can book.

The library itself is home to Archives+ which is great if you want to research culture and history in Greater Manchester. Many of the photos we have used on the Mooch have come from Manchester Libraries.

Central Library has a fantastic program of cultural exhibitions and events, many of them music and pop-related, so it's worth checking out what's on.

Body Parts?

It's not under investigation as a murder scene you'll be relieved to know - the body parts are meant to be there. The RNCM collection holds a lock of Felix Mendelssohn's hair, as well as a human thighbone flute, and Chopin's death mask.

Amongst the hundreds of objects, there is also a collection of amazing percussion instruments, of which we have been busy creating digital 3D models for your edutainment, like this work-in-progress, 3D scan of a beautiful goblet drum from the end of the 19th century.

And maybe, if you download the Manchester Music Mooch app and hit the trail, you will get a chance to play the goblet drum and other instruments from the RNCM collection, using digital magicary (is that a word?). Who knows?

Anyway, have a look here to know more.