Ed O'Brien on JOHN ROBB

Ed O'Brien talks to John Robb in front of an audience at the Ritz in Manchester, during the Unconvention festival, and the city itself is the first subject.

He was a student there from 1987 to 1990 and chose it deliberately. Everything coming out of Manchester from about 1978 was already on his radar, Factory, Joy Division and New Order, and the Smiths arrived in 1983 and settled it. He had already formed the band that became Radiohead, and what he wanted was the ecosystem around the music, which Oxford could not give him. Oxford in the mid-1980s had one venue; Manchester had a city's worth.

Under the pretence of studying, he booked bands at his hall of residence, did some roadying at the university and fronted a club night that nobody attended.

The last stretch turns to how musicians are paid. He cites Tom Gray's Broken Record campaign and argues that the opacity of where the money flows is what breeds mistrust between artists, labels, managers and agents, and that clearing up the accounting would remove most of it.