Part 2. Let's make this moment...last.
Music review from our Crone Afternoon Disco 'CroneLines 2025', including Crone Lyn's interview with Una Baines (The Fall, Blue Orchids and now, Poppycock), plus CroneLines DJ playlists.
When Crone Lyn sends me a message saying, ‘Una Baines is up for coming to CroneLines, can we make space for her to speak?’
Well, in the interests of full transparency, a little bit of wee may have come out.
As fellow indie anoraks amongst you will know, Una Baines was a founding member of one of my fave bands of all time, The Fall.
“So what?”, you may well ask. Over their 42 years of line up changes, it might be quicker to list the people in Manchester who WEREN’T, at one point, a member of The Fall. But there is only one woman who can lay claim to be A FOUNDING MEMBER from when they first started in 1976. And that’s Una!
According to Wikipedia, “Baines was originally going to be the drummer in the group but realised that she would be unlikely to be able to afford a drum kit. Instead, she started saving up for a keyboard. Baines did not play at the band's first gig on 23 May 1977, as she had applied for a bank loan to enable her to buy a keyboard, and it had not arrived in time.”
Una’s next band, ‘Blue Orchids’ (allegedly named by John Cooper Clarke) were the backing band for the Velvet Underground’s Nico on a European tour in the early 80’s.
“It was brilliant to work with Nico. I admired and was a little in awe of her. Patti Smith had given her the Indian pipe organ she played and she let me sound check it for her!”
{Interview with Una Baines and @winterviewz, 2012}
And now aged 67, Una’s on the TransPennine ‘Express’ from Manchester, on her way to our first ever afternoon crone disco with spoken word, CroneLines.
What is CroneLines?
For all our new subscribers (welcome all!) the vision for CroneLines was to create a cool as fk afternoon disco for ‘women of a certain rage’ - anyone in peri-menopause and on the other side of it.
Let’s face it, if ever there was a time for kick-ass menopausal and post-menopausal women to get together to laugh, dance and support each other, to quote Rosin Murphy, “the time is now”.
Punk, crone-stylie - an interview with Una Baines.
In preparation for her arrival, Lyn asks if I have a question I’d like to ask Una.
“Ooo, well, ask her about Mark E Smith, obviously!” I gush, but in retrospect, I now feel slightly ashamed for my question. Mark E Smith turns out to be the least interesting thing about her.
This is punk, crone style.
When Una takes the mic, you can’t help but be touched by her self-effacing gentleness, combined with a quiet, Manc, inner strength. She reminds me of the older Sheffield punks from The Washington and The Leadmill I aspired to be, back in the day. Dry, funny and authentic.
A woman still hugely active on the feminist, activist and Manchester music scene, Una is at the helm of her all-female band, ‘Poppycock’ (“Well, there is one fella in it,” she says… “but that’s okay.”).
Poppycock, she tells us, are now in their 13th year, which, as any self-respecting crone knows, is a very special number.
“This is a very special year, because 13 being, you know, sacred, magical and bits of the goddess divine feminine and everything. So lots of great things will happen for us. We had an album released last June. It took us all that time to, you know, all the ups and downs of bands and everything. And we finally got it out there.”
Thirteen years for the making of an album. What could be more Crone as Fk than that?
“I found as I got older, you give less and less of the shit about what people think about you, how you are, how you look, all that kind of stuff. But I think that's really liberating.”
There are whoops of agreement from the CroneLines crowd. This is, after all, the gold standard of all crone qualities to which us crones-in-training aspire - the crone superpower of ‘zero fks given’.
When Lyn asks her about whether she feels women in music are now in a better place, Una responds with a touching story of how she sometimes puts up touring female bands playing at The Peer Hat in Manchester.
“There was a Japanese band of young women called Kuunatic. And they do a very Bjork type of thing, but with traditional Japanese instruments as well. And I just met these three young women and made them breakfast the next morning. When they were leaving, I thought, this is the future.
These women are just travelling all over the place. They're not looking to become mega famous. They're not looking to do arenas. They're happy to just travel about doing their thing. And I just, it's like the freedom of it, and I thought, wow, you know, it's just like, you know, I'm excited about doing this.
“Because there weren't very many women when I was doing it in the 70s, and prior to punk there was a lot of intellectual men with big overcoats and beards. They were very, very condescending to women. But when the Punk thing happened, it was like people could just get up there and show their passion…like Patti Smith said, play, learn these three chords and go out and form a band. And that was really liberating, because people could, and so many amazing things came out of that.”
Lyn asks if there’s a growing 'crone scene' in Manchester…
“Yeah, I think it's been growing and growing for years. There’s a funny sort of thing where they do things called, you know, ‘for older people’. And a lot of our age group don't identify with those things. It's like if you were in a care home. And you wouldn't really want to be listening to Peri Como would you?”
Lyn agrees. “My mum always says, ‘Can you imagine you lot in the care home with your tattoos?’”
But although some things have changed, some things remain the same, like the rise of the right, and, in response, the music protest.
“I think a lot of the things that happened in the 70s with what we used to call ‘consciousness raising’ groups…it's all coming back. It's all just happening. We might have new names and everything, but it's exactly the same thing. And it's so important. The right wing fascist machine is, I believe, on its last legs.”
It’s getting to the end of the interview when Lyn finally pops ‘that question’, though she frames it in a much more interesting way than I did.
“And Mark E Smith…what did he think to having women in the band? Was he encouraging?”
“Oh god, yes”, said Una. “We did everything for him! He couldn’t have survived without us.”
(Paid subscribers can watch some of Lyn’s interview with Una at the end of this piece.)
Bring on the music!
Dancing with Angelina Abel and Kom.
After Una finishes, the dancing begins, with a performance by Angelina Abel and Kom Richards.
Angelina is a dancer and choreographer living in Sheffield and founder of @mulembasdafricadance @global_tr1be. She got us moving with a dance based on her Angolan heritage, where “ancestral spirituality guides you through each movement allowing you to release the energy, expand the soul and embrace the roots.”
She then, rather bravely, led us in a lesson to try it for ourselves 👇🏽
Then it was onto the Crone DJ sets…
When I was planning CroneLines, I had a vision of women dancing to female DJs, playing music featuring the best female musicians and crone tracks across various genres. Above all, the DJ brief was to leave everyone feeling the power of sisterhood.
“What an event! It was completely magnificent. The sheer joy of dancing with women to music made by women, celebrating the wonder of being women was just mind-blowingly brilliant. I loved every minute.” - CroneLines Feedback 2025
So here’s a taster of some of the DJ playlists and a few of their DJ highlights from the day.
DJ Juzza
Share some tracks from your CroneLines Playlist…
Share a DJ highlight…
“We lost our wonderful Dad last year, and we were musical soulmates, so seeing my Mum dancing to Nina Simone’s ‘Aint Got No’, despite mum having a full knee replacement booked for the following week, has to be a highlight! Also looking out from behind the decks after dropping ‘Like Sugar’ by Chaka Khan and seeing my little sis grooving to our fave sibling track. My sis has chronic fatigue/ M.E and what makes her energy even more special is I know this burst of support will cost her several days in bed. Also, seeing a good friend dance for three hours, despite still being in chemo for breast cancer AND recovering from a broken ankle - ‘Three hours of dancing seemed to cure the neuropathy in my foot though,” she told me later.
DJ Crone Lyn
Share some tracks from your CroneLines Playlist…
Share a DJ highlight…
“As a volunteer and attendee it was a great experience- I never thought I'd learn how to use DJ decks at my age and so that was very inspiring. Kitty was a brilliant support. Great, great atmosphere, really felt like opportunities for older women to affirm and celebrate each other are not common enough and this is such a great way to do this.”
Not only, but also…
When she’s not pulling on her big crone pants to DJ in front of a crowd with a mere 10 minute DJ lesson, Lyn does shed-loads of other interesting stuff including successfully getting her arse in gear to attend music gigs, producing The Philip Larkin Society Podcast with her husband Gav, and being a great support at Crone Club too. 🙏
DJ Disco Clare
Share some tracks from your Cronelines Playlist…
Share a DJ highlight…
“The Helen Reddy track ‘I Am Woman’ at the start was a real highlight for me - it is a great tribute to my mum. I grew up with such positivity and music and Mum really championed the arts. Another highlight was when I played ‘I Am What I Am’ by Gloria Gaynor and the Disco Choir gang went mental, which was just so infectious!”
Not only, but also…
Clare is our sparkly leader of Sheffield’s new Disco Choir which is attracting crooning crones by the cauldron! The Disco Choir is now FULL, but contact clare@discochoir.co.uk to join the waiting list. 🪩
We are hoping that next year there may be a performance at CroneLines.
DJ Moonrise (AKA Crone Sarah Louisa of La Luna)
Share some tracks from your Cronelines Playlist...
DJ Moonrise aka Sarah Wilson shares her playlist below, but would like to stress that on the day she played some exclusive re-edits NOT available on Spotify!
Share a DJ highlight...
“What a bloody amazing day! I’m still feeling the warmth and energy of all the amazing, nay phenomenal women. Such a privilege to be part of it.”
Not only, but also…
Sarah runs and DJs at La Luna Social Club (with her husband Dean), Sheffield’s original early start, early finish club night. They also donate their profits to charities. Find out more here: La Luna Social Club | Twitter, Instagram, Facebook | Linktree
When she’s not DJing, Sarah teaches yoga. She has an upcoming full moon online gathering. Details here: Yoga Moon Magick - Yoga and Wellbeing Sheffield
DJ Kitty
Headlining at CroneLines was a Sheffield DJ who should need no introduction, DJ Kitty. Her band, Speed for Lovers are truly magnificent (their next gig is at Sidney and Matilda’s on 12 July, you can buy tickets here). Many will also know Kitty for her exceptional audio visual work - especially, creative soundscapes and podcast production. Check out her fab work on her website here.
DJ Kitty plays us out at CroneLines with a ‘proper’ club set, including Moloko’s ‘The Time is Now’ (see below). And best of all, it’s only 6.30pm.
With the words of Roisin ringing in our ears, the more feral amongst us tumble out of the venue and head to the nearest bar - the hugging and the loving hanging jubilantly in the air, along with the sticky scent of Oestrogell.
“Let’s make this moment… last.”
Paid subscribers can watch the full video interview with Crone Una here. 👇🏽 Shall we do this again? If you want another CroneLines and other events, please consider donating just £4 a month. 🙏