Matthew Rich ran a screen print poster shop in Manchester in the late seventies and, in the early eighties joined forces with the local flyposting crew to offer a wider service

Local posters, for The Haçienda and many other venues, were printed and flyposted from the Moss Side shop but a large part of the business was to flypost record company posters for record releases and major concerts.

Every couple of weeks the crew would visit the Red Star depot at Piccadilly station to collect rolls of posters, sent up from London. The record companies wanted proof that the posters had actually been posted, so part of Matthew’s job was to photograph the sites, post the pics back down to London and hopefully get paid!

In one of those dusty boxes in the attic, a few packs of these photos remained. An initial selection was used for a short sequence in designer Malcolm Garrett’s film about Manchester music and a wider edit has now been published by the wonderful Café Royal imprint.

Here’s a commentary on the book from Monorail Music:

Mainly known for his screen-printing work, Matthew Rich lived in Manchester during its early 80s blossoming. As well as designing and making posters for scene-makers like The Fall, Blue Orchids and The Haçienda club, his bread and butter was fly-posting whatever record was out that week. Luckily he had to document this for his record label clients.

A belated by-product is that these photos have, 40 years later, become part of what is an amazing Matthew Rich archive. It’s speedy work, documentary rather than carefully composed, but still, there’s a good eye over all of this, and the photos have a casual magic. This is a disappeared Manchester – pre-development on steroids.

Manchester looks down at heel, charming in places – this is a city where Buzzcocks, The Fall and The Smiths could make their work. This is the time of The Haçienda and reggae nights, a time of hyper-creativity.

Another important snapshot from the always great Cafe Royal imprint.