Peterloo Massacre

Tractor were fortunate enough to have John Peel indulge them to write and record a suite of songs about Manchester's Peterloo Massacre - Peel helped pay recording studio bills and even bought them equipment to launch several locations of recording studios around Rochdale where they continued to record themselves and other bands which has played a major part in Manchester's musical history.

They recorded a 21 minute suite of songs about Peterloo in 1973. Because of the campaign for a decent memorial to the victims of Peterloo Tractor wrote new songs in the last few years to add to the suite of music which now runs as a whole album at around 41 minutes. The album will be released a few weeks before the 190th anniversary of the Peterloo Massacre which is on the 16th August 2009.

This Sunday on BBC 1 Tractor play an extract from one of the songs and members of the band and their producer Chris Hewitt talk about the politics of Peterloo and the parallels with Thatcherism and today and their idea of a Peterloo concert in the open air in Manchester somewhere near St Peters Fields.

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If you are outside North West region of BBC 1 you can get the North West edition of the politics show by selecting other regions on your Sky or digibox etc.

The program is on at 12:00PM - 1:00PM on Sunday 2nd of November.