Presented by John Robb, the downloadable and streamable guides are entitled inspired, green, en-route, underground, unsung (which I found most interesting), radical, poetic, human, proud and industrial. Each part includes interviews with local experts – ‘ranging from city councillors to body-poppers, psychogeographers to popstars’ – and has a PDF transcript and an associated map, highlighting some of the main points of interest.

The individual guides have a physical trailmarker (such as the one pictured and this one) to encourage people to website, and the project is being promoted as part of next week’s Manchester Science Festival. The guide, produced by Northern Quarter digital agency StarDotStar, has also been shortlisted for a BIMA Award.

Each 10-minutes clip looks at ‘Manchester music icons and the city that shaped the sounds’ from a different point of view, with Mike Joyce, John Robb, Peter Hook, Liam Frost and Guy Garvey giving the guided tours.

I’ve just listened to John Robb’s, which was pretty interest. He believes that Manchester is ‘a people city’ where people shouldn’t come if they want to look at buildings. He visits Oxford Road and Chorlton and mentions some old music venues I’d never even heard of.

The Smiths’ Mike Joyce talks to Oly Bayston from Keith in Dry Bar and visits the Salford Lads’ Club, which has a room full of photos of tourists striking their best The Queen is Dead poses.

Three of the Manchester Music Speaks podcasts are available now (for the price of your email address), with the remaining three released month-by-month.

He’s very enthusiastic about his ‘home town’ (he’s technically from Bolton), talking in particular about Albert Square, GMex, the Midland and Radisson hotels, Mr Sam’s Chop House, Royal Exchange and the Gay Village.

‘It’s a city you have to work to know,’ he says while sat in Briton’s Protection. Briton’s used to be next to an armed forces recruiting office apparently, which goes some way to explaining the name.

He also discusses the Northern Quarter and Affleck’s Palace in some detail, and Oxford Road (‘very close to my heart’).

The podcast finishes, like many good Mancunian nights, in the Curry Mile. Mark talks about being an undergraduate in 1976 when there were only a few ‘unlicensed curry canteens’ in Rusholme. How times have changed.

We’ve got Big Plans for a podcasting project about Manchester and you, dear readers, can help us out.

What we want are your memories – old or new – of Manchester’s Northern Quarter. It can be something about the worst greasy spoon cafe you’ve visited, or when Ryan Adams bought a CD from your shop.

Were you caught up in the naked cyclist protest earlier this year? Who is the most colourful character you’ve met there? Perhaps you remember when all this was fields. If so, just how dangerous were those fields at night?

Leave a comment here please.