[Pronounced: Ma'an or Marn; a Mancunian lyricist and writer of populare songs]

Manchester has a proud history of encouraging singer songwriters over the years, but in Danny Mahon the city has embraced a visceral and raw performer. Danny Mahon is a protest singer for the Shameless Generation.

“I'm really impressed by the amount of talent involved now – it feels more like the kind of '...with friends' album people would expect later in somebody's career.”

So said Danny Mahon recently of his forthcoming début  album, the first taste of which, 'Odd Socks is the Secret Recipe', has just been released on the internet.

Shot during a rainy weekend at a Salford primary school, the video for Odd Socks achieved over 3000 hits within a week of it being posted on You Tube.

“There are better established bands with much bigger marketing budgets who would struggle to manage that so it bodes really well” said Danny.

In the video for Odds Socks, Danny is joined by Rick Lees, ex Twisted Wheel bassist and guest on much of Danny's album. Other contributors include Becca Williams of Becca and the Broken Biscuits, Rob Hall of Catfish and the Bottlemen and Biff Roxby and Francis Lydiatt of Louis Barabbas and the Bedlam Six.

“We started the album last year and whilst it hasn't actually taken that long to record it feels like it's been ages,” said Danny, “but that's down to the schedules of all those who wanted to get involved – it's like a military operation at times just to record half a minute of cello, especially when you're working with people like Rob, Biff and Fran who tour with God knows how many other bands.

“I really want to get everyone involved together again to record just one more track so we can say that we did actually have everybody under the same roof just once.”

The list of thank yous on the liner notes is set to become greater still with more guests to be announced as the album goes through post production this week. “Yeah, If we don't record the mythical last track soon we'll need a bigger studio to get everybody in.”