Puressence: Liverpool University

AROUND A DECADE AGO, four scruffy Mancunian street urchins took to the stage of London's Tufnell Park Dome. Their music was raw and unformed but had a passion that suggested four people who weren't in it to further their careers but because there was nowhere else to go. Even a broken leg couldn't stop the singer James Mudreski, perched on crutches, from railing against the world.