Month: July 2021

London Sixth and Seventh Trip

Gill and I headed out on a Royal Scot direct train down to London on 03/08/90, which was Gill’s birthday. At the point of time it was the hottest ever recorded day in Britain with a new record temperature of 98.8 logged. The other item that was broken that day was the air-con on the train and it was subject to speed restrictions due to the heat. Rather bizarrely there was an emissary to King Hussein of Jordan in our sweltering carriage. 

On arrival we headed out to my brother’s pad in Plumstead. We perused the Good Food Guide and we booked a West Indian restaurant in Deptford visiting the Studio Bar in Greenwich en route. The restaurant had recently changed hands and as a result there was nobody else in residence, so we received platinum service and just asked them to cook what they fancied. It was a BYOB place, but the clock had ticked past 10pm and the off-licences were now closed. As a result, I piled into a local rough house pub and bought 2 litres of wine for a bargain price of £15. The cuisine was excellent apart from some very odd desserts! 

Saturday dawned with another absolute scorcher. The afternoon consisted of visiting Lewisham Library to return some records, visiting a pub next door and then onto Greenwich Park for a picnic. We were heading onto a gig that evening so boarded the 8.10pm bus for what seemed like an endless bus journey to New Cross to join a long queue outside the New Cross Venue. We gained access to the venue just after 9.30pm where the entrance price as a result had increased from £3 to £5. It was packed to the gills and stunningly hot and punters were also viewing from the balconies above.

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New Cross Venue with New Cross Inn to its left and the bus stop in the foreground. Image Credit Flickr.

We saw the support band Joyce McKinney Experience and the main band was the legendary Snuff who sounded great straightaway, it was a chaotic gig with loads of punters on the stage, it resembled a Happy Monday’s gig for a while! They played all the tracks off their debut album, however there was no encore due to the intolerable heat. I could only tolerate the moshpit for short periods and literally had to wring my T-Shirt out afterwards. We left at midnight and fortunately found a bus back straightaway.

On the Sunday we visited Camden Market where I purchased a Neil Young bootleg tape of an Amsterdam concert. After we went to a cheap Malaysian restaurant and then onto an alternative comedy night at the Kings Head in Crouch End. On the Monday we went shopping down Oxford Street and we bookended the weekend by watched Gremlins 2 at night featuring a character called Mogwai, little did I know the future significance of that name….!

Fast forward to Gill’s 50th birthday where we visited London for the weekend and on the actual birthday, we had a fun day on the South Bank before having a fine meal in Southwark that night. As is my wont, I had hunted a gig down for us and we headed out of London the following evening on the overland train to New Cross station for only our second ever visit to this suburb.

The venue of choice was New Cross Inn which turned out to be the front room of a boozer. To my surprise, the pub was located literally next door to the New Cross Venue, and I could see the bus stop we disembarked all those years ago. The coincidences rolled on as firstly the weather was as scorching as the original visit and the date of this gig was 04/08/18, exactly 28 years to the day from the Snuff gig.    

Across New Cross Road, and it appears they are very keen on original names in the area, you found the New Cross House pub which stocked some fine craft ales and appetising pizzas.

The gig was very sparsely populated, and the main band were called Captain Accident and the Disasters who were a ska band but were nowhere near as high energy as I hoped they would be.

Due to Uncle George working for Virgin he managed to poach some first-class tickets for the journey home on Sunday. Just before we departed from Euston three old rockers boarded and parked themselves in seats directly in front of us. When the guard came to check their tickets, it transpired that the senior rail pass of one of the party had expired. At that point I recognised the distinctive voice and it turned out to be none other than Bob Geldof and a couple of Boomtown Rats who were heading to play an 80’s festival in Macclesfield. Thoughts of contacting Shaun Keaveny’s Small Claims Court sprang to mind with the tagline, ‘It’s a Rat Trap and you been caught’!  

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Bob Geldof. Image Credit Hollywood.com

Shortly after I recognised New Cross Road when watching a movie on TV, after checking the veracity of my intuition it turned out that was another claim to fame for the area. So, if you are watching Skyfall and Bond has just rescued M from an assassination attempt, he drives up to his ancestral home but there is a brief snippet where they are hurtling down the road in question!

Manchester Venues 38 and 39

Over the years, I have probably spent more time overall at Manchester Oxford Road train station, but I have still had a sustained period also in residence at Manchester Piccadilly station. This would either involve grabbing unwholesome late-night snacks prior to waiting for trains or undertaking a frantic lengthy scramble up the escalator to furthermost Platform 14 for last trains to Preston (many for the 1.24am ghost train!) or more latterly Platform 13 for trains out to our current digs in South Manchester.

One welcome change over the last 5 years is the removal of the annoying financial change for the courtesy of spending a penny! A couple of star spots whilst traversing the platforms there have been Graeme Souness and the Sunday Independent music critic Simon Price identified via his very distinctive hairdo.  

Upon departure from Piccadilly via the main entrance or through the adjacent car park drops you directly into the Northern Quarter. There is an abundant area of back streets and original industrial units and dark satanic mills at your disposal. As a result, it is the perfect backdrop for TV and movie filming with the list including the Crown, Peaky Blinders, Das Boot and the Captain America: The First Avenger film.  

One such street exemplifying the area is Tariff St. Your initial impression would be there is just industrial units but there is in fact a plethora of viable options. At the far end lies the Pen and Pencil which is a decent bar to visit.

At the other end is the Tariff and Dale bar which has been a very useful destination prior to a midnight train as most of the hostelries close to the station shut up shop at 11pm prompt. Next door is the Takk Coffee House which leans heavy on its Icelandic influences.

A further door down is the Kosmonaut bar which opened in 2011 and it merged into the area with its stripped-down floors, urban feel, and a terrific choice of craft ales on tap. It has been taken over in last couple of years by the Northern Monk brewery.  

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Manchester Kosmonaut. Image Credit Zomato.

It gained inclusion to the Dot-to-Dot roster for a couple of years with gigs taking place in the downstairs bar. Thus on 28/05/16 we saw Crosa Rosa, a very heavy local psychedelic three piece who were gathering some attention and featured on a Huw Stephens ‘Best of BBC Introducing’ that year. A couple of years later we saw three to four songs within a noisy chaotic set from another local band called the Threads.

Further down the street is located the Whiskey Jar. The bar has been converted from an old textile mill and we first visited the ground floor prior to a gig at the Soup Kitchen and living up to the Preston peasants that we are, we readily devoured the pies that were on the menu! This bar holds acoustic events, but I have only witnessed acts in the downstairs space.

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Whiskey Bar downstairs venue. Image Credit DesignMyNight.com

I initially visited there as part of the Carefully Planned Festival before it then also became part of the Dot-to-Dot schedule.

The first gig I saw there was with Uncle George and Dave Dyson on 19/10/14 and The Rattle were a very unusual combo consisting entirely of two female drummers. It was an interesting sight and sound initially but soon became a tad monotonous!

In 2016, I saw Bristol based Stevie Parker who provided an ethereal backdrop.  A couple of years later I saw a noisier 4-piece Manchester called Dear Caroline who broke up a year later. The final act I saw there was Sylvette an art rock band also based in Manchester. Google informs me they are still in existence and are playing the mighty Mad Ferret in Preston later this year.