Author: jimmyc1968

Manchester Venues 142 to 144

Within the Northern Quarter as you progress away from the vibrant and busy Oldham Street down Hilton Street towards Stevenson Square you reach Manchester Corner Boy. The establishment for many years was the iconic Koffee Pot café before morphing into an American diner called West Corner in 2016, a place I visited once for a slightly non nutritious snack! A couple of years later it changed again into its current incarnation as an Irish bar and deli.

Corner Boy. Image Credit ilovemanchester.com

It is owned by nearby Hatters Hostel and is a homely venue with low lighting and mahogany décor, they have a small outside seating area and also serve traditional tucker such as Irish stew, colcannon, and soda bread and naturally a decent pint of the black stuff. There is a function room downstairs that can be hired out.

They undertake DJ sets on a weekend and occasionally also have live music and so it came to pass that after an excellent Black Doldrums gig at nearby Gullivers I landed in there to catch a portion of a soulful set by the Manchester based Olivia Joseph band.   

Beyond the pub you arrive instantly at Stevenson Square where during the pandemic they made the pro-active decision to pedestrianise the area to allow the suite of pubs in the vicinity to be able to have outside tables in a continental style. Thankfully as the world returned to normal, they maintained this sensible approach and as a result it can be a very lively area on a sunny afternoon with people sat out nursing cold beers and cocktails.

On the far angle of the square on the Piccadilly station side you would find Manchester Shack Bar and Grill, not to be mistaken with Dino’s Bar and Grill featured in the Thin Lizzy track ‘The Boys are Back in Town! It appeared to be modelled to a degree on an American diner with their award winning burgers and has seating outside on an astro-turf surface.

Manchester Shack Bar and Grill. Image Credit ilovemanchester.com

It had a large spacious bar area and there was a chilled vibe about the place. After a noisy Cheatahs gig at Soup Kitchen we dived in there for a flyer before sallying off for the last train home. Whilst in residence they had some acoustic acts on, and we saw two local singers called Josh Morrison and Ex Moxley.

In 2019 the original Hilton Street site closed but it quickly relocated over to High Street on the other side of the Northern Quarter and took over from where the Blue Pig used to be. Blue Pig was one of around dozen bars in NQ, Printworks, Heaton Moor and West Didsbury that was owned by the hospitality group Mark Andrew Developments (MAD Ltd) which unexpectedly went into liquidation at the tail end of 2018.  The Shack however is still standing strong to this day at its revised address.   

The concept and evolution of Manchester Feel Good Club commenced back in 2016. The owners and married couple Keira and Aimie Lawlor-Skillen were struggling with eating disorders and mental health issues and wanted to instil more positivity into their life so instigated the Feel Good name which started initially on Instagram, and which has now grown exponentially up to 335k followers. It evolved from there via a candle making business and then in 2020 by opening up a physical space which is located on Hilton Street.

Manchester Feel Good Club. Image Credit northernquartermanchester.com

The club is primarily a coffee shop and bar and generally closes at 6pm. However, on certain days it has after hour events including Mischief Cabaret and Queer open mic nights. They also have a clothing range and have billboards dotted about the city outlining their ongoing ethos.

In June this year Gill and I happened to be striding past on our way to another gig and were distracted by a vibrant atmosphere in the club. On stage was a trans artist called Miss Chief Cabaret whose character was created by Rupaul’s Drag Race alumni Banksie who featured in Series 5 of the television show.

This is the stage name for Jonathan Banks, who was born in Wigan and is now the artistic director of the venue Firehouse on Swan Street. He is 6 foot 8 inches tall but rises up to 7ft in heels and on the night, he was camping it up on stage and going down a storm with a highly animated audience who were living up to the name on the door!      

Stockport Venues 5 and 6

In the continuance of my ongoing Stockport story, I am going to initially backtrack to new venues visited in areas that I have already covered. The first one in that regard is the Stockport Dog and Partridge located at the junction of Didsbury Road and Burnage Lane just outside the East Didsbury metro station.

Stockport Dog and Partridge. Image Credit yelp.com

The D&P is a large, detached pub that originally opened in 1959 replacing an older pub a couple of doors down. It was at that stage under the jurisdiction of Boddingtons Brewery and was a sister to the nearby Griffin hostelry owned by the same company. It underwent a significant refurbishment in 2017, shortly before I moved into that area. I initially cited this as a Manchester establishment, but I then subsequently discovered it is in fact about 20 yards over the Stockport border.

There are benches facing the main road at the front of the pub and a more enclosed beer garden at the rear which Gill and I utilised a couple of times during the pandemic. Inside it is brightly lit and caters quite heavily toward live sports and on occasions can be a tad rough and ready.  I had noted that in the last couple of years they began referencing live music on Saturday nights, so a Didsbury Road pub crawl was arranged with Marcus in tow to take advantage of this fact.

We started further up Didsbury Road and visited the Crown, Heatons, the aforementioned Griffin before arriving at the Dog and Partridge about 9.30pm. We grabbed a table in the corner and caught a local singer called Dennis playing.

Progressing then over to Moor Top you would find Stockport Nook. This café bar first opened in 2015, and I visited for the first time three years later where on the outside tables you can nuzzle a coffee during the day or a craft beer in the evening. At that stage they rather bizarrely had the lavatories behind the bar. Since the pandemic they have created a shared space with the chippy on the left and Roost at 113 on the right which encompasses three restaurants with tapas, Mexican and Italian cuisine available under one roof.     

Stockport Nook. Image Credit stockporthub.co.uk

Around this time Nook totally refurbished their establishment with repurposed timber and other artefacts. They also linked up with North Manchester based pizzeria Dough So Good who have now built a pizza shack in the covered beer garden downstairs (previously a car parking space) which is accessed from the back of the building. They also have on their schedule vinyl nights and Open Door Thursdays with music acts performing and on one of those very evenings we saw a chap called Acoustic Al play there.

Martin Stephenson and the Daintees were a folk based band from the Northeast of England who were formed in 1982 after the lead singer and self-taught musician had previously commenced busking at the age of fifteen. They were signed initially to a local independent label called Kitchenware Records alongside other bands such as the Kane Gang and Prefab Sprout. The label also struck gold a couple of decades later by capturing The Editors at an early stage who recorded their platinum selling album ‘The Back Room’ with them.

Martin Stephenson’s combo who also contain his wife Kate took an eight-year hiatus in 1992 but then reformed and have operated continuously since 2000. They released their most acclaimed album Boat to Bolivia in 1986 and like many other bands have undertaken full tours since playing that album in full.  He also collaborated with Billy Connolly in 2018 on a documentary about the comedian’s colourful life.

Martin Stephenson live at Plot 20 Allotment Music Festival. Image Credit youtube.com

In a previous blog I referenced the Blue Cat in Heaton Moor where the band played in 2009. My good pal Mark was there, and he told me the tale of a request then being made of Martin to play at a local allotment. He had a renowned predilection for playing obscure unusual venues, so he readily accepted the challenge.  Thus on 06/09/09, you would find him undertaking a gig with large sunflowers in the background and the set even includes a Postman Pat/Muppet Show medley! Slightly wonky footage of his performance there can be found on You Tube under Plot 20 Allotment Music Festival.