Author: jimmyc1968

Wickerman Festivals 4 and 5

Wickerman 4 took place in late July 2005. On the bill were the semi-permanent residents and Castle Douglas’s finest the Dangleberries. There were a couple of punk bands The Zips and the Vibrators and the legendary Stranglers were still strutting their stuff.  Anti-Product returned to provide another chaotic set. Also playing were The Hustlers, Acousticat, Mostly Autumn, Andrew Jackson, Jellybones, Space Ritual and Mercedes.

Alabama 3 who were formed in Brixton in the mid 90’s were in town and produced a decent set of swampy blues including their huge hit ‘Woke up this Morning’ made famous by its choice as the Sopranos theme tune, coincidentally in my view one of the finest TV series out there.  Dreadzone were the headliners after the Wickerman burning on the Saturday.

One there purely to pick up their paycheck was the inexecrable Arthur Brown who from memory seemed to play about 17 different versions of Fire! Perhaps he should have played just before the burning….!

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Arthur Brown. Image Credit Dreamstime

The two best acts of the weekend were from the Specials and Fun Boy Three singer Neville Staple who was excellent in the late afternoon sunshine on the second stage and provided an appropriately excellent version of ‘Too Hot’. The other being the SLF cover band Straw Dogs who were deliciously loud.    

As the festival grew in stature there were different non-music elements added to the mix each year. For a couple of years there was a Circus tent which was a slightly surreal place to visit after you had imbibed a few cold Tennants. There was also for a spell a Cinema Tent where I recall them showing The Shining. One particular year when the music was a bit limp, we ensconced ourselves on the grass inside the tent to watch in full a film called the Wickerman!

There was also one year where right next to the entrance wall they installed a small funfair. Thus, there was an occasion where four full size adults squeezed into one of the little cars and braved the Ghost Train which was great fun. On the drive back on the Sunday we received a text from Tony Dewhurst who was in a separate car informing us that he had just passed the Ghost Train parked in a lay-by somewhere near Dumfries!

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The Ghost Train. Image Credit hcpress.com

Wickerman 5 had of course the Dangleberries and Straw Dogs playing again! On the punk roster were Vice Squad, The Blockheads and Eddie and the Hot Rods reprising their stellar hit ‘Do Anything you Wanna Do’, the rest of the set paled in comparison.

Also on the bill were Spiral Tower, The Hussys, Data Panik, Gin Goblins, Flying Matchstick Men, The Alamo, The Gift, Three Daft Monkeys, Eek A Mouse, Kid Ego, My Latest Novel, The Deadbeats and Sandi Thom.   

Two old troubadours Wilko Johnson and Steve Hillage and System 7 were in residence alongside the Welsh rockers the Alarm.  I caught Marky Ramone again who I had seen at Preston Mill the year before.  

The two standouts of this weekend were Jo Mango a folk band from Glasgow, the lead singer and driving force Katherine Waumsllaying had the adopted name Jo Mango and she had a superb voice that lit up the acoustic tent.  

The other highlight was a band formed in St Helens in 2004 called Tiny Tin Lady who produced a terrific folky set with thrilling harmonies. They have since been championed quite strongly by Mark Reilly.

2006 saw the debut Wickerman attendance by Jez Catlow who camped out before joining us in the Towers for the remaining 9 festivals. The reason for his appearance was naturally a festival slot from New Model Army!

The fly in the ointment was the surreal decision by the promoters to invite Arthur Brown back and he had certainly not improved from his previous years slot!

Manchester Venue 37 – The Parrs Wood

We had for a sustained period considered relocating from Preston to Manchester as we craved a change of scene and culture. By early 2017 Gill and I had secured jobs in the Manchester area making this possibility a reality. The house was placed on the market and despite us one stage having to withdraw from a deal with an unscrupulous buyer we accepted an offer in the autumn of 2017.

Estate agents nowadays appear to have a laissez faire attitude to finalising completion dates and we only finally confirmed the move on a Tuesday morning prior to moving two days later. As a result, we had to employ a flexible removal firm who turned out to be charlatans.

Thus, on the day of the move after numerous increasingly irate calls we secured thankfully three brilliant lads from Bolton, but due to original firm’s ineptitude they did not arrive until 2pm. This resulted in the surreal scenario of the new buyer’s removal van turning the corner to discover ours in the final throes of being completed. Stress is a massively overused word, but this was day was aptly meeting that description!

A frantic rush hour drive, then ensued in the rain for the 30-mile drive to the estate agents to pick up the keys resulting in everything finally being delivered to the new pad by 7.30pm. To say we were tired would be a gross understatement but with no food in we headed out to the nearest pub, the Parrs Wood.

We sat at a table near the door and supped our first ever Manchester residence pint and devoured some Sausage and Mash. As a result, I will always view this pub fondly and we revisited on our first-year anniversary (07/09/18) and sat at the same table!

Debut Manchester Beer (07/09/17). Image Credit Jimmy Crossthwaite

The following day we visited a local Frankie and Bennies and requested a breakfast after the allocated time window, they took one look at us and shuffled off without complaint to prep said breakfast, avoiding a ‘Michael Douglas Falling Down’ moment!

From a philosophical viewpoint, for someone who had lived in the same town for 49 years, notwithstanding some initial bumps in the road and odd bouts of isolation I have surprised himself how relatively easy I have found the relocation.  

The Parrs Wood is a large 1930’s L-shaped corner building (previously the Parrs Wood Hotel) and was taken over by local brewer JW Lees in 2014, thereby selling a fine pint of JW Lees or Manchester Pale Ale. It has a decent size beer garden at the front and a smaller one at the back and has been a reliable location during the breaks in the pandemic window. Inside it is a large open room and serves some decent grub.

The pub is in the Didsbury/East Didsbury area and past local luminaries include the talented porcelain doll actress Holiday Grainger of Borgias and Strike fame. It is located on the corner of Parrswood Road and School Lane.

I only discovered this recently with an article on the local news that opposite the pub was the Capitol Theatre which originally opened as a cinema in 1931 before morphing into ABC Weekend Television studios between 1956 and 1968. In that time, early episodes of Avengers and Opportunity Knocks were filmed, and the Beatles had their first radio interview there.

ABC Weekend Television opposite the Parrs Wood pub in the 60’s. Image Credit Flickr.

It was subsequently a theatre where Julie Walters, Bernard Hill and David Threlfall, students at the time graced the stage. It had subsequent various incarnations before being sold for flats in 1997, the theatre relocating to create the Capitol Theatre on Oxford Road. Understandably there are various pictures of the original Capitol Theatre adorning the pub walls.     

On the Sunday after moving (10/05/17) we wandered in back to the pub prior to a scouting trip in Didsbury Village to discover Elvis was in the building. He naturally modelled himself on the older portlier version than the younger 1950’s hipster version. He was a particularly abysmal act, and it was tempting to request a ‘Taxi for Elvis’!

Via a veritable plethora of train journeys, I had prior to the move amassed about 85 different venues in Manchester and I had now moved the radar from a likely to an inevitable setting that I would fly past the century of Manchester venues landmark!