Author: jimmyc1968

Manchester Venues 176 to 177

LEAF began in 2007 as a small tea shop run by friends located within a Liverpool city centre gallery before swiftly moving up to a larger setting in Parliament Street where they hosted pudding clubs and album launches. They upgraded again in 2010 when they moved to their current home on Bold Street and they stock over sixty varieties of rare teas and have won various awards.

They decided to expand into another city and in 2016 opened up Manchester LEAF on Portland Street in the Grade II listed site where the CUBE gallery used to reside. They described themselves as having a ‘semi-Scandanavian feel’ and there were three separate private spaces available for business or private dining events, with room for either thirty, seventy or three hundred guests. They served food all day and had a licence until 2am at the weekends. I have just read though that the  Manchester branch closed its doors permanently in 2022.

Manchester LEAF. Image Credit premierconstructionnews.com

I visited there just twice (but on the same day) as the venue was on the roster for the 2018 Dot to Dot festival and the place had a welcoming bohemian feel to it. Our first arrival was around 5.30 in the afternoon where we grabbed a cold one and on a pop up stage we saw a singer/songwriter called Tom Lumley playing.  He derived originally from a small village in Cambridgeshire, and it was a solo performance. Since then, he has formed a band called Tom Lumley &The Brave Liaison who released their debut album ‘Everything’s Affected in 2021.    

Much later on that day, we returned and caught the last song from a four piece called MCRAE who initially formed in 2013. They however broke up a decade later by rather appropriately playing their last ever gig on 27/05/23 at the site of their first ever show on Barnoldswick Town Square.

There then occurred a ‘sliding doors’ moment as at that stage Uncle George, John Dewhurst and I were just looking for one last drink before sending the lads home on the last train back to Preston. The bar had just shut in Leaf, so after a quick discussion we then headed down randomly to the Temple Bar.

MCRAE. Image Credit louderthanwar.com

When we sat down I was approached by a chap who asked if he could sit by us and I noticed his Dot to Dot wristband and we got to chatting about music, Mogwai and his Coventry background. This chap turned out to be Marcus who at various later dates was my conduit to meeting his girlfriend Anita, his old pal Tris and her fella Ross.

Gill and I are now firm friends with them all and I then think back that if Leaf had still been serving beers we would in all likelihood have never met, a situation that would sadden me greatly. Marcus and I have now attended around eighty gigs together, but we still joke about the fact that we initially met in a bar that used to be a public toilet!   

In 2016, the owners of NoHo and Dusk til Pawn decided to open a European style subterranean beer hall in the Northern Quarter. Their venue of choice was to base Manchester Cooper Hall in the old location of Copacabana salsa club in Sevendale House off Dale Street. Within there they incorporated street food traders, DJ’s and a plethora of European beers including freshly brewed Czech Republic Tank Pilsener Urquell within the 300 capacity space.  

Manchester Cooper Hall. Image Credit confidentials.com

The name was selected to pay homage to the history of the building, which was originally completed in 1903 and utilised as a trade warehouse for I.J & G Cooper. There was an extensive £6m refurbishment in 2014 of the 120,000 square feet Grade II listed site, and other tenants include Foundation Coffee and Ticketmaster.

The hall had a vintage feel with reclaimed wood benches and tables and original features including glazed brick walls and large skylight windows and I took an instant liking to the place though I have just read that the bar sadly permanently closed in 2022. 

It was also selected as a venue on 2018 Dot to Dot monorail and on our particular visit we saw a local combo called Champions of Youth, a five-piece indie act who rose from the ashes of previous band Amida. Amida were highly touted when they formed in 2005 and garnered support slots with the likes of Tender Trap, Camera Obscura and Subway Sect prior to their split in 2012. The group we saw had a vibe of late 1980’s and 1990’s and I could understand the cited reference points of Pavement and the Wolfhounds.    

Stockport Venue 11 – Spinning Top

I am continuing the tale this week of Stockport gigs and will begin wending my way in towards the town centre. However, I will initially take a brief cultural diversion if I may as I have just discovered that a large property called ‘Ferncliff’ on Mauldeth Road  is up for sale. The dilapidated house which contains ten bedrooms, and five receptions rooms is on the market for cash offers around £1.6million! The reason for my referencing is that it was used as the location for the 2019 quirky dystopian Russell T Davies scripted Years and Years TV series.

So, picking up from beyond Heaton Chapel train station, this leads you to Wellington Road North which astonishingly runs you later on into Wellington Road South, who would credit it! It is more commonly known as the A6 and the route of a Manchester institution, the 192 bus! Transport has run down this route from Hazel Grove to Manchester city centre since 1889, commencing with horse drawn trams before it was later numbered as the 192 in 1969.

The 192 Bus. Image Credit flickr.com

The buses are astoundingly regular and there are even night services at the weekends, and it is recognised as the busiest route in the country with 9m annual passengers and in 2008 became the first in Britain to have solar-powered on-street ticket machines. In 2013 a local singer called Dave Hulston devised a whole album in commemoration called ‘Willow and the 192’ which spawned a one-off festival called ‘192 Accoustifest’ at the M19 bar in Stockport.

There must be something in the local water supply as Elbow in their track ‘Great Expectations’ reference the 135 Bury to Manchester bus and the Manchester Blog winner, also in 2013, was penned by philosophy PHD student Geoff Stevenson who was musing about his travels to Manchester University aboard the 43 bus from Wythenshawe.      

Now obviously when you move to a new area you want to try and darken the doors of all the public houses at least once to tick them off, I am assuming that is a standard aspiration for anybody, or maybe just me! In this regard, plans were afoot to have a sally down and visit the four A6 Heaton Norris hostelries on the outskirts of Stockport, but this was scuppered by the pandemic.

By the time I managed to make the pilgrimage in 2024 with Uncle George in tow, the number of available pubs had halved. The first closure was the Hope Inn that had a microbrewery enclosed within which produced their own brand of Fool Hardy ales. It reopened fleetingly post-covid but then was struck by lighting and then closed for good and has now reopened as a branch of the Mother Hubbard’s fish and chip chain. They now have 19 sites, including one in Dubai with the first opened by Coronation Street’s Stan and Hilda Ogden in Bradford in 1972 and the price then for fish and chips was a paltry 45p!

The Railway pub. Image Credit Jimmy Crossthwaite

The other pub was the Railway where they used to have Jazz gigs every Sunday and Tuesday and rather poignantly the chalk board outside is still showing details on the gigs that were scheduled for March 2020 before the sudden universal closures. At least the jazz gigs survived by relocating to the Moor Club in Heaton Moor.

However, the ‘jewel in the crown’ the Magnet Free House was most definitely open and is a real ale pub renowned across the area. It was originally a coaching inn built in 1840 due its close proximity to the now long gone Heaton Norris train station before latterly refurbishing into its current format in 2009. It is a terrific boozer with around 25 ales on tap and numerous staff serving behind the small bar. It was packed on a Saturday teatime, and we decamped to the decent size beer garden outside where they also had a pizza oven in full operation.

It also has the accolade of being named as one of the 12 ‘best boozers’ in the UK by National Geographic in 2024 with their ratings based around an aversion to loud music, Sky Sports and ordering with QR codes. Gill and I have visited since and worryingly discovered there is a bus stop outside that provides a bus route close to home! Further down the hill is the Midland which is a lot less interesting where me and the Uncle played some woeful darts, Luke Littler we were not!

After you cross the River Mersey and begin to climb up again you reach Stockport Spinning Top. The venue is situated under the Garrick Theatre, where I saw Mike Harding thirty odd years ago, and first opened its doors in 2014. They have had comedy nights in the past and also showcase local original artwork on the walls which is then available to purchase.

The Spinning Top. Image Credit useyourlocal.com

They have live music taking place there four times a week, mainly in the rock vein. They appear to have a lot of cover bands playing but also have occasional original acts and I can find records of the late 80’s popsters The Distractions playing there in 2017. On the same night we visited the Magnet we made our debut visit to the venue.

It was a fairly spartan lay out with the bar to the right and the stage to the left. The band performing were Paytron Saint, a three piece alt-rock band who hail from the Amber Valley in Derbyshire. They formed in 2018 and have released a slew of singles so far, mainly recorded at their own Chicken Coop studio. They were fully acoustic on the night, and they were very enjoyable.