Category: Manchester

Manchester Venue 156-Peer Hat

In a previous blog I reviewed AATMA, a venue which is literally buried away on an upper floor in a building off Faraday Street behind Stevenson Square in the Northern Quarter. Situated to the ground level and the street side of that very same building is Manchester Peer Hat.  

The pub first appeared into the world in 2017 run by a couple of self-proclaimed unsuccessful musician brothers named Mike and Nick Kenyon. They were both originally in the band Politburo who were likened to Dead Kennedys and played many gigs at the now defunct Roadhouse and Hard Rock Café venues when they were in their pomp. Another co-owner is Dom who also runs the aforementioned AATMA.

Politburo. Image Credit Louder Than War

The hostelry is a bohemian haunt and is a proper throwback to a student style pub back in the day in that it is a welcome and hospitable place and has a fine varied jukebox. The house motto is ‘Omnio sub petasum’, and for those whose Latin is rusty or non-existent like moi, that translates as ‘Everything under the hat’.

Like many low budget places, they really struggled through Covid but thankfully survived that challenging period. They have hosted some unique events, including a HAUNT Manchester ‘Black Christmas’ event and the Manchester Folk Horror Festival in 2018 and 2019. They have also had art exhibitions and in 2018 one included a feature from the Manchester Gothic Arts Group (M:GAG), thankfully not MAGA!

In the middle of the ground floor space, some vertiginous steps take you down to the music venue with a cosy capacity of 120. I do have a fondness for cellar venues and this one is a belter and they also seem to always have good sonic sound down there, all of that resulting in it being worthy of inclusion in my Top 10 Manchester favourite venues.   

The Peer Hat. manchestersfinest.com

They have fairly regular gigs, and they achieved a coup with their first ever event being none other than Thurston Moore, but they had no functioning bar at that stage, so they served him beer out of a bucket of ice! I have attended there six times in total, the majority of these being part of multi venue wristband events such as Dot to Dot or Carefully Planned Festival. On my first visit there as part of the Off the Record Festival in November 2017 I saw a local artist called Billy Bee.

Six months later the band on stage was Jade Assembly, a rock band from Bolton who formed in 2008. They are proud Boltonians and are closely linked to the local football club with songs such as ‘Our Town’ and ‘Burnden Aces’. Their music is still played over the tannoy at Bolton Wanderers matches and they signed their first record deal on the pitch at half time during one of the matches.

The band had a fervent following nicknamed the ‘Jade Army’. After a slew of singles, they released their debut album ‘One Last Time’ in 2023 which coincided with them calling it a day after fifteen years and they appropriately played their last ever two gigs at the local venue, The Ramp in Horwich. 

My next appearance was in November 2018 where we caught an early set from Red Rum Club, who had only formed a couple of years earlier and was also a year before they released their debut album ‘Matador’. They have gradually risen in profile since with their fourth LP ‘Western Approaches’ in 2024 reaching number 8 in the UK charts.

They hail from Bootle in Merseyside and cite their hometown as an influence on their sound with the seafaring, industrial aspect of the area. On the night their El Mariachi style songs were excellent and thoroughly enjoyable, and the thunderous sound combining with a sweaty venue created a communal treat.

Red Rum Club (twice!). Image Credit liverpoolecho.co.uk   

I visited again in May 2019 where I saw Women You Stole, a Manchester band driven by lead singer Hayley Faye. I would class them in the garage rock vein, and they released a fine debut single ‘Shake’ around this time but sadly don’t appear to be still active. They were supported by post-punkers Document who named themselves after the stellar REM album of that name.  

A couple of months later was my only visit there to see a standalone gig. The band on show was my one time thus far watching the excellent Helicon. The band derive from Jesus and Mary Chain East Kilbride territory and were initially formed by brothers John-Paul and Gary Hughes. Their self-titled album was recorded in 2017 at Mogwai’s Castle of Doom Studio on Glasgow and their 2023 album ‘God Intentions’ won the prize of ‘Psych Lovers’ Album of the Year’.  They were superb and the intimate venue played to their strengths.

My most recent visit in April 2022 was to see Priceless Bodies who are now a Manchester based lo-fi duo made up of twin sisters Viv & Bianca Pencz. Their name was drawn from a line by 19th century French poet Rimbaud and their musical influences derived from being disgruntled teens in Vancouver, Canada which was known locally at the time as ‘No Fun City’!

Manchester Venues 153 to 155 – Caribbean Festival

One of the strengths of my hometown of Preston is that it has always been a multi-cultural city with a large proliferation of the Windrush generation amongst others settling there in the 1950’s and 1960’s.

As a result of this cultural background there were two thriving establishments dotted across the city, the first being the Caribbean Club in Kent Street which had a golden period in the 1980’s and 1990’s where I saw The Membranes, Snuff and Scream perform. The club is now long gone but Jalgos in the city centre remains, a venue where I once saw UK Subs play upstairs.  

Jalgos Club. Image Credit lep.co.uk

There is also every May bank holiday a large Caribbean procession on the Preston streets with colourful floats and steel bands with the end point of the parade being a festival gather in Avenham Park. The 50th anniversary version of this event took place in 2024.

When we relocated over to Manchester, I always endeavoured to make an appearance at their own festival. The actual start year of their event is somewhat disputed, some say 1970 and others say 1971, what is not in doubt however is that the location for the festival has always been the large Alexandra Park in the Moss Side area of town. It can’t be easily overlooked that the shindig has over the years sometimes had a chequered history with gang incidents, drugs arrests and even murder.  

The original British festival was held in London in 1959, in direct response to the racist riots that took place in Notting Hill and also Nottingham the summer before. The driving force and organiser was Claudia Jones who is now revered as the ‘mother of the British Caribbean carnival’.

A flyer for Preston Caribbean festival fundraising. Image Credit socanews.com

Her back story is fascinating as she was born in British Colonial Trinidad in 1915 before her childhood years in 1930’s Harlem in New York. As a black woman and a ‘communist’ she was victimised in the McCarthy post war era and was shamefully classed as a criminal and deported to Britain in 1955. She admirably became a strong advocate of fostering the local community and continued to fight the politics of the day and the inaugural festival was created four short years later. Ms Locita Brandy was Claudia’s equivalent in being the impetus behind the subsequent inception of the Northern version.  

Alexandra Park dates back to 1864 and was first opened to the public in 1870. There were at that time experimental usage from the architect Alexander Hennell of oval shaped and curved pathways, a raised walk and a half mile lime walk wide enough for horse drawn carriages. Additionally, one of the original park keeper’s homes, Chorlton Lodge still remains to this day.

The park was the location of the great Manchester Woman Suffrage demonstration of 24th October 1908 and several Rock Against Racism events took place there with a particular one on 15th July 1978 which featured both Steel Pulse and the Buzzcocks. 

Thus, on Sunday 11th August 2024 we decided to make our long overdue debut. Initial thoughts were to walk the 5 miles there, but a stiflingly hot day put paid to that idiotic idea. We travelled over on the metro and alighted at Withington tram stop which is a stone’s throw from those cemetery gates that Morrissey famously sang about, it was about a mile trek from there to the park.

Manchester Caribbean Carnival. Image Credit themanchestercarnival.com

There was extremely thorough security checks at the gate before we undertook a circuit of the huge site. Initially on the Manchester Caribbean Youth Stage we saw a band called Black Oxygen before catching up with Axis Attack on the Manchester Caribbean Jamaican Corner Stage.

There were fun fairs and vendors of all different shades including numerous rum bars which we swerved around. We did however hit one of the food stalls and sampled a terrific homemade curry which was served with rice and beans, salad and plantain. 

Now, in my time I have been to more loud gigs than you can wave a stick at, but the noise level there was astounding, and the bass was vibrating through to your very soul. We grabbed a spot on the grass but could not hear ourselves to have a conversation, so were virtually reliant on sign language. Whilst we munched on our food our ears were assailed by a chap called RJ on the Manchester Caribbean Main Stage.