Category: Manchester

Manchester Venue 175 – Night People

Manchester Night People was located on Princess Street about equidistant between China Town and Canal Street, just around the corner from the Satan’s Hollow venue. I can find very scant history online for this establishment, but I think it opened in around 2017, and I believe it closed post-covid for a 6 month refurbishment, but it looks like it never subsequently reopened.

I visited there four times in total, and I know they were included on the Psych Fest roster, an event I have never yet attended but also for the now defunct Dot-to-Dot festival which I was present at for several years.

I recall they used to stage Northern Soul shindigs for the Twisted Wheel events and due to the age now of many of the participants they staged it on a Sunday afternoon. I am sure the intimate downstairs setting would have made it an ideal location for such a gathering, and I recently located a flyer of the legendary Geno Washington and the Ram Jam band playing there in 2018. I would estimate the capacity of the venue would have been somewhere around 200.

 

Night People flyer. Image Credit mdmarchive.co.uk

My first visit was in February 2018 in the company of one of my Northeast correspondents Jamie Young. We were already attending a gig at Night and Day that evening so grabbed the opportunity to undertake an earlier foray to the new venue on the block! We met initially in the iconic Marble Arch public house before sampling some tea at the Mackie Mayors food hall and then headed down to Night People.

The first act was the Mancunian band slowhandclap who appear to play a lot of gigs at the Northern Quarter venues, and they provided a slab on noisy post punk. Also on the bill were Chester two-piece DEH-YEY who like many duos produced a fair old racket of fuzzy dark sounds with the driving force being the guitarist/vocalist Cash Burns. They have released a slew of singles thus far and have garnered a support slot for the much touted Belfast band Enola Gay.  

Three months later as part of Dot to Dot we saw an American singer songwriter called Kyle Craft. He was born in an isolated Mississippi river town in Louisiana and his first introduction to guitar music was a random purchase of a David Bowie compilation at his local Kmart store.

I think we can all attest to our own individual epiphany to hearing music that will go on to change and influence our life. My personal individual ‘journey’ (a much over used reality show phrase nowadays) was via my dad’s Neil Young and my brother’s Husker Du records and also hearing Stiff Little Fingers for the first time as a young pup at an early school disco.

An early 2018 sighting of Fontaines DC at the venue. Image Credit whenthehornblows.com

Kyle subsequently moved to Texas, and he formed a band called Gashcat who then broke up a couple of years later with the slightly bizarre reasoning of ongoing adverse comparison to Neutral Milk Hotel! In 2016, he recorded his debut album ‘Dolls of Highland’ on Sub Pop Records and then gathered together a live band callee Showboat Honey and secured a support slot with Drive-By Truckers.  

On the afternoon I saw him they produced an excellent set of deep fried Southern rock , where I could hear shades of Green on Red, Lone Justice and The Band, his strong vocal complemented by a fine backing band was a good combination. My next trip was again linked to Dot-to-Dot and the band on show this time was a local combo called ELM.

My final visit was on 26th February 2020 when the spectre of Covid was just beginning to gather pace. I attended with my pal Paul Wilson who had other Preston folk in tow including Aidy and Janet from Lostock Hall. I recall we met in one of the Wetherspoons before having a bevy at the timeless Lass O Gowry. Throughout the gig between bands there was a DJ set from writer and broadcaster Dave Haslam who is primarily famous for being DJ for over 450 sets at the Hacienda nightclub incorporating a Thursday night residency at the Temperance club night from 1986 to 1990.  

The first act on stage was Mick O Toole and the main support were the Gallowgate Murders, a five-piece Celtic punk band from Edinburgh who had only formed the year before. The headliners were the Rumjacks, a rumbustious combo from Sydney in Australia who were also in the Celtic punk mould. They were formed in 2008 and they were renowned for their energetic live shows and lived up to their billing. Their most famous song ‘An Irish Pub Song’ went viral and has garnered over 85m hits on YouTube.

The Rumjacks. Image Credit iheart.com

I recall a generous chap we had never met buying us a round at the bar before Paul and I entered the thrashing, flailing white hot intensity of the mosh pit. It had been a fair while since I had been in such a vibrant pit and my first since turning 50, and I had to recalibrate instantly to peel off my outer layer of clothing and take my watch off for safe keeping and then dived back in.

It was a very small area not helped by some inopportune bruise inducing shelves around the perimeter, but we were in there for the last hour of the gig, and it was a bloody good sweaty fun, more so in hindsight when the first lockdown kicked in a couple of weeks later!

Manchester Venues 172 to 174

It fills me with a warm glow that the excellent independent Sounds From The Other City (SFTOC) festival recently celebrated its 20th anniversary, though I could not attend this year as I decided to head to another festival on the same weekend. However, I shall now return to my review of the 19th edition which took place in 2024.

There is a glacial but gradual regeneration of the buildings and venues on Chapel Street near to Salford University, one such site is the Manchester Old Fire Station Cafe. The first recorded occurrence of fire fighting in the Salford area was in 1635, and the new fire station at Albion Place, Salford Crescent was built much later in 1903. It was a striking design of red brick and buff terracotta with a shaped gable, balcony and clock face, which has been retained to this day.  

The Old Fire Station. Image Credit soundsfromtheothercity.com

This was followed 25 years later by the building of an adjoining Ambulance house and additional houses were also provided for the firemen and their families. In the square of the front of a fire station you will find a War Memorial which was originally erected in 1922 to commemorate the Lancashire Fusiliers.

The fire station remained in operation for around a century before ‘Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble and Grubb’ closed their doors for the final time!  Salford University subsequently reclaimed and restored the site and accommodated their Council Chamber and three boardrooms and they thankfully retained the fireman’s original poles.

More excitingly in July 2023 within the auspices of £2.5bn Salford Crescent Masterplan they opened up a bar and café including a sourdough bakery. They also housed in situ the new Lark Hill brewery with a select choice of local brews and there was an initial competition instigated with University staff to find the best name for one of their new ales. I have visited a few times and sampled breakfast there and also partaken of a couple of cold beers later on in the evening at one of their outside tables. 

Heading out to the Trumpton Riots! Image Credit fia.uk.com

They have a regular weekly quiz and were sensibly chosen for inclusion as a venue within the SFTOC roster. On that particular day we saw SHEwillprovide? who are a collective trio from Manchester with their music ensconced in their Jamaican roots. We also say Ayy Den, now based in Manchester who badges herself as a genre-fluid DJ.

In 1953, two book afficionados Eddie Frow and Ruth Haines met at a Communist Party Summer School, they then hooked up and their pooled collections was the initial germination of the Manchester Working Class Movement Library. Over the next couple of decades, they continued to expand their compendium, gaining charitable trust status but conversely running out of storage room in their house in Trafford.

In 1987, Salford City Council agreed to provide support and provided a home for the library and the couple in Jubilee House, across the road from the University of Salford. The building was originally built in 1897, and it had a previous function as a nurse’s home.

Working Class Movement Library. Image Credit Geograph Britain and Ireland

In 2007, the trust agreed to provide the lease and annual costs with additional funding provided by trade unions and personal subscriptions. The 30,000 books contained in the library cover the subjects of trade unions, co-operative movement and left wing politics.  It is an old brick building set from the main road and on our visit, we saw a local hip hop artist called O’Sapien performing.  

As you progress down Chapel Street, and you reach Bexley Square you would find the Manchester Porta Tapas restaurant. Gill and I have visited a couple of times, and it is a lovely, homely spot and they also serve the excellent Pastel de Natas!

The owning brothers Ben and Joe Wright have sister restaurants in Chester and Altrincham and have recently opened a further branch in West Didsbury on the old site where Simon Rimmer’s Green’s restaurant was located for many years.  In the last couple of SFTOC events they have been added as an additional venue on the roster, and they utilise a function room for the acts to play on the second floor accessed via some cramped stairs.

When we landed there was an artist called Yeguachita playing who is self-described as a queer, neurodivergent musician from Abya Yala. I had to look up that last reference and it is apparently a term used by some indigenous people of the Americas when referring to their ancestral lands. She was very quirky and crossed many genres, and I found her performance quite intriguing.