Tag: Chorlton Irish Club

Manchester Venues 65 to 67

Continuing the circular route of the Sounds from the other City Festival brings us to the historic Kings Arms on Bloom Street. It is situated deep in the old industrial quarter of Salford, and it is an easy five-minute jaunt from Salford Central train station. The pub was first licensed in 1807 and the original building initially resided on the other side of the street.

Lucy Davis was a landlady there in the 19th century and after throwing her husband out for being a drunken lout, she created a profitable dance hall and den of ill repute upstairs! It has been the base for many interesting clubs, namely the North of England Irish Terrier Club, the Knitting Club and the Salford Friendly Anglers Society, the world’s oldest angling club and a sign of the final listed club is still visible on the gable end of the pub.

Many pubs fell by the wayside in this area, but the Kings continued to flourish being famously taken over in 2011 by Zena Barrie and Paul Heaton of Housemartin’s and Beautiful South fame. They embellished the artistic undertakings and a pot pourri of arts exhibitions, vaudeville, comedy, poetry nights and gigs took place under their tutelage. They were also apparently regularly heard rehearsing in the upstairs function room.

Paul Heaton. Image Credit Hull Daily Mail.

The pub has also been used as a location for music videos and TV shows like Cracker, Fresh Meat and the Hairy Bikers and was always a good gathering point to commune with like-minded souls on the SFTOC monorail, much like the other central hubs of the festival such as Islington Mill and the Old Pint Pot.

It is an olde world pub with a large main bar room area downstairs with seats dotted around the perimeter. At one of the festivals, I saw a Chinese dragon parade the room, it is that kind of quirky place. They are a renowned real ale venue and have been in the Good Beer Guide for the last decade and are a keen supporter of small local breweries. There is also a small beer garden accessed from the back of the pub.

Stairs led you up the Manchester Kings Arms Events Space.  It is a theatre style space and has a standing capacity of 120 and seating capacity of 50.  The venue even holds a wedding licence.

My first visit there was on 06/05/12 was to see Meddicine from London. An appropriate act considering the industrial history of the area as he resembled a lo-fi Death in Vegas though a single released last year sounded more like Eminem.   The other act that day was a good fun two-piece local scuzzy garage rock band called Brown Brogues. 

Five years later I witnessed Manchester electronic artist Vacuumorph and in 2018 I saw AYA, a Manchester rapper and producer who formerly recorded under the moniker LOFT.

Kings Arms. Image Credit kingsarmssalford.com

In a room adjacent to the main bar was Manchester Kings Arms Downstairs Stage where acoustic gigs occasionally took place. In 2012 an act called Yule FM played there and six years later in 2018 a local chap with the vaguely unpleasant moniker of DJ Acid Rephlux performed on that stage.

At the 2017 festival they excelled themselves by creating a third stage putting them on a par with Chorlton Irish Club and the Adelphi in Preston as the only other venues where I have attended three stages.

The only issue was that nobody could find the third stage, before we eventually realised, we had to traverse down the stairs past the kitchen and into the beer cellar. Thus, Manchester Kings Arms Basement became and remains the smallest venue I have ever attended, with about 10 people crammed in and myself outside with my head craned around the entrance peering into the dark interior. The band on the tiny stage was an act called Maeve Rendles 9 Victims, and despite an extensive search I can find no back story behind their mysterious and sinister name! 

The continuing joy for me of these festivals is the chance to visit these types of different venues that in any other context you would not normally attend.

Definition of a Gig and a Venue?

If you are anything like me, I am sure you periodically cogitate on the meaningful questions in life such as: –

How did I get here?

Where does that highway go to?

What is your favourite flavour of bonbon? – For the record mine is Toffee (the white ones) though the Vimto ones run them close.

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I was struggling for an inspired picture this week, so I have selected a bag of bonbons for you! Image credit moresweets.co.uk

However as this is a musical related blog, today I am going to consider the two tricky conundrums, what is the definition of a gig and of a venue? This has sparked numerous debates with friends in many taprooms in many towns over the years and what follows are my thoughts on these vexing questions.

Looking at the Oxford English dictionary the definition of a gig is ‘a single performance by a musician or group of musicians, especially playing modern or pop music’.

In my early gig going days I was very rigid in my interpretation of a gig in that I had to be actively intending to attend a gig beforehand to add to the list and would not count any random walk up gigs e.g.  a band on in a boozer where I have gone for a cheeky libation. As time progressed, I gradually revised this opinion leading me to cast my memory back to recall earlier gigs which met this criterion, however I am sure I am still missing a few, which shall forever be known as the ‘lost’ gigs!

Does the gig have to be a certain length of time or number of songs? I don’t personally adopt this approach as to me any length of time playing on a stage constitutes a gig, thus applying the principle of a single performance outlined in the dictionary definition above.

An anecdote springs to mind here as a couple of years ago the annual lads trip ended up in Den Bosch via Eindhoven in Holland and unexpectedly there was a Jazz Festival in full flow. One of the lads Hughie at that stage was endeavouring to attend 50 gigs in his 50th year and his strict definition was that a gig had to constitute a full five songs. Now Jazz is one of the few genres I have never really embraced, a sentiment that was shared by the whole group but a gig geek like me does not turn away a gift horse of bonus gigs like that! Thus, we were stood beer in hand at one of the stages watching ‘Groupo Des Cargos’ whose fifth song was an absolutely epic opus with at least a couple of false endings. The roar that greeted the end of the song attracted very bemused looks from the band!

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One of the stages at the Den Bosch Jazz festival. Image credit denboschtips.com

Is there an argument to say a gig should only count if you pay? I again do not embrace this ethos as you would miss out on a plethora of fine bands in a variety of settings outside the accepted norm.

In relation to outdoor Festivals such as T in the Park, I would count as one gig and one venue as it is in an enclosed outdoor setting though may have several stages. I would always count bands individually so may have 20-30 listed over a whole weekend.

However, I apply a different principle to other wrist band events such as the Dot to Dot indoor festival which involve bespoke venues, so I have been known to undertake 20 gigs and conversely 20 venues at these events.

Now, this might be a controversial one. If I go a separate individual area in the same venue, I count these as individual venues. As an example, I once attended Chorlton Irish Club and there were bands playing in the upstairs bar, downstairs bar and a separate acoustic room at the front so three venues in total were counted.

If a venue is refurbished or changes its name, I will only count this as one venue as it is the same floor space just under a different moniker!

Now, over to you as I would be fascinated in your thoughts on my personal guidelines above and whether they mirror yours.