Tag: Damascus

Manchester Venue 135 – Bread Shed

On the opposite side of Grosvenor Street from the Deaf Institute venue you will find the Sand Bar. This is one of the many hostelries within the Oxford Road corridor, but it is a singular Manchester institution and one of my fave places to visit. It came into existence in the mid-90’s and I have been attending there for pre-gig drinks for many years. It is housed in an old industrial mill with an olde world feel and has an unprepossessing and almost hidden entrance. They have always served fine beers and was the first place that I was aware of that stocked continental lagers and was the location of my first sampling of the Bavarian Schneider Weisse wheat beer!  

Manchester Sand Bar. Image Credit flickr.com

On the next corner is another watering hole with the previously very simplistic name of ‘The Pub’. It is housed in a Grade II listed building, and they regularly have quiz nights and open mic nights, this one being more of a sporadically visited hostelry. A recent artistic addition to their side wall in May this year was a large mural of Kurt Cobain. At the back of this pub for many years there was a nightclub called the Zoo, now a singular music venue called Manchester Bread Shed.

I first visited the venue in its Zoo nightclub phase as part of the Dot to Dot festival event in 2013 and the act on stage was Beans on Toast which is the stage name of folk singer Jay McAllister who derives from Braintree in Essex. He is a prolific musician and has recorded fifteen albums since 2005 and has a liking for releasing them on his birthday of 1st December.

The Bread Shed. Image Credit designmynight.com

To be honest, he was not my cup of Yorkshire Tea though there were many punters in there who were lapping up his performance. On a personal front, my day improved dramatically immediately after as I caught a startlingly good Wolf Alice set across the road in the Deaf Institute.

In August 2017 the site rebooted as the Bread Shed and the owners Stonegate Pub Company spent £450k on upgrades. The unusual name derived from the history of the building as in the 1900’s it was the Duncan & Foster bakery site. This was also reflected in the attached pub revising its name to the Flour & Flagon. It was set up as an events space with a 480 capacity and beyond the live music they also reinstated the XS Malarkey comedy night that had for a short period been rehomed at the Comedy Store.   

Prior to attending a Fontaines DC gig at Gorilla in 2019 I cheekily blagged my way into the venue and caught a portion of a pretty woeful Iron Maiden tribute who were at the same low calibre level of the ‘legendary’ Damascus gig (my third ever gig) at Preston Clouds in 1984!   

My next visit was in October 23 where Marcus and Anita attended with Gill and I. Marcus had some ticket issues on the door but managed to negotiate his way in. The band we had come to see was the Boo Radleys who I was witnessing after a 29-year sabbatical as I had not seen them since two gigs in 1994. They were on a rotating joint headline tour and were the support on the night and were in excellent form with the fabulous ‘Lazarus’ being performed towards the end of their set.  

The headliners were Cud who are an electro indie band from Leeds who I had surprisingly never seen before. They formed in 1987, broke up in 1995, but reformed again in 2006. In their first incarnation they undertook a cover of Hot Chocolate’s ‘You Sexy Thing’ which garnered a number 20 position in John Peel’s festive fifty in 1988. Their lead singer is Carl Puttnam who can be marmite to some people, and I honestly didn’t approach them with high expectations. However, these chaps could play and were seriously good fun, reminding me of the vibrancy of Electric Six’s live performances.   

Cud band. Image Credit 3loopmusic.com

My latest visit was in April this year to see the ska/punk sounds of Snuff for the eighth time. Just when I was thinking the audience were very quiet on the first three tracks and not resembling an archetypal Snuff crowd they then played ‘Soul Limbo’ cricket theme, and the place went ballistic! So much so the instantly created moshpit had a kick back and Uncle George was knocked back onto the floor and temporarily flattened, but he is literally made of Teflon so bounced straight back up again! I had a rare foray into the pit myself for a few tracks and as ever thoroughly enjoyed their show!    

Preston Venue 1 – Clouds

I lived in various areas of Preston for the first 49 years of my life and I will always be eternally proud of the place. Preston has a long history (over 800 years old) and was a central point of the industrial revolution with its dark satanic mills. Charles Dickens reportedly based Coketown in ‘Hard Times’ on Preston following an illuminating visit in the 1850’s.

Preston has been a city of missed opportunities, the docks in the 1960’s and latterly the Tithebarn redevelopment which due to city council prevarication never happened. It remains the hub for Butter Pies (sorely missed since I relocated) and I would argue is the home of football, and before you scoff the facts are that Preston North End were the first winners of the Football league and were the original Invincible’s over 100 years before Arsenal repeated the feat. Contrary to popular belief, there was a time before the Premier League!

The missed opportunities continued in the musical vein as a suite of decent venues opened but most of them after a period of time subsequently closed. I have frequented a total of 51 venues in Preston, the first of those being Clouds.

Clouds doubled up as a nightclub and a gig venue and was located on Fishergate and was accessed through the Odeon cinema (long since gone) via the old stalls stairs and foyer. I had some fine college do’s there in 1984 and first went to a gig there in 1985.

A later incarnation of nightclub where Clouds once stood. Image Credit arthurlloyd.co.uk

Thursday night was Rock Night and Rick Clegg and I witnessed a woeful band called Damascus who put a cherry on top with an execrable version of ‘Eleanor Rigby’.

My second visit promised more as Marc Riley and the Creepers were playing, however on arrival we were told they have been replaced by a young Manchester band who were planning to video the show. The band in question was Stone Roses in what I believe was their 4th only live gig. I would love to report I caught a seminal band at a legendary early gig, but I cannot as they lacked direction and were still formulating their sound which improved immensely in the corresponding 2 years. They had brought a minibus over from Manchester and that combined with some Preston ragamuffins generated a proper rough crowd that night. I had an opportunity to catch them at their breakthrough gig at Blackpool Empress Ballroom after that but declined based on their Clouds performance – je ne regrette rien!

My third and final visit on 6th September 1985 was to see a very early Jesus and Mary Chain show, they hadn’t even yet released Psychocandy. They were undertaking a three-date tour taking in Glasgow, North London Poly and somewhat bizarrely Clouds. The gig in London ended up in a near riot as the band could be somewhat abrasive at that stage. Pastels were the support and JAMC came on at the ungodly time of 1.10am and you could barely see them behind a wall of bouncers but by god you could hear them with their visceral squalls of feedback and a young Bobby Gillespie on drums. I recall them playing ‘You Trip Me Up’ and ‘Never Understand’. It was short and sweet as the set was measured at 25 minutes.

Jesus and Mary Chain picture. Image Credit porcys.com

Clouds closed a couple of years later and became a fully-fledged nightclub called Tokyo Jo’s and its latest incarnation is now called Evoque.