Tag: Dinosaur Jr

Manchester Venue 74 Soup Kitchen – Part 1

The Soup Kitchen which has recently been rebranded simply as Soup resides deep in the Northern Quarter on Spear St, within stumbling distance of the Night and Day venue. During the Covid apocalypse an eminently sensible decision was made to pedestrianise the nearby Stevenson Square area to create a European style outdoor seating vibe and thankfully this ethos has been retained post-pandemic.

Manchester Soup Kitchen. Image Credit Pinterest.

The upstairs room is laid out in a canteen style with long wooden benches to create a communal atmosphere. It has decent but slightly overpriced tucker available and has a plethora of craft ales to imbibe. Downstairs resides the venue with a small bar to the right and stage to the left with a 150 capacity. When approaching the room limit, it can get very busy down in the slightly damp cellar setting.  The unisex toilets would be best quantified in the ‘basic’ category, but it all adds to the grungy allure of the place. They have a lot of upcoming bands and DJ’s who frequent their busy live roster.

I have attended Soup fourteen times in total and first heard of the venue when the much-hyped Milk Music from Washington DC played there on 17/05/12. They had only released a couple of early singles by this stage, and they had an engaging slacker vibe about them, despite the venue only being half full. There was little audience participation until they somewhat oddly woke from the slumber on the last song to create an impromptu mosh pit!

I must say since this gig the band completely dropped off my radar until I began researching this article and was surprised to find they are still in existence. I am just now listening to their debut album ‘Cruise Your Illusion’ which has shades of Neil Young, Dinosaur Jr and Meat Puppets therein which sounds like a tidy combination to me. They were supported on the night by an appearance from Eagulls who I cited in last week’s Beacons Festival review. They were my only two viewings of the Leeds based band, coincidentally within a couple of months of each other.

Milk Music. Image Credit VICE.

Many of my attendances have been part of multi event wristband events such as Dot to Dot or Off the Record festivals and one such appearance was a couple of years later to see Remember Remember. The Glasgow band was initially the brainchild of Graeme Rowland who released a 2008 album with participation from other collaborators. By the time I witnessed them in 2014 they had morphed into a seven-piece band and had just released their third album ‘Forgetting the Present’, before they subsequently split the following year.

They were on Rock Action roster run by Mogwai, with whom they had supported. They were also in the fully instrumental post-rock genre, but they were of a gentler variation than their label counterparts and I enjoyed their show.

A year later I saw Worriedaboutsatan from Bradford, their name deriving from a track by Belgium band Deus. They were formed by Gavin Millar around 2006, before being joined by Leeds College of Music pal Tom Ragsdale. They have a crossover post-rock/electronic template and have supported luminaries such as 65daysofstatic and Maybeshewill. They garnered considerable radio airplay, and their music has also somewhat bizarrely been featured on Coronation Street!  

Preston Venue 27 – The Wheatsheaf

Preston Docks was a thriving metropolis back in the 1960’s and at that point boded well for the future of the town but its luminous period gradually faded and the whole area was regenerated in the 1980’s.

One of the famous spots that appeared in the area around that time was the Manxman, which was original a ferry between Isle of Man and Liverpool before became a floating nightclub which I frequented only the once on a Tuesday night in 1988 at Dave Keane’s 21st. It was also the venue where my pal Tony Dewhurst met his future wife Pam.

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The Manxman making its grand entrance into Preston Dock. Image Credit Flickr and Mrs J Fielding.

It was then towed to Liverpool where it remained as a nightclub in the Trafalgar Dock area before subsequently landing in Sunderland where it was dismantled in 2012. Two lesser-known facts I discovered are that it was used a location for the Barbara Streisand film Yentl and a pre-married Richard and Judy recorded a Granada series called Scramble there.  

I also spent 7 happy years working at Albert Edward House in that area in the 90’s. The building used to have a canteen where for the first time since school I re-encountered the culinary delights of Manchester Tart. They also used to have a pool room where I arranged a couple of large tournaments between work colleagues, I also now and then did a little bit of work!

When we used to venture out at lunch, we walked through a suite of industrial units prior to accessing Strand Road. The end unit was Oyston Mill which for a period in the 80’s/90’s was a band rehearsal space.

My good friend Paul Catterall was in a band at the time and used to frequent the there and a local metal band called Xentrix often occupied the adjacent rehearsal space. The band achieved some short-lived airplay with a Ghostbusters cover.  

The landmark breakthrough Dinosaur Jr track ‘Freak Scene’ was recorded in 1988 and within the wonky video there is a yellow Fisherman statue. I recall this video being played mercilessly at the time by Snub TV, a BBC2 teatime programme devised by Janet Street Porter. The video was recorded in a garden in a West Didsbury house which was rented by John Robb.

However, I have seen incontrovertible video evidence provided by Paul that this statue used to reside in Oyston Mill, though it remains unclear whether this was before or after the recording of the video. 

In those days there was a thriving work social scene, and many Friday lunchtimes were spent in local hostelries, one of the regular boozers was the Ribble Pilot sitting right on the dock side. As you progressed round onto Watery Lane you passed the Ship Inn which I believe used to occasionally have bands playing in their large function room. My one memory of that pub is watching Steve Davis beating Joe Johnson in the World Snooker final in 1987. Behind the Ship was located the West Orange recording studio where reputedly Cornershop recorded some material.  

Further down, you pass the longstanding Curry House King Karai which I frequented regularly in the 1990’s before you then reach Umberto’s chippy which never seemed to be closed. Also, in close proximity was Jing Jing, in my view the best Chinese takeaway in the city.   

Up Tulketh Road lies a little homely pub called the Wellington, a couple of mates have an advantage on me there as they saw local band Deadwood Dog play there.

At the bottom of Tulketh Road are two adjacent pubs. On one side is the Grand Junction, not a regular haunt but I recall a group of us scrambling out from work at lunchtime in 1992 to watch the last few overs of England losing the Cricket World Cup final to Pakistan.

Much preferred is the other boozer The Wheatsheaf. It has also been under the moniker of Last Orders and for a spell a Mighty Muldoons. I have always been fond of this pub as it has a variable clientele of ages ranging from 18 to 80.

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Preston Wheatsheaf public house. Image Credit unspecified.

It was a regular venue for watching football including England in World Cup matches beating Columbia in 1998 and Argentina in 2002 and several PNE matches. I recall also watching an England v Scotland where it was so heavily populated, I had to go out the front door and return in via the back door to reach the loos.

The pub periodically had bands on there and my one occurrence was to see a rather noisy local covers band called Contraband.