Manchester Venues 122 Deaf Institute – Part 2

Nearby to the Deaf Institute Music Hall on the same side of Grosvenor St is the Footage pub (previously Flax and Firkin) which is a large vibrant pub with craft ales and many TV screens showing the latest sports. Just around the corner is the basement Umami Noodle Bar which has been a regular pre-gig eating stop for over 20 years.

The Footage with the Trof Deaf Institute sign in the background. Image Credit Zomato.com.

My first gig there was on 02/07/09 when I saw Nine Black Alps, a four-piece band from Manchester whose original moniker was The Chelsea Girls. The Alps name was selected from a line in a Sylvia Plath poem. I had picked up on them initially via their belting debut album ‘Everything Is’ which I still play periodically to this day.   

A couple of years later I had to cancel at short notice a trip to my brothers in Nottingham thus missing a Kyuss (forerunners to Queens of the Stone Age) gig. I was kicking my heels and a couple of lads were off to see Killing Joke, so I tagged along, but discovered on arrival at the Academy that their gig was sold out. A variant C approach then evolved by quickly checking that night’s gig listings and identifying an event at the Deaf that I could attend and then meet up after with the boys for the train home.

I struck lucky as the act on that particular night was the Dum Dum Girls whose name derived from a Vaselines album and an Iggy Pop song, thereby displaying their musical influences. Originally it was a solo project for Californian Kristin Gundred who then renamed herself as Dee Dee. After she signed up with legendary label Sub Pop three more girls were added into the band including the drummer Frankie Rose who has also been in Crystal Stilts, Vivian Girls and Frankie Rose and the Outs.

Dum Dum Girls. Image Credit Fanpop.

They disbanded in 2016 where Dee Dee then became Kristin Kontrol and her sound morphed more into the synth pop arena. She also around that time provided an excellent atmospheric cover of one of my favourite Jesus and Mary Chain tracks ‘Teenage Lust’. They were enjoyable live with many of the tracks coming off their debut album ‘I Will Be’ and reflecting the geographical location they were playing in, they decided to finish their set with a cover of ‘There is a Light That Never Goes Out’.  

Next up was one of those ‘right place right time’ moments that only occur very occasionally in one’s gig going journey. During my attendance at the Dot-to-Dot festival in May 2013 I had sighted on the roster an upcoming band I had just become aware of, and at that stage had only released two singles. The band in question who were performing in a teatime slot were Wolf Alice.

The venue filled up just before they landed on stage, and they were stunningly good, and rarely have I seen a young band who had such poise and justifiable confidence in their sound and ability.  At one quiet point between tracks a punter at the bar said in an awed voice ‘outstanding, absolutely outstanding’ which received a shy thankyou from lead singer Ellie Rowsell.  They finished with their superb first single ‘Fluffy’ and it was plainly obvious they were destined for great things including subsequently headlining Glastonbury stages and Mercury Music prizes.

As the set arrived at a tumultuous finale and the band left the high stage Ellie was struggling to step down so I proffered a hand to assist her which she gratefully accepted. Musical royalty was touched in that very instance and I am sure Ellie has not washed her hand since!   

Wolf Alice. Image Credit nylon.com

In October 2013 I went to see White Hills for the first time who are a stoner psychedelic rock band from New York and provided a pleasing slab of white noise. They have had a prolific output since their formation in 2003 and have recorded over fifty releases incorporating an impressive twelve studio albums. In their early days they were championed and supported by Julian Cope and were also cherry picked to appear as a live band in a scene of a 2012 Jim Jarmusch movie ‘Only Lovers Left Alive’.  

There then followed a gap of 4.5 years until my next visit in March 2018. Gill and I headed down with our pal Laura Buckley to see an Icelandic dream synth pop band called Vok, the name translating as a ‘hole in the ice’. They had formed in 2013 and gained some instant recognition by winning Musiktilraunir, an annual Iceland music contest and the year before we saw them, they released their debut album ‘Figure’. 

Nottingham Venues 1 to 3

The reason for my initial visit back in 1992 was that we on the Sugar trail. After seeing them in Leicester on the Friday, we had a Nottingham date with them on the Saturday night.  

Fiona was not in attendance at the gig as she had a family wedding. We chilled during the day and then headed to Steve and Steph’s to eat pizza and watch Ghostbusters. Steph was telling us about having a meeting and photo with Bob Mould in a record shop that afternoon.

We jumped on a bus and had a couple of beers in Jacey’s Bar and then headed into Nottingham Trent Polytechnic at 9.15pm just before the band hit the stage. It was a traditional Uni type venue and was the only time I visited there and looking now at the history it doesn’t display any gigs beyond mid-90’s, so I must have been at one at the latter ones. Nirvana and Teenage Fanclub played there in it’s heyday.

Steve was the coat monitor as the remaining three in the party headed to the front. The sound was instantly better than the previous night resulting in a huge moshpit which obviously I dived into, resulting in a stunning bruise on my ribs the next day!

They were thankfully one of these bands that juggled the setlist which always adds variety to the proceedings if you see them more than once on the same tour. Standouts were ‘A Good Idea’ and ‘Fortune Teller’. Five minutes after the set conclusion, Bob wandered past where we were standing.

My brother headed down to London the following night to catch them at the Town and Country Club and I caught them two weeks later at the Boardwalk in Manchester, so we completed pretty good coverage between us on that first tour.

My next musical jaunt was to Nottingham Rock City on 18/10/97 to see Spiritualised supported by Steephill Jack. It turned out to be my only visit to the Main Hall.

Nottingham Rock City. Image Credit Rock City

Rock City is a somewhat fated venue as two other scheduled gigs there didn’t happen for different reasons. One to see Kyuss (forerunners to Queens of the Stone Age) was missed due to illness and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club annoyingly cancelled their show on the day of the gig.

It has always been touted as a much-vaunted venue, but it seemed a fairly unremarkable place and the gig tended to wash over me as well as the chilled Spiritualised vibe didn’t have its tentacles out that night.

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Spiritualised live on stage. Image Credit giggingni.com

However, the fates turned in our favour as we headed out post-gig and discovered a band mid-set in the Nottingham Rock City Basement Hall. It took a second to recognise who was playing but soon realised it was those incendiary lovable South London scamps Snuff kicking up a storm!

They were jammed into a small hall with a monster sweaty moshpit. The 30 minutes we managed to catch was superb. The highlight was at that particular point in time they were bringing up local punters to the stage to guest vocal, perhaps selected via their fan club. The local talent absolutely nailed a terrific version of Snuff’s cover of ‘I Think Were Alone Now’.

This resulted in turning what had been a slightly tame gig into a very fun bonus encore!