Tag: Liverpool EBGB's

Liverpool Venues 11 to 12

I am returning this week to the ‘Beatles influenced’ musical haven of Mathew Street in the centre of the city. One of the establishments even goes so far as to name itself after one of their albums, namely Liverpool Rubber Soul. There are a suite of bars that line the street, and they are badged within the ‘Rubber Soul Complex’ and located within the Cavern Walks area.

Rubber Soul Bar. Image Credit go-eat-do.com

I surmise that the bar has been open for many years but can find no detail of this apart from the fact that it unexpectedly closed in 2009 before being extensively refurbished and reopened in 2013. One of the two bar rooms incorporates an exhibition pertaining to its history as a former fruit market and the legendary Liverpool Eric’s nightclub that is situated in the downstairs space.  

Additionally, TP Molloys the site of the previous Tutti Frutti nightclub which was originally behind the venue was changed into a carvery and grill restaurant. That building which dates back to the 1930s had lain empty for many years but this was also restored and is now called Yesterday. Rubber Soul is a fairly basic sports bar showing big screen sports and has DJ’s playing every Friday and Saturday. On one particular night I saw a singer called Callum play there.

The afore mentioned Eric’s opened on 1 October 1976 in the basement of the Fruit Exchange building in Victoria Street. Shortly after they moved to their new location of Mathew Street opposite the Cavern Club. The local promoter Roger Eagle was the driving force and used his experience from previously hosting nights at the Stadium in Liverpool and the Twisted Wheel in Manchester.

He was joined in the enterprise by Ken Testi, who managed Deaf School and Pete Fulwell who was the owner of the ‘Inevitable’ record label and latterly manager of local bands It’s Immaterial and The Christians. The choice of Eric’s name was a tad tongue in cheek and its particular plainness was in response to the trend at that stage of naming disco clubs with funky names such as ‘Tiffany’s’!

The original Eric’s in the 1970’s complete with intriguing graffiti! Image Credit pinterest.co.uk

A lot of life’s successes and failures can come down to timing of ‘sliding doors’ moments and they were very fortunate in this regard as the opening of the club coincided with the explosion of punk. Thus, in the opening month the Stranglers played and there were huge queues for The Runaways.  The Sex Pistols also performed which transpired to be their one and only Liverpool gig.  Other acts to play there include The Clash supported by The Specials (a fine double bill!), The Ramones, The Slits and X-Ray Spex.

They also had the novelty of staging two shows on Saturday’s, one a matinee set in the afternoon for the under 18’s and then a more regular gig in the evening. There was apparently one famous afternoon show when Iggy Pop played a storming set to a posse of school children who took him by surprise by singing a full rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’ back to him. He finished the performance with ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog’ though due to his star quality the price of the show had doubled from the usual price of £1 to £2!

The mention of matinees makes me reminiscent of those days where bands would not arrive on stage before 11pm. It has now gone so far the other way that due to club nights following the gigs in some venues, the event can be finished by the very early time of 9.30pm. There were also in those days’ gigs taking place all year round and I recall Blondie once playing Glasgow Apollo on New Years Eve in 1979 which was recorded for Radio 1 and Old Grey Whistle Test.

Talking of timings and also the recent onset of spring makes me recall when my brother and I were young lads down in London on a weekend when the clocks changed and were heading back to Preston on an early train on the Sunday morning. When we got on the train back into the city, we both commented that it seemed remarkably quiet, little wonder as we had tangled up on our spring forward/fall back understanding. Thus, our thinking was that we were on an 8am train, but the real time was actually 6am, what a couple of plonkers!   

Iggy Pop on stage at the infamous Eric’s gig. Image Credit liverpoolerics.blogspot.com

The club survived until March 1980 when it was raided by police for drugs offences, and the last band to play there was Psychedelic Furs, I never visited in that era as I was far too young. The club was then briefly Brady’s before closing again shortly after. There was a significant time gap after that before the original venue reopened in 2011, with OMD playing on the opening night. I once recently visited the pub at ground level and saw a chap called Teddy playing.   

In 2009 Eric’s history was covering extensively in the tome titled ‘Liverpool Eric’s: All the Best Clubs are Downstairs, Everyone Knows That’. An ethos I can readily attest to as I have found that many of the most atmospheric venues are in cellar spaces, The Ruby Lounge, Roadhouse and Peer Hat in Manchester, EBGB’s in Liverpool and the 13th Note Bar in Glasgow to name but a few!

Liverpool Venues 5 to 7

Before I outline the remaining events I have thus far attended in Liverpool, I wanted to provide some detail of all the missed gig opportunities on the other side of the River Mersey from the city centre. The first occurred when I attended my auntie’s wedding somewhere deep in Wallasey territory and there was a pub opposite the wedding reception building, but the name of the establishment evades me now. We visited briefly during the day but only Uncle George grasped the mantle to attend at one point in the evening where there was a band playing.

Following on from that quarter information tale, in July 21, Gill and I were scheduled to attend the Lets Rock 80’s festival at Wavertree Playing Fields (aka the Mystery). The derivation of the mystery moniker is down to the fact that the 104-acre park was donated to the Liverpool corporation by an anonymous well-wisher who subsequently transpired to be a shipping magnet. We were planning to commute in from the local nattily named Wavertree Technology Park train station but in the end, circumstances dictated we could not attend resulting in missing out of the dubious privilege of watching Sister Sledge, Odyssey, Wet Wet Wet and Adam Ant!  

Adam Ant. Image Credit thecurrent.org

I have previously attended gigs at library venues in Lancaster and Wigan and was hoping to tick Birkenhead off this list when we obtained tickets to see the French band Juniore for a chilled Sunday afternoon set, but it was subsequently cancelled and not rearranged due to issues with post-Brexit visa issues and Covid.

Another interesting sounding venue in that area is the Future Yard in Birkenhead. One of my favourite ever bands Sennen were undertaking a very rare tour and had added a date at that very venue. Unfortunately, I had a fixture clash and could not attend, and despite my exhortations to the band they didn’t add a Manchester date, so I have not yet added to my sole sighting of them at Manchester Night and Day in 2010.

Thus, I shall now move away from the hard luck stories onto actual gigs attended. One day in December 2019 I was working out of the Liverpool office and gravitating back down Liverpool Church Street to Lime Street station for my train home. I heard the unmistakable sound of a full band playing a street gig, the combo in question was Keywest.

Keywest band. Image Credit wordpress.com

Keywest are a four-piece folk band from Ireland and their route to success is an unusual one as they learnt and honed their craft by years of busking in the hot bed area of Grafton Street in Dublin. They had obviously decided to take a trip down memory lane by performing on a busy shopping street, I don’t whether that proceeded a gig in a more standard venue that evening.

On Matthew Street, you will find Liverpool Sgt Pepper’s Bar, like many in the area a Beatles themed establishment and the website informs that improbably and in fact impossibly they have music on ‘8 days a week’! In 2017 I caught a chap called John McDonna playing a set there.

In December 2021, I was over in Liverpool for an overnight work event and therefore naturally had to have a gander at the Ents 24 website to see if there were any musical events of note that coincided with my stay, thus discovering there was an interesting act on that very night at Liverpool EBGBS.

After work, we grabbed some tea in the Silk Road tapas and after a couple of drinks persuaded my colleague David Taylor to also attend the gig. David had previously pleasantly surprised me when he stated unexpectedly that he had not only heard of Mogwai but had actually seen them live which was good enough for me!

Heebies Jeebies (known locally as Heebies) has been a popular venue on Seel Street since it first incarnation as a jazz bar in the mid 90’s. In 2016 they opened the 250-year-old basement room as a live and club night venue and named it EBGBS.  Upon entering the establishment, I noted they had nailed the intended vibe as a dingy downstairs biker bar, in a good way! It reminded me of the Merchants pub near Lancaster train station.

EBGB’s dungeon setting! Image Credit architectural-emporium.co.uk

The venue has a capacity of 300 but there cannot have been more than fifty people in attendance that night, I can imagine when the place is full the view of the stage may be impaired due to the numerous pillars in place.

The support band was a post punk band from Oslo in Norway called Mayflower Madame, the main act was New Candys from Venice in Italy. Since their formation in 2008, their singer Fernando Nuti remains their ever-present member. In their early days they had support slots with the likes of Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and Crystal Stilts.

Their second album was recorded by John Willis, producer, and drummer of legendary psych rock band Loop, who coincidentally I am off to see today (21/05/23) on their comeback tour, 33.33 years since I last saw them at Manchester International 1 in January 1990. New Candys provided an enjoyable slab of gentle shoegaze before we headed back down the vibrant Seel Street, which looked worthy of further investigation at some future stage.