Tag: Piccadilly Records

Manchester Venue 87 Albert Hall – Part 2

One of the undeniable quirks of Albert Hall is the sheer size of the building and the multiple floors. A case in point is the extraordinary distance to access the lavatories which are situated in a veritable Bermuda Triangle maze of corridors in the basement, where it is rather easy to lose your bearings!

On 17/05/14 I recall us having a chippy tea on Cross Street and then watching the end of the FA Cup final between Arsenal and Hull which the former team won in extra time, before heading down to Manchester Albert Hall to watch the enigmatic Neutral Milk Hotel.

I had first discovered the band years after their breakup via reading an annual review pamphlet distributed by Piccadilly Records which listed them in several subscribers influential list. They hailed from Louisiana and their driving force was Jeff Mangum and their initial period of existence was from 1989 to 1998 before reforming for a couple of years in 2013.  

Their popularity in their initial phase resulting in them dropping off the map and heading into a hiatus and Jeff becoming a virtual recluse. Their music is ‘marmite’ to many punters, as it contains many unusual instruments such as a singing saw, uilleann pipes and the lesser spotted ‘zanzithophone’ which translates as a Casio digital horn. It also contains strange otherworldly lyrics, and they were cited as a resultant huge influence on bands that followed such as Arcade Fire and the Decemberists.  

My view on their landmark second album ‘In the Aeroplane Over the Sea’ is that is idiosyncratic, life affirming but also in equal parts deeply unsettling. It was fascinating to hear it converted to a live setting and some of their tracks had moments of genius about them.

Neutral Milk Hotel’s unique album cover. Image Credit Pinterest.

Because they had literally disappeared for such a sustained period and gained a degree of mythical status, many of their fans in the interim had developed into ardent zealots of their art, to the point that Uncle George observed on the evening that it felt a tad ‘insidious’. It was all in all a fascinating evening and the resultant people watch was almost as entertaining as the band.       

The following June I saw the ever-excellent Black Rebel Motorcycle Club for the fifth time with my personal favourite being when they astonishingly played five minutes’ walk away from where I lived in a small club in Preston called the Mill.

It was a glorious summers evening and despite being in an indoor venue the sun was angling through the many decorative windows to provide an elegant backdrop to their performance on stage. The band revel in long performances, quite often over two hours and flip consummately between straight up rock tracks like ‘Whatever Happened to my Rock N Roll (Punk Song)’ to countrified acoustic tracks such as ‘Complicated Situation’. They were in fantastic form on the evening and all things combined it resulted in becoming my gig of the year for 2015.

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. Image Credit myfreewallpapers.net

My next visit was as part of the Dot-to-Dot festival roster in 2018. To add to the many things Covid was responsible for is the fact that it sadly cancelled the Manchester leg of the Dot-to-Dot event, and it is now only held in Bristol and Nottingham. I really miss this event as it provided a great opportunity to visit some more obscure venues and also achieve some serious steps totals as it encompasses venues all across the city in one day!   

The other unusual element it allowed was to visit venues during daylight hours when they are at times virtually deserted which is slightly disconcerting as you are so used to venues being busy just prior to an evening show. The band on stage were No Hot Ashes from Stockport who had been receiving some hype locally but for me they didn’t justify it. The following year they released their only album ‘Hardship Starship’ and in 2020 decided to take an unspecified hiatus but Covid intervened again to cancel forever their two planned farewell shows.

In 2019 I saw Suede for the first time, and I have always been a tad ambivalent about the music but many gigs I have attended in the last five years are because we are now just down the road from Manchester, so why the hell not! Brett Anderson remains quite an engaging front man and they put on a decent performance without really moving me. I was left with the conundrum afterwards of whether I respected him or not for having the temerity to still wear tight leather pants at his age!

Manchester Venues 44 to 46

As you traverse down the rather exposed A6 into the City Centre from Salford Crescent station you encounter the Old Pint Pot pub overlooking the River Irwell. It was originally a school and was called Adelphi Riverside in the eighties before obtaining its current moniker in the nineties and has been a regular haunt for Salford University alumni for many years.

It is a Marston’s Brewery pub and apparently has recently gone through an extensive refurbishment with the introduction of a state-of-the-art unique overhead beer dispense system called Palm Pour.  There is also a fine beer garden with a vantage over the river.

My first visit there was for a beer prior to watching AC/DC at MEN Arena in 2001. On another visit whilst meeting Gill after work I arrived first and upon entering the establishment my ears were assailed by the unmistakable sound of Husker Du’s sonic cover of the Byrds ‘Eight Miles High’. This remains one of my favourite ever Huskers track and I have never heard it in a pub environs before or after that day!  

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The Old Pint Pot. Image Credit scoopergen.co.uk

I have always been fond of this pub, and it remains a focal gathering point within the auspices of Sounds from the Other City festival. At the 2017 festival in the Old Pint Pot Main Bar, we saw a terrific band in an Americana vein called the Roasts, though searching now I cannot find reference of them, but I most certainly saw them! We also saw another act called Lord Kessell and the Drums.

On my first visit there in 2012 we saw a decent local post rock band called Day for Airstrikes, whose first full length album ‘Widows’ released in 2006 (not to be confused with Sennen’s debut album of the same name) through Piccadilly Records.   

There was a more conventional stage in the Old Pint Pot Upstairs and at the same event in 2018 we watched TV AM. At the following years event we saw a brief portion of indie band Pip Blom’s set, they were obviously a draw because we could barely push through the door!   

To exemplify the broad spectrum of venues utilised by the festival, the next one located just down the road is the Angel Centre, a healthy living centre offering free activities to the Salford community including events such as free E-Cig appointments and mental health and horticulture drop ins.

In the main room they had kitted up a small stage in the corner and a pop-up bar to the left. I have witnessed gigs there at each of the three SFTOC festivals I have attended.

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Angel Centre. Image Credit guerillapocasts.com

On my first foray in 2012 I saw Frazer King, a quirky six-piece band from the local suburb of Wythenshawe who were difficult to quantify but Ennio Morricone punk could be an apposite description of their sound.

In 2017 we saw a terrific band called Golden Dregs, led by driving force Benjamin Woods. They were a welcome blast of garage rock Americana and his vocals resembled Bill Callaghan of Smog; they went down a storm complemented by a cold brew from the bar. I completed the venue trilogy in 2018 by watching a local band called Cattle.