Manchester Venues 153 to 155 – Caribbean Festival

One of the strengths of my hometown of Preston is that it has always been a multi-cultural city with a large proliferation of the Windrush generation amongst others settling there in the 1950’s and 1960’s.

As a result of this cultural background there were two thriving establishments dotted across the city, the first being the Caribbean Club in Kent Street which had a golden period in the 1980’s and 1990’s where I saw The Membranes, Snuff and Scream perform. The club is now long gone but Jalgos in the city centre remains, a venue where I once saw UK Subs play upstairs.  

Jalgos Club. Image Credit lep.co.uk

There is also every May bank holiday a large Caribbean procession on the Preston streets with colourful floats and steel bands with the end point of the parade being a festival gather in Avenham Park. The 50th anniversary version of this event took place in 2024.

When we relocated over to Manchester, I always endeavoured to make an appearance at their own festival. The actual start year of their event is somewhat disputed, some say 1970 and others say 1971, what is not in doubt however is that the location for the festival has always been the large Alexandra Park in the Moss Side area of town. It can’t be easily overlooked that the shindig has over the years sometimes had a chequered history with gang incidents, drugs arrests and even murder.  

The original British festival was held in London in 1959, in direct response to the racist riots that took place in Notting Hill and also Nottingham the summer before. The driving force and organiser was Claudia Jones who is now revered as the ‘mother of the British Caribbean carnival’.

A flyer for Preston Caribbean festival fundraising. Image Credit socanews.com

Her back story is fascinating as she was born in British Colonial Trinidad in 1915 before her childhood years in 1930’s Harlem in New York. As a black woman and a ‘communist’ she was victimised in the McCarthy post war era and was shamefully classed as a criminal and deported to Britain in 1955. She admirably became a strong advocate of fostering the local community and continued to fight the politics of the day and the inaugural festival was created four short years later. Ms Locita Brandy was Claudia’s equivalent in being the impetus behind the subsequent inception of the Northern version.  

Alexandra Park dates back to 1864 and was first opened to the public in 1870. There were at that time experimental usage from the architect Alexander Hennell of oval shaped and curved pathways, a raised walk and a half mile lime walk wide enough for horse drawn carriages. Additionally, one of the original park keeper’s homes, Chorlton Lodge still remains to this day.

The park was the location of the great Manchester Woman Suffrage demonstration of 24th October 1908 and several Rock Against Racism events took place there with a particular one on 15th July 1978 which featured both Steel Pulse and the Buzzcocks. 

Thus, on Sunday 11th August 2024 we decided to make our long overdue debut. Initial thoughts were to walk the 5 miles there, but a stiflingly hot day put paid to that idiotic idea. We travelled over on the metro and alighted at Withington tram stop which is a stone’s throw from those cemetery gates that Morrissey famously sang about, it was about a mile trek from there to the park.

Manchester Caribbean Carnival. Image Credit themanchestercarnival.com

There was extremely thorough security checks at the gate before we undertook a circuit of the huge site. Initially on the Manchester Caribbean Youth Stage we saw a band called Black Oxygen before catching up with Axis Attack on the Manchester Caribbean Jamaican Corner Stage.

There were fun fairs and vendors of all different shades including numerous rum bars which we swerved around. We did however hit one of the food stalls and sampled a terrific homemade curry which was served with rice and beans, salad and plantain. 

Now, in my time I have been to more loud gigs than you can wave a stick at, but the noise level there was astounding, and the bass was vibrating through to your very soul. We grabbed a spot on the grass but could not hear ourselves to have a conversation, so were virtually reliant on sign language. Whilst we munched on our food our ears were assailed by a chap called RJ on the Manchester Caribbean Main Stage.

Preston Venues 5 to 7 – Caribbean Club Part 2

When living near the Withytrees in Fulwood I quite often used to walk into work which took me across Moor Park and right past the location of the Caribbean Club, now a Cash and Carry store.

My first visit around 1985 was to see Bogshed on a cold Wednesday night. They were pretty forgettable and had one good track – ‘Fat Boy Exam Failure’. I recall I managed to get a lift home from one of my brother’s mates.

My second visit in July 1986 on another Wednesday night was eminently more memorable. Prior to the first band I won £10 on the £100 bandit which was my biggest ever win and a tidy chunk of money in those days, resulting in me drawing annoyed glances from the club members.

The support band was Howl in the Typewriter which wholly consisted of one bloke called Sam from Blackpool playing a guitar loudly which sounds rather limited in scope, but he was good fun. He went on to form a long running record label called Pumf Records and Tapes. His encore party piece was unveiling his array of 15 guitars and allocating members of the audience to each one which created an unusual cacophonous outro.

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Howl in the Typewriter. Image Credit last.fm

The interesting backdrop to the music was that England were playing Poland in a must win World Cup game in Mexico with an 11pm kick off. So, there was a runner coming in from the other side of the club whilst the main band were on stage to announce each goal of Lineker’s hat trick which generated loud cheers every time.

The main act was a Washington DC Hardcore/Blues band called Scream who were really enjoyable. They had to go off at midnight as residents were complaining about the racket and their last act was to ask the audience for the bed for the night. A postscript was that 3 months after I saw them a 17 year- old drummer called Dave Grohl joined the band. The night ended by tottering home and watching the last 10 minutes of the England game.

Continuing the theme of Caribbean based venues, there is another club Jalgos – Venue 6 behind Raiders nightclub. I visited there once around 1995. It was again a social club set up on the ground floor with the venue upstairs. They were many old and new punks in attendance that night.

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Jalgos Club. Image Credit facebook.com/Jalgos

Support was Jez Catlow’s band punk band Pike who I was watching for the first time. They had been ploughing the local circuit for many years prior to this gig and continued to afterwards, however they are scheduled to play their last ever gig later this year.

The main band were UK Subs who continue to this very day to play a legendary number of gigs per year. I can only think comparably of Status Quo who were as hard touring as the Subs. They are fronted by the timeless Charlie Harper, who is now aged 74.

I read recently that the continued existence of Jalgos is in doubt, which would potentially leave Preston without a Caribbean venue, which I think would be a shame as there is a thriving Caribbean festival that takes place each summer on nearby Avenham Park.

Venue 7 – Lion Pub was down the bottom end on Church St located between the George and Joplins hostelries. It had gigs virtually every night, however it was primarily a Jazz and Blues venue and as a result it was not a regular haunt. I did see one gig there around 1988, involving Human Nature referenced previously in the Blackburn King Georges article. I also recall John Inverdale hosting some interviews in the very pub for a Radio 5 live piece when they were undertaking a tour of Britain looking at regional variations.