Tag: Snuff

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.

Manchester Venue 135 – Bread Shed

On the opposite side of Grosvenor Street from the Deaf Institute venue you will find the Sand Bar. This is one of the many hostelries within the Oxford Road corridor, but it is a singular Manchester institution and one of my fave places to visit. It came into existence in the mid-90’s and I have been attending there for pre-gig drinks for many years. It is housed in an old industrial mill with an olde world feel and has an unprepossessing and almost hidden entrance. They have always served fine beers and was the first place that I was aware of that stocked continental lagers and was the location of my first sampling of the Bavarian Schneider Weisse wheat beer!  

Manchester Sand Bar. Image Credit flickr.com

On the next corner is another watering hole with the previously very simplistic name of ‘The Pub’. It is housed in a Grade II listed building, and they regularly have quiz nights and open mic nights, this one being more of a sporadically visited hostelry. A recent artistic addition to their side wall in May this year was a large mural of Kurt Cobain. At the back of this pub for many years there was a nightclub called the Zoo, now a singular music venue called Manchester Bread Shed.

I first visited the venue in its Zoo nightclub phase as part of the Dot to Dot festival event in 2013 and the act on stage was Beans on Toast which is the stage name of folk singer Jay McAllister who derives from Braintree in Essex. He is a prolific musician and has recorded fifteen albums since 2005 and has a liking for releasing them on his birthday of 1st December.

The Bread Shed. Image Credit designmynight.com

To be honest, he was not my cup of Yorkshire Tea though there were many punters in there who were lapping up his performance. On a personal front, my day improved dramatically immediately after as I caught a startlingly good Wolf Alice set across the road in the Deaf Institute.

In August 2017 the site rebooted as the Bread Shed and the owners Stonegate Pub Company spent £450k on upgrades. The unusual name derived from the history of the building as in the 1900’s it was the Duncan & Foster bakery site. This was also reflected in the attached pub revising its name to the Flour & Flagon. It was set up as an events space with a 480 capacity and beyond the live music they also reinstated the XS Malarkey comedy night that had for a short period been rehomed at the Comedy Store.   

Prior to attending a Fontaines DC gig at Gorilla in 2019 I cheekily blagged my way into the venue and caught a portion of a pretty woeful Iron Maiden tribute who were at the same low calibre level of the ‘legendary’ Damascus gig (my third ever gig) at Preston Clouds in 1984!   

My next visit was in October 23 where Marcus and Anita attended with Gill and I. Marcus had some ticket issues on the door but managed to negotiate his way in. The band we had come to see was the Boo Radleys who I was witnessing after a 29-year sabbatical as I had not seen them since two gigs in 1994. They were on a rotating joint headline tour and were the support on the night and were in excellent form with the fabulous ‘Lazarus’ being performed towards the end of their set.  

The headliners were Cud who are an electro indie band from Leeds who I had surprisingly never seen before. They formed in 1987, broke up in 1995, but reformed again in 2006. In their first incarnation they undertook a cover of Hot Chocolate’s ‘You Sexy Thing’ which garnered a number 20 position in John Peel’s festive fifty in 1988. Their lead singer is Carl Puttnam who can be marmite to some people, and I honestly didn’t approach them with high expectations. However, these chaps could play and were seriously good fun, reminding me of the vibrancy of Electric Six’s live performances.   

Cud band. Image Credit 3loopmusic.com

My latest visit was in April this year to see the ska/punk sounds of Snuff for the eighth time. Just when I was thinking the audience were very quiet on the first three tracks and not resembling an archetypal Snuff crowd they then played ‘Soul Limbo’ cricket theme, and the place went ballistic! So much so the instantly created moshpit had a kick back and Uncle George was knocked back onto the floor and temporarily flattened, but he is literally made of Teflon so bounced straight back up again! I had a rare foray into the pit myself for a few tracks and as ever thoroughly enjoyed their show!