Tag: Snuff

Stockport Venue 12 – Viaduct Park

Contained within Stockport’s £1billion town centre regeneration is the creation of a modern transport hub and one of the key elements of the scheme was to replace the old, dog-eared bus station which was built back in 1981.

So, in 2024 the new Stockport Interchange was opened with eighteen bus stands that can facilitate up to 164 bus departures per hour. There has been space left in the design to accommodate a metro link tram stop if the proposed metro extension to Stockport ever comes to fruition at a later date.  

Stockport Interchange. Image Credit alamy.com

It is a fine set up and has walking links to the shopping areas and the nearby train station and cycling links to the River Mersey and onto the Trans Pennine Trail. There is also a 17 storey, 196-unit Build to Rent residential building with two floors of basement parking located adjacent.

Above the Interchange is a two-acre rooftop green space, Stockport Viaduct Park which is also available for community events. The whole site was officially opened on 17/03/24 and the following weekend events were set up as part of the Stockport Town of Culture Weekender.

A local musician called John Unwin had an idea to recruit and set up a Stockport Community Steel band. He is a very experienced steel band player and community teacher within this musical art. He arranged some preliminary sessions for February, and a fledgling band was created with their debut taking place at Viaduct Park on 23/03/24.

Gill and I decided to support this local initiative and there were over 50 free events at over 25 separate locations in the town over the two-day shindig including opening up the Air Raid shelters and the newly refurbished Hat Works Museum. We initially landed into Stockport train station before gravitating over to have a proper look at the impressive park. Unfortunately, it was a brutal ‘brass monkey’ cold kind of day, but it was at least thankfully dry.  

Stockport Viaduct Park. Image Credit feeds.bbci.co.uk

There were about 50 band members playing that day and the experienced ones were providing direction to the newer recruits. It was great fun, and they played three extended tracks and perhaps naturally one of them was ‘Soul Limbo’.

That song was originally recorded by Booker T and the MGs in 1968 and features a marimba (similar to a xylophone but with a lower range) solo by Terry Manning who was a renowned recording engineer, record producer and musician across a fifty-year time span working with artists such as Led Zeppelin, Otis Redding, Big Star and Shakira.

It also contained cowbell playing by Isaac Hayes, one of the driving forces behind the Southern soul Stax Records label in the 1960’s alongside writing the musical score for the iconic 1971 film ‘Shaft’ and being the voice of the Chef character in South Park.

There is naturally, as ever a riotous cover version of the ditty by Snuff and the original song derives from the band’s sixth album which also features the title track to ‘Hang Em High’, a Clint Eastwood movie released that very year.

‘Soul Limbo’ is perhaps most famous though for being the recognised theme tune for BBC Television’s cricket coverage and BBC Radio’s Test Match Special. In 1999 the Barmy Army England cricket supporters recorded ‘Come on England’ which was set to the same tune and the sister video featured cricketers Ian Botham and Ronnie Irani, umpire Dickie Bird and somewhat bizarrely Chris Tarrant!     

Isaac Hayes. Image Credit dustygroove.com

The steel pan (or drum) derived originally in Trinidad and Tobago in the 1930’s and was built on the template of African drumming. Basically, anything at the musician’s disposal was used to create the sound including metal objects such as dustbins and plant pots.

An important discovery was then made as the addition of convex dents battered into the sides of a 55-gallon oil drum allowed different musical pitches to be created. I adore the tales of those innovations and always muse on the combination of events that results in these breakthroughs!  

I have always been a fan of the mournful evocative sound of the pedal steel guitar and first heard it via a key proponent of the instrument, Ben Keith. He learnt his trade in the Nashville country music scene in the 1950’s and 1960’s and his first participation on a hit record was on Patsy Cline’s 1961 track ‘I Fall to Pieces’.

Ben played with Neil Young for over forty years, featuring on his iconic 1972 album ‘Harvest’ and also played the part of Grandpa Green in a film called Greendale which accompanied Neil’s 2003 record with the same name. He was inducted into the Musician’s Hall of Fame and Museum four years after his death in 2014.

Manchester Venue 181 – Canvas

Dominating a 5.4 acre portion of Oxford Road for many years was the New Broadcasting House (NBH). It was the BBC regional headquarters and contained various departments including BBC Manchester, BBC Northwest, the Philharmonic orchestra and was also furnished with a 180-seat restaurant. Many TV programmes were recorded there including Question of Sport, Dragon’s Den and Red Dwarf.

The old BBC building. Image Credit g7uk.com

It was originally built in 1975 before being subsequently demolished in 2012, when lock stock and barrel everything relocated to Media City at Salford Quays. During this period one of the Kro branches (Kro 2) was located next door and served as a sister venue to the one further down the strip opposite Manchester University. I visited there many times pre and post gigs and imbibed a few cold ones in their large outdoor area. Its closure coincided with the shutting down of NBH and it is now a Tesco Express.  

The land remained sparse and derelict for many years before a new development suddenly sprung up, seemingly overnight. This has become known as the Circle Square development and encompassed within this area are student accommodations, office spaces and communal seating within the open plan Symphony Park in the central portion.

Also catered for are the highly important food and drink options, the former including Hello Oriental where I have sampled their wares a few times. The latter incorporates a Federal coffee outlet and a branch of the North Taproom brewery.  

Circle Square. Image Credit circlesquaremanchester.com

On the musical front, there is a 1000 capacity venue which has recently opened called Ambers. They are mainly a DJ based venue and have regular late events across the two function rooms.

The other venue that appeared there was Manchester Canvas which had a day and night concept. It was created by the BeSixth team who owned two established music locales in East London, namely Oval Space and Pickle Factory which are sister venues, located opposite each other in Bethnal Green. They commendably became the first two multi-use venues in the UK to eliminate single use bottles and cups, and the concept of all three establishments was to create a blank canvas experimental ethos.  

There was a ground floor cocktail bar and South American influenced restaurant and function rooms for hire and weekly yoga classes. They also launched a fairly unique membership for under 30’s costing £15 with perks such as free gigs.

The venue appeared ‘as if by magic’ on the gig listings in June 22 in much the same way that the Soup Kitchen did many years earlier, causing me to initially scratch my head regarding its actual location, but the ‘venue bloodhound’ in me soon tracked it down!

My initial interaction was visiting the bar whilst on the way to another gig. I engaged in discussion with the friendly barman regarding the new complex and he generously offered a private tour, which we readily accepted. Downstairs from the bar were two separate but interlinked rooms, the second complete with comfy sofas and a balcony and it was an impressive space even when empty.

This latter space was classified as Manchester Canvas 2, which had a capacity of 200 and where I had booked some tickets for the South London punks Snuff in April 24. However, rather unexpectedly the entire venue closed, and that show was relocated to the Breadshed. Thus, this venue was then added to the ‘Jimmy missing venue’ list where either the venue had closed prior to the gig, or I could not actually attend the event despite having tickets. Previous entries on this list include the Hacienda, Fairfield Club and Jilly’s Rockworld.   

The larger room containing Manchester Canvas 1 had space for 550 punters and had hosted events featuring Liam Fray, Happy Mondays, Dutch Uncles and the Warehouse Project. I attended just the once in September 2023 on a filthy rainy night.

Coach Party on stage at Canvas. Image Credit Aesthete.

The room downstairs on entry had a bar to the left and the stage to the right and the already traditional sticky floor in between. The band that evening was Coach Party, a four-piece indie rock band from Isle of Wight and they had an innate quirkiness to them which I found very enjoyable.

One of the band members Steph Norris used to be a manager of Black Sheep, one of the few music venues on the island. They have since been followed by fellow ‘Caulkheads’ Wet Leg who are making their own large strides in the music industry.

The postscript this week is that this is my 100th Manchester article, a long way away from the very first one that I posted about Manchester Apollo nearly six years ago!