Tag: Sounds from the Other City

Manchester Venue 139 – Maxwell Hall

I am returning this week to the tale of the 2024 Sounds from the Other City Festival (SFTOC). Within Salford University between 1964 and 2004 there was a thriving venue in the University grounds called Manchester Maxwell Hall. The Maxwell building containing the aforementioned hall was officially opened in 1961 by Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip. The upper hall staged the gigs with a capacity of 1000 seating and a balcony above of a further 220 capacity. I once sat in that very balcony area whilst attending one of my talented wife Gill’s many graduation ceremonies.

The opening band to play on the 25th of March 1964 was Dave Berry and the Cruisers at a cost of six shillings, they were so named based on the lead singer’s admiration of Chuck Berry. They are not to be confused with Marvin Berry and the Starlighters, the fictional musician and Chuck’s cousin from the original Back to the Future movie!  Other acts to play there include The Who, Black Sabbath, U2, New Order, The Kinks, James and of course The Smiths!

Marvin Berry and the Starlighters. Image Credit backtothefuture.wikia.com

One story goes along the lines that Paul McCartney and the Wings rolled up in a van in 1972 and asked if they could play as the band had just recently formed and were engaged on a practice tour. The tickets were priced at 50p with half going to the band and the other half to the University. Blondie also famously graced the stage in 1978 and there is an iconic picture that only emerged in 2017 with Debbie Harry draped in the actual poster for the gig.

In the 1990’s the allure of the venue waned due to the introduction of competing venues in the city with Charlatans having the honour of playing the final gig there on 20th December 2004. There then followed an utterly mystifying gap of fifteen years before an extensive refurbishment plan was touted within the £800m Salford Crescent Masterplan to restore the venue to its former glory but like many other schemes I assume it was then scuppered by the pandemic.

Debbie Harry embracing Salford Uni. Image Credit blogs.salford.ac.uk

Five years later the venue was belatedly chosen as one of the locations within the 2024 edition of SFTOC, which rekindled talk of possibly rebooting the venue. The layout of the venue reminded me of Whitehaven Civic Hall.

On the day we attended we saw a jaunty slightly surreal Welsh six piece called Melin Melyn (translates as Yellow Mill). They sing in their native language and have been cited alongside other artists in a movement named ‘Cool Cymru 2.0’. The driving force of the band are the original members Gruff Glyn alongside Garmon Rhys, who also double up as a pair of professional actors, the former garnering credits in Dr Who, Poldark and the Royal Shakespeare Company.  Their music I would describe as a pot pourri of folk and surf rock.

Maintaining the Welsh theme, we also caught the end of Gruff Rhys (of Super Furry Animals) headline set who was promoting his latest solo album ‘Sadness Sets Me Free’. He is ambidextrous and somewhat bizarrely plays left-handed on an upside down right handed guitar. He has tried his hand at scripting opera and also provides vocals to the Mogwai track ‘Dial: Revenge’ off their Rock Action album. He curtailed his show with a nod to Bob Dylan’s video for Subterranean Homesick Blues via the usage of cue cards with audience prompts for applause etc.      

Maxwell Hall. Image Credit bbc.com

There has been a spate of other venues in the near vicinity including a former horse racing track at a site called Castle Irwell which was sold onto the University in 1960’s. It first evolved as a student village and then the old racecourse members stand was converted into the popular Pavilion Bar and Nightclub (known locally as the Pav) under the ownership of the Students Union.

Bands to have played gigs the Pav include Texas, Pulp and Atomic Kitten before its closure in 2009. The village at Castle Irwell subsequently closed in 2015 after a half of century of providing housing for approximately 40k students. Sadly, a year later there was an arson attack which created such a huge fire that at one point 50 firefighters were in situ utilising pumped water from the nearby River Irwell. Housing has since sprung up on that original site. 

Pulp flyer from their 1992 show. Image Credit pulpwiki.net

There were also events at the Student Unions Building in the 1970’s and 1980’s but the only recorded gig I could track there was a performance by Heart! I am sure there must have been other higher quality gigs there. The final one to note is the Salford College of Technology where local legends Joy Division once graced the stage in 1978.

2023 Gigs – Part 2

This week I will complete the tale of gigs in 2023. In April I returned to the comforting environs of the Sounds from the Other City festival in Salford. In the Manchester Islington Mill Club I saw a local punky trio called Ether Mech. We then headed onto Manchester Pint Pot (downstairs) where I encountered Is33n (pronounced i-seen), an artist who has been supported by the Brighter Sound musical enterprise. Also, I saw Caitlin LM who doubles as an artist and music producer, and she had a chilled electronic vibe.

Up the steps I traversed into Manchester Pint Pot (upstairs) where I witnessed Spencer Cullum, a folk musician originally from Romford who relocated to Nashville to learn the ways of the ‘steel pedal’, to me one of the most distinctive sounding instruments in the world of music. Also playing up there was the Brown Brogues, a noisy two-piece garage rock band from Manchester, their sound somewhat reminiscent of the Kills.    

Brown Brogues. Image Credit heymanchester.com

We then pottered on to Manchester Five Four Studios 2 to see DEK (full name Dream English Kid) who had an electronic shoegaze sound with the shimmering vocals provided by Hannah Cobb, and they have had support slots with KVB and Whitelands. I also just discovered rather excitingly that they derive from my hometown of ‘Proud’ Preston. Next door in Manchester Five Four Studios 1 I saw the composer and producer plus44kaligula.

Now, one of the inherent requirements if you are playing one of these festivals is not to be tardy when your time slot is due as the gaps between bands are sharp and the set windows are short. As we entered Manchester St Phillips Church a band called Max Fulcrum and the Win were doing the exact opposite of this requirement with a staggering amount of ‘faffing about’! The driving force of the large ensemble is Dominic Rose, previously front man of Fake Turins.

St Phillips Church. Image Credit manchestereveningnews.co.uk

There was I thinking they may produce a sonic racket in the mould of Polyphonic Spree or Arcade Fire, though when they finally started up, I was crushingly disappointed as they were a very limp proposition resulting in me heading for the exit whilst muttering darkly under my breath about time wasters!  The final gig that day took place at the hub of Manchester Bexley Square where an acoustic guitarist called Kid Katharsis took to the stage.

There were a couple of low level gigs featuring local artists at Manchester Albert Schloss and we also caught a singer/songwriter called Will Doolan whilst on a night out in Manchester Head of Steam in Didsbury Village. Additionally, I had a couple of bonus gigs at Manchester Thirsty Scholar whilst waiting for the train after attending other shows in the city.

On a steaming hot July Sunday, we headed to Manchester Castle for a novel late afternoon gig. In advance, we grabbed some late lunch at the nearby Blue Eyed Panda Chinese restaurant in Ancoats. Whilst there I was checking on periodically on score flashes on Carlos Alcaraz’s dramatic win in the Wimbledon final taking place that day. The venue was busy and as a result it was ridiculously hot in there.

The support was a band called Supermilk who were originally in 2017 a solo project of Jake Popyura before moving into a full band formation from 2022. They were very enjoyable and engaging in a live setting. However, I have just picked up the very sad news that earliest this year Jake announced that he has a rare and terminal neurogenerative disorder.    

Supermilk. Image Credit cloutcloutclout.com

The headline act was Fortitude Valley who we had seen for the first time a year earlier, though I didn’t personally enjoy their performance as much on this occasion as I did at that thrilling first sighting.  

In September, Gill and I traversed over to the fair city of Lancaster with Marcus and Tris. Our destination was Lancaster Library for an afternoon show to witness Erland Cooper who was previously in The Magnetic North and Erland and the Carnival. He is a multi-instrumentalist producer from Orkney and incorporates a lot of nature aspects in his tunes. He gathered some publicity when he deleted all digital files and buried the only existing copy of his first album on the island and provided some treasure hunt clues which resulted in two chaps discovering them 18 months later.

He provided some lovely music but at times it was veering rather closely to being pretentious and self-indulgent. The support was a cellist from London called Midori Jaeger. Prior to the show we caught something more primal across the road in Lancaster John O Gaunt with music from Grunge God and Sheena.

We returned that way a month later for the Lancaster festival and visited Lancaster Jailor’s Barrel which is near the train station. It was previously known as the Robert Gillow but changed its name during the pandemic when they discovered that he was linked to the slave trade. On stage was a local acoustic guitarist called Keith Mitchell. Later that day I visited Lancaster Tap House where I saw Keith Riddle.