Not to be outflanked by their Manchester counterparts the good folk of Salford set up their own festival in 2010 and uniquely called it Sounds from the Other City (SFTOC) and it took over many diverse venues in and around the A6 near to Salford Central train station. I have counted the following venues under the Manchester banner due to their postcodes.
On our first visit in May 2012, we arrived via Salford Crescent Station as there were more speedy trains to that location. The Crescent station only has two platforms but occasionally there is a delightful occurrence of the station announcer excitedly exclaiming ‘Platform Change, Platform Change’ which only in reality necessitates a step forward or backwards to reach the new location! We had only once previously had a couple of drinks around that area in December 2000 prior to watching AC/DC at the MEN Arena.
I have attended three separate SFOTC’s in total and they have always been superbly run chilled events. The central hub for the tickets has been an old industrial building called Islington Mill which is a gig and arts venue with rehearsal rooms within. There is a specific small gig room which in that first year I saw a band called the ABC Club. On a later visit to SFOTC in 2017 I saw Torn Sail, a psychedelic folk-rock band who had the legendary Mark Lanegan contributing to their debut album.
Outside of the festival, we saw Joanne Gruesome there on 18/09/15. They were a five-piece punky band from Cardiff who had modelled their name somewhat bizarrely on musician Joanne Newsom. They were sporadically excellent live in a very intimate setting and I recall the guitarist always facing away from the stage. We had a commendable sally around the local hostelries pre and post gig including a couple of jars in the New Oxford with its array of real ales and were chatting to a couple of punters who travelled all the way across Manchester every Friday to visit the pub.
Down the corridor from the Club room was the Islington Mill Gallery where in 2018 we saw songwriter Claire Wells perform. Outside the back of the building was a large courtyard area where there was a plethora of food options available including appetising looking pizzas. In the corner was a balcony stage called the Engine House where an acoustic duo with a jolly name of White Death were performing.
Our first venue visited at the festival in 2012 was the outermost venue down the A6 away from town, namely The Crescent public house. It was a proper old-fashioned boozer with a distinctive green frontage and a cracking pint of Barnsley bitter on tap. It had a long heritage as it was built in the 1860’s and was a Grade 2 listing building and featured in the good Beer Guide for a sustained period of 25 years. Allegedly Karl Marx and Frederick Engels used to sup in there as they formulated communist principles in the 19th century. The pub sadly closed about five years ago.
The bands played in a very small dark room at the back of the establishment which couldn’t cope with more than 20 people enclosed within.
The first band on were a local act Heroin Diet who produced a 25-minute bracing slab of amusing hardcore punk. The set curtailed about 5pm on an extremely sunny day so we walked out with ringing ears and squinting like a vampire, thereby creating an interesting start to the day! We returned later to catch sets by an interesting Manchester post rock outfit Dead Sea Apes and a uniquely named 100% Beefcock and the Titsburster, though I cannot remember anything about them bar their name!
