Why live music deserves more respect than noise complaints, how COVID put the nail in various coffins, and which North-West venue is doing everything right.
According to the Oxford Dictionary, a community is described as a body of people who live in the same place, usually sharing a common cultural or ethnic identity. Cities across the country delve into and often project this identity, whether it be the music-loving, bucket hat-wearing Mancunian, the intensely proud and comedic Scouser or the Brummie that models himself on Thomas Shelby. Where we come from, and more importantly the communities that raise us, often lay the foundation for our worldview.
Many of us in Britain today will have heard of the idyllic communities of old, where every village had a local shop, butchers, church and pub before the large corporations moved in throughout the latter half of the 20th century. Yet, even as these small local shops were driven out by the relentless march of the conglomerates, one thing seemed to endure: our venues. For decades, these often small and sticky-floored rooms were the gateway to a larger and more exciting world. Bands, local or far-flung, would perform an hour of raucous escapism whilst locals washed down their exhilaration with cheap lager, before often stepping back out into their town with a new lust for life. A perfect example for this would be the famous 1976 Sex Pistols gig at Manchester’s Lesser Free Trade Hall, in which the 40-person audience was said to include future members of Joy Division and The Buzzcocks amongst other. The gig is even immortalised in the Factory Records spoof-history film ’24-hour Party People’, where a young Tony Wilson is portrayed by an awkwardly pogoing Steve Coogan.
It will come as a shock to no one that in the mid-90s' the Free Trade Hall was sold to private investors, despite protests from the Manchester Civic Society, and now serves as a hotel. This tale has been replayed across every city countless times, where smaller venues are priced out, bought up and very often turned into businesses that not only add little cultural impact to the current city, but wash away the history that was once there. The Manchester City Council enjoy playing off the idea that Manchester is a creative city, where musicians meet under grey skies to change the world. It’s no surprise since, outside of football, Manchester is known far and wide for the acts it has produced, and as the council would love you to believe - ‘This is Manchester, we do things differently here’. The phrase was famously uttered by the aforementioned Wilson, yet he himself was constantly at loggerheads with the council over his own now infamous Hacienda nightclub. The venues, and what they bring to an area, need protecting here and now - not just to be used as a marketing gimmick twenty years after they’ve been closed.
The COVID pandemic and lockdowns of course harmed the few remaining independent venues within Manchester immensely. Yet, those that have survived have emerged into a world that seems to be even more relentless in their desire to demolish the things that made the city so great. Take the Night & Day Café, for example. A famous institution on the streets of the Northern Quarter that played a critical role in the emergence of bands like Elbow and The 1975. It was during the relative peace and quiet of those early lockdown nights that new residents moved into the luxury apartments across the road from the venue, from which they proceeded to complain about the noise when the café slowly emerged from its lockdown slumber. A Manchester City Council noise abatement notice will finish off Night and Day, according to its owner. It’s a scenario that has evoked a strong reaction from Elbow front-man Guy Garvey, who sees the attack on one of Manchester’s cultural cornerstones as shameful. Mere minutes round the corner is The Castle Hotel, the venue where Garvey and his bandmates worked behind the bar and currently plays host to acts like Pyncher, English Teacher and King Violet. These institutions are entrenched in arts culture and history, and deserve more respect.
In a picturesque market town roughly 30 miles north of Manchester, things are different. The Upper Calder Valley region has become awash with successful bands migrating out of the Pennines with tails of a venue that almost feels like a fairy tale given the plight of their counterparts. The Trades Club is not only a successful venue but a socialist members club that has been hailed by Q magazine as being ‘The best small venue in the UK’. The membership system club promotes, where a full-price annual card will cost you £25, means the people who pay are legally the owners of the venue. Yet it also has added benefits, like subsidised concert tickets and better access to the venue’s countless other ventures such as their Chess Group or Campaigning Committee.
It can be no coincidence that successful bands such as The Lounge Society or Working Men’s Club have come out of the area. Both bands specifically reference the venue in their success, with the former using the club as the backdrop for their video to ‘Cain’s Heresy’. It must also make a huge difference that the bands who come out of The Trades Club regularly return, with The Lounge Society supporting Working Men’s Club there in February. All of this; the bands, the spirit and the community focus of the venue, must create a wonderful sense of achievement and camaraderie amongst the locals and artists alike, and when that happens you have something special.
The Trades has been able to shape and evolve the community it serves, whilst also doing exactly that – serving them. And this isn’t just in subsidised pints, but through the work they do throughout the community, including their principled approach to wider issues such as austerity and climate change whilst promoting local foodbanks. When you compare this to Manchester’s famous venues, who seem to have to fight tooth and nail for any little bit of success whilst remaining open in spite of the community they serve rather than thanks to them, then you can see a real issue with where most these businesses are heading.
The Trades Club is unique, but if we want to ensure that venues continue to have a positive impact on our towns and cities, then it should be the norm.
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