Month: September 2018

Plaid at Schizm @ The Park, Manchester

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Pretty sure that this night was held at what used to be the Man Alive club down Grosvenor St in Manchester. We used to go there a lot in the early days with DJ Trafford Love Thang on the funk n soul decks.

Must have changed it’s name to The Park I guess, but we always called it the Man Alive. Just up from the dirty old Flea n Firkin student pub.

5 quid in to see Plaid eh? – that was a great night.

SCHIZM @ The Park Grosvenor St, Manchester, M1

PLAID (Live) GLITCH & VERSIVO DJs Saturday 2nd May 1998 10:00pm ’til Late, ££5.00 Plus Booking Fee.

Ritchie Hawtin at Planet K Manchester 2000

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This old ticket that I dug out is a little bit worse for wear. It was Ritchie Hawtin doing a live gig and I do remember going to this one! I think it was about the the time he’d done his first two albums as plastikman and was doing the rounds with the 909s decks and efx thing I believe. Might be wrong though of course.

54-60 Oldham St Manchester. Sat 22nd Jul 00 10pm-3am

THE REBEL ALLIANCE Presents… HEROES

Featuring.. RITCHIE HAWTIN & CHEMICAL SOUP DJs

NO entry/pass-outs after 2:00am

Planet K was in the Northern Quarter, on Oldham St. I managed to find a pic of the outside of the club on the web, this is not my pic so thanks to whoever took it.

Tong 95 Baskerville Hall

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Continuing with the theme, this ticket  dug up from my archives is quite interesting as I can’t find any reference to this party on the web. I can remember going, but not so sure who with. I think it might have been an invitation only job but not sure, I remember walking into this grand entrance hall and there were lots of “beautiful people”, you know, those London types 😉 and a huge staircase. I think if you were important you could stay in the house bedrooms, but I’ve a feeling we might have been in a tent.

As usual I can’t remember a great deal about the night (it was 23 years ago, probably) but maybe it was Pete Tong and in 1995 😉  If you were there give us a shout and let us know.

I had a reminder of this place whilst watching “Salvage Hunters” the other night with Drew Pritchard visiting the place to try to ransack it of it’s worldly wares. He pulled up in the van and I said to my wife “I’m sure I’ve been to a party there” – sure enough he was right.

Last Electric Chair of the 20th Century – Music Box Manchester

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I found this flyer in my old bag of stuff. I must have gone to the night or I wouldn’t have kept the flyer. It was at the Music box, which I frequented a fair bit back in the day. If you weren’t around the Manchester scene then The Music Box was a basement club situated under Jilly’s Rock World on Oxford St. The Music Box was dark, sweaty and very, very loud. Great club.

I do remember going to the Electric Chair a lot at The Roadhouse, I think I went to the first one but not entirely sure. Memories are all a bit hazy now.

Transcript from flyer:

“So here we are in the glorious days of the 20th Century getting paranoid with the millennium machine sucking the blood from our necks, too busy to do anything because we are marinating tofu while trisha and jerry turn us into a mob of home improvements mutants and stencil spraying sunday supplement robots, listening to robbie williams because we are so post modern and ironic. kick the bullshit into touch and close down the infested 50p a drink cesspits filling our streets. stop the planet becoming one gigantic soulless trafford centre full of stepford wives and husbands eating at chain bars and restaurants, shopping at ikea with their generic dinner party friends. fuck the millenium, celebrate the real things and enjoy it now. long live passion, soul, debauchery and dancing in outerspace.”

The Incredible Warp Lighthouse Party

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Been rooting through my old stuff yesterday and dug out my bag of “things I don’t want to get rid off but don’t know what to do with” and found all my old love letters, all three of them, photos, tickets to see West Ham and some old tickets to gigs and parties. Some of them may be of interest so I thought that I would scan them in. This is my ticket from The Incredible Warp Lighthouse Party, Saturday 14th October 2000 featuring Aphex Twin, Autechre, Boards of Canada etc. There is a bit of info on this night on the web, but not much. I was a huge fan of Plaid and BOC so was really looking forward to this one.

We queued up for hours due to intense security with airport style scanners to walk through. Beer and bar ran out by about 11:00pm. Live room was tiny so most couldn’t get in. Lots of scared kids sat on the floor in a huge warehouse (if you were there you’ll know why!).

Location was Trinity Buoy Wharf which was pretty much a derelict site at the time and the home of London’s only lighthouse. The views over to the millennium dome were pretty cool at night.

Bumped into Bjork though in the crowd which was interesting.