ManchesterOnline

DJ duo return to South

AFTER a nostalgia-soaked summer, South King Street institution South will return to its day (night?) job on Friday.

Rock and Roll Bar DJs Cottee and Jeff will return to venue following the residency of Britpop tribute night Common People in recent months.

Purple Pussycat no longer outcast

WHEN glamorously sleazy night club The Purple Pussycat opened in November, 2007 there was a slight identity crisis apparent among the Manchester clubbing scene. Was it a gay bar?

Was it an, ahem, gentleman's club? Was it a eighties-themed bar?

No one knew and, for a while, people seemed a little scared to find out. The Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret chic of the place was clearly taking time to bed in.

DJ slot for Charlatans' man

JON Brookes of The Charlatans is the special guest DJ for club night Buff Bang Pow at the Ruby Lounge on Sunday.

The drummer is joined on the bill by popular Midlands five-piece The Arcadian Kicks, of whom he is manager; and rising Manchester stars Orchids.

Warehouse date for Mondays

MADCHESTER veterans The Happy Mondays are just one of a host of stellar acts and DJs confirmed to play the latest run of Warehouse Project nights.

One of the clubbing success stories of the last couple of years - the Warehouse Project will return in the autumn for a 12-week run and Shaun Ryder, Bez and other remaining original member Gaz Whelan will headline a Hacienda reunion night on December 28.

Night & Day's birthday bash

NORTHERN Quarter institution Night & Day will celebrate its 17th birthday this winter with the help of an old and a new face on the city’s music scene.

Kickstarting the celebrations on November 28 will be adopted son, Stephen Fretwell.

The Scunthorpe-born, Manchester-based troubadour forged his early reputation at the Oldham Street venue before LPs Magpie and more recently, Man On The Roof, brought him to a wider audience.

Number one spot for singles

SEX In The City is a new Thursday club night quite unlike any other in Manchester, says promoter Mike Wraxall.

"The difference is that I'm aiming my night solely at single people that are looking for their perfect date," he explains about the event at Relish.

One for the Common People

TO the good people of Manchester, South nightclub has always been something to be treated with respect.

The usual weekend template of Dave Haslam on the Friday and Clint Boon on the Saturday has been tweaked over the summer, however, as Fridays are now given over to Common People - a night of Britpop influenced music that's currently setting the famed dancefloor alight.

Join the Club

THE promoters of a new night at the Purple Pussycat will be bringing a cool and casual approach to Friday evenings.

Set to take place on the last Friday of every month, The Lonely Hearts Club aims to be an easy going night for clubbers to meet and socialise, soundtracked by a cracking playlist.

Rock at The Ruby Lounge

JAY Taylor, the man behind BoneBox and much of the good work at Night & Day Café is returning to the fray after running events at Manchester 235. This time he's heading up The Ruby Lounge, on High Street, and bringing a slice of primitive rock 'n' roll to the city centre.

Dance music fundraiser

A POTENTIAL second Versus Cancer concert could happen before the end of the year - but with a distinctly dance music flavour, my spies tells me.

The gig - in addition to the usual M.E.N Arena indie fest, which is scheduled to take place again in the first quarter of 2009 - would be similar in size to its indie-rock cousin at a venue yet to be confirmed.

Sounds of the summer

CURRENTLY enjoying something of a renaissance even as we move into the traditionally fallow summer season, Sankeys is an institution in a city famous for its nightlife.

A neat about turn for AXM

IT'S been an interesting few years for AXM Bar in the Village.

A successful launch period gave way eventually to a somewhat disastrous bid for freedom as they tried to leave the Village (how dare they?) and take the bar to pastures sunnier only to have a licence denied at the last minute.

The new battle of the bars...

THERE'S no sign of the credit crunch biting the city's celeb haunts, with trendy bars splashing out millions in a bid to be known as the most exclusive hang-out.

Private members club, The Circle, is coming to the end of a £1m refurbishment.

As part of the revamp, the subterranean den will launch the Inner Circle - a VIP area, themed on the seven deadly sins, where members have to fork out at least £1,000 a year for the privilege of entering.

Glad to be grey

FIFTY doesn't seem terribly old these days as people continue to imbibe culture and partake in modern life right through their lives.

Nevertheless, many people feel that an obsession with youth marginalises the over-50s, particularly the city's vibrant gay and lesbian scene with its involvement in late night club culture and loud music.

Hed down to the new Club V

WITH much of the country battening down the hatches for the credit crunch, one club in Manchester is choosing to invest heavily in its future, hoping to put itself up there with the best the city has to offer.

Club V located in the heart of Deansgate, the intimate space that's packed to the rafters every week with house and electro party people, is having a makeover that, according to owners Dean and Louise Stogsdill, will see the basement venue become the city's first boutique superclub.

A taste of Island life

TO MANY of Manchester's more underground clubbing aficionados The Printworks may not be an ideal destination for a night on the tiles.

Nevertheless, last week saw some thing of a sea change as Pure introduced the world to the delights of The Island - a club within a club concept that's putting exclusivity and fun back into the city centre night-time scene.

Odder's quest for unsigned talent

AS part of their vision to boost the profile of Manchester’s Southern Quarter, Odder bar has launched a brand new talent search.

The Oxford Road venue is aiming to showcase the cream of the city’s unsigned musical talent at their new monthly, Click Refresh night.

Velvet revolution in sound for duo

KARL Lucas is one of the more enduring characters that make up village life in Manchester.

As the guy behind one-time weekly bash Homiesexual, he and friends were one of the few people (along with Club Zindagi) to bring black and Asian street music into the village years ago, opening the doors for a slew of new nights and backrooms that realised the potential of a non- Euro house dance music scene.

Six months in Paradise

IT'S safe to say that whenever the Warehouse Project rolls into town other promoters in the city worry while the city's underground faithful rejoice - such is its power to draw a crowd week-in week-out.

Well, the team behind this seasonal superclub are about to upset the applecart again with the news that they are to take over Manchester's hidden clubbing gem, Paradise Factory, for a six month period, opening on January 24.

Nigel: Proud of his work in the Village

NEVER shy when it comes to coming forward, Nigel Martin Smith remains one of the city's most colourful figures.

A pioneer of Canal Street queer culture in recent years, he's, of course, best know for managing the original boy band, Take That - a band whose spectacular return has proved there's life in the formula yet.

Radio Soulwax @ The Warehouse Project

IT'S amazing that Soulwax are still so highly esteemed amongst the world’s dancefloors.

For the first night of the May bank holiday weekender in a car park cum club under Piccadilly Station, the punters pile in for a stellar sell out line-up.

As opposed to the Boddingtons' Brewery, which played home to the first set of Warehouse Project events, tonight is more intimate and evidently, more playful.

Ricardo Villalobos @ The Warehouse Project

THE toast of Berlin, Ricardo Villalobos, plays the graveyard shift to a committed crowd of dirty stop-outs.

Usually the final slot of the night is given to a lower profile artist in the belief that the ‘high endurance’ lot are less discerning. Villalobos makes for the decks earlier than billed and joins Josh Wink for a bit of friendly sparing.

Basement Jaxx @ The Club

IT hasn't changed much from the days when it used to be known as The Paradise Factory.

All around you'll find massive queues and narrow corridors crammed full with clubbers clueless as to where anything is. Predictably, The Loft room is deserted - who'd want to be there when Basement Jaxx are playing their first Manchester DJ set in years?

Rex The Dog @ The Club

FOLLOWING a disco-tinged set from the soon-to-be massive Andrew Butler (the brains behind Hercules & Love Affair), Rex The Dog aka Jake Williams sets up his laptop and instantly kicks into a set of bleepy electro-techno, featuring his signature drum sounds.

M.E.N. Student Guide: Clubs and pubs

BEFORE putting your best threads through their paces by throwing a few choice shapes on the dancefloor, you’ll need to limber up at some of the city’s best pre-club bars.

Venue review: Tribeca

TRIBECA, or the triangle below Canal Street as any cosmopolitan person knows, is a district of Manhattan in God's own sprawling metropolis New York City. It's also the name of the three tiered bar/ restaurant in a triangular building just south of Canal Street in that even more beautiful metropolis of north Manchester.

Venue review: Essential

TRADITIONALLY, spring sees the start of the new season on Canal Street. With the warmer weather the tables and chairs return to the hallowed cobbles and the Gay Village is awash with pink pound-bearing tourists from all over the country and beyond. However, spring has come early this year, and what with global warming the daffodils are blooming and so, according to the renowned Nigel Martin-Smith, is the Gay Village.

Venue review: The Venue

DO you remember the original Venue in Manchester? Located on Whitworth Street just down the lane from the old Hacienda it acted as a counterpoint to Factory Records' much higher concept creation. In the early days of Hacienda pre-notoriety celebrity it became something of an overspill for its more famous neighbour, but weathered through that indignity to become an institution in its own right providing the city.

Venue review: Hollywood Studio and Lounge

VILLAGE institution Hollywood Studio and Lounge has undergone a serious refit over the last year - a é120K refurb that has brought much loved historic venue the Hollywood Showbar kicking and screaming into 2007.

Venue review: Pure

OK, here's a question. Where have all those people come from that pack the clubs and bars of Manchester week in week out? It wasn't that long ago that clubbing was in something of a recession.

Venue review: The Birdcage

A CALL from the people behind new venture The Birdcage opening in Manchester this evening came in: "There's a new nightclub opening in town that we'd like you to see."

Venue review: Tiger Lounge

ARRAY(0x2b7e5c274210)

Venue review: Po Na Na

DESPITE its status as a chain bar/club, Po Na Na remains one of the city's truly alternative venues. That's down to its theme of a north African market bar, complete with alcoves, intimate lighting and a very intimate ambience created by locally sourced textiles.

Venue review: Mint Lounge

WHEN it first opened, Mint Lounge promised something new for the city - a burlesque bar with coy entertainment intentions.

Venue review: Sankey's Soap

OUTSIDE of the Hacienda and The Twisted Wheel, Sankey's Soap is Manchester's most legendary club.

Venue review: Paparazzi

Spotlight on Paparazzi

Venue review: Tribeca

A well-designed independent business just south of the gay village

Venue review: 5th Avenue

RENAMED 5th Avenue in the early ‘90s, this unassuming building on Princess Street has a past that stretches back to World War II, where it served as an air raid shelter. These days the venue pays tribute to a different kind of Mancunian history, with a playlist heavily geared towards Manchester's musical golden years.

Venue review: 42nd Street

42ND Street is Manchester – and perhaps more pertinently Madchester - to its very core. Young, dumb and full of rum and coke, the regulars know what they like; and they like indie, indie, a bit of 60s, and more indie.

Venue review: View

PRAGUE V is no more. In its place is View, a new venture overseen by general manager Paul Hil and his team.

Venue review: Vanilla

WITH its reputation firmly cemented as Manchester's lesbian social focal point, Vanilla is an independent success story in a fine urban tradition.

Venue review: Essential

EVERYBODY knows Essential. And not just people in Manchester. As the gay village's global recognition continues it's the club that people first think of to represent the area.

Venue review: Mint Lounge

WHEN Mint Lounge opened in the summer of 2004 in the seemingly cursed Oldham Street venue that spat out both Planet K and Ascension, it set itself up as a burlesque club. Much has changed since; but Mint Lounge is still going strong.

Venue review: Jilly's Rockworld

DESPITE Manchester’s lack of prowess in the fields of hard rock and metal. our fair city is home to one of the longest-running and most successful rock clubs in the country. Over 20 years old, Jilly’s Rock World regularly packs in hundreds of fans from all over the north west.

Venue review: One Central Street

SINCE opening its doors in the summer of 2002, One Central Street has fast become one of the flashiest jewels in Manchester’s clubbing crown.

Club night review: Circus Rocks!

THE northern quarter's Mint Lounge has always been renown for putting on events a little different from the norm but even so Circus Rocks! is a far cry from your usual 'two turntables and a microphone' set up. "Being there is kind of like being in a crazy dream," says Hannah Jackson co-promoter of the night, "with your favourite music, favourite people and strange circus-like apparitions of mad monks, jugglers, snake charmers all held together by the cosmic ringmaster. Dave really wants a Lion but Mint lounge aren't too keen..."

Club night review: Funkademia

"YOU never know how things are going to be when you move venues with a club night that people have strong opinions about," says Mancunian promoter Dave Payne to CityLife. Funkademia opens at One Central on Saturday.

Club night review: Guilty Pleasures

YOU might think it's a strange parallel universe to ours that champions hits of the past like David Cassidy, Andrew Gold and Foreigner. But it exists and it's coming to your town in the form of a new monthly residency at One Central Street. "Guilty Pleasures is not irony," states Anna Greenwood - one of the crack team of DJs joining Guilty Pleasures legend Sean Rowley at his new Mancunian residency. "It's about embracing pop music that's not being celebrated and having fun with it. After all pop music is not there to be analysed it's there to be enjoyed."

Club night review: Another Planet

OVER the years DJ Dave Haslam has made it his business to map out the music scenes of this complicated city.

The former Hacienda resident has taken on a new night at the much-loved city club South.

Club night review: Twisted Wheel

IF Pete Roberts had his way there would be an official heritage plaque erected outside his beloved Twisted Wheel club.

Club night review: Smiths Night

THE Smiths Night at the Star and Garter regularly sells out, with queues around the building over an hour before it opens. Admittedly, this isn’t for everyone. This is a night for Smiths fans and Smiths fans only.

Club night review: Club Voltage

MUSIC fanzine High Voltage is already something of a mini local music institution and it's spawned its own club night, Club Voltage, which occurs every Thursday at the Music Box.

Club night review: Plastic Surgery

SHOCK horror. Lee Donnelly and Stef Loukes, two of Manchester's most successful independent live music promoters, have launched a new guitar music night at a posh venue. Plastic Surgery will take place every Saturday at The Late Room.

Club night review: Vertigo

SOMETIMES having a good night out can be as dependent on what frame of mind you're in as much as where you decide to go - and little fanfare surrounds the weekly Friday night session at The Thirsty Scholar, the pub underneath Oxford Road's Attic club.

Club night review: All That Jazz

DEPENDABILITY is not normally the recipe for excitement in club culture. Nevertheless one of the most dependable promoters in the city has to be Lee Speed, whose night, All That Jazz, hits The Music Box once a month.

Club night review: Nish Nash Nosh

TOO cool for school - or even the press - Nish Nash Nosh at The Mint Lounge is swimming along nicely. But don't tell anyone we told you so!

Club night review: Revolver

MIDWEEK clubbing can be a risky business. Between chain bars playing it safe with funky background house and the usual indie behemoths plying much the same trade as they have done since the late '80s, the market often looks very much sewn up.

Club night review: Dance Yer Docs Off

WHEN they give out the prizes for outrageous longevity in the field of clubbing, the Ritz's student Monday deserves to be first in line. For an impressive 21 years, resident John Gannon has been packing the venue.

Club night review: Rude

WHILE many of Manchester's better dressed clubs take much of the glory, lots of the city's house music fans find themselves making the trek to Oldham on a Saturday night.

Club night review: Black Plastic

"THE music policy is basically anything Jamaican: Dub, Reggae, Ska, Dancehall. We've been at Big Hands for four years now."

Club night review: Urban Legends

AFFECTIONATELY known as '42s', this roomy, tunnel-like venue serves up an Indie leaning soundtrack. Musically, Saturday nights see the resident DJs incorporate strutting funk, '60s pop and the occasional credible dance record.

Club night review: Electric Chair

IN the hundreds of hoedowns since its inception a decade ago, Electric Chair's more than made its name as a haven for anyone against mainstream mediocrity and for music with soul.

Club night review: Balanco

'DOES Manchester like Brazilian music? Oh yes,' says Po Na Na resident spinner DJ Franco when pressed on his devotion to the music of his home country.

Club night review: Rain Or Shine

"WE decided to put on a night where we could get all these people together and make it into a kind of Burlesque sideshow. And I get to play the other half of my record collection that never normally sees the light of day when I DJ at Chips," says Rob Hyde, promoter of Rain Or Shine.

Club night review: Romp

LOCATION, location, location! Tucked cosily behind Manchester Library (St Peter's Square), the swanky One Central Street is in prime position and Romp is its flagship night.

Club night review: Smile

IT could only happen in Manchester. A ramshackle building, hidden deep in the red-light district, currently hosts the North West’s most vibrant alternative night.

Club night review: Friends & Family

FRIENDS And Family has become something of an institution in a city full of great little clubs. While the whole scene has diversified from the sound of house music, this weekly venture has evolved to a create a hip hop stew that's as fascinating now as it was when it started in 2000.