The Star and Garter: secret history of a nightclub

I can vividly remember the first time I went to a nightclub. I was 18, had recently moved to Manchester and followed the flow of freshers to 'indie' club 5th Avenue, where I had my bum pinched and objected to a lanky youth 'playfully' stealing the hat off my head: not the greatest introduction to going out at night. I can also remember the second time I went to a nightclub, because I went alone, unable to convince fellow students to walk five minutes down the road to the Star and Garter, in the bleak and unprepossessing red light district behind Piccadilly Station. I spent the rest of the evening talking to strangers, engaging in what I probably thought at the time were deep conversations about things like the influence of Albert Camus' The Outsider on 'Killing an Arab' by the Cure.

At the Star and Garter's flagship night Smile, billed as the longest-running indie night in Manchester, I realised for the first time that other people of my age liked the same kind of music as me – and what's more, that it was actually possible to dance to this kind of music (or in my case, shuffle awkwardly whilst staring at the floor and/or jump clumsily up and down to more energetic songs). As a club for people like me, who might not otherwise go out, it's been sad to see the venue gradually wind down Smile after the night celebrated its twentieth birthday last year, with the long-term future of the building looking uncertain. Proposals to add a platform to the east of Piccadilly Station as part of the Northern Hub scheme – construction is due to start in 2016 – would see trains pass window-rattlingly close to the already ramshackle Victorian building, leaving its future as a club unviable. Although several different proposals have been put forward for the distinctive triangular building's place in the development, from relocation (urban legend has it that the building was already moved once, in the mid-nineteenth century, although the council disputes this), to rebuilding, to extending the station around it, none seem feasible in the long-term. As current licensee and upstairs resident Andy Martin says: “You can't hide us behind a station and expect to have passing trade. It will either fall down or be out of business within a year of the platform opening – and if it closes Wetherspoon or another chain will take it over (although no big business in their right mind would).”

Andy, a former computer game reviewer, grew up under the influence of bands like the Smiths in Blackley, on the northern fringes of the city, surrounded by his siblings' record collections. Like mine, his first memories of Smile conjure the joy that comes from realising that there are other people who feel the same way as you about the songs that have soundtracked your life. “There was a circle of us all jumping up and down to 'Teenage Kicks',” he reminisces. “I'd never had that in a club before – a load of people who didn't know each other just loving a song. We all shook hands at the end. It was very polite.” However, he also admits that, like any other club, its basic function is the same: “It's a meat market. You go out and notice people and the guys wear cheap aftershave.” He observes that the traditional pub layout of the Star and Garter, with seating downstairs and a function room upstairs, helps facilitate this: “A massive USP is the club being on two floors. You can go upstairs in a darkened room and dance around and come downstairs with whoever you've pulled and realise you've made a massive mistake and go upstairs again.” The only difference to other clubs is the clientele. “We attract intelligent people here,” says Andy. “People who are now GPs, archaeologists, psychologists and who work for the CPS. I've helped every single one of them into a taxi. Thick people stick out here like a sore thumb.”

Andy's involvement with the Star and Garter initially came about through another cult band, Nigel Blackwell's Half Man Half Biscuit, following a gig at long-departed Manchester venue the Boardwalk in 1996, where he got talking to the band's manager, a “cantankerous old Scouser” selling t-shirts. To cut a long story short, Andy “fluked it with Half Man Half Biscuit” and ended up putting the band on the following year. A friend had heard good things about the Star and Garter, which could be hired out for £50, and the gig attracted a gaggle of “forty-something-year-old men forming mosh pits”.

Andy later started working behind the bar and, when the Star and Garter's owner started looking for someone else to run the pub, Andy and sound engineer Dermot O'Dea took it over. Andy made a few changes such as extending the opening hours of Smile, replacing skittering vinyl with CDs, employing long-running DJ Andy Woods and hosting one-offs such as album launches; previously, says Andy, “every night was like a Manic Street Preachers fan night – City Life said it was like gatecrashing a house party, just playing songs to mates”. Then followed the “halcyon days” of Smile, when the NME made it club of the week, there were queues around the block by 9.30pm and the club got so crowded that Andy had to operate a one-in-one-out policy. “Our USP has always been that we're off the beaten track,” says Andy. “There's no passing trade so it's an effort to make it. You have to know what you are going for and what night is on. You don't go for the massive selection of craft ales at the bar or the cocktail list – you go because you like the Smiths or the band playing.”

However, the Star and Garter has always been far more than just Smile. It's had its own line in nights dedicated solely to one artist – from the Belle and Sebastian disco started by Roxanne, who later moved to Glasgow and now plays in Veronica Falls, to evenings dedicated to Depeche Mode and Pixies. Most famous is the Smiths night, which has now been going for twenty years and attracts everyone from teens to hardcore fans in their sixties.

The Star and Garter has also been a place for unsigned bands to get onto lineups with more established punk and metal bands. It's been a stepping stone, too, for several bands who now sell out far bigger venues, from hosting Low twice in the 1990s – where everyone sat down – to Jeffrey Lewis. Even Status Quo played there in 1999, after the venue was shortlisted for their Under the Influence tour. “It was the most surreal experience of my life,” recalls Andy. “150 people dancing to the Quo – it was like something out of a Michael Jackson video. And I had to record United versus Juventus for Parfitt and Rossi while they played.” A similarly surreal experience was heavy rock band ArnoCorps' 2012 gig, where 150 fans arrived dressed as Arnold Schwarzenegger. “It was like really good Smile party – everyone happy,” remembers Andy.

The Star and Garter has also acted as a showcase for local musicians and comedians, including at an open mic run by Akoustik Anarkhy which was attended by Manchester luminaries such as Badly Drawn Boy, the Longcut and Nine Black Alps. Andy remembers it as “glorified karaoke without the words on the screen and just mates doing cover versions on guitar” – including Andy's own renditions of Half Man Half Biscuit songs. Another night, Anti-Hoot, played host to unknown comics as well as fondly-remembered Bolton poet Hovis Presley. A poster paying tribute to Presley, who died prematurely in 2005, now hangs on the wall, featuring excepts from his wryly romantic poem 'I Rely On You', which pops up as a reading in local wedding services.


Pre-social media, the Star and Garter also functioned as a meeting place for unlikely special interest groups, from holding Anti-Nazi League meetings in the 1980s, to accommodating the 30-strong West Bromwich Albion supporters' club of Manchester, to hosting a PSV and HGV drivers' club which “used to show slides of 1950s buses to a ripple of applause”. With its haunted house looks, the Star and Garter must have provided a particularly fitting venue for the Vampire Society, whose members sat and read excerpts of Dracula. Most recently, the venue hosted Smiler, a spin-off group from the Rod Stewart fan club, with special guest Don Stewart (brother of Rod) making an appearance. And he's not the only person with a claim to fame to have visited. Andy has a special Smile poster signed by Pete Shelley of the Buzzcocks as well as members of Half Man Half Biscuit, TV stars and, most obscurely, people who made music for vintage computer games.

The Star and Garter has also itself been a screen star. Although it's purported, probably incorrectly, to have featured in Manchester film noir classic Hell is A City, it has definitely appeared in Cracker and the Body Farm as well providing as the locale for a John Simm fight scene in Prey and a murder in Prime Suspect. Unfortunately, though, its seedy location could well be the Star and Garter's downfall. Big plans have been proposed for decades for this area, hemmed in by a train station, a taxi rank, a major bus route into the city and a collection of forbidding, slime-ridden railway viaducts, from the Whitehall of the North to an inter-city hub at derelict Mayfield station to an urban park. None have yet materialised, although Andy says, “there's nothing wrong with the area other than that it's never been invested in”. The Grade II listed status of the building, too, doesn't help, with the building suffering from damp and work needed on the roof yet no grants for like-for-like building work forthcoming. But it's part of the fabric of the area, and Andy's picked up snippets of information about its history and former inhabitants over the years, from its first licensee, a Miss Wetherspoon, to being a hotel with its own living quarters and dumb waiter, to housing a brewery and, later, a “trainee MASH type place for the home guard during the war”.

The Star and Garter's recent decline has coincided with the ascendancy of other areas of the city such as the Northern Quarter. Part of the problem, says Andy, is that Smile's audience has grown up – and “the new generation suddenly got hit by a massive choice of places to go, so Smile became a fallback”. Andy explains: “When we first started there was the Night & Day, us and the Roadhouse – we were the small venues. Then the council threw a load of money at the Northern Quarter and every Tom, Dick and Harry started opening a bar. It was even mentioned on the news.”

In the meantime, as both the Northern Hub and, further down the line, HS2 loom over its future, the Star and Garter soldiers on, continuing to host regular "cheap and cheerful" punk gigs. Alternative karaoke night Guts for Garters is proving popular, along with new music showcase and indie-pop disco Light it Up (Saturday May 10), '90s nights A Different Class and This is Uncool, queer party Bollox (Friday April 18) and guilty pleasures rock night Party Hard (Saturday May 3). Other upcoming events include a fundraiser by online Morrissey fanclub the Mozarmy (Saturday April 26), with special guests including Hayley from Coronation Street. It's also hoped that Smile can be resurrected for doorman Ian's 70th birthday in June.

As Andy says, the Star and Garter might not be renowned for its cocktail list or craft beer, but as the city gains in sophistication it's all too easy to lose out on opportunities for genuinely life-affirming communal music experiences. What we lose if we lose the Star and Garter is the bread and butter of Manchester's night life, the type of place where you can go just for the sheer joy of the music and any pretensions to post-industrial glamour or the array of drinks behind the bar are only a secondary concern.

The Shrieking Violet in the Skinny (magazine launch tonight)

The Shrieking Violet is pleased to feature in the first issue of the Northwest edition of the Skinny, a free arts and culture magazine for Manchester and Liverpool which launches in Manchester at 2022NQ this evening (from 6pm, Facebook event here. Conveniently, the latest edition of the modernist magazine, themed 'Capital', is also launching this evening just down the road at the CIS tower, also from 6pm). The Shrieking Violet is represented in the feature 'What's Your Northwest', for which interviewees were asked questions about place, community and belonging. I was asked interesting questions, and answering them has really helped me think about how to approach the lecture I am doing about the Shrieking Violet for Unit X students at Manchester Metropolitan University in a couple of weeks, so I decided to reproduce the questions, and my answers, in full below.

Read the full magazine online here, or look out for paper copies around Manchester:

I've not read the whole magazine yet, but there are some great features by former Shrieking Violet contributors and collaborators Lauren Velvick (who previews an upcoming show at the Cornerhouse) and Sam Lewis, who interviews Shrieking Violet favourite Rozi Plain.

TS: What motivated you to set up The Shrieking Violet, and get involved in independent publishing and particularly in Manchester? Who/what were you inspired by, and what did you hope to do with the Shrieking Violet, both personally and in a wider community sense? 

SV: I moved to Manchester for university in 2005 and realised quickly that I wanted to make it my long-term home. After graduating I did a qualification in newspaper journalism but it was a terrible time to be trying to enter the media and it was difficult to even get work experience. I was unemployed for nine months, but decided to make the best of the situation so started blogging about the city around me. In summer 2009, I decided to put the skills I'd learnt on my journalism course to use and take the Shrieking Violet off the page to become a printed zine – if I couldn't be part of the established media then I was going to make my own media, covering things I found interesting that weren't being written about elsewhere. I was disillusioned with the way in which Manchester was marketed, which was all about shopping and consumption, so the Shrieking Violet was conceived as an alternative guide to Manchester which encouraged readers to make their own fun, think creatively and realise the adventures they could have in the city without spending a penny. Having a project and putting something out into the world helped focus my life and lift me out of depression.

I'd wanted to make a zine since I was a teenager, as my dad had loads of old punk/indie/goth zines in the attic, but when it came to making my own I decided to stay away from music as there were already Manchester zines which were covering music very well. Belle Vue zine (which started in December 2008) was a major influence on me realising that the city itself, its residents and their memories and experiences, joys and frustrations, could be the subject of a zine.

TS: And what keeps you motivated to do it – what's your favourite thing about what you do? 

SC: The great thing about blogs and zines is that as soon as you've written about a subject you will find someone else who is writing about something related to that topic too, and more often than not discovering each other starts a dialogue and reciprocal relationship. My favourite thing about making the Shrieking Violet is all the people I have met, who have gone on not just to be contributors but regular correspondents and sources of motivation and inspiration. One of the most rewarding things has been being asked to collaborate with other people, and take part in one-off projects. In 2010 the organisers of Salford's Sounds from the Other City music festival asked me to design the official programme as a special edition of the Shrieking Violet, so I teamed up with illustrator Dominic Oliver to create a souvenir guide to the festival's highlights and the surrounding area. In 2011, the Shrieking Violet got together with psychogeographic walking group the Loiterers Resistance Movement and architecture enthusiasts Manchester Modernist Society for a project called Manchester's Modernist Heroines, which celebrated ten overlooked Manchester women from the twentieth and twenty first centuries through a publication and series of walks.

TS: You write extensively about Manchester and the Northwest region on themes of place, history, society, belonging, architecture, and more. What particularly fascinates you about the place you live, its people, its community, if you had to define it...? 

SV: What fascinates me about Manchester is how much history is written into the streets and buildings, to experience as you go about your everyday life. From street names based on the textile trade to churches, public parks and swimming baths, you really get a sense of Manchester's past and how society used to be. You can marvel at the infrastructure of the industrial age by looking at canals and railway viaducts which are still in use today, get a sense of textile magnates' wealth by looking up at grand warehouses (even if they are now turned into warehouses or apartments), try to imagine life in the former mass workplaces of mills and factories, now standing silent, and see remnants of industrial philanthropy in lads' clubs and ragged schools. These aren't the kind of heritage venues where you have to pay a tenner to get in, put plastic coves on over your shoes or peer at rooms over velvet ropes – these are buildings which in many cases are still getting on with a job and fulfilling a use, even if it's not their original purpose. Manchester's cityscape tells you just as much as any palace or castle about how people used to live, work and socialise, as well as constantly changing and embracing the future.

TS: What's the most unexpected or surprising thing you've discovered about this city/its culture/its people while researching and writing about it (or indeed reading articles others have contributed to the zine)? 

SV: What is unexpected and surprising is some the subjects which crop up over and over again as being important to people living in Manchester. One of these is public transport. The Shrieking Violet has featured articles on everything from never-realised plans to build a tunnel linking the city's two main stations – along with a specially-drawn, London-style map showing what an underground system for Manchester might look like – to an illustrated article about Metrolink, a reappreciation Manchester's neglected Victoria station and even an homage to Finglands buses! I also loved being introduced to some of the inspiring and often overlooked stories of the women celebrated in the Manchester's Modernist Heroines project, who might not have crossed my radar otherwise – from mummy expert Rosalie David to radio producer and presenter Olive Shapley and sculptor Mitzi Cunliffe.

TS: And what's your most treasured revelation - what are you really glad you found out? 

SV: The thing I treasure most is the range of the people who have featured in the Shrieking Violet, whether as interviewees or as contributors. Some of my favourite interviews have been with Manchester's street buskers, who have really interesting stories to tell yet many people never stop to talk to them. I also love finding out about the particular passions or expertise of contributors – for example one man, who has been speaking Esperanto since 1967, wrote about all the international adventures the language has enabled him to have. Another took it upon himself to swim in all of Greater Manchester's numerous public swimming baths, and has now produced an illustrated guide. I've also enjoyed finding about other people's projects, for example film-makers who have written about their work. In 2010 I made a media special of the Shrieking Violet focusing on Manchester's history as a centre of the newspaper industry and this prompted someone who once worked inside Manchester's Daily Express building to get in touch, leading to an article about what it is really like to work for the Daily Sport! I've also loved it when members of Manchester Modernist Society have shared their enthusiasm for some of the overlooked and often neglected mosaics, murals and other artworks which brighten the walls of university buildings and various other places around Manchester.

TS: There seems to be a very strong, visible independent print community in Manchester, Liverpool and beyond. Would you say it's changed/evolved since you first got involved – maybe got bigger, wider...? What kind of community have you encountered, why do you think it's so fertile and what binds you all together? 

SV: The thing that makes self-publishing so attractive is that anyone can do it, whether they are just photocopying pencil drawings and poems or lovingly screenprinting original designs, and there's a growing audience for that tactile, hand-printed, limited edition format. There have never been more opportunities for self-publishers and members of the print community to show off their work, and one area which is really booming is zine fairs and print fairs. Another interesting development is how established zines have become within institutions such as colleges and universities – it's quite common now for illustration, design, photography and fashion courses, for example, to include a student project on making a zine, and it's nice when groups formed at university stay together and continue to publish after graduation.

TS: What is 'your' Manchester? If you had to choose just five places for people new to the city to visit on a sort of 'alternative' tour, what would they be and why? 

SV: 'My Manchester':

1. Canals

The Ashton, Bridgewater, Rochdale and Manchester Ship canals are the city's underlooked green spaces. Whereas once canals would have been polluted and congested, today they are places for pleasure, from canal boating, foraging and bird-watching to walking and cycling. For an awe-inspiring sight head to Barton (near the Trafford Centre), where the Bridgewater Canal makes a spectacular crossing of the wide Manchester Ship Canal by aqueduct, and cars drive over a swing bridge.

2. Ancoats

Ancoats is dubbed 'the world's first industrial suburb', or the cradle of the industrial revolution, and a number of centuries-old mills still remain. Today the area is being converted to residential and commercial use, but Dan Dubowitz's public art project the Peeps, which teases viewers to find a number of small viewing holes dotted around the outside of buildings, gives a tantalising glimpse of what might once have gone inside the area's factories and workshops.

3. Public parks

Manchester is not known for its green spaces, but in fact some of the county's first public parks were in Manchester and Salford; Philips Park in east Manchester, Queen's Park, Harpurhey and Peel Park, Salford all opened in 1846, whilst Heaton Park in Prestwich is one of the largest parks in Europe. In the city centre, too, there are plenty of quiet places to sit and eat your lunch, lay around in the sun or have picnics and barbecues in summer. Like most places in Manchester, the city's green spaces sit on layers of history – literally in the cases of some of the city centre gardens like Angel Meadows and St John's Gardens, Castlefield, which are on the site of slums and mass burial sites.

4. Residential suburbs

Wander around some of the city's suburbs and residential communities to see how other people have lived over time, from the Georgian cobbled streets of Fairfield Moravian settlement, nestled amid the suburban sprawl of Tameside, to the big houses around Old Broadway in Didsbury and Chorltonville, an Arts and Crafts-style village-within-a-village in Chorlton complete with its own village green.

5. Star and Garter

Manchester is known for its music and party culture after all! It may not be the city's most glamorous venue, but the Star and Garter really caters for music fans (and people like me who might not go to clubs otherwise) by offering theme-nights for lovers of certain bands, from Belle & Sebastian to Pulp and Pixies and, of course, the Smiths/Morrissey! It's been a big part of my life since I arrived in Manchester as a student – the first Manchester gig I went to was at the Star and Garter – but there's a chance it might get knocked down to make way for an extension to Piccadilly train station, so I recommend making the most of it while it's still here!

TS: If you had to evoke the character of the city you live in in just a few words, how would you describe it?

SV: (This was the question I found hardest.) The rain's just a distraction.

Your Mama's Cookin' - Last of term!

Started by two friends with a shared love of rockabilly music, Your Mama’s Cookin’ is Manchester´s most action packed and energetic clubnight.

Draping Tiger Lounge in bunting, village fete style, the night offers old fashioned fun like Lindy Hop lessons, free cake, knitting lessons and card games.

Lora Avedian and Jonny Walsh started YMC at the Lost and Found squat in an old meat market in the Northern Quarter in 2006. They've since taken the vintage sounds of jump blues, rock ‘n’ roll, swing, jive and rockabilly to the Salford Arms, Kro Bar, Trof, the Green Room and, most recently, Sounds from the Other City and Eurocultured.

Lora says: “The idea sprang from my love for 1940s and 50s dancing and music. The night is influenced by the Viva Cake night in London, which I attended regularly. When I moved to Manchester I found myself at a loose end for this kind of event and thought it was the perfect opportunity to bring something new to Manchester’s night life.”

With everyone being encouraged to join in and regularly swap partners, Your Mama’s Cookin’ is ideal for those who want to dance away their inhibitions at the same time as meeting new people.Lora explains: “The dance lessons are a major part to the night, we like to think they are what make us different from any other event in Manchester. We like the idea that you can learn to dance with everyone in the room, and then afterwards, if you feel inclined you can ask someone to dance.”

She elaborates: “Jump blues, early R’n’B, and (later on) rock n roll were the original modern forms of dance music. They reflected a time when young people, en masse, first had the chance to escape the strictures society imposed upon them.

As a result, it still remains fantastically hedonistic music, perfect for a release in the form of dancing.”

Lora continues: “Lindy-hop is one of the most exciting and easy to learn dances from the 40s. There are so many different dances to learn but Lindy-hop is a good introduction.

We also sometimes teach the Charleston to keep people on their toes.”

The classes are taught by Don and Helen Woodwiss. Lora says: “They are a a wonderful couple we met through attending a Lindy Hop class in the Zion Centre. They are passionate about dance, and people who come to the lessons feed off that.”

The night isn't just for dance enthusiasts, though. Lora says: "Part of the appeal of putting on the night is the wide variety of people who come along. You would never think that most of them love '50s music if you saw them walking down the street. That’s what we love about it. You never know who’s going to turn up. We want to open up everyone’s awareness to the goodness of vintage sounds."

Part of the fun is people watching, and attendees often look the part.

Lora says: “Dressing up is a huge part of the evening. We love to dress up. Although we don't push people to do it and we don’t want the night to be too formal, it is certainly good to see strapping men with slicked back hair and dolled up girls with big skirted frocks walk onto the dance floor.”

For those with two left feet who prefer to watch from the sidelines, though, there are live bands every month.

Lora says: "We usually have one live band on at the club night, and two live acts at the bar-sessions in Odd bar. Our favourites include the Momeraths, JD Smith, Zacc Rogers and Serious Sam Barrett."

She enthuses: "Serious Sam's one to watch as he's played a few times now, and is getting better and better each time. His last performance was incredible!"

However, Lora says: "There aren't that many local acts that play that sort of 1940s/50s music we love. Leeds has a thriving scene, Birmingham's pretty good, and there' are the expected number of acts on the London scene. It’s a shame, so if there are any hiding in Manchester’s undergrowth we are willing them get in touch."

Your Mama’s Cookin’ is also a good place to show off your baking, as well as dancing skills, with a bake-off every month which earns the winner a record.

Lora says: “We like elaborate decorations the most. A girl called Lucy Needles made an unbelievable, heart shaped, strawberry decorated, delicious sponge cake a few months back. That one will be hard to top.”

For the less energetic, Lora says the monthly spinoff Your Mama's Cookin' bar sessions at Odd are ideal for anyone who wants a “chilled out Sunday afternoon”.

Lora explains: “The idea with the bar-sessions, on the first Sunday of every month, was to take the music to a new crowd and put the emphasis more upon live music than dancing. It’s also a really comfortable environment for the artists to perform in.”

Your Mama’s Cookin’, Tiger Lounge, Cooper Street, Wednesday June 10 (last of term).

Knitting lessons by Rebecca Manley start at 8pm.

http://www.myspace.com/yourmamascookin

All My Heroes Are Weirdos - bedroom disco themed night starts at Retro Bar this Thursday

A new night is starting at Retro Bar on Thursday. Leaning towards the more alternative side of independent music, All My Heroes Are Weirdos, which will take place on the third Thursday of every month, takes its inspiration from bedroom discos and looks set to fill the vacuum left by much missed nights like Dot Dash/ I Could Care Less and previous Retro Bar nights like Killing Fantasy and Fight Club.

The organisers aim to counter what they see as the 'apathy' of Manchester's clubbing scene, and the night will complement the good work of existing discos like Panda Panda (currently sharing a night with Underachievers Please Try Harder at Saki in Rusholme), Underachievers Please Try Harder and Asparagus Next Left (Star and Garter).

All My Heroes Are Weirdos is the brainchild of four disillusioned Manchester clubbers, including Phill Daker who puts gigs on under the name Mushaboom Folk. He's joined by Emma Tillyer, Sean McGurdy and Heather Hewitt.

How are you going to be different to any other indie disco?

We’re all quite bored with the current crop of indie nights going on in Manchester. Most of them seem too concerned with playing what’s ‘fashionable’ … so we decided to start our own night and see how people respond. There are four of us involved in the night, each with our own music tastes, so hopefully we’ll strike a chord with other frustrated clubbers.

Do you think indie discos are generally too 'apathetic'/ 'vacuous', as you say on the All My Heroes Are Weidos facebook page?

I guess we were sick of spending our money on nights that only play new new music, where people go to them to pose and pretend to know all the words to the latest remix of the latest electro band. So yes … We do.

Is there enough diversity in Manchester clubnights?

A little, but not enough. Great clubnights will always exist here. We just want to be part of it…and not sit at home complaining. The DIY ethic is something we all believe in.

You describe a disaffection with 'fashionable clubs' on the facebook page - are you anti-fashion?

We’re definitely anti fashion within music. We’re not influenced by charts or who’s in the NME cool list, we’re just going to play the records we listen to in our own bedrooms.

Why should people venture out on a Thursday night rather then stay at home?

Thursdays are the new Fridays! And Retro Bar is a great venue, supporting Manchester music rather than harming it with high entrance prices… Plus it has drinks offers every night of the week!

You promise mixtapes at the launch - will they be monthly? Will people be encouraged to take their own and swap them?

The mixtapes are just for the launch at the moment, but if they get a good reception we may consider making them a feature of the night.

Will there really be cake and biscuits too? Homemade?

Yes! We like baking…

How did you come up with the idea of an anti-heroes disco?

We’re all fans of outsider music - oddballs, weirdos, geeks, punks, romantics. These are the people we love!

Will you be playing more obscure tracks by bands than might normally be heard at a club - ie. not necessarily the hits?

We can’t deny that the ‘hits’ will get people up and dancing, and singing along with each other, so we’re not going to be all snobby and not play them - we want people to have fun!
But we will be playing obscure tracks, and playing songs by bands you may not have heard of before, because we’re all proud geeks.

The music you're going to play is a lot different to the music you put on with Mushaboom - are you trying to deliberately do something that’s the opposite to your usual folkiness? / Are you hoping to attract the same crowd as at your Mushaboom gigs?

To make the distinction, Mushaboom and All My Heroes are unrelated...
Mushaboom is just me, whereas three other people are doing All My Heroes, each with their own input and music tastes. That’s why our night will stand out from the crowd.

Is your target market disaffected youth - people who might normally be a bit shy at a disco?

Not really thinking market wise: we are friends who are trying to make a night we would all enjoy and hope other people will too. Although we do want people of all dispositions to feel comfortable at our night and not feel like they can’t come and ask us to play a song!

You mention ‘secondhand records’ in the blurb to the night-are you going to be playing vinyl?

There maybe vinyl, CDs, laptops we are taking a DIY approach to the night, learning as we go along not promising the tightest DJ set, just the music we love.

Why did you decide to name your night after the !!! [genre defying California party band] song?

Without looking too deep into it, we all came up with some ideas and agreed on 'All my Heroes'. The name just seemed to represent what we wanted our night to be about. Its a great tune too!

http://www.myspace.com/amaw

All My Heroes are Weirdos launches at Retro Bar, Sackville Street, on Thursday April 30 at 9pm, with drinks offers and cheap doubles all night.

Expect to hear: Radiohead, Blood on the Wall, Sleater Kinney, Wire, Bratmobile, The Thermals, Patti Smith, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Sonic Youth, PJ Harvey, Pavement, The Fall, Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, Alaska in Winter, The Knife, Sufjan Stevens, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!, The Teardrop Explodes, Deerhoof, Deathcab For Cutie, The Magnetic Fields, Vivian Girls, Daniel Johnston, Deerhunter, Neutral Milk Hotel, Scott Walker, Wolf Parade, The Pastels, Talking Heads, The National, The Modern Lovers, The Cramps, Jeffrey Lewis, No Age, The Slits, Cut Copy, My Bloody Valentine, TV on the Radio, The Mae Shi, Electrelane, David Bowie, Kate Bush, Devo, Bikini Kill, Pains of Being Pure at heart, Animal Collective, The Sugercubes, Of Montreal, Can, The Organ, (We Are Performance), Patrick Wolf