A night at the Smiths disco...
"Twenty-four years ago I visited a Smiths disco at the Star & Garter pub in Manchester. I’m posting this report on the night to mark the sad death of Andy Martin who passed away on 29th March. He’d operated the Star & Garter since 1997. As Fergal Kinney wrote in a superb article about Andy and the Star & Garter in the Manchester Mill; “Today, small venues matter because the best ones carve out and insulate a space outside of the mainstream for community to flourish. This, at a time when capitalism has largely eroded community spaces — with the attendant crisis of epidemic loneliness — is a towering achievement”.
I wrote about the Smiths disco in one of the chapters in my book about DJs called Adventures on the Wheels of Steel. Here it is again; my report from way back in 2000…"
