Club Bre

nda bega

n back i

n the 20

th centu

ry – 199

9

to be pr

ecise, a

fter a d

runken c

onversat

ion betw

een

DJ Jayne

Compton

and her

friend,

the per

formance

poet, Ch

loe Poem

s. They

were on

the nig

ht train

back fro

m Cream

in Liver

pool.

‘Imagine’,

mused our he

roines, ‘wha

t a club wou

ld

be like if i

t combined b

ands, stand-

up, performa

nce

art and a de

liberately e

clectic musi

c policy…if

it reached o

ut to everyo

ne: gay, str

aight, black

,

blue, but in

particular,

welcomed li

fe’s uglier

ducklings -

the outsider

s, the stran

ge ones…’

So this is

how Brend

a, Manches

ter’s

ugliest du

ckling, ha

tched. Ins

pired

by Hulme’s

after-hou

rs shebeen

scene,

Jayne want

ed her nig

ht to embo

dy the

same spiri

t - just p

eople comi

ng

together t

o party in

spite of

their

musical or

cultural

difference

s. The

vibe was ‘

lay down y

our weapon

s;

hav

e a good t

ime’.

People would just grab the mike and recite poetry. Anything could happen.

This ethos, combined with a passion for performance art and breaking bands, set the tone for the early Brenda nights.

Performers like Tracy Elizabeth, Fiona Bowker and Veba all contributed, inspiring Jayne to start the highly successful Switchflicker label, which captured the best of these moments on limited seven inches.

As Switchflicker went from strength to strength, eventually launching Ting Tings, The Divine David and Magic Arm, Brenda nights grew broader in scope and sophistication. Jayne spread her wings and dragged the whole shebang over to Berlin’s ‘West Germany’ club for three parties that are still spoken about in debauched whispers. Venues that have hosted the night across Manchester have included The Star and Garter, Islington Mill, The Music Box, MOHO, The Ruby Lounge, Blink and The Deaf Institute. Ten years on, Club Brenda is still minimally promoted and succeeds due to word-of-mouth from its misfit crowd. It is a genuinely uncompromising underground art-punk happening in the mould of Exploding Plastic Inevitable, Rabid at the Squat or Don Letts at The Roxy. The punters are as important as the acts. So is the feeling that everyone knows each other. It’s built on friendship and love.

But, alas, every club must h

ave its bad apples.

There are always one or two that will make

trouble for everyone else. Or should I say,

seven or eight.

But maybe it’s better if the true stars of Brenda lead the way from here on in.

Ladies unt gentlemen, I give you: Dirty

Honky the pig-faced clown, Holy Gore, Coco

LaVerne, Savage Wolf, Lou and Harry, Miss

Red and David Hoyle.

Be very, very careful…

Abigail Ward

There are freakish, unquiet spirits that

stalk Club Brenda’s dancefloor deep into the

night. They tickle the tipsy but terrify

the drug-fucked. They separate the wheat

from the chaff. They are the heart and soul.

Who is Holy Gore? Her disciples have been known to wander from her Arcade in trances. Maybe Holly’s one of them. Maybe they invented her. Maybe she’s a refugee. Is she good or bad? We have no clues. Some say she’s the image of a raven at rest. Yeah. But is that good or bad? Is that rush the brush of her black wings? And is she coming for you?

What’s in a name? Savage Wolf knows. Not quite the sort to be felled by silver bullets. But still a man with teeth, feared by those who like dark walks, along moonlit canals. Scratches a living with midnight ink on whatever pale skins he can find. A scribbler of dreams. Stan Lee vs. Rackham

Previously the Divine David, Village deconstructionist. A brief sojourn as an Ugli sister. A dirty affair with the televisual. Now, David Hoyle. A one man attack on the great suicide pact of the gay men’s scene. A man, not a prince. Neither good, nor bad. More like right. The sort of hitch that previous villagers have burnt at the stake. Tall and vaguely terrifying, and always a real fucking gentleman.

Beautifully married and middle aged. The couple that like to raze the bar. And nothing like the king and queen. Lou and Harry are the proud owners of complementary nylon. And a caravan. Averse to work, they’ve found joy in small jobs and the occasional appearance on a daytime game show. Giants in their living room, where they star in their very own light entertainment extravaganza (no swearing, please, it’s well before 9).

Misunderstood like most of the shy. Quiet and quite inquisitive. A collector of things, and pairs, and pairs of pairs. Her favourite thing is not a raindrop on a rose but a cape. A cloak of 100 reds. She wears her lifeblood like a charm, to protect her from the numbers. Tonight, though …

Previously an international glamour puss in a star-studded whirl of late bars and well-heeled entertainers. Put to sleep by a broken heart and locked in a tower apartment. Dormant but ruby lipped, a princess no longer in need of slippers. Reborn more beautiful than ever, 1930s monochrome made 21st century, the amazing Ms Coco LaVerne fl oats. She brings glamour and hypnotic allure, to heal this dirty old world.

She enters Brenda, seeking hearts and minds to

behold her magnificence. She needs to nourish

the needy, made pale with a lack of old school

glamour, and its perfumed mists.

Bird Girl too, or is it Holly Gore?Dirty Honky, one leg out, slapped against a door.

They all worship her. They would. Harry and Lou are already in their cups (plastic, of course, it’s a set from their lower cup-boards), propped at the bar like a bunch of curtains, on holiday in Rhyl.

It’s not hard to be gorgeous, thinks Coco LaVerne. It’s how she can give so much love to so many, so well, and with so much of it funny.

But her eyes are a little sleepy tonight. Savage Wolf. A coiled spring at a table, off in the dark. Scratching.

Hot after Coco, there enters Miss Red. Brought here by the dreams and the mouth that’s been prowling across her pillows. Afraid but alive, and here at last, she’s making it real, and feeling like a lamb.

Far off, she hears a sound from her dreams.

Red pen in hand she marks her way. Drawing hearts on arms. And a small poem about big sharp teeth, written in red, scrawled in the toilets.

or nails in the hood.

like teeth on a bedpost,

Something sharp is chewing wood,

She carves a path. He carves a pic.

They’ve met before but not like this.

One is teeth. One is h

eart.

She is pushing her pen across the table, watching the red stick roll beneath her palms.

He is pushing himself into the swirls of his own black pen.

A minstrel with a violin, to serenade him. Bartok, not howls. And a leaf falls from the tree.And the leaf is the leaf of a book.And on the leaf is ‘The show begins...’

Opened up, the wolf explodes, spills red across the beer mats

and loo rolls. He draws a world.

A scene. A tree.

Introducing the

reformed miracle,

and dashing

malcontent, the

lazurus of modern

cabaret,

Mr. David Hoyle …

“Good even

ing, Ladie

s

unt Gentle

men”

Our living

art speak

s

from the s

tage. But

what

is a stage

to a man

on

the edge?

His muse t

onight? Th

e

beautiful

Coco La Ve

rne

The paint

must fly.

As must th

e time.

Which brin

gs us to o

ur

next not q

uite-so so

rdid

act...

Who’s the one who needs to eat? Who’s eaten?

Now she knows the wolf, and he knows her, it seems that both are off the menu.

With a red kiss on his forehead, Miss Red leaves the wolf. Friends, of course. Not what we expected.

And the wood fella we mentioned? He’s made them both a sort of wooden umbrella. A place they can shelter. Share colour together.

They leave as they came. But they leave as a part. A piece of a puzzle that’s worth more than art.

They came alone. They go alone.

Two silent girls, all mystery, take the back door to their homes.

NEVER THE END

With contributions from all the characters you have already met and many more, the rest of this tale is devoted to Brendas gone by. Retold through the artworks and photographs that follow, Brenda brings her past back to bloody life.

Club, performance space, art gallery;

Brenda is, and has been, many things

to many people over the years.

My fi rst experience of Brenda was under a sum

mer

night’s sky. I sat by the bonfi re on the edge

of a

coffi n-like box which was fi lled with animated

people.

We drank, smoked, watched and toe-tapped as

overhead

a stuffed dummy straddled the fi re. Wearing t

he

blue, patterned dress that I wore at the end

of my

pregancy, right up there, on top of the crea

king

wood pile, the fabric blossomed into fl ame

Memories of that night take the form of well-thumbed stills; dancing, arms outstretched as if they were made of elastic, clowns tumbling on fi lthy mattresses, fi re-dried, stinging eyes. More than a woman and more than a club, her number includes oracles, clowns, cartoonists, artists, DJs, singers, professionals, doleys. Brenda is not picky and that’s part of her charm.

After a 4 year hiatus, Club Brenda was

reborn again that night in the shambolic

surrounds of Islington Mill. Filled to

the brim with 400 and more, a conga

wriggled its way around the junk-strewn

outside courtyard and back inside again.

Ruth Allan

CreditsRachel Goodyear / Holy Gore ArcadeRachel’s drawings present captured moments where characters reside within an existence where social etiquette no longer, or maybe never, applied.www.rachelgoodyear.com

Jayne ComptonJayne Compton is behind two of Manchester’s edgiest and most enduring musical institutions: the Switchflicker record label and Club Brenda.www.switchflicker.com

David HoyleDavid Hoyle remains a whirlwind phenomenon on the underground gay scene drawing large audiences and critical acclaim.

Alexis Milne / Dirty HonkyAlexis’s work is a reflection of the fragmented self, the re-invention of self, and the expression of repressed anger through the grotesque.http://homepages.gold.ac.uk/alexismilne/

Paul Harfleet / Ms Coco LaVernePaul Harfleet’s interest lies in the implications of citizenship and its influence on navigation and memory of the urban environment.http://paulharfleet.blogspot.com/

John Powell-Jones / Savage WolfIllustrator and T-shirt maker.www.savagewolftshirts.com

Gerry Potter / Chloe PoemsPoet and playwright. www.myspace.com/gerrypotterpoet

Sophia Di Martino / Miss RedArtist, Performer, Film-maker and Actor, the main elements of my work are story-telling, strangers and automythography. www.spotlight.com/interactive/cv/1/F89748.html

Harry & Lou Pickleswww.myspace.com/harryandlou

Daren NewmanDesigner, illustrator and typographer.www.meandmypen.com

Chris DruryOne third of Fingathing, famous for their warped graphic imagery and unique audio visual freakshow.

WritersJohn MyattJohn is a published fiction writer and has had plays performed in Manchester, Edinburgh and London. He has recently completed a screenplay about the dangers of hormones and spiritualism.

Abigail WardAbigail Ward is a freelance writer and DJ. She is also the Chair-person of Manchester District Music Archive - an online archive and forum containing flyers, posters, photos and recollections from Greater Manchester’s club and gig scene.www.mdmarchive.co.uk

Ruth AllanFreelance journalist.

PhotographyRay ChanManchester-based music photographer.www.raychanphotography.com

Andrew BrooksAndrew Brooks is a photographer, a conceptual digital artist and film maker living and working in Manchester, northwest England.www.andrewbrooksphotography.com

Rachel AdamsManchester-based music, events and portrait photographer.www.racheladamsphotography.com

Jason McReynoldsCreative director at Typeslowly.www.typeslowly.co.uk

Tamsin ForsterVisual artist, who works with animation, illustration and photography.

With kind support from Switchflicker Records and the Arts Council.

www.switchflicker.com www.clubbrenda.com