The Weird Magic of Manchester Music Venues: The Night & Day Café – 27th birthday special

- By Emily Oldfield

November marks 27 years of a much-loved Manchester music venue which has become a cornerstone of not just the Northern Quarter’s, but the city’s, creative culture - The Night & Day Café. And in that time it has transformed from an Oldham Street chippy into a championed icon.

Stories still circulate of the early days when the sound of fryers in the back was almost enough to rival the soundsystem. These days, the venue has a state-of-the-art PA, a much-loved promotional team and interiors brimming with colour and character. There has even been an installation of paper cranes.

Over the years, The Night & Day has seen countless performers take to its stage – with many now big-name bands and artists embracing its space in their early days, including the likes of Elbow, Johnny Marr, Drenge, Artic Monkeys, The Charlatans, Kasabian and more.

The Night & Day Café was established in 1991 with the ethos to do just as the name suggests – providing entertainment and interest all day and all night.  The founder was Jan Oldenburg, a Dutch-born creative who moved to Manchester in the ‘60s, determined to celebrate the city’s musicians and artists in an accommodating space. 

When he took over the building, it was assumed that Jan had a task on his hands. The place was after all, a standard chip-shop, and the Northern Quarter was not the fashionable, cosmopolitan neighbourhood it is today – it was largely neglected and lacking commercial buzz.

But with dedication, daring and experimentation, Jan and an enthusiastic team at The Night & Day put the venue on the map as one of the modern markers behind the Northern Quarter’s transformation: welcoming to creativity of all kinds. Along with Afflecks as well as Dry Bar, all of which began to pick up interest in the ‘90s, these three locations brought bigger and bigger footfall; establishing the foundations for the area to flourish.

And from gigs to get-togethers, grassroots nights to being part of fests (including Off The Record, This Feeling, WAM and many more) The Night & Day has warmed the insides with so much more than food (and the food and bar are both great too, as it goes).

 The ‘Night & Day showcase’ series of nights offer valuable performance time for grassroots and local bands, whilst there are also the much-loved Night & Day DJs and it hosts ongoing clubnights including Antics, Let’s Make This Precious, Cadillac, Anti-Matter, Cosmique (with Acid Child DJs), Dropout Boogie and Pacemaker.

Jan sadly passed away just last month (October 2018) aged 71, with the numerous passionate and poignant tributes emphasizing the impact he had, and the venue he loved.  Flowers in his memory continued to pile on the bar weeks after his death and the first ever WAM Festival (Words and Music) curated by Dave Haslam, took place on the 18-21 October and paid tribute to the founder who had positively impacted the lives of so many. The impact carries on.

In turn, November marks a very different month for The Night & Day Café going forward – although of course, the gigs and creativity is ever-continuing, as Jan would have wanted. But in fact, considering November 2018 also marks 27 years of the venue, the entertainment is stepping up another level: with a massive 39 events across 30 days.

These events and artists include HalfNoise, Barns Courtney, 77:78, Tenderlonius, Pip Blom, Juniore, October Drift, Baba Naga, Young Monarch, Off The Record and so much more. Friday 30 November also marks The Night & Day 27^th birthday party itself, featuring Night & Day family and extended family members Baba Naga, Mister Strange, Fruit Tones and the Acid Child DJs for a whole feast of fun from 8pm onwards.

Here at HAUNT Manchester, we spoke to one of the key members of the Night & Day Café, promoter Jay Taylor, to find out more…

Hello Jay. It sounds like a busy month ahead?

 “We don’t stop for breath. It feels like we don’t close, just keep on going– that’s what the captain (Jan) would have wanted.”

How do you go about selecting the acts that play here?

“When you are programming a venue diary, there’s a little bit of you of course that personally curates it towards things you like – but also you have an obligation to make that diary diverse, interesting. That diversity lies in the type of artists that come through, what they have on offer – diversity in all its forms.

“Personally, I look at 30/31 pages of empty diary in a month and take it quite seriously – along with the very excellent Callum Rodgers, who also programs the diary. The proprietor (Jan) wanted us to have as many things on as possible – running night and day – literally.

“We feel an obligation to be busy and to have good stuff, and by that I mean stuff that gets people excited. Some of that stuff isn’t designed for me… but it excites other people. I think by and large we tend to honour the idea that Jan had.

“Music venues can often fall onto the ‘young male white indie’ treadmill. We don’t want to do that. Take WAM Festival, curated by Dave Haslam and put on here last month. That weekend was everything that it was supposed to be – it went in lots of different directions, it connected people, got audiences excited. If Dave presses the button, it will happen again.”

For The Night & Day to have been going for 27 years is a considerable achievement. Is there a particular key to this success?

“27 years is an achievement for any independent businesses – it’s easy to reel off the number of factors out there that could make a small independent business stagger; everything that you need to operate goes up in price. I think if it was a candlestick maker I’d be applauding 27 years in business! The thing about Night & Day is that it’s influenced a number of other ‘candlestick makers’, so to speak.

“It created a tone– between Night & Day, Afflecks and Dry Bar – in the ‘90s these venues lit the touch-paper for the neighbourhood to grow.”

Is there an underpinning ethos?

“Even though some bands re-appear here, the overarching concept is ‘always forwards – never backwards’. Those were the conversations I had with Jan, we were and still are looking for exciting new things. There is a mindset which says we should choose what is exciting, things that sound like we’ve never heard before… we want to go for those.”

Why is The Night & Day such a great space to enjoy music?

“There’s very little space between the artist and the audience, so the exchange between them is heightened and the energy bounces around the room.  The most visceral experiences I’ve had with bands have been in small spaces… and The Night & Day is small space ideal for that. When an artist can look from the stage and see the whites of the audience’s eyes, that’s the kind of thing we’re going for.

“I think people come in here, watch what we have on and leave in an altered state – that’s the plan, anyway. I’d stop short of saying we want to ‘make everybody happy’: after all, some artists we put on aren’t designed to make people ‘happy’, but instead raise other states like contemplation, reflection, sadness, even. Artists that leave people feeling moved and altered – that’s the trick, I’d say. The right artist, the right audience, the right room: and you can nail it.”

Have there been some personal gig highlights for you at The Night & Day?

 “There have been, yes… but the things that spring to mind are the things that I am looking forward to seeing. There are indeed things in the past that have been amazing, but at the forefront of my mind are upcoming artists, things in the diary that I look at and think… that’s going to be sensational.”

Tell us about what’s going on this month at The Night & Day…

“November 2018 – it turns 27. We have something on every day, sometimes two things on every day, and we don’t stop for breath. Pretty much every day is a birthday party. Then we are going to throw a proper party, as tradition dictates, towards the end of the month on 30^th November, with people playing who are part of the venue family and extended venue family http://www.nightnday.org/event/night-day-27th-birthday-party/. So that’s celebrating 27 years as a music venue and an independent business in the city.”

The venue often attracts touring artists – but does a lot for local and grassroots musicians too?

“We try to program events so things make sense - choosing things that are ready and that we care about: even if those artists are on the nursery slopes. People send us music and we do what we can to put them on stage.

“What’s wonderful is to see people come through and then continue to grow, to expand, to achieve. It’s really nice when bands come through and you see that progression.”

What’s the recipe for success in carrying on – not just for The Night & Day, but for music venues in general – do you think?

“I’d like to say… if you dig culture and like the idea of music venues sticking around – there are three things you need to do. Buy a ticket, turn up, buy a drink. If sufficient amounts of people did that in Manchester, venues wouldn’t fall by the wayside.

“In addition, culturally we need to take more chances when it comes to the arts… try something out! It feels like large sections of the UK are timid when it comes to experimenting with the arts – but you can interact with exciting things, like gigs, very easily. Just give it a chance, give new live music a chance. It can be life changing.

“I always think this… if I was walking through a foreign city, in the dark, and all the buildings on the row were blacked out and The Night & Day stood in the midst glistening, with something on stage… I’d just have to go in. No force of nature would keep me out. It’s an adventure.”

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http://www.nightnday.org/

The Night and & Café, 26 Oldham St, Manchester M1 1JN