February 2012

Welcome to Band on the Wall's Archive.

‘This place is a landmark and its history is epic’ – Adam Poppitt

Band on the Wall, previously the George and Dragon, has been part of the history of Manchester for around 200 years and has been a music venue at least since the 1930s.

Almost all of the thousands of music performances over the years went unrecorded, undocumented and un-notated. Lost in time. Our archive seeks to ensure that, from now on, all will not be lost.

AV Recordings

Music and the musicians are at the heart of the archive; and contemporary audio-visual recordings of performances are its core.   

To view our Video Archive in full screen and in High Definition, go to our Vimeo page:   vimeo.com/channels/bandonthewall

Band on the Wall also has its own YouTube page, accessed at youtube.com/user/the band on the wall. 

On these pages you also will see other videos recorded by us at Band on the Wall:

• Mica Paris and the Julian Joseph Trio
• Ade Edmondson and The Bad Shepherds
• Julian Marley
• Some Other Country
• Acoustic Ladyland
• Jazzanova
• Mykal Rose & The Ras Ites
• E2
• Skip ‘Little Axe’ McDonald
• Warsaw Village Band
• Breakestra
• Beating Wing Orchestra
• Yasmin Levy
• Bugge Wesseltoft
• Swati Natekar
• Denis Jones
• Aftershock
• N'dambi
• Cimarron
• Kanda Bongo Man
• The Oyster Band
• Some Other Country
• Gwilym Simcock Trio & Gerard Presencer
• Swing Out Sister
• Portico Quartet
• Jo McCallum/Andy Schofield Big Band
• John Smith
• Snake Davis
• Hassan Erraji
• Polar Bear
• Jesca Hoop
• The Wailing Souls
• The Virginmarys
• The Christians
• Michael Messer, Ed Genis & Lucy Zirins
• Mykal Rose
• Chetham's Big Bands
• Rango
• Marshall Allen & Cinema Soloriens
• Baked a La Ska
• Ian Parker Band
• Ahmed Dickinson Cardenas
• Ian Siegal & Ben Prestage
• Marcos Valle
• Murcof & Francesco Tristano
• Michael McGoldrick Band
• Hafdis Huld
• Oli Brown Band
• National Youth Jazz Orchestra of Scotland
• Matt Halsall & Crew
• Dennis Bovell & the Dub Band
• Nik Bartsch's Ronin

These Vimeo and YouTube pages exclusively comprise videos recorded by us at the venue and indicate the quality of the recordings made on our in-house High Definition cameras.

All of the artists have granted permission for the performances to be archived and available as streamed excerpts and, from time to time, shown on the screens at Band on the Wall. Many more video clips will follow online.

History

While the building of this archive of contemporary recorded performances will remain our priority, we also are expanding the written history of the venue. Already some of this history is described in this archive. Our current work has concentrated on the 19th century history of the building and the people who ran it. This includes a section on the McKenna family who were owners of the venue -- then named the George & Dragon -- for around 50 years, from the late 1850s, and we are keen to hear from anyone who has information on the company, B & J McKenna, who owned several pubs in Manchester, also a large brewery at Harpurhey. It is planned to put this 19th century history of the venue online early in 2012.

The decade commencing 1975 was a crucial period in the venue’s survival and development.  The inside story of this period has been written up and subsequent work will take in the past 25 years, including the roller-coaster story of the building refurbishment scheme, completed in September 2009. These written and illustrated sections, along with memories of former staff, customers and musicians, will be included in the 20th century history of the venue, to go online at the end of 2012.

We are also transferring various existing (pre-2005) recordings (audio & video) to digital formats and we plan, where appropriate, to make them available online.

Our archive encourages input from individuals and organisations – whether materials such as print, photos, or audio or video recordings, or simply anecdotes from the venue’s past. If you think you can help, sent an email to Ian Croal -- ian@bandonthewall.org

This uniquely evolving archive is supported over five years by the Heritage Lottery Fund and Manchester City Council.