Fifty Six

Today's post is brought to you in association with the number fifty six. The A56 runs past the top of our road and a mile up the road from us (heading towards Manchester city centre) it goes past the beautiful but empty Art Deco cinema in Stretford (formerly Stretford Essoldo, pictured above). 

The A56 starts out on Frodsham Street in Chester and heads east through Cheshire, past Warrington and Runcorn and then passes Lymm where it turns to Altrincham, then Sale and Stretford (it is at various points between Altrincham and Old Trafford called Chester Road, Cross Street and Washway Road). Then it runs through Gorse Hill to Old Trafford where Manchester United's ground lies to its left, skirts Hulme and when it hits town it becomes Deansgate. From there north to Salford and Bury and into Lancashire, to Colne and Nelson before reaching Skipton and eventually running out of tarmac in the village of Broughton, North Yorkshire. 

Fact 56 was A Factory Video, a various artists VHS video released by Factory in 1982, the starting point of what Tony Wilson believed would be a brave new artistic world for the record label. The Factory video production arm was Ikon (Brian Nicholson) and operated from the basement of the Factory HQ at 86 Palatine Road. For a while it was based in the cellar of Tony Wilson's house on Old Broadway, a house that in 1982 I walked past every day on the way home from school. Aged twelve, I wasn't really up to speed with what was going on in that cellar. Ikon ran their own video release series and Fact 56 was a compilation of some of those releases.  

It starts with New Horizon by Section 25. New Horizon is the final song on their 1981 album Always Now, a record produced by Martin Hannett and clad in one of Peter Saville's Factory artwork masterpieces. The advice Peter got from band member Larry Cassidy was 'something quite European, but psychedelic with some oriental influences'. 'After that', he said, 'I was on my own'. The sleeve opens like an envelope, marbled on the inside on specialist card with bold type on the front and die cut. 

Tony Wilson was right about the importance of videos and video art. Fact 56 was available to buy on VHS and Betamax. I would guess a lot of copies of both ended up in landfill in the 90s as the world went digital. There are two copies for sale on Discogs, one for £50 and one for 80 Euros which would suggest they're pretty scarce now. 

There isn't too much else about the number 56. It became a symbol of the Hungarian Uprising. Joe DiMaggio had a 56 game hitting streak. It means that I'm now closer to 60 than 50. 

This came out recently, nothing to do with 56, just something I wanted to share- Seu Jorge and Beck covering Nick Drake's River Man, a lush and very lovely bossa nova version of the song from Brazil and produced by former Beastie Boy producer Mario C. 

Essoldo

I took these pictures of Stretford's art deco cinema building on my phone last weekend- it was so cold I could hardly operate the button. Stretford is just up the road from here and this old cinema building is one of my favourite Mancunian buildings. Previously known as Longford Cinema and Stretford Essoldo it's been empty since the early 90s when the bingo it housed moved out (Top Rank Bingo). The current owners said in 2010 they had plans for it but other than a coat of paint it's had little care or attention since. The location isn't ideal for much anymore I suppose. On the corner of a major crossroads, four lanes of Chester Road traffic flying past and opposite a seen better days shopping centre (once Stretford Arndale, recently re-branded as Stretford Mall).

In the 1930s it looked like this...

And in it's 1937 heyday...

The walkway/concourse has long gone since then, making way for a lane of traffic. In 1960 it was still a bustling suburban cinema...

Up the side Edge Lane leads to Chorlton. There's a row of shops, some empty, and the old exit from the Essoldo which has this beautiful curved brick recess and a large column sticking up.

Morrissey lived not much more than a stone's throw from here, the iron bridge where he kissed crosses the canal and railway line that pass behind the back of the Essoldo half a mile south. I think Ivor Perry (of 80s janglers Easterhouse and briefly Johnny Marr's replacement in The Smiths) is a Stretfordian too. Bowie played Stretford sometime in the 70s according to my hairdresser as well. But it's Morrissey's patch popculturewise. His public pronouncements have become increasingly bizarre and ill-judged recently and he's currently poorly (Still Ill with double pneumonia). His solo career is very hit and miss but this song, a B-side, is something special- if you want a self-pitying wallow.

Never Played Symphonies