Over on the border of Whalley Range and Moss Side, for over twenty years sat a tiny little green shed full to the brim with dusty 7, 10, and 12″ records.
A place of myth and legend, by all accounts, the shop was just as mysterious and unconventional as the man who ran it – an Irishman by the name of Mike.
Filled with box after sagging box, all overflowing with dusty vinyl, and with perhaps two square feet of floor space to stand in, the Record Shack was famously filled with thousands of records in no discernable order, mostly collected from charity shops and car boot sales.
At the door would sometimes sit a selection of racks with an A-Z of soul, funk and pop albums, with more shelves bursting with hundreds of 7″ records mostly dedicated to pop from the 80s and 90s.
Elsewhere, Mike’s own personal love of jazz was reflected in the massive collection, which reportedly spanned every genre all the way from the 1930s to 1990s.
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His shop was tiny, really tiny, and we’ve heard from quite a few who visited that he wasn’t normally that pleased to see you in there, either.
“I was interested to find out what was at the back […] so I was like, erm, ‘what’s the records at the back of the shop?’ and he got really annoyed and was like ‘why does everyone always ask that? What’s wrong with the records at the front?’
Konny Kon, Children of Zeus
Rather, many speculated that the store functioned as an outlet for his own record-hoarding tenencies, and that he just happened to be there, as opposed to being on hand to help you actually find anything.
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Not one to be held down by such conventional norms as opening and closing times, Mike opened the Record Shack as and when he liked. Sometimes that would be two o’clock in the afternoon, sometimes it might be five or six at night.
Manchester DJ and musician Konny Kon of Children of Zeus told The Manc: “He was always grumpy, he’d just turn up at 2pm if he wanted to.
“Sometimes he’d just open whenever he wanted in the afternoon, and it was like you were doing him a massive disservice by actually being in the shop and buying anything like he would get pissed off, like he didn’t want people to be in there.
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“One day I went in there and if you haven’t been in there the back of his shop you just couldn’t reach anything because it was just records, piled on top of records, piled on top of records, like three stacks deep, like you couldn’t get there.
“So one day […] I was interested to find out what was at the back […] so I was like, erm, ‘what’s the records at the back of the shop?’ and he got really annoyed and was like ‘why does everyone always ask that? What’s wrong with the records at the front?’
“And I think that kind of sums up his whole shop.”
This disregard for opening times meant that even some of the city’s most avid crate diggers never actually got a chance to step inside.
Andy Newens, a vinyl enthusiast and long-time Manchester DJ, told The Manc: “I went many times but never saw it open.
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“I often wondered what was in there and always just ended up going to Chicken Run instead.”
Those who managed to get inside would find piles on piles on piles of records, with seemingly no system of management to them whatsoever. Still, it appears that Mike did know where things were – to the surprise of one visitor.
Whalley Range resident James Greenwood, a label owner and part of the Manchester DJ collective Supernature Disco, told The Manc: “I last visited the Record Shack just after the first easing of Covid restrictions when the pandemic had first hit.
“He’d set up a few records outside so I bought a couple of disco cheapies. Then I didn’t see it open again. I’d often see him walking that way but never to the Shack.
“I first moved to Whalley Range eight years ago and went in to see what sort of stuff he sold. The shop was total chaos and seemed to have zero order to it.
“I was looking for some KISS stuff at the time and asked if he had any in. He pointed at a stack in the far corner of the shop and said to me “just behind there on the bottom shelf should be some KISS albums” and sure enough there were.
“I was pretty stunned that he knew where to find stuff amongst all those stacks and shelves. Like I say, it seemed to have no order whatsoever.”
Now closed after some twenty-odd years, the RecordfShack still lives on in the memories of many of the city’s vinyl enthusiasts.
One avid vinyl blogger wrote of a visit: “A few times I’ve tried to befriend the owner in the vain hope that once in his inner circle he would lead me quietly to the hidden stash of rare records but by this visit I had accepted that this probably doesn’t exist and the shop is not so much a shop as a glorified storage unit for a pretty chronic hoarder.
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“Maybe the holy grail does exist in the melee but I was happy to pick up “Dirty Cash” and a Candi Staton version of “Suspicious Minds” for £1 and move on.”
Another enthusiast who had visited the shop wrote online: “It sells records and it really is a shack! This is a place of myth and legend and to even offer opening times would be ridiculous.
“I love this place for its chaos, confusion, dust, dirt, randomness and just pure vinyl mania. Having chatted to the owner he has always had the vinyl bug and can’t stop collecting bag after bag of stuff with perhaps little saleable value but what the hell.
“I guess the scary truth is that when I’m his age perhaps my house will resemble this shop. I understand him …now is that a good or bad thing? We both also love Jazz…enough said!”
Do you have a memory of the Record Shack? If so, we’d love to hear it. Send your stories to us on Twitter @TheMancUk.
Manchester has been ranked one of the ‘most influential cities’ in Europe
Danny Jones
As per a development that we’d consider so obvious it’s barely worth writing about (even though we are), Manchester has been ranked one of the most influential cities in Europe.
In other news, water is still very much wet.
While there’s plenty of it here in Greater Manchester, given our standard rainy forecasts, when it comes to anything besides the weather, we deliver in spades.
Let’s be honest: we know it, you do too, and apparently so do plenty of other folks – and there’s some concrete statistics to back it up.
Case in point – First Chanel, now Vogue… (Credit: The Manc Group)
You’ll find all manner of surveys, polls and studies diving into how Manchester ranks across various categories, but knowing we boast nods such as ‘the original industrial city’, the place that helped split the atom and the place that the first modern computer was born, we know all about our global impact.
With that in mind, when we saw that Sixt had recently named us as one of the most influential cities in all of Europe, we couldn’t ignore the well-deserved pat on the back.
That’s right, although you might not associate the car rental company with this sort of stuff, as part of their new exclusive ‘Sixt Ride’ offering (think a posh taxi service), they looked into which cities have the most luxuries, tourist attractions and other cultural bonuses to their name.
Per their recent research, Manchester city centre didn’t just break into the top 100 but found itself among the 30 most influential cities in Europe.
You can see the full rankings table down below.
#
City
Country
*Fortune 500 Companies
Fashion weeks
Film Festivals
International Airports
5-Star Hotels
High End/Luxury Shopping areas
Michelin Restaurants
1
Paris
France
10
6
77
2
122
11
134
2
London
United Kingdom
12
3
241
3
182
5
81
3
Milan
Italy
1
4
52
3
29
5
22
4
Rome
Italy
2
0
97
2
65
4
21
5
Stockholm
Sweden
0
3
14
2
12
2
13
6
Madrid
Spain
5
0
38
1
42
2
29
7
Zurich
Switzerland
6
0
10
1
12
4
18
8
Munich
Germany
5
0
10
1
16
4
17
9
Berlin
Germany
1
1
76
1
40
2
21
10
Hamburg
Germany
1
0
16
2
17
3
16
11
Amsterdam
Netherlands
4
0
24
1
29
1
30
12
Copenhagen
Denmark
1
2
12
1
12
2
20
13
Barcelona
Spain
0
0
45
1
47
1
31
14
Lisbon
Portugal
1
0
38
1
49
1
20
15
Athens
Greece
0
0
41
1
52
2
12
16
Vienna
Austria
1
0
24
1
24
3
14
17
Bucharest
Romania
0
0
22
2
12
2
0
18
Warsaw
Poland
0
0
22
2
17
1
3
19
Glasgow
United Kingdom
0
0
17
2
4
2
2
20
Lyon
France
0
0
9
2
7
0
16
21
Prague
Czechia
0
0
16
1
60
1
2
22
Brussels
Belgium
0
0
18
1
14
1
29
23
Oslo
Norway
0
1
8
1
6
1
11
24
Manchester
United Kingdom
0
0
20
1
7
3
2
25
Budapest
Hungary
0
0
16
1
24
1
7
26
Dublin
Ireland
2
0
16
1
11
0
6
27
Naples
Italy
0
0
34
1
5
0
22
28
Porto
Portugal
0
0
8
1
28
0
10
29
Turin
Italy
1
0
21
1
4
0
10
30
Sofia
Bulgaria
0
0
22
1
14
1
0
31
Helsinki
Finland
0
0
5
1
10
1
5
32
Belgrade
Serbia
0
0
32
1
9
0
1
33
Marseille
France
0
0
5
1
4
0
12
34
Birmingham
United Kingdom
0
0
12
1
4
0
6
35
Minsk
Belarus
0
0
11
1
0
0
0
Read it and weep; we Mancs landed 24th on the leaderboard, just behind Norway’s capital, Oslo, and ever so slightly ahead of Budapest in Hungary.
As you can see, to identify the ‘most influential European cities’, they broke down how the 35 most populous cities on the continent and here UK (barring Russia and Ukraine) and what noteworthy cultural touchstones they possess.
For instance, did you hear that our very own Warehouse Project recently found itself breaking into the top half of the best nightclubs on the entire planet?
Going on to analyse everything from the number of Fortune 500 companies headquartered in the city, their connections to film, fashion, fine-dining and more, they found that Paris, London and Milan were the most influential (no surprises there), but we’re glad to be keeping such good company.
After all, in the last couple of years alone, Manchester city centre has welcomed the Metiers D’art fashion show, opened one of the biggest indoor entertainment venues in all of Europe, and still takes eternal credit for giving the world Oasis and, therefore, the Live ’25 reunion. Again, you’re welcome.
What do you make of Sixt’s study, and do you agree with their findings on the whole?
It goes without saying that we’d probably put ourselves higher on the list if anything, but then again, maybe we’re getting too used to being told how brilliant it is to live in this region.
Featured Images — Anthony Parkes (via Geograph)/The Manc Group
Art & Culture
A candlelit Queen tribute concert is returning to Manchester
Danny Jones
Yes, you read that right: a candlelit concert dedicated to the one and only Queen, with a spectacular West End Cast and a talented live rock band, is coming to Manchester city centre in January.
In fact, it’s coming home, as this wonderful event started right here in 0161 back in 2021.
Concerts by Candlelight themselves host concerts up and down the country at various points throughout the year, but their much-loved ‘Queen by Candlelight‘ special knows all about lighting up Manc venues.
Having since gone on to become an internationally acclaimed live concert experience, we’re glad we still get to see the ‘Princes of the Universe’ on our doorstep.
Credit: Concerts by Candlelight (supplied)
With the likes of Bridgewater Hall and the magical Manchester Monastery all having played host to the promotion on many ocassions, this time Queen by Candlelight is coming to the legendary Manchester Opera House in the new year.
One of our most historic and legendary theatres, it’s only fitting, really, that they be chosen to welcome a night of equally iconic tunes.
But it’s worth reminding more casual fans that these aren’t just British rock and pop anthems; Queen‘s discography is one that still has global recognition to this day.
That’s why this specific show has been taken to virtually every corner of the world, with the incredibly talented cast of singers and musicians delighting audiences in Dubai, Australia, New Zealand and New York, to domestic crowds here in town and down in London’s West End.
‘Queenies’ or ‘Darlings’, as Freddie Mercury used to call them, can expect all the big hits, from ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ and ‘We Are The Champions’, to ‘It’s a Kind of Magic’ and ‘Who Wants to Live Forever’ and plenty more from the back catalogue.
Here’s a glimpse of what’s in store this coming January:
With tickets already flying out fast, we really would recommend securing your seats early before they inevitably sell out.
To quote the promoters themselves, “this spectacular celebration of Queen’s biggest hits is guaranteed to rock you.”
Coming to the Manchester Opera House on Tuesday, 6 January, you can book your tickets for Queen by Candlelight right HERE.
And if you’ve never been to one of their candlelit events before, you only need to see how much of a ball we had at their country event earlier this year to find out how much fun they are…
Georgina Pellant -
20th April 2023 
