Video
Corbieres
2025

Nick “Redgey” Redshaw is on Manchester Scene Stories – and if you love proper Manchester music history, this one’s a gem.

Nick grew up in Salford and takes us right back to the late 70s / early 80s when punk hit like a shockwave. From Hope High School days and first guitars (and ridiculously loud amps), to rehearsals in cellars, band names that barely made sense, and the DIY energy that made you feel like you could do it yourself.

We talk Corbieres – that legendary downstairs bar with the jukebox, the style, the student-y crowd, and the chaos when you’re young, wired, and a bit too fearless. There are stories of bans, fly-postering disasters, near misses, and the kind of nights where you look back and think… how did we survive that?

Then we get to The Haçienda. Nick describes those early gig years when the place could be freezing, sometimes empty on a Sunday, and then absolutely rammed when the right band landed. One of the wildest parts of this conversation is Nick’s memory of walking into a Haçienda afternoon soundcheck and ending up interviewing a band he didn’t yet understand the significance of: Morrissey and Johnny Marr – July 1983 – right at the beginning. He still has the tape.

We also go deep on the wider scene: Easterhouse at The Gallery, hanging around the music shops (Highway/A1), the Boardwalk rehearsal rooms turning into a historic hub, and the shift from indie guitar culture into the rave era. Nick shares stories from Alpha Street and Cavendish/Cheetham Hill party central days – including proper “only in Manchester” moments like Mark E. Smith dropping by, bonfire nights, acid paranoia, and parties that grew too big to control.

There’s also a creative thread running through Nick’s life: cine cameras, photography, fanzines, trying to interview bands with a tape recorder, Super 8 footage that still needs digitising, and being on the cusp of “something happening” more than once. We even get into the electronic crossover years – rehearsing intense, bass-heavy material, supporting The Shamen, and appearing on Snub TV.

Nick features in Book 2 (The Indie Years), so if you’ve read it, you’ll recognise parts of the story — but this interview goes wider, funnier, and deeper, with loads that didn’t make the page.