Oozits club, previously known as the Picador, was home to several nights (maybe even strippers), the best known was the Beach Club, also known to locals as the Factory Wives Club. It was on Newgate Street which was off Bradshaw Street, off Shudehill where the new bus station is now. The club was the first venue that New Order played on 29th July 1980 after the death of Joy Division's Ian Curtis, though the records state they were billed as 'The No Names' [1].
The club was the haunt of many of Manchester's celebs and music heads in the late '70s and early '80s when the Manchester Music Collective started The Beach Club in Oozits, described as a gay bar by Richard Boon in John Robb's new book [2]:
Oozits, Newgate Street. (c) Manchester District Music Archive.
The club was the haunt of many of Manchester's celebs and music heads in the late '70s and early '80s when the Manchester Music Collective started The Beach Club in Oozits, described as a gay bar by Richard Boon in John Robb's new book [2]:
Richard Boon: "Between the closure of the PSV/Russell Club and building of the Hacienda we - or the city - needed a space for regular counter-culture insurgency or just somewhere we'd like to hang out. It turned out to be Oozits in Shudehill, a gay club with a bar on each of two floors. So we started the beach club."
Liz Naylor: "I knew it as Oozits; it was a horrible firetrap of a place! I used to go with Pip from The Distractions and it was full of butches and old-school lesbians. Manchester was such a grim city then. Shudehill was a dark Victorian maze of streets."
Richard Boon: "The idea was to have cult films in the first-floor bar area: the likes of Reefer Madness and Tod Browning's Freaks, for instance; and upstairs, live music with the rounding up of the usual subjects: Eric Random, Ludus, ACR, Swamp Children, Vini Reilly, etc. plus non-Manc bands. The name of the club, natch, came from the Situationist Paris '68 slogs: 'Underneath the paving stones, the beach"
Oozits, Newgate Street. (c) Manchester District Music Archive.
1. True Faith: An Armchair Guide to New Order, Dave Thompson (2005).
2. Manchester Music City 1976-1996, John Robb (2009).
The Things also played on 1980
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