11/05/2025
Blue Plaques.
The City of Stoke-on-Trent turns 100 years old this year, and the Old Girl is beginning to show her age. We’ve very much become the “poor relation” to the other big cities of the north, notably Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, et al.
We’ve never had much really, but we’ve always had the music!
Stoke has been at the cutting edge of all the musical genres over the past 80 years or so!
We’ve led the way, or been a guiding light, for Northern Soul, Disco, Punk, Metal, Indie, Acid House, and the Dance music that still refuses to die today!
Anyways, a few years ago, (maybe when they knocked down the Tiffs / Zanzibar building down ‘Castle?) one of my old Northern Soul pals, Phil Johnson, suggested that it might be nice to commemorate the demise of some of the old Northern venues, before they became forgotten in the mists of time……
We decided that a simple Blue Plaque might be good, as The Golden Torch, up Tunstall, had already got one. (The Torch holds mythical status amongst Soul fans, arguably the birth place of the Northern beat, and where the name was coined. Dave Godin, a journalist from down south, arrived at The Torch and was gob smacked at what he saw! He wrote “What is this? What is this Northern Soul?” And the name stuck.
(Die hard Soul Boys will probably give me an argument here, and correctly state that The Twisted Wheel played it first, but that was before the term was used. Travelling soul boys from the north, would visit record shops in London, often on away days, following their football teams, and search for imported soul records, which led to some shops having a section labeled “Northern Soul.” There's lots more to this story...........)
We’re not here for an history lesson though, if you’re bothered, there’s loads written about it elsewhere.
Northern Soul was the blue print for all of the Dance music which followed though, which is why we thought it worthy of a Blue Plaque trail.
Phil is pretty much a straight up & down guy, and set about seeking the correct permissions to install the plaques at various locations. Dealing with the councils, landlords and property owners, is much like banging your head, repeatedly, on a brick wall for months and months at a time, so I said “f**k ‘em, lets stick the plaques up, and if they don’t like them, I’ll take ‘em down again!”
So two years ago, we put the first plaque up, to commemorate the legendary Antelope pub, up Hanley duck, I’ve written about it before, at that time, so I’ll not say it all again.
As the years passed, we compiled a list of worthy venues, and extended the theme beyond Northern Soul, to champion all of the contributions made, to various music scenes, throughout the city. It’s an ongoing process……….
So the first few plaques are now up, at, or as near as we could get, to where the original venue was.
The Place is long gone, so that one is on the cinema opposite where it was. The Top Rank is still there, but does the bingo now instead. The Heavy Steam Machine was just up from the Mitchel Theatre, the closest building is now a solicitors, they’re all a bunch of c@nts, so the plaque is on the building next door.
The Void plaque is screwed to the last remnant of the original building, in Glass Street, on Rock’s car park, and should really have always been named “The Roxy”……….😬
Viva Golden!
https://youtu.be/Fv6AU3ExaLk?si=MYIKLmjCfniVyYKC
Many thanks to those who’ve helped out so far, we’re not done yet……….
Big shout out to Joe at JD Staircases for supplying the oak mounts for the plaques! His staircases are wonderful, should you ever need one!
https://www.facebook.com/JDstaircases/?locale=en_GB
