Mancky

Rose Royce - Car Wash (1976)

CarWash was a club night named after the track by Rose Royce from 1976; it was an antidote to the acid house nights which dominated Manchester in 1989 (and which soon got boring if you didn’t take ecstacy.)

Trafford and Alf were the DJs, following on from their Brazil night. Trafford was older than us and his record collection was full of 70s funk and disco which wasn’t being played in the clubs in town back then… except perhaps in some of the gay clubs. I knew 70s chart disco from ‘Top of the Pops’ and the radio when I was growing up. But even in the late 80s, disco was a guilty pleasure because in the 70s we were conditioned to believe that punk was ‘cool’ and disco was ‘cheesey’ and that view still prevailed.

I found an article about Brutus Gold, a.k.a. Nigel Wanless, a club DJ from Stockton-on-Tees; he also reacted against acid house when he created his Love Train nights, but he took his project to another level, creating an on-stage persona and a touring stage show in the process:
The Northern Echo Archive/Confessions Of A Love Machine.

Trafford adopted the name ‘Trafford Lovething’ around this time but the boundaries between himself and his persona were not clear-cut and there was nothing ironic about the CarWash music policy.

Evelyn Champaigne King - Shame (1978)

‘Shame’ was Danny Henry’s favourite disco track; he came down to the Man Alive every Thursday and inspired everyone with his amazing dancing. He had been a regular at the jazz-funk nights at Rafters in the late 70s and early 80s.

The music ranged through 1970s disco and funk, 80s soul and eventually 90s ‘acid jazz’ by bands like The Brand New Heavies, Jamiroquai, The Young Disciples and Barrie K Sharpe. Some of my favourite tracks from the night were:

Gwen McCrae - All This Love That I’m Givin’ (1979)

Tom Browne - Funkin For Jamaica (1980)

Patrice Rushen - Forget Me Nots (1982)

Cheryl Lynn - Encore (1983)

Trafford was determined to use posters to publicise CarWash because he thought Brazil had suffered due to relying on flyers. He took a DIY approach to save money, making posters using A0 sheets of paper, car spray and stencils; the design included a cartoon of his vintage Morris Oxford car! He and Alf then embarked upon a ninja-style fly-posting operation. Sadly I have no photos of the posters, but I have found an ad from City Life, advertising Carwash at ‘Archies Bar’ (now The Thirsty Scholar under the arch where New Wakefield Street meets Oxford Road.)

From City Life Issue 131, Aug-Sep 1989

Very soon after, Carwash became the weekly Thursday night at The Man Alive Club on Grosvenor Street.

Before long, the night was so successful that word of mouth and local listings were enough to keep it ticking over; CarWash ran continuously at The Man Alive Club for almost 7 years. I loved most of the music but I was never too keen on ‘Car Wash’ by Rose Royce; I think I just heard it too often.

The Man Alive Club was a basement club on the corner of Grosvenor Street and Upper Brook Street. The entrance, which was a small extension added onto the original building, is just visible in the centre of this picture from Google Streetview:

The club was owned by a Jamaican guy called Roy who sold up and moved back to Jamaica around 1996, and this is why CarWash ended. As far as I know, no current club nights of the same name have any connection with the original Manchester CarWash night at the Man Alive.

‘Trafford Lovething’ still DJs occasionally at Funkademia at The Mint Lounge in Manchester: http://www.funkademia.net/.