The Cavern Club

Out In The City headed to Liverpool to visit The Cavern Club – a nightclub on Mathew Street.

The club opened in 1957 as a jazz club, later becoming a centre of the rock and roll scene in Liverpool in the early 1960s. The club became closely associated with Merseybeat and regularly played host to the Beatles in their early years.

The Cavern Club closed and opened on a new site in 1973 and was filled in during construction work on the Merseyrail underground rail loop. It reopened in 1984 and now sits at a 90 degree angle to the original and covers 70% of the original Cavern footprint. The stage is not far from the original location, and the ‘Live Lounge’ is an exact replica of the original, using as many of the old bricks as possible.

From 1961 to 1963 the Beatles made 292 appearances at the club, with their last occurring on 3 August 1963.

A wide variety of popular acts appeared at the club, including The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds, The Hollies, The Kinks, Elton John, Black Sabbath, Queen, The Who, Adele and John Lee Hooker. Before she became famous Cilla Black worked in the cloakroom.

The Cavern is also used as a tour warm-up venue with semi-secret gigs announced at the last moment. The Arctic Monkeys did this in October 2005, Jake Bugg in November 2013, as well as Travis and Oasis.

There’s a great atmosphere and we enjoyed our visit. We walked around the Albert Dock before making our way back to Manchester.

See more photos here.

An Evening with Armistead Maupin

Following a successful UK tour in 2019, bestselling, much-loved author and LGBT activist, Armistead Maupin, is back on the road.

We saw him in Manchester at HOME interviewed by Jack Guinness, founder and director of The Queer Bible, a website and now published essay collection, which celebrates the works and lives of the global queer community.

Maupin has been blazing a trail through US popular culture since the 1970’s, when his iconic and ground-breaking series Tales of the City was first published as a column in the San Francisco Chronicle. The novel series has been taking the literary world by storm ever since, and was adapted into a critically acclaimed series, starring Laura Linney, Olympia Dukakis and Elliot Page.

America’s ultimate storyteller recounted his favourite tales from the past four decades, offering his own engaging observations on society and the world we inhabit.

In the Q&A someone asked about the difference in the LGBT+ community now and back in the day. Maupin replied: “There is no community – just a large number of individuals. In our day we didn’t have apps. We had to walk twenty miles in the snow just to suck a cock!”

I recently went to see “Notes on Notes on Camp” in Bury starring Jez Dolan and “Double Ender” in Chorlton starring Jez Dolan. Both were excellent by the way. At this “Evening with Armistead Maupin“, I was sat literally in the next seat to Jez Dolan and his husband. Bloody hell! I’m sure that man is stalking me!

Astronaut Sally Ride will be the first LGBT+ person on the US quarter

Astronaut Sally Ride will become the first LGBT+ person to appear in US currency, as part of the new American Women Quarters Programme.

According to the United States Mint, the first five limited edition coins from the American Women Quarters Programme will be released next year.

The coins honour Ride, as well as Maya Angelou, Asian-American actress Anna May Wong, Cherokee Nation leader Wilma Mankiller, and suffragette Nina Otero-Warren.

Ride, an engineer, physicist, and astronaut, was the first American woman to travel to space.

She married NASA astronaut Steve Hawley in 1982, but they divorced five years later, and later entered into a 27-year relationship with science writer and emeritus professor of school psychology at San Diego State University, Tam O’Shaughnessy.

Although Ride spoke openly about her sexuality with those around her, she did not become widely known until after her death in 2012. The year after her death, Barack Obama awarded Ride a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Otero-Warren, who was born in 1881 and will also be the first Hispanic American to appear on the US currency, was also LGBT+.

The New Mexico politician was initially married to a man, but entered into a relationship with a woman named Mamie Meadors in the 1920s. They lived on the same farm, but in different houses, and were known as “The Two” or “The couple.”

Acting Director of the United States Mint Alison L Doone said in a statement: “These inspiring coin designs tell the stories of five extraordinary women whose contributions are indelibly etched in American culture. Generations to come will look at the coins with these designs and remember what can be achieved with vision, determination and the desire to enhance opportunities for all.”