Description

Chance McCoy is a Grammy Award-winning indie folk musician from West Virginia.

'It can be scary to step away from something that's been so successful,' says Chance McCoy, 'but it's important to follow your passion. I really believe in the music that I'm making right now, so it feels like the right time for me as an artist to get off the main road and explore the path less trodden.'

A virtuoso fiddler, guitarist, and banjo player, McCoy is best known as a member of Grammy-winning Americana powerhouse Old Crow Medicine Show but Wander Wide, his debut solo album, reveals a remarkable depth and versatility far beyond anything we've heard from him yet. Captivating in its cross of the traditional and the progressive, the record shows little regard for the conventional boundaries of genre and decade, blending old-school bluegrass melodies with modern rock and roll arrangements and rich, atmospheric production. McCoy based the album off of a live residency show he put on weekly at The Basement in Nashville, and the studio recordings here tap into the same exuberant energy he brought to the stage every night, complete with dazzling performances that unexpectedly twist and turn, sometimes transitioning from one tune to the next within the same track.

'This whole record was built to be performed live,' explains McCoy. 'We recorded everything exactly the way we played it at the Basement, just three people making music together in the moment. Even my vocals were recorded live. It was really important for me to capture that feel.'

Description

The 200 year long story of The Castle Hotel is woven not just into it’s bricks and mortar, its Victorian tiles or its mosaic floors. It’s a feeling that you can’t put your finger on. It’s in its people. In its memories. And in the layers of history built up over centuries of experience.

The Castle Hotel started life in 1776, although records show that there has been a dwelling on the site since the 1400s. Over the course of a century the pub changed name several times, trading first as The Crown and Sceptre, then The Crown and Anchor and later The Clock Face. In the late nineteenth century the pub was acquired by Kay’s Atlas Brewery and started a new chapter as The Castle Hotel; which is probably when the current tiled façade and bar were added. In the early 1930s Frederic Robinson took over Kay’s Atlas Brewery and, consequently, The Castle Hotel.

The pub’s now deeply cemented relationship with the city’s music scene probably began when it was a stopping off point for people on their way to Band on the Wall.

In 1979, a now legendary John Peel interview with Ian Curtis took place here, weaving The Castle further into the fabric of Manchester’s musical heritage. Sadly, The Castle fell on hard times and closed it’s doors in 2008. This cherished public house was not to remain closed for long though, and in 2009 friends Jonny Booth and Rupert Hill took over The Castle Hotel and set about bringing the decrepit building back to life.

After a period of restoration which saw the infamous leaky roof replaced and the pub’s entire interior sympathetically brought back in line with it’s rich heritage, the renovation was completed in October 2010 with the grand unveiling of the new Music Hall and Theatre at In The City 2010.

So that’s the story so far. And now The Castle Hotel is ready for it’s next chapter; one which will see this historical drinking house continue to evolve at the beating heart of Manchester’s creative communities. So come along, pull up a stool, and become a part of our story.

66 Oldham Street,

Manchester,

Greater Manchester,

England,

M4 1LE.

0161 237 9485