Description

Ohio balladeer and story writer Austin Stambaugh is enriched with an authenticity that is magnetically keen. A modern pioneer of folk storytelling, his work has been called ?timeless and nuanced? by Lilly Hiatt who wrote, ?enjoy with the lights low?. Folk singer Tim Easton wrote: ?Austin Stambaugh is the best flatpicking songwriter you?ve never heard of, and I?ll stand on Steve Earle?s coffee table in my Redwing boots and say it.?

Stambaugh?s aesthetic is derived from his fascination with plain-spoken speech, timeless standards, and terrifying compositions that hold a listener in suspense. His artistry is displayed in his highly acclaimed studio album Midwest Supernatural (2023). Co-produced by Benjamin Tod of Lost Dog Street Band, the record resonates with critics and fans alike and led to collaborations with seminal modern folk archive Western AF, as well as supporting Benjamin Tod & Lost Dog Street Band on tour.

The following spring of 2024, Austin released electric visions of live recordings with his band The Electric Weepers. Elusive and shadowy, heavy and aloof, their debut document Way Down Here On Earth (2024) is released to East Nashville?s independent punk label Anti-Corp Records, and is the premier model of the obscure country music sound that stems from the northeast Ohio region.

Originally from northeast Ohio, he is now located in Nashville, TN, where he is busy writing and recording records. When not fronting his band The Electric Weepers he performs solo for audiences both regionally and internationally with a Martin D-35 uniquely his own.

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