Draft:The White Hotel (arts venue)

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The White Hotel is an independent arts and music venue and nightclub in Salford, England. It was founded in 2016 in an industrial unit that was previously a vehicle repair garage and is located in the shadow of HMP Manchester.

It was born out of illegal arts events hosted in an adjacent space known as The Bunker that was associated with the Manchester based SWAYS record label.

The venue takes its name from DM Thomas’ 1981 novel of Freudian erotic fantasy.

It has built an enviable reputation for revitalizing Manchester’s nightlife, its community driven approach acting as a hub for experimental music scenes and its anarchistic approach to conventional commercialism.[1][2][3][4][5]

It has generated praise across a broad spectrum of news and cultural online and print media. The Face magazine has called The White Hotel ‘the UK’s best underground club’[6], Vice magazine said ‘Salford was the hottest place in the UK to party right now’[7], Alan Davey the Controller of BBC Radio 3 talking to BBC Music Magazine described the venue as “the atmospheric home of exploratory music of all kinds”[8] and Michel Gaubert the Head of Music at Chanel said the following to British Vogue magazine “The White Hotel. That’s where everything is happening. That’s where you should go. It’s in Salford. It used to be a garage, and then it was turned into a club. It’s very derelict, it’s not a glamorous place, but it has so much energy to it, and they have lots of cool people coming to play there. It’s quite impressive”[9].


Artists and musicians that are frequently associated with the venue include Afrodeutsche, Blackhaine, Iceboy Violet, Space Afrika, Rainy Miller, Austin Collings and Manchester Collective[4][10][11][12][8][13].


The venue also generates and self-produces its own idiosyncratic arts productions, most notably its Salford and Gomorrah music series and its Art of Crime series; spanning film, art installations, film and talks that explores work that blurs the boundaries between art and criminality[14][15][16][5].

The White Hotel has a history of not shying away from the risk of public controversy as a consequence of exercising its artistic freedoms. In 2018 the venue staged a word for word re-enactment of the funeral of Diana Princess of Wales, complete with funeral procession and a Mexican Mariachi band performing Elton John’s Candle In The Wind[17][18] that was castigated as ‘sick and twisted’ across numerous British mainstream tabloid newspapers[19][20][21][22]. In 2023 the venue staged the theatre production Being Purple Aki, a one woman show based on a regionally infamous North West of England character Akinwale Arobieke[23][24].


HEAD II is The White Hotel’s subsidiary record label that was founded in 2020 and takes its name from a painting by the artist Francis Bacon[25]. In 2021 HEAD II released Blackhaine’s 'And Salford Falls Apart’ record[25][26] and Rainy Miller’s 'Desquamation (Fire.Burn.Nobody)' record in 2022[27]. Later that year Blackhaine was voted Mixmag’s Live Act of The Year[28] and Rainy Miller’s record was chosen in BBC 6 Music, Crack magazine and Dazed magazine's Album of the Year lists[29][30][31].

In 2021 the team behind The White Hotel opened a sister site, Peste, a bar, bookshop and event space in New Cross, Manchester, England[32].

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Manchester's White Hotel is the city's experimental centre". Mixmag. Retrieved 2024-05-16.
  2. ^ Rymajdo, Kamila (2017-07-05). "Salford is the Most Exciting Place to Party in the UK Right Now". Vice. Retrieved 2024-05-16.
  3. ^ Mason·Reviews·, Julia (2024-04-14). "LIVE: Maruja / Mount Palomar - The White Hotel, Salford, 12 And 13/04/2024 - God Is In The TV". Retrieved 2024-05-16.
  4. ^ a b "The North West's underground music scene is thriving". The Face. 2021-09-01. Retrieved 2024-05-16.
  5. ^ a b "Funeral of Diana Princess of Wales, White Hotel, reviewed". Confidentials. Retrieved 2024-05-16.
  6. ^ "Thee Birth unites ritual and rave at the UK's best underground club". The Face. 2023-04-25. Retrieved 2024-05-16.
  7. ^ Rymajdo, Kamila (2017-07-05). "Salford is the Most Exciting Place to Party in the UK Right Now". Vice. Retrieved 2024-05-16.
  8. ^ a b "Manchester's best music venues and performing arts spaces". www.classical-music.com. Retrieved 2024-05-16.
  9. ^ Holgate, Mark (2023-12-08). "Chanel's Métiers d'Art Show Had a Playlist to Fit the Manchester Mood". Vogue. Retrieved 2024-05-16.
  10. ^ Quietus, The (2022-01-24). "Hardcore Trust Fall: Iceboy Violet Interviewed". The Quietus. Retrieved 2024-05-16.
  11. ^ "Listen to a dark and driving mix by electro experimentalist Afrodeutsche". Red Bull. 2018-11-21. Retrieved 2024-05-16.
  12. ^ Goldsmith-Rybka, Yvonne (2017-04-12). "Worker Bee: meet Austin Collings, the Salford writer". I Love Manchester. Retrieved 2024-05-16.
  13. ^ "Opinion - Stop sh*gging the Hacienda". Confidentials. Retrieved 2024-05-16.
  14. ^ Lengden, Bradley (2023-01-12). "The Podcast Wars brings perception-bending live theatre to the White Hotel". Manchester Wire. Retrieved 2024-05-16.
  15. ^ McFarlane, Wolf (2023-08-09). "'Art of Crime/Crime of Art: BEING PURPLE AKI' explores the human cost of online crime-solving at The White Hotel". Manchester Wire. Retrieved 2024-05-16.
  16. ^ McFarlane, Wolf (2024-01-18). "'What's Done is Dunn' explores the incredible life of Britain's greatest prankster at The White Hotel". Manchester Wire. Retrieved 2024-05-16.
  17. ^ Rymajdo, Kamila; Heaton, George (2018-09-13). "The Princess Diana Funeral Reenactment Was as Odd as It Sounds". Vice. Retrieved 2024-05-16.
  18. ^ Simpson, Dave (2018-09-12). "Diana's funeral: re-enacted in Salford with Jill Dando and a mariachi band". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2024-05-16.
  19. ^ "Princess Diana funeral remake with Mexican mariachi band sparks fury". Express.co.uk. 2018-09-07. Retrieved 2024-05-16.
  20. ^ Mcfadden, Brendan (2018-09-07). "Artist holds re-enactment of Princess Diana's funeral". Mail Online. Retrieved 2024-05-16.
  21. ^ Bieber, Nicholas (2018-08-29). "Princess Diana to be 'EXORCISED' in 'sick and twisted' FUNERAL re-enactment". Daily Star. Retrieved 2024-05-16.
  22. ^ Shipman, Alex (2018-09-09). "Princess Diana 'exorcised' in "sick" reenactment of funeral with smashed up car". The Mirror. Retrieved 2024-05-16.
  23. ^ Pellant, Georgina (2023-08-11). "A play about muscle squeezer 'Purple Aki' is coming to Salford". The Manc. Retrieved 2024-05-16.
  24. ^ Pritchard, Holly (2023-08-09). "A play about 'Purple Aki' is coming to Greater Manchester next month". Retrieved 2024-05-16.
  25. ^ a b Bruce-Jones, Henry (2021-10-29). "Blackhaine stalks Saddleworth Moor in the ominous 'Saddleworth'". Fact Magazine. Retrieved 2024-05-16.
  26. ^ "Blackhaine: the bleak, brilliant Lancashire rapper-dancer hired by Kanye West". The Guardian. 2022-01-18. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2024-05-16.
  27. ^ "Rainy Miller's "July iii" feels like a new start". The FADER. Retrieved 2024-05-16.
  28. ^ "The 15 Top Live Acts Of The Year 2022". Mixmag. Retrieved 2024-05-16.
  29. ^ Dazed (2022-12-16). "The 20 best albums of 2022". Dazed. Retrieved 2024-05-16.
  30. ^ "Best albums of 2022: Our pick of the top records". Crack Magazine. Retrieved 2024-05-16.
  31. ^ "BBC Radio 6 Music's Album Of The Year 2022 is… Kendrick Lamar's Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers". www.bbc.com. Retrieved 2024-05-16.
  32. ^ Lengden, Bradley (2024-04-03). "Hidden gems: Peste — The bar and bookshop from the White Hotel". Manchester Wire. Retrieved 2024-05-16.
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