Hot Spots!

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A chance to pimp out some places you've been to which you think would interest others or need a bit more recognition!

Manchester
Affleck's Palace - Think all the cool and quirky markets stalls you've even seen, but all jammed together in a 3-4 story building. The stalls range from dressing up, goth, jewellery, hair stuff, clothes, bags, shoes, sports labels, piercing stands, barbers' stands, arcade games and other such stuff. It's mostly pretty cheap and just... amazing. I could spend the whole day, at least, in there.

Vinyl Exchange - It's a second-hand CD and DVD shop, all stock is good as new, but a fraction of the price. eg Auf Der Maur's self titled album is usually £17 in shops, but I got it for £4! They have a lot of the more "obscure" stuff (according to Phil, my music taste's obscure...), like Les Savy Fav and Aeon Spoke etc. I easily spent an hour and a half in there, and had only browsed through barely a third of the "indie" and "american rock" genres. The things in there are a real steal, and you can even sell or exchange you old CD/DVDs there, as well as simply buy stuffs.

Chester
The Bead Shop - pretty self-explanatory, but it also sells fab jewellery, cheap yet cool belts and other wuch accessories, as well as ribbon, sequins, feathers, masks and the suchlike. A real find in this city.

[Martin]

Wales.

It's pretty cool.

[distortion]

Groom's Bakery, Burnham Market

A nice little village bakery, with the best bread in Norfolk and a very good looking shop assistant.

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Brighton
Concorde2
It's a small little club along the seafront, with fab taste in booking bands/acts/singers/djs/etc. There's a real diverse mix in there, from well-knowns to local bands. It's mostly rock orientated, and all variations thereof. And, though it's small, it accomodates modest stage, mosh area, cool canopy (complete with pillars to use to kick-start your crowd-surfing), railed off "calm" area, bar and merch stand. Love the place. It's about a 30 minute walk (as far as I remember) from the trainstation, too.

[Luco El Loco]

Here we go...

Dungeon, Bevois Valley Road, Southampton
It's a club comprised of two and a half levels of pub. Yes, two and a half. It's like a big den with a bar basically. You have the top bar which is like a normal pub, with a small stage that gets occasionally used for dancing, but mostly a pool table is kept on it. Downstairs is the main club area. Then halfway between these two levels on the outer side is a quieter room. There is also an extended outside area with many of the tables covered over in a cabin style with speakers in the rooves.

Well, that's the building covered. The sort of music played is as follows: Wednesday is cheese night - cheap drinks and cheesy tunes presumably. I've only been once, years a go. Thursday is "Anoise" whatever that is... unless it simply translates as "a noise" hehe. They play goth, industrial and metal. NIN, Metallica and Rammstein a plenty, oh and that hardcore sh*te but we don't need to talk about that... Friday is rock/indie night as standard in many places. Then Saturday is rock/metal night with a little hip hop but not loads. You often get people rocking out to Alice Cooper and Bon Jovi on Saturdays.

They don't have live bands, but they have Phil, the DJ. Cloakroom is free. Drinks are fairly standard prices but certainly not a rip off. Adam can probably vouch for the relaxed vibe of the place although he hasn't been on a Thursday, which in my opinion is the best night.


The Hobbit
A pub just a couple of minutes up the road from Dungeon. They regularly put on live bands, and they have special pint c*cktails named after Lord Of the Rings characters, which I've not tried. They have a big patio area outside and the scary steps of death... you have to walk down these massive steps to get down there which must be impossible if you're drunk, to do safely. They also have a rockery and waterfall thing.

The Guildhall, Commercial Road, Southampton
This is the venue for the bigger acts and they get a good range of bands and performers attend. Recently I saw heavy metal legend Dio performing their anniversary tour sets.