Manchester Music Mooch explores the much-missed The Roadhouse

Oldham Street is Manchester’s vinyl spine...

The Northern Quarter is a place full of culture and madness - there's tons of the stuff here. It's also retained its edginess. On match days Oldham St. is bonkers. In fact, it is most days.

Oldham St. has long been a mecca for vinyl addicts (not flooring, records) with its concentration of shops including Piccadilly Records, Vinyl Exchange, Clampdown, Vinyl Revival, (the relocated) Eastern Bloc, and the defunct Butterfly Music and Fat City Records - all within a hundred yards or so. Of course, once there was Dry Bar, too. Factory Records' own drinkery and eatery, also now closed.

Dry Bar flyer, 1992
Credit: Andy Bradford / MDMArchive

Eastern Bloc warehouse party ticket, 1988
Credit: TinTin / MDMArchive

Fat City flyer, 1997
Credit: Cornish Chris / MDMArchive

BC Camplight flyer, 2019
Credit: Sugarbug Shaw / MDMArchive

Scroll down to see the Mooch NQ locations, and be sure to check out the interesting shops, such as Bags of Flavour, and great venues such as Matt & Phreds (superb jazz joint), the incredible Night & Day Cafe and the wonderful Gullivers. It's always worth checking out to see what bands are playing at all these venues, they have some cracking gigs.

We at the MMM wholly recommend a refreshment break in the wonderful Sugar Junction on Tib Street for some delicious coffee 'n cake.

If Manchester’s Northern Quarter has a spirit animal, it’s probably Luke Una.

For over 30 years Luke Una has mooched the streets of the NQ. He lived just a slipmat's throw from Stevenson Square and spent the early 90s working at veggie cafe / vintage emporium 'POP' ("veggie sausage doorstop sandwich and the first vegan latte in the UK"), and of course deejayed at many of the clubs and bars in the proximity.

With Luke on the decks, Tuesday night became something that felt like Mardi Gras with crap weather.

Sheffield-born but Manchester-made, Luke cut his teeth with The Unabombers and their legendary Electric Chair club nights, turning forgotten basements into temples of sweat and sonic anarchy. From there came Homoelectric, a gloriously messy, defiantly queer night that embodied the Quarter’s scrappy soul—welcoming misfits, outsiders, and anyone who just wanted to lose themselves in the music. The Northern Quarter wasn’t just his playground; it was his canvas, and Luke splashed it with every colour on the musical spectrum: cosmic jazz, Afrobeat, house, Italo disco, and whatever weird treasure he’d just dug out of a dusty crate at the Vinyl Exchange.

During the Covid times when the clubs went dark, Luke kept the Quarter’s pulse alive with hilarious Instagram rants and all-night vinyl sermons, half genius, half shambles, but always authentic.

Luke Una’s Worldwide FM show is very much an extension of his personality: unpredictable, funny, deeply eclectic, and rooted in the idea that music should make you feel.

His reach stretches from Manchester to global dancefloors via his É Soul Cultura compilations, but the Northern Quarter remains his spiritual HQ. Its dive bars, graffiti walls and record shops mirror his philosophy: inclusive, eclectic, chaotic in the best way.