SMILE at the Star & Garter Weekend

SMILE returns to the Star & Garter at the end of June for a weekend of all-singing, all-dancing alternative anthems, celebrating the life of Andy Martin, the pub’s legendary licensee.

For this very special – and long-demanded weekend – the venue has brought back all your favourite SMILE DJs, plus DJs from the Star & Garter’s wildly successful Friday night parties, including The Smiths Disco, Keys Money Lipstick and more. We’re assured it’ll be a dressed-up, arms-in-the-air blowout. In the words of Smile playlist stalwarts Talking Heads: same as it ever was.

Friday night: Friends of S&G 
The Smiths Disco | Keys Money Lipstick | Kissing Just For Practice | Tied To The 90’s | Let’s Make This Precious

Saturday night: SMILE DJs 
Andy Woods | Jay Taylor | Jamie H | Neil & Anne-Marie | Dean Mitchell | Ian Clique

For this weekend-long event, the venue’s close-knit family of DJs and promoters from over the years, have teamed up for two nights of sticky-floored indie clubbing, to raise money for the family of the venue’s longstanding pub landlord, Andy Martin, who passed away recently after a short illness. Every penny made on the night will go towards his widow and two young children.

It’ll be the ideal way to celebrate the life of a titan of Manchester’s alternative clubland. As anyone who met him will attest, Andy was an old-school, working-class, principled man, who spent years fighting back against Network Rail’s tawdry attempt at a corporate takeover of this legendary Manchester venue – and won.

Peter Hook, Liam Fray, Sacha Lord, and many hundreds more have all paid tribute, and we have word of a typically old-school raffle, giving away festival tickets and other great prizes across both nights. If you can’t make it, donations to Andy’s family can be made here.

You can read more about the Star & Garter and Andy here (plus Ian Strawboss, Stu Taylor and all the other members of the S&G family) in a recent long-read article at The Mill or see photos of your misspent youth over at the recently-created Stargarterphotos Instagram account.