Access Key Details Other music to be found around Stockport includes Vernon (Formerly Poynton) Brass Band, Poynton Youth Brass Band, Fairey Band, another dead web site, this time for Stockport Silver Band, Elmfield Band, dead website for Stockport Recorder College, and a steel drum band the Stockport Pantonic All Stars. And more.
Stockport is home to the recently refurbished (and ongoing...) Plaza Super Cinema, whose website is unfortunately very badly presented and far from accessible or useable, but the building is a magnificent 1932 Art Deco Super Cinema with colour changing hidden lighting, a fairly shallow stage and cinema screen. The Plaza Cafe is now open 10-4 Mon-Sat with a cup of tea for a couple of pounds and possibly the most expensive baked potatoes in Greater Manchester, but served in a magnificent art deco 1932 setting (but I really don't believe that the 1932 cafe served smoked salmon sandwiches did it? Whatever happened to cucumber sandwiches....).
Hello local bands- how about updating your websites every few months? Somebody must be able to! Or drop me a line with your latest concerts. Hmmm?
We have also Stockport Youth Orchestra- (the actual concerts sometimes differ totally from what the website and posters advertise!) and Stockport Youth Wind Orchestra (their 2009 musical director is fond of very loud drums, which I find an odd addition to a Wind orchestra, but there you go...), and Werneth Concert Band (whose musical director isn't happy unless some choir or other perform with the band, not always advertised).
Brass Band news is available from 4 Bars Rest
Concerts held at Stockport Town Hall on one page. Not always accurate- sometimes list concerts that don't happen or get the times wrong (not always the right days either... best to ring them before travelling, as recommended on the web page
The BBC have a number of audio and video feeds- links to live radio and radio programs on demand are now spread all over their web site, but this BBC page - has links to each station- you just have to know in advance which station carries a program you want. Many shows remain available for seven days using the "Listen again" option which requires javascript. . NOTE: The BBC have indicated they will be dropping RealPlayer support in 2010 in favour of wma.
To download old radio (OTR) MP3s, visit RadioLovers.com - with so many OTR sites now only offering paid for services or streams, it is nice to report that Internet Archive OTR has a growing collection, of often superior quality MP3s.
An interesting and nicely coded OTR website is OTRCAT.com, who get a mention for the cat, also for the very large collection of mostly US old time radio programmes, together with some info on each programme. With so many programmes on offer, the principal source of supply is CD (audio or MP3) which also pays for the bandwidth, but there is also a sample of each show available to download, plus an interesting "on this day" feature with shows from today's date from previous decades. Unlike some OTR sites you are not forced to the dubious charms of Paypal but can use the arguably safer medium of cash (or even credit card). (To avoid any misunderstanding- no link on my website is sponsored or paid for in any way - OTRCAT offers an affiliate program which I do not participate in. Their link is here on merit.)
Another source of free OTR downloads is Tennessee Bills Old Time Radio Libary. Huge number of radio shows plus old cylinders and records.
A useful source of UK radio feeds is Radiofeeds. If your browser does not support the protocols, links to rtsp addresses can be pasted into Realplayer whilst addresses in the form mms can be pasted into Mediaplayer. Addresses of the form http://43.43.43.43/radioname require the very latest Windows Media Player.