US30 - Thirty years on, the mission has been substantially accomplished
As we celebrate 30 years in business, we’re hearing from friends of Urban Splash, with tales from those who’ve been a part of our journey.
Today, we hear from author and well-known Manchester PR man Andy Spinoza who reflects on his memories of the city and US.
How Tom Bloxham and I ended up knowing each other and working together does not start, strangely enough, with our mutual education at the University of Manchester. I studied there a bit before him, and even though our times there crossed, I was too interested in hanging with the wannabe journos in the Oxford Road union building than browsing the poster stalls in the main hall where Tom started his entrepreneurial empire.
It was, in fact, a razor-wielding barber that brought us together. Dave Gerrard, the tattooed rockabilly who styled Morrissey and Marr’s hair, and in the mid-80s was doing his best with mine at his Affleck’s Palace old school barber shop.
While snipping away, Demon Dave would regale me with colourful tales of the poster king’s generosity in the Hacienda cocktail bar, where he would hold court with his entourage of staff, suppliers and celebs - something I seem to have missed out on as I was either watching indie bands or, later, throwing my arms in the air on the dance floor. Years later, I met his urbane partner Jonathan Falkingham and found him to be equally generous with his time and his hospitality.
When reporting for the Manchester Evening News from 1988, my daily Diary page high-lighted on the emerging bright sparks around town. Who could ignore the growing influence of Urban Splash and its colourful co-founder? So it was Tom and I met in pubs and new bars like Atlas and Dukes 92, in creatives’ congregations fulminating at Manchester’s abysmal “Up and Going” city branding. “You cannot be serious,” we shouted at Manchester’s leaders, who saw sense and let Tom and other wise design heads in on the regeneration game.
Tom, for all that he knows how to really throw a party, was deadly serious…I remember the launches of Smithfield Buildings, next to Affleck’s, and Sally’s Yard, which he and pals chanced on while finding their way home from the Hacienda in the wee small hours.
When I set up my PR firm in 1998, Urban Splash was one of our first clients, and our work took in the early days of New Islington, before he quickly realised that his mission was of a scale which needed more PR than any agency could deliver. He took the function in-house, though of his promotional genius we could say that he took Urban Splash’s PR inside his very being.
In my book Manchester unspun, I try to show how city-building was at the very heart of the Hacienda; its first membership form read: ‘Intention: to create a sense of place’ and Tony Wilson regarded Tom as a fellow collaborator in the re-imagining of Manchester. Thirty years on, that mission has been substantially accomplished. Given that property, like life, is never always a smooth ride, my book tries to describe Urban Splash’s ups and downs even-handedly and honestly, for posterity. And Tom, ever generous of spirit, and totally committed to city building, is still talking to me…I think.
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