'A cigarette paper away from greatness': Tributes to Jamie Nicholson, Hulme Crescents' 'unsung hero' of Manchester music

Jamie Nicholson had just moved into a four-bed flat on the top floor of Hulme's Charles Barry Crescent. It was a big place for someone living on their own.

But for what he had in mind he needed even more room. His solution was simple.

Without asking permission, Jamie, who died earlier this month aged 60, knocked down the wall to the adjoining flat and The Kitchen recording studio - and a key part of counter-culture Manchester - was born. Hulme Crescents in the mid-80s was the type of place where two council flats could be knocked together without anyone batting an eyelid.

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At the time Europe's largest housing estate was crumbling and largely derelict. The council had stopped charging rent and to all intents and purposes the vast concrete blocks had been abandoned by the authorities. It became a magnet for artists, druggies, musicians and squatters.

Ian Brown, A Guy Called Gerald, Mike Joyce from The Smiths, Mick Hucknall and Nico from the Velvet Underground all lived there at one time or another. Jamie, who grew up in Epsom, Surrey, moved to Manchester in 1982 to study maths and physics at university.

Music-obsessed and fiercely independent, he had begun recording bands while still a teenager. At university he's said to have lived on a diet of lentils so that almost every penny of his student grant could be spent on musical equipment.

And in Hulme Crescents he found the perfect place to harness his passion. "I think he went to Hulme because it offered him the space to be creative," Jamie's brother, Dr Lindsay Nicholson said.

"Recording equipment at that time was very expensive, accessing studio space was very expensive. Part of Jamie's sensibility was that he wanted to make the experience available at little or no cost."

In The Kitchen Jamie recorded the likes of the Ruthless Rap Assassins, Marcel King, Frank Sidebottom and the New Fast Automatic Daffodils among countless others. "It changed my life," said Mark Hoyle, frontman of the post-punk band Dub Sex, who recorded a demo there that was later picked up by John Peel, resulting in a record deal.

"The studio was so cramped and full of stuff you couldn't get in," Jamie's former partner and long-time friend Lily Laina Munster, singer with the band X Republic, said. "There was a hole in the door that you had to crawl through on all-fours."

By 1987 The Kitchen began to take on a second life. As ecstasy and the burgeoning dance scene began to take hold of Manchester's nightlife, it morphed into a ramshackle and illegal after-hours club where anything went.

Initially DJs such as Devious Devon, Derrick Cee and Gordon West threw 'Blues'-style underground parties there. Then along came the Jam MCs, Chris Jam and Tomlyn.

Soon up to 500 people would cram into the flats for parties that went on for days on end, played out to a soundtrack that took in house, funk, Balearic, dub and reggae.

The Happy Mondays, Stone Roses and New Order were regular faces, Sasha, Mike Pickering and Graeme Park played DJ sets. Hip hop legends Run DMC and Public Enemy are said to turned up one night after playing a gig in town.

"It was crazy," Jamie told the Guardian in 2023. "A jam room upstairs for musicians and then DJs downstairs."

But the good times didn't last. The Crescents were pretty lawless at the best of times.

By the late 80s Manchester was becoming druggier and more violent. Gangs were muscling in on the Acid House scene and soon had their eye on The Kitchen.

Jamie's studio kept getting broken into and his musical equipment was repeatedly stolen. The Kitchen's final party was held in 1989 and is said to have lasted for seven straight days and nights.

It carried on as a studio and occasional club until around 1992, but the halcyon days were over. "I hung on as long as I could," Jamie told the Guardian. "The studio got burgled and then burgled again and that was the end."

The following year demolition of The Crescents began. Jamie stuck around in Manchester until 1999 when he began splitting his time between Surrey and Hulme, where he kept a flat on the Red Bricks estate.

Prone to bouts of severe depression, he continued making music of his own but only occasionally recorded the work of others. A nature lover, he would spend hours walking his dogs while playing the flute.

He later developed an interest in synchronised swimming and worked for around five years as a swimming instructor, but was largely unable to hold down a regular job.

"He was a very complicated person," said Lindsay Nicholson. "He was very passionate and worked very hard for the things he believed in.

"But he was also fiercely counter-cultural and extremely intolerant of any kind of authority. If I had a criticism of Jamie it was that making money was right at the bottom of a long list of things he wanted to achieve.

"He found it hard to work within a structure. He didn't like being managed and was an extremely difficult person to manage."

For Mark Hoyle, Jamie was one of the 'great unsung heroes' of the Manchester scene. "I loved him," he said. "He was just a great guy. There was a childlike naivety to him.

"He had a lot of time for people and he thought the best of people, but unfortunately that meant he got taken advantage of a few times. He was well-educated, came from quite a well-off background, so he really stuck out against all the harsh Mancunian-ness of Hulme at the time.

"He was just a really lovely human being."

"Jamie always seemed ahead of his time," added Lily Munster. "When I heard the news [of his death] it felt like I'd been run over. It was such a shock."

Lindsay Nicholson said his brother lived life on his own terms. "There was a moment in Manchester where the music scene was really important and Jamie was a central part of that," he said.

"If he'd been slightly luckier it could have been something that could have sustained him. I sincerely believe he was a cigarette paper away from greatness. That's a source of huge sadness.

"He was uncompromising. He lived a life that many people would fail to understand, but I'm not sure you can make that assessment except on his own terms."

Jamie Nicholson died at home in Brocksworth, Surrey on June 4. He is survived by siblings Lindsay and Rebecca.

His funeral will be held at Randalls Park crematorium, Leatherhead, Surrey at 12.30pm on July 10. Friends in Manchester are planning a celebration of his life at the Nia arts centre in Hulme at a later date.