LIVE: JESCA HOOP – 26/03/2011

– THE DEAF INSTITUTE, MANCHESTER – Looking like she has just arrived at Trof this evening by Gothic Express, Jesca Hoop cuts a rather striking mystical figure on stage bare footed and clad in a flowing black dress. This North Californian songstress now decamped to Manchester for the past two years after persuasion from our […]
– BAND ON THE WALL, MANCHESTER – It looks like 2011 is the year that James Blake ate the pies.  I expect  the svelte foppish-haired waif that I’ve seen peer out of press photos, but the man who takes the stage alongside fellow traveller Rob McAndrews (guitar and sampler), minus Ben Assiter, who often provides […]

LIVE: JAMES BLAKE – 26/03/2011

LIVE: THE ANSWERING MACHINE – 24/03/2011

– SOUND CONTROL, MANCHESTER – Honing guitar fuzz and bright-eyed lyrics into hooky, melodic songs, The Answering Machine are a band that Manchester can be proud of. Having quietly helped restore indie pop’s good name with cuts such as ‘Obviously Cold’, ‘Animals’ and the title track of new album ‘Lifeline’, tonight’s rescheduled gig had gained […]
– THE ECHO ARENA, LIVERPOOL – Band as territory. Discuss.  I’m gonna be honest with you. Declare a vested interest, if you like. I’ve got a long standing love affair with Elbow. Wholly unrequited, but never mind. Each time their tours come round, I watch on with increasing incredulity thinking “It can’t get any bigger […]

LIVE REVIEW: Elbow – 20/03/2011

LIVE: HANNAH PEEL/LOVED ONES/RACHAEL & THE RED SOCKS – 19/03/2011

– CROSS STREET CHAPEL, MANCHESTER – Here’s the great thing about getting to a gig in time to see the support bands. Nine times out of ten, it’s some bunch of spotty ne’er-do-wells churning out their take on whatever the vogue is this week. No matter, you’ve only lost thirty minutes of your life to […]
– ACADEMY 2, MANCHESTER – Iron & Wine are now coming to the end of their UK tour. They have been promoting their new album ‘Kiss Each Other Clean’ from which their new single ‘Walking Far From Home’ is taken. Lyrically, this single is slightly weaker than other songs on the album, but the music […]

LIVE: IRON & WINE – 15/03/2011

LIVE: DEBT RECORDS SHOWCASE IN AID OF NORDOFF ROBBINS – 13/03/2011

– BAND ON THE WALL, MANCHESTER – Debt Records is a creative co-operative that ‘swaps favours, trades skills and shares round the good fortune of our individual members.’  By birthright, the in-effect music label is the love child of three members of ‘Louis Barabas & the Bedlam Six ’ (Who were also one of the […]
– ACADEMY 3, MANCHESTER – Academy 3 Manchester is in alcohol slicked high spirits, though the sort that could end in a drunken sing-song with a ephemeral best friend or spirited scrap outside the men’s toilets, depending entirely on whether somebody steps on your shoes or not. And they’re not sure what to make of […]

LIVE: CAITLIN ROSE – 12/03/2011

LIVE: THE DECEMBERISTS – 11/03/2011

  – THE ACADEMY, LEEDS – Few bands are quite so deeply unfashionable and misconstrued as The Decemberists. Though the NME grudgingly (and correctly) conceded that their charm permeated out as: “They transposed wordy Victorian melodrama onto folky sea shanties. But at least once they had a snappy poetic sensibility and an admirable interest in […]
– ACADEMY 3, MANCHESTER – Bam! £25 gone just like that for a ticket from a tout that costs £7 at face value. And now for the key question that I will be asking myself for the rest of the night: does this make me a fuck wit?! I’m quite used to weaseling my way […]

LIVE: THE NAKED AND FAMOUS – 08/03/2011