LIVE: WILLY MASON – 21/09/2010

– THE DEAF INSTITUTE, MANCHESTER – The first time Willy Mason toured the UK, he was a fresh-faced 19 year-old from Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. Armed only with a guitar and a small rucksack of clothes, he slept on floors and sold roughly-mixed demos of stripped-down, Dylan-esque odes to politics, society and the love of a […]
– SOUND CONTROL, MANCHESTER – There’s a Ziggy Stardust moment at tonight’s concert, about half way through. Liam Frost – who seems to be thoroughly enjoying himself on stage -suddenly says, between songs: “this is the last time I’m going to be singing these songs and doing this for a while”. I pretty much spit […]

LIVE: LIAM FROST – 20/09/2010

LIVE: RAGHU DIXIT – 19/09/2010

– BAND ON THE WALL, MANCHESTER – As I wander through the half-filled, refurbished environs of The Band on the Wall, I gaze up at the Indian dropout, hippies onstage who seem to have been sent here through a time warp from the 1960s (via the 1980s). Decked in washed out, bleeding baggy clothes, string […]
– THE PALACE THEATRE, MANCHESTER – It’s hard to believe that the Saruman lookalike in the floral shirt in front of me is the same Roy Haper Led Zeppelin wrote a song for called ‘Hats Off to (Roy) Harper’, who sang on Pink Floyd’s ‘Have a Cigar’, and who reportedly inspired Kate Bush, Pete Townsend […]

LIVE: JOANNA NEWSOM & ROY HARPER – 18/09/2010

LIVE: RECKLESS LOVE – 18/09/2010

– MOHO LIVE, MANCHESTER – While the probability of a full-blown glam revival is close to nil, the world will always clear a space in its diary for a balls-out good time. The difference with Reckless Love is that rather than simply exhuming crudeness, tonight’s party-loving Finns call on a wide range of 80s rock […]
– NIGHT & DAY CAFE, MANCHESTER – If the Night & Day was a boat it would have capsized by now, such is the weight of people at the back of the room scrambling to get out of the way of Milk Maid. Being hardy souls here at Silent Radio, though, we glide towards the […]

LIVE: SKY LARKIN/DUTCH UNCLES/MILK MAID – 16/09/2010

LIVE: BLACK MOUNTAIN – 15/09/2010

– ACADEMY 3, MANCHESTER – Black Mountain are about to blow my brain out the back of my head and then reassemble it differently, like some epiphanous trip that I will never understand. Afterwards I will see that they have the wisdom of the gods. For reasons unbeknown to me, the band skulk past the […]
– BAND ON THE WALL, MANCHESTER – Expectations are high tonight; three of the northwest’s finest contemporary, yet traditional music acts are on the same lineup. Homelife are playing as I walk in. Paddy Steer is tucked in the corner, in amongst a large selection of percussion and electrical equipment. Anton Burns sings with his […]

LIVE: DENIS JONES/NANCY ELIZABETH/HOMELIFE – 09/09/2010

LIVE: NEON INDIAN – 04/09/2010

– THE DEAF INSTITUTE, MANCHESTER – In case you don’t know Neon Indian are a hotly tipped band from Texas, producing ‘chill wave’. Chill Wave is, from my experience of it, what we used to call ‘ambient electronic music’ and actually sounds a little like the score to films like ‘Ladyhawke’ or ‘Labyrinth 2’ from […]
– THE RUBY LOUNGE, MANCHESTER – What a difference five years makes. Rewind to 2005 and The Like were a very different outfit. Looking like they had wafted in from the set of The Virgin Suicides, the Cali-London three-piece swooned their way through ‘Are You Thinking What I’m Thinking?’, a veritable pick n’ mix of […]

LIVE: THE LIKE – 03/09/2010