LIVE:BEAR IN HEAVEN – 22/04/2010

– THE DEAF INSTITUTE, MANCHESTER – Brooklyn is currently well established as a creative hotspot, particularly for US indie and experimental music. The members of tonight’s headlining act, Bear In Heaven hail from Georgia and Alabama but relocated to Brooklyn, where they have developed an exhilarating sound which combines psych, minimalist pop and krautrock and […]
– THE NIGHT & DAY CAFE, MANCHESTER – Taking to the stage with a minimum of fuss (in fact, starting to play with no discernable break between tune-up and opening song), I Concur immediately, if innocently established themselves as the shoegazer’s shoegazers. But what the quartet may lack in magnetism, they account for with their […]

LIVE: I CONCUR – 22/04/2010

LIVE: THE PRIMITIVES – 20/04/2010

– MOHO LIVE, MANCHESTER – Moho Live is one of Manchester’s newer underground venues with uber cool design, right in the heart of the Northern Quarter. It’s a decent size and is typical of many former mill basements, in that you’ll have to put up with obscured views from the iron pillars holding the rest […]
– THE RUBY LOUNGE, MANCHESTER – The last time I saw Angus and Julia Stone play Manchester, it was in the basement of the Bay Horse. The candlelit room was scattered with old chairs and chaise longes and the brother-sister duo wooed their small, but happy, audience with free milk and cookies. Their performance was […]

LIVE: ANGUS AND JULIA STONE – 20/04/2010

LIVE: IDLEWILD – 18/04/2010

– MOHO LIVE, MANCHESTER – Four young lads, aged around ten or eleven, are having a game of football in a Levenshulme street, when one of them unleashes a volley that even the saintly Carlos Tevez would be proud of. It smashes into the corner of the goal and into the right wing mirror of […]
– THE DEAF INSTITUTE, MANCHESTER – First off I would like to say that The Deaf Institute is a truly fantastic venue to go and see live music. I’m sure that many of you reading this will already know that of course, but I’m getting it off my chest regardless. The stage is the perfect […]

LIVE: THE STRANGE BOYS – 17/04/2010

LIVE: KRAFTY KUTS – 17/04/2010

– SOUND CONTROL, MANCHESTER – Best known for spinning Breakbeat, Krafty Kuts has had a long and successful career, as a DJ, promoter and producer. From Brighton, his career took off when Norman Cook signed his record ‘Gimme the Funk’ to his Southern Fried label. He has lived the DJ dream, playing to audiences around […]
– THE RUBY LOUNGE, MANCHESTER – With all the ’80s nostalgia going on at the moment, I was fully expecting a dose of it at the Ruby Lounge tonight. Rolled up jeans, hairbands, there was even a Bananarama-style jump suit on offer. I don’t condone it, but maybe that is because I suffered it the […]

LIVE: DARWIN DEEZ – 15/04/2010

LIVE: ROLO TOMASSI – 12/04/2010

– THE ROADHOUSE, MANCHESTER – What, with having a job, and enjoying things like showers and evening meals, I can’t make the 6pm doors at the Roadhouse. I’ve missed ‘Throats’, but a friend tells me it was ‘like being sonically raped’, so maybe that pie wasn’t such a bad idea after all. Alex, the singer […]
– CLUB ACADEMY, MANCHESTER – Although Robyn Hitchcock has been releasing records since 1981, I have to be honest that he has only just come to my attention with the release of his latest album, ‘Propeller Time’. I heard ‘Sickie Boy’ – the latest single from the album – on BBC 6 Music, and the […]

LIVE: ROBYN HITCHCOCK & THE VENUS 3 – 11/04/2010