LIVE: YAK – 14/10/2017

-NIGHT AND DAY CAFE, MANCHESTER- Arriving at the wonderful Night & Day Café in the nick of time tonight, I take my place in the middle of the sizeable crowd, most of which it can be assumed have been here (or at least been out somewhere) for a few hours already. There is a crackle […]
-BAND ON THE WALL, MANCHESTER- Superorganism embody everything it means to be a band in the 21st century: they met online through internet forums and once their messages started to solidify into a song it wasn’t long until they were exploiting your algorithms. The eight-piece are borderless, with members from Australia, New Zealand, America, Japan […]

LIVE: SUPERORGANISM – 14/10/2017

LIVE: PLACEBO – 11/10/2017

-ALBERT HALL, MANCHESTER- Placebo were due to play the Empress Ballroom in Blackpool until worries about the venue’s roof meant it was forced to close. Due to some last minute changes of plan, the closest similarly sized venue was the Albert Hall in Manchester. It might not be that close (proximity-wise) to Blackpool but it’s […]
-ALBERT HALL, MANCHESTER- Slowdive formed way back in 1989 and released their first album Just a Day in 1991. Two subsequent albums shortly followed before various members departed, going on to work on various projects including the band Mojave 3. Their last record was released a whole 22 years ago, yet unlike many other bands […]

LIVE: SLOWDIVE / BLANCK MASS – 10/10/2017

LIVE: ULRIKA SPACEK – 10/10/2017

– SOUP KITCHEN, MANCHESTER-  Back from a tour of Europe, Reading’s Ulrika Spacek are back in Manchester with a second album under their belts, Modern English Decoration. A more polished article than their first album – guitars are beautifully woven together with gentle vocals, similar to Deerhunter, with gritty guitars and relentlessly addictive beats. White […]
-ST. ANNE’S CHURCH, MANCHESTER- Tonight, I’m seeing Andy McKee for the second time in Manchester. The first being at Gorilla late last year, in which Andy advised he may not be back for a while in order to work on a new album. I’m glad that plan seems to have changed and I’m able to […]

LIVE: ANDY McKEE – 03/10/2017

LIVE: VESSELS – 05/10/2017

-SOUP KITCHEN, MANCHESTER- I remember really getting into math and post rock in 2008 which was when Leeds outfit Vessels released their debut album. It was a perfect marriage of the two sub-genres and naturally I thought it was ace. Fast forward a few years and I went to see the quintet at a festival, […]
-THE EAGLE INN, SALFORD- Tonight is the first time I’ll be seeing Jen Cloher, the first time Jen Cloher will play in Manchester and the first time I’ll be attending a gig at the Eagle Inn in Salford. It’s good to try new things, especially when it comes to music. However, Jen is anything but […]

LIVE: JEN CLOHER / CABLE TIES – 29/09/2017

LIVE – LIVERPOOL INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF PSYCHEDELIA 2017

There’s still time to fit in another festival this year, isn’t there? This ‘summer’ has been like an extended autumn anyhow, so it doesn’t really make a difference. Spending the weekend in an industrial estate not far from Liverpool city centre and the docks has become an annual ritual for me, and a must – […]
-MANCHESTER ARENA- There’s a part near the beginning of the recent Nick Cave documentary, which charts the making of Skeleton Tree, his latest album with the Bad Seeds, in which he says: “Isn’t it the invisible things, the lost things, that have so much mass? And are as big as the universe?” Cave has recently suffered […]

LIVE: NICK CAVE AND THE BAD SEEDS – 25/09/2017