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

-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 […]
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 – […]

LIVE – LIVERPOOL INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF PSYCHEDELIA 2017

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

-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 […]
-APOLLO, MANCHESTER- I first listened to The National’s music at my brother’s place in Leeds not long after the band’s third album Alligator had come out. Heading out afterwards into that Saturday afternoon’s bright sunlight I couldn’t stop singing the “sunglasses” line from the record’s opening track ‘Secret Meeting’. And that’s how it is with […]

LIVE: THE NATIONAL – 22/09/2017

LIVE: THE MURLOCS – 20/09/2017

-DEAF INSTITUTE, MANCHESTER- For a harmonica-playing psych-enthusiast, Melbourne band The Murlocs were essentially a dream come true.  I immediately fell for Ambrose Kenny-Smith’s snarling vocals and classic bluesman swagger, and the garage guitars. They were also my introduction to the wonderful Flightless record label – an introduction that led me to King Gizzard and the […]
-THE EAGLE INN, SALFORD- The only people in Salford’s hidden pearl The Eagle Inn tonight who are shocked by the high turnout are the band themselves. Several times throughout their brisk, whistle-stop set, the Brooklyn quartet appear charmingly elated by the fact that a hundred or so strangers from such a faraway place know about […]

LIVE: CHARLY BLISS – 19/09/2017

LIVE: LCD SOUNDSYSTEM – 16/09/2017

-STORE STREET WAREHOUSE, MANCHESTER- Now and again I can be prone to hyperbole when talking about music, such is my enthusiasm for certain bands. But, dear reader, hear me out here: LCD Soundsystem have just won music with their first night (of two) opening this year’s Warehouse Project season. Everyone else should just pack up […]
-APOLLO, MANCHESTER- WARNING: I am a Ryan Adams fan boy, so this review will mainly be a gushing fan letter to one of the greatest songwriters of the last 20 years. With that out the way, and you duly forewarned, let’s continue… I love Ryan Adams. There, I said it. He came into my life […]

LIVE: RYAN ADAMS – 14/09/2017

LIVE: ALVVAYS – 07/09/2017

-GORILLA, MANCHESTER- On the eve of the release of their second album ‘Antisocialites’, Canadian dream-poppers Alvvays (pronounced “Always”, as you would imagine) are stopping off at the wonderful Gorilla to give us a preview of their new material. Not having heard anything from the new LP but the couple of singles they’ve released over the […]
-ALBERT HALL, MANCHESTER- New York City in 2002 and Interpol released their debut album, Turn on The Bright Lights. I wasn’t there. It’s hardly surprising considering I was eight at the time and over three thousand miles away. Say what you will about anniversary tours, but it gives fans like me a chance to see something we’d […]

LIVE: INTERPOL – 03/09/2017