LIVE: ARAB STRAP – 14/10/2016

– THE RITZ, MANCHESTER – It may be the faint stirrings of Christmas commercialism or the sour aftermath of Brexit Britain but there seems no better time to welcome back our favourite Scottish curmudgeons Arab Strap.  The band have returned to celebrate their 20th anniversary with a handful of special live shows on the back […]
– SOUP KITCHEN, MANCHESTER – When the history books have been written and the BBC4 documentaries made about the world of alternative music in 2016, there will need to be entire sections dedicated to the ubiquity of psych rock. A movement that revolves around reinterpreting the music of the original wave of hallucinogenic, distorted underground […]

LIVE: ULRIKA SPACEK – 13/10/2016

LIVE: SPRING KING / GET INUIT – 14/10/2016

– ACADEMY 2, MANCHESTER – My back is up against the wall, adjacent to the bouncer, at a Friday night showcase of Spring King. I’d guess the modal age here is a good five years younger than myself as I cast my eyes towards opener Get Inuit. The crowd is tightly bunched towards the front, […]
– GULLIVERS, MANCHESTER – It feels like a 60’s love-in in the back room at Gullivers tonight, the majority of the crowd have taken to sitting on the floor of the intimate but packed space front of stage waiting for Yvette to start her set.  It’s a friendly atmosphere and everyone is comfortable and ready […]

LIVE: YVETTE YOUNG – 12/10/2016

LIVE: PARQUET COURTS – 10/10/2016

– ACADEMY 2, MANCHESTER – 285 Kent-by-way-of-Texas pseudo-slackers Parquet Courts have been consuming culture at an unnatural rate and spitting it back out just as fast since 2011 in an endless effort to move beyond prescriptive expectation and reflect the great distances between humanity and the claustrophobia of the concrete world, but according to bassist […]
– SOUP KITCHEN, MANCHESTER – There is a very loudly mic’d kick drum that first draws my attention to tonight’s support act Eugene Quell. I’ve missed opener Claw The Thin Ice due to a slightly gammy foot, the reason for both my late arrival and my choice to sit on a bench despite the crowd […]

LIVE: PITY SEX / EUGENE QUELL – 07/10/2016

LIVE: DESMADRADOS SOLDADOS DE VENTURA – 05/10/2016

– SOUP KITCHEN, MANCHESTER – Tonight’s Manchester psych band Desmadrados Soldados De Ventura’s have bulked out their music since their debut record, a two-sided eponymously-titled cassette released nearly four years ago. Few current bands can claim to have put out a 4LP edition, but such is the case with DSDV’s most recent release The Grand […]
– ACADEMY 1, MANCHESTER –  Making my way into the cramped hole that is the Academy, I begin to feel a sense of fear and excitement, not quite sure what to expect from tonight’s affair. The venue is filled to bursting point and I feel that maybe it is too small for the hundreds of […]

LIVE: BLOSSOMS – 30/09/2016

LIVE: THE KILLS – 29/09/2016

– THE ALBERT HALL, MANCHESTER – So The Kills have a similar name to The Killers which is confusing especially as they were making music around the same time, but The Kills are way cooler by virtue of many things including their line- up, a guy and a girl, the fact that the guitarist Jamie […]
– THE DEAF INSTITUTE, MANCHESTER – All Them Witches offer up a powerfully hypnotic blend of psychedelia, blues and hard rock to create a potion of staggering proportions. The four piece hailing from Nashville, USA grace the UK with their latest tour and Manchester’s Deaf Institute is their home for the evening. Their latest tour […]

LIVE: ALL THEM WITCHES – 03/10/2016