LIVE: SELF ESTEEM – 18/10/2019

-BAND ON THE WALL, MANCHESTER- What an absolute triumph this show is. Self Esteem (Rebecca Lucy Taylor to her mum) returns to Manchester after playing Yes earlier in the year for what is a kind of a victory lap for her brilliant debut album Compliments Please, and absolutely slays it. The packed out Friday night […]
-HOME, MANCHESTER- When the line-up for this year’s Manchester Folk Festival was announced, tonight’s show at HOME was the one I was most looking forward to. 2019 is the 200-year anniversary of the Peterloo massacre that took place at St. Peter’s Fields, a few minutes on foot from where I am now sat. Following on […]

LIVE: RISING UP! PETERLOO 2019 – 17/10/2019

LIVE: DECO RECORDS ALL-DAYER AT RETRO – 28/09/2019

-RETRO BAR, MANCHESTER- Akin to all alldayers of old, Deco pick and mix from an eclectic inventory of bands that vary in sonic and, unfortunately, qualitative terms. Allowing inexperienced bands to share the bill early on is admirable, affording them an opportunity to hone their craft and test their metaphoric mettle; yet as a spectator […]
-YES, MANCHESTER- Dear readers, I have recently returned from Poland’s absolutely unbelievable electronic music festival Unsound, and it’s fair to say my brain is slightly addled. Five days of 5am finishes, dancing the night away in a disused brutalist hotel in the middle of Krakow to some of the most exciting, cutting edge electronic music […]

LIVE: CHASTITY BELT – 16/10/2019

LIVE: BLACK MOUNTAIN / MASS DATURA – 15/10/2019

-SOUP KITCHEN, MANCHESTER- Mass Datura Suspect incense aside, the support act is the numerical equivalent of a half-dozen; they possess the standard line-up of bassist, drummer and guitarist; but to pad out the sound they have a synthe…sist, violinist and a handler of lap steel. The venue’s sound fails to properly accommodate the band’s ‘busy’ […]
-BAND ON THE WALL, MANCHESTER- Upon discovering that a 50 year old prog band with only half the original line up was coming to Manchester, I metaphorically crashed through a fence to get the opportunity: to see something so far removed from punk it might as well have been a harp troupe specialising in Indonesian […]

LIVE: FOCUS – 08/10/2019

LIVE: NEIGHBOURHOOD FESTIVAL 2019 – 12/10/2019

-VARIOUS VENUES, MANCHESTER- It’s the morning after my best mate’s 21st birthday and believe you me, my body is feeling it. The beautiful sight of a sunny Manchester (which is rare these days) is slowly curing my soul, and the inevitably incredible Neighbourhood Festival is the light at the end of the tunnel. The day […]
Skylark & The Scorpion have created the whole ‘Weather The Storm’ project to be enjoyed as both a film and soundtrack. The film was made in the depths of winter off the Scottish coast near Shetland, and stars the two musicians behind the whole concept Petra Jean Phillipson and Nick J. Webb as the roles […]

ALBUM REVIEW: SKYLARK & THE SCORPION – WEATHER THE STORM

LIVE: RICHARD HAWLEY – 07/10/2019

-ALBERT HALL, MANCHESTER- In the words of Chandler Bing, could things BE anymore Manchester, as I step out of my apartment building and step pretty straight into John Thomson, walking into the Dakota Hotel opposite. It’s a scene from Cold Feet (and indeed my street was in one of those luxurious pan shots across the […]
-BAND ON THE WALL, MANCHESTER- Bill Ryder-Jones (contractually obliged to say ‘formally of The Coral’ here – indeed he is playing a guitar with a strap adorned with their name) released a brilliant album, Yawn, last year, probably his best solo effort to date. Not content with that, he also released an entirely piano based version […]

LIVE: BILL RYDER-JONES – 06/10/2019