LIVE: JENNY & JOHNNY – 01/12/2010

– THE RUBY LOUNGE, MANCHESTER – John and Yoko. Sonny and Cher. Er, them out of ABBA. Some of history’s best-loved music has been born from real-life couples, and you’d be forgiven for thinking this pair had been making more then just sweet music for longer than a couple of years. She is Jenny Lewis; […]
– THE NIGHT & DAY CAFE, MANCHESTER – As Tsar Nicholas II of Russia never said, life’s a funny old game. You arrive at Night & Day Café on the evening of December 1st, snow lying all around. There’s no heating. The headlining band you’ve risked a broken limb to see haven’t even made it, […]

LIVE: PICTURE BOOK – 01/12/2010

LIVE: BEST COAST – 29/11/2010

– THE RUBY LOUNGE, MANCHESTER – Call it Surf Pop, Noise Pop or Garage Rock, Best Coast are currently one of the best exponents of the genre. The key ingredient separating them from the rest of their reverb soaked contemporaries being the lovelorn vocals of Bethany Cosentino. 2010 has been kind to Best Coast. Debut […]
Throughout each month I will regularly trawl through the listings on each of the Manchester venues websites to find the great and the good that will be playing so we can pass on this info in our handpicked gig guide. Now believe it or not, we will only include something in the guide if we […]

SINGLE REVIEW: The Chanteuse & The Crippled Claw – Are You One

SINGLE REVIEW: Ensemble – Envie D’Avalanches

Montreal-based Olivier Alary, the man behind Ensemble, is a self-destructive songwriter a la Thom Yorke. It’s not that Ensemble really sound anything like Radiohead, Alary sings in French for a start, it’s just that both he and Yorke pen accessible, beautiful songs and do everything they can to fuck them up, primarily through somewhat schizophrenic […]
– ACADEMY 1, MANCHESTER – First things first, I have to say that the Academy 1 is a pretty shitty venue to go to see a gig. It’s like a gym hall crossed with an aircraft hanger, a soul-less dark and empty space. The acoustics are all over the shop and if you can find […]

LIVE: THE NATIONAL – 27/11/2010

LIVE: DENIS JONES/HANNAH PEEL – 26/11/2010

– THE MET, BURY – “This one’s about a murderous deer called Temperance.” As introductions go, it takes some beating. Actually, as sentences go it takes some beating. And so, Hannah Peel launches into a slight red herring of a support slot. Here ahead of a full band show in Manchester, a solo Hannah chooses […]
– THE RUBY LOUNGE, MANCHESTER – Chris Long, a well known champion of local Manchester music through his work for BBC Manchester kicks of the evening by announcing this is the last BBC Introducing gig of 2010 at the Ruby Lounge. Christmas alarm bells ring loudly in my ears and the realisation 2011 is only […]

LIVE: BBC INTRODUCING with LOUIS BARABBAS & THE BEDLAM SIX/BECCA & THE BROKEN BISCUITS/A BOY CALLED DORIS – 26/11/2010

LIVE: RINGO DEATHSTARR – 25/11/2010

– NIGHT & DAY CAFE, MANCHESTER – Night & Day Café will forever be known to me as the venue that I could’ve, but didn’t, see The White Stripes. Arriving at 8.30pm, I thought I might just hear the end of the support. The place was pretty empty but the colourful and youthful looking band […]
– MOHO LIVE, MANCHESTER – Psychedelic riff titans, Monster Magnet, hit Manchester’s MOHO LIVE tonight. As I catch the last two numbers by support, Seventh Void (featuring ex-members of Type O Negative, apparently) I wonder which version of the Magnet we will get tonight, the bloated (in more ways than one) version of the last […]

LIVE: MONSTER MAGNET – 25/11/2010