ALBUM: Violens – Amoral

Whenever you hear of another band from NYC, you have to think, are they really from NYC or have they just relocated there and adopted the NYC brand name because it’s ‘cool’?  Violens are one of the latest acts to come out of the city peddling their debut album, Amoral, which is due to be released shortly. Maybe, […]
An idiot once said to me: “All the best trilogies come in threes”.  I thought about it, and realised the idiot had a point.  This came to mind upon hearing what Damon Gough was planning to do next, for the bearded behatted one has cut quite the elusive figure of late.  Aside from the soundtrack to […]

ALBUM: Badly Drawn Boy – It’s What I’m Thinking Part 1: Photographing Snowflakes

LIVE: 3OH!3 – 28/09/2010

– ACADEMY 3, MANCHESTER – Who said pop was dead? It’s a drizzly September evening and the dancefloor of the humid broom-cupboard known as Academy 3 is seeing more action than Darren Day’s grotty bedpost. Scores of teenagers brandishing glowsticks, make-shift banners and Gladiators-style polystyrene headwear are foaming at the mouth at the thought of […]
– APOLLO THEATRE, MANCHESTER – Midway through ‘The Handshake’ a beer sails through the air and hits the drummer on the head. He glances over his shoulder, sticks his middle finger up at the unattentive, bored audience and, like the consummate professional he is, finishes the track. After which he again sticks his middle finger […]

LIVE: MGMT – 26/09/2010

LIVE: THE VASELINES – 23/09/2010

– THE DEAF INSTITUTE, MANCHESTER – Managing to ram so many people into such a small space you can see how The Vaselines got their name (wince). Just on the off chance that there was any call for yet another petroleum jelly related pun when discussing the Glaswegian outfit… The Vaselines, Eugene Kelly and Frances […]
– THE DEAF INSTITUTE, MANCHESTER – The first time Willy Mason toured the UK, he was a fresh-faced 19 year-old from Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. Armed only with a guitar and a small rucksack of clothes, he slept on floors and sold roughly-mixed demos of stripped-down, Dylan-esque odes to politics, society and the love of a […]

LIVE: WILLY MASON – 21/09/2010

LIVE: LIAM FROST – 20/09/2010

– SOUND CONTROL, MANCHESTER – There’s a Ziggy Stardust moment at tonight’s concert, about half way through. Liam Frost – who seems to be thoroughly enjoying himself on stage -suddenly says, between songs: “this is the last time I’m going to be singing these songs and doing this for a while”. I pretty much spit […]
– BAND ON THE WALL, MANCHESTER – As I wander through the half-filled, refurbished environs of The Band on the Wall, I gaze up at the Indian dropout, hippies onstage who seem to have been sent here through a time warp from the 1960s (via the 1980s). Decked in washed out, bleeding baggy clothes, string […]

LIVE: RAGHU DIXIT – 19/09/2010

SINGLE: Dinosaur Pile-Up – Mona Lisa

‘Mona Lisa’ is the first single from Dinosaur Pile-up’s forthcoming debut album, Growing Pains.  The Leeds three-piece makes no qualms about their love of the Foo Fighters, and this single certainly makes a fitting tribute. From the get-go there’s a pervading US, 90s feel; the late 90s particularly, where grunge metamorphosed into jock-rock.  And like […]
– THE PALACE THEATRE, MANCHESTER – It’s hard to believe that the Saruman lookalike in the floral shirt in front of me is the same Roy Haper Led Zeppelin wrote a song for called ‘Hats Off to (Roy) Harper’, who sang on Pink Floyd’s ‘Have a Cigar’, and who reportedly inspired Kate Bush, Pete Townsend […]

LIVE: JOANNA NEWSOM & ROY HARPER – 18/09/2010