LIVE: THE LIKE – 03/09/2010

– THE RUBY LOUNGE, MANCHESTER – What a difference five years makes. Rewind to 2005 and The Like were a very different outfit. Looking like they had wafted in from the set of The Virgin Suicides, the Cali-London three-piece swooned their way through ‘Are You Thinking What I’m Thinking?’, a veritable pick n’ mix of […]
– THE DEAF INSTITUTE, MANCHESTER – Idiot Glee is on stage as I enter The Deaf Institute’s top floor live room. James Friley from Kentucky sits alone in his cardigan behind a school type desk that supports a keyboard and other electronic gadgets. His sound is reminiscent of the Animal Collective, his voice has been […]

LIVE: WOMEN/ZOLA JESUS/IDIOT GLEE – 02/09/2010

SINGLE: BLACK MOUNTAIN – OLD FANGS

This track is a taster from the eagerly anticipated third album from Canada’s psyche/stoners Black Mountain. The album “Wilderness Heart” is due for UK release on the 13th of September  2010 and will be supported with a full UK tour in September and October . I must confess I didn’t get around to buying the […]
– NIGHT & DAY CAFE, MANCHESTER – It’s a lazy bank holiday Monday and it seems like Manchester’s music fans are recovering from the excesses of the weekend, as there is only a small crowd to witness Her Name Is Calla promote their second album, The Quiet Lamb. Her Name Is Calla are obviously disappointed […]

LIVE: HER NAME IS CALLA – 30/08/2010

LIVE: GIDEON CONN – 26/08/2010

– BAND ON THE WALL, MANCHESTER – This is the first live music venue I’ve been in that sports a carpeted floor since I last went to a karaoke night. It feels strange, but warm and comforting nonetheless and we position ourselves at the top balcony for a birds eye view of the stage. First […]
For a few years in the mid 60s Bob Dylan attained a level of genius very few musicians have reached before or since. With humour, bile and impossible eloquence he spat out incisive songs that to this day seem to glimpse at some higher truth. Nick Cave has reached a similar plateau. The paranoid, often […]

SINGLE: Grinderman – Heathen Child

SINGLE: The Jim Jones Revue – High Horse

The feeling is right. It’s raucous, punching, bleary eyed, spinning, upbeat, honky-tonk ruff rock’n’roll blues. But the song’s simple structure is nothing original, and the use of the radio effect on the singer’s voice is a style that gets old – it does not standout as anything to be noticed. The music video shot for this song is […]
I listened to this record once and thought it was absolutely terrible. Now normally, that’s OK because I can listen to crap over-and-over and rip it to pieces. The whole review process is done in a day or two and I can relax. ‘Jah Warriors’ was so bad that I had to hide for a week […]

SINGLE: Roots Manuva meets Wrongtom – Jah Warriors

SINGLE: Klaxons – Echoes

Gorillaz once described winning the Mercury Music Prize as, “Like carrying a dead albatross round your neck for eternity”. With such a widely lauded and awarded debut album, when it comes to the Klaxons it’s not the Prize that will weigh them down, but the album itself, and you can substitute that albatross for a […]
– THE NIGHT & DAY CAFE, MANCHESTER – On an evening when the England football team faces Hungary in the first match since the national side’s woeful showing at World Cup 2010, it is unsurprising that the crowd at Night & Day Café is larger than it might have been on any other Wednesday. Yes, […]

LIVE: THE DOMINO STATE – 11/08/2010