LIVE: OH SEES / ONCE & FUTURE BAND / MALE GAZE / FLAT WORMS / KELLEY STOLTZ – 01/03/2018

-ALBERT HALL, MANCHESTER- It’s an intensely grim evening in Manchester tonight, but despite that fans are out in force, descending on the Albert Hall for Castlemania: a Castle Face Records showcase event offering five live bands. Opening we have Kelley Stoltz, current San Francisco resident who has been releasing music since 1999 and has been […]
-THE CASTLE HOTEL, MANCHESTER- It’s Friday, it’s cold and I’ve got a last minute gig: Manchester outfit Douga at the warm and old school boozer The Castle; happy days. I love live music in pubs. Before the trendy bars and O2 academies became the staple arenas for every kind of music imaginable, the local watering […]

LIVE: DOUGA / CHEW MAGNA – 23/02/2018

LIVE: SAINT AGNES / HEY BULLDOG – 28/02/2018

-NIGHT & DAY CAFE, MANCHESTER- It’s a hell of a wild evening out there, but that hasn’t stopped people from finding their way to Night and Day Café to watch Hey Bulldog and Saint Agnes. Hey Bulldog have been around for a number of years now, quietly building their fan base and strengthening their repertoire. […]
-SOUP KITCHEN, MANCHESTER- Two promotional entities, The Beauty Witch and Grey Lantern, have joined forces to bring California’s Carlton Melton to Soup Kitchen tonight for a hotly anticipated showing following the release of their latest album, Mind Minerals, which came out last week – the band’s first since 2015. The band Carlton Melton were formed […]

LIVE: CARLTON MELTON – 23/02/2018

LIVE: BAXTER DURY – 21/02/2018

– GORILLA, MANCHESTER – It’s just gone nine, the band are on stage. They launch into ‘Isabel’ from the 2011 album Happy Soup, but there’s someone missing from the stage. Just in time and to a big cheer from the crowd our host for the night Baxter Dury enters stage right looking rather dapper. The […]
-DEAF INSTITUTE, MANCHESTER- Indoor Pets, formally known as Get Inuit, put on an energetic and loving display at Manchester’s Deaf Institute proving it doesn’t really matter what your band is called. If the tunes come from a place of sincerity and passion you’re onto a winner. But first, there were two top notch performances from […]

LIVE: INDOOR PETS / PEANESS – 20/02/2018

LIVE: ALVVAYS – 19/02/2018

-ACADEMY 2, MANCHESTER- Alvvays (actually pronounced ‘always’), are a 5 piece band fronted by singer Molly Rankin, formed back in 2011 in Toronto. Since then they have released two studio albums: their debut Alvvays, released in 2014, saw them compared musically to the likes of The Cranberries and catapulted them into a world of live […]
-GORILLA, MANCHESTER- You must have to be a right arsehole not to like The Go! Team. Like, the type of person who voted for Brexit, then emigrated to America, especially to vote for Trump and followed it up with a really, badly worded comment on a Daily Mail website article about immigration. One of them, […]

LIVE: THE GO! TEAM – 17/02/2018

LIVE: THE LOVELY EGGS / PORKY THE POET / MR. BEN AND THE BENS – 17/02/2018

-BAND ON THE WALL, MANCHESTER- The circus is in town tonight. Lancaster’s two best bands, miles apart in style but united in ethos, have come to the end of a ten date sold-out nationwide tour, climaxing at Band on the Wall for what will turn out to be a memorable blow-off. The Lovely Eggs are […]
-DEAF INSTITUTE, MANCHESTER- Nina Violet is the first artist to play this evening at the Deaf Institute. The room is more than half filled, with no more space available on the bleacher style seats, and the floor space populated part way to the stage. No one is yet venturing too close to the front, and […]

LIVE: WILLY MASON / NINA VIOLET – 15/02/2018