ALBUM REVIEW: C DUNCAN – HEALTH

Having supported the likes of Elbow in the past, C Duncan returns – this time with his debut album ‘Health’. One of the reasons why this little gem of the music industry has not yet been fully discovered, is perhaps because Elbow’s demographic is maybe people who are above the teenage/twenties group. C Duncan is […]
-THE DANCEHOUSE THEATRE, MANCHESTER- Of the many venues that an indie-folk band could play, one that doesn’t immediately come to mind is the Dancehouse. Plain and simple, it’s a theatre, but perhaps the setting of the gig reveals intention – to bring something different, to celebrate the album in question by placing it in the […]

LIVE: THE ANTLERS – 20/04/2019

LIVE: HEIR / HAYES & Y – 17/04/2019

-GULLIVERS, MANCHESTER- Here’s the thing….Manchester is very proud of its music scene (and rightly so), not to mention intent on giving burgeoning artists the opportunity to showcase their talents, to the extent that it will squeeze a gig in anywhere it can! Tonight proves to be no exception when Gullivers plays host to the fantastically […]
-DEAF INSTITUTE, MANCHESTER- Chaos. Total and utter chaos. That is what unfolds tonight at Deaf (an absolutely apt name for a venue where this band is concerned, sweet Jesus it’s LOUD tonight), the mayhem orchestrated by Daughters’ extraordinary frontman Alexis S.F. Marshall who is quite unlike anyone I’ve seen perform. An absolute whirling dervish of […]

LIVE: DAUGHTERS – 17/04/2019

LIVE: THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE QUEEN – 16/04/2019

-ALBERT HALL, MANCHESTER- Best known as leader of Britpop heroes Blur and virtual pop superstars Gorillaz, Damon Albarn has never been one to stick to one project and for that has become the most forward thinking and prolific artist of his generation. The Good, The Bad & The Queen is a project he launched back […]
-YES, MANCHESTER- Acid Child With a name as ‘incendiary’ as titled and opening for a headliner dubbed ‘electro punk’, you’d expect some questionable attempt at hardcore along with runic tattoos and enough profanity to warrant an OFCOM intervention… it appears my imagination dreamed big. They have a sound veering around that middle-of-the-road-psych you see with […]

LIVE: AK/DK / ACID CHILD – 12/04/2019

LIVE: THE SLOW READERS CLUB / LIAM FROST – 11/04/2019

-GORILLA, MANCHESTER- “REEE-DERS! REEE-DERS! REEE-DERS” Between songs, this low-lung call rings out around the walls of Gorilla like a football chant, like Utd fans singing “Roo-ney” back in the day. A quick scan of the crowd and it’s a real stew… some grey beards (perhaps surprisingly for a band of this relative youth) but up […]
-YES, MANCHESTER- Déjà Vega The 3-piece’s formula could be deciphered as: drumming reminiscent of one of those Palm Desert bands from the early 1990s, no doubt putting the kit’s structural integrity into question as the concussive quality surprisingly rings through a sound system I certainly wouldn’t count as Manchester’s finest. The bass playing, with a […]

LIVE: YAK / MUSH / DEJA VEGA – 09/04/2019

LIVE: JOHN FAIRHURST – 10/04/2019

-GULLIVERS, MANCHESTER- We have a double whammy of John Fairhurst tonight. First up is a stripped-down acoustic set, as he muses how it’s good to make some chilled acoustic after making such a heavy album. But chilled may not have been the best choice of word for it, excellent fingerpicking at the start of tracks […]
-YES, MANCHESTER- Can’t lie kids, this is going to be pretty gushing. What unfolds tonight in Yes is by far the best thing I’ve seen so far this year, it’s all the words like ‘astonishing’, ‘scintillating’, ‘fucking unbelievable’, those kind of descriptors. Because TNP are by far and away the best band in the country, […]

LIVE: THESE NEW PURITANS – 10/04/2019