LIVE: SUGAR / SPENGLER / HAHA SICK / CYNTHIA’S PERISCOPE – 07/03/2019

-BAND ON THE WALL, MANCHESTER- Free Vibes is a (who would have guessed!) free-entry event at Band On The Wall that seeks to introduce new and emerging artists a few times every month. For this week’s edition, Band On The Wall teamed up with Shell Zenner from Amazing Radio to bring Sugar, Spengler, Haha Sick, […]
  Legends of the American underground rock scene and catapulted into more mainstream attention after backing Nirvana on their MTV unplugged gig and album in 1993, songwriters Curt Kirkwood and Cris Kirkwood have been mainstays of the U.S. rock scene for years. Starting off as a hardcore band in the 80s, Meat Puppets evolved into […]

ALBUM REVIEW: MEAT PUPPETS – DUSTY NOTES

ALBUM REVIEW: BIG GOLD DREAMS – A STORY OF SCOTTISH INDEPENDENT MUSIC 1977-1989

How to fit five albums worth of music into one moderately sized review?  Not an easy task, as there’s one hundred and fifteen songs on this box set compilation, but it’s an aural feast for anyone with even the slightest interest in punk and indie! Although there’s been other compilations pulling together the origins of […]
Typically I don’t normally care for socio-political jabs in rock n’ roll; the commentary almost always finds itself doing a literal moon walk straight into the sanctimonious tavern of raised eyebrows (a real venue = nope). In this instance however, the Tinfoils pull an evasive manoeuvre on the aforementioned metaphor by the injecting the lyrics […]

SINGLE REVIEW: TINFOILS – ROYAL BABY MACHINE

LIVE: THE TWILIGHT SAD – 27/02/2019

-GORILLA, MANCHESTER- Sweet baby Jesus, The Twilight Sad (TTS) are an astonishingly good live band. Scrap that; they’re just an astonishingly good band full stop. Here to support their ridiculously great new album IT WON/T BE LIKE THIS ALL THE TIME (which, annoying punctuation and capitals aside, is their best effort since their peerless debut […]
-SOUP KITCHEN, MANCHESTER- Chew Magna The first to grace the Soup Kitchen ‘stage’ consists of a band whose central methodology involves making their guitarists clash against one another’s grain, stout basslines whose texture can’t quite pierce the evident sound mixing issues and drums (loose cymbals sink beats) that serve their purpose, perhaps content in their […]

LIVE: MOTHERS / BLANKETMAN / CHEW MAGNA – 22/02/2019

LIVE: WILLIE J. HEALEY / EGYPTIAN BLUE – 20/02/2019

-YES, MANCHESTER- I’ve comprised a theory that Ellie Rowsell of Wolf Alice and Nick Valensi of The Strokes secretly had four children. They’re stood right in front of me, being blinded by the projector showing images of a trippy nature; disturbing to some viewers but hypnotising to most. They might’ve thrown in some of Ross […]
Seemingly what I am hearing appears to be lurking in the youthful exuberance aisle; the distorted guitars forcefully yanking the shopping cart further into the unmapped retail complex that I’ve decided this review will be set in. It’s the changes in pace throughout the song that seem to invoke a kind of indecision… should one […]

SINGLE REVIEW: SPRINGFIELD ELEMENTARY – JACKED UP ON JESUS

LIVE: THE LEMON TWIGS – 21/02/2019

-RITZ, MANCHESTER- Popular cultural habits have always loved making their return to our society, with things such as record players, musical influences and even some questionable fashion decisions which you’d think had been buried in the past, somehow making a revisit to the 21st century. Some of these things make their return with a great […]
It’s the constant dilemma for bands when they become successful and maybe have a bit more dosh, how to revive that impulse that drew you into making music in the first place. How do you keep your songs as meaningful to you, and hopefully your audience, as you did when you first started? In the […]

ALBUM REVIEW: SLEAFORD MODS – ETON ALIVE