LIVE: DOT TO DOT 2015 – 22/05/2015

– VARIOUS VENUES, MANCHESTER – It’s just turned half 6 and already the evening is off to a bad start. I’m at The Roadhouse, the first stop on a long night of festivities for Dot To Dot Festival, and I’m reluctantly paying £4.50 for a pint. To make matters worse, before I can even take […]
– THE ALBERT HALL, MANCHESTER – Ride exploded on to the music as one of the early vanguards of the then nascent shoegazing scene as a readymade package with their boyish good looks, floppy fringes and penchant for effects laden melody driven (no pun intended) songs. An early appearance on the cult BBC music programme […]

LIVE: RIDE – 23/05/2015

LIVE: DJANGO DJANGO – 23/05/2015

– MANCHESTER CATHEDRAL, MANCHESTER – Tonight’s show does nothing but confirm that Django Django entirely deserve the unexpected (by them) hype currently surrounding them. They arrive on stage soon after 21.30, facing a seriously raving crowd. I had a feeling they were popular, but not that they could cause a Beatles effect, with ultrasound screams […]
– THE CASTLE HOTEL, MANCHESTER – “I love music, like I never ever get sick of it and even when I feel like I am going to, something out there just surprises me. It’s like life in a way.” These are the words Ezra says tonight, as he draws his set to a close. It […]

LIVE: EZRA FURMAN – 20/05/2015

LIVE: PITY SEX – 19/05/2015

– GULLIVERS, MANCHESTER – If you’re in a lo-fi shoegaze emo indie punk band, you can expect a number of your fans to be introverts. It appears they’re all out tonight – standing awkwardly, faces pointed towards the foot of the stage with hands in pockets, making sure they don’t invade someone else’s personal space. There are a […]
– ACADEMY 3, MANCHESTER – Anticipation is heated for young Jack Garratt tonight, as is the Academy 3 unsurprisingly, it’s always heated in here. The room is packed full of a surprising variety of young and old, all here to bare witness to Island Records’ latest protégé. His debut EP Remnant released in 2014, emerged through […]

LIVE: JACK GARRATT – 19/05/2015

LIVE: THE MEMBRANES – 15/05/2015

– ACADEMY 2, MANCHESTER – Sleaford Mods made an inspired choice with asking The Membranes to support them in Manchester. Their brash muscular punk will appeal to enough in the room, but is the right side of obnoxious to thoroughly piss off any non-believers, thus ensuring everyone is fired up by the time the headliners […]
– GULLIVERS, MANCHESTER – New Zealand folk singer songwriter Hannah Hardings’ English-accented singing voice is strong enough to have drawn comparisons to Vashti Bunyan, but it’s not as though she’s  really forcing it, like Joanna Newsom. The delivery of her lyrics – which one could envisage were written on a remote farm, free from technology – seem all too natural to […]

LIVE: ALDOUS HARDING – 18/05/2015

Album Review: Fight Like Apes – Fight Like Apes

Last year Fight Like Apes delivered one of the best pop songs of 2014. ‘Crouching Bees’ saw the Dublin-based outfit smarten up their thrashy electro-pop sound with plush production, ice cool synths and the ever sharp vocal work of front lady Mary Kate. It seemed like after nearly 10 years of being a band, Fight […]
– ACADEMY 2, MANCHESTER – It’s just on a week since the Tories secured an unanticipated majority and with apathy and anger found in equal measure on social media, where better to be in the flesh than amongst the rabid fury of Sleaford Mods? Taking cues from Dan le Sac vs Scroobius Pip, Sleaford Mods […]

LIVE: SLEAFORD MODS – 15/05/2015