ISSUES & TISSUES: AN EVENING WITH BLACK FRANCIS AND DAVE HASLAM – 20/11/2013

THE ALBERT HALL, MANCHESTER The Albert Hall is certainly an apt venue for an evening of conversation with one of the most admired alternative music figures over the last 20 years, and more. Black Francis / Frank Black or Charles Thompson is an icon of the alternative music, yet there is still so much to […]
– THE DEAF INSTITUTE, MANCHESTER – STRFKR and I go way, way back – to my college days, to be exact. ‘Julius’ was one of the many anthems blasting through my car speakers at half six in the morning and four in the evening. The electronic band hails from Portland, Oregon and started off as […]

LIVE: STRFKR – 17/11/2013

LIVE: THE FAMILY RAIN – 18/11/2013

– THE RUBY LOUNGE, MANCHESTER – These guys haven’t had it bad supporting some of the UK’s finest musicians Miles Kane and Jake Bugg earlier this year. But this trio have their own stuff to offer, three brothers from Bath, hanging out playing rock. It is as simple as that, but their sound is something […]
Best-suited to the underground dive bars of New York or overground blues/rockabilly Nashville backdrops, this gritty Kent-based revival of rock ‘n’ roll is an interesting one. The Black Waterside is a five-piece band hailing, surprisingly, from the ‘Garden of England’, yet their sound is something unexpected. The band are tight, the instrumentation and the vibe […]

Single Review: The Black Waterside – Cold Night, Dark Ground

LIVE: QUADRON – 13/11/2013

– THE RUBY LOUNGE, MANCHESTER – Quadron, although it sounds like an experienced campaigner’s Xbox Live username, is actually the name of a crystal-clean pastiche soul act who have more star supporters than you can shake a stick at, see Prince, James Murphy, Pharrell and Jay-Z. Stranger than that, the Danish duo, with two extremely […]
– THE DEAF INSTITUTE, MANCHESTER – Radical Face is the pseudonym of musical act Ben Cooper, who hails from Jacksonville, Florida. I’d been listening to him since his 2007 release Ghost, which contains a song (‘Welcome Home, Son’) that most of you have undoubtedly heard while watching a Nikon advert either in the cinema or at […]

LIVE: RADICAL FACE – 10/11/2013

EP Review: King Kartel – Not Done Fighting

Having formed in September 2012, the success of King Kartels first single ‘Stone Cold Killer’ was enough to see them do a nationwide tour – an impressive feat for any new band. Now a year later, they release their debut EP Not Done Fighting. This four-piece, Manchester-based indie-rock band are recommended for fans of Oasis, […]
– RNCM, MANCHESTER – ‘Chameleon’, ‘Maverick’, ‘Man For Hire’ – whatever you would like to label Mark Lanegan, he is an artist in demand and a man of unique talent. Tall, snake-thin with a wide-screen face seemingly grafted from granite, he takes to the stage at the reverential ‘sold out’  Royal Northern College Of Music […]

LIVE: MARK LANEGAN – 07/11/2013

Album Review: Midlake – Antiphon

Having started in 1999 and already been through a roster of line up changes, Antiphon is the fourth album from Midlake. Arguably with the most important line up change to date, this album is the first without frontman Tim Smith. Unlike many bands who lose a front man, Midlake have not broken up and fallen […]
The first thing I heard about New Zealand’s Connan Mockasin was the fact that he listened to  his own music exclusively, the one exception from this habit being a Metronomy single given to him by his manager. This was then listened to at the wrong speed for a prolonged period of time due to the fact […]

Album Review: Connan Mockasin – Caramel