LIVE: TWO GALLANTS / THE HICKEY UNDERWORLD – 31/10/2012

– ACADEMY 3, MANCHESTER – It’s All Hallows’ Evening and folk/blues rock duo, the Two Gallants are in town. There’s a spooky atmosphere in the air tonight, as hoards of young ‘uns line the streets, screeching and clutching each other from the freezing cold. Girls with thick make-up prance around in short, ripped skirts and devil horns. The […]
– The Ritz, Manchester – It’s hard to say why some shows work and others do not. Rewind two years and Beach House, a previously unknown (to me anyway) Cocteau Twins-esque act hailing from Baltimore steal my heart in Manchester Cathedral. The setting, the sound and the light show gel completely, and the band, riding […]

Live: Beach House – 31/10/2012

LIVE: THE WALKMEN / WILD NOTHING – 30/10/2012

– THE RITZ, MANCHESTER – Drinking my first beer of the night, I thought of my chumbuttlies with whom I would soon be road-tripping to the gig, singing nursery rhymes and drinking from stolen pint glasses as we went. On the road, we joyfully reminisce about the Ritz of our whipper-snapper days and had a […]
– CLUB ACADEMY, MANCHESTER – An 80’s Matchbox B- Line Disaster gig is like cuing for a ride at a theme park. You wait ages and then you’re rewarded with a forty second or in this case, forty minute thrill. As is their want, 80MBD (sorry abbreviations necessary) like to wait for as long as […]

LIVE: EIGHTIES MATCHBOX B-LINE DISASTER – 29/10/2012

LIVE: TOY – 28/10/2012

– THE RUBY LOUNGE, MANCHESTER – When Joe Jean & The Jing Jang Jong – the band more memorable for their name than their records – finally split up after a year of empty hype in 2009, you might have assumed that their members would spend their time in exile from the music industry ever […]
Soul singer and funk guitarist Cody Chesnutt is back with his second album, a decade and a few EPs separating them both. Landing On A Hundred is a neo-soul and funk album with all the musical flex of a 70s classic. The sound he’s gone for is BIG in every sense –with bold melodies, a […]

Album Review: Cody ChesnuTT – Landing On A Hundred

Album Review: The Velvet Underground & Nico – The Velvet Underground & Nico 45th Anniversary

It’s not for nothing that Rolling Stone magazine named The Velvet Underground & Nico the most prophetic album of all time. If the hippies hoped that universal fraternity, peace and love would be the basis for some teleological, utopian future, it is Lou Reed’s vision that – however unhappily – dominates contemporary society. 60s counter […]
– THE DEAF INSTITUTE, MANCHESTER – Rolo Tomassi are a band that have to be seen to be believed. The Sheffield based quintet have been messing with our heads since the mid-noughties, using hardcore as their base then combining it with every musical genre known to man to become one of the UK’s most eccentric […]

LIVE: ROLO TOMASSI – 27/10/2012

LIVE: LUCY ROSE – 25/10/2012

– THE DEAF INSTITUTE, MANCHESTER – ‘CDs, T-shirts, Tea, Jam, Tote Bags’ is the list of merchandise on sale at Lucy Rose’s sold out Deaf Institute gig tonight, and it’s clear it’s going to be more of a tea and jam event than it is rock n’ roll as fans file in under the giant […]
– SOUP KITCHEN, MANCHESTER – Well. Soup Kitchen. It’s a pleasure to meet you at last. I stand a few yards from your doors at five-ish most nights waiting for the bus to take me home and frequently wonder what the venue within is like. And now I know. You’re ace. Bare, flakey-paint walls and […]

LIVE: PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING / CYRIL SNEAR – 27/10/2012