LIVE REVIEW: Best Coast – 26/04/2011

– Club Academy, Manchester – It’s easy to tell with one quick sweep of the room whether you’re at a major gig in Manchester. Major as in must-see, not large, as the city’s musical elite are a fussy, discerning lot. Tonight’s gig, however, has earned their full approval and the regular faces are out in […]
– MOHO LIVE, MANCHESTER –  Me:  “Hi, I’m on the presslist” Mr Charlie Big Potatoes: “No you’re not” Me:  “Could you just check?” Mr Charlie Big Potatoes: “All the press are in and I didn’t put you down.  I’m the promoter.  I run the show” Me (a bit flustered, showing him my phone):  “But look, […]

LIVE REVIEW: GZA – 22/04/2011

LIVE: KID CONGO POWERS & THE PINK MONKEY BIRDS – 19/04/2011

– THE DEAF INSTITUTE, MANCHESTER – If you like a bit of garage rock, one man who shouldn’t need any introduction is Kid Congo Powers. Legendary sometime guitar slinger with The Cramps and co-founder with Jeffrey Lee Pierce of The Gun Club, and later six string hombre with Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, Kid […]
Hackney’s To The Chase are billed as genre blending indie/soul pioneers – a bold boast which they don’t quiet deliver on – but what they do offer is perfectly catchy and wholly inoffensive indie pop . ‘When you believed’ is an exuberant single that zips along nicely and is blessed with an infectiously catchy chorus. […]

SINGLE REVIEW: To The Chase – When You Believed/The Return

LIVE REVIEW: THE JIM JONES REVUE – 17/04/2011

– CLUB ACADEMY, MANCHESTER – The hardest working rock n roll band in the UK  are back in Manchester tonight, and the plaudits and column inches that they have been garnering have attracted a sizable crowd in the Club Academy. I think in some ways the name, or rather the ‘Revue’ part is a misconception, […]
– THE DEAF INSTITUTE, MANCHESTER – Wow. Good evening from The Deaf Institute – the venue that laughs in the face of health and safety. The venue that scoffs at the idea of personal space. The venue that puts the ‘mmmm’ in intimate. Seriously, there’ll be no cat-swinging here tonight, so tightly jammed in are […]

LIVE: STEVE MASON – 12/04/2011

LIVE: ESBEN & THE WITCH – 08/04/2011

– ST. PHILIPS CHURCH, SALFORD – Where better to see a prog goth band than in a church? The interior of St. Philips may be too well kept to be the perfect backdrop for tonight, some of Salford’s industrial abandoned and rain soaked buildings could offer Esben and The Witch possible music video locations, but […]
When Fela, Seun’s father, died of AIDS in 1997, you can bet that the Nigerian authorities could not believe their luck. For decades, Fela Kuti was an outspoken and fearless critic of his native government – Nigeria is (according to Forbes) the world’s 18th most corrupt country. His self-given middle name Anikulapo, adopted by his […]

ALBUM REVIEW: Seun Anikulapo Kuti & Egypt 80 – From Africa With Fury: Rise

LIVE: SMITH WESTERNS – 03/04/2011

– THE RITZ BALLROOM, MANCHESTER – Smith Westerns produced one of my favourite albums of last year with the excellent ‘Dye It Blonde’, so to say that I am really looking forward to this gig is an understatement. The gig sold out well in advance, due to being headlined by the current darlings of indie […]
– ACADEMY 2, MANCHESTER – Punk rock is supposed to be unpredictable, theatrical and ball-bustingly energetic, and if there is one band encompassing those elements with every fiber of their being, it is Killing Joke. Not only is their fourteenth and most recent album, Absolute Dissent, every bit as liable to strip paint from studio […]

LIVE: KILLING JOKE – 31/03/2011