LIVE: THE NAKED AND FAMOUS – 10/11/2010

– THE RUBY LOUNGE, MANCHESTER – Let’s get one thing out of the way: ‘The Naked and Famous’ is a bit of a rubbish name. Initially a droney college-rock ‘anthem’ by The Presidents of the USA, their moniker has also been adopted by an overpriced hipster-courting denim company. Still, third time’s the charm, right? Local […]
To start with a cliché, when I was young Bruce Springsteen was so ubiquitous, so well-established that the only thing I could do, as an angst-y sixteen-year-old, was to disregard him. To me he was nothing more than a crusty, jingoistic, cheese-peddler who clashed badly with my nascent nihilism. But time changes everything, and ten […]

ALBUM: Bruce Springsteen – The Promise

LIVE: CLOUD NOTHINGS/VERONICA FALLS – 09/11/2010

– THE DEAF INSTITUTE, MANCHESTER – Cloud Nothings seem to have been rather busy bees lately, supporting the likes of Real Estate and Woods and even the ever popular Best Coast; they seem to be enjoying some good shows but I admit that I hadn’t heard of them till tonight. They perform a tight show, […]
– ACADEMY 2, MANCHESTER – Divine Comedy is Neil Hannon is Divine Comedy. It’s a Badly Drawn Boy /Damon Gough dynamic which means there will never be different line-ups… unless Neil plans on major schizophrenic schisms. Hannon does sometimes play with a band but tonight it’s only Neil, armed only with a grand piano, acoustic […]

LIVE: DIVINE COMEDY – 09/11/2010

ALBUM: Gregory and The Hawk – Leche

Gregory and The Hawk, it sounds like a children’s book does it not? Indeed, singer songwriter, Meredith Godreau, took the name from her brother, Gregory, and his imaginary childhood hawk in a George Eliot-esque move – wearing the mask of someone/something else to gain credibility and avoid being pigeonholed. In Godreau’s case it was to […]
“I came into this world as nothing, I ain’t gonna leave that way,” sings Zack Lopez on ‘I guess You Could Say’, the track which, on 10 March 2009, Zane Lowe damningly named his Hottest Record in the World. In a world of 6 billion people, Zane Lowe is a waste of human matter, and a […]

ALBUM: MIDDLE CLASS RUT – NO NAME NO COLOR

SINGLE: Manic Street Preachers – (It’s Not War) Just the End of Love

It’s hard to imagine now, but at the turn of the millennium The Manics were firmly out of favour. I remember seeing a picture in the NME of an overweight, dishevelled looking James Dean Bradfield with a caption saying something like, “Who ate all the pies”? Trust the NME to not see beyond the image. […]
– THE DEAF INSTITUTE, MANCHESTER – The ABC Club come on stage in a haze of pyrotechnics, clad in leopard skin leotards and beckon to the crowd ‘Are you ready to motherfucking rock Manchester?’ Well, actually they don’t at all, but its Monday night in cold, wet and windy Manchester and I need a wakeup […]

LIVE: Wild Nothing / Milk Maid / The ABC Club – 08/10/2010

LIVE: DIETER MOBIUS/QA’AA/GNOD – 07/11/2010

– ISLINGTON MILL, SALFORD – Krautrock: has there ever been a more casually racist moniker for a music genre? In this day and age, with the musical landscape awash with weird and wonderful sub-genres -Math Rock, Aquacrunk, Witch House etc- the term “Krautrock”, coined by the British press in the 1970s as an umbrella term […]
Irish rock trio The Minutes will have lovers of all things down and dirty paying close attention. There’s nothing radically original about new single ‘Fleetwood’, built on a fusion of early Fleetwood Mac and, as the three Dubliners will no doubt be tired of hearing, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s grunge. Where this pulsing, upbeat song […]

SINGLES: The Minutes – Fleetwood