LIVE: I CONCUR – 22/04/2010

– THE NIGHT & DAY CAFE, MANCHESTER – Taking to the stage with a minimum of fuss (in fact, starting to play with no discernable break between tune-up and opening song), I Concur immediately, if innocently established themselves as the shoegazer’s shoegazers. But what the quartet may lack in magnetism, they account for with their […]
– MOHO LIVE, MANCHESTER – Moho Live is one of Manchester’s newer underground venues with uber cool design, right in the heart of the Northern Quarter. It’s a decent size and is typical of many former mill basements, in that you’ll have to put up with obscured views from the iron pillars holding the rest […]

LIVE: THE PRIMITIVES – 20/04/2010

LIVE: ANGUS AND JULIA STONE – 20/04/2010

– THE RUBY LOUNGE, MANCHESTER – The last time I saw Angus and Julia Stone play Manchester, it was in the basement of the Bay Horse. The candlelit room was scattered with old chairs and chaise longes and the brother-sister duo wooed their small, but happy, audience with free milk and cookies. Their performance was […]
If this is your first taste of Kitsuné, you’d be forgiven for being a tad confused. They currently boast a successful fashion company, Parisian clothes store and a record label. Amidst this indie frenzy  they supply the world with the quirkiest, most exciting new music on regular compilations. Now releasing compilation number nine, “petit bateau […]

ALBUM: Kitsuné Maison 9 – Various Artists

LIVE: IDLEWILD – 18/04/2010

– MOHO LIVE, MANCHESTER – Four young lads, aged around ten or eleven, are having a game of football in a Levenshulme street, when one of them unleashes a volley that even the saintly Carlos Tevez would be proud of. It smashes into the corner of the goal and into the right wing mirror of […]
Although ‘Welcome to the Pleasuredome’ is commonly thought of as an album very much of the 1980s, in many ways it is not at all typical of other big hit pop albums of that decade. In fact it’s a strange mix that, in the end, cannot decide what it wants to be, either musically or […]

ALBUM: Frankie Goes To Hollywood – Welcome To The Pleasuredome (Deluxe Edition)

ALBUM: Monkey Poet – Welcome to the UK

Comedian Dough Stanhope once said “Babies are like poems – they’re beautiful… to their creators.” I’m not sure whether the ‘Monkey Poet’ [Matt Panesh] would call what he does on stage ‘beautiful’ – after all, it’s noisy, angry, challenging and unconventional. In all fairness, I think he’d be the first to admit that it’s positively ugly […]
– THE DEAF INSTITUTE, MANCHESTER – First off I would like to say that The Deaf Institute is a truly fantastic venue to go and see live music. I’m sure that many of you reading this will already know that of course, but I’m getting it off my chest regardless. The stage is the perfect […]

LIVE: THE STRANGE BOYS – 17/04/2010

LIVE: KRAFTY KUTS – 17/04/2010

– SOUND CONTROL, MANCHESTER – Best known for spinning Breakbeat, Krafty Kuts has had a long and successful career, as a DJ, promoter and producer. From Brighton, his career took off when Norman Cook signed his record ‘Gimme the Funk’ to his Southern Fried label. He has lived the DJ dream, playing to audiences around […]
Several things annoy me deeply about this album. Firstly there’s the typeface ripped off the Libertines. It suggests, correctly, a complete lack of originality, and worse still that we’re faced with yet another imitation landfill indie band. It was a depressing prospect two years ago, and now it’s reached suicidal levels. And then there’s the […]

ALBUM: Officer Kicks – Citywide Curfew