That Neil Young plays ‘Comes a Time’ tonight adds an even greater poignancy to what is an already emotional occasion. Reunited with Crazy Horse for the first time in more than a decade, his long-time guitarist Frank “Poncho” Sampedro had recently indicated that the current tour – the Alchemy Tour which has already circumnavigated the [...]
View Post Neil Young, Neil Young and Crazy Horse, Newcastle Arena, The Alchemy Tour
Coming down from the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York for one of their now regular visits to the U.K the brothers Felice have transformed the grand surroundings of the Shepherds Bush Empire into a sardine can of anticipation. There are bodies squashed against other bodies, personal spaces being invaded and polite requests of “excuse [...]
View Post The Felice Brothers, Willy Mason
We arrive at the venue towards the close of a glorious early summer day and all around us, the back streets of Salford are filled with happy people drinking beer and basking in the heat reflecting from the baked pavements. But in contrast, the interior of St Philips Church is cool, still and serene as [...]
View Post Catherine A.D., Ed hardcourt, Live Music, St Philips Church
A sold out crowd gathered to watch Bonobo, aka Simon Green bring The North Borders Tour to Scotland. The Thursday night billing appeared to be close enough to the weekend for fans to let go and the pre-show playlist tracks were beat orientated enough to assist. Warm-up act The 14th slotted in nicely, making use [...]
View Post Bonobo, Edinburgh, Simon Green, The 14th
Not the Camden Crawl, but it’s shorter punkier younger brother, Camden Rocks was inaugurated in 2009 by Chris McCormack of 3 Colours Red as a way of letting up and coming bands play the same venues that saw formative gigs from the likes of The Strokes, The Libertines and At The Drive-In. Thriving on the area’s [...]
View Post barfly, bleach blood, camden, camden rocks festival, mark williams, stags, The Damn Jammage, the good mixer, the lock tavern, therapy?
When the line-up was announced for Primavera in early 2013, I screamed as if someone told me Harry Styles would be there, who would have thought the cheeky little pube-head would have been spotted alongside the likes of J Mascis and Damian from Fucked Up, sifting his way through the eclectic mix of Spanish, French, [...]
View Post Daniel Johnston, DEATH GRIPS, Deerhunter, Dinosaur Jr, Killer Mike, Lou Barlow, Mulatu Astatke, My Bloody Valentine, Primavera Sound, The Breeders
For the past twenty years, husband and wife duo Brett and Rennie Sparks have been exploring the dark side of country music as The Handsome Family. Tales of murder and the macabre deep in the backwoods of rural America have long been the staple of the couple’s songs, drawing from folk and country and tinged [...]
View Post Brett and Rennie Sparks, Islington Assemebly Hall, The Handsome Family, Wilderness
Latvia didn’t make it to the 2013 Eurovision final but, thanks to Club Radio Free Europe, their kaleidoscopic sound sent trembles through the Boogaloo in London. Both Instrumenti and BrainStorm – Or to Latvians Prãta Vētra – are household names in Latvia, with various chart hits and sold-out stadium tours, but most Brits are unlikely [...]
View Post BrainStorm, Club Radio Free Europe, Instrumenti
A triple whammy of classic rock rolled into Wembley last night. Openers Thunder were more than capable of setting the pace, ripping into ‘Dirty Love’. Singer Danny Bowes has a down to earth charisma, and the years haven’t diminished his pipes in the slightest. Last time I saw Thunder they had reformed to play the [...]
View Post journey, mark williams, Thunder, Wembley Arena, whitesnake
As you’d expect, when sweet ‘birdsong’ hits the backwaters of Shoreditch there’ll be a host of twitchers ready and waiting. And so it was that when this particular Texan variant known as Feathers touched down in London, there was a full-on full house in attendance. Much lauded since the release of the lush Land Of [...]
View Post anastasia dimou, Depeche Mode, Feathers, Foals, Glitches, land of the innocent, leper, old blue last, only time will tell, warm seas
I wonder if anyone actually knows the exact number of gigs that Mark E Smith and The Fall have performed since the group’s formation in 1976? It can’t be easy being a member of a band that has seen about 60 people come and go from its line up, but tonight is a fine example [...]
View Post Elena Poulou, GIG REVIEW, gigs, Mark E Smith, review, The Fall
If someone had asked you what you thought of Macklemore and Ryan Lewis three years ago, would you have known who they were? Probably not. However, over the last 12 months these two Seattle musicians have become household names and have turned what we knew, loved (and hated) about hip hop on its head. True, [...]
View Post Can't Hold Us, Hip Hop, Macklemore, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, Same Love, Shepherd's Bush Empire, Thrift Shop
The basement bar that is Glasgow’s Pivo Pivo was surprisingly quiet for this show. The sunshine and weeknight gig had kept the sun starved Glaswegian masses away. Nonetheless, Canada’s Evening Hymns were incredibly thankful to the people that had turned out, and gave a heartfelt and incredibly engaging show which felt all the more intimate [...]
View Post Evening Hymns, Glasgow
Like Lawrence many years before him, when it comes down to publishing T E Morris favours initials over names. And just as Lawrence forged his reputation from his activities and associations with the Middle East, Morris has also gained wider acclaim in foreign lands. For him, he is bigger in the Ukraine and Russia than [...]
View Post And You Were The Hunter, Function Records, Her Name Is Calla, T E Morris, Tom Morris