LIVE: FUR / HONEY MOON – 12/02/2019

-THE CASTLE HOTEL, MANCHESTER- A glimpse of summer is brought to us during this harsh winter with edgy-on-the-outside/soft-on-the-inside aesthetic from supporting band Honey Moon; familiar to that sensation you get from a lemon soother, settling your cold down, even if it’s just for a little bit. When I first saw the name of the support, […]
-YES, MANCHESTER- Wild Nothing are a group hellbent on melting my insides via extreme doses of summertime nostalgia and as they step onto the stage, I anticipate an epic singalong where only I will be vocal. That’s right, the dickhead in the Carhartt with his arms in the air all night is me, what you […]

LIVE: WILD NOTHING / J FERNANDEZ – 11/02/2019

LIVE: SURFBORT / BLEACH BOY – 13/02/2019

-SOUP KITCHEN, MANCHESTER- Bleach Boy We start the evening with what I assume is a Seattleite-redux; the guitars and drums shine the brightest (I suppose being the loudest helps), all the while their brand of militant distortion devolving into a kind of sonic mush, whereby the vocals and bass suffer in the sense that… you […]
-GORILLA, MANCHESTER- Inadvertently on a mission to prove you don’t have to be a lyrical miracle to be a rap god, London’s number one alternative son Jimothy is setting the scene alight. Recently announcing on the Romesh Ranganathan podcast ‘Hip Hop Saved My Life’ that he was ditching the Lacoste section of his quirky pseudonym, […]

LIVE: JIMOTHY – 10/02/2019

LIVE: DAMMIT I’M MAD – 06/02/2019

-THE PEER HAT, MANCHESTER- We have a wealth of support acts in store at the Peer Hat tonight, and some excellent craft beers to accompany us. It’s a nice place for a drink as well as a gig. Chaos LOL gets his five-minute warning and hastily drops some super-heavy gabba before throwing down some polyrhythmic […]
-GORILLA, MANCHESTER- I came here to review a critically-acclaimed US group who rose to fame in the 1970’s, who appeared in heavy rotation in the early days of MTV, who released over forty albums, nearly as many compilations and created dozens of multimedia projects. What I am seeing, at a packed, sold out Gorilla, is […]

LIVE: THE RESIDENTS – 05/02/2019

LIVE: HEAVY LUNGS / VULGARIANS – 31/01/2019

-THE CASTLE HOTEL, MANCHESTER- After hearing much hype over Heavy Lungs over the past six months, supporting Idles and listening to their two EPs, I felt like this was the last time I would see them in a small intimate venue such as the Castle Hotel. The hype before the gig is great, I have […]
-NIGHT AND DAY CAFE, MANCHESTER- FEMUR: The introduction manifests itself into a 4 piece that seemingly make inflicting moderate hearing damage on the spectators present their goal for the evening. The synopsis for this band features a lumbering, somewhat heavy-handed approach (doom metal?) to drumming, guitars that screech, zzzzzzzzzzzzzuzzzzz and just about do everything else […]

LIVE: PHOBOPHOBES / FEMUR – 31/01/2019

LIVE: THE DANDY WARHOLS / JUNIORE – 31/01/2019

-ALBERT HALL, MANCHESTER- Tonight’s a rather special night and the Albert Hall is dressed up for the occasion. It’s been 25 years since Portland’s indie rockers The Dandy Warhols burst on to the stage and to celebrate they have embarked on an epic tour and released a new album, Why You So Crazy? Opening proceedings […]
-SOUP KITCHEN, MANCHESTER- Tonight The Wave Pictures pull off a rare feat. Without introduction the four piece take to the stage and launch straight into their opening number which begins with a solid minute of vocals accompanied only by David Tattersall’s gentle and deliberate flashes of guitar. Usually this would result in thirty seconds of […]

LIVE: THE WAVE PICTURES – 01/02/2019