Live Review: White Reaper @ Shepherds Bush Empire
Louisville punk-rock quartet White Reaper opened the show at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire on Friday night in support of Canadian indie-pop group Alvvays’ final show of their biggest UK headline tour to date. Storming through eight tracks from their debut full-length...
Interview: Heartless Bastards. An Upward Trajectory.
Heartless Bastards Interview. Heartless Bastards were formed in Ohio in 2003 by lead singer and songwriter Erika Wennerstrom and have been playing in various iterations ever since. The band have received wide attention in the US and are a familiar site playing on talk...
Live Review: Victorious Festival @ Southsea Seafront.
Southsea’s Victorious Festival is now in it's fourth year and has seen nigh on exponential growth in that time. The site certainly is vast. Although the festival has no less than 10 performance spaces of varying size and scope – much of it showcasing local talent - my...
Live: The Monkees @ The Apollo
The 1960s music/TV phenomenon is back in town. Now reduced to just two members – Mickey Dolenz and Peter Tork – The Monkees are introduced by a series of video clips on a huge screen overhanging the stage of the Apollo. Opening up with Last Train To Clarksville, the...
Live Review: Heartless Bastards @ The Borderline
Austin based band Heartless Bastards brought their own amalgam of Americana influences to London’s Borderline on Tuesday night, promoting their critically acclaimed fifth album, Restless Ones. The place was a sell-out, though any claustrophobics would have been...
Live: The Gaslight Anthem @ Shepherds Bush Empire
“We wanted to let everyone know that we'll all be taking a break from The Gaslight Anthem after this next European tour in August. We're all going to do other projects and stay active in some way or another, both in and out of music, but we'd like to step away from...
Live Review: James Morrison @ Wilton’s Music Hall
I’m sure you’ve all heard those radio competitions to win tickets “for an exclusive intimate live show with…” but like me, you probably never thought you’d actually get to one. Well tonight, for me and few hundred others, we got to witness one such evening courtesy of...
Interview: Cate Le Bon, Drinks. Raising A Glass To Good Friends
LA-based Welsh singer songwriter Cate Le Bon and American psych-rocker Tim Presley have joined forces to form Drinks. The pair became good friends after Presley’s band White Fence supported Le Bon on a US tour and she has returned the favour by regularly playing...
Live: Forgotten Fields Festival Review
First impressions do count and when you walk over the hill and down the dip to see the inaugural Forgotten Fields festival laid out before you it all looks very promising. The site is inviting and has an old time travelling circus feel to it as you enter. Acrobats,...
Live: The Tubes @ Clapham Grand, London.
"A baby's arm holding an apple" shouts back the crowd to Fee Waybill's quiz master question What Do You Want From Life? at The Tubes' 40th anniversary tour concert in the Clapham Grand Theatre. He is impressed that everyone knows the words so well. This gig is...
Interview: Umar Bin Hassan of The Last Poets. Change Is Coming.
The Last Poets have been railing against American politics and discrimination since their emergence from the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Proving the pen is mightier than the sword, they have inspired for decades with their fearless poetry set to hypnotic beats...
Live: Ramblin Man Fair @ Mote Park
“We believe there’s a Ramblin’ Man – or Ramblin’ Woman – in all of us, who wants to wander and listen to great music, drink fine beer, eat great food and have the best of times”. So read the tagline for this inaugural Ramblin' Man Fair festival of Classic Rock, Prog,...
Review: Backyard Cinema. Al Fresco Big Screen, Burgers & Beers.
Backyard Cinema has launched their six-week Film Festival hosted by London’s Camden Market from 29th July - 4th September 2015. Nicola Greenbrook grabbed her popcorn and joined the press night for an outdoor movie experience with a difference. Backyard Cinema has...
Interview: Tony Banks. Detailed & Revealing.
It was a pleasure to interview Tony Banks on June 22nd 2015 concerning his new box set release, A Chord Too Far, covering his entire acclaimed solo career on the other side of Genesis. Just as Steve Hackett gave us last year, there were some incredibly detailed...
Live: Rosanne Cash @ Union Chapel
I first heard Rosanne Cash years ago, on a video recording of a show from sometime in the 1990s, featuring Cash with country/folk peers Nanci Griffith and Mary Chapin Carpenter. The three songwriters were sitting around in a semi-circle, each with a guitar, a...
Live: The Drums @ Koko
There was a lot of hype surrounding The Drums a few years ago, but having watched them tonight they are the epitome of New York cool. Even the way they interact on stage has a certain something about it. Frontman Jonny Pierce, every inch the extrovert dressed in a...
Interview: Gill Landry. I’m Putting My Own Boots On And Taking A Walk.
After 11 years as a member of the Grammy-award-winning Old Crow Medicine Show, Gill Landry struck out on his own earlier this year following the release of his third solo, self-titled, album. With his first headline tour recently completed in the US following a...
Live: Hamilton Loomis @ 100 Club
I really like the 100 Club. I like the history that’s embedded in its DNA. I like that you can practically touch the ceiling. I like that there are tables dotted around the periphery looking less trustworthy under load than the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. I even like there...
Live: Blissfields 2015 Review
It never rains at Blissfields is quite a boast given this year’s event comes just a week after a notoriously changeable Glastonbury. But it held true, and despite huge thunderstorms soaking most of the South East of England, this corner of a Hampshire farm a few miles...
The Ecstasy of Wilko Johnson. London Film Premiere.
The last three years of Dr Feelgood guitarist Wilko Johnson’s life have been well documented: Terminal cancer diagnosis, farewell tour, rapidly recorded Gold selling album Going Back Home with Roger Daltrey, intervention from cancer specialist and music photographer...
Live: Love Supreme Festival.
Expansive & Cutting Edge Greenfield Experience.
Jazz FM’s Love Supreme Festival returned for a third triumphant year this weekend, and as a reveller at all three I’m bold enough to declare it just keeps getting bigger and better. Former lineups have featured Gregory Porter, Chic featuring Nile Rodgers and De la...
Live: Mavis Staples @ Clapham Grand
If ever there was a singer who could take a rock song and make it her own it has to be Mavis Staples. With her tight as tight band she put her distinctive mark on a few songs that you would not usually associate with cover versions. Of course the opening song had to...
Live: Tristan MacKay @ St Pancras Old Church.
This is the second time I’ve seen Tristan Mackay; the first was in support of Dan Patlansky at the Borderline a few months ago, and I recall thinking how easily he managed to silence what was a fairly raucous crowd. The songs and their lyrics are poetry in their own...
Interview: Hamilton Loomis. Texas Star.
If you made a Venn Diagram that had rings with Blues, Rock, Soul, Funk, Pop and Jazz on it, there would be precious little room in the middle – but one of very few names that could occupy the space would be Hamilton Loomis. Loomis, who hails from Galveston, Texas,...
Live: Suzanne Vega @ The Anvil.
Hammersmith Odeon. Wembley Arena. Wasn’t it nice when these venues could just be called what they’re called without being obligated to have the name of a multinational conglomerate inelegantly crowbarred into their title? I mention these places not out of nostalgic...
Live: The Wave Pictures @ The Dome.
One of the best things about The Wave Pictures, besides their impressive output (15 studio albums and countless EPs and singles in their 10+ years together) is David Tattersall’s distinctive voice. It will remind you of other bands while being utterly unique; a bit...
Live: L7 @ Electric Ballroom.
Camden's Electric Ballroom was the venue for L7's triumphant return to London. With shows at Download festival and Glasgow already under their belts (the latter being their only other UK headline gig), the Californian four-piece grunge punk pioneers hit the stage in...
Live: Death Cab For Cutie @ The Empire
Pacific Northwestern alternative rockers Death Cab for Cutie played the first of a trio of sold-out shows at West London’s Shepherd’s Bush Empire in support of eighth studio album Kintsugi, which refers to the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery using precious...
Live: The Replacements @ Roundhouse
The Replacements took to the stage at London's Roundhouse for the first of two reunion shows - their first UK performances in more than two decades. The band were in fine form, kicking things off with the Ramones-inspired surf-rocker Takin' A Ride then segueing into...
Live: The Rifles @ Electric Ballroom.
“I’ve got Joel’s autograph tattooed on my bum” is one of the strangest openings to a conversation I’ve had from within the photo pit. However, it’s this devotion and loyalty in their fans that sums up why The Rifles can sell out the Electric Ballroom three nights in a...
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