Live review: Low Duo’s EP Launch @ The Great Gatsby
Photo courtesy of Victoria Butterworth
The key to being a great lyricists is the ability to tell a captivating story whilst allowing for the music to fill in the cracks and create extra depth. Tonight shows that not only are there great lyricists still left, behind the smoke and glitter of processed pop, but they are thriving on pure emotion. (more…)
Live Review : Easy Tells
With a voice as sweet as honey, Easy Tells started their set off on a Tuesday, night in a loungey Manhattan club like it was a Southern down-home bar. There is certainly something easy about this band, they’re easy to listen to, tap your feet to, they’re easy on the ears and easy on the eyes. The lead singer Matthew Crosby had a warm charm as he grinned through the first song with his honeyed vocals and Brooklyn moustache. Followed up with what may be the best song on their EP, ‘You can’t tell me’ the bassline and guitar work on this song particularly shone. (more…)
Gig review: The Hot Soles, Mad Colours and Hey Sholay @ The Harley
It’s a cold evening, I’m pretty worn out from a lacklustre final day of work before the Christmas break, so what better way to enliven my evening that watching Hey Sholay, with support from Mad Colours and The Hot Soles at The Harley?
Accompanied by my *already* inebriated (soon to become heavily inebriated) mates Ancliff and Titch, this review begins honest and professionally enough, but as you will evidently read, soon becomes defied by their insistence to add comment and opinion.
I apologise in advance. (more…)
Review : Smashing Pumpkins @ Sheffield O2 Academy
It was a special night. Not only because I was catching up with a friend I haven’t seen in 18 months, but because it would become the third time I’d see The Smashing Pumpkins, first time out of Mexico. (more…)
Preview: 322 Festival at The Bowery
The Uneven Blonde crew invite you to not one but two nights of rock and roll, good times and debauchery (not necessarily in that order) with their mini-festival, 322, this 18 and 19 of November at The Bowery. (more…)
Review : Brown Brogues, Milk Maid and Mazes – The Harley
A night of noise. That’s the basic gist of what it was to be at The Harley on a Monday at the beginning of October. Three bands, different amount of members, slightly similar vein of musical preferences but not quite the same sound (although the affinity was quite evident). (more…)
Invite: Sheffield Oxjam 2011
We cordially invite you to a weekend of good music (and even better vibes) in the form of Oxjam Sheffield 2011.
The festival will take place in several venues across town. Individual entry to each venue is 4 quid but you can buy a venue-jumping ticket for 7 quids. It all goes for a good cause, so open up your wallets. Let’s face it: you pay more that 7 quids for alcohol on a night out and none of it goes to charity so you technically have a karma deficit.
But seriously, it’ a weekend full of great music from local bands doing the right thing.
The facts:
Venues & Bands (October 22):
- The Harley : Acoustic cornucopia of bands from noon ’til 6 pm! With Short Stories, Black Shoes, Emma Johnson, Bessemer, The Inside Job, Lucky 27′s, Bex Marshall, Rob Bywater, Wolfman Lateral, Bongo Bert.
- The Great Gatsby: Run from the Harley to here (don’t stop at Aslans), 6:30 pm onwards. Volcanoes, Great Deeds, Empty Churches, Blind Drivers, Sour Cherry.
Venues & Bands (October 23):
- The Royal Standard : The Velcro Teddybears, The Sweet Nothings, Who killed the Kranks ? (the one armed man), Birch House Brothers, Cut your wings, Black Cat White Cat, Ian Bramnall, Martin Goldsach, Liam Walsh.
- The Wick at Both Ends : Blind Drivers. Kirk Yeomans, TacheBurnCombo, Bongo Bert, Wolfan Lateral, Stefano Esposito, James Holder, Emma Jade, Emily Stancer, Andrew Oxley, Paul rich, Dan Williamson (booyaaaah! Jenny, please un-erase him.)
- The Bowery : obLONG, The Hudares, Pink Sharabag, Pocket Satellites, Mynas, The Humming Birds, Firesuite, Don’t Sleep Dream.
- West Street Live : The Dismissive Attack, The Inside Job, Exit strategy one, Cut your wings, Scrim, Lateral Vision, Bad Pollyanna, The Kamen.
- Queens Social Club : Black Shoes, Searching 4 Evidence, Arkham Karvers, The Hope Explosion (yesss!), Translucid, Gypsy Toes, Section 60, Indra.
- The Harley : Young Peculiar, Puzzles, The Darlingtons, Kath Auto, Dirty Jeans, Playground Mafia, Daystar.
This is the line up we copied from the press release nicked from another website several reliable sources. Feel free to say we got them wrong because it’s a possibility. If not, then it’s a big selection of acts. Have fun and support Oxjam. It’s a good cause.
RSVP.
Four elemental attack
The Hope Explosion, Wet Nuns, All Mankind and The Violet May @ Leadmill, Sheffield.
Club60 singles launch
“It seems you need a fucking degree in computers to make music these days” – A wino in the men’s room. (more…)
Review – Matt the electrician @ Mojos
Image from Matt The Electrician's website
When I heard Matt the Electrician was coming to Ogden to play at the infamous Mojos café and gallery I got a little giddy. I had heard a few of his songs before and I knew I would be able to put these dancing shoes to good use and perhaps get a folk waltz or 2 in. Mojos is one of those places you feel instantly at home in. It could be the squishy couches or the soft lighting, the local art or the smell of coffee and puppies but either way it is a great place to dance. (more…)
Gallery : Dan Williamson and Cats:For:Peru @ Soyo
Soyo Live hosted 4 diverse but thoroughly entertaining bands this past Monday 11th of July.
One fine day at Peace in the Park 2011…
Peace in the Park 2011 was held at the Ponderosa park in Sheffield. The free event included many a local act, with volunteers asking for money for a wide variety of charities. The music was good, the food range was exquisite and the bathroom lines were infinite. A beautiful day filled with great music, here’s a few of the many talents that played that day. (more…)
Hey Sholay – Single launch gig
The new (ish) S1 Artspace hosted on July 1st , 2011 (a day of infamy for kebab joints) the single launch gig for Hey Sholay ( a single we reviewed).
By the Rolling Sea
Live review: Vetiver @ Komedia, Brighton, 28.06.11
Supported by: Chris T-T, Marques Toliver
Vetiver’s Andy Cabic @ Big Sur, 2011
This unreliable ‘reporter’ (of sorts) will have to hold my hands up and apologise because I managed to miss the first support act of the evening, Chris T-T, whilst I was grappling with the public transport systems in Brighton. Sorry Chris!
However I did make it to Komedia in time to see the second support act, Marques Toliver who is originally from New York but is now based in London. Toliver has an incredible, soulful voice with a huge vocal range. He plays charmingly honest lo-fi songs, using only his voice and a violin/glockenspiel, and at points comes down off the stage to sing and play without mics. Toliver has an engaging personality, but mostly it’s his expressive voice that has won over the audience this evening.
(more…)
“I could’ve brought two guitars, but then there wouldn’t have been enough room for all my problems”
Live Review: Ryan Adams, An Acoustic Performance – The Dome, Brighton, 22.06.11
Supported by Jesse Malin
Notes from the speakeasy
The Hot Soles, obLONG and Exit Calm @ Club 60 (Counterfeit Mag Fundraising event).
Rhyme, reason and the new wave of iphone poetry
Captives on the Carousel album launch @ Riverside Café pub.
With musical guests Andy Doxfield, Gina Walters, Carl Woodford and The Mother Folkers. Poetry by Sarah Thomasin, Mark James and Ollie Francis.
It was a lovely, sunny Sunday afternoon at Riverside Cafe, where the atmosphere felt like a big family reunion. The sort of reunion where southern hospitality food is the menu of the day and where everyone seems to be getting along just fine. It might be idyllic, but I saw it on a Cameron Crowe film, so it has to be truth. On that note, Cameron Crowe’s films have always great musical choices and that’s my only tenuous link between him and this gig, where the musicians and the poetry in the midst felt like a small mixtape you get from a good friend.
A hoedown for the people II – Electric Hayaloo
On the Payroll – Hoedown for the people. Featuring Odd Todd, Kentucky Cow Tippers and Pete David & The Payroll Union.
“Apparently some millionaires who live in England are having a kickabout with some millionaires from Spain. I’m on the edge of my seat… about to turn the telly off cos I fucking hate football”- Russ Palmer on that fateful Saturday.
I drank a fifth of vodka, dare me to dance?
New Roots, New Rhymes: Twins, The Mother Folkers and Pistola Kicks (as Los Pepe Sessions).
Rocking Mack Daddies
Friday nights are The Bowery are usually full for alcoholic reasons, but on Friday 21st of May, the bear share of the crowd was waiting for The Hot Soles, a duo playing some rather cool blues based rock with a voice knee deep in soul.
Musical Rapture
Low and Sleepingdog @ Queens Social Club
The first I heard of Low was in 2005. It was 2 am (another bout of insomnia was doing me in) and ‘Monkey’ came up on MTV Latino. Made me a fan on the spot, with the voices of Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker being the hook, line and sinker that sold me the band straight away. With the prospect of seeing them live at the cozy Queens Social Club, expectations where relatively high.
