Eight reasons to love Bearded Theory festival

1  It’s the per­fect fes­ti­val sea­son open­er  three (and a bit) days of music with a choice of stages and two new ones for 2016,  plus the infa­mous dance tent. And there’s plen­ty more going on besides. Tick­ets are only just over £100 and Beard­ed The­o­ry fes­ti­val is, as usu­al, on the way to sell­ing out, so don’t wait too long. 2  Magical…

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Pitt Cue at Devonshire Square

In order to eat at the for­mer site of Pitt Cue restau­rant just off Carn­a­by Street, din­ers had to queue in the street, some­times for hours. The reward was a cov­et­ed place down­stairs in the 5‑table poky cel­lar space, or perched at the cosy bar upstairs. The rea­son peo­ple were pre­pared to wait was due…

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Green and pleasant: the ultimate festival guide 2016

If you’re a fes­ti­val fan, by now you’re dream­ing of a green field, ban­ners wav­ing in the breeze, the sound of a band on the main stage… yes, fes­ti­val sea­son is near­ly upon us again, and here is my Ulti­mate Fes­ti­val Guide. Most have been per­son­al­ly tried and test­ed, some on a year­ly basis – plus there’s…

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Review: James at Scala

James show­cased their new album Girl at the End of the World at Scala, Kings Cross. We’re hop­ing we’ll hear one or two old favourites scat­tered here and there, but this show is real­ly the launch of the new album and the first time they’ll be play­ing the mate­r­i­al in front of an audi­ence. Tim Booth comes on…

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Do you own the dance floor? This Hacienda fan does

One Haçien­da devo­tee and DJ loved the place so much, he bought the flat where the famous Man­ches­ter club’s DJ booth was. The film Do You Own the Dance­floor?  went on release in June 2015. It’s an affec­tion­ate, some­times hilar­i­ous, and decid­ed­ly good-natured account of the sell-off of fix­tures and fit­tings from The Haçien­da, Man­ches­ter’s famous…

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Review: Seamus Fogarty, Meilyr Jones, Field Music; Gwenno, LoneLady

Sea­mus Fog­a­r­ty, Meilyr Jones, Field Music Fri­day’s line­up at The Trades Heb­den Bridge con­sists of three acts who one might not ini­tial­ly think, ‘Well, these three are going to work well togeth­er’. What actu­al­ly tran­spired was an evening of thought­ful and chal­leng­ing music, each act com­ple­ment­ing the oth­er in such a way to cre­ate a satisfying…

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Field Music – The Noisy Days are starting

Field Music have stayed some­what under the radar despite sev­er­al com­mend­able albums, but they are about to head out on tour and they appeared at the Radio 6 music fes­ti­val in Bris­tol. There are a few fes­ti­val dates lined up too so the band are get­ting lots of expo­sure.  Here’s my review of their gig in Jan­u­ary. Here’s  The…

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David Bowie RIP

A wave of dev­as­ta­tion has encom­passed every­one this morn­ing at the news that David Bowie has died. I have to agree with Lau­ren Lav­erne on BBC6 radio who stat­ed that “for those who feel they should­n’t be feel­ing so per­son­al­ly full of grief,  actu­al­ly, it’s OK for us to feel this way.” Bowie is part of us,…

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Independent Venue Week 2016

Per­fect tim­ing. If you’ve been hid­ing your­self away for most of Jan­u­ary, Inde­pen­dent Venue Week comes along from Mon­day 25th to Sun­day 31st Jan­u­ary to bring back music into your life. And it’s all for a good cause – to help raise aware­ness of the UK’s rich seam of quirky and indi­vid­ual music venues, along with all the benefits…

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Eight favourite albums of 2015

Here are my top rec­om­mend­ed albums of 2015 in no par­tic­u­lar order. 1  Richard Haw­ley Hol­low Mead­ows A con­fi­dent col­lec­tion of beau­ti­ful tracks, Haw­ley’s voice at its most sub­lime­ly expres­sive. My favourite track is the non-bal­lad Which Way shall I go?, sexy with a touch of men­ace. Haw­ley’s per­for­mance at The Round­house a few weeks’ ago was one…

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