Richard Hawley at 02 Academy Brixton

Some artists bob around on the fringes of your radar for ages, and so it has been the case with Richard Haw­ley. Those love­ly bal­lads, the choco­latey voice, the Pulp con­nec­tion – yet he’s remained a bit niche some­how. But things have gath­ered apace, and Sep­tem­ber 8 this year saw the Radio BBC 6Music collaboration…

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Alabama 3 acoustic at the Jazz Cafe

Like most height-chal­lenged peo­ple (5ft), I’ve always found stand­ing-only gigs a bit hit and miss. So the news that one of my favourite bands, the mighty Alaba­ma 3 are to do an Alaba­ma 3 acoustic, com­plete with rather ele­gant sound­ing three-course din­ner, is music to my ears. And so to the Jazz Cafe in Cam­den. Down­stairs is…

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Paloma Faith, love and cellulite

Tues­day night was almost rain free – that’s say­ing some­thing for this washout of an Eng­lish sum­mer which has so far plunged fes­ti­vals and out­door events into a mael­strom of mud and near bank­rupt­cy. So it was a pleas­ant expe­ri­ence to sit on dry paving stones in the court­yard of Som­er­set House, drink­ing a ubiquitous…

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Folk fusion at the Boogaloo with Breton Girl

Took advan­tage of a rare balmy evening this sum­mer in Lon­don to mosey down to the Booga­loo near High­gate for an evening of musi­cal fusion in a rather dif­fer­ent style. Tonight’s list­ing reads: ‘Bre­ton Girl, whose roman­tic style is drawn from Celtic, Medieval and Indi­an music’. The Bre­ton Girl in ques­tion is singer-song­writer Wendy Lewis, elfin, barefoot,…

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Craig Finn, purveyor of tasty music and beer

I try to nev­er miss see­ing the sup­port. Even if I check them out on YouTube and they don’t grab me, you just nev­er real­ly know. I would have paid to see The Hold Steady back in the day but here’s Craig Finn, at The Mac­beth, Hox­ton, sup­port for The Felice Broth­ers. We start­ed with…

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