As far as festivals are concerned, winter is the new summer. Take SHHH Quiet music festival organised by The Local.TV and visual artist Luke Drozd – a musical feast lasting from noon to nearly midnight, in a cosy church in north London. SHHH is now in it’s 8th year, with much involvement from music promoter and…
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With each album and with each collaboration, Mark Lanegan’s star ascends another notch into the firmament. He’s a man with an impeccable rock backstory, American bad boy incarnate, equally at home as a character from Butcher’s Crossing to Twin Peaks; his is a world seen from the wrong side of the tracks. His voice is raspy, capable of wistfulness…
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The Trades has been buzzing all weekend with one sell-out gig after another and by now the Heavenly merchandise table is looking fairly depleted, but fortunately the beers are still flowing.
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REPOSTING FROM 2015! Heavenly Records are celebrating their 25th anniversary by taking over the Trades Club for the weekend with a packed programme of shows. In order to cram it all in, they’re adding matinee performances as well as the usual evening ones. It feels slightly odd and indulgent to leave the snow, busy shops and cafes…
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Alabama 3 had plenty to celebrate last Saturday night. The band were scheduled to play the final gig of their 2014 tour back on their home turf in Brixton, at the Electric. Then, for those of hardy constitution, there’s the after party at Brixton Jamm. For some reason, Alabama 3 have always stayed slightly under the radar. Not…
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There’s nothing Gourmet Gigs likes more than a combination of music accompanied by interesting culinary or alcoholic refreshment. Last Tuesday offered such an occasion, with the added mystery of a location in the heart of an industrial estate in Walthamstow. Just to rewind: The End festival in Crouch End two weeks previously had featured a band called Firestations, who caught the…
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Oslo, the new(ish) restaurant, bar and music venue is one of the latest new destinations after the avalanche of closures of grimy, characterful music venues in north, west and central London over the past few years. (Actually, make that countrywide, with Liverpool currently undergoing selfsame problems). So it’s been heartening to see a new wave of well-thought out, spruced up venues…
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“I’ve never seen so many weak bladders,” said my partner, as yet another silhouette shuffled out, blocking the screen during Northern Soul, the film by Elaine Constantine. “It’s because everyone here is ‘of a certain age’ ”, I replied. Indeed, about 90 per cent of the audience did look as if they could remember Northern Soul,…
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Over the summer of 2014, London’s Southbank Centre held a Festival of Love, exhibiting pieces of hippy iconography which remained dotted around the complex long after the event. They created a suitably fitting portal to one particular event: an evening of psychedelic films at the BFI called Flower Children in the Blinding Light: the 60s…
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Portmeirion is awe-inspiring on even the gloomiest, most drizzly day in January. So last weekend’s vision of the Italianate village set against a blue sky, fizzing with all the music, energy and colour of Festival No 6 2014, made it even more spectacular. The combination of Portmeirion’s ridiculously seductive charms combined with the glow of the Indian summer…
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