At the Heavenly Weekender at The Trades in Hebden Bridge back in January, Amber Arcades’ half-hour early evening set was the most engaging of the three days (young Halifax band The Orielles were the other stand-out act). The focal presence on stage is Amber Arcades’ mastermind, the very cool Annelotte De Graaf, vocalist, guitarist, songwriter. Amber Arcades…
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North: Identity, Photography, Fashion at Liverpool’s Open Eye Gallery, 6th Jan to 19th March 2017, is the first exhibition to be held as part of their 40th anniversary year. Curators Lou Stoppard and Adam Murray have taken an in-depth and far reaching look of the creativity of the towns, cities and suburbs of the north through different media and…
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I noticed that Lloyd Cole was sporting that slightly tricky sartorial trend, double denim. Later in the set, Cole made reference to his outfit. He related a story about a visit to Austin, Texas, where at a honky tonk bar he observed “much younger women dancing with older men… who all wore double denim”. Much of Cole’s amusing onstage patter…
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Battles of Winter’s second album At Once with Tattered Sails was released (download only) on September 23. “The difficult second album?” the band announce on their Facebook page. Having given the album a metaphorical spin (actually, about ten), my answer to that is a definite no. This new offering from BoW exudes confidence – the…
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Fightback! tickets went on sale at the earlybird price of £10 before any line-up was announced. About half the tickets sold out, and around 800 acts came forward to offer their services to play at the gig, which was set up by the Music Venue Trust as a protest against the recent astonishingly high number of…
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The good, the bad and the muddy… On a positive note, Festival Number 6 yet again had its moments of music, magic and discovery. The location is Portmeirion, the beautiful and quirky Italian village in north Wales. And it was commendable to note just how many of the artists appearing on Festival No 6’s various stages were from…
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The private view of Moving Forward photography exhibition took place on Thursday 14th July at the glamorous offices of The Guardian in Kings Cross, on a rare sunny evening with sun flooding into the space. Moving Forward features beautiful photographs by a group of young students who have been taking creative workshops at Ravensbourne College, but what makes this exhibition all the more…
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An unassuming terraced house in north London transformed into an exciting, experimental art project proved to be one of the most intriguing and original events in the calendar of a local festival. Entitled The Secret Life of no:36, the project, shown as part of Crouch End Festival, was inspired by the history of the house and its…
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The weather gods smiled down on Bearded Theory again this year: I can only imagine it was at the sight of so many hirsute individuals disporting themselves in the Magical Sounds dance tent, stomping along to The Levellers on the main stage, or maybe it was the giant pink puppets prancing about the festival site. Each year, Bearded…
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At the 02 Islington, Bowie’s long-standing guitarist Earl Slick and his assembled cast of musicians performed their fourth night of what so far has been a hugely successful run of his mini tour of Station to Station. The band included Steve Norman from Spandau Ballet on guitar, saxophone and percussion (I saw Steve with Holy Holy in 2014). Also on guitar was Luis…
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