British Sea Pow­er con­tin­ue their tour of the UK with lat­est album Let the Dancers Inher­it the Par­ty at The Trades Heb­den Bridge. Date: 28th July. They are play at Green Man Fes­ti­val in August.

 

If you can’t get away once school has start­ed in Sep­tem­ber,  On Black­heath in south Lon­don might do the trick over the week­end of the 9th and 10th. Travis, Lib­ertines, Sea­sick Steve, De La Soul, Metron­o­my, Steve Mason, Tusks.

Mark Har­ri­son caught my atten­tion at Eal­ing Blues Fes­ti­val – he’s a singer song­writer with great orig­i­nal­i­ty and sen­si­tiv­i­ty. A won­der­ful gui­tar play­er too. Check out his web­site here for live per­for­mances over the sum­mer, includ­ing the Glouces­ter Blues Fes­ti­val on July 29th.

Alaba­ma 3 off­shoot, O’Con­nell & Love are back play­ing live. They were superb at the 100 Club a cou­ple of years ago after releas­ing their album Minesweep­ing. Check out their gig sched­ule from July 28th in Hast­ings (FREE entry), plus Lewes fes­ti­val on the 29th, fol­lowed by Bel­ladrum Inverness.

Dreamy new album Hori­zon from This Mod­ern Hope is out now. “Lyri­cal­ly deep, with a heady vocal intri­ca­cy” to quote their site. Click here for their sound­cloud page. No live dates as yet.

Wilko John­son plays The Albert Hall in Lon­don on 26 Sep­tem­ber – it’s a 30th ANNIVERSARY CONCERT + 70^th BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION. Appear­ing as a spe­cial guest is John Coop­er Clarke. Wilko will be joined by his band mem­bers Nor­man Watt-Roy (bass), Dylan Howe (drums). Tick­ets are avail­able from TheGigCartel.com, Roy­al Albert Hall, WilkoJohnson.com and from the 24 HR Tick­et Hot­line: 0844 478 0898. 

 

The acco­lades for The Orielles keep com­ing. After the stun­ning prog­gy 8 minute Sug­ar Tastes like Salt comes a new track I Only Bought it for the Bot­tle. The Heav­en­ly-signed 3some are play­ing live at fes­ti­vals over the sum­mer includ­ing Sea Change and Port Eliot. Check out their face­book page here

 

Steve Mason has a host of appear­ances over the sum­mer months, includ­ing West­on­birt Arbore­tum, Fes­ti­val No 6 at Port­meiri­on (where he played an inti­mate gig in 2014 in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Joe Dud­dell Ensem­ble) and Stan­don Call­ing. Find his tour­ing sched­ule here

 

 

 

Lon­don Gram­mar played a cou­ple of inti­mate gigs in May, the Glas­to style tick­et­ing sys­tem suc­ceed­ed in piss­ing off a lot of peo­ple – maybe they mis­judged their pop­u­lar­i­ty. There’s a Europe tour hap­pen­ing in Autumn, with new dates to be added soon, so keep an eye out on the schedule.

Man­ches­ter Art Gallery is show­ing True Faith exhi­bi­tion till 3 Sep­tem­ber, it explores the ongo­ing sig­nif­i­cance and lega­cy of New Order and Joy Divi­sion through the wealth of visu­al art their music has inspired.

Want­ed: Lead gui­tarist is required for the Michael Kil­bey  ‘I Was Wait­ing’ head­line show in Kings Cross this Octo­ber. Get in touch for audi­tion times.

 

Ride ride again. Charm Assault (video below) is lush and dreamy but with an edge. The band were on great form in Brix­ton a cou­ple of years ago (even if it was the loud­est gig in liv­ing mem­o­ry) and still have what it takes. Long-await­ed new album Weath­er Diaries is out now – and they have live dates over the summer

Julia Jack­lin – Pool Party

Charm Assault – Ride