Dec 22

Alabama 3 back in Brixton for a homecoming show

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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Firestations band play live
Dec 9

Album launch for Firestations is literally a piss-up in a brewery

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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Nov 14

The Asteroids Galaxy Tour at Oslo, Hackney

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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Northern Soul the film
Oct 23

Northern Soul – the film

“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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Poster for BFI film evening, Anthony Stern
Sep 20

Pink Floyd, flower children, swinging London: the 60s films of Anthony Stern

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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Dancing at Festival No 6
Sep 12

Review: Festival No 6 2014 at Portmeirion

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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Towersey is 50
Aug 25

Review: Towersey Folk Festival Saturday 2014

Guid­ed into my park­ing space by a con­voy of friend­ly, and most­ly old­er, stew­ards, I’m struck by how well organ­ised Tow­ersey Fes­ti­val is. Although to be fair, they’ve had plen­ty of prac­tice, as this year marks Tow­ersey’s 50th Birth­day cel­e­bra­tion. Tow­ersey Fes­ti­val is an insti­tu­tion on the local cal­en­dar, with a ded­i­cat­ed and enthu­si­as­tic fan base, many of whom arrive ear­ly on the first…

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The bedroom hour play camden
Aug 9

Interview with Stuart Drummond of The Bedroom Hour

Inter­view: August 7 2014. It hard­ly needs to be said that I’m a big fan of The Bed­room Hour. I man­aged to catch up with their singer Stu­art Drum­mond as he was rush­ing down to the stu­dio one evening. He and the band are very busy at the moment with debut album Hin­ter­land deserved­ly get­ting a great recep­tion, a summer…

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Ealing Jazz
Jul 28

Ealing Jazz Festival 2014

Eal­ing and its jazz and blues fes­ti­vals have been a sum­mer­time fix­ture over the years at beau­ti­ful Wal­pole Park. I’ve attend­ed the last two Blues fes­ti­vals (read Eal­ing Blues 2013) but this time round we rolled up for the final Jazz day. I won­der if the organ­is­ers have a pact with the weath­er gods? Each time I’ve been to…

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