hacienda2
Feb 8

Do you own the dance floor? This Hacienda fan does

One Haçien­da devo­tee and DJ loved the place so much, he bought a bit of the dance­floor. And a flat exact­ly where the famous Man­ches­ter club’s DJ booth was sit­u­at­ed. The film Do You Own the Dançe­floor? went on release in June 2015. It’s an affec­tion­ate, some­times hilar­i­ous, and decid­ed­ly good-natured account of the sell-off


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Seamus Fogarty
Jan 27

Review: Seamus Fogarty, Meilyr Jones, Field Music; Gwenno, LoneLady

Sea­mus Fog­a­r­ty, Meilyr Jones, Field Music Fri­day’s line­up at The Trades Heb­den Bridge con­sists of three acts who one might not ini­tial­ly think, ‘Well, these three are going to work well togeth­er’. What actu­al­ly tran­spired was an evening of thought­ful and chal­leng­ing music, each act com­ple­ment­ing the oth­er in such a way to cre­ate a satisfying


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Field music
Jan 20

Field Music – The Noisy Days are starting

Field Music have stayed some­what under the radar despite sev­er­al com­mend­able albums, but they are about to head out on tour and they appeared at the Radio 6 music fes­ti­val in Bris­tol. There are a few fes­ti­val dates lined up too so the band are get­ting lots of expo­sure.  Here’s my review of their gig in Jan­u­ary. Here’s  The


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Bowie
Jan 11

David Bowie RIP

A wave of dev­as­ta­tion has encom­passed every­one this morn­ing at the news that David Bowie has died. I have to agree with Lau­ren Lav­erne on BBC6 radio who stat­ed that “for those who feel they should­n’t be feel­ing so per­son­al­ly full of grief,  actu­al­ly, it’s OK for us to feel this way.” Bowie is part of us,


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Wolf Alice
Jan 8

Independent Venue Week 2016

Per­fect tim­ing. If you’ve been hid­ing your­self away for most of Jan­u­ary, Inde­pen­dent Venue Week comes along from Mon­day 25th to Sun­day 31st Jan­u­ary to bring back music into your life. And it’s all for a good cause – to help raise aware­ness of the UK’s rich seam of quirky and indi­vid­ual music venues, along with all the benefits


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jane weaver at Oslo
Dec 30

Eight favourite albums of 2015

Here are my top rec­om­mend­ed albums of 2015 in no par­tic­u­lar order. 1  Richard Haw­ley Hol­low Mead­ows A con­fi­dent col­lec­tion of beau­ti­ful tracks, Haw­ley’s voice at its most sub­lime­ly expres­sive. My favourite track is the non-bal­lad Which Way shall I go?, sexy with a touch of men­ace. Haw­ley’s per­for­mance at The Round­house a few weeks’ ago was one


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New town hall Hebden Bridge
Dec 28

Hebden Bridge: After the deluge

I’m repost­ing a piece from 2012, an account of the floods in Heb­den Bridge and the sur­round­ing vil­lages, writ­ten by local long-term res­i­dent and cre­ator of many com­mu­ni­ty events, Tes­sa Gordziejko. The Trades, Heb­den Bridge’s venue for so many great music nights, was giv­en a boost by Pat­ti Smith who did a gig there and


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rsz_sonia leigh at Rising Stars
Dec 17

Review: Time Out Best of Rising Stars

Time Out con­tin­ued their Ris­ing Stars series with a bumper Xmas spe­cial ‘Best of Ris­ing Stars’ – six acts with a foothold in the music indus­try who are being reward­ed by see­ing their tal­ent and per­sis­tence start to pay off. Hold­ing the Ris­ing Stars series is a good move for The Jazz Cafe too, as it helps spread the word about the


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Django Django Rondhouse
Dec 10

Review: Django Django at The Roundhouse

There are two Djan­go Djan­gos. There’s what you hear on their albums, a fat slam of addic­tive, uptem­po, feel-good melody, laced with dis­tinc­tive har­monies with a sweet-sour bal­ance. Then there’s live Djan­go, which is an alto­geth­er more dance-dri­ven, stripped, souped up ver­sion of the above, with a rock­et up its arse. Art house rock­ers Djan­go Djan­go are one of the bands


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Blue Zoo promo
Dec 2

Blue Zoo, Matt Backer plus 80s clubnight

This Sat­ur­day 5th Decem­ber is time to par­ty 80s style. Blue Zoo are play­ing at Nam­buc­ca, near Arch­way at 8pm, with a set list which includes those hits Cry Boy Cry, Ivory Tow­ers, I Shoot Sheep and more. Sup­port acts are: Matt Backer who has played with bands includ­ing Rumer, ABC, Julian Lennon, Sis­ter Sledge, Jamelia, Mark King,


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