Feb 29

Pitt Cue at Devonshire Square

In order to eat at the for­mer site of Pitt Cue restau­rant just off Carn­a­by Street, din­ers had to queue in the street, some­times for hours. The reward was a cov­et­ed place down­stairs in the 5‑table poky cel­lar space, or perched at the cosy bar upstairs. The rea­son peo­ple were pre­pared to wait was due


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Womad
Feb 25

Green and pleasant: the ultimate festival guide 2016

If you’re a fes­ti­val fan, by now you’re dream­ing of a green field, ban­ners wav­ing in the breeze, the sound of a band on the main stage
 yes, fes­ti­val sea­son is near­ly upon us again, and here is my Ulti­mate Fes­ti­val Guide. Most have been per­son­al­ly tried and test­ed, some on a year­ly basis – plus there’s


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James at The Scala
Feb 22

Review: James at Scala

James show­cased their new album Girl at the End of the World at Scala, Kings Cross. We’re hop­ing we’ll hear one or two old favourites scat­tered here and there, but this show is real­ly the launch of the new album and the first time they’ll be play­ing the mate­r­i­al in front of an audi­ence. Tim Booth comes on


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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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