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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Jul 12

Dolly Parton and the Glastonbury dog – back with its owners

Dol­ly Par­ton had offered to res­cue a dog found at Glas­ton­bury, dis­cov­ered cow­er­ing in a tent by the clean­er-uppers. The lurcher was too old to trav­el so would not have been able to be rehomed in the States â€“ but the own­ers have now come for­ward to reclaim the poor crea­ture. I am a bit mys­ti­fied by


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Hinterland
Jul 9

Review: Debut album Hinterland by The Bedroom Hour

March 31 2015: This review is for Hin­ter­land by The Bed­room Hour. I’ve been made aware that some peo­ple are expect­ing to read about new album Hin­ter­land by LoneLa­dy. So, The Bed­room Hour’s debut album, Hin­ter­land is final­ly here. The band were post­ing reg­u­lar updates on its progress and suc­cess­ful­ly crowd fund­ed to help with its release. I’m feel­ing that same


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Arcade Fire
Jul 5

Review: BST Hyde Park Barclaycard, Arcade Fire

The hottest day of the year turned into a beau­ti­ful evening, and at Hyde Park, Arcade Fire gave a tru­ly inspired per­for­mance. No doubt the band were mak­ing sure that this, their last night of the suc­cess­ful Reflek­tor tour, would be one for us, and them, to remem­ber. Win But­ler was more engag­ing, and more humor­ous, than


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Trentemoller
Jun 18

Trentemoller, bringing dark Danish sounds to Meltdown

There’s so much going on over the sum­mer at the South Bank ‑or South­bank Cen­tre,  as it’s now renamed. On this night alone there’s raw, dirty blues from The Amaz­ing Snake­heads and a come­back set from Edwyn Collins. I’m off to see TrentemĂžller. The last time I saw the Dan­ish elec­tro mul­ti instru­men­tal­ist was at 2am in


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