Elephant Stone at The Shacklewell Arms 2023

This was an evening fans had been antic­i­pat­ing for a few years – the return of Mon­tre­al psy­che­delia-lean­ing band Ele­phant Stone to UK shores. This, their only show here, took place at char­ac­ter­ful music venue The Shack­lewell Arms, mean­ing fans coun­try wide had no option but to trav­el to the Lon­don venue, a fact that…

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Fire Records Heaven on Fire at Studio 9295

In Decem­ber 2019 I attend­ed the Fire Records Christ­mas gig at Stu­dio 9295 in Hack­ney. It’s the sort of event I’d like to see more of: a selec­tion of artists with 40-ish minute sets, and all in a relaxed and friend­ly atmos­phere. So how for­tu­itous it was to dis­cov­er that the label were dish­ing up…

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W H Lung, debut album at Oslo, Hackney

W H Lung have tak­en around two years to release their first album Inci­den­tal Music. Even when inter­est in their deep and moody music start­ed to esca­late, the band were quite obvi­ous­ly going to do things in their own time. I first heard them at Blue­dot fes­ti­val in 2017 and had one of those moments…

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Cassoulet Nights pop-up dining in Hackney

Tasty French coun­try food pop­up Cas­soulet Nights is set to run through to Decem­ber 23rd. There’s a new Xmas menu with Veg­e­tar­i­an option, plus a la carte dish­es but you can pop in for drinks and snacks if you like

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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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