Venue:

Picturehouse

Date: 30/04/2017

A couple of years after it’s original release a one-off cinema showing of the black & chrome special edition of Mad Max:Fury Road, to coincide with a dvd reissue. Supposedly this was director George Miller’s preferred version – not sure about that but it might have been in his mind; “You will ride eventual shiny and chrome!”. It remains a high-octane adrenaline blast. The monochrome is particularly good at picking out details like Charlize Theron’s eyes, and seems to enhance the whole gotterdamerung feel of the big trucks roaring like dinosaurs in the desert – on the rubber road to Valhalla.

The audience:

wide awake

It made me think..

What a lovely day

Venue:

The Institute, Digbeth, Birmingham

Date: 30/04/2017

Jings, but it’s been a while since I stepped out for some live, forgetting quite how much I delight and deplore the process. Thankfully this was more the former, a homecoming for the boys of Tuam to what is still one of the bigger cities in the west of Ireland. And by Paddy, they were out in force, all ages, shapes and sizes, mainly generous in all three parameters, at times the room reminiscent of the Craggy Island Farmers Dance. I962. And that was the mood set by the support, as if merseybeat had never happened, a world where all the bands are populated by Richard Hawley lookalikes. They and the ridiculously overpriced piss sold in thin plastic slop jars to refresh the audience provided the downside. Thankfully a brief yet all too long set ended and, just before half nine, on trouped the current six physicians, kicking straight off into a set of favourites, both old and, probably, brand new. With a newish record to promote I am sure some songs were new, but they all sounded familiar and the audience knew all the words, or seemed to. There is something » Continue Reading.

Venue:

Basingstoke Anvil

Date: 28/04/2017

Like mushrooms , which I don’t but that’s another story, I have a preference towards darkness and fretting over the intricacies of life’s bigger questions. Whether it be love, death, time, space or the nature of reality – it’s very much in my wheelhouse. Which is where we find The Unthanks and their latest Diversion, No.4, using the words or Molly Drake, poetess, songwriter and mother to the more well known, Gabrielle and Nick.

Cards on the table I knew very little about Molly before I heard about this project, Actually pretty much nothing apart from being Nick & Gabrielle’s mum. I expect this may be the experience of many attendees of this tour and listeners to the album and I can say that it’s perfectly fine. In fact I had preordered the album and it’s accompanying 8 track mini album ‘Extras’ which had duly arrived 2 days before the show but deliberately delayed listening so I could experience the songs for the first time in a live setting.

For these shows The Unthanks are a more streamlined setup which serves the songs best – Becky, Rachel & Adrian on piano, Niopha » Continue Reading.

Venue:

Thekla, Bristol

Date: 26/04/2017

The return of big, bad, Barry…former bass player with Magazine, ex Bad Seed and all round cool guy. His latest album “Know Where to Run” slipped out late last year, missed by many (including me to begin with) and now he’s touring it, pepped up with a nifty EP “Love Sick Dick”. You do the meaning. A solo show, BA plays guitars, keyboards and i-phone. And it’s a seriously good show. He may be a bit greyer round the muzzle (aren’t we all all) and thicker at the hips (aren’t we all) but sunglasses and a fedora and he is seriously cool. And some seriously good new songs. First time he played Bristol was 40 years ago at the C*****n Hall as part of Magazine. A fair few in the audience were there(not me sadly) and as a reward he closed his encore with that great f*** off fascist anthem “The Light Pours Out of Me”. Glorious.

The audience:

Blokes mainly, but cool with it.

It made me think..

Heart beats up love

Venue:

Pizza Express,Brindley Place, Birmingham

Date: 21/04/2017

Wonderful night at Pizza Express in Birmingham watching Dean Friedman. Not a name on many people’s lips. Possibly remembered for some quirky songs nearly 40 years ago.

But this guy is not just a one-hit-wonder. He composed loads of great songs. He teaches songwriting and conducts workshops.

He comes on and plays acoustic guitar with a very polished and nuanced hybrid picking style. At 61, his voice has lost none of its richness and range. His repartee between each song is witty. He embroiders each song with a tale – the evolution of McDonalds Girl into a YouTube hit and its eventual adoption 30 years later by the eponymous brand; the tale of Half Man Half Biscuit’s “Bastard Son Of Dean Friedman”, which is followed by his song about HMHB’s Nigel Blackwell entitled “A Baker’s Tale” ‘explaining’ Nigel’s birth.

He moves to piano and reveals a style rich in both jazz and classical training. The songs are well constructed, literate and funny.

He plays all the favourites – “Ariel”, “Rocking Chair” , ” Shopping Bag Ladies”, “Woman Of Mine”, and many more, including a very Randy Newmanesque “Death To The Neighbours”.

He » Continue Reading.

Venue:

170 Russell St / Bird’s Basement Melbourne

Date: 27/04/2017

At this time of year we get a stream of sideshows in Melbourne from bands booked for the Byron Blues festival. I prefer to cherry pick and get longer sets than sweat in a tent (TMFTL) at Byron. These last 2 weeks I’ve seen Laura Mvula, Electric Miles and now St Paul and the Broken Bones on Thursday followed by St Paul and the Minneapolis Funk All Stars on Sunday (not a Byron gig).

St Paul and the Broken Bones come from Alabama and are fronted by Paul Janeway. Deprived of music for most of his life due to a strict religious family he’s got JB, Sam Cooke, Otis and southern Baptist fervour infused into his remarkable voice. Their set of white southern soul / funk kicked off at 7 pm , squeezed in before they flew home. St Paul comes out in a cape and opens with Crumbling Light off 2016’s Sea Of Noise. The band are pretty good without being great, drums guitars, keys and a line of brass – but it is all about St Paul. But the thing is, he is such an unlikely figure » Continue Reading.

Venue:

London Palladium

Date: 21/04/2017

I have waited a long time to see John Prine live. The gig at the Palladium was well worth that wait and was perfect in almost every way. Firstly we were treated to a warm opening set from Amanda Shires. Strangely she didn’t use her fiddle for any of her songs. Highlights were the autobiographical Mineral Wells and a lovely cover of Leonard Cohen’s I’m your man. After a short intermission on came John Prince and his 4 piece band and the launched into a jaunty opening salvo of Love Love Love, The glory of love, Monday morning and taking a walk. This was the warming up period quipped John but for the audience it was clear they didn’t need a warm up period as they were red hot. The sound was crystal clear and full marks to the sound engineer. Highlights for me were a very poignant Hello in there, a wonderful Speed of the sound of loneliness and of course Sam Stone. Amanda returned to the stage for a few numbers starting with the duet In Spite of Ourselves. This time she bought the fiddle with her and it soared – especially » Continue Reading.

Venue:

Graham’s living room

Date: 20/04/2017

My first experience of a “living room” gig, fortunately one of my favourite front men, on his own, with a great new album to plug, only about ¾ of a mile down the road, near where we used to live. Enough to call a halt this week on my usual Thursday evening “world to rights” session with Smudger of this parish. Craig was tuning up when I arrived, but the natives appeared friendly so I repaired onto the back yard/lawn, where a succession of very friendly, interesting and likeable people (from reasonably far and wide (and West Bridgford)) came, mingled and went. Showtime, and everyone siphoned in through the French doors, to exhortations to “come closer”, so, cushion in hand, I did. Immediate stage left, leaning on (while sat down) some kind of flight case, a sofa and a CD rack. I got comfy about 3 songs in… Craig called us to order and began a guitar only (as he was all night) “God In Chicago”, during which you could’ve heard mice farting next door. Wonderful in all respects. Preludes, Jester and June, Tangletown and Be Honest followed from the new album, with » Continue Reading.

Venue:

Hamer Hall, Melbourne

Date: 15/04/2017

Arriving unannounced the 10 piece band commenced with some tabla playing and then some stunning trumpet playing. The smouldering, simmering ,smoking funky groove of the electric period continued for over an hour before the transfixed audience good show their appreciation of this outstanding band playing outstanding music. The Miles Electric band were formed for a one-off and have continued. Top flight musicians ,some played with Miles, others recorded ,a relative – all love the Jacj Johnson, Bitches Brew , On The Corner period and used those great grooves to travel elsewhere -but always within the oeuvre. The band are emphatic that they are noty a covers band , and afterall it wouldn’t make sense as a lot of this stuff was jamming then collated by the maestro Teo Macero. Having said that I recognised a lot of Bitches Brew and a sumblime, majestic In A Silent Way bnefore the jungle line headed off again. It was just great.

Here are the details of the band members copied from their bio:

Expect a funk explosion when the Miles Electric Band hits Australia for the first time, performing music from the influential 1969-1975 era. Musicians » Continue Reading.

Venue:

The Foundry, Sheffield

Date: 14/04/2017

mrs bogl delivered the goods for my birthday, earlier in the week: a ticket for this, in one of my favourite venues in Sheffield, just a twenty minute walk away.

It’s an interesting concept: the only remaining Spider and legendary Bowie producer as rhythm section with a crack band and…the lead singer of Heaven 17. Yet it really works. Not a tribute as such, though the arrangements tend to be as close to the originals as possible, with bits of the ’73 Hammersmith Odeon reproduced faithfully. Glenn Gregory makes no attempt to be a Bowie (no mimes during the solos from Width of a Circle, thankfully) but sings the songs in his own way extremely well. You don’t pick holes as you might with a tribute band, but accept it for what it is: a cracking band delivering great songs. Gregory is clearly having a ball performing some of his favourite songs on home turf. Woody is still a fearsome drummer, with the opening of The Supermen making the hairs stand up. Visconti handles the bass chores with aplomb. Great band generally with two guitarists alternating between taking lead lines or doing the » Continue Reading.

Venue:

State Theatre, Sydney

Date: 07/04/2017

This was just superb. Bonnie’s voice, always warm and soulful, is so rich and powerful these days without losing any of the aforementioned warmth and soulfulness. She can belt it out without ever sounding strained or forced. The result is you just bathe in the beauty of this exquisite singing.

But wait – there’s more – she can whip it out on the Strat, her slide playing is still as bluesy as ever, dirty and raw but exquisitely controlled, like all the best guitar players.

And what a crack band – the great Ricky Fataar on drums – forget the Beach Boys and The Rutles, this guy can hold down a groove a la the Jims Gordon and Keltner, and works seamlessly with Bonnie’s longtime bassist James Hutchinson. Then there’s also George Marinelli on guitar, who’s good, although pretty average on mandolin which he plays a bit too often. And then on keyboards – Mike Finnegan, last heard (by me) on Electric Ladyland FFS! He takes a lovely solo spot on BB King’s “Don’t Answer The Door” – I’ll post a YouTube clip of a previous performance in the comments.

The setlist » Continue Reading.

Venue:

Trinity, Bristol

Date: 06/04/2017

British Sea Power – indiest of Brit (make that English) indy bands have just started touring their rather fine new album “Let the Dancers Inherit the Party” and this was the first night – a triumphant return (album and gig). You get the big anthems (and the new album contains a couple of potential classics) with glorious riffs and choruses which will no doubt go down a storm at Glastonbury (Remember Me, No Lucifer, Waving Flags – ha!) but underneath that and at the same time there is a home-knitted, plaintive emotional quality that is magnified when they use brass (Machineries of Joy) – sadly only one cornet (?) tonight. And then there are the endearing eccentricities – Marsha the owl, the bears, the foliage – which lets you know you are in a someone’s fully formed world, some of which has yet to be explained. It was a great show – nearly 2 very hot hours and they even had special suits for the encore – you wait.

I’m not sure if BSP are going to get any bigger – and selfishly I’m not sure I want them to if I can » Continue Reading.

Venue:

Le National, Montreal, QC

Date: 01/04/2017

Please allow me a little self indulgence before I get to the review. I have loved music from the 60s since I first started buying records in the mid to late 70s, The Beatles, Stones, The Who, Dylan quickly became established in my collection. Later, I got to know classics such as Pet Sounds, Forever Changes and the first Velvet Underground album. Arrogantly I thought I had pretty much everything one might need until my ex asked me if I knew Odessey and Oracle by The Zombies. She played it to me and I fell in love with the record (and with her). Peerless songwriting from Argent and White, some of the best vocals ever put to tape and glorious arrangements. We talked of having “This Will Be Our Year” as our wedding song, marveled at Care of Cell 44’s subject matter and wondered whether any song captured the transience of relationships as well as Brief Candles “Brief Candles in her mind, bright and tiny gems of memory …”.

This was about 12 years ago, we saw The Zombies touring band play in 2009 but the jewel in the crown was to » Continue Reading.

Venue:

Thekla, Bristol

Date: 02/04/2017

Moonlandingz have had quite extensive coverage recently, mainly focussed around the scuzzier end of their stage antics. A band created to perform the role of a fictional band on someone else’s concept album – I found the original concept resistible enough not to pursue further. Likewise Fat White Family who provide some of the beef, or Slow Club who provide some of the more decorous elements. On reflection a psychotic(demonic?) glam rock band from the wrong side of Sheffield has to have something going for it? Some serious patronage too (Yoko Ono, Sean Lennon and others). And now we have an actual album (Top 10 definitely), and an actual sold-out tour, even on Sunday. Leading to less than 60 minutes or so of over refreshed mayhem. Oh and a fistful of glorious songs. An unholy mixture of Glitter Band, The Cramps, Baby Bird, early Human League and Uncle Lou Reed and all. Some bloke called Adrian appears to be the evil genius behind it all(aren’t they always) – who knows what dark secret the shades and beany are hiding? Go and see them (if you can get a ticket) if you want some raucous » Continue Reading.

Venue:

Club Oslo, Hackney

Date: 30/03/2017

When I saw Sam Outlaw for the first time last year he was so impressive.

At King’s Place in London, where we’d gone to see Kelly Willis and Bruce Robison, we found that they weren’t the headliners as we’d expected and that Sam had been given top billing.

The displeasure my wife and I felt had evaporated by the end of the first song. Here is a guy with real star quality, a performer with presence, with charisma. Someone whom you found just held your gaze. And he has a decent set of songs.

I’d got the album, Angeleno, after hearing him do a radio session, but initially felt the disc didn’t do him justice and wasn’t as strong as the live performance that had sold me on him. I soon reappraised my feelings after the gig and came to love the disc.

That was last year. As I journeyed to this gig I wondered had he really been that good; had I misremembered and oversold the experience to all those friends to whom I’d sermonised about the excellence of Sam Outlaw?

Circumstances conspired to cause me to miss the support, so when » Continue Reading.

Venue:

Thekla, Bristol

Date: 28/03/2017

Got this ticket on a bit of a whim and almost didn’t go after a hard day and rubbish weather but very glad I did.

FatAM are very French – play French pop with a strong North African influence – who would have guessed from the name? You couldn’t mistake them for Brits/Americans – even before they did a couple of little mini Shadows steps/2 man can-cans. A great party night. Full of joie de vivre. As someone who gets quite engaged with song lyrics (and only has CSE French) the fact that they were in French didn’t really matter. Partie!Partie! Partie!

The audience:

Europeans. Those I could see were a much better M:F ratio and a much nicer atmosphere than other gigs recently.

It made me think..

Formidable! Manifique!

Venue:

Town Hall Birmingham

Date: 24/03/2017

There are some gigs that speak for themselves. Cloud Nothings on Wednesday was pretty much: here are our songs, a bit louder and faster than on record. No chat. Is that OK? And then there’s gigs that demand to be dissected and discussed. And so it is with Lloyd Cole at Birmingham Town Hall on Friday Night.

So what happened? Lloyd was onstage at eight, just him and an acoustic guitar for 45 minutes. Late-entry punters caught out got ‘I’m supporting Lloyd Cole, then there’s an interval, then I’m coming back as Lloyd Cole the headliner’. Which he did, for the second half accompanied by his son Will on second acoustic. We got two hours, heavy on the Commotions songbook – this is billed as the ‘Oldies tour’ – with forays into the solo catalogue as far as The Negatives. Almost all of Rattlesnakes, and a good chunk of Easy Pieces and Mainstream. No More Love Songs the most recent, Perfect Skin the oldest. Lloyd’s between song chat was neither minimal nor expansive. He noted that the newest song was twenty years old, and the oldest approaching forty. Will, who doubled as roadie, » Continue Reading.

Venue:

St. Georges, Bristol

Date: 24/03/2017

Last night I dreamed I went to Monterey again. There was the beach, the pier, the Pacific, the view, and that road leading south, climbing and curling out of town, hugging the cliff-top, impossibly cool, impossibly glamorous, a road to dream of. I got there via a concert venue half way up Park Street in Bristol and a jazz gig. Courtney Pine was in town, ahead of his new album, just playin’. The merch table had the new CD from his astonishingly good keyboard player, Nikki Yeoh, but no new Pine material – it’s not out yet. So this was a blast gig, played mostly for the fun of it, a live rehearsal if you like, at one of his favourite venues.

In fact, we learned that Nikki Yeoh had just volunteered to sit in at the last moment, with no rehearsal, and winged it, magnificently. But that’s the thing; these people can do that. Chops. They never play the same song the same way twice. Ever. We got a couple of standards; a Herbie Hancock funk, and with Omar on board, a sublime There’s Nothing Like This amongst others. Mostly we » Continue Reading.

Venue:

Hare and Hounds, Birmingham

Date: 22/03/2017

The Cloud Nothings have been offering reliably fizzy punkypop from for seven years now, and their albums Cloud Nothings (11 songs in 28 minutes!), Attack on Memory, Here and Nowhere else and new one Life Without Sound are all excellent. So after support from Irish musicblog-friendly solo troubadour Cian Nugent here they are at Hare and Hounds just down the road.

It’s Dylan Baldi’s band – situated stage left in long greasy hair, beard and hoodie. The rest of the band fan out – strong silent type bass player and new lead guitarist who has the rocking along to the music move really down. They have the melody/noise balance just right, and if they’ve a standout player it’s drummer Jayson Gerycz who gets a huge amount from a minimal kit. They’re as tight as you’d expect from a band five albums in and play a crisp hour-long set. No between-song banter and no encore, which I think is the right way to go for a gig this size. Just 15 or so songs taken at a pretty fast lick.

What do they sound like? Inevitably heavier and faster than on record, » Continue Reading.

Venue:

Apollo Theatre, London

Date: 15/03/2017

One doesn’t frequent the theatre as much as one ought, nor will one in future if the theatre continues to stiff one for eighty-three notes plus a £1.75 ‘Restoration Contribution” for a seat in Row B of the Circle. In an odd way it’s the smaller amount which hurts you more – having recovered from the mugging at the Box Office, you find yourself reeling all over again at their temerity in coming back to you with hand outstretched for a levy to fund the polishing of the proscenium or the re-sticking of the stucco. Such costs, you might think, would be intrinsic to the gross figure previously presented, but not so. Throw in train tickets, a couple of Shaftesbury Avenue burgers and half a bottle of claggy Malbec each, and the chiz household is well on its way to £250 in the hole for the privilege of sitting side-by-side in silence in the dark all evening, something we normally expect to get for free at home. A modest mortgage renegotiation at half time scores us two thimbles of Haagen Daas, the ice cream equivalent of a Farrow and Ball testing pot; it’s » Continue Reading.