UPCOMING SHOWS

 

Rob Heron & The Tea Pad Orchestra
Boss Caine (Trio)
Sunday 25th February, 7.30pm
  
Rob Heron & The Tea Pad Orchestra don’t care what genre you choose to put them in – Western Swing, Blues, Country, Rock & Roll or whatever else– as long as you understand that they’re 100% sincere and 100% immersed in this stuff. This is no lazy pastiche, no dressing up box. They live and breathe this music and want you to get immersed with them.

The Tea Pad are ten years into a remarkable story that began with four friends studying at Newcastle University and now sees them playing venues and festivals across the UK and mainland Europe. Based in Newcastle Upon Tyne but with members hailing from Orkney to Warwickshire, the Tea Pad sound draws on myriad influences – from Hank Williams to Django Reinhardt, Tom Waits to The Beatles – yet ultimately sounds like nobody else, that North Eastern Swing style that’s utterly their own and changing all the time.

Across their four studio albums – 2012’s “Money Isn’t Everything”, 2014’s “Talk About The Weather”, 2016’s “Something Blue” and 2019’s “Soul Of My City” – the band have constantly added new flavours to their sound: Heron in particular is a vinyl obsessive, always fired up about some new passion – calypso or boogaloo or whatever this week brings – and that eclecticism feeds into their songs, with the newest releases adding twangy 60s guitar tones and modernist R&B styles.

The band tour the way bands should – widely and endlessly – winning friends and fans at each new show with notable performances at festivals like Glastonbury, Bestival, Wilderness and Cambridge Folk Festival. They’ve appeared three times on Radio 4’s Loose Ends, and had their music played by everyone from Marc Riley to Huey Morgan.

In October 2022 the band released their fifth studio album, “The Party’s Over”, with a signature blend of classic country and rhythm and blues at a new level.
After a decade of honing their craft, this might be the best album to date!

Joining Rob Heron (vocals/guitar) is Tom Cronin (mandolin/harmonica/guitar), Ben Powling (Saxophone/Clarinet) and Ted Harbot (double bass/electric bass) and Paul Archibald (drums)

Press:

“Hank did it like this. So did Sinatra. So did Tom Waits. So did John Lee Hooker. Mix these influences with a healthy dose of youthful enthusiasm, a real passion and an ear for detail, sheer authenticity, and a good slug of both Scotch and Bourbon, and you might find that the results are very much to your taste. They are certainly to mine.”
Mark Whyatt, Folk Radio

“Newcastle’s finest swing-honkytonk-rockabilly band”
fRoots

“That’s one hot band right there!”
Huey Morgan, BBC Radio 2

“Rob Heron evokes the spirit of Bob Wills and Django Reinhardt with a quintet that shuffles and boogies with panache. Infectiously good-humoured.”
Uncut Magazine

“Amazing musicians who play with both passion and a sympathetic regard for the history of the genre.”
Maverick Magazine
 
Tickets for this show are £15 in advance.

You can get tickets online from here.


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Rowan & Friends
'Rock N Roll Super Powers' Album Launch
Thursday 29th February, 7.30pm  
 
Proudly now one of our own. Rowan Evans is a left-field singer-songwriter from Coventry who moved to York a few years ago and is on a mission to keep our city's live music scene diverse and interesting with his great monthly sessions at The Golden Ball and alternative gig promotions all over town.

Watch / Listen
 
Rowan and his awesome band celebrate celebrate the release of their brand new record this February with a bit old party at The Crescent and a full length headline show featuring brand new songs and old favourites.

Think wordy, ramshackle rock with a folk-ish noir slant, heartfelt at times and with tongue in cheek wit at others. Not a million miles from the soul's of Richard Dawson, John Darnielle, Jeff Magnum and our hero David Berman.
 
 Tickets for this show are £8 in advance.

You can get tickets online from here.

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The Umbrellas
 
w/ Autocamper + Captain Starlet
Friday 8th March, 7.30pm
 
w/ Captain Starlet + Speedreaders
The Fulford Arms, York
Monday 11th March, 7.30pm
 
The Umbrellas are four renegade romantics crafting irresistible indie pop hymns. The band’s self-titled 2021 debut album became a breakout moment, winning critical praise and sparking an international tour. Follow-up LP ‘Fairweather Friend’ goes a step further – absorbing the sonic attack of their live shows, it balances this with studio finesse, allowing the San Francisco four-piece to become the band they’ve always aspired to be.

It’s a record overflowing with highlights. The candyfloss melodies of introductory track ‘Three Cheers!’ are matched to an impactful percussive punch; ‘Say What You Mean’ finds The Umbrellas working with total confidence, letting the song ride out to its chiming conclusion, four voices working in precision. ‘When You Find Out’ offers rotating notes of guitar punctuated by a vocal that pushes past angst to accept a world full of hope. A lean 10 track affair, it grasps towards beatific pop while fuelled by a sense of risk, and the precision that comes from long months on the road.

The Umbrellas coalesced around a group of musicians who would frequent legendary San Francisco record emporium Amoeba Music. Singer and guitarist Matt Ferrera links with bassist Nick Oka, while Keith Frerichs is the powerhouse drummer. A chance encounter with Morgan Stanley singing karaoke at a Fourth of July party cemented the line-up around an avowed thirst for melody. “All of us love really earnest pop songs,”

Nick points out. “I guess we got to a point in our lives where we wanted to be genuine.” Playing shows at San Francisco’s vital DIY redoubt Hit Gallery, The Umbrellas would share line-ups with local heroes such as April Magazine and Cindy. Recording their debut album across a two-day spell at Matt’s parents’ house, the results won a devoted cult following. Yet the experience of touring bonded them tightly and allowed the volume to tick up a little higher, and higher, and higher. “I think we got tired of people saying, oh you’re so much louder than I thought you’d be!” laughs Matt. “Our early recordings are sweet and earnest... and we wanted it to be louder.”

Kicking off sessions in November 2022, the band used an ad hoc space Matt created in his basement, working across a four-month period. Sessions were a little more relaxed in terms of timescale than their debut, but The Umbrellas were incredibly focussed on the project. “We gave ourselves more space for this album,” says Keith. “We wanted time to sit on the songs, and really work on them.”

Allowing their live dynamic to bleed out on tape, The Umbrellas are at once more physical and yet also more controlled on their new album. Take opening track ‘Three Cheers!’ – the peppy, sun-soaked rush masks a barbed lyric, courtesy of Nick Oka. “It’s a pseudo-political song about power struggles that occur in a job situation, or a friend group. It’s an observational song.”

‘Toe The Line’ has an unkempt, rollicking sense of energy, the playful relationship analogy of the lyric pushed to the speed of light by Keith’s ultra-fast punk drumming. ‘When You Find Out’ meanwhile epitomises their unified, egalitarian way of making music – with The Umbrellas, each voice counts. “It sounds different from any song we’ve ever written together,” says Morgan. “It shows how much we’ve grown. Trust helps us to build the songs. It’s definitely a team effort.”

It’s also a record of ambition. ‘Say What You Mean’ stretches past the four-minute mark, the viola performance informed by Estonian minimalist composer Arvo Pärt. ‘Gone’ was the first song attempted for the new album, and the last they actually finished, endless re-writes transforming it into a manifesto of control and release.

Taken as a whole ‘Fairweather Friend’ is a bold indie pop triumph, crafted with purpose and attention. Taking their time over each note, the four-piece have strengthened their songwriting, adding depth and assurance while unlocking their potential. Some bonds last a lifetime – The Umbrellas are ready to capture your heart.
 
Tickets for these shows are £12 in advance.

You can get tickets online for Leeds here and York here.

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BC Camplight
Friday 15th March, 7.30pm
 
*This show is now sold out, you can join the waiting list via See Tickets here*
 
Is there a curse that says Brian ‘BC Camplight’ Christinzio cannot move forward without being knocked back? That the greatest material is born out of emotional trauma? Whilst making his new album, The Last Rotation Of Earth, Christinzio’s relationship with his fiancé crumbled after nine inseparable years. The album follows this break-up amid long-term struggles with addiction and mental health. The outcome is an extraordinary record, with Christinzio describing it as “more cinematic, sophisticated and nuanced than anything I’ve done before.” He goes on to describe how the separation altered his creative focus and caused him to “scrap 95% of what I’d already recorded”, finishing The Last Rotation Of Earth in two months and making what he believes is his most vital album.

Still, Christinzio doesn’t see any of this as a story of redemption. “This is not a story of victory,” he says. “It is a document created in the shadow of incredible darkness. One from which the creator hadn't planned on escaping, and still doesn't. Hence the title of the album. It is the result of an illness that I've battled my whole life. It isn't something that the world has done to me. It's the world I live in and it's no one's fault.”

Watch / Watch / Watch
 
That Christinzio has bettered his previous album is an achievement, given that Shortly After Takeoff received the best reviews of his life. “A masterpiece,” said The Guardian's 5 star review, “a half hour or so that roils with anxiety, stuns with beauty and, occasionally, provokes laughter.” Even then, fate intervened when the album was released in April 2020, just as Covid and lockdown kicked in, so he was unable to tour the record until late 2021. The Philadelphian then joked, “I can't wait to make an album that isn’t surrounded by some awful tragedy.”

Talk about tempting fate. But it’s true to say that Christinzio has made his best music under immense duress, and The Last Rotation Of Earth is an inimitable work; a heady, heavy slice of lustrous hooks, moods bursting with classical sophistication and fractured paranoia. Christinzio’s signature dizzying progressions and U-turns are executed with a masterful hand. A notable feature of the album are periodic conversational voices, as if a cast of people were delivering their lines – which was exactly part of Christinzio’s thinking. “I wanted to make the songs resemble little films, with lots of ideas,” he says.

There is no better entry to the Camplight school of sound and vision than the opening title track and lead single. “For the first time since I arrived in Manchester,” he says, “I thought, why am I here? I came to find my music, and to find her, and she’s gone. I do everything in my power not to be dramatic, but I didn’t want to be alive anymore. So, I imagined what your last day on earth would be like. Though the lyrics are often quite sweet, like appreciating the looks that strangers give each other, from the perspective of a guy soaking up every last bit of life.”

The audio-verité approach is clearest on track two, ‘The Movie’, a fully-fledged dramarama with “scene one” and “scene two,” directions. “I don’t find writing cathartic,” says Christinzio, “but this was one exception. To step outside as the narrator to my own life did help in some psychotic way. It ends with a verbatim exchange of my break-up, but with humour. I don’t want to say how shitty everything is over a 38-minute record. I’m still capable of being funny and alive.” The Last Rotation Of Earth is the best example yet of these musical and lyrical powers, and the increasing impact that he has been making, across his fan base and his peers. Humour has long served as respite within Christinzio’s art.

‘The Mourning’ is a slow, wordless elegy that takes the album out on a low note. “No grand finale, more, ‘I wonder what happens next’,” says Christinzio. “After everything people have been through, they’re suspicious of happy endings. Like I said, this is not a redemption saga.”

So, what does lie ahead? And can Christinzio ever trust the future? When he began releasing records in 2005, backed by members who would eventually join The War On Drugs, and guest-starring on Sharon Van Etten’s Epic album, the future looked bright. “But if I’d stayed,” he once mused, “I’d be dead. Period.” So Christinzio took a friend’s advice to escape his alcohol and drug addictions in Philly and move to Manchester, leading to his debut album for Bella Union, How To Die In The North; though just two days before it was released in 2014, he was deported . Back in the UK (with an Italian passport), he made Deportation Blues but just days before it was released in 2016, his father died, triggering a breakdown that inspired Shortly After Takeoff, the last part of what Christinzio calls his Manchester Trilogy.

So, he must begin again; new album, newly single, clean slate. And without tempting fate again, before the last rotation of earth, BC Camplight and his band will tour The Last Rotation Of Earth, including his biggest headline shows to date, at London Shepherd’s Bush Empire and Manchester’s Albert Hall. “It’s wonderful to realise the songs in front of that many people,” says Christinzio, “I know I’m never going to be Coldplay, but ten years ago, I was certain I wouldn’t make music again.”

Ten years later Christinzio is still making important music, still channelling the forces that have beleaguered him and making the most honest and candid work he can.
 
 Tickets for this show are £20 in advance.

You can get tickets online from here.

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Dan Stuart
(Green On Red)
Tom Heyman
Sunday 17th March, 7.30pm
  
Dan Stuart

Dan is a musician and author who was the leader of Green on Red, a band associated with both LA's Paisley Underground of the 1980's and the beginning of the so-called Americana movement.
 
Dan returns to the UK to perform songs from across his solo and Green on Red catalogue and tell some stories. Dan lead Green on Red from 1981 to 1993 with over 7 albums and appearances at Reading and Glastonbury Festival main stages.
 
The band got back together in 2006 and sold out the 2000 capacity London, Astoria. Since then he has written three novels with his latest entitled Marlowe's Revenge, and three albums by the same name with the last getting 'Americana album of the Month' in UNCUT Magazine.  
 
Tom Heyman

US singer-songwriter, Tom Heyman (formerly of Go To Blazes) will be over to the UK presenting his new concept record, 24th Street Blues, about the endangered culture and living ghosts of the Mission District in San Francisco that at times recalls Dylan, JJ Cale, Gordon Lightfoot and the economy of words that were the penchant of John Prine. Heyman has spent years performing with Hiss Golden Messenger, Chuck Prophet, Alejandro Escovedo and a host of others. 
 
Tickets for this show are £16 in advance.

You can get tickets online from here.


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C Duncan
Wednesday 20th March, 7.30pm
  
Born and raised in Glasgow by two classical musicians, Chris studied piano and viola before taking up guitar, bass, and drums in his teens, eventually studying music composition at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. After graduating he began work on his first album, writing and recording everything from home.

His Mercury nominated debut 'Architect' was released in 2015 and after a spell of touring the UK and Europe he returned to his home studio and began work on his Twilight Zone inspired second album 'The Midnight Sun' which was released in 2016 and shortlisted for Scottish Album of the Year.

He supported Elbow on their UK and North American tour which led him to record his third album 'Health' at their studio in Salford with Craig Potter, which was released in 2019 and also shortlisted for Scottish Album of the Year. Now back in his "new and improved" home studio, Chris recorded and released his fourth album ‘Alluvium’ in May 2022 on Bella Union. He is also a keen artist, and paints all his own album artwork.

 
Tickets for this show are £12 in advance.

You can get tickets online from here.


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Real Farmer
ATKRTV + PUSH
Wednesday 20th March, 7.30pm  
 
After opening our Triple-Dutch party during Independent Venue Week, we welcome back Groningen punk quartet Real Farmer to York in double quick time as they celebrate the release of their debut album 'Compare What's There'. Very please also to have guitar n drums duo PUSH back in the building and to welcome angular trio ATKRTV to The Crescent for the first time!

Real Farmer

As active members of the vibrant local music scene with their wonderfully infectious punk noise, Real Farmer’s debut album Compare What’s There (released 8th March 2024) finds guitarist/vocalist Peter van der Ploeg, bassist/vocalist Marrit Meinema, singer Jeroen Klootsema and drummer Leon Harms concocting fast-paced, driving songs with wiry riffs, propelling drums, and winding melodies. Each track stands on its own, both expressing a nostalgia for a different time and reflecting the time and place the songs were written in, showing the multifaceted personalities that make up Real Farmer.

Groningen is one of the youngest cities in Europe, thanks in part to a ‘do it yourself’ nonprofit attitude, of which Real Farmer have become an integral part. If you weren’t born when the MC5, the Stooges or the Pixies were kicking out the jams, make Real Farmer your new jam. I promise you won’t be disappointed..”
 
Compare What’s There was produced by Niek Van Den Driesschen and recorded at Far Out Sound Studios in Rotterdam.
 
Watch / Watch / Watch
 
Real Farmer will be playing six shows for Independent Venue Week in January and February on the ‘Triple Dutch Tour’ with fellow Dutch up-and-comers Personal Trainer (including members of Real Farmer) and The Klittens. In March the band are on the road again supporting Bull in Brighton along with five headline shows.
 
 Tickets for this show are £6 in advance.

You can get tickets online from here.

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Bull

w/ FEET + Vehicle
 The Crescent, York
Friday 22nd March, 7.30pm
 
w/ Fat Spatula + Eugene Gorgeous
The Crescent, York
Saturday 23rd March, 7.30pm
  
We're so lucky to have Bull. They have a new album landing in the spring and we're hosting two big parties at The Crescent to celebrate in March.
 
Formed by vocalist and songwriter Tom Beer and guitarist Dan Lucas, Bull’s mission is simply to make the music they wanted to listen to, inspired by their 90’s heroes such Pavement, Yo La Tengo and the Pixies. The rest of the band came together through a mix of friendships and happenstance. Drummer Tom Gabbatiss joined after he and Tom jammed together in bars while they were back-packing round Thailand, and Kai West had previously used to jump up on stage with the band and “Bez” (verb meaning to dance badly while intoxicated) before they eventually let him play bass.
 
Tickets for this show are £12.50 in advance.

You can get tickets online for Friday here and Saturday here.


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Alison Cotton
Accompanied by Chloe Herington (Valve, Chromehoof, Knifeworld)
Pascallion
Sunday 31st March, 7.30pm
  
We're returning to rise for a handful of shows this spring, the first to be announced is this beauty with killer viola player, drone/improv artist and song-writer Alison Cotton.

Alison has released three great records on Rocket Recordings & Feeding Tube and is also a member of The Left Outsides.

For this tour she will be performing with Chloe Herington (Valve, Chromehoof, Knifeworld) on harmonium, playing songs from her new album 'Engelchen', an album inspired by the story of Ida and Louise Cook, two remarkable women who helped arrange the paths of refugees out of danger in 1930s Nazi-occupied Europe.
Full info:
 
Engelchen literally translates as ‘little angels,’ and for many in the febrile, dangerous era of the 1930s in Nazi-occupied Europe, as they wrote letters to arrange their paths out of danger as refugees, these were Ida and Louise Cook

Ida and Louise spent much of their early years in Sunderland, and in adulthood lived in a suburb of London with their parents. They were enormous fans of opera, and led relatively quiet and unfussy lives, Ida working for the civil service as a secretary and Louise as a writer of Mills & Boon romances under a pseudonym.

Yet secretly these resourceful and eccentric women were using their musical obsessions as a means to help dozens of refugees escape with their lives.

Their secretive heroics now almost beggar belief, and when Alison Cotton, herself from Sunderland, first discovered their story, she couldn’t understand why it wasn’t more widely known. Furthermore, she was inspired by their courage, fortitude and derring-do to compose Engelchen, a musical tribute to the duo’s lives and work, first performed at Seventeen Ninteeten Holy Church in Sunderland and now a full-length release by Rocket Recordings.

Music was always central to the lives of Ida and Louise, not just in their imaginations and passions but in the way they used their pursuit of it to facilitate the work that has become their legacy. Ceaselessly travelling around Europe and particularly Germany to see their favourite sopranos and conductors, sending bouquets of roses to dressing rooms, taking photos and requesting autographs, they built both a pretext and a means to piece together the network of associations which helped them to save the lives of the Jewish people they worked with. This in itself has influenced Engelchen, a work which builds a bridge between the emotional intensity of the music that inspired the Cook sisters and the bravery and jeopardy of their lives.

Ida Cook sums up their utilitarian attitudes, which took them not only to Europe but on scarcely conceivable journeys to the US in the 1920s, here; “you never know what you can do until you refuse to take no for an answer. In this very amateur way, we did manage to rescue 29 people and set them on new lives. The same mentality that had made us reckon the expenses of our first American adventure to the final penny now enabled us to think in terms of adding shilling to shilling, week to week and effort to effort”

The first track ‘We Were Smuggling People’s Lives’ - a melancholic threnody rich with elegiac atmosphere and palpable danger - serves as a travelogue of sorts of the journeys that Ida and Louise would embark on. The title itself comes from the words of the sisters, relating to the fact that the refugees whose journeys they were arranging were unable to take any of their assets or money out of Germany, meaning Ida and Louise would themselves transport their possessions by stealth.
 
“We came into Croydon Airport each Friday evening with practically empty suitcases, shivering in our tweed suits and we went across the Dutch border on Sunday wearing furs, sparkling with jewellery and scarcely able to drag our bags. We were smuggling people’s lives.”

Elsewhere, the tracks of Engelchen equally dwell in the worlds of the Cook sisters and those that they rescued. Reflecting the way the sisters took succour from the music they loved whilst engaging in such demanding and tense work, ‘Crépsucule’ is a version by Alison of one of their favourite arias from Jules Massenet, as sung by one of the sisters’s favourite sopranos, Amelita Galli Cuci, ‘Dolphin Square’ meanwhile is a psychogeographical piece that locates itself at the London flat that was put aside as the refugees’ destination in London.

A particularly emotive and powerful moment elsewhere is ‘The Letter Burning’, which reflects the fact that much of the correspondence related to the sisters work was burned by Louise. This was for reasons unclear, yet many have interpreted it as a gesture of remorse, haunted by memories of the past and beset by angst at all those she couldn’t do more for.

Throughout, this story is relayed by Alison Cotton, whether acapella or by means of richly emotive string arrangements, with a deftness of touch, sensitivity and intensity that matches the feverish nature of the experiences and the unforgiving environs in which they took place. Summoning foley work to sum up the atmospheres of the sister’s journeys (from train noises to the sound of gulls on the English coast, to the ominous military drumbeat) Engelchen is a transporting work whose spirit is situated in a very specific time and place.

Nontheless, the story of Ida and Louise Cook reflects themes that extends beyond history in the here and now, In putting together Engelchen, Alison met up with refugees living in the UK today via the charity North East Rise to discover the challenges they’ve faced on their journey, and those experiences ultimately found their way into a new version of the piece’s eponymous track, connecting the Cook sisters story to 2024.

This is more than merely an inspirational tribute to two mavericks who beat the odds in an unforgettable feat of altruism. It’s a celebration of the human spirit, one that reflects a universality in its narrative which transcends the boundaries of history and impacts very urgently on our daily lives. Whatever attempts may be made to tell this story, it’s hard to imagine one that resonates deeper than Engelchen.

Press:

'The power of this music is simply awe-inspiring.'
The Quietus

'An arcane ritual.'
The Wire

'An eerie, lost folk horror soundtrack glinting in the sunshine.'
The Guardian

'Folorn, hypnotic drone hymns for an ancient haunted England.'
Mojo

'Startlingly brilliant.'
Shindig

'Painting pictures in our attentive and impressionable minds.'
Louder Than War
 
Tickets for this show are £12.50 in advance.

You can get tickets online from here.


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Adwaith
Moongate
Thursday 4th April, 7.30pm  
 
Hailing from the Welsh town of Carmarthen, Adwaith grew up surrounded by a rich tradition of Welsh-language indie-rock, and a tight-knit scene of experimental, artistically-minded bands that frequented their beloved local venue The Parrot. Inspired by the lineage of boldly experimental bands that emerged out of Wales in the ‘80s – Datblygu, Traddodiad Ofnus and Fflaps to name three groups spearheading new wave Welsh rock music at the time – Adwaith knew that they wanted to be similarly uncompromising in their own vision. When Hollie Singer, Gwenllian Anthony and Heledd Owen first went about founding their own band in 2015, they were also equally influenced by newer acts they’d seen playing at local indie venues and Welsh-Language music festivals, where they bore witness to another new wave of musicians wielding Welsh as an exciting musical instrument.

Watch / Watch / Watch

After signing to Carmarthen-based indie label Libertino, Adwaith released their debut single ‘Pwysau’ in 2016, and steadily built on these promising foundations as they delved into mangled, free-wheeling post-punk recalling just some of their heroes: CAN, The Breeders, and NEU! That same year, debut album ‘Melyn’ perfectly skewered the anxiety and unease of becoming an adult in a fraught political climate, in a region too often sidelined and ignored by Westminster. The record went on to win the prestigious Welsh Music Prize, and the likes of BBC Radio 1, BBC 6 Music, KEXP, NPR and BBC Introducing’s Huw Stephens all threw their support behind the group along the way.

In 2022, meanwhile, the band released their widescreen follow-up ‘Bato Mato’ – inspired by illuminating train journey into the remote rural reaches of Siberia aboard the Trans-Siberian Express to play UU.Sound festival in Ulan-Ude. In a historic first, the band became the first act ever to win the Welsh Music Prize twice over, and now have three headline tours, an acclaimed Glastonbury set and Manic Street Preachers and IDLES support slots under their belts. As Adwaith record and plan for their third album in the autumn of 2023 they announce that they will have a extra guitarist joining the band for live shows.

Adwaith might be a band with clear roots set down in Wales – but looking towards the future, they’re now keenly focused on taking the language worldwide.

Adwaith are:
Hollie Singer – (Vocals, Guitar)
Gwenllian Anthony – (Bass, Vocals, Keys)
Heledd Owen – (Drums)
 
Tickets for this show are £10 in advance.

You can get tickets online from here.

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Getdown Services
Monday 8th April, 7.30pm
 
Getdown Services are a two piece from Bristol that provide a sweat soaked, tub thumping, groove infused hard rock hallelujah experience. Squint your eyes and it’s a stag do on a karaoke machine but open your mind and you’ll find it’s at least 500% more enjoyable than that.

Having been described as Sleaford Mods meets LCD Soundsystem, the sound they create is unique and immediately enjoyable. Although having known each other for nearly 15 years, this project has only been going for just over two. Since their first live show just out of lockdown, word has spread rapidly of their anarchic and high energy rapport with the audience leading to sell out headline performances and a strong and loyal following in their home city of Bristol. This unexpected popularity comes off the back of two old and close friends collaborating with the intent of creating something to be enjoyed, not just by themselves but with as many people as possible in a shared experience.
 
 
Tickets for this show are £8 in advance.

You can get tickets online from here.


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Shovel Dance Collective
Jennifer Reid
Tuesday 9th April, 7.30pm
 
Shovel Dance Collective are a group of nine musicians brought together by a communal passion for the folk music of the British Isles, Ireland and beyond. They nurture and synthesise this material with sensibilities drawn from drone, free improvisation, contemporary classical and metal; weaving this through with a deep sense of the ways in which traditional music holds queer histories, proto-feminist narratives and the voices of those who, by their labour, create the wealth of the world. They are simultaneously traditional and experimental; seeing folk music, not as an archaeological artifact to be unearthed, but as a living communal activity. Inviting and generous to those it speaks to.
 
They have performed across the UK, including a sold out UK tour and headline concerts at venues such as Cecil Sharp House, Kings Place and Cafe OTO. The collective have appeared at many major festivals: Glastonbury, SXSW, Green Man, End of the Road, Supernormal and Supersonic festivals. Publications such as Loud and Quiet, NME, Financial Times and The Times have heralded their live performances across the years. Their latest critically acclaimed record ‘The Water is the Shovel of the Shore’ has been championed by The Wire, Folk Radio, Tradfolk and was named one of the albums of the year by The Quietus. It is their third public release.  They are currently working on their fourth release, as well as many other nebulous projects and ideas across the collective.
 
Tickets for this show are £12.50 in advance.

You can get tickets online from here.

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Bell Witch
Knoll
Sunday 14th April, 7.30pm
 
Nothing's bigger than life. All vastnesses -- expanding space, infinite time -- crouch inside of consciousness. On a historical scale, to say nothing of a cosmic one, the individual human life vanishes, and yet it's the only aperture any of us get into reality. It's barely there, and it's all there is.

That's the paradox Bell Witch drives at. For more than a decade, the Pacific Northwestern doom metal band has sent tides surging over the seawalls of the song form, unraveling conventional expectations about the ways music stations itself in time to absorb a listener's attention. Rather than seek catharsis, the duo's songs heave themselves through time at a glacial pace, staving off resolution in favor of a trancelike capsule eternity. Invoking both boundlessness and claustrophobia in the same charged gesture, Bell Witch cultivates a sense of time outside of time, an oasis inside an increasingly frenetic media culture.

For their new album, The Clandestine Gate, bassist Dylan Desmond and drummer Jesse Shreibman exploded Bell Witch's bounds. Like 2017's lauded Mirror Reaper, The Clandestine Gate is a single 83-minute track -- a composition that pulses and breathes on a filmic timeframe. It constitutes the first chapter in a planned triptych of longform albums, collectively called Future's Shadow.
 
 
Press:
 
'I’ve never heard anything quite like Mirror Reaper, the overwhelming, suffocating, brain-rearranging new piece of music from the Seattle drone-metal duo Bell Witch. Its one song is 83 minutes long, and those 83 minutes are enough to fuck with your entire concept of time.'
Stereogum, Album Of The Week

'As much as The Clandestine Gate is the culmination of Bell Witch’s last decade, it also marks the surefooted start of their next several years, the first step in a truly audacious and titanic mission.'
Pitchfork

'Mournful, melodic and heavier than hell, this album further cements Bell Witch as arcane masters of Funeral Doom, proficient in summoning deeply moving dirges and crushing waves of noise. ‘The Clandestine Gate’ pulls you in and refuses to let go, staying with you long after the record has stopped spinning.'
Norman Records
 
Tickets for this show are £20 in advance.

You can get tickets online from here.

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Ariel Sharratt & Mathias Kom
(The Burning Hell)
present 'Never Work'
with special guest Shotgun Jimmie
Sunday 14th April, 7.30pm
 
Working hard or hardly working? The last few years have been a bit of both. In the spring of 2020 Ariel Sharratt & Mathias Kom (of Canadian garage-folk band The Burning Hell) released an album of contemporary labour songs called Never Work, and were just getting ready to head out on the road when… well, you know what happened next.

There was a sort of cosmic irony in a tour about the precarious nature of work being derailed by the complete impossibility of work, and the last few years have only brought the album’s themes into even sharper relief. Accenting the acoustic elements of old-school folk revivals with electronic interference, Never Work takes cues from labour activists and Situationist pranksters to explore the gig economy, side-hustles, tech feudalism, class war, unionized digital assistants, rebellious self-service checkout machines, and fully automated luxury communism. Simultaneously earnest and wry, the songs on Never Work are a protest playlist for our collective journey towards oblivion or the beach.

And finally, this April, Ariel and Mathias will be bringing Never Work to life, collaborating with visual artist and indie rock legend Shotgun Jimmie in a multidisciplinary show. The tour will be accompanied by a re-pressing of the long sold out Never Work, and the release of a collaborative EP with Shotgun Jimmie, Hardly Working.
 
 
Press:

'Never Work is by far Kom’s most impassioned and political lyrical statement to date. Augmented by Sharratt’s superb, understated singing and musicianship, it shows just how relevant protest music is, and how much fun it can be.'
Folk Radio UK

'Smart, amusing, and affecting lyrics'
Americana UK

'As with The Burning Hell, the crown jewel of Never Work is the richness of the lyrics. Kom’s wit and specific, strange images make his songs instantly memorable, and this latest batch is no different.'
Dominionated

'The album is a wonderful, amusing little masterpiece...a real cornucopia full of daring and infectious indie-pop.'
LOOP
 
Tickets for this show are £12.50 in advance.

You can get tickets online from here.

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Pom Poko
Personal Trainer
The Itch
Tuesday 23rd April, 7.30pm
 
More info to follow.
 
Tickets for this show are £15 in advance.

You can get tickets online from here.

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Roddy Woomble
Almost Nothing
Thursday 25th April, 7.30pm
 
Roddy Woomble

Roddy Woomble is widely regarded as one of Scotland’s finest songwriters. Known for his enigmatic lyrics, warm baritone voice and consummate gift for a tune, Roddy has released five solo albums to date – ‘My Secret Is My Silence’ (2006), ‘Before The Ruin’ (2008, with Kris Drever and John McCusker), ‘The Impossible Song & Other Songs’ (2011), ‘Listen To Keep’ (2013), and ‘The Deluder’ (2017). Roddy’s first poetry collection ‘Instrumentals’ was released in 2016.

For the past two decades Roddy has also been the frontman of much loved Scottish alternative rock band Idlewild, releasing eight studio albums, and touring worldwide as a headline act, but also in support to R.E.M., Pearl Jam and U2 amongst others.

Watch / Watch / Listen
 
During lockdown, Roddy wrote and recorded his Fifth solo ‘Lo! Soul’ to be released on May 21st.

Roddy explains: “I’m a collaborative songwriter, used to working in a room with one or more people, or a band, and I think my songs benefit from that human connection and response. With lockdown last year my initial reaction was not to work on songs. It offered a pause for us all, and like many others I found myself alone and reflecting. Concentrating on reading and writing. Considering maybe working on a book of poems instead. But eventually musicial ideas started forming, and six months later ‘Lo! Soul’ was finished – recorded entirely remotely between my home, and the homes of my collaborators Andrew Mitchell and Danny Grant. It’s the most unusual sounding record I’ve made, and made in the most unusual circumstances’

Almost Nothing

Almost nothing is a new band from Scottish musician and writer Roddy Woomble.

The debut album was written and recorded throughout 2021/22 in collaboration with four different producers – Scott Paterson (Protection), Andrew Wasylck, Le Junk, and Luciano Rossi.
 
Almost Nothing is an exercise in artistic freedom, the album shifts from electronica to moments of shimmering art pop - a genre fluid record - melodic, poetic, catchy and just confusing enough to escape full comprehension.

 
Tickets for this show are £17 in advance.

You can get tickets online from here.

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Peter Case
Sid Griffin
Sunday 28th April, 7.30pm
  
Peter Case
 
Peter Case is a three time Grammy nominated singer-songwriter from the USA who has a most impressive resume. He was the founder of the Nerves, the very first American indie band to put together a nationwide tour and one of the very first to release their own indie EP. He then was the founder and leader of the legendary Plimsouls, an incredibly influential L.A. rock and roll band which drew praise from everyone from Elvis Costello to Tom Petty to critics nationwide.

For the past thirty-some years Peter Case has been a solo troubadour in the great tradition of Dylan, Guthrie, and Pete Seeger. Early on he was produced by T-Bone Burnett and he’s played with and been championed by Roger McGuinn, Van Dyke Parks, Mike Campbell of Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers and many more. His latest album is The Midnight Broadcast and it just might be his very best album.

Sid Griffin

Sid Griffin is best known by his leadership of the Long Ryders, the founding fathers of alt-country and Americana. He is also the proud artist behind four well-received solo albums, was the leader of the wonderful ‘alt-bluegrass’ UK band, The Coal Porters, he was the Resident Musicologist on BBC 6 Music’s Radcliffe & Maconie radio show for over a decade and Sid has written four books. Sid’s most recent book, Million Dollar Bash: Bob Dylan, The Band, and the Basement Tapes, has been reissued twice and Sid did the liner notes for that collection of legendary Dylan tracks. 
 
Tickets for this show are £18.50 in advance.

You can get tickets online from here.


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Willie J Healey
Friday 10th May, 7.30pm  
 
Is Willie J Healey your favourite artists’ favourite artist? You better believe it. Alex Turner, Joe Talbot of IDLES, Jamie T and Orlando Weeks are among those who believe, most having come onboard following the Neil Young-meets-The Beatles-meets Elvis Costello charms of his 2020 album ‘Twin Heavy’. And while Willie has largely been the preserve of those in the know, that’s all about to change. When Florence Welch heard his upcoming album ‘Bunny’ via its producer, her friend Loren Humphrey, as well as through YALA! Records co-founder Felix White, she was sufficiently impressed to invite Willie and his band on this autumn’s Florence + The Machine arena tour.

If you’ve already discovered the album’s introductory track, ‘Tiger Woods’, you’ll have had a first taste of why Florence was so won over. It sees Willie dive headfirst into a style of music he has always loved, but that never previously found its way into his own songs. It’s a low-slung, sensual ‘70s-style jam which simultaneously calls to mind Sly and The Family Stone, Philly soul, ‘Midnite Vultures’-era Beck and a little OutKast.

Watch / Watch / Watch

Press:

'I’ve completely fallen in love with his music, it’s very bright, clever, excellent soul-y funk music with a keen sense of humour… my new favourite artist".'
Guy Garvey, BBC 6 Music

'The word is starting to spread about our boy WJH, not gonna lie, we really love to see that.'
Jack Saunders, BBC Radio 1

'I’ve always liked the way Willie has followed his own path away from the music scenes, he seems to have wandered through the past few years, oblivious to where the zeitgeist might be, and he’s done it again here.'
Steve Lamacq, BBC 6 Music

'[Bunny] perfectly captures the essence of those mellow summer afternoons.'
Clash ★★★★

'A record to stick on, and bliss out to. Willie’s never had more style.'
Dork ★★★★

'He’s hurtling toward Next Big Thing status.'
Mojo ★★★★

'The hype is justified on new album Bunny, a record that keeps the essence of his laid-back, slacker songwriting while inviting in new elements of R&B and pop and expanding his world.'
Rolling Stone UK
 
 Tickets for this show are £15 in advance.

You can get tickets online from here.

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 The Buffalo Skinners
Tommy Arch
Thursday 16th May, 7.30pm
 
Roots-rock & roll group The Buffalo Skinners, are on tour with their fourth album: Picking Up What You’re Putting Down. The band mixes earthy accordion and fiddle tones with bluesy Fender Rhodes keys and guitar, their signature vocal harmonies freshly augmented by new members Clare Quinn & Rebecca Philip. On Picking Up What You’re Putting Down The Buffalo Skinners find themselves fully submerged in a lively electric sound that they had only previously dipped their toes into, on tracks like Cease Your Dreaming’s ‘Monkey On Your Back.’
 
'Their music is painted vividly across a broad canvas, using a palette that draws easily from traditional folk and rock’n’roll.'
God Is In the TV

'They just got the crowd going and had a roaring reception. Astonishing.'
Janice Long, BBC Radio 2

'Buskers made good!'
Steve Lamacq, BBC 6Music

Praise for ‘Cease Your Dreaming’

'...a clear development on the band’s firmly established skiffle-folk sound by introducing a variety of influences. Hugely charming and entertaining.'
9/10 Exposed Magazine

'...a confident and well-rounded release that encompasses 50s rock n roll with catchy acoustic driven Americana. There is a lot of breadth in this record and the material is strong. For a record rooted in traditional rock n roll and country soul structures, The Buffalo Skinners have delivered an album that sounds fresh and inviting.'
8/10 Americana UK

'Packed with neat lyrical turns and melodies that recall Whitney's debut album.'
Clash Magazine
 
FFO: The Kinks, The Felice Brothers, Big Thief, The Brian Jonestown Massacre
 
The Buffalo Skinners new album ‘Picking Up What You’re Putting Down’ is available March 29th 2024
 
Tickets for this show are £12.50 in advance.

You can get tickets online from here.

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Pale Blue Eyes
Saturday 18th May, 7.30pm  
 
Pale Blue Eyes are a young electro-modernist guitar group, formed in South Devon in the southwest of the UK. Their debut single came out in 2021 on the band’s own label, Broadcast Recordings.

PBE’s debut album, Souvenirs, was released in 2022 on the Full Time Hobby label. The album was mixed and mastered by Dean Honer (The Moonlandingz, Róisín Murphy, I Monster, Human League).  The second PBE album, This House, was released in September 2023, again on Full Time Hobby and again mixed and mastered by Dean Honer.

Watch / Watch / Watch
 
Press:

'Pale Blue Eyes are one of the most exciting bands to emerge from the UK in recent years. Taking their cue from the likes of M83, Slowdive and The Velvet Underground, they’ve fast become one of the circuit’s must-see acts.'
Under the Radar

'Joyous... propulsive… exhilarating.'
Uncut Magazine

'Masterful… gorgeous… heartwarming optimism.'
Clash Magazine

'A daring record… impeccable dancefloor touch.'
The Quietus

'PBE are about immediacy and tunes… epic.'
Mojo Magazine

'Like all great debuts both a culmination of their beginnings as well as a pointer to the wide open road ahead.'
The Line Of Best Fit
 
 Tickets for this show are £15 in advance.

You can get tickets online from here.

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Iona Lane
Sunday 19th May, 7.30pm
  
Driven by awe and wonder of the natural world Iona Lane delivers poetic songs, with subtle musical touches and contemplative melodies that link unheard stories with the world we find ourselves in today.

Iona’s debut album ‘Hallival’ charted at #36 in the Official Folk Album Charts and was named by Folk Radio UK as #27 in their ‘Top Albums of 2022’. The album received widespread press including in The Guardian, Walk Highlands, BBC Radio 2 and The Scotsman to name a few.

In 2023 Iona toured extensively in Scotland, England and Wales and joined Karine Polwart on a run of tour dates in England. Iona joined Karine on stage for a few songs, an awe inspiring opportunity for audiences to see these two artists sing together. As well as touring the UK Iona has toured internationally including in The Netherlands, Germany and Denmark.

Iona was awarded the Taran Guitars Young Players Bursary in 2020, in which she worked alongside renowned luthier Rory Dowling to create a custom guitar specially for her music.

Press:

'Iona’s lyrics and musical arrangements crackle with wide-eyed curiosity.'
Jude Rogers, The Guardian

'A real talent!'
Mark Radcliffe, BBC Radio 2 Folk Show

'Iona feels like a kindred spirit with her gorgeous evocations of landscape and geeky scientific references.'
Karine Polwart

'An ethereal voice, poetic phrase and storytelling.'
BBC Countryfile Magazine
 
Tickets for this show are £12 in advance.

You can get tickets online from here.


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BIG|BRAVE
Aicher
Saturday 25th May, 7.30pm
 
BIG|BRAVE’s music has been described as massive minimalism. Their fusillades of textural distortion and feedback emphasize their music’s frayed edges as much as its all-encompassing weight. The potency of the trio’s work is their singular artistry combining elements of traditional folk techniques and a modern deconstruction of guitar music. Gain, feedback, and amplitude are essential to A Chaos Of Flowers, an album that builds on their ferocious 2023 album nature morte. Lyrically, the songs explore the most vulnerable of human experiences, how marginalizations manifest internally and externally, the inner struggles of isolation, and co-existence in nature. A Chaos of Flowers draws on catharsis and beauty as well as the quagmire of disorientation and othering. The album is a monument of simultaneous serenity and disquiet, a subtle maelstrom of internal life.

Watch / Watch / Listen / Listen
 
For A Chaos Of Flowers guitarist/vocalist Robin Wattie drew heavily on the poems of artists whom Wattie found kinship in, their words resonant with experiences of those often sidelined by cultural norms. “I discovered that most poems from folk traditions or in the public domain seem to be by men – to which I could not quite relate. In my search, I rediscovered some of my favorite works and poets,” says Wattie. Wattie’s interpolation of poetry from artists around the world and across womanhood, intermingled with her own, examines the chaos and confusion alienation breeds in the psyche of those othered by society. “It is a feeling of relatability and even astonishment really,” Wattie notes, “with how these writers of different standings and eras and all being female-presenting, each expressing these seemingly similar intense moments of individual experiences, of intimacy and madness. We’re alone, and yet, not.”

Guitarist Mathieu Ball and drummer Tasy Hudson help Wattie shape poetry into pieces as dense and impenetrable as they are vulnerable. Volume and noise have been essential tools in BIG|BRAVE’s catalog. A Chaos Of Flowers keenly reconfigures how the band utilize each element of their sound, allowing the space for loud movements to feel achingly quiet and abundant with delicate gestures. Ball’s guitar soars in long arcs and blusters in thick layers around Wattie’s own resolute chords. Hudson delivers her most powerfully reserved performances on record, incorporating elegant brushwork and making deft use of cymbal-work to give the songs’ deliberate paces momentum. Wattie’s voice is tempered and unhurried throughout which guides the reverent tone of each piece. Guest guitarist Marisa Anderson lends earthen, blues-inflected atmospheres to the album, where guitarist Tashi Dorji and saxophonist Patrick Shiroishi amplify the squall. Working closely with frequent collaborator and producer/engineer Seth Manchester, the internal tumult of Wattie’s voice rings out in warbles, haunting echoes, and unearthly harmonies across bold immense walls of distortion.

BIG|BRAVE achieve their colossal sound through minimalist approaches, a deft understanding of dynamics and an inventive employment of percussion and distortion. The trio reconceptualize what it is to be heavy or minimal, challenging perceptions with their illumination of painfully overlooked perspectives. BIG|BRAVE’s sound on A Chaos of Flowers has blossomed, harnessing potent emotions with their unparalleled arrangements and intricate economies of space. It is an album as moving as it is awe-inspiring.
 
Tickets for this show are £15 in advance.

You can get tickets online from here.

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The Hanging Stars
Wednesday 29th May, 7.30pm
 
On A Golden Shore arrives as The Hanging Stars reflect on a year of triumphs. With an Americana Music Association Bob Harris - sanctioned award and a Nashville sell-out in Third Man’s Blue Room with Jack White approvingly looking on, they’re a leading light in the UK Cosmic Americana cohort.
 
 
Their standing has allowed them to pay less attention to any preconceptions of what they are ‘supposed to be’. On A Golden Shore - their fifth album and their second for the pioneering Loose Music, following 2022’s Hollow Heart - finds them definitively themselves and presents a set of disparate songs whose fundamental linkage is the band that made them.

On A Golden Shore was recorded at Edwyn Collins’ Clashnarrow Studios with Sean Read producing. Singer/guitarist Richard Olson, drummer Paulie Cobra, multi-instrumentalist Patrick Ralla, plus freshman bassist Paul Milne – laid down the album’s backbone over eight days. Mostly recorded live, even the solos done as a piece. Much is first take because trying better, it never worked as well. Pedal-steel player Joe Harvey-Whyte created and added his parts at his London studio bringing ‘shimmery psychedelic goodness’.

Smartly sequenced On A Golden Shore proceeds in clusters of songs; commencing with the free and easy choogle of ‘Let Me Dream Of You’, encompassing the sunny glam of ‘Sweet Light’, the baggy Balearic waft of ‘Happiness Is A Bird’, the pan pipes and bongos of the exotic ‘Golden Shore’, through to the rolling banjo of ‘No Way Spell’ and the celestial cascades of ‘Heart In A Box’. Fashioned instinctively On A Golden Shore is ultimately an album of sensation as much as thought, filled with fleeting moments of blissful excess, and stumbling, rushing flutters of sound; its evanescent psychedelia, divine choruses, and shards of strings combine into an infectious, compelling Cosmic Heartbreak Boogie.
 
Tickets for this show are £14 in advance.

You can get tickets online from here.

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Tara Clerkin Trio
Wednesday 29th May, 7.30pm
 
Tara Clerkin Trio are Pat Benjamin, Sunny Joe Paradisos and Tara Clerkin, three musicians involved in a number of cult Bristol bands over the years before confidently settling down in triangle formation. They are inspired by and borrow from jazz, trip hop, electronica, psychedelia & minimalism, twirling the non-pretensious strands of these threads together into a trippy green winged-cloak, adorning Arthur Russell and dripping in blue jam.
 
Watch / Listen / Listen
 
Tickets for this show are £12.50 in advance.

You can get tickets online from here.

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Dana Gavanski
Thursday 30th May, 7.30pm
 
Born in Vancouver to a Serbian family, but relocating to Montreal to attend university, Dana originally planned to pursue a career in film. However, she shifted her attention back to music when her then ex-partner left her his guitar before moving to NYC. Having known only how to play ‘Diamonds and Rust’ by Joan Baez, Dana picked up a Travis Picking technique book and started re-learning how to play.

When in the Summer of 2016, she took a job with her father as a producer’s assistant on a horror film in the Laurentians, she made enough to focus solely on developing her music for a year. With that came her first EP, Spring Demos.

In 2019, Dana signed with Full Time Hobby and released two 7" singles ("One By One", "Catch") and announced her debut album "Yesterday Is Gone", a co-production between Sam Gleason, Tunng's Mike Lindsay and Dana herself. The critically acclaimed album was released in March 2020, followed by an EP of covers titled "Wind Songs", released in August of the same year.

Dana's second album "When It Comes" was released in April 2022, followed by headline tours around UK, Europe and north America, and is followed by third album LATE SLAP, due for release in April 2024.

Watch / Watch / Listen

LATE SLAP:

There’s a party in Dana Gavanski’s head and everyone’s invited - well, kind of.  Late Slap, Gavanski’s third album, gives voice to the highs and lows of the mindscape in all its joys and terrors, injecting some much-needed playfulness into the process of writing about emotionally hard things. “The album holds together the seemingly disparate aspects of my character that I have sometimes tried to repress,” says Dana. “With this album I’m letting them into the room, celebrating them for all their strangeness - a strangeness which I think we all, on some level, share.”

Having (literally) lost her voice during the writing of her previous album, When It Comes, Late Slap finds Dana in magisterial mode, displaying a newfound confidence and energy—in both her writing and singing—borne, paradoxically, from embracing feelings of discomfort. “I realized,” says Dana, “that in order to become stronger I needed to get used to being uncomfortable.” It’s appropriate, then, that the album opens with ‘How to Feel Uncomfortable,’ a quick sonic punch of a song, which bemoans the growing distances between people in the digital landscapes where we spend so much time wandering aimlessly: “stand too close, face in your phone/ it’s scrambling your mind/ tired of your zombie glow/soaking up your eyes.”. The song attests to the difficulty of sitting with yourself, in boredom, insecurity and indecision—and the important emotional and spiritual rewards of doing so. Or, as Susan Sontag, a major influence on the album, puts it in "Regarding the Pain of Others: “It is passivity that dulls feeling. The states described as apathy, moral or emotional anaesthesia, are full of feelings; the feelings are rage and frustration…”

In the writing of Late Slap, Gavanski swapped out the familiar for the new, training herself to use Logic Pro rather than just her usual guitar-and-voice approach. If composing somewhat neo-Luddite anthems on a Macbook seems a little contradictory, well, that’s kind of the point: “21st century life is so full of contradictions and headfucks that it can be hard to do anything with conviction—you could cynic your way out of doing or believing anything.” Initially overwhelmed by its seemingly limitless possibilities, Dana began to create demos and collages of small sound worlds across various influences, at times orchestral pop, art rock and new wave, again embracing difference and variety. “Whenever I’m stuck in a certain way of working, it helps to try something new, to challenge myself in a different way. Like when you learn a new instrument: you’re excited by it and less concerned with perfection.”

Gavanski fleshed out the demos with her band before taking the album—and the band—to Mike Lindsay (Tunng, LUMP) at MESS, the producer’s studio in Margate. The five-piece, which includes Gavanski’s fellow co-producer James Howard (Rozi Plain, Alabaster dePlume), tracked the record over five days. “I knew Mike could help me find the range of sound I was looking for; he has an amazing attention to sonic detail and we’ve worked well together on previous records.” Lindsay acquired a Yamaha DX7 synth at Dana’s request just for the album, and they used it to conjure an atmosphere of digital warmth that recalls the Beverly Glenn-Copeland’s meditative masterpiece Keyboard Fantasies. 

 
Tickets for this show are £12.50 in advance.

You can get tickets online from here.

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 Scott Lavene
Thursday 6th June, 7.30pm
 
A born storyteller, through his records and his writing Scott Lavene has long been populating a hallucinogenic world of his own creation with ne’er do wells, ragamuffins and eccentrics. With his exceptional third album Disneyland In Dagenham set for release this May via Nothing Fancy, Lavene heads out on the road again, having just done a circuit of the UK in support of The Hold Steady’s Craig Finn.

Press:

'Full of great poignant, funny and sad songs that display the man’s great writing talents. At times he’s David Bowie, Syd Barrett and Ian Dury at the same time.” ––Louder Than War "Mordant, spivvy, pop-punk TMI gabble about the urgency and futility of it all from lyrical Essex motormouth.'
MOJO Magazine

'Think Baxter Dury’s warped kid brother.'
The Times

'Sounds like an updated version of something that Stiff records would have released in the 70’s.'
Steve Lamacq
 
Tickets for this show are £10 in advance.

You can get tickets online from here.

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 Group Listening
Sunday 9th June, 7.30pm
 
Musical collaborators for the past decade, Paul Jones and Stephen Black are together known as the woodwind-and-key-wielding, sculptural-papier-mâché-hat-wearing Group Listening.

Following renegade reinterpretation records Clarinet & Piano: Selected Works Vol. 1 (2018) and Vol. 2 (2022), which pulled apart, pondered, and re-shaped cult ambient classics by the likes of Robert Wyatt, Arthur Russell and Beverly Glenn-Copeland, Walks (2024) — a shining modernist monolith buried deep in the woods — is their first volume of completely original compositions.

Walks draws from the field recordings of Ernest Hood; the abstraction of Harold Budd; the saxophone of Sam Gendel; the “heightened naturalism” of a Martin Parr photograph; the clarity and site-specificity of Japanese ambient, environmental & new age music of the 80s and 90s, and, prominently, Robert Walser’s pseudo-biographical novella The Walk — an appreciation of the philosophical space gifted by walks to walkers.

An ode to the gently psychedelic potential of wandering around in some place, any place, every place: the places in one’s own mind, Walks invites you to listen and think; to slip through the fabric of time a little or a lot, depending on how long you’ve got. Over all, to paraphrase Walser, it invites you to glow and flower yourself in the glowing, flowering present.

Press:

'Exquisite neo-classical work'
Electronic Sound Review

'Supremely serene'
Uncut Magazine

'Hazy, bright and sleepy - a dreamtime soundscape.'
Elizabeth Alker, BBC R3

'Inspired…brimming with life'
Aquarium Drunkard

'These are the artists and artworks the world needs....they have produced something golden.'
Louder Than War

'Canonical ambient works sublimely re-arranged.'
**** MOJO

'It’s too easy to talk about how immersive ambient music is, but experiencing Group Listening live is an immersive experience….. the music is practically otherworldly.'
Metronome
 
Tickets for this show are £12.50 in advance.

You can get tickets online from here.

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Rain Parade

Saturday 15th June, 7.30pm

Night & Day Cafe, Manchester
Sunday 16th June, 7.30pm
 
TRain Parade are set to return with their first UK and European dates since disbanding in 1986 hitting nine countries with a final date at the Azkena Festival in Spain for their first ever Spanish show.

Founders Matt Piucci and Steven Roback have been writing songs together since 1981, along with co-founder David Roback, of Rain Parade. The Rain Parade debut album, Emergency Third Rail Power Trip (Enigma Records- US, Demon Records – UK) came out in 1983 and was internationally recognized as a masterpiece. Seven of the ten songs on that debut were sung by Matt and Steven, The bands second record, Explosions In The Glass Palace, recorded after David Roback left; garnered the same high praise as the debut with their reputation increasing ever since. Sid Griffin, leader of The Long Ryders has said: “We were in the Paisley Underground with Rain Parade back in the 1980s… Explosions In The Glass Palace is and will forever be the BEST recording from a Paisley Underground band, be it us, The Dream Syndicate, The Bangles, The Three O’Clock or whomever.”

Watch / Watch / Watch / Watch
 
Both records directly influenced My Bloody Valentine, Ride, The Stone Roses, Teenage Fanclub, Charlatans and naturally Creation boss Alan McGee. The songs were covered by The Bluetones, Buffalo Tom, Bangles and a host of others.  During the mid 80s the band toured the UK and Europe a few times recording a couple of BBC Whistle Test TV shows.

'Rain Parade was the one that changed me.like an explosion in my mind, I saw them perform ‘No Easy Way Down’ on TV, and it was like, ‘Here is something I can fully get behind.’ It’s just incredible, and I have to say would have been pretty influential on the early Ride sound for sure.'
Andy Bell, Ride

John Thoman (guitar) joined Piucci and Roback in 1984 and went on to record their third and fourth LPs with them, Crashing Dream (Island 1985) and then Beyond The Sunset (Island) in 1986 before the band finally broke up later that year.

Since then their legend has only grown which lead Piucci, Roback and Thoman to reunite in the US  for some one-off California shows and eventually recording some songs for the 3x4 album (Yep Roc 2018) with their friends The Bangles, The Dream Syndicate and The Three O’Clock. And most recently this year’s new album, Last Rays Of A Dying Sun which manages to sound both like a lost classic and the groundbreaking work of unknown new artist, emerging from their secret lair with a record ready to change the world. As MOJO puts it, “there’s little rain on their new parade.”

Wrapping sweet nuggets of pop confection in swirling clouds of interstellar psychedelia, Last Rays Of A Dying Sun is a record at once eminently engaging and delightfully ornate. Everything old is new again, and it’s very easy to see the line that runs from the Summer of Love and the chiming tones of Jangle Pop to mid-eighties SoCal Paisley Underground of which Rain Parade was a pivotal component, through to the late-90’s Elephant 6 Collective, straight to neo-psych indie rock of today. Last Rays Of A Dying Sun features the original 80s members Piucci, Roback and Thoman alongside guitarist Derek See (the Gentle Cycle / Chocolate Watch Band / Dean & Britta), drummer Stephan Junca (The Hellenes, Billy Talbot,  boatclub), and vocalists Debbi and Vicki Peterson (The Bangles). Last Rays Of A Dying Sun is out on Flatiron Recordings, on their imprint Label 51. Flatiron Recordings.  2024 will also see Flatiron Records kick off the Rain Parade back catalogue reissues with more info to follow.
 
Tickets for these shows are £22.50 in advance.

You can get tickets online for Leeds here and Manchester here.

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The Reds Pinks & Purples
Wednesday 20th June, 7.30pm
 
The Reds, Pinks & Purples is the post-indie project of Glenn Donaldson from San Francisco who releases songs like monthly postcards to a loyal following, amassing a huge catalogue of cathartic guitar pop – releasing 8 LPs over the last 5 years. The band debuts in the UK in June 2024 as a five-piece made-up of musicians from SF's thriving indie-pop underground.

Watch / Watch / Listen

Press:

'Perfect pop for perfectly sad people will never go out of style, and Summer at Land's End is more proof that Glenn Donaldson and the Reds, Pinks & Purples have the market pretty much cornered.'
Allmusic

'Donaldsonʼs lyrics tend towards the observational, and are often delivered with a wry turn of phrase that can be laugh out loud funny. The Town That Cursed Your Name juggles pathos and bathos throughout.'
The Wire

'Summer at Landʼs End, further establishes him and his home recording nom de plume as one of the best “bands” right now in this style. Which is to say shimmering, jangly, and well, kind of “summery” indie-pop if one associates the season with wistfulness and longing and not just cars, beaches, and barbeques.'
Under the Radar

'“Never climbed the charts, destroyed the stage,” he sighs, pitting these dream against scenes of clocking in on sick days and grinding to pay the bills. Itʼs the most pessimistic entry on the record, but it sets the stage for Donaldsonʼs cast of nameless underdogs to rail against the drudgery of the work week.'
Pitchfork 7.4

'The songs here are timeless reminders that pop can heal all wounds and bridge decades.'
Raven Sings the Blues

'A wonderful pop album that reads as both a studied tribute and a welcome update.'
Uncut Magazine

'...looping, loping guitar intervals sound like the Bats but preserved in amber, and its pensive trebly refrains floats like Roy Orbison over clean, lyrical foundations.'
Dusted Magazine
 
Tickets for this show are £12 in advance.

You can get tickets online from here.

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The Sadies
Thursday 4th July, 7.30pm
 
The Sadies released their long awaited new album Colder Streams' in July 2022. It was their 11th album and produced by Arcade Fire’s Richard Reed Parry.

Recorded between 2019 and 2021 at Skybarn in Montreal, Canada, Colder Streams features 11 original compositions engineered and mixed by Pietro Amato except for "You Should Be Worried,” which was engineered and mixed by Michael Dubue and mastered by Peter J. Moore. 
 
Watch / Watch

With guest appearances by Jon Spencer (“No One’s Listening”), Michael Dubue (“End Credits”), Richard Reed Parry (“Message for Belial,” “No One’s Listening” and “Ginger Moon”), and the parents Good, Margaret on backing vocals for “So Far for So Few” and “All the Good,” with Bruce on autoharp on the latter, the cover art is original artwork by The Sadies’ bassist Sean Dean.

The release of Colder Streams will mark the quartet's final studio recording with founding member Dallas Good, who unexpectedly passed away in February. In preparation for the release, in October of 2021, Dallas penned what he coined the band’s “anti-bio” and seemingly said all there is to say about the new album, first noting, “Colder Streams is, by far, the best record that has ever been made by anyone. Ever.” Read the entire bio here.

“The Sadies' world has been shaken,” said the band in a joint statement. “While we struggle with the loss of Dallas - our brother, friend, and bandmate - music has been our source of comfort and coping. We are honoured to announce the release of our new album, Colder Streams.  We are so proud of Dallas and the work that went into this album and look forward to sharing it with you.”

“I was utterly thrilled the Sadies asked me to produce this record,” said Richard Reed Parry, “which mostly meant I just hung around listening to the greatest live band in the country playing their asses off, and then occasionally I’d get off the couch and sing backing vocals. That said, this is The Sadies’ finest album, the one I always hoped they’d make one day and I’m stoked to have been there helping them do it. What an incredible band. “

With a deep fondness and reverence for the best of CBGB—country, bluegrass, and blues—The Sadies are equally informed and influenced by everything from ‘60s garage and psychedelic rock to surf instrumentals and punk rock. Since they first arrived on the North American scene 28 years ago, the Toronto-based roots-rockers have developed, even perfected, a style of music uniquely their own.

In support of the album, the band–Travis Good, Sean Dean, and Mike Belitsky–will embark on a North American and European tour beginning June 17 at Atwood’s Tavern in Cambridge, MA. A complete list of dates is below.

Press:

'A flurry of emotion — joyful and pointed — and clattering noise blending into haunting sparseness, this is the record The Sadies have been working on capturing for their entire existence. Thankfully, and with bittersweet timing, they got it done when we most needed them to, making the best record that has ever been made by anyone. Ever.'
10/10 - Exclaim

'This is far and away the best the band has ever sounded on record. ... Then there’s the songs, which are perhaps the strongest collection both Dallas and Travis have assembled since their 2010 masterpiece Darker Circles. The majority of the material here finds the band playing in their muscular, gothic mod-garage mode, with the two brothers singing in perfect, spectral harmony.'
8.4/10 – Paste Magazine

'Its sure-footed '60 psych, garage and country is potently rendered.'
Mojo Magazine

'The Sadies’ nebulous country-rock moves through glistening psychedelia (“Message To Belial”), gorgeous string ballads (“All The Good”) and fierce garage fuzz (“Ginger Moon”)''
Uncut Magazine
 
Tickets for this show are £18.50 in advance.

You can get tickets online from here.

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LOVE with Johnny Echols
Monday 29th July, 7.30pm
 
LOVE with Johnny Echols makes their annual trip to the UK summer 2024!

LOVE with Johnny Echols sees Arthur Lee’s longest serving band return to the UK to perform classic songs from Love’s first three albums Love, Da Capo, Four Sail and of course Forever Changes as well as some special deep cuts.

Following their farewell tour in 2019 the band hadn’t anticipated a return, but in 2022 the band did just that, as founding member and guitarist Johnny Echols explained, “the unprecedented times in which we found ourselves made us realise more than ever that what the world needs now is LOVE. How could we turn down the opportunity to come back and do it again? We have missed playing for our fans in the UK whom we dearly love.”

In what has now turned into an annual UK tour, Love is set to return in summer 2024. Johnny Echols: “I so look forward to our trips across the pond and performing LOVE's extraordinary music for our friends in the UK. We will, of course, be performing much of Forever Changes, as well as favourites from our extensive catalogue... as well as a few surprises. Don't miss the LOVE-Boat!”

Joining Johnny Echols on stage is Baby Lemonade who from 1993 until Arthur’s death in 2006 performed as his band and became an essential part of the renaissance of LOVE’s music. This iteration of LOVE saw many sold-out tours, as well as back-to-back Glastonbury performances and an appearance on Later with Jools Holland.

LOVE is:
Johnny Echols: Guitar, Vocals    | Rusty Squeezebox: Lead Vocals, Guitar | Mike Randle: Guitar, Vocals | David “Daddyo” Green: Drums | James Nolte: Bass

A Brief History:

Johnny Echols and Arthur Lee were childhood friends whose families both moved from Memphis to Los Angeles. Teenage Johnny & Arthur teamed up to form the groups Arthur Lee & The LAG’s and the American Four before they formed LOVE in 1965. The classic LOVE line up featuring Johnny disbanded in 1968. Johnny reunited with Arthur Lee in 2005 to perform with LOVE once more.

Baby Lemonade formed in 1992 by Rusty Squeezebox, Mike Randle, David “Daddy-O” Green, later adding Dave Chapple to the mix. In 1993 the band landed the gig of a lifetime opening up for LOVE. That show was the last for that incarnation of LOVE as Arthur replaced them with the four Baby Lemonade members. Baby Lemonade released records on Sympathy for the Record Industry, Munster and Big Deal between 1993 and 2001.

Upon their return from a LOVE tour of Europe, in 1996, Baby Lemonade was shocked to find that Arthur had been sentenced to 12 years in prison on a weapons charge. After nearly 6 years in prison, Arthur’s case was overturned and shortly after, at his request, Baby Lemonade began rehearsing for what would be non-stop LOVE touring throughout North America, UK, Europe and Australia between 2002 and 2005 where they enjoyed unprecedented success with sold out tours, back to back Glastonbury performances, Roskilde and Benicassim festival, two sold out shows at the Royal Festival Hall that spawned a live album, and an appearance on the Later with Jools Holland TV Show.

In 2005 the LOVE line up once again featured Arthur’s childhood friend and founding member Johnny Echols on lead guitar who returned after a 37-year absence.
In July of 2005, Arthur was diagnosed with Leukaemia and after a brave battle he passed away one year later. Arthur’s last show was with Baby Lemonade and Johnny Echols on June 23rd at San Francisco’s Cafe Du Nord. The world had lost a true music legend.

Since then, the Love band members with Johnny Echols performed regularly on the West Coast, returning to the UK for the first time in 2016, and have slowly built up an impressive following with many sold out shows.

As MOJO wrote in an extensive feature published in July 2023, Arthur Lee was one of the most problematic characters in rock history, but both Johnny Echols and guitarist Mike Randle both speak of him in the present tense, ‘with an air of wonder and affection’. “I don’t see Arthur as being gone,” commented guitarist Mike Randle, “he’s everywhere!”

And so he is – his spirit lives on in the timeless music he created performed by the longest serving members in the history of Love. And long may it continue.
 
Tickets for this show are £20 in advance.

You can get tickets online from here.

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Kelley Stoltz
Wednesday 10th July, 7.30pm  
 
During the 2010’s Kelley played live as a sideman with Rodriguez and Echo & the Bunnymen, as the 2020’s dawned he was invited to support Pavement on their big reunion tour. He’s also been heard playing drums live with Robyn Hitchcock as well as adding sitar to Hitchcock's last two albums. In 2022, Stoltz was championed with a live appearance on Marc Riley’s BBC6 show. As producer, he has recorded the new album by Brigid Dawson formerly of the Ohsees.

Between these outside musical projects, pushing past 50 years old and becoming a father for the first time, he has been steadily writing and recording new songs of his own. The result is “La Fleur”, his 18th album, a dazzling collection of 12 tracks chosen from the last two years of songwriting. It will be released in May by Agitated in Europe/UK and Dandy Boy Records in the USA.

Listen / Watch / Watch / Watch
 
“La Fleur” again finds Stoltz plays nearly all the instruments on the album, though a new friendship with pop guru Jason Falkner has led to Falkners appearance on 2 songs. There’s the requisite 60’s meets 80’s pop rock confections that Stoltz favors with a new focus on out front vocals and perhaps a bit shinier production. Pandemic era blues, politics and fatherhood are lyrical touchstones throughout.

“Reni’s Car” is the jangle rock lead single based on an actual event of Kelley riding around Manchester in the Stone Roses drummers car. “About Time” marries Twin Peaks synths, to Fleetwood Mac and Avalon era Roxy Music in a cautionary tale to Stoltz's young daughter. “Human Events” puts revolutionary prose to a Moody Blues strum that floats off into Osees territory ... and do I hear a nod to Gershwin in there?

In my ears, Stoltz rarely does any wrong, and these comparisons are only just that little fruit to get you curious - he is still one of a kind. An under the radar hero to a few, and still after all these great songs, deserving of more. Climb on the bandwagon - as ever it’s quite pleasing here.
 
Tickets for this show are £12 in advance.

You can get tickets online from here.

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Tom Robinson Band
Friday 2nd August, 7.30pm
 
The first Tom Robinson Band emerged amid the turmoil of late 70s Britain - in a time of punk rock, political unrest and economic gloom. TRB became known for the hit single 2-4- 6-8 Motorway, their vocal support of Rock Against Racism and for the anthem Sing If You're Glad To Be Gay, which made the Top Twenty despite a ban by BBC Radio 1.

The original TRB consisted of Robinson on bass and vocals, drummer Dolphin Taylor, keyboardist Mark Ambler and their incendiary guitarist Danny Kustow - who died early in 2019 at the age of 63. They made just two albums - Power In The Darkness and TRB TWO and ended - like the Seventies - just as Margaret Thatcher swept to power.

The current Tom Robinson Band will play a 23 date tour in October/November 2024 showcasing those first two albums, in tribute to the original band members. The setlist has been chosen by fans via an online poll, and will include some album tracks from the era that have never previously been performed live.

Alongside Robinson on bass, the band features Faithless drummer Andy Treacey, guitarist Adam Phillips from the Richard Ashcroft Band, keyboard virtuoso Jim Simmons and Northern soul singer Lee Forsyth Griffiths on acoustic guitar.

"45 years on," says Tom "some of the original TRB lyrics - about division, injustice and uncertainty - still feel depressingly relevant in a world of Trump, Farage & Suella Braverman. I also owe a huge amount to the musicianship of Mark, Dolphin, and Danny back in the day. We're hoping to do that early band - and the songs - full justice this Autumn.” 
 
Tickets for this show are £22 in advance.

You can get tickets online from here.

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 Robyn Hitchcock
Sunday 1st September, 7.30pm
 
With a career now spanning six decades, Robyn Hitchcock remains a truly one-of-a-kind artist: surrealist rock ’n’ roller, acoustic troubadour, poet, painter, and writer .  From The Soft Boys’ art-rock and The Egyptians’ Dadaist pop to solo masterpieces like 1984’s milestone I Often Dream of Trains and 1990’s Eye, Hitchcock has crafted a striking oeuvre rife with recurring marine life, obsolete electric transport, ghosts, cheese and what one writer has described as ‘morbid eroticism’.
 
Watch / Watch / Watch / Watch
 
Born in London in 1953, Hitchcock attended Winchester College and the City & Guilds Art School before moving to Cambridge in 1974. There he worked his way up from the folk clubs to found Dennis & The Experts who metamorphosed into The Soft Boys in 1976. Though light years away from first wave punk’s revolutionary clatter, the band still manifested the era’s spirit of DIY independence with their breakneck reimagining of British psychedelia. During their original lifetime, The Soft Boys released but two albums, among them 1980’s landmark LP, Underwater Moonlight. “The term ‘classic’ is almost as overused as ‘genius’ and ‘influential,’” declared Rolling Stone   upon the album’s 2001 reissue. “But Underwater Moonlight  remains all three of those descriptions.”

Hitchcock launched his solo career with 1981’s Black Snake Diamond Röle, affirming his knack for idiosyncratic insight and surrealist hijinks. 1984’s I Often Dream Of Trains fused that approach with autumnal acoustic arrangements which served to deepen the emotional range of his songcraft. Robyn Hitchcock and The Egyptians were launched that same year and immediately lit up US college rock playlists with albums like 1986’s Element of Light. Cited as an influence by REM and The Replacements, he signed to A&M Records in 1987 and scored early ‘alternative’ hits with “Balloon Man” and “Madonna of the Wasps.” Hitchcock returned to his dark acoustic palette with 1990’s equally masterful Eye before joining the Warner Bros. label for a succession of acclaimed albums including 1996’s Moss Elixir and 1999’s Jewels For Sophia.
 
The Soft Boys came together for a second go-around in 2001, releasing Nextdoorland on Matador Records to critical applause. Hitchcock joined the Yep Roc label in 2004, releasing collaborations with like-minded friends Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings (2004’s Spooked) and legendary producer Joe Boyd (2014’s The Man Upstairs). Beginning in 2006, Hitchcock released a trio of albums backed by The Venus 3, featuring Peter Buck, Scott McCaughey, and the late Bill Rieflin.
 
Robyn moved to Nashville in 2015 and gravitated to the Music City community, recording 2017’s Robyn Hitchcock with an array of local talent including co-producer Brendan Benson. In 2019, he joined forces with XTC’s Andy Partridge for the four-song EP, Planet England.
 
Music aside, Hitchcock has appeared in a number of films, three of them by the late Jonathan Demme: 1998’s concert documentary Storefront Hitchcock as well as roles in 2004’s The Manchurian Candidate  2008’s Rachel’s Getting Married.
 
Locked down in Nashville by the global pandemic of 2020, he and his partner Emma Swift began their Sweet Home Quarantine livestream series, broadcasting weekly sets with their two cats, Ringo and Tubby. They also launched their own label and press, Tiny Ghost. 2021 saw the publication of Hitchcock’s first book, Somewhere Apart: Selected Lyrics 1977-1997, featuring 73 songs and 34 illustrations in a beautiful cloth-bound edition. In 2022 his first album for Tiny Ghost ‘SHUFFLEMANIA!’ was released, recorded at home during lockdown with long-distance collaborators including Johnny Marr (Manchester) Sean Ono Lennon (New York) Kimberley Rew (Cambridge) and Davey Lane (Melbourne).

June 2024 will see his second book “1967 - How I Got There and Why I Never Left” published in the UK by Constable. To accompany this Tiny Ghost will release “1967 - Vacations in The Past” an album of the pop hits of that year covered by Robyn on acoustic guitar with some of his friends in Cambridge and Melbourne.

Meanwhile a collection of new songs is due for release in early 2025.

“I like to keep busy”, says Hitchcock: “We have all eternity to not exist.” 
 
Tickets for this show are £20 in advance.

You can get tickets online from here.

__________________________________________________
 
 

Tom Robinson Band
Friday 1st November, 7.30pm
 
The first Tom Robinson Band emerged amid the turmoil of late 70s Britain - in a time of punk rock, political unrest and economic gloom. TRB became known for the hit single 2-4- 6-8 Motorway, their vocal support of Rock Against Racism and for the anthem Sing If You're Glad To Be Gay, which made the Top Twenty despite a ban by BBC Radio 1.

The original TRB consisted of Robinson on bass and vocals, drummer Dolphin Taylor, keyboardist Mark Ambler and their incendiary guitarist Danny Kustow - who died early in 2019 at the age of 63. They made just two albums - Power In The Darkness and TRB TWO and ended - like the Seventies - just as Margaret Thatcher swept to power.

The current Tom Robinson Band will play a 23 date tour in October/November 2024 showcasing those first two albums, in tribute to the original band members. The setlist has been chosen by fans via an online poll, and will include some album tracks from the era that have never previously been performed live.

Alongside Robinson on bass, the band features Faithless drummer Andy Treacey, guitarist Adam Phillips from the Richard Ashcroft Band, keyboard virtuoso Jim Simmons and Northern soul singer Lee Forsyth Griffiths on acoustic guitar.

"45 years on," says Tom "some of the original TRB lyrics - about division, injustice and uncertainty - still feel depressingly relevant in a world of Trump, Farage & Suella Braverman. I also owe a huge amount to the musicianship of Mark, Dolphin, and Danny back in the day. We're hoping to do that early band - and the songs - full justice this Autumn.” 
 
Tickets for this show are £25 in advance.

You can get tickets online from here.

__________________________________________________