Sundara Karma rocked in to Liverpool for their biggest headline show to date, fresh off the back of a highly accomplished debut album: you know, the one with long, yet deep, title: Youth Is Only Ever Fun In Retrospect. If that were true then virtually everybody in the sell-out, mainly 14 (12??)-18 year old, O2 Academy crowd must have had a miserable time. When I arrived...
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To see Hidden Charms live is to see an uncontrolled explosion of feral rhythm and blues. Can I get a witness? To see them back where it all began three years ago is even better. The tension built as they toyed with the expectant audience that had gathered at the front of the stage, encouraged by hyped up, adoring members and friends of Liverpool band, Roomerz. ...
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The 20th January, 2017. The day when Donald Trump tricked his way into one of the most powerful jobs on the planet. This Buyers Club gig was the perfect antidote to said man’s poisonous, racist, sexist, anti-human rhetoric. Four quality bands at the start of their careers served up four very different styles in this intimate upstairs Hardman Street, Liverpool, venue. AGP (initials of lead...
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A lot of people asked me why I wanted to go to Warsaw. Well, why not, I say? Admittedly the price of the flights with Ryanair had a lot to do with it. It’s basically a case of going down the list of destinations these days and picking one out. Why not be spontaneous and draw a destination from a hat? Fifty pounds return is...
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As 2016 races to a close I feel that it is my musical duty to review the best of those tracks that have been the soundtrack to a gigging year of epic proportions. But for my day job feeding 11-16 year old alligators with knowledge I would probably be doing this full time. The last fifty-two weeks have taken me in planes, trains and automobiles from...
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A new hobby has entered the lives of many over the last few years. It involves checking the latest trends on Twitter. It has become a thoroughly depressing pastime over the course of this year. A tweet by @alex_greenough yesterday summed this up perfectly: “Love how David Attenborough and Bruce Forsyth are trending simply because they’re old and alive” It was retweeted 1,089 times at...
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This week has prompted me to reflect in depth on this wonderful vocation which some have been prone to call teaching. I have at times referred to it fondly as “alligator wrestling” and to lessons, particularly the last lesson Friday graveyard shift, as “feeding time at the zoo.” This week a change has occurred: the alligators have multiplied unimaginably, joining forces with thrashing anacondas and...
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“Manchester, we have no words.” This tweet by the mesmeric Black Honey, following a sell-out show at the Deaf Institute in Manchester last night, says it all. Having seen them five times in the last five months, I am inclined to agree. I am fast losing the ability to put into words what a live Black Honey show is like. Ok let me try: type...
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