For those of you who follow me on Twitter , you may have witnessed some or all of an exchange between me and a couple of fans of The Head & the Heart, a band we saw opening for My Morning Jacket last night (6th November). When we turned up to the venue, The Ledge went to the bar and I wandered down to the front - there was loads of space. Having seen The Head & the Heart at Latitude and found them boring in parts, but with moments of potential, I thought I should give [...]
In light of today's (annual) storm in a teacup about a possible Stone Roses reunion, we'd like to present a list of 10 bands you may have forgotten about (or never heard of) or who we just think are great that we'd rather see than The Stone Roses. We think you should bin your Madchester records and go by something truly underrated and beautiful, like a record by one of these artists: Dinosaur Jr Guided By Voices Galaxie [...]
Day 3 of ATP began at 8am with the guys in the chalet next door singing along to Flight of the Conchords very loudly (and out of tune). Not quite the morning lie-in I was hoping for, but it at least had us out of bed early enough for The Ledge to watch Neil Young's Greendale on ATP TV and for me to get my hands on an elusive copy of The Observer - something which usually proves difficult at Butlins. By early afternoon we were ready for some music [...]
Day 2 of ATP started well with Horse Guard Parade kicking things off at Centre Stage with a track that could have been written by Calexico (and a lead singer who, from where we were sitting, looked the spitting image of Joey Burns). They played a mixture of country-tinged indie and straightforward indie which was in places extremely catchy and in places extremely dull. I wandered off about 4 songs in, slightly bored, to find a WiFi connection, and returned for the final track, an upbeat number, that I wouldn't mind hearing again. This is not much of a description, [...]
Before I begin, I'd like to apologise for the lack of pictures. Butlins seems to think Flickr is an adult site and won't let us access it to upload any photos. We'll try and get that sorted if we have a gap in the music! The Ledge, in particular, has been anticipating our 5 th trip to All Tomorrow's Parties in Minehead because Pavement are one of his favourite bands of all-time. He loves Pavement so much that he decided we were going have heard only that Pavement were curating. As I'm somewhat less keen on Pavement, [...]
I've been wanting to see Trespassers William live for three years now, at least - since The Ledge first downloaded "Lie in the Sound" from their stunning Different Stars album. This gig at Sacred Trinity was the first opportunity and what a great venue for it too! With the high celings, ornate decor and stunning acoustics, the atmosphere would certainly be the perfect way to experience their soft, mournful, shoegazer folk. First on was Operations - basically Kip from Napoleon Dynamite with a guitar and an effects pedal. He played a chord and then used his [...]
Look ma, it's a post! We've been pretty quiet this year, in part because we've just been very busy, but also because we haven't really been all that inspired by anything - since Pains of Being Pure at Heart, that is. We have, however, just been to 3 of the most disparate festivals we possibly could have attended, all of which were good and bad for incredibly different reasons, and I thought it might be nice to provide some vague assessment of the pros and cons of the lot. The [...]
We weren't in the best of moods when we arrived at Chorlton Irish Club last night thanks to a wrong postcode on Ticketline and vague directions from a local which meant that we spent about half an hour driving through the unfamiliar streets of the South Manchester suburb trying to find the place. It also didn't help that, from the front, the Irish Club looks small and unassuming. Go round the back, however, and the place is huge with a large car park overlooked by usual hordes of smokers and a long line of punters queuing to get [...]
Prior to last Saturday, The Ledge hadn't listened to The Veils at all, but something prompted him to put on Nux Vomica - which I'd told him he would like when I first played it - and he liked it enough to refer to them as his "new favourite band" when I got home on Monday after a weekend away. As luck would have it, his sudden obsession with The Veils neatly corresponded to a visit by them to Manchester and he wanted to go see them play, despite the fact I had spent the 90 [...]
It's fair to say that here at The Indie Credential , we like The Decemberists a little - ok , a lot . One of the things which appeals so very much is their penchant for storytelling, something that on The Crane Wife (and The Tain ) they began to spread across song cycles - rather than just songs. So, when they announced that the new album, Hazards of Love , was going to be a concept [...]
Howling Bells promised much when we first saw them play at Summer Sundae in 2006 and they put out a decent debut of consistently good, if inoffensive, indie rock songs made all the more palatable by some delicious gothic country undertones. Then I forgot all about them and moved on to other things, so much so that I even forgot that we owned a copy of said album until last week. Now they're back with a new album called Radio Wars on which they forgo the aforementioned country tinges to explore a more straightforward radio-friendly sound, much, [...]
Or, the gig where Franz Ferdinand treat their fans like shit in order to save a few bucks. I was really looking forward to seeing Franz Ferdinand live again, especially after we didn't bother on the last go round because we couldn't stomach the idea of seeing them at the MEN Arena. Seriously, I was looking forward to this - enough to break out of my blogging lethargy. I really wanted to go down to the Academy 1 tonight and have a great time and write a glowing review of Franz Ferdinand's live performance. I can't, [...]
Leonard Cohen @ Opera House, Manchester, 18th June Bon Iver @ Manchester Academy 2, 15th September Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds @ Manchester Apollo, 24th November R.E.M. @ T In The Park / Lancashire County Cricket Ground , 13th July / 24th August The National @ ATP, Minehead, 17th May Stereolab @ Club Academy, Manchester, 17th December Eels @ Bridgewater Hall, 27th February [...]
It has been an age since I last blogged and I apologise, but since returning from a two week holiday in the States in early November I became, overnight, what I can only describe as a Grumpy Old Man. All enthusiasm for just about anything had waned, and this included music and especially blogging about music. At a time when I should have been taking stock of 2008 and preparing year end lists of albums and gigs I was instead listening to little that didn't involve Will Oldham or Tom Waits and not remotely looking forward to any of the [...]
Well, here's my list of my favourite gigs of 2008. Why 13 you ask? Cause I couldn't pare it down to just 10, especially once I got past the first 8. In any year where I hadn't seen Leonard Cohen for the first time ever, the Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds gig we saw recently would probably have been at #1, but this was a special year for music because not only did Leonard Cohen return to playing live, but the gigs he was playing were absolutely magical. Anyway, here's the list: Leonard [...]
Right, I know we've gone quiet here over the last month. You'll have to excuse us a bit. Our relatives over the pond have had some rather distressing things going on so we've been away for a bit and focused on other stuff since we returned. We have, however, been to a few really great gigs recently which have proved far more than a welcome distraction from things. We enjoyed Fleet Foxes at the Academy 2 on November 9th, although we were rather jetlagged so we stood right at the back and heard more than we [...]
Noah And The Whale have scored a quite surprising amount of chart success in recent months so it's a surprise that they're playing a vanue as small as the Academy 3 on Monday night. It's not surprising that it's sold out, though, and with Nitin Sawhney the Academy 2 on the same night it looks like the Academy is just a step too far at this point in their short career. On the same night, French ambient post-rockers M83 play the Ruby Lounge and Cheeky Cheeky and the Nosebleeds are on [...]
There's plenty more to be going on with in Manchester this week with Rilo Kiley's flame-haired indie siren Jenny Lewis on solo duty at the Academy 3 on Monday . On Tuesday there's Vampire Weekend at the Academy with support from Wild Beasts while downstairs at the Club Academy there seems to be a hangover from the weekend's Beepfest going on with Jim Noir , The Beep Seals , Gideon Conn and Magic Arm performing. And it costs nowt to get in, with entry being [...]
There must be something about October because this time last year The Decemberists cancelled two tours. Then it was The Hold Steady a couple of weeks ago and now, it seems, My Morning Jacket won't be gracing our shores with their presence, due to an injury. Rough Trade emailed the following statement from My Morning Jacket to the fans: It is with great regret that we have to announce the cancellation of My Morning Jacket's up-coming tour to Europe due to injuries suffered by Jim James in Iowa City. For the fans [...]
The Indie Credential
Download: James Blake Live Album (Unofficial)
My Funny Valentines
The Kills on Letterman (Video)
Lana Del Rey - Without You (Kill Paris Remix) [Dubstep]
