My own personal history with the Smiths/Morrissey has been mixed. I am not a rabid fan, but have valued every single album release in different ways. However, my live experiences thus far have not been brilliant. Picture a clement October 28th 1986, and a young boy in North Wales, luxuriating in his bath, beyond excitement […]
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Sunny War‘s Armageddon in a Summer Dress is a magnificent achievement, and yet you have never heard of her, have you? Certainly that is the impression I get from a trawl of Manchester’s Independent and High Street stores, and it is mind boggling. As an artist, Sunny War (Sydney Ward) is ploughing her own […]
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Edwin R Stevens – Pontio, Bangor – October 5th 2024 As I am sure many of you will be able to attest, it’s cold/Covid/flu season, and as a victim of one of the three (maybe all) I was wavering on whether or not to make the four + hour round trip to Bangor…only I wasn’t […]
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“Sanity calms but madness is more interesting” – or – “How I Survived the Yellow Peas”. Day 1 – THURSDAY – “Best Mind Fuck Yet”. When the fantastic line up for Ara Deg 2024 was announced a few months ago, I had to hold fire on booking a ticket in case there were summer holiday […]
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In the aftermath of glowing five star reviews from both music magazines and the highbrow newspapers, it was little surprise to see a queue stretching down Manchester‘s Oldham Street and snaking round into Church Street (in sub zero temperatures too!) for the opportunity to hear Bill Ryder-Jones give the genteel treatment to his sparkling new […]
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The name above may not mean a lot to many of you, but the chances are that if you have any Welsh music in your extensive record collections those artists are likely grateful to Emyr who sadly passed away yesterday. As one of the founding members of the Ankst organisation and the man who […]
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Come on a truly unique, mysterious and magical trip in both words and music with THE CYCLE TO WORK SCHEME and me. “There’s a package for you here, have you ordered anything?”. Confusing words, because I hadn’t. I moved downstairs to see a vinyl shaped package with an address scrawled in handwriting I didn’t recognise. […]
Read MoreJust before Covid hit these shores, Manchester and London were visited by another then little known export from the East, though this one was from Russia not China. Urbanista was lucky enough to catch up with Motorama on their northern sojourn and was wowed, as was the rest of the punters who raucously packed out the […]
Read MoreSat outside a tiny coffee house betwixt the two cathedrals, I awaited the arrival of Liverpool legend Edgar Summertyme Jones. The reason for our meeting was to discuss his thirty plus years on the Liverpool scene and his fantastic new album release Reflections of a Soul Dimension. As I chatted to the owner of a […]
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The 11th March 2023 was a pig of a day. Travelling down the M62, visibility was at a premium but as I hit civilization in Liverpool I knew that with just a short hop across the water, the promise of shining light was awaiting me. Emerging from the Mersey tunnel, dark satanic skies enveloped the […]
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