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Where does the time go? It’s a chilly, windy April evening as I hotfoot it from the day job to Islington. The reason for my haste is AOR stalwarts FM are in town on their ‘Thirteen’ tour. ‘Thirteen’ is about as good as melodic rock gets in 2022, and as it’s been a few years (the late 80s) since I’ve seen Steve Overland and co in the flesh, I’m expecting good things.
Read MoreThe Lost Words, a book of poetry and paintings by Jackie Morris and Robert MacFarlane began as a response to certain vocabulary being dropped from the Oxford Junior Dictionary. It became a quiet yet powerful celebration of the trees, birds and animals that surround and sustain us. It was followed by a second book, ‘The Lost Spells’, and the Spell Songs project, on which the artist and poet collaborated with a carefully handpicked band of eight musicians (we’ll come to them in a bit). The slow burning popularity of the resultant first album, Spell Songs has no doubt been fuelled by a worldwide reconnection with the natural world. As lockdowns had us trading crowded nights out for solitary woodland walks to preserve our sanity, a newfound appreciation and fascination for these wild and delicate delights took hold and, for many, has refused to let go.
Read MoreBush Hall is a bit of a favourite with team RGM. And, after nearly two years away, for us it feels quite a lot like coming home. Temporarily forgotten but so instantly familiar. The mirrored, decoratively stuccoed arches that flank the room are right where we left them and the red velvet chairs are lined in rows, which means this is going to be a civilised one. The winds of storm Arwen are still rushing and it’s bitterly cold outside, but the fearless faithful have braved the elements and are duly assembled, respectfully expectant.
Read MoreIn the heart of London, Camden Town remains very much as it was when I first visited nearly forty years ago. On this particular late October evening, the numerous restaurants, coffee shops and pubs selling £6 pints of craft beer team with people while the many stores offering piercings, tattoos and a seemingly endless range of t-shirts are slowly pulling down their heavily graffitied shutters. Various attempts to gentrify, or at least tidy up the area, have been partially successful in recent years but to be honest, Camden has hardly changed, and whispered offers to partake of a plant-based pharmaceutical are still a feature of the crowded street experience. Luckily, unlike central London just down the road, Camden still has plenty of live music venues and this evening, I'm visiting an imposing former Barclays Bank building that has been the home of the Jazz Cafe since 1990. A staple of the Camden scene, Adele, Amy Winehouse and Bobby Womack head a long list of name artists to have played here and Judith Hill is joining that illustrious list on the sole UK date of her European tour.
Read MoreI am too old for this gig. Literally. It’s my guess that most of the crowd here are barely out of school and I’m willing to bet the rest are getting up for first period maths in the morning. The Islington (aka Pin Ups) is the kind of dimly-lit velvet-draped bar venue in which I spent most of my twenties so, a couple of decades on that may explain why I’m mourning my years. I’m here to see Archie Faulks, whose rather fabulous EP Longing In London landed in the RGM inbox a few weeks ago. Support tonight comes from Knight and Cheshire-based singer songwriter Sophie Morgan.
Read MoreIt’s a fabulously cold night in Camden but we are cloistered and cosy in the warmth of the bijou Green Note. Tonight’s sold-out show is the London leg of Dressner and Paulusma’s tour of England; the former is gearing up for the release of her new album in May, while the latter is promoting her current project ‘Pivot’, about which more later on. For now though, hush please, the show’s about to start…
Read MoreFor the second weekend in a row, the UK was in the grip of a named storm as the RGM team made their way to Hoxton Hall in London. The onset of Storm Dennis, which would bring driving rain and treacherous winds to the majority of the country wasn’t going to put us off and proved rather fitting as Amigo The Devil seems very comfortable with the dark and the desolate.
Read MoreThe super-compact Green Note is one of RGM’s very favourite venues. There’s invariably a friendly welcome and the low lighting, velvet curtains and bare brick walls adorned with paintings of Joni Mitchell and Nick Drake all align to create a reverent and rustic intimacy which encourages those pin-drop moments of spiritual levity we crave from a performance. For me at least, its proximity to the 29 bus route is also a big plus.
Read MoreIn spite of the atmospheric tumult that accompanies the onset of autumn (by which I mean it’s wet and a bit nippy) the RGM team are out to catch the London leg of Rachel Sermanni’s tour in support of So It Turns, her thoroughly excellent third LP. It’s our first ever visit to the crumbling grandeur of St John’s Church in Bethnal Green, one of a growing number of sacred places doubling up as music venues. For those among us that already consider gig-going a semi-religious act it’s the perfect partnership and the instant reverence that buildings like this bestow on visitors does plenty to civilise a crowd. To be fair, the fifteen foot statue of Jesus hanging behind the altar helps, too.
Read MoreIt’s a sweltering night in London and the usually cold stone of the Union Chapel offers little in the way of relief: it’s hot everywhere. Chris Turpin, one half Ida Mae, has broken a sweat before their set has even begun. It’s the second of two consecutive headline shows at the venue for Josh Ritter with the Norwich duo in support. Packing not one but two National guitars, the pair are quick to demonstrate their powerful, groove-laden blues. Turpin’s husky gospel passion is augmented by Stephanie Jean Ward’s pin-point harmonies, delivered with all the righteous sass of a true soul diva. Ida Mae have been based in Nashville since cutting their debut ‘Chasing Lights’ with Ethan Johns, and have been honing their craft across the States. As a result, their performance tonight is firmly in the pocket. From the relative smoothness of ‘Released’ through the rowdy stomp of ‘Reaching’ to the brooding of ‘Chasing Lights’ itself, Ida Mae’s tight-knit set goes down a storm with Josh Ritter’s crowd and packs a serious punch; the knockout blow coming in the form of ‘Sick In Love’, a blues so swampy I’m minded to go directly home and shower.
Read MoreThe RGM team doubled in size for day three of Black Deer in an effort to reach into even more of the many nooks and crannies from which live music could be heard floating around the site. On arrival, RGM and Black Deer favourite The Sheepdogs were doing their thing on the main stage (impressive as they’d closed the Supajam tent the previous evening). The Sheepdogs were again going down a storm with ‘Nobody’ a perfect complement to a sunny day with its Paul McCartney & Wings tribute/pastiche breakdown and no less than three guitarists trading musical blows to complete their set. A great start to the day.
Read MoreDay two at Black Deer broke bright and sunny, which always does wonders for the spirit and rejuvenates a tired mind and body. As usual, where to start our musical journey was a tough choice, but Jessie Buckley won the day, mainly on the strength of positive feedback from the photographers in the pit. This feedback turned out to be a very good tip, as Buckley and her excellent band won over a crowd that didn’t really need to be won over, as she had them in the palm of her hand from the off.
Read MoreFor the first day of the annual Black Deer Festival, the gods have been kind and the sun is trying to break through the clouds. The UK is back in love with country music and all things Americana - at least on a musical level. This level of acceptance for the genre has not been seen on our shores since Dolly, Kenny and Tammy topped the charts and the Wembley Country Music festival was a must-see on BBC2. Black Deer is only in its sophomore year but it already feels like a must do on the crowded festival calendar.
Read MoreThe sold-out signs are up in West London on a Sunday night for the second evening of Dead Can Dance’s London stop on their European tour. The dates are their first since 2013 and the area in front of the Apollo (that’s the Hammy O to those of us of a certain age) is incredibly congested as waves of fans attempt to navigate a sea of cold steel security barriers. Dead Can Dance defy genre classification and on this particular night it’s possible to spot the young and the trendy rubbing shoulders with a good number of black-clad Goth types, while the majority of the crowd have obviously been following the band since the early 80s.
Read MoreI set out on a crisp November evening to catch the Dan Reed Network on the London leg of a fourteen-date UK tour in support of their new album, Origins, at the intimate club 229. The night is hosted by radio station Planet Rock, (those tongue-out champions of chunk, churn and chug) and thus the black t-shirted rock credentials of the evening’s opening acts are beyond question. Hollowstar, from Cambridgeshire, are satisfyingly old-school bluesy hard rockers who sell out of CDs while they’re still onstage and Glasgow’s muscular Mason Hill - who also swiftly win the crowd - deliver a heaviness of the type I haven’t witnessed in years. It’s fantastic to see these hungry young guns perform with so much passion and pride and both acts give tonight absolutely everything they’ve got, which is plenty.
Read MoreAt Shepherd’s Bush Empire, the RGM team reminisce about the range of artists we’ve had the pleasure of seeing on its stage over the years. The very fine grade II listed building was used for nearly forty years as the BBC Television Theatre and, since becoming a music venue in 1994, it really hasn’t changed much. This is something of a comfort, particularly with the bleaching of Soho and the razing of the surrounding areas having deleted some much-loved venues from the capital’s landscape. So, the Empire feels a bit like home. And, in a certain way, Darlingside have made the UK feel a little like home too. They have - deservedly - come a long way since we first featured them in 2016: they’ve appeared at the Cambridge Folk Festival, earned a live session on the BBC Radio 2 Folk show and toured the UK several times over; graduating from London’s Slaughtered Lamb via the Union Chapel to a headline show here at Shepherd’s Bush Empire. Or should I say “Shepherd’s Empire Bush” as chief banterer Harris Paseltiner (guitar/cello) initially refers to it. They’ve been looking forward to the show for a long time but have been syntactically confused about its name until their arrival…
Read MoreWith so much music available these days it’s very easy for a band to slip between the cracks. It’s going to happen no matter how hard you try to keep your finger on the pulse. Until a recent email (thanks Tom) arrived in the RGM inbox with an invite to check out The Sheepdogs I was totally in the dark. The band name doesn’t exactly help as it brings to mind visions of that old British TV institution ‘One Man and his Dog’ but any such apprehensions were blown away by the road-hardened Canadian quintets perfect mix of classic and country rock which proved to be a total joy.
Read MoreTom Baxter’s extensive UK and Irish tour in support of his latest album The Other Side of Blue (review) includes only one London appearance: here, at the Union Chapel. The place is perfectly suited to Baxter’s solo setup as it remains one of the capital’s most intimate and reverent mid-sized venues. Baxter has been out of the spotlight for a few years but has evidently lost not a drop of the energy and passion he had when we first saw him play The Borderline as a newcomer to London’s acoustic scene more than fifteen years ago.
Read MoreA typical Friday night in London and unsurprisingly the streets are full of people with things to do and places to go. The London Bridge area is as good a place as any to experience the hustle and bustle of London life with seemingly every other doorway leading into a coffee shop, restaurant or pub, while the imposing 95-story Shard skyscraper looms overhead. Just up the road from London Bridge tube station, we find Omeara a bijou live venue (capacity 350) which opened in 2016 and is the brainchild of Ben Lovett (Mumford & Sons). After two or three near misses this is my first visit to Omeara and I’m immediately impressed with the venue hidden away in Flat Iron Square, an open courtyard type area with galleries, street food etc. The vibe is cool and hip but not annoyingly so, the door and bar staff proved friendly and the venue itself looks like a decaying regency ballroom as imagined by Universal Studios for ‘Poseidon’s Fury’.
Read MoreSinger-somgwriter Ruston Kelly is in London promoting his excellent debut album ‘Dying Star’ with a low key show at the bijou Slaughtered Lamb. Needless to say the gig is sold-out and it’s pretty obvious the crowd are expecting good things long before Kelly ambles on stage.
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