GIG NEWS: Stornoway at the RSC (10/7/16)

I'm usually fairly in the loop... finding it hilariously ironic that because I was busy writing a Hamlet essay for English for most of yesterday I missed the news that the fantastic Stornoway guys are playing a show at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon on 10th July! Here's my favourite video of them to get you in the mood... 

Stornoway and Shakespeare - my kind of night for sure! Having recently played two triumphant shows at Oxford's SJE Arts church venue on a tour promoting their Bonxie Unplucked EP (on iTunes here - I particularly love the The Only Way Is Up cover on there) and with dates at the beautiful Sheldonian Theatre under their belts too, they're no strangers to playing spectacular venues and this will certainly be a special evening! I went to the theatre back in 2013 for a school trip to see As You Like It and really hope I can get along to this show, particularly as I didn't get chance to explore Stratford itself on that day. I heartily recommend the show if you're in the area, I saw them three times last year in three totally different settings and was blown away by their performance every time.

Stornoway at St John The Evangelist back in November, photo credit: Megan Seekings

Tickets for Stornoway's show at the RSC theatre in Stratford Upon Avon on July 10th are available here.

LIVE: Sofar Sounds at The Jam Factory (6/3/16)

With a really gig heavy February, and April looking like it could be quite busy (Tigmus have a lot of Oxford shows coming up in April), March is seeming pretty empty, with just a couple of shows lined up. I almost didn't go to a gig last week.... almost! Luckily Sofar Sounds Oxford managed to squeeze me into their show at The Jam Factory last night, with artists Oceans, The Bloom Twins, Benedict Benjamin, Jali Fily Cissohko, and Moulettes. I live-tweeted the night over on the Oxford Sofar Twitter, and it was the first Sofar I've been to where I haven't been taking photos, so slightly less stress involved...

I haven't been to the venue before but it provided a really nice intimate setting perfect for a Sofar show. First up was Oceans, originally from Finland, providing us with some experimental electronic pop to wake us up and kick off the evening nicely. It was clear he was being totally genuine in his gratitude that people were sitting and listening attentively as he was shaking during the performance - some tracks are over on his Soundcloud here, listening to him while I write this and really enjoying - particularly his Jack Garratt remix.

Oceans

Carrying on the European trend... next up were Ukrainian act The Bloom Twins, fresh from arena shows supporting Duran Duran they took to the intimate confines of our Sofar Sounds show perfectly. Once I'd got over the fact that they were identical twins, I loved their harmonies, and a particular highlight of the set was a slowed down Beyoncé Crazy In Love cover (you heard right!)

The Bloom Twins

Next up, third act of the evening and the first guitar of the night... Benedict Benjamin, who played a Sofar in Oxford just over a year ago and I was glad to get to see play again. You could hear a pin drop through his performance, there's a beautiful tone and a vulnerability to his voice - someone came to speak to him after his set and described it as 'controlled', a good word choice I reckon. He played tracks from his upcoming album Night Songs, set to be released on 25th March (with a launch show at The Islington in London on 30th March - ticket and CD bundle here) - he had copies with him so I became the first person to buy a copy, just finished my first listen and loved it! Definitely watch out for it later in the month... 

Benedict Benjamin

Travelling continents, next up we had Jali Fily Cissohko, playing the Kora, an African 21-string harp. The whole crowd were mesmerised and I loved the clap-along for the last track, but spent most of the set wondering just how difficult it must be to play the kora! 

Jali Fily Cissohko

Last but by no means least and really brightening up our Sunday evening were Moulettes. Having not played a show since December they admitted to being a little rusty - I'd like to see what they're like on top form as I loved their set! Playing some new tracks for the first time, they described the concept of their latest album (quote taken from their site), "a record about the phenomenal creatures that inhabit the earth". They're playing a Tigmus gig in Oxford at The Cellar in April, tix here, that's part of a UK tour, full dates, and info about pre-ordering their fourth record is on their site here.

Moulettes

All in all - very glad I could get along to the show and excited to hear who's playing the next one which is tonight, as they've got two very intimate shows this month - I'll be in London seeing play The Maids tonight but interested to see what went down. It was also great to see Merlin Porter at the show, an artist based in Oxford, who actually has an exhibition at the venue running until today, who paints at shows. As a photographer, it's incredible to see Merlin's work coming to life so quickly during a short Sofar set. Give his Facebook page a like here to see more of his work.

Merlin Porter's artwork

LISTEN: Neverlnd - 'Where Do I Start'

Exciting news this Saturday morning... Neverlnd, the newly renamed Balloon Ascents, have just released a new track entitled Where Do I Start, which you can listen to below. The talented bunch of school friends from Oxford will be releasing a free track each month through a mailing list (sign up here), with all the tracks produced by the equally talented Ian Wallman. They've also announced a show, organised by Tigmus, at an intimate venue in Oxford at the end of April (details at the bottom of the post).

Having been introduced to the band through the fact that the Sofar Sounds Oxford organisers manage them, I've seen them a few times over the last year and they've never failed to put a smile on my face, playing fun and superb live sets in a variety of settings, from a stripped back set at Truck Store to a couple of headline shows across the road at the O2 Academy Oxford (one of which was the first show I've had a proper photo pass for back in May, see my shots from that gig here.) Seeing them play in January at an Independent Venue Week show, it struck me that they have got better and better each time I've seen them play, and I feel lucky to know them - but especially to know of their music at this exciting time in their careers.

Photo credit: IWphotographic

Tickets for their intimate Oxford show at Jacqueline du Prê Music Building on 22nd April are on sale through Tigmus here - I'd snap one up quickly as it'll likely sell pretty quickly, these guys are very well loved in Oxford!

WATCH: Laish - 'Song For Everything'

Since taking photos at some of the Sofar Sounds Oxford shows over the last year and a half I've made some fantastic musical discoveries, one of which is Laish, project of indie pop singer/songwriter Danny Green and his band. Gutted I'm missing Sofar this month as they're putting on two smaller shows and I'm busy one day and they can't fit me in for the other!

With a new album in the pipeline, Danny, as Laish, has recently launched an indiegogo campaign to raise funds for the studio costs, promotion and manufacture of the album (on CD and vinyl), offering up an instant download EP as one of the incentives. A quirky video for the title track of the EP, Song For Everything, premiered online last week, take a listen/watch below. With some lovely strings and Danny's captivating vocal, the track is great and it is refreshing also to find a fun music video that I happily sat and watched from start to finish - doesn't happen a lot anymore. 

If you like what you hear and want to support the album campaign, the link is here. Incentives include signed CDs and vinyl, drawings, a cover song of your choice, a personal concert and even a song written especially for you - all sound interesting, and projects like this are in my opinion a really worthwhile use of your money, helping independent artists to share their work with the rest of the world. 

Soundcheck before Laish solo set at Art Jericho for Sofar Sounds Oxford, photo: Megan Seekings

To launch the Song For Everything EP, Laish are playing a full band headline show at London's Sebright Arms on 21st April with support from Chris Belson, tickets for that are here.

TOUR NEWS: Communion New Faces (April 2016)

Announced today, The Beach, Adam French, Rukhsana Merrise and Matt Woods play venues in Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, London, Oxford, Brighton and Bristol in April for the latest Communion New Faces tour. 

Source: https://www.facebook.com/CommunionMusic

It feels like barely any time has passed since the last tour - but it was actually announced at the beginning of September, with Flyte, Seafret, Dan Owen and Jack Watts touring in November. Other previous line-ups have featured acts such as Frances, Pixel Fix, Amber Run and Eliza & The Bear, just a small indication of the caliber of the acts. I haven't listened to any of the four new artists before, but aside from listening to a track or two from each to embed something of theirs below, I will probably leave it until I see the show in Oxford - it's sometimes nice, especially for this kind of gig, to go along without any preconceptions, hearing the music for the first time live, letting the artists sell their music to you.

I say it a lot but I have an awful lot of trust in Communion, and often discover fantastic new artists through them. Therefore, evenings such as these, particularly with tickets a mere £8 (£2 per band!) for all the shows apart from London, are a superb showcase of four artists who are likely to have a brilliant 2016, and you'll be glad to have seen in venues of this size! Here are tracks from each of the artists...

Tickets for the shows are available now through the Communion website, through which you'll receive an EP with tracks from the artists with every purchase.

LIVE: Bel Esprit at The Bullingdon (28/2/16)

Enjoyed another gig at Oxford's The Bullingdon last night - but firstly, I want to extend a massive thanks to anyone reading this (particularly if you read my posts regularly, the idea of which is pretty insane), I just reached 200 likes on the Facebook page for the blog (find it here) which you can like to stay up to date when I write a post. Last night was my 15th gig of the year, with Southampton lads Bel Esprit playing a headline gig with support from Elixir, homeplanetearth and Haze.

First up were Haze, who might need some pointers in choosing a setlist to fit 30 minutes as half way through, they noted that they'd played most of their set. They had quite a nice vibe to open the show with, and, noting down some thoughts on my phone during the set to feel like a proper music-journo, I look back now to find little more than 'dancy', which, while it isn't really a word and doesn't help me in writing about their set - does provide a nice summary of their music and the audience's response. Adding in a track to fill up the extra time, which I'm sure was called Bent, I felt a real Arctic Monkeys sound coming through - you can listen to some of their tunes here on Soundcloud, and catch them supporting ALXNDR at the O2 in Oxford on 16th April with the second support from last night, homeplanetearth.

Haze

Having been introduced to homeplanetearth through my placement at Tigmus, who they've played shows for, I was really keen to see them play live. I'd only heard the track Phat Phil (which I love and wrote about here) so I didn't really know what to expect from the set but any expectations I did have were totally surpassed, with Josephine singing some stunning lead vocals (usually takes a lot for female artists to impress me so that's probably quite a compliment!) Following on the trend Haze had set with slowing down time, they also found some extra time in their set for Josephine's brother Thomas to surprise the rest of the band with a track they hadn't planned to play. The track was a chance to hear Thomas's vocals more clearly as it opened with just his guitar and vocals, before the rest of the band joined later, and featured some beautiful harmonies with Josephine (his sister). The show's crowd were mostly friends of the four bands, and there was definitely a lot of love for homeplanetearth during their set! 

homeplanetearth

homeplanetearth

The third support set came from Elixir, who kicked off their set as they meant to go on - loudly. It was interspersed with some nice guitar solos and while the style wasn't really for me, I can't knock the confidence that was oozing off stage! 

 

Last up, and headlining the show, were Bel Esprit. I'd seen them before at one of the first shows I went to after starting university, when I was on the door for a venue at Oxjam Festival in Oxford at the end of 2014. Since then I've been to over 80 shows so couldn't really remember what the band's sound were like (and didn't get a chance to listen to them before the show) but I really enjoyed their set! Their performance was pretty tight and the crowd were loving it, singing back the choruses to tracks such as Island, Detox and Nowhere (available to listen to through Spotify on the Lose My Mind EP.) Compared to the shows I attended at the same venue last week, the crowd was pretty small, but this didn't phase the band who performed, in my opinion, just as they might to a sold out crowd - and the audience were loving every minute, dancing in the way I usually dance in my room but couldn't bring myself to do in public. They definitely brought some fun to Oxford on a school night - a great night of music!

Bel Esprit

Bel Esprit

If you like the shots I've embedded within the post, there's some more from the evening on my Flickr here.

LISTEN: February 2016 playlist - my month in music!

After remembering how much I enjoyed creating a playlist at the end of last year with something like 60 tracks from various artists I'd seen live, new records I'd enjoyed and music I'd rediscovered over the year, I thought I'd create one entitled Feb 2016, a little musical insight into my month.

All the tracks but two (Jack Garratt and Little Brother Eli) are from bands and artists I've seen live this month and wanted to share with you all, and although I'm totally averse to Spotify and the tiny amount it pays artists, and would never use it a primary listening tool (someones got to buy physical music...) - it is pretty handy for a playlist! I didn't want to label it as a 'tracks of the month' playlist or anything, because I'm not being critical or comparing the tracks, simply sharing what I've enjoyed this month in a really personal way which I believe is in keeping with the nature of the blog itself!

A little note about why I've chosen each artist/track:

1. Leo Stannard 'My Friends Got Love' - having known about Leo for a while I finally caught him live this month at a Mahogany show and was taken aback by his talent. This track is my favourite track from his recently released EP Free Rein.
2. Roberto y Juan 'I Used To Relax' - I went to see the band's EP launch mostly to check out the support set from Count Drachma aka Oli Steadman, but have been struggling to stop listening to the EP since! 
3. King Charles 'Tomorrow's Fool' - one of my favourite artists, I saw Charles and his band live twice on his tour in February and this is one of my favourite tracks from the recent album, that guitar solo just before 2 minutes in...
4. Little Mammoths 'Waitresses & Barmaids' - it's only February and I've already seen these guys play three times this month, the first time for almost 3 hours acoustically in a booth at a Notting Hill pub, the second at Oxford Sofar Sounds, and the last, this week, the first gig I've ever organised.
5. Blossoms 'Blown Rose' - having not really listened to these guys until the day of the show I went along to their sold out gig at The Bullingdon in Oxford (I run the venue's Twitter so get free access). I've been hearing a lot about them and it was clear they're pretty well loved - and there was a lot of love in the room for Viola Beach too, who should've been supporting them on the tour. 
6. Sylva Kay 'The Bend' - Sylva supported at the Jonny Payne show I ran the door for in Oxford at the beginning of the month, and while I was busy with the door during her set, I caught some of her soundcheck and loved it!
7. homeplanetearth 'Phat Phil' saw these guys last night playing a support set for Bel Esprit, and was introduced to them through my placement with Tigmus, who they're playing a few shows for. Love this debut single!
8. Jack Garratt 'The Love You're Given' - you probably don't need me to tell you who Jack Garratt is as the man has become absolutely huge as of late with awards and nominations all over the place. This track from his debut album Phase which was out recently is the one that stuck with me after I saw him support Mumford & Sons in November.
9. Jonny Payne & The Thunder 'Across the Brooklyn Bridge' - before running the door for Jonny's show in Oxford earlier this month I took a listen to some of his session videos online and loved this track!
10. Roberto y Juan 'What's Your Favourite Colour?' - on the band's new Monster Love EP, this is probably my favourite track - loved hearing it live again when they supported at the Little Mammoths show I organised earlier this week.
11. Tom Figgins 'Giants Played In Woods Like These' - a couple of sessions Tom filmed with Mahogany have been uploaded this month, including this track. He played a superb set supporting Leo Stannard at his Mahogany show. 
12. Leo Stannard '19' - couldn't decide which track to share from Leo's EP and loved his show for Mahogany so much that I decided to just share two! Definitely felt like I was watching a star in the making at that show, can't wait to se where his music takes him this year.
13. Little Mammoths 'Keep The Rounds Coming' - this track features on LM's album which is out later in the year and I've been sent to review (brilliant stuff!), it's also pretty fitting as they're playing 20 shows in pubs around Ireland over 8 days in March (acoustic sets in the day, rock n roll at night). 
14. Ryan O'Reilly 'November - Live' - as a rule I'm usually pretty fond of the supports I've seen play with King Charles, and this months tour support was no exception (and also a very nice guy when we chatted backstage after the London show). Loved his set at both shows, particularly this track with its "you'll never change the world with your songs and your guitar, there are people half your age, and they're going twice as far" chorus, a fairly melancholic reflection on combining a relationship with a career in music.
15. Little Brother Eli 'Who Do You' - while setting up some Facebook posts for Tigmus about an upcoming LBE show later in the year, I listened to some of their tracks - particularly some acoustic videos from various Sofar Sounds performances, and had this track stuck in my head for a while after!
16. Eliza & The Bear 'It Gets Cold' - similarly to Blossoms (in the same weekend, in fact), I went to their gig at The Bullingdon having not really listened to them until the day - when I discovered I knew one track as it had been on an advert. Had a really fun night at the show and this track went down pretty well, as did the whole show! 
17. King Charles 'Animal Desires' - with his new album out in the last week of January ,and a tour in the middle of the month, much of my month has been spent listening to Charles so I had to finish up the playlist with him! When I saw the track listing for the record I was very happy to see this track included.

If you've made it this far - I'd love to hear (either as a comment on this post, or onto my blog Facebook page or my Twitter) if you enjoyed the playlist or a specific track. If the response is good I might carry on making monthly playlists! 

LIVE: Little Mammoths at The Library, Oxford (24/2/16)

A couple of weeks ago I posted that I'd organised a gig through my placement with Tigmus, bringing Little Mammoths to Oxford for their first ever show here, the last date on their East of Insanity tour. The show was this Wednesday and was a success, I'm very proud of how it went. Although it didn't sell out I was so chuffed with how many people came along - particularly as it was the first gig I'd ever organised (an honour for that to be the LM guys). Had some really nice comments about the show from people as they were leaving, the whole night left me pretty ecstatic! 

Here's a snippet of what went down in Little Mammoths set... confusingly enough the track, Get Me Back To Austin, is actually one of Matt's solo tracks from the album Songs For An Empty Room  (my favourite track off of the album in fact!) which I reviewed back in May last year (read that here). The album was pretty much instrumental in me relaunching this blog (long story short: when I first met Matt I told him I had a music blog, which at the time was on Tumblr and mostly a stream of new videos/sessions etc, and he gave me a copy of the record to listen to and review, at which point I decided to buy a URL, relaunch the blog and make a proper go of it.) Little Mammoths have an album, Phantom Dreams, coming out some time later this year, which, excitingly, they're releasing on vinyl. I've heard it and can't wait for it to be released into the world - I'll write up a review of that once there's more information on the release! 

Support on Wednesday came from local band Roberto y Juan, who I was really glad to get along to the show, after seeing them play a fantastic EP launch at the beginning of the month. If you're in Oxford, they're supporting a few upcoming Tigmus shows - the first of which (as far as I know!) is Martin Harley & Daniel Kimbro at The Bullingdon in March (tix here.)

Roberto y Juan sound-checking, photo credit: Megan Seekings

Little Mammoths, photo credit: Megan Seekings

Here's to organising more shows! Also... if you happen to be in Ireland (though I doubt my blog reaches that far), Little Mammoths just announced a crazy run of at least 20 shows in 8 days, with acoustic sets during the day and rock n roll sets at night in a bunch of their favourite pubs. Dates and tickets on their site here.

LIVE: Leo Stannard, George Taylor and Tom Figgins for Mahogany (23/2/16)

With the show I'm putting on tonight in Oxford, I'll have been to 6 gigs in 9 days (somehow fitting lectures into that!) I was lucky enough to win tickets for a Leo Stannard headline show put on by the wonderful guys at Mahogany last night. As can be expected by the calibre of their session videos on Youtube, it was a cleverly chosen line up and a really beautiful night of acoustic music. 

First up was Tom Figgins, who I've seen probably 5 times before but he continues to impress and surprise me. He's been gaining a lot of momentum recently and I'm excited to see what the next few months have in store for him - being backed by Mahogany can't hurt! His first session with them, of his track Giants Played In Woods Like These, has received over 11 thousand views since being shared earlier this month, and his second session, the absolutely chilling Crave, premiered yesterday, watch below...  

Second up was George Taylor, whose music I hadn't heard before, but I found that it fit in quite well with the rest of the evening. Mahogany are, in a similar way to something like Communion, folk who you know you're in safe hands with when listening to artists they like. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed George's set but it did get a little repetitive after a while (which doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing), I get the impression that he's used to performing more with a full band than solo.

Leo Stannard at Courtyard Theatre for Mahogany

Last up for the night was headliner Leo Stannard, who at just 20 has been backed by Mahogany for a few years now. He first started to get noticed at 16, at which point I saw a video of him performing and commented saying I liked it, to which 16 year old Leo responded by adding me as a friend; so I've vaguely followed his career for a few years but until last night hadn't paid too much attention - more fool me! Having recently released his Free Rein EP, Leo played the tracks from this interspersed with a few others, bringing on friends to join him for a few tracks on cello, electric guitar and drums. With his unique percussive style, which you can see in his latest video for Lost (which is on the Free Rein EP) below, Leo brought something fresh to the performance, and I couldn't shake off the feeling that I was witnessing a star in the making (I think the rest of the packed out crowd at London's Courtyard Theatre would agree), the next in line with the likes of Ben Howard, George Ezra, James Bay and Hozier. The prospect of having to get up at 7am to get to a lecture this morning suddenly seemed worth it, Leo's set was great, and I'll definitely be following his career a little more closely from now and hope he gets as far as he deserves!

You can get Leo's Free Rein EP from iTunes here - my favourite track is probably My Friends Got Love, and there's a lovely Vevo dscvr video up of the track here which is certainly worth a watch. Overall a lovely night and I'm glad both to have finally seen Leo live and to have eventually got along to a show put on by Mahogany and hope to go to more of the same (upcoming Mahogany gig listings here.)

LIVE: My weekend in gigs (20th/21st Feb 2016)

Since I started my second year at university, I've set up a new Twitter account for local music venue The Bullingdon, a perk of which is getting into all the show there for free - which became quite lucrative this weekend! First up on Saturday was Blossoms, where the show was opened with a recorded Viola Beach set, as they should've been supporting on the night - it sounded great and was a really moving touch to the band. The Vryll Society played a great support set, and certainly set the standard for crazy hairstyles - they've just been named in Gigwise's '13 rising, underdog bands to own festival season' - so remember the name! I hadn't listened much to Blossoms before the night but had been receiving tweets all day looking for spare tickets so knew they were pretty well loved, and though their set was, understandably, fairly short, the crowd loved it. There was so much love in the room when the band dedicated the last track of their set to their friends in Viola Beach and their manager Craig Tarry. I'm loving the track Blown Rose which you can see below performed at last years SXSW for BBC Introducing.

Next up, on Sunday, was Eliza & The Bear. I arrived late and missed the first support, but what I caught of Slowlights' set was fun, even if, as they said "I can guarantee none of you have ever heard of us". The show was originally meant to be at the end of January on a Saturday night and had been rescheduled to a Sunday, which happened to be the night before the school term started back up, but you wouldn't have known - the crowd were enjoying it a lot. As with Blossoms I'm not really familiar with the band's music but had been hearing about them both being played on Radio 1 and getting festival slots and the like - however I did know the below track Friends, and I'd be surprised if you hadn't heard it as it was featured on an advert for Bulmers Cider recently.

With four gigs, last week was pretty great for live music and this week is looking good too - with the Little Mammoths gig I'm putting on on Wednesday which I'm very excited about, and homeplanetearth supporting a local band Bel Esprit in Oxford on Sunday night (also at The Bullingdon). I also just won tickets to see Leo Stannard tomorrow night playing a show for Mahogany, where Tom Figgins is supporting, so I'm looking forward to that!