WATCH: Dawes release video for 'Roll With The Punches' (and a new live record!)

Crikey. You wait for some new Dawes content and they deliver twofold on Valentine's Day with a new music video for the absolute tune Roll With The Punches and a new live record We're All Gonna Live to stream on Apple Music, Spotify etc. The record features recordings from their current An Evening With Dawes tour in America, where they're playing two sets each night, firstly with tracks from their latest studio record We're All Gonna Die, followed by a set of fan favourites (and with four other records, there's a lot to choose from.) You can listen on Spotify below... holding out for a physical release!

While I went to a seminar and tried to get over the excitement of the new live record, the band went and blew my mind by releasing their latest music video for what is possibly my favourite track from the latest record, Roll With The Punches. My favourite lyric of the track is "how dying love manifests, in a rug or a chest" and in an interview with the band Taylor discussed wanting to write a song about separation that focused on these smaller things, rather than the grand gestures of saying goodbye. In the video Taylor splits on screen with his real life girlfriend Mandy Moore, and a bunch of burly men proceed to split household items in half - most hard-hitting is probably the guitar and teddy bear! Get watching...

Here's hoping the An Evening With Dawes tour makes it to the UK eventually!

WATCH: Tom Lowman - 'Mine is a Selfish Dream'

Debuting yesterday, here's a new live video from Tom Lowman, a singer-songwriter from Winchester. As the name of the track suggests, Mine is a Selfish Dream is about "trying to have everything all at once, and the inevitable failures that result from such an approach", which sounds pretty relatable, and it's taken from Tom's upcoming Live & Lost EP out this Good Friday. The video shows off the strength of Tom's voice, and I'm pretty fond of session type videos performed on electric guitars! Tom is yet another artist I have Sofar Sounds Oxford to thank for introducing me to, as he played one of the first Sofar Oxford gigs I went to around two years ago. Probably the loveliest venue of all the shows I've been to, in Worcester College Chapel.

If you're in the Winchester area, Tom plays a hometown show with Harry Pane on May 4th (tickets and info.)

WATCH: Seramic - 'I Got You'

The feeling I get from the Seramic tunes we've been blessed with so far is that upon listening to them, almost anyone would feel the urge to dance. It makes sense then that their two music videos to date both include a lot of dancing, first up in the Greg's Love video with gymnast Sophia DeJesus, and now in the brilliant (seriously - it's great) video for recent track I Got You, which features a couple of GB Olympic synchronised swimmers, Olivia Federici and Katie Clark.

Synchronised swimming is probably one of the sports I watch with most awe when the Olympics comes around and the video is a total winner, with the underwater filming showing off the magical moves the ladies are pulling off under the water and all the work which takes place under the surface which you don't usually see. In particular the upside down shots (such as the sequence from 3:13) are totally confusing and magical all at once, and the video is a really beautiful compliment to the track!

If you fancy dancing to some Seramic tunes yourself then you're in luck, they're headlining London's lovely venue Omeara on 1st March - tickets here!

LISTEN: Banfi - 'Rosedale House'

Writing this, I'm sat in my (surprisingly quiet) university halls, in a pretty bare room (although I am proud of the big collage on my wall, with photos of friends, family, gigs and theatre from the last few years), but there's two posters on the wardrobe door. Firstly, a beautiful Banfi print by their art director Jake Dypka, which I got at their Old Blue Last show last November. Below it there's a poster for the Bear's Den Christmas show in December, and as coincidence would have it, the news broke yesterday that the latter had invited the former on their European tour with them... which is really rather exciting as both are brilliant!

As if that little token of Banfi news wasn't enough, they released their latest track Rosedale House yesterday too and it's a bit of a tune. At the show last November they'd mentioned it was going to be their next single and I'm glad to finally hear the studio version, which has been on repeat for much of today! Really impressed with all the tracks they've put out so far (check out Where We Part and Happy When You Go) and can't wait to see where 2017 takes them!

I'm really looking forward to catching Banfi live again this Wednesday at Old Blue Last again with Bad Parents and Mummy - that show is sold out but you can catch them with Tempesst in Liverpool, Leeds and Manchester (tickets), and with Bear's Den on their European tour, though lots of those shows are sold out already so be quick, dates and tickets here! The Oxford date of the BD tour is the day before my dissertation is due, so while it falls in a pretty scare time I'm hoping by then it will be submitted and the show will be be the perfect celebration!

LISTEN: Josh Savage - 'Whisper In The Snow' (feat. Alice Pearl)

For my dissertation (which is due in less than 8 weeks... nobody panic!) I'm looking into why people attend gigs, comparing the motivations of those attending a 'proper' gig with a Sofar Sounds show, concluding on ways to get more people into live music (quite a big ask!) In my opinion, the whole Sofar package is something really special, bringing together a bunch of strangers into a unique environment, usually somewhere where you wouldn't normally encounter live music, and giving them an evening of acoustic music from artists of various genres and backgrounds, and offering artists a truly attentive audience.


Few people represent the success of Sofar Sounds quite as much as Josh Savage, who I had the pleasure of meeting when he played at our Oxford Sofar on Friday evening (read about the show here.) Josh set up the Winchester branch of the shows, and played his fiftieth Sofar on Saturday evening in Birmingham - the most that anybody has played, which is quite the accolade! Alongside living room shows, Sofar has enabled Josh to tour much further afield than the UK, in places such as the United States and Europe, where his current tour is taking him over the next couple of months. Years ago it would've been crazy to conceive that somebody without the backing of a major label could be touring as much as Josh, let alone somebody without 'management, publishing or record support to speak of', but things like Sofar make it possible - although of course it's massively down to Josh's talent too! Things are starting to look pretty exciting, as on Saturday Josh received his first play on BBC Radio 2, with Jo Whiley playing the new single Whisper In The Snow. The track, much like the name suggests, is a really delicate duet with Alice Pearl, and I'm loving the session video below with Susie Blankfield on cello.

If you dig the track, be sure to check out the live remix version and download the studio track on iTunes or stream on Spotify! If you want to find out more about Josh's living room shows, check out  the The Living Room Tour documentary, and finally, if you want to be kept up to date about upcoming shows, join the mailing list!

LIVE: Hudson Scott, Catgod and Coldredlight for IVW at The Cellar (28/1/17)

On Saturday night I attended my second gig of the year, a show for Independent Venue Week in one of Oxford's best indie venues, The Cellar, located underground down a little alley-way right in the centre of town. In the day, the venue hosted their first ever panel discussion, intriguingly entitled The Dos and Don'ts of Live Music, aimed at musicians, promoters and those with an interest in what is a pretty lively music scene here in Oxford. The speakers on the line-up (which you can find more about on the event for the discussion here) had a lot of really interesting things to say and the venue was rammed - perhaps helped by the fact they opened up the bar - it was lovely to have such a visual, physical reminder of all the great people who work in music or have an interest in it (I think I fit somewhere in the middle) around the city, a few of whom I've had the pleasure of meeting through Tigmus and Sofar Sounds.

After emerging from the venue whilst it was still light (a bizarre moment), I headed home for a bit, trekking back to the venue later in the night for their IVW gig, which was just as busy as the talk earlier in the day! Opening up the night were Coldredlight, a local female-fronted duo who I've been hearing about a lot recently but hadn't caught live yet. There was a lot of support for them in the room and an air of celebration as they had just released their new track Bloom, which you can listen to below!

Next up, one of my favourite local bands, Catgod took to the stage to carry on the party. The album launch for their wonderful debut record Ready When You Are was my last gig of 2016, and it feels as if they're just getting better and better as time passes. Cat and Evie deliver beautiful vocals and there's a really exciting and infectious energy as Robin, leading the band on bass and vocals, dances his way around the stage, whilst Henry and George, on guitar and drums respectively, offer impressive solos. I'm excited to hear that Catgod are supporting at an upcoming Tigmus show, Holly Redford Jones' EP launch at Fusion Arts on 18th Feb, and I highly recommend coming along if you can! I'd recommend a particular track but I'm a big fan of the whole record so I'll leave it below for you to do as you wish...



Finishing up the evening, Hudson Scott, who I'd seen supporting Foals back in November 2015... I remember really enjoying their set and being gutted that I couldn't find them on any social media (perhaps I wasn't looking well enough!) But all solved now - they've got a little three track EP up online (below) and recent release Panning For Gold is pretty fun too. Their set went down a treat - who doesn't love a trumpet solo?! The lead singer (who I think I'm right in saying *is* Hudson Scott... though I want to say that they're a band, and not a soloist with a backing band) has a pretty unique voice which sets the tunes apart, and on stage he reminded me a little of Ed Macfarlane of Friendly Fires (not that I've seen them live, personally, but what else is Youtube for?)


It was a great evening and a brilliant showcase of local talent, with a really lovely atmosphere, a feeling that we were all there to support local music. So that's it for this year's Independent Venue Week, but in truth, every week should be IVW! It's a little like the "a dog is for life, not just for Christmas" notion... if you don't want to see music venues closing, get out and listen to live music locally! 

LIVE: Sofar Sounds Oxford at The Ashmolean Museum (27/01/2017)

Yesterday was my first gig of the year, helping out with the Sofar stage at Oxford's Ashmolean and running the social media. I've been living in Oxford on and off since September 2014 but it's only the second time I've visited the museum, the first time being another Sofar show almost exactly two years ago, both shows being part of the museum's Live Friday events. This time the event was Linguamania, a celebration of languages, so we had four different acts who were all born elsewhere or grew up in another country, singing us tunes in various languages.

Josh Savage, Anna Zed, Count Drachma and The Fusion Project

First up, somebody who is no strange to Sofar, having set up Sofar Winchester and having played the most Sofar shows of anybody - I believe yesterday was his 49th. Josh Savage is in the midst of a living room tour at the moment, and shared some tracks in French as he grew up in Paris... check out his The Living Room Tour documentary below!

Next up was a set from Anna Zed, who was born in Athens and studied in the UK. She played with an electric guitar and sang in a mixture of Greek and English, and I really enjoyed her set, particularly the track Holiness - see a video from a London Sofar below!

Next up, Oli Steadman's project Count Drachma treat us to some Zulu Maskandi music. Oli actually set up Oxford Sofar a few years ago, and there's a video below of Count Drachma performing at a Sofar years ago with percussion, bass, and violin, but this time around there was Oli and a violinist. It's actually almost exactly a year since I started off my uni placement with Oli's company Tigmus who haven't been able to get rid of me since - the year has flown by!

Finishing up the night with a couple of sets for two separate audiences - there was a constant queue outside our gallery for the whole evening - Oxford's The Fusion Project. They fuse together Indian Classical music with Western music, performing their covers of Ed Sheeran and Adele tracks last night and performing in Arabic, Urdu, Hebrew, English (and probably more!) They sold out a Tigmus show at Oxford's Sheldonian Theatre last year and are doing so well for themselves at the moment, so it was lovely to catch them live again! Check out their most recent cover of The Chainsmokers' track Closer below.

Personally, my next gig is tonight at The Cellar in Oxford, an Independent Venue Week show with Hudson Scott (who I saw supporting Foals at the end of 2015), Catgod and Coldredlight - tickets for that here. The next Sofar Oxford in Feb is sold out, but there's a special show for International Women's Day on 8th March with a bunch of the best local female artists (apply for tickets here.)

WATCH: King Charles - 'Find A Way'

It's flown by - it's been around a year since King Charles released his second record, the beautiful Gamble For A Rose, which Marcus Mumford produced and on which a bunch of brilliant musicians including Tom Hobden, Charlie Fink and Winston Marshall played. Towards the end of last year Charles toured pretty extensively across the US (and recently moved to NYC!) and released new track Find A Way during the tour - yesterday we were treated to a new video for the track featuring footage from the tour!

If you enjoyed the video, it's making me pretty reminiscent of the Ivory Road video, showcasing footage from Charles' previous US tour years ago with the Mumford guys. 

TOUR NEWS: Harry Pane (March-May 2017)

I first heard of Harry Pane through Tigmus last Summer, when he played a couple of hugely successful shows for us - I caught him play a set on his Coffee House Tour and was suitably impressed, so I'm excited that he's heading out on tour in a couple of months to support the release of his new EP. To get a taster of his last EP, here's a video from Sofar Sounds London of Cold Light Of Day - the whole Changing EP is pretty sublime though so do take a listen if you've got a little time to spare!

Harry plays the likes of London, Oxford, Winchester, Coventry, Cardiff, Birmingham and Brighton on his upcoming Wild Winds EP Tour - check out all the dates and grab tickets here!

WATCH: Biffy Clyro - 'Flammable'

They may have played a bunch of acoustic sessions and shows lately, bizarrely (for them) fully clothed, but in their new music video for Flammable, Biffy Clyro are back to their usual selves, having lost their shirts and rocking out at full volume. The track is one of the highlights of their recent record Ellipsis for me and this video is not at all disappointing, with the band playing inside a see through box as a bunch of pyrotechnics (is that the right word? Fireworks didn't feel like it did the video justice) are shot towards it... pretty spectacular stuff, and it seems they got out unscathed, phew!

In case you missed it, Biffy are up for Best British Group at the Brit Awards, see all the nominees here! While I'm on the topic, a bunch of artists are playing shows for the awards in a few weeks, including Jack Savoretti playing an intimate gig at Hoxton Hall - tickets for most shows have sold out but you can try your luck in a £5 ballot here.