Day 6
And so I get home and all is calming. And clammy. There is no band to see across town at 1pm. Or 1am. There are no more Yellow Cabs and sleek black Car Service glides from Brooklyn into the pit of Manhattan, no more subway rides overground in the glistening morning sun. No more beards (I shaved off mine own on arrival at home) and probably less beer, weed and pizza than has been the norm this last week. Certainly not for breakfast anyway.

So, was it all hard work? Well, yes. And no. Don’t get me wrong: 15 hour days of bands and beer are great. I have to admit is a little daunting when you stack 5 of them back to back. Especially rolling straight on from two days on the road with new Swedes, Air France. But I have skills and methods and coping strategies. Continue Reading

After the release of mini-album The Early Learnings of Eugene McGuinness, the man himself returns with a full length self-titled debut album. Is this perhaps then, the later learnings of Eugene McGuinness? A more polished, consistent effort than his debut, which by all accounts ran out of steam half way through? Well it seems, whenever his learnings took place, earlier or later, Eugene McGuinness has learnt well and learnt good, and as a charmer of an album to show for it. Continue Reading

The sporadic, torrential rainfall that threatens such dreams of summer happiness, had tried to dampen spirits in the Academy, but as the smiling Dev strolled on stage wrapped up in a warm coat and his trademark Russian Kossack the man seemed to lend both garments to the room and opening the night with ‘Galaxy of the Lost’, the first lines- “I feel better now I’ve seen you” summed up what everyone was thinking.

From there things got cosy as the multi-musical and genre-flicking front man took us on a tale, using vocals coupled with conversation, of his down and up times of late and old. He seems to have hit a mixture of ages in his appeal generated in the variety of sounds and relatable lyrics, picking out his post relationships, fears and issues but placing them on top of a blanket of upbeat, instrumental delight that would otherwise provoke the standard reaction to such lyrics. Instead, the music becomes more positive looking to shake off those problems, leaving them in the winter of your past and getting you instead to look at the summer of your future. Continue Reading

Photographs by Jacob Saunders. Taken in Oxford, 4th Feburary ‘08.

Like an over-spilling matchbox, Cardiff Barfly was packed to the brim for last night’s sold out Lightspeed Champion gig – a claustrophobic’s nightmare. Ranging from old Test Icicle fans to people not even old enough to remember them, Dev Hynes, a.k.a. Lightspeed Champion, certainly seems to have won a place in many people’s music collection despite his change in musical direction. Continue Reading