In the 1962 movie ‘The Manchurian Candidate’ a Korean War veteran suffers from horrific flashbacks, later discovering that he amongst others in his corps have been brainwashed by the military and a shadowy corporation, to be used as pawns in the cold war.

By 2004, the premise is not so far fetched. So much so, that the movie has been updated, this time starring Denzel Washington as a Gulf War veteran suffering such flashbacks.

In this remake, his platoon has been brainwashed into believing that a lesser member of the group – a rich Senator’s son, now running for vice presidency – fought off a whole battalion of marauding Iraqis by himself, thus saving his blue collar colleagues.

Fast forward to mid-2005, and your summer, whether you like it or not, is being soundtracked by James Blunt’s debut ‘Back to Bedlam’.

Walk down any sunny high street and you’ll hear the aching tones of ‘You’re beautiful’, ‘High’  and ‘Wiseman’ emoting from the speakers of every other shop you go into; from Mrs Froversham’s antique spittoon emporium to Cash Converters, four shops down. The country, it would seem has gone mad for this tousle haired troubadour.

A few months earlier, few had heard of James Blunt. A half page interview appeared in a monthly rag, in which this ex-squaddie declared Margaret Thatcher to be his all time hero. At that point, most wrote him off as an ill-informed gangly bounder with a Borstal grip.

However, after an apparently impromptu appearance on Later with Jools Holland - at the request of Elton John, no less - Blunt’s career has since soared skywards. Some question the serendipity of this episode, as it has the grubby paw prints of record company politicking all over it. It transpires that they share the same management.

At the moment of writing, Blunt holds the number 1 spot for album and single.

The single is the ubiquitous ‘Beautiful’. Early in the song, Blunt spies a beautiful woman and declares that he has a plan. It soon transpires that his plan is to ….. do nothing.

Pedants will be at pains to point out that it’s not really much of a plan. Either he learned nothing about strategic planning, whilst on manoeuvres in Bosnia, or, as most suspect, it’s just another case of lazy lyricism, which is sadly all too acceptable these days.

The album itself doesn’t fare much better. It is heavily drenched in the kind of over-nuanced cod mysticism that is seen as musical genius in some quarters. Unrequited love vies for space amongst the wisemen and the angels.

The sad realisation is that it is a record devoid of emotion. Vocally he over-eggs the pudding such that it becomes an omelette. When he sings the word ‘high’, he predictably does so in a strained falsetto. Elsewhere he ‘sings’ like it’s karaoke night at a Sean Connery convention.

In interviews, Blunt comes across as being charmless and detached, and this sadly translates onto vinyl. His wan expression hangs over the record like a sepulchral deathmask. His vacant eyes apparently speak of lost love and haunting regret, though you’d certainly find more humanity looking into Columbo’s glass eye.

To his burgeoning army of fans though, James Blunt is the real deal. Edgier than Brian MacFadden (a pie-faced coward of a man with no military links whatsoever, except for that one time Westlife dressed up as sailors for a photoshoot) and less haggard than the melting waxwork of Norman Wisdom that is Robbie Williams.

The album was recorded in Los Angeles by Tom Rothrock, who has worked with genuine talents, such as the late Elliot Smith and Beck. (He worked on Beck’s misunderstood masterpiece ‘Sea Changes’) Singles aside, the bulk of the album is filler. The playing is lumpy and leaden and the sole inspiration for the session musicians seems to have been ‘contractual obligation’.

The role call of shame includes failed popstars (Amanda Ghost, Linda Perry) as well as a future member of Babyshambles (Thankfully not Pete Doherty doing backing vocals for crack money)

The most overwrought track on the album is ‘Goodbye my lover’. Seen by some as continuing in the grand tradition of a stripped down Jeff Buckley at his most heartbreaking, it actually sounds like Mira Sorvino in Mighty Aphrodite drowning kittens. But in a bad way.

The whole project has been flawlessly designed such that it cannot fail. With careful orchestration, the record company may well pull it off.  Blunt’s clothes bear all the hallmarks of a stylist’s intervention. The critical length of his stubble has been calculated to the nearest micron. And the positioning of his kiss curl has been decided by committee. It feels like it has been designed to appeal to as many people as possible. Even Abu Hamza would feel catered for.

In recent decades, the public perception of those in the armed forces has nosedived. In the 1940s it was a stiff upper lipped David Niven type. These days, it’s the kid at school who used to kill cats and had his own social worker. Dignity only seems to be afforded to modern day recruits if they were press ganged and had no choice. Sacha Baron Cohen, in the guise of Ali G, once famously asked ‘Don’t you have to be a bit thick to join the army?’

The British Army has always found it hard to shake off this image. In Blunt, they now have the man who can change all of that. He’s dashing. He’s brave. He’s public school educated. And he sings with a quaver.

The army could conceivably carpet bomb an Iraqi orphanage tomorrow, but a leaked photograph of a furrow-browed Blunt stroking a puppy would hush the disapproval.

By the time second single ‘High’ hits the top spot later this year, stories will emerge of his heroic antics in the warzone. By the time ‘Goodbye my lover’ becomes the Christmas number one, tattooed ex-colleagues, interviewed in grim B&Bs in provincial towns will talk of the time pop star James Blunt single-handedly saved their whole battalion from attack. Sat in poorly upholstered furniture, they will talk of how he manned the guns until back-up came. Off camera, they will mention the flashbacks that haunt them, and ask for their pills.

At the end of the day, cynics could only ever view him as the poster boy for British Army recruitment. A Stepfordian commodity that makes music in lieu of a pension fund for share holders.

To his fans though, he is a miracle worker with a voice that can reduce a rocking horse to tears and is the prime Candidate to usurp Robbie as the new King of Pop.

Ash Barua

{mos_sb_discuss:5}

(more…)

In the 1962 movie ‘The Manchurian Candidate’ a Korean War veteran suffers from horrific flashbacks, later discovering that he amongst others in his corps have been brainwashed by the military and a shadowy corporation, to be used as pawns in the cold war.

By 2004, the premise is not so far fetched. So much so, that the movie has been updated, this time starring Denzel Washington as a Gulf War veteran suffering such flashbacks.

In this remake, his platoon has been brainwashed into believing that a lesser member of the group – a rich Senator’s son, now running for vice presidency – fought off a whole battalion of marauding Iraqis by himself, thus saving his blue collar colleagues.

Fast forward to mid-2005, and your summer, whether you like it or not, is being soundtracked by James Blunt’s debut ‘Back to Bedlam’.

Walk down any sunny high street and you’ll hear the aching tones of ‘You’re beautiful’, ‘High’  and ‘Wiseman’ emoting from the speakers of every other shop you go into; from Mrs Froversham’s antique spittoon emporium to Cash Converters, four shops down. The country, it would seem has gone mad for this tousle haired troubadour.

A few months earlier, few had heard of James Blunt. A half page interview appeared in a monthly rag, in which this ex-squaddie declared Margaret Thatcher to be his all time hero. At that point, most wrote him off as an ill-informed gangly bounder with a Borstal grip.

However, after an apparently impromptu appearance on Later with Jools Holland - at the request of Elton John, no less - Blunt’s career has since soared skywards. Some question the serendipity of this episode, as it has the grubby paw prints of record company politicking all over it. It transpires that they share the same management.

At the moment of writing, Blunt holds the number 1 spot for album and single.

The single is the ubiquitous ‘Beautiful’. Early in the song, Blunt spies a beautiful woman and declares that he has a plan. It soon transpires that his plan is to ….. do nothing.

Pedants will be at pains to point out that it’s not really much of a plan. Either he learned nothing about strategic planning, whilst on manoeuvres in Bosnia, or, as most suspect, it’s just another case of lazy lyricism, which is sadly all too acceptable these days.

The album itself doesn’t fare much better. It is heavily drenched in the kind of over-nuanced cod mysticism that is seen as musical genius in some quarters. Unrequited love vies for space amongst the wisemen and the angels.

The sad realisation is that it is a record devoid of emotion. Vocally he over-eggs the pudding such that it becomes an omelette. When he sings the word ‘high’, he predictably does so in a strained falsetto. Elsewhere he ‘sings’ like it’s karaoke night at a Sean Connery convention.

In interviews, Blunt comes across as being charmless and detached, and this sadly translates onto vinyl. His wan expression hangs over the record like a sepulchral deathmask. His vacant eyes apparently speak of lost love and haunting regret, though you’d certainly find more humanity looking into Columbo’s glass eye.

To his burgeoning army of fans though, James Blunt is the real deal. Edgier than Brian MacFadden (a pie-faced coward of a man with no military links whatsoever, except for that one time Westlife dressed up as sailors for a photoshoot) and less haggard than the melting waxwork of Norman Wisdom that is Robbie Williams.

The album was recorded in Los Angeles by Tom Rothrock, who has worked with genuine talents, such as the late Elliot Smith and Beck. (He worked on Beck’s misunderstood masterpiece ‘Sea Changes’) Singles aside, the bulk of the album is filler. The playing is lumpy and leaden and the sole inspiration for the session musicians seems to have been ‘contractual obligation’.

The role call of shame includes failed popstars (Amanda Ghost, Linda Perry) as well as a future member of Babyshambles (Thankfully not Pete Doherty doing backing vocals for crack money)

The most overwrought track on the album is ‘Goodbye my lover’. Seen by some as continuing in the grand tradition of a stripped down Jeff Buckley at his most heartbreaking, it actually sounds like Mira Sorvino in Mighty Aphrodite drowning kittens. But in a bad way.

The whole project has been flawlessly designed such that it cannot fail. With careful orchestration, the record company may well pull it off.  Blunt’s clothes bear all the hallmarks of a stylist’s intervention. The critical length of his stubble has been calculated to the nearest micron. And the positioning of his kiss curl has been decided by committee. It feels like it has been designed to appeal to as many people as possible. Even Abu Hamza would feel catered for.

In recent decades, the public perception of those in the armed forces has nosedived. In the 1940s it was a stiff upper lipped David Niven type. These days, it’s the kid at school who used to kill cats and had his own social worker. Dignity only seems to be afforded to modern day recruits if they were press ganged and had no choice. Sacha Baron Cohen, in the guise of Ali G, once famously asked ‘Don’t you have to be a bit thick to join the army?’

The British Army has always found it hard to shake off this image. In Blunt, they now have the man who can change all of that. He’s dashing. He’s brave. He’s public school educated. And he sings with a quaver.

The army could conceivably carpet bomb an Iraqi orphanage tomorrow, but a leaked photograph of a furrow-browed Blunt stroking a puppy would hush the disapproval.

By the time second single ‘High’ hits the top spot later this year, stories will emerge of his heroic antics in the warzone. By the time ‘Goodbye my lover’ becomes the Christmas number one, tattooed ex-colleagues, interviewed in grim B&Bs in provincial towns will talk of the time pop star James Blunt single-handedly saved their whole battalion from attack. Sat in poorly upholstered furniture, they will talk of how he manned the guns until back-up came. Off camera, they will mention the flashbacks that haunt them, and ask for their pills.

At the end of the day, cynics could only ever view him as the poster boy for British Army recruitment. A Stepfordian commodity that makes music in lieu of a pension fund for share holders.

To his fans though, he is a miracle worker with a voice that can reduce a rocking horse to tears and is the prime Candidate to usurp Robbie as the new King of Pop.

Ash Barua

{mos_sb_discuss:5}

(more…)

Earlier this year, in what some saw as the most outrageous act of Rock & Roll decadence since Rivers Cuomo got his leg lengthened, Franz Ferdinand frontman Alex Kapranos cut off his trademark fringe.

Hackneyed critics with columns to fill and hyperbole to sprout, questioned if this somehow marked the end of Franz Part 1. Was it Kapranos’ way of coming to terms with a heady 12 months which saw them go from being The Chateau’s archest act to the world’s archest named act? Did it signify a drastic new direction for everybody’s favourite new band? Or was it simply a man in his 30s having a haircut?

The truth is that before the world was trampled underfoot by ‘that riff’, few would have been able to pick out any member of Franz Ferdinand from a police line-up, even if they did snatch your handbag.

However, when their debut album appeared early last year, it arrived fully formed. It wasn’t the sound of a band trying to find their style. From the fractured mechanical riffing of ‘Matinee’ to the shimmering comedown of ‘Come on home’, it felt like the new album from a band you’d held dear for years. It just didn’t sound like a debut. There were no loose fumblings in the dark. Disparate verses and choruses weren’t clumsily spot welded together in the vain hope that they’d sound passable. And in Tor Johansen’s taut production they had found their perfect collaborator.

Johansen’s calling-card production approach, which coaxes the bass out of the shadows, to a more prominent position centrestage had worked wonders the previous decade with Swedish popsters The Cardigans on their masterpiece ‘Life’. In the hands of a lesser producer, Franz’s debut could easily have been a huge misfire, markedly outsold by labelmates Sons & Daughters and critically eclipsed by Snow Patrol.

18 months later, on the eve of the release of their sophomore effort it’s a different story.  The world awaits their new album with baited breath. Hooch gargling schoolkids in Shoreditch haven’t been this excited since Sunny Delight put a ceiling on Tartrazine levels. And shapeshifting rappers in L.A are angling for first refusal on the freshest batch of sampleable riffs.

So in an act of pure folly that exposed their artschool roots, the group named the album eponymously. Again. An act that smacked of pretension, laziness and Seal. They’ve since seen sense and have announced a new title: ‘You could have it so much better with Franz Ferdinand’. This longwinded title doesn’t appear on the front cover. The black cover instead bears their name in much the same style as before, albeit in a different 3 code colour scheme, their only other concession to disparity being the 20’s flapper girl sounding out their name.

To kick things off, the group have dispensed with the services of the aforementioned Johansen, and have instead gone with Rich Costey.

The much heralded group collaboration with Dan The Automator, thankfully didn’t come off in the end. Those who heard Alex’s yawned in vocal contribution to the Handsome Boy Modelling School album last year won’t lose any sleep over this. At best it sounded like an overly eager bid to impress Will.I.Am, Kanye and the Hip Hop fraternity. It was confused, muddy and sounded like an afterthought that nobody had the temerity to dismiss at the time. It should have stayed in the studio.

In West though, one of their most fervent supporters from the Hip Hop scene, they have a kindred spirit. He is after all the face of a new breed of rap mavericks with a social conscience who eschew the Bad Boy posturings and boxfresh obsessions of recent years. However West’s assertion that Franz are exponents of white crunk music is woefully off the mark. An eminently quotable soundbite, yes, but a confused one at that.

Franz’s remit from the start has been to make guitar music that girls can dance to, and from the ‘Darts of pleasure’ EP onwards, they have always managed to meet this criteria. What they do though is not wholly original and exhibits little spirit of experimentation. Crunk, it is not. What they do has been done before. They just do it better than anyone else.

So with the album release only weeks away, what does the future hold for the band clumsily named after an architect of the 1904 Namibian genocide? If the album is a critical and commercial success, it could see Franz becoming one of the biggest bands in the world, eclipsing the likes of Coldplay and REM. It could see Kapranos trading in his mumsy girlfriend Eleanor Friedberger for a newer, more super model.

If it flops however, heads will roll at Domino, and they will no longer be the geese that laid the golden eggs. Retreating to their Chateau (An actual chateau this time, not the derelict courthouse that was their HQ during the early years) they’ll emerge years later blinking in the twilight to play the occasional pub gig to ageing hipsters in Govan. Fatter, shinier of pate and scowling at a cruel, heartless world that has since moved on.

The early indicators for the new album however are good. The new songs roadtested during their neverending tour suggest business as usual. The first single from the album is ‘Do you want to’ (Oh how they flout the laws of punctuation!) Whilst not the epiphany that ‘Take me out’ was, it is still one of the best things you’ll hear this year.   As long as they haven’t lost sight of what they do best, that second album, due next month, should be superb, if not epoch defining.

Ash Barua

{mos_sb_discuss:5}

(more…)

Earlier this year, in what some saw as the most outrageous act of Rock & Roll decadence since Rivers Cuomo got his leg lengthened, Franz Ferdinand frontman Alex Kapranos cut off his trademark fringe.

Hackneyed critics with columns to fill and hyperbole to sprout, questioned if this somehow marked the end of Franz Part 1. Was it Kapranos’ way of coming to terms with a heady 12 months which saw them go from being The Chateau’s archest act to the world’s archest named act? Did it signify a drastic new direction for everybody’s favourite new band? Or was it simply a man in his 30s having a haircut?

The truth is that before the world was trampled underfoot by ‘that riff’, few would have been able to pick out any member of Franz Ferdinand from a police line-up, even if they did snatch your handbag.

However, when their debut album appeared early last year, it arrived fully formed. It wasn’t the sound of a band trying to find their style. From the fractured mechanical riffing of ‘Matinee’ to the shimmering comedown of ‘Come on home’, it felt like the new album from a band you’d held dear for years. It just didn’t sound like a debut. There were no loose fumblings in the dark. Disparate verses and choruses weren’t clumsily spot welded together in the vain hope that they’d sound passable. And in Tor Johansen’s taut production they had found their perfect collaborator.

Johansen’s calling-card production approach, which coaxes the bass out of the shadows, to a more prominent position centrestage had worked wonders the previous decade with Swedish popsters The Cardigans on their masterpiece ‘Life’. In the hands of a lesser producer, Franz’s debut could easily have been a huge misfire, markedly outsold by labelmates Sons & Daughters and critically eclipsed by Snow Patrol.

18 months later, on the eve of the release of their sophomore effort it’s a different story.  The world awaits their new album with baited breath. Hooch gargling schoolkids in Shoreditch haven’t been this excited since Sunny Delight put a ceiling on Tartrazine levels. And shapeshifting rappers in L.A are angling for first refusal on the freshest batch of sampleable riffs.

So in an act of pure folly that exposed their artschool roots, the group named the album eponymously. Again. An act that smacked of pretension, laziness and Seal. They’ve since seen sense and have announced a new title: ‘You could have it so much better with Franz Ferdinand’. This longwinded title doesn’t appear on the front cover. The black cover instead bears their name in much the same style as before, albeit in a different 3 code colour scheme, their only other concession to disparity being the 20’s flapper girl sounding out their name.

To kick things off, the group have dispensed with the services of the aforementioned Johansen, and have instead gone with Rich Costey.

The much heralded group collaboration with Dan The Automator, thankfully didn’t come off in the end. Those who heard Alex’s yawned in vocal contribution to the Handsome Boy Modelling School album last year won’t lose any sleep over this. At best it sounded like an overly eager bid to impress Will.I.Am, Kanye and the Hip Hop fraternity. It was confused, muddy and sounded like an afterthought that nobody had the temerity to dismiss at the time. It should have stayed in the studio.

In West though, one of their most fervent supporters from the Hip Hop scene, they have a kindred spirit. He is after all the face of a new breed of rap mavericks with a social conscience who eschew the Bad Boy posturings and boxfresh obsessions of recent years. However West’s assertion that Franz are exponents of white crunk music is woefully off the mark. An eminently quotable soundbite, yes, but a confused one at that.

Franz’s remit from the start has been to make guitar music that girls can dance to, and from the ‘Darts of pleasure’ EP onwards, they have always managed to meet this criteria. What they do though is not wholly original and exhibits little spirit of experimentation. Crunk, it is not. What they do has been done before. They just do it better than anyone else.

So with the album release only weeks away, what does the future hold for the band clumsily named after an architect of the 1904 Namibian genocide? If the album is a critical and commercial success, it could see Franz becoming one of the biggest bands in the world, eclipsing the likes of Coldplay and REM. It could see Kapranos trading in his mumsy girlfriend Eleanor Friedberger for a newer, more super model.

If it flops however, heads will roll at Domino, and they will no longer be the geese that laid the golden eggs. Retreating to their Chateau (An actual chateau this time, not the derelict courthouse that was their HQ during the early years) they’ll emerge years later blinking in the twilight to play the occasional pub gig to ageing hipsters in Govan. Fatter, shinier of pate and scowling at a cruel, heartless world that has since moved on.

The early indicators for the new album however are good. The new songs roadtested during their neverending tour suggest business as usual. The first single from the album is ‘Do you want to’ (Oh how they flout the laws of punctuation!) Whilst not the epiphany that ‘Take me out’ was, it is still one of the best things you’ll hear this year.   As long as they haven’t lost sight of what they do best, that second album, due next month, should be superb, if not epoch defining.

Ash Barua

{mos_sb_discuss:5}

(more…)

A new poll has listed the Top 10 Music Hellraisers, who are still alive, with Keith Richards of course in the number one slot!

(more…)

Seeing how Black Rebel Motorcycle Club have moved on from an early Jesus and Mary chain tribute act to a late acoustic Jesus and Marychain one, the drone rock throne is now available for the taking but do The Warlocks, another pretender to the JAMC’s throne manage to fit in where the Rebels left off?

This, their fourth album is less claustrophobic than its predecessors and in the slower numbers such as ‘Gypsy’s nightmare’ and the lullabyesque ‘Angels in Heaven’ they show a more tender side, amazing what not drenching your tunes in feedback can do.

As the album goes on, you’ll find less and less things of worth and as for closing with a 12 minute epic, well, a little self indulgence is fine, as long as its backed up with ideas,

Like eating fast food, you’d rather not eat it but there’s a time and place for it but whenever you succumb you will always end up wanting much more substance.     6/10

  
Chris Todd

(more…)

For a remix of your last album to gain more excitement than the original must be quite a difficult thing to take.

Maybe they’ll take note and make a better one next time as the original version of ‘Nite Versions’, ‘Any minute now’ stunk. Coming on like Nine Inch Nails for kids and throwing all sorts of noise in for the fun of it, the last thing it was though was fun.

So to this ten track remould of that album which begs the question – why didn’t it sound like this in the first place?

Kicking off with brilliant a crunching rock cover of Daft Punks ‘Teachers’, ‘Nite Versions’ covers all bases and sounds more like a recent 2 many djs set.

The remix of E-Talking continues the dirty rock and beats vibe whilst ‘Accidents and compliments goes for a more eerie electro-clash sound whilst the off-beat bass-lines of ‘Slowdance’ could easily be from a banging hard house track.

Best of all is ‘NY Lipps, a mash up of their ‘NY excuse’ track with Lipps Inc’s ‘Funky Town’, treading a thin line between brilliance and cheese, it excels in both.

Seeing as their 2 Many djs side project gets much more attention than their day job, they’ve realised that they may as well join em than trying to beat them and make which makes this album a much more satisfying prospect than the original.    7/10

 
Chris Todd

(more…)

The Magic Numbers have announced details of the biggest headline tour to date in the Autumn.

October: - all gigs £10.00 except London £12.50

• Tuesday 4th - Leeds Met University
• Wednesday 5th - Glasgow, QMU
• Friday 7th - Sheffield University
• Saturday 8th - Wolverhampton, Wulfran
• Sunday 9th - Cardiff University
• Tuesday 11th - Oxford, Brooks University
• Wednesday 12th - Cambridge Junction
• Thursday 13th - Portsmouth, Pyramid Rooms
• Saturday 15th - Nottingham, Rock City
• Sunday 16th - Norwich, Waterfront
• Tuesday 18th - London, Sheperds Bush Empire (sold out)
• Wednesday 19th - London, Sheperds Bush Empire
• Friday 21st - Reading University
• Saturday 22nd - Bristol University
• Sunday 23rd - Manchester Academy 1

(more…)

NEW ALBUM – COLES CORNER – OUT 5th SEP 2005
NEW SINGLE – THE OCEAN – OUT 22nd AUGUST

"His voice is up there will the all time greats" - Scott Walker

Richard Hawley releases a brand new single, The Ocean, on 22nd August 2005. The Ocean is the first single to be taken from Coles Corner, out on 5th September 2005, Hawley’s first album release for Mute. The Ocean will be available on CD and 7”, the 7” includes exclusive new track, Kelham Island.

The Ocean is one of the standout tracks from the album. Orchestral, soaring and intimate, the autobiographical single was written whilst Hawley was on holiday with his family and the video, directed by Laurence Easeman (The Coral, Polyphonic Spree), was shot on location in Cornwall, around the Minack Theatre.

The album title, Coles Corner, refers to an old meeting place for courting couples in Hawley’s hometown, Sheffield. Coles Corner is still a meeting place for many generations in Sheffield despite its demolition in 1969.

Richard Hawley plays two UK shows in September, one in his home town of Sheffield.

8th September The Scala London £10.00
11th September The Leadmill Sheffield £10.00

Tickets can be bought on line at www.gigsandtours.com.

{mos_sb_discuss:9}

(more…)

EDITORS follow their current UK sold out tour and top twenty debut album with more dates in September and October. Due to overwhelming demand, the London and Manchester shows have already been upgraded, original tickets will be valid.  Editors will be releasing ‘Bullets’ through Kitchenware on September 26th.

“A stunning debut.” (Mojo)

SEPTEMBER
Fri 09 Derry   Nerve Centre
Sat 10 Belfast   Limelight
Tue 27 Nottingham  Rescue Rooms
Wed 28 Manchester  Academy 2   * upgraded from Academy 3 *
Thu 29 Liverpool  Academy 2
Fri 30 Newcastle  Northumbria University

OCTOBER
Sat 01 Glasgow  The Garage
Mon 03 Leeds   Cockpit
Tue 04 Sheffield  The Room
Wed 05 Cambridge  The Junction
Fri 07 Birmingham  Irish Centre
Sat 08 Oxford   Zodiac    * sold out *
Sun 09 Bristol   Fiddlers
Mon 10 London  Astoria    * upgraded from Mean Fiddler *
Tue 11 Portsmouth  Wedgewood Rooms

Get booking info here.

(more…)