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Day: 27 March 2012

Preview: Spring Offensive @ The Castle Hotel

Written by Katie Shepherd on . Posted in Music.

Spring Offensive
The Castle Hotel
Sunday April 1, 2012

It’s that time of year again. Revision and essays are in full swing and most students in their third year have started thinking about life beyond days spent in John Rylands and nights out in Fallowfield. Thoughts of upcoming internships and jobs add extra pressure to deadlines as well as the annoyance with the temptation to toss out work for an afternoon in the sun.

As stress levels rise, music offers a much-needed escape and one band are making just the type of sounds to grant that relief. With mentions from BBC Introducing on Radio 1 and 6 Music, Spring Offensive from Oxford will be making their way up to Manchester on April 1st for a headlining night at The Castle Hotel.

The indie five-piece released their latest single, ‘Worry Fill My Heart’, earlier this month, which gets right to the heart of life-after-university feelings. Amidst the band’s harmonies, the lyrics pair up to present conflicting feelings like “How’d I end up in a job like this?…Maybe tomorrow, I’ll go ahead and quit it!” Comparable to one of their influences Death Cab for Cutie, these guys are creating smooth indie rhythms with their own experimental feel.

The Sunday night put on by Red Balloon Music promises to be full of new sounds with the acoustic The Robin Pierce Band, as well as two of Manchester’s own, Stefan Melbourne and Matt Hiom also on the lineup. The cozy, dark pub vibe of The Castle Hotel will be the perfect setting to check out Spring Offensive during their visit to Manchester.

You can find out more information about the night on the Facebook event page.

Live: The Milk @ Deaf Institute

Written by Paul Frame on . Posted in Music.

The Milk
The Deaf Institute
22nd March
4 stars

When you first hear a band name as dour sounding as The Milk, it’s easy to make rash assumptions that they will be a bland, middle of the road indie band, unequipped to capture their listener’s imagination. The band themselves though are ill-suited to these connotations, with a blissful live show that not many UK bands can boast.

Dubbed on their MySpace page as ‘R&B’, they definitely embody this in the more traditional sense than in a Chris Brown kind of way. ‘B-Roads’, with a keyboard riff that gives the number a 90s hip-hop vibe, successfully sets the tone for a feel good evening. Released as a single earlier in the year, this will be at the forefront of a lot of people’s summer playlists.

Barely stopping in between songs and opting to not bother with a cliché encore, the set gelled together seamlessly and the enthusiasm of each band member never waned. At one point we are teased with a short instrumental of Dr.Dre’s ‘The Next Episode’ but the one cover they did fully commit to was ’54-46 Was My Number’ by Toots & The Maytals, a song I have danced to within these walls many a time before and The Milk managed to do it justice.

The band ended with the hand clap backed ‘Broke Up The Family’, although perhaps not the best choice for their next single, it was clear The Milk had succeeded in making sure the crowd had had a great time. Refreshingly this seemed to be the main priority of their live show and as a result their following will have undoubtedly increased during their current UK jaunt; let’s just hope it’s not too late for a name change!

The Milk – Broke Up The Family

Interview/ Live: Craig Finn @ Academy 2

Written by Paul Frame on . Posted in Music.

Craig Finn
Academy 2
18th March
3 stars

“There’s not much left of us, because you left with him” was the sombre last line of Craig Finn’s tranquil support slot, a brutal reminder of that horrible sinking feeling we’ve all felt in the pit of our stomach, yet a line fans of The Hold Steady wouldn’t be used to being sent home with by their usually fist-clenched, positive jamming frontman. Speaking to Finn before the show however, this was a tone he wanted to explore with his debut solo record Clear Heart Full Eyes; “I was sort of feeling the need to do something that was a little mellower and I kind of leant on stories” he tells me, a little hungover after a St.Paddy’s Day in Glasgow with Frightened Rabbit.

His set was flowing with narratives, mostly telling tales of despair, yet ones I’m sure we’re all familiar with. ‘Balcony’ was the story of going to a bar with a date, going out for a smoke and coming back to see her with another guy, expressed by another hard hitting lyric “I looked up to see the moon, and I saw you and him out on the balcony, it was the same thing that you did to me”. Ouch!

With this energy being miles away from The Hold Steady, Craig himself even had concerns about the audience’s reaction. “At first I was like ‘Are people enjoying this?’” he laughs, going on to explain, “I’ve gotten used to it and it’s really actually nice”. This, to be fair, was exactly the case. The audience were attentive and simply listened to the lyrics, creating a nice smokey bar room style atmosphere with Finn’s backing band, Some Guns, supplying some chilled out rock and roll riffs with a pedal steel guitar really adding to the mellow vibe.

It is frustrating, however, watching Finn and expecting a big chorus to take a hold of him and see him properly let himself go. I asked him if he ever struggled getting himself up to speed each night for an energetic Hold Steady show and he admitted it was indeed hard. “I can always get there but that’s one of the reasons I wanted to do a solo record too because I feel some sort of responsibility to be positive and optimistic with The Hold Steady. I feel like it’s a different part of my person”. The different part of his person is interesting to explore and a lot darker with songs like ‘Rented Room’ focusing specifically on his divorce and having to move in with some annoying strangers in his mid thirties.

Even if this seems to the reader like a depression session with Craig Finn, the intimate atmosphere and narrative song style with stories we can relate to really does make for an enjoyable show. ‘Honolulu Blues’ and ‘My New Friend Jesus’ provided some upbeat moments and the main act of the night were the magnificent Felice Brothers, who belted out a joyous set and the bouncy, excitable Craig Finn that Hold Steady fans are more familiar with was on hand to help them out with a number.