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Day: 5 November 2013

This months favorite umbrellas

Written by Ella Westall on . Posted in Fashion & Beauty.

Joules Posy Brolly

Brighten up a rainy day with this pink floral umbrella from Joules. We love the vivid colours, and it comes with a matching slip on bag to keep it from dripping everywhere. It’s reduced to £14.95 on the Joules website, so it’s a bargain too!

cathkidston.com

Cath Kidston Garden Rose Minilite Umbrella

At £22, this pretty umbrella from Cath Kidston is our most expensive pick, but we definitely think that it’s worth it! The gorgeous rose pattern is pretty enough to cheer you up on a miserable day, and the neutral colours mean that it will go with almost any outfit. It also folds up small enough to leave in your handbag ‘just in case’, which is definitely a plus.

marksandspencer.com

Marks and Spencer Per Una Spotted and Rose Umbrella

This fun spotted umbrella definitely won’t get lost in the depths of your bag, and we love the frilly edges! At £17.50 it’s not too expensive either (especially when you consider how many times you’ll use it, unfortunately).

Live: Birdy

Written by Shanda Moorghen on . Posted in Music.

28th October

Academy 2

7/10

Jasmine van den Bogaerde, most commonly known by her stage Birdy, is one of the few teenagers making their way through the music industry without the aid of popular televised singing competitions. At just 17, she took Manchester’s Academy 2 by storm.

Following a very strong opening act by talented singer Richard Judge, Birdy stepped in to the delight of the crowd and evoked swooning in the 16 year old girls swarming this surprisingly intimate concert. Sat at her piano, she started with the less popular ‘All You Never Say’ and immediately got into it. It was obvious that her new album about teenage anguish and love would be very personal and given her relatively young age, she struggled to connect with the less connoisseur crowd. When she did not have her eyes closed, she was offering quick glances to her accompanying band.

However, once she got to her second track, ‘People Help the People’, it became clear why she has been a music sensation for the last couple of years. She was relentless. She hit the high notes and stayed there. Like a silky-voiced shaman weaving her magic through a spiritual connection, Birdy transported the crowd to a place only she knew of. Her set was filled with melancholy, nostalgia and heartbreak. Nevertheless, with the help of her constant shifting from piano to guitar, there was rarely a dull moment and she even managed to bring the house down with her sensational performance-of-the-night rendition of ‘Learn Me Right’, the original song from the motion picture Brave that she usually performs with the band Mumford and Sons. Her highly anticipated encore performance of ‘Skinny Love’ was also met with rapturous applause and provided the desired finish.

With an equal distribution for her set from both her albums Birdy and Fire Within, the young English songstress shows that she is not a one-time wonder and that she is here for the long-run – albeit with less immediate success than her contemporaries.

Live: Sound History Tour

Written by Lowell Clarke on . Posted in Music.

22nd October

Antwerp Mansin

7/10

The past year has seen increasingly great line-ups playing at Rusholme’s Antwerp Mansion. Tonight is no exception, with an incredible mix of both garage and house artists, both old and new. Together they make up the Sound History Tour, a night playing across the country to showcase the development of the UK underground dance scene, with a focus on garage.

Veteran producers Roy Davis Jr and Sticky, who helped influence and shape the fledgling garage scene in the late 90s attract those looking for garage classics. Another blast from the past comes in the form of singer, Shola Ama, for those who fondly remember garage’s pop breakthrough into the UK mainstream charts. Those present for the contemporary side of the night might know Oscar Luweez better as D1, a prominent producer of the dubstep scene who has since moved into house under his new moniker. The other newcomer of the night is wildcard producer Moony, who switches styles like a pair of shoes. Along with big name in the current garage scene, Elephino, you can see why these artists have been picked.

As amazing as intimate sets as Antwerp can be, tonight is an exception. The beating heart of the venue clogs up with the cholesterol of a packed out club. There’s any barely room to move and it’s sweatier than a nun teaching sex education. But things pick up as Roy Davis Jr plays garage classic ‘Gabriel’ (getting an underwhelming response for such an important tune) and Sticky takes the stage. The space opens up a bit and something amazing happens. As Sticky drops ’21 Seconds to Go’, the wild reaction shows it has jumped from the in-the-moment poppy kitsch zone it once occupied and right into the pantheon of music history. Sums up garage pretty well.

Live: CHVRCHES

Written by Lowell Clarke on . Posted in Music.

14th October

Ritz

6/10

Following the release of their album The Bones of What You Believe, CHVRCHES have embarked on a tour of the UK. Having recently performed for both Live lounge and Boiler Room the crowd are eagerly anticipating their arrival. Tension builds throughout the opening set of THUMPERS, who sadly lack the energy of the bands (inc. Pull Tiger Tail) that they hail from. There is something there, but they need time before they find their niche in the limelight.

Tonight that light belongs to CHVRCHES. From the opening track ‘We Sink’, it’s clear that they have the music down, a genuine worry when it comes to electro bands performing live. From the small talk between that and their next song ‘Gun’ singer Lauren Mayberry reveals she is suffering from a cold and apologises for the state of her voice. But in the best possible way her apology falls on deaf ears because all the crowd hears are the songs they came to hear, sung and performed even better than on their album. ‘Science and Vision’ stands out as the strongest, and darkest song of the set.

They thank the crowd for coming to their largest UK headline show to date, which might explain why they seem so uncomfortable on the stage. Despite great fidelity to their sound, they feel much too static and formulaic in their movements. Over half of the movement onstage comes from Martin Doherty as he attempts to dance, but heavy synths don’t lend themselves to the same sort of stage antics as a guitar. When he comes up to take over the vocals for ‘Under the Tide’ his erratic skipping across the stage works the crowd up into a frenzy, just in time for an encore of a Whitney Housten cover and lead single ‘The Mother We Share’.

Live: Hallé Orchestra

Written by Nathan Pigott on . Posted in Music.

17th October

Bridgewater Hall

7/10

Sitting where I was, I had a bird’s eye view over the Hallé Orchestra as they began to take their seats for an evening’s concert of Sibelius, Rachmaninov, and Beethoven. The house lights duly went down, and we clapped the conductor, Rory McDonald, onto the stage.

Without hesitation the orchestra leapt into the first of the night’s pieces – Sibelius’s En Saga. Written in 1902 as a tone poem, this piece conveys the burgeoning nationalistic sentiment of pre-revolutionary Finland by treating us to a collection of traditional Finnish melodies. It has a cinematic quality which was conveyed through a series of varied musical tableaux.

A very slick performance ensued in which velvety brass and sensuous strings battled for dominance. In the resulting climax the audience were blown away with wall after wall of sound. Despite, however, being capable of immense power, the orchestra managed to retain a certain delicacy and poise.

Next was Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini, with Andrew Tyson as soloist. As a highly accomplished concert pianist himself, Rachmaninov put as much virtuosity and flair into his piano concertos as humanly possible, making them a spectacle for the audience as much as anything else.

Tyson didn’t disappoint. At the relatively tender age of 26 he may have lacked some of the musical maturity that more experienced players would impart, but there was certainly no shortage of ‘keyboard fireworks’. In all he gave a very energetic and playful performance of the piece, aptly mirrored by the orchestra.

Finally came Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2, with which we were presented a far smaller orchestra. Sadly, this was the weakest performance of the night. The orchestra lacked definition and roundness in its sound, and the first two movements, marked ‘Adagio’ and ‘Larghetto’ respectively, felt rather rushed. The third movement, a scherzo, was the only redeeming feature as its childlike playfullness perfectly encapsulated Beethoven’s predisposition to musical trickery.

Interview: San Cisco

Written by Robert Firth on . Posted in Music.

It’s 3:30pm and I’m upstairs in The Death Institute with Jordi and Scarlett, one half of San Cisco. They’ve just come to check out their room for the night and it’s grim: two bunk beds fill a tiny room. Jordi laughs it off with the type of carefree ease which runs through San Cisco’s eponymous debut album.

Recently completing a U.S tour and nearing the end of a European one, you’d think they might be lagging, but when I inquire about the toll, Jordi dismisses it with typical unconcern “America to home to back here”. So what about relaxing? “Whenever I go home I disappear for a while, like I do something completely different which usually involves surfing but on the road I go for runs. Scarlett goes for long walks by herself”. Scarlett tells me of their plans after the European tour: “going back home, chilling out for a bit, writing the next album”. Jordi is keener: “yer, yer, yer as soon as we get home, start writing and stuff”.

All this seems a bit fast: the album was only released in the U.K this month; but it’s easy to forget that it has been out for almost a year in Australia. San Cisco meanwhile undertook a mammoth session of touring. “U.S tour was pretty good. South by Southwest was really fun. Lollapalooza was definitely a highlight, we just had a really big crowd and yer it was fun”.

For an album filled with short, bright indie-pop melodies and catchy riffs, the darker tales of bittersweet relationships told in the lyrics are sometimes disconcerting: “I made a mix tape/ With all the songs that you hate”. Did they intend to create an album obsessed with love and relationships? “No it wasn’t the intention, I just find that the easiest thing to write about” says Jordi. “It’s probably where most of my emotions are or what I recognise.” And new material? “I haven’t really written a song all year, we’ve had so many life experiences and like grown up quite a bit so I dunno what’s gonna come out, got a few ideas, there will still be quite a few things on relationships, there’s just so much to write about, so many different view or angles you can take on it, and words”.

As with all new bands, San Cisco have been compared to everyone from Artic Monkeys to The Flaming Lips. I suggest Vampire Weekend and MGMT, but they seem hesitant, to affirm or dismiss their influence. Jordi begins, “I think that they were our inspirations. We used to play folk music and I think that they were sort of our inspirations to change. But I think you know, that real comparisons between us and them is that they just, we both play pop songs and that their pop songs are a little bit more… the jangly guitars”. Scarlett is likewise cautious about drawing comparisons. “In the end of the day they’re just influences, you don’t go out and try and replicate what you’re hearing”. They go on to cite listening to Metronomy, Gorillaz, and Dirty Projectors whilst making the album. “I guess you just sort of, we listen to lots of different music and you just take bits of like your musical knowledge, we’ll be playing and Scarlett will pull this reference from a song like thirty years ago about a drum roll and we’ll be able to translate it into what we’re doing. We won’t copy it. And you’re always doing that, it’s impossible to do something original” says Jordi. Scarlett adds “I think the way to move forward for us is to use technology. Josh uses a lot of synth stuff. You can’t reinvent the wheel”. Whatever, it’s clear their influences are disparate when I ask about what they listened to growing up, Jordi names “Jack Johnson”. Scarlett says “The White Stripes, Lou Reed, The Rolling Stones, Reggae. Whatever my parents were into”. I suggest varied, “Big time” she replies.

As a young, new band I wonder what they make of the recent controversy about Spotify and its royalty payments to artists. “It’s a tricky one” Jordi says. “If it wasn’t for Spotify everyone would be stealing it anyway. I guess it’s sort of the middle ground between people stealing music and then buying it off iTunes. It’s a shame that it has even come to that, because it has crippled the music industry”. Scarlett, is likewise perceptive in her response: “realistically no one’s going to make lots of money from albums and if Spotify is getting people to your shows it’s a good thing and it is a bit shit how much they pay artists. It’s still different to owning the album. I don’t know why you’d  want to own a CD anymore.” At that I leave the two members: Scarlett studying her fingers, Jordi getting up already; Scarlett has eaten too much cake, Jordi wants to continue unloading, when is the next interview? They’re not sure. And something in that captures the chilled, bristling energy which defines San Cisco.

San Cisco’s self-titled debut album is out now.

Live: Drenge

Written by Will Ellis on . Posted in Music.

15th October

Roadhouse

9/10

Big things are to be expected when small, up and coming bands sell out small, relatively unknown venues and when it comes to Drenge a big sound is to be expected too. Currently touring off the back of their newly released self titled album that has seen critical acclaim from the Guardian, NME and even a former Labour shadow minister’s resignation letter. The brothers, Eoin and Rory Loveless, are only just getting their foot in the door of England’s music scene and look like they’re heading to big places. To get to the big leagues though you’ve got to prove your musical chops at the crappy clubs, that’s where Roadhouse comes in.

Support came from Missouri’s finest punk band Radkey, made up of Dee, Isaiah and Solomon Radke (clearly thepromoter has a thing for brothers). The trio combine a chord heavy riff structure reminiscent of classic Ramones with a heavy metal approach to solos to create a current take on an old school punk sound. With a brilliant stage presence throughout their set and a great ability to get the crowd involved, they’re definitely worth looking out for if you’re into punk.

The yanks finish up with crowd surfing, the packed out venue squeezes a few more in, and the understated Englishmen shuffle onto the stage, get to their instruments and play. With the simplicity of just a guitar, mic and a set of drums to create their sound, Drenge demonstrate beautifully how complexity is not key in making music, all you need is two astounding musicians. The crowd laps up the rhythmic riffs and intense drum work and are rarely still and constantly headbanging along to the beat. Both brothers play well despite having the tendency to throw towels, empty bottles and insults at one anotherm, althought they start to relax with the crowd towards the end of the set. They’re clearly a band that knows they’ve currently got a lot of eyes watching them, and with a live performance this good you can see why.

Interview: Crystal Antlers

Written by Harry Cooke on . Posted in Music.

To many, Long Beach California is a location synonymous with rap and RnB thanks to the city’s vibrant musical heritage, being the home to many distinguishable rap artists, Snoop Dogg anyone? But in recent years the city has witnessed a resurgence in counter-culture music with many underground bars and venues humming to the tune of psychedelic riffs and heavy rock bass lines. One such band leading this revolution is Crystal Antlers…

Despite being on a near constant touring schedule around California and America, Crystal Antlers find themselves unable to shake off the need for a regular “9 to 5” job to keep their cheque books balanced – “Work Sucks! I would never work if I had my way. But me and the guys had to work chimney sweeping on and off again and here and there”. Despite the obvious strenuous nature of their day jobs the band was quick to affirm that touring too is “hard work, with never enough sleep and never enough time in the day”. It was on one of their regular touring circuits that they encountered the now de-funked Manchester band WU LYF and fellow west coasters, the indie-pop band Cold War Kids, who they later shared a tour with. “Touring with them bands was fun” Andrew the band’s bassist reminisces, “they were cool peeps”. When asked whether there was a clash between the obvious music stylings of the three bands Andrew leapt in defence of the tour, “Yes we definitely don’t sound anything like them bands, and yes their music is probably easier to listen to for some people, but were out there to turn people onto our thing. To open their minds. I think it’s important for bands to play in front of different audiences”.

Since the bands inception in 2006 the exact genre of Crystal Antlers has eluded most journalists, are they psychedelic, are they noise-pop, are they indie rock? Well the answer is quite a simple one for the band, “Crystal Antlers aren’t tied down to any scene in California, and we could not corner ourselves into any particular genre”. Despite their own fluid description, neo-psychedelic is their most common labelling, “depends on who you talk to, [Psychedelic] is a big word with a lot of different meanings. It comes in many forms to me, it is hip-hop, reggae, jazz, dub, electronica and so on”. Whatever their genre one thing is for certain, audiences are enthralled by their music and onstage antics. With three albums under their belt a fourth awaiting release this month, we ventured down memory lane to discuss a fan-favourite – sorrowful album Tentacles. The band accounted this particularly emotive album unsurprisingly on “daily life, the struggle, the hate, love, relationships, death, religion, family and everything else that actually influences the outcome of one’s decisions”.  Hastily bringing the conversation back to their impending album, the band recited methodically the dates of their album, “our new album Nothing is Real  comes out on 15th October on Innovative Leisure, with ‘Rattle Snake’ being our first single and ‘Licorice Pizza’ the second”. When asked if they had plans beyond the autumn and winter tour dates, the once stern business rhetoric was swiftly replaced with the ambiguous and humourous declaration that they and a renowned dub master, The Scientist, intend to “rid the world of vampires, evil demons and space invaders”.

Upon talking to Crystal Antlers it is apparent that here is a band with a genuine appreciation for the music they make and an appetite to continue producing music, as long as there are those who want to listen – A refreshing notion in an industry soured by its commercial and financial interests. It is not surprising then the bands indifference towards cyber theft or illegal downloading of their music, “People gotta do what they gotta do” retorts a understanding Andrew, “I would prefer to go to shows and buy records from them directly, especially as we enjoy getting to know our fans and becoming friends with them, it is important to us that they come to our live shows”.  So why illegally download when for a small price you can have a worthy cd for your collection and have a friend for life? A pretty irresistible offer hey?

 

Poets & Players: two Michaels and a Quartet

Written by Annie Muir on . Posted in Books.

Just behind the Northern Quarter you will find Hallé St Peters, a former church and now a rehearsal centre for Hallé Ensembles.

When Hallé St Peters was built in 1859, Ancoats was a very different place: a thriving industrial district with a population of more than 50,000, scattered with giant red-bricked cotton mills which stood between the Ashton and Rochdale canals. Now, on these once overcrowded streets – Cotton Street, Blossom Street, Hood Street – empty buildings stand quietly, with bricks where windows used to be.

Poets & Players put on a free Manchester Literature Festival Event every year. This year’s line-up featured the two poets Michael Symmons Roberts and Michael Schmidt, alongside the Nat Birchall Quintet – who were missing a member so became a quartet for the day.

It is a beautiful space: white with perfect light coming from stain-glass windows as well as dozens of bulbs. The poets had to stand on a painted wooden-box platform so the vast audience could all get a glimpse of them as they read.

Symmons Roberts read first, after the warm, twinkly jazz. He read poems from his latest book Drysalter, which won this year’s Forward Prize for best poetry collection. The book is composed of 150 poems of 15 lines, which he said he liked because knowing how long each poem will be is ‘one less thing you have to worry about’. He read two of his ‘booth’ poems – ‘Hurricane-booth’ (apparently there’s one at Chester Zoo) and ‘Photo-booth’ – and explained that he found this sort of space subconsciously recurring in his poetry.

Schmidt read from his new collection of poetry Stories of My Life, which included a mesmerising elegy called ‘Agatha’ about a school-friend of his who died. The poem was written much later than the event so that the childishness of the voice mixes with adult reflection. The other poem that stood out for me was ‘The Death of the Novel’, a reference to his new book The Novel: An Autobiography (which was going to be called The Life of the Novel but that name was taken). The poem was written on various train journeys, and retells the tragic deaths of a huge list of major characters from classic novels. It made me want to run home and look up all the characters to find out which novels they were from. And I did.

Elaine Feinstein: Memoirs of a Poet

Written by Annie Muir on . Posted in Books.

In the shelter of the Manchester Jewish Museum, guests sat in the pews of the synagogue on little red cushions and waited for Elaine Feinstein to arrive and discuss her new book  It Goes with the Territory: Memoirs of a Poet. The event was chaired by Michael Schmidt, Feinstein’s friend and editor.

She wore a sparkly top and sat quietly until asked a question. She then came to life, like a clockwork doll that could tell funny and fascinating stories on demand. She talked about her childhood: banging a ball against the garage door to get the rhythm for her poems when she was a young provincial girl who dreamed of gate-crashing the metropolitan literary world.

She accomplished this, of course. Her rise began with the magazine she edited at Cambridge which she took over and re-named: ‘The Writer out of society’.

Schmidt steered the conversation onto Feinstein’s translation of the poet Marina Tsvetayeva. She described how she came across a little book about her in the library and saw something of herself in the biography of this Russian woman: they were both ‘eccentric and totally dedicated to poetry.’

She read a couple of her own poems aloud, with the assistance of Schmidt’s iphone torch. He stood lingering above her while she didn’t even really need to look at the book on her lap. She looked into the audience’s eyes and acted out the poems with such conviction and life that Schmidt became invisible.

The last poem she read was her ‘little feminist poem’ called Patience. After she read the last line, ‘her own monstrous nature’, she looked up and asked: ‘What was so monstrous? I wanted to be a poet didn’t I? When I should have been washing up!’

The evolution of a Fashion Princess

Written by Anna Sopel on . Posted in Fashion & Beauty.

Love her, loathe her, or feel mildly indifferent to her, Princess Diana’s status as a style icon of the 1980’s and 1990’s is indisputable. Yes, there was scandal surrounding her marriage, and yes she did a lot of good, but Princess Diana will also be remembered as one of the most influential women in fashion in the twentieth century. However, her evolution into one of the most fashionable women in the world was by no means immediate or effortless. Lady Diana Spencer was a tender nineteen years old when she got engaged to a future King . Most of us are trying to navigate our own sense of style at this age, without having to deal with perhaps the scariest in-laws in the world and millions of onlookers. So the People’s Princess can be forgiven for a few frumpy outfits in her early days. As her former stylist Anna Harvey said ‘Diana started off being really safe with her style, it was all very Laura Ashley’.

It wasn’t long before the Laura Ashley look was replaced by something all together more risqué. As her confidence grew, her style developed into that of an international celebrity, she was elegant, sophisticated and completely in control of her image. She was also sexy. Sure, there were no bum-cheek revealing hot pants, or midriff bearing crop tops that you might see on a twenty something these days, but this was the 80’s and 90’s and she was a royal. Princess Diana often wore more traditional royal get up, such as velvet and feathers, but with a more modern twist of a one shouldered style, or a dress with a completely open back. In the later years of her life she was known for wearing killer cocktail dresses, often designed by her good friend Gianni Versace.

Princess Diana was also incredibly shrewd in understanding the impact of what she wore and using this to her advantage to send a message to the press, the public and the royal family. In 1994 Princess Diana wore a now iconic, off the shoulder, figure hugging little black dress to the Serpentine Gallery benefit. This was on the same evening that an explosive documentary about her husband’s infidelities was airing. The next day every paper did not have the Prince of Wales’ confession on their front page, but rather a stunning, confident looking Princess. It became known as ‘the revenge dress’. However, in keeping with her philanthropic nature, Diana auctioned off that and many of her other dresses for charity just two months before she died.

Princess Diana was always a great supporter of the British fashion industry, through wearing designers like Catherine Walker and Zandra Rhodes, she always aimed to promote British business,  something we can see her Daughter- in- law Katherine Middleton has replicated.

Although her life came to an abrupt early end, her legacy lives on in a multitude of ways, perhaps most frivolously in the world of fashion.  It was only last week that a very modern style princess, by the name of Rihanna proclaimed Princess Diana to be her style inspiration and that she was ‘gangsta’ – a title, you can imagine, the real Princess might have smiled at!