Issue 71 / October 2016

FREE 

Issue 71 

October 2016 

SUEDEBROWN by Mark McNulty 

SUEDEBROWN 

Natalie McCool 

Mersey Wylie 

Liquidation 

Liverpool Music 

Week Pullout

TUE 13 SEPT 7pm SOLD OUT 

SLAVES 

THU 15 SEPT 7pm 

THE SHERLOCKS 

SAT 17 SEPT 7pm 

MOON HOOCH 

+ HALEM 

(RESCHEDULED FROM 31 MAY. 

ALL TICKETS REMAIN VALID) 

SUN 18 SEPT 7pm 

THE LOTTERY 

WINNERS 

WED 21 SEPT 7pm 

SUNDARA 

KARMA 

THU 22 SEPT 7pm 

KRS-ONE 

FRI 23 SEPT 7pm 

WESTERMAN 

SAT 24 SEPT 9pm 18+ 

CIRCUS 14TH 

BIRTHDAY 

LOCO DICE 

+ YOUSEF 

SUN 25 SEPT 7pm 

KING NO-ONE 

MON 26 SEPT 7pm 

THE MAGIC GANG 


JAKE QUICKENDEN 

+ BAILEY McCONNELL 

+ LAUREN PLATT 


THE HUNNA 

SAT 1 OCT 7pm 

ELVANA: 

THE WORLD’S FINEST 

ELVIS FRONTED TRIBUTE 

TO NIRVANA 

MON 3 OCT 7pm 

AKALA 

10 YEARS OF AKALA TOUR 

WED 5 OCT 7.30pm 

NE OBLIVISCARIS 

+ OCEANS OF SLUMBER 

THU 6 OCT 7pm 

STEVE MASON 

SAT 8 OCT 12pm 

LIVERPOOL 

SOULFEST FT. LEMAR 

THU 13 OCT 7pm 

THE HYENA KILL 

FRI 14 OCT 7pm 

WARD THOMAS 

SAT 15 OCT 9pm 18+ 

HORIZON CO2 PARTY 

MON 17 OCT 7pm 

BLACK FOXXES 

TUE 18 OCT 7pm 

MØ 

TUE 18 OCT 7pm 

OCTOBER DRIFT 

WED 19 OCT 7pm 

WE ARE SCIENTISTS 

FRI 21 OCT 6.30pm 

LISA HANNIGAN 

+ HEATHER WOODS 


THE HUMMINGBIRDS 

THU 27 OCT 7pm 

DINOSAUR JR 


CLEAN CUT KID 

TUE 1 NOV 7pm 

GOGO PENGUIN 

FRI 4 NOV 7pm 

HIGH TYDE 

SAT 5 NOV 10pm 18+ 

ETON MESSY - 

IN:SEASON TOUR 

THU 10 NOV 7pm 

THE MEN THAT 

WILL NOT BE 

BLAMED FOR 

NOTHING 

+ ANDREW O’NEILL 

FRI 11 NOV 6pm 

REN HARVIEU 

& ROMEO 

(THE MAGIC 

NUMBERS) 

WED 16 NOV 7pm 

APPLEWOOD 

ROAD 


WADE BOWEN 

FRI 18 NOV 7.30pm 

THE VAPORS 

SUN 20 NOV 7pm 

FICKLE FRIENDS 

WED 23 NOV 7pm 

PURSON 


BY THE RIVERS AND 

WILL & THE PEOPLE 

FRI 25 NOV 7pm 

NICK HARPER & THE 

WILDERNESS KIDS 

SAT 26 NOV 7pm SOLD OUT 

WHITE LIES 

MON 28 NOV 7pm 

MOTORHEADACHE 

(A TRIBUTE TO LEMMY) 

FRI 2 DEC 7pm 

EMMY THE GREAT 

SAT 3 DEC 7pm 

IAN PROWSE 

& AMSTERDAM 

+ THE SUMS (DIGSY) 

+ KYLE CROSBY 

FRI 9 DEC 6.30pm 

GALACTIC 

EMPIRE 

SAT 10 DEC 7pm 

UNCLE ACID 

& THE DEADBEATS 

FRI 16 DEC 7pm 

THE MOUSE 

OUTFIT 

SAT 21 JAN 4.30pm 

CLUB.THE.MAMMOTH. 

ALL-DAYER 

FT. THE FALL + 

HOOKWORMS 

SAT 25 MAR 2017 7pm 

CONNIE LUSH 

TICKETS FOR ALL SHOWS ARE AVAILABLE FROM TICKETWEB.CO.UK 

90 

SEEL STREET, LIVERPOOL, L1 4BH

— september & october listings — 

Folklore 

Acoustic Sessions: Open Mic Night 

Wed’s 14 / 28 Sept | Free 

Common People 

Indie, rock, grunge, punk anthems 

Tues 20 Sept (weekly) | £3 | 10pm—3am 

Tim Burgess 

DJ Set 

(The Charlatans) 

Fri 23 Sept | in the bar | Free 

His 

Clancyness 

Fri 7 Oct | in the hold | £8—skiddle 

Folklore 

Acoustic Sessions: Open Mic Night 

Wed’s 12 / 26 Oct | Free 

Harry Stedman 

& The Cunard Yanks 

Art and fashion exhibition 

Fri 14 Oct—Thurs 27 Oct | Top Deck | Free 

Artful Dodger 

Fri 14 Oct | in the bar | Free 

GHOST TOWN w/ 

Don Letts 

DJ Set 

Sat 29 Oct | in the bar | Free 

2—4—1 burgers 

every Tuesday 

Resident DJs all 

weekend in the bar 

15 Slater Street Liverpool L1 4BW 

phone: 0151 709 6901 email: info@theshippingforecastliverpool.com 

web: theshippingforecastliverpool.com @sHip _ Cast shipping.forecast ship.forecast

Red Bull 

Music Academy 

UK Tour 

Liverpool 

06 

Thursday 

October 

DIGITAL SOUL BOYS 

SG Lewis, Suedebrown & 

Special Guest: Jamie Woon 

Show 

CREDIT TO THE EDIT 

Greg Wilson, Henry Greenwood, 

Peza & Derek Kaye 

Club Night 

07 

Friday 


A CONVERSATION 

WITH KREPT & KONAN 

Lecture 

FUTURE SOUNDS OF HIP-HOP 

Krept & Konan, Rejjie Snow, 

Loyle Carner, Suicideyear, 

Siobhan Bell & No Fakin’ DJs 

Show 

#RBMAUKTOUR 

IMMORTAL SOUNDS 

OF HIP-HOUSE 

Kenny Dope, Kidkanevil 

& No Fakin’ DJs 

Club Night

Liverpool 

08 

Saturday 


CLUB COSMOS 

Stargazing for the Post-Disco 

Generation with Moodymann, 

Hunee B2B Young Marco, 

Sassy J & Or:la 

Special 

09 

Sunday 


RHYMEANTICS 

D Double E curates an exploration 

of rhyme and the spoken word 

with AJ Tracey, Big Zuu, Dave, 

Footsie, Jammz, Lady Leshurr, 

Ocean Wisdom & Tommy Genesis 

Special 

Show details* and tickets at: 

uktour.redbullmusicacademy.com 

* shows/details subject to change

facebook.com/o2academyliverpool 

twitter.com/o2academylpool 

instagram.com/o2academyliverpool 

youtube.com/o2academytv 

Fri 7th Oct • £14 adv 

Hot Dub Time Machine 

Sat 8th Oct • £12.50 adv 

UK Foo Fighters Tribute 

Sun 9th Oct • £30 adv 

UB40 

Tues 11th Oct • £27.50 adv 

All Saints 


Gorgon City 

Thurs 20th Oct • £29.50 adv 

Heaven 17 

Sat 22nd Oct • £12.50 adv 

Lady Leshurr 

Wed 26th Oct • £9 adv 

Yak 


Glass Animals 

Sun 30th Oct • £16.50 adv 

Y&T 

Mon 31st Oct • £15 adv 

Augustines 

Tues 1st Nov • £25 adv 

KT Tunstall 

Fri 4th Nov • £25 adv 

The Two Mikes 

Mike Graham and Mike Parry from talkSPORT 

Tues 8th Nov • £21 adv 

The Wailers 

performing the album Legend in its entirety 


Absolute Bowie 

Sat 12th Nov • £11 adv 

Antarctic Monkeys 

+ The Patriots 

Thurs 17th Nov • £25 adv 

Black Grape 

‘It’s Great When You’re Straight...Yeah’ 

21st Anniversary Tour 


Crystal Fighters 


Honeyblood 

Sun 20th Nov • £22.50 adv 

Brian Fallon & The Crowes 

Fri 25th Nov • £13.50 adv 

Walking On Cars 


Pete Wylie & The Mighty Wah! 

Sun 27th Nov • £14 adv 

Electric 6 

Mon 28th Nov • £16 adv 

Tyketto 

Wed 30th Nov • SOLD OUT 

The Fratellis 

Costello Music 10th Anniversary Tour 

Fri 2nd Dec • £13 adv 

The Lancashire Hotpots 

Tues 6th Dec • £25 adv 

The Levellers 

Levelling The Land 25th Anniversary Tour 

Tues 6th Dec • £16.50 adv 

The Wedding Present 

Fri 9th Dec • £22.50 adv 

The Shires 

Sat 10th Dec • £15 adv 

The Icicle Works 

Wed 14th Dec • £22.50 adv 

Kula Shaker 

20th Anniversary of K 

Sat 17th Dec • £20 adv 

Cast 

Wed 11th Jan 2017 • £12.50 adv 

The Blue Aeroplanes 

Fri 28th Apr 2017 • £22 adv 

Chas & Dave 

Fri 30th Sep • SOLD OUT 

The Zutons 

A fundraiser in celebration of Kristian Ealey 


Sleaford Mods 

Sat 12th Nov • £18.50 adv 

Jack Garratt 

+ Seramic 

Mon 21st Nov • £26 adv 

Frank Turner 

& The Sleeping Souls 


Soul II Soul 

Ticketweb.co.uk • 0844 477 2000 

liverpoolguild.org 


Glass Animals 


Sleaford Mods 


Crystal Fighters 

o2academyliverpool.co.uk 

11-13 Hotham Street, Liverpool L3 5UF • Doors 7pm unless stated 

Venue box office opening hours: Mon - Sat 11.30am - 5.30pm • No booking fee on cash transactions 

ticketweb.co.uk • seetickets.com • gigantic.com • ticketmaster.co.uk

Bido Lito! October 2016 

7 

Bido Lito! 

Issue Seventy One / October 2016 

bidolito.co.uk 

12 Jordan Street 

Liverpool L1 0BP 

Editor 

Christopher Torpey - chris@bidolito.co.uk 

Editor-In-Chief / Publisher 

Craig G Pennington - info@bidolito.co.uk 

IF I HAD NOT RIPPED THE FABRIC 

Editorial 

And so another door closes, slammed shut by an over-zealous approach to controlling the way we all have fun. For once this isn’t the the curtain 

coming down on a Liverpool club or venue, but that of an internationally renowned nightclub in the capital which even had the backing of its newly 

appointed mayor. But not even Sadiq Khan’s protestations could save Fabric London from going the way of so many before it and having its licence 

revoked by a council sub-committee. The sound of those shutters crashing down, almost certainly for the last time, should be heard right across 

the country, as its repercussions affect us all. 

For those in need of a quick recap: Fabric, the iconic 2,500-capacity club in Islington that had become synonymous with the UK’s position as a 

global capital of electronic dance music, was forced to close on 7 th September after a three-week review period over its licence. This was prompted 

after an undercover police operation, codenamed Operation Lenor, was called following the deaths of two individuals as a result of drug-taking 

on the premises on 25th June and 6th August. Over the past four years there have been six deaths related to patrons of Fabric: five of those were 

people under 25. Whichever way you look at it, people dying in pursuit of a good night out is devastating, and not the desired result of anyone 

involved. Further, all efforts possible should be made to try and prevent these tragic accidents (for that is what they are) from happening at all – 

those who’ve lost their lives, and their families, are the real victims here. 

Emily Thornberry, the Labour MP for Islington South and Finsbury where Fabric is situated, said in relation to these deaths, “As a parent, my heart 

goes out to the family and friends of anyone who has lost loved ones at such a young age. But we must guard against the assumption that dangerous 

drug use would cease simply if we were to close a nightclub like Fabric.” These incidents at Fabric are not exclusive, nor are they isolated to the 

clubbing scene – a recent ONS report found that ecstasy-related deaths increased from eight in 2010 to 50 in 2014, and a few weeks ago a 17-yearold 

boy died at Leeds Festival from excessive drug use – yet it has had to implement a raft of anti-drugs measure and searches at its club, including 

the use of sniffer dogs, all at its own expense. In fact, it has done all this openly and honestly with full cooperation with the Metropolitan Police, 

in the hope of creating the safest possible environment for its punters. Extensive training for its numerous security staff, outreach programmes, 

confiscation and audit schemes, education – all of which were held up as a “beacon of best practice” by District Judge Allison in review of the club’s 

procedures as recently as December 2015 – saw the club commended for its stance on tackling drugs. But still it is not enough. 

Controlling the way people enjoy their nights, and the drugs they choose to consume in the process, is indicative of a shift towards a more 

conservative, divisive view of our society, one that demonises people for wanting to drop a pill on a night out for the sheer thrill of it. It’s almost 

as if the acid-tinged, free-love indulgence of the Baby Boomers generation (AKA, those in power), has been expunged from the record. We’ve got 

a whole industry built around another drug – alcohol – and yet people who take ecstasy are smeared as indolent ne’er-do-wells by the media and 

the Tories’ “hard-working families” Britain, implying that those who deviate from their suggested path deserve what’s coming to them. 

If there’s a traffic accident, you don’t shut down the street. Yet, precisely the opposite reactionary logic has been employed in closing Fabric; 

and the truth is that it won’t change people’s drug-taking habits, but it will affect the 250 staff employed by the club, and deny the country’s 

clubbers a world-class environment to engage with likeminded music lovers. When a wealthy Kuwaiti businessman was found dead in his room 

at The Dorchester Hotel in December 2015 after an alleged “cocaine binge”, did the licensing authority close the hotel? Have Ministry Of Sound 

or Shoreditch’s ACE Hotel been penalised for drugs offences on their premises? No, but Fabric has had to deal with numerous impositions to its 

licence over the past eight years. Why? Because the authorities don’t understand its culture. What’s more, they’re frightened by the attitudes it 

espouses, about the feckless hedonism of its patrons, about why it offers up so much of a thrill. Why should it be left to clubs to bear the brunt of 

the police – and society’s – failure to control the circulation and control of drugs? 

Christopher Torpey / @BidoLito 

Editor 

Media Partnerships and Projects Manager 

Sam Turner - sam@bidolito.co.uk 

Reviews Editor 

Jonny Winship - live@bidolito.co.uk 

Design 

Mark McKellier - @mckellier 

Proofreading 

Debra Williams - debra@wordsanddeeds.co.uk 

Digital Content Manager 

Natalie Williams - online@bidolito.co.uk 

Words 

Christopher Torpey, Bethany Garrett, Richard 

Lewis, Cath Bore, Matt Hogarth, Damon 

Fairclough, Scott Smith, Frankie Muslin, Sam 

Turner, Jonny Winship, Glyn Akroyd, Kieran 

Donnachie, Rosa Jane, Sam Banks, Stuart 

Miles O'Hara, Sue Bennett, Gary Lambert, 

Dave Surman, Benjamin Power, Laura Brown. 

Photography, Illustration and Layout 

Mark McKellier, Mark McNulty, Michelle 

Roberts, Mike Sheerin, Keith Ainsworth, 

Stuart Moulding, Glyn Akroyd, Marty Saleh. 

Advertising 

To advertise please contact 

ads@bidolito.co.uk 

Distributed By Middle Distance 

Print, distribution and events support across 

Merseyside and the North West. 

middledistance.org 

The views expressed in Bido Lito! are those of the 

respective contributors and do not necessarily 

reflect the opinions of the magazine, its staff or the 

publishers. All rights reserved. 

bidolito.co.uk

8 


Words: Bethany Garrett / @_bethanygarrett 

Photography: Mark McNulty / markmcnulty.co.uk 

UEDEB 

UEDEBROWN 

bidolito.co.uk

Blending grime, hip hop, RnB, soul and trap into 

dazzling electronic soundscapes, producer and DJ 

SUEDEBROWN eludes the uniformity of lacklustre landfill 

electronic music that tends to dominate present-day airwaves. His 

story is script-worthy: SUEDEBROWN, or Paris Harding as his 

pals know him, has dabbled in DJing and producing for over 10 

years, following a life-long love affair with grime, but, when a 

stagnant period a couple of years ago left him feeling frustrated, 

his long-time friend and Liverpool International Music Festival 

curator Yaw Owusu pointed him in the direction of LIMF Academy, 

the festival’s multi-faceted development programme for 

emerging Merseyside music talent. Selected along with Eleanor 

Nelly and L U M E N as one of the Academy’s ‘Most Ready’ artists 

for 2016, SUEDEBROWN’s trajectory has shot upwards, landing 

him recording time with Red Bull Studios, the opening slot on 

their latest mixtape and an upcoming Red Bull Music Academy 

outing with SG Lewis and Jamie Woon, on home turf. 

Rewind a few years, however, and SUEDEBROWN’s path 

was taking a different course, one the producer wasn’t fully 

comfortable with. Signed to a London-based management 

company, he found himself producing official remixes for familiar 

names like Steve Aoki, Iggy Azalea and Yolanda Be Cool, but the 

monotony of this work didn’t sit right with him: “The direction 

and the perspective of that company was to make radio-friendly 

hits and this wasn’t me. I’d hate to be in this just for a job, just 

to be finding a formula and doing the same thing over and over 

again – I’d hate to end up making music like that, and I felt like a 

couple of years ago I was nearly on the verge of that.” 

After parting ways with the company, Harding put his 

career as a producer on hold for two years, focusing on DJing 

instead. Reigniting his love for producing at the tail-end of 2015, 

a nudge in the direction of the LIMF Academy saw his horizons 

swell again: “I was kind of frustrated that I was going nowhere 

and Yaw was like, ‘Listen, this is something that’s happening in 

the city, it might be something you’d be interested in.’ I looked it 

up and it ticked every single box.” 

Through LIMF Academy’s Elite Talent Development Programme 

– reserved for its three ‘Most Ready’ artists – SUEDEBROWN has 

been able to hone his craft further, and he especially relished the 

opportunity to work with Grammy award-winning producer Steve 

Levine, whose guidance has been invaluable. “Things I’d been 

trying to work out how to do for years, he just taught me instantly. 

In terms of the way tracks flow, getting songs as good as they 

can be and different ways of thinking, and just the experience – 

obviously you can’t get that from just looking something up 

on YouTube.” 

The live opportunities he’s been afforded with LIMF Academy 

have also raised Harding’s profile considerably, as well as 

challenging him. Performing at LIMF’s Summer Jam with members 

of the Liverpool Philharmonic Youth Company, “was a massive 

test,” Harding confesses, before adding: “It was nerve-wracking 

because, at the residency I do every week, I know for a fact that 

if I play Drake or something like that, 99% of people are gonna 

like it. But to be playing instrumental music which is off the top 

at that moment and then combined with an orchestra – it’s risky.” 

But it’s partly that improvisation that Harding delights in. 

“When I’m doing tracks live, I split the track down into different 

elements and just go with how it feels at that moment. The same 

way as when you’re DJing you have an idea of what would be 

good next, it’s like that but within the same song. So instead of 

being like, ‘This artist would do well next’, it’s like, ‘I’ll bring that 

vocal in now after this part’. It’s a lot harder but it’s fun because 

anything can happen.” 

Citing 90s hip hop and RnB as his go-to genres for excavating, 

he elaborates: “If I’m listening to old albums and I hear a melody 

or just a nice vocal piece, I can try and source the instrumental 

or the a capella for the vocal, and then try and remix it from 

there.” Not just anything goes though: like an editor scouring 

through copy, Harding upholds an importance to being able to 

refine his work, always seeking to get the best from the different 


9 

elements of a song without going overboard: “It could be one day 

knowing that I need to add percussion or maybe a bassline or I 

need to call this singer or keys player to add something to it. I 

think that’s the main thing I want to improve – identifying what 

is actually needed in a track and not throwing everything in just 

to show off all the tools and tricks.” 

You can hear both his influences and ear for refinement 

on Tonight, SUEDEBROWN’s latest SoundCloud release, which 

features on Volume 3 of the Red Bull Studios Mixtape, curated by 

Rinse FM’s Shadow Child. Carried by the ebb and flow of layered 

beat upon beat and featuring vocals from Lauren Faith, the 

track is perfectly weighted, beautifully formed, fully fluid and 

lucid. Punctuated with a subtle steel-drum sound, which adds 

a dreamy dash of dancehall, Tonight slows down and picks up 

the pace again with the ease of an artist very much assured 

of themselves. Its brilliance is even more remarkable given that 

it was only the end of last year that Harding began producing 

again. All roads would suggest that we are dealing with a master 

of his craft. 

Currently sitting just shy of 13,000 listens, the track was 

recorded at Red Bull Studios in London, after an exchange 

between Red Bull Music Academy and LIMF mentor Owusu. “It 

was amazing to be in that studio, knowing the kind of artists 

and producers that have been there... it was kind of like a selfaffirmation,” 

Harding enthuses, while acknowledging the 

credence working with Red Bull has granted his work: “Just 

having that logo on your SoundCloud, I think people take you 

more seriously and will press play on it, whereas before they’d 

think, ‘Oh, here’s another producer trying to make beats or copy 

someone else’.” Not one to stay quiet for long, SUEDEBROWN is 

working on another track at Red Bull Studios to be released in 

the coming weeks, which at present he envisions as being his 

own project, rather than part of another mixtape. 

Graduating from one academy to another, his involvement with 

Red Bull continues beyond the studio. Billed on one of the 

Liverpool pit stops of their Music Academy UK Tour, SUEDEBROWN 

plays their Digital Soul Boys event at the Palm House with 

former Chibuku resident DJ and producer du jour SG Lewis and 

RBMA alumnus Jamie Woon. Celebrating ‘the future sound 

of soul’, the night will map out contemporary soul music as 

produced through electronic nodes rather than that backed by 

more traditional band structures. Electronic-fused soul might 

offend Wigan Casino purists but it sure makes creating soul 

music more accessible. “It’s an exciting time for people making 

electronic music. With your computer you don’t need a band, but 

you can still experiment with a lot of different RnB sounds... if you 

know the tools that you’ve got and you’re good with them, you 

can make a whole album just you and your headphones,” Harding 

offers on the matter. “They say with this whole electronic thing 

that we’re in the age of the bedroom producer.” But is he one? Not 

quite – when working from home, he produces out of a makeshift 

studio in a walk-in wardrobe he lacked the sartorial bulk to fill. 

A closet producer just doesn’t quite have the same connotation. 

Like his stint with LIMF Academy and Steve Levine, Harding 

sees the Digital Soul Boys event as an opportunity to absorb 

what goes on around him as well as to showcase his own 

work. “It’s just a massive learning curve, being as close to these 

people as possible and seeing how they perform and how they 

do their set, even how they conduct themselves off the stage 

and before and after shows.” Harding is undoubtedly on a sharp 

upwards trajectory, possessing an ease to his talent and sound, 

and an eagerness to listen and learn. Perhaps it wouldn’t do 

SUEDEBROWN’s contemporaries harm to take a leaf out of his 

book too. 

soundcloud.com/suedebrown 

SUEDEBROWN performs at the Digital Soul Boys event at Sefton 

Park Palm House on 6th October, as part of the Red Bull Music 

Academy Liverpool tour. Tonight appears on the Red Bull Studios 

Mixtape Vol. 3 curated by Shadow Child. 

bidolito.co.uk

PJ and Duncan are a very last thing I expect to bond over with 

MERSEY WYLIE when I meet up for a chat with the up-andcoming 

soul singer. Liverpool is a village, it’s so often said, and 

as if to prove it we quickly find out we both attended a concert by 

annoying Geordie duo Ant and Dec’s previous incarnation back in the 

1990s, when Mersey was three years old and me, far too old to be there, 

attending for irony’s sake. 

“Blondie was my first gig, though,” she says. 

I have no saving grace or excuses at all, so we move swiftly on. 

Mersey spent her early childhood in London, and her holidays here 

in Liverpool with her father, Pete Wylie of The Mighty Wah!, before 

enjoying her teenage years in Australia. She shifted from playing the 

flute at primary school to saxophone at secondary, and carried that 

through to university, meaning her early musical education was deeply 

mired in both classical and contemporary music. “I definitely think 

classical is part of my musical make-up. I had such a diverse musical 

background, obviously with more rock stuff from my dad. I was involved 

in loads of jazz music, and I obviously loved classical enough to take 

it through to university. And, of course, I love soul; it’s what my heart 

always comes back to.” 

When Mersey returned to the UK six years ago, she stopped playing 

the saxophone (“it was a very clean break”) and sang full time, as a 

backing and session singer with the likes of Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono, 

Siouxie Sioux and Mick Jones. But, arriving in Liverpool again, at first 

she felt like, “a fish out of water. There’s such a great singer-songwriter 

acoustic scene, rock and indie bands, but I couldn’t see a lot of the soul 

scene.” But, more recently, citing MIC Lowry, Amique and Spink as her 

current local favourites, “the soul scene has exploded. It’s so cool, such 

an exciting thing to be a part of.” 

Right now it seems to be her fondness for Motown, the Jackson 5 

and music from childhood driving her as well. As we talk, she holds her 

hand up: “Ssshh… listen… it’s Lauren Hill,” as the former Fugees singer 

comes on over the café’s sound system. Mersey sways, and smiles. She 

loves this music, it’s clear to see. She also raves about disco, funk, all 

kinds of soul. “It’s always been what I’ve come back to. No matter how 

far I’ve strayed away from it, it won’t let go.” 

Mersey describes herself as a “late starter” in both singing and 

songwriting. She did her first solo show just over two years ago at 

Threshold Festival, and since then has performed at festivals such as 

LIMF, Liverpool Loves, Flyover Summer Takeover and Threshold again 

last spring, plus supported The Christians at The Dome, Grand Central 

Hall this summer. Mersey released her debut single, Don’t Give Up 

On Me, back in March. Funky and fun, with a slamming bass, you’d be 

forgiven for assuming it’s a good-time party tune. But listen, really 

listen, and you hear something much deeper in the lyrics: 

Sometimes the day just seems much darker, the world just seems 

much harder and I don’t know why… so why should I try?... I know that 

I’m not on my own… doesn’t stop me feeling so alone. 

“It’s an upbeat, disco, driving kind of tune, but lyrically it’s about my 

struggles with mental health, so I just say it and write fun arrangements 

around it, to stop everything from being so doom and gloom,” she 

laughs. 

“I resisted it [writing on the subject] for a long time, because there 

still is so much stigma attached to mental health and, as much as I was 

an advocate for that stigma to be broken down, I didn’t know if I wanted 

that label attached to me. Because it does come with baggage. My lyric 

writing is very honest, and if I wasn’t talking about that I don’t think it 

would have been anymore.” 

“Bill Ryder-Jones gave me courage in speaking out more about that 

because he is just so… open about it. And it’s beautiful, the music he 

makes around it is gorgeous. It’s not apologetic, which I like.” 

Mersey volunteers with The Choir With No Name, a project in 

Liverpool bringing together the homeless or those previously affected 

by homelessness. It’s another link to mental health. A 2015 Mental 

Health Foundation survey detailed that 32% of single homeless people 

reported a mental health problem, and depression rates, for example, 

are over 10 times higher in the homeless population. 

“Studies [about the link] between singing, especially singing in a 

group, and mental health are incredible. [The choir] is such a great 

thing to do. It forges that sense of community too. I always go in either 

stressed, overwhelmed or worried about the other things going on 

in my life, and I walk into that room and it’s just a joyful experience.” 

SoulFest takes place in Liverpool this month, headlined by Lemar, 

and Mersey will be performing with her band, debuting at least one 

new song. “I’ve been trying out a lot of new stuff and I’m excited for 

people to hear it,” she says. Mersey’s live band is an eight-piece “at the 

moment”. Take up herding cats for a living, I suggest, is far easier than 

organising a large band. Does she find a comfort in working as part of 

a sizeable ensemble? 

“Yep! They’re also fabulous musicians, busy musicians, so it can be 

difficult to get everyone together. But we’ve been playing together 

for two years now. We know each other musically a lot better, so the 

coming together is more straightforward.” 

She’s especially made up to play SoulFest because last year’s was 

special to her. It doesn’t happen very often, seeing a game-changing 

performance; you witness it once, if you’re lucky, but at SoulFest 2015, 

Mersey saw Mercury Prize nominee Eska headlining on the Saturday 

night. “She changed my life as an artist and I became a mega fan. She’s 

the most electric, commanding performer.” Mersey’s smile widens. 

“She’s… everywhere. The arrangements are just so cool and the blend 

of folk and soul is so unique, and so... clever. Beautiful storytelling, 

with that kind of passion and energy that you get from soul 

but these really lovely refined moments, and rocky, 

raw moments. The dichotomy between the two…” 

Next year, not only will Mersey be on her 

father’s new record, Pete Sounds, but she aims 

to record a four-track EP of her own in April, 

with a mental-health theme running through 

it. She has spent much of the last six months 

writing new material. Taking her time until she 

is absolutely ready seems important to her. 

“One thing I’ve appreciated this year is 

allowing time for things. I was really glad 

that when I started performing my music 

I was proud of it. And I don’t think I would 

have been if I’d forced myself into it six months 

or a year earlier than I did. It’s the same when 

putting out an EP, something definitive and 

forever. I don’t think up until now I’ve found the 

complete sound that I would want recorded. I 

feel a lot closer to that now.” 

soundcloud.com/merseywylie 

Mersey Wylie appears at Liverpool SoulFest on 

8th October at Arts Club. Don’t Give Up On Me 

is out now. 

Words: Cath Bore / @cathbore 

Photography: Mike Sheerin / michaelsheerin.photoshelter.com

NEW GIGS 

Liverpool Philharmonic 

September – October 

MAWKIN 

Sunday 11 September 8pm 

– 

PAUL MORLEY: THE AGE OF BOWIE 

Monday 19 September 7.30pm 

– 

KESTON COBBLERS' CLUB 

Thursday 29 September 8pm 

– 

EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY 

Sunday 9 October 7.30pm 

– 

SCOTT FAGAN 

Wednesday 19 October 8pm 

– 

THE BEATLES: EIGHT DAYS A WEEK - 

THE TOURING YEARS 

Tuesday 20 September 7.30pm 

– 

LOUDON WAINWRIGHT III 

Sunday 23 October 7.30pm 

– 

OWEN JONES 

Thursday 27 October 7.30pm 

– 

PSYCHO: FILM WITH LIVE ORCHESTRA! 

Monday 31 October 7.30pm 

U 

15 

Box Office 

liverpoolphil.com 

0151 709 3789 

Image Psycho

Words: Christopher Torpey / @CATorp 

LIQUIDATION 

Mis-Shapes, Shipwrecks And Other Music For 

Uplifting Gormandizers 

They say all the best clubs are downstairs, and they 

might just be right. The legendary reputations of 

The Cavern and Eric’s laid the foundations of this 

theory – espoused largely in Liverpool – and the model has 

proved massively popular not just in these here parts, 

but across the world. Our namesake, Bido Lito’s club on 

Cosmo’s Alley in LA, was a famed underground bolthole, a place where 

The Seeds, The Doors and Love found a home alongside likeminded 

individuals. We may just be able to add one more chapter to this story 

in the form of LIQUIDATION, the long-running Liverpool club night that 

is resuming its weekly operations in the newly refurbished EBGBS, 

the subterranean pleasure den beneath Heebie Jeebies that takes its 

name from another iconic club, New York’s 70s/80s punk and New 

Wave Mecca CBGBs. After 23 years entertaining Saturday night indie 

disco revellers in various venues, Liquidation has defied generations 

of trends in music and night-time habits to actually go from strength 

to strength, and it’s all down to a little bit of magic. 

“Liquidation has always been about the music and the people 

and respect, and that’s not going to change,” says Jules Bennett, 

Liquidation’s founder, promoter and principal DJ. Having 

decided to start his own night playing the kind of 

independent, alternative pop music that defined his 

own passions – from Kate Bush to The Clash and right 

back to LCD Soundsystem – a year after Cream started 

up their own pursuit of hedonism in Nation, Bennett 

sees the alchemy of Liquidation as lying in its acceptance 

of both mainstream and niche attitudes. “A lot of it’s just 

[down to] the fact that it’s fucking magic – it seriously is 

magic when it comes together,” he says when pressed to look 

back over the night’s legacy. “And I think we did it for the right 

reasons, which was: good music, good people and no pressure. 

Pulp were one of our first identifiable bands, and when Mis- 

Shapes came out, the whole lyrics were about our crowd.” 

“Yeah, exactly – it’s not about the music, it’s about the type of 

people that it attracts,” chips in Chris Mackintosh, the flyerer-turnedtrusted-sidekick 

who accompanies Bennett on the decks each 

weekend. “For 23 years Liquidation has represented a certain standard 

and engaged with a certain kind of audience – it’s not something that’s 

a fleeting kind of idea, it’s a stalwart, a Liverpool institution.” 

If Liquidation were a stick of rock, you’d find that classic Jarvis Cocker 

lyric from Mis-Shapes running right through it: “We don’t look the 

same as you/And we don’t do the things you do/But we live around 

here too.” Working on the loose average of 400 people a week for 23 

years, around 450,000 people have passed through the club’s doors, 

sung their hearts out, grabbed their mates around the shoulders and 

imparted a piece of themselves onto the Liquidation legacy. I distinctly 

remember the first time I stumbled into Le Bateau with my mates, 

laughing at the ‘No scarves’ sign, marvelling at Blur being played 

before Oasis, and generally having that realisation that Liquidation 

was speaking to me. 

“I think all the best club nights have people who say that,” agrees 

Mackintosh. “I guess Cream would’ve had people who went there for 

the first time and felt at home, and I think it’s the same for Liquidation. 

With all great club nights you have that sense of ownership and that 

feeling of belonging. Not that it’s like a mad kind of Goth club – it’s not 

that niche – but there’s that kind of nice community.” 

If Mis-Shapes is Liquidation’s sort-of manifesto, there are a few other 

songs that have attached themselves to it. Although unconfirmed, 

it’s pretty certain that The Wombats’ Let’s Dance To Joy Division is a 

reference to a Liquidation-fuelled night out, while Hot Club De Paris’ 

track Shipwreck is a more obvious paean to getting sloshed in Le 

Bateau to a Liquidation soundtrack (sample lyric: “Grappled by the 

epaulettes/These are the new rough dance steps/The boys they lost 

the script/In the club where they first met.”). Even Mackintosh himself 

– who performs and releases music under the name Silent Sleep – gave 

a nod to the night in his track On The Steps Of The Bombed Out Church. 

And, given that whole swathes of Liverpool’s music scene have almost 

certainly whiled away the late-night hours at Liquidation at some point 

over the last two decades, there are probably dozens more references 

to this Liverpool cornerstone that have gone unnoticed. 

Le Bateau, the Duke Street venue that played host to Liquidation’s 

longest tenure, was the scene for lots of these memories, and Bennett 

admits himself that it came to feel like home. “There was definitely a 

sense of ownership because we were invited there when it was kind of 

bidolito.co.uk

not in a good place, and we got to kind of define it for a long 

time.” When that venue closed down in 2012, Liquidation was 

forced to take on a nomadic existence for a while, pitching up 

at The Magnet, The Shipping Forecast and The Cabin, before 

eventually settling in an old haunt downstairs at Heebie 

Jeebies. There’s a significance in the magnetism of that 

particular venue that isn’t lost on Bennett, who feels like 

he’s able to put down some roots again. 

“There’s always been an incredible energy that’s kept us 

going, with the venue itself part of that, contributing to it. I love 

it being downstairs; I loved Le Bateau, obviously, I loved Hardy’s 

when I was there, but to stay in the same space and the club to 

metamorphose around you… EBGBS, is going to be a massive 

step up. It’s like Lost: not ‘Where is the island?’ but ‘When is the 

island?’. It’s going to be like stumbling to Shangri-La at a festival, 

like down the rabbit hole kind of thing.” 

Under its new guise of EBGBS, the downstairs club on Seel 

Street has had a From Dusk Till Dawn-esque makeover – all red 

leather Chesterfields and sleazy rock ‘n’ roll – stripping things 

right back so that the recesses and arched ceilings can work in 

unison with the vibe of the nights it hosts. “The energy from 

the design and the décor and the kind of showcase part of the 

venue are going to add to it,” Bennett explains. “It’s going to 

feel like a club in the outskirts of some weird European city that 

no one’s ever told you about and it’s not even on Facebook and 

TripAdvisor. It’s going to be scuzzy, but not skanky.” 

“The experience is why you’re here,” explains Mackintosh, 

who ran an offshoot Liquidation for two years when he lived in 

Berlin. The club’s owners were in agreement with Bennett and 

Mackintosh that they wanted to make EBGBS the kind of place 

you’d stumble upon accidentally, without the need for a showy 

sign out front; an alternative reality hiding in plain sight. 

Bennett: “It’s interesting because Liquidation has generally 

always been off the beaten track, and people have generally 

had to make an effort to come to us. Even though we’re bang 

on one of the main arteries, it’s still a hidden gem and a paidin 

club rather than a bar, so you’ve still got that filter there: 

you’re not getting people staggering in for the hell of it, people 

are making a choice. Also, it’s going to be even more of this 

underground crazy world that just happens to be in the centre of 

town. Every time I talk to anyone about the venue, it’s like, ‘Eric’s 

was amazing’ – you know, about clubs being downstairs – but 

this isn’t going to be just downstairs, this is going to be out of 

this world. Or under this world!” 

As well as the new look, the venue has had a high-spec PA 

and lighting system installed, which Liquidation is making use 

of with a free-entry pre-club (between 7pm and 11pm). Hosting 

a couple of live acts each week, the aim is for the pre-club to 

help them reach out to 

a different audience that might not want 

to stay up ‘til 4am to get their teenage (or middle-aged) 

kicks. There’s also the hope that it will broaden the appeal 

of Liquidation’s 23-year-long history, opening up the full 

scope of its unique vibe and energy to the uninitiated. 

“It’s got positive energy and it’s respectful and it’s nonjudgmental,” 

says Bennett, “and I think people get that, 

even if they don’t know we’ve been doing it for 20-odd 

years.” 

What intrigues me is finding out why Liquidation 

has been going strong since the year In Utero, Pablo 

Honey, Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) and Bjòrk’s 

Debut were all released: is there one magic ingredient 

or explanation for its longevity? 

“Primarily [it’s] because we care about music,” says 

Mackintosh after a long exhalation. “Because I think 

it knows what it is; it’s very sure of its own identity. 

And I think it’s always going to attract that turnover 

of young people who are interested [in] and care 

about music and aren’t just interested in the latest 

scene or the latest fad; they want to learn about 

the whole spectrum.” 

“I like the fact that we’re still here, fighting the 

good fight, and not changing anything from the 

original ethos of it, really,” answers Bennett philosophically. 

“When it opened, clubs never lasted more than five years. You’d 

have your pulling up year, three years at your peak, shit year, 

shut. And I’m sure when we started the night, there was no idea 

it would last any longer than that. And it’s still the norm – you’re 

lucky if you last more than six months – but it’s not unique. There 

are house nights, and there are soul nights that have been going 

on for a quarter of a century. But I’m still proud of Liquidation. 

Liquidation is basically me since 2000, and that’s right for the 

music, for the imagery. I’m very happy.” 

Liquidation returns to EBGBS’s basement club every Saturday 

night, open 7pm til 4am. Bido Lito! are hosting a takeover of the 

Liquidation pre-club party on Saturday 8th October, featuring Bido 

DJs and live performances from Pure Joy and The Mysterines. 

bidolito.co.uk

Spooling Through Liverpool'’s Cassette Culture 

BE KIND, 

REWIND 

Words: Matt Hogarth 

Photography: Keith Ainsworth / arkimages.co.uk 

Cassettes to some could be seen as a thing of the past. 

A symbol of twee 80s pop culture sprayed out in neon 

across clip shows, compilations and cheesy T-shirts. A 

format forever exiled and only ever to be seen in cars amongst spare 

change and rolling tobacco. Vinyl, with its silky-smooth artwork 

and luxuriously deep waxy beauty may be everywhere from your 

local charity shop to the nearest branch of Sainsbury’s, with major 

artists such as Adele and One Direction etched intricately into its 

grooves, but cassette tape is a whole different world. 

Trapped inside those two reels of magnetic tape could be 

anything. From harsh shoegaze to feminist punk inspired by 

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the grey-tinted translucent plastic 

rectangles provide a physical space for music that otherwise 

could go unheard. Cheap to make and manufacture, the cassette 

is thriving, proving the physical format of choice for the broke, 

the disenfranchised and the truly wonderful. In the right hands 

they are works of art in their own right, a statement, a means 

of producing music in a physical format within a world which so 

heavily relies on streaming for its greedily-placed consumerist 

devouring. A symbol of impermanence, and those short-lived, 

almost secret thrills. 

In honour of this most DIY of formats, and with the wonderfully 

eccentric Cassette Store Day just around the corner (set to happen 

on 8 th October), we thought we’d raise a toast to cassette culture 

and those who cultivate it. In recent years, the success of labels like 

California’s Burger Records – which has spawned a full-on festival 

(Burgerama) and record store – and Jen Long’s Transgressive 

Records offshoot Kissability has popularised the format so that a 

new generation of music lovers can impart their own obsessions 

on it. From artists to labels, we scoured the local scene for the most 

interesting voices who have embraced this culture – but you have 

to look a little further than HMV or the O2 Academy to find them. 

To find Liverpool’s tape culture you have to dig a little deeper: step 

out of the centre of town and into hidden, dingy back rooms and 

old pubs, away from the mass-consumed stuff. 

Gigs at Maguire’s act as an agar dish for this tape life, providing 

a breeding ground for music that’s a bit more off the beaten track. 

Whether that be noisecore, shoegaze or garage punk, you’re sure 

to find the freshest, rawest sounds in the venue’s back room, 

where you can fully expect to have your ears pushed to the limit. 

This is, perhaps, the spiritual home of our first label of choice, 

HAIL HAIL RECORDS. Founded by Sam Banks, the label have 

been hosting gigs in the backroom of Maguire’s for a few years 

now, giving people their first taste of local favourites such as the 

manic OHMNS and increasingly popular noir pop collective Oh 

Well, Goodbye, alongside producing limited runs of tapes. Perhaps 

due to this coupling of promoting live shows and wanting to 

spread that message, Hail Hail seem to have mastered the art of 

capturing the atmosphere of their gigs on tape. As though they 

have caught the sound in the room itself, the listener can play out 

the gig once home lying in a darkened room while the sounds 

reverberate with a brooding moodiness and attitude. Hail Hail, like 

a lepidopterist pushing pins through butterflies onto velvet display 

boards, collect the sounds that so few are privileged enough to 

hear, and expose them to larger audiences. With releases from the 

likes of Merseyside surfgazers Echo Beach, as well as putting on 

bands from across the UK and US, Hail Hail provide a voice for the 

voiceless; a label made for the bedroom, in the bedroom. 

Sam explains the links between cassette and the scene: “We 

think there’s definitely a subcultural element about cassettes, it 

runs deep within the DIY music scene and ethos. While the vinyl 

market is growing again and becoming more mainstream, so to 

speak, the cassette market is developing more of an underground, 

cult following. So it can feel like being part of an exclusive club, 

like you’re going off the beaten track, where you’ll find real gems 

hidden away on cassette tapes.” 

“While music ownership is dominated by the digital realm, 

music lovers still lust for a physical copy of their favourite records,” 

continues Sam, highlighting another important point of the culture. 

Despite living in an age that’s rife with piracy and streaming, 

nothing quite beats the feeling of touching, feeling and playing 

physical music. It’s very easy to throw on Spotify, but sometimes 

you just need that crackle, that clunk, that click which provides 

an authenticity not satisfied by the tapping of keyboard keys and 

the tinny speakers of a laptop. As Sam says, “Cassettes offer an 

accessible and affordable form of physical music compared to that 

of vinyl. The analogue format fits the ethos of our label and fits the 

sound of the bands that we put out. Analogue provides a better, 

purer sound to that of digital; nothing is lost in translation.” 

Another label known to lurk behind the iconic bookcase of 

Maguire’s is BLAK HAND. Perhaps the largest tape label in the 

North West, Blak Hand offer up some of the most exciting psych 

and garage bands from the region. From the debaucherously 

riotous Strange Collective to cult legends The Stairs, the label 

have been releasing cassettes that seem to almost be sealed 

with THC. So it seems only suitable that, alongside their range of 

tapes, they also sell grinders (for tobacco only, of course). “We are 

not limited to psychedelic music as a label, but certainly this type 

of music promotes the idea of thinking outside of the box, and 

letting the imagination soar,” explains head of label Brit Williams, 

and she’s completely right. Taking a listen to Strange Collective’s 

nightmare-inducing fuzz epic Super Touchy on cassette is like 

plugging the devil himself into your loud speakers. Equipped 

with that added layer of distortion, and filtered through those 

vintage imperfections of magnetic tape, the track could belong 

on a release by the likes of The Monks or Screaming Lord Sutch. 

However, inexpensiveness and sound are not the main reasons 

for Blak Hand’s choice of cassettes. “The whole nostalgic factor 

of cassettes is the reason we chose to release them instead of 

vinyl. Setting aside the major price differences in production costs, 

cassettes put a smile on a music lover’s face. They remind us of 

a simpler time, whether it was recording a mixtape for our high 

school crush, or recording songs off the radio. There’s a connection 

there somewhere for everybody.” This raises a very real and honest 

point. For both Generations X and Y, brought up on the format, 

there seems a childlike wish to keep it alive. Less expensive than 

vinyl and with more soul than a CD, cassettes juxtapose nostalgia 

with the joy of new music. “Music fans have reverted to loving 

the sound flaws in vinyl, and really value the work that goes into 

creating a record, which is why throwing on a psych cassette brings 

the listener closer to the music,” says Brit. 

Beyond nostalgia, cost and the love of physical music, 

perhaps the most important thing about cassettes is 

community. “One thing Blak Hand promote is networking 

within the DIY scene. Without the help of our friends and fans 

spreading the word about what we do, it really wouldn’t be 

possible.” This epitomises the importance of the ‘scene’. It’s 

no hipster wet dream in search of something more obscure 

than vinyl; it is, in fact, a network for those without big ‘insider’ 

connections. A means for both fans and musicians to connect, 

to find a voice and, most importantly, to make and enjoy music. 

cassettestoreday.co.uk 

Blak Hand release the compilation cassette Hide And Psych for 

Cassette Store Day this year, and you can find a playlist of their 

various releases streaming now on bidolito.co.uk.

SAT 29TH OCT 

FREE ENTRY 

WWW.THEMERCHANTLIVERPOOL. CO.UK

he follow-up to 2013’s fêted eponymous debut album, 

the second LP by alt. pop singer NATALIE MCCOOL, The 

Great Unknown, will be available by the time this 

article reaches you. A 10-track collection of fizzing, electrosupplemented 

pop rushes, the album is frequently punctuated 

by impressively caustic wordplay, an indicator of the newly 

emboldened artist. “I think, with the singer-songwriter genre, 

you can do whatever you want,” McCool says, staring into her 

coffee in Leaf as we meet to discuss the LP’s many textures. “Pop 

music spans so many genres that, if you write strong songs and 

you cross over to different genres, then probably what you’re 

doing is pop. If a song comes out that a lot of people like, it just 

goes into public consciousness and becomes pop even if it’s 

slightly off-kilter in some way. I think it’s really cool that anything 

can be pop if it’s strong enough.” 

As befits pop music, all of the songs on the LP are uniformly 

concise, with the majority of the tracks swooping into the chorus 

less than 60 seconds after they start. “I don’t write sprawling, 

epic songs, lengthwise. I’m into verse/chorus/verse,” McCool 

explains. “The chorus is the main thing for me. Maybe on the 

next record I’ll be a bit more experimental; I don’t know.” Adding 

grit to the palette has helped the rough-edged guitar sounds – 

such as the see-saw line that powers album highlight Magnet – 

dovetail nicely with the surface dazzle of the songs. “The sounds 

are abrasive but the song is quite warm,” McCool nods to this 

observation. “That and Cardiac Arrest are the same to me. [Cardiac 

Arrest] is quite bubbly and bright, whereas Magnet goes one step 

further and is quite raucous.” The former, the album’s standout 

track, centres around its chorus lyric. "Red carpets/Champagne 

capillaries" was inspired by the offbeat concept of “the idea of 

having a party in someone’s body”. 

Helmed by Outfit sticksman/programmer/co-producer 

Dave Berger, The Great Unknown luxuriates in its sumptuous 

production. A collaboration that had been on the cards for some 

time, the pair quickly agreed to work together after the producer 

saw McCool play live in 2013. “He was doing sound and said, ‘That 

was really cool, you should come 

down to the studio,’ 

and immediately 

after that we said we should do a few tracks. He was so amazing,” 

McCool enthuses. “We get on really well, which is why we did 

the album,” 

With a clutch of EPs issued between the two LPs, the singer 

ponders the importance of the long-playing format in the 

modern music landscape. “Albums have obviously changed from 

when they were on vinyl; now it’s all about Spotify, which makes 

some people sad, but it’s interesting to me the way albums have 

changed. Now you would put all your singles at the top of an 

album; on Spotify when you’re looking down the tracklist, people 

don’t listen down that far. It’s just another way of getting to a 

new audience; it used to be about people who would take in the 

whole album as one piece of art. People do still do that, even 

with Spotify, but a lot of people are casual listeners of music. For 

them it’s about singles they like and then they might like lots of 

different artists but only a few bits, whereas some people are 

really into one.” 

Taking its title from a lyric in Oh Danger, The Great Unknown 

refers to “all of my issues in life!” she laughs. “It’s also about 

challenging yourself. This record is a lot more raw than the first 

album. With this [one] there are so many issues that I’ve never 

written about before [in relation to] myself. And Oh Danger in 

particular is a really big one [for me] so I thought it was a really 

great lyric to sum up the album, about going into this unknown 

that I’ve never addressed before. The lyrics are very personal. 

I love honest writing, real things that happen to people who 

write about them. I think most songwriters write about a mixture 

of real and non-real. Some of the songs on the first album are 

from other perspectives, but this one is pretty much all about my 

view.” The spiky Feel Good, which hinges on the refrain: "Think 

of an insect, pinned through on to a frame/Mounted up on a wall 

for all to see/You are the insect but it’s me who feels the pain/ 

The hollow wreck of this tragedy", is an excellent showcase of 

the McCool’s lyrical skill. “That’s quite fierce that one,” she nods, 

sipping her coffee. “That one and Pins are different sides of the 

same coin for me. Feel Good is quite abrasive and throwing all 

your dirty laundry out, which I quite like.” 

The biggest production number on the record, the Lorde-aping 

Fortress, is afforded the full widescreen treatment, playing 

up to its epic scope with a choir that enters towards 

the close. “I’d always wanted to do something with a 

gospel choir,” McCool explains. “I love voices and harmonies, and 

I just thought Fortress was a really good track to do that with. 

With the choir on it, it’s really epic sounding.” 

With recent sonic inspirations including Nigerian singer Nayo 

and Swedish pop writer Tove Lo, McCool’s current literary pursuits 

include Canadian author Margaret Atwood’s Oryx And Crake 

series of novels along with US horror doyen Stephen King’s Dark 

Tower sequence. “I’m in a science fiction phase at the moment,” 

she confesses. “I can’t think of a songwriter who doesn’t read. I 

think you have to read to be a songwriter, but because otherwise 

it’d be shit!” 

While all the music on the album was played by McCool and 

Berger between them, onstage it is performed by a three-piece 

band, deftly mixing live and pre-recorded instrumentation. 

“We’re pretty good with that,” McCool says of ensuring the band 

are on the same page as the technology. “I think if you’re gonna 

use backing tracks they need to be fully optimised. We get ours 

mastered, we even get the click tracks mastered, so it sounds 

the best it can. Laura [Williams, drums] has just expanded her 

set-up; now she plays pretty much a hybrid kit with a real kick, 

snare, hi-hat and cymbals, along with bass and snare triggers 

as well. She’s a great live drummer, she’s really in her element 

now. James [Breckon, keyboards] samples stuff and does loads 

of synth sounds.” 

“I like the way it’s gone,” she states when it comes to pondering 

the increasing focus on live performance over records. “It should 

be that way – people should go and see live music; I think people 

now are going out more and going to festivals more. That’s 

where you buy into a band – when you see them live. There’s 

so much music online, but live is where it really comes through 

if you’re any good or not.” With a 15-date UK tour spanning all 

of September, including a homecoming date in October, plenty 

more people will surely want to buy in to The Great Unknown’s 

effervescent charms. 

nataliemccool.co.uk 

The Great Unknown is out now on 

Pledge Music. Natalie McCool plays 

the final date of her album tour 

at Buyers Club on 1st October. 

Natalie 

Words: Richard Lewis 

Photography: Michelle Roberts / sheshoots.co.uk 

bidolito.co.uk

18 


Words: Frankie Muslin 

Main photograph: John Johnson 

LIVERPOOL MU 

Warpaint The Big Moon GoGo Penguin 

It is customary for the overall experience of LIVERPOOL 

MUSIC WEEK to be one of blurred memories, throbbing 

eardrums and amazing personal memories. In a breathless 

10-day run (yes, it’s well exceeded a mere week now, 12 

years in), the UK’s largest indoor winter festival brings you 

an extravaganza of music, pitching together some huge 

global heavyweights with a selection of Merseyside’s latest 

superstars-in-waiting. This year’s programme sees over a 

hundred acts playing across more than a dozen events in 

venues across the city – and that’s just for starters. “As always, 

LMW will aim to strike balance of highlighting the best and 

most creative local artists, alongside an inventive programme 

of the most exciting national and international touring acts, 

all with the backdrop of a mixture of our favourite, most iconic 

and many underused city spaces,” says the festival’s founder 

and director Mike Deane. 

As an evergreen fixture on the latter part of the city’s live 

music calendar, LMW has always held a fond place in our 

hearts, not least for the memorable shows it has brought us: 

Mogwai crushing the foundations of Camp and Furnace in 2014, 

Richard Hawley charming us all over again in The Dome, Grand 

Central Hall in 2015, and the late, great DJ Derek giving us all 

an education at the CUC Closing Party in 2012. But, such is 

the nature of Liverpool Music Week’s rich pedigree, the next 

person’s memories could throw up a completely different – but 

no less exciting – set of acts. 

As LMW traditions go, the ceremonial Opening Party comes 

only second to the famed Closing Party, but it is the real place 

where Liverpool Music Week comes alive. The Grade-II listed 

The Dome, Grand Central Hall will act as the vessel for this 

year’s opening salvo, one that proves to set a high bar for the 

rest of what’s to follow. LA dreamsters WARPAINT are charged 

with getting the ball rolling on 26th October, and, with the 

newfound disco strain that pops throughout latest album 

Heads Up, they’re sure to provide a storming start to this year’s 

festival. Having spent the past two years since 2014’s Warpaint 

working on solo and side projects, the quartet reconvened with 

old producer Jacob Bercovici to recapture some of the smoky 

magic that defined their debut Exquisite Corpse EP – and the 

results, so far, are groovalicious. 

In something of a coup for the festival, legendary film director, 

producer and composer JOHN CARPENTER will play a rare UK 

headline show in the grand setting of Liverpool Olympia (28th 

October), one of his first-ever concerts. The sci-fi don brings his 

Master Of Horror live show to put the shivers up you just as 

Halloween approaches, having wowed and spooked crowds in 

equal measure at his recent Primavera set in Barcelona. Expect 

to have your spine tingled by a variety of works from Carpenter’s 

massive back catalogue of film scores, including The Thing, 

Halloween and Escape From New York, as well as some of his 

original compositions. 

Many of the highlights of this year’s LMW will come from its 

series of shows at Arts Club which, when put together, look like a 

particularly star-studded constellation. Thursday 27th October’s 

DINOSAUR JR. show is the first in this run, really laying down 

a marker early on for this to be the festival’s rocking home for 

2016. The reconstituted Dinosaur Jr. continue the third chapter 

in their illustriously noisy history with the release of their 

eleventh album Give A Glimpse Of What Yer Not on Jagjaguwar, 

the third since J Mascis, Murph and Lou Barlow got back together. 

Renowned for their chugging, murky slew, the trio have carved 

a niche for themselves in American rock that sees them straddle 

grunge and college rock with muscular aplomb. Their newest 

effort is more refined in structure, but they still know how to 

blast through some heavy bottom end. 

Jazz, in particular the modern strain pedalled by the likes of 

Roller Trio and Kamasi Washington, is in the middle of a purple 

patch right now. Arguably one of the acts responsible for this 

widening of the net are hard-hitting jazz-meets-electronica 

three-piece GOGO PENGUIN. The Manchester-based piano/bass/ 

drums trio of Chris Illingworth, Nick Blacka and Rob Turner have 

charmed audiences with their skittering breakbeats and lush 

piano-driven melodies that recall everything from Radiohead 

to Brian Eno. If you want to be mesmerised, mark in a date with 

GoGo Penguin in your diary for 1st November (Arts Club). 

Over at Leaf, Rachel Zeffira and Faris Badwan bring their 

chamber pop outfit CAT’S EYES to town, offering us some 

spectral swells and gorgeous composition. Having managed to


19 

SIC WEEK 2016 

John Carpenter 

Let’s Eat Grandma 

Cat’s Eyes 

Dinosaur Jr. 

charm their way into Buckingham Palace for one of their most 

recent shows, following on from their debut live performance in 

St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican City, this show may not be the 

duo’s most opulent, but you can bet they’ll be eager to unpick 

the orchestral beauty of new album Treasure House for a more 

intimate audience. 

LMW sees a hat-trick of Merseyside artists taking the reins on 

three consecutive nights in the middle of this run, featuring three 

acts who are on the cusp of making the leap to the big leagues. 

Saturday 29th October sees bouncy indie-pop quartet CLEAN CUT 

KID energising Arts Club’s Theatre room as they continue their 

fine run of festival form into a white-knuckle ride of a UK headline 

tour throughout October. The group’s infectious, rhythmic 

drive has seen them land a deal with Polydor, so you should 

be seeing plenty more of them soon. Following the fantastic 

critical reception of their debut LP Memories Of The Future, 

which ultimately landed them a spot on one of Glastonbury’s 

main stages, SHE DREW THE GUN appear at Leaf on 30th October. 

The confessional nature of Louisa Roach’s lyrics, swamped in 

haunting and dreamy reverb, has piqued a lot of attention of 

late: will you be snared too? Completing the hat-trick, Halloween 

sees Kirkby troubadour LOUIS BERRY take centre stage, also at 

Leaf, if you want to get away from the trick-or-treaters. Berry’s 

rebel-rousing lyric attack has something of the Jake Bugg about 

it, shot through with Scouse wit that’s as sharp as a switchblade. 

One of the more exciting parts of last year’s Liverpool Music 

Week was their hook-up with DIY Magazine on the Breaking Out 

series of shows, which put Liverpool’s music lovers in touch with 

the nation’s next wave of alternative stars. We’re delighted that 

this will be returning for 2016, with five such shows scheduled 

to take place in Arts Club’s Loft alongside the main run of shows. 

Wide-eyed, would-be indie stars THE BIG MOON get things rolling 

on 28th October with their bright, breezy and exuberant bounce. 

The quartet of Londoners chart a path that’s somewhere between 

The Runaways and Palma Violets, and they do so with a smile 

on their faces. Most definitely a group who are on the rise – as 

are teenage duo LET’S EAT GRANDMA. These freaky 17-year-olds 

from Norwich throw just about every textbook out of the window 

as they search for the right blend of beats, nursery rhymes and 

recorders in their experimental pop slew. Their brilliant and 

strange debut album I, Gemini, written largely when the pair were 

15, is a poke in the eye for all those who think women should 

be docile and calm on stage – prepare for a riot on 30th October. 

AMBER ARCADES is the latest product of the Heavenly 

Records Magic Factory, and we’re sure you’ll be smitten. The 

work of Dutch artist Annelotte de Graaf, Amber Arcades’ softvoiced, 

melancholic folk ballads will have you swooning on 

29th October. Leading up to the release of the full-length album 

in spring 2016, which was recorded in New York with producer 

Ben Greenberg, with help from members of Real Estate, Quilt 

and Kevin Morby, Amber Arcades is releasing the Patiently EP 

containing several stripped-down versions of album-tracks as 

well as some extra, lo-fi recordings. If slightly off-kilter melodies 

floating over a mixture of kraut-inspired drums, cutting guitars 

and fuzzed-out organs is your thing, then you’ll not want to miss 

this. And watch out for several more shows in the DIY Breaking 

Out Shows series in the coming weeks. 

Rounding all this off is the festival’s reliably brilliant Closing 

Party, the scene of many a manic, barnstorming evening down 

the years. This year the LMW team are taking us down to the 

Liverpool Docklands area in the north of the city for a multivenue 

beast of a party on Friday 4th November. The festival is 

being tight-lipped about details so far, but they’re promising an 

extravaganza on the level of previous years’ festivities. Closing 

Party earlybird tickets at the ridiculously good price of £6 are 

on sale now. 

And… breathe. It’s hard to summarise that feast of music 

neatly, so we’ll leave the final word to the festival’s organiser 

Mike Deane: “Liverpool is buzzing right now… It’s set to be a very 

exciting time for Liverpool Music Week.” 

Liverpool Music Week runs from 26th October to 4th November. 

Full festival wristbands that get you in to all shows – EXCEPT 

the DIY Breaking Out Shows – are on sale for £50. Full 

details on line-ups and tickets for all shows can be found at 

liverpoolmusicweek.com. 

Head to bidolito.co.uk for a series of interviews with artists 

playing this year’s Liverpool Music Week.

A 

psych-folk singer who was once tipped to be bigger 

than Elvis, SCOTT FAGAN defines the concept of a ‘lost 

artist’. Spiritual, mythical and deeply soulful, Fagan’s 

classic 1968 record South Atlantic Blues is a rediscovered 

masterpiece. Recorded when Fagan was only 21, penniless and 

virtually homeless in the Virgin Islands, it was released on Atco 

Records but remained unknown, until those famed un-earthers 

of hidden gems Light In The Attic Records re-issued it in 2015. 

The biological father of The Magnetic Fields’ Stephin Merritt – 

a fact he only found out in 2013 at the premiere of a film about 

his legendary mentor, songwriting genius Doc Pomus – Fagan 

is finally receiving the acclaim he deserves as he tours Europe 

backed by members of Trembling Bells. Christopher Torpey looks 

a little closer at the legend and finds a story of rare moral fibre. 

BL!: Take us back to the mid-60s when you wrote and recorded 

South Atlantic Blues: what situation were you in at the time? 

SF: I was living in a tenement in Hell’s Kitchen, a tough, 

hardscrabble Irish section on New York City’s West side. My 

‘Beautiful Sweetie’ from the Islands, Patty Collins, was there 

with me. We were trying to make a life, in what was for us, a 

very cold and unfamiliar world. I was finishing up the writing 

for what would become South Atlantic Blues. We were living on 

memories and dreams: I was down but not out, and completely 

optimistic. We thought that, if I poured my heart into it and wrote 

as honestly as possible, it would make a difference for us and, 

we hoped, for many other people in the world. 

BL!: What was your education in music growing up? Did you align 

yourself more with jazz in your formative years? 

SF: My father, Frankie Galvin, was a wonderful singer and tenor 

sax man. He came up with 'Prez' [Lester Young] and Eleanora 

Fagan [Billie Holiday] on 52nd Street when it was jazz heaven. 

Frankie travelled all through the south with his Tic Tac Toe Trio 

playing Dixieland jazz. I spent a lot of time on the road with 

him singing. We sang through every state south of the Mason 

Dixon line. That was my basic musical education. Lots of jazz 

through him and my mother, who dragged a steamer-trunk full 

of jazz 78s with her through every move we ever made – and 

there were many. However, I was a rock ‘n’ roll, rhythm ‘n’ blues, 

country and western, rockabilly, bolero, calypso, pachanga, 

mambo, charanga, polka and voice of America kind of boy. We 

only had one radio station in St. Thomas in those days, so we 

were exposed to every imaginable kind of music. I embraced it 

all. It was wonderful. 

BL!: How did you meet Doc Pomus? Did he open anything up to 

you in terms of how you approached making music? 

SF: I had sailed up and was gigging in Fort Lauderdale but I was 

determined to go to New York. A group of girls in Ft. Lauderdale 

created a small Scott Fagan fan club, pulled together $50 and 

presented me with a bus ticket. My mother gave me a phone 

number that she got from a friend of a friend of a cousin-inlaw 

once removed, who knew someone whose ex-husband 

sometimes wrote songs with somebody named Doc Pomus or 

something… she had me promise to call him. I had 11 cents when 

I got to NYC, and I used 10 cents to make the call. Doc Pomus 

answered and invited me over to his hotel to sing for him. Doc 

sat in the middle of his bed, wrapped in a toga sheet; I sat on a 

piano bench at the foot of his bed. Doc said, “OK Scotty, show me 

what you got.” I sang three songs for him. After a dramatic pause, 

Doc said, “Tell you what I’m gonna do Scotty, I’m gonna sign 

you to a personal management and sign you to me and Morty’s 

production company. Go downstairs and tell the desk clerk to 

give you a room, then come back up here an’ let’s get started.” 

Although I had been singing with a group in the Islands called 

The Urchins and sung [in] a number of places beyond that, Doc 

immediately moved things to a professional level. He started 

me in the studio doing demos, included me in writing sessions, 

sharpened my focus in every way. The strongest influence on my 

SCOTT FAGAN 

Words: Christopher Torpey / @CATorp 

centrepiece in a flood of light, surrounded by the most kindly 

singing was my pop – the strongest influence on my writing was and patrician-looking group of people anywhere. It was Jasper 

Doc Pomus. My pop always said, “Scott, sing it like you mean Johns, the cheery-voiced Bill Katz, John Cage, Merce Cunningham 

it, and mean it when you sing.” Doc always said, “Scotty, write and what seemed like the whole New York pop art scene. They 

standards, write songs that will survive the test of time.” I took greeted me as though I were the long-lost prodigal son and have 

them both to heart. Boy, am I glad I did. 

been kind to me from that day to this. And all because me dear 

Mudder dear taught me to be polite. 

BL!: When did you find out that Jasper Johns had used South 

Atlantic Blues as inspiration for one of his artworks? 

BL!: I believe you’re working on a cover album of your son 

SF: I was signed to Screengems Music, and I was in my office Stephin’s songs, is that true? Have you found yourself getting 

there working on my rock opera Soon – which I intended to be my to know him better through studying his songs? 

follow-up record to South Atlantic Blues – when the phone rang. SF: 'Scott Fagan Sings Stephin Merritt' is an interesting idea 

There was an extremely cheery-voiced fellow at the other end that I would like to pursue. The boy writes great songs and I 

saying that his friend had fallen in love with South Atlantic Blues would love to sing them. Do I know him better by listening to his 

and had done a lithograph. There was going to be an ‘opening’ songs? That’s a great question… We have met a few times now 

and he wanted me to come see. I was working intensely on and spent some time together, and frankly I think I very quickly 

the ‘grand opus’ and not thrilled that I had been pulled away recognised and came to know him at a level that precedes 

from my train of thought, but my mother dear had taught me to language. Nothing too metaphysical, just the natural knowing 

ALWAYS be polite, and so I was. He wanted to know my address that exists between kindred spirits and birds of a feather. 

and would be sending me an invitation. As a recording artist, I 

had already received letters of every kind from people of every BL!: Did you ever doubt that your music, in particular South 

sort proposing everything under the sun, so I was wary. I was Atlantic Blues, would ever be heard by so many people around 

imagining a store front in the East Village full of psychedelic Day- the world? 

Glo canvases with chicken bones and watermelon seeds stuck SF: Yes I did, but I never gave up. I was sometimes afraid that 

to them. Further, I was concerned that if I showed up, I would South Atlantic Blues, and all the rest of my music, would go 

be expected to purchase the piece or maybe not be allowed to unheard. And honestly, I was deeply sad about it. I fully expected 

leave… ever. With that in mind, I invited my writing partner, the to do a South Atlantic Blues tour… but I thought it might be in 

great Kookoolis, his wife and my sweetie along for back up. 1968, 1969? Overall, I am wonderblasted and grateful for this 

Invitation in hand, we all got in a cab, and set out. Much to our opportunity. 

surprise, rather than the Lower East Side, the cab dropped us 

at the impressive front entrance of the Museum Of Modern Art. scottfagan.com 

We went inside to discover a lithograph of my South Atlantic Scott Fagan plays the Philharmonic Music Room on 19th October. 

Blues – now renamed Scott Fagan Record – on the wall, as the South Atlantic Blues is out now.

INVISIBLE 

W I N D 

FACTORY 

—30 September 

# 01 POTENTIAL ENERGY 

Floating Points DJ Set 

Blehrin 

special guest tba 

AUTUMN 

/ WINTER 

SEQUENCE 

2016 

—21 October 

# 02 KINETIC ENERGY 

The Black Madonna 

Peggy Gou 

Blehrin 

N e w 

Forms. 

—05 November 

# 03 SOUND ENERGY 

Bicep 

Or:la 

Blehrin 

—03 December 

# 0 4 MAGNETIC ENERGY 

Dusky 

BAMBOUNOU 

Blehrin 

Venue: 

Invisible Wind Factory, 

2 Regent Road, 

Liverpool, L37DS. 

ENRG: 0151 709 5010, 

Info@Energy-Crew.com 

Tickets Online: 

Ticketarena.co.uk, 

residentadvisor.net, 

Skiddle.com, 

theticketsellers.co.uk, 

Dice.fm. 

Ticket Stores: 

3B Records (Slater Street) 

0151 353 7027, 

The Merchant (Slater Street), 

Font Bar (Mount Pleseant).

Sofar Sound 

Photography: 

Words: Scott Smith / @ThinkScott 

Stuart Moulding / @oohshootstu 

SOUNDS FROM A ROOM 

he secret gig. It’s a concept that’s been steadily growing 

for years, from people scrambling over one another to get 

to the front of the Glastonbury secret slot, to people queuing 

for miles outside London venues, exchanging rumours of who 

the night’s secret act is. Radiohead? Beyoncé? In this realm 

of gig mystery it feels that anything is possible. Tonight, as I 

walk towards my first SOFAR SOUNDS secret gig, I’m expecting 

nothing, embracing the beauty of the unknown – but the back 

of my mind whispers, “It just could be Bob Dylan…” 

Mystery is at the centre of Sofar Sounds, and it shrouds the 

whole process. After entering a ballot you need to be selected 

and invited to attend, with the location of the venue only being 

released the night before, and the artists at the moment of 

performance. Tonight’s venue is revealed as Ziferblat, a payper-minute 

café on the Albert Dock. Entering, I’m ushered into 

a large living-room-type space, strewn with plush armchairs and 

sofas adorned with masses of cushions. Guests are scattered 

around sharing coffee and treats from assorted cake stands. 

Within minutes I’ve almost forgotten that I’m here for a gig at 

all, and this is where Sofar’s charm begins. 

When we think of live music, most of us have been conditioned 

to think of dark, sweaty rooms crammed with people. Rooms 

where there’s always someone ordering a drink at the bar 

as loudly as possible. Someone catching up with their friend 

whilst the musician on stage is pouring their heart out and, 

always, someone in front of us filming the entire gig on their 

phone screen. It makes us question what ever happened to gig 

etiquette? Manners? Just plain respect? Aren’t people supposed 

to be here for the music, after all? 

This is where the origins of Sofar Sounds come from, 

starting back in 2009 when founders and live music 

lovers Rafe and Rocky began to get frustrated with audiences 

constantly talking over bands. In retaliation, they decided to 

start hosting gigs in their own houses, inviting friends over to 

watch. “It started with around eight people in a living room, 

and soon enough the idea caught on to friends around London 

and the world.” The popularity of the event spiralled, causing a 

global movement, with 300 secret gigs a month taking place in 

hidden, unique venues all over the world. 

It’s this desire for a greater gig experience, combined with 

a respect of the artist playing, that lies at the heart of Sofar 

Sounds’ ethics. Their ethos is that all artists on stage should be 

treated with equal respect, whether they’re well-known or not – 

the main reason for keeping their line-ups secret. The protocol of 

the gig is made clear from the start, as Mel, the evening’s host, 

takes to the stage to give some simple rules for the night: no 

texting, no filming, no talking and you’ve got to stay for every 

artist. 

It all feels like a very exclusive, polite Fight Club, as Tadgh 

Daly, the evening’s first act begins to perform. A singersongwriter 

from London with an acoustic guitar and gritty voice, 

his powerful vocals explode through the plush living-room 

environment, breaking on falsettos to reveal an underpinning 

of hurt and emotion which seep through his songs. 

“It seems to me that these nights somewhat transcend 

the usual ‘performer/audience’ relationships and you get to 

see people’s raw reactions to the music,” he tells me. “With 

Sofar, you have the opportunity to really engage with the 

audience in a very vulnerable way and I love that… You know 

for sure that everyone in the audience is a passionate fan of 

music and I personally feel like you owe them the most honest 

performance that you can give.” 

The artists themselves have a choice about what they’d like 

to gain from the experience – either a high-quality video of their 

performance or a share of that evening’s takings. For others 

it may just be that extra exposure. Blue Saint is a Congoleseborn, 

Liverpool-based rapper and singer-songwriter, who has 

already been nominated for a MOBO, won the Merseyrail Sound 

Station Prize in 2014 and performed alongside artists such as Ed 

Sheeran. As he dons a balaclava and spits out his spoken word 

to a small room of people, his performance takes us out of our 

realm of comfort. Yet the intimacy remains, feeling as though 

we’re getting an early performance from someone whose career 

is on the very verge of taking off. It all adds to that special, 

exclusive feeling. 

All acts, no matter how popular, get an equal amount of 

time with only four songs each – something that’s the same at 

every Sofar gig. After a ten-minute break, we return to have the 

beautifully haunting Mono Sideboards take to the stage, a band 

who blend whispery melancholic harmonies to tunes of sorrow 

that work perfectly in this more reserved setting. “Tonight was 

the first time we’ve played where people have given us their 

undivided attention,” they tell me. “Very nerve-wracking, but 

fascinating in the modern era of gig going.” 

Stoney Browder Jr. are the last act up – a politically-motivated 

band who pack a high-energy punch, blending funk, soul and 

groove beats with elements of spoken word and rap. Their 

jazzy melodies are a contrast to the other, darker, mellower 

acts of the evening – underlining how varied in genres a single 

Sofar Sounds evening can be. “There’s no mention of genre, 

arrangements, language, movement, dress code,” says frontman 

Lorne Ashley. “It’s very much a case of, ‘We like what you do, can 

you please bring that to our stage, we think our scene will love 

you’. It’s very very humbling.” 

The variety of acts, fully allowed to be themselves, is 

something that is specifically special about the Sofar movement. 

Artists are hand-picked by a curator who purposefully casts their 

net across a wide blend of genres. One performer may be right 

up your street and the next may take you out of your musical 

comfort zone, challenging your perceptions. For those who 

are expecting big names, the likes of Karen O, Hozier, Bastille, 

James Bay and even Robert Pattinson have made Sofar Sounds 

appearances, but, at its heart, these are gigs for the music fans. 

It’s more than a marketing gimmick of mystery to draw a 

crowd – this is a movement that’s redefining music for audiences 

and artists. It’s not only happening right here in Liverpool but 

throughout the whole of the north, from Chester to Leeds. It’s 

a call to arms for the gig-goer, as people who love music are 

being brought together under one big respectful umbrella. This 

is, ultimately, live music as it’s meant to be. 

sofarsounds.com 

If anyone has a space they would like to be considered for a Sofar 

Sounds show then get in touch at liverpool@sofarsounds.com.

Amadou 

and Mariam 

Fri 30 Sept 

ENRG: Potential Energy 

- Floating Points 

Fri 7 Oct 

Abandon Silence: Echoes - 

The Launch w/ Omar S, Moxie 

Sat 8 Oct 

RBMA UK Tour: 

Moodymann, Hunee B2B 

Young Marco 

Thur 13 + Fri 14 Oct 

Teatro Pomodoro: 

Cabaret From The Shadows 

Sat 15 Oct 

The House of Suarez 

Vogue Ball 2016 

Tue 18 - Wed 19 Oct 

Liverpool Irish Festival: 

Theatre - Scadán 

Fri 21 Oct 

ENRG: Kinetic Energy 

- The Black Madonna 

Sat 22 Oct 

Fifty Shades of Pink: 

Barberos Spandex Party 

Tue 25 Oct 

Evol: Fucked Up 

Fri 28 Oct 

Abandon Silence: 

Echoes - Halloween 

Sat29 Oct 

The Voodoo Ball: 

Return to Afrotopia 

Sat 5 Nov 

ENRG: Sound Energy 

- Bicep 

Part of DaDaFest 

International 2016 

Saturday 3 December 7.30pm 

Liverpool Philharmonic Hall 

The Grammy award-nominated afro-funk 

duo, bring their magical fusion of pop, blues 

and Malian music to Liverpool for their only 

UK tour date of 2016! 

Invisible Wind Factory, 3 Regent Road, Liverpool, L3 7BX www.thekazimier.co.uk 

Tickets from: 

bit.ly/AMUK2016 

0151 709 3789 

www.dadafest.co.uk 

@DaDaFest

28 


OCTOBER IN BRIEF 

EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY 

The cathartic mini-symphonies of Texan post-hardcore outfit EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY are often more suited to sweeping vistas on a cinema screen, and 

the past few years have seen almost all of the band working independently on various film scores. But, with new album The Wilderness, released earlier 

in 2016 on Bella Union, EITS have returned with their boldest, most forward-thinking work yet, a full five years since their last non-soundtrack effort. 

Progressive, cinematic songcraft of this stature deserves only the best setting, and the Phil won’t let you down on that score. 

Philharmonic Hall / 9th October 

HARRY STEDMAN AND THE CUNARD YANKS 

The Shipping Forecast hosts a special photography exhibition in October as part of the ongoing Next Stop New York project. The show focuses on 

Harry Stedman and the Cunard Yanks, men who appropriated a culture to spawn a distinctive look, sound and attitude of 1950s Liverpool. Now the name 

behind a line of Transatlantic-flavoured clothes, Liverpudlian Stedman journeyed to and from the States and used his travels to hone a look that soon 

caught on in Merseyside and beyond. A collection of images from Stedman’s and fellow Cunard Yank Billy Harrison’s personal collections will be on 

display upstairs at the Slater Street venue from 14th to 28th October. 

ENRG 

Forget Berlin, Bootle is closer to where the action is these days. The Invisible Wind Factory will be home to a slew of fantastic club nights from this 

Autumn. Leading the way is ENRG, an immersive electronica, techno and house night themed around the different forms energy can take. The night is 

attracting an amazing array of artists, with electronicist extraordinaire FLOATING POINTS headlining the opening Potential Energy-themed night on 

30th September, with hugely respected DJ THE BLACK MADONNA (pictured) lined up for October’s Kinetic Energy event. 

Invisible Wind Factory / 21st October 

GLASS ANIMALS 

Oxford indie foursome GLASS ANIMALS follow up their massively popular 2014 album Zaba (the first to be released on Paul Epworth’s Wolf Tone label) 

with a hypnotic new effort in How To Be A Human Being. Starting off life as recordings of random conversations made on lead singer and producer Dave 

Bayley’s iPhone, How To Be A Human Being is a bold departure, lyrically and sonically, from Zaba. The band’s largest tour to date will see them getting 

to grips with the record’s heavier, grittier sound. 

O2 Academy / 28th October 

INTERNATIONAL GUITAR FESTIVAL OF GREAT BRITAIN 

For the past 27 years, Wirral has been set alight during the dark months of November by a range of shows that pay homage to some of the finest six- 

and 12-string merchants currently plying their trade today. This year, the INTERNATIONAL GUITAR FESTIVAL OF GREAT BRITAIN sets out to showcase some 

classic exponents of guitar mastery at New Brighton’s Floral Pavilion and the neighbouring Queens Royal Hotel, between 4th and 20th November. 

Squeeze’s GLENN TILBROOK (pictured), and Amen Corner’s ANDY FAIRWEATHER LOW will be performing solo shows, and you can look forward to catching 

WISHBONE ASH and RUMOURS OF FLEETWOOD MAC too. Full line-up and ticket details can be found at bestguitarfest.com. 

DADAFEST 

Liverpool’s own disability arts and culture festival, DADFEST INTERNATIONAL, have once again put together a diverse and intriguing line-up for their 

2016 festival, which takes place in November and December. At the top of the bill are Grammy Award-nominated Malian duo AMADOU AND MARIAM 

(pictured), who play the Philharmonic Hall on 3rd December. Elsewhere on the bill is a vibrant performing arts and comedy programme which includes 

Assisted Suicide: The Musical, Swagga and stand-up comic Laurence Clark, all in the Unity Theatre. 

Various Venues / 17th November-3rd December 

THAT PLACE GIVES ME THE EBGBS 

After a comprehensive refurb, Heebies Jeebies have opened up their much-loved basement bar with a new look and feel. EBGBS and the Lone Wolf 

are a biker-inspired club and bar drawing on the building’s 200-year heritage while bringing some Tarantino-style depravity to the Seel Street party. 

Bido Lito! will be joining the debauchery, taking over one Saturday Liquidation club night on 8th October and inviting PURE JOY and fellow Wirralites 

THE MYSTERINES in for live sets, alongside Bido DJs. The Lone Wolf Bar will be open seven nights a week, while Gigantic and Liquidation will take 

place every Friday and Saturday respectively in the club space. 

bidolito.co.uk


29 

SETH TROXLER 

Circus team up with Michigan deep-house don SETH TROXLER to present a huge special event for Halloween. 28 Raves Later is a variant of Troxler’s 

infamous surprise parties, and Circus have put together one of their biggest line-ups for this spooky event by snaring LUCIANO, EATS EVERYTHING and 

NIC FANCIULLI for the bill.. Troxler’s shamanic DJ skills are legendary in their own right, propelling him to the top spot in Resident Advisor’s Top 100 DJs 

poll. The worlds of house and techno will be forever blessed with his sultry vocal jams and eye for the spectacular. 

Camp and Furnace / 29th October 

RBMA'S CLASS OF 2016 

The celebrated RED BULL MUSIC ACADEMY TOUR arrives in Liverpool in October, bringing us a host of great talent. Taking place across our city’s most 

lauded venues, RBMA brings electronic pioneers in the vein of JAMIE WOON (pictured), MOODYMANN and KREPT AND KONAN to Merseyside. With gigs 

and talks aimed at fostering creativity in music, and making use of venues Buyers Club, Invisible Wind Factory and The Merchant amongst others, it’s a 

match made in musical heaven. The tour stops off in Liverpool as part of a nationwide jaunt which takes in Glasgow, London and Leeds. 

Various venues / 6th - 9th October 

JAMIE T 

Jamie Alexander Treays has come a long way since bursting onto the scene as a scruffy hoodie laureate from Wimbledon. The gobby lad has traded in 

his juvenile excitability for a dapper, more considered demeanour that has pushed JAMIE T away from Mike Skinner and closer to Billy Bragg. After a fiveyear 

hiatus from 2009 to 2014, Treays has found a new productive vein of form that has conjured up two albums and an EP, all of which still manage to 

balance the disarming bounces between self-disclosure and irreverent humour that marked him as a lovable rogue very early on. 

Liverpool Olympia / 13th October 

BEATS BY RINGO 

Dingle’s favourite Beatle is the subject of the new project from PMS, BBC Radio Merseyside’s longest-running alternative music programme. BEATS 

FOR RINGO invites musicians and sound-artists to contribute pieces that build on Ringo Starr’s sampled drum tracks to create original music. Hosted 

by local legend Roger Hill, PMS has previously explored the legacy of Cilla Black and placed music in unusual places as part of previous innovative 

projects. For more information about the latest initiative and to request the file of samples, go to pmsradio.co.uk. The project culminates in airing the 

chosen tracks on PMS in November. 

LIVERPOOL MENTAL HEALTH FESTIVAL 

Returning for its sixth, and biggest, year, LIVERPOOL MENTAL HEALTH FESTIVAL continues the city’s tradition of being a mental-health trailblazer by 

using creative partnerships to promote mental wellness and to challenge stigma. The festival coincides with World Mental Health Day on 10th October, 

and Bill Ryder-Jones will be lending his support as the festival’s patron, as well as revealing the winner of the festival’s Mental Health And Me writing 

competition. Rapper MERKI WATERS (pictured) will play a free show in Williamson Square on Saturday 8th October as part of the festival’s musical 

centrepiece. Full line-up info and details of how to enter the writing competition can be found at liverpoolmentalhealth.org. 

SAE’S INSTITUTE OF ELECTRONICS 

Liverpool's highly acclaimed SAE Institute is once again inviting aspiring producers, DJs and music makers of various stripes to enrol on their muchrespected 

Electronic Music Production course, a course that has always proved popular with the region’s pool of audio wizards. The six-month, part time 

course starts in October with chart-topping Liverpool DJ/Producer Paul Kane at the helm. SAE’s Pall Mall studios offer hands-on experience in music 

production, boasting a state-of-the-art Apple Mac suite and MIDI controllers which run industry-essential Logic X and Ableton 9. The creative media 

campus has produced a wealth of musical talent who have gone on to find success in various areas: find out more at sae.edu/gbr. 

MARAY 

Audio alchemists RADIO EXOTICA have created more gold for us in the form of an African Groove mixtape, which melds the abundant back 

catalogues of African disco, funk and rock. The mix can be heard at Bold Street boutique eatery MARAY now, in celebration of their new Autumn/ 

Winter menu. The playlist takes in psych from Benin, Ghananian highlife, Cameroonian makossa and Nigerian Afrobeat to provide a wideranging 

palette which matches the variety of culinary fusions on offer from the Maray menu. Drop into the restaurant and cocktail bar or visit 

bidolito.co.uk to hear the sounds of William Onyeabor, The Funkees, The Lijadu Sisters and more. 

JOHNNY DOWD 

Defiant, absurd and out there, JOHNNY DOWD is an alternative musician even within the realm of alt. American country. Noisy, experimental breaks 

are typical of the style of Dowd’s songs, as is an undercurrent of black humour and strong southern gothic elements in his lyrics. Although his music is 

most often compared to that of Tom Waits, Nick Cave and Captain Beefheart, Dowd has never quite fit into any particular genre – but where else could 

surf guitar, Theremin-style keyboards and a croaked lyrical delivery exist other than in Johnny Dowd’s mind? 

Dumbulls Gallery / 20th October 

bidolito.co.uk

30 

Bido Lito! October 2016 Reviews 

The Parrots (Stuart Moulding / @oohshootstu) 

THE PARROTS 

OHMNS – Pyscho Comedy – Jo Mary 

Harvest Sun @ The Magnet 

There is that special time when you are 

able to catch a band within that unique, 

unformulated and crude moment in their 

career; the hedonistic and anarchistic depiction 

of a young carefree rock ‘n’ roll band, offering a 

consolatory relief against the current backdrop 

of the, at times, overly produced and curated 

music industry of today. 

Tonight’s band, Madrid garage rockers, THE 

PARROTS, are firmly occupying that phase. High 

on the immediacy of their solo debut album 

Los Niños Sin Miedo and, judging by their 

merch stand – which includes signed grinders – 

whatever locally-sourced herbs they managed 

to get their hands on, they look to bring la 

fiesta to Merseyside. 

An exited and sizeable crowd is already 

assembling as first support act JO MARY take 

to the stage; moppy-haired and with drooping 

postures, the band churn a droney, pounding, 

psychedelicly bluesy enchantment. The band 

appear engrossed and enthralled in their music, 

with the exception of the token tambourine 

player, who doesn’t surrender his gaze from 

the crowd for the entirety of the set. Following 

this strand of the unordinary are the vibrant, 

maniacal misfit mosaic that is PSYCHO COMEDY. 

Their music is certainly the least remarkable 

thing about them, an echo of indie-glam that 

rings like Fat White Family; however, they 

have the majority of the audience perplexed 

and locked in: whether they like what they're 

seeing or not, they’re being entertained. 

OHMNS complete the stacked, exciting homegrown 

support for the evening, with a ruthless 

and brilliant sonic assault, bouncing seething, 

violent fuzzed-punk around the red padded 

walls of The Magnet. Their set is a whirlwind 

of half-naked bodies, stage invasions, strewn 

limbs and a “pissed-off bald man”, leaving 

people in attendance feeling like they’ve been 

flung through a meat grinder. 

With the crowd sufficiently loosened and 

already battered, it’s hard to see where the 

mood will go. With a reserved and assured 

aplomb, The Parrots slip onto the stage, 

beaming grins and evoking their reputed cheery 

stoner sanguinity. Initial interaction with the 

crowd is kept to a minimum as they bounce 

into Let’s Do It Again. Diego Garcia (Vocals) and 

Alex de Lucas (Bass) erupt into a synchronistic 

bop as the crowd breakout into loose-hipped 

and free-flowing cavorting. Diego’s rasping 

croon and retro-sounding twanging guitar 

coalesce with the bopping bass and skipping 

drum beats. The band are able to emulate the 

intensity and vigour of the previous acts, but 

with a more party-like insouciant edge, as they 

loosen up to the crowd, exchanging quips in a 

mixture of Spanish and English. 

It really starts to feel like you’ve been invited 

to their Madrid flat party, as their amiability and 

welcoming nature infects the audience, and 

soon enough the band are sharing the crowd’s 

drinks; Diego invites a girl to sit with him on 

stage, and then bounds into the audience, 

embracing and gleefully bouncing around the 

ecstatic crowd, before crashing to the ground 

as a pile of bodies mounts up on top of him. 

Drawing the set with No Me Gustas, Te 

Quiero and Somebody To Love there is a sense 

of accomplishment as they invite their manager 

upon stage with them as a singalong ensues. 

The aforementioned phase in a band’s career 

too often burns intensely and short lived before 

they either progress to mainstream success 

or descend into obscurity. Tonight, there is 

evidence and subsequent hope to suggest the 

authenticity and organic nature of this band 

will sustain them from such fates – and we've 

all had a blast, whatever the future may hold. 

Jonny Winship / @jmwinship 

JULIAN MARLEY 

Iba Mahr 

Africa Oyé @ District 

A clutch of Marleys are in residence at District 

tonight for this eagerly anticipated Africa 

Oyé show. JULIAN MARLEY, reggae artist and 

Rastafarian, son of one of the best-known, 

best-loved musicians of all time, is preceded on 

the stage by DJ Keith Marley (no relation), who’s 

laying down his customarily excellent selection 

of classic and leftfield Jamaican sounds to get 

the growing audience in the mood. 

Walking into the gents at District, I am 

confronted by not one, but four images of the 

face of US presidential hopeful, Donald Trump, 

handily affixed to the shiny stainless steel 

trough of the urinal. There are many people in 

bidolito.co.uk

An Everyman & Playhouse and Shakespeare’s Globe co-production 

By William Shakespeare 

Directed by Nick Bagnall 

“Energetic 

and very 

funny” 

The Stage 

A riotous new production of 

Shakespeare’s anarchic comedy 

led by a joyful ensemble of 

players who delight with 

songs, romance and chaos. 

Wed 5 Oct to Sat 29 Oct 

Box Office 0151 709 4776 

everymanplayhouse.com 

“A technicolour all-singingall-dancing 

spectacle” 

Oxford Mail 

Thanks to the 

City of Liverpool 

for its financial 

support 

Photography by Gary Calton

32 


tonight’s multi-cultural audience who, I think, 

will take an even greater pleasure than normal 

in the emptying of their bladders. The copious 

amounts of Red Stripe being consumed should 

help in this respect. The pleasure could splash 

back in our faces come November but hey-ho. 

Support act IBA MAHR, provides authentic 

support, fronting Julian Marley’s The Uprising 

backing band, and if he doesn’t exactly endear 

himself to the crowd when he removes his 

jacket to reveal an Arsenal FC shirt – there are a 

few good-natured boos – such is the vitality of 

his set that he easily hurdles this potential faux 

pas, leaping and twisting to a mix of classic 

reggae, dancehall and lovers’ rock, which his 

light, soulful voice enhances. 

After a short break, the keyboard player takes 

to the mic and toasts an intro over a rock-solid 

rhythm and scratchy lead guitar, the sounds of 

which define the evening, before Marley and 

backing vocalists The Sisters stride onto the 

stage to great applause. It can’t be easy being 

the son of an icon; whether you’re a Julian 

Lennon or a Julian Marley, you’re really onto 

a hiding to nothing. Critic Stephen Erlewine 

summed up his review of Lennon junior’s 

album Photograph Smile with the phrase, 

“the kind of music that would receive greater 

praise if it weren’t made by the son of a Beatle” 

and it can be a ‘damned if you do, damned if 

you don’t’ sort of existence in icon-offspring 

land. Marley has made a pretty good fist of it, 

though, releasing three albums to date, one of 

which, 2009’s Awake, was Grammy-nominated, 

and touring regularly. 

He kicks things off with Trying from the 

Awake album. There’s some surfy guitar 

washes amongst the skank and the band 

continue to shine as Marley gets into his stride 

immediately. The refrain “trying to be a better 

man” sets the tone; as ever with reggae the 

danceable, good-time lilt of the music is often 

married to a protest/lament/exhortation lyric. 

Build Together is a classic positive vibration 

of a song: “reggae is togetherness, reggae is 

family”. Marley has the unmistakable vocal 

inflections of his father and his loose-limbed 

gait, constantly swaying and moving, hands 

outstretched in a gesture of union. There’s 

some great guitar interplay and Marley’s 

rhythm-playing allows the lead to soar away 

into some lovely, fluid breaks. The Sisters 

provide a beautiful, soulful reminder of the US 

origins of much of the Jamaican vocal tradition. 

Marley always leaves us wanting more. 

He keeps the versions short and sharp, 

creating a shifting pattern of up-tempo dance 

and contemplative grooves that sees an 

increasingly engaged audience dancing and 

singing. The cover of Exodus nails the driving, 

inexorable rhythm of a people on the move 

and the magnificent Lively Up Yourself really 

catches fire. Iba Mahr re-joins the party for a 

One Love encore which leaves the audience 

smiling. 

Once again Africa Oyé brings people together 

in a spirit of peace, love and understanding. 

Swallow that, Donald. 

Glyn Akroyd / @GlynAkroyd 

PHAROAHE MONCH 

Boogie Bland – Blue Saint 

Bam!Bam!Bam! @ 24 Kitchen Street 

As much of a musical heartland Liverpool is, 

hip hop is something that never truly took off. 

You might have had a quick cringe at MCs on 

YouTube channels like LabTV, or appreciated 

their amateur cheeky-chappie lyrics and 

respectable flows. It’s only when I saw BLUE 

SAINT, a Congolese-born local MC, that I realised 

anyone in Liverpool was making strides beyond 

grime. He artfully dances between RnB and hip 

hop, while eagerly displaying his flexible MC 

abilities. It’s a good opening act to the night, 

with a jazzy and chilled vibe reminiscent of A 

Tribe Called Quest or the more recent Isaiah 

Rashad. His lyrics are catchy; however, midway 

through he pulls on a balaclava and goes a 

little horrorcore. The songs performed tonight 

are handpicked to show off his diversity and 

adaptability as a growing artist. I can only hope 

he’s the first of many in a newly burgeoning hip 

hop scene; there are too many psych bands and 

not enough MCs. 

It’s only in recent years, mostly due to 

Kendrick Lamar’s success, that conscious 

hip hop has had a revival. It’s a heavy label 

for some – no one want’s to be seen as a 

‘conscious’ rapper. PHAROAHE MONCH has 

carried it for a while now. His work, especially 

on his latest record PTSD, is heavily politicised. 

When he comes out on stage, it’s plain to see 

that this is the channel for all his anger and 

rage over the state of his country, culture 

and race. He tells us he’s strictly non-violent, 

which rap outsiders would be forgiven for 

doubting when he breaks into Damage. It’s 

the final part in his Bullet Trilogy (songs all 

from the perspective of a bullet). The lyrics are 

incendiary and timely, eulogising just a few of 

the people lost to police violence over the past 

few years. Many times throughout you see raw 

emotion from the Queens, NYC-raised rapper: 

anger, relief, sadness, nostalgia. He may write 

from the brain, but he spits from the heart. The 

crowd know this – and each song gets them 

moving. Hands and heads alike bounce to the 

beat, they join in on the Simon Says chorus and 

they definitely get the fuck up. If this wasn’t 

enough, we get a lesson in turntablism from 

DJ BOOGIE BLAND. It is true masters of the craft 

like these that show you just what a deck can 

do. Both he and Monch make a good team; its 

danceable music but with a core of truth and 

depth. At 43, he’s been in the game for some 

time, and he knows how to execute a thrilling 

live show. 

Kieran Donnachie 

EX-EASTER ISLAND HEAD 

Kepla 

Philharmonic Music Room 

Tucked away behind the grand Philharmonic, 

tonight the Music Room plays host to 

Liverpool’s own experimental trio EX-EASTER 

ISLAND HEAD for the launch of their latest 

album Twenty Two Strings. With their previous 

Julian Marley (Glyn Akroyd / @GlynAkroyd) 

record Large Electronic Ensemble being 

released back in 2014, Twenty-Two Strings feels 

long overdue to the crowd eagerly anticipating 

their return to the stage. 

With support from Liverpool-based 

producer KEPLA, the mood is set as the rather 

sophisticated audience take their seats in the 

intimate setting, which mirrors the set-up of 

a jazz bar. As Kepla begins his set, the avantgarde 

audio and visuals immediately capture 

the audience’s attention as he takes us on a 

mysterious journey of desperation and despair, 

with urgent scurries and dramatic dynamics 

creating an uncomfortable yet captivating 

ambience. Kepla’s uninterrupted set develops 

a story through moody undertones and 

uncertain images, reflected through crystal 

formations that fade into darkness as each 

timbre swims in and out of the sound scape. 

The set comes to a sudden stop with the echo 

of crickets leaving the audience with a feeling 

of serenity, ready for Ex-Easter Island Head to 

take the stage. 

As the overhead projection comes into 

focus, Ex-Easter Island Head are mirrored 

from a bird’s eye view, enabling the crowd to 

see exactly how each sound is created. With 

the band’s unusual line-up of drums and four 

guitars laid onto tables; soft beaters caress the 

strings, generating a synth sound whilst also 

providing a beat which the drums proceed to 

replicate. The unusual timing opens up space 

for floating motifs, repeated at different pitches 

using the contrasting tunings of the guitars. As 

the hi-hat keeps tempo, melodies interweave 

with sweeping hooks rather than one singular 

main riff. 

The band keep the focus on their stage 

presence with every motion mirrored by each 

bidolito.co.uk

34 


performances, the trio incorporate a wide 

dynamic variation into their set, which acts as 

a subtle indicator for the beginning and end of 

each composition. The clever use of the filling 

of soundscapes with diminished and desperate 

sounds allows room for more expressive 

movements from the group, amounting to 

the gig becoming more of an avant-garde 

performance art as opposed to a classic album 

launch. As the expressive motions become 

more and more sporadic, a dramatic climax is 

reached before the set comes to a sudden end, 

with the crowd’s cheers echoing through the 

intimate Music Room. 

Rosa Jane / @RosaaJW 

JEFFREY LEWIS & LOS BOLTS 

Big Safari – Bad Meds – Carl Moorcroft 

Howl At The Moon @ Buyers Club 

member, forming what can only be described 

as an innovative and eloquent synchronised 

dance. With a mixture of bold, striking arm 

Ex-Easter Island Head (Mike Sheerin / michaelsheerin.photoshelter.com) 

movements and graceful shuffles along with single audience member with their tranquil 

the unusual beat, Ex-Easter Island Head deliver yet strangely powerful execution of each track. 

an exquisite performance, engaging every Continuing the theme of uninterrupted 

Howl At The Moon, Vol. 11: a fitting title for 

this particular punk-inspired fixture. Highly 

respected local punk-cum-singer-songwriter 

CARL MOORCROFT kicks off proceedings, 

taking to the stage with nothing more than a 

lonely acoustic guitar and a dose of conviction. 

Moorcroft certainly doesn’t hold back, allowing 

his punk roots to flourish in all their glory. 

He frantically strums his acoustic guitar, and 

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constantly bombards the crowd with his strong 

vocal range, unorthodox playing and romantic 

love songs. 

Shortly thereafter, the ferocious BAD MEDS 

align into formation on the stage. A sense of 

anticipation and intrigue washes over the everexpanding 

bustle of the audience. A certain 

tension surrounds the group, the kind that can 

only be wielded by a band such as these hardhitting, 

garage-band folk. There is a crash that 

can only be described as a rapture. Straight 

from the off, Paul Rafferty and co. descend into 

a blur of fuzz tones, post-hardcore vocality and 

crashing drum swells. And like that, it’s over, 

with the echo of a thrashing migraine the only 

thing that remains. 

The illustrious glam/garage outfit BIG 

SAFARI follow on from the might of Bad Meds 

as the room grows ever more humid. Their 

guitar amps began to rumble, and Big Safari’s 

refreshing swell begins to wash around the 

conclave of Buyers Club, revealing certain 

shoegaze elements that are reminiscent of 

Manchester’s Slowdive. 

For the unacquainted, Jeffrey Lewis has 

released seven studio albums spanning 

several years and a variety of guises via the 

legendary and timeless record label, Rough 

Trade. These albums are accompanied by 

dozens of EPs, singles and peculiar sideprojects. 

More recently – and perhaps more 

familiarly – JEFFREY LEWIS & LOS BOLTS’ record 

Manhattan showcased his trademark razorsharp 

wit, superb songwriting ability and lo-fi 

pop sensibility that harks back to the likes of 

Pavement and Sebadoh. 

A leading figurehead within the anti-folk/ 

punk movement in New York circa 2001, Lewis, 

it is argued by many, was a pivotal character in 

the movement’s popularity. During this period 

Lewis acquired a rather loyal fanbase, which 

continues to play a huge part in his career 

today. 

However, this show doesn’t solely revolve 

around the frontman. His two faithful band 

members, Los Bolts, are also on a parallel 

field, deserving of full recognition, the unsung 

heroes, displaying boundless energy and 

equally a notable substance. Everyone upon 

the stage is there for the right reasons; not 

a shred of doubt could be cast upon their 

commitment or drive to Lewis’ cause. 

There are deep southern American roots 

throughout Lewis’ live set, as there are in many 

of his studio recordings. Particular structuring 

and songwriting techniques stretch back to 

early Robert Johnson and Blind Willie McTell 

song-telling traditions. The ole’ Delta blues 

with a huge influx of punk rock mentality. And 

if that isn’t a lesson enough for you, I don’t 

know what is. 

Sam Banks / @samjamesbanks 

GREEN MAN 

Brecon Beacons 

After an almost eight-hour coach journey 

consisting of bleak, monotonous roads and 

homogenised service-station food, nothing is 

more refreshing than GREEN MAN’s stunning 

location. Like a baptismal ceremony, the donning 

of the wristband and the bathing in the wealth 

of the mountainous fresh air that surrounds us 

seems to cleanse us of the sights and smells 

found inside the toilets of Birmingham coach 

station. 

It only takes seconds to kickstart our senses 

as they are bombarded by a flurry of glitter, spices 

and some of the finest music around. Green Man 

may technically be a boutique festival still, having 

resisted the huge draw of the mainstream, but 

it’s fast-becoming a Mecca for those music lovers 

who aren’t willing to forego style or substance on 

their festival experience. 

Jeffrey Lewis & Los Bolts (Marty Saleh / @martysaleh) 

What better way to celebrate the new lease 

of life Green Man has granted us than with 

Aussie force of nature KING GIZZARD AND THE 

LIZARD WIZARD. The tent they’re playing in is 

packed to capacity and sprawling out onto the 

field behind. With the band’s fortunes having 

snowballed within the last few years, it’s 

no question that they are perhaps the most 

anticipated of the day. So, as the totalitarian 

shouts and electric hums of Robot Stop are 

hurled at the audience, they seem to catch 

fire. With the crowd electric, the group set 

about bombarding us with a set that fails to 

disappoint. They fly through almost the entire 

new album, relentlessly ploughing through, 

only stopping for a much-needed breath and 

the occasional classic tune for the long-time 

listeners. With a performance like this, the hell 

of getting here is easily forgotten. 

Waking not entirely fresh-faced but content, 

we set about the second day exploring the vast 

festival site, peering into a mobile bookshop 

with a crime section entirely composed of Tony 

Blair’s My Story. Dipping in and out of tents 

to shelter from the changeable weather, we 

catch the joyful exuberance of MEILYR JONES, 

the sexual riffs of CONNAN MOCKASIN, the 

hypnotic, trance-like psych of SUUNS and the 

hometown, homemade psych of TOM LOW. 

However, the highlight of the day comes in the 

form of Welsh-language shoegazers YSGOL 

SUL. The relatively modest Rising Stage tent 

is bursting at the seams with Ysgol Sul's loyal, 

young, Welsh-speaking fanbase, who are as 

merry as they come. Mixing melodic guitar 

with their cryptic (well, to us at least) Welsh 

drawl, the band’s rather downbeat recordings 

turn into anthems when they unspool live. The 

tunes are slurred out by the adoring fans, who 

are acknowledged by the occasional smile from 

the home-country heroes. The atmosphere is 

not one that will be easily beaten, and proves 

the importance and significance of keeping the 

Welsh language alive. 

Awaking the next morning to a soaked 

tent we set about our search for our first 

Green Man 

band of the day: FEWS. Having released their 

first album this year, the Transatlantic, trans- 

European group have been causing quite the 

storm in Britain’s back rooms, inciting riots 

with a tornado of moody, psych-infused rock. 

So it seems quite fitting to have gale-force 

warnings prior to their arrival. With turbulence 

and ferocity much like the wind outside, the 

band slay through whirring, distortion-fed riffs. 

With the tent crammed, the band stop between 

each song to state their disbelief at the size of 

the crowd they’ve drawn before kicking back 

into another song. They finish with Ill before 

slinking off backstage while the crowd applaud 

viciously. 

Having spent the day dowsed in a series 

of rare treats including JAGWAR MA, MICHAEL 

ROTHER and BATTLES as well as a man playing 

sitar to a falcon … it is soon that time again 

to revel in the glorious debauchery of FAT 

WHITE FAMILY, who are perhaps the best live 

band of the past five years. Love them or hate 

them, they really do know how to put on a 

show. Whether that be smearing themselves 

in excrement or barrelling into their adoring 

crowd, there is always an uncertainty in seeing 

the debaucherous sons of South London that 

never fails to get the adrenaline pumping. 

Despite the absence of founding member 

Saul Adamczewski, the band arrive to cheers 

of adoration from the usual array of the 

degenerates plus the fluffy-eyed newcomers 

not entirely sure what to expect. It takes little 

more than 30 seconds for lead singer Lias 

Saoudi to have shed his shirt as he gazes 

into the distance. What follows in the next 45 

minutes is a sporadic sweat- and beer-soaked 

onslaught of madness with violent screams 

and Fat White Family’s fear-inducing rockabilly 

and krautrock leaving the audience content. 

The morning after this depravity is justifiably 

more subdued, as we settle into the day 

with MAGERET GLASPY’s beautiful ballads 

before catching the androgynous antics of 

HAPPY MEAL LTD and EZRA FURMAN. With the 

weekend coming to a close, we head to catch 

bidolito.co.uk

S.J.M. CONCERTS PRESENTS 

S.J.M. Concerts by arrangement with SOLO Agency, Vector and SF&BA Management present 

ONE NIGHT ONLY 

WED 07 DECEMBER 

LIVERPOOL ECHO ARENA 

A CELEBRATION OF HIS FINEST SONGS WITH AN ORCHESTRA CONDUCTED BY WILL MALONE 

GIGSANDTOURS.COM / TICKETMASTER.CO.UK 

RICHARDASHCROFT.COM 

NEW ALBUM ‘THESE PEOPLE’ OUT NOW INCLUDES THE SINGLES ‘HOLD ON’, 

‘THIS IS HOW IT FEELS’ & ‘THEY DON’T OWN ME’ 

AN SJM CONCERTS PRESENTATION BY ARRANGEMENT WITH ITB 

SATURDAY 10TH DECEMBER 

LIVERPOOL 

ECHO ARENA 

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S.J.M. Concerts by arrangement with ITB presents 

Plus special guests 

Friday 18 November Liverpool Echo Arena 

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New album Mapping The Rendezvous out 21 Oct

38 


WHITNEY. Having met the group earlier in the 

day when it seemed that they were on their 

first ecstasy comedown, their actual live set 

proves they’re not going to let this stop them. 

Fuelled with Red Bull and a couple of whiskies, 

the group play their melancholic indie lullabies 

to perfection. For a band that pens songs about 

death, drugs and lost relationships, it’s ironic 

that the sun comes out on them, breaking the 

relentless downpour of the previous two days. 

With the symbolic burning of the Green 

Man heralding the festival’s end, it hits us 

how exhausting and satisfying the whole 

experience has been. And, despite having 

taken full advantage of the weekend, we could 

have done it again completely differently and 

still had a great festival. Now that’s a sign that 

it doesn’t take an expert in pagan worship to 

work out. 

Matt Hogarth 

ANIMAL COLLECTIVE 

EVOL and Harvest Sun @ O2 Academy 

What you see is not what you get. The room 

is drenched as high-intensity washes of colour 

are projected over our heads onto a cartoonish 

stage with racks of synthesisers, drums and 

effects pedals. When the masses raise their 

arms overhead to welcome ANIMAL COLLECTIVE 

onstage, hands everywhere pierce those beams 

to see their skin dancing with pixelated bursts 

of light. From this sumptuous live show, to their 

habit of wrapping their albums in op art, the 

visual element is as much a part of this band 

as their densely layered music. Considering 

they’ve been featured in The Wire magazine, 

strip away most of those layers and what you 

get is a core of catchy melodic pop. That’s the 

payload, and the noisy experimentation on top, 

like the visuals, is a means of delivery. 

It’s telling that, after a shaky first act, 

FloriDaDa emerges as the most bangworthy 

tune despite being rather mildly received as 

a single. The set is heavy on material from 

February’s Painting With, but, by running songs 

into each other in three sets, they generate 

enough atmosphere to keep everyone’s 

attention. Within the confines of each song, 

they’re on form – it’s the experimental segues 

that seem unfocused, like they aren’t all quite 

sure where they’re moving to next. That said, 

there are moments – a vocal harmony or a drop 

here and there – which really are touchstones. 

And they work so hard, if the gyrations of 

Geologist’s headtorch are anything to go by. 

I’ll say this once and once only: it’s a shame 

they couldn’t have done this in The Kazimier. 

There are very few cuts from classic 

albums Strawberry Jam and Merriweather 

Post Pavilion tonight until a strong encore 

of Baby Day (inspiring fond memories of a 

Liverpool appearance with Four Tet 10 years 

ago), The Purple Bottle, and Daily Routine. All 

the Animal Collective prerequisites are there: 

bouncing rhythms, vocals that sound like the 

jungle at dawn, and lysergic patterns of rococo 

sound on top of everything. You could call it 

the Beach Boys on acid, if the Wilson brothers 

hadn’t beaten them to it. A Jackson Pollock or a 

Technicolor yawn? Impossible to say, but you’d 

have to be trying pretty hard not to enjoy a 

trip to the zoo. 

Stuart Miles O’Hara / @ohasm1 

50 YEARS OF REVOLVER 

Liverpool Acoustic @ Leaf 

Loneliness. It’s one of the main themes 

explored on The Beatles’ Revolver, the record 

that changed an industry and inspired a spark 

in the minds of bright young talents, launching 

careers and records for generations to come. 

Yet, within the warmth of Leaf, on the date of 

the album’s 50 th birthday, it’s love that we find. 

An entire room of people have crowded in to 

celebrate Revolver’s birthday, with ROXANNE 

DE BASTION set to perform the album in full, 

with, of course, a little help from her friends 

– who just so happen to be Liverpool’s finest 

musicians and songwriters. After a small 

speech about how The Beatles marked her 

life from childhood to adulthood, she takes 

to the stage with THOM MORECROFT to open 

with Taxman. What emanates is a pure and 

crystalline duet, full of sweet falsettos and 

beautiful, intricate fingerpicking. Never has, or 

perhaps will again, a song about higher-rate 

tax levels sounded just so beautiful. 

Before the last chord has even stopped 

rippling, newcomer FABIA takes to the stage 

and sits at the piano to play the record’s second 

track. From the opening chords of Eleanor 

Rigby, she takes the room into a dark and 

dreamlike environment. Her voice, deep and 

swelling with heartache and emotion, billows 

through the venue – summoning us all to that 

graveyard at the church where Eleanor lays. 

Before long, De Bastion returns once again for 

I’m Only Sleeping, showing that she harnesses 

the kind of voice that is so pure and honest 

that it is impossible to ignore, before Thom 

Morecroft gives a charming solo performance 

of Here, There and Everywhere. With his sweet 

vibrato and underpinning of Buckingham grit, 

his performance is the equivalent of a hot tea 

during snowfall. ELEANOR NELLY is next to 

have her moment, with a soulful rendition of 

Good Day Sunshine. Full of a love and youthful 

Ceremony Concerts Present 

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George Monbiot & Ewan McLennan 

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Robyn Hitchcock 

The Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool - Saturday 22 nd October 2016 

Kristin Hersh 

The Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool – Saturday 19 th November 2016 

Michael Chapman & Nick Ellis 

The Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool - Sunday 20 th November 2016 

Sheelanagig 

The Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool - Sunday 27 th November 2016 

James Yorkston 

The Magnet, Liverpool – Thursday 15 th December 2016 

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TUESDAY 29TH NOVEMBER 

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LUNA PERFORMING ‘PENTHOUSE’ 


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TUESDAY 27TH SEPTEMBER 

FRANKIE BALLARD 


JOHN 5 AND THE CREATURES 


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40 


In truth, it was that experimentation that 

was Revolver’s key. It was taking different 

sounds and cultures and blending them in ways 

not thought possible – highlighted only by the 

varied genres and musicianship of the artists 

taking part this evening. It’s clear Revolver will 

keep on inspiring musicians to take risks and 

will provide listeners with a journey through 

music for generations into the future, as we 

all play the game ‘existence’ to the end of the 

beginning… 

Scott Smith / @ThinkScott 

AN EVENING WITH 

SCROOBIUS PIP 

Waterstones @ Leaf 

innocence that couldn’t help but lift the spirits of 

any hardy soul, she leaves the audience singing 

after her. 

At this point it’s easy to remember that 

The Beatles were a wakeup call for so many, 

regardless of age or genre, as we’re also reminded 

of the collective power of music to bring people 

50 Years Of Revolver (Mike Sheerin / michaelsheerin.photoshelter.com) 

together. This is only highlighted during the KING, JOE SYMES, ALAN O’HARE and RICHARD 

twist of the evening, when it’s revealed the next DE BASTION all perform their takes on the 

performer is in fact, us, the audience. As the lyrics record before SHE DREW THE GUN draw the 

to Yellow Submarine appear on the screen in tribute to its close, offering a mind-blowing, 

karaoke style, I’m sure the chorus in the room electric, otherworldly performance of Tomorrow 

could be heard halfway across Merseyside. Never Knows, reminding everybody just how 

The SOUTHBOUND ATTIC BAND, DEREK experimental and game-changing the song was. 

Most people will know SCROOBIUS PIP as 

the gritty spoken-word artist whose songs 

with Dan Le Sac – Thou Shalt Always Kill, 

Introdiction and Get Better – still resonate with 

the British psyche today. After gaining notoriety, 

he went from playing Britain’s back rooms 

and open-mic nights right the way through to 

Glastonbury. From working in HMV to signing 

record deals, Pip (real name David Meads) has 

managed to achieve what very few do: crack 

the music industry while maintaining artistic 

Milapfest presents 

Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt 

with Pandit Rajkumar Misra 

Saturday 1 October 2016 / 7:30pm 

The Capstone Theatre, Liverpool 

World renowned 

Grammy Award 

winning musician 

performs in 

Liverpool for a 

special one-off 

performance 

Vishwa Mohan Bhatt is 

the king of Slide guitar 

(Mohan Veena) 

- Boston Globe, USA 

www.milapfest.com /milapfest @milapfest /milapfestivaltrust 

@milapfest 

Tickets £12 / £10 concessions 

Ticket Office 0151 291 3949 / www.milapfest.com 

The Capstone Theatre, Liverpool

Reviews 


41 

integrity. Within recent years, however, Pip has 

taken a hiatus from the music and turned his 

hand to pretty much everything else, including 

acting, running a record label and hosting his 

own radio show. Most recently, he’s seen his 

Distraction Pieces Podcast blossom from a 

pastime to a fully-blown podcasting network. 

Over the last two years, Pip has managed 

to interview everyone from comedians and 

actors to political activists and victims of some 

of the worst atrocities known to man, and has 

shown quite a flair for teasing out the human 

moments in all the stories that he encounters. 

Having compiled the best of the podcast into 

his latest book, Distraction Pieces – which 

comprises sections on mental health and 

death, taken from conversations with people 

from all backgrounds and walks of life – it 

seems fitting that the launch of this book sees 

Pip turn the tables and let the public ask their 

questions. 

Having previously spoken of the very real 

issue of lower-than-expected attendances at 

gigs in Liverpool, it seems that Pip’s comments 

have provoked a response, with the event 

selling out way in advance. Whether this is 

out of spite or Scousers finally taking notice of 

Pip’s criticism, it’s great to see a packed room. 

As he arrives onstage to relaxed applause, the 

event seems initially like a casual meeting 

of friends. The spoken-word artist’s humble 

Scroobius Pip (Stuart Moulding / @oohshootstu) 

and modest demeanour sets the room at 

ease as he talks candidly with his extremely 

knowledgeable interviewer, who seems to be 

able to reference everything that Pip says back 

to some chapter of the book. Pip’s tales come 

thick and fast, and subject matters fluctuate in 

mood violently between surreal tales of being 

on Guy Ritchie’s set, Tom Hardy in the middle 

of Snowdonia being filmed by helicopter, to 

the topic of drugs and the issues with drug 

legislation within the UK. Perhaps the most 

hard-hitting and memorable discussion of the 

night arrives with the topic of his Housing For 

Women special podcast, in which he discusses 

the harsh and often hidden truth of human 

trafficking. The importance of the uncensored 

podcast format hits hard, as the programme 

would have been censored if it was intended 

for network broadcast. 

With Pip inviting the audience onstage to 

ask their own questions, it’s interesting to see 

the vast amount of subjects that he’s able – 

and willing – to talk coherently on. He draws 

one final hearty applause with his unabashed 

thoughts on shit-rag The Sun, and with that 

the contented audience form a signings queue 

that snakes round the room, everyone feeling 

slightly more enlightened. 

Matt Hogarth 

LAST CHANCE TO ENTER! 

Film your entry video at one of our performance 

locations before the Merseyrail Sound Station 

prize closes on Saturday 22nd October 

For more info go to 

merseyrailsoundstation.com 

Get There By Train

42 


BANK HOLIDAY PUNK 

WEEKENDER 

AntiPop Records @ Maguire’s Pizza Bar 

Pizza is pretty punk rock. It’s greasy, it’s 

fucking good (if not for your health), and you 

eat it with your hands from a box with a load of 

other people. How could it not be punk? Hence, 

Maguire’s Pizza Bar as the ideal venue for 

AntiPop’s three-day August showcase of their 

snottiest and best. Filling in for the indisposed 

Ohmns, HELLO MABEL prove early on that punk 

is not all about speed, 18-hole DMs, and egg 

whites in your hair (though all three are in 

abundance this weekend). An acoustic duo 

singing in Lanky twang, they release their pentup 

anger in wordy, thought-provoking bursts, 

including covers of Against Me! and Red Sea 

Radio (“No one’s heard of them, but they’re 

amazing. The singer sounds like a tree”). 

FLAT BACK FOUR, EPIC PROBLEM, CHEWED UP, 

and MATILDA’S SCOUNDRELS paper over the 

cracks between puerile pop-punk and hardcore 

via Celtic Oi!, leading smoothly to breakout 

stars RASH DECISION on Saturday night. The 

noise they make is glorious, furious, and Dave 

Decision screams like Tom Araya stepping on 

a LEGO brick. This is the soundtrack to people 

throwing themselves around a little black box, 

no chitchat, just sweat. Playing like they drove 

seven hours from Cornwall to be here, they’re 

far and away the centrepiece of the whole 

weekend, and they scrawl their setlist on a 

pizza box too. 

Sometimes you need three chords played 

really fast through a tinny amplifier just to 

keep the circle going, and there are plenty of 

bands on the bill doing just that: Liverpool 

legends DOWN AND OUTS, Manchester’s 

REVENGE OF THE PSYCHOTRONIC MAN, and 

antifascist Scots RANDOM SCANDAL. But 

there are a few curveballs. “Don’t fucking clap, 

it only encourages us,” plead Saturday openers 

WANWEIRD, representing the neuro-atypical 

faction that Devo so willingly served. “We’re 

all wondering what punk in the 21 st Century 

means. Well… it’s all about the face,” they say, 

before playing their three-second-long ‘hit’ 

Punkface for the fourth time. 

If punk is all about the face, then STUCK IN A 

RUT are exemplars of facecore. This set is an EP 

launch, and they play/scream out of their skin 

accordingly, climbing over the soundsystem, 

giving the home crowd stomach-churning 

shifts of tempo, neck muscles and forehead 

veins a-poppin’. Finally, on Sunday, 2 SICK 

MONKEYS provide a warm-hearted finish to 

the weekend (their ninth day on tour) proving 

that, despite the screaming and shoving, most 

of these card-carrying punks are sweethearts 

beneath the studded, patched denim of their 

jackets. After three days’ Attenborough-like 

observation, it’s impossible not to abandon 

my dispassionate vantage point and join the 

circle for Anti-Pop’s “best band in the known 

universe”. 

Stuart Miles O’Hara / @ohasm1 

GRRRL POWER 

Constellations 

The underrepresented female masses are 

making a movement, and exhibitions like 

GRRRL POWER – whose aim was to make space 

for women’s art in Liverpool – are where they’re 

finding a platform. It is important to point out 

how popular the call-to-action ‘Women: where 

do you find yourself in the arts’ is in making this 

event a huge success, as the exhibition reports, 

through various works, how overlooked 

female creatives are compared to their male 

counterparts. 

Michelle Houlston, an organiser of the event 

and a contributing Flash Fiction writer, says: “I 

didn’t see myself creatively for a long time, but 

I am starting to, in a serious way. I belong here 

and I need to believe that.” 

Exhibited artist Ria Fell delineates the 

gender imbalance by including statistics in 

her drawing and print pieces; for example, 

the sale price of the most expensive artworks 

sold at auction in 2015 by a living male in 

comparison to a living female artist (Gerhard 

Richter’s work sold for £30,389,000 while his 

female counterpart Cady Nolan’s piece sold 

for £6,172,110). Ria Fell’s collection also makes 

the defining statement of the exhibition: “The 

question of women’s equality – in art as in any 

other realm – devolves […] on the very nature 

of our institutional structures themselves and 

the view of reality which they impose on the 

human beings who are part of them.” 

This analysis of culture well defines the 

spirit of the exhibition, as well as the spaces 

and workshops that have been created for 

specific groups of women for the duration of 

the show. Queen Of The Track is a collective 

of women who produce a zine, and are 

beginning to develop larger art experiments. 

At Constellations their workshop focuses on 

identifying how a patriarchal society holds 

women accountable for female behaviour 

that refuses to be haunted by the ‘patriarchal 

ghost’. Similar to the ‘Cinderella complex’, the 

patriarchal ghost is a subconscious imprint that 

women perform; it is the behavioural blueprint 

that favours male satisfaction and power over 

impulse or personal preference. 

One of the speakers, Fliss Mitchell, discusses 

using behaviour shifts as a way of being an 

everyday activist for women. This includes not

Distribution is what we do... 

Leaflets 

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Posters 

Bido Lito! 

0151 708 0166 

bookings@middledistance.org 

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44 


SOUND MATTERS 

In this monthly column, our friends at DAWSONS give expert tips and advice on how to 

achieve a great sound in the studio or in the live environment. Armed with the knowledge to 

solve any musical problem, the techy aficionados provide Bido Lito! readers with the benefit 

of their experience so you can get the sound you want. Here, Dawsons’ DJ expert Dave Surman 

answers a question inspired by last month’s feature interview with Lauren Lo Sung. 

WHEN IT COMES TO STARTING 

UP AS A DJ, WHETHER IT’S 

MIXING, SELECTING OR 

OTHERWISE, WHAT ADVICE 

WOULD YOU GIVE ASPIRING 

SPIN DOCTORS IN TERMS OF 

PRODUCTS ON THE MARKET, 

FUNCTIONS AND TECHNIQUES? 

While many DJs still want to play tracks the 

old-fashioned way with vinyl, wheels of steel 

and the like, a lot of emerging selectors are 

embracing the possibilities that come with 

digital DJ equipment. With their sync options 

– meaning tracks will always run into one 

another perfectly – easy-to-use sampling 

functions and a host of other fantastic 

features, these systems from brands such as 

Pioneer, Numark and Denon are likely to be 

the future. With people looking to invest in 

this equipment, I like to talk them through 

the controller and the software and see which 

best fit their needs. 

For people new to DJing, their main criterion 

when looking at DDJ equipment (decks that 

utilise MP3s from laptops or USB sticks) is 

often price. DDJ equipment is great for a new 

DJ as it is multi-functional in that it makes it 

easy to mix, sample, select and analyse tracks 

ahead of choosing them. If a prospective DJ is 

not sure how seriously they are about DJing, 

how many gigs they will pick up or how much 

they will enjoy it going forward, they may 

want to go for a more entry-level system and 

see how they get on. Two systems that we 

always recommend are the Pioneer DDJ-RB 

and the Numark Mixtrack Pro III. A new DJ can 

walk out of the store with this system plus a 

speaker set for under £300 and be ready to 

spin some tunes – providing they have the 

bidolito.co.uk 

laptop and the music collection! I am a fan of 

the Pioneer DDJ-RB as Pioneer is a brand of 

great standing in clubland, and this system 

comes with Rekordbox DJ software, which 

makes it easy to do the basics as well as the 

more advanced DJing techniques. 

It’s important to consider the software 

you use in conjunction with the controller 

as this will play a large part in your DJing 

experience. I have always liked Serato, which 

has proved easy to use and other people I 

teach tend to pick it up easily. The fact that 

Serato is available with Pioneer DDJ-SB2 is an 

advantage of this system as more and more 

Pioneer kits are being paired with Rekordbox, 

although this is also very good software. 

Another good option for the beginner DJ is 

the Denon MC2000 DJ controller which, like 

the Pioneer series, has intuitive controls with 

which you can easily familiarise yourself, and 

it is also very compact, meaning you can quite 

easily carry it around town to your next gig. 

For the more discerning DJ who is willing to 

spend a bit more on their hobby or profession, 

there are some fantastic high-quality units 

from Pioneer. The mid-range Pioneer DDJ-SR 

comes in at £459 but is worth paying the extra 

for as it offers great usability and functions. 

At the top end of the range, Pioneer 

have the reliable DDJ-SX2 and DDJ-RX for 

£759. These controllers give you extensive 

functionality, are really reliable and enable 

you to perform a professional set in most 

settings. They come with Serato DJ, which is 

top-of-the-line software, meaning you really 

have the full package. 

Whether you go for entry-level equipment 

or the more high-end spec the important 

thing about DJing is having fun. If you 

have fun, invariably your listeners on the 

dancefloor will too! 

You can find Dawsons at their new home at 

14-16 Williamson Square. dawsons.co.uk 

saying ‘sorry’ for taking control or being assertive 

– something that is often misread as ‘threatening’. 

Fliss also discusses not taking responsibility 

for the emotional wellbeing of adult males 

(particularly in work scenarios). The role of the 

emotional caretaker is culturally engrained but 

not appropriate in pressured environments such 

as work. 

These themes are well related to the impact 

of the art on display. Margie Houlston’s digitals 

sketches for Leg Room are exhibited in the men’s 

toilets at Constellations. They depict men sitting 

in a ‘ladylike’ fashion (legs crossed, posture 

inward), and women sitting in between them in 

more ‘masculine’ poses (arms crossed and legs 

spread wide). The placement of the sketches, 

next to some urinals, is intended to cause social 

situations at Constellations where urinating 

men ask visitors to the exhibition: ‘What are 

you doing in here? Am I in the wrong place?’ The 

idea being that a role reversal takes place: ‘male 

space’ becomes occupied and intruded upon by 

women. Social standards, ritual and the power 

balance are thrown into flux in the same way that 

women’s potential, comfort and way-of-being is 

threatened in spaces that are culturally owned by 

the physicality, and physical desire of the opposite 

sex. 

Ren Aldridge’s work maps out sites of street 

harassment in Liverpool. Visitors are invited to 

write about and map incidents in which their 

safety had been threatened, or in which they 

felt intimidated by catcalling or unwanted and 

inappropriate attention. This sparks conversation, 

debate and camaraderie amongst the female 

visitors. 

The Grrrl Power of the cohort of artists is fuelled 

by a group of women who have become allies. 

It is an act of activism to love other women. It is 

possible to create a cultural shift with this type of 

unity in which women do not divide themselves 

because they recognise each other as competition 

(and a potential threat) with fear-based questions 

such as: ‘Is she pretty?’ Refusing to bring down 

another woman and her life choices is an act 

of activism. To experience this exhibition was 

to be at the beginning of a new wave, and the 

continuation of a sea change. We would strongly 

encourage all women to find their Grrrl Gang and 

create some space; they are out there. 

Sue Bennett / @sue_writes 

THE DRIFTING CLASSROOM 

The Harry Francisco Band – Luke 

Gallagher – Skylight 

The Zanzibar 

When I step into The Zanzibar, I’m a little 

perturbed. The gaggle of teenagers surrounding 

and playing on the stage worry me no end. 

SKYLIGHT reveal themselves to be a cover band 

of pop punk songs I half recognise, much loved 

by the young crowd. It’s not my thing, but Skylight 

are that local band that are bound to find their 

niche. They play too well together, especially for 

such a young band, to not find success. As well 

as being young, they’re cheeky. “We’re playing 

over the Adelphi after this, everyone come with 

The Drifting Classroom 

(Marty Saleh / @martysaleh) 

us!” Think I’ll pass, but their teen fans follow them 

over. 

Modfather lookalike LUKE GALLAGHER takes 

to the mic next. He’s a prolific singer-songwriter 

hailing from Wrexham, and brings his pop-infused 

mod-revival acoustic songs to the stage. The Zanzi 

begins to fill up with actual adults as Gallagher 

plays a variety of songs from his surprisingly large 

back catalogue. Each track hints at the mod scene 

greats of yore, from the wit and charm of The Kinks 

to the catchy pop hooks of The Jam. He gives his 

latest record a quick flog, after playing a track from 

it. He’s getting a lot done, the Liverpool acoustic 

scene is growing. I expect to see Luke Gallagher 

again. 

To all outward appearances, the next band on 

look like a dad-rock outfit. THE HARRY FRANCISCO 

BAND aren’t exactly changing any opinions with 

their name, but certainly do with their music. 

Liverpool has had long loves with many different 

genres, and country is one. This is an influence 

these fellas wear brazenly. Their songs have 

the Nashville twang to them, blended with that 

equally American blues rock sound. They’ve got 

the typical guitars and harmonicas, with an added 

twist of xylophone for one track. Their set doesn’t 

invade the crowd’s space, it invites everyone 

along for the ride. 

I’m not sure if THE DRIFTING CLASSROOM take 

their name from an early 70s Japanese horror 

manga of the same name, but they’re certainly 

much more upbeat. Launching their new album 

Oubliette on the Skinny Dog label, the band are 

in celebratory mood, which is reflected in the 

crowd. They dive into their first song, and I’m 

instantly reminded of Weezer. It’s power pop, 

incorporating the sounds of a 50s prom-night 

band. The cheery dance numbers are there, as 

too are the end-of-the-night slow waltz tunes. 

The band still mix it up on a few tracks, with 

some ragtime piano sprinkled over as one of 

those Nashville Tennessee riffs pays us another 

visit. The Drifting Classroom’s songwriting is 

reminiscent of The Decemberists – warbling folk 

tale lyrics, as are Marc Sunderland’s vocals. The 

songs are accessible and enjoyable, reflecting 

on everyday experiences of everyday people. It’s 

easy to see why this Liverpool based act caught 

the eye of Elbow’s Guy Garvey, and I imagine I’ll be 

seeing their name on more posters around town. 

Kieran Donnachie

WIRRAL’S 3 WEEK MUSIC FESTIVAL 

WITH THE GUITAR AT ITS HEART 

NOVEMBER 2016 

4th WISHBONE ASH 

6th WIRRAL SONGWRITERS 

9th 

JOHN LEES’ 

BARCLAY JAMES HARVEST 

10th 

ANDY FAIRWEATHER LOW 

& THE LOW RIDERS 

12th RUMOURS OF FLEETWOOD MAC 

12th PETER ASHER AND ALBERT LEE 

16th JOE BROWN 

18th GLENN TILBROOK 

19th 

GUITAR LEGENDS: 

CLASSIC MOVIE ANTHEMS 

20th PHIL CHISNALL BAND 

PLUS MORE ACTS TO BE ADDED 

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THE 

FINAL 

SAY 

DIGGING A LITTLE DEEPER 

with The Voodoo Ball 

We’re always interested to hear what waxy gems are lurking in the depths of the record bags 

of the city’s DJs, or the kind of music they’re indulging in away from the dancefloor. Benjamin 

Power from THE VOODOO BALL introduces us to some of the finest Afrofuturism sounds that will 

be taking centre stage at their upcoming event. 

“Afrofuturism is not now – nor has it ever been – a genre of music. It is a cultural aesthetic 

taking in all art forms that push boundaries and challenge and critique the African diaspora. This 

can be heard in music by George Clinton, read in books by Octavia Butler or even seen in cartoons 

like Afro Samurai or Boondocks. The late, great, Sun Ra was one of the first artists to pick up the 

Afrofuturist mantle, with others both willingly and unwittingly following in his footsteps. This is 

why our selections run through jazz, hip hop and techno.” 

SUN RA 

NUCLEAR WAR 

One of the greatest jazz musicians of all time and an artist who broke 

all the rules and smashed all the barriers. This song was released before 

the term Afrofuturism was coined but definitely holds all the forwardthinking 

mentality that’s necessary to claim the label. 

RUFUS HARLEY 

EIGHT MILES HIGH 

RUFUS HARLEY was a pioneer of psychedelic jazz and, knowingly or 

not, he infused a space-age sound into his music. Harley first heard the 

bagpipes during the funeral procession for John F. Kennedy; from that 

moment he was hooked, and incorporated them into every song he 

could – most notably on this cover of The Bryds’ classic. 

DELTRON 3030 

POSITIVE CONTACT 

Hip hop is not normally considered to be Afrofuturistic, but DELTRON 

3030 smashed this illusion with their eponymous breakthrough album. 

Science fiction is also a big part of Afrofuturism, and with this album set 

in an alternate universe telling the story of Del the Funky Homosapien’s 

alter ego fighting the corporations that rule the universe, you can’t argue 

with its futurist status. 

DREXCIYA 

DARTHOUVEN FISH MEN 

Again, this may be considered strange to include this, but DREXCIYA 

are a mystery, a space-age, electronic mystery. Their roots are heavily 

embedded in political history with them revealing through the sleeve 

notes of one of their albums that Drexciya was an underwater country 

populated by the unborn children of pregnant women thrown off slave 

ships. 

Want some more Afrofuturism? The Voodoo Ball DJs have provided us with a mix to accompany this 

column, which you can listen to now at bidolito.co.uk. The Voodoo Ball – Return To Afrotopia takes 

place at Invisible Wind Factory on 29th October. 

@radioexoticaDJ 

Words: Laura Brown 

Each month we hand over the responsibility of having the magazine’s final say to a different 

columnist. For this issue’s closing comment, the team behind Liverpool Irish Festival explain why 

2016 is an important year to reflect on the strength of Liverpool and Ireland’s shared heritage. 

Self-identity: traditional vanguard or tome A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man, the 

contemporary new wave? This year’s Liverpool Ambassador to Ireland, Dan Mulhall, Professor 

Irish Festival considers both. 

Frank Shovlin of the University of Liverpool’s 

A tension rankles between the traditional Institute of Irish Studies, and other academics 

vanguard and today’s ‘new wave’. Reflected will discuss its significance and legacy. Scadán – 

in culture, multiple understandings of history a new Irish story and production from Liverpool 

and our communication choices, the struggle and Irish writers, actors and producers – explores 

to understand generations before and after our five female stories on an Irish island, 100 years 

own is often at the root of why we create: to tell ago. 

our story. In the centenary year of the Easter Commemorative responses differ across the 

Rising and the year of Brexit – two defining and generations, offering moments of reflection 

connected moments shaping Ireland, Britain and and chances to explore a central moment in the 

Europe – the tension between new and old is of foundation of the Irish Republic. 1916’s Easter 

the zeitgeist. 

Rising saw six days of fighting in Dublin, with 

Tension isn’t necessarily negative. It can be the nearly 100 men and women risking everything to 

propellant needed to push beliefs and society travel from Liverpool to take part, stating a claim 

forward, to making new ground and moving past for their Irish-ness. Currently, six million ‘English 

outdated thought. Consider last year’s majority people’ await Irish passport decisions, showing 

vote supporting gay marriage in the Republic of ‘Irish-ness’ is just as important today. Accordingly, 

Ireland – a powerfully progressive statement that this year, we are showing contemporary works 

would have been wholly unimaginable at the exploring what the Easter Rising means – 

time of the Eater Rising. It demonstrates that we historically and today – in artefact form (at 

can take something traditional – marriage – and Central Library) and in print (at The Bagelry), with 

inject it with a contemporary spark – equality! – to additional talks on the subject. Singer-songwriter 

create something new, showing that tension can Damien Dempsey performs his unique album 

create something warm, friendly and downright No Force On Earth commemorating the Rising 

convivial. We need to celebrate these stories to (at the Philharmonic’s Music Room). We’re also 

keep moving forward. 

delighted to be showing Liverpool Lambs, a play 

So, what is ‘a story’? Literally, a story is about Scouse involvement in the Rising by Peter 

“a narrative designed to interest, amuse, King, a descendent of the famous Liverpudlian 

or instruct the receiver”. Stories allow us Easter Uprising volunteers the King brothers. 

to understand personal positions, picture The Liverpool Irish Festival does not pitch new 

individual environments and reflect and share against old: it explores what can be learned from 

our histories, differences and similarities. They both and enjoys what can happen in between. 

state our identities. Post-Brexit, our stories could Without taking sides, it considers how and why 

be more important than ever, which informs we arrive where we are and how we may use our 

what 2016’s Liverpool Irish Festival is about: experiences to shape what follows. It provides 

bringing Liverpool and Ireland closer together. convivial environments to provoke discussion, 

What could be more convivial than that? 

encourage sharing and explore difference, 

The Everyman’s Street Café will provide the whilst building friendships, progressing views 

social hub for the festival this year, providing a and creating positive experiences. Sound 

small library of Irish materials and a space for interesting? 

people to meet, talk about the festival events 

and make friends. The festival also holds Liverpool Irish Festival runs between 13th and 23rd 

multiple stories ripe for sharing, discussing and October, taking place across a variety of venues 

reconsidering, with two particular examples and comprising music, dance, performance and 

standing out for their personal touch. One talks. 

hundred years since James Joyce’s landmark liverpoolirishfestival.com

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Issue 71 / October 2016

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