Live Review: The Oozes – The Underworld, London 20.04.2023
They hate the Tories, they hate the police…but The Oozes LOVE to rock! Railing against injustice and prejudice, they have no time for inequality or the patriarchy. Change is coming and The Oozes are the vanguard. Sweeping away the old with a wave of queer punk rage and charm. The Oozes are so very now. Backseat …
Live Review: We Are Scientists – Le Petit Bain, Paris 26.03.2023
I was very VERY drunk the first time I saw We Are Scientists. At their London gig way back when they were still plugging their 2005 debut album With Love And Squalor. Drunk on beer and drunk on love having embarked on a new relationship. Fast forward almost 17 years and We Are Scientists (and …
Live Review: Emiliana Torrini & The Colorist Orchestra – Le Trabendo, Paris 27.03.2023
An Icelandic-Italian singer backed by a Belgian band in the French capital watched by an Englishman. Gotta love Europe. Emiliana Torrini and The Colorist Orchestra celebrate the release of new album Racing the Storm at this headline Paris show. Walking through the litter-strewn streets earlier, it felt like Paris is collectively catching a breath before …
Meet: London Post-Punks Ghum
Usually you’d expect to find second hand sofas, used motors and ‘pre-owned’ furniture but Gumtree is also responsible for creating post-punk London-based band Ghum. The band formed through the social media marketplace and have since become dark, simmering stalwarts on the London gig scene. Backseat Mafia caught up with Laura, Marina and JoJo from the …
Live Review: The Wannadies – Islington Assembly Hall, London 03.11.2022
The 1990s felt like the Swedish decade. Scandinavian style social democracy dominated politics whilst bands like The Cardigans and The Wannadies provided the songs for the CDs we so neatly stacked in all those IKEA shelf units. The Wannadies, led by cheeky, curly-haired scamp Pär Wiksten provided one of the ready assembled, rom-com songs of …
Live Review: Beth Orton – Koko, London 09.10.2022
Beth Orton made me cry. Her surprising cover of The Ronettes song I Wish I Never Saw The Sunshine on her debut Trailer Park is electric with emotion and sad resignation. Beth’s trademark fragility hugged my soul and cured a bout of twenty-something gloomy angst. Beth does this. Now touring her eighth studio album – …
Live Review: HowTheLightGetsIn Festival – Kenwood House, Hampstead London 01.10.2022 – 02.10.2022
My pace quickens and acorns crunch underfoot. I’ve got the fear. Like the return of a recurring nightmare, I’m late for my lectures, again. October will always herald a new term, a new start and the anticipation of mind-expanding adventures – so welcome to the university of Hampstead aka HowTheLightGetsIn festival. My first lesson is: …
Live Review: Black Kids – The 100 Club, London 15.09.2022
A fan clutches a Black Kids colouring book. Black Kids inspire this kind of devotion. He’ll probably colour it in without going over the edges. Then again, he won’t want to spoil the pristine pages of his heroes at all. He’ll wait for the limited-edition Black Kids felt tip pens to arrive. The 100 Club …
Live Review: Yann Tiersen / Quinquis – The Roundhouse, London 08.09.2022
As the puddles form around the humdrum town and London joins the rest of this disunited kingdom to enter a new Dark Ages, a little French fun should be just the tonic. Yann Tiersen contributed much of the score for the Amelie film soundtrack back in 2001. The quirky beauty of Audrey Tautou and Yann …
Live Review: Bauhaus – Brixton Academy, London 19.08.2022
There’s soaring inflation, public sector strikes and a cost of living crisis and somewhere in Northamptonshire the band Bauhaus are taking that angst and discontent and creating a goth classic. Bauhaus – or Bauhaus 1919 (as they were initially called) recorded their classic Bela Lugosi’s Dead amidst the industrial strife and political instability of Britain …