First Cock Forest sighting of the year, always a moment of joy, and a nice snowy topped one poking out through the mist there. First proper awayday of 26, we're on the way 🙂

Very happy to discover this week that one of my favourite accounts back on the old place is here 😄

Ten years ago? Really? Apparently so. Promoter reckons it was the best lineup he did, I reckon it was one of the best anyone has done. Appreciate that things change and nothing lasts forever but I do really miss Raw Power. (And yes Qujaku = Piqnic, still great and clearly still love the letter Q)

Andy Burnham - apart from looking like a character called ‘Andy Burnham’ from a 9:00 pm BBC2 drama from 1998 about an ‘ambitious Manchester mayor’- also somehow looks like *every single member* of The Smiths and New Order mashed into one.

Post a pic of the venue where you saw your first concert and the band or artist. Not actually my ticket though I do still have it somewhere.

Has anyone else spent the last season of Stranger Things thinking yeah it's all very well doing all that monster hunting shit but it's 1987 now so haven't you boys got an album to make?

I've known @jim.londoncentric.media for a very long time. I gave him a lift to a Half Man Half Biscuit gig when he was a teenage student (Ulverston 08). This is being called one of the articles of the year; I mean *that* opening sentence! Which I can't help but hear in Nigel Blackwell's voice 😀

I have been laughing at this too much to not shove it in your face too, sorry (about as sorry as the OP, that is 🙂)

Nearly did an albums of the year list then this turned up and I'm only half way through but (unsurprisingly, given this year's live sets) it's probably going to be in there... Beautiful stuff @sulkrooms.bsky.social

I can't stop singing it now. 🤣🎄

I don't actually do much streaming as I mostly listen to records at home, so my end of year review is largely unrepresentative - however I have to say, even with limited use, Tidal (which I've been using about 2 years) definitely knows me better than Spotify (which I used for about 10) ever did 😄

Seeing a few posts about Patrick Fitzgerald (and Julian Swales) at the Trades and yes they were great but I chose this date specifically because of Pete Fij supporting and he was wonderful. Adorable were one of the most underrated bands of the 90s 🖤

The astonishing run of gigs that has been November continues, I've not had a night in since Thursday but no way I was missing this, @sulkrooms.bsky.social and @jamesadrianbrown.bsky.social both absolutely fantastic. (Glad it was a nice early finish though 😄)

Couldn't believe the size of the room (Aviva Studio Manchester but not a bit of it I've been in before) but My Bloody Valentine filled every corner with sound. Loud, yes, obviously but astonishingly clear. I'm actually no more deaf this morning than I usually am!

Enjoyed Boundaries Festival so much I'm going to post a few more pictures. Massive respect to @grassi.bsky.social for making the entire thing pretty much himself, home now with some fantastic memories (see yesterday's post for the Saturday morning bit)

A thread of pictures from the Boundaries Festival Sunderland sound walk with sound artist Tim Shaw enhancing and remixing the ambience of the city centre and the river ... incredible stuff.

Happy International Spacemen Day 🚀

Assistant are 1/3 French but we don’t really know of any French indie-pop DJs or blogs! Who does? Any tips? Daft to know so little about the scene in the land of all of our dream cheese.

I love @kathrynjoseph11.bsky.social anyway but adding Lomond Campbell to the live thing was a genius idea. And yes, her between song chat is as filthy as we have come to expect 😄 Really enjoyed Lomond's support set of his own stuff too and bought a record. Far too good for a Tuesday 🖤

If you used to follow me on the place that went to shit, you may remember that there are certain songs I post annually in relation to a specific date or event, and I don't even really know why I do it, but yeah, here's one of them 🙂 🇲🇽🏁 youtu.be/8Jv64uhCIrU?...

I often say that for people like me every week is independent venue week: over 200 gigs last year, probably two thirds in indie places. I love them. I support them. I do however despair that that support is still not mutual. By which I mean: VENUES! PUBLISH YOUR FUCKING STAGE TIMES IN ADVANCE!

Post yourself from a different era: me and my dad, 1975

A few weeks ago we went to see young Manchester musician Ellen Beth Abdi, who alongside T-shirts and tapes was selling her own made marmalade (it's genuinely fantastic too). Off to see Mr F on Monday and may well be tempted by this... Any musicians out there doing bread? Complete my breakfast! 😄

Since deleting Twitter I’ve noticed a big drop in my Bandcamp sales. If you’re a music fan, please repost this so people can find me here! I make weirdo alt pop, I hate nazis and love Etsy witches 🖤✨ elisabethelektra.bandcamp.com

That'll be my Friday night viewing sorted then 😄

Post an obscure album in your collection you that always think: 'Surely nobody else has got this?' Bought in a weird second hand shop in Groningen, Netherlands, in 2004. Would love to know how it ended up there...

Honestly not sure if I will be posting much from @krankenhausfest.bsky.social this weekend because the signal's shit and I intend to be having too much fun anyway, but massive shout to @thetradesclub.bsky.social for hosting a brilliant 3 day warm-up. Hebdenhaus? Krankenbridge? Great stuff anyway 💚

How it started / how it ended up... Still processing the fact that this actually happened. Some of my all time favourite musicians from both sides of the Atlantic and indeed the millennium, doing a full Galaxie 500 set. Including the most incredible Fourth Of July beyond my wildest dreams 💚

Lovely little evening of atmospheric electronics at Shoegaze Cafe last night with two almighty Tables Of Cables and one fantastic tape machine. That's @jamesadrianbrown.bsky.social in the green corner and @sulkrooms.bsky.social in the red corner.

Didn't know this morning we were going to see a psych surf band we'd never heard of from Bogota Colombia this evening but it popped up on FB at dinnertime - a pretty last minute gig apparently - so why not? Cheers Los Fuckin Surfer Smokers, you were brilliant 🙂 this is why the Peer Hat is important

All the timings here for @tufflifeboogie.bsky.social Preston Popfest 🎉 🎶 🍡 copied off the facebook event pages for those who don't have that. It's an astonishing lineup!

Screenshot in my case an actual picture of the telly, from a BBC Alba documentary about an independent pie maker (it was 2020 lockdown, there wasn't much to do) with a subtitle caption I'm convinced is a secret lost Mogwai title

Hello to everyone else who gets unfeasibly excited at the mention of new Phil Elverum music 🙂

Of course we're at a gig, and the football should have been over before Loose Articles went on stage, but of course it wasn't... cracking set, finished just as the first penalties were being lined up, everyone got their phones out, and honestly couldn't think of a better place to be for the result ❤️

Got our tickets, this will be our third time there, it really is a fantastic little festival.

I don't know the OP - thread was reposted into my timeline by a mutual - but I have been laughing for ages at this. Well played, Italian tourists, and also amazing that the original image had such reach that they even thought "oh we must do that when we go to Manchester" 😄

Happy #Galaxie500Day if you celebrate www.fullofwishes.co.uk/2014/07/04/f...

You know I bloody love Half Man Half Biscuit, my second most seen band (which seems oddly appropriate) but until a few years ago I was never that arsed about the actual albums except as a source of keeping gigs fresh, the last few have been brilliant though and this one's no exception...

"You know I like sweets... yesterday I had a Victoria sponge... and today... I had another Victoria sponge!" Over 40 years in the business and Shonen Knife still have the best between songs musings 😄 and of course the best two minute pop songs and the energy of people half their age 🎂❤️🍌

Luckily for Cath and all fellow Fall fanz, there are Fall-like elements in my latest book, both from Monsieur Camus and Salford’s finest rockaboogie band.

Officially On Holiday. Breaking with a long (if somewhat accidentally started) tradition of always taking a book about The Fall because I didn't get round to finding one I'd not read yet this year, but this from @richardjamesfoster.bsky.social seems appropriate 🙂

Happy Biscuit Day everyone! youtu.be/Kt7A3fMpP1I?...

As we count down the days to another Primavera, I still consider one of the greatest moments of my many years of attendance was Suicide playing a no-holds-barred Frankie Teardrop in 2011 to a massive festival crowd (many of whom probably didn't know the song) on a hot summer night by the sea...

I think @sulkrooms.bsky.social might have found the second best celebrity endorsed boxed parlour game ever. I say second because 20 years ago my friend Zoe got this in a Nottingham charity shop and in all honesty I still laugh about it about once a month.

An excellent piece on a record that's often underrated even by fans of the band. I used to say it was my fave of the original 3, admittedly partly to wind up other fans who always went for the 1st or 3rd, but sometimes I still think it is for exactly the reasons as this writer a generation later...

Didn't get any decent pictures of Mogwai on Saturday but suffice to say they were brilliant and extremely loud - as were Dinosaur Jr back home in Manchester last night. Thank heavens for earplugs! Also, following HMHB's surprise cover on Friday I got to hear Freakscene twice in 3 days 🙂

I never talk about it at work, what I'm actually doing when I book a Friday off: they basically know I "go to gigs" but no idea what they are actually imagining, if anything. Meanwhile this was our Friday afternoon/evening, the Cumbrian coast path and Half Man Half Biscuit in Ulverston.

Back to Todmorden last night for the second time in a week, but you can never have too many visits to the glorious Golden Lion can you? Exceptional sets from @linesofsilence.com and Purple Heart Parade (and backdrop films a of nearby reservoir), cracking start to the weekend (got a day off today)

Anyone need more geese? Here we go then. Rochdale Canal, Newton Heath, a couple of hours ago.

Another sunny Saturday of hills and music 🙂 Walked up to Stoodley Pike from the Hebden side (a rather bracing uphill, that one!), across the top to Gaddings Dam and down into Todmorden for an absolutely blistering double set from The Jonny Halifax Invocation at the ever wonderful Golden Lion