It’s been a while! I’m playing a set tomorrow in Stockport, at a brand new mini-festival called the Teenage Market. We had the organisers in the studio last Monday (for the All FM Unsigned show). Sounds like it’s going to be a great event. Loads of music-related stuff, as well as street performances, lots of film showings, and Mr Scruff’s Tea Tent. It’s from 12pm-4pm, though there may well be street performances and events in the morning too.

Here’s the track listing:

We Are Willow – Deep Blue Skies
JP Cooper – Little House We Built
Extra Love – More Love
The Restless – The Way I Do
Dr.Butler’s Hatstand Medicine Band – Penny Farthing
Gideon Conn – Yes No Maybe
KT Whitehouse & Kenny McGeachin – Coming Home
Mike Mellor – On a Train
April Maybe May – Seasalt
Liz Green – Midnight Blues
Phil Davies+The Ninja Smokebombs – Enid Blyton
Roos Galjaard – In the Night
God’s Little Eskimo – In Salute Of The Body
Nancy Elizabeth – How Can I Stop
The Bee’s Niece – Funny Features
Jessica May Buckle – Drop It In
Edwyn Butler – Birds On A Wire

And here’s the complete tracklisting:

• Glass Ankle – If You’ve Been There
• Letters To Fiesta – Drag The Fire
• Bedlam Shake – Indian Giver
• KT Whitehouse+Kenny McGeachin – Coming Home
• Liz Green – Midnight Blues
• The Restless – The Way I Do
• Safires – Straydogs
• We Are Willow – Bound By String
• Gideon Conn – Londonderry
• Maxwell Watts – Climbing This Ladder To The Top
• Roos Gaaljard – In The Night
• Extra Love – No Rush
• Bluebird Kid Clark – Hold Me Down
• Monsters Build Mean Robots – Psalm 57
• Josephine – Fun In The Dark
• Paper Aeroplanes – Safe Hands
• John Fairhurst – Daylight
• John Fairhurst – Pay Day
• John Fairhurst – Big Dig
• Thoughts In Therapy – Secret Garden

# Kreg Viesselman – The Busker
# The Safires – Stray Dogs
# Jo Rose – Balcony Doors
# Garron Frith – This One
# Monsters Build Mean Robots – Psalm 57
# Louise O’Brian – Runaway
# JP Cooper – All I Ever Wanted Was To Be A Better Man
# Liz Green – Midnight Blues
# Letters To Fiesta – Traveller
# Glass Ankle – If You’ve Been There
# The Locals – Nah Don’t Shoot Me Down
# John Fairhurst – Big Dig
# Samson And Delilah – Black Dog
# Maxwell Watts – Happiness
# Joe Swindells – Time Makes Fools of Us
# Death To The Strange – Drink and the Devil
# Denis Jones – Clap Hands
# Edwyn Butler – Birds on a Wire
# KT Whitehouse and Kenny McGeachin – Coming Home
# The Bee’s Niece – The Bike Song
# The Bee’s Niece – Saw song
# The Bee’s Niece – Funny Features

See you next time! AllFm.org

1. Joe Swindells – Time Makes Fools of Us
2. Phil Davies and the Ninja Smokebombs – Morning Flight to Stockholme
3. HoneyFeet – That Little Boat
4. April Maybe May – Seasalt
5. Richard Barry – Strolling Along
6. Travelling Band – Hindsight
7. John Fairhurst – Daylight
8. TG Elias – Rancid Misbehaviour
9. Mike Mellor – On A Train
10. Louise O’Brien – Runaway
11. Josephine Oniyama – Fun in the Dark
12. Roos Galjaard – In the Night
13. Letters To Fiesta – Drag The Fire
14. Old House PlayGround – Katherine Has Left the Bed
15. Bone Box – Dragging Wires
16. Zoe Mulford – Open Water
17. Thoughts in Therapy – Secret Garden
18. KT WhiteHouse – Man Of Few Words
19. Beggar Joe – Ain’t No Way
20. Beggar Joe – Rely On
21. The Roots Union – The Straight And Narrow
22. Beggar Joe – No More Revalations

Glass Ankle – If you’ve been there
JP Cooper – Little House We Built
Matthew Ganley – Salford Lullaby
Mike Mellor – On a Train
Caulbearers – Small Spaces
Nay Medici – Nancy Whiskey (live)
Nay Medici – Men and Women (live)
Nay Medici – Soliloquouy (live)
Nay Medici – The Horse Song) (live)
Nay Medici – Down and Out in Paris and London (live)
Roos Galjaard – In the Night
Deaf to Van Gogh’s Ear – Several Ways to Eat a Biscuit
Tanante – Mendiani
The Bee’s Niece – If you’re Lucky
Jessica May Buckle -Drop it in

It will be good to be in Huddersfield again. I seem to have ended up playing there quite a lot recently – including the Huddersfield Oxjam event back in October.

It’s a whole afternoon and evening of music, with a total of 42 acts playing – from acoustic solo artists and duos, to full bands.

Tickets can be bought at Oxfam’s shop on New Street, from the venues on the day or online at We Got Tickets.

Complete Lineup for Oxjam Huddersfield 2010

The Graduate (Huddersfield SU):

5.45-6.15pm – The Rise

6.30-7.00pm – The Creeks

7.15-7.45pm – EBGBs

8.15-8.45pm – Ether5

9.00-9.30pm – Ashe Vendetta

9.45-10.30pm – Five Minute Limit

10.45pm Onwards – The Rag Tags

The Parish, Kirkgate:

5.45-6.15pm – Wind Up Mind

6.30-7.00pm – Nicola’s Cage

7.15-7.45pm – Mark of 1000 Evils

8.00-8.45pm – Mr Shiraz

9.15-10.00pm – MinionTV

10.15-10.45 – Cub Club

11.00pm-0.00am – The Scaramanga Six

Bar 1:22, New Street:

5.30-6.00pm – Luva Gunk

6.15-6.45pm – The White Tide

7.00-7.30pm – NAKED

8.00-8.30pm – Keirononon

8.45-9.30pm – Escape Artist

10-10.45pm – King Kananga

11.00pm-0.00am – AuditCONTROL

Sleepers, Viaduct Street:

5.30-6.00pm – The Kitschens

6.15-6.45pm – Last of the Sirens

7.00-7.30pm – Bad Bad Bird

7.45-8.30pm – Feeds

9.00-9.45pm – The Revenues

10.15-11.00pm – Leo Brazil and His Twitch

11.15pm-0.00am – Nu Popes

Little Buddha Bar, Viaduct Street:

5.45-6.15pm – Thomas Armstrong

6.30pm-7.00pm – Aether

7.15-7.45pm – Jack Hopkinson

8.00-8.45pm – Stuart Nolan (psychological experience)

9.00-9.30pm – Harrison Richards (mind reader)

9.45-10.30pm – Owen Phillips

10.45-11.30pm – Liz Mackenzie

The Head of Steam, St George’s Square:

5.30-6.00pm – I am the prize

6.15-6.45pm – Dave Haigh

7.00-7.30pm – Jasmine Kennedy

7.45-8.15pm – Alice Nicholls

8.30-9.00pm – Tom Kerswill

9.15-10.00pm – Ben Marron

10.15-11.00pm – Steph Stephenson

I’m excited to have a delegate pass this year, courtesy of All FM and Ursula Pabish’s Monday drivetime show on the station.

As always, it’ll be a mad rush trying to fit in as many talks and bands as possible!

This afternoon I’m playing at the Yard Bird in Birmingham. Doors open at 4pm, and I’m on at 4.30. It’ll be good to be doing an afternoon gig. The event is called the Free Love Club, and it runs from 4pm right through to midnight. You can get more details of the event at reverbnation and Facebook.

The gig took place in the evening – after the library usually closes. It was in the main hall – an amazing, ornate building, with incredibly high ceilings, and a really weird acoustic – kind of dead-sounding if you talked quitely, but with a really nice reverb if you clapped your hands or shouted.

The space was laid out to hold 130 people, and the gig was sold out… or rather, all the free tickets were taken. It was a great atmosphere. Becca Williams (and her Broken Biscuit band) opened the night, followed by JP Cooper, and finally Karima Francis.

The night was organised by Chris Thomas, who has put on several gigs in unusual places previously – including the Manchester Museum. It was a highly successful evening, so hopefully there will be more of the same in the future…

I’m playing at the Green Room in Altrincham tonight from 9pm (Thursday, 12th August 2010). It’s been a while since I’ve done a gig, so I’m looking forward to it. Here’s the address:

17 Goose Green
Altrincham, Cheshire WA14 1DW
07971 676 049

We have live sessions from Sam and the Bathroom Crooners, plus We are Willow – who are made up of Chris Butler from Butler Williams, and Kathryn Edwards.

So it’s going to be a great night of live music, and we’ll be fitting in as many of the best unsigned tracks as we can too…

Tom

Glastonbury festival was great. I worked for a lot of it, but had a really good time. Saw the Levellers headling the Glade on Sunday night, plus The XX, The National, Florence and the Machine and lots of other good performances.

The work part of it involved driving 4x4s across the site – mainly scanning in stewards at different gates on the site, and giving them tea and coffee in the middle of the night. Quite a fun job really!

The weather at Glastonbury was absolutely fantastic – no rain at all for the whole week.

Looking forward to next year’s festival already!

Tom

• 8pm – Pablo’s Finest Hour
• 8.45pm – Tom Kerswill
• 9.30pm – Passenger

I’m really excited about doing the gig. You can buy tickets here…

Hopefully see you there!

Tom

I now have a SoundCloud dropbox, which you can use to send me any tracks you think would work for the Unsigned Show on All FM 96.9…

Here’s the dropbox — feel free to upload anything you’d like us to listen to!

Send me your track

A lot of the arrangements involve vocal harmonies, but there’s a cellist, two keyboards, guitars and djembe between us, so lots of scope for doing stuff.

The gig starts at 7.30pm tonight (Sunday, 9th May) and it’s £4 on the door. The venue is the Ariel Centre, Totnes.

Tom

Next year’s beer festival is Monday, 2nd May 2011…

The lineup is looking really good – it features seven acts, including Karima Francis, Kristyna Myles, Glyn Bailey, Robin Mukherjee, Risa Hall and Pavor Nocturnus. I’ll be playing a couple of songs too.

I think entry is by donation, 3 or 4 quid. Should be a really nice night. Things kick off promptly at 8pm…

It’s a free gig — and is in aid of the Nordof-Robins music therapy charity. There will be donation boxes, and they’re aiming to raise £1,000 after the series of gigs.

It should be an excellent night… With A Little Help is every 2nd Sunday of the month at Oddest Bar, Chorlton.

Tom

I wished I’d been able to see more of the festival – I missed bands such as Samson and Delilah and acts such as Vanessa Lewis and Robin Mukherjee.

I’ve been busy doing a new job over in Sale – doing IT-related stuff, which is actually really fun. And the other website-related freelance work and music stuff is also going well. I’m still doing the open mic each Monday at Trof Northern Quarter, and helping out on the Bay Horse open mic each Tuesday.

And this blog itself is going well, generating lots of page views, especially to the open mic night. It’s nice to be doing physical jobs in Manchester day-to-day, and also be doing the “virtual” web stuff and the music stuff.

Tom

Tonight there’s a free gig at Oddest, Chorlton, featuring John Herring, Kamal Arafa and John Lowndes. The night starts at 8.30 and it’s being put on by With A Little Help, to raise money for the Nordoff-Robins music therapy charity. It’s a completely free gig, but donations are welcome.

On Monday, we have the usual open mic night at Trof in the Northern Quarter, starting from 8pm – just turn up around then if you’d like to play.

And on Tuesday, it’s the brand new open mic at the Bay Horse, beginning 8.30pm — that’s in the downstairs bar.

Tom

The night will begin at 8.30pm… Three slots each. Just turn up and sign your name up to play. It’s in the area downstairs.

The Bay Horse is an excellent venue for gigs and open mics, so I’m really looking forward to seeing how this night turns out. Hopefully see you there later on this evening!

For anybody who’s in the Bristol area tomorrow night, go down to the Prom on Wednesday. NYC-based Lisa Redford has returned to the UK and is doing a mini-tour. She’s on around 9.30pm.

It’s a free show, and doors open 7.30/8pm. I’m really looking forward to the gig – it’s been a while since I’ve seen Anna Kashfi playing live, and it will be good to hear tracks from the new album.

The album is available to buy from Amazon.co.uk, or you can listen to and download the album as an MP3.

Talking of live music — tonight, also at Contact, is the launch of Kirsty McGee & the Hobopop Collective’s new album “Number 5″. The event is completely sold out, but we’ve got tickets and I’ll do a blog post about it after the event.

And another album launch for you this weekend. This time it’s the fantastic Anna Kashfi, launching their album Survival. It’s a free gig (donations welcome), and will take place at Fuel Cafe Bar in Withington tomorrow (Sunday). I’ll be there helping to run things and doing the sound engineering. Come down if you can.

Loads more gigs to tell you about – will post another update later today….