According to an announcement on the band’s site, The Hold Steady will spend a portion of the month of June on the road. In a blurt from front man Craig Finn announced the plans. You can read the announcement and see the dates in full after the jump. “Hey Everyone, I hope all is good. I’ve been enjoying my time at home writing music and seeing a bunch of shows. Thank you Nick Lowe , Wu Lyf , Titus Andronicus , Archers of Loaf , and Bruce Springsteen for some great times. Besides going to shows, I’m also going to …

Craig Finn with The Hold Steady at Mohawk (more by Tim Griffin) Hey Everyone, I hope all is good. I've been enjoying my time at home writing music and seeing a bunch of shows. Thank you Nick Lowe, Wu Lyf,...

This Friday in Manchester plenty of people have left the office and decided to begin their hedonistic weekend by, well, heading to the office. The city’s leading promoters, Now Wave, have curated a line-up of emerging northern talent to showcase on the first floor of a derelict office block. With a bill topped by Leeds’ Alt-J and two elusive Mancunian acts preceding, – No Ceremony and Money – it’s clear they mean business. Tonight feels like a secret gig that only the cognoscenti are privileged enough to know about. Quay House is on the outskirts of Spinningfields, a financial district ...

Artist Song The Paper Scissors Down With Something Women Bullfight Nick Huggins Iceberg Anna Chase Lines Alphabette Monster Tennis Origins Scott & Charlene’s Wedding Gammy Leg Wu Lyf We Bros Old Mate I Think Of You John Maus Mental Breakdown Health Tears Matthew Dear I Can’t Feel The Tallest Man On Earth 1904 Aleks and [...]

As I sit down to scribe my look back at my first trip to Brighton for The Great Escape, I’m travelling on a bus from London to Liverpool, about to hit the ground running for the third music festival of this trip. Heading overseas to a music festival is nothing new for me, but it’s certainly nothing I take for granted. It’s an incredible opportunity to see some of the best talent in the world – new, upcoming and established – alongside our own Australian artists trying to make it in unique settings and locations.  Before I get onto ...

photos by Toby Tenenbaum Willis Earl Beal had me at his opening line, "I am gonna sing you some songs and then I am gonna get off the Goddamned stage!"...He's a born performer and for the duration of his hour...

It was Friday–thank God. A show I had been anxiously awaiting was finally around the corner. I had not a single clue what to expect from this young, elusive quad out of Manchester, England. In listening to their self-produced release Go Tell Fire To The Mountain, I wasn’t sure if I should have been getting [...]

The Great Escape (Brighton, 10-12 May '12) // Words: Saam Das There are quite literally hundreds of bands playing at this year's The Great Escape , the self-confessed leading new music festival in Europe. With that in mind, we've narrowed down a list of just ten recommended acts to catch across the three days of the festival, as well as throwing in some more general tips seeing as this is the third time we've been down to Brighton. Keep reading, and come along. I've neglected to include recent Camden Crawl picks like BASTILLE, Swiss Lips and Clock Opera ...

photos by Amanda Hatfield WU LYF @ MHOW Manchester's WU LYF stormed Brooklyn for rousing renditions of highlights from their excellent debut Go Tell Fire to the Mountain... While the band was limited to brief material (this is why bands...

[ Day One ] I’m sat here in the comfort of my own bed, having slept for a good 10 hours, in the full knowledge that in four days’ time I will be feeling the exact opposite. As well as music venues, Brighton has a fine array of fish & chip shops and establishments which sell cheap, Polish bear. I could probably write an esteemed guide on those very things, better than I could for the acts playing The Great Escape on Friday 11th but alas, there’s no going back now. —————————————————- M O N E Y Friday 11th, Horatios, 20.30 This year I’ll be consciously avoiding a long walk up Brighton’s Palace Pier; avoiding the humiliation of arriving at a dingy bar where decent bands play through a shockingly sub-par sound system. It happened last year with Big Talk & Cults. It musn’t happen again. There’s one trip to Horatios which I can’t avoid though and that’s to see Manchester’s M O N E Y . It’s difficult to make your mind up about a band who raise their WU LYF flag so high and proud, but this lot are beginning to bring something new to the fore. A fairly spectacular visual show is also promised, we hear.  —————————————————- PINS Friday 11th, Amazing Radio Stage, Queens Hotel, 22.30 Ferocious fully-charged garage punk, sporting confidence on record - it’ll be interesting to see how PINS , another Manchester act, fill out a half hour set and whether they’ve got enough exciting songs beyond the brilliant debut cassette, which featured ‘ Eleventh Hour ’ and ‘Shoot You’. PINS top off a stunning bill on the Amazing Radio ’s Alt Escape stage, where throughout Friday the likes of Eagulls, Mammal Club and Gross Magic compete for your time on the seaside. —————————————————- PEACE Friday 11th, The Loft, 23.00 This last tip is essentially a means of me fulfilling a promise; a promise I made to Peace’s lead singer Harry after interviewing him for DIY Magazine . He ensured me that to see his band live would ...

Typical: this isn’t exactly the 600th post haha I blame the extra songs I posted during A Week of Cover Songs. Oh well, we’ve reached 600 posts, everyone! WIth only one repeat (Metric) I featured 35 new/old artists over the past 9 weeks and hopefully introduced some of you to bands/musicians you love now. For all the artists we’ve discussed click here and let’s start making our way to 700! Week 48 Peter Tosh —Legalize It (1976) Howler —America Give Up (2012) Nina Simone —The Essential Nina Simone (1993) Phantogram —Eyelid Movies (2009) Week ...

I don't often agreed with UK blogmasters Drowned In Sound in recent months (although I seem to be one in the vast minority that thinks the new Chromatics albums is so overrated that it has disappeared up its own arsehole, so that could also be my problem haha!). But sometimes we are in sync, such as our mutual love for Errors' new album ( goddamn that is a great record ...). Then I got sent this EP by new skids on the Glasgow block Holy Esque - and it seems that the DiS crew and I aren't so disparate after all ...

[images by Faith Silva + The Impossible Project]

This week's selection features King Krule, Yuck and Wu Lyf Each week, we invite someone to share a playlist of songs they've been listening to recently. Kate Holland, 23, is a London-based student, interested in music and the arts. She writes for Ja Ja Ja Music and is currently creating her own blog. You can follow her on Twitter here . King Krule – Portrait in Black and Blue Singer-songwriter Archy Marshall, aka King Krule (previously known as Zoo Kid) possesses a style that is raw and atmospheric. The young musician (and by young I mean young; he's 17 ...

Willis Earl Beal is the real deal. Live, he’s one of the most powerful voices I’ve heard solo. It’s mostly just him, doing his thing, up there alone with a tape deck chugging along some bare sounds. He plays guitar for one song, which blew me away. Absolute power man. Very Tom Waits. Definitely check [...]