Shall we start with a joke? Yeah, why not. This rib-tickler comes from the somewhat unlikely source of Ian "Miserable Bastard" McCulloch of Echo And The Bunnymen, last Tuesday at Manchester Ritz... you ready for it?
Mac: Knock knock
Audience: Who's there?
Mac: Walter... Read more
Audience: Walter who?
Mac (sings) Wa-wa-wa-wa-waterloo...
OK, now I've got that out the way, down to business. This one should have been posted Saturday night, the idea was to bang it out live from the Saturday night 01.05 National Express, Oxford to Manchester, arrives 5.40am with a 20 minute connection stop in Birmingham. Unfortunately the coach when it arrived was already pretty much full from London, and it was as much as I could do to cram myself into the tiny space left beside a fat person (presumably all the thin single travellers had been "bagged" at intervening stops) never mind get the laptop out. Yep, the ever-glamorous life of the awayday gig addict. At this point you have to imagine a Reader's Voice bubble, Beano style: "But what the hell were you doing on the overnighter when you didn't have to be at work the next day?" Answer: I did. Not the day job - not for two whole weeks now, which is ace - but In The City kicked off at midday Sunday (there were a few fringe shows Friday and Saturday at which I normally make an appearance, but too much else on this year) and due to the extreme crapness of attempting to get anywhere by train at a weekend these days, the first service home from Oxford wouldn't have got me home til about half one in the afternoon. And you know me, who needs sleep when you might miss a band?
Three days of In the City mayhem later - most of my reportage, and Jon Ashley's, was posted as we went along at
http://mmitc.blogspot.com/ although my personal take on stuff will appear here sometime, probably tomorrow or Saturday. This is about what happened the week before, and it's a good job I'd written most of it by Saturday as it all seems rather a long time ago now...
Last week (or it might have been the week before) The Longcut's brilliant second album "Open Hearts" finally hit the shelves (some months after its download release) - if I tell you (a) it's possibly second only to the Maps album in 2009's astonishingly high quality haul and (b) on Saturday night both of them played excellent sets at a charity event at Oxford's Jericho Tavern, that should explain why I was down there in the first place. And it was The Longcut who kicked off this week's manic stint of ITC warm-up fun with the first night of their tour at Academy 3 on Monday 12th October.
A bonus for the (sadly few) early arrivals is the best set to date - that I've seen - from King Tree And The Roots. King Tree is a bespectacled Cumbrian whose songs are infused with a sense of landscape, a sentence which I realise reads like complete bollocks but I hope you know what I mean. His melodies paint pictures of wide open spaces, with a backing vocalist / tambourine player adding to this - whilst the other half of the band, alumni of (favoured Longcut support acts past) Nightjars and Polytechnic bring the very Mancunian edgy darkness. The net result is something not a million miles from the likes of The Triffids and the Go-Betweens.
Cats In Paris have also supported The Longcut before, and - very much against the prevailing Manchester wisdom of the time - I really didn't like them; their twisty art-pop all seemed a bit clever-for-the-sake-of-it and lacking in tunes. Maybe it's my state of mind or maybe they've improved a lot, but tonight there are only a couple of tracks like this. The rest of them are complex, certainly; still prone to unexpected time signature jumps and vocal tangents, but in a much more coherent and deliberate sounding way. Or maybe it's because through the powerful Academy 3 sound system - rather superior to that at Deaf Institute, where despite the good reputation of the place I've seen about five of my favourite bands have serious off-nights at the mercy of the sporadically bizarre acoustics - I'm actually hearing them properly for the first time. And there's a lot of Cardiacs going on there. This is good. I miss The Cardiacs.
Incidentally (and this itself quite a tangent, I admit) if there is anyone reading this who also misses The Cardiacs, the latest from their HQ is that after a year of rehabilitation following his heart attack "Tim's mind has returned to full functionality and no part of your favourite pop star’s intellect or personality has been found to be absent whatsoever". Anyone who's ever seen The Cardiacs would probably wish to add "...that wasn't already" - in the nicest possible way of course. The physical rehabilitation may take a little longer, but Smith has not ruled out a return to music. Talking of, um, hospitalisation (!) there's a distinct hole in tonight's crowd, caused by the absence of legendary local scenester and famously crowdsurfing Longcut fan Pierre Hall who is sadly currently laid up in hospital with a shattered leg, and now seems as good a time as any to wish him all the best for a successful recovery: if you want to cheer up a really sound person who's having a crap time right now, go and download his new band's excellent single (
http://www.myspace.com/goldenglowmusic )...
Anyway back to the gig. The place is starting to fill up a little, although it's some way off the rammed venue that greeted The Longcut's last headline gig here way back in (Christ, was it really that long ago!?) May 2006, but the band themselves look rejuvenated and ready to go as soon as they burst onto the stage into an energetic take on album opener "Out At The Roots". Stuart Ogilvie, in particular, looks younger now than when I first saw the band five years ago, which is a neat trick if you can pull it off. And for the next hour or so, we simply get a perfect demonstration of The Longcut at their best. There is not another band on this earth that sound anything like them, which in itself is no easy feat - sometimes accused by critics of being a one-dimensional experience this is only because their intoxicating blend of post-rock, electro and post-punk indie is so unique as to be unmistakeable. Of course there has been progress between albums; Stuart seems more confident both in what he's singing (words are more clearly audible in the mix on the newer stuff, and less oblique) and how he does so (higher in the mix and more varied in melody and tone) - they've increased their scope without losing their vision. Even some of the older songs seem to have benefitted - I swear "A Quiet Life" has never sounded quite so expansive.
Everyone's on a high, and the set has been well received; there's going to be an encore, and quietly a crew member slips onstage and erects a second microphone. This can only mean... since the day I got the album I've been waiting to hear this live, "The Last Ones Here", the best thing they've done yet, if it had been a single it would probably be single of the year. Lee's backing vocals are very slightly off key at first and a little nervous sounding, but it is probably the first time he's sung in public. And it doesn't matter. If the greatest of pop songs should encapsulate love and life and death with a sound massive enough to match, then this makes the grade on all counts. One of the best gigs I've seen The Longcut play just got better. There's nothing delights me more than seeing a band I've been watching for a few years suddenly lift off to a higher level - and little do I know at this point they won't be the last this week to do just that.
Tuesday I'm off to The Ritz for Echo And The Bunnymen. Well, that's not strictly true. I've always liked them but I'm not a massive fan, considering them very much inferior - of course - to our own Chameleons, and whilst I usually go and see them when they come round I wasn't going to bother this time, being a bit on the expensive side. £23 or so is quite a lot for a band who are notorious for their very bad off nights. It's much the same reason why I rarely go and watch live football. Then a couple of weeks ago, Exit Calm were confirmed as support. Oh no! It's bound to be sold out by now! But no, it isn't. Maybe I'm not exactly alone in my assessment.
There's a decent turn-out for them too, considering the 7.55 stage time. A fair showing from the regular crew, a fair few Bunnymen fans clearly there deliberately early to check out the support, and general early arrivals further back. Most of whom are quite comprehensively drawn in over the course of Exit Calm's set. The problem with having really long songs when you're a breakthrough-level band is that these all-too-crucial support slots don't exactly leave space for many of them: you have to choose well, ansd this is where Exit Calm excel: the fluid, spaced "You've Got It All Wrong"; their contender for that Best Spiritualized Song Spiritualized Never Wrote award "We're On Our Own", the infectious dub psychedelics of "Don't Look Down" and then the final and quite astonishing "Hearts and Minds" - one of the newer songs in a repertoire which boasts plenty more where these came from, with some of the stuff Rob Marshall is doing with his guitar I have absolutely no idea how he's even creating the sounds. Afterwards, various friends of mine who've never seen Exit Calm before but made the effort to get there in time are very glad they did, and the general reception from the crowd is deservedly fantastic. A couple more of my mates are just arriving as I slip out for a smoke: "You've missed the band", I tell them, "just the cabaret to go now". I'm only half joking.
The great thing about watching a band with little expectation of greatness is that it's hard to come away disappointed. In this case I come away (mostly) impressed. Things to try and forget: the fact that Mac appears to be using an autocue; the collection of double chins visible on his once model-beautiful face when the smoke-machine abates for longer than it probably should; his horrible little cabaret turns whereby he splits a perfectly good song in half and sticks a medley of cover bits in the middle; the fact that the new material is a bit average, due to the Mac:Will ratio being rather more singer-biased than on 2005's stunning return to form "Siberia".
Why it's a brilliant gig despite that: "Villiers Terrace", "Seven Seas", "Silver", "The Killing Moon", "Bring On The Dancing Horses", "Stormy Weather", "Back of Love" and the ever astonishing "The Cutter". A pretty impressive collection of hits, both genuine and nominal, from across their improbably lengthy career. Improbable not just because of the deaths and the drug addictions, but because you ofetn get the impression even as an audience member who knows nothing of the band personally, that Mac and Will really don't like each other that much. There's the same sort of grudging tolerance which could explode at any minute that you get with Jim and William Reid, or Noel and Liam Gallagher - except unlike those duos these brothers are not genetically so, not tied by blood; maybe after all these years - 31 in total now if you ignore the relatively brief periods of separation - they just couldn't live without each other. On Mac's second foray into low-rent Sinatra mode - specifically the unnecessary violation of the beautiful "Nothing Lasts Forever" with "Walk On The Wild Side" in its entirety - a mate closer to the front than me swears he sees Will making a 'wanker' sign behind the singer's back. Ego trips aside, though, (and would we actually have him any other way?) Mac seems to be in a relatively good mood and on decent form singing wise too. Unfiortunately the evening doesn't so much climax as sort of wander off: "Lips Like Sugar" - a chart hit back in the day but hardly one of their best - is an odd choice of final encore, but they always were a contrary bunch. And long may they continue to be. A surprisingly enjoyable gig and all due to Exit Calm, without whom I probably wouldn't have bothered.
The next of my regular favourite bands to kick off their October tour is I Like Trains, on Wednesday. And I'd forgotten what a miserable dilapidated venue Liverpool Barfly is; only time I've been in there this year was Air Cav's Soundcity gig but that was in the front bar, which might smell a bit weird but at least gives the impression it's seen some refurbishment in the past 40 years. And has some lights in tne bar. And whilst I'm aware that I Like Trains are, I suppose, effectively unsigned these days it's still a bit of a surprise to be asked on the door who we've come to see. I neither know nor care who the first band are, they all look about 15 and play some tuneless grungey prog to their mates. I really feel for ILT, manning their own merch table in the near darkness; they're much too good for this. Sometimes I fucking hate the music industry. Second support The Ambush also have little to recommend them, unless unfocussed mishmash indie floats your boat. The Coral have a lot to answer for. Their Myspace page cites an eclectic mixture of influences, and maybe in time they'll create something original from them, but it doesn't seem to have happened yet. Also, points off for starting by announcing "We're The Ambush and we're quite well known in Manchester..." - this, I can categorically state, is not true.
I have higher hopes for Swimming, though, given that they're doing the whole tour and are therefore probably ILT's choice. The band - mostly drummer Simon Fogal - have DIY'd the whole thing: it's the first night and he looks exhausted, and he knows I at least have some understanding of why.
They're good, anyway, in a really quite odd way. Difficult to pin down, but I always kind of like that in a band even if it makes writing about them quite a challenge. There's certainly a post-rock indie thing going on, but all manner of other stuff too: prog, strange keyboards, um... anyway, I'm on official MM review duty tomorrow, maybe I'll have them figured out by then.
ILT are in civvies, Dave confessing mid-set he'd left his jacket at home and does not like playing gigs in a V-neck sweater. Thankfully neither this nor the venue's limitations manage to spoil a great set absolutely rammed with new material - on which I'll report properly following the Manchester gig, but at this point my favourite is a faster-paced track called "Father's Son" which if you took Dave's vocal off would pretty much be The Chameleons (specifically the guitar line which echoes "Denims & Curls", if you're Chameleons-fanatic enough to be familiar with the Tony Fletcher EP). Also of interest is the presence of a fifth man on stage sometimes; introduced as "our friend Ian who's going to be lending us a few riffs" he adds a third guitar to a few songs which fills out the sound even more than usual. Older stuff wise, they end the set with the best "Spencer Perceval" I've heard, really intense and with an absolutely ear-splitting psych-out ending. If they keep this up throughout the tour I recommend those with a nervous disposition or sensitive ears step back from the front towards the end. I certainly recommend attendance, and again the remaining tour dates are at the bottom of this page.
Thursday the tour hits Manchester. It seems I missed a crucial thing yesterday; just when the headliners have finally stopped being typographically obtuse (and the more obsessive fans argue as to whether or not this is a good thing), along comes another one. The tour support are not in fact called Swimming, but SWIMMInG. Thanks for that.
The music industry, so the old adage goes, is "a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." A quotation often attributed to Hunter S. Thompson, although it's debatable whether or not he - or indeed anyone - actually ever said this. It doesn't matter. It's miserably true. Three years ago iLiKETRAiNS, as they preferred it to be written then, headlined an In The City showcase; in fact they were already at this point signed to Beggars Banquet and great things were presumably expected of them. They were a bit strange, what with the bearded projectionist and uniforms and all those songs about dead people, but then being a bit strange never stopped Radiohead becoming a household name, did it? For ILT though, it never happened. Debut album "Elegies To Lessons Learnt" was possibly just a niche too far, being basically a concept album about people throughout history meeting various untimely ends, and with insufficient filling of the cruel and shallow money trench, Beggars let them go. Back to the day jobs, and in the projectionist's case an amicable departure for a career making brilliant if deeply weird films; back to the unsigned circuit. This is the point where bands sink or swim. The signs were encouraging, though; recent self-released single "Sea Of Regrets" was deservedly well received, and now a completely DIY national tour - although longtime supporters TJ Events have helped out with the Manchester date and there's a decent crowd in.
We catch the end of local openers Pocketknife, a band so ATP you can almost smell the sea air. Veterans of a variety of the noisier local bands they attack eardrums with split-beat drumming, stop-start guitar, dirty growling bass and (female) vocals so aggressive I feel myself worrying for her throat.
Tour support SWIMMInG (a typographical anomaly that makes the headliners' former preference look sensible) kick things off with a thrashy, twisty, guitar-spiralling piece of post-rock and then proceed to confound expectations by following it with a bouncy bit of upbeat alternative pop whose naggingly bcatchy keyboard line (still in my head two days later) possibly escaped from an old OMD album. They're one of those bands where you just go "but they look so young! What the hell have they been listening to!?" (the purveyor of this keyboard line and guardian of the laptop is dressed in primary colours and looks astonishingly like my mate's son, who's about four) - "a new one" somehow manages to sound a bit like Radiohead and a bit like Placebo, and at several points they threaten to turn into Boards of Canada, um, if they were a guitar pop band. Confounding, then, but brilliantly so.
No uniforms on ILT again tonight; for a band who were occasionally accused of being too reliant on gimmicks this is the acid test. And it seems they've been very busy since leaving Beggars; tonight's set is heavily biased towards new and unreleased material - and with it the other popular accusation that they basically have one sound is blown out of the window. Pick of the bunch is "Father's Son", a more upbeat tune than pretty much anything they've done before; it sounds like The Chameleons. Not in the regulation-post-punk-revival-act-of-2005 here-are-some-gloomy-chords sense; it has the beauty, too, with Guy Bannister's near-abstract guitar lines as close as anyone has come to the almighty Dave Fielding in recent times. But hang on, who's the bloke stood behind him? "We'd like you to meet Ian", says singer Dave Martin, possibly aware that people are wondering. "He'll be lending us a few riffs for this tour... anyone remember Redjetson?" Someone at the front does, shouting back "I loved Redjetson, you broke my heart!" He doesn't play on everything, sitting quietly behind an amp when he's not needed, but when he does throw a third guitar into the mix the results are fantastic. And drummer Simon Fogal is nothing short of astonishing these days, the sort of drummer you find yourself actually watching.
This is altogether a more powerful band than ever before; "Sea Of Regrets" taking on a massive sound befitting its apocalyptic lyrics, and there's something about the way Dave sings "We were surprised to find it was our time" that sends all sorts of shivers. But they don't sound miserable these days so much as angry. They end the set, as they usually do, with one-time single "Spencer Perceval" spiralling into an extended mass of feedback and strobe, all four (or five) of them thrashing and beating at their instruments like their very lives depend on it. No label, no financial support, but their defiant spirit is reminiscent of Puressence when they found themselves in a similar situation. This is the point where bands sink or swim, and I Like Trains have come out fighting.
Friday night sees the band return home to Leeds Cockpit. I didn't actually buy a ticket as I really didn't know if I was going to be able to go - or indeed if I was going to want to do three in a row. I've always liked the band but they've never been one of those where I feel the urge to go all over watching them; this isn't all over, really, though, it's a quick train ride away and after the last two nights I very much do and am so glad it was still possible to get one on the door... turns out to be the right decision, as if Liverpool was good and Manchester great then this turns out to be the best ILT gig I've seen in a very long time and continues the most exciting run of form I've seen them on since maybe 2006. Swimming are growing on me with every experience, and as I'm unable to get to any more dates of this tour I must remember to try and catch up with them at one of their own dates sometime. The sound in the Cockpit on a good night is among the best you can get at a venue of this size - you get a certain power there, it seeps through the brickwork like the whole place is one big amplifier.
This is my friend Deb "modelling" the set-list. It's been much the same over the three nights, the odd change of order, but tonight I don't know if it's the hometown vibe or just that they are really getting into their stride, but everythig sounds perfect. "Sea of Regrets" is astonishingly good, but it would be a tough call between that and "Father's Son" as my pick of the "new" (as in post-album) stuff; to be honest though it's all pretty immense and I really don't want it to end.
It does, though - and being The Cockpit, does so in good time to get the half ten train home. I need some sleep, I have quite a weekend coming...
Saturday then. The journey to Oxford is typically miserable - heavily delayed by a staff shortage (hello Virgin? There are lots of people looking for jobs right now, how about employing some?) I do manage to get all my pre-ITC reviews filed for MM, although no thanks to said train operator who may offer Wi-Fi on some services but clearly not this one. Oxford is one of those places that's always further than I think it is at the best of times, and the train finally limps into the station - after sitting within sight of it for a good five minutes just to really piss us off - shortly before I lose the will to live. I pity the poor fuckers staying on til Bournemouth.
The Jericho Tavern, like so many legendary venues, turns out to be a rather rough and ready pub upstairs room in the Star & Garter tradition. The bloke on the door has a "Thurston & Steve & Kim & Lee" t-shirt on (one of these days I'll get that John & Mark & Reg & Dave" shirt made, although the order in which I put the names will probably cause a minor political incident). It's that sort of day: the man on the stage - Theo, apparently - is bashing the fuck out of a guitar and drums. At once. ATP has a lot to answer for. No, it's good really, but I'm still trying to acclimatise and it's definitely a throw-in to the deep end of what transpires to be a day packed full of post-rock, alt-noise and electronics. I think I described the afternoon events, at the time, as effectively a matinee Wotgodforgot. There'll be a tidied-up version of this review in the next Incendiary, probably, by the way; this was mostly written as I went along, like a sort of ITC practice run...
Oxford might have once been the home of dreaming-spires posh-boy folk (or was that Cambridge? Probably both...) and, later, the cradle of shoegaze, but these days it's generally associated with Radiohead and post-rock. Ute have clearly been inspired by both: the former in the somewhat freeform vocal meanderings, the latter in the regulation off-rhythm drums and non-Euclidean time signatures. They are precisely what I imagine when I think "Oxford band" these days.
Time to "bank" some food before the evening really gets going. Luckily there's a rough pizza shop over the road; the requisite pub music all-dayer BBQ being rather, well, Oxford priced. I mean I'm sure the 7 quid lentil-and-spinach burgers are nice, but no burger - meat, veggie, whatever - should ever cost more than a fiver. End of. Rough pizza shop is also showing the F1 qualifying. Bonus! Back to the venue then (which is running to an impressively tight schedule) for a bit of Bilge Pump. Bilge Pump have been around for millions of years and I actually can't remember if I've ever seen them before. They sound exactly like a band called Bilge Pump should; an abrasive pile of guitar, bass, thundered drums and shouting. And, yes, a bit post-something. Their last song is one minute long and contains more drums than most bands' entire sets. Outside, some young men with beards are debating which is the best Oceansize album. It's that sort of day.
Can you, in fact, OD on instrumental post-rock? I think I'm getting close. But then one comes along that's good enough to prove otherwise. Talons have the other sort of IPR line-up: bass, drums, two guitars, two violins - but your pretty Icelandic elf-music this ain't. They sound like Mogwai in a bad mood. Which is good. No, really it is. They'll also be at In The City in just a few hours; I'd have loved to have seen them again but I'm committed elsewhere at that point. I send Jon A down though and he loves them too.
Bronnt Industries Kapital. Let me guess, you're thinking... Krautrock, right? Electronic Krautrock? Yep. A one man set-up, he is one G Bartell, and he plays bass and a big table of electronics - sometimes with his head. Either that or he just loves his equipment a lot. The bass is mostly in early New Order mode and it's all beautifully sequenced and trance-like; I'll even let him off one count of wearing sunglasses onstage. Not a good look, post Calvin Harris. I look him up online later; he cites his influences as Neu!, Philip K Dick, Giorgio Moroder. This does not surprise me in the slightest.
There is one incredibly annoying feature at the Jericho Tavern - half way back it has a six inch step down, from behind which only the reasonably tall stand a chance of seeing anything. And having popped to the bar I'm not about to try and penetrate the crowd that seems to have appeared from nowhere (although I suppose it is around nine o'clock now, and the final three or four bands would be well worth the twelve quid of anyone who has better things to do on a Saturday afternoon than watch bands called things like Bilge Pump) to watch Remember Remember. A shame - I'd like to see what this avowed fan (yes, another one-man thing: Graeme Ronald) of Philip Glass, Steve Reich and The Durutti Column is actually doing to make a sound which echoes all three. Long ambient tones and shifting melodes, I am really trying to avoid using the word "soundscapes" but - oh dear, there it goes.
Some technical difficulties for The Longcut tonight, the details of which I'm uncertain as I'm still standing at the back - but when the gremlins depart and the scything guitar introduction of "Transition" kick in I make a break for it to find a proper little party going on down the front. I have always seen the Longcut as dance music (in a sense) myself but sometimes crowds seem reluctant to actually dance to it - not here. It's a wildly energetic performance considering the band have come all the way from Glasgow last night, although it seems to end rather abruptly. No "Last Ones Here", but I won't hold that against them.
Maps are about to embark on their first headline tour in the current all-electronic format and as a warm-up this set does the job wonderfully. There are projections and visuals planned for the tour but tonight it's simply the best two-man rave machine you'll see on a stage this year. (Fuck Buttons would be the second best, by the way, in case you were wondering, which I'm sure you were....n't). The sound's not quite right for the opening "It Will Find You" causing James to ask for "more beats" - and he gets them. This is a theme which will continue sporadically throughout the set long after any more beats are actually needed. They're on great form, anyway: back to back great pop tunes "I Dream Of Crystal" and "You Don't Know Her Name" prove there's not actually as much of a gulf in style between the first and second albums as some critics will have you believe, and James chats amiably if slightly obliquely to the crowd causing the couple behind me to have a lengthy discussion as to whether he's "on drugs" or "just been up for three days" (the answer is neither). By the time they get to forthcoming single "Die Happy, Die Smiling" the beats are loud enough to shake the whole building and already the track has developed from its album version into something a lot bigger. I'm very much looking forward to seeing them again, specifically this Friday in the Warehouse Project whose air-raid shelter rave set-up is exactly how Maps 2009 should be experienced.
Brilliant performances from two of my favourite bands, then, and I don't feel so bad about missing the ITC warm-ups. Both manage to sell a few albums to the buzzing crowd. Somehow. Would you let these men run a merch stand?
And then it's the long, semiconscious trip home. Oxford to Birmingham seems to pass in seconds - maybe I did get some sleep after all - and Digbeth coach station has been replaced by a new state-of-the-art one: shiny, white, but still populated by a few teenage punks. Proper punks, Vibrators patch on a sleeveless denim jacket, DMs, union jack tights punks. Only 17. I wonder briefly if I - or they - have time-slipped... But no, they're listening to Oi! through a tinny mobile phone speaker the way other kids do N-Dubz. Maybe everything just seems weird at 3am.
Nine hours later I'm sitting in Night & Day wondering how the hell I'm going to manage a 12 hour day reviewing bands. Somehow I do, but that's for the next piece...
LINKS
SOME OF THESE PEOPLE'S TOUR DATES FOR THE REST OF THE WEEK / MONTH ETC
THE LONGCUT
Thu 22nd - Liverpool - Evol @ Korova
Fri 23rd - Cardiff - Swn Festival
Sat 24th - Bristol - Start The Bus
I LIKE TRAINS
Thu 22nd - London Garage
Fri 23rd - Birmingham Hare and Hounds
Sat 24th - Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms
MAPS
Thu 22nd Edinburgh Electric Circus
Fri 23rd Manchester The Warehouse Project
Sat 24th Southampton Joiners
Sun 25th Birmingham Hare & Hounds
Mon 26th London Cargo
Wed 28th Bristol Start The Bus
Thu 29th Cambridge Portland
Fri 30th Brighton Digital
Sat 31st Nottingham Bodega
Sun 1st Nov Norwich Arts Centre
Wed 4th Sheffield Fusion
Thu 5th Newcastle Other Rooms
Fri 6th Nice N Sleazy Glasgow
Sat 7th Liverpool Bumper
What the fuck sort of name for a venue is Start the Bus? I guess I - and you - will probably find out in due course...