Northwest Gig Highlights – July 2013

It's festival season, but there are plenty of bands still plugging away in the Northwest, including garage rockers Sic Alps, New York duo MS MR and the not to be missed dream-pop of Youth Lagoon

Preview by Jacky Hall | 28 Jun 2013

July is usually the month when bands squeeze on to their tour buses and drive the length and breadth of Europe for the summer festival circuit. Gig guides may be sparser than normal, but there’s still enough happening in Manchester and Liverpool to keep gig-goers busy.

Manchester’s always-reliable Deaf Institute starts the month with indie scruffs Half Moon Run (2 Jul). The Montreal four-piece may have been playlisted by Radio 1, but don't let that put you off as they’re more Fleet Foxes than Rita Ora. They tumble out delicate harmonies over equally delicate guitars. They also look like the type of men who would receive shouts of ‘GET A HAIRCUT, HIPPY’ when walking past building sites.

Fans of feedback freakouts and percussive mind-melts can get their psych on with a taster from the Liverpool International Festival of Psychedelia, which takes place in September. The festival presents San Francisco garage rockers Sic Alps, supported by Carlisle’s finest The Lucid Dream and Wiganites The Shook-Ups at new(ish) venue Blade Factory on 3 Jul. 

Manchester's film and music night Video Jam, where musicians provide live scores to silent movies, offers up an exquisite night at Islington Mill on 4 Jul. Two films sourced by record label and publishers Baptists & Bootleggers provide the backdrop for mint-fresh music from legendary Komische musician Dieter Moebius and avant garde sound artists Ex-Easter Island Head. Also heading to Salford to perform immersive soundtracks for the night are HORRID, Die Hexen and Simon Bullows, each of whom will score shorter films of around ten minutes long.

Advance Base, the artist formerly known as Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, plays Manchester’s Night and Day on 11 Jul. The Casio may have been unplugged and reboxed, yet the nostalgic, wistful and often painful self-interrogation of the Chicago musician’s past project remains. His lo-fi, bearded Americana may be gazing too closely at its own naval for some, but Owen Ashworth (Mr Advance Base) has been active on the alternative live music circuit since 1997. He’s probably played more gigs than there’s been episodes of Hollyoaks (est. 1995). He’s definitely played more gigs than the Spice Girls (est. 1994). He’s a hard working man with songs about depression and tense relationships.

Until Wahlbar opened last summer, Manchester’s Studentland was a barren patch for live music. The Fallowfield bar hosts the Carefully Planned Announcement Party (13 Jul), apparently not quite a proper all-dayer but more of a prelude to an all-dayer happening later this year. Still, there’s a fine selection of (mostly) local hyperactive garage bands to keep you there, yes, all day. Highlights of this highlight include folksy Songs For Walter and Just Handshakes.

Liverpool’s Shipping Forecast hosts Dinosaur Pile-Up on 13 Jul (they’re also to be found at Manchester’s Ruby Lounge on 12 Jul). The trio’s grinding alternative rock may smell like teen spirit to anyone familiar with Foo Fighters or Deftones, but there’s a pop sensibility to their grunge revival.

New Yorkers MS MR will be taking to the stage at Manchester’s Academy 3 (15 Jul). The American duo are in the middle of a continent-hopping promotional slog for Secondhand Rapture, a debut album made of hipster pop, synths and glitter. They may be buzzworthy (singer Lizzy Plapinger co-founded label Neon Gold, home to early Ellie Goulding, early Icona Pop and early Passion Pit), but there’s substance to the style.

Liverpool’s Kazimier furthers its reputation as the Northwest’s venue of choice for esoterica by hosting Mr B (15 Jul). Mr B is a banjolele-toting gentleman rhymer and number one in the chap-hop game. Chap-hop? It’s a thoroughly British rap subgenre somewhat popular on YouTube. Yes, it’s a parody of rap re-imagined for people interested in the cricket score or brewing the perfect cup of tea, but it’s an affectionate parody. Just remember to pomade your moustache. Trilby optional.

Are you stuck in the awkward adolescent period when you’re old enough to go to gigs but not old enough for your mum to OK a weekend away? Try X & Y Festival, a weekend of live music planned for people who enjoy preparing Excel spreadsheets of stage times. But get your highlighter out – with 30 bands playing across three stages there will be clashes.

Day one (6 Jul) takes place at Liverpool’s O2 Academy with a packed schedule of acne-scarred indie pop, from cider-fuelled Brummies Jaws to Scottish funky electronica quartet Discopolis. Dog Is Dead, a band considered pin-ups by teenage girls too smart for One Direction, headline. The second stage is headlined by Sheffield indie rapscallions The Crookes. Day two (7 Jul) moves to East Village Arts Club, where the indie pop still doesn’t stop. Acts include Made in Chelsea soundtrackers Young Kato and energetic Liverpudlian glam punkers The Thespians.

Former Mormon and sometime Peter Gabriel backing singer Jesca Hoop plays Manchester's Castle Hotel on 25 Jul. Although raised in Southern California, Jesca has lived under the grey skies of Mancland since 2009. Her home may have changed but her voice is as husky and folk-noir as ever. Just be prepared to taste the sweat of strangers in the intimate backroom of this Northern Quarter pub.

Finally, folk heartthrob Johnny Flynn. London-based Johnny is so talented and generally amazing that Alt-J reference him in their unavoidable song Matilda. Alt-J have won a Mercury Prize, three Brit Award nominations and enough critical praise to earn themselves financial stability. Former choirboy Johnny hasn't won anything. Life isn't fair. Go and see him strum his acoustic guitar and sing his anti-folk at The Deaf Institute, Manchester, on 29 Jul.


DO NOT MISS: Youth Lagoon, Gorilla, 16 Jul

Hazy dream popper Youth Lagoon is an Idaho whippersnapper popular on the internet. Especially the most Pitchfork-y bits of the internet. His second album, Wondrous Bughouse (awarded 8.7 by the ever meticulous American website), was produced by Ben H Allen, who has also worked with Animal Collective, Deerhunter and Washed Out. Youth Lagoon himself is somewhere between all three, plus the wavering treble and bedroom indie shimmer of Mercury Rev.

Off stage the 24-year-old is called Trevor Powers, which is surely an equally solid name for an alt.pop star. He has the look of a young man who would feel struck by the realisation that everyone surrounding him on the dancefloor at an indie club is one day going to die, then go home and write a song about it on his battered Yamaha. Probably softly weeping into his tie-dye tee while writing ‘your’ as ‘yr.’ It's hard to imagine how songs so full of introspection will work live and in public at Manchester’s Gorilla on 16 Jul, but among the fragility are good vibes. These are tunes for introverts aiming to become extroverts.