Northwest Gig Highlights – December 2015

It's the most wonderful time of the year for touring musicians, who for the most part get to go home, have a good shower and gift their friends a wealth of unsold merchandise. A few troopers are still sledding about the UK, though, from one of 2015's breakout stars, Australian slack'n'roller Courtney Barnett, coming to Liverpool O2 Academy on 1 Dec, to Warpaint's bassist jennylee doing her solo thang at Band on the Wall (8 Dec), and veteran 60s psych-pop band The Zombies dropping in at Manchester Club Academy (9 Dec) and Liverpool Arts Club (10th).

December's a month for creature comforts, though, and there are some real winter warmers on offer this Christmas. Take, for example, a tribute to Smog/Bill Callahan at Strange Brew bar in Chorlton on 2 Dec: what could be a cosier prospect? Excellent local artists including Jo Rose, Irma Vep and Elle Mary & The Bad Men will be covering songs spanning Bill's back catalogue, all for free. Get your requests in on the Facebook page. At The Kazimier on 12 Dec, there's a tribute of a rather different kind – as the Liverpool venue prepares to close its doors for the last time this New Year (sob), it celebrates one of its most popular fixtures with a final 10 Bands 10 Minutes blowout, where a cast of ten bands will tear through, yes, a ten-minute set each covering the likes of Bowie, Neil Young, Fleetwood Mac and more. If you can't make the New Year's Eve party, this is an equally great way to honour the Kaz's madcap legacy.

Two of Manchester's prominent DIY figures take it upon themselves to host their own Christmas parties mid-month, with former Wu Lyf fella Francis Lung hosting a bash at Gullivers on 13 Dec, and promoters (and current Islington Mill residents) Fat Out turning the Mill into a grungey grotto on the 19th. A Francis Lung Christmas invites swoonsome girl-boy pop duo Bernard + Edith and youthful storytellers Blaenavon down for a game of pass the parcel, general merrymaking and presumably, y'know, some songs. The poster has a nice festive scene from Peanuts featuring Snoopy atop the tree, so everything is pointing to this being rather lovely. Fat Out's Christmas Party, meanwhile, is a bonanza of right royal Manchester rabble, with Naked (on Drugs), Locean, Melting Hand and Salsa Boys. All things you'd be happy to find in your stocking.

Though less cockle-warming and more spine-chilling, the special one-offs continue at HOME on 11 and 13 Dec with the latest and final instalment in the multi-arts venue's 'Music and Film' series, which has seen local musicians commissioned to create new scores to silent films and this month pairs powerful singer-songwriter Josephine Oniyama with Benjamin Christensen's 1922 exploration of witchcraft, Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages. Brrr.

In Liverpool, don't miss the latest in art/sound/video collective Deep Hedonia's programme of relaxed, composer-led events at the Everyman Bistro on 3 Dec. Andy Hunt of Outfit will be presenting his work as Dialect: meditative material from album Gowanus Drifts (a psychogeographic journey through New York) will be accompanied by visuals from Deep Hedonia A/V artist Thom Isom. They'll be joined by Vitalija Glovackyte, whose investigations into self-made instruments and lo-fi materials result in stirring modern classical/electronic compositions. And finally, if you're on a composition bent but the various orchestral Christmas concerts aren't doing it for you, try The Piano Music of Anthony Burgess at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation on 10 Dec, where pianist Richard Casey – founding member of Manchester's leading contemporary music ensemble, Psappha – will be performing a number of the novelist's works for piano, to celebrate the launch of a new recording. There's free mulled wine. Nuff said.