Thursday 11th March 2010 @ Academy, Bristol
With Support From: The Chemists

Tonight the Academy was strangely filling up very early and very quickly from the moment the doors were open. This was due to the touring support for the Fun Lovin Criminals being a Bristol band known as The Chemists. I had already seen them support Skunk Anansie last November and was very impressed back then.
Read the rest of this entry »

Latest research undertaken by PRS for Music, the leading copyright and royalty collection society representing 65,000 songwriters, composers and music publishers, has revealed that Bristol has ‘produced’ more musicians by size of population than any other town or city in the UK. PRS for Music conducted the research to see which regions produced the most musicians as opposed to where they currently live. Whereas London has the greatest number of musicians living there, it didn’t make the top 20 for musical births, coming in at number 26.
Read the rest of this entry »

Monday 8th March 2010 @ Thekla, Bristol

A handful of songs into Frightened Rabbit’s sold out gig at the Thekla and their ever-engaging chief songwriter, Scott Hutchinson, reminds the crowd of the last time the band played in the city; namely supporting US indie legends Death Cab For Cutie at Colston Hall back in the Autumn of 2008. Though tonight’s surroundings may be slightly less grand than that, no-one could deny that the band’s journey since then has been anything other than a successful one. Constant touring led to word-of-mouth praise and sent Frightened Rabbit to the top of many end-of-year lists, both on these shores and in the US.
Read the rest of this entry »

Tuesday 9th March 2010 @ The Lanes, Bristol
With Support From: On Off Switch

Tonight at The Lanes it’s a juicy line-up of Bristol bands. First up are On Off Switch whose funky-punky choruses really hold their set together. They’ve got instantly recognisable hooks, lovely collaboration between the rhythm section and some really well thought out breaks and it’s what makes these guys unique; unfortunately, what comes between their driving choruses is laziness branded as multi-instrumental ability.
Read the rest of this entry »

Friday 5th until Thursday 25th March 2010 @ Watershed, Bristol

Not content with dominating the art world, it seems the infamous Banksy has now turned his hand to cinema. On the face of it, his film, Exit Through The Gift Shop, is a colourful documentary about the rise of street art and its explosion in popularity over the last 5-10 years. We’ve got interviews with several of the big players (and some of the smaller ones), tales of their exploits and narrated segments of various “key” moments in the scene’s (and Banksy’s) history like the spraying of the West Bank wall and the placing of a Guantanamo Bay detainee model in Disneyland. Holding all this documenting together is the story of one man, a certain Thierry Guetta, and how his love of street art slowly took over his life and changed it beyond recognition.
Read the rest of this entry »

Monday 8th until Saturday 13th March 2010 @ Theatre Royal, Bath

To be able to successfully investigate the dark crimes of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a detective must be of a certain disposition. The fear of lurking top hats and supernatural extremities ready to blind the entire religious and moral framework of the innocent appears significantly more real in Victorian England. Not that Sherlock Holmes, the Baker Street investigator, feels this terror necessarily. He is able to clear the mist and enter the mindset of the villain. Working with the clues, Holmes is able to form linear reason from explosions of distress. However, no man lives without enemies, whether they are internal or flouncing about the place in stark life. The Secret of Sherlock Holmes at Bath’s Theatre Royal is a short exploration into the horrors of Holmes’ continuously stirring mind.
Read the rest of this entry »

Friday 5th March 2010 @ Colston Hall, Bristol
With Support From: Charlie Winston

If it’s possible to have a relaxed excitement, I’d probably have to say that that’s exactly how tonight’s show felt. Tonight’s support, Charlie Winston, plays an array of well crafted tunes and while they’re not necessarily very original, they are well written and give the crowd a good taster and prime them just right for Mr. Faulkner.
Read the rest of this entry »

Friday 5th March 2010 @ Academy, Bristol
With Support From: Tinashe, Tiffany Page

The Academy was already heaving as Tinashe started the night off with an animated and audacious performance. His driving acoustic chord progressions complemented his smooth yet controlling vocal melodies and the strong musical influence from Zimbabwe was clear which was fascinatingly merged into a wild mixture of syncopated rhythms and synthesized riffs. A young man with an extremely promising future.
Read the rest of this entry »

SY’s Agony Aunt answers your questions…

1. How important is personal hygiene Harper?
My mother told me to always wash my hands before every meal, to brush my teeth twice a day and to make sure I wash behind my ears and in those hard to reach places if I wanted any chance of pulling birds. However, your mother is quite different. All I need to tell her is that her fanny smells great today and then I’m well in there.

2. How can I spice things up in the bedroom with my girlfriend?
Things must be pretty shit if you feel that you have to ask a complete stranger and also humiliate yourself to the audience of SY. Well, I can tell you one thing I know: You better shape up your act mate, because your girlfriend is a real animal in the bedroom and she told me she’d leave you if you didn’t step things up a peg or two. In fact, she told me that this morning when we curled up in bed together watching repeats of Supermarket Sweep.
Read the rest of this entry »

Thursday 4th until Saturday 6th March 2010 @ Bristol Old Vic, Bristol

Firebird Theatre have done something unique; they have created a Tempest that is almost unrecognisable. Gone are the bold flourishes of soliloquy and eloquent declamations of human angst and power that one expects from Shakespeare’s play, in fact, Shakespeare has little place in this production. His themes of human suffering, love and the wielding of power against those ostracised by a judgemental society however, are present in full strength.
Read the rest of this entry »