Back in March, Scottish singer/songwriter, Mark McShit McCabe went on a tour around the UK with Oxygen Thief. Rather than hang around Manchester all day doing nothing, we took the pair of them under an old railway bridge (you know the one, it’s been in a few of these videos now) and filmed a couple of sessions. Unfortunately for Mark, he could only get one song out before we encountered some technical difficulties. However, all was not lost. Later that night we commandeered a lift in Manchester Piccadilly train station and set the camera rolling again.

Mark performed, a track of his own, ‘Catch The Wind’ (watch the background of that one!) as well as a cover of Alkaline Trio’s ‘Warbrain’. Remember, if you want to see a particular artist perform in session, please leave us a comment, message us on Facebook or hit us up on Twitter. Next week’s session comes courtesy of Joe McCorriston.

Enjoy!

‘Catch The Wind’

‘Warbrain’ (Alkaline Trio cover)

After their awesome show with Touche Amore and Pianos Become The Teeth in Manchester, I chatted to Dan and Josh from Apologies, I Have None. The guys are currently riding a wave of critical praise following the release of their debut record London, and the band’s fan-base is growing with every show. Regardless of their successes, they still stood out in the cold and talked about things like re-recording old songs, the possibility of them playing acoustic again and they even managed to throw out some tour/life tips thanks to a well placed question from Moving North’s Kieran Kelly.

Throwing Stuff At ManchFESTer II - © 2012 J-Clique Photography

“Throwing Stuff is a collective of people who party hard and don’t learn how to play songs” – Alun Matthews (Throwing Stuff)

Ahead of their show in support of Sharks (yeah…we know), I interviewed Throwing Stuff. The band have gained a loyal fan-base and much notoriety for their high energy, erratically entertaining performances, and kept that up during our little chat outside of The Star & Garter in Manchester. We talked about falling down stairs, possible recordings and what Throwing Stuff actually is.

© 2012 Tom Bailey

“…the audience calm, and cling to every word, eventually taking over singing the song like a drunken choir, and seemingly putting Lacey off his lyrics. But who cares, the mans a legend.”

As the first chords of ‘Welcome to Bangkok’ ring out, myself, and I would imagine most of the crowd, are suddenly 14 again. Taken back to that place in time we first fell for Brand New, reminded of our teen loves and broken hearts, the band being the sound track to those drunken underage parties and our disenchanted younger years. Very few bands from my teen years still appeal to me, but Brand New explain why my love for them is so strong through the course of the show.

Looking around the room as the anticipation builds I find myself as another mismatch in a room full of variety. From 14 year olds in brand new Brand New shirts, to the Wiccan odd ball in front off me, to people like myself the post-emo veterans holding on to youth with white knuckles and teary eyes.

The atmosphere was electric as the band stepped on stage and began “Welcome to Bangkok”, ploughing through to ‘The Archers Bows have Broken’, ‘Millstone’, and ‘Sowing Season’ until there was a problem with Derick Shermans guitar we the  found Jesse filling the time with talk of his day in Manchester, explaining his great “Luncheon” and the fact that they have spent all day napping, he is a very humble and seemingly shy character (hidden bellow a baggy beanie) and despite the chat only being a filler for an onstage mishap the crowd are transfixed with what he has to say. As Derrick’s guitar comes back to life, Jesse apologises for wearing the same clothes tonight as he has for the last two shows, “I smell good though” he reassures us.

As we get to the fifth song, the crowd are gripped by the throbbing bass line of ‘Vices’ and are whipped up into frenzy. Moving onto ‘Sink’ another bass heavy beast of a song we can see just how great a bassist Garret Tierney really is ripping in to his bass with endless energy.

Rolling on to ‘Sic transit Gloria… Glory Fades’ the band are joined by a riot of vocals from the audience, followed up by ‘Okay I Believe You But My Tommy Gun Don’t’ the whole first verse taken over by the audience, the band seeming stunned by this looking at each other with confussed faces. A nice reminder that the band don’t quite realise just how good they really are.

The bands stage show was perfect, understated lighting and dry ice, nothing fancy just us and them, the way a good rock show should be. Yet another reason to see them live, it’s all about the music.

As ‘Jude Law and a Semester Abroad’ got started the room erupted once more in to a fury, not a body in the place wasn’t dancing. Following up with ‘Seventy Times 7′ only added to the atmosphere. Again taking people back to 2002 with the emo anthem.

Pausing at this point to ask the crowd ‘Play Crack the Sky’ or ‘Soco Amaretto Lime?’ Jesse asks for a clap vote, ‘Soco Amaretto Lime’ being the unanimous winner, the audience calm, and cling to every word, eventually taking over singing the song like a drunken choir, and seemingly putting Lacey off his lyrics. But who cares, the mans a legend.

Working through ‘Limousine’ to ‘Jesus’ we again find the crowd taking over the show to the bands delight. “Jesus Christ that’s a pretty face” bellowing from the moving mass of bodies.
As the show draws to a close we get ‘Degausser’ and finally ‘You Won’t Know’. With a towel over his head Lacey is an ominous presence on stage, considering the haunting Echo and the Bunny Men style to the tune, the tone drops and once again we are all hypnotised by Lacey’s presence. As the bass and drums pick up we are once more consumed with the need to dance, and we do, en masse! The whole room once again and for the last time turbulent and exhaustedly dancing like it is the last night on earth. As the song trails off the rest band quietly leave stage leaving Jesse behind to drop to his knees for the final solo then knock the mic stand over and throw his guitar through the drum kit.

A quick nervous “We will see you next year” and mention of a new album coming up excites the crowd and, with that, Jesse leaves the stage. The house lights suddenly blind us all and we quickly realise there will be no encore, a little disappointing given how good a show it has been. A large knot in my chest had me hoping in vane that they might come back with an acoustic and bring us to climax with ‘I Will play my Game Beneath the Spin Light’ or ‘Boy Who Blocked His Own Shot’. Missing ‘Guernica’ also left a few people disappointed but what will be will be, despite the lack of encore and a missing favourite the crowd leave sweaty and entirely satisfied, already buzzing with talk of next years gig.

Glory Fades… but not for Brand New, I am exited and refreshed, looking forward to what lies ahead for the talented gents from Long Island.

- Nick Matthew

© Michelle Midwinter 2010

“This is a song about Polish ladies…” – Mike Scott

While on tour with Random Hand’s Joe Tilston, we asked Mike Scott if he’d like to partake in one of these ‘Moon & Back Sessions’ we’re so fond of doing. Not only did he oblige, but he dragged a few more people in on it too.

Backed by Luke Yates (Sounds Of Swami) and Ren Aldridge (Ren Spits At Magpies), Mike performed ‘Following The Leader’ – a track from Everything Else – and I think you’ll agree that it turned out rather well. You can hear more from Mike by heading over to his Bandcamp page and by ‘liking’ him on Facebook.

As always the video was shot and edited by Dicking Around Productions. Thanks a lot to The Star & Garter, Manchester, for letting us film. if you have any suggestions as to who we should get in session next, put it in the comments, write to us on Facebook, or send us something on Twitter.

‘Following The Leader’

It’s been a long time since we had a substantial release from, Manchester ‘party-emo’ pioneers, Well Wisher. Two tracks on a split with Polina, and a plethora of live shows, was just enough to tide fans over in 2011, but now we have Summer Gangs. The band’s second EP raises the bar set by their debut – their, catchy, upbeat tunes sounding more refined and polished than ever before. In short, this might well be the best thing Well Wisher have ever done.

Starting out understated with ‘Are You Crazy To Come To The Crazy Beach Party?’ (what a gem of a song title!), Summer Gangs builds into this erratic crescendo of sound by the beginning of the second track, before repeating the whole process all over again. It’s like having a massive indie-pop/emo monster stumble out of the bushes, look at you, and start to charge, arms and legs flailing. The EP is capped off with a fantastic cover of Braid’s ‘Breathe In’ – a track originally intended for a tribute to the, no longer late, 90′s emo outfit – which the band have made their own, whilst making their influences abundantly clear.

Summer Gangs shows a clear progression in Well Wisher as a band. Their older material remains fantastic, but everything here – the lyrics, the musicianship, the everything – is a step up. Not only that, but it’s the closest they’ve come to capturing the band’s intense, captivating, live experience and I couldn’t ask for more than that.

You can stream the entire EP over on their Bandcamp.

What better way to celebrate 35 years of being one of the most influential punk bands ever than to go on a huge world tour (U.S, U.K and Australia) and playing the two, debatably, most iconic albums from your back catalogue? I suppose a big birthday cake filled with L.S.D and cocaine would be better but, given the current financial situation in the world, the white stuff has been hard to afford (I’m talking about flour, obviously). The Damned went with the former, and I was lucky enough to catch the horror-tinged punks at Manchester’s Academy 1.

It should have been a great night all around and it nearly was. The only downfall was, opening act, Viv Albertine. Once guitarist for, the now defunct, punk band The Slits, Viv broke the night in with a set of stripped down punk songs, so stripped down in fact that it was just her and an electric guitar which sounded like it was barely plugged in. A bad sounding guitar wasn’t the only downfall of the set. I imagine even with a full band setting they wouldn’t hold much water. Her vocals were completely off, and the lyrics were often reminiscent of a child who’s learnt a handful of, semi-crass, limericks. Her final song was definitely the best, ‘Confessions of a MILF’ did clarify one thing about Viv, she might be a little older now but she was still pretty easy on the eyes. Her short skirt gave a little reason to not head back to the bar. Nevertheless, nice pins weren’t enough to make up for what felt like a forced set of songs about a sexually liberated, self-confessed mother. Mid set a drunk guy turned to me and said, “it’s fucking punk rock, innit?” If so, maybe we should give up on the whole damn scene.

After nearly vomiting from the visual display that pre-empted their set, The Damned took to the stage. They tore into the entirety of, 1977 classic, Damned Damned Damned, playing everything aside from ‘Stab Your Back’. Why such a great song was missed from the set is insane, but this did little to diminish the intensity too much. The band played so tight it felt, at times, as if they were simply dancing to a copy of the album. Their energy levels don’t seem to have dropped one iota since the days of its release (fair enough I wasn’t alive, but that’s what YouTube is for, right?), and if anything the years of touring has made them a much stronger live band than ever before. Though I was curious as to why, keyboardist, Monty Oxy Moron was on stage during an album that features no keyboards. My heart goes out to Monty though, he jumped around like a maniac, playing no keyboard, offering the occasional backing vocal, and looking like he was as excited to be part of the show as the audience were to be watching it.

The band left for a brief intermission before returning for the second instalment. “Alright, it’s now 1980 and we’re in a studio in Wales” announced the Captain, changing from his Yeti-like garb to a much cooler looking Dennis the Menace styled ensemble. I hadn’t drank enough to believe him but I knew what was coming and the band blasted their way through the, more progressive, Black Album. Even though I can’t fault it, listening to this after something as intense as Damned Damned Damned felt like a bit of an anti-climax. Monty was finally given a real musical role and played fantastically. Singer Dave Vanian’s vocals began to give towards the end of the album but he pulled through, giving the haunting punk inspired melodies the mellifluous vocal talent that is missing from so many of the more vocally aggressive punk bands from the same era.

They returned for an encore of a few choice hits, ending with the greatly received, albeit cliché, ‘Smash It Up’, leaving the audience blown away and leaving me upset that the night was over. I’d had two of the greatest punk albums ever played before my eyes by one of the greatest punk bands ever, but it had left me salivating in hunger for more. Maybe next time they’ll play all their albums in one night?

I recently reviewed Emma Hallows, fantastic, debut EP and now we’re happy to bring you her debut video. Guess what? We’re bringing it to you exclusively too, which is pretty awesome. The video was shot in the Castlefield area of Manchester and, I think you’ll agree, it looks great. I happened to be there on the night of the shoot, and it’s great to see it all come together. I got roped in to being in it to, so you might just spot me.

Though he might be best known to some as frontman of The Loved Ones, Dave Hause has recently been carving out a career for himself as a solo artist. His debut long player Resolutions was released to wide acclaim, causing it to be picked up by Xtra Mile Recordings in the UK, but that hasn’t left him resting on his laurels. We chatted to him before the Manchester leg of the, first ever, European Revival Tour – where he’s appearing alongside Chuck Ragan, Dan Andriano and Brian Fallon – about his signing to one of the UK’s most exciting labels, his forthcoming 7″ record releases and his plan for the next Loved Ones record.

© 2011 Louise Distras

Ladies and gentlemen… Great Cynics

Great Cynics are one of our favorite bands right now, so to have Giles do a session for the site was pretty awesome. We’d dragged him up to Manchester to play a show, but made sure to get him “in session” for you guys too. Armed with an acoustic guitar and a dodgy hat, Giles sat and performed ’14 Coleman Street’ and a cover of, Paint It Black’s, ‘Memorial Day’ outside a Manchester bar.

We think it turned out quite well, but what do you think. Let us know in the comments and be sure to let us know who you’d like to see us get a hold of in the future.

14 Coleman Street

Memorial Day (Paint It Black cover)