Bryan Ferry
Tuesday 3rd March 6:30pm
SEC Armadillo
English singer/songwriter Bryan Ferry, the son of a northern miner, fronted the iconic 70’s band Roxy Music. Ferry and his contemporary David Bowie influenced a generation with both their music and their fashion sense, hearlding the “Glam Rock” era in music. In his 20’s he studied art at the University of Newcastle under the tutelage of the influential “pop art” artist Richard Hamilton whom he sights as an inspiration for his work. Roxy Music made many succesful albums throughout the 70’s and 80’s culminating with their final record “Avalon” in 1982. Since then Ferry has released 11 solo albums and toured extensively throughout the world.
In March 2019, Roxy Music were inducted into the prestigeous Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame and he is out on a European tour till the end of July.
Choice Track: Bryan Ferry -‘Virginia Plain’
Tones And I
Wednesday 4th March 7pm
Swg3, Galvanizers Yard.
Every now and then a song comes out of nowhere and takes over the radio waves, charts, streaming playlists and your ear canals. ‘Dance Monkey’, the furiously catchy song that’s been at the top of the Singles Charts in 30 countries, including the UK, where it spent 10 weeks at number 1, is the latest track to do just that, propelling its previously unknown creator to international stardom. Toni Wilson aka Tones And I is the lucky teenage girl who quit her retail sales job in 2017 and started busking on the streets of Byron Bay on the East Coast of Australia. Fortunately her experience of ‘singing for your supper’ was not all positive and through her frustrations at the public’s mistreatment of her she wrote her ode to peoples’ impatience, ‘Dance Monkey’. Her leap of faith seriously paid off for her.
‘… when I stopped doing everything and just focused on my music, I knew that this was what I was meant to do …’ Talk about the planets aligning! Go girl.
Choice Track: Tones And I – ‘Dance Monkey’
Halsey
Saturday 7th March 6:30pm
The SSE Hydro
Ashley Nicolette Frangipane, known professionally as Halsey, is an American singer/songwriter. Gaining attention from self-released music on social media platforms, she signed a major record deal in 2014 and released her debut EP, ‘Room 93’, later that year. Her debut album ‘Badlands’ was released in 2015 and went onto achieve huge sales/streams from all over the world.
She also featured on The Chainsmokers’ huge Global hit ‘Closer’ in 2016 which did her career prospects no harm at all.
Her lyrical specificity, openess and expletiveness make listening to the 25-year-old feel like reading someone else’s diary. The kids are seemingly very comfortable talking about sensitive issues these days and her lyrical confidence is matched by characterful production, which straddles trashy pop-rock, R&B & country.
Her new album ‘Manic’, her 3rd, was released in January this year – ‘a major label pop album with real drama and humanity’
Choice Track: Halsey – ‘Without Me’
APRIL
Peggy Sue
Tuesday 2nd April 7:30pm
The Hug And Pint
Peggy Sue are a female duo act from Brighton consisting of Rosa Slade and Katy Young. Both take on guitar and vocal duties and are usually augmented by a drummer and bassist when they play live. They have been making music since 2009 delivering 4 albums to date and have been classed as players within the UK nu-folk scene. But I hear more than this in their music, it’s more kitchy, 60’s, Kinks infleunced low fi pop to these ears. Lots of unison singing makes their sound quite dreamy, but there’s always a little overdrive on the guitars which adds some welcomed grit to the mix. Their 5th album ‘Vices’ was released in February and they are out on tour promoting it.
A night of female quirky garage indie rock.
Choice Track: “In Dreams”
Roy Ayres
Thursday 23rd April 7pm
Òran Mór
Born in Los Angeles in 1940, Roy Ayers is an iconic American funk, soul & jazz vibraphone player and music producer. Ayers began his career as a post-bop jazz artist, releasing several albums on Atlantic Records, before his tenure at Polydor Records beginning in the 1970s, during which he helped pioneer jazz-funk. He was also one of the leaders in fusing jazz and hiphop in the late 90’s, a true visionary and probably one of the most sampled artists in history. His attitude towards others sampling his music is so refreshing and has probably opened up a whole new audience to his music. He also has such a positive attitude to life … It’s infectious, as I can testify to, as I was lucky enough to work with him in the late 80’s.
Pharrel Williams, Dr. Dre, Kanye West, Erykah Badu, Jill Scott, P. Diddy … all quote Roy Ayres as having a huge influence on their music.
A very special man.
Choice Track: Roy Ayres – “Everybody Loves The Sunshine”
Confidence Man
Tuesday 28th April 7pm
Confidence Man is an indie, electro pop band from Brisbane, Australia, consisting of Janet Planet on lead vocals, Sugar Bones, rapping & dancing, Clarence McGuffie on drums & Reggie Goodchild on synthesizers. Don’t worry, these are all pseudonyms, but they are a bunch of indie rock kids trying their hand at dance music … with some success I may add. Confidence Man are arguably one of the hottest acts on the planet right now. Their record company describes them as: “… A portable party that’s levelled dance floors and flattened festival crowds as it’s rolled out across the world, they are a machine custom designed to make you dance and lose your cool …”
I guess that’s one way of describing them, but it’s actually pretty accurate. Since forming in 2016 they’ve managed to sell out shows all over the world, release their debut album “Confident Music For Confident People” and have their music featured in Global ads for both Apple and Ikea. Not a bad start.
Choice Track: Confidence Man – “Boyfriend (Repeat)”
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