Needless to say, all media featured here is for personal consumption and promotional purposes only, and has usually been supplied by the artist or their management. But if you've got a query, please contact us.
Last August, Oklahoma’s Other Lives produced Tamer Animals, one of our favourite albums of the year. They also blew away audiences at the Deaf Institute twice, and have recently finished touring the US with Radiohead. Ahead of their appearance at Academy 3 this Thursday, 5 April, we caught up with the band to ask about Liz Green, The Magnetic North, Steve Reich and parking meters…
This is your third visit to Manchester in quick succession. Have you managed to see anything besides the inside of the Deaf Institute? And are you looking forward to a change of scene?
Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to explore Manchester yet – it’s usually in and out for us. The Deaf Institute is actually pretty cozy, but we’re always up for exploring when there’s time.
We’ve been trying for ages to book Leeds’ Paul Thomas Saunders. His debut EP, last year’s Lilac And Wisteria, was a big highlight for us, reminding of the warbling delights of Cocteau Twins and quite rightly featuring in our end-of-year list. Ahead of his appearance on our stage at Sounds From The Other City on Sunday 6 May, we caught up with Paul…
You’re playing this year’s Sounds From The Other City in May. For the uninitiated, what can people expect from your show, and your music?
I’ll be playing the show with my live band The Fever Dreams. We all look fairly malnourished but together we can make quite a concordant racket. As for my music in general, an old friend of mine who writes for a blog recently used the phrase ‘Snore-core’. While he wielded it in the most derogatory of ways, I actually quite like it, and it’s quite fitting. Perhaps I’ll start a scene.
From supporting Steve Earle at the Bridgewater Hall to playing the Kings Arms for us a couple of years ago, American singer-songwriter Joe Pug already has links to our fair city. Ahead of his headline debut here – an intimate, likely sell-out show at the Castle next month – we caught up with Joe to ask a few important questions…
Hey Joe, what are you up to right now?
Eating egg tacos.
You’ve visited Manchester a couple of times already. What do you know of the city?
I’m a devoted fan of Abraham Lincoln’s life. His connection to your city has always struck me as beautiful. That an American president would directly appeal not to a foreign government, but a foreign people, that seems unprecedented and, given the current state of global politics, unrepeatable.
It’s with great excitement that we’re welcoming Mr Willy Mason, the esteemed New York singer-songwriter, to our stage at this year’s Sounds From The Other City festival. We thought we’d build up the anticipation further by catching up with Willy in the meantime…
Hey Willy, how’s it going? Where are you and what are you doing at this very moment?
I’m in the US doing boring things getting ready for my trip overseas. While I was on tour the phone got shut off and there’s no hot water. My bus needs new brake-lines and my girlfriend’s truck just got towed away. Spring is a very exciting time of year. As soon as I get all this figured out I might get to record some stuff for tour but it’s not looking so good since I’m flying out on Friday, thanks for asking. Continue reading »
Ahead of his show at the Castle Hotel on 16 February, Hey! Manchester catches up with Portland guitarist and composer Ryan Francesconi to discuss his guitar style, Joanna Newsom and what we’ll be ordering for him at the bar…
Hey Ryan, how’s your year going so far?
Well, so far it’s great. All 11 days of it. This tour is the kick off event of the year! I’m replying to your questions here on United flight 928 en route to Europe from Portland. [We should add that this epic response was written via iPhone... Ryan joked of getting 'touchscreen tendinitis' and having to cancel the tour.]
Is this upcoming tour your first solo visit to Europe? Are you looking forward to any cities or venues in particular (you don’t have to say Manchester!)?
No, I’ve done some one off things and smaller runs – but this is the first proper tour doing the solo guitar Parables music in Europe. I’m happy with all of the events and cities – in particular, getting to spend a bit of time in cobbled Flandrian Belgium is always something to look forward to. Aside from a tiny house show in Ghent (I love that sort of thing) and a great show at the AB in Brussels, I get to be in the holy land of bike-racing shortly before the spring classics season begins. I’m there just a tad early to catch any races unfortunately!
To begin the tour, my girlfriend and I will take the train from Budapest and head west. That will be a magical snowy old-world adventure of sorts. Or… a suitcase dragging over icy cobbles, trudging through freezing rain, lugging a too heavy guitar case on my back, getting lost in southern Bohemia. I’ll let you know which happened when I see you.
You’re also joining Joanna Newsom for her continental Europe tour this month. How did you come to work with her?
We’ve been collaborating since 2006. We’re both from northern California and had met previously at a folk music camp in 2005. I was really impressed by her improvisation ideas over a few jams we had. I hadn’t heard her songs before, but they later became the soundtrack of that summer. We kept in touch, then the following summer she had an idea for a folk band ensemble to perform the material from Ys. It was the first time she had decided to put together a band and she wasn’t expecting anyone to play the Van Dyke scores… but that seemed like a fun idea to me, so we gave it a go. I kind of by default ended up the caretaker of complicated challenges after that. And there have been many! I’ve kept rearranging all the scores and writing new ones since depending on the touring lineup.
