Kristen Sinclair

Midge Ure Saturday 1st March 2014 @ Olympic Concert Room, Holiday Inn, Belfast 10th United Airlines Belfast Nashville Songwriters Festival ★★★★ Most music fans would agree that arena and stadium shows just can’t rival the intimacy and sweaty passion of smaller venues. I’d never been to a venue of smaller capacity than about two thousand, so finding out about a series of small gigs taking place across Belfast through a leaflet I’d picked up was a lucky coincidence. iPod camera quality Travis Is a Tourist I booked tickets to the Belfast-Nashville Songwriters Festival (or ‘BelNash’ as it’s known) on a whim. The week-long event involves veteran singer-songwriters such as Donovan sharing the stage with up-and-coming acts, from both the local area and over in the States. The festival takes place each year at various small venues across the city, such as the Empire Music Hall and, oddly, the Holiday Inn. For a mere twelve pounds each, my Dad and I went to see Ultravox ...

Title: Just Kids Author: Patti Smith Publisher: Bloomsbury (2010) ★★★★★ “No one expected me. Everything awaited me.” I almost always find that the best part of an autobiography is the beginning: the writer’s youth. Once they’re rich and famous, it’s not nearly as interesting a read. Strictly speaking, Just Kids isn’t an autobiography, it’s a memoir: “…a salute to New York City during the late sixties and seventies…a true fable…a portrait of two young artists’ ascent”. Although I am a fan, I knew very little about Patti Smith’s personal life, and the very fact that there is little mention of her music career somehow cements the book’s appeal for me. Just Kids details Smith’s love affair with photographer and fellow artist Robert Mapplethorpe during New York of the late sixties and early seventies: the time of Andy Warhol’s Factory stars and drag queens, musical revolution, psychedelia and, of course, drugs. A little like Morrissey’s autobiographical offering, Just Kids...

Dedicated to Clara Balzary, bandmate Flea's daughter (Source: wikipedia.org) "My smile is a rifle, won't you give it a try?" The first time I listened to Niandra Lades and Usually Just a T-Shirt was in the back of my family’s campervan parked in Calais after we’d just been robbed. I hadn’t listened to it – or any of Frusciante’s narcotic haze of nineties releases – since, preferring his more polished offerings of To Record Only Water for Ten Days and Shadows Collide With People , until my sister bought me a copy of Niandra Lades for my birthday. My main memories of the album were Frusciante’s wails making me jump as I tried to drift off with my headphones in. So, safe to say, I was a little apprehensive upon receiving this gift.      Although released in 1994, the first half of the album – Niandra Lades – was recorded prior to Frusciante’s departure from the Red Hot Chili Peppers during the recording of Blood Sugar Sex Magik at the allegedly haunted ...