Liverpool’s Stone close out tour with a Sunday night show at Brudenell Social Club

Benjamin Forrest on 23 February 2022

Formed in Liverpool, indie rock band Stone have been making waves in the alternative rock scene since their performance at Reading and Leeds in 2021. A support slot for music’s biggest phony, Yungblud, soon followed. In early February 2022 the quartet embarked on a headline tour around the UK with sold out shows in Glasgow, Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester and a homecoming show at Liverpool Art Club Theatre. The last date of the tour saw the group play a stormy Sunday night at Brudenell Social Club’s Community Room in Leeds, with support from Headshrinkers and Seb Lowe.

First on stage were Headshrinkers, a fairly standard modern rock band (though they brand themselves as post-punk, much like every other band trying to flog a record at the moment), they will likely be enjoyed by fans of bands like Sports Team. All in all, they were fairly decent, only let down by a disgustingly pretentious frontman. The same cannot be said, however, for the main support act Seb Lowe. Lowe appeared as a wannabe Billy Bragg – though, without any of the substance or talented lyricism of Bragg. His set was at best cringeworthy and at worst outright embarrassing. The world does not need another middle-class white man singing about how oppressed he is. This is not a dig at the political stance of Seb, much of his songs making very basic center-left statements, but if you want to hear anti-tory songs, there is a near endless list of better acts to listen to: The Tuts, The Menstrual Cramps, Oi Polloi, Elvis Costello, Bob Vylan, Witch Fever, Frank Turner, any band that was signed to 2 Tone Records and pretty much any punk band that is worth their weight. Put simply, Seb Lowe’s performance was uninspiring, boring and repetitive.

The headline act, Stone, gave an energetic live performance, frontman Finlay Power darting around the stage like a woodlouse under a recently removed rock. The performance itself was quite promising, the audience reacted well and matched the energy of the band – which was only dampened by the onstage presence of a guitar tech and tour manager who performed the role of concerned parents throughout the gig, dragging Finlay back in from his attempted stage dives. Stone performed a mix of their more well-known singles and a handful of new songs, including their latest single: the imaginatively titled ‘Stupid’. All these songs seemed to garner pretty good reactions from the crowd – the bulk of which seemed to be under the legal drinking age.

Overall, Stone were fine. Lead guitarist Elliot Gill, in particular, stood out as a brilliant musician with a great energy – which seemed to be the driving force for much of the band’s performance. Their main crime, in my eyes, was a lack of originality. There is nothing particularly new, unique or exciting about the group or its music. If you were to have closed your eyes at the gig, you could have easily believed you were listening to a plethora of other generic indie rock bands. To an extent, this could be forgiven – generic rock bands certainly have their place within the music scene, if only to make other bands look better – if it were not for the ridiculous levels of arrogance held within the group. Perhaps this was to be expected, with the group recently proclaiming themselves ‘The underground voice for the lost youth’ (in spite of the complete absence of evidence to support this claim). From the repeated and cringeworthy attempts from frontman Finlay to ‘open up the pit’ (incidentally, the word ‘pit’ should be viewed as being in massive inverted commas), to two men in balaclavas spraying cheap prosecco and throwing pints of beer over the crowd at the beginning of the encore for seemingly no reason other than to cause annoyance. The arrogance was palpable, the throwing of drinks felt particularly out of order given the high proportion of children in the audience (along with other people who didn’t much fancy their clothes to stink of cheap lager and prosecco). Audience members who throw pints at crowds during gigs are widely regarded as wankers, so my feeling is that bands should be held to the same standards.

With many festival slots planned for over the summer, plus another headline tour in May, Stone will no doubt encounter much more exposure and – with the support of people like NME – will probably become at least moderately successful with their generic brand of indie rock posing as punk. It is my firm belief, however, that the band will not last the test of time and will soon be forgotten along with all the other ‘flavour of the month’ generic indie bands – you don’t hear much from Vistas anymore, do you?

In conversation with Alt-J’s Gus Unger-Hamilton ahead of the new release ‘The Dream’

Benjamin Forrest on 11 February 2022

Leeds-originated folktronica trio alt-J are set to release their fourth studio album, entitled The Dream, today. Ahead of the release, I spoke to keyboard player and backing vocalist (as well as past Gryphon contributor) Gus Unger-Hamilton to gain an insight into the production of the new album and to look back on his time within the group.

alt-J formed as a quartet in 2007, at which time all members were studying at the University of Leeds. Gus explained, “Joe came to University with the express intention of wanting to start a band. Unbeknownst to us, he was kind of interviewing us in the first few weeks to see if we’d be suitable candidates to be in his band.”. Seemingly, the establishing of alt-J as a band happened pretty quickly after the four initially met, “We met at a party in halls on the first night of freshers’ week, then Joe met Thom and Gwilym on their course doing Fine Art. Joe started making music with Gwilym at first and then he asked me and Thom to get involved too. By the beginning of second year, we were fully up and running as a band.”.

Each alt-J album thus far has seemed very much like separate, respective projects – whilst there are similarities between them all, alt-J are certainly not a group which churns out the same album every few years. The Dream is certainly no exception to this rule. Asked about the musical evolution of the group Gus said, “We like to try keep ourselves interested in the band. I think because we’re all people with quite eclectic taste in music and quite inquisitive natures, we just naturally do end up constantly evolving. Innovation for innovations sake often doesn’t sound that good but I suppose we do talk quite a lot in the studio about trying to offer our fans new things here and there, to try to avoid falling into making a ‘clichéd alt-J song’ which we have, in the past, come close to doing before going ‘hang on, this sounds a bit like we’re repeating ourselves a bit here, how can we make this more interesting?”. There is not an abundance of groups which sound like alt-J, they have a fearlessly original sound. On the topic of influences, then, Gus gave an explanation for the recognisable and original ‘alt-J sound’ saying, “We all had a healthy love of Radiohead which was important, not just for the sound but also the kind of approach they had to making music, which was constant evolution and extreme musicianship, but with a very poppy finish with very good hooks and stuff. I think we’re a product of all of our musical backgrounds; me on the more classical side, Joe on the folky Americana side and Thom on the heavy metal side – I think that all those three things coming together create a sort of magic alt-J potion that you might not have expected to happen.”.

The Dream is the fourth album from alt-J to be released on independent label Infectious Music. Gus spoke about how the trio’s relationship with Infectious was forged, “We had lots of major labels show and interest in us and come to Leeds to meet us, come to our gigs to watch us, come watch us rehearse and stuff and then they all kind of said the same thing which was, ‘We really like you, but we don’t know if it’s gonna sell’. So, in the end we got two offers from indies: Infectious and PIAS, and we went with Infectious.”. Although the label was acquired by BMG around the time of the band’s second album This Is All Yours, Gus explained that the band are still awarded the kind of creative freedom that comes with an independent label, “We were able to take that creative freedom and bring it into a more major label setup which we have now with BMG – BMG is still technically an independent label but Infectious, when we signed to it, was like five people in an office in Soho above Ronnie Scott’s, and now it’s a big office with hundreds of people. We have a licensing deal with Atlantic Warner in America which is a major major label, but they’ve had to accept the terms on which we signed our record deal which was ‘leave us alone, let us do our own thing’, so we’ve been quite lucky in that respect.”.

Aside from the music itself, another thing which fans love about alt-J is the iconography and artwork employed by the group. The artwork for The Dream feels like a new artistic direction for the band in comparison to previous album covers. According to Gus, however, the chosen artwork was not the group’s first choice, “Our first choice was actually a Picasso painting called ‘The Dream’ but it was just gonna be too difficult to use a Picasso painting, we had set ourselves a bit of an impossible task, because you’ve got the Picasso estate, the owner of the painting, the gallery the painting is in – it’s just paperwork. We attempted to do it and pretty much immediately realised it was gonna be, what you might call, a complete fucking nightmare.”. The final cover is credited to artist Joel Wyllie, Gus discussed the process which led the group to this image, saying “We all owned some of his drawings and we asked him to send us some new work and he sent us some drawings, and this was one of them. We just really liked it, it’s quite an ambiguous image, this unspecified semi-human creature engaged in an unspecified activity. I think we liked that about it – it’s open to interpretation, a bit like the music.”.

Picasso’s ‘The Dream’ (left) was the original choice for the album cover

Speaking of the music, The Dream is perhaps alt-J’s most mature album thus far, and the single ‘Get Better’ stands out amongst the band’s discography as particularly heart-breaking. I asked Gus about the band’s initial reaction when ‘Get Better’ was proposed by lead singer Joe, “Joe played me that song and I had a very emotional response to it. I cried for quite a long time, which had never really happened to me before with any song really – let alone an alt-J song. I think it’s amazing that Joe was able to access these emotional depths without actually experiencing directly what the song is talking about, so that’s the real gift that he has I suppose.”. Mind you, you need not look far on this album for evidence of Joe’s extraordinary song-writing ability. Gus suggested that this ability might be thanks, in part, to the influence of psychedelic drugs, “Joe did have an experience at Uni where he took mushrooms for the first time and had a pretty crazy time, he thinks he experienced ego death. He’s adamant that he came back from that experience and his song writing ability had improved a huge amount. Before that, he was a good songwriter, but he came back from that and started writing really interesting, dark songs – Tesselate is the first song he wrote after that experience.”. Looking at the band’s early work, and particularly the album cover for debut album An Awesome Wave, it would be easy to assume that psychedelics played a large role in the creation of alt-J, but according to Gus “We’ve never really been into psychedelics… we used to smoke weed when we wrote but that’s not something we do anymore because we’re all boring and in our thirties now. I feel like there is a healthy background of mind-expanding drugs but it’s not a big part of our process nowadays.”

An Awesome Wave, the group’s debut album, earned them a Mercury Music Prize in 2012. Their third album Relaxer (2017) was also nominated for the Mercury Prize. It would come as no surprise then if The Dreamwas also to be shortlisted for the award this year. Asked whether the group attaches much importance to these awards and accolades, Gus responded, “We’re extremely proud of the prizes we’ve won. We would love to win the Mercury Prize again; I can’t deny that. It would be incredible, but prizes are a very arbitrary thing and ultimately you can’t really think about it too much. All we can do is do our best in the studio and hope that maybe some accolades will follow but we shall have to see.”.

The Dream is released on the 11^th February through Infectious Music/BMG and is available to order from local independent record stores Jumbo Records and Crash Records. The trio will also be returning to their spiritual home of Leeds for a show at the O2 Academy on the 9^th May as part of their tour of the UK and Ireland which runs throughout May.

The Night Café show their class at a sold out Stylus show

Rishi Shah on 7 February 2022

Leeds was the focal point of a circular journey for The Night Café over the course of the pandemic. Playing Leeds Festival on the release weekend of their debut album 0151 back in 2019, they would not play a live show for over two years – until last year’s Live At Leeds Festival.

Bassist Arran O’Connell Whittle popped into the LSTV studio for a chat just before that set, where he told us just how excited the band were to finally get out on tour this February and play their Leeds date, showcasing their lengthy debut that is firmly ingrained into this generation’s nostalgic indie rock scene.

Launching into Leeds University’s Stylus with the timeless ‘Finders Keepers’, the young crowd was sent into raptures as ‘Felicity’ and ‘The Way Of Mary’ reinvigorated the energy that created such a buzz around The Night Café. Despite the forced hiatus, the band showed no signs of a lack of chemistry or a single mistake amidst what was a crisp, cohesive set.

Having supported their Scouse counterparts The Wombats and Circa Waves on numerous occasions, and done the rounds at virtually every major UK festival, this set really saw The Night Café mature into their own, unique headline act that truly demonstrated their capabilities. The ticket sales on this tour demonstrate just how far their reach has grown, packing out sweaty clubs all over the country.

A short encore of ‘Addicted’ and ‘Mixed Signals’ perhaps left some fans longing for more material from their latest EP For Better Days. However, it was really 0151 that represented their coming of age, and it is only natural that they completed such an eagerly anticipated campaign with a stunning headline tour to match that will continue on for the rest of February.

The Night Café support The Wombats at Leeds’ First Direct Arena on 14th April, and you can purchase tickets here.

Barnsley’s Hands Off Gretel talks independence, punk rock…and Coldplay

Benjamin Forrest on 17 January 2022

Barnsley’s premier alt-rock tour de force, Hands Off Gretel recently played an incredible show at The Brudenell Social Club in Leeds as part of their exhaustive ‘Still Angry’ tour, a belated celebration of the release of ‘The Angry EP’, which the group self-released on their Puke Pop Records label. I spoke to the group before the show to find out more about their influences, independence and the mammoth tour they embarked upon in 2021.

Hands Off Gretel are a fiercely independent group – everything from the artwork to the website is down to the work of lead singer and frontwoman Lauren Tate, “There’s so much for me to design and do, I love it though. When I first started Hands Off Gretel six years ago, I always had a vision for more than the music. I knew what it had to look like. I enjoy it – I tour and then I draw”. The group definitely seem to prefer the independent way of operating, drummer Sam Hobbins said, “I would never really want anybody in a suit from a record label, I like what we have. No-one is coming in saying ‘How about you just change this’, you know, ‘How about you just shut up?’”, adding, “It’s more rewarding when you know that you’re doing it all yourself. It’s a slow walk to get there but there’s something more rewarding about seeing it happen.”. Releasing their first EP ‘Be Mine’ back in 2015, with a largely different line-up, it is fair to say that it has been a long road to success for the band, although with 3 albums under their belt and a very well-received 25-date tour, their success doesn’t seem to show any signs of slowing down. Lauren commented on the groups success, saying “As far as we’ve come, doing it independently it’s just proven that you can. We’re able to sell gigs out and do well, whenever people tell me I’m not good enough it’s like – the proof is there that I sell everything I make.”. Bassist Becky Baldwin added, “The fans are more dedicated to you I think. If you were with a label they’d put you in front of loads of fans who are kind of someone else’s audience.”. Hands Off Gretel are certainly a group that are not willing to compromise for anybody else, including record labels, guitarist Sean McAvinue joked, “With contracts as well it’s like you’re gonna wake up in a bath with your kidneys missing and not realise ‘Oh I signed that off!’”.

The ‘Still Angry’ tour kicked off in Autumn of 2021, having been rescheduled due to the pandemic, and saw the Yorkshire quartet play 25 dates across 4 months, spanning the length and breadth of the country spreading the gospel of their immensely great songs and effortlessly cool performances. Sell-out shows at the Leadmill in Sheffield and The Deaf Institute in Manchester during the tour act as good representations for the level that Hands Off Gretel are operating at, they are truly a group who are on top of their game. When asked about how it felt to be selling out these venues, frontwoman Lauren Tate said, “You’re always worried no one will come even when you’ve had so many successful gigs. It’s always surprising to see so many people, especially at Manchester [The Deaf Institute], I’ve always wanted to play there.”.

Not too occupied by writing and performing all the songs, designing the artwork, designing and developing the group’s website, and self-releasing all their material, frontwoman Lauren also has 2 separate solo projects alongside Hands Off Gretel: “In lockdown I started a project called Delilah Bon which is like hip-hop stuff. never done hip hop in my life and then it happened because I was trying to write Hands Off Gretel songs and I was just hitting a wall. I felt like doing something else.”. Lauren released her first solo album, under her own name, at the age of 15, when asked about her writing process, the Barnsley-born singer explained, “If it’s quite soft and ballad-y that’s like Lauren Tate, and if it’s angsty and punky or rock or whatever that’s Hands Off Gretel, and then anything more like a beat that I can rap over then that’s Delilah Bon. It’s just made music more exciting for me because I’m not trying too hard.”.

With the November date at Brudenell falling towards the end of the tour, the group were able to reflect on what they say has been a surprisingly good tour: “It’s been a surprise because we’ve not released any new music and it was a worry that if we’ve not released any new music during lockdown would people still come and see us, but we’ve seen so many new fans.” says Lauren. The only hiccup felt across the tour was in Blackpool, with the group saying they had “a few hiccups”, in that Lauren had lost her voice, there was a power cut during their set and Sean broke his foot – Sean puts the serious of unfortunate events down to the influence of “voodoo”. Thankfully, though, there were no hiccups in the group’s performance in Leeds. The band delivered song after song of fantastic grunge punk anthems and their raw energy on stage translated to bursts of adrenaline throughout the crowd. If you were ever in any doubt as to why Hands Off Gretel are so well-regarded and are able to sell out legendary venues such as The Leadmill, you need only to see them live to realise that they are one of the most exciting groups around currently.

After what was truly a great gig, the band closed their Brudenell set with a cover of Nirvana’s ‘Territorial Pissings’. When asked why the group chose to cover that song in particular, Sean picked out the lyrics “Never met a wise man, if so it’s a woman” as something that initially drew him to the track. Lauren, on the other hand, said of the song, “I was scared to sing that one, I thought my voice wouldn’t suit it”, though based on the reaction from the crowd at Brudenell it’s fair say she would even give Cobain a run for his money! Lauren claims that the cover originated when Sean and Sam played the song at band practice, Sam noted, “It’s always been one of my favourite Nirvana tunes. It’s one of the least Nirvana-y sounding, it’s more of a punk tune than anything.”. This sentiment was in keeping with the fact that Sam chose American punk rock legends Descendents as his ‘desert island band’, “I’m a poster boy for their merch, I’ve got the tattoo. I don’t really pay attention to lyrics that much in records, but Descendents are the one band where they have profound meanings when I listen to the lyrics, and they’ve pulled me out of some hard times. They changed my way of looking at music.”. In terms of the rest of the group’s ‘desert island bands’: Lauren chose P!nk, bassist Becky went for Black Sabbath, if only for the variety of eras the group went through, and the ever-optimistic Sean chose Coldplay because, “I kind of think I’d pick something that’d make me kill myself really quickly. If I’m on a desert island, I’m not gonna survive, I just want to get it over with”.

On the topic of influences, Hands Off Gretel seem to be a tricky band to pin down to one particular genre – they have been branded as everything from indie to riot grrrl, “When I first started out I’d tag everything grunge and riot grrrl because they were my influences, so I wanted everyone that loved that music to find us and love us but now I just tend to say alternative rock, because riot grrrl has that DIY sound which sometimes we don’t have.” commented Lauren. The interview then descended into a debate about whether grunge is a genre or simply an era of time – with Sean noting that Pearl Jam would fit much better with U2 than Nirvana so how could they both fall under the same genre? Pulling us out of this potential dissertation topic, though, drummer Sam concluded “There’s elements from all different types of music, you could say that some of Lauren’s screaming could fit into metal, but you wouldn’t class us as a metal band. We kind of pull from a bit of everything really.”.

With brilliant lyrics, adrenaline-fuelled music and kick-ass live performances, the broad appeal of Hands Off Gretel means that their success isn’t likely to drop off anytime soon. Coming off the back of such a successful tour, and with new tracks presumably on the horizon, Hands Off Gretel are certainly a group to watch in 2022!

A Glimpse of Christmas at Temple Newsam

Anushka Searle on 23 December 2021

This year Temple Newsam has introduced their after-dark illuminated trail. The trail is a perfect way to get into the holiday spirit. The trail takes you around the already-beautiful grounds and encapsulates you with twinkling lights and Christmas music. Each section of the trail offers a different form of illumination, from fluorescent string to actual fire, with some accompanied with special effects or magical instrumental songs.

My favourite visual effect was a tunnel of trees that was filled with moving green dots, that looked like shooting stars, which was accompanied with smoke which reminded me a lot of the forbidden forest in the Warner Bros. Studio tour. Although, as the trail is dog-friendly we brought along Buster, and he was a little freaked out by the smoke. That being said, Buster was a big fan on the lights, and I would definitely recommend this as the most extravagant dog walk to treat your pups to this Christmas.

There are also food and drink stalls at the start and middle of the trail which include Cadbury’s hot chocolate, yummy waffles, and a roast-your-own marshmallow stand! Although I will say the hot chocolate was a tad overpriced, considering it was £4.50 but they had run out of the marshmallows and chocolate sauce that was meant to go on top.

If you have a child, a young sibling or even a young cousin then I would recommend bringing them on this Leeds trail as it is full of Christmas magic and there is even a Santa Claus. Santa was great with the children, and they seemed absolutely awed by him.

If you have never been to Temple Newsam before than I would recommend it all year round as there is a Tudor-Jacobean house (great for the history buffs) that you can explore, which was once home to Mary, Queen of Scots and is rumoured to be haunted by The Blue Lady. There is also a farm on the grounds that always has lots of cute animals and babies during springtime.

So, what are you waiting for? Get yourself down to Temple Newsam and immerse yourself in the history and wonder of this beautiful park.

Buy Tickets here: https://christmasattemplenewsam.seetickets.com/raymondgubbay/christmas-at-temple-newsam

Spring Awakening Review

Lydia Duval on 14 December 2021

Lydia Duval covers the excellent new rock musical, Spring Awakening from LUU’s Music Theatre Society

Theatre Group’s New Labour Review

Ben Stewart on 6 December 2021

Ben Stewart reviews the Theatre Group’s production of New Labour at Stage@Leeds!

Frazey Ford plays Brudenell: cool country for an icy evening

GryphonEditorAdm on 3 December 2021

As she strides on-stage, Frazey Ford nonchalantly places her glass of red wine on the speaker positioned next to her and leans over her guitar into the mic. “We’re gonna play some songs,” she says. “That’s how this goes.”

It’s a cool start to an icy night. Many of the crowd, as Ford acknowledges, have faced treacherous roads and slippery pavement to get to the thrice-rearranged gig tonight. After an 18-month wait, both anticipation and expectations are high. Just as well then that the country singer more than exceeds the bar set for her.

The Canadian songstress first garnered acclaim as a founding member of the alt-folk band The Be Good Tanyas and saw much success throughout the noughties (including headlining the Royal Albert Hall in 2006) before striking out on her own in 2010. Since then, much of her solo work has paired confessional storytelling with soul-tinged Americana to create a catalog that is laidback, comforting yet somehow melancholic.

Ambling through her setlist, Ford creates a space that feels relaxed and intimate, although there is still a sense that each song is born from a considered place of raw emotion. Switching out her acoustic to sit at her keyboard, her vocals simmer over the soulful grooves of her back band during ‘Azad’, a song dedicated to and named after Ford’s sister. What’s interesting though is that new tracks like these pack as much of a punch as old favourites like empowering breakup anthem ‘Done’ and ‘September Fields’, a lament on life’s purpose marinated in a bouncy swing of interplaying guitars.

The show draws to a close as Ford returns to the keyboard for ‘U Kin B The Sun’, the title track of her most recent album. Through both her honeyed vocals and sweet repartie with the crowd, the singer crafts story after story to begin to weave a picture of her innermost thoughts and feelings. However, Frazey Ford’s biggest strength is being warm enough to draw her audience in while retaining a coolness that keeps us gasping for more.

A Love Letter to Chalet Girl

Mia Fulford on 30 November 2021

Arts and Culture Editor Mia Fulford paints a homage to a truly festive treat, Chalet Girl.

How Sculpture Show North Sculpted the Local Leeds Art Scene

Heidi Tam on 30 November 2021

Heidi Tam investigates the impact of the local art scene in Leeds and comments on how sculpture contributed towards shaping it.