Did you like Plan B? While he busies himself with his next album, meet the singer we could call Plan C, aka Irishman Michael Stafford – another soulful skinhead who looks like he could go either way between crooning a lovesick retro ballad and nutting you. Like his sometime flatmate and mentor, the 21-year-old, who…
At five feet 11 the new cool face of New Orleans jazz is far from short, but Troy Andrews has got at least one part of his stage name right – Trombone Shorty blows so hard that he’ll make you wonder why there aren’t more people leading bands with this forceful wind instrument. He’s probably…
The appearance of Florence Welch in her natural habitat is as rare as a comet sighting these days, so catch her while you can. The art school brat turned international superstar is back in her London home for four major concerts in a month – a glittering arrival worth celebrating. As last night’s first night…
So is Paloma Faith a diva or not? As she totters into her Portobello Road members club, a vision in salmon pink on skyscraping heels, bottle-red corkscrew hair billowing, an hour late for our scheduled rendez-vous, it certainly feels that way. But then it’s all double-cheek kisses and gushing apologies in an extraordinary speaking…
Sometimes the best ideas are the most unlikely. It takes a special kind of mind to pick up Dave Brubeck’s wonderful but overfamiliar 1959 classic, Take Five, give it a sitar, tabla and swooping strings makeover, and take it to the top of the iTunes jazz chart. The Sachal Jazz Ensemble, who also do something…
Somebody to Love Me Despite his current near-horizontal position in the Royal Opera House bar, Mark Ronson has more plates in the air than a Greek wedding. Rarely slowing down in a decade of zipping around popular culture with his white shoes and slick quiff, the 36-year-old now seems to be accelerating. There are new…
ALABAMA SHAKES Sometimes I worry I might be allergic to giving five star reviews, yet I scattered them freely over Alabama Shakes at their very first London show last month. It was a raucous, thrilling rock and soul revue that launched the quartet in the sameTufnellParkpub, the Boston Arms, that witnessed the start of…
HAIM “If anything it might even be a deterrent that we’re related. I don’t think it puts the best picture in your head: ‘three sisters rocking out’.” Danielle Haim is considering whether it is the one-line summation of the band she operates with her older sister, Este, and younger sister, Alana, that has generated…
Fun. – New York rockers on the rise After years of girl pop and hip hop on top, a New York guitar band called Fun are about to turn back the tide 20 April 2012 Who would think to look for the latest saviours of rock music in a tiny London venue? The…
Plan B: Do you want some, middle England? Ill Manors is the first feature film from Ben Drew, aka Plan B, and it’s as shocking as his riot-referencing single of the same name. It’s not about heroes in hoodies, he tells David Smyth, but a fight against middle-class prejudices 04 May 2012 …