It’s 11 years, almost to the day, since Tindersticks last played Nottingham, their home town. The band formed in 1991. Their second slimmed down line-up, going since 2007, has never performed here. Until tonight. They’ve never had a hit single, nor courted one. Their unique music is hard to describe: a lugubrious, Leonard Cohen meets Bryan Ferry voice sings melancholy lyrics over a band who sound anything but British. A hint of Australia’s The Triffids is blended with a jazzy French lounge band and a few spoonfuls of Philadelphia soul. Tonight’s semi-acoustic, instantly sold-out show at Nottingham Contemporary accompanies ‘A year in small paintings – Singing Skies, September 2010 – September 2011′ a fine, brief exhibition of Turnereque sky paintings by Suzanne Osborne which…

Four gigs in nine nights made for this year’s big gig week (if you take the Beatles’ definition of a week and add one). Courtney Love is reviewed below. Great to see Prince from up close at Leeds Arena on the Friday – a loud set, full of hits, with a gang including my nephew Declan, who was in the womb last time he saw Prince (1990). It was the best Prince gig I’ve seen since my first one (1988’s Lovesexy tour, in the round). No idea how good the seats are in the round at the First Direct Arena, but the small yet roomy front standing section is a treat. I nearly sold my ticket for last night’s Flaming Lips gig at Rock City.…

  This year’s big gig week stretches over nine days in two weeks, concluding with the Flaming Lips at Rock City, a gig downsized from the arena. There seems to be something of a music oversupply in Nottingham at the moment, with last week’s Albert Hammond Jr (Strokes) show at the tiny Bodega far from full. Last night, it looked like there were little over 500 people at Courtney Love. What follows is a slightly extended version of my review for the Nottingham Post. Because sometimes, even 400 words aren’t enough, and I wanted to say a couple of things that don’t belong in a newspaper review, like the above. Photos from the Post report, by Laura Patterson, to whom, thanks. Nineteen years ago, Hole played…

  We spent Easter week in Deia, Majorca, where my friend Alan Sillitoe used to visit Robert Graves (whose house we went to) and one of my old musical heroes, Kevin Ayers, spent much of the 80’s and some of the 90’s. His ashes were buried there last year and there’s a plaque for him in the church cemetery, directly above that for his old mate and fine guitarist Ollie Halsall, who OD’ed in Deia in 1992. The place also has connections with Robert Wyatt, Daevid Allen and Gong, who used to hang out with Graves’ son, Tomas. We weren’t allowed into Graves’ orchard area where Wyatt built a small ampitheatre, though my brother Paul checked it out a couple of years ago. Spent a…

  The legends of my youth are in their sixties or seventies now. Happily, I’ve seen most of them, often more than once. As regular readers of this blog will know, I go to a lot of gigs. But there are still a few soul giants I’ve never had the chance to see. According to our Scouse taxi driver this morning, Al Green’s voice is shot, so I’ve left that too late. I’ll probably never get to see Aretha Franklin either. Marvin Gaye died too young. Did get to see Millie Jackson twice in her hey day. Diana Ross. Tick. Smokey Robinson was an unexpected delight. After his recent bout of cancer and talk of Alzheimers, though, I thought there was no chance of seeing…