The multi-day event, renowned for blending world-class live music with an immersive circus experience, will feature James as the headliner on Sunday 31st August, alongside Ocean Colour Scene, Embrace, Cast,Sleeper, The Lilacs, and Girlband, promising one of the standout nights of the summer.
Fresh from a sell-out orchestral tour and celebrating over 40 years in music, James will bring their era-defining hits to Rock N Roll Circus. Fronted by Tim Booth, the Manchester icons have sold over 25 million albums worldwide, with anthems like “Sit Down”, “Laid“, and “She’s A Star” cementing their place as one of Britain’s most beloved live acts.
Also taking the stage are Britpop legends Ocean Colour Scene, whose classic tracks “The Riverboat Song” and “The Day We Caught the Train” remain fan favourites. Embrace, the Yorkshire-born band behind massive singalongs like “All You Good Good People” and “Come Back to What You Know”, will also be part of the spectacular closing night.
A new immersive, boundary-pushing music and arts festival, celebrating & shining a light on Liverpool’s creative underground.
OUTER WAVES Festival is a boundary-pushing celebration of alternative music and visual art, shining a spotlight on Liverpool’s creative underground. Taking place on 24th-25th May 2025 in the North Docks, OUTER WAVES unfolds across Invisible Wind Factory and Make Liverpool, offering a platform for innovative performances and unique audience experiences.
With a dynamic multi-stage programme, the festival brings together internationally-acclaimed artists alongside emerging regional talent. The lineup will span live music, multidisciplinary art, and immersive experiences, all unified by a shared commitment to our alternative creativity community.
Beyond the two-day event, OUTER WAVES will continue to foster artistic growth through year-round programming, artist commissions, and local partnerships.
Hooker’s newly unearthed 1973 recordings for “The Standard School Broadcast Recordings” set to release on February 28th. The album is an evocative collection of Blues brilliance, recorded for an educational broadcast, revealing John Lee Hooker at his most raw and transcendent.
This collection captures Hooker and a hand-picked trio of musicians at their most intimate and inspired. Decades later, the full session has been unearthed, offering fans an unparalleled glimpse into the artistry of one of the Blues’ greatest pioneers. During the original recording session, Hooker, bassist Gino Skaggs, and his son Robert Hooker recorded eight tracks, only three of which were ever broadcast. The remaining five tracks have remained unheard – until now.
Once considered a long-lost (and in most cases, complete unknown) studio recording from John Lee Hooker, “The Standard School Broadcast Recordings” is the first commercial release of a rare 1973 fully electric blues band recording. Performed direct-to-tape at Coast Recorders in San Francisco, the session captures Hooker at a tumultuous and deeply transformative time of his career, accompanied by his reliable standby rhythm section of bassist Gino Skaggs and drummer Ken Swank, plus Hooker’s pianist son Robert. “The Standard School Broadcast”, initiated in 1928, was a multiple-award-winning educational radio series sponsored by Standard Oil (aka Esso, later Exxon). Based in San Francisco, the collections specialized in music appreciation and American history. Copies of some of its shows were also supplied to schools on vinyl LPs. The CD will also contain two bonus tracks – “Sallie Mae” and “Instrumental”.
The set features reimagined versions of Hooker classics like “Sally Mae” and “Hard Times,” alongside spontaneous creations and medleys that exemplify his unique approach to storytelling through song.
“Today!” is the second studio album, but third body of work recorded by folk/country blues musician Mississippi John Hurt. It was released in 1966 by Vanguard Records. This album contains some of the first commercial material recorded after his “rediscovery” in 1963, and is the first he recorded for Vanguard. The album spans several genres and styles of music, ranging from traditional blues and folk songs, to country, to African-American spirituals.Along with Hurt’s two previous releases, “Today!” helped to reveal his work to a wider folk audience.
it is still difficult to believe that there is just one man playing on the seemingly effortless guitar work … that sound, along with a mellow and heartfelt voice, wizened here by decades, combine to make “Today!” an unforgettable whole. A truly essential album of the folk revival, The music on the album comes from a variety of different influences, from the fun and poppy “Hot Time in Old TownTonight” and “Coffee Blues,” to the bluesy standards “Candy Man” (Hurt’s most famous song) and “Spike Driver’s Blues” to the soulful spirituals “Louis Collins” and “Beulah Land.” Hurt’s tranquil guitar work — mixing country, Scottish folk, and Delta blues — strings all of the songs along the same simple and elegant thread. Hurt himself never could explain his guitar playing, as he used to say, “I just make it sound like I think it ought to.”
In 2009, the album was one of the twenty-five selections that were added to the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry
‘TexiCali’, from Grammy winner Dave Alvin and Grammy nominee Jimmie Dale Gilmore, continues to bridge the distance between the two troubadours’ respective home bases of California (Alvin) and Texas (Gilmore). The geographic theme reflects Alvin’s repeated journeys to record in Central Texas with Gilmore and the Austin-based backing band that has toured with the duo for the past few years.
Behind blistering blues licks, “TexiCali” doubles as a roadtrip across Grammy winner Dave Alvin and Jimmie Dale Gilmore’s beloved home states and the memories within, honouring shared musical influences, friends gone too soon and all they’ve endured along the way. These folk heroes have now evolved their unbreakable bond into a fully-fledged musical and songwriting partnership.
“TexiCali” continues to bridge the distance between the two troubadours’ respective home bases of California (Alvin) and Texas (Gilmore).
Its 11 songs also connect their shared fondness for a broad range of American music forms. On their own, both have been prominent artists for decades. A philosophical songwriter with a captivating, almost mystical voice, Gilmore co-founded influential Lubbock group the Flatlanders in the early 1970s. Alvin first drew attention as a firebrand guitarist and budding young songwriter with Los Angeles roots-rockers the Blasters in the early 1980s.
They’re both quick to credit the musicians who joined them in the studio as crucial to the sound and spirit of the album. On “Downey To Lubbock”, they recorded primarily in Los Angeles with a crew that included ringers such as the late Don Heffington on drums and Van Dyke Parks on accordion. This time, though, Alvin’s longtime rhythm section of drummer Lisa Pankratz and bassist Brad Fordham played a larger role, along with guitarist Chris Miller and keyboardist Bukka Allen.
“After the time we spent touring, Jimmie and I became members of this band,” Alvin says. “The band can play just about anything, which the album shows off.” “TexiCali” also found Alvin and Gilmore increasingly focusing on original songs. Among them are “Trying To Be Free,” which Gilmore wrote more than 50 years ago; “Southwest Chief,” a collaboration between Alvin and the late Bill Morrissey; and “Death of the Last Stripper,” which Alvin wrote with Terry Allen and his wife Jo Harvey Allen.
With over an hour of performances, “Live Mind” was recorded in February and March 2024 at the Troubadour in Los Angeles, Ventura Music Hall in Ventura, CA, and The Kessler Theater in Dallas, TX. Produced by Dave Alvin and Victor Krummenacher, the album was mixed and mastered by Craig Parker Adams at Winslow Court, Los Angeles, CA.
This live album recorded at The Third Mind concerts in California and Texas, captures the band doing what they do best – going wherever the moment takes them musically. If you have yet to attend one of their acclaimed live shows, this album is an opportunity to hear what all of the fuss is about.
“…onstage is where its spontaneous mastery goes off the rails in the best way.” – Magnet, “…Live Mind” supplies what too few of us got to see; The Third Mind’s uncanny, exquisitely sympathetic synergy at work in front of a live audience, the place the band’s collaborative abilities was made for.” – Rock & Blues Muse. “With this record, Dave and company take the listener on a kaleidoscopic ride. To paraphrase Ralph Waldo Emerson, It’s not so much the destination, as the journey.” – Coachella Valley Weekly
“Doralee” was the first song I wrote for my band Jesse Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter. There had been a huge flood in Skagit Valley, Washington, and I knew Doralee —who lived on the flood plains. She was a tough country woman — seemingly unfazed by the potential destruction of the coming waters. She seemed to understand how transitory everything is and had a knowingness that it was all part of a larger grand plan. I wanted her to be witnessed in this context—in the face of nature’s relentless violence and disconcerting solitude, where there was a quiet grace in facing imminent catastrophe. She left a deep impression on me and I’m glad she lives on forever, inside this song. –J.Sykes
Jesse Sykes: acoustic guitar, vocals Dave Alvin: guitar Michael Jerome: drums Mark Karan: guitar VictorKrummenacher: bass
Swans return with ‘Birthing’, the latest album, developed over the course of a yearlong 2023-2024 tour. ‘Birthing’ is released via Mute and Young God Records. The initial pressings of the deluxe vinyl and CD include a bonus DVD featuring ‘Swans Live 2024 (Rope) “The Beggar’, a concert film by Marco Porsia documenting the band’s most recent US tour. The DVD also includes ‘I Wonder If I’m Singing What You’re Thinking Me to Sing’, a documentary by Christopher Nicholson following Michael Gira’s 2022 solo tour.
Refined through relentless improvisation and live performance, as well as newly composed studio pieces, ‘Birthing’ is a testament to Michael Gira’s uncompromising sonic vision. Beginning as skeletal acoustic compositions, the songs were gradually expanded and transformed in the studio with long time live members and collaborators.
“The material contained in this album was largely developed over the course of a yearlong Swans tour, during 2023 – 2024 (‘The Healers’, ‘I Am a Tower’, ‘Birthing’, ‘Guardian Spirit’, ‘Rope’, and ‘Away’), then recorded and further orchestrated and rearranged in the studio. Two pieces were created and performed in the studio (‘Red Yellow’, ‘The Merge’). In all cases the material began with me sitting in my office with an acoustic guitar, singing and dreaming about what would become of these skeletal songs.
I’m blessed to have such a stellar group of musicians to work with live (listed below), and through improvisation, endless revisions and an intensity of focus in performance (not to mention endurance), over the course of time the music morphed into what you generally hear on this collection. This album, coupled with the recent live release, “Live Rope”, constitutes my final foray (as producer / impresario) into the all-consuming sound worlds that have been my obsession for years.
We’ll do a final tour in this mode towards the end of 2025, then that’s it. After that, Swans will continue, so long as I’m able, but in a significantly pared down form. Hints of that direction can be found in a few moments on the current album. In the meantime, my hope is that the music provides a positive and fertile atmosphere in which to dream.” – Michael Gira / Swans
All proceeds benefiting Habitat for Humanity LA. Since the late nineties, Fruit Bats has been the music of Eric D. Johnson. Bloody marys, major 7th chords, Nashville tuning, tibetan singing bowls. Fruit Bats and The Wild Honey Pie have teamed up to release the live recordings from the Pizza Party at Hotel Lilien on July 30, 2023. All sales will go to Habitat for Humanity of Greater Los Angeles to help rebuild following the wildfires in Los Angeles. The recordings are available exclusively on Bandcamp and will only be available through March 21st
released March 7th, 2025
Performed by Eric D. Johnson All songs written by Eric D. Johnson except “I Threw It All Away,” written by Bob Dylan
