Archives

THE VENUE The venue is the former Suvilahti Power Station and between the lighting, the balloons and the sunsets, it looked absolutely terrific. Me, Robin, Dave, Jules, Niall and Fi BURST In the weeks before Flow Festival, the Balloon Stage had captured my fevered imagination. Some acts at a festival always need a proper indoor space, […]

It took a while to get the chaps tunes together this year (so much so we are now firmly in 2015) but as always it was a worthwhile exercise, even if some often choices provoked fear and loathing and threatened the very core of our friendships. Like a bunch of bald(ing) men fighting over a […]

It had long been nervously joked that if Pin Ups Chap James “Butcher” Cassidy ever had a stag do then there was only 1 place it could possibly take place: Ibiza.  And so it came to pass one morning in late August 2014 that a bunch of (early) thirtysomething men (and young Rambo) found themselves […]

When I heard the BBC 6 Music Festival was going to be held in Manchester’s Victoria Warehouse I was pretty interested. The Warehouse is of course the venue of the legendary WHP parties where I (and thousands more) have enjoyed lively rave-ups. I was interested in returning in a more civilised music festival context to […]

If you have read John D’s review of Camera Obscura and Django Django at Barcelona’s Primavera Sound 2013 (published in The Herald), you would be forgiven for thinking that us Pin Ups chaps and ladies were models of professionalism, surveying the festival with cool detachment, delivering perfect copy precisely on schedule. While it’s true that we wanted […]

Here’s our favourite tunes from the past year.  Had we been doing a Hogmanay Ball this year it looks like the democratically elected first-song-after-the-bells would have been Default by Django Django or Out of the Game by Rufus Wainwright.  To be fair, Rufus would have ben a bit “wtf?” so I imagine we would have […]

If you have read my review of Franz Ferdinand at Barcelona’s Primavera Sound 2012 (published in The Herald), or Paul Smith’s review of Franz Ferdinand and Rustie at Primavera Sound 2012 (published in The Scotsman) you would be forgiven for thinking that us Pin Ups chaps were a model of professionalism, surveying the festival with […]

I’m part of a merry band of characters that are off to Primavera Sound 2012 in Barcelona next week, and I’m going to earn my shiny press pass by writing a review of the action for The Herald. The line-up for the festival is amazing, with lots of obvious highlights such as SBTRKT, The Rapture, […]

John D. – this review was orignally published in the Pin Ups fanzine in September 2008.  Quite interesting to read it back 3 and a half years later, as James and I DID get a picture with Billy Sloan when we DJ’d at T in the Park in 2009, and I notice that Grinderman weren’t even […]

Just what everybody wants!  Yet another flipping list!  Here’s our favourite songs of 2011 (in no particular order)…listen on Spotify here….not sure what will be played after the bells at our 4th and final Hogmanay Ball on Saturday, but Metronomy look like the popular choice! Paul Smith m83 – midnight city bill wells & adian […]