SpideWriter

I had the pleasure of interviewing Martin Phillipps of The Chills in 2023. Sadly, Martin died the following summer. This interview was first published on the Grapevine Live! website in 23rd June 2023 by Chris Perry | Jun 15, 2023 | Music, Interview I was excited to be introduced to Martin Phillipps when  The Chills  came to play at Norwich Arts Centre. This was the chance to sit down with a writer of an unimaginable number of songs, (many more than the 500 oft- suggested), while he was passing through Norwich. We sat in the beer garden of The Plough, soaking up the late-afternoon heat and talked about song writing, playing in a band, the history and geography of New Zealand, where Martin, founder and leader of The Chills, resides. Spin a globe round until you find South Island. To locate Dunedin, look pretty much as far south as you can go on the east coast. It’s a fair way. Dunedin’s remoteness, (or is it we who are remote?), seems such that people have to make their own ente...

Sameer Khan of Karma Sheen Interview Originally published on the Grapevine Live! website on 23rd September 2022 CP: Things seem to have got very busy for Karma Sheen since I first saw the band in the early part of the blistering 2022 summer. What’s been going on? SK: I guess what has been going on is what had been going on! Recently we’ve become lucky enough to be represented by FMLY. Our wonderful agent Polly Miles is taking care of our bookings and doing as much as we can to get ourselves out there. And of course, no band is ever complete without a record so with all the complications surrounding funds for the bands and timings of everyone with day jobs, we’re finally close to completing our debut album at Sausage studios too! CP: I saw you had been called in as support for a couple of gigs at late notice. The band are clearly prepared to drop everything to get on stage. What discussions are you all having about taking Karma Sheen on the road, rather than one off appearances? SK: H...

Goodnight Robin  Voodoo Daddy's Showroom Monthly Open Mic 24th March 2026 The stage is set. The monthly open mic evening hosted by Voodoo Daddy’s Showroom is a musical institution that was started by Robin Evans pre-pandemic.     The show was promptly reconstituted as soon as possible after the air had cleared and has since become the event that puts the ‘vital’ into the vitality of Norwich’s music scene.     The setting, (both when upstairs on Timber Hill and now in the basement of Voodoo’s on London Street), is sound engineered, lit and takes place on a now legendary local stage.  Its scale and format, the unfailing regularity of the open mic, has led it to become a place where innumerable local musicians gather and mingle each month.  It has been at this open mic many of them have stepped a public stage for the first nerve-tingling time. They try out newly acquired instruments, test new material live, or just come to support and meet their fe...

GOON, Sunday Night at Voodoo Daddy’s Showroom Twenty-twenty-six has passed the Spring Equinox, already.  A long article on The Guardian website discussing the concept of Time, exploring whether it even exists, is a positively provocative starting point for a night out at Voodoo Daddy’s Showroom, London Street, Norwich.  What happens to Time in our heads when listening to music?  Can you focus, or do you need, or want to be somewhere else, doing something more worthwhile?  Are our perceptions of Time entirely dependent upon our state of mind?  How does music play with mood and hence our perceptions?  It probably depends where you start from.  Is Sunday evening, after a day of full sunshine and fresh air a good headspace to be in? GOON  having a good time in Norwich, (ignore the 'w')  How a band opens a set, how a band opens a song and where they take their audience, always fascinates me.  GOON, tra...

Gavin Bowers' debut album imminent Our Flame, the first single from 'cheap therapy' out 6th March 2026 There's always good music streaming out of Catch-21 Records.  Producer Gavin Bowers has been investing in supporting some of the best new acts working in Norwich and East Anglia for the best part of six years now. Operating out of his studios along Magdalen Street, rock, psyche-rock, country, folk and blues musicians have been nursed through their first singles and album recordings with sensitivity, patience and genuine concern to capture the authenticity of their music. I am not going to name these acts because this post is about the musicianship of Bowers and Bowers alone. I first became aware of Gavin's guitar work when he was playing locally with WAXX! Seeing them play at the Wild Fields Festival post-lockdown was an eye-opener.  There was an accomplished authority to the band's performance. The sound was full, the blend of rocking guitars, bass and drums w...