Buds & Spawn

06/11/2024

If you're wanting to know more about the artists that we've got playing in 2025, then two of them conveniently played some gigs together earlier this autumn and The Progressive Aspect wrote this brilliant and detailed review so you can get fully excited about seeing them in Sheffield!

Kugelschreiber play for us at The Dorothy Pax on Sat 25th January, and a.P.A.t.T. on Friday 7th March. The equally gorgeous Michael Woodman Music has played for us before back in 2021, let's see what the rest of 2025 has to hold, eh?

The Old Library Bar, New Cross, London Friday, 13th September 2024 Sitting on the swerve of New Cross Road (just as the latter prepares to commit itself to the Old Kent Road rat-run), The Old Libra…

01/11/2024

It's tonight!!

Solo piano set from William D Drake (on a proper piano 🤩), surrounded by tune selections from Regal Worm, all in the gorgeous canalside setting of The Dorothy Pax with one of the best bar selections in Sheffield.

There's still a handful of tickets left for last minute decision makers (possibly one or two on the door as well)

30/10/2024

Budget statement from Music Venue Trust:

£7 million in new premises taxes places over 350 grassroots music venues at immediate risk of closure.

Despite extensive briefing to HM Treasury, Department of Culture, Media and Sport and Department for Business and Trade about the negative economic, social and cultural impacts of the removal of the 75% business rate relief for grassroots music venues, the Government has today announced that business rate relief will reduce to 40% from April 1st, 2025. The immediate impact is to create a demand for £7 million in additional premises taxes from a sector that, in 2023, returned an entire gross profit across all 830 such venues in the UK of just £2.9 million. 43% of grassroots music venues in the UK made a loss in 2023.

Over 350 grassroots music venues are now placed at immediate risk of closure, representing the potential loss of more than 12,000 jobs, over £250 million in economic activity and the loss of over 75,000 live music events. Simultaneously with announcing this new tax demand, the Government acknowledged the faults and inequities inherent in the business rate system, promising to deliver a new lower rate of taxes on physical, hospitality and leisure premises in April 2026.

The challenges around business rates and grassroots music venues have been known and accepted for over a decade. Changes in April 2026 are to be welcomed, but will be of no use for the hundreds of music venues that are now likely to be lost before this challenge is finally met with a full, long overdue reform. There are three possible solutions:

1) The Government could think again and act upon the extensive data it has received about the impact of unfair and unreasonable premises tax demands and restore the 75% rate relief for grassroots music venues.

2) The Government could create an emergency fund of a maximum of £7 million and allow venues facing the imminent threat of closure to draw down from this fund sufficient funding to meet the new tax demand.

3) Every grassroots music venue in the country could install a temporary business rate levy of 50 pence applied to every ticket sold and used directly to meet the £7 million demand. This levy would need to be applied until the new business rate system is installed, predicted by the Government to be on 1st of April 2026.

Music Venue Trust believes that ticket prices for local music events should be kept accessible and is reluctant to encourage venues to adopt option 3. Unless the government is willing to think again, it unfortunately may be the only possible option to stop a complete collapse of live music in our communities.

23/10/2024

We are SUUUUUPER excited to have Regal Worm aka Jarrod Gosling (of I MONSTER and Cobalt Chapel) aka genius illustrator Varrod Goblink, selecting some tunes for us at The Dorothy Pax next Friday 1st Nov as part of our gig with the brilliant William D Drake.

I had a lovely long chat with Jarrod a couple of weeks ago about all things prog, mellotrons, writing wonky music and what it's like to be Tik Tok famous.

Read more here:

We're dead excited to have Regal Worm, aka Jarrod Gosling of I Monster and Cobalt Chapel, aka illustrator and artist Varrod Goblink, serving up some suitably psychedelic and proggy accompaniment to our solo show with William D Drake on 1st November 24. Laura caught up with him for a chat beforehand.

19/10/2024

Best summary of last weekend you're gonna get! Thanks for the words as always The Organ 🙌🏻

Cardiacs Family, Spratleys, The Smith and Drake Ensemble , Brighton Concord, October 2024 – Not so much a review as much as a tale of one more seaside treat. In many ways, it felt like that o…

16/10/2024

Oof!! Get yourselves to Glossop this Friday for more of this glorious technicolour riffage!

Ask My Bull at The Globe Glossop
Fri 18th Oct 24 8pm
Tickets budsandspawn.nuwebgroup.com

15/10/2024

This Friday at The Globe Glossop!! Join us!

First weekend of tour absolutely went OFF 🔥 We had an incredible time in the Toon - Huge thanks to .ouseburn & who we LOVE. Highlight of 2024 for sure / Absolute sweat fest - was delicious in every way. 💧🤘🔥 Last night in Warrington with for Mojopia’s 1st Birthday was also a dream! Thanks to .mccools for an ace night. Next up is on Friday.
📸 : 👑

03/10/2024

Gorgeous profile of one of our fave labels, home to many artists that have graced the B&S stage - Stephen Evens, Barringtone, William D Drake, Craig Fortnam.

All praises to Onomatopoeia label founder Nick Bourne for services to wonky music 🙌🏻

02/10/2024

Tonight at our fave venue The Dorothy Pax 👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻

Hamell on Trial is the musical alias of folk punk hero Ed Hamell

A one-man explosion, he is loud-as-war one minute, stepping off the microphone to whisper to an enthralled audience the next. Hamell’s unique and dynamic performance style is informed by politics, passion, intelligence and an irreverent sense of humor.

Armed with a battered 1937 Gibson acoustic guitar that he amplifies mightily and strums like a machine gun, a politically astute mind that can’t stop moving, and a mouth that can be profane one minute and profound the next, Hamell sets his sights on the new America. He shoots straight with his audience, whether unraveling topical issues or sharing confessional tales from his own past.

With special guest

Event link: Hamell on Trial with Ruth Theodore 02/10/24 FREE ENTRY

02/10/2024

Nick Beddow from The Rotters Club had a chat with Tom and Molly from flamboyant jazz punk three piece Ask My Bull ahead of their gig at The Globe Glossop in a couple of weeks time.

Friday 18th October 2024
Advance tickets available now - just £6 in advance or on the door.
https://budsandspawn.nuwebgroup.com/

Nick at The Rotters Club had a chat with Tom and Moll from Ask My Bull ahead of their gig at The Globe in Glossop on Friday 18th October 24. I guess that makes this 'Ask 'Ask My Bull'', haha!How did Ask My Bull evolve to its current line-up?T: _we killed all past members to keep the bloodlin

27/09/2024

Touring is expensive. Whatever we do as promoters, it's nigh on impossible to make the sums add up for our artists.

The marvellous Stephen Evens is taking a novel approach to funding his tour (which includes a Sheffield date on 6 Dec). Do you wanna preorder some merch?

👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻

25/09/2024

Show some support for our awesome partner venue The Dorothy Pax - more details below 👇👇👇

We lost x125 live music venues in 2024, it's not looking great for any of us at the moment.

Help us grow...you know the more people that see our events and what we're doing the better!

1. Go to the top of our page - The Dorothy Pax
2. Go to the 3 little dots … on the side of page, Hit “invite friends”
3. Select "invite all" & done
..and know you've done something amazing for FREE!
As soon as we reach 12k likes we'll be donating 12,000 pennies to the wonderful Music Venue Trust who do amazing work supporting Grassroot Venues all over the UK.

You know we host over 260+ free gigs a year!
The more people see our events the better they are!
DPx

21/09/2024

Did you miss the triumphant SING TO TIM gigs back in May this year? Well, there is another chance to experience the utter gloriousness of Tim Smith's music played at volume right in your face by a load of talented musicians who loved him with their very bones. There's nothing quite like it.

There are still tickets left for the Glasgow and Newcastle dates, and I've no doubt there will be lift sharing possibilities to be organised via the very active Cardiacs FB group.

Don't know who Tim Smith was? Well, if you've enjoyed anything we've done at Buds & Spawn over the last five years, then I highly recommend you find out quick smart! In short, he is the reason for this whole thing existing in the first place and also for my brain being wired in quite the way that it is.

Hope to see lots of you fishies there 😘🥳

19/09/2024

Have you discovered your new favourite album yet?

Sean Kitching at The Quietus says "there’s a wide-eyed sense of wonder and unabashed joy that’s closer to Tim Smith’s vision than perhaps anything else I’ve heard since his passing."

And we say: HELL YEAH! It's bloody glorious 💖

Debut album from Cardiacs’ extended family mixes scientific and humanistic metaphors with hurdy gurdy drones and gorgeously layered vocals, finds Sean Kitching

18/09/2024

More live music news for peeps in the North of England! We've been collaborating with our excellent friend Nick Beddow at The Rotters Club, who is launching a series of wonky music events at The Globe Glossop, with some absolute belting acts booked for their first run.

* Friday 18th October 2024 Ask My Bull: “Flamboyant Jazz Punk … The energy of punk, the danceability of drum'n'bass and the ROAR OF THE UNCHAINED SAXOPHONE” – and a great dance night too”

* Thursday 7th November 2024. Chemtrails: psychedelic power-pop/ post-garage-punk, with an “uncanny talent for blasting out weird but irresistibly catchy pop songs”, “hook-filled songs … raw power, sleazy punk, frantic krautrock and sardonically sassy grooves.”

* Friday 7th February 2025 The Scaramanga Six Celebrate The Scaramanga Six’s 30th anniversary as purveyors of ‘evil pop’ as they persist in “tearing a hole in the arse of the live circuit over recent years with their incendiary rock rituals”. It will be a HOOT!

Tickets for all events are just £6 and you can buy them through our ticket site at budsandspawn.nuwebgroup.com. Events will be timed so you can grab the last train back to Manchester if you're travelling from that direction (think some car sharing business might be needed for Sheffield folk!)

17/09/2024

We can't wait!

A winter sojourn? A missive below to feast your eyes upon'st. In the meantime I shall gather further information about ticket links, performance details and other facts once my stupidly busy schedule and lack of organisational chutzpah agree a truce.

So much time, so little to do....strike that. Reverse it.

14/09/2024

Sheffield's finest post-rock / shoegaze band and B&S faves New Ghost dropped their new album 'A Dagger in Every Tide' last week 🥳

With reviews describing it as 'a hypnotic, enveloping experience that’s hard to shake' (bUTTONpUSHER) and 'beautiful and awe inspiring' (Noizze), we recommend that you get on this now!

Hoping for some live dates soon, these guys shift the air in some beautiful ways ❤

9 track album

11/09/2024

Brilliant, brilliant new single out from Kugelschreiber ahead of the release of their debut 'Cheerleaders' album at the end of this week. Get yerself to kugelscreiber.bandcamp.com to snaffle yourself a copy and pre-order the album.

AND If you're in the south of the UK, then look out for their tour dates with the awesome a.P.A.t.T. later this week 😍

Releases September 10th, 2024. Purchase ‘F**k Symmetry’ and B-side 'Space Cadet (Detail) ii’ as DL at kugelschreiber.bandcamp.com. The second single from the...

11/09/2024

THIS FRIDAY AT THE OLD LIBRARY BAR

a.p.A.t.T. + Kugelschreiber + Michael Woodman
Friday 13th September, Tickets: £15 Doors: 7pm

Event taking place in Studio 1 - Our bar and garden will be open as usual 5pm-11pm.

a.P.A.t.T. are an English ensemble generally known for their avant-garde music and multimedia works. Since their first release, (e.P.) in 2002 a.P.A.t.T. have released over 7 albums, numerous singles, endless music videos and short films, received commissions from a smörgåsbord of leading arts organisations, made a full feature film and even starred and composed for a BBC TV Sitcom.

Kugelschreiber is the new band from Sharron Fortnam (North Sea Radio Orchestra, Cardiacs, Led Bib, Lost Crowns). Expect bass-driven pop songs wrapped in luscious three-part harmonies that explore the natural world within and without.

Michael Woodman (vocalist/guitarist in Thumpermonkey) will perform a solo set featuring tracks from his upcoming album, 'Hiss of Today'.

TICKETS: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/musicroomlondon/1324543

06/09/2024

Excuse the slightly smug post but pleased to say that no hat eating was required.

Utterly stoked for English Teacher on their win of this year's Mercury Music Prize 🤩 If you've not heard their brilliant 'This Could Be Texas' album then what are you waiting for? (Think it might even be Bandcamp Friday so win win)

14/03/2023

We're going on an adventure. The Sunfold Hotel The Betsey Trotwood The Rose Hill Bishops House

17/02/2022

Woof! Look at the programme on this! Disco cellist meets classical minimalists, Manchester Camerata showcases the sound of New York 80s underground 😍 Performing works of Arthur Russell, Phillip Glass and Julius Eastman.

YES PLEASE! Thurs 24th Feb at Firth Court.

https://performancevenues.group.shef.ac.uk/event/manchester-camerata-presents-the-music-of-arthur-russell-philip-glass-and-julius-eastman

This show pays homage to three New York Legends. Arthur Russell, cellist, singer, composer and producer of a new genre of music, one that fluidly blended the distinct sounds of country and classical, disco and experimental composition. Russell collaborated with classical composer and pianist (and fe...

07/02/2022

Yet more brilliant live music in Sheffield - this Tuesday at Firth Hall, an evening of intricate wonky jazz guitar and piano with Mary Halvorsen and Sylvie Courvoisier.

https://performancevenues.group.shef.ac.uk/event/sylvie-courvoisier-mary-halverson-duo/

Sylvie Courvoiser is an award-winning pianist, composer and improviser who has appeared on over 50 albums. Mary Halvorson is an American avant-garde jazz guitarist – known for her broad stylistic approach, touching on everything from flamenco, rock, noise, to psychedelia. All About Jazz dubbed her...

22/01/2022

A quiet weekend ahead in the B&S house due to the dreaded lurg, but am looking forward to spending a bit of time in the meditative headspace brought about by the hypnotic improvisational music of Emergence Collective.

If you caught them at our last show in November with ROSH and gannnet then you'll know exactly what I mean. If not, then here's your chance to find out.

Their debut release 'Emergence I' came out in December last year and is available from their Bandcamp.

https://emergencecollective.bandcamp.com/releases

6 track album

20/01/2022

The full moon has been a source of complete delight this week - moon rises, blood moons, just stunning.

For moon lovers, you could do a lot worse than celebrating each full moon with the next installment of the Lunar One project from the composer and songwriter Craig Fortnam (of North Sea Radio Orchestra and Arch Garrison) Over the next year, he is releasing a download only single on each full moon, with four installments released so far.

Frankly gorgeous, but so is his entire back catalogue, so you really can't go wrong.

https://craigfortnam.bandcamp.com/album/lunar-one-jan-22

2 track album