2 cool British acts will be at First Avenue’s 7th Street Entry on Wednesday 8/9. Singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Marika Hackman and four piece The Big Moon. Tickets are still available HERE
Hackman just released her album “I’m not your man” It’s a fiery statement from a songwriter who no longer wants to be shackled to limiting descriptions. When presented to the world five years ago, Hackman couldn’t escape the trappings of being compared to every other fey English rose singer-songwriter lady with a guitar. “I’m not some miserable git that walks about feeling depressed all the time,” she laughs. “None of my friends would describe me like that.” From the opening of ‘Boyfriend’ you immediately sense the transition. It signals a raw, rockier and immediately more brazen beginning to a 13-track record that packs a far gutsier live punch than any of her prior folk-leaning output. It’s also really funny. “I’ve got your boyfriend on my mind,” she teases, finally breaking out of couching her thoughts on sexuality and love in metaphors. “I felt more bold and confident to stop hiding things, to stop talking about water, lakes and trees when I just wanna write about the fact that I’ve broken up with my girlfriend.”
London four-piece The Big Moon formed in the way that any great band should. “I didn’t just want to start a band, I really, genuinely needed to,” says singer Juliette Jackson. “I was working in a fancy cocktail bar in North London where they made stupid drinks flavored with soil and tomato skins. I had to get out of there. So I started writing songs about love and hangovers, robots and the fourth dimension, ran around London asking everyone I knew if they knew anyone who wanted to be in a band with me.”
Word soon got round and, via a network of friends of friends, Jules began to find some like-minded spirits. “I’d blind-date people in a pub in Islington and suss them out,” she says. Drummer Fern Ford (and organist, she plays the two instruments simultaneously) – who at the time had a series of jobs “serving food out of trucks” – was the first to join, and guitarist Soph Nathan, who was studying in Brighton, was next. “Celia [Archer] joined last,” says Juliette. “It was just us three for a while and then one afternoon she came to our practice room. I answered the door and immediately said, ‘I love you’”. She joined us the next day.
Photo Credit: Steve Gullick
Aug 05 Lost Lake Denver, CO
Aug 06 Kilby Court Salt Lake City, UT
Aug 07 Lost Lake Denver, CO
Aug 09 7th Street Entry, Minneapolis, MN
Aug 10 COLECTIVO COFFEE Milwaukee, WI
Aug 11 Schubas Chicago, IL
Aug 13 The Drake Hotel Toronto, Canada
Aug 15 Great Scott Allston, MA
Aug 16 Baby’s All Right New York, NY
