Local Bands You Must See: Frankie and The Heartstrings

Each week InJournalism will bring you the very cream of Mackem musical talent for your listening pleasure. This week in the form of Frankie and The Heartstrings.

Read more

The Futureheads play charity acoustic gig at Independent

“Any chance of making it a little bit later mate? I’m running late” admits The Futureheads bass player and founder member, David ‘Jaff’ Craig when I ring him on Saturday afternoon. Read more

Sunderland club night celebrates birthday in style

Local club night By Royal Appointement is celebrating its second birthday this month . The brand, which plays Independent monthly, will welcome globe totting DJ Rui Da Silva to take care of proceedings. Read more

The Stone Roses to play Sunderland . . . sort of

This year marks the 20th anniversary since the release of The Stone Roses eponymous debut album and as always there’s rumours abound of the Madchester legends reforming. Read more

Student Journalism: Getting ahead of the curve

Journalism is changing. For the prospective journalist, this means moving with those changes. Enter ‘Journalism Plus’ – the evolution of storytelling. Read more

Free night out at Independent

A group of 6 Sunderland students have teamed up to offer the students of Sunderland a free night out at city nightclub Independent this Friday (Dec 5).

The promotions company is called Northern Hype and is partly organised by Orkney-born Rory Auskerry. Northern Hype has been putting on nights at the club for fifteen months.

Northern Hype was born out of flat parties at student halls of residence Panns Bank and when the parties started over-filling the flat, in September 2007 Northern Hype took over a Friday night residence at Independent.

Rory said: “We decided that it would be more advantageous to do it in a club. We decided it would be better to do it on a monthly basis this year as well because we’re all third-years and have an increased work-load. We’re expecting 100-200 people on Friday.”

Entry to the Holmeside club is free to students before midnight and there will also be free absinthe distributed throughout the night.

And Rory quashed any concerns people may have over the free distribution of absinthe, a highly alcoholic anise-flavoured liquor, nicknamed the ‘Green Fairy’.

He said: “If people are going to drink irresponsibly they are going to do it whether it’s free or not. We aren’t going to be giving out large quantities of it.”

Northern Hype has previously been named as Radio 1 DJ Steve Lamacq’s ‘Indie Night of the Week’. Rory will be DJing under his alias DJ Mashup and he will be joined by two of the other members of Northern Hype, DJs Scratch & Sniff.

The music party-goers can expect is current and classic indie, as well as some rock and some funk.

Perfectly Formed!

The Anglo Form

‘I feel quite fresh seems how I’ve been up for 48 hours’ confesses The Anglo Form’s front man and former Sunderland University fine art student Andrew Holder, wandering around in his usual attire of specs, skinny jeans and brogues. Its in stark contrast to lead guitarist, Gary Taylor, who according to his girlfriend, spent the previous night listening to the first five seconds of all of The Smiths songs he owns for reasons completely unbeknown to anyone but himself.

Read more