What’s on this month at The Craufurd Arms

The Craufurd Arms is bonkers busy this November. Pulse’s Sammy Jones explores the monthly calendar…

Bournemouth hard rock mob South of Salem visit the new city (Nov 1) as part of their Samhain Supernova tour, kickstarting a monstrously busy month for the venue.

It’s SoS’s first headline stint, and support will come from She Burns Red.
The Professionals (Nov 2) made their debut at the end of the ‘70s, formed by Paul Cook and Steve Jones following the end of the band that changed a generation, the Sex Pistols.

Three years later and The Professionals were over too, and it would be 2015 before their resurrection. The band released its first new material in 2017, on an album which had key players queuing up to take part; Billy Duffy, Mick Jones, Duff McKagan and Phil Collen all left their mark on that release.

A second studio album, SNAFU, followed in 2021. Now with Tom Spencer in place of Steve Jones it’s musical busines as usual.
Yorkshire’s thrash quartet Evile have a new album out, and the tour to support The Unknown pulls into the Wolverton haunt on November 3, and when they ship out Bristol’s punking, garage alt-hardcore sorts The St. Pierre Snake Invasion – who released their third genre-busting long-player Galore back in April – slide into position.

Kosheen (Nov 4), one of the UK’s booming electronic music showstoppers who gifted us Hide U, are celebrating 25 years of music making with a tasty tour pulling the very best out of their career of musical gems.

With Starsailor, James Walsh (Nov 5) has supported artists including The Rolling Stones, The Police, The Killers and U2.
Starsailor’s most recent elpee was issued in 2017, but when not working with the band, James has cultivated a nice career as a solo singer-songwriter and has written with the superb Suzanne Vega, Professor Green, Eliza Doolittle and Melanie C.
Not content to leave it there, this powerhouse of creativity has turned his hand to movie soundtracks too.
Oh, and earlier this year he issued a new release, Coming Good.

This Craufurd date comes just before Starsailor start their new tour in the Netherlands to mark the 20th anniversary of their second, lauded Gold-certified album, Silence is Easy, which spawned singles including the title track and Four To The Floor.

Want a pop fact, pop-pickers? Silence is Easy was also the last album produced by Phil Spector. Well, he worked on a couple of numbers, at least.
Brooklyn’s melodic punkers Worriers launch their co-headline tour with Paws in the Keynes (Nov 6), five years since their last visit to these shores. They come bearing new produce too; 12-track elpee Trust Your Gut was cut loose in September.

Songwriter and guitarist Jonah Matranga – aka onelinedrawing (Nov 7) – will push a mix of material from past projects – don’t pop to the bar or you might just miss his re-imagined cover of Beyonce’s Irreplaceable. The same night, the venue will be hosting Faith No More man Roddy Bottum – turn the page for much more about that.

London’s Deadletter have been selling out venues all over and tickets for The Craufurd show are running low – jump on now, or sit at home and miss out.

Another show guaranteed to sell-out is the return of Dreadzone (Nov 10) celebrating three decades of Dread, or as Clash Magazine reckons, ‘a feast of bass heavy dubwise danceability.’

Back in the 1990s, as frontman with Wolfsbane, Blaze Bayley enjoyed some particularly memorable shows at The Pitz where the Tamworth terrors always went down a storm. Later, Bayley jumped ship to Iron Maiden, before embarking on a solo career.

Today, he manages working with ‘Bane (the band played an enthusiastic date at The Craufurd in 2022) with his own solo work, and it’s that which brings him back (Nov 11). 2023 has been quite the year for Blaze, who suffered a heart attack in the spring. It’s great that he can see out the year back where he should be – on the stage.

Tickets to see Twin Atlantic (Nov 13) sold out the day they went on sale, and small surprise – the band recently seen supporting Muse purposely chose to get up close with their fans with a string of intimate shows – and the Craufurd bagged the first date.
Brummie-based indie rock and rollers The Clause (Nov 15) have ‘60s swagger, an 80s groove and a 90s attack style,’ apparently. They’ll be escaping the office environment to deliver it directly to our inboxes. Erm, we mean earboxes…

L.A power trio Sasquatch (Nov 17) are, by their own admission, ‘an institution among fuzz heads and those willing to groove.’ If you’ve not shuffled their way previously – hop online now and maybe check out the release Fever Fantasy, and then go take a ticket for the show. Howlin’ Skulls will support.

Want to hear the hits of The Specials and Madness in one place on the same night?
2-Tone and Ska hits will fall like rain with the arrival of Special Kinda Madness (Nov 18) before The Members (Nov 19) arrive to mark 45 years (count ‘em) since the release of their anthem, The Sound of the Suburbs.

When that was released, the punk players infiltrated a chart otherwise bustling with soppy love songs and naff dance tracks. It spent four months in the charts and shifted 250,000 copies, outselling their contemporaries like The Clash, The Damned and Generation X.

Pet Needs (Nov 21) will bring fractured party music, The New Roses (Nov 22) will play classic rock for you as part of their Sweet Poison tour, The Hara return (Nov 23) on their Survival Mode tour, The Total Stone Roses (Nov 24) will bang the drums, and Conflict (the first band we ever saw live at the long defunct Countapoint) will bring anarcho-punk to town on November 25.

Flat Party (Nov 27) and Hollywood party rock-n-rollers The Bites (Nov 28) will roll through before Uli Jon Roth, who found fame back in the 1970s as the lead guitarist with the Scorpions, plays his last show of 2023. Uli spent five years with the German rockers before going on to influence generations of younger players; huge names including Eddie Van Halen, Yngwie Malmsteen, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Kirk Hammett and Billy Corgan – no surprise he is seen as one of the great innovators in his genre.
And breathe… we did say it was a bumper month for music.

Go to thecraufurdarms.com for your tickets.