If you listened to John Peel back in the late 80s / early 90s then you will have probably heard one or two tracks by the On-U Sound collectives of Tackhead, Gary Clail and Keith LeBlanc (or all of them together on the same record) - chances are that Skip was wielding the guitar that wailed and squealed from speaker to speaker in between the chopped-up samples and rib-snapping breakbeats.

Older McDonald is back on the road in the guise of Little Axe, a rather more downbeat affair but no less infectious. Blues guitar without the crap pony-tails in fact, but then you wouldn't expect that from a man who sessioned for rap-legends Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five! This will be the blues as he started out playing it back in the early 70s.

The short set of dates takes in places as far afield as Croydon and Manchester as well as the Royal Festival Hall (a free performance in the Foyer Bar), Kendal, Basingstoke and Norwich after which he joins Jools Holland et al at the Larmer Tree Festival in July. Ticket prices are £6 (wow!) for the Croydon gig (at the suburb's excellent Clocktower venue) and £12.75 for the Band on the Wall beauty [limited tickets for both, so don't waste any time! - Ed].

If you want to hear the man who mixed beats and blues long before Moby did, go see this man!