Zion Train at Fiddlers, Bristol

Ok so I don't really know exactly what I was expecting, but the crusty crowd certainly turned out in force for some white buoy dub at Fiddlers last night. Jah Tubby's Sound System tested the resonant frequency of the building, which I'm sure they came close to finding and they also tested the patience of the crowd as it drew near to midnight (maybe it was just me). Good music though, no real DJ-ing, just tunes with a bit of shouting when the DJ changed the record.

So eventually the 'band' turned up, complete with female bezzer who nicked their towels and water… no-one seemed to mind much. The singer was amazing, and just after I'd realised she was regurgitating old Bob Marley lyrics and was about to get all cynical, she announced that at least three of the songs we'd had so far she had never heard before.

I only wish they had a real bass player. I mean, it's all clever and stuff using a couple of decks, a Kaos Pad and an Alesis Air FX thingy (ideal for all that echoey stuff dub is made of). But with a 'puter, it all gets a bit much… when it's all about the bass lines, a bit of interest wouldn't go amiss! The horn section were pretty effective, but really it was a one man show. If this is the UK dub scene, it needs a bit of an update, if indeed it's possible - maybe they want to stay neck deep in the 80's for ever...

The bezzer got a bit upset when having realised that she wasn't part of the band, some other members of the audience jumped on stage and joined in towards the end...

For live gig downloads and more information, visit http://www.ziontrain.co.uk/1754.html.

Ben Harper at Glastonbury

(In which Ben Harper teaches a festival crowd what it means to perform)

Thought for the day: What makes a good gig? I mean a really good gig - one that gets the adrenaline running and catches your breath, brings tears to your eyes, makes you laugh out loud, inspires you and sends you back out into the world looking at everything with fresh open eyes? Something that makes you wonder how it is that bands manage to get away with songs-by-numbers as if they're miming Top Of The Pops style. One such gig was the Manics a few years ago. Who needs the band, the live experience when you've got the CD and it sounds exactly the same? I can even make it sound almost as loud at home, so why bother wasting the money?

This year's Glastonbury was full of it. Lost Prophets, Snow Patrol, Kasabian (ok I don't like their music either) and many others all did it. So many times I was left wondering how much thought they'd actually put into their festival performance, if it were actually even special to them. Maybe it's that it's become commercialised like everyone says. Maybe it's no less than people expect. Maybe if I'd paid for my ticket I would have been even more disappointed.

Ben Harper was different. You really got the impression that these guys were in it for the music, not just there 'for the fooking money' as Liam Gallagher so eloquently put it as he left the stage (not that I saw them, coz that would be silly). For blissful solo after solo, wig-outs, extended breaks, gorgeous music and energy, Ben Harper drove the audience up and up, I didn't see another crowd at the festival in such a state (until James Brown and the end of Suzanne Vega). This was the real deal, this was the festival experience, this was what people go to Glastonbury for, to have a shared experience of something really quite special with thousands of other people, all riding the same wave.

Getting a bit emotional here, but that's what music is all about: emotion. There are a few kinds of music: music that makes you dance, music that makes you think, and music that carries you away with it on waves of emotion (get a list from google), and pop (which is supposed to be dance I guess). All of these things can be ruined by the performance, the attitude of the performer, the thought that goes into the set, and the desire / reluctance to create something unique.

I believe that of all the gigs that people saw, the ones they remember are going to be the ones where this happened. Where performers like Ben Harper (and James Brown) gave them something different, allowed his band to demonstrate (sounds too technical) their skills, show what music really means, what it can really be (Nina Nastasia did this a few weeks ago - see article below). PJ Harvey played new and old songs with lots of energy in new arrangements, it felt special.

So while for me, and possibly many others Ben Harper was the stand-out gig of the festival, I'm sure there were other seminal performances that I missed, and a great many who just didn't really put in the effort, or didn't have the imagination, skill or depth to be able to. I shouldn't hope too much. But one has to wonder what artists really get out of making so little effort, and how they deal with their obvious deficiencies. 'Orbital celebrated their last ever English show (Scotland next week) with a decidedly average Orbital by Numbers set which was almost identical to the one the did in the same slot on the same stage with the same visuals two years ago' (www.gusset.co.uk). And the years before that, no doubt. I remember when they were good live.

This was my fourth Glastonbury. Not many, but the others were full of once in a lifetime seminal festival performances. This year it wasn't really about the music and that hurt, although it was still one of the best, even with the mud and the rain and my new found limp due to achilles injury.

Dave's Big Glastonbury 2004 review

Sorry about the long delay people! I've been away for a week. Got muddy, sunburnt, muddy and injured. Saw tons of music (and lots of random stuff). Very little in the way of drum and bass this year (boohoo). Here's my Glastonbury review, in the style of Santa's Christmas list:
Camping - nice

Toilets - nice

(hehe, we had the best crew camping ever)

Sun - nice

Mud - naughty

Circus fields - nice and random

Babyhead - nice

Kasabian ('oasis and kraftwerk' said the review - they weren't wrong) - naughty

Spree (drum and bass) - nice

Jim White - nice (but only coz he was so average)

Death b4 Dishonour (hip hop crew) - nice

Elbow - very nice

Snow Patrol - naughty

PJ Harvey - nice

Tindersticks - nice (but we had to go work halfway through)

Lost Prophets - naughty

Ben Harper - NICE!!!

The Egg - naughty (how are the mighty fallen)

Jane Taylor - nice

Tinariwen - nice! (backstage view too)

James Brown - very nice

Suzanne Vega - nice

Bill Bailey - very nice indeed (played on our stage - nearly didn't coz of the rain

40 ft praying mantis - nice (and French)

Naked dancing girls - nice

15 yr old jazz sax genius in the Banyan tree tent - nice (but naughty coz he couldn't sing)

Random electro band in some place - nice

Bunch of hippies jamming on didgeridoos and drums at four in the morning - nice

So there you have it, the most comprehensive Glastonbury review ever! I'll find some way of putting my pictures up on the net... And write a discourse on how Ben Harper showed everyone what a seminal festival performance really is.

Nina Nastasia at St George's, Bristol

There's a thing about Tuvans at the moment. I mean, when we discovered Yat Kha all those years ago, they were the one of the most amazing musical creations I'd ever heard. Plus, their founder with his electric guitar built Tuvan throat music into a whole different kind of music. What's this got to do with Nina Nastasia? I hear you cry. Well, I'm afraid that Nina, bless her, seems to have realised (a little too late IMHO) how cool Tuvan music is these days.

Michael Ormiston came to the Venn festival, a few months after a seminal Yat Kha gig. Yat Kha themselves appeared on Susheela Rahman's last album Love Trap. And last night, Nina Nastasia brought in a couple for the second half of her gig.

There are some lessons we learn from this. Her producers made her do it. Maybe. I'd like to give her credit, it doesn't seem that she's the kind of writer to be told what to do. It's just that some of the songs were so obviously written for the Igil and they were quite annoying, boring, even, compared to the rest of her work. However, there were other songs, where it sounded more like they had been added afterwards, and those ones were really good. So my conclusion, is that while the fashion is dictating how much Tuvan music we get given these days, we can't write for it, because it is inherent in all music.

If you don't know her, Nina is a very strange mixture of sometimes simple, nursery-rhyme like melodies and jarring clashes between the viola's harmonics, an accordion and her voice. I couldn't help drawing comparisons between her acoustic sound and Kristin Hersh's... Kristin is a lot more crazy though, which is why she's the best... Other times, she sings like Jewel without the silly affected voice.

No bass player. Once I'd got over that, a lot of the songs were very compelling still, just couldn't shake the feeling that we were all being played for suckers a little bit. Yes the Tuvans are amazing. Yes their techniques are stunning, but this wasn't really up to the right standard to be able to carry it off. Just stick to what you do best Nina!

Kathryn Williams at The Fleece, Bristol

Well the internet is so wonderful and efficient these days, you can't look up last night's gig (well now it was Monday 19th's gig) to find out the name of the support band! A brief search for 'Kathryn Williams support band' found the culprits: Clayhill. I suppose I should have known I was in for a night of unabashed whimsy, given the nature of Kathryn's (you don't mind if I call her Kathryn do you? Thanks) own work. But it was an unnatural venue for it. A mesmerised (stunned, lethargic, bored?) audience, sat and stood in (I thought / hoped) shocked silence while Clayhill played their songs and laughed nervously at the band's bad jokes. Having said that, the audience was enthusiastic in its applause, so maybe they did actually like it. You can download music from their evil popup web site and make up your own minds.

Beware of Grasscutter, a song the bass player introduced by saying he found a man cutting an immaculate lawn in the mountains of Peru with a pair of scissors. '...So being a musician', he said, 'I got out my minidisk recorder and recorded it'. Why? We hoped we were in for some experimental Sound of Scissors as drum track, but the recording never appeared. I don't know why he mentioned it. It wasn't even imitated by the guitar part. I was also wondering if perhaps the guy had stood up and said 'look, I don't mind you recording, but I could do with a hand here, my shears are broke and the mower packed in and it isn't easy cutting a lawn with scissors you know.'

...So back to the point. I didn't think much of the support band really, not my thing. Kathryn Williams on the other hand was great, her voice was lovely, her current album is an album of covers, but she also claims to have an album's worth of new material, some of which she played. As she joked about messing up at a couple of points, I made a mental note to always cock something up when performing coz it really helps your audience to warm to you! Well as long as it's nothing major anyway.

We were treated to her interpretations of songs by the BeeGees (I Started A Joke - no disco unfortunately), Velvet Underground ('so I was sitting in the café eating egg and chips and I asked Lou Reed if I could sing one of his songs and he said yes' Candy Says), Mae West (A Guy What Takes His Time) and a surprisingly good version of Pavement's Spit on a Stranger. The Mae West tune suffered a little from being clunky and as my friend put it, 'like they've learned a jazz / blues song note by note', which kind of defeats the whole object of the genre. Ivor Cutler's Beautiful Cosmos sounded like they were taking the p*ss, a bit too twee, and everyone jumped out of their skins (or was it just me?) when she blasted out the final Halleluyah's of the famous, much covered song by Leonard Cohen. The sudden loudness must have woken up the soundman who obviously had everything set up for whimsy and wasn't ready for that kind of volume! No 'All Apologies', perhaps its poor reception in album reviews has dampened her love of that particular song.

If Kathryn Williams had fallen out of love with music - her reason / excuse for doing a covers album - it certainly seemed as if she was right back in there again. It was mainly the industry she was disillusioned with I think, that's been a battle for her since the beginning. So…er 8/10 for the gig, plus an extra 2/10 for making me laugh a lot!Her (not 3vil) web site is www.kathrynwilliams.net and you can download her latest single from there for 99p (£1.50 with printable art!)

2 Gig Reviews In One

I had a weekend of going out, seeing lots of small new bands, some local, some seemingly travelling miles for no reason. At The Croft this Friday:

Grand Rose Band: They said: "Bathonians playing head swaying, REM style melodies with Led Zep/Bowie undertones. Bristol should jump up and pay attention" We only saw half of their last song so I don't know... Didn't look that great - by which I mean the music was sterile and kinda boring, not that the actual band member themselves (they were your usual greasy pub-rock-band-looking types), but you know, they were enjoying themselves, although the crowd stayed at a safe distance. (http://www.grandroseband.com)

Following them was a band from Wrexham called Cream Tangerine. They said: "Grunge giants of Wrexham who have a fine line in multi part vocals, intense choruses and unforgettable riffs. There is no way you will be able to stand still." (http://www.creamtangerine.org). We stood still. And nodded at the occasional good bits, which tended to be the beginning and the end. Oh, and the bits between the absolutely forgettable riffs and bland choruses. I could go on, but you need to make up your own mind really. They do have a good line in multi-part vocals, though I wished the second guitarist was also the main singer.

The highlight of the evening were The Playwrights. They said: "Purveyors of some of the finest avant garde, stop-start guitar rock this side of the grave, this much loved Bristol outfit come to this after a hard year of gigging nationwide. Their last gig with their current bassist, so they will want to make it an occasion to remember." No I don't know what stop-start guitar rock is, but I chatted to some one about it and he said it was the 'angular rhythms' that made it. Which means the way the play punky stuff in 9/8 time. With a cornet. And cowbell. They were just fantastic, energetic, different and interesting. (http://www.theplaywrights.co.uk)

The Mayors of A. R. C. appeared to be drunk. Which made them rubbish. I didn't find them funny, original or good in any way whatsoever. They said: "Managing to be both funked to the max and languidly lazy, the Mayors combine ska, hip hop and stoner rock, with lashings of Portuguese rap. The Orishas meets Goldie Looking Chain." And they don't even have a web site! How modern are they!

At Sausage Time at the Arc Bar last night, after we got past the first test of the Jamaican guy downstairs telling everyone the night didn't exist ('are you fick or summink?' 'why don't you fuck off') there were some really interesting examples of 'what the kids are doing'.

Well I say interesting, the music... wasn't, but it's interesting to see what people are trying to do. Tailfly - sparkling epic rock - Sparkling, because they use a little xylophone in some of their songs. Epic, because they do long, slow (fine line towards boring) tunes and Rock? I don't know where that came from, maybe because they have guitars and occasional loud bits, a la Mogwai / Godspeed etc, both of whom do it better, but they're only young, and they suffered from being crammed into a tiny space which caused lots of feedback fun for the soundman. On the other hand, their final tune was a real corker, with an excellent big keyboard bassline and fast drums... (http://www.tailfly4.com)

Panda Emulation (8 bit supernaturalists), suffered from lack of interest. Loops and beats are all well and good, but even the lo-fi (hence 8-bit) keyboards couldn't save the fact these boys were just using a couple of trackers and a desktop. I know this could open me up for criticism, especially as I'm not famed for being able to go out and play my stuff live, but I like to have more structure in my music. The problem with that, I guess is that it's trying to apply rules to what good music is again, and anyone who's heard 20th century modernism (and post-modernism) knows that when you do that, horrible things happen as a reaction! (http://www.pandaemulation.co.uk)

Idlab (evil machine sounds) got three drunk people out of the crowd to play little bird whistles, which he sampled and turned into white noise, gradually, with a lot of fucked-upness, e-bowed bass samples until he overdrove the speakers and then he stopped. Remember what I said above? Well that's what he did. But at least it was really experimental, more like a work of art than a gig! (http://www.idlab.org.uk)

Expect much more of this, as I try and work out what the hell everyone's up to in the city at the moment, and try to work out where I fit in...

Geisha at Thekla

Of course it wasn't just Geisha, but that's how I sold it to my friends: "Want to go out and listen to some dark noise metal that's mentalistic and wicked?" also playing at the Thekla (Wednesday 15th September) were Ivory Springer, The Edmund Fitzgerald and Bronnt Industries Kapital. It said doors at nine, but knowing Thekla we left late, and arrived hearing rumours (so far unconfirmed) that this was a gig the POLICE DID NOT WANT YOU TO SEE (apparently they tried to shut the place down). Anyway, on to my entirely subjective 'review':

Ivory Springer

Dammit. Arrived too late. Apparently they were very good, but I'll have to wait a bit before I get to review them.

The Edmund Fitzgerald

Just starting when we arrived, Oxford's TEF were a bit muffled, but that's what you get for sitting round the corner on a boat. Once we'd got over the first round of drinks I ventured out to see what the hell was going on with the music. Distant vocals, no bass, an insane drummer and two guitarists, all of whom seemed to be lost in their own thoughts, yet somehow managing to stay extremely tight. This was quite something. To give you some kind of idea about the scale of TEF's vision, they played 3 songs, in a 45-minute set. The songs start innocently enough, you know - strong riffs, powerful metal, we couldn't hear the words - then it all seems to go haywire. A quiet period, followed by extended bouts of syncopated power chords all executed with mathematical precision, before rocking out in a big way. I have to admit though, that by the end of the third song I did kinda wish that they didn't make it quite so extended. Like you know, that instead of going 'I like that, lets do it over and over again and build it up slowly', they just did it once and got on with the rocking. Very impressive mind.

Geisha

I really wasn't prepared for this. Well mentally I was, of course - just in the mood for some serious metal shouty madness - but I was nowhere near prepared enough for them to be THAT good. The hairy singer shouted incomprehensibly and hit his 'you thought there wasn't room for any more distortion? Well here's a little bit more!' pedals at appropriate moments while the leather trousered bass player showed TEF what a really good bass sound is (although I hear he regretted wearing trousers that tight later) and their drummer was a skilled dervish of percussion. I'm sure I could hear Zeppelin riffs in there, just with maximum added fuzz and noise. Occasional bouts of beautiful music broke the noise up perfectly and even with severe flu it really sorted out my dark mood.

Bronnt Industries Kapital

I'm not really sure how this got onto the bill, I didn't stay long enough to find out if there was any metal involved but it certainly started out as quiet, atmospheric electronic sounds with shades of Aphex Twin. Good beginning, but it was a Wednesday and I was ill.

NsN, Bury and Disinter, Manyfingers at The Cube

Before I get into this I've got a major confession to make: this was actually my first visit to The Cube! Been in Bristol six years, never been. Well those days are over now. To find out more about the Cube and why it's slightly embarrassing that I haven't been yet, visit their web site.

North Sea Navigator, along with Tim (Drummer of Angel Tech Fame) was sounding much better, much clearer than a few weeks ago where the engineer really screwed up the sound. The performance was excellent, covering up for the missing cello admirably, and we were treated to a sound that strictly shouldn't be allowed to come from two people. NSN as a 'band' has gone through many different mutations, from playing solo acoustic sets to the full line up of electric guitar, cello and harmonium / drums. Coming in late on the scene, I can't really comment on the actual progression of the music, but the current sound is confident and powerful. NSN are currently working on an album, to complement the Alibis E.P. released a couple of months ago.

Bury and Disinter are the only group I've seen for a while who appeared to be bored by their own music. I think everyone else was wondering what they were supposed to be experiencing as well. A stone's throw away from pure ambience, there were a couple of moments that made you think 'I like this bit' but generally directionless soundscapes accompanied by meaningless visuals made for a fairly dull show. The only thing that stopped me disappearing to the bar was that I was worried I'd wake up the people next to me when I climbed over them. A good example of 'they're good at what they do', but I didn't really get it, if indeed there was anything to get.

Manyfingers on the other hand, otherwise known as multi-instrumentalist Chris Cole (Crescent, Movietone, Matt Elliot) was a seriously powerful experience. Echoing the layering concepts used back in the days of post-modern 20th century art music, think Phillip Glass, Nancarrow and their ilk, the aptness of the name was immediately apparent once we realised that the set-up of cello, drum kit, keyboards, guitar, mixing desk and various interesting looking effects units were going to be played by just one person! Each tune started with a simple piano line, usually a four-bar loop, to which he added layer upon layer of melody and rhythm with impressive results. It was just fantastic waiting to see what he was going to add next, and occasionally a cornet player appeared and added a bit of extra melody on top. I did find myself wondering whether the music was written with maths or just by sound, he carefully followed a script, on which I imagined was simply written things like, 'now hit your guitar like this', followed by a little diagram only he would understand. I hope anyway! This was a really good gig.

Team Brick Album Launch, 18th Sept

Team Brick (and friends), Headfall and Freeze Puppy, Saturday 18th September at the Cube Microplex, Bristol

Freeze Puppy seems to have his whole performance all wrapped up. Entering in contemplative mode, he ceremoniously circles his guitar, before picking it up and slowly putting it on... Armed with a toy saxophone, he stalks the microphone centre stage. The atmospherics in the background quieten, and the madness begins. I don't think there is anything quite like Freeze Puppy. He is at once hilarious, insane, musical, atonal and thought-provoking. OK, mainly thoughts like, what the hell is going on inside this man's head?, but with lyrics like I've got a frog in my throat and it's hungry, you have to wonder. He stares wildy about himself and gesticulates to rhythms that seem hidden in the music, pausing only to fix the sampler that seemed to get stuck in a loop which we hadn't realised wasn't part of the performance. His melodies are as random as his lyrics, but have a real comedic charm about them. This was a very special performance, which left me with a feeling that all was right with the world, if a bit off kilter.

Throughout Headfall's set I wished a few things. Firstly, that Freeze Puppy had just played for another hour. Other dreams included bands being able to tune guitars, being able to sing, originality... I liked the lyrics though. What we heard of them. Musically, echoes of Godspeed You Black Emperor and Meanwhile Back In Communist Russia - but out of tune, directionless and frustrating. They've been playing together for a long time - since 1997 - and I really don't understand why bands think it's cool, clever or musical to sound so bad. Personally I hate the White Stripes for the same reason. And I mean hate. There is potential for powerful emotions in there, some beautiful moments, but they were just moments which soon disappeared when the clumsiness returned. I don't want to rant too much. Critics seem to love this kind of music, they use words like 'raw' and 'honest' and 'increasing tonal awareness'. But I really think after 7 years of playing together people would work out that music is a bit more than playing out of tune and shouting.

*Breathes Heavily*

On to the main show. Team Brick + friends. Or 'fun with delays'. It seemed that the Cube was packed with friends of TB, the atmosphere was good, the band self-conscious, and the music - well - eclectic, drone-noise, was enlightening, soothing, frightening and indetermined. Every member, save perhaps the guy who stood in the back left corner behind a box of wires had some kind of strange delay effect to play through. In some tunes this worked to great effect and in others it was a little bit annoying. The drums sounded terrible, flat, cheap. I don't think this was intentional, and our man certainly bashed them as best he could in one of the louder numbers. For the finale a ramshackle choir sang a short round about fish or something - I'm not really sure where this fitted into the grand vision of things but while at the time I thought it was awful, in hindsight I can't imagine the evening ending any other way.

I have a few gripes, mainly about indeterminism and how I never liked it the first time round. Well when I was learning about it - obviously I wasn't born when Cage and their ilk were deliberately breaking the rules of all that's good and beautiful about music. When I studied modernism and postmodernism all I could think about was that this sort of 'music' should be left to the scientists and mathematicians - read about but never listened to - because they are merely reactions to aestheticians' attempts to quantify why music is such a powerful art. As soon as someone writes down music is beautiful / sublime because... there is always someone to react and write something that contradicts it, calling it music without realising that the result proves exactly why the first statement is closer to the truth. Think Stockhausen's Gruppen for three Orchestras. You either need a surround sound system or to experience it live to hear the true effect. Why can't you have three orchestras playing 3 different modern mathematical musical pieces in different time signatures and keys at the same time? Oh THAT's why.

So some parts of Team Brick's set - ones where real composition was involved, or seemed to be involved (I'm sure there are those who would disagree) - were absolutely amazing, the instruments weaving around each other, gorgeous chords and delay (of course). Others, well there was an element of improvisation around an idea just play this til I tell you to stop, which didn't really seem to mean anything. The highlight was the bass player asking if there was a sound engineer in the house because he couldn't hear himself, followed by a rant at how he'd been to two rehearsals while another member of the band had been more interested in playing Morrowind than practising.

At times it was fantastic at others shambolic, but I think this is what most people expect from such a dynamic and random performer. Most of the charm is that he saunters over to things and music just happens... It doesn't matter what. It was pretty much the direct opposite of Freeze Puppy's set, where he obviously had everything worked out to it's finest detail, random as it may sound, TB just went with what people felt like at the time. I'll definitely be going again, although I'm not sure why...

Circle, 8th Oct

Friday 8th October 2004, and after a brief sojourn at the 3vil Tragic Box up the road where I was rudely acosted by a local nutter before sharing a drink with my work colleagues, I ran into the relative safety of the Croft to enjoy some more mind-bending tunes...

Droids Chorus

I missed most of this (great reviewer, huh?) but what I saw - Kaos pad... guitar... bass... quirky songs, was okay. I'm sure I heard him singing 'horsey horsey horse' at one point. What we have here is music on the stranger side of sanity, self consciously simple almost nursery rhyme melodies that betray a great melancholy. Maybe that was just my melancholy at the fact I was watching an under-rehearsed band who looked like they couldn't play, again. Then they played their last song, which was stunning. I think once the repertoire has increased, perhaps they will be able to focus on their strong points and produce some really powerful music. Droids Chorus Web Site

Fuzz Against Junk

I'm sure most people have heard of this band by now, improvisational jazz - rock pieces, harking back to what I imagine most people were doing in the seventies. For hours. On Drugs. Echoes of Ozric Tentacles and Gong and a really tight band made for a good gig. Can't find a web site though...

Circle

It starts with a single note, a tap on the cymbals, the keyboard player caressing the keys, building slowly in intensity and hypnotising the audience into a blissful trance. I really mean everybody. It was one of those gigs where you look around and everybody is grinning and swaying slightly. By the end of the evening, I don't think there was a head that wasn't nodding, and as Finnish 'drone rockers' Circle took us through epic soundscapes ranging from Plant / Gillan screaming over pure rock to hymnal incantations and the most delicate melodies. Although I haven't yet heard the CD that I bullied my friend into buying, there are a lot to collect, but unfortunately it doesn't look like much of their back catalogue is still in production. Anyone who gets the chance should go and experience this band in the flesh. Seeing Circle will probably turn out to be the highlight of my year. circlefinland.com

Decode's 23rd Birthday Party, 11th Oct

It was a bit strange of me, having never met the guy, but having talked to him on the internet to arrive at his birthday party as if I were a friend. However, this is no normal community. About three months ago I discovered and joined a forum on which local Bristolian musicians, promoters, engineers and other like-minded individuals gather to arrange meetings, gigs, discuss music and other random things in an uncensored, free-thinking, open kind of a way. The Choke Forum can be found at http://ttyc.co.uk and it seems to be demonstrating a powerful way for all these various groups in the industry to get together, advertise and find out what is going on. It isn't the only forum like this, there are others, but I already knew some of the people here. Anyway, I digress. I will write more about this phenomenon later.

It is however, the reason that I felt comfortable coming to someone's birthday bash, because really, it was just a free gig. At the Croft again, on the 11th October... on to the music, with apologies to Cajita who I missed...

Rose Kemp

Now I always thought the thing about singer songwriters is that you can hear the words, because their songs aren't about getting up and dancing, or being amazed at the incredible new sounds they are making, but about the purity of harmony, melody and the stories they tell. The emotions they make you feel. You know, people are supposed to sit down and be quiet, furrow their brows and contemplate the wondrousness of the human voice and the futility of existence without song. Or something. So having got over the embarrassment of everyone watching me enter the bar as Ms Kemp was performing right beside the door and armed with a drink I sat down to have my musical taste buds stimulated. Unfortunately, while still audible over the chatter of a busy bar, I couldn't make out a single word. The use of electric guitar rather than acoustic (although played as if 'twere an acoustic) was a good change, since it facilitated slightly distorted loudness, but something about the set up really muffled her voice. As such, I couldn't really form a decision on the music, while pleasing, it did still sound just like a girl playing guitar and singing like a million others. If I had been able to concentrate more, maybe in a different venue - but don't let me put you off, I just think the atmosphere was wrong, the songs were really good.

SJ Esau

A single deck for scratching, the usual array of boxes and instruments made for another interesting gig from the organic ever-changing SJ Esau. Here we have more layered samples of live instruments, distorted singing interspersed with violin, clarinet, melodica. I should be bored of these songs by now, I've heard them enough times, but the thing about the genius of Sam and his many, many guises is he always seems to be able to bring something fresh to the music. As I eagerly anticipated my favourite track (following the amazing solo performance at Brick's birthday bash) epiphany coming through my head, I had to be disappointed that they chose to do a stadium rock version - as stadium rock as it is possible to get with this kind of lo-fi sound - complete with chanted chorus towards the end and the feeling that we should all be swaying with lighters in the air. But what band doesn't want that?

Bucky

I'd heard good things about Bucky, but no-one told me exactly what to expect, so I'm not going to give away any secrets. Suffice to say, this was the most entertaining gig I've been to for a long time, a fast, furious punk duo whose inter-song banter is longer than the songs themselves. Songs about Bruce Springsteen and the American flag, a happy birthday Theo moment and a lot of jokes made for some very happy faces in the audience. And if you think being a drummer with only one hand is a handicap, then you really need to see this band because he plays like no other drummer I've seen! Bucky are excellent...

New Grand Smoking Palace

At first I thought NGSP were alright, tight band, catchy tunes but then it slowly dawned on me: The gurning, the poses, the foot-stamping... it's the Strokes/Jets/Hives/Ferdinand*/all that goddamn nu-punk nonsense all over again. (Correction from my friend Adz: "Franz Ferdinand aren't punk, they're new wave. Actually, they're pretty much definitively new wave, in that they listened to punky people whilst at art school and then tried to make a band that captured the energy whilst being middle-class, nicely dressed and nice enough to take home to meet your mum.")However different they are trying to be, my friend insists that it is the singer who ruins it, personally I think she saves the music from having to put up with a bloke with a silly voice (see all the above). Their sound is accomplished, raw, some decent hooks in there, but the whole ethos of this kind of music makes me furious. Like UK Garage. Sorry guys.

Blackbud

Unfortunately, being a school night, I had to go home so I couldn't form an opinion of the increasingly contentious Blackbud. The funny thing is that a lot of people's problem with them is that they're NOT contentious at all and that's where all the arguments start. So I'll link you to some varied responses to the gig instead: The Choke 'Discussion' and Blackbud's Forum.

Noisefest at SK8 and Ride, 15-16th Oct

A festival of Noise. And they weren't wrong either. The full listing comprised of Friday 15: Cephalic Inscription, A Lion, Big Joan, Tractor, Iron Hearse, Walrus and Saturday 16: Fruit of the Doom, Hunting Lodge, Lead to Wine, Mea Culpa, Thread, Geisha... The venue couldn't have been more appropriate, even though we approached in a spiral pattern having read some erroneous directions on the internet, Sk8 and Ride with it's corridors and small rooms (and obviously a big hall full of ramps and half pipes), provided a good little back room for encouraging deafness and tinnitus. As such, some of the more 'noisy' bands suffered greatly from sounding terrible. Or maybe they really were.

I had a brief discussion on the definition of noise with Geisha front man Tone, mainly because they are often described as such, in fact they insist that they are and laugh when I call them metal. So I asserted that I wouldn't call them a noise band because they have tunes, and music. When I think of 'noise' I think of indefinable sounds, sounds that cannot be given names like 'chord', 'note', 'harmony', 'melody'. When faced with sounds this heavy, the last two do seem a little out of place, but I hold that they are there, if you listen. So anyway, Tone says that it is more about the attitude of the band than the music. 'Most metal bands connect with the audience because they sing about things the audience hates so they have a camaraderie there', he said, 'Geisha don't do that we hate the audience as well, that's what being a noise band means to me'. I just think they're using the words wrong, but I told him he had to prove it to me when they play on Saturday. 'You love the audience', I said, 'No! we hate you all!' he insisted.

So anyway, on both nights we missed the first two bands… curse our casual lateness! This meant I missed Thread, Lead to Wine, Cephalic Inscription, A Lion and Walrus, some of whom I had wanted to see, others I have no regret about missing, since I had heard nothing about them anyway - sorry guys! Still there'll be other nights. Of the bands I actually saw, obviously some pleased me and some... well... didn't. It has taken me too long to actually go and see Big Joan, but fortunately they didn't disappoint me. The music is almost dance-like (that's 'dance' as a beats and breaks genre) but punk… like. The rest of Friday's bands were largely lost due to absinthe and being outside, but I caught the tail end of Iron Hearse, bluesy metal, as I recall, I also recall thinking they were really good. Sean, the drummer from Tractor told me I wouldn't like Tractor and he was right. Laboured, slow loud noise, probably everything the weekend was supposed to mean, I imagine, but not for me. Or anyone really.

I've wanted to see Mea Culpa for a while now, having heard the muffled shouting noise on their web site, and they were much much more accomplished than I had expected. Most metal bands have one person shouting, they have two. And a member who crouches behind a small keyboard with an ebow. Moments of staggering beauty break up the wall of noise, as the audience undulated to accommodate the hyperactive front men. The moshing was bound to happen, and when it did no-one seemed to be surprised, but I was too wrapped up in the music to mind so much.

Geisha followed, the moment I had been waiting for - Tone glowered at the microphone, I waited for the bile and hatred he had promised me. 'Alright,' he said, 'how you doing?' Not quite the torrent of abuse he had been waiting for. 'He loves us really' I thought, as I settled down to enjoy another storming Geisha set. They were followed by Hunting Lodge, whom I am assured sound a lot better on CD, but who have also been lauded by a lot of the people who attended (bands, anyway) to be the highlight of the weekend. I really don't understand the enthusiasm for a band that can ruin some apparently good songs with some terrible guitar sounds. The bass had no bass! Yes, mock my traditionalism if you want, you crazy experimentalists, but when I am assaulted by a wall of treble in a tinny room I get a bit cross that the bassist thinks it's 'groundbreaking' to play through a Big Muff PI with the bass turned down while the guitarists are playing at the top of the fretboard... I didn't stay very long. Long enough to get a headache, but like I said, the songs might have been a lot better if there had been a greater range of frequencies.

Fruit of the Doom - Like noisy Nu-Metal with rapping. Sounds like some other similar bands - I don't want to insult them further by making comparisons. Well practised, but annoying I'm afraid! So having drunk all the absinthe and watched the ups and downs - on Saturday there were people injecting in the toilets - mm nice! But overall the Sk8 and Ride was actually a pretty cool venue for this kind of thing. It probably won't be open for longer than a year so we'll have to make sure it gets used as much as possible before then...

Decode Unplugged, 23rd Oct

A midweek evening of quietude and eclecticism, in which I managed to escape from the current trend of Real Life (if I was into bio-rhythms mine would be in a VERY deep slump at the moment). One of the things I was looking forward to with this gig was that it included some performers I have seen who rely heavily on electronic boxes for their sound. Are they actually any good? I was asking myself. At last I will find out once and for all whether the distortion of their music by digital means belies a great lack of talent.

'Real' musicians have been heard to complain about how computers help people who lack the skills / flair / deep seated 'raw talent that you can't buy in shops' to make acceptable music. Programs like Rebirth, Reason, Orion, Fruity Loops etcetera already come with acid housey trancey techno bollocks inbuilt. You can instantly create dance music without really trying. This isn't original, it's taking what other people have already done and put it through an LFO. I always used to take great pleasure in taking the Acid House sounds of Rebirth and turning it into rough Drum and Bass, or at least trying to. It is at once obvious to any discerning listener whether any real composition and creative thought has gone into any piece of music, although with a noise that you don't quite understand it is sometimes difficult. Personally, I have a problem with music that requires training before you can appreciate it.

Not to say that's what we are experiencing here, although sometimes I wonder, as the words 'challenging' and 'unusual' are thrown about. If you don't understand the concept of the art, how can you purport to understand the music, let alone appreciate it on its own merits.

So with the opportunity of seeing SJ Esau, Team Brick and Max Milton all exposed without their boxes (I was most suspicious about the last two as Sam manages to sing some actual songs rather than 'works' in his performances), I headed off to Bar Unlimited with an open eager mind. SJ Esau was excellent. Self conscious in parts, with just an acoustic guitar for accompaniment, and a couple of songs that I recognised from other, more 'plugged' gigs. Bizarre lyrics and light-hearted subjects made SJ Esau's set a pleasure to hear.

Mario Vendredi is something else entirely. I admit some scepticism during his first couple of songs, the man strains his voice to the point of breaking, jumping between bass, tenor and falsetto in tearful ballads about love, loss, and dog heaven. However, he really comes into his own when he puts down the guitar for a rendition of 'John the Revelator' accompanied by foot stamping and hand claps, the song sang as you imagined it would have been sung by negro slaves on the railroads. Well okay, they would have been beaten for stopping and clapping, but you know what I mean. Powerful stuff. Also tribal drum hitting with incoherent but strangely musical shouting in various voices make Mario a very entertaining performer.

A lot of these gigs always challenge me in a muso kind of way, because the music is often 'unexpected' leftfield, of undefineable genre. Following this pattern the quirky styles become the norm and the next act blew it all out of the water. Old American Country Folk tunes, very mellow, beautiful and looking around the room, I noticed that everyone was completely wrapt by it. 'So there IS a place for 'real' 'conventional' music still', I thought, and coming from a background of English Folk amongst other things, I have a lot of time for this. Helen Solomons and Andrew Short were excellent.

Team Brick's set was brief, he's been working on ostinato lately, the piece he and his gang played I have heard before, but then there was noise, and effects and delay. Lots of delay. Without all that, there is still a delicacy to the music and I must admit that I preferred it like this. Plus the drums sounded amazing. That's what you get when everyone plays without being miked up.

Max Milton didn't strike any chords with me at all. In fact I was so put off I was forced to go outside and buy some dinner and hang around until he'd finished. The stuff I wrote at University was crap. Student compositions, ripping off Nyman etc, but this sort of this should remain firmly in the classroom. I appreciate the effort to write art music, and the attempt to bring it to a popular forum in this way, I mean that's what chamber music used to be all about but I'm not sure about this at all. Maybe clever effects would work better... or just continuing to collaborate with others as he isn't lacking in talent.

Whale Bone Polly are a trio who sing English folky-type music, stunning songs and three-part harmonies rounded off a very good evening. Had I the money, I would have been buying CDs, them and the country folk get my vote for the best performers of the night (with Mario very close behind).

October Revolution, 30th Oct

Apparently this gig, which showcased 12 Bristol bands at the Student Union, was going to teach the new students the great diversity and talent in the City at the moment, ostensibly to say that we aren't about Massive Attack and Portishead and Kosheen (spit) anymore. I pity those who had to make the choice of who to invite to play, but the music on show was certainly diverse. As usual I missed the first half, due to an attack of GTA San Andreas in the afternoon, so apologies to: The Mighty Stars, Valley Forge, Sammo Hung, SJ Esau and Male.

I arrived just after War Against Sleep had started, they do relaxed, rolling, Ben Folds Five (I'm probably just making this comparison because they have a piano frontman) / Divine Comedy style 'proper' songs, but with that thing of building up the noise and intensity towards the end. I did like it, but I don't think I'd listen to it, if you get my meaning, more inoffensive than inspiring.

Because of WAS's mellow sound, I did wonder what was going to happen to the audience when Geisha took to the stage. As usual they put a huge smile on my face, and more pleasingly, the audience didn't thin out as much as I had expected. Bass player Steve was fantastically angry, and the set concluded with singer Tone running through the audience screaming. Great stuff.

Ivory Springer have a problem. Or I have a problem with them. I'm not sure what this problem is, and am willing to re-visit this band to try and work it out. At the risk of sounding too subjective, Termites or 'the' Termites are derivative, pretentious boring pop-punk of the most commercial kind. Melodies reminiscient of a little band from 1965 called 'the pink floyd' and gong as if it's new music. It isn't.

Big Joan played a storming set until the bass player's amp blew up.

Ever since being at University around them, I have had this thing for hating Chikinki. They have been through various guises in the years since then, I first encountered them being a student funk band - a fairly good one - and was always sceptical of their move into more progressive rock/dance music. I last saw them at the Ashton Court festival that happened in Hengrove Park, which was about three years ago. I was bitter about the adulation and the breaks they had, probably through hard bloody work, but I never thought their music really deserved it. So I thought it was about time I gave them another chance. By the time they played I was pretty drunk, so forming coherent opinions was difficult, but I was left with the impression that they were too damn fashionable. Following the same new wave trend that everyone else (Termites) seems to be following. I'm going to have to stay away. Other people like them so that I don't have to.

Needledrop, The Croft, 8th Nov

Mixed emotions about this one really, I was interested in seeing what the guitarist from the Fun Loving Criminals would do, but wasn't quite prepared for it to be as dodgy as it actually was! The crying shame of the whole night was that when Needledrop (www.needledropnyc.com) actually played, the audience was almost entirely made up of members of the other bands.

Irish singer-songwriter Mark Greville opened proceedings, the man has a fantastic voice and a couple of really good songs, but slipped all to often into melodies and chord sequences that Radiohead amongst others would dearly like to have words about I'm sure. The Fluids (www.thefluids.com) were bad. Apart from being a rock band that doesn't rock in a basic kind of way their singer 'sings' in an entirely different key to the rest of the band. This is not cool. With trepidation we returned to the room having ran away from The Fluids to see The Bears blowing the doors off the previous two acts. Light-hearted semi-hiphop and singsong tunes about 'real life' issues like working in an office, it's not often you hear lyrics about fat health & safety representatives to a funk-hop backing. Funny and very enjoyable. Needledrop were good, but missing half a band. The singer is very pretty, but coy and motionless. She really needs to get more into the songs, and overcome the shyness. They played along to a backing track of drums, bass and keyboards - it worked very well but really, how hard is it to find these instrumentalists for a good band? The music is chilled out trip-hop, similar in tone to later FLC albums. Not the best gig ever, but worth it just to find out about The Bears!

Cajita, Rose Kemp, Geisha, 17th Nov

Wednesday 17th November, the Louisiana, Bristol

Cajita are a strange collective, quiet, melodic and with some atmospheric quality that I'm finding really hard to define. With a backing of samples for the rhythm section, electronica noises and chilled guitars, the music is both melancholic and uplifting. When they were playing, they created an almost perfect world of sound which was marred only by the drowning out of the drum samples in the loud bits. Even more frustrating was the fact that there was a drumkit right behind the laptop, looking lonely, unwanted and desperately needed. In the room upstairs at the Louisiana, this was an intimate relaxing gig, no wonder everyone sat on the floor, entranced by the music.

Rose Kemp made us all stand up. When I saw her at a birthday party at the Croft a few weeks ago, I hadn't been able to fully enjoy the songs, due to being unable to hear a damn word she said. Tonight she is accompanied by a band and sounding totally different. In Violence she glides easily between folky, breathy singing to heavy distorted breaks, and I realised that there can be no comparisons to her heritage here, except that Ms Kemp has inherited her mother's amazing voice and tremendous talent. I still hold that some of the songs really don't need a band. I know she is trying to escape the label pinned on her in early recordings, but sometimes you just need to let your voice shine and adding the band around it just cheapens the sound when they don't really have anything interesting to play. On the whole however, this was a stunning performance.

Geisha's new web site, clearly reflects the band's darkness. I am eagerly awaiting my very own copy of their EP Hymns for the Living Dead, which should tide me over until the album comes next year. This performance was however fraught with problems, mainly because of the band's loudness in such a tiny space. Basically, when you hear Geisha's sound being described as 'frightening', you don't know the meaning of the word until you see the band really possessed by blind rage. So a non-gig really, but a spectacle nonetheless. For more details, see this thread on the Choke forum: today's question is...

New Rhodes, Get-outs, Dirty Whites, 19th Nov

When we arrived at The Cube on Friday night, the queue outside filled us with a sense of resignation. Even if they had tickets on the door, we wouldn't be able to get in anyway. Despite being old that they'd tell us when they ran out, and that there were a few tickets left, it wasn't until we got within earshot of the desk (actually inside the building) that we heard that there had never been any and they were just letting people in to drink. Not letting this deter us from seeing some form of live music that night, we went down to The Croft to see what was on. If anything I might find a band that I liked...

The Dirty Whites are a skinhead shouty punk band. While slightly entertaining and well-rehearsed, every time they started a song, we thought it was a cover of some old Clash tune or something. Not good. After a few songs the everyone shouting together got annoying, my eyes glazed over and I kept telling myself it would be alright, they're playing guitar solos at least. If you want to hear what punk sounded like when it was raw and slightly dangerous, they're worth it, but these days it all seems a bit tired. It just isn't enough to regurgitate this stuff anymore.

Now heading for something different, The Get Outs play better, more original sounding melodic punk rock, their singer has an almost Tim-from-the-Cardiacs singing style, and his eyebrows are a band member in their own right. Very good stuff, I thought. The Get Outs really showed the other two bands what originality and good songwriting is all about, three songs by The New Rhodes were enough to prove to me that I wouldn't be going near them again. Uninspired commercial sing-song sanitised punk. But that's just one muso's opinion. You are of course welcome to find out for yourself, if you insist! One for the kids I think.

Sausage Time XII The First Birthday, 21 Nov

The Arc Bar, Bristol

12 months ago, Sausage Time was born. To quote from the home page, "sausage time is a monthly event at which artists from bristol and beyond are invited to perform experimental and creative music, film, poetry, and live art and other entertainment strategies." I've only made it to a few, having only been introduced to this scene recently, but it never fails to amaze / horrify / amuse me, while also allowing me to comtemplate what the hell the 'true' meaning of music actually is. As Aaron Copland says on the front page of this site, I have no idea how to quantify it. but dammit, I'm gonna try.

As usual, I missed the first act, De:Vil, who seemed to provide a fair proportion of the audience. The following act Jar plays the piano and sings, but it really does seem as though she is stretching herself beyond her ability at the moment. This is always a good thing for musicians to do, I guess. Although some of the over-complicated music did seem under-rehearsed, Jar has a very good singing voice and I'm sure there will be more to follow. She had a very encouraging reception from a section of the audience.

Robh Hokum, a quiet man-with-guitar (although he does know the 'art' of crescendo) was largely ignored, possibly because of the extremely quiet singing - maybe the atmosphere was too noisy for what he was trying to achieve.

Jeremy Smokingjacket, a collaboration of SJ Esau and Rose Kemp picked things up a bit, with more fantastic singing over Mr Esau's usual loops and strange noises. The highlight had to be a song where Rose Kemp sang over a loop of her own coughing - strange I know but it worked and inspired some more loud coughing from the more inebriated watchers at the back of the room.

Silev is an incarnation of Sausage Time creator and promoter Hugh IdLab. Fedback electronic noises of quietude and directionless ambience, to be honest, I was too busy buying Rose Kemp's CD to pay any real attention. The CD IS excellent though.

Plantlife, 24th Nov

There was this great band called the Breakestra, once. They used to play the breaks and often the full originals of funk and soul songs which became famous through their use as the basis for many early hip hop tunes. As a live band, the Breakestra would mix the songs and breaks together - I suppose as a live band the word 'segue' would be more appropriate. It was a fast and furious funk experience that I first saw at Fiddlers, coincidentally, but one I will remember for a long time both for the two hours of non-stop playing and the energy the huge band brought to the stage. As is often the way with bands whose music and raison d'etre is based on a simple idea, a gimmick, they only lasted a few years and the second time I saw them (at Fiddlers again) I had persuaded a lot of my friends to go because of the joy of the first time, they played four songs, two hours late, one of which was reprised for the encore. Good job I already had the CD's of them being good, I thought.

As I watched Plantlife, kicking off into a familiar set of tight funk and glorious soul, I was reminded of all this and wondered if this band would share the same fate. I heard a rumour that some of the bands members are linked but haven't been able to corroborate this (Google fails for once!). In their favour they have some incredible singers, a few good songs, but all original. In the tradition of James Brown, p-funk and many other masters of the genre this band are slamming down the funk, managing to keep fresh a sound that is decades old. Heavily scripted banter linked the songs together, which left some moments feeling a bit false but the frontman Mr Splash's boundless energy made up for it.

People are quick to assume that funk is dead, that the modern breaks and beats when they are funky, is what we have to have now. You know, the tireless journey to produce something new and original against an almost infinite backdrop of dull middle of the road muzak. Sometimes this throws up some gems, but all too often I feel that they're holding back for fear of being too similar to something else. Plantlife know all the rules and they play them well and while the sound itself isn't original, it's nice to know that someone understands, and is continuing the spirit of the music which I love. Yes I know I am also quick to criticize bands for following trends and being unoriginal, but no-one's really 'updated' funk music quite so successfully as Plantlife.

The new album, 'The Return of Jack Splash', is out now, the web site for their label is www.counterflowrecordings.com.

Geisha // Moss // Sunn(o))), 8th Dec

Wednesday 8th December, The Croft

Yes, I admit it. I went to this gig because of the hype. In a way, I should have been warned by the description:

"The SUNN(0))) mission is to create trance like soundscapes with the ultimate low end/bottom frequencies intended to massage the listeners intenstines into a act of defecation. SUNN(0))) have gathered 2x for live performances, at which they have succesfully made audience members instantly nauseous, or better yet run for the toilet in terror."

I guess, even if I had listened to their music first I would still have gone, just to see if they could make ME run to the toilet in terror. So why did I go? To see if there was anything worth listening to in this 'drone' rock music. I am somewhat humbled by the fact that this was one of the dullest gigs I've ever been to, and there was probably some element of wanting to appear that it understand it too.

Geisha, with their usual wall of furious noise, fast metal, were plagued by sound problems, but they were their usual energetic selves and put me in a fine mood for music. I'm not sure what the laptop actually did, we couldn't tell over the noise...

Moss could easily be just one person, if you closed your eyes. Perhaps a child who can't decide whether they want to be a guitarist, drummer or singer - 'now I play a power chord and let it ring, now I hit a drum or a cymbal (see how daring?); now I scream; now a slightly different power chord; now the snare…' I think I understand what they're trying to do. Actually sod it, no I don't. The fact that they've divided the work between three extremely bored looking people made it even more dull. I couldn't pass comment on whether any of them are actually talented musicians or not, because they didn't really play anything of value. I'm informed that within their genre they are actually one of the good ones, but I'm not going to pretend it's worth the effort of understanding.

The main band, much-hyped famed for their volume, vibrations and ceremony, didn't disappoint. For about the first twenty minutes anyway, which was halfway through their first song! Let me try to explain what we saw. Moog and Mini-Moog keyboards. Two guitars. All played through enormous amplifiers, like Marshall JCM 800's. The start was promising, disparate slow guitar melodies intertwining, building up tension as the band enter (slowly) in druidic cowls. As the first loud chord hit us, this is really where the interest ends. For a while it held my attention, as the actual sounds are amazing, hearing a pure sustained power chord at that kind of volume is every guitarists dream. In fact, I think we all do it secretly at home anyway.

Sunn(o)))'s music is created through the resonances and harmonics formed by the two guitarists playing power chords (with Great Slowness and Ceremony) in unison, which becomes offset as one player changes his chord slightly and the resulting resonances from this soundclash hit you. This builds tension, which is then released as they come back together again. The Keyboards provide impossible bass, which is supposed to be the defecation bit I guess.

Like I said, this was interesting for about 20 minutes. After that, when the wonder was over I started itching for Something To Happen. I will not be going to see any more bands whose main promise is that they are boring! I'm not into 2-minute songs, but this is a bit much. Lesson learned.

Angel Tech, Jon Gomm, Doubtful Guest, 11th Dec

11th December - Decode Unplugged - The Folk House

Doubtful Guest began by apologising that they were playing a 'plugged' set, at an unplugged gig, but then proceeded to put great big smiles on everybody's faces with their uptempo skiffle / Americana / country type music. It is a genre I guess, so while I didn't really get on with their ballad (on the whole, I don't really like Country), it is a style of music that this band do very well. Real toe-tapping stuff�

Jon Gomm is out there on his own as a guitarist. He utilises every aspect of the instrument, using the body to make various drum sounds, hands flying all over the fingerboard playing harmonics and melodies and rhythm all at the same time. When he does stop to just strum conventionally, usually in the choruses, I did find myself thinking how plain it sounded. The technique works better in some numbers, 'Stupid Blues' - an instrumental - is a good example, but in others it can be a bit annoying. Once you get past the cleverness of the playing however, the songs still need to be able to stand up on their own. His cover of Radiohead's 'High and Dry' leaves a lot to be desired as the emotional impact of the song has been sacrificed in favour of technique. The chorus is left quite literally high and dry. Overall the set was good though.

Sofia Gradin, also our compere for the evening, a 6ft-something Swedish Poet tells quirky stories of misfits and a world of moral pop stars. While her poetry is poignant and funny, her singing is neither and should probably be left at home.

When Angel Tech used to play in Bristol back in 1998 - 2000 (my student days) I tried to make it to every gig they did. I would evangelise to my friends, often failing miserably to satisfactorily explain why this would probably be the best gig they would attend as students.

The music still defies explanation. They really are a 'oh just listen to it', kind of band. It is imbued with a passion that hasn't really come across on any of their recordings. 'well there's this drummer, see, and he sings and plays the keyboards, and there's these other two who play bass guitar, keyboards, violin and they sing too, but their songs aren't really like songs as we know it� it starts quiet and gets intense and loud�' you can see why I had problems. Well you would if you went to see them. There is no-one to compare this band to.

So I was fairly excited, to say the least, that after a few years' sabbatical, the trio are back, this time doing an acoustic set. The music - gentle, passionate, intense, theatrical, frightening, beautiful - I think it is testament enough that after the first couple of songs, the audience chatter had all but disappeared as everyone strained to catch every word, every note. Angel Tech are finally back, let's hope that this time they get the break they truly deserve (an interview about 'what happened' can be found at Choke).

Team Brick and Friends

Team Brick, Desdemona, When they know you they will run

It seems obvious to me now, the place I mean. As I cycled up and down the long road as directed by the reliably unreliable Team Brick I very nearly gave up and went home. 'Past the Louie, up the longroad it's on the right somewhere by the marina', he'd told me. Several dark and foreboding industrial estates later I found someone looking as lost as I was. 'Hello, you look as lost as I am', he said. Amazingly, we had encountered each other right outside the very place we were looking for! Why they don't put signs up outside the building I don't know.

The mission I'd chosen to accept was to take as many drums and percussive things as I could carry to be part of an improv / percussion / choir under the 'guidance' of Team Brick. Of course you can't have expectations for this sort of thing, so when I encountered toy drum kits, pots & pans, glasses, a traffic cone with Perspex strapped to the bottom… I knew it was going to be interesting. 'Right I'll start, we all sing and everyone can join in playing - let's see what happens.' A bit later: 'Right. When it all gets quiet and I'm sawing my cymbal like this (saws cymbal) I want all the big drums to play really loud… and then out of time...'

So on the night, as all the other bands and their mates watched we hit stuff, chanted, got loud - quiet - loud, screamed for a bit and then lay dead for an age.As we lay there and the confused clapping died out, the silence became filled with nervous whispers and giggling. At one point someone walked into the room, some people standing at the back and some lying in a circle, and asked what was going on. 'There's some people lying on the floor', 'I think it's art', followed by a mobile phone going of which cracked everyone up.We had fun playing some good rhythms, it certainly felt intense from where I was sitting, we definitely made a terrible noise and all those watched claimed they had enjoyed it... Photos courtesy of Dec (Clicky)

On Choke, someone said: "The first wave of the English resistance to the new weird America movement in full force this evening, never entirely sure whether they want to be NNCK, the master musicians of Joujouka or a bunch of pseudo-art students playing improv. The closing scene of a load of (not-dead-looking) dead people in silence meets with awkward laughs and coughs, either a Cage-ian tribute or an art-school gag gone right."

Brick replied: "art, schmart, i just wanted to make some more fun music, originally we were going to run out of the place, but it woulda been slow, so we died." Isn't that just the way it goes?

Desdemona picked their way through the pieces of broken tambourine on the floor and claimed it was the weirdest gig they've been to. They then proceeded to play some poppy indie songs, with a woman singing outrageous melodies over the top. Occasionally she comes back to the right harmonies and sings with the keyboard player, but generally sounds well off the pitch. We'd been told it was 'some hippy band' and I guess that's a good way to describe it. Individually, all very good musicians (especially the bass player), but the collective sound doesn't seem to gel consistently enough.

When they know you they will run a three-piece, like Mogwai / Godspeed but much more impatient. Not for these boys the eternal build up, they set up their melodies then cut straight to the loud noisy part. I stayed for the intensity, because I like the ringing Big Muff - Delay - Reverb guitar sound. But after a few songs it gets a bit samey.

North Sea Navigator at the Metropol, 8th Jan

North Sea Navigator / Leave Land For Water / Angel Tech
The Metropol, Bristol 8th Jan

This was my first visit to the Metropol club, on the south side of the river in Bedminster. The place is dark, low-ceiling'd and fairly big as a lot of these city venues go. There is a great lounge area where the bar is at the back with a little bandstand stage. The sound was pretty good, I thought as I took a seat behind five Angel Tech fans. A big empty room with a group of us sitting in little rows in the middle. Great. So anyway, Angel Tech, brilliant as always, this time playing one of my all-time favourite 'Tech songs Andromeda opened the evening with an acoustic set. The gig didn't have the reverent experience of the Folk House, but I could actually hear the band without having to look sternly around me and it was much more intimate.

Leave Land For Water (No web site that I could find, but you can listen here - well worth it, believe me) are a five piece, rock / bliss-out outfit with an amazing drummer. In fact, they're songs are a lot better when the singers stop, since frankly, their melodies just don't fit. That and their main singer can't sing. Musically, I really enjoyed the Ozric Tentacles style wig-outs and the fact that everybody seemed to be plugged into this box of effects that the keyboardist was constantly playing with. If they can sort the singing out, this band will be great. For now though, it's all about the drummer. They brought a crowd with them, who all disappeared almost as soon as they finished, which was a shame for North Sea Navigator who is gearing up for an album launch. He's been busy recording and honing his strange-but-lovely dirge-esque songs and the three piece is now sounding more and more together each time I see them (this one makes three times). The cello, electric guitar and drums / harmonium combination really makes for some strange but wonderful sounds and songs. Not your average band.

Acoustic Festival Day 1, 15th Jan

Acoustic Festival - The Folk House - 15th Jan

I took my bag, some CD's, a book and NOT a bottle of weak lemon drink. This was to be just about the only time I'd ever been to a gig on my own and I was a little bit worried. Worried about whether I'd be able to just sit there for six - seven hours without talking, save for running upstairs for a drink. Saturday was easier than Sunday, but I'll get into that later. The 'acoustic festival' is a new thing that the Folk House are hoping to make an annual event. With 8 bands for �6 (5 if you pay for both days) you can't go wrong surely, even if you have to sit through some crap to get to the good stuff? So anyway, there I was.

A bit late, because I missed the first act and got in just in time to see Phil King singing a sad song about being young and owing lots and lots of money. It was good in an acoustic singer-songwriter sort of a way and as it was the only song of his I saw, I can't really say how it reflects on the rest of his music.

Rachael Dadd sings songs of food and friendship, swimming in the Olympics and Chernobyl. Her songs have a strangeness about them that sets them apart from the usual girl-with-guitar music. She sings softly, with an innocent charm that makes some of the subjects almost alarming, 'there are sharks, sharks as big as houses; there are sharks as big as aeroplanes (Swimming for Gold).

Comperes are annoying aren't they. Apart from being rightfully aweful of Rachel's set, they bring on some strange man called Ben who we are supposed to know to badly introduce the next band. From Star FM apparently, I hope they talk less on the radio�

Isafire are a country / blues / celtic folk trio who have a disturbing tendency to explain what they think their next song is going to sound like, which is usually not what you end up hearing. Except for the 'darker side of folk' song. With the opening lyric 'don't the night look black' I think we might have worked it out for ourselves. I really didn't get on with the singer's Kate Bush affections and it really didn't seem to gel with the music very well.

In some ways I appreciate the gesture of telling us about the compositional process, 'we were listening to this and Bob thought how's about doing that and I said, with this solo in there�etc', but really we'll just get into an argument about whether music should come with and be understood in terms of its context, a history, or whether it should stand up on its own merits. Let the listener decide, since we all have drastically different appreciations of music anyway. I tend to jump between the two, depending on who I'm talking to. This is what I like to call People Skills.

The Weary Band sound like the Beta Band. Now that's the first impression dealt with, they are really like a young Beta Band. Nice close harmonies, apparently they are usually a louder, rockier outfit but the songs still work really well acoustically. It's a kind of music that's almost like pop but somehow manages to avoid being too twee. Especially when it gets loud.

Jane Taylor is a phenomenon of music. I saw her by accident at Glastonbury in some caf� tent at half past one in the morning. I stayed because she was about sing a song about living in Montpelier (which is in Bristol, if anyone who doesn't know the place ever reads this!) and it was totally engaging. In the occasions I have seen her since, she has always completely sucked me into the music and today was no exception. Playing solo, with occasional support from a cellist, the set was very intimate and you could have heard a pin drop as everyone in the room hung on every word.

'Sorry we are playing without a drummer today,' Babel's singer said, 'if anyone sees him, tell him he's sacked.' Then they launched into a set of fierce intensity - twelve string guitars are wonderful for this - which has planted this band firmly on the map as far as I'm concerned. The songs are a blend of many guitars, violin and bass, with slow changes and rich harmonies. If it's folk, it's a new kind of folk we will probably be hearing a lot more of in the future.

For a fiver, this was probably one of the best bargains I have had for a long time. I didn't get to read much of my book - but I learned about some new bands and walked away with some new music under my arm, vowing to get there on time tomorrow if today was anything to go by.

Acoustic Festival Day 2, 16th Jan

Acoustic Festival - The Folk House - 16th Jan

As I entered the room on the second day of the Acoustic Festival, I had a feeling today would be bit different to yesterday, which would be hard to beat in anyone's book. The gentle strains of American Country Folk whining, although erring on the better quality side of Country, still made me wonder whether I should just go home and come back for the big acts. I steeled myself for the long haul, picked out a good seat and settled down to get lost in science fiction.

Kizzy Morrel runs a workshop called Studio 7 at the nightclub Lakota where she helps young people to improve their singing and get into recording and performing. This is all fantastic. It's great that she encourages people to do this, and even though she seems to have her favourites who are always out when they do gigs, it's still a very worthwhile project. There is one big problem with all of this though. It's RnB. Not 'proper' rhythm and blues either, but this mediocre tripe we get in the charts�. I won't say any more, except that even though I hated all the songs, these kids are prodigiously talented and one of the 14 yr-old singers had the woman next to me in tears before she got to the bridge (the bridge in the song, and I mean the singer, not the woman got to the bridge� Tsk some people, I don't know...).

The Pindrop Band sing Welsh Folk songs in a jazz style. With a harp. This made for a great blend of musical cultures that worked really well. A lovely singer, and a blessed relief after Kizzy's Kids. The harpist had been guesting with the first band of the day, and we were all going to become very familiar with him as the maverick musician who seemed to be in every band and play about a million instruments.

Steve Hogg has a Handsome Family obsession. Apart from this, he's witty and was joined by the maverick man, who we learned was called Martin (and probably still is), as well as the bass player from the first band who also played the biggest melodica I've ever seen - a two-octave beast. Sometimes ponderous, sometimes uplifting, Steve Hogg has a great voice but didn't really hold it together long enough for me.

Roger Tarry sings songs of beautiful heartbreaking melancholy. It sounds very like Nick Drake, which is probably why he's supporting Keith James on his 'songs of Nick drake' tour. His CD is one of my best purchases of the weekend. Here was someone who really captured the attention of everybody in the room, and woe betide anyone who stuck their head round the door while Roger was playing!

Lara England's accompanist had just got off the plane from hunting bears in Alaska or somewhere. He coped extremely well with her little-girl songs about life, love and relationships and then proceeded to play another set with his own band Minerva. If you like Travis, you'll love Minerva. I don't.

Sadly, that was all I had time for, because when the next band - an 8-something-piece kicked into a full on Country assault I had to leave. There really are some things I just can't stand! I was wracked with guilt at leaving without staying for Caroline Martin so I bought her CD I had a hundred more reasons to stay by the fire, which is fantastic. If you want to read about her, the Bristol Evening Post's reporter seems to have only turned up to see her so you can read his review here.

So how did I cope with having no company for two days? The nice thing about the Folk House is that because everyone sits around tables, there is always respectful silence and you can fully appreciate the music. Not only that, but if anyone comes in, there will always be a few people who turn around to glare at them crossly, thus making sure they won't dare to ruin anyone's experience by climbing through the audience. Saturday was brilliant and Sunday, well there were some good songs and it was worth it just to find out about Roger Tarry.

Pop Will Eat Itself, 22nd Jan

The Academy, Birmingham, 22nd Jan

I went to see PWEI in Birmingham. There was no support, just a lot of very excited 20-30 something's in Poppies shirts and the odd add for Gorky's. About halfway through the nostalgia-fest I began pondering on how badly the music had actually dated. I'm sure it didn't sound like this! But I'd just been listening before the gig and it did! Maybe it's because it's been eleven years. The chord changes are clumsy, the sounds are 'of their time' and the only song in the main set that I felt really survived the test was 'Their Law', mainly courtesy of the Prodigy's greatest album. That's not to say I don't still think 'Ich Bin Ein Auslander 'is a great song - it helped me survive the evils of other teenagers - but some of it did feel a bit laboured. Back then I used to think it was aggressive and punky, but not any more. Maybe it was always like that, and the fact that my teachers thought everything was satanic helped.

The encore broke my reverie, as PWEI brought out all the real punky songs like 'Beaver Patrol' and 'Def Con One'. With classics like this how could I be so cynical? Mind you, it cemented the truth - as all punk gigs do - that nothing ever changes in shouty 3-chord (if you're lucky) punk music. When PWEI did this, it was nostalgia, and in ten year's time the kids will still think it's raw, edgy and original to strip music down to angry shouting basics. Occasionally of course, you get some really good songs.

Three encores and a two-hour set coupled with sharing the feeling of being fourteen again with a packed crowd certainly more than made up for all my cynicism. It's a shame they're only reforming to pay the bills.

Unusual Folk, 28th Jan

Jar / Thom Gilbert / Whale Bone Polly / Cajita
Fact Fans Presents Unusual Folk at the Folk House, 28th Jan

Jar's been practising since I last saw her. Or the sound at Sausage Time was shit that time. Anyway, seeing her playing on a real piano at the Folk House and having an audience hanging on every word, the music somehow made a lot more sense. She has a fantastic alto / lady bass voice, which wouldn't be out of place on any number of jazz records and her songs carry a greater intensity than I remember.

'This sounds just like a bloke with a guitar', my friend whispered half way through Thom Gilbert's second song. 'He's a singer songwriter,' I said, 'They're all the same when you get down to it'. Some stand out from the crowd more than others and despite his finger-picking skills and nice melodies, Thom's melancholy songs of love and loss and how the two are so tragically, poignantly entwined seem too standard, too familiar. Intimate yes, but I can't remember any of the tunes. Introduced as the reason Theo - the man behind the night - got into promoting in the first place, I suspect it was more from saying 'you should get into promoting, Theo' rather than inciting a great desire to share his talent with the world. I'm sure Theo will correct me.

I last saw Whale Bone Polly at an acoustic evening way back in October and they were quietly beautiful then, in a little bar where we all strained to hear every note. Today the music was phenomenal. To break it down, WBP are a female trio playing guitar, banjo, violin, the odd bit of clarinet and melodica. They all sing - close harmonies - to great effect and the songs are fun and lovely, in an 'Unusual Folk' kind of a way.

Cajita ditched the laptop (thank God) for this gig, electing instead to go with a snare / ride combination that proved much more effective. I found their song to be a little bit too full on, too strange and not that interesting. I think maybe I'd been affected by the 'Pollies more than I thought!

SJ Esau Album Launch, 29th Jan

Twocsinak / Rasha Shaheen / SJ Esau

The Cube, 29th Jan

'Mate, you can't sit there.' I looked around. 'But -' 'Look, I'm not being pissy, you can't sit there. Health & Safety'n'all that.' Confused, as I hadn't suggested he was being 'pissy' I asked the gentleman to kindly point out exactly where he thought I should sit. The stairs were the only free space. 'I dunno. But you can't sit there.' He cheered up a bit and smiled brightly as he left, comfortable in the knowledge that he'd Done His Bit. We sat back down, on the steps. People kept coming in and as they filled the floor I stole a seat that a latecomer was too late to reach. The lights dimmed, and the show began with a story.

There was an air of inter-webby excitement about this evening. Almost everybody I've met over the last few months through Choke had left their terminals and come out in anticipation of SJ Esau's album launch. The little Microplex was packed to the gills, the sell-out crowd augmented by the bloke on the door's mates (nah mate, it's sold out - ah go on then!) and marred only slightly by the fact that even people I've never met seem to know who I am now. No more secret making fun of them all on the web, now I have to do it in public.

Twocsinak (2 c's in a K) was today represented by ex-postman 'Joe', who played a strange set comprised of tribute songs to the life of the postman and other stories. Most notable was the song where he was joined by two girls from the band male (see the joke there?). One played guitar: 'just play c, d and g, yeah that'll do, I can't sing anyway'. The other was handed a bundle of envelopes as her instrument. 'These are all my payslips, I guess you can ruffle them or hit the desk or something'. Another song had a backing track created entirely from sampling the sound of rubber-band balls of varying sizes being dropped on a desk. In between the songs we are treated to banter and little anecdotes. The music? What did it sound like? You actually want me to try and describe the broken mess of hinted rhythm and melodies that I'm sure my brain made up to make up for the fact that they weren't really there at all? Random samples glued together clumsily and I'm sure with more care than is evident, accompanied by strange noises and poor - but very funny - singing. Twocsinak is very entertaining, confusing, cacophonous, sometimes tuneful, mostly not although the plates of noodles and sardine-packed bar made it all gel in a surreal kind of way.

Rasha Shaheen sings songs. She tries to make it different by playing with a slightly dirty guitar sound. It made me want more, perhaps there were too many distractions and the bar really wasn't the right place for this anymore. More instruments would be good, more variety, more passion and maybe a better venue would have made this more impressive.

SJ Esau once again proved that he is a formidable force in new and exciting music, with a set of old and new numbers. His delay-sampling-singing-repetitive songs were eclipsed by the quality of the newer material, complete with full band. A testament to how having a group of skilled musicians can add more feeling and magic than any electronics. The band gradually got bigger and bigger, one song employed about 8 people improvising on various brass instruments. All-girl lush-folk trio Whale Bone Polly join for another to sing beautiful harmonies. My favourite track remains the Cat song (He's got no balls) with its acoustic folky roots and dramatic dynamic changes. Although it was a very short set, Sam's music remains unique, strange, beautiful and exciting.

TBDDMWB, Brandon Hill, 7th Feb

Team Brick Death Death March War Band,
Brandon Hill, 7 Feb

Originally we were going to repeat the singing-drumming-screaming thing in the new live venue in Bedminster, The Metropol - where I saw Angel Tech and NSN. It was cancelled and moved to the Louisiana where we performed the first time. Then the Metropol, which has been open and putting on gigs for a good few months, hilariously discovered that they'd forgotten to get a live music license! So we got cancelled again as they moved all the gigs to the Louie.

However, Team Brick refused to abuse the rare commitment of so many people at once and began a search for a suitable venue. With nowhere to go, everyone became enamoured with the idea of doing it outside. So we did. On Brandon Hill, which is remarkably and usefully very close to my house...

The first act was someone called Alex, Loxodonta, who played a little battery powered Casio keyboard, accompanied by Team Brick supplying rhythm on a tom. His introduction: 'What I do is I� think of a story and then tell it� er.. with music.' The thin strains of the tiny keyboard crept out into the dusk, eerie yet calming and atmospheric in the February cold. On the last track Brick beatboxed through a megaphone, ending the set on a lo-fi trip-hop note.

Francois, the singer who followed elected to stand under a nearby tree, his knees lit up by bicycle lights hidden in the grass. He sang gentle acoustic songs with harmonica and another little Casio keyboard which he tapped with his toes at auspicious moments. Perhaps enhanced by the atmosphere and the cold his songs are great.

I was concerned about being able to actually play my drums in the cold, but it turned out okay. The evening dew had a worrying effect on the skins, but I'm sure it all helped the bizarreness of the noise we made. The group was bigger than last time, augmented by instruments like a saucepan half full of water, bucket, kettle, toy drumkit etc. the guy next to me massacred an acoustic guitar with a hammer. It was sickening.

It was a dark, tribal noise, sacrificing music to the God of noise, or something. You can download all the music via this thread on Choke: Brandon Hill DDDWMB mp3's (recording does not represent actual experience). Photos are here. The whole event was pretty successful I thought, and when the summer comes we really should encourage a lot more of this sort of thing.

War Against Sleep, 10th Feb

War Against Sleep / SJ Esau / Cult Of Eris, Team Brick,
The Croft, 10 Feb

More noisy madness from Team Brick, I entered the room to multi-layered vocals building in intensity before being destroyed by horrible screaming noise. When you think it's getting too much for your ears he somehow manages to scrape some sort of melody out of the mayhem. Oh thank goodness, he's picking up his guitar� It's hard to describe the song that followed, starting with a single chord and building to a shouted chorus, TB is joined on stage by violin, trombone, bass, drums and SJ Esau on white delay box, who sampled the music and turned it into noise. I don't know whether this was just a one off, it could be an exciting new direction, or maybe he's just proving he can do it. Which he can. The song was great.

Unlike Cult of Eris, who suffer from a guitarist who sings what he plays, thus rendering all his wonderful pedals and fantastic noises useless because it's just not interesting. It is a real shame because there is gothic screaming darkness in the music and it could be much better.

SJ Esau played a star-studded set featuring guests such as Joe (Twocsinak) and Freeze Puppy as well as all his usual friends, playing other people's versions of his songs. Or theirs. I couldn't really tell. It was patchy, some stuff worked, other bits didn't.

War Against Sleep are at times funky, others quasi-jazz crooning, their songs recalling the early days of the Divine Comedy, but with a bit more edge. Show tunes with a sinister bent. It's scary, but it works.

Rose Kemp, Cajita, 4th Mar

Rose Kemp + Cajita,
AR2 (Bristol Uni), 4th March

Well it was free. And I'm flat stoney broke, so it seemed like a good way of getting out of the house. Especially since Rose Kemp has one of those voices that gives me shivers. While not exactly her best solo performance, the odd stumble in her finger picking didn't take anything away from the intimacy of the songs, perhaps because I am familiar with some of them now (I'm even getting to know the names!). Having got used to the CD, it is a bit strange to hear the songs played without the band now, and while Violence loses some of the impatience, it is a good way of seeing how they stand up without support.

You can tell that this is how the music starts out, and the recordings are an idea of the writer's vision. In my current mood I'm trying to make my songs work with just the guitar, before getting into the recording stage of adding other parts, toning down what I play and expanding on the ideas. Not entirely unsuccessfully, but the great lyrical desert I seem to be walking in stops me from singing along.

The next band do dance music, not in a charty way, more of a New Age hippy way. They didn't really inspire me much, it seems like cheating when ideas are simplified to this extent. I guess since this band was mainly made up of members of Cajita, you have to let them off wanting to do something different and upbeat. Shame it doesn't really work. So great in fact, that not only have I forgotten the name, but there is no record on the internet of their existence. This is probably best.

Cajita bring back the laptop, or maybe it was the big silver keyboard that played most of the songs. I much preferred them when they played acoustic, there seemed to be a bit more musicianship involved, even though the songs were the same. In this bar it faded into the background and I concentrated on conversation.

An uninspiring gig, but then Rose's amazing voice is always worth re-visiting, regardless of who else is playing.

Tsunami Benefit, 6th Mar

Too Many People To Mention
Lakota, 6th March

I had the pleasure of junkie company just as I neared the Lakota nightclub. Stokes Croft is a place famous for it, being as it is a place on the border of the drug market, surrounded by services and hostels. This guy yelled at me across the street and I pretended to ignore him. He crossed the street and came straight for me, as if I had a huge 'junkie magnet' sign over my head. He told me a very sad story about his life, his situation and how he was trying to get some money together for a B&B. He thanked me for taking the time to listen. He was very polite, right up until the point where I said 'look mate, I don't have any money (ie. I refuse to give you money for crack), but I know all the places in this area really well, and since it is part of my job, I would be only too happy to go with you and find you somewhere to stay that you don't have to pay for.' This is all true. He knew this too, which is why he began to hurl abuse at me instead and ran away. So I shrugged, and went to do my bit for charidee.

Lakota is three floors of a mini-festival. Small children and teenagers tear around the building, for this is the home of Kizzy Morrel's Studio 7 project, which aims to help young people start careers in (Rnb/boyband/pop) music. Cajita are playing as I enter, this time with a full-on loud indie band sound - they really do seem to be doing something different every time I see them, and unfortunately it seems to be going downhill rather than up. Or more polished and mainstream, whichever you prefer. One song stands out as a very bland Oasis-style track that I'd never noticed before. Still the reliance on the laptop to provide backing noises that don't sit well with the music.

My wanderings lead me to the acoustic room, a freezing cold room of candles, drapes and soft seating where a lovely girl with short hair plays pretty songs to a transfixed, shivering crowd. I decide, there and then that I will stay here for most of the night, although the thundering bass from the room just below makes it quite difficult to hear the beauty.

She is followed by Anthea, a girl who plays her guitar like she's making love to it, who sings with incredible passion in a voice dripping with sensuality, also sounds quite a bit like Cher. The songs don't seem enough to hold me and I don't want to waste my time waiting for it to get good when there might be something better going on downstairs.

There is: SJ Esau is throwing out more of his quirky wrong-folk songs, an apology to the parents of small children for the gratuitous use of the word C U Next Tuesday during a particularly memorable performance. He is followed by Bucky, the two-man punk whirlwind who are energetic as ever. They are asked at one point to tell someone his van is about to be towed away, which they do through the medium of song. Hearing a rumour that Rose Kemp is about to start I almost run upstairs.

Singing on her own again tonight, Rose begins with an a capella song, note perfect, beautiful, superbly resisting the hypnosis of the bass in the floor. The small, icy room is packed as she leads us through her left-of-folk, wonderful songs. We suggest Violence as her encore, I am in heaven.

I have consistently failed to describe why Whale Bone Polly are so great. It's not the girls with their lovely voices, although that helps, it's not the strange combination of instruments which is mainly what I've been talking about before. I sit in the freezing room and try to work out why they have such a huge crowd and why we all love them so much. The melodies are gentle, the music fits with the words. Squeeze a little bit tighter, as the close harmonies and long notes 'squeeze' the musical tension. The song about dancing with the devil who explains to the angel playing poker that we can be good too, but we like being bad. It's stories. That's why they are great. The music fits perfectly with the words so you never lose track, and the narrative is brought to life.

In passing, I catch Scarlatti Tilt - epic, grandiose rock songs echoing in a near empty room as circus performers captivate half the crowd on the balcony. There could be something good about them, they have a girl with a piano - perhaps I'd had too much acoustic good. Worth another listen, I'm sure.

The Mighty Stars play god-awful infectious punk-pop songs to an enthusiastic audience. It's all too twee for my liking, but it is a genre that I don't really go near if I can help it. This time I run away to catch Caroline Martin, who I've missed a few times, most shamefully when I escaped the Country music at the Folk House, so here is a chance for me to make up for it. She plays very basic melodies on the guitar, backing up wonderful stories of loss, love, dogs and loneliness. Another hypnotic voice and some great songwriting have propelled her to the top of my 'girls wot sing' playlist, which is quite substantial these days.

Emily Breeze is an eye-opener, energetic, rock / grunge with punchy riffs and solid songs.

A bit later I catch a man in the top room, called Mr Bennet who sings folk/country style political humour songs, which are pretty entertaining once I'd recovered from the country side of things. The Vistic Experience lay on the country vibe too much, although it is impressive that they manage to cram seven people in a space barely small enough for three.

I forego the headliners in favour of food. I had had five solid hours of mostly great music and if only they could sort out the heating this would be a great, musty venue for this sort of multi-room extravaganza.

Bronnt Industries Kapital, 13th May

Really, this was an album launch for Bronnt Industries Kapital, an electronic outfit - one man augmented by friends. I don't know where the Illuminati lecture came from, most probably one of those 'good idea at the time' things. I expected conspiracy and intrigue, a reference to
modern life, the truth that everything that is going on in the world at the moment is controlled by one man. Oh wait, it's not that secret, is it? What we got however, was a list of facts about witches and the freemasons. A lecture delivered by a non-believer who really just kept on saying... We don't know.

Knowledge of Bugs samples live instruments and loops them through a laptop. He has a vast array of strange noise machines that he has made himself and creates dronescapes over which he sings. Sometimes the result is remarkable.

Bronnt hunches over a desk of boxes with knobs. The music is mellow beats, weird noises, funky tunes, the occasional old computer game style sound. Enjoyable music, exhanced with the addition of live instruments.

Babel and Unusual Folk, 19th May

A more perfect line up for the Folk House would be hard to find. Interspersed with poetry - some good, most bad - the evening of wyrd-folk begins with The Wraiths, a duo who bring poetry to life through song. The music fits well with the words, lovely melodies, tension, great songs.

Whale Bone Polly are great again, the trio's friendly banter and gorgeous close harmonies make everybody smile. They are followed by Babel, who play a more storming set than usual. This band always make me think of the desert, although they're not particularly arabic. Perhaps the heat had something to do with it...

Venn Festival Opener, 3rd June

Gravenhurst, Acid Mothers Temple and the Cosmic Inferno, Mark Stewart

Malcolm X Centre, 3rd June

'They're better than this', I'm informed as Gravenhurst finish their set at the Malcolm X Centre. I am impressed, because I thought they were pretty good. This is slow-build, loud riffs, quiet-bit music, with the occasional almost tragically painful schoolboy singing. This is a good way to start a festival of variety in music. The Venn Festival web site explains it better than I can.

Everything is blown away by Acid Mothers Temple and the Cosmic Inferno. In just over an hour they play two songs. The music is astounding for its simplicity, the way it rolls along, trance-like and we are carried along with it. Every so often you think it's going to change, they can't add another level of intensity to the same thing and yet there it is, tension backing up, adrenalin poised, surely they're not going to go round again? When the guitarist finally opens up, a huge solo of Jimi proportions, more anarchic maybe, all the pent-up energy is released and there are screams, laughter, people look around as if they can't believe what they are all sharing. When it dies down, the excited crowd begin chatting, much to the frustration of one of the drummers, for this is an ethereal moment. Throat singing in three part harmony, a gentle interlude before the music kicks off again.

This goes on for some time. The second tune, is an energetic psychedelic rock riff repeated ad infinitum, again with the huge solo, the guitarist throwing his guitar around, playing upside down, etc etc. Life seems to move back in time to the days when musicians could actually have fun playing their instruments, improvising, feeling the music. None of this over-pretension or pristine song-writing, no desperation that it be right. No smugness or self-satisfaction, no need to be loved. What they played wasn't amazing in itself, but the execution was incredible.

Not so Mark Stewart. I confess to knowing nothing about The Pop Group, anything that the man has supposedly done for music in Bristol. After Acid Mothers, I had looked forward to seeing the band who had originally played on Rappers Delight, the earliest commercialisation of hiphop as we know it. I hoped that we would be in for a show of funk delights, glorious guitar work and tight rhythms. What we get is a dumbed-down electro dub sound, effected to the max by Adrian Sherwood while a huge angry looking man (Mark Stewart) shouts incomprehensible ramblings. I'm told it's political. 'No-one writes like that anymore'. My impression: here are some musicians, performing off their reputation, sadly fooled by all the drunk people that they are doing something new and exciting and somehow ending up sounding like Phil Collins trying to be cool in the 80's post-Genesis. With added delay and reverb. It was insulting, after such a glorious display from AMT.

On the other hand, I met someone the other day, who hated AMT and loved Mark Stewart, for exactly the same reasons.

Venn Saturday, 4th June

A debate rages after Venn Saturday. The idea was that given the vast amount and variety of events going on throughout the day, a single ticket for £10 would get you into anything. If you attended for the full day, you would have had an absolute bargain. If you couldn't, or were too lazy to get out of bed then it was tough. The idea was to get people running around, seeing things they wouldn't normally see in a whir of festival excitement. Unfortunately, a few friends of mine had wanted to just go to one venue, the Croft - where the most you would normally pay is £6 to see someone fairly famous. Upon learning that they would have to fork out the tenner, all four of them declined and went somewhere else. I don't believe this was an isolated incident, either.

I suggest via the medium of Choke that they have on-the-door prices as well as a full day's tickets. I only made it to two venues, and at £4 each I would have saved myself a bit of cash. Because of a massive delay in the Croft, I missed half the people I wanted to see, had planned to see, and if I'd had a decent timetable, might have been able to see. Such is the way of festivals - true but if I knew I had an hour to spare I would go somewhere else. I didn't want to move, not knowing when Caroline Martin was playing in case I missed Men Diamler. Perhaps this was the atmosphere they wanted to create. I also suggest that since they obviously knew when people were supposed to be on, why not let us in on the secret.

My suggestions are met with stoney aggression. The organisers tell me that it's pathetic whining over £10, I pay more than that to go to most gigs. They say that I don't understand the concept of a festival, that they work really hard and why does everybody complain, why can't I say anything nice. I protest, I did enjoy myself, I was merely pointing out that they could have made even more money - maybe they don't want other people to come. If you don't like it, fuck off is the reply. (It's all on the Choke thread).

More surprising, is the deluge of protests from performers, people who didn't pay to get in. People who got to enjoy the whole thing for nothing. They are mortified that I would have the gall to complain about such a marvellous event happening here, on our doorstep. I sigh, and again insist I merely made a suggestion. On my own, as others I knew about failed to support me, people who I know boycotted paying because they only wanted to see one band. 'Fuck off, I'm not paying a tenner to see Hunting Lodge', they said.

So what did I see at the great Venn on Saturday?

The John E Vistic Experience held some fears for me, I had memories of Lakota for some reason. Then it hit me. They're a good ol' Country band. I run outside, a walk before the folk starts, that'll fix it. I'd promised myself some Klezmer this weekend, you see. The Malcolm X is full of Polish folk (music) this weekend. Malarkey deliver this with style a band like your mum a\ll got together, I couldn't help feeling that we should be out in a park somewhere by a bonfire.

Men Diamler at the Croft, an incarnation of Mario Vendredi who I saw way back at Bar Unlimited - was late. But well worth it. His powerful voice, theatrical shouting, screaming and yet another unforgettable perfomance of John the Revelator drew full crowd participation and cheers aplenty.

Finally I wandered back to the Malcolm X to see the Warsaw Village Band, who play traditional Polish music, combined with many other elements from all over the world, it seemed. Some great music and strong, emotional singing made my £10 well worth it (so there).

Geisha (Again), 9 June

I don't like The Mighty Stars. They are a 'cool' retro 60s / 70s guitar pop band with modern hair and 'cool' clothes and catchy, infectious tunes. I'm one of those people who doesn't really like the Beatles. You know, with their trite lyrics and I-IV-V-I harmonic structure all that 'Love me do' bollocks. Apparently the room is packed, but since I find it so intolerable I have to sit in the bar.

Geisha begin their set with the 'unveiling' of epic new work 'sportsfister'. It is dark and broken, more like several disparate short bursts of noise, time-changes, epic riffing and hard rocking than a coherent whole. Still, it is a fantastic opening. The set proceeds as usual, enhanced this time by the projection of Vampyros Lesbos in the background. The screen becomes splattered with blood when bass player Steve's fingers give up the ghost, making quite a mess of his bass in the process. A broken string brings an end to another glorious evening.

My Glastonbury 2005 Review!

Friday, after the mud had subsided (visit Hell and High Water for more about THAT) we venture out into the unknown, at times wading through knee-high water/mud to get to the music.

• Ilham al Madfai - Iraqi singer with unsettling stare and fantastic traditional songs.
• DJ Friction - Teaches us that it is possible for Drum and Bass to be boring shite
• DJ Zinc - Teaches us that Drum and Bass is actually bloody fantastic
• London Elektricity - Good to start with, but every song has the same drum beat, the famous Jungle drummer is stuck in the groove.
• Nine Black Alps - Crap, boring, old hat.
• Battlefield Band - Good old Scottish Folk music
• Terry Reid - Was almost in Led Zeppelin, great charismatic rock and roll performer ending his set with a rabble rousing rendition of Waterloo Sunset. Croud reluctant to let him leave.
• Eliza Carthy - Good new English folk music, amazing stuff I'm almost in tears at times.

Saturday

• KT Tunstall - First song good, second song okay, rest of set mediochre to bad. Very attractive though.
• Terry Reid - Inbetween sets, Terry plays some good ol' blues on the acoustic guitar.
• Emiliana Torrini - Beautiful Icelandic / Italian little-girl songs and humour.
• Baaba Mal - Surprise guest and what an amazing voice from Senegal
• Headland - look dodgy, start dodgy, not too bad wrong-disco-punk from some young folks
• (Kaiser Chiefs - in passing, the pain is unbearable)
• Taj Mahal Trio - great blues music, real crowd pleaser.

Sunday

• Whalebone Polly - Lovely, lovely girls sing beautiful harmonies to the early lunchtime crowd
• The Dresden Dolls - Black sabbath cover performed on piano and drums need I say more?
• (Van Morrison - in passing, sounded fairly dull, but I am a safe distance away)
• Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain - hilarious. Jazz versions of Heathcliffe, Smells Like Teen Spirit, Miss Dynamitee and more.
• London Gospel Community Choir - Rousing
• Eddie Reader - more excellent, moving folky music from an amazing singer
• Tori Amos - Wow. I mean, wow. This is brilliant!
• Other Stuff
• Mutoid Waste Company Unnatural History Museum - giant sculptures of
  animals and people made out of bits of machines
• Bright FX - sexy girls twirling fire and rope with big fireworks
• Zoid Productions - The naked dancing girls return! But this time the have their own dressing room. All the boys are disappointed.
• BlackSkyWhite - Weird, weird dance from some crazy Russians. Very scarey and quite brilliant.
• Avoiding drowning - brilliant.

So there you have it. I have to go round with a camera, but generally, this was one of the best Glastonbury's I've been to yet!

Big Joan, 1 July

Big Joan, Charlottefield, OHRATGI, Papa Molasses and the Dane County Paragons
The Croft, 1st July

I hate country music. I mean really hate it. It makes me angry to hear it, and angry to hear other people talking about it like it's worth something. Mind you, I like English / Celtic folk music so I'm sure I could be ridiculed for this. Also I like acoustic country (girls singing) but the whole Dolly Parton / Garth Brooks rubbish makes me cross. So why go and see an alt-country grunge wrong noisey shouting Country band at all? Well I like a challenge. Papa Molasses and the Dane County Paragons certainly provide that! More metal-blues than country they have the aura of a drunken pub band with some unsettlingly good grooves and the singer's shouting really hammers home the emptiness, indeed the very soul of desolation that Country music is supposed to represent. Well I find it pretty funny anyway.

SJ Esau and Team Brick combine in an unsavoury fashion to bring us Onanist Homework Robot and the Guano Ignoramus, or OHRATGI for short. They mix Esau's trademark sampling beats mashups with TB's unparalleled genius of the bizarre and unusual. One song sees Brick hunched over a paperback, his voice too quick to follow, but full of expression and variation over the mess of beats. Their finale is more conventional, the (cursed) sound of Bristol-meets-early PJ Harvey and gets an enthusiastic reception from an otherwise confused but very entertained audience.

Charlottefield fail to hold my attention for very long. It is the consensus that their drummer is an absolute genius, coping with the strange stop-start punky-rock and hammering out an impressive display of complicated fills. Despite his best efforts, the rest of the band stare at their shoes with their backs to a diminishing audience and the music quickly becomes dull and lifeless.

But of course Big Joan are here to wake us up. It has been a while since they played in Bristol and the room is packed with large grins and nodding heads as Annette leads the band through a storming set of hard-edged punk rock.

Circle, 8 July

Circle, the Cube 8th July

The thing about trying to get ten people together to go to a gig is that you're almost definitely going to be late. So I miss the solo set by Anton MAIOF as well as the apparently pretty good set by Big Naturals. (But others didn't, see Rottenmeat for a more comprehensive review). I don't miss Finnish Psyche-Rockers Circle though, oh no. The band are in metal mode today, studded wristbands and tight denim with improbably 'metal' spikey guitars. It is a bit slow to begin with, they seem to want to really lull us into trance this time, but since the Cube makes you sit down I am dangerously close to nodding off. My girlfriend actually is falling asleep and I have to keep nudging her to make sure she gets it. She doesn't and says that the band look bored, to which I reply no, they're just really into what they're doing. But I start to wonder.

The single note/chord is slowly building tension, the singer spits out some high Dickinson-style screams and then the gig really takes off. This is about twenty minutes in, mind. The psychelic, semi-improvisations kick off into furious heavy metal riffing, back to more of the hypnotic stuff then off with the metal again, spiralling upwards into the flaming backdrop. The clumsy guitarist repeatedly knocks over microphone stands, the bass player is humping his bass on the floor and while the singer screams his incomprehensible rock vocals at the stunned audience the drummer is impassive, unmoved. I can't see his hands but the sounds indicate he is as active as the rest of them.

It is all over too early and following the encore we emerge blinking into the real world a little drunk, serene and purged of all emotional stress. I am anyway, I sense relief from my other half that it is finally over.

Ashton Court Festival 2005

Horrified at the thought of becoming a lazy old man I am more determined than ever to get over there, not least because the line up this year is well worth checking out. Brushing aside moans of corporate take-overs, loss of the 'community festival', vast distances and other pathetic attempts to justify not leaving the house on a glorious day. The trek is well worth it. Last year saw ugly scenes of violence erupting by the dance stage, so the organisers decided to not have any dance this year. Boohoo. Instead, they've replaced it with the 'WKD' stage - yes, sponsorship is all over the place now. Along with 6 quid x 150,000 plus sponsorship from Bath Ales, WKD (Smirnoff, innit), Jaegermeister and the great 3vil Orange, they can't be doing too badly anymore. Oh and the pound for a shitty little piece of paper 'programme' that tells you what's on. Extremely useful, but value for money? No. These Orange boys really know how to fsck things up.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say (pre-rant) is that there is plenty of dance music anyway. It's just a bit less generic. Lots of hiphop, bashment, dub, drum and bass, electronica - surely that's enough? We had a bit of a discussion about that when the clubs got together for their little protest. So on with the experience...

 

 
SATURDAY

I arrive at about 1:50pm and quickly scanning through the programme make a beeline for the acoustic tent, where Slow are about to play. I pass Dead St. Hotel at the Venue stage, a kind of generic modern rock-pop band and the main stage where they are setting up for their next act. I pause, distracted by the sound of fast Stephane Grappelli style jazz violin. In the Colston Hall Global marquee, Sheelanagig are laying down some seriously fast and furious celtic / eastern European folk jazz reels and are very entertaining. They finish with a rendition of a Polish folk tune and I finally make it to see Slow. They are like their name, unhurried gentle harmonies and the audience is hypnotised, resting after the long walk.

In the Blackout tent I slowly cook while watching a version of the apparently actually terrible Jude Law film Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, which is made into a cult classic, shortened to about 40 minutes and given a brilliant soundtrack of electronica which carries the film perfectly. This should definitely be done a lot more with bad scifi, the music can appreciably change your perception of what's on the screen. Also I guess he'd cut out a lot of crap from the original film too.

Frank Dapper entertains the crowds outside, humiliating festival goers and juggling fire on top of a high unicycle. As usual, the show is all about the build up to a very impressive, albeit extremely brief feat of balance.

The Wraiths play their folk acoustic renditions of poems by the likes of Tennyson, Keats and Oscar Wilde to a packed tent. It is hard to describe how it sounds, the music fits well with the words although the guitarist is very scarey.

Some of my friends turn up. Now we have to fight to see what we want.

The Cuban Heels look set to go far. They have the sound, the upbeat guitar riffs, the pretend punk-pop that everybody else of late with lots of publicity seems to have. Whether they have the tunes and imagination to carry it off is another matter. Having said that, we leave them to see The Weary Band who suffer from poor mixing and seem somewhat more pedestrian than I remember.

A moment of uncertainty ensues, do we stay for Caroline Martin, or trek off to the other end of the site to catch Rose Kemp? The gorgeous voice of Rose wins out and she is no disappointment, playing solo on electric guitar. One of the songs falls by the wayside as the loopstation thingy suddenly decides to blast the lovely layered harmonies with loud distortion. Not sure the festival-goers notice though. She is great a cappella doing Sing your Last Goodbye to an entranced crowd. Violence seems to suffer a bit from the loss of the band, and I can't help myself feeling a twinge of regret that she doesn't have the backing. Not that it matters.

Now the event we're all waiting for, well at the announcement of 'really loud hard noise metal' most of the audience disappear as Geisha take to the stage. The space is quickly filled and from the first brutal sonic attack to the last, the front of the stage becomes a frenzied no-go area. I am gratified by the resilience of the audience, even those who seem to hate it stay put as if nailed down by the noise. This is where Geisha are supposed to be. Outside, screaming through a huge soundsystem and yet you still want to hear it louder, bigger. At the end we have the obligatory guitar-smashing, this is the biggest and best they have ever been and they are going to enjoy it.

I follow a teen metaller who excitedly runs to the front of the stage and nicks the shattered remains of the singers guitar, a trophy of the first time Geisha were truly unleashed on an unsuspecting public.

Steve Harley and the Cockney Rebel do seem to only have one song and the restless audience has to wait until the very end of their set for them to play it. Until then, it's grandiose dad-rock but when they do bring out the hit Make Me Smile, everybody wakes up and has a big party for ten minutes, suddenly remembering they're at a festival. The atmosphere is quickly dulled down again by the Super Furry Animals who, while they have made an effort to get dressed up and put on a show, are just terribly dull.

A few songs into their set, I fight my way out of the atrophying crowd and find Zion Train, who know how to have a good time. A fair amount of 'One Love' stuff ensues, marred only by the lead singer getting a bit carried away and saying that all Americans are fat lazy and stupid. Now while we like to have a go at them and their country IS going to get us all killed, I think it's a bit harsh to say ALL of them are stupid...

We make our way home down the path through the woods, halfway down the lights go out so you can't see the drunk festival goers impaling themselves on barbed wire trying to get round the bottlenecks. It seems a long trek, but it's well worth it. Home. Cups of tea. Bed.

 
SUNDAY

It takes a while to get moving on Sunday. After a pub lunch to get the energy up we storm up the hill and arrive as Smerins Anti Social Club get under way. They are a great funk band, lots of storming tunes to start our day (at 5pm) on a good footing.

Steveless follows, a confusion of chaotic punk, shouting and childish banter. At one point they launch into a tirade against Blackbud who are playing on the main stage at the same time, which causes a group of my friends go to see them with the logic of 'if this rabble hates them, they MUST be good'. Steveless is the kind of thing you only go to see once, just to make you appreciate everything else a bit more. A choice quote from a fellow Choker's 11 year old step-sister: he asks her if she liked it and she says 'It was OK but it gave my friend Alice a nosebleed'.

Roger Tarry is a blessed relief after that, melancholic, gentle acoustic songs to start a long Bristol session in the acoustic tent. After the rushing around of yesterday and a poor night's sleep the rest and relaxing music is much needed. Angel Tech are brilliant as always, their Jukebox song a particular highlight. I stay for Jane Taylor who captivates the audience and receives a standing ovation for her performance.

The biggest problem with Sunday is deciding what to do at the end of it. All the headliners look good and it comes down to a toss-up between Roni Size and Blackout who narrowly beat Toxic Dancehall because of the drum and bass promise. Roni Size wins by a narrow margin, mainly because my girlfriend want to go and he delivers some wicked tunes, the weak moments in the set are noticeably the old Reprazent stuff, Brown Paper Bag seems tame compared to everything else. Dynamite MC was nice enough to point out and ask the guys fighting at the front if they wouldn't mind not fighting at the front as we're supposed to be having a party. Security ask them too. Still, I have some great fun dancing and being pushed around by drunk people and there are big smiles on everyone's faces.

We cheat to get home and duck through the fence, across the golf course the way we used to go and down a long dark scarey tunnel by the side of the road back to civilisation. The flash on my phone saves us from being too scared but I'm surprised that only a few people chose to go this way. Sure, it's dark and spooky but at least we didn't have to contend with the sardine effect and barbed wire.

Rose Kemp and Caroline Martin, 16 Aug

Start of an two-week tour 'party' at Bar Unlimited, Bristol.

My friends and I have a term for the kind of music that Arctic Circle make. We call it 'whimsy'. Gentle, pastoral songs that make you think that the world might actually be quite a nice place after all. All their friends have come to encourage them and the place is packed and sweaty. For seven people in a tiny space, they are pretty tight and together, swapping instruments all over the place.

Francois and Rozie, having just played with the Arctic Circle continue the quirky pop, adding an electro flavour with Francois' extremely lo-fi French sound. Extremely French, but don't let that put you off, some of these songs are great in a playful mellow sort of a way.

All of Francois and Rozie and the Arctic Circle's mates disappear when the real talent start. Sure, they're all having a go on the same roundabout and are obviously all terribly young and stuff, but you'd think some of them would stay to hear two of the greatest solo singers in Bristol at the moment. But no, going upstairs to congratulate yourselves and make a noise is far more important. After all, it's not like we're here for the music, is it?

The space enables me to get a seat near the front however, so other people's tragic failure to recognise what's good for them becomes a boon and I settle down to enjoy the intimate songs of Caroline Martin. She dashes Arctic Circle's dream of a happy world to the ground and grinds it into the floor with her heel, with songs about love, loss, loneliness, sex, abuse, self-consciousness, being a hooker - did I mention sex? Sometimes you don't know where to look, but you always think 'lady, you keep singing like that and *I* wouldn't walk away'!

Rose Kemp is ill. She says 'God I want to die', perhaps a little too often but soldiers on, her incredible voice seemingly unhampered by the cold. She crouches in front of a pedal board, mic strapped to her throat and loops some glorious harmonies together. She hammers her guitar with the frustration of being pissed off and ill. She apologises for the lack of drummer and then proceeds to play almost-metal but it's just her! She still sings like an angel, Sing Our Last Goodbye and Hurricanes are particularly moving. I do feel a bit guilty however and am almost relieved when it's over, knowing she can go home to nice hot whiskey and lemon but she does an encore anyway, after all, this is her tour.

In two weeks time, I'll review the end of tour gig and we can see how far they've come.

Whalebone Polly, 7th Sept

The Liftmen / Whalebone Polly,

The Folk House, 7th Sept

These gigs that start early, I don't know! So I miss a lot of good people because of having to go home and shower and eat and stuff. When I arrive, there is a man singing whimsical songs on an acoustic guitar. He says 'this is my last song' I go to buy some beer and sit outside.

The Liftmen have been getting some good press from my Choker friends lately. A few weeks past, I catch their last song at the Star and Garter's Bank Holiday bash and think 'meh, it's alright' as I run away from the upcoming avante jazz.

So I'm pretty interested to hear what the full set sounds like. It starts well, going for a psychedelic proggy amble with lush clean guitar sounds and hypnotic rhythm. When the songs 'proper' begin I quickly realise that these people can't really play jazz, they're doing that thing where people with no concept of the modes and techniques involved just play random notes in a forced way.

This is most obvious in one of the later songs where self-satisfied emphasis on deliberate avoidance of expected notes betrays hours spent in a room with a conventional major scale melody, carefully tweaking it and moving a semitone here, a semitone there. The set is too variable and I am concerned that the audience seem to be getting something that I don't, rapturous applause follows each track and I pray that they are just drunk, impatient for the main attraction or perhaps sympathetically embarrassed as I am.

What could be great modern psychedelic rock is ruined by much faux-jazz nonsense. Maybe after a few years they'll come together, maybe they'll give up on a bad idea, maybe I'm just plain wrong.

The main act wash away all my cynicism by doing what they do best, telling stories through folk-tinged acoustic music. Whalebone Polly are a woman down today, they explain that Verpi is off working on the new Wallace and Gromit film, so I guess we have to forgive here. They also like The Liftmen and Rachael flashes her Liftmen Y-fronts, much to the joy of all the boys in the front row.

I've seen WBP quite a few times and this set of theirs seems to stand out above the rest, possibly even more impassioned than the Glastonbury performance, which was great. It's just that I have my heart in my mouth and a lump in my throat from the sheer beauty of it all on more than one occasion, the place is packed and I know it's not just my who feels this. Even with just the two of them, the harmonies are tight, the songs gentle and passionate and the girly banter is just as coy and silly as always. Great gig.

Sadly, due to moving to France and other things, this is the last WBP gig for a long time. They promise it's not the last gig ever, but I buy the CD anyway, just to cover my cravings.

Geisha / Hunting Lodge / Noxagt, 10th Oct

I haven't done much writing about music lately, so here's to a new Category on Skip The Budgie: REVIEWS! Anyone who's read my other site, Slave to the Music will know that I do this a lot, but I decide grudgingly to go on with just the one main web site, thank you very much. All those reviews will come over here one day, when I have Full Control over Skip. It was all fun and taught me a lot about PHP and web pages at a time when I was sad and lonely, but that's all over now. So on with the 'reviewing', heh.

As it was my birthday last Friday, I have a Birthday Week of gigs and drunkenness. Four gigs, a party and a romantic night in make for a pretty good week I think, even if it does mean I'll be pretty sleepy in the Awake Times. On Monday Geisha are stunning again. Playing to about 8 people in a tiny pub (the Junction) they give it their all and play a couple of new songs. I'm told they did five songs in the 40 minutes or so that they played, a band after my own heart. At one point, there is a Mars Volta-esque prog-psychedelic guitar solo with Geisha noise breaks and yes, it is awesome. I can't wait for the album, I just hope they manage to get it recorded well.

I avoid Hunting Lodge. I don't understand the noise they make, the bass has no bass, there is no midrange guitar, apparently (I'm told because I was outside) they don't play the noise-disco songs they used to anymore. Not that I'd like those either. It's just not metal enough for me.

Noxagt are very young and play instrumental metal, not as polished as it could but my scepticism is drowned out as I get caught up in the riffs and the music. It could be the alcohol, but they certainly have enough energy, some good hooks and narrative to keep me interested. Mostly though, I just think that they are very young.

Chartwell Dutiro, 12th Oct

A trip down memory lane for me, a re-awakening of the love of Zimbabwean music and a film, Mbira Music - Spirit of the People. Made in 1990, it's a documentary about the role of music in the war of independence in Zimbabwe, how the music sounds happy when it is really angry, how the words and the songs kept the people's spirits up and helped them to unite against the colonialists. The best line of the film award goes to the White general (was it actually Ian Smith? I don't know what he looks like) who says The time of war is behind us, let us unite and work together for we are no longer enemies. This is a bloody good country, it's a bloody great country and we don't care WHAT you want to call it. I am minded of the Holy Grail line 'let's not fight about who killed who'... There is some fantastic music on there, some names I hadn't heard of (to my shame) like Comrade Chinx, who in this film is portrayed as a hero, leading the revolution in song.

Sadly, Comrade Chinx remained loyal to the ruling party long after Mugabe went mad, and has himself recently become an ironic victim of the big reform operation, winding up in hospital earlier this year after his mansion was razed to the ground after he shot at the Police. Yet another example of the madness over there.

Anyway. Music. After the film, Chartwell Dutiro takes to the stage in traditional Kaftan, Mbira in hand. After a brief soundcheck he begins to sing. We are entranced, he encourages audience participation and we all sing under our breath, gathering confidence as the night goes on. It is strange to be doing this here, in a cinema. It all seems so formal. Yet Chartwell is charming, the music is beautiful and we are entranced. I resolve to give more time to African music, it's in my roots. Well my bro was born there... I tell people I grew up in Zimbabwe, but really it was just five formative years of my life - ages 5-10. Tis indeed a tragedy what is going on over there...

Roy Harper, 13th Oct

Roy Harper has lost his marbles. Apparently this happened quite a long time ago (for those in the know), sadly I am not one of these, I am here because I felt I should hear at first hand what an underrated yet highly influential musician actually sounds like. The rambling between songs is as much a part of the performance as the music itself. We are treated to stories of sex, aliens, music and bad jokes. A rant about religion is all the more startling, given that he is sitting in a church with an enormous Jesus behind him! Still, God didn't seem to mind so much, perhaps lending a hand with the reverb, which in St Georges is pretty substantial.

The support is from Matt Churchill, a young Scouse guitar genius. He plays acoustic music of deep complexity and much speedy scales. Like classical jazz blues with a LOT of chorus and reverb. Some of it is great, ethereal. As with everone else these days, he gets out a looper and proceeds to play a track that wouldn't be out of place on a boyzone record. This isn't a compliment.

Roy, on the other hand, sings wavering folk blues. He ventures into more progressive rock tunes occasionally and even though this is an all acoustic gig they manage to come across really well. He is joined on jazz wibbling by Matt Churchill who manages to contain himself enough to compliment the songs well.

Two big problems, are the fact that he insists on using tons of reverb in an already echoey hall and that Flying Saucers song is shit. I mean really bad. Still on the whole it is a very entertaining evening...

Los De Abajo, 15th Oct

Ozomatli were great when I first 'discovered' them back in 1999. they had just the right mix of multicultural, high energy world music fused with hiphop and always gave an amazing live performance. This was a band that always seemed to have more fun than the audience. Sadly this energy seems to have left the music, which over the last two albums seems to have become stale and bland, diluted with over-sentimental songs erring dangerously towards easy listening lift music. Ouch. Did I say that? Not that I'm bitter or anything. Like The Egg. They were GREAT and they fscked it up, a combination of the fantastic wahwah guitarist leaving and the keyboard player turning himself up too much.

But don't worry about all that, because Los De Abajo have been around just as long and they haven't forgotten how to have a party. The music is a cross between Ozomatli and Manu Chao/Mano Negra, a sprinkling of reggae and lots of ska with the emphasis on Mexican tunes and song styles. There is a political bent to a lot of the songs, although the only bit we really understand is when someone comes out in a George Bush mask and wearing Zapatista hero* masks, they all shout 'you are the terrorist' and chase him off stage. For some inexplicable reason, this song also features a Kiss mask but I didn't really get THAT message!

Fantastic stuff. Shame on all the peeps who didn't go! And that means YOU. The CD is great too, there's even a bit of Russian Cossack madness on there!

• *I forget his name. begins with B - I saw a cartoon where he wrestled all the politicians and military leaders and won the hearts of the people...

Yat Kha, 20th Oct

Back to St Georges Brandon Hill for some throat-singing madness. We're a bit early so we stop off in my old University haunt the Boston Tea Party for a huge coffee so that I'm fully awake for the great Yat Kha. They still have the appalling paintings that no-one wants to buy and over-priced sandwiches.

Support is from Babar Luck , who is a sarf Laandan asian innit with a big beard, a big personality, lots of enthusiasm and absolutely no sense of harmony. This man is seriously the most tone deaf person I've had the displeasure of having to sit through. I'm sure a kinder person than me would say he makes up for it in charisma, but hearing someone sing the same note in a different key to the one he's playing, even when he does 'funny' covers of Bob Marley, U2 (One Love) and others really drove me nuts. Yes, his heart is in the right place but even here he is tragically inaccurate, comparing Mandela to Ghandi as non-violent protestors. Obviously his research into the ANC is somewhat lacking. His friends (big-up to Ed and the bristol Massive) have a good time, but we sit in stunned silence and breathe a big sigh of relief when he goes. That's worth a clap.

At last Albert Kuzhevin and his crazy band (yes the drummer IS called Rasputin) begin with a cover of Wild Mountain time, sung in a voice that threatens to vibrate the very building itself. The new album is all covers, where the same treatment is given to songs like Black Magic Woman and Exodus. This could get a bit boring, since it's only a gimmick really (hey let's give all these songs the Yat Kha treatment!) but there's enough old songs and variety in their styles to keep it interesting.

But it's more than interesting, there are moments of astounding beauty, the obligatory ooh-eh oowey-oowey-yah, ooh-eh oowey-oowey-yah singalong and Albert indulging his heavy metal background with white noise and furious guitar solos. The more traditional sounding songs are fantastic and the sound of the Igil makes me want to cry. But the rasta bassman makes me laugh...

Anyone who hasn't yet discovered the folk/rock/Tuvinian crossover of Yat Kha would do well to start learning, it's not just about the improbably deep voices and the crazy harmonic throat singing, the music is great and will definitely put a big smile on your face.

Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, 27th Oct

There is so little and yet so much to say about this electrifying performance from this much lauded Ravi Shankar disciple, Vishwa Mohan Bhatt. The man likes his slide guitar, but it's not really Indian enough, so he adds a few extra strings - 14 of them and one of they gourd things that makes it resonate. Thus is born a guitar/sitar/veena hybrid called the Mohan Veena which has a strange sound, both a combination of various instruments and sometimes just like a guitar.

As with a lot of these concerts, a short explanation is needed to prepare the ignorant Westerners for what they are about to experience. This is a Rag, this is how it goes, there is this melody and I am going to make some things up and see what happens. What happens, is a slowly building deeply atmospheric and emotional rollercoaster as father and son bounce ideas off each other, working themselves into a frenzy of sliding and virtuosity, reaping an almost infinite variety of sounds from their instruments which are increasingly appearing to be so much an extension of themselves... And relax.

When the tabla player joins in, the effect as these three weave around each other, playing games, repetition, showing off, pushing each other, trying to catch each other out we are all transfixed. Her hands are a blur and she more than matches the two guitarists, complementing their every moving and adding several new dimensions to the music, which is amazing on so many levels. I struggle to find the beat, the taal and the development of the rag often becomes so complex. Really I just give up in the end and let the music wash through me and carry me along with it. I'd have to practise to understand it like the true afficionados do.

After two hours we emerge blinking into the night, which seems strange and new, as if I have undergone a great catharsis of the soul. This has certainly been the best of the three St Georges Concerts by quite some way.

Black Diamond Heavies, 30th Nov

It is a damp evening when I grudgingly leave my bike halfway up the Gloucester Road on my way to Caf?? Bar Unlimited. I cram my helmet, seat, rear mudguard, gloves and hat into my small rucksack after an amazingly coincidental case of perfect timing with the g-f and a trip to the bank, head into the unknown.

I know very little about Myopic Void, except that they feature the three core members of Gonga, a Bristol band I've yet to see, all reports indicate I'd probably quite like them. We somehow keep missing each other, or I'm just too lazy. Delayed guitar echoes up the stairs and summons us from our comfortable sofa. At the top of the stairs a young student-type says ooh they've got a tremolo pedal, how dull. I resist mocking him loudly and brush past smiling.

The tall guitarist is indeed playing atmospherics, distortion through a delay pedal. A figure is hunched over a Korg synthesiser, creating noise and other droney sounds while the drummer plays tribal rhythms. We sit right at the front because for some reason in this tiny space there is a huge gap in the room, as if the audience are afear'd of what might be. This builds up into a Hendrix crossbred with various metal bands groove that lasts for twenty minutes, peaking and troughing accompanied by vocals from twisted blues hell. My mind does start to wander occasionally, the various riffs stretched perhaps a little bit too long, like they'd perhaps got lost in it themselves. Still, some of it's really good, driving rockbluesmetalnoise so I'm pretty happy.

The Black Diamond Heavies feature slide twin-neck guitar, harmonica, Fender Rhodes and Hammond. They play glorious feelgood Southern blues. Everybody has a good time, because well, it's not new, or ground-breaking, or even 'punk rock' as the posters would have us believe. It's just really toe-tappingly good.

• (Pictures to follow when I get home)

The Gunpowder Plot, 5th Nov

28 bands, three stages, not enough time to see them all not least when two of them are about half an hour behind schedule and you are forced to throw your lovely well-planned itinerary out the window. At least you would if there were any windows, which there aren't so you don't. First shock of the day though, is that shopping up Gloucester Road takes a lot longer than I'd planned so we didn't arrive at Casablanca's until 4 pm. Second shock of the day is that the clubs are charging ??3 a pint, even though the whole event is supposed to be a pretty low-budget affair.

So SJ Esau plays some old Esau favourites accompanied by cello and the obligatory trumpet/violin/bass combo that is Max Milton, who plays in at least five different bands as the day goes on. The sound is terrible, but it is a pleasing noise, and I manage to get my hands on the last of his CD's The Wrong-Faced Cat Feed Collapse. As the feedback dies away, I want to stay for the metal assault that is Mea Culpa, but my companion isn't so keen on the idea and we elect to go to the nearby pub rather than give the vultures outrageous amounts of cash for weak low quality beer

When we return, Bucky are in full swing and on top form. An impromtu cover of Portishead's Glorybox is brilliant, as are their other short punky masterpieces. It seems to be over much too quickly, but we hope the next band will deliver as well.

An accidental encounter with the anarchy of Hunting Lodge drives us upstairs again. Santa Dog hold little interest for me, the drumming (standing up - look ma, no bass drum!) is frustrating and the songs are confused and muddle along with no real passion. Except for the third song, which is brilliant, or at least it would be if the drummer played the drums properly.

We leave / run away and go on to watch Big Joan who give us the performance of the day so far, the bass is huge and throbbing, the songs are aggressive and energetic, the drums sound fantastic and Annette is all over the balcony, leaning out over the audience like a figurehead of, well rock I guess.

We catch the end of Fortune Drive, a band who were good at the beginning, but seem to have settled down in the back of my mind with Lenny Kravitz and that era of proficient, but ultimately not interesting enough bluesrocksoul music. The singer still has a fantastic voice though.

Babel are once again folky rock legends, intense, desert-songs with 12 string guitars and no violin this time, but the Cellist makes do. For some reason (oh yeah, we're in a nightclub, aren't we?) they spray dry ice into the eyes of the front row, obsuring all but the ringing of the music.

I reluctantly leave Babel behind to go and pick up the G-F from the hospital, no don't worry - she works there. We return to the blue Mountain just in time to catch Rose Kemp doing Sing Our Last Goodbye a capella, her lovely voice just audible over the chatter of a busy bar.

As Knowledge of Bugs sets up, I get restless and realise that Geisha are due to play now. I am permitted to leave - no, we don't want our ears bled thank you very much - philistines. The appalling timing of Casablanca's is in full effect and I watch The Scrub finish their last song and stand around for a bit, waiting.

A drunk kiddie comes and tells me to cheer up. He asks me what music I'm into and tells me he likes all music and I should lighten up and open my mind. I tell him to fsck off and leave me alone, humbug. Like you have any fscking idea what I listen to!

Of course it's worth the wait, though. Geisha are a noise metal powerhouse and still they make me very happy for some reason. Perhaps it's the feeling that this level of noise and screaming should be making you feel sick, but it doesn't. Another drunk girl keeps asking me what they're called. I give her my program and point at Geisha. The Scrub? she mouths. I nod, sighing. Why do people try to talk in the face of the noise? I try to ignore everything and let the thrash move me. It is all too short though, because I have to leave again. Curse the timekeepers!

I have to leave because Caroline Martin is playing in the Blue Mountain. I rejoin the g-f and we settle down for yet another haunting, mesmerising and magical performance from one of quiet/miserable/lovely/scarey/acoustic music's new stars. The drunk kiddie gets me at the bar again. I'm sooo drunk! he says happily. Just how old ARE you? I say.

No-one tries to blow anything up. There are quite a few people dressed up for the occasion, some still thinking it's Halloween and some inexplicable costumes as well. I have pretty much totally failed in my journey to find new music, as anyone who reads my so-called reviews will know. I have seen all the people mentioned above several times. Still, there were a lot of people there and I think the whole thing was a pretty excellent event, bad timekeeping and ridiculous nightclub bar prices notwithstanding...

The Crimea, 23rd Nov

The Louisiana is packed for this one. I have consciously avoided any contact with the music in case it puts me off going, we have some of The Crimea's MP3s at home, I am told they are whimsical, have been described as folk rock and I might not like them. Still, ever on a quest to discover new and wonderful music (or a sucker for punishment) I commit, go out, get drunk and have a pretty good time anyway.

The Heights are playing as we arrive, jagged, tight songs that sound like most bands of the moment whose names begin with 'the'. There are a couple of notable exceptions, but this band don't like telling you what their songs are called. Occasionally the guitarist is allowed to show his true skills and hammers out some hard funky rock riffage, which makes for some pretty good songs. The closing number is a faux-country blues rock with modern sensibilities but is driving and energetic and my head nods involuntarily. This band have the makings of pop-rock stardom, notmycupoftea most of the time, but there you go.

The DJ is playing the Mars Volta as we head back to the bar. On our return, it proves to have been a fitting interlude as People In Planes are similar, with elements of Radiohead in there as well. They have progressive-sounding rock songs with difficult choruses and lots of variety, some great harmonies and musical intensity. And none of those plodding 'the' band pop songs, oh wait, there's one. Only one though, and it doesn?t last long. Hilariously my companion doesn't really like them at all and thinks that The Heights are much better. He is wrong.

At last it is time for The Crimea to show me what they're made of. They have a scarey bass player, Christmas lights around the drum kit and the guitarist has a bicycle light gaffered to his guitar. Mid-paced, quirky half acoustic music ensues, the singer has a strange affectation to his voice and moves like a robot.

At points the 'whimsy' becomes a little too much, too sickly sweet, but there are some strong songs in there. They play their pop singles in the encore as bubbles are pumped out over the audience, people sing along, and a good time is generally had by all but I can't help the feeling that they have somehow missed an opportunity to make their strangeness popular, by writing these quaint simple ditties. Overall, the set is more fast-paced than I'd expected and despite the pop and the bubbles I still manage to have a good time.

Band of the evening though, are the poorly named People in Planes by quite some way. I get very drunk and work tires me out so I completely fail to go out the next evening to my other planned gig.

Hunting Lodge's Album Launch, 3rd Dec

Before going out to see Geisha for the nth time this year, I read on their singer's livejournal that this will be no ordinary set:

"Dr. Sean Talbot will be playing the standard drum kit. Dr. Steve James will be playing a gate I found outside work, this device will be played by power sander, multi speed power drill and sticks, as well as saw. Dr. Anton Maiof will be playing a radiator also with drills and sticks, he will also be creating ebow guitar loops and yelling."

I think he must be joking, right? Wrong. The radiator and metal fencing are in full view in the Louisiana's upstairs room. The ebow guitar loops start us off, eirie sounds and Steve, bass conspicuously absent, begins to hammer away at his piece of metal fence like a man possessed. This continues in a weird industrial early Nine Inch Nails vs. Kodo-drumming vein, Anton screams words you can almost understand and eventually it builds up enough for Sean to kick in some great rhythms. The sounds created by hacksawing or industrial sanding a metal fence are stunning, the drills produce deep bassey drone-noises and people are almost dancing! This is Geisha, but not as anyone has seen them before, even more weird and wonderful than their fully acoustic performance last year. It is said there is a recording... I look forward to it greatly.

King Alexander are a lo-fi early 90's britpop-punk trio, fronted by a shouty girl and a shouty boy. In fact they are much more than this, the first impression recalls that period when they threw the composition out of music. However this band have a lot more complexity. At times the music becomes more interesting than being just punky songs, there is a song in 5/4 time (ooh how daring!), at times it is tinged with metal and rock. I enjoy them more than I wanted to, given my resentment of this basic punky noise, it's just that KA are somehow better than that. Perhaps the alcohol is starting to take effect.

Mugstar hammer some sense into me. They have maybe one song with vocals, vocals you can't really hear. The music, a relentless pounding of distorted one-chord songs, like they couldn't be bothered to spend half an hour building up and just jump straight to the good bit. Like Circle, the loud bits of Mogwai and Godspeed with extra saxophone. Cables trail the room as the band seem incapable of staying on the stage, we respectfully get out of the way, at the front I am in constant danger of being jabbed in the eye by the bass guitar.

My Way My Love are hard to describe, they are a great strange rock metal band with punk tendencies and tons of er... Pedals. There you go.

That this was all in aid of Hunting Lodge's album launch, didn't mean I would stay for the main band. I didn't want to get cross so I had to run away from their set. Well I stayed for the first five minutes then couldn't get out fast enough. Those who did stay have been reported to have liked it though.

Dark Tranquillity, 4th Dec

His eyes are wild with excitement, hands trembling. You here for the gig? He enquires, after asking whether my gloves are snowboarding gloves. Do you snowboard? No. His eyes are wide, I wonder how much speed he's actually taken, or whether he really is this excited. I'm pretty excited myself to be honest, but I'm far too grown up to let it show. Miserable git. I love snowboarding. Are you here for the gig?

We are sitting in Scruffy Murphies, a cool metal pub just round the corner from the Birmingham Academy and they are hammering out Judas Priest and Arch Enemy and all sorts of other delights to the heavy metal crowd. As usual they manage to pull out some songs by the bands we are about to see, I look around and watch excited goth faces lighting up, seeing how many people are going to the gig too. I'll see you in the mosh pit! Our new friend says excitedly, making the sign of the devil.

We catch the tail end of Hatesphere, fast shouty metal with crunchy riffs and widdly guitars. There is a big open space, a circle of death if you will, in the middle of the audience. This is where the carnage happens, but it is starkly empty. I wonder why it's even there, if no-one if actually moshing.

When Dark Tranquillity take the stage, you can tell that most of these metal kiddies have no idea who they are. They have that air of determination about them that they won't like this band, however good they are. The sullen faces in the front few rows hardly move during the gig but behind them, we are headbanging like crazy. It is a glorious performance, fast - loud - beautiful - quiet - SHOUTING - fast - furious - angry - lovely epic metal. There are devil signs all over the place and despite one guitarist looking bored to tears and jealous that the other guy gets all the solos they pull out all the stops. There is a pretty poor song in the middle where the singer stops shouting and actually sings, but they play some of my favourite tunes, Monochromatic Stains, The Treason Wall, Damage Done amongst others. I sustain light damage from the crazies when we move towards the middle because the audience are so dead around the edges.

The main band tonight are Chimaira, a fact that becomes drummed into our brains as the crowd chant the name. They are an American hardcore metal band who do fast chugging hammer at your brain noise with shouting. A bit too much shouting if you ask me. For some reason, although the crowd is going more wild than any of the other bands the empty space reserved for moshing has closed as the crowd surfing gets under way. There is carnage at this gig, we get bashed around quite a bit, for most of the gig though, I have this guy next to me who is protecting his woman by punching the headbangers in a deterrent sort of a way, and thus protecting me. The toilets are sprayed with blood from a bust nose or something, the kiddies love this band. I don't know why, they're pretty rubbish. Chug chug chug shout chug shout chug shout chug shout... Oh but the best thing was everyone grinning like idiots and chanting together I hate you all. This is heavy metal alright! Plus I get to do the climbing over everyone just to shake the singer's hand at the end thing... Rock and/or roll.

There are an astonishing number of shoelaces on the broken plastic-strewn floor when everyone has left, along with the odd torn out piercing and loose change. At the door we meet our nutter from the pub, he is jabbering excitedly at the doorman and doesn't recognise us when we pass, even when I pat him on the back. Wicked gig, hey? I say. The bus on the way home is covered in graffiti and my ears are ringing so much I lose my hat somewhere along the line.

• - My photos can be seen HERE
• - (Pretty much all the photos in this review are of Dark Tranquillity, except for that last, green one)

Angel Tech (and others), 11th Dec

After a hard day's cleaning following our pretty damn successful giant Christmas dinner for friends, I fail to get any of them to come out with me to see the consistently amazing Angel Tech for free, with noodles. Not one to miss (often) a good gig just because no-one will go with me I plug in my shut-out-the-world headphones and wander into the misty night.

It is Rose Kemp's Birthday, so Mr Wolf's is full of balloons. Balloons and noodles and Chokers. The Secret Ego is playing as we come in, just a guy with a loopstation and an electric guitar and a drum machine. He sings some songs that I generally ignore, through buying beer and chatting and whatnot, but the overriding feeling I get is that the machines are running the music more than he is.

To qualify, it is a sad coincidence that lately I have been getting annoyed with the current proliferation of loopstations in 'the' music scene. From pop chart types (KT Tunstall *spit*) to underground musicians, they seem to be cropping up everywhere and not many people can make them sound fresh and unique with actual songwriting skill and talent. Like all this bloody vocoding/autotune in dance music. It's all about keeping your interest. Even bands that play one chord over and over again can make it interesting, like Mugstar or Godspeed. Local musicians who manage to do something good with a looper include Team Brick (who is never dull), SJ Esau (great songwriter) and Rose Kemp (amazing singer).

The real problem I guess, is that people set up a loop, play over it, sing for a bit and then realise that there's nothing else to do. How do you build it up? How do you change / add a chorus even end? The Secret Ego suffers from all these problems. He is best when he's just playing the guitar with a bit of a backing track. Still, he's much better in A Lion, but we'll come to that later.

This year I've consistently failed to have the full Team Brick 101+ experience, so I was quite looking forward to today. They don't dispapoint, two drumkits on opposite sides of the room, playing mid-paced two-chord prog-post-rock (if you had to give it a name). They are all improvising, the violinist takes turns with Team Brick to sing and shout incomprehensible things (sound not so good for the vocals). The soundman has endless troubles with the volume, turns the guitars off, can't make the vocals loud enough and eventually shouts it's too fscking loud!, hands over his money to the promoter and leaves. It's brilliant. Luckily there are at least a couple of guys who can actually take over and do a much better job.

A brief They Might Be Giants cover from SJ Esau and Max Milton puts a big smile on the birthday girl's face and A Lion plug themselves in. Again, this is my first 'Lion experience and it is pretty good, loud distorted songs that are, well different to most rock music and better for it. The only one I know is The Cold Hands of Lucille, which isn't loud rock, but is a Good Song. Ok. I don't know what to say. I wish they had a real drummer because the programmed beats didn't really work very well, even when we could hear them.

Tim from Angel Tech introduces me to his band mate saying this is Dash, he writes nice things about us on his blog. You haven't written anything bad yet, have you? No reason to, I say, you've been consistently good. Secretly I wonder if today will be the Bad One, but really I know it won't. They are fully plugged in this time, electronic drumkit, electric guitars and the songs are more together, more complete than I've seen so far this year. The songs are still stunning, witty, beautiful, euphoric, slightly disturbing and overal generally wonderful. Well I'm feeling very Christmas Holiday-ey, leave me alone! Anyway, hopefully this means the long-awaited album will be out soon. One of the newer tracks, Calm Down, can be found on their Myspace page: CLICK HERE.

North Sea Navigator, 6th Jan

The first gig of the year promises to be a good one, so we get to the Folk House nice and early since I've forgotten who's playing. It's a good job too, as we secure prime seats at the front and the place is sold out by 8:40. We are in the small room upstairs where the bar is which makes for an intimate setting. My phone battery fails me, so no photos for this review I'm afraid.

Rose Kemp sings a capella tonight, her rich beautiful voice demanding silence from the sardine-packed audience. Sardine-packed at the side and the back that is, we have lots of room at the front. I wonder idly if I could walk to the piano and if I play the start note and the end note would she have gone flat? It seems not, save for a familiar '...shit. I've forgotten the next bit! How does the next verse go?' halfway through a Tom Waits song. A haunting, touching and untypical performance from this great singer. 'How can anyone win these TV competitions or even think they can sing when there is a girl with a voice like that?' the GF says. I'm forced to agree.

The Sky Is Blue is an extremely pleasant surprise, intense acoustic songs and momentary bursts of genius. Electric bass, acoustic guitar, flute/clarinet and female backing vocals and such nicey nicey songs... Oh wait. Yeah that bit is pretty dark. This one's nearly a rock song! I add another performer to my list of 'must see again and acquire music from' people I've only ever met on Choke. Paul from headlining band North Sea Navigator joins Jon the singer for a rendition of online collaboration song 'Home' by a group they call 'That Burial Ground In Your Head'. Jon's version turns the piece into a stark, haunting and extremely emotive song.

Rachael Dadd plays today accompanied by harp, cello and two violins. Her 'I'm dancing like a fairy in a flowery dress in the Secret Garden' songs get a little bit drowned out by the strings. We can't here the harp as much as we'd like. Being right at the front not looking like such a great idea now, but the songs are still pretty and gentle and ...pastoral is probably the word I'm looking for.

North Sea Navigator play an acoustic set today. Tim the pianist/singer/drummer is very ill, but produces an admirable performance, managing to reach high notes no ill person should attempt. Personally I prefer the songs like this, without the distorted guitar muddying the genius of the the instrumental interplay, the way the words fit the music, the meaning of the lyrics. It is a great performance and we go home more than satisfied, NSN CD burning brightly in my coat pocket.

Perhaps Contraption, 13th Jan

This is probably to be the last ever loud gig at Caf?? Bar Unlimited. Apparently there is a man upstairs who hasn't taken kindly to the noise. When Hunting Lodge played there - possible the most insane thing I've ever heard of - he apparently stormed downstairs and threatened the lives of those within. This reaction is fair enough really, the place isn't at all built for containing loud music, so it's likely that future gigs here will be mainly acoustic.

There are bursts of noise and rock from the basement as the hoard gathers. A *hilarious* failure to bother looking upstairs means I wait for the GF for about ten minutes before realising she's here already. Downstairs, we sit on the floor and wait to see what happens, I've heard Snakes On A Plane's track on myspace and have Expectations. Each track they do features one riff, which is created, explored, developed, exulted and eventually destroyed before being reborn, full circle. All this band's members are in other groups and solo musicians but this is the most cohesive, the most impressive combination I've seen any of them in.

Pirate Ship Quintet are like Godspeed, but more impatient and with a trumpet. He struggles to stay in tune and struggles to play four beats on a drum in time during a fantastic percussive section in one of the songs.There are times when I wish the guitars were heavier, they are trying to be loud but the trumpet is in the way. Still, the tunes and the band are solid enough to make for something that remains interesting without being particularly groundbreaking. More good stuff.

Perhaps Contraption are perhaps trying a little too hard to be clever, funny, wacky. Anyone who knows about the history of rock music knows that when Gong (and of course many others) did it everyone was fscked on drugs and didn't really care about the silly music. If the silly singing isn't enough, the random piddling about and short breaks of nearly-tunes that get screwed up and shat out again in unconnected time signatures is. Without anything musical left for us to grab onto we realise that we certainly don't care and they help us to get home for an early-ish night.

Oh well, two out of three ain't bad and for the time at the Bar gig, it was an extremely enjoyable one.

Acoustic Festival #1, 14th Jan

A very mixed bag is expected from this year's Acoustic Festival at The Folk House, after Last year's highly variable event. We arm ourselves with newspapers only to find to our great disappointment that Saturday papers don't seem to contain any Sudoku, just difficult puzzles and depressing news. A good article in the Times magazine on Popworld though, one of the best shows on TV at the moment!

Coffee'd up and settled at a nice table, we are just in time to see what Alex Taylor does. In his Sting-slept-with-David Gray voice, he sings MOR acoustic songs and has a friend with him who plays the jazzy fast widdly bits over the top. Their best songs are the covers, a very chilled version of Sting's Message In A Bottle goes down well. In a similar vein, Phil King picks up the torch and runs, well ambles with it. So interesting I can't think of anything to say.

Does Katey Brooks wake us out of our stupor? We've almost finished the Independent. No she doesn't. Her voice is thick and false sounding. I don't know why girls sing like this, a forced deep jazz voice that just makes them sound like they've got a cold. More coffee is needed before finding out if Sweet Laredo are any better. They're not. Mellow jazz-type music with another fake jazz singer who this time seems bent on singing all the wrong notes (by which I mean, they just sound wrong - she is IN tune) and making the songs drag. I thank the Lord for company of friends who remind me that I'm not the only one with these opinions.

I also thank the Lord for Caroline Martin, whose slightly chaotic set still retains the gentle wit and sometimes frightening bitterness amidst the simple tunes. Of course the bliss couldn't last long. Augustine are here to prove that dad's can rock, reminiscient of a recent McCartney effort I saw by accident late at night on telly. We laugh as the big singalong final song excites lead man Steve Hogg so much that he jumps of the stage and cuts his eyebrow on his own guitar.

Fearing that the wind would change on my grimace, we run away but return for the awesome Babel. Who are awesome. This set seemed to be louder and more intense than previous encounters, but definitely worth the wait.

Two bands worth seeing. Two. And I'd seen them before.

Acoustic Festival #2, 15th Jan

Not to be put off by the poor form of Saturday, we walk the nasty little yappy dog and then desert it in favour of another relaxing day of acoustic goodness. The first band we see are called Slow, I seem to remember having a kind of 'meh' feeling about them at Ashton court where I only caught a couple of songs, so this should be good. A place where everyone shuts up and glares at you if you make a noise, or so I thought. The people behind me didn't like it at all, so I shall try not to allow my opinion to be swayed by the growing anger resulting from the incessant babbling:

• ...it's not acoustic at all!
• - Oh I don't like this, what are they called?
• - I think it's called grunge mum.
• - This is what young people today listen to is it?

NO! No it isn't called grunge! What fscking planet are you on? Shut up! You wouldn't say that if I stuck two pencils in your eyes! I LIKE THEM! They are great! The swathes of close harmonies over gentle floyd-like laid backness calm me, calm me - relax, calm... Aah that's better. Pencils in eyes image helps me to focus on the music. It's a fairly large band but everything fits together, the crescendos build slowly and ebb slowly. It's a very apt name, and yes, I do like it, perhaps a bit too perfect for some and probably a bit too loud on occasion for the so-called 'Acoustic' festival but the main singer keeps apologising for this and I just think, 'stop talking, keep playing!'

Another band who refuse to acknowledge the acousticness of the event is the Weary Band who admittedly use an acoustic guitar but are anything but. This performance leaves me wondering why I thought I liked them last year, the singing is slightly off key and the songs rapidly become turgid and forced, the strange melodies are not nice strange melodies, the weird line lengths are offputting, rather than interesting.

Liz Melia is frankly, quite mad. Her songs tend to involve fish to some degree and are very strange and quirky. She wouldn't be out of place in a field in the 60's and is a welcome relief after the Weary Band (another apt name there). Girl with acoustic guitar. Sings songs of love and fishing.

I have never been disappointed by Jane Taylor. She has great songs, obviously loves singing them and gives us another stunning performance Her melodies are not strange or new, they are just right, as if she is led or carried by the music effortlessly. Obviously this can sometimes be a disaster (look at the charts) but the intervals hit the emotional centres, the really traumatic notes that make your heart jump. I suppose this kind of music also makes people cringe but it probably depends on how you choose to interpret the feelings the music makes you have. My current favourite song of hers that makes me catch my breath is Fall On Me which is a song about commitment and regret...

I've written about The Wraiths before too. Their musical re-workings of poetry - mostly Emily Dickinson - are atmospheric and musical, never too overpowering for the words. The combination of nice music (most of the time) and scarey eyes is quite unsettling but if you look away it's okay. There is a promise of an album at somepoint in the next year or so.

The last good act of the day is Rachael Dadd, who performs with local duo Francois and Rosie on assorted instruments, including melodica and small xylophone. This is a much more toned down version of of the full stringed performance a couple of weeks ago and better for it I thought. She showcases some new songs and gradually I realise that we really are disappearing away with the faeries now. Still, much acousticky goodness to be had.

The Sunday of the festival turns out to be much more successful than the Saturday, but with almost all the bands from last year's version I wonder idly if I'll bother next year. The final band clinch it for me. I'll only go to the good bits. Three frustratingly ordinary songs into the New Acoustics, we decide enough is enough and head off home to kick the dog.

Quack Quack, 24th Jan

The Junction is a small pub with nice wood interiors and friendly staff. The PA is too close to the bar, with one speaker aimed sideways at the door so that people don't feel left out. It is fully endorsed by the local alcoholics population, who disappear at some undisclosed point during the evening, probably confused and disorientated by the evening's attack of innovation and distortion.

Cowtown are visiting from Leeds and feature guitar, tiny keyboard, manic drummer and no bass. I am initially horrified by their blatant disregard for harmony and melody, the guitar seems completely out of tune with the synth and they are heads-down ignoring the drummer's attempts at pulling something together out of the chaos. I clearly have to readjust my expectations here. Jagged guitar chord motifs compete with sustained keyboard notes, short little ostinato melodies clash with each other but there is a pattern emerging and... Is my head nodding? Not only that, but I can't help but smile at the inherent comedy in the music.

On occasion the keyboard player picks up a bass or guitar for a change of timbre, lending a solid amateurish bassline to the angular music. There is much going on behind the self-conscious minimalist exterior as the choppy guitar makes way for some more complicated riffs over understated electric synth-organ chords. Elements of rock and punk and lo-fi keyboards all combine with the support of the frenzied drummer creating an extremely danceable and enjoyable sound. The local alcoholic begs everyone to shut up so she can hear the girl do a solo, a request that is embarrassedly declined.

I have heard that Bristol band Soeza have been greatly influential, playing in various forms since 1996 and formed on a hotbed of musical talent and innovation in Bristol. Being utterly oblivious of this I am of course open minded and keen to discover how two drummers and a french horn fit with the usual collection of guitarists and singers. So why do they leave me so dry and perplexed? The music is based around stabbing chords and rhythm with instruments jumping around each other - sometimes anarchic, funky, sometimes full-on rock all backed up with good solid basslines. The french horn rapidly becomes irritating, sitting atop the mix and screaming. The lyrics rarely sit well with the music, frontman half talking, shouting, grinning his singing companion who lends a hand on some tracks, vainly trying to sing sweet, odd melodies that seem removed from the music.

But it sounds like the mix has gone slightly wrong, as if the quest to innovate has overtaken any desire to be really involved with the music itself. I'd been led to believe there would be double drumming extravaganzas but tonight the drums rarely separate, leaving me wondering what the point is. Except when the girl sits behind a kit and something a bit more exciting ensues, but it's not enough to save the set. Looking around, I see many faces that completely contradict my own experience - grinning heads moving, even a bit of bobbing up and down and huge applause at the end of each assault.

Three-piece Quack Quack create a frenzied dance music with huge distorted bass and funny little keyboard melodies all backed up with brilliant dancey-breakbeat drumming. The keyboardist gaffer-tapes a single note down and moves over to a basic spare drumkit for a big percussive break. This is what you can do with two drummers, it seems to say to me. This is what happens when you really love playing. They play a storming set, ranging from hypnotic single-note post-electro, post rock, post dance, post genre-defining noise to fast, pumping complicated dance music that shakes your body and gets you grinning like a maniac.

It is as grinning maniacs that we emerge out onto the dark streets of nearly inner city Bristol. The alcoholics are just around the corner, oblivious of what they have just missed although I'm sure by now they don't really care. I hope the smiles will spread throughout the land, as Quack Quack are surely headed for great things.

Angel Tech, 29th Jan

We arrive at the Croft early because it is just down the road from my house. Time for a drink before the festivities, time to try and persuade as many people as I can to come and support some of the best bands I've seen so far this year. Admittedly I've been going to see Angel Tech since 1998, but the others are all this year's discoveries.

The overture is provided by Snakes On A Plane who fill our ears with works created from simple beginnings, intelligent soundscapes of basic licks that develop organically into screaming noise, heavy distortion or even just manically-timed counterpoint. Keyboard player Alex remains impassive throughout the performance, while his bandmates spasm into action around him each time the music launches into a new direction. I find this group and its sound quite compelling, something I could listen to for hours although there are those amongst my companions who feel they develop the music beyond their capacity for ideas.

Itchy Tasty are a four-piece instrumental metal band, occasionally erring on the side of mathematically complex riffs with the emphasis heavily on seriously rocking out. Their front man, known in these parts as wildly random entrepeneur of sound Team Brick, still sweating from his role in the background of SOAP - where he veered between screaming noise and supporting guitar - introduces each song as being somehow related to investing your money wisely in the European Stockmarket, comedy interludes to what is sometimes comedy music. Excellent grooves make way for heavier guitar riffage backed up by seriously solid, complicated and at times wondrous drumming.

By stark contrast, Azalea City Penis Club play as if they found the Blues in a back alley somewhere and resurrected it following a nasty accident involving a particularly heavily loaded bus full of public schoolboy wannabe punks. They shout, but they're not angry. It's supposed to be lighthearted, but it just comes across as shallow, uninspired and bereft of musical forethought. Here's what you do: learn that the blues generally has three chords. Learn some vauge bluesy riffs. Turn your guitars up. Turn them up more. A bit more. Now play a bit faster... faster. That's it, quicker than disco, slower than speed metal and now, just let me shout. Oh it doesn't matter what about... damn. I've just invented rock and roll.

Angel Tech are not rock and roll. For years they have confounded description, taking us to the giddy heights of the solar system at the end of the 90's, songs without obvious structures that ebb and flow and make you smile. These days the music has the same edge and after a period of acoustic gigs, they are fully re-established with a vengeance and an album in the pipeline. Songs about relationships, break-ups over music tastes ('the jukebox will tear us apart again'), the always tragic and brilliant 'Angel Tech RIP' rebuilt upon a hotbed of electronic drums and hypnotic melodies, sometimes erring on the dance side of things with techno or drum and bass rhythms. On top of this the music stalks between Nyman-esque piano ostinati, incidental film-like artworks and almost pop, not quite rock simple songs. I know - it all sounds terrible but it's brilliant and like nothing else on earth. A special treat for the old-time fans is the resurrection of one of their older songs, which has me imagining I was ten years younger, which I suppose I was the last time I saw it performed live.

It is a terrible cliché to complain about the dreadful mediocrity of industry-piped lift music as seen on TV, but this was a night for learning that the spark of inspiration for guitar-based music is not as dead as the media would have us think. Here we have four very different bands who are all exciting and different in their own unique ways without compromising good ideas for MOR pop by numbers. It also seems that these days you don't have to go far out of your way to find such music, not least since I live just around the corner from the venue.

Electric Eel Shock, 30th Jan

Now let's get one thing straight right here. I DON'T go to see Japanese heavy metal bands to have some off his tits on drugs crusty fsck hit me in the side of the head. You must forgive the resulting glower at said offender in order to let him know that while I appreciate that the music is particularly boisterous, fun, exciting and exhilerating, there really is no need to punch me in the side of the head as my cup as it were, is already flowing over with aural pleasure. Or at least it was, until you hit me. Idiot. How very Rock and Roll.

The terrible support, whoever they are - Electric something, really are terrible. Through the window (before the actually terrible support) we see Turnbuckle striking poses and kicking out furious heavy metal while their frontman camps it up in a feather boa and tight top. We retire to the pub next door, where they play the Wurzels. When we return the noise has abated and the terrible support come on. They are men of an age who play music of an age, mainly the U2 / Marillion / Queensryche epoch but somehow more pedestrian and ultimately lifeless. We resist the powerful urge to heckle them to hell and I spend much of the period after I finish wanting to scream at all the people who congratulate the singer on how 'awesome' his band is.

Electric Eel Shock are a band who seem to spend most of their time touring the UK, mainly Bristol. They have played here four times in the last six months, always in small venues and are touring their album Beat Me, which was out early 2005. Playing to a half-full pub of people who inexplicably seemed to like the last band I really thought the gig was in serious danger of falling flat on its face.

But from the first wide-eyed gurning power-chord, the naked drummer's monkey antics and the furious heavy metal punk to the last screaming feedback solo of utter 80's rock destruction the six or so 'rows' of people left have the best time. I find myself there at the front, devil sign aloft as the lead singer calls us all bastards. YOU bastard! No, I bastard! Okay okay, HE bastard (pointing at the bass player)! Even with the drugged-up Crusty incident it's still grin your arse off and revel in the unashamed poseur punk /rock / metal that ensues.

The crime in all of this is that with such a great show, such fantastic driving completely unoriginal but totally honest songs and relentless touring this band still can't attract more than a few people to a gig. They really should be more famous.

Club Choke, 8th Feb

I saw Male once, I'm sure. When I arrive at the Croft they're still bashing away in the back room. I don't go in, which says a lot for giving people a chance but after the last time I really don't feel like putting myself through it again. Instead I get myself a drink and wait patiently for something more exciting to arrive.

After a brief period of standing in a corner like a lonely man with no friends but his beer later, it is time to see what Shooting at Unarmed Men do. Simple guitar riffs over strong bass-lines with great tight drums, hilarious lyrics, usually of a format: quiet, funny - play the riff LOUD, screamy shouting then do it again. This is a coming together of tongue in cheek 'punk' and elements of mid-nineties lo-fi grunge mixed with noisey rock and metal noise. Buit it's not all funny, some of it is quite serious. Does this make sense? At the gig, it makes sense. This band are great.

Where Shooting at Unarmed Men have lifted us up and shown us that new music is still interesting, Team Brick reminds us that music is everything and nothing, all sounds and no sounds, black and white at the same time. As if you were listening to long wave radio while driving down a long, dark road and just when you're really getting into the music you go through a tunnel and your car is filled with white noise, a rhythmic interference that starts you looking for the alien spaceships and the remains of your eardrums... Then back in the car. A chaotic drumming session is recorded, looped, sung over, fedback and looped again with a side order of gobbledook that is looped then tremolo'd with distortion and ultimately fedback and you enter another tunnel. As the noise techno party peaks you suddenly find yourself out in a damp field somewhere and Team Brick is there with his guitar, a lost little boy singing about loneliness to the void in your soul. It's all over and you have to wonder what just happened, knowing you'll never be able to satifactorily explain it to anybody without appearing insane.

I had been looking forward to War Against Sleep, but today they perform with backing-track drums and no frontman-on-the-piano goodness and it rapidly becomes frustrating. I know, there are probably reasons for this the drummer couldn't make it, they're playing for free so why should they pay to carry all their stuff around etcetera so I won't make too big a deal out of it. I still like the songs, the avante-cabaret style, the lounge singer vocals but tonight it just doesn't really pull together.

Still, it's all for charidee and I have a good night, spending the last of my gig-going money until the end of the month. Good job I already have tickets for Gemma Hayes, Susheela Raman, Amadou and Mariam / Souad Massi and The Mighty Boosh...

Gemma Hayes, 21st Feb

It is a bit of an interesting evening really, starting with an hilarious smokey-kitchen incident in my Latest Curry Adventure. Fully Charcoal'd and appetite-sated we arrive at the Fleece only to find that some woman has collapsed in the doorway and we can't get in. We head next door, with a promise that the woman will come and get us when Gemma Hayes starts. Don't make promises you have no intention of keeping mofo, I think when we go back one pint later and find that she's already started.

So, evening off to a good start then. I hope that Gemma will make it worth our while but only two songs out of the eight we listen to are any good and there is only so much middle of the road pop country a man can stand.

We run away.

It's not that hard to find what is so off-putting, although Gemma Hayes is quite nice to look at. It is more the blandness of it all. The drummer plays drums and keyboards at the same time and the drums are passed through some awful gate/filter that makes them sound flat and synthesised. The songs have no dynamic range and this combined with Ms Hayes' small melodic range quickly becomes boring.

I had hoped for something more folky, more akin to her very first EP 3a.m. But it seems that those days are over, for Gemma Hayes wants to sell some records. And Fast.

So like I said, we run away. It's a shame that some artists' musical misdirections do this and it's hard to tell whether they're doing it for the love or the money. Lucky them, if they coincide. Fool them, if they don't.

Susheela Raman, 26th Feb

There isn't much I am able to say about this performance. The acoustics at St George's Brandon Hill are, as usual, quite excellent although sitting in the middle of row B we arguably miss out on the perfect listening position. My companion informs me that the Ticket Man had tried to give us seats in row H, which for future reference are probably the best seats in the house.

The obvious benefits of being right at the front are a close up view of some generous cleavage; a feeling of intimacy and the chance of real eye-contact; and hopefully the avoidance of the music being lost in reverb as happened when watching Roy Harper last year.

Susheela sings with her whole body, ably accompanied by her husband on various lovely guitars. The songs range from quiet and sorrowful through passionate and tense to joyful dance. Of course nobody actually dances, it is hard enough getting us to clap in time. She holds my gaze for a little too long as she squirms about the floor being the snake in the Jungle Book singing 'Trust In Me' and we are all pleasantly amazed by the tabla player who becomes the hero of the show, as tabla players often do. The sound is just too perfect in almost every way. In her quest to combine her Indian heritage with her British-Australian-Indian upbringing Susheela Raman helps me to feed my longing to return to Tamil Nadu, a place where I lived and a culture she grew up with.

The audience find it in themselves to clap in time as we beg for an encore, even more remarkable is the fact that the clap does not increase in speed, as is traditional. Perfect timing at last.

Amadou et Mariam, 3rd Mar

For some reason, although the Colston Hall is sold out today, they decide not to sell tickets for the balcony, leaving the hall resonating with a melancholic echo. The place is just filling up when Souad Massi takes the stage and although she is brilliant and sings beautifully, it is not until late into her set that the crowd begins to respond as if they are at a happening.

There could be many reasons for this. The average age of the concert goers seems to be about 50+, so perhaps it takes a while for their bones to warm up, or something. The younger generation traditionally turn up a bit later and the beautiful Algerian French Spanish Arabic music comes across a little bit desperate, echoey. The band have a lot of fun, there are some great drum solos, the guitarist plays a twelve string like no-one I've seen and the old dude at the back gets more sounds out of his little Arabic drum than anyone with a full kit at their disposal.

The great dance music dies out and we are left waiting for the next act, Sudanese rapper Emmanuel Jal: "one of the hottest rappers to explode out of the African music scene" (worldmusic.net). His is an incredible tale of survival as a child soldier, rescue, rejuvination, Jesus, forgiving everbody and music. (Independent Article). Unfortunately his musical calling errs too far on the bland RnB side of hiphop, there is a good tune in there, the lyrics and stories are all meaningful and relevant but I become too aware of the ache in my legs and the fact that everybody around me seems to be loving it. Is it because of his story that they are all so enraptured? The BBC World Music Award for being someone with a history that we can't even imagine? Yes, we should sympathise with his history, but someone needs to tell him his music is sh1t. There is one good song in there, reminiscient of MC Solaar - good sing along chorus, Jal is out-rapped by his backing singer but I am once again distracted by the age of the audience.

I don't want to appear age-ist. I am happy that a lot of people who don't normally go to gigs are at gigs. I become embroiled in a brief 'discussion' on Choke about the kind of people to expect at this concert and yes, they're all here. The stereotypical Gruaniad readers with blissful knowing smiles and the faint smell of patchouli, gyrating purposefully like hippies at flowers festivals. The older, well-travelled middle classes looking at each other as if to say this is Real Music! Those young people today don't know what Real Music is! But we do, and we're here as well. During one of Emmanuel Jal's more aggressive songs they are smiling, nodding, even dancing and yet you wouldn't catch any of these people at any other sort of hip hop concert. You wouldn't catch them down the Croft checking out some really exciting and interesting new music even though they might really enjoy (some of) it. Maybe if it was advertised in the broadsheets...

It only annoyed me a little bit. On the other hand, it was nice to see such a wide variety of people enjoying themselves so much. Even if some of the men were a bit too distracted by all the young latino girls to notice the music.

Back to the gig. When the bad beats finally stop and the stage is washed clean, Amadou Bagayoko and Mariam Doumbia are brought on. They play some rousing afro-blues and all sorts of other Afrikan delights, even moving into disco for a bit. The music is full of the variety of influence that has been coming out of Mali, a fusion of Cuban and Western music with traditional styles.

I'll give up trying to describe it! We have a fun time dancing, I manage to stay in front of the tall people and while I am slightly disappointed that Manu Chao doesn't make a special guest appearance (his influence is all over the album) it's still a great night. If you haven't got the album yet, do so, it's well worth it!

Geisha Coliseum Lords, 6th Mar

A brief trip to the Junction on the day before my moment of glory at the University and the [skip:module fair]. It marks the first time I've seen Geisha this year, and it won't be the last! They have just finished a short tour and although they seem a little bit tired they still smash out yet another storming Geisha set.

For some reason, the bands are playing on the opposite side of the bar to the one they usually play on. The PA stays wehere it is however and so we have the strange effect of hearing the singers 'next to' the music. I am standing right by one of the PA speakers and while my left ear fills with tortured screams my right is bleeding from the noise.

It's a good sort of bleeding.

About half way through the set Geisha play their new Geisha meets the Mars Volta meets Pink Floyd and screams (tm) song, which I love, it has just the right balance of rock grooves, punk shouting, metal screaming and prog wibbling. I pray this song is on the forthcoming album, or I'll have to start bootlegging gigs!

Tonight the Junction plays host to two American bands. The first of these features a whirling dervish of a drummer, a big scarey man with a beard and a timid bass player. The guitarist has a strange setup of a Marshall JCM 800 behind him and a Marshall JCM 2000 that sits behind the bass player. You want quieter guitars? No problem, I'll just uses the one amp for 'quiet' bits. The 2000 produces a nice bright lead sound in contrast to the 800's rougher distortion Together, they are a powerhouse of metal noise. Apart from the odd dramatic slo-metal moment, Coliseum (sic) only have two settings: furious fast thrash metal and OFF. In the 'off' bits we are treated to soliloquies about the terrible state of America today and how we have to stop kissing Bush's ass coz our country is looking pretty stupid although it's great. The songs? Well at times it's pretty cool - fast driving loud shouting. Towards the end of the set I start to get a bit distracted at the sameness of it all though.

Following this, just in case anybody can still hear we have more rants from the singer of Lords and more fast metal. This guy had to go and see the dentist and it cost me twelve of your English Pounds! This country is great! In America it would have cost me 400 bucks. In ENGLAND it would cost me 200 quid you git...

I make my excuses and leave. Not because I'm not enjoying it, you understand, just that I have to get up in the morning, I have WORK to do. It will be hard enough being deaf.

Ack Ack Ack, Mar 24th

From what I'd heard, it didn't seem like going to watch a 'band'
called Fuck Buttons
would really be a good idea. (I try to be late, allowing myself to
get sucked into fixing mp3 tags on my jukebox before we leave. This is
no simple task. I have about 200 songs without track numbers, which
means my player will play them in alphabetical order, which is
annoying). But anyway...

Unfortunately, when we arrive there is the distinctive vibration of
white noise coming through the walls of href="http://www.myspace.com/thejunctionbristol">the Junction,
echoing out into the street and mingling with the sound of traffic. The
traffic sounds better, in that it at least carries an element
of indeterminism which lends some interest and the possibility of a
moment of quiet. Fuck Buttons allow no such respite. There is the
briefest of pauses between tracks before the next huge noise. Underneath
the wall we hear some primitive rhythms beaten out on drums, the noise
is filtered via the laptop into other forms of noise while the boys
scream into microphones and a Fisher PriceTM Karaoke toy.

It ends at last and we can finally leave behind this kindergarten of
pointless noise children who hit things. We only had to put up with it
for five minutes, but I think I'll try to avoid ever having to put up
with it again. href="http://www.myspace.com/scarecrows">Scarecrows offer a
refreshing contrast featuring music that sounds good at first, but they
don't seem to know what to do with the few good ideas they have. For a
couple of songs it is okay: decent grooves, amateurish drumming from the
violin player, a good baseline. After the fourth song starts I realise
that this is going to be more of the same until the end of the set.
My attention fades, my mind wanders back to thinking about how many
songs to which I could have assigned track numbers in this
time...

King Alexander
save the evening with their cheeky brand of shrieking shouty college
punk mixed with that 1994 guitar pop sound. Which is good, because
Ack Ack Ack are a bit, well strange and not
that exciting (no web site, but mp3 href="http://www.runningriotrecords.co.uk/download/ack%20ack%20ack%20-%2
0alley%20juice.mp3">here). Sure, they are loud but the ideas again
are few and the singing from inside a gas mask is a bit lame. In fact
the guitars aren't loud enough in my opinion, yet another one of these
bands that tries to play metal without heavy guitars and ends up
sounding thin and harsh. The drummer's displeasure at the performance is
evident at the end of the set when he throws his cymbals angrily behind
him. I didn't sense many mistakes, in fact the drummer is incredible,
but the teacher in me wants to write could try harder, lots of
enthusiasm, needs direction.

Choke Magazine Launch, 31st Mar

The Croft is packed on this fine Friday night, packed
full of people who are desperate to read more of my wonderful gig
reviews, in full black and white on Real Paper. Obviously there are
other writings in the magazine too. The pub is also packed with href="http://www.ttyc.co.uk">Chokers and the usual Friday night
crowd who just wanted to go to the pub, not realising that a full
invasion is in effect.

href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/skip/121291541/" title="Knowledge of
Bugs"> width="240" height="180" alt="Knowledge of Bugs" />

Knowledge of Bugs kicks off proceedings, sitting
behind a table in a scientist's white coat. The table is covered in
technical-looking things a little keyboard with a hundred red
buttons glued on, a piece of circuitry, boxes composed more of knobs and
switches than box and lots of wires. It appears that the coat he wears
is not just for show, because Tom Bugs has made all these things himself
and he is about to take us on a scientific journey of sound
creation.

Here we have a gentle drone created through buzzes and echoing
guitar. There he taps the table and records it to create a beat. While
this is bubbling away nicely through delay and other strange effects
Bugs throws in some home-made slide guitar, a dash of gentle melody with
his voice weaving around the echoing notes. It is captivating to watch
him at work, and the eerie soundscapes created keep you transfixed,
feeling the harmonies and melodies subtly changing, waiting to find out
what happens next, what that box will do, what sound, what
noise, what he will say...

href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/skip/121294232/" title="Knowledge of
Bugs"> width="180" height="240" alt="Knowledge of Bugs" />

Jimi Hendrix wakes me from my reverie. Tom has finished and the
DJ takes over. There will be no continuity of musical styles tonight,
this is a celebration of Choke's
diversity and its far-reaching involvement with the world of new and
exciting music in Bristol. The magazine reflects this diversity in the
opinions of the writers and styles of music experienced therein.
Hopefully it will address some of the accusations that the Choke
community is elitist and only panders to its mates, but I still have a
housemate who believes we only write about our friends, without even
noticing that most of the music therein is from out of town bands.
Well they must be all noisey noise then he says, but I point
out that there are rock bands, electronic bands, dance music, noise,
punk, heavy metal, acoustic and folky. He picks it up again and starts
to read. I don't know what anyone can do to address this. It's only an
internet thing. It's not even like the forum's more important. The music
is important.

href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/skip/121295554/" title="North Sea
Navigator"> src="http://static.flickr.com/49/121295554_6b52a5d32c_m.jpg" width="240"
height="180" alt="North Sea Navigator" />

It has been a long time since I first encountered North
Sea Navigator at the Polish club right after a bad break-up and my
first ever Choke-related gig. Tonight they are on a mission to be the
best they've ever been. Although the added volume drowns out the cello a
bit, the three vocalists are loud and clear, the harmonium is
delightfully menacing and the songs from the album Make The
Blacklist are edgy, beautiful, driving, and much more dance-able
than they've been before. While I'm finding it difficult to describe
just how good this gig was, at the time of writing a week later the song
Aileen Wuornos is still reverberating around my skull with its
great rhythm and angst-ridden melody.

href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/skip/121300423/"
title="3hostwomexicansandatinofspanners"> src="http://static.flickr.com/55/121300423_f931fcae76_m.jpg" width="180"
height="240" alt="3hostwomexicansandatinofspanners" />

The genres swing off at another tangent when href="http://www.myspace.com/3hostwomexicansandatinofspanners">3hostwomexicansandatinofspanners hit their first chord, with
epic heavy guitar rock giving way to furiously paced speed riffing. The
two guitarists share vocal duties stroke shouting matches but the words
don't matter - it's the delivery, the rhythm of the words exploding out
of their mouths and how it fits with the music stopping and starting
behind it. The rock-metal-punk waxes and wanes, it builds to shrieking
hysteria with great timing and breaks down to almost funky rock before
the next hilarious assault. The musical term 'con fuoco' springs to
mind, which I always imagined to mean 'like fuck' although really it
means like fire. Later I discover through searching the internet that
they are just as good on record. Definitely one to add to the growing
list of discoveries through Choke...

href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/skip/121305987/" title="Antoni
Maiovvi"> src="http://static.flickr.com/41/121305987_a94ea30d12_m.jpg" width="180"
height="240" alt="Antoni Maiovvi" />

The evening is closed by a set of Euro techno trance disco horror
courtesy of Antoni Maiovvi, A.K.A. My Ambulance Is On
Fire A.K.A. art noise metal group Geisha front man. This is no normal DJ
set, the music comes out of a laptop and Antoni has all his guitar
pedals laid out next to it. While the music kicks off, he is twiddling
knobs and pushing buttons. A microphone is clasped to his chest, the
crescendo begins to build and slowly it lifts...

href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/skip/121308680/" title="Antoni
Maiovvi"> src="http://static.flickr.com/35/121308680_0c7a8ac8cf_m.jpg" width="180"
height="240" alt="Antoni Maiovvi" />

The scream when it comes fills the space that is usually reserved for
the boring old snare / crash build up. It reverberates round the music,
filling all the spaces, distorted and resonating to my very core. While
he is screaming I know of nothing else. When he stops, I cannot imagine
how the scream sounded and the music seems to be all the more uplifting
because of it. As the set continues, we are treated to different forms
and sounds of screaming over dance music, the like of which I have never
encountered before and will probably never encounter again. There is
talk of a CD though.

I buy two copies of the magazine since obviously I am proud to find
myself in print and the GF wants a copy for her house. Something to
add to the CV, I think and begin to read. The quality of writing is
excellent, considering that most of us are just people who love music,
write about loving music and argue endlessly about why we love music.
Available in all good shops now!

Shri, 1st April

Shorry about my mate, the stranger slurs in my ear,
he'sh a loverly guy really, he can't handle his drinksh you
know? I take his arm off my shoulders. The staggering drunk
loudmouth friend falls back into me again. We have a conversation that
he'll never remember about Shri's flute playing and how amazing the
drummer is. His mate shouts Play something FAST! I want to dance!
Play LOUDER! I grit my teeth and grin, he's been doing this all
night but the music's too good for this to get me down.

Shri has already started when we
get to Fiddlers and when I enter the main room I am shocked. Horrified,
in fact. I mean Fiddlers is a great place to go out. It has this whole
social club feeling, what with the canteen tables out the back and the
gig room with its brick walls and wooden floor. Lots of really good
people play there from the 'world music' stage and whenever I've gone
it's always been packed...

href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/skip/121775965/" title="Shri"> src="http://static.flickr.com/41/121775965_01b4c84686_m.jpg" width="240"
height="192" alt="Shri" />

But not today. Today the good people of Bristol have decided that
they're not interested in listening to amazing Asian underground music.
Possibly they think it's all been done before, that it must be
impossible to keep breathing new life into this kind of urban beats
meets Bollywood and Indian Classical funk with lashings of hip hop and
drum and bass. The last time I saw Shri play was with his DJ companion
Badmarsh and the place was really jumping. There are a couple of classic
Badmarsh and Shri tunes, from the early Outcaste days that
develop into tabla vs bass vs drumkit improvised conversations, the
bowed bass is divine, the female singer sounds lovely and passionate and
the male singer... Well. Insane is the only word for it.

The music is still redolent of the early Asian underground days and
the same formulae still apply of [w:carnatic] melodies over an urban
beat. Since I love this combination and find something fundamentally
sublime about indian melodies (don't even get me started on the tabla)
the mix is just about perfect. The drum and bass is more complicated and
much further developed than Badmarsh and Shri's early work, more
[w:4hero] and old jungle rhythms. Being played live means that the
drummer wants to add much more variety to what he does, as well as have
much more interaction with the other musicians on the stage. Not all
live drum and bass is this good, [w:London Elektricity] got it horribly
wrong in their last incarnation where the 'amazing jungle drummer'
played the same rhythm over and over for an hour.

href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/skip/121775441/" title="Shri"> src="http://static.flickr.com/42/121775441_5513ba91a3_m.jpg" width="192"
height="240" alt="Shri" />

Shri himself is truly a master musician, equally of bass, flute and
tabla and I'm sure a great deal more besides. The flute playing is
particularly moving and even my drunk friend managed to keep his mouth
shut for at least five minutes, swaying gently in his alcohol cloud.

Although the performance is par excellence, the whole gig is
overshadowed by the emptiness of the place and there is an air of guilty
pleasure about the whole thing, almost as if we really think they should
come back later when more people have turned up. The band hide their
feelings about this of course, and even give us a half hour encore to
show their appreciation for us sticking around. The annoying Mr Drunk
Guy even gets his hand shaken by the man himself, who at one point tells
him to shut up and let everyone enjoy themselves. I would have stuck
around for more too, but they leave the stage and we have to go
home.

The Concretes, 4th April

• - Did you like our last album?
• - Yes!
• - The Carpenters!
• - What?

He looks sheepishly around, realising that everyone is laughing.
Nothing! he says hastily as if he couldn't bear the thought of
having to explain to a sweet and lovely Swedish girl exactly why he
thinks her 8 piece band sound like the Carpenters. She shrugs and says
well this song is from our new album and then they play us some
more pop music.

I'm one of those people who doesn't like pop music. Recently it was
pointed out to me that although I hate Western pop music almost
indisciminately, put in an arabic melody or something foreign and I
actually quite like it. It's the 'catchy' choruses, the major harmonies,
the twee fallacy of it all. There's no point trying to explain I
suppose, it's just something that is, thanks to manufactured
bands and all that tripe.

But prejudice and shockingly 80's outfits (like TOTP all over again)
notwithstanding, The Concretes have a certain
self-conscious innocent charm and the music reflects this. For the most
part it isn't particularly complicated, merely a harmonic backing to the
lovely breathy voice of shy singer Victoria whispering little tales of
love and loss into a be-flowered microphone. The more upbeat danceable
songs have all the catchy choruses pop lovers could wish for and
although they make me cringe at times, everyone else is smiling and
happy, which is a first for the Bristol Academy so I have to appreciate
that.

From beautiful harmonies to twee choruses and huge crescendos, the
Concretes uncover most of the bases left behind by the early to mid
nineties school of grungey British pop music (although less shouty) and
add their own brand of quirky soft-voiced sing-along tunes. The encore
consists of the scarey drummer singing on her own with guitar
accompaniment and a crowd-pleaser with singalong chorus. I swear I hear
some people humming it as we all leave.

Outside the Academy I am accused of now liking pop music because I
didn't leave and start shouting at the moon. I won't defend myself,
sometimes we have to muddy the waters of critical opinion and just enjoy
the music for what it is. Nice.

Glitchnight, 5th April

This is my first Glitch
Night although it is their third, and so I arrive at the Arc Bar
somewhat prematurely. I might think that 9pm on a school night is early,
but the glitchy electronica types apparently do and so I try to read my
book ([w:Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell]) in the dark while old
keyboards and laptops are plugged in and wires are untangled.

href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/skip/124352069/" title="Photo
Sharing"> src="http://static.flickr.com/43/124352069_8efd3a97d0_m.jpg" width="180"
height="240" alt="loxodonta 06" />

First up is href="http://www.myspace.com/loxodonta">Loxodonta, who sets
up some sort of keyboard loop using his [w:moog] synth. There is an
echoing dungeon feel in the dark room as the layers build up. He sings
and screams. When he screams the air stands up on the back of my neck
and it sounds like distant monsters howling for blood or tortured souls
in forgotten dungeons. There are breaks for knob-twiddling and more
layer building before the next bout of scariness, but the performance is
ended prematurely by a feedback disaster. Sorry, are you
finished? The soundguy asks. Yeah, why not?, says Lox.

href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/skip/124352731/" title="Photo
Sharing"> src="http://static.flickr.com/56/124352731_1783c47e9c_m.jpg" width="240"
height="180" alt="Glow 02" />

href="http://www.myspace.com/fablesofglow">Glow are bass,
guitar, vocals and a mad looking drum-creating box. They play rousing
guitar-based songs, with fast electronic weird dance music beats. I say
weird, because they're not your usual pounding bass drum / hi hat dance
beats, oh no. They use all sorts of strange percussion
sounds/instruments to build the rhythms. The bass lines are great, all
their heads are moving and the band are really into what they're doing.
But it leaves me a bit cold, probably because it all seemed a bit too
like club-music-with-guitars and the singing doesn't seem to fit. Might
be better on record.

href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/skip/124353634/" title="Photo
Sharing"> src="http://static.flickr.com/41/124353634_accd85e986_m.jpg" width="180"
height="240" alt="gusset 04" />

It's been about two years since I last saw href="http://www.myspace.com/gusset">Gusset and it is good
to note that while the inherent anarchy in the beats remains, the set as
a whole is tighter and more flowing. The jungle/grindcore based rhythms
are better pulled together making for some really interesting and head
shaking syncopation. There are chunks of well-known songs that have had
their very soul ripped out and given a new lease of life with broken
beats and effect sweeps. People are smiling, chatting and even dancing,
which is a first for a Gusset gig as far as I'm aware. Favourites
include a messed up Hazy Shade of Winter, bits of War of
the Worlds and John Peel saying 'Gusset'.

Conclusions? Fear, pain, resentment, laughter, noise, bass, beats,
mashup, alcohol, late night, bed.

Geisha Album Launch, 21st April

At last, I think, at last they have somehow managed to
force their dark brutal noise onto record! You wouldn't have
thought it was possible, this band should only be experienced in the
loudest of circumstances and it just doesn't seem right to
pigeonhole them into a little plastic disk. Their split 10"
inch with hideously slow doom metal band Tractor actually broke my
friend's record player when the noise vibrations made the needle jump
out of the groove. Tonight I resolve to watch an entire href="http://www.myspace.com/huntinglodge">Hunting Lodge
set, since I normally run away after a couple of minutes, so this was a
chance to be proved wrong, or just deafened, or both. It has been about
a year since I did this.

So does it do it for me this time? Well no. The bass sounds great,
the drummer is nearly naked and very entertaining, the guitar is shrill
and anarchic and the singer, well he sounds like a drunk, crazed lunatic
and acts the part. The music veers between messed up fast punk disco and
insane noise and I am amazed that any of the band know what is going on,
somehow managing to get all the stops, starts and jerky rhythms to
synchronise. There are a couple of moments that I quite like, where it
all comes together or the guitarist stops his high pitched madness and
plays a couple of twisted bluesey licks.

There is comedy here and I appreciate that, especially when the hairy
drummer attacks the bass player with a big bear hug. In the last song
they all change instruments, the bass player gives his bass to someone
in the crowd and lies on the floor with the microphone as a wall of
feedback and noise terror marks the end. This is the bit I most enjoy
(and not just because I know they're about to finish), because the free
noise and feedback seem much more in line with the noise this band makes
than the controlled dissonance of their actual songs.

The world's most difficult to Google metal band href="http://www.myspace.com/threadest1999">Thread follow,
playing fiercely heavy guitar riffs. They have the world's most stoned
drummer and a frontman who stalks the room and creates a semicircle of
space in front of the stage as people back out of the way. At the loud
screaming bits he tries to lean into the audience but they push him
forwards and pretend they hadn't noticed. The bassist has his back to us
and shares shouting duties. It's a good noise from just three
instruments that develops into more interesting rock breaks with short
repeated lyric lines building tension before the next tirade erupts and
grabs you by the ears.

When href="http://www.myspace.com/mugstar">Mugstar take the
stage and transport us with wave upon wave of thunderous ostinato rock
the energy of the evening steps up a level. They manage to keep the
repetition of just one chord interesting and although the actual beat is
fast, the harmonies and rhythm develop slowly and create resonances that
you only notice because you're expecting future moments to sound like
past. A simple riff develops into an extended techno moment, which seems
to go on and on, we are all waiting for them to falter, as if the bass
player must lose the offbeat at some point - the beat is so fast and
he's wandering about the crowd - but he doesn't and when the breaks come
they are glorious, the distortion is powerful, each new section driving
onwards and upwards. Post rock as dance music? Perhaps. It is a truly
uplifting experience anyway.

A cursory glance at my reviews page will
show how many times I've seen href="http://www.myspace.com/geishanoiseresearchgroup">Geisha play live and a quick read will also tell you that I like them. Lots.
It's something about the fast riffing, the volume, the screaming. The
way you feel like they are trapped inside your head, on fire and trying
to climb out through your eyeballs while the building is falling down.
It's the utter madness of it all, the euphoria you feel as if the music
itself manages to release endorphins in to your bloodstream. I never go
to a Geisha gig and fail to laugh my arse off, albeit a little nervously
because it seems rude to laugh when the music is so angry.

Tonight is no exception. Geisha's sound has grown over the last
couple of years and is now a lot more than just Fast Thrash Noise With
Shouting. There are beautiful moments of clarity and harmony which make
the loud parts more satisfying and even elements of more elaborate rock
music, complete with delayed-and-effected guitar solos.

There is an 'incident' with href="http://www.myspace.com/binray">Binray, who had been
booked to play after the gig. He is kicking off as we
leave but the Croft's owner pulls the plug after a few minutes. Apparently
people were leaving in droves, mind expansion (or perhaps more fittingly, 'explosion') a bit too much for them or
something.

Disappointed at the lack of Geisha albums actually on sale, I take
the sampler CD home and am very impressed with the sound. The vocals
aren't nearly as loud as I would like, but the overall sound is great.
(EDIT: This has now been cancelled: Not sure whether CD's can truly capture the live experience though,
which you can hear when they play live on fm">Resonance FM, this Friday the 5th May at 10:30pm.)

Ugly Duckling, 28th April

It is a great night of gangstas and playas down in href="http://www.fiddlers.co.uk/">Fiddlers, Bedminster. We park the
car just outside Asda, which is one of the great assets of this club.
Good parking I mean not Asda, which is usually closed this time of
night, its carpark a skid pan for young drivers and trolly
terrorists.

I remember living down here in a house just off East Street, the
flats above the shops were full of drug dealers and a man used to sell
guns and rifle crossbows out the back of his car behind us. I used my
time in Bemmy wisely, augmenting my collection of CDs, videos and
guitars from Cash Convertors while pretending to work on my degree and
popping to Fiddlers every time they had a world music gig. But that was
a long time ago. These days I live in the Hood, very close to where I
did my time for the community of St
Pauls, a place I have never given an apostrophe, although tradition
demands it.

In the darkened low-ceiling'd room the excited crowd are all focussed
on the back room, heads nodding seriously as Two DJs take turns to
impress each other and astound the rest of us. You get the impression
that DJ
Moneyshot and his mate are here as much for themselves as
for the audience, as if they would be doing this at home anyway. The
music is mix-tape mashups, old disco songs with funky hip hop beats,
pop, even a bit of Radiohead gets the treatment and it's a great start
to the evening.

Giant
Panda take the stage while I'm yearning for some live hip
hop and here we are with a classic old school sound. A bit of audience
participation paves the way nicely for the heroes of the evening,
Ugly
Duckling. If you haven't seen or heard them DO IT NOW. This
band are hilarious, comedy sketches and a refreshing hip hop dissing of
all that 'tough guy' macho nonsense (that I also quite like) other
rappers go for.

In the manner of a man unable to finish his review: out of ten, I'd
give them a muffin.

Taint, 3rd June

I boycott the Venn Festival to go to this gig. My reasons for this are wide and varied, but generally come down to the fact that paying a fiver to see 6 bands who will probably be great is better than wandering around missing most of what you want to see and accidentally bumping into crap while only seeing 5 minutes of anything that's any good because you've arrived just at the end but it doesn't really seem worth staying because you haven't paid 15 quid to sit in the Croft all day.

We had a big argument about this last year, when it was a slightly more acceptable 10 Earth Pounds but I still only wanted to go to one venue. Apparently this is how you are supposed to 'enjoy' their festival. So be it. Suffice to say, it is still a very lovely sunny day and the Junction is extremely sticky.

Welsh band The Death of Her Money launch proceedings and test the levels with a mid-paced metal scream and the occasional burst of speed. Their set remains very similar throughout and leaves me uninspired by the overall package. Too ponderous to stay interesting, yet this brand of grungey slow 'post NWOBHM' metal seems to be coming to the fore these days, killing off the riff and the spandex. Farewell to Arms pick up the pace a bit with heavier metal but again I don't think there's enough variety in their tunes.

Now Flatlands have some enormous metal masterworks made up of slow, doom moments with quieter melodic breaks to furious riffing and glorious screams. This is good stuff, although they do occasionally give in to the urge to do songs where they just play the same big powerchord over and over again. Not that I really blame them they are good powerchords. Unlike the other bands where I get the feeling the music has overstayed it's welcome, Flatlands have some huge theatrics that get me smiling and nodding. Although I can't hear what the lyrics are, I imagine they are glorious tales of adventures in hell, fighting demons and such.

But the band I'm really excited about seeing - the last time was over a year ago, Art of Burning Water launch the night into overdrive. The music is fast, furiously complicated and brutal metal. Veering wildly between math-heavy time signatures and hard thrashing riffs they tear your brain apart and put it back together again in new, endorphin-fueled ways. With the singer's growling voice and the switching between doom-laden powerchords versus fast thrash it's mostly angry music but the refusal to stay still, to allow each idea to play out before the next insinuates itself into the mix forces you into a disjointed, open state of mind. You have to stay receptive because you don't know what's coming even though you have a feeling they want to climb inside your head with a monkey wrench and go mental. This is the [w:Golden Section] of the night, anything after this is just dressing.

They are followed by Thread, who are more straightforward but still play pretty varied and extremely heavy music that flirts occasionally with ideas above its station. Taint complete the evening's assault in fine fashion, another three-piece with a huge sound but by this time my brain has been beaten into submission after 4 hours of noise.

AoBW are clearly the band of the night by a country mile and I don't regret missing the exciting Venn festival one bit, although I'm sure that many strange and interesting things happened. The stickyness of the evening wears off eventually and a few days later my hearing returns so I can listen to all the new music I've rushed out and downloaded.

Angel Tech Album Launch, 9th June

Hi, my name's Dash, long time listener, first time caller. I have a confession to make - I've been stalking this band for some time now...

It's been eight years coming. I still have my fingers crossed for a re-recording of the soundtrack to the silent film Metropolis that they did in 1999 (or thereabouts) but I suppose a long overdue album will do for now. As soon as it becomes available I buy the CD from the label's web site and listen eagerly. Then I listen again because I've been singing the new Angel Tech songs in my head for ages now and I have them in my grubby hands at last and they're still great, in fact on record it's greater because I can take them with me wherever I go and I'll never be alone again...

*ahem*

More electronicky ambience from Knowledge of Bugs who channels our ears in wondrous ways, a gentle sussuration of interwoven drones and melodies created through excitement of electronic circuitry. My favourite isntrument this time is not the wirey spider thing that pings and echoes when the wires are struck, but the modified old musical box tines that make the most playful chimes.

Rasha follows and is somewhat of a revelation, given that the last few times I've seen her she seemed to be having problems with pitch. This was over two years ago mind, now her voice is clear and pretty and most importantly in tune. There is an edge of jazz warbling at the end of the notes as Rasha takes us through the usual gamut of singer-songwriter emotions, but in a good way.

Angel Tech are excellent, as usual. They keep distracting me from photography with their incorrigably good songs. I manage to get some good pictures, then go home and put the album on while loading it onto my phone so I never have to be without it.

A Suitable Case for Treatment, 10th June

It's a late one tonight. I get sucked into other things and as a result arrive just before ten in time to see four girls in nighties banging out some heavy chords at the end of their last song. All I have to judge them on is the reaction, which involves whoops and cheers so I guess I've just missed something good as T.I.T.S. leave the stage. Only two bands to go and I try to stay excited about it as everyone tells me about the great band just gone.

I've seen them a few times, often remaining uninspired but Big Joan really hammer out the rock tonight and even though I secretly think their new song is their best yet, it's a great set and the first time something has sounded really good through my earplugs.

It is definitely a Big Joan crowd tonight, since it gets noticably thinner for A Suitable Case for Treatment's vicious cabaret. Yes, it's heavy metal, yes, the singer is stranger than a very strange and clever journalist's analogy but the parts gel together so well you find yourself sucked into the storytelling, the fear, pain, anger, laughter.

On the way home the music reverberates around my head creating a wall of sternness that gets me down City Road without incident, save for the obligatory lady of the night asking if I have a light/cigarette/custard cream. I don't hear her, but I nod and smile. After a while, she stops following me.

Ashton Court Festival, 22nd July

Last year we braved the Big Walk, pausing for lunch at the Novia Scotia and trudging the long miles up the hill to the festival but not this time. This year we take the bus. By heading further up the hill than most we get a bus without having to queue in the sun all day. The 'community' is out in force, estimates put it below last year, but it certainly feels more crowded. We pay our nine pounds, all discussions about the pros and cons of such a price hike given that the festival is arguably worse than previous years now exhausted. We still pay what they ask. Why? Well it's still a great festival, albeit over-advertised and it's still only the price of a shoddy covers band at the Fleece. The 'so-called community festival' shock this year is Killer-Kola branded energy drink Relentless, who sponsor the amphitheatre stage...

Treehouse Burning are playing the amphitheatre when we arrive. I pause for a few songs because they are somehow related to someone I work with. I soon realise I'm going to have to go back to work and tell her that I think they're unimaginative indie guitar pop who seemed to go down well with some people on a sunny afternoon.

We cross the festival site, past some pop band on the main stage and pop in to the Duck Son and Pinker Acoustic tent to see Amelia Tucker. She seems to be pretty hot property at the moment and I can see why, there is a strangeness about the songs that sets her apart from your usual singer songwriters. While Ms Tucker has a lovely voice, in most of the choruses it seems like she is trying to escape the tune, often appearing to be in a different key to the rest of the band. The music is great, but this melodic weirdness leaves a bitter taste in my ears. Perhaps this is why the word 'jazz' is used in descriptions of her. The GF makes me steal a squeaky duck from the front of the stage.

On the main stage, Se Fire are pumping out the tunes, good old 'old school' rapping over a DJ hip hop and some storming drum and bass. They are followed by a troupe of can-can dancers who brighten up the afternoon with their cheeky shenanigans and fancy knickers.

A quest to meet some friends forces me to endure the last few songs by The Dirty Whites who are a kind of forced trendy punk-by-numbers 'bad on purpose' kind of band. I recently had a fierce argument with a journalist in my own home (is no one safe?) who claimed they were the greatest rock phenomenon since, well, rock and all that other so-called punk stuff. The trouble is that it sounds bad, the music is contrived and uncompelling but apparently this is supposedly why it's so 'great'.

Thankfully some feelgood festival reggae from Small Axe saves my ears and breathing a big sigh of relief we enjoy the sunshine while waiting for Emily Breeze and the Dobermen. Following in the footsteps of Patti Smith and PJ Harvey and most other women who play noisey indie punk with a dash of strange it gets a bit annoying after a while. Perhaps in a different context Ms Breeze would seem more appropriate but here it is much too harsh.

For a break from the music, we watch Chimaera do some pyrotechnic juggling, billed as 'dance and martial arts'. There is little of either but it's always a pleasure to watch skilled jugglers/poi/other-burning-things people risk setting their hair and each other's clothing on fire for our entertainment.

My Ambulance Is On Fire isn't actually on fire, but he is certainly angry about something. The white noise and electronics deny us any comprehension of words save for a quiet moment where he complains about not getting laid. Surprisingly, the tent doesn't empty and people are even dancing to the hyperactive distorted noise techno screaming.

Some interesting sounding African music draws us into the Colston Hall Marquee where we discover Moya, who are playing some great afro-pop tunes. They ruin it by playing some convoluted jazz-funk-afro stuff afterwards that seems a bit too clever, but there is a lot of dancing and hands in the air nonsense. It is also a much better option

The set of the day however, and my main reason for coming to this Ashton Court, is Rose Kemp showcasing her new band and plugging her new album. It's been a while since I saw Rose with a band and the songs have matured nicely, her voice is incredible and I think she makes a lasting impression with all those present. She has a proper album out on One Little Indian and it is just as great.

And so it ends. The bus home is painless and on Sunday I leave my sunglasses at the zoo.

Thrones, Zombi, Team Brick, 24th July

The first act Barefoot sadly gets away from me, they are apparently bass and drums and difficult to Google. Team Brick on the other hand is easy to Google, but more fun to actually experience in the flesh. Tonight the journey is atmospheric, with padded sticks on a floor tom, a suspended board, echoed through the usual array of delay pedals. The sound builds, TB sings, the white noise hits. We start again. It's not an easy thing to describe and I often suspect that he isn't even singing any actual words but the overall effect is mesmerising. The set ends with TB singing a repeated phrase over and over again, the noise ends and he is just there with an acoustic guitar, singing.

Zombi have a fun synth. They like it so much that it forms the very basis for all their songs. Breathy synthy chord over the top of the wibbly 303-style bassline put me in mind of early trance. The drummer hammers out some solid beats. Occaionally he goes really mad, all strictly within the tempo to a click track so persistent we can almost hear it in the music. The sounds are reminiscient of all the moments where old prog bands linger, but without the soulless guitar solo's and singing. This is just the breaks, the intros, the build-ups and the endings.

Thrones fails me completely. Not only in being just one person with a plural name (have that M$ spelling and grammar checker!) I am promised a legend and instead get a drum machine with too much distorted bass on top. Regardless of how many other great doom bands he's been in, I can only judge from what I see before me and judge I do. There is some technical skill, some great powerchord on bass, but the the faint tapping of a drowned-out drum machine and other noises in the background make me wonder what the point of it all is. So I don't like Doom. I can't stand the incorrigable deliberate slowness of it and when all you have is a bass player...

Back in the bar I find I'm not the only one. There are some die-hard fans in the back room still, but it seems the consensus is that the band of the night is the one that I miss.

On the way home, someone nearly gets run over by a taxi who is running red lights.

Bristol Harbour Festival, 28th July

First off, I'm proud to join the many headed beast of Flickr Bloggers who have photographed Banksy's latest coup in Bristol. The Council have decided it is art and not vandalism, as we all know, of course had it been done by anybody else they would not have wasted any time in condemning it. Cue thousands more artists to rush out and daub buildings...

Tall ships. Flags. Crowds. Blues Brothers / Commitments-type soul bands. Juggling and acrobalance. The Matthew.

A ferry trip. Someone dressed like Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Children playing with machine guns on the navy minesweeper. Lots of photos. Cups of Tea.

Canteloop play in Queen's square. They use other people's jazz to make hip-acidjazz-hop. I remember when this was popular. It begins to drizzle so we leg it into an empty café for proper tea and toilet. It's just off Queen's square, yet the queue for the portaloos is a mile long and people are still buying overpriced drinks from the bar tent. I shake my head sadly. Still, shouldn't worry too much, at least we get nice coffee and seats and dryness.

We nearly go home when it begins to rain proper.

Finding some friends and more importantly an umbrella, we wait in the damp for Shri, whilst munching on newly purchased French Sausage from the French market. He is amazing. That is all.

The rest of my photos are on flickr:

Bristol Harbour Festival 2006

Luminescent Orchestrii, 4th Aug

A night for something completely different. Reluctance on the part of others makes me slightly late, so I tragically miss all the support bands. Whoops and catcalls greet me as I approach the Cube and the whirls of gypsy reels played on frantic violins leap into the air. It's a struggle to get close, even to get down the stairs as the enthusiastic audience have filled every available space.

I watch a strange girl concentrating extremely hard on her own feet, which seem to be possessed by the music. There is fear there I think, she is afraid that if she stops bouncing, they will carry on regardless. Her friends back away, dodging her wild hands. It's a mating dance, I am told. I think perhaps she is a bit too far gone even for that, another soul lost in the moment. A few tunes later, the party dies down and the band announce that they are going to be inside in a bit to play their real set.

The Luminescent Orchestrii are two violins, guitarron and resophonic guitar/harmonica/melodica. They all sing, and the music veers wildly off into freeform jazz, hip hop, tragic ballads, klezmer and very Eastern European folk. Sometimes it is all these things, sometimes it is indefinable. It is always fun.

The small cinema/auditorium puts them in more of a 'concert' mode and the guitarist tells us to not be afraid to dance and if anyone behind you complains then 'fuckem'. Of course this falls on somewhat deaf ears, although one reveller takes up the offer and through the gig leaps around on his own while everyone else acts terribly English about it all, myself included.

The gig is in many ways, quite incendiary. There are a couple of moments where the 'gypsy jazz' gets a bit too much - too anarchic and dissonant for my ears, but the dance music and folky hiphop with human beatboxing is great. The more traditional tunes are fantastic, covering a wide range of styles from frenchy folk to full on klezmer and still the guys at the front are jumping around.

For the encore, the band do a slow number and have to stop because the guitarrist can't concentrate with the drunken antics down at the front. You'll have to sit this one out, dudes, please, he begs, laughing. Being drunk, they enjoy being the centre of attention and the band stops again. No seriously guys, sit the fsck down! The laughing a bit strained now.

It certainly is a big gypsy knees up. There are rumours that the party continues into the night, but I just buy the CD and go home happy.

Glitchnight 8, 25th Aug

I listen to weird electronic music by Aphex Twin and Witchman and Mu-Ziq to try and prepare myself for another evening of non-stop glitchy entertainment at Glitchnight 8. The Arc Bar as usual is dark and colourful, with visuals projected onto the wall and ceiling.

Loxodonta has something a bit different up his sleeve tonight, beginning with a haunting melody on the theramin, drawn out and delayed while he pulls some scarey noises from his Korg synthesiser. Two drumkits sit empty and menacing while the atmospherics swirl in the darkness. Eventually Loxodonta gives the nod and the drums stools are occupied.

The two drummers have spent much of the previous week locked in a light-hearted battle of boasts and name-calling. Now it is time to put the macho posturing to the test. Drummer Rarg clearly wins on the shirt front... And we're off.

It starts slowly, a sedate rock rhythm rolling under the drones and squeals of the synth. The drummers trade conversations and paradiddles, moving into other rhythms as the fancy takes them. Local music/events rag venue hates this for being over-indulgent, tantamount to having two lead guitarrists and no singer, but the rhythms that develop are just mesmerising. They work really well together and while it doesn't turn into a full-on prog wig-out I know that that's not the point of this. Loxodonta gives the signal and it all dies down to a satisfying close.

Polestar fills the space left by Chemical Dub Theory admirably, with bassy laptop dance beats redolent of early Aphex Twin and other such minimalist bneatniks. His set wakes everyone up from the Loxodonta-induced trance and builds the evening nicely for Fred Moth who finishes proceding with a great mix of synthy basslines, complicated guitar-soloing and a pirate hat. He has a huge grin as he dances around his noise boxes, occasionally riffing a little melody on the guitar and twiddling knobs. The music moves from loop-based quirky dance music to a more drum and bass - mashed up jungle affair, just right for 1am on a Thursday

I stumble home, happy and slightly deaf, the sound of four crash cymbals going off at the same time still ringing in my ears.

Jurassic 5, 26th Sept

At the end of the set Jurassic 5 finally give in to their egos and do some freestyling. There must have been some fun in the dressing room when they discussed who would go first, because the only rhyme these guys have for Bristol is... I hate to say it - Pistol.

To get us in the mood, the DJ plays Easy Star All-Stars' Radiodread, a dub version of OK Computer, which is fantastic and the crowd is insanely happy that they remember playing Thekla all those years ago and very willing to scream a lot every time our fair city gets a mention.

J5 have been on stage for two hours now and there is no sign that anyone's going to let them leave the building. We have had all the hits, probably the entirety of their first three albums and a few choice numbers from the latest, Feedback.

DJ Nu-Mark has a great break on some toy fisher-price style samplers to show off his skills while the rest of the group sneak off for a crafty bifta (or something). There is also a sampler break where they all sit at schoolroom-type desks, each equipped with its own sampler and give us a lesson on beat formation.

The songs are as funky and head-nodding as ever, augmented with the usual 'we should all love each other, raise your fist for peace, fsck Bush' malarkey that goes down so well with this sort of crowd. Of course as soon as we all leave the idea of revolution is somewhat dampened by the need to go home and eat and work in the morning but it all seems like a good idea at the time.

On the way out I buy two homemade CD's from a hip-hop artist from St Werburgs for three pounds. He's not bad at all, MC Yeshua...

Goatlab, 29th Sep

It's 9:40 pm and I'm a little early for the Goatlab. Starts at Ten apparently, I suppose since it's Friday night this is probably acceptable. I get myself a pint of BOB at the White Lion and sit outside watching the City Centre traffic and breathing in the lovely fumes.

A few games of Virtua Tennis on the old n80 later I wander over to find the place filling up already. It's ten twenty. In the first cavern there is a DJ playing awesome ragga drum and bass to the empty floor but the back caves are pretty packed.

Parasite takes over the laptops from DJ Floorclearer (?) and plays some great drum and bass influenced beats with monstrous basslines and jumpup rhythms (ouch - writing about dance music is haard). People are drunk and happy. The boys from Dragnet are here, resplendent in goat outfits and a bit creepy. I hope there will be no virgin sacrifices and giant snakes later, although there isn't really room in this catacombe of a club. Parasite is superceded by Gusset who has a special move in which certain messed up beats clear all the girls off the dancefloor. The boys stay and enjoy themselves but there's a hint of desperation as I'm sure they really want to go off chasing the girls. I don't know, maybe it's too subtle and complex for girls. Maybe it's the opposite, but they are all jiggling their bottoms to the drum and bass next door I notice as I try to claw my way to the toilets. So Gusset: played by John Peel but not for the Faint Hearted!

The late night crowd starts arriveing and by 2330 the place is rammed. I struggle to the front for Big Joan and find a nice bit of shelf to sit on. With all the electronicky music going on you'd think that a guitar band would seem out of place, but Big Joan have the rhythms and big synthy sounding basslines to pull it off. The audience certainly think so and it's one of the better Big Joan sets I've seen. Annette shouts and sings well and the whole band have a battle with the drumkit for a bit which is great.

Back to the laptop corner and My Ambulance Is On Fire (aka Anton Maiof) slams out some harsh beats with severe bass and lots and lots of screaming. It is even more danceable and endorphin-inducing than his noise set in the Blackout tent at Ashton Court, which made the GF breathe a big sigh of relief and say thank God that's over, even though she was wearing earplugs. She was also wrong (although I'm sure I'll get a thick ear for saying so). It's like techno in an industrial slaughterhouse on a building site. Or something.

The "Servants of the Apocalyptic Goatrave" (aka Bong Ra and Sickboy) move in a little too soon and Anton gets relegated to the back while they tinker with their machines in sinister cowls as if he isn't there. When they kick off the music is pretty good, slightly more 'straightforward' - by which I mean they play their insanely complicated loops for long enough for you to get into the beats - than some of the other acts but I am drunk and tired and home beckons.

Geisha, 12th Oct

Uh-oh. The Croft has a megadrive with Street Fighter II Turbo on the big screen. Fortunately the proximity of other gamers and my inability to actually play the game means I don't end up missing all the bands in the back room. Of course between bands is another story...

Mea Culpa play to an empty room. Well it seems empty, because as usual everyone has glued themselves to the walls. We're about two (maybe three at times) layers deep and there is a big semicircle of floor space that the singer utilises to great effect. Seemingly unabashed by the fact that hardly anybody is here - it's just going to be one of those nights - he tears around the room, molesting boys and girls alike, hunched into contortions of apparent agony as he screams his lungs out into the microphone. Then he grins and climbs all over the speakers. The music is ebow-heavy metal, little symphonies of anguished melodies interspersed with fearsome chugging metal stroke feedback thrashing.

Stranger Son of WB aren't big on the heavy distortion and also elect to stay on the stage despite the empty floor. Their songs are chaotic but very rhythmical and almost funky at times with some nice shouting and growling thrown in for good measure.

Arabrot are none of these things. After the tight fury of SSoWB they give the impression of being a newly formed school metal band. They've found a good drummer and the practices consist of the other two playing random notes/noise/rhythms over the top, but because there is a solid beat behind it they think it sounds great (with added screaming). It doesn't.

Back by the big screen our SF II places have been taken over by a couple of guys who like playing Blanka. They invite us to participate in friendly competition leading to a final battle for beer. 'No special moves, no special moves' the more annoying one whines as my friend humiliates the repetitive electrocution junkie and they leave in shame. No drinks are bought.

So Geisha have lost their drummer it seems. Does this deter them from making a fantastic hard, driving noise and taking us through ever-escalating levels of noisesome electro? No it does not. Indeed they are reborn, rather than diminished and present us with a whole new take on their sound, which shouldn't strictly be possible without real crash cymbals. The drum tracks have been lovingly reproduced on the laptop using one of the more irritating 'acid house' snare sounds from the eighties.

The real miracle is that they manage to keep the complicated time changes together and the fury of the music still rages even though the snare is pretty much all we can hear of the drums. There are a few new songs in the mix and once again Geisha deliver a great show to a somewhat diminished audience. At least people move to the front this time (namely me, and a few others).

The Street Fighter punks aren't out there as we leave the place, but Geisha have beaten all the fighting spirit out of us anyway with their lovely noise. I don't care that I don't know all the special moves, or that it is 2am before I get to bed and it's a school night (insert 'Geisha have all the moves for me' cheeseline here).

Angel Tech, 19th Oct

Was that me? I ask, as cold beer soaks through my trousers after a loud crash of breaking glass. I hadn't noticed knocking the table, which isn't to say that I'm positive I didn't but it does seem highly unlikely. Yes says the woman on the other side of the table. I would say 'girl', but in the unlikely event that she reads this I want her to think that she looks old, out of spite.

Oh dear, I'm sorry I'll help you clear it up, I say as some bloke grumpily starts to pick shards of glass out of his expensive trainers. We'd both been hit pretty bad by the nasty lager. Oh no, don't worry honey she patronises, Just sit down before you do anymore damage. She takes my arm and helps me to my seat.

I am at Joe Publics because one of my favourite bands is playing for free and I haven't seen them for a few months. I hadn't banked on the late night clientelle, besuited office nights out and young students.

I'm sure they hadn't banked on the quiet looping music of Garnett James, who layers pretty harmonies together and somehow invariably ends up with his original guitar loop sounding as if it's being played on an echoey piano. Given that he plays so early, the boy does an admirable job of creating haunting atmospherics in the almost empty space while the big screen continues showing girls shaking their booty on MTV.

There is quite a contingent here to see The Master Chaynjis, who are a violin/double bass/guitar trio that plays twisted gypsy-pop. The music is fairly generic but they get a good reception but it's all a bit much for me. It all seems a bit cabaret and mundane for me but to be fair, I'm too sucked into conversation to really listen. I'll probably see them again in a couple of weeks and I promise I'll concentrate harder (and perhaps be more cruel, I don't know).

Angel Tech play a solid set once again and not everybody leaves, although the crush of suits and students by the bar is pretty difficult to navigate. I have written about them enough, but every human being in the world needs this music in their lives buy the CD's here.

So I only have two pints. It dawns on me that the shattering glass probably wasn't my fault and that it was in fact her who had bumped into the table and knocked a pint all over me and the floor. Treating me as if I'm drunk and hastily jumping into the breach enables her to blame a stranger, possibly cause a fight and save face in front of her townie friends. Needless to say, they leave pretty quickly before I say anything. Lucky escape I mutter to myself as beer trickles into my shoes.

Divine Comedy (The), 21st Oct

I choose Duck with Black Bean Sauce from Beijing Bistro on Park Street. It has been quite a few years since I visited my old student union building and I guess I need fortification. Perhaps I am just hungry. By the time we find somewhere to park near the Union I'm ready to eat again anyway.

First off, I have to confess to never hearing Regeneration, the album that sent The Divine Comedy into critic hell. I didn't like the idea (yes I probably did just believe the hype) that Neil Hannon had decided he wanted to be Taken Seriously and was worried it would be one of those Bereft Of New Ideas albums. I haven't heard Absent Friends either but the other week I got hold of Victory for the Comic Muse and the Nyman-esque mini-soap operas have sucked me back in.

Tonight he plays with a full band, and the Anson Room is pretty packed out. We sneak in through a side door and have a fairly good view of proceedings. There are a lot of old favourites, starting with Alphie and including Woodshed, When The Lights Go Out All Over Europe and quite a few songs I didn't recognize but it is all grandiose and bourgeious and fantastic.

Hecklers are dispatched without fuss, Hannon gets into trouble for smoking during Bad Ambassador that song doesn't work without a cigarette in my hand and his silky tenor warbles into the night, weaving stories of love, life treachery and betrayal, or something. In any case, it's both a musical adventure and a hark back to my student days when I used to sing Divine Comedy songs to warm up for singing lessons.

At one point an enormous man walks through the crowd, trampling short people underfoot, as if there were no-one else actually in the room. We all have a jolly laugh about it, shaking our fists at his back, that sort of thing. He doesn't even come and stand right in front of me as usually happens when tall people sense a Dash in the room. It's that sort of night. Sadly it comes to an end too soon and I wail, They can't stop yet, they haven't done National Express!

So they do. Just for me.

Lou Rhodes, 23rd Oct

Thank you for coming out tonight, we hope you're having a good evening, Jim Moray says, Now here's a song about beating your sister to death with a stick and dumping her body in the river.

St Georges has never been so shocked. We all take it in good spirits of course, and Jim Moray has been playing some phenomenally good modern folk-pop music, complete with fiddle, mandolin and melodion. Okay so at times he strays into Bert Bacharach territory - a couple of over-dramatic piano ballads - but I just imagine them as Bill Bailey songs and they make a kind of twisted sense.

Katey Brooks provides first line support with her Tracey Chapman alto, singing melancholy songs about not liking oneself very much and wouldn't it be nice if that boy over there would look at me once in a while. There's nothing inherently rubbish about her songs but they don't really grab my attention very much and all seem to wash into each other. Maybe it's that deep throaty voice.

The gig is in support of Oxjam - there is a big banner saying so - and local radio DJ's Richard Pitt and Gary Smith from Bristol Uncovered are here to say nice things about Oxfam and be very thankful that we spent our hard-earned cash on coming out tonight for a good cause. For some reason one of them decides to tamper with the banner which collapses hilariously later on in the evening.

Martina Topley-Bird (of Tricky and funny voice fame) is supposed to be playing but a few weeks ago we had a phone call to say she had cancelled and would we like our money back? The answer was a resounding 'NO!' because really, we only wanted to see Lou Rhodes and now we had a chance of an extra long set...

Lou Rhodes is accompanied by some sort of nineties-grunge-beast on guitar, who is a pretty amazing player even if he does find it impossible to keep still. The acousticky songs are haunting and beautiful and Rhodes' voice is husky, sultry and utterly bewitching. Everyone gets into the clapping along and there is a little interlude while we hear about starving children and have to reflect on how lucky we are compared to the rest of the world. I reflect on how lucky I am to be here, tonight, because her performance is phenomenal.

Luke Haines, 3rd Nov

It's very lazy of me to make everyone get a taxi - amidst much complaining - to the Louisiana, but it is Friday and I'm not exactly full of energy after such a boring week at work...

Lisa Lindley Jones is playing when we arrive, a slip of a girl 1 in slightly witchy clothing and a Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction hairdo. She has a lovely singing voice, occasionally haunting and very emotional. The band play mainly acoustic sounds sans drums, with electric piano and the occasional bit of electric guitar. The music is close harmony scottish ballads with a hint of country melancholy and occasional haunting saw action. We also get to sit down, which is nice.

No introductions are needed 2 for Angel Tech, who seem to really enjoy themselves tonight, the sound is fantastic and there is a real air of excitement about the place. They invite an avid gig-goer called Big Jeff to stand Christlike on the stage at a crucial moment and he does so to great effect, although the 'Big' isn't just a name and he has trouble standing with the low ceiling. With bonus drumming extravagance proceed to play one of the best sets I've seen in recent times.

I don't really know very much about Luke Haines, was never into the Auteurs and am really only here because my housemate wanted to go. I'm slightly surprised to see it's just one man and his guitar, singing funny stories a la thousands of years of troubadour tradition. He is joined on occasion by a man who plays the saw (what is it about saws tonight?) extremely well. None of the actual music is particularly striking, but the wit and delivery of lyrics is more than enough to make it a very entertaining gig.

1. 1. 1. Woman really, but 'girl' fits the phrase so much better.
2. 2. 2. See [skip:Angel Tech] to see why...

Acid Mothers Temple, 7th Nov

Apparently Moody Tumblers' 'drone cello' is great. I arrive to late to hear for myself but I'm sure there will be ample opportunity to see them again soon.

I haven't been in the Cooler since it was so named, not since the days of Wedgies. I was bullied into going there for my birthday in first year at university and had to endure lots of drunk people telling me that dancey pop music isn't that bad, see? Now it is a small-ish empty room with a mezzanine bar.

Fuzz Against Junk are setting up. Tonight they are a three-piece with six members. The bonus members include an ineffectual extra percussionist and a girl who sits on the floor failing to keep time with maraccas on her knees.
She stands up to sing - horrors - the microphone doesn't work! Rather than donate his own, the frontman saxophone player makes a big show of trying to fix it and then they resort to glaring at the soundman, presumably in case he's turned her down on purpose.

A bit of gaffer tape later the mic works but it's nearly the end of the song - or do we have another noise-jazz freakout to look forward to? A couple of the songs have some good grooves - but these are all too often overtaken by the aforementioned 'free noise jazz' which rather tends towards 'fsck it, just play lots of random stuff'. This is a band that needs to put the drummer at the front as he obviously leads the tunes and everyone else should sit at the back and follow.

Acid Mothers Temple are a bit choatic to begin with, a medley of song endings and crazy noise, with eventually settles down into some great psyche rock. There is some very impressive and atmospheric throat-singing, a bit of synthy eiryness, but it is mostly driving rock and psychedelic wig-outs. The highlight of the gig is the closing song, a 40 minute rendition of Pink Lady Lemonade - a musical work based on a simple two-chord melody.

As we are hypnotized by the repetition, the music swells and the guitarist launches into the maddest, most welcome guitar solo known to rock, complete with macho posing and tongue-strumming.

For twenty five minutes.

It is great.

Dogs Chase Rabbits, 23rd Nov

It has been a long day. Our little students all graduated today, which I'm sure is lots of fun for them. Proud parents and digital cameras abound and I get to stand outside in the rain / not rain, observing the rainbows and accumulating frustration all day. In November.

Some things go terrible wrong, but all is recovered and we send them out into the world of Trying To Get A Job Now You're Not A Student Any More.

It's alright though, because I get to go out in the evening and as it's Joe Public's again I don't have to pay. The security guard wants to search through the bag, just in case you've got any drinks in there mate - nothing to do with terrorism at all. After we let him have a good nosey we make our way to the largely empty bizarre air-crash-cum-nightspot.

The flyer tell us that Half Rabbits "bridge the gap between dark, intense pop (Joy Division, Smashing Pumpkins, Pixies) and intelligent art-rock (Muse, At The Drive-In, Shellac)". I don't know what Shellac sound like, but the rest of it is pretty accurate except for one thing. The singer is in the wrong band. Or at least this is a new breed of folk being born right here.

I mean, the music is shambolic rock that comes together at crucial ecstatic moments and it takes a few songs to settle down. All the while there is this nasal folky voice over the top. It's a bit weird, but with a bit of harmonising the music sells itself and sucks me in.

Tonight Santa Dog are much, much better than I remember, attacking their songs with lots of energy and a bit of shrieking. I swear she looked at me. I guess this isn't surprising given that I'm standing right in front of her, but off we go again with more guitarry songs and I'm reminded that I've been standing up all day in the cold.

Not that the music's cold - no it's fun, bouncy passionate. I just have to rest now.

Rose Kemp, 28th Nov

When The Master Chaynjis start in the back room of the Croft, I am too glued to my seat to move. In the side room at the front of the pub an entertainment phenomenon is at work.

Dr Joel is singing a song about how he hates his boss and his job, but is really very happy thank you very much. He plays a Yamaha keyboard with an electric piano sound, has bells on his ankles and is excellent at the South Indian art of vocal percussion, or Konnakol - where drum rhythms are vocalized at lightning speed. It is bizarre indian/country club cabaret, certainly original and before long everyone is clapping along and practising the vocalizations for themselves.

Dr Joel plays two short sets, sandwiching Mor Karbasi who has a lovely voice and sings traditional sounding spanish folk tunes. We catch her briefly after S.J. Esau has blown our ears off with an inspiring set of wrongtronic loopings and lighthearted chaos. We all sing Happy Birthday to him and make him blush.

You & The Atom Bomb are one of the recent crop of guitar bands that have a dance-music influenced sound - the housey drums, a bit of synth and twangy sometimes rock guitars in straightforward indie pop songs. The second track has a good almost African style guitar part to it, but this lot are too similar to everything else of this ilk to get me that excited.

Of course, this does mean that they have a very bright future ahead of them. Not because some anonymous internet review-whore doesn't like them, but because they do fulfill all the criteria for all that is cool for the current NME generation.

I survive two songs before having to run away and enjoy Dr Joel's second set of the evening instead.

The main attraction for the evening is no stranger to Skip The Budgie and Rose Kemp once again blows the doors off everything else for a short time. Her band sounds fantastic, they are very tight and that voice is still amazing and beautiful. The stand out tracks of the evening are 'The Unholy' - a heavy guitar epic and 'Flawless' which just makes me want to cry.

I buy the Rose Kemp single because it's pink - I'll probably never really play it but talent like this needs supporting.

Easy Star All-Stars, 1st Dec

I've listened to [w:Radiodread] a lot since hearing it at the [skip:Jurassic 5] gig and eagerly tracking it down to the Easy Star All-Stars. [w:Dub Side of the Moon] is still one of my favourite albums and while Radiodread is good, it isn't nearly as coherent as Dub Side, probably because the whole concept album thing isn't really there. There are some songs that work brilliantly (No Surprises, Let Down) and some that don't really gel (Fitter Happier (obviously), Lucky) and the trombone bit in Paranoid Android is just brilliant.

As we arrive at Trinity, a place that has had substantial refurbishment but still manages to look exactly the same, Dub From Atlantis are piddling about around some dub tunes. I say this, because essentially it's a guitarist improvising with lots of delay over a DJ. There is minor excitement over a great chilled version of Damien Marley's Welcome to Jamrock and people are generally having a good time.

The bar serves Gem and Wild Hare at pub prices too.

The rumours on the internet were that we were going to get two different sets tonight, the full Radiodread and Dub Side albums. But Easy Star All-Stars kick off with some unknowns (at least to me) to get everybody excited and then launch into one of the most fun gigs I've been to this year.

The songs blend seamlessly into one another, Radiohead merging into Pink Floyd and the temperature is unbearable as everybody dances like maniacs and sings along at the tops of their voices. The 'Stars' from the album don't make an appearance, but the band members make an admirable showing. Climbing up the Walls is still creepy as hell and Exit Music (from a film) is still emotionally traumatic.

Mostly though, the great thing about this stuff is that reggae is feelgood music. It's not depressing or angry and adds an element to these albums that manages to uplift you as well as being emotional and somehow true to the originals. Singing along to live reggae Pink Floyd has to be one of life's greatest pleasures (well it is now).

Awesome

Rose Kemp, 16th jan

The bus is six minutes late. This is pretty impressive for a Bristol bus so I don't mind so much, it's just that it's really cold and windy tonight. I find a torch on the bus and although I debate stealing it, by the end of the journey the conscience has persuaded me to hand it to the driver, who I'm sure now has a spare one at home.

Anyway, first outing of the year, first look at the 'recently' refurbished Thekla Social and it seems alright, a bit more spacious although there is a poor showing of proper beer at the bar. Just don't get me started on lager!

There is a fairly young-looking hippy rock band on when I finally make it downstairs after wandering about a bit, trying various doors that I remembered leading somewhere that now do not. They are called Countryside and this is exactly what they sound like. Melodic synthesisers and sixties rock ideals permeate the music that has grandiose moments of blissful distortion and lovely close harmonies. It's poppy and rocky and mostly cheerful.

Underground Railroad are a London/Paris threepiece who play anarchic, fast shouty punk that occasionally packs a serious heavy rocking punch. They all share vocal duties and it isn't let down by the bassist's insistence on wearing a banana costume, not really. Normally I don't like this kind of noise, the guitar parts always seem as if it doesn't matter what you play, it's how you play it. But there are times when it all comes together and the whole makes a sort of sense.

Rose Kemp blows out all the cobwebs, nothing else in the world is relevant when this girl sings, even when the band - or the acoustics on the boat - drown her out. The looper goes on strike a little bit but the songs are still powerful, heavy, beautiful and the stage sports one of the biggest collection of pedals I've seen at a gig - I swear they get more each time I see them! At the end, Rose introduces Sing Our Last Goodbye as Flawless but I'm sure nobody noticed. After all the loud rock her pure pitch-perfect singing lulls the room to silence and it is all over, too soon, again.

Dorit Chrysler, 18th Jan

Outside the café, the man stands transfixed. He was just wandering home, I guess, or off to the pub. What will he say when he gets there? Could he even make out the Electro-pop madness that we are experiencing out there on the street? There was this blond woman, see and she was singing some weird Euro-electro song and waving her hands at this big steel spike. And there's was this funny noise, like flying saucers... He shrugs, and turns away.

Earlier in the evening, another solo set by Alexander Thomas (previously known as Loxodonta) lulls the gathered coffee drinkers to a blissful, respectful silence. Frantic pedal pushing helps create layers of lush slow-changing harmonies over which he plays haunting melodies. These are gentle thought pieces, synaesthetic narratives of the kind only a Holophonor could recreate. The seagulls in the last track are particularly impressive.

That is just one example of the strange power of the theremin. The traditional Science Fiction overtones are far between and only really crop up once in Dorit Chrysler's set in a piece that she wrote for a film which is menacing and weird. She tells me later that she has been banned from playing in some countries, that people think that the theremin is imbued with Dark Magick so much so that a priest in Croatia even held up a crucifix as she played the Devil's Instrument. Alexander Thomas has a story about a friend who asked him where the wires were.

Tonight however, apart from the one scarey interlude Dorit's tour of the theremin includes bossa nova, cheeky and sultry jazz, electro-pop and an impressive demonstration of singing whilst playing such a precision instrument. There are a few serious numbers, some very flowery la la la music but generally it is all very light-hearted and completely different to the previous set, being more pop songs than atmospherics.

I sit in the small café, try not to annoy people with too many flash photographs and sip my wine. This is all rather refined, I think, before the next burst of comedy from Dorit makes everybody smile. Strange it may seem to the casual passer-by, but this sort of music should, nay, needs to become a familiar household sound and not the reserve of sci-fi soundtracks.

Mugstar, 17th Feb

This is the Junction, Bristol. Gig-goers gather, the beer is warm and we all watch a man repairing a bicycle on stage. I say repairing, really he's just turned it upside down and is not carefully placing three candles in front of the back wheel. An effects pedal is switched on. Donning balaclava and cap, the artist known as DJ Miscarriage presents just about the worst fashion statement ever as he lights the candles and spins the wheel. I assume the wheel is being recorded, generating the vast noise that assaults us while the 'DJ' hunches behind his laptop.

There is a hint of mashup grindcore or whatever the kids are calling it these days, samples from old films broken up by heavily distorted gabba bass drums and a hint of 300bpm jungle. The laptop breaks. It breaks a little too often and we only hear second-long snippets and colourful cursing before the set is abandoned as a bad lot. The rear wheel of the bike starts smoking. We watch it for a bit, no-one really wants to be the one to enter the laptiop hell onstage but eventually someone calls out. This is the Junction. Now slightly more toxic than before.

Now every band has to start somewhere, and Breaking Colts have a lot of noisy metal potential, but this evening's performance still gives the impression that they are still trying out ideas and only a few ideas at that. The songs are very complicated rhythmically and it's impressive that the trio never seem to lose their way, but there is little variation in the actual chord 'progressions' or 'melodies'(if such things indeed exist in this type of music) to keep the audience (by which I mean me) really gripped. The bassist's sound is loud, distorted and filthy which is great, but when the guitars join in it's all just one noise thinly held together by some exceptional drumming.

After the usual messing around on stage, the band get changed. I can't help thinking that this sort of thing should really be done backstage as one of the guitarists drapes his trousers over his amplifier. Still, be-robed and barefooted, You're Smiling now But Soon We'll Turn Into Demons have a very interesting range of great riffs that develop into sprawling masterpieces of the heavier side of psychedelic prog rock. Perhaps a little dated, but the robes add to the atmosphere and seeing a bunch of monks bouncing up and down with electric guitars is a pleasure to see. After all, this is the Junction where druidic prog seems normal.

A lot of music suffers from being just one or two ideas, one riff, even one note, repeated over and over again. With Mugstar, the motif is invariably hammered into submission and you start to realise you are hearing things that aren't actually being played, that you have been listening to some internal musick for the last ten minutes and you have this sense of euphoria, that is only slightly marred by the niggling feeling at the back of your mind that the person next to you is hearing something else.

You just have to hope everyone is on the same wavelength I guess, and allow yourself to get sucked back in. The awesome techno number they played last time I saw them doesn't surface tonight, but I try to contain my disappointment as the next masterpiece knocks me for six.

This is the Junction and tonight we have had it all, burning bikes, noisey metal, prog monks and powerful wigouts. I keep mentioning the Junction by name because I don't want you to forget it. They're having a bit of financial bother and if you want to see gigs of this calibre more often, click on the banner below, or visit the Junction's myspace and buy some compilation CD's! They are ace and cheap!

Kristin Hersh, 1st Mar

I saw the video for [w:Your Ghost] back in 1994 on the Chart Show and I was hooked. [w:Hips and Makers] was one of the first tapes I actually bought with Real Money and it remains one of my favourite albums of all time and is (along with [w:Tori Amos] - [w:Cornflake Girl] came out about the same time) the main reason I got into listening to female singer-songwriters.

So forgive me if I'm a little over-excited about the fact that she is playing in Bristol, of all places! I couldn't be happier if [w:Ani DiFranco] turned up next week! Yes, [w:Throwing Muses] were great too, but I always felt that it was only in her solo material that Kristin's raw emotion and slight madness really shone.

I am slightly disappointed that the man on the door pays little attention to the number 1 on my ticket - Number 1 at the first gig of the tour! Number 1! Come on! How keen am I? Of course this talk is just sad and perhaps a little bit desperate.

We are back on the boat and there is some strange beats and strings music going on. The place is packed, it's easier just to hang back and buy a drink, cursing the low ceiling that turns sound into a muffled blur when you're at the bar. By the time I fight my way forwards, they are on the last song and all I see is a man and a woman get up and leave, one with cello, the other with vilin. There goes The McCarricks, I think and decide to stay put since I'm now in a good position for the main attraction.

I mean okay, it's very exciting seeing Ms Hersh for the first time and looking around I notice that I'm not the only late 20s/early 30s bloke who thinks the same. She is joined on stage by the support band (as string section, of course) and the first two songs - Wild Vanilla and Under The Gun - are marred slightly while the soundman finds his ears.

They are thrown at him by an angry young man who seems to think that we all want to hear him hurling abuse from what is possibly the worst place in the Thekla to stand in terms of sound quality. Language and rudeness aside, he does have a point as I was struggling to hear Kristin's voice and she expertly puts him in his place then gets on with the gig. (True to the nature of a place like this, the bouncers try to eject him for having an opinion, but common sense and possible overcrowding prevail).

The set is predominantly songs off the new album, but I am pleased to hear a couple from Sunny Border Blue (Your Dirty Answer and Listerine), which is another album that I love. A lot of muttered yay I love this one's erupt as Kristin launches into Gazebo Tree from Strange Angels. Although it is plagued with feedback problems, this is clearly a crowd favourite and gets the biggest cheer of the night as we all try to prove who is the biggest Kristin fan. She also plays Ether from The Grotto and concludes with White Bikini Sand an old classic from [w:Throwing Muses] album Limbo.

On a few of the songs, Kristin apologises for her voice, her band, the fact that she is teaching the McCarricks songs as they go along but we don't really care. We just want her to sing. On stage she is as gentle and slightly mad looking as her music suggests, one second singing sweetly, the next roaring into your head with a passion that is rare to see, especially in one who has been in this business for so long.

There is nothing from Hips and Makers sadly, but otherwise it's all good, the new album is a great step forward from the last two, which I always felt were somewhat lacking in songs that make me want to cry / break things. It is stark yet rich, heartfelt and emotional music and Kristin's voice, is more gravelly these days than ever. In The Thin Man, the refrain 'in the ozone snow', reveals the frailty and beauty of Kristin's voice more than any of her other songs tonight. The room goes deathly quiet and the sound is perfect.

Sound problems and loud people aside, it's a great gig albeit through rose-tinted misty eyes. There is some regular club night that forces it all to end very early and Kristin is only allowed one encore. She sings Poor Wayfaring Stranger, a re-working of an old American folk song.

We linger for a while, mocking the two people on the dancefloor, going crazy for some electro-sludge and bemoaning the lack of a longer encore. For the first night of the tour it has been a great night and I wonder if there's anywhere close I can catch Kristin again before she goes home.

Rowena+Slow+Gala Band, 7th April

Café Kino is a fairly new place on the famous Nine Tree Hill off Stokes Croft. The performance is downstairs, in a tiny cellar of a back room. There are about eight chairs and about ten people, most of whom are in the bands. This is my first visit and I leave my bike outside, all chained up with some trepidation. Not for the café, but for the bike - I don't want to have to walk home.

Robin Allender is halfway through his last song, so I can't say much about him, it is a direct rip-off of Pink Floyd's C-G acoustic stuff a la Mother from The Wall or Pigs off Animals. I'm sure if I heard the song in full there would be more to it, next time I'll have to be more punctual!

The Gala Band are a duo of acoustic guitar and piano - or at least they are tonight. They play lovely sensual bluesy songs with finger-picked guitar and gentle piano sounds. There are rumours that they also have a drummer, it would be interesting to see what happens when they are in a less intimate situation.

I saw Slow at Ashton Court briefly last year, tonight they are a trio and very, very relaxed. The songs are incredibly soothing and gentle, close harmonies and the minimum of notes and chord changes. When they crescendo, you feel the emotion in every breath and even the loudness of the little mirrorball in the corner somehow fades out of my senses as I listen.

Rowena is the singer from a band called Santa Dog, of whom I have written on other occasions. Tonight she plays SD songs alone with an acoustic guitar, which is a true test of one's songs. It's nice to be able to make out the words for a change and also to hear Rowena's voice so much more clearly than when it's behind the pop music of her band.

There are Ashton Court benefit CD's and a slow EP that I take home to keep the acoustic music flowing, although it's a shame that the place wasn't rammed, I'm sure everyone feels that little bit more special because of the intimacy. My bike is still outside, the guy at the bar has been watching it for me, between polishing glasses I presume.

Scarlatti Tilt, 21st April

After a lovely meal at a fantastic restaurant, I arrive at the Folk House somewhat tardy to witness Roger Tarry packing up and leaving the stage. I first saw Mr Tarry back in 2004 so if you want to know what I think of him, go back and read that review!

When The Superkings start, their first song is shambolic, confusing and I wonder what I've let myself in for. It seems as though it could be a great pop song, but they think it's 'cool' to play it raggedly. I worry that arriving early was a bad decision but my fears are quickly assuaged. Within a couple of songs I am hooked, the singer has a tremendous, jazz-crooning storytelling voice and that is what this band does, they are troubadours imparting dramatic, emotional stories occasionally punctuated by more straightforward piano pop songs.

A couple of weeks ago I had the good fortune to catch Scarlatti Tilt playing a promotional gig in Virgin Megastores in town. So this is the second time I see the band as a trio, sans guitarist. I'd always thought they were a bit too over-dramatic, out of proportion but now the songs are more spacious, the listener has room to breathe and the most important part of them is now Daisy Chapman's lovely vocals.

A lot of people say that Scarlatti Tilt are 'melancholy' for some reason. It's not melancholy, it's uplifting, sometimes a little bit aggressive and highly descriptive music. Song of the night is 'The Insect Party', which remains in my head for about a week.

Barr, 25th April

When I get to The Junction at about 8:30 there is a very strange euro-techno vibe going on for this time on a Wednesday evening. The place is filling up already, people obviously knew something special was going to happen and there it is, sharing a pair of gloves (imagine THAT argument in the dressing room - no I want the left hand!) and pumping out the tunes is Dj Antoni Maiovvi Feat. Fortuna (aka singer from Hunting Lodge, Papa Molasses), presenting the Miami Beach Workout - apparently. According to the flyer anyway.

The music emanating from the laptop is slimmed down funkin techno trance electro beats and Fortuna provides occasionally rhythmical shouting that somehow seems to work. Certainly they have the ethos of the music down to a tee. It has you torn between laughing at the obviousness of it all, or banging your head to the beats and the bassline. A strange feeling, to say the least - especially as this is the first act on.

Zun Zun Egui give us psychedelic wigouts that develop into furious rock with a thin layer of jazz noodling over the top. There are strange time signatures and high pitched faux-Indian screaming. A member of the audience nearly gets a bass in the face for standing at the front. This is a great band and although the music itself is all over the place it manages to gel together nicely.

I'm not so enthused by Elliot Whale Boy, a band that seem so caught up by one particular rhythm (as heard in several Placebo songs) that they forget to vary their songs enough. Sure, it's all very complicated and tight and the fact that the singer's the only one who isn't in time or even in tune really gives them an off-kilter perspective, but there's only so long you can listen so overly-complex songs in 5/4 without yawning a little.

Barr are something quite different. A keyboard/bass/drums trio and a camp frontman who looks disturbingly like [w:Torchwood]'s Captain Jack. The arrangements are sparse, and driving punk, over which the singer shouts and talks furiously, telling stories seemingly lacking in any sort of rhythm or lyrical ambition. He stalks around the stage, sticking his foot in my face at one point and taking my picture as I photograph his band-mates. It is prose with incidental music and somehow it works, strangely.

Night at the Piano, 27th April

Curse these stupid First buses being an hour late, Oh no mate, I don't know where the other bus is, maybe the pixies stole it away but I'm on time, honest guv. So after all that and a quick trip to the cash machine I find that The Heath Robinson is already going strong, everybody looks very entertained and happy and I am assured that I've already missed the best song of the night, something to do with violence in Clifton. When he runs out of songs to play, he is persuaded to do The Jukebox Will Tear Us Apart, a song by the great band Angel Tech which works very well with just the piano.

Jar has some highly complex music, so complex in fact that she stumbles over her hands quite a bit. It's like running water, all modern mathematical sequences generating soundscapes a la Glass or other such maths musicians. It gets a little bit too avant garde for me at times but it doesn't last long and when she sings... Jar has a strong alto voice which clashes wonderfully with her childlike attitude and lyrics. Her shy charm more than makes up for the post-modernism, especially when singing her silly, funny and sometimes scary songs (friends friends friends, friends are all you need...).

Lady Nade has an amazing deep soul / jazz voice, and that's what she sings, accompanied on the piano by her friend, she kicks off with Nina Simone's My baby just cares for me and does a few original numbers. It's quite something to hear such an accomplished singer in such a small intimate setting and it's a shame that we don't get to hear more. Jim Moray, quite a force in the modern folk world, plays some folky troubadour-like slightly traditional songs, about cavaliers and maidens. I don't know what to say about this sort of thing but I get completely sucked in to each one, he really is a great storyteller and a brilliant pianist.

3 Men and a Baby Grand kick off their set with the theme music from Film 1999 or whatever the first one was that had that music. You know - the Billy Taylor Trio's I wish I knew (how it felt to be free) - unforgettable and since it's a piano-themed evening, what else would you expect? They play a few trad. Blues-by-numbers songs which are marred only slightly by the fact that the musicians are reading the music, even for the solos! Apparently this is a scratch band, cobbled together just for this gig and it is a very impressive, professional sound they have. The Klezmer they do is fantastic though, and soon has everyone clapping along and shouting hoi!

Glastonbury 2007 Part 1

By now I'm sure you've heard the tales of death and leg-breaking mud, the horror stories of unimaginable proportions and are extremely glad that you didn't manage to get your grubby little hands on those much-coveted bio-metric tickets. Well then you sir, are a fool. For despite the mud and the constant rain (oh the rain!) it's STILL a fantastic out of this world event that really makes you feel special.

For this is the Festival of Mud. Even in years when it's sunny, everyone still remembers the mud. People are breaking their legs in the stuff, it's so sticky. It becomes normal to be covered in it, dripping and shivering waiting for a sun that will never shine to come out and dry you off a little.

For the last few years I have been earning my ticket at the festival by being a fire steward in the Dance and Fire corner. Fire Stewarding there is not like in most tents where you have to watch for people setting each other on fire with joints, we actually do have lots of fire around! We check the walkabout performers in and out during the day as well, so a lot of those crazy costumed people you see around have usually gone through our backstage. This year's fire show was more scarey and dangerous than usual, of which more later.

Wednesday

I have skived off work early, rushed through my minutes and had a frantic visit to Tescos to stock up on Pringles and chocolate. All my clothes, tent etc have been kindly taken to the festival already, I mock the hippies and their bags filled with rocks. We are lucky to find no-one at Bristol Temple Meads at all, just a half-filled lone coach waiting for us. For a bargain £15 we are given a slip of fragile blue paper that says RETURN on it and we pray that we manage to actually keep the thing dry enough to be recognised on the coach home.

The festival is practically full already. Of course, they must be here for the solstice, but really I think that people just want to get more for their pre-registration £150 lottery tickets. Normally on a Wednesday there is barely anything happening, just a few warm-up gigs in the crew bars, but this time there seem to be lots of tents with full line-ups already.

After finding out where my tent has been pitched (what luxury!) and admiring our amazing new stage we wander about, checking out what is new for this year and have a bit of a sit-down in the Groovy Movies tent that is showing some great old music videos. We leave when the DJ starts to impose arty wank on his captive audience, instead of the old jazz performances.

Somehow we wind up in the Jazz lounge where a trumpet player from Bristol is playing. It's great stuff, sort of trad vs acid jazz standards, impressive musicianship for the first thing we see. We pass by the Glitzy Baghags too, tearing it up in the Banyan Tree, an open mic tent that features a lot of great talent over the weekend. Hopefully we'll have time to come back here and hang out later on.

Later on in the evening, after putting up a bit of fencing to completely hide our backstage camping from public view, we visit the stone circle - which is rammed - for the only time during the festival. I suppose this is the place to be tonight, because everyone is planning to be here until dawn and the fire poi is well under way.

We leave at about 2am, just before the rain starts.

Thursday

We see an girl (Lianne Hall) playing electric guitar through a looper in a solar powered tent in the Healing fields. She is calming and does lovely songs. There is a bloke in the tent next door singing emo acoustic numbers and someone mournfully twanging a jaws harp by a tree.

By now the festival is rammed and it really has started. This year, Wednesday is Thursday and Thursday is Friday. What will tomorrow bring? We pass through the hippy fields and I shake off the philosophical thinking. We bump into some seriously deranged flower people doing some sort of Indian ritual in the tipi camp, digeridoos and drums. I bet they're all vegans but they're wearing leather. They are blessing the fields and celebrating love and nature and stuff. It's all a bit creepy.

Thursday's rain is intermittent and not too heavy. We cover most of the site, even venturing up to the new area - The Park - where I entirely fail to get up the big tower due to the queue being a mile long and me being short on patience. This year's version of the piss police are pretty entertaining, cheering men who emerge from the urinals as saviours of fish.

We try to look at all the art, because tomorrow is when the music starts and all of this miracle and wonder will become normal, the huge sandpit with amazing sculptures of naked people and lizards. The giant wicker dancers, not-so-Lost-any-more Vagueness, the anti nuclear wall of art, the Mutoid Waste crew building this years bizarre, grotesque creations.

In the evening we have our first taste of the fire show, as there is nothing really happening tonight they decide to do the dress rehearsal properly. We are assigned our roles, there are a lot of gas cylinders everywhere and we are supposed to watch them during the performance and switch them off if something goes wrong. We are shown how to do this, there is some discussion about who gets to sit by the biggest, hottest ones. We don't really know how to tell if something IS going wrong but Oh, you'll know! the mad German in charge assures us.

Some discussion later it is decided that this is actually too dangerous for us to do, we're trained fire stewards, not firemen and our job is to look after the crowd not the performers. If I jump over the fence and run, just follow me, I tell the punters nervously. I counted all the eyebrows on the crew though and there wasn't one missing - although those backstage might have painted theirs on.

There is an 'Incident' with Stuart Security, who are here because we're expecting large crowds for the fire show. Most of the crowd are sitting down, except where I am because there are a few big cameras around and you know what the paparazzi are like. So people start moaning at the back and ask the security man to tell people to sit down so everyone can see (Strictly speaking I should have been doing this, but give that we were at the edge I didn't think it mattered).

So this security guy gets to this particularly drunk bloke by me and asks him to sit down. The guy says he's quite happy standing thankyouverymuch, so the security guy (thick neck, huge arms, slightly mad look about him) says people have been complaining that they can't see. The drunk guy says, whatever and moves a bit closer to the man with the huge film camera next to him.

Security Troll starts screaming.

He uses a lot of colourful words to explain to the drunk guy (who can barely stand anyway) what he'd like to do to him and his mum. When the drunk guy, who probably thinks he's dreaming all this anyway, ignores him, the Troll grabs him and tries to force him to the ground. Hilariously, given his size, he fails and then the bloke sits down. THERE! I'm sitting down now, you happy? He shouts bravely.

Security Troll screams a lot more. I tell him to leave the guy alone and he swings round, eyes blazing. DON'T YOU FSCKING TOUCH ME! I'LL FSKING KILL YOU YOU LITTLE STEWARD CNUT! He yells. I flinch, a little but am saved trying to intervene further by the rest of the security trolls turning up and shouting at the poor drunk guy who is still sitting on the floor. They all stick up for their mate, who obviously must have been getting lip from 'this mouthy cnut', five huge trolls towering over a drunk - now terrified - man in a hat, who is cowering in the mud.

He is saved from all this by the security supervisor who whispers something in his ear and manhandles the Troll away. I assure him that if he wants to complain about it I'd be happy to get the guy sacked but he's too drunk to care. No wonder Stuart security have such a bad reputation if they treat festival goers like army privates. Don't they have any training in dealing with drunk people? Or is it all about screaming until you win and violence if you don't? A bit shaken and quite angry, I turn back to the show.

It is phenomenal, frightening and majestic, a bizarre story of mad scientists featuring 60 foot flames and a lot of water. The greatest pleasure from working this show is when the sirens die down at the beginning and they fire off the biggest flames. The noise is tremendous, the crowd cowers, even the nearby firemen jump and throw up their hands. The heat on us poor stewards down the front is incredible, albeit brief. Quite a nerve-racking experience all told, but the kinky outfits and big fire more than makes up for it.

Hot and bothered, we finish work at about 2am and sit around the campfire backstage for a bit. Everyone is a little bit shaken up but now we know what to expect it doesn't seem so bad, I'm sure tomorrow's performance will be fine.

Glastonbury 2007 Part 2

Friday

The vibrations of a huge samba band rouse me reluctantly from my slumber. They are the Carnival Collective and they are going to be our early morning (about 10-11am) wake up call for the weekend. Sure, they're a great band and I go to watch their set after my nice cooked breakfast, but WHO want's to be woken up by samba? The rest of the crew seem to agree as we grumpily struggle for coffee in our kitchen tent.

As the morning rain clears we escape the sunshine (what fools!) into a tiny tent to watch a hilarious Italian chef juggle various implements, including the obligatory rubber chicken. It is still sunny when we reach the Pyramid Stage, as Gogol Bordello kick off, but they soon herald the first huge downpour of Friday with some crazy Mano Negra style Latino punk. It's a good fun show, but the rain REALLY comes down. I wrap my camera in two plastic bags to keep it safe from the rain and endure the soaking.

At the Bandstand, Bill Smarme is playing with his band, a mixture of feelgood hillbilly country and blues. They sing to the rain and the mud and us poor sould standing in it. The audience thins as the rain picks up and there are only about eight of us left when Rose Kemp starts.

The set is marred not only by the rain, but one of the nearby stalls begins to blast out drum and bass just as I'm about to comment on how good they are at turning off their music for the little bandstand. Rose sings three songs a capella then gets off the stage as soon as she can. It is here that I discover that simply shoving my camera inside two Tescos bags is not enough and that it is somewhat broken. On the way to see Chumbawamba it goes through varying stages of brokenness, finally settling on the preview screen not working at all. We stop to watch a man swallow a sword.

Chumbawamba are surprisingly good, four-part harmony old English folk songs mixed with similar arrangements of some of their classic songs. The anarchists have grown old gracefully it seems, looking more like 70s Abba than anarchist punks.

Another gypsy band follows in the Avalon tent, Oi Va Voi who are more pop than punk, a kind of weird mixture of soul funk reggae and gypsy music. It's well received and pretty danceable. My mate was told to see The Cat Empire, so we wait for a bit but they seem to be really late and I can't hang around any longer because I have to rush off to see Toumani Diabate and the Symmetric Orchestra on the Jazz World stage.

Performance of the weekend. I know this as it happens, there will be nothing as good as this. The Allstars are from all over Africa and they all seem to revere Toumani Diabate, the performance being that they take it in turns to sit with the master and have lessons in musicianship. At the end of the quite frankly phenomenal performance, they all queue up to shake the great man's hand before leaving the stage. Incredible.

After a tasty dinner back at camp we settle into the evening's work. Bizarre dance group Zoid Productions perform second to last on the stage and I only get to see their freaky outfits from a distance. Before the fire show we have a 'performance' from the Festival Fire Swingers who are basically a bunch of random people who swing fire about a lot. Tonight they are accompanied by a sort of samba band that plays on bins and shopping trolleys and the like. Our job is to put them out if they catch fire, but it's tempting to run around with the extinguisher spraying each club and poi innocently shouting lookout! Fire!. The end of the show is a little performance by fire swinging group Solar, who have a few routines that look pretty.

I don't know, maybe we get de-sensitised to mere fire jugglers when there is so much other exciting stuff to be had. A couple of them are really good though and the fire whips look cool. There is a huge fire-breathing dragon up in the corner of the field that keeps eveyone entertained while waiting for the big show.

I am stationed in the middle at the front. This is a 'safe' six metres from the front rail and array of jets and hoses. There is some nervous shuffling as the girl who was there on Thursday said it was too hot and nobody really wanted to be that close. So I sort of end up there by default, ie I didn't pick anywhere else quickly enough. There is a girl standing next to me, right in front of the only six people in the crowd who are sitting down and she refuses to move, gets quite shirty when I ask and insists that she has been 'told' to stand exactly there, otherwise her film won't come out right. She ignores me when I point out that if it has to be that perfect, she isn't ACTUALLY standing right in the middle at all.

Five minutes into Eddie Egal's Pyromancer show and I'm watching the huge gas canisters under the front of the stage when there is a loud pop and the hoses start flapping about like crazy. The hiss of escaping gas is deafening and I'm standing there in my bright orange tabard with FIRE STEWARD written on it and a crowd of innocent punters behind me. The show hasn't really got going yet, we've had the big flames to start it off, but it's mainly water everywhere and the big crab thing is doing her dance. My mind races. I know I'm supposed to run up there and switch off the gas before something blows up but all I can think it what if it blows up?! There's six huge canisters there, if one goes, they all go. I'm frantically looking for one of the guys backstage (nonchalantly having a bit of a smoke) when their cameraman runs up and saves the day. So tonight's show has no brilliant display from the front, but it still has quite an impact.

Oh! The stories we tell around the fire! The drinking that commences after that shake-up! The weather has been fairly on and off today, maybe it's not going to be that bad after all.

Glastonbury 2007 Part 3

Saturday

Argh there they go again! Boom Boom Boom bang bang bang! Camping backstage has it's advantages too, but this? What TIME do you call this?

Oh, wait. It's 11am. Breakfast is bubble & squeak, tomatoes, beans and eggs. It's all veggie food in our camp, sadly. It's a good job I've brought a supply of pepperami to keep me going! I watch the morning performers go out, the tea ladies, pirates and amazing puppets (above) and I watch these kids skating on the huge half pipe that's been built next to our back gate. Folky tap dancers Shindig keep me entertained before I wander off to the bandstand again to support some more local Bristolians.

Bath band The Ash Mandrake Project are on when we arrive, it's drizzling again and they play some pretty unusual songs, a sort of cross between folky country and African music on djembe, guitar and flute. Jeremy Smoking Jacket play a great set, looping noises over which Rose Kemp's beautiful voice rings hauntingly out over the muddy field. A small damp crowd gathers and I promote the fire show to any fellow Chokers who will listen.

Then it's time for the big trek to the top field and the new section of Glastonbury, The Park. There is a queue outside the Orange phone charging tent a mile long. Surely it's not worth waiting now? Just come back later, losing your mates is what festivals are all about! Or used to be.

It's pouring when we arrive and we take refuge in the Stonebridge bar where they're having hip hop Karaoke. I mock the naughty fire steward who has her nose buried in a book for the entire 30 minutes we are there. Bad fire steward, what if someone catches fire? They do seem to be a bit overstaffed in the bar, something to do with the rain, I'm sure. We are driven out by some awful dance noise from the new DJ and go to check out Ed Harcourt, who is pretty good, he has some nice summery songs anyway and the rain stops for a moment.

A security jeep tries to cross the field - patches of which are foot-deep mud traps - and ends up going mostly sideways, spraying all the hippies behind it with thick, wet clay. The mud in this field is the worst yet, the field isn't very flat so you slide all over the place, I walk along clinging to the heras fencing, squashing the last, brave blades of grass into the mud.

When Ed Harcourt finishes I seize my chance to shine and begin to play a piano that someone has put under a shelter in the field. I do Le Moulin and a couple of other Yann Tiersen pieces, which receive a standing ovation and gather a huge crowd. Well not really. But a couple of people stop to listen and my captive audience (where there are seats, there will be people) all say it's very nice.

Lou Rhodes is amazing. She has such a uniquely husky alto voice and she sings beautiful songs. There is plenty of straw in front of the stage so we get to sit down (what luxury!) and the rain fails to put a damper on the music. It feels like the sun is shining and for a moment at least I don't mind that the rain is starting to soak through my coat.

Another long walk later, past the horrific guitar pop of Babyshambles on the other stage, we find the most impressive mud puddle yet in the Dance Village. This is all in the flood plains and there is a 15cm layer of light brown mud about the consistency of a milkshake that we have to wade through. There is a stall in the middle of the mud plain selling fresh croissants to dance fans. The techno and drum and bass is ringing out over the field but we're only interested in getting into the big dance tent, to see the great DJ Yoda.

He's alright I suppose, not nearly as great as he should have been, given that his last album is astounding. There are none of those songs here, just an empty stage and a demonstration of masterful video DJ-ing. He cuts up films and mixes them with old classic songs, the videos scratch when he does, it's very impressive. There is a big BUT though. The set is more geared towards getting cheers and being clever than producing a coherent soundtrack to dance to. Each piece lasts about a minute and just when you've got into it he throws a spanner in the works and does something completely different. It's all a bit confusing really. Still, I'm glad I saw it, the man's a genius but I wish he'd had some guests and done some proper tunes.

Maximo Park are shrieking away as we head home for dinner, pausing in the glade near some weeing people to see what Dreadzone are up to these days. Not much, by the looks of things - there was hardly any dub and it looks like this is another great dance band that's gone a little bit too pop. There is no queue at the Orange tent, see what could have been achieved with a little patience? Young people today, I don't know...

The drizzly rain clears up again for Eddie Egal, we've been telling everyone that tonight is the last night because, well, it is and there is a good amount of people here. Again I'm not quick enough and end up right in the middle at the front but I don't mind so much this time, as long as nothing starts hissing or blowing up. We've also just been told that Eddie has to use up all his gas tonight, and plans on 'having a bit of a play' with the gas until it's all gone about half an hour after the show, so we'll be working until about half past three tonight.

It goes really well. Nothing blows up, nothing goes wrong. The fire shower and the naked man running around being chased by girls with flamethrowers gets a few shrieks and laughs, the most amazing thing in the show is right at the end when a lone fountain is left on stage, with the top burning away. It's a wonder of science, I tell thee!

This is only the sixth time they've done this particular show and they've taken a few things on board like MORE FIRE and LESS p1ssing about at the beginning before the fire! when it's all finished we stand about in the cold, although it's still not raining while the performers mess around taking promotional photos.

They mess around with the gas quite a lot, everyone having a go on the buttons but they get bored after about 15 minutes and don't bother trying to finish off. The two girls come out and wave their flamethrowers around, little realising, or caring, that they show us their nipples everytime they reach up into the air. I'm sure that'll be on the extras in the DVD! The dancing and the sexy girls are all well and good, but what we really want is Big, scary FIRE!

One of the things about wearing the orange jacket is that everyone seems to want to talk to you, which is sometimes quite rewarding in a smug sort of a way. A man talks to me at great length about how he's come to every Glastonbury for the last ten years only this year he couldn't get a ticket so he wrote to Michael and complained and Michael said he was terribly sorry, here, have some on the house. He came to see the fire show twice. They're insane! A woman says, They MUST be German!

Yes, I say. They are.

Glastonbury 2007 Part 4

Sunday

At breakfast one of my colleagues, whom we shall call 'C' asks if she could come out with us today, to see bands that I've never heard of before. Of course we rejoice in the opportunity to evangelise although we're also entering uncharted territory with our first band of the day.

Babyhead are finishing up on the Jazz World stage as we arrive in time to here a couple of funky chords and a Thank You Glastonbury! The day's rain starts and we take refuge in a nearby beer tent that shocks me by not having any peoper beer left. I grudgingly accept some lager and we watch the rain come down while we wait for the gypsies.

Mahala Rai Banda are fantastic, they all seem to have great fun and play a frenzied selection of Eastern European reels and songs. There is some debate afterwards as to what could possibly be as good as that, we decide to forgo the Marley Brothers on the Pyramid and opt for the Avalon tent again.

We are in time to see a few songs by Jeff Lang, who plays slide guitar accompanied by acoustic bass. He is pretty amazing too, great solos and semi-acoustic slide blues rock ringing out in the usually quite folky tent. Lang is a happy accident, for we came to see electro-folksters Tunng, whom we recently missed a few weeks ago in Bristol. They are a funny bunch of hippies, but their songs are compelling and quite beautiful at times. A strange marriage of folky sensibilities and electronica, that's for sure!

We could have stayed where we were and got a good seat for Billy Bragg, but for some reason I think Dame Shirley Bassey is on an hour earlier than she actually is and we all trudge through the mud to the pyramid stage only to find that she isn't and we have to wait an hour, somewhere as I have no wish to hear James Morrison, although a little bit bleeds into my ears by accident.

In a fit of near-decision-making, we go to the Queen's Head in search of new exciting bands (brain still not working properly - this is a Q Magazine sponsored stage) and find it almost empty and playing terrible music. We decide to head home along the railway line to see what everyone else is doing. On the way a man runs past us shouting Naked Mud Wrestling This Way! He himself is NOT naked, I note, there is a decided lack of naked people this year, I couple of mud bras around but that's about it. So we go and have a look.

They're not naked either! It's quite funny and there's potential for nudity but we quickly get bored and drift away. Backstage we discover that everyone has already left to see the Dame and we rush off again, a bit weary now we've walked in a big circle.

The Pyramid field is completely packed, the sun comes out, Hey Big Spender is roaring out across the phenomenally large crowd and we come to a halt at a fairly good vantage point about half a mile away from the stage. I rarely watch bands from here, but there really is no way we'd be able to get closer than this. Periodically we get driven into by tractors and there is a lot of talking going on around us, but Shirley does us proud with some great songs.

Before the evening's work we check out the London Community Gospel Choir, play a really rushed set culminating in that old classic Oh Happy Day. They are still really good but it would have been nice to have had more than four songs. A light rain begins outside and I hang about in front of our stage, watching all the things I haven't had a chance to see yet, like Ceilidh band Cut a Shine who get everyone square dancing in front of the stage and turn everybody against me by demanding I join in to make up the numbers. Come on steward! They yell, Don't be a spoilsport! You'll be pleased to know that my professionalism stands fast and I decline politely.

One of the bands I've been hearing all weekend, playing twice a day on our stage and in the Belle Epoque tent is Siyaya, who are from Zimbabwe. They play mainly Marimbas and sound like an old 64-bit computer game playing brilliant African music. They do dances and little stories as well and really get you dancing. I have their songs in my head for at least a week after the festival.

Some girl sings some singer-songwriter songs, I have no idea who she is, but she claims to be able to play rock on an acoustic and promptly fails to do so, although her songs are pretty good. We have a brief fire show from the Solar people again, made quite exciting by one of them throwing her burning hula hoop towards the audience and for a second I think that I might actually have to use the extinguisher. It falls short, but it was a close one.

From here, the dance stage is all geared towards a performance from Bill Bailey. We're expecting a huge crowd, which will make a nice change as the rain has put a bit of a damper on things this time round. We rebuild the crash barrier so that people will be able to lean on it without falling over. The stewards are stationed inside this barrier so that we can rescue people if there's a crush. We've spent the last hour or so spreading straw all over the mud so that it's not too treacherous, we've all had our wee breaks and I get myself some earplug since I'm right in front of the speakers.

Finally, the The Jaipur Kawa Brass Band have a proper audience! It's 11pm and they do their last show to a record audience, which is great because they're incredible and the crowd loves it. Where have you been all weekend? I think bitterly. The Killers can't be as good as this.

There is a bit of a wait before the Great Man turns up, the compere is hounded with calls of Do A Dance! Do A Dance! as he tells people to make friends with the person next to you, give them 20p because it's the nicest thing you'll ever do in your life. Half an hour later, 20p is being passed around the crowd and spirits are high.

Bill Bailey appears, does a kind of mixture of old material and a bit of new stuff, the usual smattering of hilarious songs and jibes at the mudmonkeys. I am so close I can smell him. There is no trouble from the crowd, although a chant breaks out at the back about not being able to hear. It is p1ssing down again, but this time Mr Bailey has a proper roof over his head and so do I.

Later, after everybody has gone and this couple have stopped talking at me about how much they enjoyed themselves and did I see this and is this the muddiest one ever and how the wife has a congenital bladder disorder, we go to get drunk in the backstage theatre bar where an amazing blues band hammers the final nail into the coffin of fun. Or something.

There is an obligatory drunken mud fight which I DIDN'T START and about ten minutes of sleep before the rain drums me awake at about 11am.

Monday

We make it to the bus queue by about 1pm, trudging wearily through the trenches of an utterly destroyed farm. The cinema field is unsurprisingly mud-free, I doubt it was very popular this time round. The bus queues are inexplicable and confusing, it is still raining and our particular one doubles back on itself about five times. We only have to wait an hour and a half before making onto the coach, half sleeping for the two hour journey back to civilisation.

At Bristol Temple Meads there is a big line of discarded wellies, a sad testament to the effectiveness of Glastonbury's environmental campaigning. Oh sure, it all seems like a good idea out in the field, but when you get back to the city you just don't care anymore, do you?

Ah well, great fun was had by all. Three washes gets the mud out of my clothes and I settle down to watch all the bits I missed on the internet.

Luminescent Orchestrii, 26th Aug

For some reason The Cedar have always passed me by. Tonight I have front row seats and it is a great atmosphere in the croft as they take us on a gentle 'coaster ride through acousticky songs, near - folky dance and passionate storytelling. The music is beautiful and even manages to brighten up the otherwise dingy back room in the Croft

There are songs with banjos, trumpets, an accordion type thing, a lovely viola and everyone except the drummer plays more than one instrument. We all sit on the floor and the banter is funny, even the Irish heckler is funny tonight.

It's a bit of a strange venue for a gypsy band though, the back room in the Croft is dark and musty. Sure, it sounds great but I can't help feeling that the general darkness and red walls dampen the mood slightly. The place is due for an overhaul so I hear, but let's just let the music transport us beyond these walls.

Luminescent Orchestrii play a strange but uplifting blend of furious gypsy reels and klezmer mixed with the odd bit of hip hop and funk. It's amazing. People begin to spasm involuntarily until the band announce that this really is their last song now and suddenly everyone wants to dance properly.

Although the night doesn't quite live up to the atmosphere of the first time I experienced this band - where they effectively played three sets all evening and there wasn't a frown in the place, but it's still something quite stunningly exciting and different to your usual folky bands.

(I apologise for the lack of photos, my camera is *ahem* indisposed and I am working on acquiring a new one...)

Geisha, 6th Sept

Kids today, I don't know. I mean, I think it's a bit weird when Battle Of Wolf 359, a death metal thrash screaming band from London, spend their entire set with their backs to us. You get the feeling that if he could, even the drummer would have turned around. It's not cool and it's not clever. They are a pretty static band to watch, too. We demand entertainment! The music is ridiculously fast drums over which the band plays in unison in a minor key while two people scream over the top. It's pretty good, there are some melodic quiet bits to break up the noise before the next big onslaught.

They may have come all the way from Germany, but June Paik are a bit boring to be honest, their songs have some nice quiet moments, where the guitars all fit together but it all runs into one and ends up sounding like one long drawn out scream of terror. Or maybe that was me. Again, especially when the music isn't that interesting, watching a load of metallers' backs really isn't very entertaining, guys.

But The Junction still holds a great act for last. I've written about them so many times and now they are a four-piece, Geisha are bigger, louder and more exhilarating than ever. The sound is a bit rubbish tonight, but the noise is phenomenal. I love all the beautiful prog moments they throw in, like a soundtrack through your fears before drilling into your skull with sheer aggressive noise. Geisha aren't ashamed of their music either, they're not too cool to look at us, even if we are too afraid to look them in the eyes.

Acid Mother's Temple, 8th Nov

There is a man standing on one side of the small cramped galley toilets in the Thekla Social, peeing across the room into a urinal about a metre away from him. Yes, yes, I think, Very impressive, but get the fsck out of the way! These things really deserve a picture, but you can't just go round taking pictures of drunk people peeing can you? Can you?

The Transpersonals are well under way when I arrive, playing mod psychedelia in a way only hippies in the sixties with more acid than sense could have done. It is so deliberately weird and contrived that the whole thing doesn't really work any more, especially as this band obviously aren't off their tits on hallucinogens, which makes the whole shrieking out of tune with everything else seem a lot less, well genuine.

Towards the end of the set they play a brilliant rock song though, and the one that the bass player shouts in is also great, so it's all okay, really. It's the shocking lack of decent beer that really annoys me. And the fact that they might as well be playing songs of those Nuggets collections for all I care.

Acid Mothers Temple and the Melting Paraiso UFO, a band who change their name more times than [insert clever analogy here] are a whole different side of the psychedelic spectrum entirely. The music here is less about odd chord progressions and strange singing and more about playing a kick-ass riff over and over again, developing it slightly, improvising around it, letting the guitarist go mental with solos and sucking you into your own personal reverie.

There is a lovely period in the set where everything is minimized down to a bit of gentle singing, throat-singing, harmonies, a slow melody, which layers and builds and launches into one of AMT's greatest musical creations, the song Pink Lady Lemonade, a song which can range in length from anywhere between 20-60 minutes, or even longer I guess, depending on how the mood takes them. Every minute of which is beautiful genius.

Unlike the previous band, you don't feel like AMT are trying to be something, trying to copy, recapture - whatever they were trying to do - a bygone era, you feel that this is what music has always been like, just four guys seeing what they can do with their instruments and coming up with something incredible, just playing for the sheer joy of it. Whatever it is, I've seen them quite a few times now, and even though there are a few songs that they always play, each time the interpretation is different and it is always brilliant.

Rose Kemp Album Launch, 11 Sept

After nearly a whole year devoid of live music I manage to get down to the Croft to support Rose Kemp launching her new album Unholy Majesty. I'm pretty excited, I mean it's been one of those years where I can only get out to these gigs if I really really NEED to see the person playing. This isn't to do with being married (or practically married back then), it's to do with house ownership and life forcing you to realise that carpets and gardens are more important.

Not only do I miss Glastonbury because of my job, but I also manage to miss pretty much everything else that happens in 2008. Anyway, here's a review I found buried in my 'drafts' folder from a long time ago and there will be a few more to follow...

Aspen Woods provide the support for tonight's album launch. I do try to get into their music, from what I've heard about them it should be right up my street - psychedelic wig-outs - but it really doesn't do it for me. I don't think there's ENOUGH wigging out and musicianship. You have to be something pretty special to be able to pull it off and these guys just can't. It could be a combination of things - being the first band, there's hardly anybody there so I'm sure that affects your playing a bit but really I'm just not a fan of this particular sound. I retreat to the bar.

Rose Kemp has reinvented herself as a tall skinny goth metal chick tonight. Witch in a good way, naturally. I admit I had been expecting at least an element of the beautiful singing I had fallen in love with those few years ago, but this is not what we are here for today. Reminiscent of Sabbath, The songs are huge and dark, Rose pushes her voice a little too hard and the singing sounds tortured, and although it admittedly fits in with this epic doom metal direction she has embraced, it doesn't really work when applied to the old material, which is much less fearsome.

So while I do appreciate this new incarnation and the long interesting songs which seem to be made of movements rather than verses, I think I preferred the beautiful-voiced Kemp, where the loudness was contrasted with delicate whisperings. Still, here's a sample track from the new album, The Unholy on the BBC Introducing stage at Glastonbury 2007:

The Streets, 17 oct

Here's one just to prove I was there... The support band are a bit odd, I can't even remember who they were - playing a kind of funky studentbluesrock, very much a background kind of band and not at all in keeping with the music of the main act. I'm not begrudging them this, the people down the front were enjoying themselves, maybe I just don't pay them enough attention.

The Streets throw a party. We're all invited. It IS at the Wankademy but we think we can survive. It is also one of those Friday-night-before-Ramshackle ones that finishes way too early. Although I am a bit sceptical of this chav-centric messy garage hip hop, this is a surprisingly energetic and fun performance. He keeps on and on shouting Can you SEE me? Can you HEAR me? DO you UNDERSTAND me?1 and we all just sort of stand there, wondering.

Still, the show is lo-fi hip hop interspersed with dancey anthems that get the crowd jumping and the Streets' messy cockney sampling style transfers well into the full live band experience. I find myself getting more into the atmosphere than I thought I would, this music has grown on me like a scratchy jumper.

1. 1. Complete with silly hand gestures and macho posturing.

Bristol Acoustic Music Festival, 18 January 2009

I manage to venture outside my little box of wedded bliss and DIY for an evening of so-called acoustic entertainment and the first gig of the year is another visit to the Acoustic Music Festival, which is held in St. George's Bristol on the Sunday for some reason. I don't really understand why you'd have an all-day acoustithon in this hall, which is not the most comfortable place at the best of times - although the sound is always excellent.

I arrive at about 6pm, in time to catch the last couple of songs from Fortune Drive and I have to say that the band sounds much better acoustic. I have always felt that their full electric sound is undynamic and samey, even the singer's awesome voice has never managed to overcome this. And it is awesome, a richly emotional soul voice, which rings out over the acoustic accompaniment.

Next up are The Cedar who are a many-headed beast, with the band switching instruments all over the place. The lovely acoustic songs are therefore fuller and more varied than usual, and are all the better for it. The Wraiths are on form tonight, their new material isn't much of a departure from their well established repertoire of setting classic poetry to music and many melodic themes recur throughout the songs but it never seems to matter as you get sucked into them. The addition of a big bass drum with slow hypnotic beats makes it quite an eerie set.

Tonight though, everybody is completely blown away by Jane Taylor whose bittersweet songs about life and love are consistently beautiful and upbeat. Her new album Compass is a worthy successor to her debut, building on a solid foundation. Babel finish the evening with a blast of arabic-tinged acoustic music, thick chords and fast rhythms and Danny's stunning voice blasting out over our heads. By this time though, I'm very uncomfortable and it's hard to get into the party mood. I wonder how people who have been here all day feel.

Candi Staton, 18 Feb

One of they middle of the week gigs, I just know it's going to be over way to soon so I rush down to the Wankademy early. Indeed, Phantom Limb are already in full swing, a kind of laterwithjoolz easy jazz Big Soul band.

There is an air of uncontrollable excitement as the DJ gets out the old soul music, and when Candi Staton kicks off, the roof pretty much flies off the building. There is heartbreaking soul, uplifting funk, face-melting disco and much, much more. Each song is introduced as the song that made it into the top ten in 1969/70/etc with a little story and the whole event is just wonderful, especially the disco version of Suspicious Minds I have to tear myself away early, but the music bounces around for days.

Amadou & Mariam, 26 Feb

It's the second time out to see this crazy couple from Mali, and although the Wankademy is a bit of a step down from the Colston Hall, the place is pretty rammed and exciteable. We don't get to see who's supporting and Amadou & Mariam come on shortly after we arrive. They play most of their new album Welcome to Mali, which betrays much of Damon Albarn's influence and is nowhere near as great as their previous Manu Chao collaboration Dimanche à Bamako. The gig goes on and on, people just can't stop dancing and the extended African guitar solos are just brilliant.

...

What, you want more? go and buy the albums, then go and see them live. they are amazing!

Brunel Sinfonia, 22 Mar

An evening of Culture at the Victoria Rooms, my old department from the Before Time at Bristol University. I don’t see anybody I recognise from ten years ago, but we are not here to be nostalgic, we are here to see a young lady fall off her piano stool trying to play Rachmaninov's third piano concerto. Well, and to support some people the Wife knows.

The Brunel Sinfonia is a local orchestra which performs under the banner of enjoyment rather than clinical precision. It is a bit of a surprise to see them attempting such difficult pieces, but everybody does indeed seem to be enjoying themselves. There is no signs of craziness from the performer, apart from the virtuosity of the piece and the orchestra of performers from just about every walk of life, from students to lawyers, doctors to retired teachers gives a stirring performance.

There is a strange, meandering overture from Borodin beforehand, and Tchaikovsky's 5th Piano Concerto for the second half. This is a lot easier to listen to than the Rachmaninov, which is more of a player's piece but still, the orchestra is impressive and not THAT out of tune. Okay, not at all out of tune. Well maybe that French horn, but who plays those, anyway? (sorry mum)

Steeleye Span, 19 April

The well known song All Around My Hat doesn't make an appearance until the encore and I just can't get this little shouty voice out of my head. They must have had to play this song at every gig since 1975 and you can only imagine what it must feel like after thirty-four years. Of course the song itself is much, much older than that, but in this place, given it's folk-rock interpretation, all I can think is Maddy Prior thinking Thirty-four Fscking years! Every gig for Thirty-four Fscking years!

But this is Steeleye Span, legends of the electric guitar-tinged folk tune, playing a variety mix of prog-folk, trad. folk, 80's-folk, even a bit of cringeworthy country-folk. They are no strangers to the reworked tune or playing a song that's hundreds of years old as if they've just invented it. Some of the music does seem very dated, but this is the stuff that sounds like every band did in the 80's - all clean power chords, pads and strings. It's a weird mixture of styles and eras (I'm not a big Span groupie so I don't know all the songs) but there is certainly some good epic story-telling, impressive fiddle-work, a few jigs and reels and Maddy Prior's phenomenal voice, just as powerful as it always was.

Certainly the audience (primarily of a 'certain age') are enjoying themselves, singing along and getting involved. The usual sort of crowd smugness abounds, as fans outdo each other in lyrical knowledge and generally it is a good night, though somehow not as electrifying as it should be.

Chumbawamba, 4 May

The old Holy Cross social club1 in Bedminster is one of those venues with a village hall kind of atmosphere. They have crammed in as many chairs as they can, because tonight we have one of the great modern folk protest bands of the early nineties, who have grown old gracefully and stopped shouting. Chumbawamba seem to have totally reinvented themselves in the last few years, although what they've really done is just get rid of all the electro and keep the close harmonies.

I just love Chumbawamba's acoustic sound these days, they're all great singers and the whole evening is light-hearted and slightly rebellious, they take old songs and change the words so they're about banks and Gordon Brown (Hard Times of Old England) and we all feel righteous and clever. Everyone thinks it's hilarious that they have made an E.P. to celebrate the passing of Dame Thatcher, which you can have sent to your house if you give them a fiver. It's a bit sick, but Chumbawamba still remember all the political songs they used to sing, the reasons why they were so angry back then and so do we, because we're cool too.

The Boy Bands Have Won is a brilliant album, full of humour and beauty and the usual politicking, an example you can hear for yourself as they perform El Fusillado (see also Charlie) - I do not feature in either of these videos, thankfully.

They are ably supported by Jacques, A Robin, who plays quirky French/Spanish sounding acoustic songs, the sort of music you'd hear in the Greenpeace tent or at a protest, although I can't really make out what he's saying - it's either down with the government, or I like boobies, I just can't tell.

1. 1. At least I think it used to be a social club - who knows?

Alice Russell, 6 May

The support band is really odd, I mean she is just downright weird. Laura J Martin is like a one woman marching band, playing the flute part over pre-recorded noises, layered singing and some pretty good beats. The engineer struggles a bit with the sound, probably because it is all routed through a looper but she is generally well received, even if it is jsut because the girl is quite clearly insane!

Given the strangeness of the first act, I might be forgiven for wondering whether we were in for more weirdness, whether Alice Russell has taken on a bizarre new DIY direction, but with a blast of furious funk her band debunks my fears and almost literally raises the roof. She seems to have boundless energy and her band is tight and funky.

And the voice is HUGE. There are classic 70s soul-type songs, 80s electro-funk and pure disco and everybody dances like crazy people. I've seen her perform with other people, but here singing her own songs Ms Russell is fearsome, a crowd-pleasing dervish of frightening power who can make you laugh out loud one minute and close to tears the next.

The gig inspires me to seek out her albums, Pot of Gold is the most recent and it is only okay, more laid-back than the live experience and a bit too RnB for my tastes, but on the other hand I really enjoy her 2005 album My Favourite Letters.

On the way home, there is a bible on the seat of the bus.

Glastonbury 2009, Part One

Yes, so I could go on and on about how this was the best Pilton Pop Festival for a long time, give you a long boring essay for each day detailing my every crazy move, the nice hot showers, great food, mad people, awesome fire...

But it has been a month already, and what a month! Weddings, holidays, DIY, gardens1, so I will leave it as a long music review, with the bands I managed to actually see reviewed in some form of clumsy haiku.

THURSDAY

Charlene Soraia

A song about space,
Stuffy tent hushed and brooding,
Rain drips in my beer.

The Gentle Good

He sings about Jane,
But the strings are too quiet,
Finger-picking good?

Interlude

Later we attempt a rehearsal of the festival fire show, so we know what's going to be happening tomorrow. There is much deliberating and standing about while the various factions of fiery folke make up a 'show'. There is a huge mechanical fire-breathing Garuda Bird, professionally known as 'the chicken'. I have to walk in front of a big mechanical elephant which threatens to topple forwards into me in the mud.

There is some sort of mythological theme going on, the top of the field is dominated by three large totems of Isis and Anubis, but the Garuda and elephant are Indian and really it's all about dancing around and setting things on fire. As usual, my job is to try and stop wasted hippies from touching the shiny stuff. We assure ourselves that it will all be fine. There is no actual fire tonight and the eventual plan sounds so complicated we all go out drinking instead...

Green Room Funk Band

Some random funk band
and we all dance like madmen.
Backstage is spinning.

I slink away from the fire early, it has been a hard week at work and I don't want to be tired all weekend. As I settle into the nice comfy camp-bed, the real rain begins.

1. 1. Yes, my life is THAT exciting!

Glastonbury 2009, Part Two

The rain continues all night, I hold it in as long as I can but at 0900 I have to run for it. Still, I'm up in time for breakfast and get to have a nice hot shower. No-one believes that Michael Jackson is dead. I usually have big plans for each day, the clashfinder helping me to decide what is possible, but there are only a few things I'm excited about today. Lamb. Steel Pulse. Regina Spector.

FRIDAY

Bath Tub Ceilidh Band

Good morning they sing,

Playing Archer's-themed folk dance;

Small child is happy.

Gabriella Cilmi

Ears dripping red blood,

Her shrieking is most painful.

Quick, run to the pub!1

Ash Mandrake

Leatherbound guitars

Breeds a three-headed monster,

This man is too strange.

Regina Spector

The sun appears once

For nice piano melodies

Adz isn't impressed.2

Red Snapper

Cold beer and sunshine

Syncopating live dance hits,

Old tunes beat new ones.

Hot 8 Brass Band

It's an accident

and a crowd pleasing surprise

Is the souzaphone.

Lamb

Emotions run wild

Though the speakers can't take it

Lamb make people weep.3

Steel Pulse

Reggae reggae dub

Dub dub reggae dub rastaman

They're from the Midlands!4

Fire Show

The last band on our stage is Eternal Taal, who are a great dance band with lots of drumming, playing banghra versions of everything, including a bit of Michael Jackson, natch.

Tonight it is our actual dress rehearsal. First we have the crazy Eddie Egal, who has the usual enormous flames, nearly naked ladies and fiery chainsaws. and fireworks. I manage to get myself assigned to the Garuda bird and my job is to walk in front of it after the fireworks, guiding it through the crowd and keeping them away from it's pecking beak. Oh and it breathes sparks about 4 metres in front of it, so I have to have eyes in the back my head too! Tonight though, they just go where they like and I have to run into the crowd shouting, because the bird isn't heading for the gap we'd created...

Some madness ensues, involving human Catherine wheels, fire swingers and more huge flames. The elephant gets stuck in the crowd and can't join in the fun. Then people with flamethrowers lead, or rather scare the crowd down to a man in a gyroscope who sets himself on fire.

After the show we wander down to Trash City which is utterly heaving. I can almost take my feet of the ground and let the crowd carry me through. We run away to the backstage bar.

Glenn Tilbrook

A theatre bar fave

The freaks are all raving hard

Glenn, take me, I'm yours?

1. 1. Seriously. Avoid at all costs, another shouty soul rnb faux retro nightmare.
2. 2. But I am... she was very good!
3. 3. Honestly. people are actually in tears when Lou Rhodes sings 'I can fly'...
4. 4. Totally awesome and it's a big crowd, although the rest of the festival are off watching The Specials. Today's tallest man is played by All-Black star Jonah Lomu. I don't ask him to move!

Glastonbury 2009, Part Three

The sun is out this morning, we are welcomed into the day with Michael Jackson jokes and tributes and a nice fry-up. I venture out into the world after breakfast while waiting for the rest of the gang to rise.

SATURDAY

Siyaya

African dancing

Telling confusing stories

With a great soundtrack

Tinariwen

Nomadic blues rock,

A perfect desert soundtrack

For sun-drenched hippies.

Spinal Tap

A tiny Stonehenge

and ladies with big bottoms

with midgets to laugh at

Rokia Traore

North African Soul

With a little bit of Jazz

A gentle groove for lunchtime.

The Futureheads

On our tiny stage

For nuclear awareness

Big shouty noise pop.

There is a little hiatus while we wait for the Great Tony Benn to turn up and speak on our stage. Well I say 'wait', he's already here, drinking tea backstage but we are waiting for Ed Byrne, who's supposed to be before him. As the crowd is so big we employ Marcus Brigstocke, who thins out the numbers hugely after the Futureheads so Mr Benn doesn't get too intimidated.

After Marcus we are 'treated' to an Important Song about guns and knife crime, sung by some young, ethnically correct young kids who are stoked to be on stage at Glastonbury. The young black lad raps, the asian girl warbles and the white girl sings. It is awful and cringe-worthy, which is what you expect from these sorts of campaigns I guess. They stand near us as the honourable Mr Benn speaks, chatting loudly in inner city accents about how wicked and terrifying it was to sing in front of all these people.

Ed Byrne (when he eventually arrives) is funny. I 'fail' to call out when he asks who has got married recently, then smile wryly to myself as he proceeds to describe the worst wedding clichés imaginable

Lisa Hannigan

Girl in a big tent

Singing incoherently

The colour is red.

Lonnie Liston Smith

A funk soul legend

But too-cheesy soul should get

Down to the Backstreets

Eliza Carthy

Bizarre Eclectic

Cabaret folk reggae jazz

The crowd is jumping

Baaba Maal

African Legend

Makes everyone jumpy, but

We have to go work

Fire Show

Tonight the show is smoother; the frightening giant bird follows me a little better, I save a small child from facial re-constructive surgery, the elephant makes it into the ring, to drive about the place aimlessly while the fire swingers do their thing. The circus field still fail to attract the crowds at the end, but there is one night to go to get it right. Finishing at midnight, we run to the top of the pyramid field to catch the end of The Boss.

Bruce Springsteen

Dancing in the Dark

Is the only song I know

Huge crowd is steaming

The Guns of Navarrone

Heaving and Jumping

Monkey Monkey Monkey Man

The beer flows freely.

Pronghorn

More mental ska-punk

A feelgood comedy band

I sleep on sofas.

Glastonbury 2009, Part Four

It's the last day and I groggily haul myself off to the shower at about 8:30 in the am. Disaster strikes! It appears that the whole field next door has heard about our nice shower and has been using it so much that the tank has over-flowed and it is all locked up. I have to wait until the water has been drained away, then find the Keeper of the Key to get clean.

Once I am clean and fed, I grab a friend and venture out into the colourful fields to start the final day...

SUNDAY

Easy Star All-Stars

Sergeant Pepper's Lone-

-Ly Hearts Club Band, we hope you

Have enjoyed the show.

Not really, guys - Dub side of the Moon and Radiodread were amazing, but this is just crap! Even here, where they love this sort of thing... This Beatles Reggae just doesn't work.

Status Quo

Whatever you want,

Old men rock out their classics

Lazing in the sun.

Amadou et Mariam

Third time for me now,

The music suits the sunshine

All relaxed and smiles.

Orquesta Aragon (Cubans)

Synchronised salsa

Is it creepy or well done?

I forget the moves.

Madness

The top of the hill

And 2-Tone Madness prevails

The field is jumping

Nick Cave

He's a bit boring

Very shouty and tuneless

But Ade thinks he's great.

Pronghorn

Some mad punk fellas

Their children playing along

Mostly Entertaining

Fire Show

Tonight the whole show seems to work like clockwork, I avoid getting flamed in the face and even the big lit-up heart at the end works. The crowd is huge, too.

Black Eyed Peas

They shout boom boom pow

Not good like they used to be

Too dancey, less rap.

Mundo Jazz

A mixed bag of nuts

Ingenious comedy

Oh look, here's the rain.

And it really does pour. The amazing Mundo Jazz play on our stage until about 1:30am, then the second they announce that it's the end of the festival, the heavens open and we all run for cover. We head to the Green Room for the last night's celebrations. There is a band called Kangaroo Moon playing a kind of crazy psychedelic folk rock dance music to a frantic and appreciative crowd, desperately trying not to think about going home tomorrow.

Andy Sheppard's Sax Massive

So last weekend, I went down to the Colston Hall Opening shindig and worked doing a bit of stewarding for Andy Sheppard's Sax Massive, conducted by Orphy Robinson. My job was to help the lovely lady YolanDa Brown up onto a precarious platform and not drop her beautiful saxophone in the process.

So there I am, passing up some improbably high-heeled shoes to this lady and I'm told She's really famous you know?. I didn't know! We had a laugh anyway. I'm not really up to date with current Jazz stars! Ah well. Her playing is absolutely stunning though, full of vibrance and passion, even in the weird avante-jazz bits.

The actual piece - well, the sound of 200 saxophones meandering around an African Jazz tune and severely atmospheric soloist jousting over sustained chords was really impressive. Orphy seemed to have absolute control over the musicians and of course Andy Sheppard had to finish up with a display of circular breathing that had everybody mesmerised.

After the saxes, there was some aerial stuff from Cirque Bijou with an amazing group of beatboxers, led by world champion beatboxer Bellatrix. They were awesome, very RnB oriented but I guess that's to be expected.

A group of Dohldrummers led the saxophones and audience round the building back into the foyer for the rest of the evening's entertainment, which included a 100 guitar massive! Sadly, Dash had an appointment with a big pie and couldn't stay.

Here's a video of the saxes anyway, there are surprisingly few photos out on the internet, considering the number of photographers who were there!