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.