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.