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.