Letter From London

The most bizarre name of the day is that of Soda Fountain Rag (Norway)

Robyn Hitchcock is his usual dry, surreal self, and has me and my friend in tears when, having already sung a couple of tunes, picks up a guitar with polka dots that match his shirt perfectly..

Evidence from tonight’s show suggests this fate of inflated self-worth has befallen California’s Airborne Toxic Event.

It occurs to me now that the troupe have lost something along the way, the functioning musical circle who fought off reality in favour of slumber-party Goth theatrics are now just a few girls in pretty dresses, freezing their balls off and wailing Spandau Ballet. Oh well…

...feral, button-cute Japanese lady in ragged daisydukes crouched on a tabletop pulling the same faces your dad makes while fiddling with the wires in the back of a television...

They (the fans) don’t know why the bulk of the music loving public are missing out on the worst kept secret that British Sea Power are pound for pound, the best band in the world. To reiterate – What a band! What a fucking band!

"I live in east London, and since the closure of Smallfish it was a nasty, barren place for buying new records. Of course, there's all of London's great record shops only a tube ride away, but sometimes (let's face it, most of the time for me) you just want to pop into a shop on the way home, browse the racks and pick up something. "

‘I want to take the pleasure with the pain’ he wrote and sang. For so long we thought that it might only be the pain Edwyn would get. But on this night he took his pleasure and we took ours.

"Two of the most witty wordsmiths that the UK have produced in recent years teaming up together! In a glam rock band! Let's get it on! "

"A document of the random wanderings of a Londoner grinding out a February in the capital. "

Headlining tonight are The Stripchords, a group of blokes playing surf music. Their unique selling point seems to be that they in front of projections of films of 1950s strippers plying their trade.

Unless our editor wants interviews with a bloke from 'Dirty Sanchez', or a BBC presenter then there's little reason to come here. Oh ... hang on. The Arctic Monkeys wander into the beer tent, a full day before they're headlining.

Today is also a Saturday afternoon, not a Tuesday night. One more thing: today is an all ages show. I must admit, I wasn't going to go. The idea of being at a gig with a bunch of pre-teens didn't appeal much as it'd be far too easy to look like a dirty old man.

Pip wearing different hats to portray different characters in one song, Dan holding up props in another. The music does get away from the gameboy sounds, thankfully, as it quickly becomes clear to me that although Thou Shalt Always Kill is the attention grabber it's not their best track by a long way.

Am I allowed to say 'I was there' if I arrived, saw it was full and then left? Probably not.

"It's also clear that Anton is a little unhinged (there's an odd monologue about security guards in Denmark that leaves us scratching our heads), but don't let that distract you from his music."

"This is Deathline's debut gig apparently, and they do well, pulling in about sixty punters. For me, it's simple with this lot; the fast ones are good, the slow ones are poor. "

"I'm sick of skinny white boys in jackets regurgitating the sounds of the 70s and 80s.  Not content with revamping AC-DC and Led Zep, Joy Division and Gang of Four we've gone so far as to mine the back catalogues of Supertramp, 10cc and ELO.  "

"What Morton Valence do then is make epic songs of varying length but unvarying style - whatever groove is set at the beginning of the song tends to be the same groove in the middle of the song and at the end of the song with extra instruments adding themselves to the mix occasionally to give a sense of dynamism."

""