271: Lovely Eggs, Railway Hotel, Southend

All a bit Lovely Eggstastic today. Started the afternoon by joining them at Phoenix FM in Brentwood while they played a session - two songs from their brand new second album, Cob Dominos.



Then down to the Railway Hotel in Southend to watch them headline a gig put on by local promoters Culture Is A Dare, along with Plantman, Ten Tigers and the Tumbledryer Babies.







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270: Phoenix FM Fundraiser: 3rd Rock Revolution and others, Brentwood Theatre

This was another fundraiser for Phoenix FM which starred 3rd Rock Revolution, Tall Dark Friend, Michelle Ward, Roz Ure, Edd Coates, Emma Sweeney and Ash Lewis - all local acts to Brentwood.



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269: Vile Electrodes and Weirdgear, Bar Lambs, Westcliff on Sea

Two electronic bands I've played a lot of before - Weirdgear are a local Essex band Vile Electrodes are from Hastings. The venue was a pretty small bar which had a good sound system - and lost its licence a few weeks later, so I'm not sure if it's even still there now!



Weirdgear are big on the analogue synth thing and the whole bundle sounds very techy.







Vile Electrodes look very scary but I've spoken to the singer, Anais, and they are actually very nice. Plus the music is great too, they should probably be moving on to bigger and better things eventually!

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268: Frank and Walters, Power of Dreams, Sultans of Ping, INEC, Killarney

I was pretty bored over Christmas, had a couple of days off and decided on impulse to fly over to Cork from Stansted and drive to Killarney (which I assumed couldn't be that far away) to catch three bands from the early 90s I loved. Franks and Sultans I'd seen many times before and I was looking forward to seeing POD for the first time.

I'd booked a random hotel in the town and was delighted to find that the venue not even next door - it was attached to the hotel! The INEC is the Irish National Exhibition Centre and the gig itself took place in the hotel ballroom, which was weird. There were tables set out in long rows, like a wedding banquet, which was even weirder. I stuck my head round the door at 7pm and assumed they were going to clear it all away - but they didn't.

Got speaking to one of the bands who I know quite well from going to gigs, and he said "why didn't you come to Cork or Dublin instead? We've sold out, 800 tickets in those places - and only sold 100 tickets here." Apparently Killarney is a redneck town or as close as you'll get to one in Ireland - if it's not country and western, people don't go to see bands. (None of that is meant as an insult, no matter how much opportunity for insulting there appears to be in it). In the end I think about 200 people wandered in so it wasn't too bad, although the room probably could have held five times as many if they took the tables out.

I wasn't bothered because I had a seat on a table near the front, although I was a bit purturbed at the stage times - Sultans 11pm, POD midnight and Franks 1am - I don't do gigs past midnight, not ever!

However I did my best, all three sets were great (about 45 minutes each), I did make it through to the end of the gig (Franks sounded great, definitely couldn't fall asleep on that) and I was in bed THREE MINUTES after the last song ended, beat that for a great night out!



Sammy and Niall from the Sultans of Ping



The Power Of Dreams



The Frank And Walters



The ballroom! I was pretty much sitting at the top end of one of the tables. Apart from about 15 minutes at the end, no one got up and danced, which was nice.

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267: Marc Almond, Cliffs Pavilion, Westcliff on Sea

It's been a full ten years since I saw Marc Almond live, and I think he'd had a bit of brain damage in the meantime. However this didn't stop him putting on a great show - he's still got a great voice - at the distinctly odd Cliffs Pavilion, where I had seen Sleeper play in 1998. There were no seats out then, but Marc Almond (and his fans) probably require lots of seating.



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266: Republica, Islington Academy, London

It came as a bolt out of the blue when I heard that Republica had reformed and would be playing their first London gig for many years. I arranged a radio interview so met Saffron before the show and also had a chat with Tim and some of the other band members.



The gig itself picked up where they left off in 2000 – the band still providing a very tight rock/electronic sound and Saffron’s vocals were as strong as ever. The crowd seemed happy to be there too and there were quite a few celebrities in the crowd. (Probably shouldn’t mention I was standing next to Samantha Fox when I took some of these photos ...)



As well as a large smattering from their two albums, Republica and Speed Ballads, there were two new songs – Suck Baby Suck and Christiana Obey, the latter of which may be coming out as a release soon.



Also supporting were half-Billericay/half-Brighton electronic duo TENEK who've also appeared on Phoenix FM in the past. It was great to finally catch them live and their material went down equally well with the crowd who seemed familiar with quite a few of the songs! Tenek mixed Republica’s reissue of Ready To Go earlier this year and will be collaborating on future projects with them too.



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265: The Pre New, Dublin Castle, Camden, London

For a short time in the late 90s and early 00s the music scene was enriched by the presence of Earl Brutus, a band named after an imaginary pub and featuring ex-members of the Jesus and Mary Chain, World of Twist and JoBoxers (good memory?)



The band fizzled out as easily as it formed but earlier this year former members Jim Fry, Gordon King, Stuart Boreman and Shinya “Shins” Hayashida got together and reformed as The Pre New, along with newcomers Laurence Bray, Stuart Wheldon and George Phillips. I managed to catch them live at the Dublin Castle in Camden, but before that got together with them for an extraordinarily relaxed time at the Spread Eagle across the road.



This was definitely one of the less structured and more enjoyable interviews that I’ve done for a long time – not least because I was in a very comfortable chair in a rather nice pub (that’s a familiar part of my life) but because Jim had all the time in the world to talk about the old days, the new days and all sorts of random stuff in between. And just like the Earl Brutus shows of old that I remember, Shins would frequently interrupt the interview with charming yet utterly puzzling random musings.



It was good to hear how an “unlistenable” single made it to number one and was played on national TV, what Shins watches on Youtube and why he’s suddenly picked up a Glaswegian accent, and what Jim really thought of Kenickie. (Now if we could just get them to reform too ...)



The show itself was a typically robust affair, with new songs such as the Pre New Anthem alongside old Earl Brutus songs Navyhead and Universal Plan, and an outing for old World of Twist number Sons Of The Stage (a song since horribly ruined by Oasis novely act Beady Eye). Support came from Cash For Cars, who gave us a slightly heavier and less-glammy rendition of the 1997 Earl Brutus single The SAS And The Glam That Goes With It, joined by Jim on joint vocals.



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264: Rose Elinor Dougall, Southend Village Green

This event's been running a few years but it was the first time I managed to get down there - it's a free festival held in Chalkwell Park. It wasn't a full-blown music festival but Rose Elinor Dougall was playing there and after seeing and meeting her at Latitude I decided to wander down to see her again. The stage was pretty impressive - I like the way it was constructed like some piece of modern wooden furniture, with a surreal backdrop of the River Thames, about three miles wide at this point with the Isle of Grain in the background.



I saw Phill Jupitus wandering around and I bumped into Jim Bob (Carter USM) backstage, was hoping to see his set later in the day but was called away on work-related stuff.







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263: Electio Pop launch party Kingmaker MMX, Bull and Gate, Kentish Town, London

This was a launch party for the Electio Pop compilation CD put out by Helen Llewellyn Product 19, or as I like to call her, Splinx.



This was most notable as being Kingmaker's first live show for 15 years, although they were rebadged as Kingmaker MMX for the occasion. Splinx had been trying for some time to get the whole band together but the original lead singer, Loz Hardy, had gone missing and still can't be found. However the band put together for the evening contained most of the original members, I'm told - my face recognition is poor on a good day - and who cares anyway because they knocked off six Kingmaker classics perfectly, finishing off with a second rendition of Armchair Anarchist for an encore.



The whole evening was pretty high calibre too, particularly Bozwood - with Ed Borrie on vocals they could have been an up-to-date version of his old band S*M*A*S*H.

Don't want to single anyone out really as I enjoyed the other three bands too, who were:



Abdoujaparov



David Cronenberg's Wife



Paul Hawkins and the Awkward Silences

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262: Offset Festival, Hainault Forest, Hainault, Essex

Bands seen: Invasion, Bo Ningen, Egyptian Hip Hop, Male Bonding, Kap Bambino, Comanechi, Good Shoes, Bridport Dagger, Art Brut, Thomas Tantrum, Mystery Jets, Pulled Apart By Horses, Not Cool, Chrome Hoof, Connan Mockasin, Fiction, These New Puritans

Meh. This is another Offset Festival, some great bands, but full of terrible poseurs. It's like Hoxton in the countryside.

Who was great this year? Art Brut are always good. Thomas Tantrum were surprisingly great. This is the third time I've seen them and they did nothing for me previously but they were really good this year. I was drawn in by Megan Thomas's vocals which sounded surprisingly like Louise Wener to me. Kap Bambino makes up in stage performance what their music lacks. It seems like one of the best bands was one I just missed - I would have loved to have seen Oh! Gunquit and their hula-hooping singer on stage.

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261: Reading Festival 2010, Reading

Bands watched: Gaggle, Luke Wright, The Eddie Argos Experience, New Young Pony Club, Egyptian Hip Hop, Lostprophets, Biffy Clyro, Delphic, Adam Green, Futureheads, Yuck, Mystery Jets, Chief, Cribs, Kids In Glass Houses, Dizzee Rascal, Libertines, Motion City Soundtrack, Goldheart Assembly, Joy Formidable, All Time Low, Los Campesinos!, Fools Gold, Angelos Epithemiou, Limp Bizkit, The Like, Cypress Hill

This was my 6th Reading Festival and my 8th Reading or Leeds in ten years, and it was one of the better ones. Wasn't tons of brilliant stuff (I'm getting jaded in my old age) but lots of good stuff. Friday morning started with two highlights for me, Gaggle and the Eddie Argos Experience (which was basically Art Brut under a different name and stripped down a bit). The Futureheads, The Joy Formidable and New Young Pony Club were as great as ever and I got to meet - among other people - JOHNNY MARR (!) and We Are Scientists who were really nice guys and just made you feel like you could hang out with them all day (although of course, I made my excuses and left after a reasonable time).

Keeping in with the spirit of the early 2000s I did look forward to seeing Limp Bizkit, who were surprisingly good - to my utter embarrassment I found myself mouthing all the words to Break Stuff, which made me feel rather childish. I did also look forward to seeing the Libertines, who turned out to be considerably less interesting than I had found them all those years ago. No surprise at all that the security in the guest area described Pete Doherty as the biggest arsehole they had to deal with all weekend, although perhaps surprisingly they singled out Fred Durst as the Official Nice Guy of the Festival - charming, polite and not demanding anything from anyone.



Ritzy - Joy Formidable



The Like



Gaggle



The Eddie Argos Experience

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260: Phoenix FM Unplugged: Tibetan Tea Company and others, Brentwood Theatre, Brentwood

This was a gig I put together pretty much at the last minute, and by last minute I think it was all sorted out in 24 hours. As a result I didn't bother to sell any tickets for it although we had a bit of a crowd through word of mouth, more than at some gigs I've sold tickets for!

It was meant to be acoustic although some of the bands brought more stuff than they should have but it all sounded good.



Bob Collum



Phillious Williams



Echelons



The Tibetan Tea Company



Paul Dorling

259: Latitude Festival 2010, Henham Park, Southwold

Bands seen: Aaron Wright, These Ghosts, Rose Elinor Dougall, Unthanks, Black Mountain, Alice Gold, Good Natured, Wild Beasts, Everything Everything, Boycott Monday, Standard Fare, James, Nedry, Tom Jones, Cevanne, Sweet Billy Pilgrim, Mumford and Sons, Jesca Hoop, Morning Parade, These New Puritans

This was my fourth year out of four at Latitude and I think the calibre of the acts is still on a slow decline.

But there were highlights. Said highlights for me included sets from Rose Elinor Dougall, Everything Everything, Cevanne, Nedry and These New Puritans, and also watching and meeting Sweet Billy Pilgrim, but mainly because they were so NICE (and of course because memories of that appearance on the IT Crowd are still fresh in my mind). I was also the only photographer in the press pit (for the MAIN STAGE!) when they were on. Next band - Mumford and Sons - about 60 people. Photowhores!

Biggest disappointment was Tom Jones, for whom everyone turned up at midday on Sunday, only to be treated to no banter, none of his hits and the whole of his pisspoor new album of verysubstandard blues songs. I only stomached a few songs, making the excellent move to catch Cevanne on the Lake Stage, but most people seemed to enjoy it. Is it because they're all too polite to be rude to a very old man?

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258: The Pre New, Lexington, King's Cross, London

I saw Earl Brutus for the first and last time in June 1998, when they supported Kenickie at the Electric Ballroom. It was a fantastic gig and I'll probably get round to writing about it on this website one day (or if I have done already, look it up!)

I waited a long time for news that they might get back together (it worked for the Sultans of Ping, after all) but when lead singer Nick Sanderson died in June 2008 it looked like that ship had sailed for good. So I was pretty amazed and delighted in equal measures when I heard that Jim Fry, Gordon King, Stuart Boreman and Shinya Hayashida had got back together to play old stuff and write new stuff under the "Pre New" name.

I was also surprised and disappointed in equal measures to see that Shinya had learned to play bass (albeit in an odd fully-vertical way), and didn't just stand on the stage and headbang and shout random abuse at people. He actually seemed like he was having a great time!

I did too, and so did the rest of the crowd. It was just one of those "so happy to be there" moments.

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257: Trash Monroe, Railway Hotel, Southend on Sea

This was a good but weird night out. I wasn't expecting too many people to be there because it clashed with the England v Algeria World Cup group stage match (world's worst match, 0-0). I watched most of this downstairs in the pub in an unfeasibly comfortable armchair on a massive projector screen, listening to commentary from BBC 5 Live which was 10 seconds ahead of the picture, so you knew what was going to happen every time.

Eventually wandered upstairs to the gig and the room was packed out by the end of it, maybe 60-70 people. Was good to see Death Of The Elephant live, Triptycon is one of my favourite songs by anyone this year. I lost about 2 seconds of video while I tampered with my new camera about a minute in, although the picture does suddenly become quite a bit brighter.

While fiddling about with the settings I also found out how to take "black and white and grainy" photos with ease. I feel like a real photographer now!

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