Mouse On Mars - 'Wipe That Sound'

It’s hard to think of a song that wouldn’t be enlivened by the presence of Mark E Smith. Perhaps he should have been asked to appear on Band Aid 20. He’d have pepped up that moribund tune, and certainly the video would have been more entertaining. (Not that I can see what all the fuss is about, mind. A bad version of a bad song is released, and no one has to buy it.)

So here comes MES collaborating with German electronicists Mouse on Mars, whose offerings I have always found rather cold. The results are, of course, a triumph, recalling Smith’s earlier and seminal collaboration with Coldcut back when Fall fans didn’t like dance music. Mark E witters on about lord know what to great effect while the keyboards do their thing. There are two versions here, one a thumping, squelching behemoth and the other, which I prefer, a lighter, dancier take. Both are tons better than anything on the latest, crushingly disappointing collection of unfinished odds and ends from the Fall, Interim. The MES numbers come on a four track 12” from Sonig records of Germany, and as was always going to be the case, the other two, one an instrumental, the other with some unnecessary rapper, sound lame by comparison. He hasn’t lost that mordant magic. Now let’s have another proper Fall LP, soon.

Piney Gir - 'Peakahokahoo'

This is already in danger of getting overplayed in our house. I have to resist the temptation to stick it on again and again. It sits enthroned atop the listening pile.

I knew little about this women until she supported the inevitable Broken Family Band at a ‘secret’ gig in a very strange location (the Department for Education and Skills Social Club!) a couple of weeks ago. BFB were as great as they always are of course, but I liked her too. She played, with a backing band, an all too short set of daft, cute, sleazy, keyboard-driven country-ish tunes, and I knew then I need to hear more.

She’s not scared to try to turn her hand to anything, this Piney. All kinds of things go on in here. One minute she’s Peaches, the next Suzi Quattro. A gorgeous country number, and my favourite, Greetings, Salutations, Goodbye, gives way to the dreamy nursery rhyme of K-I-S-S-I-N-G, which is followed in turn by Nightsong, a romantic, easy listening duet with the always puzzling Simple Kid. I’ll always fall for a song with whistling in it. Elsewhere, My Generation and Que Cera Cere lie trembling, assaulted. All kinds of different styles rub against each other and the result is good, dishevelled fun.

Her website’s here - www.pineygir.com - the LP’s on Truck Records - www.truckrecords.com - and clicking the link to buy online will take you to the Oxford Music shop - www.oxfordmusic.net.

65daysofstatic - 'The Fall of Math'

Do you know, this is brilliant. Perhaps you already do. Again, I suspect I was slow to pick up on this. I thought for once I might have been ahead of the pack, but when I mentioned to my friend Phil that I’d bought this record, his response was to yawn that he’d had it ages, and if I thought that was good, I really ought to hear some terribly obscure band whose name I forgot instantly. Hmph. As it happens, I saw this lot ages back, supporting someone else, and liked them, but the early records were on some label that produces 15 copies of a release no one ever can find, and until now they’d eluded me.

Anyway, as I said, this is great. Perhaps in the future all music will be like this. Or perhaps the end of the world will sound like this. 65daysofstatic (the only annoying thing is their spaceless name) are where you end up when you get past post rock. Impossible here not to mention the kings of this territory, the esteemed Mogwai, but 65dos seize the baton and run with it a bit further. Or rather, they sit down for a pint with dance and electronica and then decide it would be more fun to pour the pint over the equipment and see what it all sounds like. The tunes come encrusted with technology. These are the sounds machines make as they wheeze their last and expire. I like music that grabs my head and I like music that grabs my body. This does both.

This is one of the best records of the year, and if you don’t have it that makes you worryingly less cool than me. The LP is out on Monotreme Records - www.monotremerecords.com - and this one can’t be that hard to find because HMV in London sells it, or you can get it on their website. The new single, Retreat! Retreat!, is out too, taken from the LP, with two other great tracks. (I particularly love the major cities of the world are being destroyed one by one by the monsters, and not just for the title). The band’s website is www.65daysofstatic.com, and they’ll let you download some more tunes there as well. Off you go.

Bearsuit - 'Chargr'

I couldn’t understand the suggestion that came from some quarters after the awful loss of John Peel for the Undertones’ Teenage Kicks to be released, in the hope that it would make Christmas number one. To me, this missed the point of John Peel. It was about new sounds more than old, and chart placings were never a barometer of success. Far more appropriate would be if everyone went out and bought a copy of the new Bearsuit single. (Okay, apparently they only pressed 500, so we’d have to demand some more.) This is a fine example of a band I owe to Peel. Without him, it’s unlikely I’d ever heard of them, never mind having probably more of their records than is good for me in my music accumulation.

It would be fair to describe Bearsuit as an erratic band. They’re daft, whimsical souls. Live, they veer between brilliant and dreadful, and are not averse to finding percussive possibilities in pots and pans. On record, they think it’s boring if a song doesn’t change tune, speed and direction at least two or three times in a couple of minutes. It’s like they’ve got a million ideas in their heads and only a few songs to cram them into. Hey, it’s better than vice versa, and one thing you can never accuse them of is being bland. It just so happens that I think their first single, the irresistible Hey Charlie, Hey Chuck, was their best, and it’s also the simplest, most singalong thing they’ve done. Recent LP Cat Spectacular! was patchy, but I have some fondness for single Itsuko Got Married with its insane binary chanting, so maybe they’re a singles band.

And Chargr is great, perhaps their best since the immortal Hey Charlie. Inside it, chaos reigns. Two people appear to be having an argument in a factory, a man shouts at us, there’s a saccharine interlude – now I will always think of summer as ‘midriff season’- and then the whole things over before you know it with an urgent, abrupt ending. Best play it again, and again. The b-side’s a sort of Christmassy number, not their first. I’d quite like to spend Christmas round at Bearsuit’s house. I think it might be interesting.

The single is on 7” vinyl only – quite right too – from Fortuna Pop - www.fortunapop.com - or you can download an even scratchier sounding MP3 of it – no substitute for the real thing – from the Bearsuit website at www.bearsuit.co.uk. While there, download some other stuff, particularly the divine Hey Charlie, Hey Chuck.

The Flaming Stars - 'Named and Shamed'

What’s not to like about the Flaming Stars? They’re a proper garage band that play late night rock and roll music. This is music about having to much to drink, getting into a fight, crashing out and coming round somewhere unknown, about feeling you’re heroic or poetic when you’re just boozed up. This is a band that seems to be believe it’s better to have loved and lost than… pretty much anything really. It’s dark street corner music, unexpectedly hitting the pavement music, genuine down-in-the-tube-station-at-midnight music. It’s about dusting yourself down, lighting your last fag and going back out into the night. Truly, this is the music you’re supposed to use the description ‘urban’ for. That there’s a song on here called Spilled Your Pint says it all.

I saw them once, lured partly by a flyer that read: ‘Arrive drunk. Get drunker.’ This seemed sound advice, so I did, and they were wonderful. Over the years they’ve put out a fair few records, all with pulp fiction style covers and usually showing signs of weak resistance to a punning title (I always liked Bring Me The Rest Of Alfredo Garcia). The new one’s a classic example of what they do: instantly recognisable, filled with their usual dark poetry and low, rumbling music that’s somehow taut and loose at the same time. I suspect that if they were American and hung around with the White Stripes, or if they were a bit younger and were mates of the Libertines, you’d have this record by now.

The record is out on Vinyl Japan UK, a label I always liked the name of, and the band's website is here - www.oslater.demon.co.uk.

Sons and Daughters - 'Love the Cup'

Not for the first time, I was a bit slow in finding out about this. I should have just trusted the label. Domino is the nearest thing we have right now to a record label that can automatically be trusted. Like Chemikal Underground in its glory days, if you see the Domino logo while browsing the racks, you can assume your pennies are going to be spent wisely.

Sons and Daughters once again prove this rule of thumb to be a wise one with their mini LP/CD Love the Cup. This band is an intriguing mix of choice ingredients. They’re big city hicks, country cow-punks. In here is folk and jangle, rhythm, the occasional need to howl, and a bit of Americana. All the songs come tinged with melancholy. Oh, and they understand a chorus alright. It’s a compelling blend – and all this in seven songs! Like so many of the great groups, they have two singers, one female, one male, who share duties and sometimes coincide, and as it happens I’m going to eschew the predictable Delgados comparison. But bands like this only ever come from Scotland, don’t they? The single Johnny Cash was my way in to the band, and it’s still my favourite of theirs. It lives up to its title, and that’s praise. Broken Bones is my next most-loved tune. Ah, now I want to listen to it again. I think they might just be my newest favourite band.

As this is on Domino, you can find it in shops. The band’s website is www.sonsanddaughtersloveyou.co.uk, and the feeling’s mutual.

Half Man Half Biscuit - Peel Session

Here's a new favourite thing from an old and much loved favourite thing. I'm always a bit suspicious of people who say they like music but don't love Half Man Half Biscuit. I realise that in these fickle times the only bands less fashionable than HMHB are Baccara and Sailor, and to buy one of their records in a central London shop is a sure way of inviting the smirks of those who work behind the counter and somehow think they're cool, but really, so what? HMHB occupy a unique position in British music as observers of the minutiae of life and deflators of celebrity egos. They're probably still best known for their early records, those raucous assaults on the not so great and good, but over the years they've become subtle and wry. They are the greatest English folk band.

Ah, I could write reams about HMHB, and perhaps one day I will, but to the matter in hand. Their latest Peel session - recorded before the great man's death, but alas something he never had the pleasure of hearing - is well up to the mark. I'm not quite sure what my favourite song is, but I think I've got it down to a shortlist of three of the four. I know it isn't the standard chug-a-long of Joy Division Oven Gloves, although even that's filled with lines to make you smile. At first I thought my favourite was Asparagus Next Left, a dark fantasy about what those roadside signs to pick your own vegetables lead to. Then I more or less decided on For What Is Chatteris?, possibly the closest HMHB have got to a love song ('for what is Chatteris without you there?'). But at the moment, I think it's Epiphany, a creepy tale that leads to a lunatic's song delivered with gusto.

Truly, they are a band without compare. They have a trainspotterish website - www.hmhb.co.uk - which unpicks the many references in their songs, and handily archives recent sessions for the Peel and Kershaw programmes. The recent Kershaw one's pretty good, too. In fact they're all great. Go there, download them, and if you don't have an MP3 player, you should buy one just so you can listen to these.

The Barbs - 'Massive Crush'

"She killed her parents. I left mine a note."

Looking at the website of their record label, Mother Tongue records of Tuvalu – http://www.mothertongue.tv/ – this has been out before. Seems it was first released in August 2003. Well, I missed it then (it must have been one of those spells last year when work forced me to labour hellishly hard in hot, exciting places). I’d remember this, because it's is the sort of tune I’ll always fall for: loud, quick and built around an irresistible shout-a-long chorus. A boy and girl swap lines about the usual teen rebellion fantasy of getting into a car, leaving all behind and setting off who knows there, and a dirty guitar does the rest. I bracket this with other dark gems like the Hells' He's The Devil But I Love Him So and Ciccone's Leggit, It's The Rozzers, which is intended as high praise. Only young people can make this music. I don't even know if, as a fat mid 30s bloke, I'm allowed to like it, but I know that while there's breath in my body, records like this are going to get me every time.

You can download more from their website at www.thebarbs.co.uk, but I confess I've not listened to the other stuff yet. I kind of don't want to spoil this one right now. The only things to object to are the horrific cover art and the fact that this is apparently only available as a CD. It would be a perfect 7" single. But in whatever format, you can't live without this. I fully intend to love it for a fortnight and then grow tired of it, leave it on the shelves for a few years and then dig it up at some point in the future and love it all over again.

Sarandon - 'The Miniest Album'

In the mid 80s there flourished briefly a self-styled ‘cubist pop’ movement. It was headed by Big Flame, and there were also the Mackenzies and forgotten others recalled only on inlay cards of dusty, buried Peel tapes. I was a fan of this unmusical kind of music, all sharp and pointy with notes in unexpected places. I recall this now on listening to a new record by a band called Sarandon, about whom I know nothing. It seems to follow in this tradition. Are we ready for a cubist pop revival? Well, why not? We’ve had far less deserving ones. We live, after all, in a world where kids consider Franz Ferdinand truly astonishing because they’ve never heard Josef K.

There’s something about this 7” single which appeals. Brief, angular songs jerk into life and then quickly expire. I have a special fondness for short songs. The singer reminds me of the bloke out of another treasured mid 80s band, the Wolfhounds, with that slightly sour edge to his voice. I probably make this sound more retro than it is, for good songs are good songs in any day, and I’m glad someone is out there doing this. It’s aptly named as the Miniest Album. You get seven songs, one per inch, which appeals to my northern parsimony. Value for money, and a pile of songs that are no longer than they need to be. Who could resist?

You can do what I did and buy the record directly from their website - www.kabukikore.net/sarandon - via PayPal for three quid – just think, in Big Flame’s day you used to have to send off cheques and SAEs to get things. While there, you can also download a couple of MP3s, if that’s what grabs you, although that isn’t nearly as exciting as getting a good 7” single through the post.

The Schneider TM Experience - 'Psychedelic Queen'

I picked this up in Jumbo Records, Leeds, strolling about killing time before the train home after Leeds 1 Burnley 2. It turned out to be fortuitous diversion, and a fitting coda to a fine evening. As well as this, I dug up a great raw garage 7” where the Little Killers get heartily stuck into some Rolling Stones tune – I may come back to this – and the essential latest (and, sadly, final?) instalment in Dave Godin’s Deep Soul Treasures series, Volume Four.

But just how good is this record? I played the b side, Uh Yeah, Baby, by mistake first. It’s basically noise. Okay, I think I’ve come to like it, but first instinct was something had gone wrong with the pressing. Turn it over and a gem of gems is revealed in the form of Psychedelic Queen, a ludicrous and exuberant cover version of, erm, Don’t Stop Me Now by Queen. Actually, it’s probably one of Queen’s best songs (hey, when the competition is Radio Ga-Ga and Fat Bottomed Girls, there’s praise). Schneider TM’s version is noisy, scuzzy and, I suspect, utterly sincere. This right now is the record that can’t fail to pick me up. One blast of its mad energy, and the broadest smile breaks the sourest day. And christ knows there are enough of those at the moment.

Apparently there are 300 of these on Earsugar Jukebox - www.earsugar.com. Schneider TM's website is here - www.schneidertm.com. Download their great version of There Is A Light That Never Goes Out while you're around.

John Peel

I feel like a musical orphan. My musical godfather has died. John Peel was my teacher and my guide. He made me understand music. He gave this callow indie kid an understanding and love, for example, of reggae and soul. More than this, he taught me that it isn’t genres that matter; it’s whatever makes a good noise, whatever gets you going, and it doesn’t matter what it is or where it comes from. He took me on an adventure, opening my ears to things that were amazing. He made me feel that an obsession with music wasn’t a waste of time, but rather a positive, affirming and even central and indispensable part of life. He showed us by example that a love of music isn’t something that has to stop once you leave your teens. I owe a huge chunk of my record collection to John Peel. All my favourite bands come from John Peel.

I feel now, with his shocking, sudden death, abandoned on this journey without my guide. I feel for his family and those who knew him, of course. His death has come far, far too early. This crazy ride was not supposed to end so soon. He should have still been playing records for years to come. I took for granted that there would be many more times when I’d be able to turn on the radio and be confronted by something surprising, something brilliant, sometimes something unbelievably irritating. Then part of me thinks that at least he went out while his talents and influence were undiminished. He was loved by many, achieved an impression that will not fade, and went quickly. It’s not a bad life, all told. Ideally, he should have died one night after playing one final record, naturally a track from the latest Fall LP, at one in the morning. But at least we won’t have the years of struggle to avoid marginalisation by a radio station that increasingly seems to have lost its enthusiasm for music before the inevitable semi-retirement to Radio 2 or some digital ghetto.

I’m surprised at how I reacted to this news. Stranded on a work trip to Singapore, from out of the blue came a text message from a music-loving friend. I’ve spent days since crying, struggling on and them washed by waves of sadness, listening to records I owe to Peel, reading the coverage, restless, unable to concentrate, lacking in appetite for anything much. I have all the symptoms of bereavement, as though John Peel was a member of my family. No death of any public figure has ever affected me this way. I’ve always been suspicious of shows of public mourning for famous figures. But dammit, I do feel like I knew Peel. For 20 years he’s been coming into my room, wherever those rooms have been – my bedroom in my parent’s house, various student rooms and latterly the living room of my 30-something mortgaged, married existence. John Peel’s been an enduring presence. I’ve followed him around the schedules, as different regimes have seen his presence ebb and flow, occasionally drifting off during one of those weird times when I fall out of love with music, always coming back when the latest thing ensnares me. So this sense of loss is a powerful one. I simply can’t believe that I’m going to turn the radio on at 11 o’clock on a Tuesday night and John Peel isn’t going to be there to send me in another unexpected direction. I have tapes – and can you imagine there will ever be another music show that you feel you will have to tape and listen to again? – but it’s hard to think there’s going to be no more.

My reaction is, partly, selfish. What on earth are we going to do without him? Who, now, will dedicate themselves to the task of unearthing those things we really ought to hear but which no one else is playing? How are we going to discover the new and unexpected now? There are other radio shows, but who else has the utter disregard for fashion and the breadth and range of John Peel? And who else can make the trick of talking between the records all part of the pleasure and not a maddening interruption?

Many of the tributes were nostalgic. Many were the mentions of listening to transistor radios under the bed clothes and discovering punk rock. I found myself feeling sceptical about whether many of the celebrities who chipped in have listened to the show since making it big. For me, John Peel wasn’t some teen memory. He was the person I was expecting to listen to next week. And many of the tributes focussed on the bands, often giving examples of really quite uninteresting ones, who made it big after being picked up by Peel. This missed the point. It was never about trying to discover bands who would become superstars and elevate them to fame. It was just about trying to find and play good records that deserved to be heard. The measure of Peel’s success isn’t in the fact that the Smiths or the Strokes ending up selling loads of records, but in all the obscure tunes by bands you never heard of again that found a place in someone’s heart.

I am very nervous about the future of music now. I can’t help but think that all my favourite bands of the moment I heard of through Peel. I wonder now how bands like the Broken Family Band and Herman Dune, Ballboy and Bearsuit, are going to get their records heard. Are bands like these, are even bands like the Fall, going to disappear from our radios? At least for these bands, I know of them, so if I see their records in a shop I’ll buy them, and if I see they’re playing live, I can go. But what about the next generation of bands? How are we going to find out about them? Who’s going to play that demo tape, or pick up that first single? If you’re starting a band now, things have just got that much harder. This is much, much worse than the death of a musician. If the singer in your favourite band dies, there are lots of other bands to follow, and doubtless a steady, posthumous flow from the archives to keep you going. John Peel cannot be replaced, and I doubt anyone will even attempt to fill the hole he has left.

I do think it’s daft to talk about statues, or releasing old records in tribute. Sure, Radio 1 should commit to playing a wide range of new music in that gap left in the schedules. And of course Peel’s extraordinary record collection should be kept intact and in this country – surely that’s why you have a National Lottery. But John Peel’s legacy should be that we continue to take a passionate interest in music, that we commit to seek out new sounds, and that we promise to keep listening to music in a spirit of eclecticism and curiosity. That would be a true tribute to a great man.

Ikara Colt

Ikara Colt at the Garage, 11 June 2004

Has anyone really ever thoroughly enjoyed themselves in the Garage at Highbury Corner, surely one of London’s worse music venues? It’s a gloomy, dark, low ceilinged place, hard to get in and out of, and with a bar that’s bad even by music venue standards. It takes a special band to transcend these surroundings. Either that or incredible drunkenness, which must have been the reason I found the Detroit Cobras so enjoyable after the anti-war march last year. Some excellent performers – and those as diverse as Mclusky, Dick Dale and the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs – didn’t impress here as much as they did elsewhere.

So could Ikara Colt beat the bad vibes of this dump? Err, no, to be honest. It was… alright, but that sounds a little like faint praise. There are worse things than okay, but it isn’t the pursuit of the adequate that drives us out of homes in the evening, is it? The band weren’t bad and I think I had a good time, but I was messily, teenagedly excited about this lot at one time, and it doesn’t seem quite to have worked out.

I’m beginning to conclude they’re a singles band. Those urgent, fast, early singles like Sink Venice and One Note spoke of great promise and they still stand up, but I’m not sure now if they’re not getting a bit slick these days. The Fall influences are there to hear, but part of the magic and success of the Fall is that if anyone ever got too musicianly they were out on their arse. Perhaps Ikara Colt shouldn’t have learned to play their instruments. Or perhaps they should only put out singles. The problem with listening to them play a lot of songs is that you realise a lot of the songs sound the same. And amongst them, the best ones are the old ones, and the ones that don’t sound the same are new, slower and far less interesting ones.

I’m suspicious of this surface sheen these days as well – the new album is beautifully packaged, but sits as yet unplayed on the listening pile, regarded with suspicion. All their things look good. Or perhaps I’m tired of the almost daily e-mails I get from their news service encouraging me to buy the multi-formatted, limited edition releases early and often. Does everything have to be bloody marketed?

Oh, and the audience were a bunch of wankers – but is this even worth recording in the context of a London gig? You know when you take half a step back to let someone get past you and they suddenly decide that the space made available immediately in front of you is an attractive place to hang out so they need walk no further? When someone does this and then undertakes a bizarre backwards chicken dance that repeatedly propels their elbows into your over-sized stomach, it’s a little harder to enjoy the music. One day, when I stop going to gigs, it won’t be because of the music – it will be because of the people.

Support band was Your Codename Is Milo but I’ve seen them before and they were dismal, so I was able to put in some valuable pub time.

The Libertines

The Libertines
Brixton Academy, Friday 5 March

This was an enjoyable shambles.

When it comes to the Libertines, ‘shambles’ is not a criticism. It’s what they do. Chaos is what they’re best at. That meant they’re a band always worth seeing. You never know quite what you’re going to get, and surely unpredictability is part of what drives people to see live music? For example, I hated the Kills when I saw them last year, because they played along to a backing tape. We knew exactly what we were going to get. Even in an encore, there could be no spontaneity. Whereas with the Libertines, they teeter always on the brink of collapse.

I know I’m not supposed to like them. I look down on bands hyped in the pages of NME and similar comics. I am suspicious of them. I tried not to like this lot, but in the end what can you do? If you like the noise a band makes, what else matters? Up the Bracket is a great LP, filled with excitement and enthusiasm, a true debut album where there’s a clatter of a thousand ideas, a rush to say everything you want to say at once and an absence of insulating gloss. It’s a record to grasp immediately and then cherish for a long time. So what can I say? I gave in.

And I’d always go and see them live because they play on the edge. Anything might happen. This is a band that fundamentally doesn’t make sense. Two front men almost compete for your attention. They often share the same microphone, and seem on the point of kissing, or fighting, or both. Yet the drummer holds it all together. So frequently they look back and take their cue from him. You only feel sorry for the bassist. He’s the only one who still has his shirt on at the end.

When I saw them at the Kentish Town Forum at the end of last year they struck me as surprisingly tight. Not so this night. They are all over the shop. They play the songs too fast. Often, they get so excited, get caught in the wrong space, that they forget to sing. Microphone stands never stand for long. This means you don’t hear the songs at their best. Cherished lines are thrown away, favourites are clattered through at top speed, but by god it’s fun. I’m an old grump who always gets seats when available, but as soon as the band come on every single person stands up and stays standing.

They play everything on the LP and new songs that sound like the old songs. They play all their best songs too early and by the end it feels a bit stretched because they’ve forgotten to finish with some crowd pleasers. The lights go on without an encore but really there’s nothing left to play. They got to the end of the night without self-destruction, and people seem mildly disappointed.

They will not be around forever this band. See them while you can.

The Broken Family Band

The Broken Family Band and Garlic, the 100 Club, Thursday 12 February

I begin to approach the point of obsession with this band.

Still, that's the great thing about music, isn't it? You ride the wave of your enthusiasm. You go and see a band again and again. You hunt down their records. Then someone else comes along. This time next year, you've got yourself a different favourite band.

At the moment, it's this daft, English, indie country outfit for me. I love the Broken Family Band. Even better, this was the first time I have seen them as a headlining band. Previously they've been in support slots, and suffered that middle of the bill fate of being squeezed between a slack early outfit and the need to give the main band a decent run before the curfew. This gave them room to breath and the confidence that comes from knowing people have paid just to see you. They stretched out and enjoyed that space, playing a wider range of songs than I'd seen them play before: by now firm favourites from Cold Water Songs, older songs from the King Will Build a Disco and new ones from the forthcoming and excellent Jesus Songs.

Before that we had support band Garlic. Rubbish name, decent band. I'd got one or two of their records but hadn't seen them live before. Americana, underpinned by tremendous pedal steel guitar playing from a man who didn't look like he was with the rest of the band. I shall seek out their records.

Of course we were all waiting for the hip, chart-topping sounds of the Broken Family Band. The singer appeared to have brought his dad with him, which was nice. Sitting at the side of the stage, I could see things I hadn't noticed before. Previously I'd seen them head on the Water Rats, and you notice the charismatic singer and his burly henchman on acoustic guitar. There's more to them than that. The drummer and bassist are great too. They keep it all going.

You can't help but smile at the words, you can't help but tap you feet to the tunes and you can't help but watch the singer, who has buckets full of stage presence. You emerge from a Broken Family Band gig happy, and ready to see them again. Particularly good on this night were two of my favourites, the lovely Queen of the Sea and the scary Twelve Eyes of Evil. Because they were headlining they could save their two best known songs for last, so we finished with a rip-roaring Don't Leave That Woman Unattended and I Don't Have The Time To Mess Around. As an ending, it could not be bettered.

I love the 100 Club as well. It's the perfect venue, and shows most indie shitholes up for the toilets they are. It's slap bang in central London, the staff are civilised, you can sit down, you can get a drink without being ignored for ten minutes first and when you get that drink you can get a proper pint of beer in a glass instead of a can of something dubious and expensive with something plastic to drink it in. I recall the days when I pretty much lived in the Duchess of York in Leeds and if the bands were rubbish at least you could drink the beer. The 100 Club's true act of genius is to have the stage down the long side of the room rather than at the end. In so many indie venues the stage is at the end of the room and you all stand together in a sort of corridor trying to get a glimpse of the band. Here, the people who want to get down the front can while miserable gets like me can sit round the side, listen to the music and watch the band. Can't understand why everywhere isn't like this, and it shows what low standards we usually accept. Shame they normally get ropy bands on, mind.

For once, though, it had all come together. It was the perfect band for the perfect venue. We left exhilarated. And to nurture that obsession, I've already bought tickets to see the Broken Family Band again in March.

The White Stripes

Review - The White Stripes, Alexandra Palace, Wednesday 21 January

Welcome to the world of showbiz.

To be fair, this could have been terrible. In some ways, we expected it to be. It's possible The White Stripes have got big past the point where they still make sense. Really a band like this should be playing every pub venue up and down the land. They should be a revered cult, the kind of band you follow passionately, a badge band the love of which proves you're in the company of someone as nuts about music as you. They shouldn't be on the front page of newspapers, number one in the album charts for weeks on end or instantly selling out multi-thousand venues. That stretches an admittedly thin proposition past a dangerous point. It's tempting to think they've passed their best. Elephant was not the masterpiece the hype promised. Inside that beast there was a really good 10 track LP straining to get out, but if you ask me – not that you did – they’ve never bettered De Stijl.

Yet, despite that, this was an enjoyable night. However big they get, I guess they’ll always be worth seeing. Despite the size of the gig, and the way you felt you were being processed as you waited in one of those queues that wraps around itself while being shouted at about all the things you’re not allowed to do, and despite the office party atmosphere that for once saw that I wasn’t the sole person in a shirt and tie, this was as intimate as any experience you share with several thousand people can be. Huge though the venue was, the White Stripes made an admirable lack of concessions in their act. There was no big backdrop, no big video screens. It was still just the two of them, in their funny clothes, on stage, Meg bashing the drums, Jack treading on a thousand pedals to extract an extraordinary range of sounds from his guitar, at times forgetting there's anyone else there.

There were many highlights. Hotel Yorba still does it for me every time. I’m a grinning, swaying sentimentalist all over again. To follow that with Seven Nation Army, a single so simple it’s genius, almost feels like they’re spoiling us. The other great songs from Elephant, Black Math and The Hardest Button To Button, were out there too, rubbing shoulders with cast iron, ipodded classics like I Think I Smell A Rat and the singalong reclamation of Boll Weevil. Alright, with The White Stripes you’ll always get your duff moments. In The Cold, Cold Night is sweet and gets a cheer, but of course Meg can’t sing, and does anyone need to hear I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself ever again? (But then as a country neophyte I love Jolene, so there they made me happy.) And there is the showbizzy stuff, the ‘we love you, you’re a great audience’ cobblers, and Jack’s ill-advised digressions into Dick Van Dyke territory (Shine on Harvest Moon, for pity’s sake).

But forgive them these excesses. They’re part of what they are. What we have is a good band, perhaps a great band, who have recorded lots of wonderful songs and a few duds. They’re selling records, they’re on your radio, but still they’re just doing what they’ve always done. I’m glad they’re out there and going strong, turning up in unlikely places like Alexandra Palace.

Nice venue, too. Although there were thousands it never felt crowded, and there was ample space at the back to get a drink or something to eat or just avoid the dire support band. I felt embarrassed that I’d never been up to Alexandra Palace. It felt like we were above all of London, and I’d love to have seen it when it was light. I left resolving to go back for a walk and a couple of pints one Sunday. I’d still go and see The White Stripes again too, given the chance. They haven’t blown it yet.

The Projects

Track and Field Winter Sprinter Night Three – Kicker, James William Hindle, The Loves and The Projects, King’s Cross Water Rats, Friday 9 January

We’d miss it when it was gone. Here was the last night, day three and final of the Track and Field Winter Sprinter series. I'm aware that for students and young people, going out three nights running is hardly remarkable, but for people who have to get up the next morning, I find it pretty impressive. I've never been one for festivals - I will not camp, I don't like mud and I do not share my toilet with thousands of others - so you could say this was an ideal festival - four bands a night and your own bed and bog to go back to. I arrived drunker than the last two nights, having picked up my brother, down from Brum for the football - another very full day ahead on the Saturday - and made my way to the venue by the simple method of not walking past any pub en route.

The idea - the way I'd sold it to my brother - was to see Tompaulin, a band he likes but one of those I can't make my mind up about. Alas, they'd had to cancel due to a bereavement - one of those things that can't be helped, and hats off to Track and Field for e-mailing everyone and giving us all a couple of quid back on the door.

Ah, there were the familiar faces we had come to know over the last few nights. There was intense looking man with beard. There was the person of indeterminate sex reading a book about real murders. And there were the cliquey groups who'd come along purely so they could gather together and maintain a constant conversation.

As my brother grabbed armfuls of 7” singles I tried to work out who the band was. Wasn’t impressed at their tuneless thrashings around, so I was surprised when it turned out to be Kicker. I’d seen them before and thought them good, in a sub-Stereolab / Broadcast / Saloon kind of way. Sure they’d had a women singer. Turned out they did and she wasn’t there, so they were gamely pressing ahead with one of the blokes from the band filling in. Marks for carrying on regardless, but it wasn’t quite the same.

Returning from Wednesday night to fill the gap was the man with too many names, James William Hindle, or is it William James, whose quiet, dare-we-call-this-folk songs struggled against the nosier Friday night crowd. Again, opinion was divided, but I came down on his side of the fence.

I knew I’d enjoy The Loves. They live in the 1960s and make ramshackle two minute tunes with bubblegum choruses. Most of them contain the word ‘love’. I’d seen them before and in my memory (I might have remembered this wrong) they were all wearing uniforms, whereas this night they were disappointingly drably dressed. Apart from that, my heart was genuinely warmed. I don’t want to live in a world where these kind of pointless, never-going-to-make-it bands don’t exist.

With The Projects stepping up to fill the Tompaulin-sized hole it meant that for the third night running I hadn’t heard of the headliners. I was now quite drunk and very hungry, so ready for any excuse to leave and sink into the usual seat at the legendary King’s Cross Tandoori, but I had to stick around and delay my date with a dansak because, hey, the Projects were any good. They came, I suppose, out of that same Stereolab / etc. (see above) school but they did it with style, with rhythm and even with tunes. The woman singer was excellent, the drums and keyboards insistent, and you have to find a word to describe the guitars that isn’t angular. They managed to do what the last bands hadn’t done on the nights before and made me stay to the end. Memo to self: track down any Projects records.

Right, curry time.

The Broken Family Band

Track and Field Winter Sprinter Night Two – The Broken Family Band, Finishing School, Homescience and the Ladybug Transistor, King’s Cross Water Rats, Thursday 8 January

So here we were again. Night two. More or less the same pubs in the same scuzzy part of London. Again, that need to get to the venue earlier than you’d like because the band you really want to see isn’t the main one. This makes me think I like unpopular music, but that isn’t by choice. I never set out to like music that is wilfully obscure, in the same way that I never decided to support a football team which will never win things – but that’s the way it’s apparently come to be. Anyway, bands and venues don’t keep time like people who have to work for a living do, so we got there before anything much was happening. Having spent over 80 quid on music of varying quality the day before, I resolved at all times to keep my gaze averted from the table with the records on it.

First two bands were Finishing School, who I liked, and Homescience, who I didn’t. Homescience were a wimpy bloke band while Finishing School where one of those nice, melodic girl bands who are pleasant enough to listen to without necessarily being the sort of thing you’ll get excited about. One of the women out of this was also in the Essex Green the night before. How many bands does any one person need to be in?

Both went on a bit long, as I was there, waiting with less than perfect patience, to see the Broken Family Band, with whom I am in danger of developing an obsession. I always say that The Fall are my favourite all time band, and then I allow myself at least one current new favourite band. At the moment, it’s the Broken Family Band. Yet nothing about them makes sense. They’re a country band. From Cambridge. Cambridge, England. It took me a bit of persistence to like them. First response was that I don’t like country music. But the songs got to me. I bought their LP Cold Water Songs last year. First time I played it I thought I might have got this wrong. The first track made no concessions to those wary of country. They even had American accents. But somehow I grew to love it. It stayed in my head, and I played that record again and again and again. Now I’m forced to admit something I resisted: I really do like country music. Perhaps this is a sign of getting older. Certainly no one under thirty should admit to liking country. Now, not only have I hoovered up every Broken Family Band record I can find, but I’ve also got a fistful of Johnny Cash CDs and the recent and wonderful Rough Trade Shops Country compilation. This looks like the start of an enthralling journey. And isn’t that one of the wonderful things about music? Who’d have thought a teenage Smiths obsessive would end up here?

I saw the BFB alongside Herman Dune last year and they were wonderful. The records don’t quite capture how good they are live. The singer’s a little chap but he brims with charisma and menace and commands the stage. It helps that he has an extraordinary voice that covers high and low, quiet and loud, sad and funny and all points in between – sometimes in the same song. Aiding and abetting is a moustachioed hulk on bass and other things. They might have started as a joke, but they’re far too good to be treated as one now. Of course the set was frustratingly short – squeezed as they were in that insidious spot between the main band and the earlier bands who’d overstayed – but very sweet. I Don’t Have the Time to Mess Around and Don’t Leave That Women Unattended were particular thrills, but then they always will be. Encouragingly, the audience loved it, and before you knew it, they were gone. I needed at least an hour more.

For the second night running the best band had been on in the wrong place. Again, we might as well stick around and hear the supposed headliners, who couldn’t hope to match this. Don’t know anything about the Ladybug Transistor, apart from that this is no name for a band. What allusion am I missing? They were adequate. But surely that was the same guitarist from the Essex Green leaving his Byrdsian fingerprints all over the place? How incestuous is this? Anyway, I thought the singers were interesting and it was perfectly alright, but it couldn’t help but feel anticlimactic.

Bed was calling, and I answered.

Herman Dune

Track and Field Winter Sprinter Night One – Herman Dune, James William Hindle, St Thomas and the Essex Green, King’s Cross Water Rats, Wednesday 7 January

Three gigs in three nights in the grim first week back at work after the holidays. It seemed like a good idea at the time, the time being before Christmas when I booked the tickets, thinking it would be good to have something to look forward to in the New Year. Of course, what I forget is how desperate those early weeks of the year are. I feel like I’m operating at the bottom of the sea. Thick soup fills my head. Just getting to the end of the month alive feels like an achievement. And all I want to do at the end of the working day is trudge home and vegetate.

I’m a lazy bastard and I have a blackbelt in procrastination. That’s why we always have to buy tickets in advance. Good intentions to pay on the door dissolve in the acid of another bad working day. Possession of a paid for ticket appeals to the skinflint in me. I’ve spent the money, so I’d better go. So we went, via a couple of disappointing pubs, arriving early because you have to when the band you really want to see is only one of the support bands. It was irritatingly busy, but at least beer was available.

First on was some bloke called James William Hindle, which is one more name than strictly necessary. It was just him and his guitar singing quiet, gentle tunes. I thought he was alright, but Nic said the words were naff. Then it was St Thomas, apparently a Norwegian group, which explained the presence of a number of enthusiastic Scandinavians behind us. They tried hard and they meant well, but they took themselves rather seriously, and I have little tolerance for bands who explain their songs in the gaps between then. Stop talking and play another song. (The Flaming Lips last year were great for the 50% of the time they didn’t spend talking.) I liked them a little at first but grew tired. Apparently I missed the singer talking in all seriousness of his battle to lose weight. I’d been busy spending too much money on records at the time. I like gigs where you can buy records, and somehow it doesn’t count as much as buying records in shops. Standards are lowered. I have a pile of gig purchases where beer and a live environment have made me think a band’s better than it is. So I filled my boots with Track and Field CDs, something by the first singer and a St Thomas 7” which of course turned out to be dreadful. Forty odd quid spent – not bad for a time of year when the aim is not to spend money.

Next up were the band I’d came to see. Dismissed in half a sentence in the Guardian’s predictable review they might have been, but I’ve decided to love Herman Dune. It took seeing them live last year to convert me – a great Track and Field night with Kicker, the Broken Family Band and Camera Obscura. Before then, they’d always been a sort of second division band to me, but that night the warmth, affection and obvious love for what they do had won me over. You could call what they play folk music. It’s simple, emotional and beautiful. True, they’re pretty horrible looking people – the first time I saw them I wondered who on earth were those two bearded, greasy blokes in baseball caps cheering the other bands, and then they wandered on stage and started playing – but in their heads they’re gorgeous, travelling troubadours.

It was a short and lovely set. They obviously have many songs, as there were few I recognised from last time or the excellent Mas Cambios LP, and they’d acquired a largely superfluous woman singer somewhere on their travels. Best bit was a couple of songs in the middle accompanied solely by a ukulele and for the most part without even a microphone, which even achieved the near miracle of making a London crowd almost silent. They’d gone before you knew it – why weren’t they top of the bill?

Might as well hang around to see the headliners, the Essex Green, about whom I knew nothing. The crowd, at its peak for Herman Dune, thinned rapidly, making it clear what the main attraction was. The headliners were… okay. Thought they were pretty good at the start, but evidently those were their best songs, and I grew tired of the inevitable sub-Byrdsian guitar that just had to crash into the middle of every single song. At some point the thought of getting home before midnight became appealing, so we left before they’d finished. On the way out of course I had to stop and buy one of every available home-recorded CD of a Herman Dune side project, and, as you do when you’re half pissed, tell one of the band that I think they’re great and I love them.

So that was eighty odd quid spent on records, more than a few pints and renewed acquaintance with one of my favourite bands. Not bad, and there were still two nights to go