Le Couteau Jaune/Melviß Tibet/Team Brick/Sputniko!/Real Feel - Korsan Bar 28/08/08

Melviß Tibet lives upstairs in my house but today she was on the floor in the Korsan bar playing a guitar through some cymbals with a friend, Helen (maybe not called Helen but I just don't know). Eking subtle twangs from their unorthodoxly amplified instruments, they soundtracked a dingy mindset under the roar of rude conversation at the bar, to a select audience of three hooded cult members sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the left amp. I watched from the side and slightly feared for their wellbeing. But in the end, nobody was hurt.

Mr Brick was up next, a one man team machine fueled on caffeine and nicotine. He sang well, played the guitar badly and sporadically made rackets the likes of which would have Roger Federer saying 'there's been a misunderstanding, this is a different type of racket to the one I need. Look it up'. I doubt Monsieur Bricko cares though, as by the end of his set he's off in Morocco charming snakes. The snake was all GET A HAIRCUT. And Brick is like thanks very much, good night.

Then who was it? Oh yeah Real Feel. They were essentially boring with short flashes of hmmmm maybe and extended sections of naah. Very school. Miklos of super-psycho-hyper-surfers Agaskodo Teliverek joined them afterwards for a birthday jam session which came out more like chutney but at least it had some taste to it, even if it was a bit onions.

Sputniko! was a lot easier on the eye than the ear but then garish bleeping jumping up and down ffwding j-pop isn't my thing. I think her equipment ate too many Smarties.

Then I saw Le Couteau Jaune dressing up like heroin parrots. I didn't watch them play but I've seen them before and that's why. Very, very, Shoreditch.

Howlin Rain/Magik Markers/Mothlite - Corsica Studios 15/08/08

Mothlite are bits of other bands, good bands like Guapo and Chrome Hoof, but they were only good fifty percent of the time, mainly just when they sounded like Guapo. The rest of the time it was just whiny vocals and wanky attitudes. Alex Tucker was on backing vocals. Beard.

The last time I remember seeing Magik Markers was at the Luminaire ages ago, I think they played with Lightning Bolt or something, anyway, there was a bunch of them then and they were oh-kay. This time they were playing all stripped down to just Pete Nolan on drums and Elisa Ambrogio on guitar twatting and vocals and it was a million times better. Her guitar playing is fucking rubbish and absolutely brilliant, the drumming is clunky, like he's pissed off and bored and just wants to play drums for a bit, and it's all overlaid with bouts of great vocals, really simple nineties charm and great tits. Elisa is real deal and had more straight up fuck you rock band attitude in her than the rest of the line-up that night put together.

Howlin Rain genuinely wowed me at ATP in may, Ethan Miller made me want to be him. Their cover of You Keep Me Hanging On had me buying a t-shirt. So it was disappointing to see them in pedestrian mode tonight, they looked like they were having a real good time n all but the whole thing just failed to move me. I don't think the pa was up to scratch but then, I don't think the band was either. Everything sounded the same. That's the problem right there.

Magik Markers though. Top draw.

Haunted Fucking/Deathscalator/Broken Arm/Icarus Line - Old Blue Last 10/08/08

Didn't see Haunted Fucking, sorry 'bout that Haunted Fucking but you were on too early. Deathscalator were boring, I think PJ said something like I can hear rock music coming out of the speakers but I can't see a rock band on the stage, I dunno, maybe that was Broken Arm. Fuck knows. Both of them were boring as hell. It was kind of worrying actually because really they weren't doing anything particularly wrong it's just they sounded like who the fuck cares? I'm serious I don't even remember seeing two different bands before Icarus Line that's how invisible they sounded. Oh dear. I got pretty drunk and I walked into a door and really hurt my face. I mean it really fucking hurt y'know, all down one side, the edge of the door slamming into the edge of my eye socket and my cheekbone. Fuck, man. Seriously. Icarus Line played and they were like a weak Stooges so I just went and had a cigarette then had an argument about sex and went home and when I woke up the next day I didn't even have a black eye or a hangover or anything. Maybe I'm a mutant or something I dunno.

Nisennenmondai - Bardens Boudoir 05/08/08

I saw a guy vibrating at the front. A blur. No joke. I've seen calmer epileptics. These girls, they force fits on you. Pale and frail in long white cotton dresses, all three look like ghosts, barely there until suddenly they berserk on the spot. The drummer whirls and flails around, her long black hair never touching her shoulders, her sticks never missing a single one of the million beats she fits in a second. The guitarist stumbles and fumbles and hits every spike just right, just noise enough. The bassist rapidly plays simple three note basslines, solid as a continent and slipping slowly likewise, to form new landscapes.

It's trance music in the true sense of the word. The crowd are the churchgoers and the tracks are the snakes that writhe around them as they hold their hands aloft, reaching for the beautiful place, a place so beautiful it inspired me to write this ridiculous nonsense about churchgoers.