Mona, Highbury Garage, 21 Feb 2011

The set was very frontloaded with songs I knew (the singles), which made the latter part of it, relatively disappointing, although it was a really good tight set.  The man in front of us went mad for every song. The friend he had accompanying him enjoyed it, evening if he wasn't quite as mad about it.

Neon Trees, Highbury Garage, 21 Feb 2011

Good show, with a great frontman and top muscianship. Made me think of Queen and British mid-90s Glam bands like Spacehog.

They completely won crowd around and people seem to really enjoy it, which they band seemed to feed off. It felt like they could have done an encore if they hadn't been a support band. It may have been a bit of a show, but they seemed to think they only had two songs left, but played three more in the end.

Really enjoyed the set. Realised afterwards that I knew 'Animal' and now keep hearing it.

Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan, Shepherd's Bush Empire, 15 February 2011

Great setlisting and arrangements. Very tight band and great instrumentation. Isobel seem to be suffering from a sore throat, but her performance didn't. Voices melded wonderfully live.

Rather charmingly, the guitarist on the right stuck his tongue out when he began the tricky bits of slide playing.

'Circus is Leaving Town' was very good and a real high point of the early part of the set. Also 'Bird in the Wood' (I think) was great. Brooding, hypnotic. Excellent. And 'Something to Believe' - lovely and delicate, and good whistling from Isobel, too!

The set really captivated the audience.  The last section of the set was more uptempo, which got the toes tapping.  Over all the set had a great sound a variety of tone and pace to keep the audience engaged.

I felt really glad that Mark has managed to keep up a career as a singer for so long. It would be a loss to the musical world if he stopped doing interesting music that people wanted to hear enough to allow him to travel the world and play it to lots of people.

Sea of Beas, Shepherd's Bush Empire, 15 February 2011

The first song was quite striking, but they became more conventional through the set. 

The band was two women, with one acoustic and one electric guitar. The woman on the left sang in a strange falsetto, a bit Sigur Ros.

Some lyrics even a bit cliched, though through focus of strange voice seemed more interesting than they might otherwise have been. An interesting set, but I wasn't wholly won over.

Go! Team, Heaven, 8 February 2011

Go! Team got the crowd dancing on a Tuesday night. What more is there to say?

Heaven was a great venue for Go! Team as it is on the intimate side for a club. The sold out gig was packed full of people in the kind of good mood that the Go! Team's music is supposed to engender.

It was a different kind of atmosphere to what you may normally find at a week night gig, everyone was having a great time and far from staring at their shoes the band got the crowd dancing, singing along and putting their hands in the air from the first song.

The band was very tight, and remember the band's origins from a first album of samples which was then recreated with a real life band.

It didn't matter that we didn't know all material as the songs from the new album had a similar good time feel to them. This also meant that the audience were into the whole set, not just their favourite old songs. This really contributed to the spirited atmosphere.

I Am Kloot, Shepherd's Bush Empire, January 28th 2011

 Having seen them play to a handful of people at the Oxford Zodiac 10 years ago, it was like a personal celebration to see them pack out a Friday night gig at Shepherd's Bush Empire.

They played a mixture of old nd new songs from their ten-years-plus of material, all of which were fantastically well received. They were joined by a brass section and strings.

We didn't know quite a few of the new ones, but they were played very well, so didn't mind. Very pleased to hear them play Same Deep Water As Me. And Proof was blinding. Crowd were really into show, creating a great atmosphere.

Any opinions on Edwyn Collins? I am vaguely familiar with his work in Orange Juice and loved his hit single, Girl Like You. You also have to admire him for coming back from a severe cerebral hemorrhage. . This looks like a rare US appearance. Anyone have an opinion to share?

No Depression announces its SXSW showcase

No Depression was an excellent print magazine that covered the alt-country movement ( whatever that was ), back in the 1990s. Unfortunately the print version was one of the first magazines to go under. They have however maintained a very good website at www.nodepression.com and yesterday announced their 2011 SXSW showcase: http://www.nodepression.com/profiles/blogs/announcing-the-2011-no

Reviewing the list of SXSW bands

The holidays are over! The stockings have all been put back in their proper receptacles. My Best of 2010 music wrap up has been written and mailed. Now it is time to turn my attention to SXSW 2011. I am happy to see that the Music Festival has posted over 1000 bands already. I am disappointed that I knew only a handful. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I am even more disappointed that it does not appear that I will be able to use my usual method to discover new talent. In previous years, I would spend one evening downloading the sample MP3's posted by the bands. I would then create CDs/playlists of these hundreds of songs and listen to them over a period of weeks, giving each a rating from 1 to 5. No samples of been posted so far. It appears that the festival is providing only links to MYSPACE pages. To load and listen that number of bands will be too time consuming. I therefore ask: 1) Do you have an alternative? Something like an Iphone ap that will speed up the process :-) 2) Can you give recommendations of bands you guys have heard of? ( I will create a list ).

Hopefully I will be posting a lot more often in the next few weeks.

Review: Jenny and Johnny, Luminaire, London UK, 10 December 2010

Top rock'n'indie pop. Now I understand the rave reviews. I've been enjoying the album and thinking 'Lemonheads and Juliana Hatfield' but this set rocked out. The set was full of energy – didn't hang about between songs and high pace. There's a back catalogue that we weren't aware of but like a lot.

For a new band you could see their experience they knew how to plan a set and performed it really well. Jenny has a great voice and they both were really good musicians without being showing.

Johnny's falsetto was impressive and it was good to see Jenny singing lead on so many of the tracks, rather than just doing backing.

The kind of group that make you want to buy a guitar and start a band.