Artists I liked

Spring King, Fizzy Blood, Nadine Shah, Ezra Furman x2, Abjects, Colleen Green, Hookworms, Soliloquy, Protection Spells, The Orielles x2, British Sea Power x3, Gurr, Mr Ben and the Bens, The Lovely Eggs, Matt Emery, Poppy Ackroyd, The Blinders, The Solo Collective,

Artists that were okay

Blushes, Alice Phelps, Tiny Leaves, Bennet Wilson Poole, Grawl!x, Penelope Isles, DunningWebsterUnderwood, Phobophobes,

Artists I won’t be going out of my way to see again

Cozy, Zkeletonz

Best Gig

It was a good month for gigs. British Sea Power are always good value. Ezra Furman played a fantastic two hour set at the Lexington. But I’ll have to give it to Nadine Shah at the Roundhouse. She stepped up to the occasion and proved that she can play any size of venue

Best new artist

There wasn’t any outstanding new bands this month.

Albums of the Month

• Twin Fantasy – Car Seat Headrest
• Silver Dollar Moment – The Orielles
• Basic Behaviour – FRIGS
• Resolve – Poppy Ackroyd
• This is Eggland – The Lovely Eggs
• Microshift – The Hookworms
• Transangelic Exodus – Ezra Furman

Best photo

Staring midday at Daylight Music, with it’s usual eclectic mix of music. This week featuring Japanese music, electronica, and folk. It was a pleasant mix of styles.

Hibiki Ichikawa & Akari

Hibiki Ichikawa & Akari

Shield Patterns

Shield Patterns

Arlet

Arlet

Arlet

Arlet

After the gig I decided to walk down from Union Chapel to Rough Trade West for the first Rough Trade in-store performance of the day, an Australian performer called Lisa Mitchell. A friend had seen her earlier in the week and wasn’t impressed with her performance and I have to admit, she didn’t win me over here. She’s got a fairly decent voice but she just seemed to lack confidence when performing. Still it was free.

Lisa Mitchell

Lisa Mitchell

After this gig it was time to head eastwards to Rough Trade East for the Hookworms. Unfortunately, they started late so I didn’t get much of a chance to listen to them. But unlike at the Dome, sound wasn’t an issue here. For the few songs I did hear, they sounded really good. Unfortunately, today was all about one band. The Coathangers who’d I’d been looking forward to for months, so I headed off to get to the Shacklewell leaving me with plenty of spare time before their perfomance.

The Hookworms

The Hookworms

I’d caught the Coathangers at SXSW and was impressed with them and I’ve been listening to their albums almost constantly ever since. So I’d been keeping a keen eye out for a UK tour. Sometimes when you look forward to gigs, you end up finding some reason to be disappointed.

The line-up was pretty decent. Tess Parks, the Abjects and Skinny Girl Diet. With the decision to drop by the Hookworms, I knew getting to the Shacklewell to see Tess Parks, a singer who’d impressed me a few weeks earlier, would be out of the question. But I’d hoped I could time it right to catch some of the Hookworms and then the end of the Abjects set. Unfortunately, with the Hookworms starting 15 minutes last and then I mistimed the bus, I arrived 10 minutes later than I’d hoped and just as the Abjects finished their set. Annoying, because it meant I really should have stayed for two or three more Hookworms songs before heading up to the Shacklewell. However, it did mean that I caught the entire Skinny Girl Diet set – a band I’m undecided about, but I thought tonight put in a pretty decent performance.

Skinny Girl Diet

Skinny Girl Diet

Skinny Girl Diet

Skinny Girl Diet

Closing off the evening where the Coathangers. Thankfully, this wasn’t one of those evening where I left disappointed. It was also usually one of those evenings when the Shacklewell ran on time which meant I caught the entire set with plenty of time to catch my train home.

The thing I like about the Coathangers is that they’ve got a great catchy pop-punk sound. Lots of infectious songs that are delivered with a fantastic amount of energy and tongue firmly in cheek. When I saw them at SXSW they were a four piece. But since then they’ve lost a member and are probably the better for it as they seemed tighter than I remembered from SXSW.

I have to admit I was beaming throughout the gig. So happy that the girls were performing so well and that they were as good as I remembered from SXSW (I spend most of time drunk, so it’s always possible that I don’t like a band when sober). This gig was definitely one of my highlights of the year.

The Coathangers

The Coathangers

The Coathangers

The Coathangers

The Coathangers

Unfortunately, the venue chosen was the Dome at Tufnell Park. I’m not a fan of it. It’s more like a gig in a school hall with a high stage more suited for a school play. The sound’s also pretty poor if you’re at the front.

Luckily, vocal clarity weren’t important for either of tonight’s bands. The Hookworms vocals are effect heavy as they’re passed through fuzz and echo boxes. So the poor sound didn’t detract too much,

I’ve heard the Hookworms described as a ‘geek band’ and I can see why, They don’t look like a band, more like a bunch of computer programmers and in some ways their tech heavy psychedelic sound reflects this. But what a sound it is and they put in a really good set. It’s just a pity it was in a venue I don’t like,