Okay catchup time. I fell behind early in January and never caught up.

This month’s bands

Bands I liked

The Wharves, Ultimate Painting, Sarcasm, Iceage, OAE Experience Ensemble, Menace Beach, Half Waif, Rose Elinor Dougall, Echobelly, Asylums, Freak, Cabbage, Black Honey, Sacred Paws, Pixx

Bands that were okay

Girl Ray, Shards and Strange Boy, Love Buzz, Alice Barlow, James Canty, Little Cub,

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

Josh Vine, 924s, Throwing Snow, 

Best Gig

January was a really strong month. But the highlight was Black Honey, Cabbage and Freak. Although my view of Cabbage has since changed, at the time, I thought they were the real deal. Black Honey, were excellent as always.

Best new band

At the time, it was Cabbage. But due to the issues later in the year, I’ve no plans to see them again.

Albums of the Month

• Terrorist Synthesiser (EP) – Cabbage
• Young, Dumb and Full of… – Cabbage
• Lemon Memory – Menace Beach
• Stellular – Rose Elinor Dougall

Best photo

The first evening’s line-up was known to me. Girl Ray opened the evening. They’re pleasant, but don’t do much for me. They were then followed by the excellent Wharves who played a few new songs. Closing the evening were Ultimate Painting. I’d seen them a few times and have their first two albums. They’re formed out of Mazes and Veronica Falls and seem heavily influenced by the Velvet Underground’s third album. You know the relaxed, stoner VU album.

The second evening was more of an unknown for me. The headline act, Martha are brilliant. They’re fun, engage with the audience, and they have lyrics that are about things that matter to them. I find them refreshing amongst the sea of indie bands with little to say. Tonight was no exception, with a well observed comment on how supermarkets create beautifully crafted adverts celebrating the family at Christmas, despite the fact that their staff were all having to work Boxing Day. Their set was a brilliant start to the year.

The other two bands were also enjoyable. The first band, Average Sex were engaging. Initially I wasn’t too keen on Radiator Hospital. Their first song was just didn’t work for me. But after that was out of the way. (Or I adjusted to them) They settled down into some mighty fine DIY indie and were thoroughly enjoyable.

So not a bad introduction to 2017.

The line-up for the evening was pretty good. Ultimate Painting, a band comprising band members from Mazes and Veronica Falls, were first up. I like both bands and enjoyable though their performance was, Ultimate Painting wasn’t a sum of it’s parts lacking the doom gothiness of Veronica Falls and the infectious guitar loops of Mazes.

Ultimate Painting

Next up were the Wytches, one of my favourite bands for the last 12 months. I’ve mentioned the Wytches before. They’re simply one of the best live bands around at the moment.

The Wytches

With a different set of expectations and familiarity of their new materials. Tonight’s gig was a different experience. Parquet Courts were excellent. Their new material sounded fantastic and as previously mentioned, their longer VU-like material sounded brilliant. The only downside for me (and clearly the band) was a group of pissed students (probably underage) decided to have their own party in front of the band calling for songs throughout the songs they weren’t familiar with and showing complete disinterest when the VU-inspired songs by sitting on the stage with their backs to the band. I felt like punching them. So god knows what the band felt like.

Parquet Courts