The Loves, Roy Moller, Friends of the Bride, The School - Buffalo Bar

Only caught the last half of The School's last song, they're a The Loves spinoff group, I read somewhere, with eight members, but I count only six tonight. They get compared to the mighty 'Ob on their biog and I can hear the similarities in that last song, tamborine and girl singing, also on stage is a violin and glokenspiel. That song did sound like it came from the mighty 'Ob, Hermit Crabs, California Snow Story stable.

Another Fortuna Pop night at the Buffalo, familiar faces, Paul, Uma Thurman and the usual promotery crowd.

I was late in arriving fro catching up with old friends, should have tried to drag them along tot he show.

Friends of the Bride on next. Rather dapper chaps in suits, drummer with shades, singer with teeth, sounded like the spawn of Bennet and Menswear, with rather nice scooby jazz singingfrom the same parallel universe as Ink Wilson from How To Swim. Cool backing vocals and practised ad lib style asides to the crowd. I think I want to play guitar for The Deep Fried Wolfknuckles like the Friends of the Bride's guitar player.

Hmph, the bass was a little too loud and noodly for my tastes.

I nipped out for a fag and came back in time for Roy Moller, I must resist the urge to call him Uncle Roy, but he is becoming a popular act with this website.

The crowd had thinned a little bit , just me and Paul stood at the front and people lurking nearby. Maybe he inspires less rabit enthusiasm than the previous act. There's three of them on stage, Martin on the left, dressed in black wearing shades, with melodica or tamborine as fitting the song and backing vocals. Roy centre stage with his guitar and on the right was 'sports hero' on bass and harmonica.

I'm not sure it it counts as three-part harmonies or just three people singing at the same time. Better sound than last time I saw him at the Cottiers, back then you had to imagine how he would have sounded if the acoustics had been better, here the acoustics were better, but he just didn't sound as urgent or life enriching. Competent, aye, and pretty good, but just didn't seem right compared to the other acts.

Headlining the night was The Loves. I love The Loves, I have done for about eight years, saw them in Glasgow a few months back with the Owsley Sunshine, in Liverpool in 2003 and heard them on John Peel back in 2000, I even wrote them into my second novel. They've been kicking about for a while. Scuzzy bubblegum pop, with a load of distortion, not quite as much as when Pnos was in the band, but I guess times change.

One thing you can rely on them with in Simon Love's Bob Dylan-esque singing, actually I think they used to have a song called John Like Bobby D. He kind of whines nasily, like a child who doesn't enunciate properly. One of my favourite tracks off of their first album is She'll Break Your Heart, on the record its a gooey twinkly song about heartbreak, a warm hug of a security blanket, but these days its more aggressive, with military drumming, a lot of bitterness creeping in maybe. I guess its appropriate, life's like that.

It took a while in the first few songs to get the vocal levels right, Liz Love on keys especially.

Neat cover of Tainted Love squeezed into the set, and rants about Gloria Jones killing Marc Bolan. They were missing Jenna who does some vocals so from what I gather one of the songs was done by Simon in the style of Mika, a little synth disco, kinda neat, got the crowd moving.

Louder and punkier than the bubblegum pop of old, what would John Peel still make of them?

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