Monster Bobby - The Lexington

Arrived in time for the last three songs and one chord. It was a fine chord, sounded like a D.

Monster Bobby's on stage on his own, with guitar, synth, and sampler, wearing a retro jacket from Shoreditch borrowed from his big brother.

My attractive young ladyfriend reckons he's a bit experimental and avant-guard, she knows what experimental and avant-guard is cos she likes Mike Patton, but Monster Bobby is more twee than him. Essentially he's a bit electro-pop, she says.

I liked his shaggy hair.

Half-arsed Talking Heads dancing, must try harder. Here, take a look at this video.

That sort of dancing would enhance the Monster Bobby experience by at least an order of magnitude

Goonite Club: Arthur and Martha, Monster Bobby, Monday Club, Brontosaurus Chorus - The Buffalo

I was house-sitting earlier this week, they had a DVD player so I was watching the complete Buffy the Vampire Slayer, 16 hours a day. They also seemed to have my Amazon wishlist of books lying round, so I read this book called Tipping Point.
Its like one of these sociological / cultural / psychology for people books. I only got through the first 60 pages, giving some clues about why some cultural phenomenons become runaway successes and others don't.

From what I gather, it usually depends on a dozen or so factors all pulling in the same direction at the same time.

There are three types of people vital in spreading new ideas. The first one mentioned is The Connector, they're charming people who know everyone in many worlds. Not necessarily close friends with everyone, but charming enough to be remembered. Close ties between 'friends' and 'weak ties' between acquaintances. When these guys get it, a bit of news spreads quickly.

I'm not very good as a 'Connector', my charmingness doesn't come easily, despite the worlds I span.

The second person type was 'The Maven', one who collects information and is good at communicating it. These would be the people who discover the cool bands who are to be the next big thing that no one knows about, or who have figured out that Facebook has jumped the shark.

I too am not so good as a Maven, I back the wrong horses.

Sadly I never found out who the third person type was.

Apparently the 'weak tie' friendships are more useful than the strong one, cos there are more of them with a greater span.

First band on are Arthur and Martha, one of them is Alice from Spiral Scratch, when my musical masterplan comes together next year, I'll need them on my side. I think that by bribery, they'll learn to love me, and sort out the damned Spiral Scratch blog. That was the plan anyway.

But before I came out this evening, I checked my last review of of Arthur and Martha, and it turns out I liked them last time, but was sadly too drunk to be coherent.

Tonight though, I am sober.

They are the missing link between Bis and The Younger Younger 28s, and their last song sounded like Idlewild's A Tone.

This one time I saw the Younger Younger 28s at King Tuts in Glasgow, about five people in the crowd, including flatmate Nick, Joanne from Stonehaven and some broad with a notebook. The next week the gig got a rave review in the NME.

The next time I saw them was Freshers week '98 at Strathclyde Uni, I got chatting to the girls in the band, they said they were playing the next night in Edinburgh. So me and Nick duly trekked over and got chatting to them there too. For years I've claimed I snogged the cute one outside The Venue.

Monster Bobby on next, here tonight, the records show that me and Fiona thought he was pants last time, mostly due to the crap sound in Tuffnells.

Tonight though, the sound's better the place is a quarter full and there's a girl in the crowd who looks like Beautiful Laura from school.

He's the main driving force behind The Pipettes and a proto-Bill Drummond according to wikipedia. Sounds like a cross between Craig Pulsar and Denim tonight mind.

Final act of the night for me are The Monday Club. Three girls, well, the drummer is a bit borderline. But the singing guitar and bass girls sure can holler. Like Polly Jane Harvey reborn as slightly younger. Nice harmony bits and the bass player was really cute.

I'm not sure what it was, but I kept glancing at my watch, wishing they'd finish so I could go home, then I realised that actually I could just go home, no need to wait.



Bands
Arthur and Martha
Monster Bobby
Monday Club
Brontosaurus Chorus

Photies
Here

Pete Green, The Sunny Street, Monster Bobby, The Strange IdOls - Tufnells

The place fulfills the potential that lies in the Woodside Social Club, if only the Woody was done up, it could be as nice as Tufnell's, clean, modern, no mould, fresh, air conditioning / dehumidifiers in the ceiling, bar proudly in the middle of the room. The flyer said doors 7, its almost 9 and the bands are still soundchecking.

They even have mirrors on the walls like the Woody here. Although the barman does bare a striking resemblance to both Leonardo Di Caprio and the T-1000.

The sound was a lot better for Pete Green than last night, amplified, tweaked, smoothed out. But shilst then it was a crowd of twee internet folk hanging on to his every word, toniht the promoter's chatting during his songs, the promoter's mates are chatting, the sound man and his mates are chatting, and most of the punters in the other room are chatting, its pretty distracting. He does give them a good talking to and the chatters depart, just leaving a thin twee line.

The walls here are sparkly, fitting neatly with his song "Everything I do is going to be sparkly" (buy the single). Unexpected phaser effect during his Oh Mr Beeching song and his "MySpace Fucking Sucks" song falls a little flat to the crowd who've heard it a dozen times before and the fifty in the other room who couldn't care less.

His last song reminded me a little of Dire Straits's Romeo and Juliet.

Great bloke, crap venue for him.

I was outside chatting to Fiona during Sunny Street's set, sounded okay, tamboriney, like the Hermit Crabs. But when we came inside it was shite. Two folk stood on stage in silence whilst a backing tape played. The backing tape sounded okay, but the boy with his guitar was too quiet, and the girl singing was way way down in the mix.

I was kind of embarrassed that I'd talked up the gig to Fiona.

Bobby Monster was on next, the guitarist from the Pipettes, I think they're one of these bands what my former flatmate Alan used to be mental about. Anyhoo it was kind of dischordant to start with , a bit experimental and arty. The guy probably thought he was Laurence from Felt. The drum/bass machine/synth drowned out his acoustic guitar and the lyrics were badly sung, a bit ropey.

Fiona was going on about misplaced arrogance and almost pissed herself when he announced he had an album for sale, only ten quid. You can buy Amy Winehouse's latest for £7.99 - compare and contrast. But as the set drew on, you could kind out make out the tunes hidden in there, trying to escape, even Fi slowly warmed to it.

Actually, now as I type this up, I note The Pipettes's wikpedia page references Bill and Jimi's The Manual, so hey ho, the guy's a god, its 2007: what the fuck's going on.

Finally, probably the best band of the night were headliners Strange Idols, but that's no saying much. They looked like they were having fun on stage. The singer girl all mincing it up as a vampish Eno/Dabbie Harry. But the sound was appalling, the bass at first drowned out everything and was pretty painful to listen to, to the sound dude turned up everything else to level it out, making it even hrder to listen to.

We left three songs in, I apologised to Fi, its not usually like this. Live music ought to be accessible, comprehensible, not painful and borderline pisstake. Fix it.