HDIF presents: Hexicon - Jamm

I'd nipped out to get a kebab, my first food of the day, small lamb donner, it was very nice and meaty.

This means I missed the first song or two from Hexicon. Four-piece, two guitars, bass and drums, vocals remind me of Joe MacAlinden. Indiekids probly have a better reference, but I've been listening to Superstar all day, the rhythms sound and the brief snatches of passion come from that place. Although without the keyboards or the epic solos.

Its a bit navel-gazingish and laid back. Ooh, the other guitarist, who played with last band, Allo Darlin, he does vocal duties for some songs.

As the set progresses the more I of a mind of Superstar, the guitar becomes more like wee Jim's, and the monster wig-out at the end just builds and builds and gnaws into your head, with a feedbacky drum avalanche climax.

HDIF presents: Allo Darlin - Jamm

Elizabeth Darling and three chaps on stage, she's stood in the middle with her ukelele and her head tilted slightly to the side as she sings.

Its a kind of breathy dreamy singing that holds the room enraptured. Friendly and smilie.

Her first song comparing a relationship to a Woody Allen movie ticks the sames boxes as usual: pop culture references, characteristic rhymes.

When the chaps on guitar, bass and percussion join in it punctuates the delicate melodies

Ooh, slide guitar.

And for the next song Monster Bobby takes to the stage. "When I wrote this song I thought it sounded just like The Field Mice, even though it sounds nothing like The Field Mice". Monster Bobby sounds like a budget Nick Cave when he sings.

I like the way Elizabeth occasionally lifts one foot off the ground when she sings.

The last song is very upbeat, it starts with drums that sound like The Strokes, its going to be released by WeePop as an orange 7" single. It has amusing falsetto backing vacals from Will the bass player.

Endispiece - North Harrow

Its just about two years now.

Two years since I started this site, since Steff messaged me about starting a music webzine, me agreeing and then nothing coming of it except me scrawling in my notebook at the back of whatever gig I was going to, typing up whatever ramblings and slinging them online.

God knows how many bands I've seen, how many gigs and venues and promoters. How many people I've stood next to, who've read my scrawl days later.

Why the crap photos, blurred and black and white, head in the way, too dark. Why not from closer to the stage, in colour with the flash switched on, holding the camera still? I'll leave that the professionals and the nice girls with the expensive cameras.

Its all getting to difficult. I'm not having as much fun as I used to.

This website gives me doubts, is it helping or hindering the bands or having not affect at all, which is worse?

Am I too old for all this? Have I done it for too long? Or just losing faith.

I dunno, but this is the end, this is me signing off. No more half arsed gig reviews, no more warm and blisteringly enthusiastic reviews or just crap photies from me.

Of course, there's the remote chance I'll do Indietracks, videoing photoing and scrawling about the dozens of bands and reminiscing about 'the old days' with Camera Obscura, but its just a remote chance.

I can't go to gigs any more, I can't arrive stupidly early and find the perfect position to view the stage, scrawl notes and wonder why thingi who I used to hang out isn't even making recognition. I can't do this any more.

Sorry.

If anyone else reckons they can, if you have just enough enthusiasm to write reviewy thing of every band you see every week, with photies and links and vitriol, but not quite enough enthusiasm to start your own blog, then let me know, you can have you keys, here's the wheel, you can drive from now on.

I can't.

Stats
393 bands
6 cities
4 writers

23,256 pageloads
15,804 unique visitors
2 years
£1,500 paid on the door

Bands what I saw most
The Plimptons - 13 times
Pocketbooks - 11 times
The Just Joans - 10 - times
Pete Green - 10 times
MJ Hibbett - 9 times
The School - 7 times
The Gresham Flyers - 6 times (well, 7 reviews but there was that one time I didn't actually see them)
Darren Hayman - 5 times
The Deirdres - 5 times
The Hermit Crabs - 5 times
The Loves - 5 times

Popfest : Zipper - Buffalo Bar

Pleasant.
Sound a little like The GoGos and like the more poppy end of Talulah Gosh.
I thought they were a bit run of the mill, but my companion was in a coma, really she almost stopped breathing of boredom.
Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange

Popfest : Betty and the Werewolves - Buffalo Bar

They sound more hurried than they are punk. Unrelentingly like Town Bike's faster riot grrl tracks.
We're stood right at the back, I see singing bass player girl and a bobbing about guitar girl by her side. And lots of familiar faces in the crowd, either more so than last night or its just better lit in here.
Heh, technical problems as they've written the set list in the same colour as the stage lights so its invisible.
Betty and the Werewolves sound better than Hotpants Romance by a wide margin. Tighter and more polished, and occasionally invoke the spirit of Talulah Gosh.
By the end of the set they've won me over, a rich and diverse tapestry drawn from their pop punk pallet.
Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange

Popfest: The School - Jam

Lighter and less rocky than the previous band according to my burd, and she's never seen this mob before.

Ooh, Simon Love from The Loves is playing drums, that's a bit different. Heavier than the previous chap.

And they seem to have lost Spud, the wee glokenspeil chap. I miss him, he disarmed a little of their rock edge.

Its like with My Drug Hell, where you've been listening to the recorded version of Girl At The Bus Stop then you see then play it live and they do it invoking the spirit of rock, is all wrong. Okay, with The School its just a little like that.

Hmm did I write exactly the same thing last time I saw them? Possibly.

"Ah laik it" says my burd.

Popfest: Pocketbooks - Jam

Aw man, I've seen them about a zillion times before, and I still stand by my earlier reviews.

This evening I seem to be stood a bit close to a wall, so the music is very bass and drum heavy.

They announced Camera Obscura are headlining Indietracks.

Ooh, and they have new albums for sale. I've been listening to them play live for a while and their new material has been getting stronger and stronger.

Its a fun crowd tonight, subdued head-bobbing nearby and some genuine jumping around at the front.