Another day, another morning waking up feeling like I've downed a whole bottle of Tesco own-brand vodka. My head's all muggy, my nasal passages burn like the fires of hell and tears are streaming down my face like an emo kid in an onion warehouse. Yes, my friends, it's hayfever season again- and I for one have had enough. Too long have we suffered ( Read more... )

First thing I noticed about the Twilight Sad is that they're more Scottish than Robert The Bruce, Alan Hansen and the Proclaimers combined. I'd not heard a note by them before I entered the Borderline, but the lead singer's Caledonian burr is doubtlessly their most distinctive feature; for my money, I thought it made a really nice change from ye ( Read more... )

http://www.sjsu.edu/depts/english/2006.htm

Some of the best entries to a competiton where entrants must write the worst possible opening to a novel they can think of. The Romance section had me in tears.

i) Spiderman 3 is entertaining enough, but way too long for its own good. Story sucked too. Still, it did have officially the best Bruce Campbell cameo EVER, which allowed me to overlook its many deficiencies.  Query: if the major difference between normal Peter Parker and the "evil" Peter Parker was dark hair and a stupid fringe, does that mean ( Read more... )

Bounding across the stage dressed alarmingly like Lady Sovereign, the inimitable Chan Marshall (AKA Cat Power) certainly cuts a more confident figure than her reputation would suggest. The erratic live act of days past, prone to fluffing songs and on-stage breakdowns has given way to a more assured, if still eccentric performer and it’s certainly ( Read more... )

The Yann Tiersen show yesterday was the most bizarre gig I think I've ever been to. We arrived at the Scala at 8.45, having been imbibing drinks at the Big Chill with Wendy, Alex and her mate, assuming that even at that late hour we'd find a half-decent vantage point. We were wrong. Because you can't access the floor of the auditorium without ( Read more... )

Welcome to the strange and unsettling land of Hoxton, where the girls are pretty, the jeans are skinny and the hair is absurdly coiffeured. Betwixt the chain-smoking fashionistas and crack-peddling rastas lies the oh-so-trendy Hoxton Square Bar and Grill, a grim concrete edifice adorned with leather sofas, paintings of alarmingly sinister clowns ( Read more... )

OK, I was wrong; The Lives Of Others DID deserve to beat Pan’s Labyrinth to the Best Foreign Film Oscar- it’s simply one of the most astonishing films I’ve ever seen. Its concept may seem rather grim (being as it is about the East German secret police), but despite the politics it remains at heart a story full of humanity. It may seem impossible ( Read more... )

So I sauntered down to the Twisted Folk Festival in Finchley yesterday, not because I'm particularly into folk or antyhing but because the Most Underrated Band In Britain (TM) were laying down their hypnotic, fully orchestrated grooves there. And unsurprisingly, the wonderful Earlies pulled out yet another blissfully  top-notch show, enthused with ( Read more... )

Glorious purveyors of melodic folk/pop tinged with melancholy, Camera Obscura are a band who could never be accused of pushing the envelope, but whose masterful songcraft makes questions of ‘originality’ a rather moot point. And after last night show’s at the Koko, I can say (for the most part) they’re as, if not more, delightful live than on ( Read more... )