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Pictures from some recent gigs we've hosted:

29 March 2013 - Brixton, London

Viv Albertine, VuVuVultures, Left Leg, Mickey Gloss, Big Wave, No Cars, Arthur Gunn, Simon Love (Pictures)

8 March 2013 - Lexington, London

R.Ring, Golden Grrrls, Slushy Guts and Equinox (Pictures)

On Our iPod

Parquet Courts - Light Up Gold (album)

Antony Harding - Why Do Birds Suddenly Appear (album)

Black Angels - Indigo Meadow (album)

Thee Oh Sees - Floating Coffin (album)

Still Corners - Strange Pleasures (album)

Savages - Silence Yourself (album)

Mikal Cronin - MC II (album)

Can’s Ege Bamyasi played by Stephen Malkmus and Friends(album)

Victoria and Jacob - Festival 7"

Vampire Weekend - Modern Vampires of the City (album)

Sauna Youth - False Jesii Part II 7”

Lightning Bolt - Oblivion Hunter

Robyn Hitchcock - There Goes The Ice (2x 12")

Latest Forum Posts

Gig Review

Minny Pops / Rats on Rafts / Jack and the Beanstalks
Plug, Sheffield

Article written by Matt H - Jan 20, 2012

Minny Pops and Rats on Rafts - double Dutch

Where were you Sheffield, eh? Another midweek show, another slightly underwhelming crowd. And for a bill that deserved so much more. In fairness it’s probably wasn’t the most obvious night out: a local band splitting up, a Dutch band very much at the beginning of what will hopefully be an upward curve and a revived Factory band from 30 years ago (also Dutch), who are most likely only on the radar of the devoted and obsessive (they weren’t exactly huge favourites in my primary school even back then…).

The locals were Jack and the Beanstalks, playing their last ever gig, which might be a shame, depending on what they do next. They showed a great garagey-pop energy, plenty of decent songs and boasted a singer with the sort of geeky haircutted chutzpah which has marked out one or two Sheffield frontmen in the past (not to mention a cape – anyone who has the balls to wear a cape playing a gig to an audience in double figures deserves some recognition).

The new(ish) band were Rats on Rafts. It’s quite tricky to vaunt their qualities without sounding like you’re damning them with faint praise. The do echo very strongly much of the best guitar music of the early 80s – at various points you can dig out the synonyms for ‘angular’, ‘chopping’, ‘sweeping’. In trying to get across the quality of their sound it’s difficult to avoid the dread conclusion that they sound, erm, tight. If there’s anything definable which sets them apart from the knock about indie landfill, it’s that they don’t just line up the tunes and knock ‘em out. A number of times they clearly get lost in what they’re doing and build up an impressive sound. But in the end, for all the familiar elements and the temptation to intellectualise them as being insufficiently ground-breaking, it’s a case of some bands have got it, some bands ain’t. And Rats on Rafts have got it.

Also demonstrating that they are in full possession of ‘it’, despite a 30-year hiatus, were Minny Pops. If Rats on Rafts were reminding us of the early 80s, Minny Pops were beaming it to us direct, albeit a very different sort of 80s sound. The North of England has always been the place to appreciate their brand of foreboding semi-industrial sounds. Sounds that are the sort before-the-panto precursor of Goth, built from primitive synth and guitar, layered on top of the sorts of proto-dance rhythms that their contemporaries were perhaps more famous for, but which mean that the ‘pop’ part of their name is far from being ironic. Not unlike Artery (another band who recently reawakened from a similar length of slumber) their reference-free artistic ambition sounds fresher than ever in these post-ironic times.

A small part of the North of England got to appreciate that – hopefully a lot more will over the next couple of days and London gets a chance on Monday. It might not be an obvious night out, but you can be sure it’ll be a good one.

Leeds, Brudenell Social Club - 20 January 2012

Manchester, Gulliver's - 21 January 2012

London, Upstairs at the Garage - 23 January 2012

Links:
http://www.minnypops.com/Minny_Pops/index.html
http://www.ratsonrafts.com/