I Must Have Looked a Hundred Times

But as you know, at night all cats are foxes. Potentially. In the West End at least. We saw a fox on Gibson Street last night, walking home from a Draytones gig. Oh, that reminds me, I've seen quite a few gigs lately that I need to tell you about! As I just said, we went to see London garage group The Draytones yesterday. I had high hopes after Brogues alterted me to the stomping sounds of the their debut single "Keep Loving Me", and they didn't let me down. They were a fashionably dressed (white shirts and jumpers, black chelsea boots) three-piece, and the pretty guitartist & singer was apparently from Argentina, but it was impossible to tell. They were actually only the support band for female singer Candie Payne, who was quite good as well and very suave. She had a five-piece garage-style backing band, although the music had some hints of soul and funk too. Those high heels looked very uncomfortable!

The 1990s are bit more pop than garage and we went to their album launch at Mono last Sunday. Mono was packed (maybe because it was free?) and "everyone was there". 1990s consists of former members of The Yummy Fur and V-Twin and released their first single last year. This three-piece is from Glasgow and they had lots of friends there, and we all had a good time. I managed to squeeze my way into Monorail as well to buy the new Trembling Blue Stars album, which is ace!

On Tuesday we were at The Admiral to catch Au Revoir on one of their seemingly all the more frequent Glasgow visits. But a happy surprise was the support act Slow Club - an insanely fun duo from Sheffield. It's safe to say they charmed the pants of everyone with their playful little tunes, harmonies, alternating vocals, chair/bottles/spoon-percussion and madly strummed country guitar. They have a 7" due out on Moshi Moshi in June and are playing at Tchai Ovna on the 10th of that month (it's free!). It'll be worth going just to see if their 'mega fan' turns up (whoever bought their one and ONLY t-shirt! If you like Mates of State, Tilly & the Wall and Architecture In Helsinki this band could be your life.

Australian Ned Collette played before them and we missed the start of his set, but I think he was a notch sharper at his Camera Obscura support slot. And of course the three girls in Au Revoir Simone played too! I still hadn't seen them play live so I'm glad I finally got to do that. The songs from the new album sounded great, but it must have been a bit ungratifying playing after Slow Club.