Rake this up

If you have stumbled into the Lock tavern of late, you would have surely seen the posters for the Rakes gig that is taking place there on Sunday. Best thing is that it is free so get on your dancing shoes and trot down to Camden this Sunday!

Slowly does it!

Yes HSAH is rather slow at keeping people up to date with music news and she apologizes deeply. The problem was that a trip to Vietnam stood in the way of HSAH being continuing up dated! surely you can understand?! No... oh well.

Anyway, apologises a side, Beirut played at the round house last night and insiders have told me that the gig was spectacular and HSAH is not surprised. If Beirut's first album Gulag Orkestar and the release of second album The Flying cup club is any thing to go by then the haunting sounds of Beirut would surely have been tantalising!

The Clientele

So its Wednesday and HSAH is walking around east London when she stumbles into the Cargo. This Wednesday at cargo was a special night as the Local was is town to host a night of highly delectable sounds from the likes of The Clientele and the North Sea Radio Orchestra. The Clientele was promoting the release of their fourth album, God Save The Clientele (out now) and by did they do it well.

Check out there sound on : www.myspace.com/theclienteleofficial.

Guillemots - Back to Mine

So its the return of Back to Mine and this time its up to guillemots to welcome us in to their humble abodes and choose the records. With this selection we get to see into the guillemots' minds and what has influence them to create the sound they do. The big question is: is it any good? Throughout this album there are hidden gems and the plain strange. choosing sonic youth to sit next to liars and bjork sounds like my musical heaven but the choice of the bizarre Tartit makes me wonder are they being arty for the sake of it. Who can actually say? Certainly not me that's for sure. Overal it is a good album to have and to play when milling around or chilling out.

to Be or not to Be

Be, one of HSAH's favourite nights out in London, has moved to the Bloomsbury ballrooms. The first of these nights is taking place this Saturday (tomorrow) with Pete and the Pirates playing a live set and Whitey DJing. Get out your glitter, a don a shiny outfit and get to BE. If you don't go, you loose out!

Rock Out

So yesterday was Thursday and that can only mean one thing, Rock Feed Back night at the buffalo bar. yes that's right, with a up line including ox eagle lion man and Fanfarlo how could HSAH not be there?!

Fanfarlo were brilliant. They fulfilled my twee indie dreams with their trumpets and xylophones. Maybe it was just the three drink haze that i was in but each song they played kept my head nodding and leg jerky. The surprise of the evening was a band called wet paint who managed to re create pavement's sound with a London, beardy twist! they also rock the plaid shirt stylistics.

So that only left ox eagle lion man to take to the stage. With all the hype around this band i was expecting big things. Were they fulfilled? The simple answer is NO. The question to ask is 'can indie cliches take the edge off of a band?' I think the answer to this is yes they can and the best example of this is ox eagle lion man. Their songs...well the ones i heard...were pleasant even jolly but the black skinny jean clad, verging on goth guys in the bands, looking rather sombre really made me cringe. Plus not being able to take my eye off of the singer's skinny jeans was distracting. They were unbelievable skinny. He may have been more comfortable in leggings.

Again HSAH leave a gig early. What is happening to the world? Maybe HSAH needs to find better bands to watch.

Those Dancing Days

So its Saturday night and we are in one of London sleaziest areas, Kings Cross. Renounced for prostitutes, dodgy restaurants and one legendary venue...well two if you include the scala but for the sake of this post lets presume there is one, The Water Rats.

The Water Rats played host to a very special on Saturday and continued to add to the hype that's surrounds Those Dancing Those. Hailing from Sweden this was TDD second gig in London and you could feel from the audience there was much excitement about their arrival.

After two large glasses of wine and full stomachs HSAH made her way into the small and incredible hot venue (we left early due to the heat). We waited eagerly, toes tapping and hands emulating a fanning gesture when finally a bunch of very young and very cute bunch of girls made their way of stage. Their set kicked off and continued as it mean to go on in a very indie pop style with jiggly jangly tracks.

By about the fifth song in HSAH couldn't handle the Sauna effect in the back room of The Water Rats and promptly left. Since this gig HSAH as not been able to escape the melondic tones of TDD...damn 6 music!!!! Thankfully their single - Those Dancing Days - is brilliant and is one of those songs that can brighten up any bad mood you may be in.