The lead singer of The Vinyls, a troupe of skinny indie people playing skinny indie music, is rocking the Karen Carpenter-Chrissie Hynde look, all long hair and inappropriately large sunglasses. She slings her acoustic guitar behind her back like a messenger bag and has to correct her own lazy London pronounciation to make song titles understandable, and breathes incomprehensible lyrics to sweet and forgettable songs.

Lamotta are no less indie, but nowhere near as sweet: the spiritual brethren of Shed Seven, they chug through honest tunes with robust riffs, the singer contorting his face like a monkey and then going on about being King Kong and two feet long. Their musical competence can't be doubted - when the alarmingly rugged* drummer manfully fluffs an entrance, the only sense of mistake is in the tolerant faces they make in his direction. Unfortunately, their musical pedigree can: any band, however charming, who rearrange the stage for a mournful and quite frankly flat acoustic ballad have been taking their tips from the wrong manual.

Fuck knows what manuals Lumiere have been working from, but they're definitely the right ones. Four unnaturally pretty young men in varying gradations of leather trousers, tight t-shirts, sub-Adam Ant Jackets and dyed-black androgoth hair, everything they lack in tunes and decent lyrics they make up for in sheer presence. The singer charismas about the stage as if this isn't a poky little indie venue in King's Cross and there are thousands of baying fans echoing his every raised-arm handclap; the Audrey-Hepburn-beautiful synth player pouts into the distance and presses a few perfunctory programmed keys; the guitarist alternates between irony-free devil's hand signs at the audience and squalling feedback. This band is having so much fun, are so assured of their future rockstar status, that it's impossible not to like them. One to watch out for.

* I'm talking Aragorn, here. Not Viggo "Renaissance Man" Mortensen, Aragorn. With the hair, and the beard, and the arms (dear lord the arms). This is the most ruggedly masculine drummer I have ever seen in my life. And he was enjoying himself so much! Bless.

[insert ramble about my 1999 of the Water Rats and the B&G and why mediocre indie bands are the best thing in the world ever here.]

I am in love. Oh, man, proper! 80's! indie! This swing into my other fannishness looks set not to end for a while (Cardiff for Idlewild and NME tour on the 6th! Low on the 14th! Oxford for 'the free state proclaimed' lecture on the 21st! ...wait) - I'm reading obscene amounts of fic, but in fandoms I'll never write (SV, f'rexample), and can't really face writing anything I've got ongoing. My room is unsleepable-in, choked with the smell of paint and dust, which means I've been able to get out the Box of Singles And Shameful Records and root through them, squealing excitedly. I have Ooberman's Shorley Wall EP! And everything Ultrasound ever released - except the album, which was shit anyway! And two copies of 'King Biscuit Time sings Nelly Foggits Blues in "Me and The Pharaohs"' (CD /and/ vinyl), neither of which I have ever listened to! I am obviously cooler than anyone. On the negative side, not sleeping in my own bed leaves me open to wierd dreams involving espionage, record companies, old people gorging on egg-and-cress sandwiches in lieu of dessert, and Orlando Bloom doing work experience (who I only recognised due to his nametag. He was befriendable and had close-cropped hair, soft to the ruffling touch. This is, I think, the only celebrity who has ever turned up in a dream of mine. Stupid LJ-saturation).

Note to self: 16-27th April, you moron. Also, Trailfinders.

gimme an E please bob
gimme an E please bob
gimme an E.