Okay who doesn’t know about The xx yet? If you don’t already, you really ought to. Hailing from Wandsworth, London this three piece band (previously four prior to keyboardist / guitarist Baria Qureshi leaving the band late last year) have literally burst onto to the music scene in a very short space of time.

Their debut album ‘xx’ at #1 in Rough Trade’s top albums of 2009, #2 in NME’s top albums of 2009 and they have been widely tipped for success throughout the industry, it’s well deserved too in my opinion.

I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve listened to the album beginning to end since picking up a copy (and bonus mix CD) at the beginning of the year. Packed full of deep, intense bass from Oliver Sim, highlighted with the distinctive sound of Romy Madley Croft’s Gibson Les Paul and interwoven with drums and keyboards from Jamie Smith, the band produce an eerie otherworldly sound that makes for really good listening.

I wasn’t really sure how this album would translate in a live show, I’d heard rumours that we were due an amazing show, and that it’d just be a little calmer than the usual rib bruising affairs.

The stage had been completely obscured with a sheet so we had no sneak peak of what was to come, when the house lights went down we were presented with the trademark solid X of the band’s logo before the drums started to kick in and Oliver and Romy were silhouetted on the sheet by the roaming stage lights.

The xx really did not disappoint. The set had a lot heavier presence of drums and ear pounding bass not seen in their recorded material, which gave the crowd something to bounce along to (or go a little bit mental in the case of the guy stood to my right!).

Though mostly sticking to tracks from their debut album, they also threw in a cleverly put together cover of  Womack and Womack - ‘Teardrops’.

They put on a fantastic light show that punctuated every heavy beat, and finished off their set by dumping an insane amount of black and silver confetti onto the audience.

To quote my friend James (who captured this sneaky little video), for a band that spends a lot of time standing still they certainly rocked everyone else out.

Both Oliver and Romy are so humble, barely saying a word through the gig other than apologising for their lack of banter, quietly thanking the audience for their applause and finally saying what a shock it’s been for them.

Six months ago they were at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire opening for Florence and the Machine, and now here they are headlining the famous venue two nights in a row. Long may their success continue, I for one am really keen to see what direction they’ll take when they get around to recording some new material.

Also worth a mention were These New Puritans who opened for The xx. I can’t say that I’d really heard of them before yesterday despite them being tipped as one of the upcoming bands of 2010.

I was quite surprised to see a warm up act rock up with their own brass section, and though most of what These New Puritans brought to the stage was good, it was all let down by the fact that we simply couldn’t hear a word that the lead singer was putting out no matter how passionately he seemed to be going at it on stage.

Does anyone remember Hot Hot Heat, the four piece band that had everyone chanting “BANDAGES, BANDAGES, BANDAAAAAGES”?

No? Oh well that was way back in 2003 after all I suppose. That and “Bandages” was banned from play on BBC Radio 1 after someone clever at the Beeb decided the playing a song with the word bandages at a time of war was a bad thing.

Some people must have remembered these good folks though as The Scala was packed full of a young(ish) indie crowd and boy were they bouncing all over the place. Secretly I was glad to be up in the balcony though, as much as I usually like being in the thick of it, I feel like someone has been stealing my energy. Give it back please.

Tonight was the last night of Hot Hot Heat’s tour, unsure if it was meant to be promoting their new album “Future Breeds” or not as most of the material played were known hits, not that anyone complained!

Wasn’t really sure what to expect but was really quite impressed with the huge amount of energy that was put into the performance and the dynamics between the group, they gel amazingly well and they have just the right amount of twiddly extra bits and solos in their set to make it interesting. I think the lead singer Steve Bays can only be described as being a bit mental

Hot Hot Heat have a new bass player amongst them, Parker Bossley, sporting a gorgeous Fender Jaguar Bass he pretty much played lead on bass throughout the majority of the set. Full of energy and funky playing, made it well worth going.

Opening for Hot Hot Heat were Official Secrets Act. I’ve managed to forget their name countless times this evening because there are an awful lot of bands with similar names.

Afraid to say that it wasn’t really for me, despite the fact that a lot was being put into the performance I just didn’t feel like there was enough cohesion and ooomph. Technical terms there obviously. I’d love to have seen more involvement from the bass player, and more lead guitar from the lead vocalist/guitarist Thomas Burke, that and make sure the sound engineer cranks that poor Fender Jaguar up next time.

To be fair to the guys they’ve only been on the scene for a few years though, so a bit of refinement and who knows where they’ll be next.

As part of the run up to the NME Awards 2010 on the 24th of February, the folks over at NME have been hosting a number of gigs including the first time Courtney Love has played with Hole in 11 years (which I am gutted I missed, and in fact knew nothing about!).

Tonight’s gig was at the Islington Academy and featured an action packed line up of Teeth, Lyrebirds, Chew Lips and the all new material from the New Young Pony Club.

In typical fashion, James caused us to be late (nothing to do with me being fussy about not eating at McD, Burger King, KFC, Subway or any other fast food joint) so we missed Teeth, but I wasn’t too sure about them having poked around their MySpace.

We arrived out of the icy cold in time to catch the beginning of the Lyrebirds set and though I think whichever guitarist plays the Stratocaster needs to stop wearing his guitar just over his cock, they were pretty good. Could have done with more showcasing of individuals rather than just all playing the who can thwack the strings the loudest game, that really does my head in.

Chew Lips came on after Lyrebirds. I’ve only just found out about Chew Lips today after poking around on Last.fm and finding them listed on the event page for tonight’s gig, and I may have to admit that I then spent all of the morning listening to the tracks that they have up on their MySpace page. Live they were even better than their recorded material and good deep bass and quirky melodies, definitely had everyone moving.

Quick nip to the loo and a refill of the old JD and coke and we’re back at the front of the crowd in time for New Young Pony Club. Out they burst onto the stage with the lead singer Tahita sporting bright blonde hair.

This is the first time in a fair while that they’ve played London (or possibly anywhere?), having been locked in a cage writing new material for their new album due to be released mid next week.

For the first night of the tour and the first time they’ve played the material live, I have to admit they were a lot more refined than they were when I saw them at the Astoria a few years ago, Tahita has always been full of crowd moving energy but this time it was great to see the bass player really getting into it. Shame about the lead guitarist mostly looking frustrated with his guitar and the sound engineer, and madame keyboards still feigning boredom after how many years!

The new material was a bit of a mixed bag, some of the songs have lost a bit of that energy that I loved NYPC for when I first got into them, however others definitely embrace that feeling and kick it up a notch, should have grabbed a set list so I could work out which ones I liked!

All of the old material however was absolutely rocking and had the crowd bouncing away, I left the Islington Academy a very sweaty man. Good luck NYPC for the rest of your tour!

I love music, and I sorely miss the times a few years back when I was invited by Talia over at Londonist.com to review new and upcoming artists on behalf of them, it’s such a good feeling to catch artists when they are on the rise to fame and they have a sort of freshness to them and haven’t become so big that it spoils the experience.

Apparently luck was on my side this week, a colleague at work happens to be dating the manager of one of those upcoming artists and happened to be able to guest list me + 1 at the “Curious Generation” night being held at Ronnie Scott’s bar.

First of all, just have to give a quick prop to how intimate Ronnie’s Bar is as a venue, okay the drinks are ridiculously overpriced, but the bar staff are friendly, the atmosphere is good, and you are literally right in front of the act performing.

Curious Generation are an events and PR agency from what I can make out, and they are bringing new artists to lots of well known and established venues with the hope of attracting the record label A&R folk and getting some of these new artists signed.

Four acts performed at Ronnie’s Bar, all with a range of styles and appeals.

Ryan Keen was first up and really struck a chord (oh, pardon the pun) with Chris and I, Ryan had a lot of similarities in his acoustic guitar playing style to those of Newton Faulkner who we fell in love with years ago whilst I was doing the review circuit for Londonist. Using his guitar as more than a stringed instrument by tapping in various places to squeeze out different drum like sounds, and finger picking riffs whilst also picking off different bass note riffs.

If you can excuse Ryan’s management lurking in the corner of your eye wearing suits about three times too large, he’s definitely worth checking out and is performing all over London as a warm up for other acts and on his own with Curious Generation.

Mads Langer is the guy we’d come to see, and for an absolutely tiny sized Danish lad, he packs a vocal punch. Not really the kind of music I’d listen to normally as it was vocally heavy and a bit overpowering in the small and intimate venue (even spotted the sound guy turning him down frequently), but you’ve got to give him credit for his vocal range.

Not quite as talented as some of the other acts when it came to his guitar playing, and he did look rather a lot like his head was going to explode when he hit some high notes, but I think I’d like to see him perform with a band (which apparently he does normally).

The Boy Who Trapped The Sun (or Colin MacLeod for those that like real names) was a tough cookie, and I think my view of him was pretty much skewed by not being 100% sure if he was a depressive, or had quite heavily been at the booze prior to his performance. Either way, if you’re going to get up on stage and win people over, then you should at least look like your enjoying yourself, or not bother doing it at all.

I’m not saying the guy was bad, it was just the rest of the package. Maybe on other nights he’d be worth seeing!

Kurran and the Wolfnotes probably deserve an apology, at this point Chris and I decided it was home time for us oldies and we left early on in their set. That and I was only really interested in listening to the Gibson jazz guitar and for some reason it was turned right down, boo.

Overall though, a great night. I’d be tempted to go back to Ronnie’s Bar again if they ran similar nights, or maybe I should be chasing Curious Generation around town instead.

It’s only been six months since my last guitar purchase when I made the transistion from learning on an acoustic to learning on an electric guitar; I am still really stupidly happy with my Fender Telecaster Deluxe 72 and it’s mix of tones and sounds that are somewhere not quite Telecaster, not quite Stratocaster.

Unfortunately when you’ve been bitten by the bug, it doesn’t look like there is any going back. Since I first started learning to play my eyes have been glued to guitars, reading what the experienced players on the forums have to say, trawling YouTube for videos of good guitarists and seeing what they like to play with.

There’s no doubt that in terms of versatility Fender’s Stratocaster is one of the first to come to mind, and I figured that if I could find a reasonably priced second hand Stratocaster (I was aiming for one made in Mexico) then I’d have a choice of guitars to play with, ultimate goal being keeping me proactive about my learning.

So I popped into Rock Around The Clock (who by the way I usually rate much more highly than anyone you’ll find on the likes of Denmark St) and started enquiring about how often Stratocasters come in second hand, what sort of condition they are in, how much they cost and so on. I was told £500 realistically, which makes you question what condition the £250 models you see floating around on eBay are actually in.

I must have looked a bit defeated, because they pulled off another guitar from the rack, immediately I squirmed at the Squier branding knowing that they’re not exactly known for the same build quality as Fender’s main factory and the pickups aren’t usually all that great.

Blow me though, the sound was brilliant for the price, and thus I was convinced, I needed to have me a Squier Classic Vibe Stratocaster 50s.

The Classic Vibes are designed and made by Fender supposedly as a homage to the “vibe” of classic guitars rather than a nod at any specific model of the times, but they haven’t skimped on this series, the build quality is amazing, the neck is as smooth as butter just like my Telecaster Deluxe.

I picked her up yesterday and within 5 minutes my guitar teacher successfully broke the strings whilst stretching them, so I had to patiently restring it yesterday evening when I had some free time before I could actually have a proper play with it, but it’s all set up now and plays absolutely beautifully.

It’s a lot lighter than I thought it would be in both weight and sound, a lot less meaty and vibrant than my Telecaster Deluxe, but I’m still having a lot of fun with it already and am completely glad that I picked one up whilst they’re still making these bargains.