Commercial Alternative: All day alternative music fest at Mono

Great day, poorly attended (I'm assuming) due to crappy weather, but to be honest, c'mon Glasgow! It was an indoor festival!

My personal highlights were Remember Remember and The 1990's, as they were so bloody tight - Remember Remember had the most amount of folk I've seen in it yet, was bordering on epic, and was great to meet Graeme's Mum who was the most vibrant one in the crowd - go Margaret! I can definitely see RR headlining a main stage somewhere. Top class.

Was the second time I've seen The 1990s live, and I really want to see them again. They just blast energy off the stage and they just meld together so well. Great songs, music, musicianship, presence and engagement with the audience. Bloody brilliant. When oh when will they play the UK again?

Great to discover Astral Planes, and finally hear/see Girls Names, Golden Grrrls, and Peter Parker. (Numpty that I am I completely didn't recognise Roz from Peter Parker who also plays in Miss The Occupier. Different hair, though I had my sneaking suspicions it was the same girl from photos of PP I'd previously looked up! Twat-head strikes again.) Peter Parker snarl out a sexy fifties rock/punk flavour, delivered in tattoos, scratches and pouts. Like it, a lot.

Astral Planes was also sexy and snarly reminding me a bit of Chrissy Hind, Patty Smith and The Kills. Girls Names produced really creative and mesmerising sounds and songs - Beautiful!

Golden Grrrls I've been meaning to see for a while now, with their drummer Eilidh who is great and has been with other bands I've meant to see but never managed. Looking forward to where they head with this.

In all, it was a quality line-up and I would definitely see them all again. If I hadn't been experiencing the mother of all stomach cramps and wanting to vomit for the latter half of the night, it probably would have been one of my best days in the year, especially if I hadn't retired at the end of the night and gone home. I mean seriously, what a lame-ass.

Mono is most definitely one of the top three magnetic poles for experiencing GREAT music in Glasgow if not the UK. The building doesn't provide the best accoustics, but for the consistently great gigs that play there, the fantastic music shop, expos, food, top class beer as well as their own home-made ginger beer, best drinking sun-trap courtyard and the relaxed atmosphere, you really can't beat it.

(Drawings will come)

Happy 15th Birthday Chemikal Underground!

The Phantom Band

Aidan Moffat with Bill Wells on Piano and Stevie Jones on Double Bass

Emma Pollock

The Unwinding Hours

Lord Cut Glass

Zoey Van Goey

Adrian Crowley

Warm Up, Lord Cut Glass

Warm Up, Adrian Crowley

Awesome, brilliant, great, fun. The Phantom Band were blistering. Stevie Jones was on fire with Bill Wells and Aidan Moffat. Emma Pollock was lovely, liking her new stuff. Zoey Van Goey were great and affable as expected. Lord Cut Glass kicked ass - the song Look After Your Wife with vocals by Kim Moore was exhilerating! Unwinding Hours were class, and looking forward to seeing them again at their first headline show - 5th of March, Stereo -Look it up. First up was Adrian Crowley who opened the show with a sweet set, but all in all 7 quality acts with only about 20-30 minutes each. So bear that in mind when you check out the pics.

The Phantom Band

The Phantom Band played a sell out night last night in King Tuts - been sold out for aeons - the brother of the drummer wasn't getting in it was that sold out. Don't know if he finally managed at the last minute, but twas the sign of things to come.

This drawing was done in the less packed but excellent venue the Stirling Tolbooth - done on Saturday 28th (yes a bit of time travelling done here!) supported by Kochka and another band - both who I missed.

First heard of the Phantom Band playing a stellar line-up the Chemikal Underground's 2007 Winter Revue with none other than the most splendid De Rosa and the most fantabulous and now tragically missed Mother and the Addicts at Stereo, Glasgow. I hear they were a tad rough round the edges in them days, but have since come on in merry little leaps and bounds. (Apparently it's coming up for Spring just now...) Chemikal Underground have very sophisticated tastes, and I trust them more than any other indicator of the great and the good right now.

2009, Checkmate Savage by the Phantom Band - get it, and go see them.

The Sauchiehall Crawl, without the Crawl

I had wondered if I would crawl tonight, or rather, madly dash with bags of schtuff banging behind me as I tried to render the essence of each show in 5 minutes after battling through crowds, venues, stairs and distance. Decided I'd just spend some quality time in one place. Plus a pint of San Miguel was a good place to forget what I was missing.

Dissappointed Make Model were not on the list tonight; hope they sort out their issues.

As it was, I stationed myself in Nice and Sleazy's tonight and was glad, ignoring the frustrations of not being able to see the Ads, Galchen and Twilight Sad. But I DID get to see The Phantom Band, who were phenomenal. Well, perhaps that's too strong a word, but it was at a suitably audible volume that all the rythms, clicks, whistles, strums, poignant words and thumps could be felt making their way through your core, especially if you were me and standing right infront of the amps. It was Wawesome! So I told them. Bit dissappointed there weren't more folks, cos there should have been. I also hate gushing so much when I like something. But rather that than uber cool.

Jo Mango was poorly attended more so, but was a sweet injection in the eclectic selection on show.

The night started with the fine voice, screeches, mix of instruments and words from Ross Clark, wholesome songster. A buddy-hollyesque thumper with a raw earthy quality to his songs, fleshed out with stories from close to home. 'Sex is for Losers' is a song whose title I chuckled at, but the crowd obviously hadn't warmed up enough to join in. Aye, there was a few.

(Currently my pictures are drying in the kitchen/office of N&S along with the drawing I did last night of the Average White Band which I was pretty pleased with. However, having them in the kitchen/office gives me a slight collection of sweat on my brow, but what do I do when there's a ladlefull of liquid drying it's residue filled puddles into the paper?
Speaking of puddles, there was this dude outside the Cellar bar/club/room sitting in his own spew which actually looked like it had exited the other end. What was more unfortunate was the guy that was consoling him accidentally overbalanced and plonked his hand right in it. Ergh.)

So anyway, got some great drawing done of the 4 bands including We Were Promised Jet Packs, a fine array of musicians who kept chopping and changing their instruments. I wondered what the point of this was - to show how talented they all are? Or was it incase somone was incapacitated that someone else could fill in cos they knew the part? They didn't really seem like heavy partyers, more like tea drinking odd balls that just liked jerking your chain when you expected them to be playing one instrument only. 'Ha ha We'll show them!' Or maybe they were illustrating that anyone could play their music? However, I did enjoy them. Lots of potential.

So it sounds like it was a top night. Pity I couldn't stay for a partying session, but after dancing my ass off at Soundhaus till we got kicked out in the daylight hours, I was glad I had just enough change for a couple of beers and the bus there and back.

Time for bed said Zebedee.