Gig guide archives

Previews by Mike Davies

Tuesday June 1

Kassidy

A Scottish new names package, this is headed up by the beardy Glasgow fourpiece whose affinity for 60s California has seen them likened to CSN&Y. They’re nowhere near that standard, but new single Stray Cat (Vertigo) is a catchy sea shanty funky blues lope that sounds like Gomez if they learned to smile and they’ll be featuring that alongside previews from their as yet unscheduled debut album, Hope St. Tasters suggest an acoustic bias with leanings towards scratchy psychedelic folk (Secret Tells A Lie), Doors influenced boogie (The Betrayal) and Southern soul rock (Take Another Ride). Be prepared to experience some Grateful Dead jamming.

Sharing a love of California, but moving more into the 70s Laurel Canyon neighbourhood, Illinois-spawned Lissie will also be lining up prospective customers for her own soon come debut album, Catching The Tiger (Columbia), with the sun-baked Fleetwood Mac soft rock of In Sleep, Record Collector, Cuckoo and the Buddy Holly influenced Stranger alongside the yearning balladry of Bully and the hymnal Oh Mississippi. She’ll not have time to preview much, but those wishing to hear more should book for her headlining Glee date next month.

Third on the bill is Stornoway native Colin MacLeod alias The Boy Who Trapped The Sun. Although discovered singing Deep Purple covers in an Aberdeen pub, there no Smoke On The Water or Highway Star to be found on debut album, Fireplace (Geffen). Rather this is another entry into the now slightly overpopulated fragile, sensitive, husky voiced nu-folk market with MacLeod taking influence cues from a stockpile that includes the obligatory Jeff Buckley and Elliott Smith alongside a pick and mix of Badly Drawn Boy, Tom McRae, Snow Patrol, Neil Young, King Creosote and James Blunt.

There’s a big push behind him and on the forlorn, summery Golden, jaunty strum Katy, the brushed percussion train time rhythm title track and the waltzing Dreaming Like A Fool where he recalls Jerry Jeff Walker’s Mr Bojangles, you can see why some record label folk might get enthusiastic

But, rather like Thorn In Your Side which starts off with a promising Neil Young harmonica only to slide into a plod, the album is pleasant but never really goes anywhere exciting or memorable. His solar flare seems likely to be fleeting. 7.30pm. £7. O2 Academy 3

Tuesday June 1

Four Year Strong

The first track on the new album, Enemy of the World (Defacto), may be titled It Must Really Suck To Be Four Year Strong Right Now, but the Massachusetts’ pop punk quintet certainly don’t have anything to complain about.

‘Don’t fix it if it hasn’t broken yet’, run the lyrics and that’s exactly the approach taken here as they rip through their customary assemblage of raging riffs and air fisting choruses that has them sounding like a hardcore Blink-182..

One Step At A Time may take the pace down slightly, but there’s nothing here that even faintly resembles a ballad, the sweat positively bouncing off the walls and ceiling as track explodes after track.

What The Hell Is A Gigawatt is their tongue in cheek comment on getting on a bit, but given the fire bursting through the seams of On A Saturday, Wasting Time, This Body Pays The Bill$ and Paul Revere’s Midnight Ride they’ll not be applying for bus passes anytime yet. Flannel Is The Colour Of My Energy they sing. They’re built from more robust cloth than that. 7.30pm. £9. Slade Rooms, W’hampton

Wednesday June 2

The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster

They’ve been through some changes in the past few years with singer Guy and drummer Tom giving up drugs and becoming Buddhists, lead guitarist Andy Huxley departing after the second album and then Rich Fownes quitting to join Nine Inch Nails.

However, they’ve stuck to their musical manifesto and now, with Tristan McLenahan on guitar, they return with Blood & Fire (Black), their first album in five years another dose of psychosis gothabilly rock that draws its influences from such genre masters as The Damned (I Hate The Blues), The Cramps (Love Turns To Hate), The Doors (So Long Goodnight) and Nick Cave (the gothfolk of So Long Goodnight).

At times, notably the screamingly unintelligible Monsieur Cutts, it can be just a scary breakneck welter at others (Mission From God) they’re thrilling visceral. The injection of metal evidenced on the juddering Under My Chin sees them flirting with a new direction, but it’s their raw horror punk that will ensure their legacy. 8pm. £9. Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath

Thursday June 3

Against Me!

Pic Ryan Russell

‘Do you remember when you were young and you wanted to set the world on fire?’ sings Tom Gabel on anthemic, air punching new single I Was A Teenage Anarchist (Sire), the first track to be lifted from the Florida blue collar folk-punk outfit’s new album, White Crosses. Listen though and its not quite the celebration it seems but rather an attack on those who’ve let their idealism become jaded as they’ve grown older, a call to rediscover the fire that once burned inside.

The album bristles with anger and anthems alike as Gabel directs his rage against stagnation, compromise and complacency through such stand-out numbers as the storm the barricades title track with its Skids-like skirling guitars and ‘I want to smash them all’ chorus line reference to the anti-abortion memorials at his local church, the short sharp chugging New Wave burst of Rapid Decompression and the themes of defeatism and disillusion that imbue High Pressure Low, Suffocation and Ache With Me.

There’s vulnerability here too, though. We’re Breaking Up is a self-explanatory account of a relationship ending while Because Of The Shame finds the singer at the funeral of an old flame, shaken at the resemblance he sees in her mother.

Ultimately, it’s a play loud call to arms album, a cry to revive the passion with which you once burned that finds perfect air-fisting expression in Spanish Moss, a song guaranteed to get the floors shaking as the crowd bounces up and down to shout out the chorus. Should be a stormer. 7.30pm. £10. O2 Academy 2

Friday June 4

The Destroyers

Having celebrated the Town Hall’s 175th anniversary, the Birmingham 15 piece now mark the birth of another city live music venue, playing the sneak preview debut gig at Digbeth’s new 500 capacity music theatre. Given the band’s rowdy dance frenzied cocktail of flamenco and traditional Eastern European klezmer, polka, mazurka and Romany gypsy folk tunes that make up the Out Of Babel album, you can but hope the floor’s have been reinforced.

Dubbed The Summer Gypsy Ball, the night also features East London’s Urban Voodoo Machine plus live visuals from Syzygy and DJ sets from the Jibbering collective and Marc Reck. 9pm. £10. The Crossing, Milk St, Digbeth

Saturday June 5

Phosphorescent

Whether Matthew Houck will be playing solo or bringing his new band along for the ride remains to be seen, but either way you can count on the set list featuring a goodly batch of tunes from new album Here’s To Taking It Easy (Dead Oceans).

A variously sprightly and melancholic set of Americana, the former’s joyfully represented by the opening rowdy barroom rock and roll of It’s Hard To Be Humble (When You’re From Alabama) with its goodtime horns and pedal steel and the gathering honky tonk swells of Nothing Was Stolen (Love Me Foolishly) and the Willie Nelson hints of Heaven, Sitting Down.

On the quieter side there’s the world weary homecoming letter of We’ll Be Here Soon, the Band influences and lost loves that haunt the twang of The Mermaid Parade and the keening ache behind the piano and slide guitar of I Don’t Care If There’s Cursing.

However, the one likely to tear the house down if he plays it live will be Los Angeles, a nine minute Neil Young-style slow building bluesy guitar jam that climaxes in a choir of voices and should provide the perfect show closer and leave you, er, glowing.

Providing homegrown support will be local composer-pianist Rich Batsford setting the mood with selections from debut album Valentine Court and, if you’re good, flexing his occasional vocal muscles and Brian Wilson influences too. 8pm. £10. Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath

Sunday June 6

Jonah Matranga

The name may be familiar as the lead singer with Far, a Sacramento post-hardcore outfit whose emo rock has been an influence (albeit somewhat watered down) on such bands as Biffy Clyro and Jimmy Eat World. The band split in 1999, with Matranga going off to pursue solo projects Onelinedrawing, the anagrammatical New End Original and Gratitude. However, having reunited two years ago, they’re now releasing comeback album At Night We Live (Xtra Mile). It’s a forceful return, kicking off with the riff heavy, juddering Deafening, crush grinding with Dear Enemy and strapping on Hold Steadyish blue collar stadium rock straps for Are You Sure?

Not that it’s all full on assault. The Ghost That Kept On Haunting is a spooked, slow-paced feedback drenched fuzz, If You Cared Enough an anthemic swirl of circling guitars, Give Me A Reason the power ballad swayer and the title track a bittersweet soaring tribute to Deftones bassist Chi Cheng who’s been semicomatose since a car accident two years ago. It is, though, a little ironic that Burns actually has them sounding like Jimmy Eat World themselves.

Although this isn’t a band gig, I’d assume he’ll be showcasing some of the new material in advance of their own tour later this year alongside a pick and mix selection from his extensive solo catalogue. 8pm. £8. Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath

Sunday June 6

Goldfrapp

It seems that previous album Seventh Tree was a bit of a one off with its whispery pastoral moods and languid Syd Barrett meets Kate Bush folk. This year’s Head First (Mute) takes them back to the dreamy 80s synth pop of Supernature, quite literally taking off with a Rocket (and Van Halen’s Jump riffs) before the beats bubble up with Believer and Alive shows The Saturdays how summer pop’s really done.

Head First sounds like some lost ABBA gem, Alison purrs like a kitten while Shiny & Warm pulses on a techno space hopper beat, I Wanna Life reminds you of when Laura Brannigan was the queen of Europop disco and Hunt is the sound of Eurythmics in a space.

There is, ultimately, no real feeling of substance and it would be nice to think that next time they might be looking forward rather than back, but for now they provide dreamy dance soundtracks for those whose idea of glowsticks are solar garden lights. 7.30pm. £22.50. The Assembly, L. Spa

Monday June 7

Teenage Fan Club

It’s been five years since Man-Made and the associated tour, since when the Glasgow janglers have been next to invisible. Perhaps that’s why the long awaited new album is called Shadows (PeMa) as they finally step back out into the light to reveal that nothing’s changed in the interim. From the opening Sometimes I Don’t Need To Believe In Anything and first single Baby Lee, it’s reassuring to hear they’re still putting their faith in chiming guitars and their Big Star, Beach Boys, Byrds and Beatles collections.

A pity, then, that they couldn’t find a little more heart to go with it. The Fall is a pleasant enough warm and woozy summer day strum but it just drifts past without leaving any lasting impression, a fault that also taints The Past and the gently swaying Live With The Seasons.

However, when they hit the mark, there’s numbers here to rival their best moments. Shock And Awe, The Back Of My Mind and When I Still Have Thee shimmer with the spirit of McGuinn, Today Never End links arms with 70s Neil Young, Sweet Days Waiting is kissed by the warmth of California soul and, with Euros Child guesting on piano and guitars given the day off, Dark Clouds steps away from their usual comfort zone to embrace the 60s strings laced baroque pop of The Left Banke. Nothing here sounds like it was recorded this century, and that’s meant as a big compliment.

They’re joined by fellow Glaswegians, Veronica Falls, a boy/girl fourpiece who don’t look old enough to be out of school let alone remember the C86 shambling indie pop of The Shop Assistants and Pastels they seek to recreate on debut single Found Love In A Graveyard (Trouble) while they must have spent a while going through their grandparents 45s before turning Roky Erikson’s 1984 love song Starry Eyes into 60s girl doo-pop romance.

Unfortunately, they play like they’re frightened to pick up the instruments and Roxanne Clifford’s vocals are so thin you sometimes can’t even tell there’s a tune let alone whether she’s in or out of it. 7.30pm. £12.50. O2 Academy 2

Monday June 7

Jackie Leven

Fans should know by now not to expect anything shallow from Leven’s pen, and Gothic Road (Cooking Vinyl) is no exception, the title apparently representing the joining of the Royal Road and the Road of Poverty and Death to form one path. I have no idea what that means, but it seems to be something to do with finding a balance in life.

Whatever, rather than scratch your head over the metaphysics, you’ll be more profitably employed noting how the title track manages to quote both Ian Curtis and Dylan, spot the chorus of Too Busy Thinking ‘bout My Baby turning up in the Cat Stevens pop of In A Shivering Blaze, and marvel how the sepulchral marriage of spaghetti Western and Eastern European chant that is Last Of The Badmen borrows its melody from Dolly Parton’s Jolene. He even manages to reference Mud’s Tiger Feet on the bluesy Song For Bass Guitar And Death.

There’s the familiar themes of masculine need and emptiness, a flexing of the libido on John Paul Getty’s Silver Cadillac, Absolutely Joan Crawford (With A Bit Of Tilda Swinton On The Side) and Hotel Mini Bar where he dreams of being propositioned by Cher. All of which should make the song introductions even more interesting than the music. 8pm. £10. Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath

Tuesday June 8

Valefest

No Machine

The annual Birmingham University students charity bash - this year they support Oxfam, the Malaria Consortium and Procedo Foundation - has an all dayer line up of local and visiting acts playing both the main stage and the Hill Top tent as well as assorted comedians and Bigger Than barry DJs.

Among the homegrown names appearing you’ll find dub reggae funk outfit Cantaloop, ska poppers Tempting Rosie, The Scarlet Harlots, and Wolverhampton’s summery swayalong indie pop Young Runaways while, over from Athens, Georgia to plug new single Toast The Toaster, are No Machine aka twins Al and Emil Rivers whose psychedelic pop embraces elements of ska, classical, brassy soul and progrock.

Over in the tent you’ll find, among others, a celidh knees up with The Old Dance School, Derby singer-songwriter folkie Lucy Ward (she does a nice cover of Julie Miller’s Broken Things and an acapella The Band Played Waltzing Mathilda), experimental art-folk multi-instrumentalist Birmingham Conservatoire student Pete Yelding (shades of Banhart and Drake), Brum alt-folkie and (to judge by Ringing The Bell For The Last Time and Childhood) Tom Waits/Billy Bragg fan Benjamin Blower and bluesy Birmingham four piece Coronation’s Gypsies. Noon. £15. B’ham University

Tuesday June 8/Thursday June 10

Leona Lewis

The only X-Factor winner to become a major international star, Lewis has wisely waited until she has a substantial repertoire before embarking on her debut world tour. The Spirit debut was a strong first outing, filtering the dance beats of Take A Bow, Whatever It Takes, Bleeding Love and I’m You in among the power belting balladry of Footsteps In The Sand, A Moment Like This and First Time Ever I Saw Your Face to become the year’s top seller and make her the first British solo artist to top the American charts with their first album. As if to underline her dominance, she scored a No 1 with her cover of Snow Patrol’s Run on downloads alone.

Not fixing what wasn’t broken, Echo (Sony) was an even stronger proposition, featuring first single Happy alongside such ballad stand outs as Can’t Breathe, My Hands, Alive and hidden bonus track Stone Hearts And Hand Grenades and dance driven Outta My Head, Broken and Don’t Let Me Down. The album again topped the charts, but surprisingly the subsequent two singles, I Got You and Oasis cover Stop Crying Your Heart Out were only minor hits while, her Avatar theme song, I See You, was never released.

It does, however, figure in the much anticipated and eagerly awaited live set. Named The Labyrinth tour after her favourite movie, there’s an equal balance of the beats and the ballad, though, if she keeps the same set list, no room for her X-Factor hit or Footprints. What you do get though is masks, costumes, lasers, swirling mist, and fairytale woodland set in which she sings an acoustic version of Justin Timberlake’s Cry Me A River, one of several covers that include Eurythmics’ Sweet Dreams, Barry Manilow’s Could It Be Magic and, on the, ahem, video interludes, Ride A White Swan and They Don’t Care About Us with Run providing the finale before a Bleeding Love encore.

Promising to be a bit of a spectacular that showcases her sexiness as well as her voice, it runs two hours which won’t give much time for Italian-Australian opener Gabriella Cilmi to offer more than a brief sample, naturally including her two hits Sweet About Me and On A Mission.

Given sophomore album, Ten (Island) barely limped in to the Top 30, she could probably do with giving that a boost, although you tend to suspect her heart may not be into it and that the retro soul The Lies, feisty sass Don’t Want To Go To Bed Now, big band bluesy swing Cigarettes & Lies and the Dusty-like Sanctuary of the debut is more where she’s at than the record company directed anonymous dance pop of Superhot and Hearts Don’t Lie. 7.30pm. £43-£29. LG Arena

Thursday June 10

The Miserable Rich

Last here plugging then current single Somerhill, the Brighton chamber folk-pop quintet return with the full album, Of Flight And Fury (Humble Soul), and its tales of the destructive nature of excess, be that desire in the opening plucked strings Pegasus or the self-explanatory causes behind the woozy piano jittering Hungover.

Their name taken after playing an aristocrat wedding in Rome, cellist/pianist William Calderbank and singer James de Malplaquet lead proceedings with Mike Siddell providing violin, Jim Briffett guitar and Rhys Lovell on double bass. With four brief instrumentals, all titled Flight, punctuating the album (though bizarrely #4 precedes # 3), there’s a strong pastoral baroque flavour, indeed the rippling Chestnut Sunday refers to a Victorian tradition of taking the chestnut blossom air in London’s royal parks.

Although decidedly less camp, there’s a hint of Rufus Wainwright here and there, especially on the Brighton vignettes of the waltzing Somerhill and The Mouth Of The Wolf. To be honest, the instrumentation and arrangements are more interesting and attractive than the slightly ennui-brushed vocals, as hidden track Manor Farm - an instrumental version of Somerhill - bears witness. That doesn’t ultimately detract from the overall effect of something like rainy day break-up song Let Me Fade or the brooding Oliver, but it’s hard to imagine them enjoying the crossover success of a Mumford or Noah.

Support comes from Wolverhampton’s ever excellent tousle-haired troubadour Dan Whitehouse with choice cuts from his recent trilogy of EPs. 8pm. £8.50. Glee Club

Thursday June 10

The Victorian English Gentlemen’s Club

Their self-titled debut album saw the Cardiff art school trio parading their B52s, Talking Heads, Gang of Four and Devo influences on songs like Under The Yews, My Son Spells Backwards and Ban The Gin. Two years on they’re back with Love On An Oil Rig (This Is Fake DIY) and not a great deal’s changed in the interim. Except they now appear to have added a dose of The Fall and Pixies to the mixture.

Opening with the title track’s abrasive, industrial thrumming meld of squally noise and sliding into Parrot’s angular funk shapes, throbbing basslines, spine jerking rhythms and twitchy vocals, it’s immediately obvious it has no intention of providing anything remotely resembling an easy listen.

But if you’re prepared to work at it, and cover your ears when it gets a bit too scuzzy for comfort and don’t mind the unsettling lyrics, then the driving drum beat and tribal folk rhythms of Watching The Burglars, Periscope Envy’s jittery Talking Heads in extremis, Driver’s Companion’s lurching White Stripes drum clattering blues about the sexual life of a long distance lorry driver reap rewards while the skewed lurching rockabilly that is Bored In Belgium, the subversive shanty Women And Children and the noir surf and paranoid fuzzed rumble of God Save Us From Being So Damn Primitive veer on fractured genius. 8pm. £5. The Rainbow

Sunday June 13

Exit Calm

Hailing from Barnsley and unapologetically citing The Verve as a major influence (not that you wouldn’t have guessed from We're On Our Own), the quartet trade in wide open spaces, big over the horizon guitars heavy on delay and reverb, echoey vocals and mantra like five minute melodies. You’ll have a good idea then of what’s in store with their eponymous debut album (Club AC30) and epic soundscapes like a U2 tinted Hearts & Minds, psychedelic wall of feedback Don’t look Down and the Sigur Ros-like otherwordly expansiveness of Atone, Serenity and With Angels.

At the end of the day, even they admit it’s nothing original, but for those who’s been pining for the chance to simply immerse themselves in an ocean of shoegaze fuzz and sonic intensity, Exit Calm are the way in. 8pm. £7.50. Slade Rooms, W’hampton

Sunday Jun 13

Los

A bass-free Surrey based indie rock trio, fronted by Helen Sargent with Chris Hamilton guitars and Daniel Hale on drums they meld grunge, blues, metal and punk to influences that range from Zeppelin and Nirvana to Nina Simone and Jeff Buckley. Sparse on sound but big on riffs, they won admirers with debut EP The Whale, Ba Ba Ba in particular reaping praise from the likes of Tom Robinson.

Sargent in blues banshee mood, they return now with throbbing industrial strength new single The Cow and accompanying B side The Butcher where, backed by Hamilton’s distorted riffage, she sounds like a possessed PJ Harvey fronting a mutant Cream. 8pm. £4. Soundbar

Monday June 14

Band of Horses

Having carved a reputation with their first two independent label albums, the Seattle quintet now make the leap to the majors, signing to Columbia for Infinite Arms, their best received and biggest success to date.

With Ben Bridwell in charge of vocals, they make no attempt to conceal their influences, and you’ll hear any number of 60s derived colours, from original masters such as the Beach Boys, Hollies and Tommy James to disciples like Teenage Fanclub, My Morning Jacket and Stone Roses while NW Apt. adds a touch of Motown beat to the buoyant power pop and Americana.

A measure of their newfound confidence can be heard with the opening Factory, a dreamy, strings-laced wide open skies ballad content to take its time without ever feeling like it drags, a mood they return to even more effectively for Blue Beard, a Brian Wilson-ish song with Tommy James-like tumbling guitar chords just meant for surf-flecked evenings

They’ll keep you soothed with the Neil Young inclined pedal steel country lope of Older, an influence who also informs the acoustic For Annabelle, the spacey Cowgirl In The Sand moods of the title cut and the mid-tempo jogging Compliments with its Crazy Horse guitar break.

Live, it’s likely to be a more uptempo affair, reflecting numbers like the jangling fuzz guitar driven Laredo and an oddly 70s pop sounding Dilly with even the ballads taking on an extra bite. The album closes with Neighbour, a number which builds from twilight ballad to a wall of guitars and keyboard crescendo and fade that leaves you wanting more. It sounds like the perfect note to close the show too. 7.30pm. £13.50. Wulfrun Hall

Tuesday June 15

Wheatus

They had a massive hit with Teenage Dirtbag nine years ago, a song that seemed to never be off the radio for longer than five minutes. They followed that with a Top 3 entry for their cover of Erasure’s A Little Respect while the eponymous debut album hit the Top 10, but within twelve months they’d been forgotten as pimply fans moved on to other teen angst rock pastures. Since then they’ve released three albums that haven’t troubled chart compilers anywhere in the world, lost their major label deal, been through various line-up changes and made their last EP, Pop, Songs & Death: Vol. 1, available for download on a pay what you want basis.

And yet, they still soldier on, this being a tour to mark their 10th anniversary and doubtless pave the way for the delayed Pop, Songs & Death: Vol. 2 due later in the year. Doubtless, they’ll entice a few 20somethings out for a nostalgic singalong of the Dirtbag chorus, but a greatest hits evening it’s not. 7.30pm. £10. O2 Academy 2

Wednesday June 16

Keane

They’ve not be much of a singles force since Is It Any Wonder four years ago, but every one of the trio’s four albums has topped the UK charts. For many this is an inexplicable feat for what is a fairly ordinary and at times stodgy rock outfit, all the more so since last year’s Perfect Symmetry saw them move out of their Coldplay shadows and embrace the 80s stadium sound of Simple Minds (though Better Than This did nod to Bowie’s Ashes To Ashes) with a dash of tinny Tears For Fears electro for You Haven’t Told Me Anything.

Not a bad album of itself, The Lovers Are Losing and the title track showing they can pen a soaring chorus with the best of them while Love Is The End lit a candle for those mourning the death of the Radiohead ballad, but it’s nothing you’d put in a time capsule.

With the arrival of this year’s multi-hued Night Train (Island) mini album they’ve obviously explored their old Ultravox (Back In Time) and Queen (Stop For A Minute) albums, though reviving the spectre of Wang Chung on Your Love is taking the 80s revival a step too far. Equally, the appearance of an obscure Canadian poet rapper on the brassy faux soul, Rocky-theme borrowing Looking Back and a Japanese MC singing the verses of Yellow Magic Orchestra’s Ishin Densin in the original language would probably have had fans well foxed. They remain a love or hate proposition, but they’re clearly not to be written off for a while yet. 7.30pm. £32.50. O2 Academy

Saturday June 19

Suzanne Vega

It had taken a long six years for Vega to come up with an album’s worth of new material when she released Beauty & Crime back in 2007. A year longer than the gap between Nine Objects of Desire and Songs In Red And Gray. The suspicion that writer’s block might be a recurring problem won’t be alleviated by news that, returning to her folk roots, her next four albums are intended to be more intimate revisitings and reinterpretations of her old material.

However, going under the umbrella title of Close-Up, Vol 1 of the project, subtitled Love Songs (Cooking Vinyl) is hardly the work of someone in an artistic slough of despond.

Some of the numbers were never exactly over cluttered to begin with, but even something like Small Blue Thing and, especially, Marlene On The Wall from her debut album find new dimensions and colours in these stripped down versions.

There’s also a more erotic quality to these whispered intimacies, not just with the sultry, gypsy jazz flavoured Caramel and the lust streaked seductive fantasies of (If You Were) In My Movie and Stockings but equally in the loss heavy moods of (I’ll Never Be Your) Maggie May and Harbour Song.

Elsewhere the album prompts reappraisals of Gypsy, one of the earliest compositions here, which, recast in confessional acoustic solo clothes, has a refreshing 60s folky innocence though, as Headshots shows, paring things back doesn’t mean she can’t still explore the experimental arrangements and interests that manifested themselves in the likes of 99.9F.

In many ways this is going to be a bit of a ‘best of’ night in terms of the set list, but on the other hand, it’ll be also be like hearing them with new ears. Assuming she’s applying the same approach to the whole live show, it should also afford the opportunity to see how she’s recast material for the next three albums. Luka and Tom’s Diner are awaited with eager anticipation. 7.30pm. £25. B’ham Town Hall

Sunday June 20

Emil Friis

Hailing from Denmark with his heart in Tennessee and his influences firmly nailed to Dylan’s mast in terms of strangled nasal phrasing and melody lines, Friis conjures an authentic enough homage on The Road To Nashville (Southern Imperial) but fails to expand his horizons beyond a one note pace and tone.

There’s nothing individually wrong with numbers such as the title track with its desert twang guitar and trumpet, the slow rolling gospel blues of Time Changes Everything, the jazz piano rhythms of A Smiling Face or the steady match of Everything Is Ruined, but coming one after another the quivering vocal and sameness of sound and melancholic mood make the album and, one suspects, the live show, rather tiring. 8pm. £3. Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath

Sunday June 20

Topshop Bandstand Picnic

A charity bash in aid of Teenage Cancer Trust, this offers a solid line-up of rising stars of whom Cardiff’s Los Campesinos are probably the best known. They’ll by whipping it up with a juicy selection of snotty indie pop punk from the current Romance Is Boring album, doubtless to include standout tracks There Are Listed Buildings, Straight In At 101 and the folk shanty bounce of The Sea Is A Good Place To Think Of The Future.

Well worth being around for will be Eliza Doolittle and her brand of airy summery 60s pop. Following up the whistling bounce of Skinny Genes she’ll be showcasing new single Pack up (Parlophone), another retro bubble that skips along like a Motown version of Millie and gives a rumbling growly makeover to the chorus of Pack Up Your Troubles In Your Old Kit Bag. Her debut album’s due next month so expect previews of the likes of the bluebeat Money Box and the woodwind coated Police Car.

Her mother’s Les Mis star Frances Ruffelle, and another offspring of musical royalty is also present with I Blame Coco, otherwise known as Eliot Pauline Styler-Sumner, the daughter of Sting whose upcoming electro rock single Strange Machine sort of splices together elements of the Psychedelic Furs and La Roux in a moan about the digital age. If the sun shines, this should be well worth getting the rug out. Noon. £10. Vale Village, Edgbaston

Sunday June 20

David Celia

Photo: Anthony Pileggi

Chasing jazz vapours on Turnout, playing vaudeville with the ukulele strummed Severine, visiting Randy Newman in New Orleans with the horns and piano bar Wishful Thinking and putting his tongue in country swing cheek for the twangy I’m Not Texan, the Canadian singer-songwriter may not be big back home but UK audiences seems pretty fond of him, certainly enough to earn him a spot at this year’s Glastonbury.

Either side of that he’s playing a series of club gigs such as tonight’s to showcase new album I Tried (XXI) which, along with those mentioned, includes the title track’s melancholic cabaret waltz, a Southern country chugging Instant Puppy Love, the flute floating bliss pop Life Is A Dream and the childlike acoustic Bug’s Apocalypse, a number which adds Jonathan Richman to a list of comparisons that also includes Ron Sexsmith, The Beatles, Hawksley Workman and, on Instant Puppy Love, even the Monkees. 8pm. Free. Katie Fitzgerald’s, Stourbridge

Monday May 21

McIntosh Ross

With Deacon Blue on an indefinite hiatus, Ricky Ross and his other half, Lorraine McIntosh, have finally got round to recording an album of love songs together that mine that their country influences. Recorded in LA, The Great Lakes (Cooking Vinyl) opens with the title track, a gorgeously spare and romantic yearning lilt with snare drum slow march beat, keening steel and soulful harmonies. If nothing else quite produces the same shiver down the spine and Gloria sounds perhaps a little too similar to Springsteen's I'm On Fire, there's still plenty to make your heart melt.

To banjo and pedal steel backing, Bluebell Wood showcases Lorraine's soprano with lovely waltzing wedding day memories, the acoustic All My Trust I Place In You sees them harmonising on a soaring pledge of enduring love, the simple guitar backed Walls features Ross on a song about not shutting yourself away from those who care, while the mid-tempo handclapping Silver And Gold and the plaintive country ballad Oh The Dark both conjure Gram and Emmylou thoughts.

Both it and they deserve to find an audience beyond the Deacon Blue fan base, though it must be said that Mount Juliet's postal system tribute to these 'brave messengers... delivering their parcels and epistles' seems unlikely to go down well with those who’ve experienced the vagaries of Royal Mail. 8pm. £22.50. Glee Club

Tuesday June 22

The Gaslight Anthem

A massive admirer of The 59 Sound, I confess to being bemused by reviews hailing follow-up American Slang (Side One Dummy) as a better record. For a start, having recycled several tunes from their Skin On Skin debut last time around, they’re doing it again here, albeit with the occasional departure from basic four chord rock and with more distortion to the guitars.

Fair enough, they’re good melodies, full of fist in the air rock n roll energy, anthemic hooks and the New Jersey band’s unabashed love of both the city’s favourite son, Bruce Springsteen, and The Clash. They also play them with unbridled confident gusto as if their lives depended on it or, when the ballad mood sets in, with aching reflective passion.

Once again, the songs deal with youth, music and growing up, with Old Haunts essentially their version of Glory Days. However, while Brian Fallon’s lyrics often read better than they sound, in terms of blue collar mythic romanticism and imagery, save for Orphans (spoiled by being taken at full pelt punk pace) there’s nothing as strong as Great Expectations, High Lonesome, Meet Me By The River’s Edge, The Backseat, Here’s Looking At You Kid or the title track.

That’s not to say there aren’t some fine numbers; the title track a driving rabble rouser with a stadium sized chorus, the Gary US Bonds influences of the doo wop finger clicking The Diamond Church Street Choir, the clarion call of Bring It On with its nod to Please Mr Postman, the Strummeresque flickers of The Queen of Lower Chelsea and the stripped down We Did It When We Were Young which comes with a fade out to have the crowds swaying along, mobile phones aloft.

The new stuff will still sound great belted out live or on the car CD player with the windows down, but if The 59 Sound was their Born to Run, this is their Lucky Town.

Support’s provided by Glasgow’s indie rock quartet Twin Atlantic, bringing back their big guitars, bigger riffs, and urgent melodies to reprise material from debut album Vivarium and, in particular, staccato hiccupping rhythm new single Human After All (Red Bull). 7.30pm. £13.50. O2 Academy

Tuesday June 22

Lissie

Recalling the sound of 70s Laurel Canyon with its sun-baked soft rock, the Illinois songstress’s debut album, Catching The Tiger (Columbia), can’t avoid attracting obvious Fleetwood Mac comparisons with numbers like In Sleep, Record Collector, Cuckoo and When I’m Alone. It’s not a totally Stevie Nicks diet though, the tinkling pop Stranger could easily have come from the Buddy Holly songbook, Little Lovin’ is soaked in Southern soul while Bully evokes Cyndi Lauper balladry and Everywhere I Go suggests Maria McKee. The warble may get a little wearying with prolonged exposure, but for now she’s definitely on the ascent.

Support comes from art student turned singer-songwriter Alan Pownall who, following on from Jack Johnson-ish debut single, Chasing Time, is out spreading the word on next month’s True Love Stories (Mercury) album featuring the equally Johnsonesque Colourful Day, the 30s flavoured waltzing The Others, ragtime pop Clara and the ballroom shuffling Take Me. 8pm. £7. Glee Club

Tuesday June 22

We Are Scientists

Exiled from major label land after the admirably grown up ysnth heavy Brain Thrust Surgery failed to produce world domination despite such radio friendly tunes as After Hours, Impatience and Let’s See It, Chris Cain and Keith Murray have regrouped with Razlorlight drummer Andy Burrows for a return to the enthusiastic slapdash of their earlier work with Barbara (Pias).

Not that they’ve elbowed the melodies; I Don’t Bite has a hummable chorus despite the crunchy bass riffs that surround it, the urgently tumbling Rules Don’t Stop shows the Duran influence still in evidence and the driving Central AC sounds like Hong Kong Garden on amphetamines while the synth tumbling Break It Up and You Should Learn are custom built for summer airplay singles.

The two years away from live audiences after their first hit album and time taken off for their comedy TV series means it may be harder work than it should to regain the momentum but they have the right chemistry at their disposal. 7.30pm. £12.50. Wulfrun Hall

Wednesday June 23

The Bamboos

A soul funk band from Melbourne, the eight piece outfit are firmly in a retro groove that conjures thoughts of Average White Band, James Brown, Curtis Mayfield, Blues Brothers and The Family Stone. Big back home, they’re a relatively unknown quantity over here but the release of new album 4 (Tru Thoughts) should rectify that, not least for its prominent featuring of vocalist Kylie Auldist on seven of the dozen tracks, flashing her old school Motown colours on Like Tears In Rain, Keep Me In Mind and the uptempo brassy disco soul of Never Be The Girl, getting down and bluesy for Kings Cross and funking it up 70s style on Got To Get It Over.

As you’d expect they cook up a hot instrumental stew too, Red Triangle sounding like some blaxploitation spy movie outtake while Typhoon should surely have been the theme to a 70s TV action series. More unexpectedly, Up On The Hill pivots around a sitar for a raga chill out, undoubtedly a welcome moment to cool down and catch your breath in what promises to be a hot and sweaty night. 8pm. £10. The Yardbird, Paradise Place

Friday June 25

Scissor Sisters

If you thought the first two albums were camp, then wait until you get an earful of Night Work (Polydor), the latest dance floor cocktail of glam, hi-nrg, disco and New York clubbing pop from Jake Shears, Ana Matronic, Babydaddy, Randy Real and Del Marquis.

Featuring a cheeky buttocks grabbing sleeve cover, it plunges into the glitter ball illuminated gene pool of Lipps Inc, Bee Gees, Sylvester, Boney M, Pet Shop Boys, Bobby O, Modern Talking, Elton and ABBA with gay abandon, packing in more potential singles to the beat than you can shake a tush at.

Opening with the title track where the spirits of Giorgio Moroder, Donna Summer and ZZ Top party, sexy swagger Whole New Way slows down the Saturday Night Fever groove, Fire With Fire cranks up the Elton ballad before erupting into a cascading display of spangly pop while Any Which Way takes the brothers Gibb and gives them a synthy squelch, Skintight is the biggest hit Erasure never had and the nudgingly titled Harder You Get borrows from hard rock riffs and Thriller alike.

It’s not the only Jacko reference. They even have Sir Ian McKellen doing his Vincent Price bit on the closing Invisible Light, a track straight out of the Frankie Goes To Hollywood black hole.

There’s almost an embarrassment of riches as they stir their twizzle stick through a Eurobeat shaker, Sex and Violence the sort of dance floor cocktail of which Frank Farian could only dream. Doubtless arriving with a stage show to match, god knows how they’ll decide which ones to leave out in order to include past fan favourites. Frankly, they should have changed the title. Greatest Hits Vol 2 would have done it. 7pm. £30. O2 Academy

Friday June 25

Jesse Malin & The St Mark’s Social

After an album of covers and, save for three numbers on the Mercury Retrograde live album, no new material since 2007’s Glitter in The Gutter, it was becoming obvious that Malin had hit something of a writer’s block. He didn’t write or record for a year and ended up crashing on his sister’s couch. Then he was asked to come up with some songs for a film about J.D. Salinger. Penning acoustic strummed lost love ballad The Archer and the Velvetsish rumbling Lonely At Heart reignited the spark that has now produced the aptly titled Love It To Life (Side One Dummy), recorded with his new set of backing musicians. The floodgates were obviously waiting to be opened because, good as his previous solo work’s been, this is his best yet.

Opening with the rousingly anthemic Burning On The Bowery sounding like a sort of punky roots rock marriage of Ryan Adams and Nils Lofgren, it’s overflowing with big choruses and power chord melodies, rattling through All The Way From Moscow, reaffirming his Springsteen affections with St Mark’s Sunset, evoking Soul Asylum on Revelations, welding a spiky, fluttering Talking Heads guitar to a tumbling 60s pop chorus on Disco Ghetto and letting his punk roots have their head on chugging singalong power pop Burn The Bridge and the short sharp and noisy flurry of Black Boombox. If he’s firing on the same energy on stage as he was in the studio, this will be a cracker. 7pm. £10. O2 Academy 3 (+ Sun June 27, 7.30pm Slade Rooms)

Saturday June 26

Broken Social Scene

Numbering anything from seven to 19, the Canadian collective have obviously spent the five years since their last album amassing a store cupboard’s worth of ideas. Now they’ve opened the doors, knocked down the shelves and let everything tumble into Forgiveness Rock Record (City Slang), a teeming harvest of indie rock that announces itself with almost seven minutes of World Sick, building from fluttering keyboards to big chorus before ebbing away on a cello fade.

Then comes Chase Scene which, as the title suggests, imagines itself a cinematic soundtrack with its desert wah wah guitar flourishes, falsetto vocals and frenzied rhythmic pulse, taking the pace down with the chugging indie pop Texaco Bitches only to have Forced To Love and the electronic based All To All return to the buzzing air of paranoia.

Such switchbacking styles makes it an easier album to dip into than digest at one sitting, especially when they throw in something like the seven minute experimental noodling textures of Ungrateful Little Father midway. While their willingness to throw in the kitchen sink and see what swirls is admirable, it’s a relief when slip into the simpler, soft padding lysergic shuffle of Sweetest Kill or even the aimless stoner Highway Slipper Jam. A little less self-indulgence live would be a good thing. 7pm. £13.50. O2 Academy 2

Monday June 28

Blondie

Unusually, this time round Debbie and the boys are touring in advance of a new album rather than after everyone’s heard it. The album’s titled Panic Of Girls and the only track that’s so far surfaced is What I Heard. Which may explain the strategy. Still, there’s always those familiar hits to fill the spaces inbetween. 7.30pm. £35. W’hampton Civic Hall

Tuesday June 29

The Features

The first signings to The Kings Of Leon’s label, the Tennessee fourpiece are still busy promoting their two year old but now reissued album Some Kind Of Salvation. Dexys meet Gogol Bordello on The Drawing Board and similar gypsy mazurka flavours spill from Whatever Gets You By. However, The Temporary Blues is far more anthemic Hold Steady territory, while Wooden Heart is a brassy, organ riffer, Still Lost smokes Supergrass and The Gates of Hell does swayalong doo wop by way of Gary Glitter. Eclectic but intriguing. 8pm. £6. Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath

Wednesday June 30

Hockey

An American electro pop dance outfit whose debut album, Mind Chaos (Virgin), nods to old school hip hop (3Am Spanish) and Michael Jackson funk (Too Fake) alongside the garage guitar rock of Tom Petty (Song Away), a Latino Talking Heads (Work) and, on Four Holy Photos, even Dylan. Infectiously sunny with a bright literate wit, they may not have the hype of more flashy counterparts but they could be a lot more fun. 7.30pm. £10. O2 Academy 2