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Kit/No Age/Mika Miko - The Luminaire, London, 22 June 2007

I spot my Music & Video Exchange nemesis. He works at their Camden branch. He always sits at the counter reading his newspaper. All their shops are staffed by sour-faced miserablists, but he is their most taciturn, unsmiling, employee. I'd begun to wonder if his face was paralysed. But there he is. Smiling. He appears to be having a good time. I find I am oddly heartened to see him out enjoying himself.

Mika Miko look as if they've raided a dressing-up box full of mum's old clothes. They sport a truly gruesome array of gaudy, 80s apparel. That, though, is the fashion. Their party-punk-rock is driven along by meaty bass and thudding drums, which, are miked-up loud and beaten with the subtlety of a panel beater. Bands that come to mind are Bikini Kill and Raooul, but with the hard-rock motorik of AC/DC, and elements of Kat Bjelland in the vocals.

No Age are a two piece, guitar and drums. They use backing tracks of processed keyboard. It sounds a bit punk, a bit rock, a bit indie. It's loud, fuzzy and distorted. It's good, but doesn't excite me. It's as much as I can find to say about them.

Kit are disappointing. Disappointing in the sense that I'd come to see them and they only play for 20 minutes. Then again, even if they'd played their LP in it's entirety they'd hardly have been on much longer. The band are pent up energy, bounding round the stage like one of those rubber balls I used to play with as a kid. All except the guitarist who could be knocking out a session track for all his lack of animation. Kit specialise in short, sharp, bursts of staccato melodic post-hardcore. I say post-hardcore, but I invariably get these genres wrong. Regardless, they sound like a more melodic, Spasm Smash era Trumans Water crossed with a fun, faster God Is My Co-Pilot. They burn through their set like an acetylene torch on a flimsy piece of tin. And then, they are gone.

Talibam!/Towering Breaker/But God Created Woman - Pool Bar, London 17 June 2007

No-one could accuse But God Created Woman of not being loud enough. Even the notes the guitarist strikes to tune his guitar are defeaning. They ignore the audience, facing each other as if rehearsing. Their's is a simple formula. Thudding drums, tension building riffs, then scream out noise assault.

Towering Breaker are a two-piece noise outfit. The play hunched over low tables of effects pedals, tape recorders, and other unidentiable electronic gadgets. Their soundscape slowly evolves. At first shimmering, then grinding, pneumatic, followed by hollow, static scrapings. A fragment of a pre-set keyboard beat is introduced. It is bent, shaped, and then admidst the swirling mass of gnarled sound emerges an oddly beautific moment. It's only brief, as the sound mutates into the rumbling of a tractor engine.

I am confused. Talibam t-shirts on the merch stall clearly show three band members. However, there are only two on stage. Drums and keyboard. Sun Ra is their launching pad, as they blast-off in the direction of Coltrane's Interstellar Space LP. Clusters of keyboard notes spill forth as the frenzied drummer works the kit. His skinny frame blurs, as drumsticks snap and fly across the stage. Then they move into more of a rock sound. These sections aren't as good. Stay on the jazz man, the jazz.

First Nation/Polly Shang Kuan Band - Gramaphone, London 13 June 2007

Five women stand on stage. Each has a microphone running into an effects pedal. They begin barking, whooping, screaming, whistling. It's like primal scream therapy with a feminist encounter group. Slowly they manipulate the sound, layering and distorting their cries. Gradually it becomes less human, mutating into an electrogram of static It builds to a crescendo of metallic white noise then ends. People clap. One of the group laughs like they just got away with playing a hoax on the audience.

First Nation begin with glacial keyboard, echoey drone vocals and the periodic thudding of their drummer, who punctuates the floaty tones with cries of "aiiie". The best of their songs are skeletal, with simple, music-box melodies. Others are plodding, and formless. One has some dreadful off-key harmonies. There's a memorable song towards the end. It begins with a childish melody reminiscent of CocoRosie. The drumming is heavy and there's a strong, open guitar riff as the tempo gradually increases. They play for a mildly diverting hour, but there's a memorable 30 minute set in there somewhere.

Indian Jewellery/Gay Against You/House Mouse - The Old Blue Last, London, 11 June 2007

I arrive halfway through House Mouse's set. I'd not been expecting the muted electronica. It doesn't last long. House Mouse reverts to the static-y beats, and off-key chords of a mangled spectrum. Occassionally he utilises an 80s vintage guitar, which probably last saw use in Howard Jones backing band. Dressed in a hoodie and with a bandana tied around his face, House Mouse looks like a Colombian kidnapper. Is this to add an element of danger? Or is he embarrassed at turning out this rubbish.

Robbed of their performance element would anyone bother with Gay Against You? Dressed in white rags, the two members of Gay Against You look like a cross between a Roman senator and someone on the meat counter at Asda. The three-piece are completed with a long-limbed gimp on drums. They attempt to engage London's notoriously reticient crowd. Not without some success. However, it does not do enough to distract me from the bursts of techno and gabba. Unforunately, they sound like their using Fisher Price pre-sets. It's all rather tame. Not the corruscrating melange they think it is. And yet. And yet. They do have some kind of deranged pop sensibililty which, surfaces on the tracks where they play the Korg. They do little for me. But most people seem to like them.

The lights are turned off and the curtains are drawn for Indian Jewellery. The only illumination is via an epilepsy inducing flashing light that provides momentary snapshots of the band. The band lay down a very percussive, heavy psych. A man dressed as a Shaman, complete with a intricate head-piece dances on stage and wanders about the audience. The heady atmosphere is heightened by the malfunctioning aircon that turns the venue into a sweat box. Tribal, occult and sorcery are words I looked up in my thesaurus. Dull, is the one that comes to my mind unaided. The sound doesn't seem to do them any favours as the drumming drowns out the guitar and electronics. They seem to be doing something interesting, but I can't hear it. With a different mix I might have felt more enthusiastic. I sneak a glance at Jarvis Cocker, who happens to be in the audience tonight. It's hard to tell what he thinks. He whistles briefly at the end of one song. Otherwise, he remains inscrutable.

Someone Still Loves You, Boris Yeltsin/Favours For Sailors/4 Or 5 Magicians - Barden's, London, 8 June 2007

Tonight's gig at Barden's promises three bands which sound like Pavement. There are few hallowed testaments in my life, but Pavement's ‘Slanted and Enchanted' is one of them. It is the benchmark which all indie rock bands shall be judged against. It is an exacting standard. Even Pavement themselves have failed to record anything reaching that albums exalted heights.

It could be a night of alt.rock heaven. Or a disappointing encounter with bands, happy to invoke the name of a hallowed act because of a misguided belief in their own talent.

First up are 4 or 5 Magicians, who I mildly acclaimed some months back. They are at pains to point that they've not had time to sound check. They shouldn't worry as it's clearer than the last time I saw them, where their potential was nearly obscured by a messy sound. I close my eyes and I could be back in 1992. They have that early 90s US college rock sound nailed. Pleasant memories of Archers of Loaf swirl in my mind. They do not disgrace the Pavement comparison, but they haven‘t quite earned it yet.

Favours For Sailors set the bar dangerously high. Not only do they compare themselves to Pavement, but ‘Slanted...' era Pavement. Truly dangerous. If they'd opened with a ‘Summer Babe' rip-off they may have succeeded, but they begin with a song sounding uncannily like an Arctic Monkeys single. During, I think, the third song, I become convinced that they're doing a cover a version of ‘Making plans for Nigel'. I don't advocate prison for bands that sound like XTC but ‘Slanted' era Pavement they are not.

Barden's is now pretty crowded. The audience are clearly here to see Someone Still Loves You, Boris Yeltsin. I guess they must be famous. I've no idea who they are. This kind of thing depresses me. My younger self would have known. Even though I'd probably never heard them, I would have had a trenchant opinion as to their merits. Oh, for such certainty today. They rock in the fashion of melodic indie bands past, future and clearly present. There's a few riffs which make my interest flutter. It's all too neat and prim. No shambling, swooning or screaming. They fail the ‘Slanted' test.