Love like ours was never made in heaven/Together we've achieved the murder of love

Wednesday 29 April - a mid week foray into the murky world of post-punk. "Here's a dirty little ditty, you might want to go home and wash yourself down after we've finished this one..." So here we are at The Duchess (where else?) and, again, despite a house full of music I've once more found myself about to watch a band I've heard of, but never heard. How rubbish am I? Still, at least I can console myself with the knowledge that my partner in crime,'A', hadn't heard them either.

First up, and already playing as we enter, were The Idol Dead a four piece that I think comes from Leeds. They consist of: Polly Phluid (vocals), Tim (guitars), Miguel (bas), and Nish (drums). Is Polly formerly of the band Phluid? (Yes he was, thanks Carmen!) That would be bizzarre given that we saw the drummer of Phluid on our last outing.

Anyway, they played a not-terribly-original-sounding set of post-punk tunes among which I spotted Babylon, Eye Of The Storm, She's So Spooky and the finale, Church Of Hate, which they renamed tonight in honour of the headliners as Theatre Of Hate. All a bit uninspiring really; cue a visit to the bar

There was a reasonable turnout for the headliners but it was a very strange crowd; a lot of loutish ladies, and blokes who were mostly short and stocky with gelled up hair and beige jackets that they seemed reluctant to remove, plus two old giffs in the middle of course.

Spear of Destiny came onto the stage to a pretentious soundtrack overlaid with some indistinct speech, followed by a bowel shuddering bass note. SOD are a British rock band, established in 1983 by singer and songwriter Kirk Brandon and bassist Stan Stammers. It's had an ever-changing line-up through the years and currently features Adrian Portas, Robin Goodridge, Craig Adams and Kirk Brandon. Brandon had previously been in The Pack, and from 1980 to 1982 in the post-punk Theatre of Hate best known for its Westworld album. SOD are touring their second album One Eyed Jacks which was released 25 years ago in 1984 and reached number 22 in the UK album chart, their best effort to date.

As far as I could tell they performed the album in its entireity so; Rainmaker, Young Men, Everything You Ever Wanted, Don't Turn Away, Liberator, Prisoner Of Love, Playground Of The Rich, Forbidden Planet, Attica, These Days Are Gone, Rosie, and Grapes Of Wrath. They went off and then came back for a 35 minute encore which I believe featured a number of b-sides and some Theatre of Hate material including the single Do You Believe In The Westworld?

The playing was very tight, as one might expect, the vocals were a bit strangled, and the lyrics sounded a bit pseudo-Nietzschean. The songs had strange time changes but were generally strong enough to make my foot tap and body sway to the beat. There were singalong lines we could all join in with and the songs were sufficiently different that I didn't get bored over the 90 minute set, so they must have been doing something right. Will I be buying an album? Perhaps not, but I did enjoy the night out, which is always a bit of a result.

Knock, knock, knocking on Heaven's door

Saturday 25 April - and I would probably have been out anyway but a lovely lady I know is the wife of the lead singer in Selby/Leeds band $lash Vega$ and she kindly provided us with flyers to get into The Duchess with a £2 discount, so we were definitely up for that!

SV are a five piece who seem reluctant to divulge their full names (you know who you are Ian), so the line-up is: Ginna (vocals), Holmes (drums), Robbie G (guitar), Mike Infinitum (bass) and Oz (another guitar). Ginna looks a bit like Brian Placebo/Keith Prodigy and used to play drums with Leeds outfit Phluid. They have recently released an album, This Is Radio Revolution, which should be available to purchase soon.

Musically they were a motorway pile-up between G 'n' R, Motley Crue and Poison, their sounds falling somewhere in the metal-pop genre. Whilst the lyrics were pretty much lost in the noise, I certainly enjoyed Vive La Revolution with its superb guitar solo, Beat The Disease, and the two songs with Batman references; Joker and Two Face (or should that be Two-Face?)

Next up were favourite 98Pages a York-bases power blues trio consisting of: Martyn Fillingham (vocals/guitar), Jase Brooks (bass), and Andy Black (drums). Basically they played pretty much all their debut album, Broken homes and the halfway house. They play superb, are better live than on plastic, and are musically very tight now. Martyn's voice in particular has a marvelously gravelly tone, or he might be going down with something.

Finally, the headliners were Heavens Basement (and on SpaceFace). Again, we've seen these before and enjoyed them previously. HB are: Richie Heavanz (vocals), Jonny Rocker (guitar), Rob Randell (bass), Chris Rivers (drums), and Sid Glover (lead guitar). Once more they didn't fail to disappoint, with Richie, a master of stage-craft, prowling the stage and whipping the crowd into an enthusiastic frenzy. Quite why they haven't managed to push out an album yet is beyond me, they certainly have enough material including; Tear Your Heart Out, Executioner's Day, Graduation, Saint Routine, Fear Of Getting Off, and Reign On My Parade. Excellent stuff.

Oh, a storm is threatening/My very life today

Friday 24 April - It's the name of a three piece cover band, as well as a rude euphemism for onanism (lots of -isms here), tonight we are off to The Roman Bath to see Skin The Lizard. I arrived just as they plucked the first chord and we were immediately into Oasis' Cigarettes and Alcohol, always a good start as far as I'm concerned. 'A' arrived just after they they finished their second tune, The Police's Roxanne.

To say there was only three of them, they managed a fair range of songs and played extremely well. One feature we did like was that the speakers were angled to point into the centre of the room instead of straight ahead, which sends the sound to the bar-staff. I didn't manage to get a set list, relying on once more on my flakey memory, we did get two renditions of Bon Jovi's Living On A Prayer and two of AC/DC's Highway to Hell, plus another three AC/DC tracks, Are You Gonna Go My Way (Lenny Kravitz), Local Boy In A Photograph and Dakota (Stereophonics), Rock And Roll (Led Zep), She Sells Sanctuary (The Cult), Route 66 (Bobby Troup), two Foo Fighter's one of which was DOA, Maggie May (Rod Stewart), Brown Sugar and Gimme Shelter (The Rolling Stones), Vertigo (U2), and I Predict A Riot (Kaiser Chiefs).

An entertaining evening was had; there was a bunch of boisterous bravoes, one of whom had to be escorted off the premises by his friends as he was in danger of getting lumped. We also had a mysterious harmonica player who entered the stage area and played along to Rock And Roll with the band. No good reason, he wasn't known to the band, he just did it.

OK. Just a little pinprick/There'll be no more --aaaaaahhhhh! But you may feel a little sick.

Friday 17 April - and once again we are stumbling across a band that we've never seen before. Although they allegedly play The Roman Bath about six times a year, we've never seen Killing Time, a Yorkshire four-piece (lead guitar, bass, drums, and acoustic/rhythm/keyboards). I've no idea of their names and can't find any details about on t'Interweb. Are they shy?

Anyway up, we were treated to a series of eclectic covers comprising as least two Pink Floyd songs which I'm ashamed to say I recognised but couldn't name. I think they were off Division Bell, one of the PF albums that I don't have. Some Dire Straits; Money For Nothing, and Sultans of Swing. A Savage Garden track, To The Moon And Back, which wasn't very well received by the audience, a bit too twee I think. Bon Jovi, It's My Life, and Foo Fighters Times Like These. Two more Floyd songs; Shine On You Crazy Diamond, and Comfortably Numb. For an encore they did an AC/DC track which I didn't recognise. As regular readers will know, there were probably a few more songs thrown in for good measure but the lethal combination my rapidly aging and John Smith's Cask Bitter renders my memory somewhat dodgy.

The lead guitar (Roger?) was brilliant, the vocals were a bit mono-tonal, but they delivered a good selection of unusual covers played in a competent manner, all of which made for a very enjoyable night out. Recommended.

And the world looks just the same/And history ain't changed

Monday 13 April - a last minute decision on who was out and when resulted in our usual crowd being split between two venues. The Druid ended up at The Duchess, you can read about his exploits here. The rest ended up in The Roman Bath to watch Dufflegoat (and on FaceSpace).

Formed in 1994, Dufflegoat are a three piece rock covers band hailing from York, consisting of Roger Newton (guitar, backing vocals), Tony Gilpin (bass, lead vocals), and Paul Marshall (drums). We started the evening standing directly in front of the band, but the volume drove us off to one side where, due to the fact that it was not crowded, we still had a great view. This was the first time that we had caught the 'Goat for a full set, in the past we have only managed the tail end. Paul, on drums, is extremely good although I didn't think it was really warm enough for him to divest himself of his shirt. Roger has a penchant for adding his own twiddles to guitar solos. This actually works quite well, although it's a little disconcerting when the solo in your head doesn't match the one Roger is playing. Tony does excellent bass work but the vocals are a tad weak, or maybe the drum was too loud. Anyway, they played blistering set of classic rock covers and even managed to slip in a few of their own songs.

From my rather hazy memory they played: White Room (Cream), Foxy Lady, Purple Haze, Fire (Hendrix), Won't Get Fooled Again (The Who), Black Night (Deep Purple), Twentieth Century Boy (T Rex), Maybe Someday (Dufflegoat), and The Song Remains The Same, Good Times Bad Times, Rock and Roll (Led Zeppelin). Plus a host of others that I've forgotten. Highly recommended.

I watched them going 'round and 'round / My blouse wrapping itself around your trousers

Saturday 4 April - ding ding, seconds away, round two. We are really breaking the mould here by paying real English pounds to watch a tribute act. The Duchess are not keen on putting on tributes, unless they are really, really good, so we were putting our trust in Tim and Michelle to provide quality entertainment tonight.

Support was ably provided by the lovely Angela Gordon, the dark half of Odin Dragonfly. Accompanying herself on keyboards, glass of red wine, and an alarm clock(!?!) she reeled off a triptych of tunes from Offerings, some stuff I'd not heard before, a song which I think was called Pirates, about two lady buccaneers on the high seas - I suspect this is a semi-biographical allegory about her and Heather (Findlay), and finishing with a cover of a Duke Special, aka Peter Wilson, song (sorry I can't remember which one). Angela has a fantastic voice and it was a true delight to see her performing again.

There wasn't much of a wait before the main act of the evening, The Hounds of Love Band, who are, not surprisingly, a Kate Bush tribute band, took to the stage. I'm not sure where most of the band come from (Sam Leggett - Drums, Richard Luck - Keyboards, Glen Smith - Guitar, Martin Luklinski - Guitar, and Simon Horn - Bass), but vocalist Josie Mills is a local lass from York so this was a bit of a home-coming for her. There are a couple of elements that were going to make or break this performance; getting the music right, and getting the vocals right. KBs music is idiosyncratic and very well known, so no mistakes would be brooked here. And if Josie failed to match the soaring and distinctive vocals things could get bleak. Happily they scored on both points. The musicians were spot on and recreated the tunes perfectly whilst also embedding solo spots that enabled them to showcase their talents to the fullest extent. Josie, who reminded me of Kylie Minogue in her looks, matched Kate's vocals and also appeared to have a huge amount of fun during her performance.

The set was a Kate Bush 'greatest hits' sampling tracks from nearly all her eight studio albums and spanning the 30 years (so far) of her career. They started with: Wow, Cloudbusting, Them Heavy People, Babooshka, The Big Sky, The Man With The Child In His Eyes, and Army Dreamers. The band then exited stage rear leaving Richard on keyboards and Josie to sing Mrs Bartolozzi, from disc 1 of Aerial, how many songs do you know about washing machines! The rest of the band returned for: Running Up That Hill, And So Is Love, Hounds Of love, James And The Cold Gun, The Red Shoes, Moving, and Rubberband Girl. The band took a bow and left, but we all knew they would be back, there was no way they could have got away without playing Kate's biggest hit. And so to the encore, the delicate And Dream Of Sheep followed by the classic, Wuthering Heights. An utterly superb performance and highly recommended to everyone.

As per usual, after the gig we ended up at The Roman Bath for the closing few numbers from heavier-than-yer-average-covers-band, Stealer.

Friday 3 April - and the start of a heavily musical weekend. We kicked off at The Duchess tonight for Hijak Oscar's second album launch. I arrived a little later than I'd planned and was greeted by a staggeringly fine sounding noise and a pint of Theakston's XB, courtesy of The Druid. The fine sounding noise was being generated by York four-piece Undergrass who are: Rob Lumby (guitar), Phil Goodrick (vocals), Dave Chitty (drums), and Danny Lee (bass). As far as I could make out, they played their own material with excellent drum and bass playing, superb guitar work from Rob - including a southern-fried stint on a lap guitar with a slide, and gruff yet still reasonably clear vocals. Phil has a voice somewhere between Chester Bennington and Simon Neil (Biffy Clyro) and boy can he hold a note, fantastic. The songs were well constructed and original sounding and there was ample opportunity for the individuals to show off their musical talents. We were very impressed and afterwards looked around to see if there was an album available, but it appears not at the moment. I will have to keep an eye open for these guys and in the meantime I heartily recommend you to listen to them.

The evening was off to a great start and next on the menu was a band fast becoming a favourite of ours, 98Pages. We caught them a few weeks ago at the launch of their debut album, Broken Homes and the Halfway House. In fact they started off with Halfway House and continued with a good selection of tracks off the album. The album is brilliant, but live they really rock. Another recommended treat for your ears.

Could the evening get any better? Sadly not. We've seen Hijak Oscar on previous occasions going back to 2007. 'A' has never liked their unique brand of vudu-blues, but I've always had a sneaking admiration for them, good songs and tight playing, possibly enhanced by their appearance on Channel 4's MobileAct Unsigned towards the end of 2007 where, in the end, they just walked out of the show. Tonight marked the launch of their second album BlackSheepMoneyBox, but it was a different band. The songs were just a mish-mash, the playing was chaotic, and the vocals were indistinct. Mr Fox insisted on quoting lines from a book of prayers, which no one could hear, and no one was bothered about anyway. There was something about the female singer Gaby Milner that I couldn't quite put my finger on, she just didn't sound right. I found out why later, the singer I remembered was the excellent Emma Keaveney-Roys who apparently left the band sometime in the first half of 2008. So have the wheels actually come off, or was this just a one-off shambles caused by them trying too hard? I don't know. There were copies of their new album on sale but on the strength of this performance I wasn't in the least tempted to part with any cash. A bit disappointing really.

'A' and I rounded off the evening by catching the last half hour of Prime Example at the Roman Bath. It was a pleasant enough way to sup John Smith's but I managed to lose my MP3 player at some stage, which was a bit sad. I have a habit of doing this so I suspect I won't be replacing it unless I can get one chained to my body parts, or maybe a subcutaneous implant... mmm.