The Luminaire Events for December 2007

01 December - ANDY CLOCKWISE + Clare & The Reasons + Garry Go

2007-12-01

The Luminaire presents
ANDY CLOCKWISE
+ Clare & The Reasons
+ Garry Go

Doors 7.30
£7 via WeGotTickets | £8 door

Andy Kelly is known to many as Andy Clockwise. He is also known as eccentric, charismatic, a peerless songwriter, enigmatic frontman and so talented its almost unfair (The Daily Telegraph).

Andy\'s childhood diet of Motown and folk records, along with his insatiable hunger to master the drums, guitar, piano and bass in his early adolescence, go some way in explaining his propensity to buck the trends of the day to produce timeless pop and rock songs that stand the test of time.

\"In writing such sophisticated material, and playing most of the instruments himself, Mr. Clockwise has bitten off more than most mere mortals musos could masticate, and spat out two very cool records.\" [Blunt Magazine (8/10)]

Andy Clockwise emerged after a brief stint at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and years of gigging in and around Sydney. Single-handedly writing, recording and producing his debut EP in 2002, the release Song Exhibition spawned a couple of high rotation singles on Triple J (Song for the Unemployed and Every Song), a healthy dose of critical claim and a bunch of new fans.

There are few debut long-players that can claim to be as ambitious, as thrilling and as unpredictable as Andys 2005 release, \'Classic FM\'. Ostensibly a concept double-album with songs that stand up alone and together, it scored countless 4 and 5-star reviews, Triple J Feature Album of the Week, sold-out national tours (including a nationally-broadcast Annandale gig) and support slots with The Whitlams, INXS and Hugh Cornwall (The Stranglers).

\"A remarkably broad and eclectic double CD. This one-man band has multiple personalities, all of them listener-friendly.\" [Who Magazine (4 stars)]

And deservedly so. \'Classic FM\' is an album of paradoxes. The songs are simultaneously classic yet thoroughly modern. Radio-friendly yet unconventional. The influences are there, yet their marriage is unique: Bob Dylan with Prince, U2 with Sly & the Family Stone, \'70s glam with \'80s funk-rock.

In 2006, the momentum from \'Classic FM\' took Andy across the Pacific. First, to New Zealand where he took part in the Mushroom Music Songwriters Workshop and then to the US, where he appeared in an Australian production as part of the New York Fringe Festival and at a critically-lauded showcase at Mo Pitkin\'s House of Satisfaction. \'Classic FM\' also fell in the hands (and hearts) of A&R maestro Joe Berman and manager Alan Wolmark (Ben Folds Five, Guided by Voices), with whom Andy will continue to work as he focuses on making and taking his singular brand of rock n\' roll to the world.

Andy is currently living and working on his new album in Los Angeles.

\"Like the perfect department store, Andy Clockwise has everything under one roof. The only thing more astonishing than how many styles he explores on this album, is how many he gets spot on.\" [The Sydney Morning Herald (4 stars)]

Clare Muldaur Manchon and her band The Reasons have produced an astounding mesmeric album - shimmeringly melodic, breathtakingly arranged and imbued with an other worldly cinematic imagination. Surely the most impressive orchestral pop debut this Autumn, \'The Movie\' is lush and sinfully beautiful, featuring the likes of Van Dyke Parks, Sufjan Stevens and Gregoire Maret.

Clare & The Reasons music harkens back to the romance of a forgone era, through the eyes of a contemporary indie-chanteuse with a pop sensibility.

The Movie is a sassy blast of symphonic jazz-noir that twins the demob-happy air of voguish revivalists the Puppini Sisters with the future-folk adventurism of your Joanna Newsoms...a belter of an album. [Observer Music Monthly]

The jazz-inflected arrangements are beautiful: with their water-colour wash of violins, bird-like flutes and swooning celeste they have the headt fragrance of an expensive perfume. [The Guardian]

Clare Muldaur Manchon is seemingly destined for stardom. The Movie is gentle but knowing; lushly arranged but noirish. [Q]

Garry Go supports.

02 December - SAM BAKER + Ain + Laura Gibson

2007-12-02

The Luminaire presents
SAM BAKER
+ Ain
+ Laura Gibson

Doors 7.30
£10 via WeGotTickets | £12 door

\"\'Pretty World\' is what great songwriting is all about.\" [Gurf Morlix]

Texas songwriter Sam Baker is not that well known even in his adopted hometown of Austin. However, since the 2004 release of his debut \'Mercy\', word of Baker\'s songs have slowly, but surely spun its way around the world. On August 7, Baker returned with the second part of the story, the self released \'Pretty World\'. Co-produced by fellow Texan and songwriter Walt Wilkins, the new songs reflect a life lived well and nearly lost.

Austin producer/songwriter Gurf Morlix said of mercy It\'s the best writing I\'ve come across since Mary Gauthier. The UK\'s Maverick Magazine awarded \'Mercy\' five stars and writers that have discovered this raw talent often compare him to fellow Texans Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark.

A lot can happen in a few years and Baker can tell you that a lot can happen in seconds. Back in 1986, he was traveling in a train through Peru, when the car he was in was blown apart by a terrorist bomb, killing fellow passengers and leaving him clinging to life. Deafened and gravely injured, Baker spent the better part of the next decade working on both a physical and spiritual recovery. It was through storytelling and the art of songwriting that Baker turned to make sense of a sometimes senseless world.

Baker\'s songs are pictures sketched in short, spare lines and lay bare the honest truths and simple details of life. pretty world celebrates the moments large and small that frame our lives.

Main support comes from the quiet but strikingly talented Ain. The young, Irish-born talent performs his off-kilter folk-blues just days before the release of his gloriously understated, six-track debut mini-album, \'Close To Cotton\'. Imagine a skinny white indie kid tackling the Delta blues of Mississippi John Hurt..Amazing.-NME

Laura Gibson opens the show. \"Late last year this Oregon singer-songwriter released \'\'If You Come to Greet Me\'\', a short, quiet, tantalizing debut. ...seek out this CD, if only so you can start anticipating the next one.\" - The New York Times

\"Candid, heart-felt expressions of fear, tenderness, wanting and gratitude.\" Laura Gibson\'s beautiful, fragile and mysterious songs will appeal to those who appreciate Karen Dalton and Cat Power.

02 December - LIVE AT CORSICA STUDIOS: MURCOF + Rothko + V.i + Visuals by xx+xy + Thorsten Sideb0ard, DJ set [Highpoint Lowlife]

2007-12-02

*NOTE! THIS SHOW IS NOT BEING
HELD AT LUMINAIRE*

Live at Corsica Studios
MURCOF
+ Rothko
+ V.i.
+ Thorsten Sideb0ard, DJ set [Highpoint Lowlife]
+ Visuals by xx+xy

Directions here

Doors 8.00
£12 door

Not content with organising the music event of the year starring Murcof and his \'Cosmos\' album on The Leaf Label, we\'re bringing him back to London to perform live at Corsica Studios, Elephant Castle, London, in a one-off audio-visual spectacular. Supporting will be one of our favourite acts, Rothko, and all the way from Bristol, V.i.

Murcof was founded early 2001 by only member Fernando Corona in Tijuana, México.

This event will feature special film work made in collaboration with Italian visual artists xx+xy. Coronas swift return to London will allow more fans to experience his music as it was meant to be heard. The performance will benefit from Corsica Studios spectacular sound system, and we are guaranteed a genuinely overwhelming sonic experience.

Corona\'s current album, \'Cosmos\' been hailed as a masterpiece taking his work further into the realm of contemporary composition, a process which Corona describes as expanding the possibilities of acoustic instruments through electronics. The result is perfectly balanced: haunting and deeply atmospheric, like peering into a vast and unspeakable darkness.

The recent Planetarium show was the first music event to take place at the venue and coincided with the 50th anniversary of the launch of the first Soviet satellite, Sputnik 1. The performance, which sold out within days, made use of truly mindblowing visuals (some of which had never been seen in public before) to complement the monumental sound of the new album, rendering members of the audience literally speechless.

Reviews of Cosmos:

Murcof attains a meditative, monumental grandeur [The Sunday Times]

The most thrillingly out-there, transcendentally bewitching and metaphysically mind-warping trip [Time Out]

The albums consistency is startling: this is Murcofs masterpiece 9/10, Album of the Month, [Future Music]

Understated majesty, limitless beauty and creative genius. Beg, borrow or steal a copy today 4.5/5 [DJ ]

Mindblowing, like Sunn 0))) playing Ligeti in a galaxy far, far away. Sublime 4/5 [Uncut]

A singular, near-inestimable talent [NME]

supremely dark and cinematic... Majestic black metal without the metal [Metal Hammer]

a remarkable work which defies classification and challenges the mind [themilkfactory.co.uk]

Main support, we\'re very, very pleased to announce, are Rothko. \"Rothko share a similar taste for the dark and the surreal, and frame it in a beautiful mist of graceful, measured restraint. Hauntingly beautiful. Recommended!\" [Boomkat]

\"\'Eleven Stages Of Intervention - the band\'s eleventh full-length release - adds much to Rothko\'s already innovative and impressive catalogue.\" [SecondLayer.co.uk]

Opening support, V.i., is a future primitivist for whom machine static and buzz are integral. Within his music there is a sense of a minimalist\'s dedicated vision, Kraftwerk\'s dis/utopia and Pan Sonic\'s harnessing of a powerful analogue instrument. Deeply pure and emotive. Like Pauline Oliveros discovering Dub Step. V.i. produces pummeling noise-scapes, pulsing broken envelopes of pure electric carnage and tonal machinic mayhem.

Supplying visual accompaniment are xx+xy; the visual and media arts project founded by Sladzana Bogeska and Giuseppe Pradella, based in Rome.

Their project take on multiple forms such as video screenings, installation, live performances, video production. Experiments and research are both concepts and creative methods that best define their visual production.

DJing will be Thorsten Sideb0ard of Highpoint Lowlife Records.

All enquiries about this show here, please.

Corsica Studios
5 Elephant Road
London SE17 1LB
Directions here

*NOTE! THIS SHOW IS NOT BEING
HELD AT LUMINAIRE*

03 December - VIKING MOSES + LITTLE WINGS + Tiger Saw + Golden Ghost

2007-12-03

The Luminaire presents
VIKING MOSES + LITTLE WINGS
+ Tiger Saw
+ Golden Ghost

Doors 7.30
£8.50 via WeGotTickets | £10 door

Raw, howling folk and intimate, intriguing story-telling. Viking Moses is music as seen through the lens of Brendon Masseis truly nomadic life.

Many musicians adopt a bohemian persona to fit their music, but Viking Moses is the real deal. Brendon has released banjo and acoustic guitar albums under several names. Perpetually on tour (since 1996), he has played with Will Oldham, Cat Power, Songs: Ohia and Devendra Banhart, to name a few, yet his body of work has received little commercial or critical attention.

His newest full-length under the Viking Moses moniker, the story-song cycle \'Crosses\', is by far his most accomplished work, and ranks among the best of the newest crop of American folk recordings. For anyone who has seen Massei perform live, the delicate mood of \'Crosses\' may come as a bit of a surprise. While a Viking Moses show often finds Massei on his knees wailing like a man possessed, \'Crosses\' consists of nothing more than a softly picked nylon-string acoustic guitar, a bass, and some piano flourishes, with Massei\'s trademark baritone rarely reaching its cathartic heights.

Supporting is Tiger Saw, a musical collective founded in Newburyport, MA in 1999 by Dylan Metrano. It is an ever-changing group of friends, whose ranks can vary to form a hushed duet or fifteen-person orchestra incorporating piano, cello, horns, percussion, and a small choir. Their simple, heartfelt songs celebrate friendship, community, the beauty of everyday life, and love in all its forms.

Tiger Saw has toured extensively in North America and Europe, and is known for playing unorthodox venues from beach bonfires to treetop sing-alongs, as well as basements and barrooms from coast to coast.

Since 2002, Tiger Saw has released four albums on Kimchee and Tract Records, and has performed with Grizzly Bear, Kimya Dawson, Jens Lekman, Jad Fair, Laura Veirs, Magnolia Electric Co., Explosions in the Sky, The Gossip, and many others.

04 December - CURTIS ELLER + Yo Zushi + Matthew Cowan + Cherry Mash Cherry + Sasha Ilyukevich

2007-12-04

RAG & BONE presents HOOTENANNY!
with Curtis Eller, Yo Zushi and friends
CURTIS ELLER
+ Yo Zushi and his Band
+ Performance skit: Morris Dancing from Matthew Cowan
+ Cherry Mash Cherry
+ Sasha Ilyukevich

Doors 7.00
£8 via WeGotTickets | £9 door

The Rag & Bone Hootenanny is a folk festival in miniature, celebrating the launch of Rag & Bone Magazine. The first issue includes work by Billy Childish, Jack Zipes, Clare Rojas and Burmese artist Htein Lin, as well as interviews with Marina Warner and new folkies Espers.

Headlining will be New York\'s angriest yodelling banjo player, Curtis Eller. The bastard child of Tom Waits and Buster Keaton, Eller is a circus veteran with a mean moustache.

Also on the bill is the acclaimed \'Soho subterranean\' Yo Zushi, described by Mary Anne Hobbs (BBC Radio One) as \'the spirit of Bob Dylan for the 21st Century\'. His second album, \'Notes for \\\"Holy Larceny\\\"\', is out now on Pointy Records.
\'...dreamy and beautiful... Its Conor Oberst sharing an orange juice with Johnny Cash... Yo Zushis campfire tales are at once wistful and uplifting, and this talented songwriters fire looks set to continue burning.\'
**** and a half - Subba-Culture;
\'A masterclass in storytelling\' - Dazed & Confused;
\'The start of something major\' - **** Q

With Cherry Mash Cherry (featuring Wooden Spoon), and Sasha Ilyukevich\'s Belarussian gypsy songs.

Artist Matthew Cowan will be performing a short avant garde Morris dance in a suit covered entirely in bells.

05 December - TOM BROSSEAU + Mary Hampton + Beth Jeans Houghton

2007-12-05

Knom Music presents
TOM BROSSEAU
+ Mary Hampton
+ Beth Jeans Houghton

Doors 7.30
£10 via WeGotTickets | £12 door

Tom Brosseau has one of the most arresting voices in folk music\' a high-pitched, angelic croon devoid of affectation and delivered with utter sincerity. He sings with such pastoral calm, in fact, that nuanced emotional details can become lost within the beautiful simplicity of his sparse acoustic tunes.

\'Grand Forks\', the songwriters sixth release in as many years, is thus well-served by its broader accompaniment. Brosseau takes a Guthrie-esque turn back to his North Dakota hometown, commemorating the devastating 1997 flood through the subtle minutia of survival. That said, Grand Forks is surprisingly uplifting, celebrating resilience rather than disaster, especially on lilting opener \'I Fly Wherever I Go.\'

Most exquisite is \'Blue Part of the Windshield\', with Hilary Hahns sublime violin uncannily mirroring Brosseaus stretching falsetto. In Brosseaus songs, where so much depends on the slightest quiver of a note, \'Grand Forks\' is undoubtedly his best work to date.
Words by Doug Freeman, Austin Chronicle.

Mary Hampton lives in Brighton in a room overlooking the sea. Finds old songs and keeps them in coloured vials in her fridge. Sometimes she makes up new songs. And sometimes she does neither one thing nor the other.

\"A stately clarity\" (Times 10/11/06)
\"Bewildering\" (Time Out London 06/11/06)
\"Sweet and earthy\" (Time Out New York 26/10/06)
\"Had the audience transfixed\" (Southscene 09/11/06)
\"A clear but wispy - and very British - soprano. Her fragile, ladylike voice is so high and pure it almost sounds like a flute\" (All Music Guide 10/11/06)
\"A woman who appears to have spent much of her life attempting to imitate the shimmer of wind-chimes. The effect is mesmerizing\" (The Guardian 10/11/06)

Beth Jeans Houghton : Northeastern crazy invited onto the stage with Devendra Banhart at Green Man. A voice reminiscent of Nico. And songs about milk bottles. Looking forward to this....

06 December - SETSUBUN BEAN UNIT + Micachu + Montag

2007-12-06

The Luminaire and Accidental Records presents
SETSUBUN BEAN UNIT
+ Micachu
+ Montag

Doors 7.30
£9 via WeGotTickets | £10 door

\"The oddest pleasure you\'ll experience all year.\" [The Independent]

\"Oni-wa Soto! Fuku-wa Uchi! Goodbye Winter! Hallo Spring! Demons out! Happiness in!\"

Blow your mind, move your feet, with Setsubun Bean Unit space funk treatment! The UK\'s most intrepid trio explores Setsubun Carnival with Japanese guest musicians and dancers, direct from Tokyo, presenting a radical electronic reworking of traditional Japanese folk and contemporary rhythm, mixed with space funk, original compositions and live Japanese Bon Dance.

\"The sort of album that will keep revealing hidden treasures on every single subsequent listen.\" [Boomkat]

\"This is unhinged, parallel-universe music, that could only have been made by musicians hell-bent on mischievously redefining exactly what jazz, Japanese folk, and leftfield pop are. I found myself coming back to it over and over again, and finding its daft, dreamy, and sometimes disturbing world more and more compelling with every listen. Each track has its own internal logic and contains enough ideas to sustain any lesser band for their whole career. Simultaneously demanding and undemanding; cerebral and disposable, it\'s fun and funky stuff.\"
[Howard Male, Songlines]

\"Endlessly surprising and enjoyable.....perversely catchy.\" Independent on Sunday]

Setsubun: traditional Japanese Spring Ceremony with demon-bashing bean-scattering. Join us as we banish the demons with heavy electronic funk.

\"Some of the most unclassifiable and exhilarating contemporary music you\'ve ever heard.\" [FROOTS]

Main support is Micachu, a 20 year old producer and short guitar song writer. She studies composition at the Guildhall College of Music in London . As well as writing more traditional pieces, she writes electronic pop songs, sometimes delivered acoustically. She works with a band of equally talented musicians - The Cluster - made up of Miss Bienek, Taza, Yvette, Baker Trouble, Mayhem, Kit Downes, Ghostpoet and Kwes. Having played at Sonar in Barcelona this year, she is working on a new mixtape and will soon start working on her new album with Matthew Herbert.

Opening up is Montag, AKA Antoine Bédard, a solo French-Canadian musician based in Vancouver, Canada. On his forthcoming album, Going Places (Carpark Records), Montag embraces vivid, confident arrangements, exploding his previously minimalist sound into symphonies of incandescent electronic pop. Keeping his warm signature style of analog synths, layered vocals and detailed acoustic instrumentation, Montag charts new territory, sounding richer and brighter than ever.

08 December - SEAGULL STRANGE + My Device + The Raid + The Race [DJing]

2007-12-08

Shifty Disco presents
The Shifty Disco Xmas Party
with
SEAGULL STRANGE
+ My Device
+ The Raid
+ The Race [DJing]

Doors 7.30
£6 via WeGotTickets

A celebration to round off the 10th anniversary year of this fiercely independent label with featured sets from Seagull Strange and My Device and The Raid. The Race will be on hand to spin the records in between.

09 December - OKKERVIL RIVER + Jaymay [night 1]

2007-12-09

Live Nation presents
OKKERVIL RIVER [night 1]
+ Jaymay

SOLD OUT

Doors 7.30
SOLD OUT

Clever, heartbreaking lyrics...Mr. Sheff uses a rickety voice to disguise wild ambition.\" [New York Times]

Okkervil River\'s founding members became friends in high school in New Hampshire, and after parting ways for college moved to Austin to live together and start a band. These were songwriter Will Sheff, Zach Thomas on bass and mandolin, and Seth Warren on drums. Their first gig was at Steamboat in Austin on Monday, January 11, 1999. Over the course of two weekends in the summer of 1999, they recorded a seven-song self-released record called \'Stars Too Small to Use\', with recording engineer Jeff Hoskins.

\"We will float until we learn how to swim. Yes, that\'s an In the Aeroplane Over the Sea reference, and yes, Okkervil River has that sort of mythical genius. 8th Best album of 2003\". [Magnet ]

They met Jonathan Meiburg at a gig with his band Whu Gnu at the Waterloo Brewing Company on December 3, 1999. Meiburg subsequently joined the band on accordion and later on pianos and organs.

On the strength of \'Stars Too Small to Use\', Okkervil River was admitted into the 2000 SXSW music festival. Their first major press was a SXSW feature article in the Austin Chronicle on March 3, 2000.

\"Okkervil River write dreamy songs with slumber-blurred stories and play them with a drifting, somnambulant gait.\" [Pitchfork]

The band met recording engineer and producer Brian Beattie at their SXSW showcase on March 18 and soon agreed to make a record together. They spent much of the rest of that year working on \'Don\'t Fall in Love With Everyone You See\'. Warren moved to Berkeley, California in December and was replaced on drums by Mark Pedini.

By the time of that year\'s SXSW festival, Okkervil River had received interest in their new record from the Bloomington Indiana-based record label Jagjaguwar. The record was eventually released on Jagjaguwar on January 22, 2002.

\"Singer-songwriter Will Sheff of the haunted-country quartet Okkervil River is ready for worldwide renown.\" [Rolling Stone]

One year later the band traveled to San Francisco and reunited with Warren to record their third album at indie studio Tiny Telephone with engineer Scott Solter at the console. Jagjaguwar released Down the River of Golden Dreams on September 2, 2003.

In 2003, Pedini left the band to pursue his graphic design work, leaving Okkervil River without a drummer for that year\'s SXSW. They invited Travis Nelsen, fresh off a tour filling in on drums for sister-labelmates Secretly Canadian\'s Swearing at Motorists, to perform with them - He soon became the band\'s fulltime drummer. The next year, during a long bout of touring, the band added keyboardist and lap-steel player Howard Draper as a fifth member.

In August of 2004 the band began recording with Beattie again, finally putting the finishing touches on their third full-length album, \'Black Sheep Boy\' in November. It was ultimately released on April 5, 2005. As a result of this release\'s overwhelming success, Okkervil River followed up with an EP entitled \'Black Sheep Boy Appendix\' on November 22, 2005. This was the first recordings with Draper, horn & keyboardist Scott Brackett, guitarist Brian Cassidy, and touring bassist Pat Pestorius, who eventually replaced Zach Thomas in the band.

On April 17, 2006, Okkervil River signed with Virgin/EMI in Europe. The label re-released Black Sheep Boy and its follow-up Black Sheep Boy Appendix as a double disc on April 28, 2006. Jagjaguwar eventually followed suit, releasing the 2-Disc \'Definitive Edition\' with extra songs and videos.

\'The Stage Names\', their fifth LP (produced again by Beattie and mixed with Jim Eno of Spoon), will be released on August 7, 2007. The disc features the solidified line-up that toured extensively on \'Black Sheep Boy\' and the \'Black Sheep Boy Appendix\', with Cassidy replacing Draper who moved over to Shearwater.

10 December - OKKERVIL RIVER + Jaymay [night 2]

2007-12-10

Live Nation presents
OKKERVIL RIVER [night 2]
+ Jaymay

SOLD OUT

Doors 7.30
SOLD OUT

Clever, heartbreaking lyrics...Mr. Sheff uses a rickety voice to disguise wild ambition.\" [New York Times]

\"We will float until we learn how to swim. Yes, that\'s an In the Aeroplane Over the Sea reference, and yes, Okkervil River has that sort of mythical genius. 8th Best album of 2003\". [Magnet ]

They met Jonathan Meiburg at a gig with his band Whu Gnu at the Waterloo Brewing Company on December 3, 1999. Meiburg subsequently joined the band on accordion and later on pianos and organs.

\"Okkervil River write dreamy songs with slumber-blurred stories and play them with a drifting, somnambulant gait.\" [Pitchfork]

\"Singer-songwriter Will Sheff of the haunted-country quartet Okkervil River is ready for worldwide renown.\" [Rolling Stone]

11 December - JENS LEKMAN + Guests

2007-12-11

The Track & Field organisation presents
JENS LEKMAN
+ Guests

SOLD OUT

Doors 7.30
SOLD OUT

Jens Lekman

12 December - TREVOR MOSS & HANNAH -LOU [INDIGO MOSS] + Mohanski + James Yuill + The Keith John Adams

2007-12-12

Lonesome No More presents
TREVOR MOSS & HANNAH -LOU
[INDIGO MOSS]
+ Mohanski
+ James Yuill
+ The Keith John Adams Doors 7.30
£4 via WeGotTickets

Trevor Moss & Hannah-Lou, the leading pair of indie-folk behemoths Indigo Moss are no shrinking violets. Having received widespread acclaim for their full-band routine the duo bring a much more traditional bare-bones and intimately personal atmosphere to the fore when performing alone. This performance in the loving arms of The Luminaire will provide a perfect venue for fans to explore the age-old folk tunes that inspired Indigo Moss rambunctious sound with Hannah-Lous voice evoking memories Sandy Dennys heartfelt and poetic delivery while Trevor Moss strums up a storm.

Mohanski - launching their long, long awaited debut album tonight- have concocted a smooth mix of rock, pop, soul, hip-hop, trip-hop and folk, that seems to prevent critics and fans alike from agreeing on quite which bands they sound like. All we can say is that they are both far-out and laid-back at the same time.

\"An unlikely sounding combo that manage to combine the sounds Amnesiac Radiohead with Arthur Lee\'s Love.\" [Pointy Records]

\"Atmospheric Hackney four-piece whose lo-fi ballads employ harmonica, melodica, xylophone, Casiotone and have been compared to Blur, Radiohead, Stone Roses, Portishead and Hot Chip.\" [Time Out]

\"Wonderfully different pop music.......Like the Super Furries but never moving out of 1st gear\" [Shut Up & Sshshh]

Unsigned act James Yuill is a London-based singer-songwriter with an electronic edge. Think Clue to Kalo mixed with Caribou mixed with The Postal Service. \"James\' music is the music that will be playing in your head when you leave your house without any pants on.\" [Clue To Kalo]

\"Adem spliced with Four Tet.\" [Drowned In Sound]

Signed to Atlanta, Georgia based label Happy Happy Birthday to Me and having toured Japan in support of Elekibass, Keith John Adams has returned to Britain to get the respect that he deserves from his countrymen. Adams and his miniature band play a blend of upbeat brit-pop and rock that could be said to be reminiscent of The Kaiser Chiefs and the like, only actually entertaining to listen to.

13 December - FRANK TURNER + Dartz! + Secondsmile + This Town Needs Guns + DJ Chris T-T

2007-12-13

Xtra Mile presents
XTRA MILE & BIG SCARY MONSTERS XMAS PARTY
with
FRANK TURNER
+ Dartz!
+ Secondsmile
+ This Town Needs Guns
+ DJ: Chris T-T

SOLD OUT

Doors 7.30
SOLD OUT

West Londons Xtra Mile Recordings and Oxfords Big Scary Monsters, united by a similar independent and creative spirit, have joined forces releasing and co-promoting a wealth of exciting and innovative music. Showcasing this winning friendship in the name of Christmas, were having a party! Two bands from Big Scary Monsters, two from Xtra Mile Recordings, DJs and Christmas goody give-aways... this is a party not to be missed!

Two bands from each label performing, DJs playing until the early hours and the obligatory Christmas goody give-aways. Read on...

Roaming anti-folk hero Frank Turner celebrates his incredible year with an intimate headline slot. With over 300 shows in two years, Franks gigs have now become somewhat legendary; thought-provoking, foot-tappingly catchy and often descending into drunken sing-a-longs, his brand of honest, emotional and witty folk/alt-country is the perfect feel-good party closer. Expect sneak previews of new material not released until next year.

The Frank Turner live experience is not to be missed. [Kerrang!]

\"Turner is such a sharp observer that he really ought to write a book.\" [The Times]

Main support are Dartz!. Having toured with the likes of Get Cape Wear Cape Fly, I Was A Cub Scout, Hot Club De Paris and The Rumble Strips, as well as sharing stages with everybody from We Are Scientists to Melt Banana to Badly Drawn Boy to Make Believe, young Teesside post-punk trio Dartz are no strangers to playing a gig or two! Over the past couple of years, they\'ve played almost 200 shows - taking in 8 different countries - and they also found time to release one of 2007\'s most critically acclaimed debut albums in the form of \'This Is My Ship\' on Xtra Mile Recordings. Good lads.

\"Fast, giddy, heart-bursting, danceable as sh*t... f*cking brilliant. \" [NME]

\"The best underground party you were never cool enough to be invited to.\" [Drowned In Sound]

Soaring Post Hardcore from Bridgport Dorset Secondsmile - are back with new material and a new album due out in 2008. Off the back of dates with Get Cape Wear Cape Fly, Planes Mistaken For Stars and more recently The Fall of Troy. Check out why Rocksound claim Secondsmile are one of the UK\'s finest young bands. With a name that would send Gordon Browns election campaign crashing down around him, This Town Needs Guns! have been making waves in 2007. A recent Maida Vale live session recorded for Huw Stephens Introducing show on Radio 1 and a split Ep with the equally frantic Cats and Cats and Cats have made TTNG a band to look out for. Intricate guitar pieces, towering drum rolls and bass lines that would put Jazzs best to shame somehow combine beautifully with soothing piano led vocals that come together to create a sound you cant afford to miss.

Forget Radiohead, Oxford is soon to be remembered as the city where this precious young act began its rise to success. [Drowned in Sound]

Outstanding poet and songwriter, and fellow Xtra Mile artist Chris T-T swaps his guitar and folk-rock anthems for the DJ decks for inter-band and post gig entertainment. Expect an eclectic array of dance-floor fillers and randomly chosen gems to get you into the Christmas spirit.

\"A national gem of a songwriter.\" [The Independent]

\"Genius...a modern-day Blake.\" [Sunday Times]

14 December - JACKIE LEVEN + Michael Weston King

2007-12-14

VPMG presents
JACKIE LEVEN
+ Michael Weston King

Doors 7.30
£12 via WeGotTickets, or here.

Born in 1950 into a Romany family, Jackie Leven spent his childhood and teenage years as an outsider in Fife, Scotland. Although Scottish himself, neither of his parents were from the area - his father was an Irish Cockney, his mother was from a large Northumberland (Geordie) family.

Hopelessly wayward at school, with few friends, his attendance was woeful. But those truanting times spent alone in glens and by rivers, still form the basis of his songs\' imagery to this day.

His mother, unusually for the time, was a lover of American black blues music, which strongly influenced him as a teen. Soon he was playing in local bands as well as playing his own blues songs in local folk clubs.

However, this brought him to the attention of local gangs, one in particular starting a baseless vendetta against him, and he was duly obliged to leave Scotland.

This precipitated years of rootless wandering and sleeping rough, including four months living in corners of the South Bank Centre, London, where he busked for a living. This was during the late sixties. He also lived variously in County Kerry, Ireland, Berlin and Madrid, where he had a record released, \'Control\' (1971) By John St Field (his stage name of the time) - now considered to be a psychedelic underground classic.

Living in squatted accommodation across the UK, Jackie began to encounter people with serious mental illness and psychic disorder. These experiences began to inform his songwriting. This can clearly be seen in the songs which make up the first two albums by his daunting rock band, Doll By Doll, whose other members - Joe Shaw, David MacIntosh and Robin Spreafico he met in this environment.

Doll By Doll (1978 - 1982), a controversial live act at odds with the cartoon violence of punk, made five critically acclaimed (or loathed) albums, before accepting they just weren\'t meant for those times, and regretfully going their separate ways.

In 1983, after a late night recording session for a solo album due for release by Charisma/Virgin, Jackie was the subject of an unprovoked street attack during which he was nearly strangled. Unable to speak or sing, he lost his record deal, friends and way, entering his own period of psychic disorder, taking heroin and living in isolation for nearly a year.

He re-joined the world in 1985 after a successful course of traditional Chinese five-element acupuncture and psychic healing, and co-founded The CORE trust - \'an holistic approach to addiction\'. To this day the Trust operates a centre in London, working with people with all forms of addiction. Jackie has been their manager, chair of trustees, and is presently the patron.

Shortly after this Jackie went to live in Oban on the west coast of Scotland. He spent the nights in bars with fishermen and forester friends, and the days writing the songs that became the basis of his return to music with the acclaimed Cooking Vinyl release \'The Mystery Of Love Is Greater Than The Mystery Of Death\'.

A string of excellent albums have followed, and the latest, \'Elegy For Johnny Cash\' takes a unique and candid look at last journeys, and the people who make them.

Michael Weston King, the former leader of U.K. Alt Country pioneers The Good Sons, is widely regarded as one of the UK\'s finest singer songwriters, and admired by the likes of Chris Hillman and the legendary Townes van Zandt (who covered one of Michael\'s songs).

Whilst with The Good Sons he made 4 critically acclaimed albums in a seven year career, which was recently celebrated bythe double album, Cosmic Fireworks-The Best of The Good Sons (1994-2001).

Mojo magazine wrote \"The band who must rate as England\'s very own Uncle Tupelo. A truly thrilling collection\", while www.americana-uk.com said \"The British band that played alt.country before anyone knew what the hell it was. Had the Good Sons done this same thing across the Atlantic, they would surely have been acclaimed trailblazers.\"

For the past six years he has been a solo troubadour, touring all over the world, performing with the likes of Nick Cave, John Cale, Roger McGuinn, Steve Earle, Chris Hillman, Guy Clark, Ron Sexsmith, Joe Henry and many more, and releasing five beautiful, articulate albums. A solo retrospective collection, The Tender Place, was released in November 2006, while his new album, A New Kind of Loneliness, including contributions from Chris Hillman, Ron Sexsmith and Jackie Leven, has just been released to critical acclaim:

\"Like Tim Hardin, Phil Ochs or Townes van Zandt, King transmutes squalor and self-laceration into pure gold.\" [Mojo].

\"Michael Weston King has a voice part Nashville balladeer and part Alt Country hero; a cross between Nick Cave and Rodney Crowell.\" [The Independent]

15 December - JASON MOLINA + Leona Naess + Nic Dawson Kelly

2007-12-15

The Luminaire presents
A Christmas party with
JASON MOLINA
+ Leona Naess
+ Nic Dawson Kelly

Doors 7.30
£12.50 via TicketWeb and WeGotTickets
£15 door

We warmly invite you to this very, very special evening of Molina merriment, with mulled wine, mince pies, a stellar supporting cast, and specially-commissioned gifts for all who attend. Doors open at 7.30 and the party don\'t stop until two o\'clock in the morning. We\'ve DJs and dancing and a well-stocked bar, and Mr. Molina himself playing playing material not usually heard in his live shows, for this one-off Christmas show.

\"Molina\'s songs achieve the kind of epic, majestic sweep his ambition and talent have long suggested.\" [Uncut]

Jason Molina is not one to settle. Throughout his musical career of twelve-plus years under his given name, and Songs: Ohia, and Magnolia Electric Co., he has lived in nine different locations and has had a dozen different backing bands on record in as many different recording environments.

\"Molina\'s retro-countrified songs of American redemption are not academic and studied, but human\" [NME]

His most recent albums, \'Let Me Go, Let Me Go, Let Me Go\' [as Jason Molina] and \'Sojourner\' [as Magnolia Electric Co.] are the accumulated works of many musicians, locations, recording engineers, filmmakers, designers, but just one songwriter.

\"There aren\'t many artists worth evangelising about these days but Molina\'s the kind of musician who makes you want to. There really is no excuse not to check this man out.\" [Independent On Sunday]

\"Hard to avoid thinking of Neil Young and Crazy Horse at the peak of their \'70s powers.\" [Mojo]

First on is Nic Dawson Kelly. Picking up plaudits near and far, Nic Dawson Kelly is a young songwriter with the wise musings of someone greatly his elder. Combining the introspective style of Ryan Adams with the blues of Bob Dylan and ending in a mould all of his own, 2007 has seen Nic hone his talents no end - 2008 will see him emerge in the wider conscience.

17 December - SCRITTI POLITTI + Lark

2007-12-17

The Luminaire presents
SCRITTI POLITTI
+ Lark

SOLD OUT

Doors 7.30
SOLD OUT

19 December - JAMES YORKSTON + HMS Ginafore + Adrian Crowley

2007-12-19

Eat Your Own Ears and James Yorkston present
A Christmas Special with
JAMES YORKSTON
+ HMS Ginafore
+ Adrian Crowley

Doors 7.30
Limited number of tickets available here and here.

Please note: James Yorkston will finish shortly before midnight. The last Jubilee line tubes leave Kilburn at 12.30 and 12.50, but if you intend to use the Silverlink to get home, please make alternative travel arrangements [last eastbound train 11.19/westbound 11.45.]

In usual tradition James Yorkston and Eat Your Own Ears present one of their special Christmas shows with mulled wine, mince pies and Christmas spirit...!! And if you come in fancy dress, there\'ll be prizes for the best effort...

James Yorkston is a singer / songwriter in the best folksy tradition, weaving together a seemingly effortless mix of sweet melodies, haunting lyrics, irreverent humour and the odd blast of harmonica. Tonight sees James play a solo set bringing on various guests throughout the evening.

\"Yorkston entrances and beguiles - finger-picked guitar, accordion, mandolin, whistles, pipes and sampled sounds all build into a breath-on-glass blur of love and swoon.\" (Mojo)

\"Lovely, understated melodies, autumnal arrangements and warm, wry lyrics\" (The Guardian)

More on HMS Ginafore and Adrian Crowley soon.

20 December - JAMES YORKSTON + David Thomas Broughton

2007-12-20

Eat Your Own Ears and James Yorkston present
A Christmas Special with
JAMES YORKSTON
+ David Thomas Broughton
+ Harpists

SOLD OUT

Doors 7.30
Limited number of tickets available here and here.

\"Yorkston entrances and beguiles - finger-picked guitar, accordion, mandolin, whistles, pipes and sampled sounds all build into a breath-on-glass blur of love and swoon.\" (Mojo)

\"Lovely, understated melodies, autumnal arrangements and warm, wry lyrics\" (The Guardian)

21 December - SURFACE TO AIR + Maxfield + Bushnut acoustic set + Battant

2007-12-21

Alternative Music Productions
is no longer able to present
SURFACE TO AIR
+ Maxfield
+ Bushnut acoustic set + Battant
+ DJs

Due to a series of unfortunate circumstances, this show has been cancelled.

Any questions should be directed to the promoter, here.