Needledrop, The Croft, 8th Nov

Mixed emotions about this one really, I was interested in seeing what the guitarist from the Fun Loving Criminals would do, but wasn't quite prepared for it to be as dodgy as it actually was! The crying shame of the whole night was that when Needledrop (www.needledropnyc.com) actually played, the audience was almost entirely made up of members of the other bands.

Irish singer-songwriter Mark Greville opened proceedings, the man has a fantastic voice and a couple of really good songs, but slipped all to often into melodies and chord sequences that Radiohead amongst others would dearly like to have words about I'm sure. The Fluids (www.thefluids.com) were bad. Apart from being a rock band that doesn't rock in a basic kind of way their singer 'sings' in an entirely different key to the rest of the band. This is not cool. With trepidation we returned to the room having ran away from The Fluids to see The Bears blowing the doors off the previous two acts. Light-hearted semi-hiphop and singsong tunes about 'real life' issues like working in an office, it's not often you hear lyrics about fat health & safety representatives to a funk-hop backing. Funny and very enjoyable. Needledrop were good, but missing half a band. The singer is very pretty, but coy and motionless. She really needs to get more into the songs, and overcome the shyness. They played along to a backing track of drums, bass and keyboards - it worked very well but really, how hard is it to find these instrumentalists for a good band? The music is chilled out trip-hop, similar in tone to later FLC albums. Not the best gig ever, but worth it just to find out about The Bears!

Cajita, Rose Kemp, Geisha, 17th Nov

Wednesday 17th November, the Louisiana, Bristol

Cajita are a strange collective, quiet, melodic and with some atmospheric quality that I'm finding really hard to define. With a backing of samples for the rhythm section, electronica noises and chilled guitars, the music is both melancholic and uplifting. When they were playing, they created an almost perfect world of sound which was marred only by the drowning out of the drum samples in the loud bits. Even more frustrating was the fact that there was a drumkit right behind the laptop, looking lonely, unwanted and desperately needed. In the room upstairs at the Louisiana, this was an intimate relaxing gig, no wonder everyone sat on the floor, entranced by the music.

Rose Kemp made us all stand up. When I saw her at a birthday party at the Croft a few weeks ago, I hadn't been able to fully enjoy the songs, due to being unable to hear a damn word she said. Tonight she is accompanied by a band and sounding totally different. In Violence she glides easily between folky, breathy singing to heavy distorted breaks, and I realised that there can be no comparisons to her heritage here, except that Ms Kemp has inherited her mother's amazing voice and tremendous talent. I still hold that some of the songs really don't need a band. I know she is trying to escape the label pinned on her in early recordings, but sometimes you just need to let your voice shine and adding the band around it just cheapens the sound when they don't really have anything interesting to play. On the whole however, this was a stunning performance.

Geisha's new web site, clearly reflects the band's darkness. I am eagerly awaiting my very own copy of their EP Hymns for the Living Dead, which should tide me over until the album comes next year. This performance was however fraught with problems, mainly because of the band's loudness in such a tiny space. Basically, when you hear Geisha's sound being described as 'frightening', you don't know the meaning of the word until you see the band really possessed by blind rage. So a non-gig really, but a spectacle nonetheless. For more details, see this thread on the Choke forum: today's question is...

New Rhodes, Get-outs, Dirty Whites, 19th Nov

When we arrived at The Cube on Friday night, the queue outside filled us with a sense of resignation. Even if they had tickets on the door, we wouldn't be able to get in anyway. Despite being old that they'd tell us when they ran out, and that there were a few tickets left, it wasn't until we got within earshot of the desk (actually inside the building) that we heard that there had never been any and they were just letting people in to drink. Not letting this deter us from seeing some form of live music that night, we went down to The Croft to see what was on. If anything I might find a band that I liked...

The Dirty Whites are a skinhead shouty punk band. While slightly entertaining and well-rehearsed, every time they started a song, we thought it was a cover of some old Clash tune or something. Not good. After a few songs the everyone shouting together got annoying, my eyes glazed over and I kept telling myself it would be alright, they're playing guitar solos at least. If you want to hear what punk sounded like when it was raw and slightly dangerous, they're worth it, but these days it all seems a bit tired. It just isn't enough to regurgitate this stuff anymore.

Now heading for something different, The Get Outs play better, more original sounding melodic punk rock, their singer has an almost Tim-from-the-Cardiacs singing style, and his eyebrows are a band member in their own right. Very good stuff, I thought. The Get Outs really showed the other two bands what originality and good songwriting is all about, three songs by The New Rhodes were enough to prove to me that I wouldn't be going near them again. Uninspired commercial sing-song sanitised punk. But that's just one muso's opinion. You are of course welcome to find out for yourself, if you insist! One for the kids I think.

Sausage Time XII The First Birthday, 21 Nov

The Arc Bar, Bristol

12 months ago, Sausage Time was born. To quote from the home page, "sausage time is a monthly event at which artists from bristol and beyond are invited to perform experimental and creative music, film, poetry, and live art and other entertainment strategies." I've only made it to a few, having only been introduced to this scene recently, but it never fails to amaze / horrify / amuse me, while also allowing me to comtemplate what the hell the 'true' meaning of music actually is. As Aaron Copland says on the front page of this site, I have no idea how to quantify it. but dammit, I'm gonna try.

As usual, I missed the first act, De:Vil, who seemed to provide a fair proportion of the audience. The following act Jar plays the piano and sings, but it really does seem as though she is stretching herself beyond her ability at the moment. This is always a good thing for musicians to do, I guess. Although some of the over-complicated music did seem under-rehearsed, Jar has a very good singing voice and I'm sure there will be more to follow. She had a very encouraging reception from a section of the audience.

Robh Hokum, a quiet man-with-guitar (although he does know the 'art' of crescendo) was largely ignored, possibly because of the extremely quiet singing - maybe the atmosphere was too noisy for what he was trying to achieve.

Jeremy Smokingjacket, a collaboration of SJ Esau and Rose Kemp picked things up a bit, with more fantastic singing over Mr Esau's usual loops and strange noises. The highlight had to be a song where Rose Kemp sang over a loop of her own coughing - strange I know but it worked and inspired some more loud coughing from the more inebriated watchers at the back of the room.

Silev is an incarnation of Sausage Time creator and promoter Hugh IdLab. Fedback electronic noises of quietude and directionless ambience, to be honest, I was too busy buying Rose Kemp's CD to pay any real attention. The CD IS excellent though.

Plantlife, 24th Nov

There was this great band called the Breakestra, once. They used to play the breaks and often the full originals of funk and soul songs which became famous through their use as the basis for many early hip hop tunes. As a live band, the Breakestra would mix the songs and breaks together - I suppose as a live band the word 'segue' would be more appropriate. It was a fast and furious funk experience that I first saw at Fiddlers, coincidentally, but one I will remember for a long time both for the two hours of non-stop playing and the energy the huge band brought to the stage. As is often the way with bands whose music and raison d'etre is based on a simple idea, a gimmick, they only lasted a few years and the second time I saw them (at Fiddlers again) I had persuaded a lot of my friends to go because of the joy of the first time, they played four songs, two hours late, one of which was reprised for the encore. Good job I already had the CD's of them being good, I thought.

As I watched Plantlife, kicking off into a familiar set of tight funk and glorious soul, I was reminded of all this and wondered if this band would share the same fate. I heard a rumour that some of the bands members are linked but haven't been able to corroborate this (Google fails for once!). In their favour they have some incredible singers, a few good songs, but all original. In the tradition of James Brown, p-funk and many other masters of the genre this band are slamming down the funk, managing to keep fresh a sound that is decades old. Heavily scripted banter linked the songs together, which left some moments feeling a bit false but the frontman Mr Splash's boundless energy made up for it.

People are quick to assume that funk is dead, that the modern breaks and beats when they are funky, is what we have to have now. You know, the tireless journey to produce something new and original against an almost infinite backdrop of dull middle of the road muzak. Sometimes this throws up some gems, but all too often I feel that they're holding back for fear of being too similar to something else. Plantlife know all the rules and they play them well and while the sound itself isn't original, it's nice to know that someone understands, and is continuing the spirit of the music which I love. Yes I know I am also quick to criticize bands for following trends and being unoriginal, but no-one's really 'updated' funk music quite so successfully as Plantlife.

The new album, 'The Return of Jack Splash', is out now, the web site for their label is www.counterflowrecordings.com.