A MASSIVE thanks to those of you that came to the Bannerman’s gig last Friday. Without a doubt, it was my favourite gig we’ve done. A big crowd, all up for it made for a good performance (it’s a two-way thing).

Anyway, excitingly, somebody took a video of our final song and its now on YouTube. See it below or here.
By the way, photos from the gig at The Ark are also available here

So, this week I sat the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator on a course with work. Turns out I am the ‘ESTP’ type. take a look at what that means here.
I am personally pretty chuffed with the list of famous ESTP’s. Doing a bit more research t’Internet, I also found out that Mr T is also considered to be an ESTP. Awesome!

Also this week, I bought the new REM album: Accelerate. Listened to it once and its a cracker. It starts fast and loud and overall the album is pretty rocking. So, looking forward to seeing them at T this summer. I’m still waiting on my copy of The Courteeners album, though - get your act together CDWOW!

In other news - The Alibis are playing another gig at Bannerman’s this Friday (25th April). Get yourself down there!

Just a quick thank you to those who came to the gig at The Ark last week.  Photos should (hopefully) be available soon (thanks to Andy Kelly).

In other news, I scooped50 quid on the National last week - woo-hoo!

Also, I’m back flat-hunting with my current place getting sold.  If anybody hears of a place they think might be suitable - drop me a line!

Yea, this is a shameless plug for my band The Alibis playing at The Ark on Waterloo Place this coming Sunday.
Come along if you can. If you can’t, there are more gigs on the way!

If there is one thing worse than having to suffer through a support band that suck so bad you want to pierce your eardrums with a cotton bud, it is only catching the last 3 tracks of a band and wishing you’d got there earlier. So it was for me and my mates for Figure 5. Kind of a Coral-esque vibe with Glasgow accents, I really enjoyed (what I caught of) their set. Sorry lads, I’ll look out for you next time you’re in town.

I can’t really comment on The Displacement, as a) they weren’t that memorable and b) I spent most of their set-time in a queue at the bar (get it sorted Edinburgh Corn Exchange!)

Anyway, onto The Enemy. There wasn’t many albums that did it for me last year - but the one that did was We’ll Live And Die In These Towns. I don’t what it is: the songs aren’t particularly groundbreaking or innovative and they haven’t had a steamroller of press, but it just appealed to me.

Going by the crowd at the Corn Exchange, I wasn’t the only one. It was immediately obvious from the crowd and its diversity in age and fashion that The Enemy are the new ‘band of the people’ a la Oasis or Arctic Monkeys. And from the first chord the whole venue was a mass of folks jumping around, yelling each and every lyric until their throats cracked.

Yes, the comparisons with The Jam are justified, but that’s no bad thing. The songs had the energy to carry the band through the (all too short) 35 minute set, followed by rousing encores. Anyway, NME-type waffle over: here’s my take on them. I prefer this band to the Arctic Monkeys and I’ve been trying to figure out why. Both bands’ songs are musical observations of the lives around them, but where Alex Turner more often than not takes the viewpoint of ‘look at that dick’, The Enemy’s Tom Clarke seems to have more of a ‘this is shit, but you know what, I’m ankle deep in it with you’ vibe about him. I’m not criticising Turner’s outsider point of view and it has made for some fantastic music along the way with some of the sharpest lyrics around. However, Clarke seems to employ a bit more of an inclusive slant on life and when he bellows out (during set-closer) ‘You’re Not Alone’, you genuinely believe him.