Steve Gullick's exhibition in Manchester.

Merrill Garbus aka tUnE-yArDs. Photo: Brian Doherty

Think about Life are a good time band. While their equally charming and chaotic musical palette of funk, electro and synth pop does have its moments, they simply don’t have enough to completely pull it off. It’s hard not to like front man Martin Cesar and co - their attempts at synchronised dancing, interacting warmly with the crowd and above all the energy they bring to their set deserves recognition and respect. Its just that tonight I don’t think its happening.

Photos by Brian Doherty

Surfer Blood - Live at Pure Groove Records, London. Monday 8th February 2010

Surfer Blood? By now, whether you like it or not you’ve heard something about Surfer Blood. Subject of much internet hype/ blog hysteria (their debut ASTRO COAST being touted as the first great record of 2010) SB are a five piece native of West Palm Beach Florida. Coming of a gruelling second half of 2009, which saw them notoriously blitz the CMG Music Marathon in October, indie front runners Surfer Blood find themselves in London briefly before a return to the states for another extensive tour.

Review, photo: Victor Frankovski

Photo: Charlie Ingham

Offset Festival: 2 days in Essex, plenty of bands to see from the unusual No Bra to the headliners The Horrors and everything in-between - Offset has to be the coolest festival this summer. It actually felt that this weekend was the last weekend of summer. Let’s get one thing out of the way first, there was no mud, no rain, no wellies, no rain coats. Although in true indie-kid style, Barbour Jackets seem to be making a comeback, but only if you couple them with retro ray-bans.

There were way too many bands for me to get round, 170-ish over the weekend, ranging from the good, (Hatcham Social), the bad (No Bra), and the ugly (I’m not saying who). This festival really does feel like you can find some new music just by wandering into a tent to see what’s happening. When I say tent I mean the big white ones with the music blaring out, not the small eurohike ones on the adjacent camp site you fall into at the end of the first day after too much cider (no comment).

So Saturday was all about The Slits. There were of course some bands playing from the off that I should have seen due to the name alone, but didn’t; What would Jesus Drive?, Lekiddo - Lord of the Lobsters!, Sex is Disgusting. I feel bad that I missed them. Err, well, maybe not.

Offset suggests that this festival "joins the dots between exciting new bands and the artists who influenced them" and you really do get a sense of things to come. A band that oozes energy and excitement are Dananananaykroyd. It’s difficult to label this band; they have two singers, two drummers, two guitarists and one bass player. It’s jump around like a maniac, scream at the top of your voice, crowd surf, craziness - which after a morning of watching people singing at their feet was just what the crowd needed. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing angry about this band, in fact it’s more pop than hardcore, even the singer Calum Gunn asked the security man if he was allowed to crowd surf. The guy said no, but Calum went for it anyway. At least he asked. This band loved the crowd and the crowd loved them back. Ahh bless. Calum even went as far as to go and hug as many of them as he could at the end of the set.