There is something quite disconcerting, if not to say disturbing, about seeing a quote – for the record it’s the one that says ‘treading their own path, without giving a flying f*ck’ – you wrote in a review of Fudge’s single ‘Not A Threat, Just A Warning’ plastered on the walls of a venue. Yet at the same time, just between you and me you understand, I am somewhat proud of that quote for it sums up Fudge, at least for me.

A Fudge gig always comes with a special atmosphere – there’s a buzz, an anticipation, a sense of community that even I, a reviewer who has to stand back and observe at least a bit (and that is really really hard to do), felt that night.

But before Fudge, just to whet our appetites and get our music muscles warmed up, there are two great bands – Mega Happy and Wuzi.

I’ve reviewed Mega Happy’s releases in the past, and as I’ve said, probably in way that you’re bored of, Mega Happy make me mega happy. My first live experience of the band left me super mega happy.

It’s a slightly rockier experience than I expected from the singles I’ve reviewed – and maybe I should have expected that – but the slightly warped sound I’ve grown to love was there. Also there was the words of the songs, which are so so important, just as strange, funny and brilliant as the singles. Some of Mega Happy’s lyrics are grin inducing, I got that grin that night.

I am introduced to songs I didn’t know, and I’m not disappointed. The included a song about losing your virginity which came (Careful! – Ed) with loads of wit and innuendo. The first song I recognise is ‘We Can’t be Friends’ and this is harder sounding than the single but somehow much more effective. This is followed by ‘Stubborn’. A song of which the opening line – ‘a brand new day makes me think of suicide’ – still feels disturbing buts it a fantastic song. It’s still wonderfully warped, perhaps even more so than the recorded version. That warp and the oh-so jangly sound just makes you want to bop around like a crazy thing.

The set ends with ‘I Want Your Boyfriend’, a track which I adore, but it’s strange, it’s strange in that it’s about a guy who wants the boyfriend of this girl. But it’s a joy, a slightly disconcerting joy. And the line ‘Boys are a much better shag’ still has me grinning like… well you you know.

Live, I am struck by how good the band are – the bass grabs you, the drums are cool and the guitar just stabs out these wonderful sounds.

Mega Happy are the sort of band that leave you with their songs lodged firmly in your head, a huge grin and feet that just can’t stop moving.

An age ago I reviewed an EP from Wuzi – ‘Bozo Material’ – and I’d been really really impressed by that so I was keen to see the band play live. I wasn’t disappointed.

The band start and it is the most gloriously noisy wall of sound, sound that throbs, it swirls, it fucking rips any sense from your brain, so immersive is what they do. You get the picture? It’s hypnotic and mesmerising.

And then, just to show us they can do other things, the next track is gentle and beguiling, and almost plaintive, it’s beautiful. But it builds, it builds into a roaring squall of sound. Yummy.

As the set goes on I get that somewhere, somewhere deep in there these songs have tunes, it isn’t just glorious noise, you may have to listen hard at times but it’s there.

And then, towards the end of their set, I am surprised for Wuzi play something that is, how should I put this, pretty and gentle. Almost too pretty, and yes it builds to a huge guitar break in say the tradition of those big AOR ballad things, but it’s lovely, swooningly lovely.

Standing back a little I hear hints of Nirvana, lashings of wall of sound acid rock, psychedelic rock, alternative rock, pretty psychedelic jangly pop, and countless other things. It is an intoxicating mix that is somehow more than these added together.

The impression I left with – as I try to get my breath back – is not the huge roaring swirling sound, although that’s a fabulous thing, is the subtlety in what they do. The layers of carefully placed sound. There is method in that wall of sound, it is an amazing and astounding thing. See this band, see this band at all costs.

It is impossible to write notes when Fudge play, it’s too messy, people – including Cam, who has a tendency to hurl himself off the stage and into the crowd – are all over the place. And for this gig I decided I had to be as close to the band as possible just to experience that Fudge thing. Too close it turned out for at times the fact that I had to stand still to take pictures proofed somewhat slightly risky as people reeled around in front of the stage.

It is tempting to just let my pictures do the talking but that would be lazy. But the problem is that I’m not sure I can adequately describe what it felt like, what it was like. Look I’ll try, not sure I can do this, but I’ll try.

From the moment Fudge started it all fucking kicked off. It was a riot, not call the police riotous (unlike the band’s previous ‘secret gig’), but a barely controlled seeming messy thing. People danced (or should that be moshed? Not sure. You get what I mean anyway don’t you?). They screamed out the words. They had shouted conversations with Cam. The heat in the basement of Hyde Park Book Club rose to an almost unbearable level, people took off a lot of clothes. There was however a feeling of community. People, although throwing themselves all over the place, were strangely careful – and caring I noticed as one of the wildly dancing crowd members escorted someone out of that mass of people to a safe place.

There was a sense of a shared experience, one that is really hard not to be part of. Fudge and their fans seem to be one thing. It’s a family. If this family has a leader it’s Cam, he appeared to have an almost magical way of calming people down, of getting people to come closer, I guess you’d call it charisma. The getting people to come closer was usually followed by Cam hurling himself into the crowd by the way.

But being closer to the band than I was the first time I saw them enabled me to really get that this is a band who love what they do. There is grinning, there even seem to be shared jokes, there is what I can only describe as joy in doing what they do. They don’t do ‘well another gig, plug in, play and then go’, I got the impression that playing live really means something to them, and they work hard, there’s no casual indifference.

There are other things that have lodged themselves into my head – Cam handing over the mic to the crowd, the moment Cam announced that he was bored and left the stage leaving vocals to somebody (sorry I have not the slightest idea who he was, I think he was the person that came on before their encore to ‘rev the crowd up’ at the first gig I went to), the guest vocalist who joined Cam for one track, Cam sitting on the shoulders of somebody in the crowd, the way a person who climbed on stage was encouraged to stage dive. Oh and those monologue things that Cam does before songs sometimes.

But more than this there is also the music, the glorious music. The fact that Angus’s drumming is absolutely the key to what they do, that without Josh’s bass it just wouldn’t work and that Otto’s guitar playing is just, well, wonderful. It’s not in any way just crowd provoking noise, there are subtle things going on their music which almost had me surprised.

I gush, but I’m entitled to gush. I might be a reviewer but I’m also a fan, and I grow into more of a fan each time I see them. Look a Fudge gig is something you need to experience, something you have to experience. Fudge do something I haven’t seen or heard for a long time, they make the crowd be part of the gig, they make it into a shared fucking wonderful thing.

News of a new EP from FloodHounds was greeted with joy over her at LSF Towers. No, I’m understating that, it was actually greeted with a ‘Fuck yeah, more FloodHounds yummy-ness’. You may be assuming that I’ll somewhat of a fan of the band, and you’d be right.

Of the four tracks on the EP, two have been released as singles – ‘Take It Too Far’ and Stepping Stone – but there are two new tracks – ‘Leave It Alone’ and ‘Going Home’. The inclusion of the two previously released tracks is no bad thing, it really isn’t, I’ll get back to that.

In my review of ‘Take It Too Far’ I said that the track was ‘an instant ‘it’s got into my head, can’t get it out, don’t want it out of my head’ track, it sounds like one of those things you hear and you can’t quite believe you’ve never heard it before. It’s barely halfway in and you’re singing along at the top of your voice. This thing rocks people, it’s catchy, it’s really accomplished musically, it’s raw and at the same time smooth’. And I’m standing by that, I’m standing by that big time. And I still love that dreamy section.

My review of ‘Stepping Stone’ said ‘the track rocks, there are hints of a swampy blues-rock thing going on in there as well. In fact the start had me thinking ‘oh boy, FloodHounds have gone all old style blues rock’, that doesn’t last but somehow the contrast between the heavier bits and the lighter bits just makes this song. That and the fantastic drop out section with gentle guitar that gradually revs back up to something huge’. And again I’m standing by that.

What listening to those two tracks back-to-back on the EP does is to more than double the impact, the glorious power of those two tracks is enough to blow your mind apart people.

But, and it’s a big but, what these two tracks doesn’t do is to quite prepare you for the other two songs. These show a degree of sophistication that I wasn’t quite ready for somehow, it was quite surprising, what little was left of my mind was totally blown.

For what these two tracks do is to take that FloodHounds’ bluesy slightly indie thing and add something of of a souly blues rock – I kept thinking Stevie Winwood – to make something so so so good. And it’s like FloodHounds but FloodHounds plus, the band stepping up a level.

And there is a progression in the four tracks, they hang together as a set of four, this makes having all four songs a must. Yep, you’re going to have perhaps one or two tracks as favourites but the four taken together are joyous.

‘Leave It Alone’ may strike you initially as being in the same vein as the first two tracks but it isn’t, OK so it is in some ways, but it isn’t in others. It comes with a hard bluesy stomp and swagger, and the entirely unexpected, but fabulous, stabs of swirly-ness. It is also a great song, the words of this thing are so good. I may be somewhat influenced by something of a personal experience here, but this is going to chime with a lot of us. And does Jack stretch out on this, his guitar completely rocks, but this is merely an appetiser for what is going to come next.

But it is with ‘Going Home’ that this EP reaches a climax. It sounds, well according to the friend I played this to, ‘like a cross between some Manchester band and Blind Faith but without the keyboards’. I’m not entirely sure this helps but at the start there is something of Manchester thing going on in Jack’s vocals.

It is, at least at first, a slow thing, Jack sings quietly and with feeling, but then it starts to build, there are stabs of guitar that dart out at you. It kinda does a sort of quiet drop out section but then it starts to build once again, only to drop out to soulful guitar and vocals. And then it starts to rev up, Jack’s guitar positively burns people.

The first time, and even second and third times, I listened to this song I left speechless, it’s that good. It’s beautiful and meaningful and it reaches deep down inside and twists your soul.

Look, if you have only one of the previously tracks, or even both, it’s worth listening to, and having to hand in your chosen download software or streaming service, for the four tracks taken as a whole have way more impact than the tracks taken individually. In fact the whole EP is a beautiful thing, it’s glorious and gorgeous.

And if you’re not somebody who’s into what FloodHounds do, then this, I’d suggest, is something that you need to listen to, must listen to.

It’s while since I’ve been to a gig at Santiago’s, too long to be honest, I rather like it as venue, so an opportunity to see a couple of bands I’ve either seen before or reviewed their releases and others I’ve not even heard of seemed too good an opportunity to miss.

Opening up what turned out to be a really great night was Rob Galloway – who, he told us, was also in a band and you could hear that, a couple of songs would have sounded so good with a full blown band behind them. Here he was performing with just voice – and what a voice, it’s got real power when he unleashes it – and acoustic.

For the first song he employs what I described in my notes as being ‘vaguely Dylanesque’ tone at times but mainly sticks to a pretty rock ’n’ roll full on bloody wonderful voice. This was slightly unexpected, I rather expected that singer/songwriter thing. But it was a great surprise and made me really start to get interested. For the second song he went all gentle singer/songerwriter in a song that was effective and rather moving.

This change of style seems to be a feature of his performance, he switches it up from song to song this is a really great thing it makes his performance hugely engaging. As does the subjects of his songs – relationships, the advertising industry, and others. For the song about the advertising industry both the music and his voice went way dark. The words were perceptive and clever. Hugely impressive.

At the end of his set I scribbled ‘the thing about his songs is that his approach to the subjects is unexpected and has a twist. This makes his songs so so engaging and sets your head thinking‘. I’m standing by that. But reflecting I found his performance emotional engaging, slightly dangerous and scary – there’s something about him that says ‘expect the unexpected’ and hugely thrilling. Get the chance, go see Rob play, it’s fucking fantastic.

Right at the start of The Gulps’ set I was really unsure whether they were doing a last minute soundcheck, or just noodling around in a vaguely West Coast psychedelic sort of way. The departure of a band member for a while didn’t do anything to help me to be honest.

But suddenly they bloody fucking burst into something that is a full on rock, rock with hints of all sorts of 70s’ rock sounds and heavy bands, and it is a joy, a noise assault that had me in bliss – I’m keen on that sort of thing.

But this is a band who just refuse to be labelled – my somewhat garbled notes say – ‘but hey wait a minute that sounds a bit post-punk, suddenly it’s a bit alternative rock, that’s a bit punky, and just what the hell that’s a bit indie rock’. My music reviewer head was confused, us reviewers struggle with a band who we can’t say ‘well they’re basically X with a hint of Y’ because it’s difficult to describe what a band do. However my music head, the one that just says ‘can’t care, I love this’, was in full on grin mode.

My music head was just enjoying the noise, the wonderful noise that this band make in almost casual ‘not-giving a fuck’ sort of way. It was enjoying the fact that these guys know how to play, there was some particularly impressive guitar but the drumming and bass was way cool. And their singer just does this thing, this ‘hey I’m the singer and I’m just going to do this thing right now, yep there’s way cool shape for you people out there’. But it’s cool, this is a cool band people.

Their set is wave after wave of, let’s call it noise-y rock ‘n’ roll and it’s fantastic. I really didn’t want it to end.

An age again I reviewed a single from Weekend Recovery and I was impressed, really impressed. So I was looking forward to seeing them live. What I heard and saw wasn’t quite what I was expecting. Looking back I should have known – for I have this picture in my head of the bass player carefully combing his hair down over face, that should have told me what I was about to hear wasn’t going to be all carefully nuanced, not that this is a bad thing at all.

For when the band open up it’s an all out punky noise assault – the bass rumbles at floor shaking levels, Lori’s guitar rocks and roars, drums pound, and Lori almost screams the words. Oh fucking wow it’s so good. There are times when you need that, I needed that then.

But wait, for as their set goes on, I do actually hear past that sonic assault and get what my notes describe as ‘structure and subtlety and nuance’ in their songs. I begin to hear hints of bands I really like – The Slits, X-Ray Spex, Siouxsie and The Banshees (Metal Postcard period for those of you that are interested) – and at times an almost proto-metal thing going on. These are hints, the vaguest hints for Weekend Recovery have their own sound, partially this is down to Lori’s voice – it’s a great voice people – and partially down to the way they put things together.

And when Lori announces that the next song is about blowjobs and is called ‘Down On Your Knees’ it doesn’t seem shocking at all, it just seems right, and this is a fine fine song. A great song.

But the thing that stays with you about Weekend Recovery is that they are fun, that the band just have this sheer enjoyment in doing what they do. And that is infectious. There are times when you just need to hear a band who are fun, who make a wondrous noise, Weekend Recovery do that.

So it’s my second time of seeing Kath and The Kicks, and reviewing a band for the second time is hard. The easiest thing to say is ‘what I wrote last time I saw them’ but that would be lazy (And being a very bad reviewer – Ed). So you have to take the time and opportunity to focus in, the hear beyond that first overall impression.

I am still struck by the impact and power of what they do, but there are some things that I’d not really noticed, or only partially noted, before. The fact that in that alternative rock that ‘grinds like fuck’ Shaneen’s bass really is a key thing – she’s funky and grooves on that bass people – and the drumming is way way cool. The fact that Kath’s voice is great and that her guitar playing is beyond good, it’s way beyond good.

That there is more variety in the songs than I noticed before – yep there’s alternative rock (that’s on the heavy side) but there’s something of a metal thing going on sometimes and something of a heavy heavy noise-y blues-rock going on in one track. This band are very definitely not a ‘one trick pony’, there’s enough variety.

But let’s at this point turn to my notes for they sum up what I thought on the night:

‘They rock, they rock big fucking time. And it’s fun, it huge rollicking fun. And the band are having fun. Kath rips huge way cool sounds from her guitar and throws great shapes. Shaneen on bass twists and grooves, the vibe that comes from her just hits you in the face. She just rocks big time.

They smile, no grin, at each other. The crowd respond to the oh-so-obvious sheer enjoyment the band shows in making this music, it’s blast, it’s a riot’.

I gush, obviously I gush, but the fact is that I’m now becoming a fan of the band. Their gigs are huge fun, the music is impressive and the vibe is great. You like your rock loud and incredibly well played, go see Kath and The Kicks.