60s Bopping at The New Cross Inn

It feels like ages since I wrote a live review! Jeez that PopJunkie TV malarkey is taking up way too much of my time (not really Ash and Sean). Last night I stayed south side and took a trip to the New Cross Inn for quite a cool little sixties night featuring Vinny Vinny, Organ Morgan and The Vinyl Stitches.

The Vinyl Stitches are a two boy, two girl sixties rock outfit kinda trying to emulate The Small Faces. The singer does a top impression of Steve Marriott. They were pretty good, raw but lacking a certain je ne sais quai. The drums need to be louder and a bit more reverb on the guitar. Plus they should get the girl with the tambourine to dance around a bit - she looks kinda lost sitting there tapping away.

Organ Morgan got me all excited as they had a real proper Hammond organ....mmmm little Vix loves that sound! Very Doors in style and a little bit psychedelic you know Haight-Astbury circa 1964. The problem is they didn't have Jim Morrison. They had a sound which would be cool with a really eccentric, flamboyant front man.

Last up were Vinny Vinny the pioneers of Nu Soul. I saw these lot in Ibiza last year after stumbling by there MySpace profile. They were ok but I seemed to remember digging them a lot more last year for some reason, they seemed a bit more passionate on that occasion - real foot stomping mania. They got all the ingredients for being a Vixter favourite but just fell short of the mark tonight. But don't let them put you off. The crowd were a little quiet and they do have some killer tunes esp: Doctor Says and Get Yourself On Me.

So this may sound like I didn't have all that good a time but I did. Very much so. The New Cross Inn is a proper friendly place with a wicked crowd. One tiny request...pls get some good cider on tap. Magners hurts my tum tum.

Mani, Liquid Limousine and Dirty South

The lovely Liquid Limousine squirrelled me some tickets to their rebel rousing performance at Dirty South in Lewisham on Saturday night and it met with some mixed emotions.

The boys did good and even managed to pull off a tricky Beatles cover.Top tune of the night was "Shoot me Down" - I love that tune.

The mixed emotions come from a very below par venue which was pretty empty. First off charging £8 to get in! Admittedly I got in free but still if I'd paid boy would I have been annoyed. Next up two beers and one cider where off. Leaving you with the choice of Fosters and Budweiser. Note - Boy was not impressed.

Post bands - where I have to say Liquid Limousine stuck out like a sore thumb Mani arrives. In a flurry of sequin t shirt and dodgy looking sidekick he hit the decks. Playing I kid you not, not one tune post 1998. My god I thought he was just trying to be ironic but the joke just didn't stop. he played for probably an hour, with about 6 people on the dance floor at any one time. then flounced out.

Shame on you Dirty South! Brixton Jamm is an ace venue and I was thinking that being a sister venue you would have been not too bad.

Last off you are one of the few venues who also tries to rip bands off. I know someone who was approached recently to play at your venue and was told they needed to secure 50 people to play. there wasn't 50 people in there in total on Saturday night! I then found out that you made the bands who did play buy 30 tickets each up front. That is very naughty.

It's a big shame really as its not a bad venue in terms of size and probably has a lot of potential. Its also fairly local for me and I would love to have somewhere nearby I could go to.

Dirty South ain't it.