Emmy the Great, Diane Cluck, Young*Husband at London Cargo, Wed 11 Jun

The tail end of a fine evening sees Diane Cluck jovially field requests, the fluidity and grace absent earlier now well and truly apparent
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Lightspeed Champion / Flowers Forever @ Maxwell's: Making the Jump to Lightspeed

Making his New Jersey debut was British singer-songwriter and Star Wars aficionado Dev Hynes, who goes by the name Lightspeed Champion. Even though I was never a fan of his previous band, the "nothing new" Test Icicles, his new incarnation is pure enjoyment. The man brings a lot of personality to his music and his live show.

 The semi-setlist (with some new song editions)

• Galaxy of the Lost
• Marlene
• Dry Lips
• No Surprise
• Madame Van Damme
• Tell Me What It's Worth
• Dead Head Blues
• All to Shit
• Star Wars Melody
• Star Surprise

Although his songs are about the pitfalls of everyday life, the music is rather lovely. When I first heard his debut album, Falling off the Lavender Bridge, I kind of pictured him singing with a wilted bouquet of flowers in his hand. His songwriting is on point, especially on my favorite song Galaxy of the Lost. It's such a sad sack song, but you feel his optimism.

Tonight, he started off the show with that tune with a some help from my boy Keith Murray of We Are Scientists (who will be stopping by this space soon for a lively chat about the new album). It goes along with Lightspeed's ethos, in that most of his material is a collaborative effort along his friends including Emmy the Great and Florence and the Machine.

Musically, he could fit into the anti-folk scene in New York. He mixes up styles and incorporates strings and steel guitar to make endearing music for the masses. It's really easy to like because it comes from a genuine place and he has a sense of humor with his sad sap songs.

Dev plays a loose live show, so he likes to chat up the crowd. He seems like a real sweet guy, who's up for any kind of tom foolery. The crowd was small tonight, so it made the show feel like a cozy chat among friends. He got excited about his Conan O'Brien performance for today and asked everyone what the next show they were seeing. I'm seeing These New Puritans.

Anyway, check out some of his material, including the epic 10 minute closer for the night, Star Surprise, it's a hodgepodge of styles in one -- kind of like the Bohemian Rhapsody for British indie singer-songwriters from former post punk, new wave bands.

As a side note, I like his hat, just not in the summertime. Also, his drummer is the cutest girl I've ever seen. *sigh*

Opening up was Team Love's Flowers Forever, one of the many side projects of Derek Presnill, the guitarist of Tilly & The Wall. I've been going to Maxwell's for 13 years, and I've never seen such an ellaborate light set-up for an opening band. They have the house lights shut off so that they can use black light, strobe lights and flood lights to get their set some style. Also, they have a fog machine and giants deteached heads peaking out over the band members. On top of that, they rock early-90s indie style. It's a chance for Derek to tap into his inner-Pavement.

Bella Union bringing el Guincho, Emmy the Great, Duke Spirit to Wireless

Bella Union, the fine independent label started by Cocteau Twin Simon Raymonde just over a decade ago, have been given their own stage at this year’s Wireless festival. Guess what? They have some of the best line-ups of the weekend
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Camden Crawl 2008 Bands to Watch

Sooner or later I'm going to plan ahead and actually attend the Camden Crawl. If you don't already know, it's London's quasi version of SXSW. It's two days of all the up-and-coming British bands playing in any pub, venue or space that can fit a stage. It's 48 hours of waiting in line! Sign me up.

As a side note, I love what Todd Barry had to say about SXSW, "What? You don't want to see 30 bands in one day?"

The past few years, Arctic Monkeys, Wolfmother, Guillemots, Hard-Fi, Hot Chip, Maximo Park, Magic Numbers, Art Brut, Pipettes, Forward Russia, Klaxons, Humanzi and The Automatic all made their name first at the Crawl. Last year saw Kate Nash, Calvin Harris, New Young Pony Club, Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip, Foals, Adele, Jack Penate and Emmy the Great all start their buzz machine.

This year's line-up has names you are already familiar with: Los Campesinos!, Does It Offend You, Yeah?, Lykke Li, Operator Please, Johnny Foreigner, Fanfarlo and M83. Here are some you should keep on eye on.

Ladyhawke: If I were to look into my crystal ball and venture a guess, I would think disco queen Ladyhawke (Pip Browne) would be the act that all the U.K. kids will be fawning over. You can have your Robyns and the like, I'll hang with this New Zealand native. She's M.I.A., Peaches, Stevie Nicks and Debbie Harry all rolled into one. I'll listen to anyone who lists video games and Jem & The Holograms as influences. I can see her collaborating with Justice easily. Now, I wonder how many times she's seen Ladyhawke.

Make Model: Having already done the SXSW thing, they are well into the processe of planting their foot onto the U.K. music scene. The six-piece band out of Glasgow are making big arena rock without all the ego. Their latest single is called The LSB, a glammy, fun number with a bratty chorus and foot-stomping rhythm. They do veer from all-out dance numbers to more straight-forward rock out tracks. Their debut album will be out this year. 

Royworld: Royworld! For all your Roy needs. One of the many U.K. bands that will eventually be compared to Keane because of their heavy use of piano. The four piece from London know how to fill a song with musical prowess -- plenty of piano pounding, big vocals and aggressive guitars. For some reason, their song, Man in the Machine, reminds me "Lonely Boy" by Andrew Gold. It's a cheesy, yacht rock song from the man who wrote "Thank You for Being a Friend."

Bobby Cook and the Sleepers: Nice Something and The Something band name. B.C. already has indie cred having been the opening act for Vampire Weekend on their U.K. tour. HA HA HA! That's just a loaded statement right there. If that was on BrooklynVegan that would have gotten 100 comments. I digress, the guy has a voice made for British pop music -- part Ben Folds, the other part James Walsh of Starsailor. His music has a fine sense of grandeur and space.

Team Waterpolo: Here's an example of band that have been anointed the next big thing even though they've only been a band since last July. Since then, they've toured with Joe Lean & The Jing Jong Jong and appeared on Lily Allen & Friends. Now, they'll have tour stints with The Teenagers, The Automatic, Air Traffic and the next NME New Music Tour. So what's the big deal? My lord are they out there in the pop music. I don't think you can get any more extreme then they do. It's just one dance party song after another. It's The Go! Team meets Black Kids meets Franz Ferdinand.

I just want to point out one great band name, Rolo Tomassi. I heard about this agri-punk/electronica band a few years ago, and lovedthat they named themselves after an obscure movie reference. You know it? Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock. It's an obscure character in L.A. Confidential and it was Kevin Spacey's characters dying words. Other great names: Shut Your Eyes And You’ll Burst Into Flames, Cutting Pink with Knives, and The Creepy Morons