It was my flatmate Caroline's birthday yesterday (I got her a voucher to go horse riding). She's 24, and really rather wonderful. And so, despite taking the day off work due to seemingly having come down with the plague, I dragged myself out of bed around tea-time to make it down to her little bash at the ever wonderful The Lexington in Angel. I felt like poo. I actually thought I was going to drop down dead walking down Pentonville Road. But what greeted me when I got there cheered my spirits.

continued...

Caroline has been banging on for ages about Keith TOTP And His Minor UK Indie Celebrity All-Star Backing Band, a kind of indie 'supergroup' revolving around her friend Keith, his flatmate Eddie Argos (who plays the bass-guitar parts according to the numbers on the fretboard Keith barks at him on stage), and whoever Keith can rope in. Sometimes this means members of Carter USM, David Devant and His Spirit Wife or The Indelicates; sometimes it just means friends or people he meets in the pub. Normally, their number averages around 16, and last night it meant my girlfriend Sara, seen in the videos below, bowing the fuck out of her saw on the far right...

Thing is, I kinda always thought they'd be a right mess - the kind of shambolic-playing-for-no-one-but-their-own-amusement-loser-indie-pop that used to blight all the tweepop shows I went to as a teenager. And I was kinda right (which is kinda okay if you like that kind of thing - it was kinda funny trying to watch Eddie remember his bass parts, it was kinda neato watching Fruitbat from Carter USM bellowing backing vocals). BUT! Keith's songs really are kinda awesome (I woke up humming 'I Hate Your Band' - I also woke up with the taste of sick in my mouth, but I digress...), and perhaps due to the zillions of guitars they'd crammed on stage, they kind sound like what I imagine Oasis would do if they ever signed to K Records...

Anyway, if you missed the show (and I know you did, there was only twenty people there), you can watch their set in full below (except the end of 'I Hate Your Band', where I ran out of batteries like a total dolt).

Setlist:
Girl
Call Me
Pretentious Title TBC
It's Slang
Two Of The Beatles Are Dead
I Hate Your Band
Fuck The M.S.P