The gigs sold out in a flash, but a combination of a vague feeling that I should be there, Ebay, and a credit card, got me there on the first night, last Saturday.

This band is amazing. David Johansen is 60. He has the head of a 60 year old, the body of an 18 year old. Spray on skinny low cut jeans, foppy frilly shirt, leather jacket, tortoiseshell aviator shades and big hair. Teeth, charm, more cool in his little finger than Mick Jagger - with whom he bears a certain facial similarity - has in his whole body. A showman, macho but effeminate, polished yet shambolic. I loved him. Such charisma you could imagine him fronting a lounge outfit in the Catskill Mountains - which of course, he did, as a serious enterprise, under the wonderful nom de guerre Buster Poindexter.

The only other surviving member of the original line up was Sylvain Sylvain, the Penfold to Johansen’s Dangermouse. The other guitarist - Frank Infante from Blondie. Both 59.

The set was nearly 2 hours long.  It didn’t flag for a second.  They tried out some new songs and fluffed one - “Sunday Afternoon”.  Johansen, singing the lyrics from a sheet, wanted to abandon it.  Sylvain’s face - it was obviously his song - began to scroll through the five stages of grief, but, no, he wasn’t having it, and by force of will if nothing else dragged Johansen and the rest of the band back into finishing it.  “Whadya guys think of that German pope?” wisecracked Johansen, to roars of disapproval from the apparently German pope disliking venue.

The credit card piled back into Ebay, and I was back for the third, last night. The Monday crowd were less intoxicated and therefore more subdued than the Saturday crowd, but the band were cooking in the second half. All in a pub. In Newcastle. Playing blues, proto-punk, funk, reggae, but more generally, and more accurately described as rock and roll.  Highlights for me were “Better Than You”, “Funky But Chic” (originally a Johansen solo effort), “Trash”, “Personality Crisis” and “Looking for a Kiss”.

Here’s a pic I took of Mr Johansen, and “Pills” from 1973’s “New York Dolls”.

New York Dolls - Pills

In addition to my new-found addiction to Beach House, I’m also probably late to the party that is Wild Nothing, the nom de guerre of Jack Tatum from Virginia. Much as I don’t like to give the little-known blog Pitchfork publicity, there’s a spot-on review of new album “Gemini” which you may care to peruse. The review, enlightening though it is, doesn’t single out my favourite track on the album, “Bored Games”.

Wild Nothing - Bored Games

So of course now I’m having my own, personal, internet based Primavera Sound post-festival, with no massive crowds of gap year Rahs (where did they come from) and Refrescos that were all ice and no Fanta Limon (gotta love the Fanta Limon).  My personal discovery (yes, I realise after 274,903 other Last.fm listeners) of the festival was Beach House, whose amazing album “Teen Dream” is on constant play on my Spotify, and this track, “Walk In The Park” is on constant play in my head, with its less-is-more combo of drum machine, pulsing organ, cascading guitar tremolos, and Victoria Legrand’s incredible husky, sexy, almost masculine vocal. I know I’m coming to the party late, obviously if you want to read a professional and knowledgeable review, I’ll hand you over to the good offices of my closest rival in the blogging trade, but if you haven’t heard of this band, I’m encouraging you to give them a go.

Beach House - Walk In The Park

Trespassers William - Vapour Trail

Teenage Fanclub - Baby Lee

Oh - and stick with it - the magic doesn’t really begin to start until 30 seconds in.

Tenniscoats - Baibaba Bimba

Sue has a couple of exhibitions (here and here) at the ongoing Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art, and hopefully this weekend I will be checking out some of it and then blethering on about it here. Good times.

Life Without Buildings - The Leanover

I like this cover of “Catch” by Art Brut, it sounds rather like some East End pub rock band decided to launch into a bit of goth pop. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Captures the nonchalance of Robert Smith’s lyric quite well, I think (strokes beard thoughtfully). I don’t know much about Art Brut - they have a song called “Alcoholics Unanimous” which I’m not going to post as I think it’s rather too obvious for this blog, as well as being pants.

Art Brut - Catch

Oh, and the lyric about self-help books. I’ve recently bought “Just Get On With It”. I’m so embarrassed to actually even need to buy this book that I am actually just getting on with it without bothering to read it, as I reckon it can’t be much more complicated than that. Surely?

Malcolm Middleton - Blue Plastic Bags

Surely not The Cure? A quick Google search later. Brushford Barton, the house were The Cure wrote “Distintegration”. And here’s an article all about it.

As it happens, I was studying (ok, drinking) in Devon at the time. It was a magical place, empty, high hedges, lots of ramshackle country piles, and, as it turns out, one of them was occupied by Smith and Tolhurst writing amazing stuff like this.

The Cure - Pictures of You