Plakka have carelessly lost their lead singer tonight, whilst Severine Deveraux have gained a drummer. There is no connection between the two events. Apparently Bobby, Plakka's lead singer is on a train to Bristol; whilst I wouldn't say that he wasn't missed,the remaining members coped with the situation and put on a (largely instrumental) enjoyable performance.

In case you don't follow these pages intently, let me summarise the relationship between Severine Deveraux and Plakka: Severine used to be the drummer in Plakka, whilst Joe the bass player has been known to stand in on bass for Plakka - noteably when they supported the Bluetones in Sheffield while Jimmy and I were stuck on the M1 for 5 hours).

Severine resigned as she found drumming unfulfilling, and formed her own surf band with Joe. Now, around a year on, they have a set of songs and an ep out. Their new drummer seems an exciting addition; athough he has only had time to learn a couple of song so far, those are very good (particularly Monsters).

After last weeks gargantuan ramble I am returned to shorter reviews with just a few (fairly) well choosen words.

Plakka's Balloon Pop @ the Black Horse
I thought I was going to have a difficult choice between seeing Plakka's third Balloon Pop experience and Plakka's ex-drummer Severine Deveraux but fortunately Kilinker North at the Sailsbury starts late and we were abe to rush between the the two ( I had planned ahead here and gone in the car). This week Plakka are short of Spanna and Kez (guitar and trumpet) who are enjoying the mud at Glastonbury. They are lucky to have a guest guitarist but still have a vacancy for a drummer. Each of the evenings has been different and enjoyable.
support this week was from Paul Mosley who did a nice set.

The Klinker
Rushing to Green lanes  (just round the corner really) and the Sailsbury Hotel, we arrived to find Hugh and friends improvising. Hugh seemed to be particularly manic and did quite a lot of drumming and a bit of guitar. Didn't see much violin tonight. The highlight (literally) of the performance was when he pooured lighter fuel over a symbol and set fire to it.

We had rushed here to see Severine Deveraux. It was after midnight by they played, and they did well to follow Hugh's antics. I enjoyed them more than the previous occasion. I think that means I've seen their 2nd and 3rd public performances so its good to see progression. Songs were quite catchy, at first I thought one was a cover as it seemed so familiar, then I realised that it sounded familiar because I'd heard it in their myspace page a couple of times; so thats catchy.