FIND THE FLOWERPOT AND YOU WON'T WANT TO LEAVE

IT LOOKS like the dream student living room – couches and lamps, arcade machines with space invaders, table football, and a bar on one wall.
But how many students get to play host to Mumford and Sons, Laura Marling, Reverend and the Makers and The Drums?

In the 18 months The Flowerpot's been in Kentish Town, it’s become the unofficial social club for Camden musicians, creating a niche for itself quite possibly unrivalled in London – a respected bill of new and established acts every night totally free.

Although it’s known to those who know, in some ways it’s Camden’s best kept secret, just enough off the beaten track to avoid the paparazzi attention given to Proud and The Hawley Arms, yet with the pulling power to attract Madness, Jamie T and Florence and the Machine. 

You get the sense they want to keep it that way. 

The website is as low-key as it gets and getting manager and promoter Jay Sensible to gossip about the acts is tough.

“I’m not really a namedropper,” he said. “It’s more about looking after bands than promoters.”
Even so, Eliza Doolittle’s has told us she likes to hang out there, Kate Nash has spun records on a Saturday night and Damien Rice has dropped by for a quick jam.

Born from the disaster that was the great fire of Nambucca, bar staff, musicians and the remnants of those who lived over the fashionable Holloway Road pub clubbed together and moved into Camden.
Jay said: “People were homeless and jobless. We rooted around and got hold of the club.”
The staff live above the bar and do much more than serve drinks.
Jay said: “Seven of us live there. We DJ, book bands and promote it. We’ve a wicked back line, we provide guitars, drum kits and amps so bands can just turn up.”

Their listings boast an ambitious line-up from the newest talent to surprise appearances, after-show gigs and established acts – and the punters never have to pay for the privilege.
Most of the staff are in bands or have had some involvement with the music industry and it is these connections that form the heart and soul of the venue – and explain how they scoop the big names.

Jay said: “If you do nice things, nice things happen. We try and help out other bands by putting things on for free. All of us have worked with bands in the past and say we put on early gigs when they were small, now they’re selling records and doing better, they come back and repay the favour.”
He added: “We didn’t want to be a standard music venue. People trust that we’re going to put good bands on. We try and make it as welcoming as possible. Because the bar staff all know each other it’s got a kind of community atmosphere. Our crowd are young, fun, arty...and drunk. They like Jaegerbombs.”

Recently Mumford and Sons, Kill it Kid, The Joker and the Thief and others transformed the venue into a studio for a week-long project writing and recording tracks from start to finish, for a Communion Records compilation. Singer Damien Rice turned up to jam with them at one point.
Jay said: “The whole thing will to be put on vinyl and released in autumn. People had to write the songs here, it was all pretty off the wall. We’ve definitely got some exciting things coming up and New Year at HMV The Forum again with some big bands.”

• US indie girl band The Like play a pre Reading and Leeds Festival warm-up gig at The Flowerpot next week (Wednesday).

OZZY OZBOURNE GOES DARK FOR THE ROUNDHOUSE ITUNES FESTIVAL

TIME was, Ozzy Osbourne was primarily associated with Black Sabbath, alter-ego The Prince of Darkness and his on and offstage antics.

But in these days of celebrity obsession, half his family have overtaken him. The media spotlight spends more time shining on wife Sharon’s celebrity judge stints, daughter Kelly’s weight-loss and son Jack’s latest daredevil stunt.

In turn, Ozzy’s become the Boris Johnson face of heavy metal – a harmless-looking amiable mumbling chap, with unkempt hair, a questionable past and  oft-seen wobbling on  two wheels. But give the guy a break, he’s taking his limelight back and will be trying to be as convincing as possible as The Prince of Darkness at July’s month-long iTunes Festival at the Roundhouse.

The full 31-day line-up – featuring more than 60 acts – has not yet been announced but we do know Scissor Sisters, Tony Bennett, Faithless, The XX, Chew Lips, The Drums, Chipmunk, Darwin Deez, Ellie Goulding, Kate Nash, Diana Vickers and Daisy Dares You are all on the bill. 

Pick the right gig and you could inevitably find yourself witnessing one of those rare, historic sets that brings more than you bargained for. At last year’s festival Liam Gallagher made headlines at one of Oasis’s final performances when he strode on stage in a furious mood, eyeballing the crowd and swearing about students throwing beer at him. Even so, they played on for two hours, although at times it looked like Liam was about to go on strike.

The atmosphere between him and Noel was visibly tense, as big bro dismissed his sulky younger sibling and played on while Liam collected himself. But the entire evening was electric and one that won’t easily be forgotten. The irreparable cracks were pushed further apart and it was only a matter of time until our boys just couldn't stand to share the same stage any more.

The iTunes sets are usually quite short but who’s complaining when there’s the chance to see some huge acts up close for free. 

That’s not to say you can just walk in. Apple is making tickets available through Facebook and a series of competitions and giveaways. My only reservation about this is it seems you can only access their iTunes page by allowing it to access your own Facebook page and take the details of your friends.

I may be wrong about this, but I could find no other way of getting on to it. 

It will be the first time that Ozzy, Scissor Sisters and Tony Bennett have graced the Roundhouse stage.

All performances will be recorded and can be bought from iTunes stores worldwide. The best of the festival will be broadcast on ITV.

• Visit www.itunesfestival.co.uk

NO MORE SOFA SURFING - THE DRUMS TAKE ON THE CAMDEN CRAWL

JUST five months ago fledgling Brooklyn band The Drums were crashing on a friend’s couch in Camden, playing their debut European show at Kentish Town’s tiny cult venue, The Flowerpot.

This weekend the very same New York four-piece will be the crowning glory of the borough’s biggest festival – the Camden Crawl.

                                           (The Drums)

Weary frontman Jonathan Pierce spoke to me from Berlin, at the end of an 11-hour stretch of interviews.

He said: “It’s been a little void of adventures. The only adventure we’ve had is seeing if we can stay awake.”

The band were this week forced to cancel their show at Highbury’s Relentless Garage thanks to volcano-induced flight delays, but Crawl organisers are confident they’ll make it to Camden in time.

Jon said: “I know we’re playing the Crawl but we’re not familiar with it. Us American lads are still brushing up on our UK education. We used to stay in a friend’s house in Camden Place when we were in London. The Flowerpot was our first show in Europe so it was a really special time for us. Camden really does hold some significance for The Drums. We just went and grabbed coffee all day long.”

Jon first met bandmate Jacob Graham at Christian summer camp. He said: “I was raised in a Christian household and so was Jacob. It’s normal in America for kids to be shipped off to summer camp and ours just happened to be Christian.”

But it looks like the boys are struggling with the trappings of fame.

He said: “Our least favourite thing in the world is photo shoots. When you start a band you don’t realise everything it entails. You have ideas that it’s about making songs you really love for the next 40 years and here we are in Berlin and we’ve had three photo shoots today and we just hate having our picture taken.”

Their meteoric rise to fame has meant at times their newfound status has overtaken them.
They once played to a crowd of 10 at Santa Barbara University then minutes later posed for an NME cover shoot.

Jon said: "There were 10 kids there all wearing university sweatshirts and had never heard of us. We really go for it when we're playing live, we don't hold back no matter what the situation, so there was a weird awkward dynamic. We played our last song and found out a band has to play for 50 minutes or we don't get paid. 

"We were really broke at the time and didn't have another song. So we ended up playing Kiss And Make Up that St Etienne covered off our i-Pod. We all just danced on the stage and met our quota and got paid. The next thing we did was jump in a van and drive through the beach and did a photo shoot for the cover of NME. It was weird doing a cover shoot five minutes after we played in front of absolutely no-one."

They may have found success but Jon admits he’s still not quite content. 

He said: "It’s not that I’m complaining – it’s just I’m confused. You have these dreams and then your dreams come true and you realise you still are just as confused and probably even more confused because it didn’t solve all your problems.
"There’s this eternal questioning about what is going to make me happy. If this doesn’t make me happy then what will? But it lends to good songwriting. I learned early in my life that money doesn't make me happy and the lack of money doesn't make me happy either. If we had all the answers life might be more... I don't know, so I'm happy to be miserable at this point."

He’s a harsh self-critic, and keeps strict quality control on his songs.
He added: “Nothing really drives me to write anything. It’s never really a conscious thing. I write all the songs and my rule is they have to come naturally. If it feels laboured over then I throw it out. It goes for the lyrics as well. 

“A song might sound happy at first listen but if you listen to the lyrics they often sound a little bit sad or hopeless. We have our own sensitive brand of rock ‘n’ roll. We’re definitely not a typical sex drugs and rock’n’roll type of band. There’s more delicate blood running through our veins. The most exciting thing to us isn’t cocaine it’s writing a beautiful pop song and that’s the honest truth.”

THE CAMDEN CRAWL - HOW ARE THEY COPING AND WHY THE SUGABABES??

THE Post-its are flying all over the place and staff at the Camden Crawl HQ are slowly being buried under a pile of CDs.

We’re only weeks away from one of the biggest events in the music calendar (May 1 and 2) – and with the ever-expanding daytime programme, it’s beginning to give the Edinburgh Festival some serious competition.

There’s the big names: LostProphets, We Are Scientists, Calvin Harris and The Drums. The oldies: Teenage Fanclub, Babybird and Cornershop. The dubious pop choice: Sugababes. The cool- as-ice Dan le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip, The Delays, New Young Pony Club and the most important to me, Camden’s home-grown talent – Akala, Ms Dynamite and Man Like Me.


(Teenage Fanclub, who play this year's Camden Crawl)

The day starts early with impromptu gigs, theatre shows, countless quizzes to tax even the brainiest muso, mind-bending spoken word performances and real comedy from real comedians. On top of all this there’s a series of free events for residents with a street party in Hawley Crescent, and free gigs at the Hawley Arms and the Primrose Chill. There’s also a programme of free live music in four pubs: The Queens, The Lansdowne, The Engineer and the Princess of Wales.

But right now organisers are preoccupied with the Emerging Talent Awards (ETA). And they’ve had a huge task to whittle down 1,000 hopefuls with stars in their eyes to just 45. And now the work begins, picking the eight best bands to play the ETA stage at the Ice Wharf.

Event organiser Chris Jakubiak said: “If the weather’s good we’ll have the doors open. The standard’s been really high, much higher than we’ve anticipated. The prizes are amazing.”

The finalists will be announced on April 12.

Barring Madness’s takeover of Inverness Street last year, this will be the first time the Crawl’s put on an official street party.

Chris said: “There’ll be a road closure in Hawley Crescent, from Kentish Town to Stuckley Place. We’re putting a Red Bull stage at the Kentish Town Road end and the space on the street is licensed to hold 2,000 people. That part of the event is 14-plus and accessible to Crawl wristband holders and also a few local residents will be invited. We’re going to look after everyone.”

So why did they book the Sugababes for the Crawl?

Chris said: “What’s a typical Camden Crawl band? It’s about diversity. They’ve got new material, a new line-up, the show will be very interesting. Very special guests will be announced next month."

Each year there’s the odd surprise gig – last year Graham Coxon played The Spread Eagle and Chris hints there could be more to come: “I’m almost certain that there’ll be something like that, but we never know until close to the time.”

But right now, the Crawl staff are busy turning the cogs.
Chris said: "I’m covered in Post-it notes and I’ve got stacks of CDs I’m
listening to. We’re working late into the night but it’s always an
enjoyable experience."

WEEKLY GOSSIP - CAMDEN CRAWL PICKS, KISS, ROUGH SCIENCE, ROBOT DISASTER AND TWEET OF THE WEEK

ONLY two months to Camden’s answer to the marathon – a prolonged drunken stumble between 40 venues over two days, hell, it’s tougher than the pansy marathon, it’s the Camden Crawl. Get training.
The initial line-up was released this week but the big names are yet to come.

Here’s my pick so far – Sunshine Underground, The Drums, The Delays, Chew Lips, The Hundred in the Hands, Holly Miranda, Eliza Doolittle, Billy Childish, Best Coast, Speech Debelle (because she’s unpredictable) and Jamie Woon. Some from my uni days in there – Cornershop, Babybird and Teenage Fanclub. See the full line-up at www.camden newjournal.com and follow me on twitter @roisingadelrab

• Face paints ready, grandad rockers KISS play the humble 02 Academy Islington on March 2 – make-up guide’s on Wikipedia if you need help. The tickets sold out in seconds and now they're going for hundreds of pounds on eBay.

• Kentish Town’s Rough Science blend music from around the world to give you a wicked and unexpected night, full of Latin rhythms, hip-hop bass and beats with some London lyrical sensibility. (Bull and Gate, March 6).

• Too excited – former Record of the Week boys Robot Disaster play Camden Barfly on Saturday.

• Lightning Strikes the Empire State are ready to launch their first single. See them at the Water Rats on March 2.

• Tweet of the Week goes to @davejoyner in response to news Peckham rapper Giggs has had to cancel his tour – including a date at 02 Academy Islington on March 4 – due to security fears: “Nice of the Feds to help shut down that Giggs tour in case it got all stabby and/or shooty and ting.”

REVIEW - NME AWARDS SHOW TOUR - THE MACCABEES, 02 ACADEMY BRIXTON

THANK you Tubelines. I had big plans on Saturday and they did not involve maniacal drivers and snarly abusive teenage passengers on packed rail replacement buses.
The disastrous state of the weekend’s transport set me back a good couple of hours and I missed the first three acts on the NME Awards Tour’s final show at Brixton Academy.
No Big Pink, The Drums or Bombay Bicycle Club for me.
So it was fitting compensation when the sublime Maccabees took control. Any fears they may not have reached headline status quite yet were allayed in seconds as track after track was sung back to them in some mass choral tribute. Their rounder sound filled the Academy in a way they failed to at the Roundhouse last year.
Orlando Weeks’ deceptive vocals, apt for the faraway love song Toothpaste Kisses, expanded to impossible heights for the rousing Can You Give It, establishing just how accomplished the boys have become.
High points – their chef-d’oeuvre No Kind Words, the surprise appearance of Edwyn Collins for Rip It Up, and the impromptu multi-band stage invasion as the tour closed.

THE MACCABEES ON EASTENDERS, FULHAM FC AND CLEAN SOCKS

THE Queen Vic’s jukebox, long-harboured desires to be Fulham’s official chippie and the virtues of clean socks – this is what’s on Felix White’s mind as he speaks to me from his tour bus.
The Maccabees are in the midst of their NME Awards tour, which culminates in a much-awaited headline show in Brixton with Bombay Bicycle Club, The Big Pink and The Drums on Saturday.
But Felix is thinking about other things, like how he’s going to deal with his mischievous bandmates.
“Our only actual form of recreation is that Nick, our tour manager, has bought a bouncy ball so we need to find better things to do,” he says. “We’ve known each other for such a long time now that pleasantries go out the window a little bit. I think we still get on great.”

But he admits, they can wind him up: “(They) sometimes try to make as much noise as they possibly can – there’s the ambulance song. When they feel like it they get a piano and make it go ‘nee-naw, nee-naw’ for as long as they can. I still haven’t worked out how to get over that because if you ignore them they keep doing it louder, if you tell them off and say please stop it they keep doing it louder, if you leave they keep doing it louder so you can hear it from the other side of the bus. Sometimes I do sound a bit like a granddad.”
Right now, Felix is trying to read Cormac McCarthy’s All The Pretty Horses.
“I’ve read the first page about 40 times so I’m going to try and actually read it this tour,” he says. “I don’t know what stopped me – probably short-term memory loss.”

We last saw The Maccabees at Islington’s Union Chapel, one of my top gigs of last year.
Felix says: “It was one of the most foreign experiences for us. When we’re doing it properly you can cover nerves or being timid with noise. It’s so stripped bare that it’s terrifying, but I really enjoyed it. For some reason we decided to do the acoustic thing so quiet, at the level of what mice would speak, so that just adds to the tension.”
The band have been played in the background in EastEnders, a sure sign they’ve arrived, but Felix isn’t happy yet.
“Eastenders – that’s the money shot,” he says. “That’s when you know you’ve made it, but we’ve only been in the caff, we need to be in the Queen Vic. If anyone who works for EastEnders reads (this) then please have us in the background in the Vic when Ronnie’s arguing with Peggy or something.”
Felix says they didn’t have to convince actor Mat Horne to appear in their video for No Kind Words.
“He’s been coming to shows and we sort of became friends through that,” says Felix. “He wanted to be in a video. We had a small budget to do No Kind Words and Mat was just happy to do it for nothing. That was that really – a favour both ways.”

If he hadn’t been a rock star, you might have spotted Felix outside Fulham’s infamous Craven Cottage stadium.
“I wanted to be a football manager, then I decided it would be better if I ran the official mobile fish and chip shop for Fulham Football Club,” he says. “I’d be outside the grounds and it would follow the team everywhere. Everyone would know if you’re a Fulham supporter you’d eat that fish and chips.”
So, any strange requests on their rider? “The most important thing we ask for is socks,” says Felix. “You can’t really put into words how panicked you can be if you’re halfway through a tour and you haven’t got any clean socks.”

* The Maccabees’ Wall of Arms re-issue with five bonus tracks including Empty Vessels with Roots Manuva and a cover of Roy Orbison’s I Drove All Night is out now.