HAPPY GLOOMY VALENTINE'S DAY

IF IT wasn’t for the effort Feeling Gloomy put into their Love Hurts Valentine’s night, I’d have ignored it altogether.

But every year they step in to fill the deathly absence of cards, flowers and dates for singles.

So head to the 02 Academy Islington (Feb 12) for torch songs, indie heartbreakers and rock to scream to plus Down With Dating’s Speed Hating (spill your dislikes) and Blind Hate (Cilla, but dark). Hankies on hand, dead flowers on the tables and classic divorce flic Kramer Vs Kramer will be screened – perfect.

Alternatively sketch Burlesque models at Dr Sketchy’s Valentine’s Special to mark The Old Queen’s Head’s birthday celebrations (Feb 14). Rob Da Bank, Jamie Woon, Mystery Jets , The Maccabees, Tribes and Sound of Rum will be making an appearance over the week’s festivities.

• The more romantic may enjoy Ronnkie Pop’s Valentine’s Prom Night at The Silver Bullet (Feb 11), complete with prom king and queen coronation, prom punch and the inevitable slow dance. Think Back to the Future’s Enchantment Under the Sea dance.

• I last saw Mark Ronson at the Roundhouse for the Electric Proms in 2007 when he brought along an assortment of celeb guests. I’ll never forget The Rumble Strips’ Charlie Waller’s unexpected and explosive cover of Back to Black (look it up on YouTube). The Proms may be no more but Ronson returns to the Roundhouse (Feb 16) with The Business International, who knows what he’ll have in store this time?



• Tickets go on sale today (Feb 10) for Mumford & Sons’ special gig at Dingwalls on Feb 22. Support from the divine Marcus Foster, Anna Calvi and Rachel Sermanni.

NEW YEAR PARTIES IN CENTRAL AND NORTH LONDON - THE SOCIAL MINEFIELD THAT CUTS ACROSS CAMDEN, ISLINGTON AND WESTMINSTER

BY NOW you're probably just about ready to contemplate New Year’s Eve's social minefield.
Here's my ultimate list of parties across Camden, Islington and Westminster.
Burlesque, fancy dress and circus prevails, what’s the plan next year?

FOR THE MYSTERIOUS
The Eve of Tomorrow (Boom Boom Club + White Mischief), secret location (Russell Square tube), 8pm-5am, £45.99
Inspired by 1930s World Fairs and industrial obsession, a large scale production, with theatre, cabaret, circus, electro swing, vintage jazz, rock ‘n roll, and more – my personal fave. Dress – ‘30s glam, grand evening wear, aristocrats, socialites and industrialists.

INDIE KIDS
The Flowerpot presents Foals + Trophy Wife + Chad Valley, HMV Forum (Kentish Town tube), 8pm, sold out
The Flowerpot promised one helluva NY Party –Foals, great acts and DJs. Camden’s in-crowd were on to it months ago but there’s always the chance of doorstep spares sales. AND The Wheelbarrow, Camden High Street has just announced it has 100 tickets left to sell, must buy from the bar.



Club NME Ball, British Sea Power + Joe & Will Ask + Fiction, Koko (Mornington Crescent tube), 9pm, £32
Koko knows how to throw a proper rock party – in stunning theatre surrounds.

SHAMELESS NOSTALGICS

Ultimate Power, Scala (Kings Cross tube), 9pm – 6am, £20adv
Nine hours of power ballads – Meatloaf, Phil Collins, Queen – sing your heart out.

Naughty Forties NY Party, The Old Queen’s Head (Angel tube), 8pm-4am, £20
Tweed, corsets and wartime waves.

NEW YOIKERS
To the 5 Boroughs NYE Party ft Man Like Me (full live band) + Mouthwash, Barfly Camden (Chalk Farm tube), 8pm, early bird £15
New York theme – trip from CBGBs to Brooklyn loft to the Bronx and dress accordingly – 50s gangsters, 60s beatniks, 70s punks and 80s sportswear.

DEPRESSIVES
Feeling Gloomy vs Club de Fromage, 02 Academy Islington (Angel tube), 9pm-4am, £20
Wallow in misery with Feeling Gloomy’s morose tunes then clamber from the depths of despair to Club de Fromage’s cheesy hits.

AIRHEADS AND PIRATES
Barbie Girls and Salty Sea Dogs ft Diaphragm Failure + Pussycat and the Dirty Johnsons + Spacewasters, The Dublin Castle (Camden Town tube), 7.45pm-2am, £10 on door, £5 adv, or free before 9pm for fancy dress
Truly eccentric, dress as your favourite plastic doll or try out the Jack Sparrow look.

MOVIE BUFFS
Soundtracks, The Monarch (Chalk Farm Road), 8pm, £10
Blockbuster hits from fave movies, Dirty Dancing, Pulp Fiction, The Breakfast Club etc. Dress as your movie idol.

WARBLERS
Live band Karaoke, The Enterprise (Chalk Farm tube), 7pm-3am, £5
Feel what it’s like to front your own band – karaoke classics and new hits.

THE BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE
Proud Camden’s NYE Burlesque Ball, Proud Camden (Chalk Farm tube), 7.30pm – 4am, general ticket £30
Proud attracts cool kids, aloof waifs, geek chic boys, and voluptuous burlesque beauties but there’s room for everyone, the music never fails and it’s always full of surprises. Captain Dangerous + The TV Night Jam Band live + burlesque shows.

CHEESY (AND SLIGHTLY TOWNY WE FEAR)
Shake NYE, 70s, 80s, 90s disco +dance party anthems, Electric Ballroom (Camden Town tube), £30adv, 9pm-4am
Rarely a good sign when a Camden Town venue feels the need to warn no trainers or sportswear. But this could be a fun cheesy night out in a big enough venue to avoid inevitable NY suffocation. Or it could be just like a night at The Ritzy.

SOUL, FUNK AND DANCE LOVERS
DJ Joey Negro and The Sunburst Band, Jazz Cafe (Camden Town tube), 7pm, £40 adv
Jazz Cafe’s marathon session with DJ Joey Negro brings a dash of sunshine with The Sunburst Band’s take on modern soul. Acoustic support from laid back Nathan Watson.

CARNIVAL TYPES
Good Times ft Norman Jay + Gilles Peterson + Ladybugz + Crate Diggers, Relentless Garage (Highbury & Islington tube), £30
Bringing Notting Hill vibes to Islington.

THE FANTASTICAL
Proud @ Matter – Cirque ft Shaun Ryder, DJ Yoda and The Maccabees (DJ set), 02 Arena, 7.30pm-6am, £20 adv
Yes it’s a trek but Proud has put on buses for those brave enough to venture that far east. Think 1950s Vegas, circus and burlesque and dress accordingly.

Cirque de la Nuit, The Winchester (Angel tube), 7pm-4am, £25/£15 adv
Shape shifting cage fighters, clowns, and guest DJs.

FOR THE MTV GENERATION
BLOGGER’S Delight presents Video Kills the Radio Star, The Lock Tavern (Chalk Farm tube), 8pm-4am, £10 adv/with regular's card or £15
DJs – Casper C, Skull Juice, Stopmakingme, Arveene, The Beeny Royston Experience, Gino Silano, Miss Odd Kidd, NikNikNik –disco, house and party faves upstairs, pop pop pop downstairs, get nostalgic, think 1984 MTV launch, Michael Jackson, Madonna and dance your way through to the end of the noughties. Come as your favourite tribute to the art of the music video – shouldn’t be too hard to find the garb across the road at Camden market.

DIE-HARD GLAM PUNKS
RACHEL Stamp + Conspirators + Spiderbaby + Et Tu Bruce + Deeds of the Nameless + Otherness, Monto Water Rats (King’s Cross tube), 6pm, £13
Glam punks Rachel Stamp rarely get together to play live anymore so witness this one-off show, grab a free signed copy of their latest album (first 50 arrivals), get your eyeliner on and dress the part for what promises to be a raucous party.

GARAGE DUBSTEP AND HIP-HOP
REGGAE Roast with EL-B & MC Rolla, Channel One, Daddy Skitz, Moodie, Excel + more, The Big Chill House, (Kings Cross tube), 9pm-5am, £15 earlybird/£20 adv
Reggae Roast’s first ever NYE party, Room one – UK Garage/dubstep pioneer EL-B ft MC Roll and Channel One Sound System with Rastafarian chants from Mikey Dread, Room II - UK Hip Hop legend Daddy Skitz party blend of Hip Hop, Drum and Bass, Dancehall and Reggae.

FOR THE MAD HATTERS
SAM and The Womp's NYE Hat Party with Sam and The Womp live, Senor Migan, DJ Cous Cous, Aaron Audio, Bobby Gandolf, Camino, (Kings Cross tube), 9pm-4am, £15earlybird, £20 adv, £60 restaurant ticket
High-energy Balkan, ska, dub, Latin and gypsy-dubstep with Sam’s six-piece band The Whompers, wear your most extravagant hat – prizes for best.

FOR THE CROONERS
Mitch Winehouse, The Pigalle Club (Picadilly Circus), 7pm-late, dinner, admission and champagne – £95, non-dining guests – £25
Crooner/cabbie/celeb dad Mitch Winehouse hosts a classy evening of jazz and swing – Amy’s been known to join him onstage but we hear she may be in Moscow.

COOL AND CASH-STRAPPED
The Wheelbarrow (Mornington Crescent tube), open till late, free
Top tunes, nice faces and an extended late licence – and you don’t have to pay a penny to get in.

CAMDEN CRAWL HEADLINERS LET FRINGE ACTS DAZZLE AND BBC 6MUSIC CAUSE REACHES CRISIS LEVELS

THE Camden Crawl has announced the rest of its line-up – bar one SECRET SPECIAL GUEST (in caps of course), and any surprise unannounced gigs on the day.

The big names expected for the Roundhouse have not materialised. Lostprophets and We Are Scientists are not, in my humble opinion, a patch on last year’s Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Kasabian, Idlewild and The Maccabees. As for the ever-changing, ever-falling-out Sugababes, who knows if they’ll even still have their name by then, judging by pending legal action from past members.

Bravo to the organisers, though, for doubling up Roundhouse shows and selling tickets upfront rather than making people waste precious hours on the day having to queue.

But personally I’m glad the Roundhouse isn’t such a huge draw, it leaves more time to focus on the smaller bands, what the Crawl is all about – discovering lesser-known gems.

• Bands scrabbled together, an emergency press release was sent out, and hundreds scrawled their names on the petition. The threat to BBC 6Music has taken on international crisis proportions and, as is fitting of these causes, Proud Camden took out its contacts book and pulled in the big names on Wednesday to do its bit. The Maccabees, The Holloways, Kitty, Daisy and Lewis and Master Shortie were among those on the line-up. Let’s hope the BBC Trust was listening.

• Here’s one for all you dreamy types. The Dig’s Spring Equinox celebrations of bohemian deviance are at Passing Clouds, Dalston, on March 18, featuring live installations, poetry, an erotic life-drawing class and cult film screenings. Live bands include The Bridport Dagger, Life In Film, Ay Ducane and Cruella Ribbons.

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.

UNLIKELY CELEB GROUPIES GETTING IN ON THE ACT- JOHNNY DEPP, PAUL KAYE AND MAT HORNE

THE first time Babybird frontman Stephen Jones saw Johnny Depp, he was under his desk, backside towards the door.
Now, old Jack Sparrow is the official director of Babybird's new single Unloveable out on Monday.
The Fun Lovin' Criminals have been friends with actor Paul Kaye ever since he began flaunting his outrageous Dennis Pennis character in LA.
Recently liberated from their own legal wrangles, Huey Morgan told me he could identify with Kaye's outrageous MTV lawyer character Mike Strutter.
And now Kaye's featuring on the FLC's new album Classic Fantastic on comedy skit ‘Conversations With Our Attorney’ featuring Mike Strutter.
At the same time the video for last year's stunning Maccabees single No Kind Words featured Gavin and Stacey actor Mat Horne, who's been following the band for some time.
And he did it for nothing.
And now it just remains to predict who next and how famous do I have to get before a band will let me star/direct/or just appear in their video?

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.

THE MACCABEES IN EASTENDERS PLEA

The Maccabees' Felix White is not satisfied with Eastenders only playing their music in the caff - he wants the works.
He told me last week: “Eastenders - that's the money shot. 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.”

Read full interview on Thursday