It’s difficult to make a cake. If you put too much of one thing in, it can become tough and unpalatable or gooey and sickly; treat the ingredients too roughly and their potential is compromised. Some bands manage to pick the right ingredients to combine, and treat them with enough talent to produce something near-perfect, like a sonically inspired W.I. veteran. Tonight’s performance at the 100 Club was one cake you’d want to have......

Seems like Monday was a good day for album launch shows. Whilst Londonista Dave was experiencing the fragile ether-eality of Goldfrapp in Union Chapel, we were in the slightly less salubrious surroundings of HMV Oxford Street, where a reed thin moustachioed man is hopping up and down preaching hell and damnation, or at least something about scissors and prolix, next to some guru-esque sixties serial killer lookalike who's doing strange things to strange things.......

The 2008 running of the Womens' Head of the River race on Saturday was certainly as unpredictable as many expected given the absence of Britain's elite oarswomen at a pre-Olympic training camp. In the picture above, one of many in a marvellous Flickr set from London Annie, you can see last year's winners, Thames A, on the far right being overhauled by Osiris, the Oxford University Blues Boat, who went on to take the......

This week saw Londonist get incredibly excited about a few live music events. First up, was French pop sensation Yelle, who played an intimate show at the Old Blue Last. Then, we had the Camden Crawl line up which, as ever, is pretty amazing for those of us who value music over sleep. Finally, Sally got (understandably) excited about The King Blues @ the 100 Club. Once we've come down from our excitement of last......

Now Londonist gets to see some pretty cool gigs in the name of keeping you apprised of stuff. But NME staff writers we ain’t, and quite often we can only blog and dream. Someone out there has gotta go see The King Blues supporting at this gig ‘cos we can’t and we’re real sore about it. Londonist was racking our rather small brain trying to think of how best to describe The King Blues’......

As winter's days grow increasingly numbered, it's the time of year when our thoughts must turn toward formulating a survival plan for the most gig-loaded two days we know: the Camden Crawl. Back for its 7th year from 18 - 19 April, Camden Crawl 2008 will see 130 artists playing across the festival's 25 venues along with, for the first time, the addition of an outdoor stage. A variety of daytime activities are planned......

And now for something completely different. We stumbled upon Joey Herzfeld and some of Hooverville at the Carling Academy back in January. Their extraordinarily different sound, great musicianship and stage presence alienated half the crowd and transfixed the rest. Were they mental or brave musical pioneers? We couldn't resist snagging them for an interview purely on the basis of a song called "Cavity Search" and a frenetic gypsy dancing interlude. It went like this.........

If you’re a fan of musicals then you probably think the bigger the better. In which case you must pop down to the BFI Imax, where their After-Dark All-Nighter event will be screening four modern musicals on the trot on Saturday 8th December. First off the bat is 1980’s high school classic Fame at 11.15pm where the students of the New York High School for Performing Arts discover sex and show tunes. For those......

Blues skies aside, winter is upon us - the halcyon days of summer a distant memory; thermals and visible breath a present reality. Therefore what better way to raise darkened spirits during these darkened days than going to the comedy and loosing yourself in laughter? We at Londonist certainly think this is a great plan (we’ve been on a not-so-secret comedy revival mission for years), and good news for us, Stewart Lee is playing at......

Following reports late on Wednesday night, Chelsea Football Club have confirmed at 1:45am this morning that manager José Mourinho has left the club. The statement on the club's official website simply reads: Chelsea Football Club and José Mourinho have agreed to part company today (Thursday) by mutual consent. Despite bringing the English championship to Stamford Bridge for the first time in fifty years, winning other domestic honours and never losing a home league game......

This time last year, in the final few days before the closure of the international football transfer window, we took a look at where London's Premiership clubs needed strengthening and offered some friendly advice about a player we thought might fill a key squad gap for each of them. One year on we review what actually happened to both clubs and players and make our suggestions for this year's late purchases, once again taking......

Anyone who has ever surfed the internet in a quest for enlightenment about British theatre will undoubtedly have come across the West End Whingers’ blog. By now, Andrew and Phil have become internet blogging stars, doing for theatre what Belle de Jour did for prostitution with only slightly less lubricant. Andrew and Phil have ranted against ticket prices, bar prices, fringe theatre and the general state of affairs since 2006, accumulating a huge fan......

Chan Marshall, the enchanting enigma otherwise known as Cat Power, bravely strides onto the stage of the Kentish Town Forum, to play her London comeback gig, following a well publicized breakdown last year. It is immediately obvious that the life-saving short spell spent on a Miami psychiatric ward has transformed the woman once famous for a crippling shyness and an ongoing battle with her demons. Firstly, she's hardly recognizable. Her hair is pulled back......

What's that? More Eurovision, you say? OK, we're hyped up on sugary euro-ethno-pop so here we go! Rusza Magadi sings the Hungary entry, Unsubstantial Blues. It's what it says: a blues number about being dumped. With her repeated shrieks of "why did you leave me", we can think of at a few reasons.The brother of Estonia's Gerli Padar won Eurovision 5 years ago, but her pleasant, uptempo guitar-led number probably won't follow suit. Nice......

The weekend is so close. In a matter of hours you will be putting down your ploughs, sickles and pick axes, washing the mud off your wellies, putting on a fancy scarf or a cravat and going to do something fun. "But what can we do?" we hear you cry. "Shall we watch Finding Nemo on DVD again?". No, definitely not. No no no. Why not check out one of these events? Are you......

Assuming the crews are able to make it past the semi-final, Cambridge and Oxford University's mens' eights will take to the Thames on Saturday at 4:30pm for just under 20 minutes' worth of water borne endeavour that will be watched by between 15 and 100 million television viewers around the world (depending on whose figures you believe) as well as some 250,000 spectators thronging the riverside vantage points. Oxford are the defending champions and......

In this new late-licence era, it is no longer the final chime of midnight that signals clocking off time for magic and wonder: more often than not, it is 3am when the carriage turns into a pumpkin, the beautiful gown turns into a ragged velour tracksuit and the prince turns into a boorish squaddie on the lash. Yes, Clarence House, home to Prince Charles, his good lady wife Camilla and Princes William and Harry,......

niznoz's Deep in the heart of London proves that our current bout of sidekickery has deep deep roots. Be sure to click into the photo for a thoughtfully collected rendition of London Homesick Blues......

With visions of sugar plum fairies dancing through their heads, the -Ists began to get into that holiday mood. Well, some did. Austinist wasn't as the NY Times dissed them and a local Tex-Mex institution sold out. Making them feel better was music, sweet music and the local theater getting name checked on "Heroes" Chicagoist tried to wrap their heads around a religious movie being banned from a Christmas themed park. To wash that......

"Retirement? You're talking about death, right?" Robert Altman has died. No real London connection aside from the messy 'Resurrection Blues' at the Old Vic last year and the fact that The Long Goodbye is one of Londonist's favourite films: They don't make 'em like that anymore.......

As the curtain comes up on the Premiership at White Hart Lane tonight, newcomers Watford are busy trying to persuade some experienced hands to come and join them at the outset of their Premiership adventure. We thought we’d take a look at what our clubs already in the promised land have been doing with their transfer funds over the summer and, perhaps more importantly, identify where they still might be a bit short. Off......

A couple of weeks ago Outkast quietly skipped back onto the music scene and into London to preview their long awaited new album, Idlewild. The location for the preview was non other than the London Eye and both Big Boi and Andre 3000 were on hand to talk to the assorted media about both the album and the 1930s styled musical it accompanies. Now to make up for not inviting us to their swanky......

The Londonist Literary List appears every Tuesday. If you’d like to bring an event to our attention, please email londonistlit@gmail.com. It's all about the Indies this week, with an event by a publishing house, a literary magazine, and a Bookslammer rounding out the highlighted events below... That said, we 'd like to use this space to appeal to Waterstone's, that ubiquitous chain, to start putting more thought and effort into hosting quality readings and......

Right now, as we’re typing these words, we’re listening to the music that is streamed from the website of blues musician and London Underground busker Stephen Dale Petit. Normally, we would venture an opinion that despite Mr Petit’s obvious musical proficiency (Eric Clapton apparently thinks his music is “lovely”), this type of music isn’t entirely our beverage of choice. Usually we might suggest that this genre may be better aligned to our parents’ tastes.......

There is always plenty for the football fan to think about when news reaches you of the passing of another great from generations past. In Peter Osgood's case, we might think of the swagger in the image of a young man that we never saw play, but understood that he was supposed to represent an idealised point in this city's history, when everyone swanned down the King's Road looking like Alfie or Twiggy. We......

Last week, Fraser James used the power of Lawro to good effect, scoring a highly respectable 3 out of 5. After Sarah Johnson had hit the same score the previous week, we felt that the 'FPP' (as it's known in the corridors of power) was beginning to reach new heights of prediction excellence and consistency. Sadly, our balloon of complacency was soon pricked by the following missive... "You recent guest predictions have been disappointing,......

Time once again to take a gander at a couple of shows coming up over the next seven days that have shone out from within the Londonist Music inbox. Most of the action this week is taking place in sold out venues across the capital with names such as James Blunt and The Magic Numbers re-invigorating the (qu)easy listening genre, whilst Kanye West continues to be the biggest name in hip hop since the......

The latest defection from LA to join the gangs of Hollywood ex-patratriates gobbling up the primest of London prime real estate is Neve Campbell. The film actress is currently in London rehearsing the Robert Altman directed, Arthur Miller scripted play Resurrection Blues at the Old Vic theatre in Waterloo. The Old Vic is no stranger to asylum seekers from Hollywood: no less than Kevin Spacey runs the place as Artistic Director and keeps up......

And you'll have to be quick about it. On Monday night Raison D'Etre celebrate their fourth anniversary at the Jazz Cafe in Camden and they've very kindly offered to put the names of two Londonist readers on the guest list for this now sold out event. All you need to do to is to email us here in the music dungeon (londonist dot music at gmail dot com) before 5pm this Sunday (5th) with......

You probably hadn't noticed, but our (almost) world-famous Friday Football Preview has been enjoying a rather extended Christmas break. We tried to convince Editro that this absence was actually a protest to the Premier League, aimed at highlighting the benefits of bringing in a contintental-style winter break, but he was having none of it. Recognising our inherent laziness, he's ordered us to put our Xmas presents back in the toybox and get back to......