This week saw Londonist Get Scientific when we previewed We Are Scientists playing Soho Revue Bar this Tuesday, get excited about Eurovision and get cosy with Portico Quartet. A busy week all in all! Looking ahead to this week however, we have Eels playing Royal Festival Hall on Monday night. They've invited the Queen too, so it could be an amusing evening. Austin, Tx stars Spoon play a sold out show at Scala and rising......

Fancy seeing quite a big band in a teeny weeny venue? You're in luck! Tickets have just been put on sale for a Tiscali showcase at Soho Revue Bar. Headlining are We Are Scientists who are making a return with their 2nd album and single 'After Hours'. They seem to have lost the spikeyness and gone a bit Editors on us with the single at least, but at least they've still kept the fun.......

This week, Londonist caught two bands at either end of the musical scale - American metal stars Wolves in the Throne Room @ Underworld and the ever great Elbow at an intimate Porchester Hall show. We also started offering you the chance to win tickets to see Late of the Pier on February 28th. We also previewed the forthcoming second iTunes festival, which starts this coming Thursday. Looking forward to this week however, Monday night......

The book grocer’s coffers are chockfull of goodies this week, so let’s jump right in and get shopping... Monday: Crikey. Take a look at author and critic George Steiner’s publishing credits and you have to wonder whether the man has actually slept in the past fifty years. Yet the premise of the prolific writer’s most recent work, My Unwritten Books, is that there are actually some subjects that Steiner has purposely left unexplored. Join......

The only music star to be his only Cockney rhyming slang, James Blunt is playing Hammersmith Apollo on Monday night and also Tuesday night, though unsurprisingly tickets are all gone for now. Meanwhile, if you like something a bit more country-fied and American, then Texan Ryan Bingham plays the Borderline. Tickets are £12.50 from See Tickets. Tuesday sees The Kills grace the Soho Revue Bar, though tickets are sold out. New Indie-pop scenesters The Voom......

When it comes to major American pop stars fetching up in our lovely city, Londonist sometimes thinks that the Eighties never ended. Following Madonna's permanent move here, and Prince's celebrated 21 shows last year, the third in the triumvirate of pop megastars from the Decade That Style Forgot is to join them - Michael Jackson is reportedly coming to town, and he'll be on a nice little earner if he does. Like Prince, Jackson......

It's been a bad few weeks for the Spice Girls: they released the worst selling Children In Need single ever (to put this into perspective, let's remember that Martine McCutcheon once had a Children In Need single. Martine McCutcheon), appeared in terrible Tesco adverts, played to half full shows in America and Baby Spice sprained her little baby ankle on stage. However, little Emma Bunton ingested her weight in painkillers, soldiered on and appeared......

To be honest the rain and coldness is kind of making us not want to go to gigs at the moment, preferring instead to wrap ourselves up warmly at home. But if we did, this is what we'd be bouncing at. Monday: The biggie tomorrow is of course Led Zep at the O2, but you've more chance of meeting Santa than getting tickets for that. So instead, forget the dinosaurs and try something new......

It’s probably fair to say that the couple of hundred people who wandered up to the Union Chapel in Islington last Friday were expecting a fairly low-key affair. Arguably the biggest name at the Little Noise Sessions gig in aid of Mencap was to be the compere, Radio 1’s Jo Whiley, although we accept that a few of the audience may have been a bit excited about US indie rockers We Are Scientists. Not......

Maxwell's Fullmooners has been running for some time at London's Comedy Store - audiences can expect Irish comedian Andrew Maxwell dressed in a cloak, hip hop dancers, a creepy singer with a ukulele called Lady Carol of the Moon, the 'concierge' Tim Fitzhigham (who we interviewed earlier this year) and a lot of werewolf style howling. The shows start at midnight and have been something of a cult hit. On November 24th an extra......

One of the hottest new bands around at the moment, The Hoosiers are receiving rave reviews and wowing crowds across the country on their joint headlining tour with Grace. Sounding like a fun British mix of We Are Scientists and Kooks together at once - the humour of WAS' live shows, and the British indie-pop nature of Kooks. Either way, they're bound to be at a lot of festivals this summer, and their debut single......

Normally support bands get better as the evening progresses. However, at last night's NME awards show with We Are Scientists at London's Astoria, this was not the case. Opener Switches started playing to a quarter full auditorium, and by the end of their set they'd converted virtually all those present. The Southend-on-sea four piece led by the charismatic Matt Bishop took us on a romp through their brief back catalogue, with both energy and......

The usual programming at weekly alternative gay night Popstarz @ Scala was interrupted for a raucous 30 minutes last Friday as Brooklyn natives We Are Scientists took the stage in the indie room and proved that New York still holds it own on the scene. Plus, as the band released their 2nd album Crap Attack, it showed off just how much impressive songs from In Love And Squalor are when played in concert. Watching......

If going to Reading to get your music fix simply didn't do it for you, and the delights of this week's Bestival don't fill you with the desire to get on a hovercraft, then you might want to take a look at a festival that's a little more adventurous, and as yet unspoiled by British yobs: Iceland Airwaves. Held in Reykjavik from October 18-22, the festival is like Sonar in the sense of taking......

As ever, more marvellous instore gigs are happening this week And well, we couldn't let tonights pass really could we. After supporting The Pipettes since we first saw them way back in late 2004, there's somewhat of a collective smile going round the music dungeon today as debut album We Are The Pipettes hits the shops. And who ever could have predicted they'd be launching it in as big a place as HMV Oxford Street!......

Watch Pull Shapes here: Broadband Dial-Up We couldn't really fail but bring you this could we? Watch with love and affection as the Pipettes recreate a scene from Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls in the video for new single Pull Shapes. Hell, even Radio 2 are on message with this one. Out on July 3, the album We Are The Pipettes will follow in a move so exciting that it might actually blow......

LAist is flashing a sad peace out to their editor Carolyn Kellogg with one hand and bumping knuckles with their new head typist L.A. blogger king Tony Pierce with the other. Where do ist editors go when they hang up the 'editorial we'? They take on MySpace, apparently. At least Ben Brown does. Austinist reminds of the just rewards of less savory careers this week and then they witness the Arctic Monkeys and We Are......

Anyone with even a hint of taste and decency will know that the only time to drink Carling is after you've been atomised by a particularly nasty nuclear power station meltdown. And yet still their indominatable quest to tie up every concert venue in the country continues, as does their role as foremost sponsors of UK indie-guitar rock. As they have done for the past couple of years, they're endeavouring to kick off the......

Turn right out of Colliers Wood tube, walk up the road for about two minutes, and you'll find GJs bar and restaurant. And if you happen to pass by on the second Thursday of the month then you'll find one fo the capitals' best comedy nights: Roar with Laughter. The last time Londonist visted we were still chuckling a week later, so we went back and asked compere Sweaty Dave (that's him pictured... as......

The NME Shockwaves tour line up was announced today; with tickets on sale tomorrow from 9am for the Brixton show on February 17th. It's a good, solid indie-pop line up: Maximo Park headlining, supported by Arctic Monkeys, We Are Scientists and Mystery Jets; the latter holding a slot that's launched the likes of Coldplay, The Coral, Franz Ferdinand and Kaiser Chiefs. None of the 2006 line up seem to be capable of playing a......

By now, Londonist's unhealthy infatuation with The Pipettes should be no secret; there was talk of a restraining order at one point. If there's some polka-dotted action going down in town, it's a dead cert we'll be there. Go ahead, we dare you: next time you see The Pipettes, just yell 'Oi! Londonist!' and see what happens. For those of you who've yet to pop your Pips cherry, here's a handy intro. Having recently......

Looks like the e-gremlins got to the MMR yesterday afternoon and ate most of it. We're taking a guess they don't like Aled Jones or perhaps they started at the bottom and never quite made it to Rachel. So we've cobbled together what remained undigested and re-posted this morning. As to what you've missed, well you'll just have to guess but we did have a pop at Charlotte Church. Three reviewers, three albums of......

Another week of gig going upon us and much to recommend so without further whatever here's the Londonist Music team's guide to what we think you should be doing for the next seven days. Wednesday: Well if you've not made plans for tonight yet you could head down to the Garage to check out San Fransican art pop punkers Deerhoof. Otherwise we suggest you kick off John Peel Day at the 12 Bar Club......

Bloc Party - Silent Alarm Remixed The bank holiday took a little longer than expected, hence the late delivery of your friendly neighbourhood album review slot. So without further ado... Remix albums are a strange beast that sits in a pen marked Fans And Purists Only. They either tend to be an environmentally unfriendly waste of paper and plastic full of blips, beats and other such noises never intended to be heard over the......

The main album release this week is Bloc Party's debut LP 'Silent Alarm'. Generally positive reviews abound, with the consensus being 8 or 9 out of ten. Most reviews mention the Franz Ferdinand connection, taking different stances. NME's review reckons that "the more you think about it, the less Franz (white, Scottish, could’ve existed any time from 1976 onwards) and Bloc Party ( Benetton boyband, from London, achingly 21st century) have in common...". The......