In the Basement

Guess What

Although Stoke Newington is just a neighbourhood in North East London, it feels very much like a self-contained village. Stoke Newington High Street, the main road that leads to it, is lined with aromatic Turkish restaurants and trim Mediterranean men straight out of a Fellini film. Lesbians have been slowly migrating to Stoke Newington these past ten years (Kevin and I lived with a trio of crazy ones in Stokey when we first moved to London) and their presence is felt everywhere; but it's also home to large Hasidic and Afro-Caribbean communities. Church Street, the prettiest artery running through Stoke Newington, carries all kinds of fancy restaurants, second-hand books and clothes shops, and even has an entrance gate into one of London's oldest cemiteries, Abney Park Cemetery.

Ryan's Bar, on Church Street, has a basement that welcomes local bands:

Hellium and Eggs carry a torch for the sixties that casts shadows of The Kinks and The Who. Two of them on stage, many instruments between their feet and hands. The sixties was never this fun.

HillBilly and the Bonfire conjure beautiful songs out of tragedies, their sound firmly placed in the folk tradition. Either you pay attention to the lyrics or you catch yourself drifting off, stuck to the ceiling.

Guess What live in the same decade as Hellium and Eggs, but prefer to explore soundtracks to french lounges and secret agents. There's a glitter of psychedelia behind their venetian masks.

Pissinboy proves on stage that there's more to Italy than sappy ballads and Eurocheese Dance. I hear the Velvet Underground in his sound, but also Guided by Voices. The audience's favourite.

Patrickbruel end the night, shifting between noise experimentation and poppy indie. They jump; they fall down; they lose guitar strings. They could have gone on and on if the owner of the bar hadn't come down to announce that all proceedings must stop at 11, like the clock at the end of Cinderella's ball. Because there are no carriages to take us home, we stand on Church street and give moral support to the smokers. We explain to a new friend the aphrodisiac powers of Bride of Chucky and despair at the chilly wind that is so unsummery.

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I've developed a crush on a band from Melbourne, called Cut Copy. They do everything with the 80s and indie pop that makes me happy.