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London's sexy Lexington impresses with Spring/ Summer 2010 gigs: Gallon Drunk, Future of the Left, Lonelady and many more

Posted: 13 years ago
Maybeshewill

It wasn't so long ago that a walk up Pentonville Road from King's Cross Station could earn you an hour with a lady of the night, half a bag of dried plants (know what I mean, know what I mean?), overnight snooker matches with a few dodgy members of the Yakuza and, at best, a good old smack-in-the-mouth for breathing. I witnessed the various activities just the once when me and a mate were trying to find a snooker hall some 20 years ago - oh and that's besides the six iffy-looking gangsters being frisked for weapons by six other iffy-looking gangsters. We found the snooker hall and, thankfully, locked ourselves in with the Yakuza.

Nowadays, Pentonville houses a few half-decent boozers, one of which is the Lexington at the top of the hill. They certainly seem to get some decent acts on and 2010 (so far) is no exception. Most tickets cost a tenner or less so check these out:

Nedry

Dub-electro-step (I made that up) group Nedry (who I've seen before - nice) play there on Thursday night (29th) as part of their UK tour with 65 Days Of Static which lasts from, well, now until 11th May (Plymouth White Rabbit) before popping back to London (Koko) on the 12th. They then head off to Italy for 6 dates. Their recent "Condors" album certainly grows on you - get some glitch dub-step into your life right now.

Gallon Drunk

A huge addition to the sexy Lexy line-up is that of bequiffed rock-n-garage-rollers Gallon Drunk. These boys from the celebrated Clawfist stable are led by founder-member James Johnston and, if you like dark, dank and mysterious lyrics with a vibrant, rough and ready guitar backwash a la Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, then head to this fine venue on 17th August for a one-off London date that is sure to sell out. Legends, gawd bless 'em.

Black Mountain

And the legends don't stop there - check out Black Mountain and their bad self. They may well come from the Led Zep stable of appreciation but, so what? Armed with two acclaimed albums under their arms, they play here on the 13th and 14th July as well as giving us a bit of Latitude later on. Oh and they are hard at it in the studio with new songs which you will no doubt here at these gigs. Tickets for the 13th are sold-out, hence the extra date on the 14th.

Future Of The Left was a band sailing along quite nicely on 4AD until some tool tried flogging their rather hefty second album online prior to its release. The band was quite rightly miffed, the album sank without trace and now they are back with a date at the Lex on 4th June. As they don't appear to be listed on the label's artist-list, I can only presume they need a new home. Anyway, loud crunchy guitars and full on drawling vocals - gotta be good.

Megafaun

Other attractions include alt-folk beard-mongers Megafaun with new songs and even better facial-growth on 16th August (they are REALLY worth your time - great melodies and up there with Bowerbirds and the like), and Nova Scotia's fine jangle-rockers Wintersleep, complete with twinkly sing-alongs and a possible smile on their collective mugs. They play on 17th May. Lastly, try and get into the Maybeshewill gig on 3rd June - they can make a right glorious racket one minute and go all pretty the next in a mixture of electronic and thrash-rock instrumentation. Hell yeah. Enjoy and don't forget to check below for further gems.

Paul Pledger